Funding Opportunities

MCP now offer training funding to all

MCP can now offer Train to Gain funding for NVQs in subjects such as BIT and Team Leading to a much wider audience. 

The funding rules have never been so relaxed with Skills Secretary John Denham announcing last month that small businesses will be the focus of £350 million of the Government funds to help them train their staff.  The Government’s approach will be re-shaped and money will be available to deliver a new package of support to help small businesses get through the tougher economic climate by building skills and expertise of their workers.

This is not to say that MCP can not help larger organisations through these programmes, the funding has never been so flexible.  The funding to support training will be drawn from the Government’s Train to Gain programme. Funding for the programme is planned to rise to £1 billion by 2010-11. So its not going away, in allocating the planned increase in spending on this programmme over the next 2 years, the Government will give top priority to meeting demands from small businesses in the private sector.

Funding will be for subjects such as “business improvement techniques or leadership and management” which are proven to provide skills to increase the productivity of individuals and organisations.  The key elements of the new Train to Gain package for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are:

• Funding for "bite-sized chunks" - small units or modules of qualifications in subjects known to be important to SMEs, such as business improvement, team-working, customer service, and risk management:
• Extending the successful leadership and management programme so that more SMEs can benefit from it, including companies with just 5-10 workers;
• Relaxing the rules to allow workers to get relevant training at GCSE level (level 2), even if they already have a previous qualification at this level; and more funding for training to level 3 (equivalent to two A-levels);
• This basically means companies with up to 249 employees who do not want to do the full NVQ can select a few units which are relevant to them – the programme starts in January 2009.
  

To benefit from MCP’s funding programmes and to find out more about the subjects available including: Business Improvement Techniques, Leadership and Management, Customer Service and Administration please call 0121 506 9034 or email training@mcpeurope.com.