Skills For Care Employer Training Funds ‘Fully Used’

Figures released by Skills for Care, the national workforce development organisation for People working in adult social care, show that for the first time ever all of its allocated funds to employers under the banner of the Training Strategy Implementation Fund  (TSI) have been fully used for the purpose.

Chief Executive Officer Andrea Rowe, hailed the results today as ” hugely encouraging” adding: “Between 2006-2007 we gave out more than £11m in TSI funding to employers and every penny of that has been used for workforce development.

“This is a success story which actually shows that employers across the land have workforce development high on their agendas, providing employees with new opportunities to improve their skills and career opportunities. And that translates into even higher standards and better care than ever for people who are on the receiving end of care.

“It is clear that employers are hungry for more funds so that their staff can build on skills and qualifications and certainly from our point of view, this latest round of first class results is a validation of what we as an organisation have been saying for a long time. We need a large cash injection for social care workforce development in this country. It needs to happen quickly if we are to address issues such as an expanding elderly population and the need to recruit and retain more social care staff in the industry as a whole.

“We are the only organisation which provides employers with funding for units of training rather than whole awards, which enables them to provide bespoke training opportunities for staff and this has proved extremely popular indeed.”

Paul Simons, Head of Training and Management Development of the Orders of St. John Care Trust, represents just one of the numerous organisations that has received TSI funding. He says: “We employ around 3,500 staff. Over the past twelve months we were awarded a large amount of funding which was absolutely invaluable to us.

“We are a charitable trust running 75 residential and nursing homes for elderly people across five counties – Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and West Sussex – and without the cash awarded by Skills for Care under TSI, we simply would not have been able to do what we have done in terms of training and development. We are a not for profit organisation and raising that sort of money would have proved hugely difficult.”

Smaller enterprises also find TSI a vital component of what they do. Sue Collins, Strategy Development Manager of Direct Health UK Ltd, an independent domiciliary care organisation, warmly praises the initiative.

Direct Health is a lead partner in a consortium representing 43 small companies and undertakes the paperwork connected with the application for TSI funding. Sue comments: “Small companies really need the funding, which has numerous spin offs. A better qualified workforce means an improved profile of the organisation concerned and is also more attractive to would-be employees as well as to people who need looking after. The list is endless.”

According to David Cankett, Head of Learning and Development for the mental health charity Together – Working for Well-being, the advantages of TSI are unequivocal. He believes that “for a charity such as ours, employing 600 people, the help is absolutely vital. We use TSI to support senior management in the area of workforce development and if we did not get this money we would simply have to compromise somewhere else, which would be an awful pity. TSI in our book is a success story.”