Train to Gain is helping small businesses of all sizes and in all sectors

Train to Gain is the Government’s flagship skills service for helping businesses to get the support they need.  We can work with you to increase the skills of your workforce and improve the performance of your business.

It is vital that employers continue to invest in skills, especially at this time of economic challenge. As well as increasing productivity in the short term, we know that employers who don’t train are 2.5 times more likely to fail than those who do.

A wide range of support is available

In response to employer demand, from August 2008 Train to Gain was significantly enhanced to ensure it provided a wider range of support and more help with the cost of training.  We can assist in you receiving full funding for:

• First full level qualifications (equivalent to 5 GCSEs ) and
• First Level 3 (equivalent to 2 A-Levels) for 19-25 year olds
• Some first Level 4 for 19-25 year olds who do not already have a Level 3
• Some funding for people who already have qualifications at Level 2 and 3 and would like to take another.
• Apprenticeships
• For businesses with between 10 and 250 employees, support towards the costs of leadership and management development.

Small and medium sized, private sector, businesses can also get support for:

• From January 2009 – Smaller, focused , training programmes in subjects demanded by businesses including: business improvements, business systems and processes, team working and communications, sales and marketing, IT User, IT Support, customer service, new product design, finance and credit, cashflow and profit management, and risk management.
• From January 2009 – Fully funded Level 2 qualifications and partially subsidised Level 3 qualifications, regardless of whether the employee already has a qualification at this level.
• From November 2008 – Funding for leadership and management training extended to businesses with 5-10 employees.

In addition, businesses with less than 50 employees can still receive a contribution to wage costs to cover the cost of time off to train.