We are a local authority in house IT training section who supply IT training to our unitary authority staff of about 3000 users. We are an ECDL test centre for both Standard ECDL and all 4 Advanced ECDL modules. We have recently been givin permission to advertise our spare capacity to local businesses via our council website and have received a trickle of business as a result.
My question to you all is - do you know of anywhere we can access any funding to reduce the cost of our training, particularly to our in house delegates?
I have contacted our local office of the Learning Skills Council who said nothing they could do to help and 'Train to Gain' were also negative. Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas or donations gratefully received.
Regards Franck
Franck Lynch
3 Responses
Funding
I think you will find it a problem to find funding for in-house training because you are already funded by public money – most funders will not give you a grant for something we are all already paying taxes to support.
The only funding likely to be available is through any workforce development money available but if you’ve already researched that locally then the best you can do is ask to be alerted to any new funding coming on stream.
But basically, as a public sector organisation, you are highly unlikely to be able to get external funding fror your own organisational development costs. If you were to open your training (where appropriate) to say staff and volunteers in local voluntary and community groups, you may be able to get funding to support their training costs.
Sorry I haven’t got any good news for you.
Regards
Cathy
Funding
Hi Franck
It really depends on where in the country you are.
As ThirdForce/Electric Paper offer the complete ECDL solution, I would like to discuss this further with You. As I may have an option with one of our ‘Strategic Partners’ so do contact me on 0208 843 5487
Ross Pollard
Strategic Account Manager
ThirdForce (Electric Paper)
Arian Associates Ltd
If you are in the North East – as we are – you could try approaching ONE NORTH EAST which is the local Regional Development Agency, that always seems to have a pretty good almost bottomless pot of money. If you are located elsewhere there is bound to be a similar local body that you can talk to, surely.