Employers
Train to Gain
Train to Gain is a new service designed to help businesses identify and source the training they need to succeed.
For businesses, getting the right skills advice is essential to choosing the best and most appropriate training. Train to Gain helps you to do this by using experienced Skills Brokers who can:
• offer free impartial and independent advice to businesses
• match any training needs identified with training providers
• ensure that training is delivered to meet business needs.
One of the key goals of the service is to make sure that both the training and the skills advice are impartial, flexible, responsive, and offered at a time and place to suit businesses. This marks a cultural shift in how skills training will be delivered, and will ensure that the delivery of training is much more responsive to the needs of every business.
For further information please visit the National Train to Gain Website
Employer Responsiveness – New Flexibilities Briefing – National Motorcycle Museum 1st July 2008
Apologies to providers: The slides from the July 1st presentation have been withdrawn from the web and will be re-issued once the flexibilities are fully clarified.
Train to Gain Plan for Growth
Please click here to view and download the presentation ( 
PDF version)
Train to Gain Provision
The Learning and Skills Council has introduced a commissioning element to our funding to ensure that we procure provision which truly meets our priorities and the needs of employers and employees.
Providers will deliver funded and non-funded training to meet the employers’ needs identified by the Skills Brokerage Service. Funding for this training will be contestable.
In May 2006 organisations were invited to tender for contracts with the LSC for the provision of Train to Gain training provision, for up to two years from the 1st August 2006 through to 31st July 2008.
For a list of the Training Providers who have been awarded contracts to deliver Train to Gain funded learning in the West Midlands, please click here.
Train to Gain Regional Responsive Fund
Any additional demand from employers that cannot be met during the year through existing contracts will be met by utilising the Regional Responsive Fund. For more information on the Train to Gain Regional Responsive Fund and the standards required of Train to Gain training providers please click here.
West Midlands Consortia Management Evaluation - Stourbridge College and Matthew Boulton College
This project is a collaboration between Stourbridge and Matthew Boulton Colleges. It seeks to measure the effectiveness of Consortia Management arrangements in the West Midlands region for the delivery of Train to Gain.
It considers how such management arrangements can support the vision set out by the government in the recent Skills White Paper, ‘Skills: Getting on in Business, Getting on in Work’ - ensuring skills brokerage and business support services are developed to achieve simplicity and transparency for the benefit of employers.
The examination of Train to Gain consortia management arrangements, also aims to contribute to and inform the aspirations of key agencies in the West Midlands to provide an employer service which is universal, integrated, available across all sectors, actively encourages and enables ‘hard to reach’ employers in both skills activity and business
support to deliver greater efficiency, competitiveness and productivity.
Please click here to view the West Midlands Consortia Management Evaluation report.
Updates on Train to Gain
- Train to Gain Period Report (June 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (May 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (April 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (March 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (February 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (January 2008), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (December 2007), currently unavailable
- Train to Gain Period Report (October 2007), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (September 2007), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (August 2007), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (July 2007), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (June 2007), please click here.
- Train to Gain Period Report (May 2007), please click here.
To view the slides from our conference ‘Developing Train to Gain in the West Midlands’, please click here.
Invitation to Tender - Commission Contracts 2007-08
The tendering process for 2007/08 is currently concluding and successful training providers will be contacted shortly by the Train to Gain team to arrange a contract clarification meeting.
The QIA has commissioned ECOTEC Research and Consulting to evaluate Year 2 of the Development Programme for Train to Gain. As part of this evaluation, we are conducting a survey to explore the perceptions of programme participants.
To access the online survey please click here.
