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CITB Funding Brief
Looking at the 3 main funds offered by the CITB
There are 3 main funds that we can access to help CITB registered businesses access the funding available. These are:
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Training Grant which will pay up to £630 (21 activities*) for each member of site staff who undertakes a grant approved training course. These are mainly site-specific courses
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Skills and Training Fund which will pay up to £50000 per year** (depending on the size of the organisation for distinct projects or site-specific training (as identified in 1 above), This is normally paid in advance depending on a credit check. The rules for this have recently been changed so that business can now apply twice in a 12 month period. To do this the initial project must have been completed and the required proof submitted to the CITB before the second project will be considered.
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Apprentice Grant. £2500 per year, paid at the end of each college term for CITB Approved Apprenticeships. There is also £3500 paid when the apprentice achieves the qualification.
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Into Work Grant. This allows companied to take somebody on under a work experience tag which must last at least 3 weeks. The employer is paid £500 per individual. If the work experience turns into a job then the employer can claim a further £1000 per individual. If it is then decided to move these individuals onto an apprenticeship, then the Apprentice Grant (3 above) would also come into force.
There are around 80,000 CITB registered businesses in the UK. Construction businesses are legally obliged to register with the CITB if they are in scope to be accepted as a registered business. However, only some 23,000 of these actually claim any money. CITB registered businesses in order to access funding must have their levy payments up to date and also the necessary levy paperwork returned. There is a time frame for this and whilst late returns and payments might hold up the funding it would not disqualify them from claiming.
Businesses will pay levy to the CITB when their salaries and wages paid to employees and subcontractors is higher than £120k per year. If the amount is over that, then they will pay:
0.3% of the employees’ wages and salaries to the CITB as a levy payment
1.25% of the payments to subcontractors to the CITB as a levy payment
If the salary and other payments are less than £120k then they pay nothing but can still claim all the available funding!
The CITB have now developed 11 training Leadership and Management training standards for the construction industry that will be funded via their grant scheme. These training standards have been developed to help develop a new wave of leaders for the construction sector and aree designed to offer structure and focus in the key areas identified as the challenges faced by new leaders.
Standards titles
1. Leadership and management practice in Construction​
2. Delivery of site operations and logistics​
3. Achieving performance through people​
4. Understanding commercial awareness​
5. Handling difficult situations​
6. Understanding training and coaching in construction​
7. Understanding, organising and delegating in construction​
8. Planning and monitoring work in construction ​
9. Solving problems and making decisions​
10. Developing yourself as a team leader​
11. Understanding the recruitment and induction of new staff
12, Understanding Induction and Onboarding
These will be delivered by CITB approved training organisations (ATO’s) who should be able to claim for these through the CITB Skills and Training Fund and the Training Grant route. Now, some of these will no doubt fit with your business model, and this will simplify things in making claims to the Skills and Training Fund as we would use that course to set against the activities and the available funding. This would mean we could apply directly to that for organisations who wish to use your model using Equality Gold (Our parent company and ATO) as the delivery agent.
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The way we work is that we use our training manager service (https://www.constructnet.org/training-manager-service) to help clients to access the funding. This includes ensuring that their levy commitments are up to date, working with them to developing a training plan, submitting applications for funding and to claim grant and funding payments.
This puts money into their banks that they might not necessarily have claimed whilst still being required to do the training due to license or site rules and regulations and stand the cost of that. This means that effectively they have more money to invest in training as effectively they have had the site-specific training for free.
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The training plan development is useful as it can be used to draw down Skills and Training Fund where this would not be relevant as the training required is not new or innovative and has been carried out previously allowing the client to spend the money on other activities.
There is an opportunity here for You and the Construction Network to work together as effectively we could become your training manager working with you and your CITB in scope clients to:
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Help them become registered, if they are in scope or it would be financially beneficial for them to do that
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Maintain their levy status and returns
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Make applications for them to the relevant training funds
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Make claims to draw the funding down to their bank accounts
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We charge £750p/a for the service, depending on the size of the business.
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If you’d like help accessing and finding apprentices then there is our Social Value Advisor service (SVA), You can find out more about this here https://www.constructnet.org/social-value-advisor. This is charged on a retainer basis dependent on need.
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*Training activities are split into 3 tiers. These attract different levels of training grant support. These are:
1. Tier 1 - £60 and counts as 1 activity
2. Tier 2 - £140 and counts as 2 activities
3. Tier 3 - £240 and counts as 3 activities
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** Skills and Training Funds are now as follows:
Sole Trader - you can now claim £5000 rather then £2500
Employer under 50 employees - £10000 rather than £5000
Employer under 75 employees - £15000 rather than £7500
Employer under 100 employees - £20000 rather than £10000
Employer over 250 employees - £50000 rather than £25000