Is Your Organisation Eligible for The Workforce Development Fund 2018-19?

Are you a national care organisation or a lead care organisation for a local or national employer? Do you currently have staffs completing qualifications for the adult social care sector?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you may want to continue reading, as you could benefit from the information within this blog.

With changes coming into place for the WDF 2018-19, it’s a good idea to take a look at what those changes involve and how they could impact you and your organisation. Read on to find out more.

Are you eligible for the Workforce Development Fund 2018-19?

The easy answer to this is yes, but only if you are a large national organisation with more than 1000 care providing employees working in two or more areas in England. You can also apply if you are the lead organisation for a local or national employer led partnership. For a select few new members who joined during the funding year, you may also be able to apply for the Workforce Development Fund 2018-19.

What is the Workforce Development Fund (WDF) 2018-19?

The WDF comes from the Department of Health and Social Care is a select ‘pot’ of money which can contribute to the funding of adult social care qualifications, training and learning programmes The WDF is disbursed via Skills for Care.

The current funding pot is due to come to an end on the 30th March 2018, so it is very important to check your eligibility for the current loan before Friday 23rd February 2018!

What’s Changing?

The WDF is due to move across to the Regulated Qualifications Framework and apprenticeship standards, with the biggest change meaning that adult social care qualifications under the WDF will be funded at a qualification level only, as opposed to individual units.

With the UK facing an ageing and growing population, the demand for qualified and passionate adult care workers is ever growing. As such, significant changes in funding are designed with the needs of dedicated and highly trained staff in mind.

Ensuring that all funding used for adult social care will result in learners that are fully completing their qualifications is of paramount importance. The need for the adult care staffs of the future to be fully equipped with a high-quality skill-set and sector specific knowledge, alongside best practice, arguably is central to the alteration of the WDF.

Currently the WDF can be used to pay for individual units of learning; however, from April 2018 such funding will only be available for specific qualifications with the emphasis being on completing the whole qualification and not just individual units. The 2018-19 funding will incur a financial cap of £1,200 per learner for each funding year.

Please Don’t Miss Out

If the WDF is something that you could benefit from, it is very important that you check back on their website (available here) to see if you qualify.

With a deadline of 23rd February 2018, time is running out, so it is very important that you apply as soon as you can to be in with a chance of receiving part of the current pot of money. Apply here.

We hope this blog has been useful and we continue to wish all adult social care learners the best of luck in their qualifications, learning and training.

To take a look at the current qualifications that we are offer for adult social care, please take a look out our website or get in contact with our friendly Recruitment Team on 01543711153.