CITB calls for Growth Fund applications

Launched in February, the fund is available to all ‘in scope’ companies (including contractor and supply chain groupings), federations, training groups and trade bodies. Awards will be made to projects that support skills development in one of three key areas:

Sustainability: improving the ability of employers to respond to sustainability challenges on environmental or business issues;

Collaborative working: advancing partnership training opportunities among the supply chain or as part of multi-employer consortia; and

Productivity: improving outputs and working practices that benefit the sector as a whole.

Other considerations for applications are whether they can embrace specialist skills areas, such as modern methods of construction and nuclear builds, or support the industry in accessing new markets.

CITB-ConstructionSkills standards and qualifications manager Scott Cooper-Groom said: “We’re delighted to be able to add value to the industry through initiatives such as the £10m Growth Fund, and it represents one of the key ways that we are looking to help develop the right skills for growth, locally and nationally.

“Applications are coming in fast, so it’s important that anyone interested visits the CITB-ConstructionSkills website to download the documentation and gets their bid in as soon as possible.”

To be eligible for the Growth Fund, projects must:

• Have tangible, measurable and sustainable outputs
• Not currently be eligible for the CITB-ConstructionSkills Grants scheme
• Demonstrate that they will have wide-reaching benefits for the sector – either through collaborative working or through CITB-ConstructionSkills’ dissemination of the outcomes
• Be ready to start before 31 December 2012 

For further information, see www.cskills.org

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