£10m for Workforce Development in Scottish Government Budget

Scottish Government - Employers in Scotland are set to benefit from a new £10 million skills fund which will bring the college sector together with industry to better support in-work training.

The new Workforce Development Fund will be introduced to provide employers with workforce development training to up-skill and re-skill their existing workforce. The initiative is in direct response to a call from employers in their response to the Scottish Government’s recent consultation on the introduction of the UK Apprenticeship Levy.

Due to be introduced in Autumn 2017 the fund will also address skills gaps and the training needs of older workers where a full apprenticeship might not be appropriate.

The fund will be developed with the input of employers through the industry-led Scottish 

Apprenticeship Advisory Board, Colleges Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council.

The new fund was announced as part of the Scottish Government’s response to the UK Government’s Apprenticeship Levy, and launched by Minister for Employability and Training, Jamie Hepburn, at an event at New College Lanarkshire, Motherwell Campus.

Other measures announced in the response include commitments to improve the  Modern Apprenticeship programme as we continue planned growth to 30,000 new starts each year by 2020; and continued implementation of the Youth Employment Strategy: ‘Developing the Young Workforce’.

Source: Scottish Government