The Yorkshire and Humber Football League Trust has saved 60 percent on staff training and addressed skills gaps thanks to SkillsActive.
Established in 2007, the Football League Trust (FLT) is funded by the Premier League, the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association to deliver industry leading youth and community development programmes.
Continuing the pioneering work of the national Football in the Community programme, it is the umbrella organisation for 72 community trusts linked to Football League clubs, including 11 in Yorkshire and Humber.
Quality staff training to retain quality staff
The Trust’s Regional Community Manager for Yorkshire & the North East, Angus Martin, says the Trust’s clubs have little trouble recruiting quality staff but with so much competition in the sector, retaining them can be a challenge.
“Staff development is important to all of our clubs but as charities operating in difficult economic times they need to be clever with their money,” Angus says. “That’s why we joined SkillsActive - to source the best training available at the best price.”
Many clubs have undergone huge growth in recent years. But although the Trust has a proud history of investing in coaching development programmes for its front line staff, business development training is less entrenched, Angus says.
A SkillsActive account manager looked over the Trust’s staff appraisals to identify training needs and then presented the Trust with a list of 20 possible courses using two of its recognised provider network. It also secured the Trust a 60% discount by brokering funding from the Skills Funding Agency’s Train to Gain programme, an English Government initiative.
“The funding reduced the training cost for us from £10,000 plus VAT to £4000 plus VAT,” Angus says.
“We decided to put 20 senior managers, representing each club, on five full days of continual professional development through ISPAL. They learned about outcomes based planning, developing effective partnerships, charitable leisure training, managing discipline, grievance and dismissal, and finance for the non-financial manager. Without the funding, the training would not have been feasible for us.”
Trust staff learn skills to deal with challenging behaviour
The Trust’s staff often deliver programmes in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and so need the skills to deal with challenging behaviour, but it had difficulty sourcing conflict management training at an affordable price.
“SkillsActive sourced two different local providers for us and we sent nine staff on Complete Assessment & Training Solutions’ course. They now feel more confident delivering the activities and, if something happens, they understand the right course of action to take.”
Angus encourages other employers to work with SkillsActive on training solutions.
“SkillsActive sources cost effective solutions to our training needs and uses their knowledge of and access to funding steams to offset costs. Our relationship with SkillsActive has certainly proved beneficial to us.”
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