Local grant funding!!!!!!!

welshgit · Aug 8, 2008

I applied for funding from my local council along with a start up grant to help me buy my essential testing equipment and pay to join a part p scheme. I also stated that I needed some essential hand tools and equipment to complete my job on a day to day basis.

Truth is that I already had alot of these items except my tester and part p registration. I was hoping for a cushion for lean times and to develop myself further with more courses i.e. C&G 2330 1&2.

Local council has informed me that they will not support me as I am not qualified!!

I have passed a domestic installers course and have had 2391 training (hoping to sit exam later this year). I am operating as a domestic installer and work is just ticking over ok. Therefore I am a viable startup and feel that I am qualified for this. Apparently thier electricians say that my qualification means nothing!

Am I going mad or are they correct? If they are correct I have just put my mortgage at risk!!!!?!!!

Help please as my enthusiasm is waning!

Still ranting!!!!

A little more info.

I am a 30 yr old with a young family and a misspent youth who should have trained as a spark after school but instead went to university for nothing.

I wish I could go back and do an apprenticeship but that wont even touch my bills or mortgage.

I know I am doing this the wrong way round and that it frustrates the true time served sparks out there but please its my only chance.

Welshgit

montybaber · Aug 8, 2008

Sorry to hear the funding did'nt happen, I hope everything goes well for you maybe you could save some money and pick up some second hand test equipment (calibrated obviously

) I take it you are borrowing some at the moment.

Let me know who you join to self-certify your work as I may be doing the same soon

sparkyork · Aug 8, 2008

hi mate, sorry to hear of your news, to be honest i didtnt even know you could do this! ive been struggling for a while with setup costs!

if youve got work on at the minute and are busyish then to join niccy dom installer is only £434, could you not just save for a month and get it then?

also dont mean to sound rude but you say your operating as a domestic installer at the minute, does this mean your work isnt getting tested?
if you look on ebay or ask on here you should be able to get a cheap tester, see loads of robins on ebay (seperate variety)

rich

welshgit · Aug 8, 2008

To get registered I have asked the local authority to test and inspect a rewire of mine.

Other jobs I am using friends to test/sign off.

parki sam · Aug 19, 2008

hi mate i was in the same situation earlier this year they wouldnt give me a grant, so i had to find cheap every thing, the cheapest organisation to jion is elecsa at about 400 inc VAT, it doesnt matter who you are a member of, i had a few customers demanding NIC certs so i queried it and it turns out its illegal for any one to accept only NIC reg,d companies

Carter · Aug 24, 2008

welshgit said:
I applied for funding from my local council along with a start up grant to help me buy my essential testing equipment and pay to join a part p scheme. I also stated that I needed some essential hand tools and equipment to complete my job on a day to day basis.

Truth is that I already had alot of these items except my tester and part p registration. I was hoping for a cushion for lean times and to develop myself further with more courses i.e. C&G 2330 1&2.

Local council has informed me that they will not support me as I am not qualified!!

I have passed a domestic installers course and have had 2391 training (hoping to sit exam later this year). I am operating as a domestic installer and work is just ticking over ok. Therefore I am a viable startup and feel that I am qualified for this.

What the furk?? you sound like exactly the sort of voter that the much vaunted schemes from the Learning & Skills Council, Urban Renewal Funds, LEGI funding (Local Enterprise Growth Initiative) are directed towards?? Excuse the hell out of me but is there a skills shortage or isn't there?

Apparently thier electricians say that my qualification means nothing!

Would be interesting to see their rejection letter. Am I missing something here? what the hell have "their electricians" got to do with funding decisions?
I'd be straight down the council house thumping the desk of the Director of Education and Skills or whatever job title he/she's appropriated to themselves.

Am I going mad or are they correct? If they are correct I have just put my mortgage at risk!!!!?!!!

No you're probably not going mad! Having to deal with the local govt. state meatgrinder is enough to drive anyone to a prescription for a broad based, robust anti-depressant. They are a shower of box ticking pencil pushers whose only field of competence is and will only ever be the cozy little piece of the buearacratic machine they've been set to mind. Chap I've been here and may be able to help.

First up a lot can depend on your postcode, does it lie within a designated "deprived area" my guess (from a quick google) is that it does.
from http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/er_fair_share_first_full_report.pdf (table12)

Communities First area, Objective 1 area. In receipt of multi-million funding
9 wards in worst 10% in Wales, + a further 9 in worst 10-20%

From there start hitting your local equivalent of Chambers of Commerce, Learning and Skills Council, do the research on exactly what funding streams are available, find out who sits behind the big desk and bypass as far as poss all the wonks between you and them.

Try the Construction School at Neath/Port Talbot College
Welcome to Neath Port Talbot College : Faculties - Construction
they might have a route to funding support.

Help please as my enthusiasm is waning!

It's going to require some persistance mate, local govt. civil servants are expert at not taking ownership of a problem being content to pass you around six or seven departments trying to palm you off. Never expect their right hand to know what the left hand is pulling! Seriously these people would not last ten minutes on site or in the real world. The only way I've found of cutting through their B.S. is to amass an overwhelming body of evidence in your favour to the point that they can no longer deny the validity of your request without embarrassing themselves.

Still ranting!!!!

Good, good, keep it up mate; it's useful practice 'coz you'll find yourself doing a lot of it over the next few months if you decide to take them on and ask them to justify/explain themselves.

A little more info.

I am a 30 yr old with a young family and a misspent youth who should have trained as a spark after school but instead went to university for nothing.
I wish I could go back and do an apprenticeship but that wont even touch my bills or mortgage.

...on that subject they might pull a stunt like trying to intimate that their "skill development program" are "targetted at the under 25s or school-leavers. In which case inform them of their responsibilities under The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006. Two can play at that game!

I know I am doing this the wrong way round and that it frustrates the true time served sparks out there but please its my only chance.

Welshgit

Forget what's gone before chap, we are continually regailed with tales of the legendary "flexibility of the UK labour market" and informed of the "need to retrain for the skills required to service the ever changing global market place" bo!!x, well call their bluff, get them to put their money where their mouth is!

Alongside that goes the need to invest in yourself as you seem to be doing. I don't think there's going to be any 'soft landings' this time around. What we're seeing here are the tremors of a rolling decline unless individuals take the responsibility to equip themselves with the skills they think they (and their kids) will find most useful to survival in the post oil, post easy-energy society that's stomping remorselessly into focus on the near horizon. Sorry to sound all apocolyptic but I just don't see an easy resolution to the euphamisticaly titled "credit crunch". The lack of credit is merely a symptom of far deeper and fundamental issues.

On the upside....
Sparks will always be needed in some form though no matter what shape the work place and wider society evolves (or devolves?) into.

Let me know how you get on fellah.

Guv.

jibspark · Sep 2, 2008

so do these grants need paying back? this could be an answer to all my problems!

sparkyork · Sep 2, 2008

yeh i didnt know about this either if it turns out you can get something then ill be giving it ago, been a struggle so far really, might make a profit next month!!

Carter · Sep 2, 2008

jibspark said:
so do these grants need paying back? this could be an answer to all my problems!

Grants are what they say on the label, it's a sum granted to you so no it doesn't need to be paid back. Something like a CDL (career development loan) is similarly just that, a loan and therefore has a repayment schedule attached to it upon completion of the training for which the loan was intended (whether you pass or fail.)
Don't quote me but some things may be excluded from funding depending on terms and conds of the particular funding body/loan provider, for instance some may not pay for membership of trade bodies, professional fees etc but there are always other routes.

What helps 'grease the wheels' of any grant/funding application is evidence of your contribution to the process. If they can see that you have invested sustained effort and your own hard earned money in yourself then (all things being equal) they will have more faith that this particular applicant isn't some chancer trying to extract money from the public coffer with no real intent of following it through.
I know even such diverse organizations as The Prince's Trust (age limited) and NACRO (nat. Assoc for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) are in the reskilling game. Anyone recently out of the forces should already know about their demobbing skills provision so for some that might be a route.

I haven't had to check but I'm assuming that there will be a fair few small privately administered trusts and bursary schemes who might be able to assist. Probably called something like "The Friends of Faraday Scholarship Trust" you get the picture. I'm pretty sure that a year book of such trusts and grant giving bodies is published and available in a central library.