Online Training Provider and PeoplePlus Announce ESF Delivery Partnership To Support LEPS in the UK

Leading online distance learning provider The Skills Network has entered into a European Social Fund (ESF) partnership with PeoplePlus, one of the UK’s leading public service providers of employment support. 

The Skills Network will assist in PeoplePlus’s ESF programme delivery to over 10 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) across the UK via providing a range of online training content.

PeoplePlus, who have an ESF programme worth £30 million, have selected The Skills Network to aid them in enabling people and businesses across numerous regions to improve their work-based skills and levels of employment by accessing a wide range of TSN’s online training courses.

This partnership will particulary help engage those hardest to reach with vocational training, by supporting individuals who find it difficult to obtain work – i.e. those who are unemployed, out of education or economically inactive – to access online learning resources that encourage work-based skills development.

PeoplePlus’s provision will be enhanced with a range online CPD certified short courses that will be auto-marked, auto-certified, and accessible for individuals to study anytime, anywhere.

This includes online content in:

• Business skills
• Retail and hospitality skills
• Financial skills
• Personal development and hospitality
• Early years and childcare
• Health and safety
• Health and social care
• Mental health awareness.

The partnership aims to support disadvantaged learners who experience barriers to further education, i.e. travel costs, childcare responsibilities and costs, lack of previous qualifications, and those who struggle with classroom-based training.

This initiative will help break down such barriers, by aiding PeoplePlus and over 10 LEPs, to deliver a flexible online content provision which covers:

• Content accessed remotely as and when needed via microlearning, suiting individual needs
• Interactive material, including video tutorials, case studies/workplace scenarios, quizzes and summary sections that promote learner engagement
• Online training available for different levels – something to benefit people of all skill levels.

The partnership ultimately enables PeoplePlus and their LEP partners to innovate provision to local communities and enable people to enter into further education and training when they otherwise could not!

Steve Lidgard, Director for Skills at PeoplePlus, says: “We are really pleased to be working with The Skills Network at this exciting time of opportunity and growth for PeoplePlus.”

Karina Hepworth, Business Development Manager at The Skills Network, says: “We’re extremely proud to be working with PeoplePlus and assisting LEPs as an end-to-end ESF delivery partner.

We take pride in not only supplying LEPs and training providers with the online content they need to be responsive to local skill shortages, but also in providing organisations such as PeoplePlus with their own online learning environment that evidences their training and helps draw funding from the ESF.

This will help them assign courses to learners in bulk, record their training activity and report all learner progress in real time.”

James Earl, Executive Director at The Skills Network, says: “A meaningful partnership secured with a leading national provider in PeoplePlus – another instance where the benefits of online learning will see a significant positive impact on people’s lives via building valuable skills and greatly improving people’s employment opportunities.”

About The Skills Network and ESF DELIVERY

The Skills Network is a private training provider which specialises in online distance learning.

It supports employers, training providers, further education colleges and individuals to access distance learning courses in areas such as mental health, health and social care, childcare and education, accounting and finance, leadership and management.

With their own award-winning online learning system ‘EQUAL’, The Skills Network supports thousands of organisations every year to improve their learning delivery.

Learn how we can augment your ESF delivery via flexible online courses, reporting your training activity and making your organisation more responsive to your local priorities – Click here to register your interest for a free consultation.