WDF - Workforce Development Fund

How to claim funding for the 2024/25 funding year



The West Midlands Care Association is the Workforce Development Partnership for the West Midlands , Herefordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire

Full details of the Workforce Development Fund can be found on the Skills for Care Website

How to claim funding through the WMCA WDF Partnership

How to join the West Midlands Care Association WDF Partnership

Providing you have met the first three criteria above, you can apply to join our partnership.   You do not have to be an existing member of the care association to join, but if you are interested in how membership can benefit you, please click here for details

To join the partnership please click the button.  You may join as an individual site or as a group.  You cannot however join our partnership if you are already a member of a WDF partnership elsewhere.

Once you have joined you will not need to rejoin every year.

There is no cost to join the partnership

How do I comply with the ASC-WDS requirements



Read the ASC-WDS completion guidance.



To make a claim from the Workforce Development Fund in 2023/24 you must complete or refresh your ASC Workforce Data Set account. All existing accounts should have been updated since the 1 April 2023 in order to qualify to claim in this funding year. An establishment’s ASC Workforce Data Set account is expected to be an accurate reflection of its workforce.Large organisations may be subject to data quality checks and will be advised of any issues which will prevent claiming the fund.This guidance doesn’t apply to people who employ their own care and support staff (individual employers).

How will I know when I have met the ASC-WDS requirements for WDF?

Log into your ASC-WDS account and from the left hand menu click on reports. Choose ‘My WDF ASC-WDS requirements report’. This will tell you whether your establishment is ‘eligible’ or ‘not eligible’ in terms of meeting the ASC-WDS requirements for WDF. Where an establishment is not eligible, this report will show whether this is due to the establishment data or the worker data. You can then run the ‘My establishment report’ and / or ‘My worker list’ to identify gaps in the data. As these are live reports, you can update your ASC-WDS information and rerun the reports to get an updated position.

Parent establishments can run ‘My WDF ASC-WDS requirements parent report’.  This will show which of your subsidiaries are ‘eligible’ or ‘not eligible’ in terms of meeting the ASC-WDS requirements for WDF. If you cannot see data relating to your subsidiaries via this report, this will be because of the data sharing permissions set by the subsidiary, which will have been set so that data is not shared with the parent account.

Can I claim WDF alongside apprenticeship funding?

Yes, you can claim money from the WDF for learners completing the Adult Care Worker or Leader Adult Care Worker apprenticeship standard. What you can claim for is different depending on whether you are a levy paying or non-levy paying employer.

I'm a levy payer, what can I claim for?

As a levy paying employer, you’ll use your levy pot to pay for the training and end-point assessment costs of the apprenticeship (up to the Government apprenticeship cap) – you can't claim WDF for this.

You can claim WDF towards any other associated costs of the apprenticeship up to our advertised funding value. For example, the learner is required to complete 20% off-the-job learning to fulfil the criteria of the apprenticeship, WDF can be used to cover wage replacement costs (if required).

I’m a non-levy payer, what can I claim for?

As a non-levy payer, the Government will contribute 95% of the training and assessment costs, up to the Government apprenticeship cap, and you can’t claim WDF for this. The remaining 5% and any additional cost will be met by you, the employer – you can claim WDF towards this cost.

You can also claim WDF towards any other associated costs of the apprenticeship, up to our advertised funding value. For example, the learner is required to complete 20% off-the-job learning to fulfil the criteria of the apprenticeship, WDF can be used to cover wage replacement costs (if required).

If you need further information about funding for apprenticeships in addition to what is available via the Workforce Development Fund, you can find additional information on the Skills for Care website

Skills For Care have produced a very useful FAQ document which is well worth a read

What can be funded

You can claim funding towards the cost of qualifications and learning programmes completed as follows:

Qualifications and Apprenticeships:

Certificates with a date of issue between 1 January 2023 and 21 May 2024

Learning Programmes:

Certificates with a date of issue between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2024

Digital Learning Modules:

Certificates with a date of issue between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2024

The funding amount includes money towards the cost of course fees (or employer contributions) and associated costs such as:

• employees’ salaries whilst they are undertaking training
• coaching and mentoring costs
• venue costs for the training
• wage replacement costs.

 
All costs must be incurred before WDF is claimed and employers must ensure that they have records in place to evidence the costs of any funding claim they make.

Making a Claim

Once your learner has completed their qualification or learning programme, complete the online employer claim submission form and upload a copy of the learner’s certificate(s) (you can claim as often as you like during the funding period).

The learner certificates must contain the following information:

Submit Your Claim

Submit your claim by completing the online form and attaching scans or pictures of all your learners certifcates.  Claims cannot be processed without this evidence (see above)

Claims must be submitted by the employer, a learning provider cannot do this on your behalf.

If you have any queries please contact the WMCA office on 01384 943000

What Happens Next

• We review the evidence received for fully evidenced eligible qualifications and non-accredited learning programmes and then submit funding claims to Skills for Care in line with the grant milestones.
• Skills for Care reviews claims received and pays WMCA.
• We then pay your claim.
  
• WMCA can only pay the funding directly to our partnership members and cannot pay the WDF to a third party such as a learning provider under any circumstances

Contact Us

If you have any queries about the claims process please contact the WMCA office on:

01384 943000 (opt2)

wdf@wmca.care