£1m funding secured for launch of charity training comparison site

Governance | Niki May Young | 3 Jul 2012

Skills Third Sector has secured £1m of funding from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to develop its new online skills platform for charity employers.

Subject to contract the charity will receive the funding from the funder's Growth and Innovation Fund to develop and launch LINKS (Learning, Information, Knowledge, Skills), a knowledge-sharing platform which aims to encourage "open, transparent competition between skills and training providers".

LINKS will provide a forum for charity employees to share their experiences and knowledge of training and support, allowing them to rate and review providers. Users will then be able to search for providers filtering based on criteria such as location, price, quality or feedback from other LINKS users.

The funding for the site, which is scheduled to launch in the first half of next year, will run over two years from September 2012.

The charity has so far undertaken eight months of consultation with the sector's staff, trustees and membership bodies to develop the platform. This was enabled by an initial funding from the Skills Funding Agency.

Keith Mogford, chief executive of Skills Third Sector welcomed the latest funding boost and said the platform will be central to the work of the charity: "This is significant investment by UKCES in our sector. The LINKS platform will provide innovative solutions to meeting the skills development needs of the sector and make a real difference.

"Our extensive consultations with the sector confirm that it is something the sector wants. We want to develop the platform, and the services within it, in partnership with the sector," he added.

Who's Who: Keith Mogford

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