BANKSETA AR 31 AUGUST

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Skills Development The Skills Development Department facilitates and oversees the implementation of the discretionary grant funding for employed staff in the banking and alternative banking sector. Under the discretionary grant funding, funding windows are opened for specific programmes. Funding windows allows employers the flexibility to implement programmes in a way that is appropriate for their organisation. It also allows flexibility in content, duration, implementation dates and training provision platforms. The department is responsible for managing the mandatory grant process for the medium and large banks in the banking sector thereby ensuring that stakeholders are updated on this process, and trained on the BANKSETA MIS in order to successfully submit their workplace skills plans and annual training reports (ATR) annually online. We upskill the skills development facilitators (SDFs) of the various employers annually through information sessions and a training session on the MIS. We provide them with a detailed training manual, frequently asked questions document (especially for new SDFs), and work with them in groups or one-on-one sessions. This allows employers to familiarise themselves with the process and MIS. • Reskilling • IT skills funding window project for short courses in IT • Online funding window short courses • Doctoral and post-doctoral programmes • Leadership programme • PIVOTAL grant funding for bursaries, RPL and learnerships. The objective of the Skills Development Department is to implement skills development programmes through partnerships to enable our stakeholders to advance the national and global position of the Projects in the department are:

broader banking and alternative banking sector. Objectives are met by rolling out skills development programmes for the employed by, for example, opening up funding windows that are either employer/ employee driven, based on their specific needs, or market driven, such as the leadership development programme. In the former case, the employer runs the programme, while in the latter, BANKSETA issues a tender to the market to appoint a suitable service provider. Funding windows are popular among employers as they provide flexibility to focus on their particular requirements. Several categories are available for applications, such as learnerships, bursaries, RPL and skills programmes. A success of the past year was the opening up of a funding window for online short course funding. This was in response to a need in the market to allow for training programmes that are not accredited and therefore cannot fall into the PIVOTAL category. Opening up a funding window gave greater flexibility to respond to the demands of the market. A critical aspect of this department is its interaction with stakeholders which are all the banks and alternative banking and financial institutions (those with fewer than 50 employees). This is achieved through annual information sessions about submitting their WSPs and ATRs which are due annually by 30 April. Other training sessions about the funding windows available are also held. Steering committee meetings discuss issues relating to providers, drop offs, and restructuring, retrenchments and resignations. One on-one sessions with stakeholders about contracts are conducted, and the team makes itself available in the period before the closure of funding windows to assist employers with the application process. Intensive support is provided to applicants to ensure their applications are correct and submitted before the deadline, as the online system closes exactly at midnight on 30 April. of each financial year. This assists greatly in ensuring that the majority of applications are correctly submitted in time.

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PART B: PERFORMANCE INFORMATION | BANKSETA ANNUAL REPORT 2021/22