Progress Report on the Participation of the SETAs in the EPWP 17 November 2004

1. Progress Report on the Participation of the SETAs in the EPWP 17 November 2004

2. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT • Skills Development Critical Output of EPWP • Officials; Implementing Bodies • Workers • SETAs and NSF • Capacity building during the project implementation • Programme development (NQF aligned) • Provider upgrading • Funding

3. Employment under the EPWP is governed by: • Minister of Labour • Learnership Determination for unemployed learners • Ministerial Determination for Special Public Works Programmes and the Code of Good Practice

4. Key aspects of the Learnership Determination: • Gazetted after negotiations at NEDLAC • The Minister of Labour issued a Sectoral Determination to determine • the minimum rates of remuneration and • conditions of service for unemployed people who are recruited to learnerships

5. Key aspects of the Ministerial Determination for Special Public Works Programmes and the Code of Good Practice • Gazetted after negotiations at NEDLAC • Allow for special conditions of employment to facilitate greater employment on Public Works Programmes: • Employers may set rates of pay locally at self-targeting rates, to avoid attracting workers away from more permanent employment • Reduced obligations for employers, eg no UIF insurance payments • Task-based payment for labour-intensive works

6. These special conditions of employment are on condition that: • Workers have an entitlement to training • The duration of employment of a worker under these special conditions is limited

7. CURRENT SETA INVOLVEMENT • Infrastructure Sector • Construction SETA (CETA) • Local Government and Water SETA (LGW SETA) • Social Sector • Education and Training SETA (ETDP SETA) • Health and Welfare SETA (HW SETA) • Environment Sector • Tourism and Hospitality SETA (THETA) • Economic Sector • Services SETA(Services SETA) • Other • Public Services SETA (PSETA) • Banking SETA (BANKSETA)

8. TRAINING FOR WORKERS • DOL putting in place a generic short course for temporarily employed manual workers, focusing on life skills and labour-market information • As more needs are identified programme will be customised to meet local needs • Aim of short-course is to provide workers with information about other opportunities, after the EPWP project, such as internships, learnerships, and further education and training. • Temporary employment on EPWP projects could be a stepping-stone to other longer-term opportunities • Generic short course could also include assessment elements, EPWP projects could be used as a mechanism to select workers for other opportunities

9. Infrastructure Sector CETA LGWSETA

10. TRAINING FOR IMPLEMENTATION • The need has been identified to build capacity to implement large numbers of labour intensive projects • Together with the CETA a strategy for building this capacity is being implemented. • NQF level 2, 4, 5 and 7 unit standards have been registered with the SAQA and CETA targeting: • Foremen • Site supervisors • Contractors/ Consultants/ Officials • Engineers/ Consultants • In addition these are being integrated with existing learnerships and skills programmes

11. TRAINING FOR IMPLEMENTATION • CETA funded training for 58 trainers at NQF level 4 and 30 at NQF level 2 so far. • Capacity of municipal officials on implementing labour intensive works projects necessary to implement EPWP • CETA and the LGWSETA agreed to implement training • Municipalities pay their SD levies to the LGW SETA and need to include training of officials in workplace skills plan • LGW SETA has allocated R13 million to training officials and a comprehensive implementation plan has been prepared to train at least 1200 officials over 2004/05 and 05/06

12. LABOUR INTENSIVE CONTRACTOR LEARNERSHIP PROGRAMME • DPW and CETA designed learnership programme • Is a support mechanism to provinces and municipalities: participation is optional • Participation based on province/municipality signing an MOU with DPW and the CETA • Modelled on Limpopo’s Gundo Lashu programme (expansion of best practice)

13. Objectives and Outcomes • Increase capacity in the labour intensive construction sector to support EPWP • Start immediate delivery on the EPWP by the province or municipality • Contractors to emerge with: • Recognised SAQA Qualification • Eligibility to execute EPWP projects • Project Track Record • Financial Track Record • Relationship with a bank

14. Target Groups “These learnerships DO NOT specifically target the unemployed or unskilled. These people are targeted as labour in the EPWP. This learnership programme targets those people, within the affirmative action framework described above, that will have the best chances of succeeding as a small contractor. The following characteristics of applicants will therefore count in their favour in the selection process: • Experience in the construction or contracting sector • Experience in owning/ running or managing a business • Higher qualifications than the minimum specified • Access or ownership of capital or assets that would be useful for the contracting company.”

15. How it works: • Broad interpretation of employer – learner relationship • Open advert for companies (a contractor and two supervisors) to apply go onto the programme • Selection according to pre-determined criteria • Selected learners go on 2 – 3 year full-time learnership, consisting of series of classroom training and practical training projects • Contractors must exit after maximum 3 years, compete on open market • Typically, each contractor will employ 100 – 200 people

16. CETA has agreed to fund learnerships for 750 individuals for the EPWP Labour Intensive contractor learnership programme • Each Contractor Learnership will have three persons trained in the programme: one contractor and two site supervisors • DPW will provide a mentor over the two-year period to the learner contractor • Municipality or province will allocate three training projects to the learner contractors • DPW will also provide programme management support as required

17. Selection process • Advertisement • Briefing sessions • Pre-screening of applicants • Written Assessments • Financial screening • Interviews • Final selection

18. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IDT CETA DPW DOL Mentors for training providers Trainers of trainers Programme Management support Community Facilitation Support Training providers for learnerships Province / municipality Mentors for learners Training projects Training providers for workers Access to credit Learner contractor 2 learner supervisors ABSA Unemployed EPWP beneficiaries

19. Typical Contracts to be provided by Province or Municipality • Civil Contract (e.g Road or Stormwater) contract • Duration 4 to 6 months • Value R0.5 to R3 million • Awarded on a negotiated price basis. Permission received from the State Tender Board • Contractor will be awarded three projects over the learnership period.

20. Programme for Learnerships Year 1 Year 2 Training Project 1 Training Project 2 Training Project 3 Mentorship Programme Management Support (DPW + CETA)

21. Financial Services for Contractors • Briefing session held with the four major banks • ABSA Bank has been appointed to provide financial services to Contractors • Has agreed to reduce criteria for learner contractors to qualify for finance Cheque Account • Asset Finance (Vehicle/ Light Equipment) • Overdraft/ Working Capital • Training on financial management • Learner contractor not required to use ABSA During learnership, Mentor is co-signatory on the account ABSA prescreens learner applicants

22. Progress to date (since April 2004): • DPW focusing efforts on enthusiastic provinces and municipalities • 25 provincial and municipal bodies have applied for over 1000 of these learnerships • 13 of these bodies have signed agreements with DPW and CETA (for 663 learnerships) to start implementing, and some are completing their selection of learners • Learners in Ethekwini have started their first projects • Learners in Mpumalanga, Nkangala, Coega and Klipfontein have started their training • Each signing of an MOU is an expansion of Gundo Lashu

23. Social Sector HW SETA ETDP SETA

24. Home Based Care • The HWSETA part of the National Social Sector Steering Committee which meets once a month • A Joint Implementation Plan (JIP) between the HWSETA and SAQA was undertaken in July 2004. • Phase one development of and registration of qualifications and the associated standards relevant to EPWP. Challenges • capacity constraints within the HWSETA • funds to pay for these learnerships.

25. Early Childhood Development • Department of Education in contact with the ETDP SETA with regard to ECD integrated plan. • Required qualification for ECD practitioners at level 4 and 5 have been completed • Grade R teachers are currently been trained. • Skills training programme at level 2 and 3 has been identified as a need • The SETA has also been working with the Department of Education to build capacity of service providers in ECD.

26. Economic Sector Services SETA

27. New Venture Creation • The Services SETA is working on establishing an NQF level 2 New Venture Creation Learnership for the Economic Sector of the EPWP. • Learnership will be designed to support individuals who have some technical capacity to establish a business around these skills. • For instance someone who has sewing skills could establish an actual sewing business that supplies uniforms to a municipality or province.

28. Overall Comments • EPWP has received good cooperation from most of the SETAs. It should be noted however that the EPWP is new and that most SETAs had not planned to be involved in the EPWP and as such had not budgeted for it. But as awareness has increased the SETA’s are becoming more interested in participating on the EPWP Programmes. • Additional SETA’s will be approached as soon as there is a need identified for skills development in any of the sectors.