EXPANDED PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMME

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

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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 Limpopos 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

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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.

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• 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

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• 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

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Selection process

• Advertisement
• Briefing sessions
• Pre-screening of applicants
• Written Assessments
• Financial screening
• Interviews
• Final selection

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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
Learner contractor 2 learner supervisors
Access to credit
ABSA
Unemployed EPWP beneficiaries
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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

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Social Sector

• HW SETA
• ETDP SETA

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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

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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.

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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 SETAs are becoming more interested in
  participating on the EPWP Programmes.
• Additional SETAs will be approached as soon as
  there is a need identified for skills development
  in any of the sectors.