2015 CETA MANDATORY GRANTS GUIDELINES TO CONSTRUCTION SECTOR ENTITIES

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1 2015 CETA MANDATORY GRANTS GUIDELINES TO CONSTRUCTION SECTOR ENTITIES The 2015 mandatory grant applications from construction sector employers/enterprises must contain the following templates as per SETA Grants Regulations published in Government Gazette No , 03 December 2012: A Training Plan (Workplace Skills Plan- WSP) for the 2015 SETA financial year. The section entitled Planned 2015 will serve as preliminary application for Discretionary/PIVOTAL Grants. A Training Report (Annual Training Report ATR) for the 2014 SETA financial year PIVOTAL Report (PR) and PIVOTAL Training Plan (PTP) In the 2015 Mandatory Grants Cycle, the CETA has integrated the PIVOTAL Plan and Report into the WSP.ATR Compilation and Submission Cycle. There are Sections for PIVOTAL Training Report and PIVOTAL Plan on the CETA Online System. These sections are mandatory/compulsory for entities to complete. This will serve as a Preliminary PIVOTAL Grant Application to the CETA for the next financial year for levy paying entities employing 50 or more employees. The CETA Funding Windows and Grant Tariffs are attached to this Guideline as ANNEXURE A. These funding windows will assist employers to compile their preliminary PIVOTAL Grant Applications as per the CETA Learning Pathways. Please note that this is not an application for discretionary grants to the CETA but a means to improve the accurate of planned training data provided by entities for better skills planning in the construction sector. The data would assist the CETA to anticipate which skills or occupations are critical or would be needed in the sector in the New Year of the discretionary grants application window. The CETA would however consider this data provided by entities during its discretionary grants application window as approved by the Accounting Authority. The normal CETA discretionary grants application and approval process would still apply. The CETA will source from construction sector employers data of employees in the construction sector in the compilation of the WSP. The relevant fields to obtain bio data of employees in the construction sector has been made available on the CETA Online system. Employers must provide this data to improve the quality of labour market information collected by the CETA from the construction sector. This data will be used by the CETA for credible mechanism for skills planning purposes only. The Construction Sector Employer or enterprise submitting the Mandatory Grant Application must meet the WSP compilation quality criteria as prescribed by the CETA in line with the SETA Grants Regulations and as per CETA-Deloitte s Training Manual. The CETA will evaluate all the Mandatory Grants applications received from entities and provide its assessment of the approval or nonapproval of the application with reasons. In the event that a query is raised regarding the mandatory grants application, reasons would be provided under description section of the query letter sent to the entity via auto-mail.

2 All the entities whose applications are approved by the CETA, shall receive their BBBEE Compliance Certificate timeously from the CETA upon request. Secondly, it is important that employers or enterprises in the construction sector ensures that BBBEE related training complies with the Learning Programme Matrix as prescribed as PIVOTAL under the revised Codes of Good Practice as published by the Department of Trade and Industry. CETA Mandatory Grants Disbursement Schedule If the CETA has received the correct levy download from SARS/DHET and the Mandatory Grant (Workplace Skills Plan/Annual Training Report) application is approved, the CETA will pay a mandatory grant of 20% to the employer/enterprise on a quarterly basis. The illustrative Mandatory Grants Disbursement Schedule of the CETA is as follows: Quarter 1 30 September Quarter 2 30 December Quarter 3 30 March Quarter 4 30 June It is the prerogative of the employer or enterprise or its Skills Development Facilitator to ensure that all the queries related to the submission of their WSPs or mandatory grants applications are resolved. The CETA shall not be responsible for the resolving of the Entities queries. The entities shall have until the 30 th June 2015 to resolve all outstanding queries online only for all those that have been submitted and evaluated as such. If no queries are resolved within the prescribed timeline, such an application shall be disapproved by the CETA and the mandatory grant shall be forfeited by the entity. PRELIMINARY DISCRETIONARY GRANTS/PIVOTAL GRANTS APPLICATIONS 2015 CETA Discretionary Grants (PIVOTAL) Applications: The ATR and WSP are key mechanisms for establishing credible skills planning in the construction sector and assist the CETA to identify scarce and critical skills development interventions and allocate the PIVOTAL/DISCRETIONARY grant funding. The CETA 2015 Discretionary Grant (PIVOTAL) Applications are integrated into the Mandatory Grant application and submission process. The CETA will consider the planned training during the 2015 Discretionary Grants allocation process and PIVOTAL Planned report shall be made available on the WSP System for download as a report. The ATR allows employers to monitor the achievement of planned skills development training interventions in the previous year, if there is a variation of more than 40% between the planned and

3 actual training, the SDF must provide an explanation for such a deviation and non-completion of the planned training. This section is mandatory and compulsory in the WSP template. CONFIDENTIALITY OF THE BIODATA The Employers/Enterprises in the construction sector are assured that the information received will be treated with confidentiality and shall be used for the purposes of skills planning within the construction sector to improve credible skills planning. MANDATORY GRANTS SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS 1. The Mandatory Grant Application (WSP) must be submitted to the CETA by no later than the 30 April The Department of Higher Education and Training has published a New SETA Grant Regulations and has changed the Mandatory Grant submission deadline from 30 June to 30 April of each year. The previous date of 30 June is no longer applicable and has been changed. 2. In terms of the CETA Grants policy and Grants Regulations, late submission and request for extensions must be approved by the CETA Accounting Authority. The exemptions will apply to only those conditions as outlined in the CETA 2015 Grants Policy. By 30 April the employer must have submitted the completed Mandatory Grant application with the uploaded signed Authorisaton page on the CETA online management system. 3. If the employer/enterprise does not claim their mandatory grants by 30 April 2015 (by submitting their application to the CETA and ensure it meets the criteria for approval), the CETA shall apply a penalty as per SETA Grants Regulations. Such an employer or enterprise shall forfeit their mandatory grants in full which shall be transferred to Discretionary Grants. 4. The CETA shall transfer such unclaimed mandatory grants to PIVOTAL/discretionary grants fund/reserve by 15 August of each year. 5. The PIVOTAL Training Plan and PIVOTAL Report are compulsory. 6. Original signed hard copy of the WSP must be kept by the company for audit purposes and shall be made available upon request from the CETA. PAYMENT OF MANDATORY GRANT TO AN EMPLOYER/ENTERPRISE: The CETA shall pay the mandatory grants to an employer/enterprise meeting the requirements for a legal entity to receive the grants as stipulated under the SETA Grants Regulations. The criteria are as per grants regulations and CETA grants policy.

4 BBBEE REVISED CODES OF GOOD PRACTICE LEARNING PROGRAMME MATRIX 1. The Department of Trade and Industry has published a Gazette No. on the 11 October 2013 regarding the revised Codes of Good Practice. There are two key requirements for the measured entities related to skills development: The employer must submit the WSP to the CETA for approval. The CETA will only issue a BBBEE verification letter to the employer provided the WSP was approved by the CETA. Training undertaken must be as per Learning Programme Matrix. Important Note: The CETA shall not issue any Compliance Certificate confirming the submission of Mandatory Grant Applications to an entity or employer that has forfeited its 2015 mandatory grants or their mandatory grants was not approved by the CETA in the 2015 WSP cycle. SIGNATURES: The Authorisation page of the application must be signed by hand by the required company representative, SDF and Union Official for organisations employing 50 or more employees. CETA will accept the scanned document which is uploaded onto the CETA Online Management System. However, the employer must retain the original signature page of the WSP on file for audit purposes. It is the obligation of the employer/enterprise in the construction sector to compile and submit the WSP to the CETA by 30 April 2015 as required by Grants Regulations. It is the obligation of the employer/enterprise to print the Authorisation page, ensure all relevant signatories have signed and submit the signed page online to the CETA. INCOMPLETE WSP SUBMISSION AND RAISING OF QUERIES In instances where the Mandatory Grant application form is missing some information such as signatures, the employer or enterprise must still submit the WSP by the deadline of 30 April This is to ensure that the CETA receives the WSP for the employer/enterprise on time and the mandatory grant for such an employer is therefore secured and not forfeited by the employer. The CETA will however raise a formal query with the employer to resolve within 10 working days from the date of the submission. Common Queries: Annexure 2 - FAQs Please note: The CETA will only raise queries to WSP/ATRs submitted by the deadline. Any query raised after the Mandatory Grant submission deadline date will not be considered by the CETA. The Mandatory Grant Application must contain the WSP for 2015 (January 2015 to December 2015) and an Annual Training Report for 2014 (January 2014 to December 2014) calendar years.

5 CHANGES FROM 2014 WSP-MANDATORY GRANTS SUBMISSION CYCLE WHAT S NEW? GENERAL CHANGES: The WSP must be submitted to the CETA by 30 April 2015 WSP Template includes bio data template and has been updated with the 2015 CETA learning pathways. The 2015 Planned Training will serve as a preliminary application for 2015 PIVOTAL Grants. The employers must sign the Authorisation page, scan and submit by signed copy Online. The employer must however keep the original signature page on file for audit purposes. The SDF Registration Module will be available online for the SDFs to register for the submission of the WSP on behalf of the employer/enterprise. The SDF Registration module has a subscribe or unsubscribe functionality should the SDF change place of employment and would like to be removed from the WSP Online SDF registration database. WSP Reporting transitional periods: The reporting period has changed from Financial Year to Calendar/Academic Year All WSP extensions requests by construction entities for the submission of the 2015 WSP to the CETA must be submitted to the CETA CEO by 31 March 2015 for approval by the CETA Accounting Authority. SPECIFIC CHANGES Specific changes relate to the Deloitte WSP Template on the System. Please refer the CETA-Deloitte Training Manual. OTHER CHANGES OR IMPROVEMENTS: Employer Survey Grant Awareness 2015 CETA asks the employer about how you heard about the CETA MG application. Employer will have key few questions to evaluate the CETA 2015 WSP Submission Process: Has the process added value to the company s business? Was the system user friendly? Was the WSP process easy to follow?

6 Did you receive support from the CETA Head Office or Provincial Office as required? Did you find the guidelines useful and easy to understand? Would you require further training in the WSP process? Would you like to attend the workshop for the WSP? IMPACT ASSESSMENT Impact of staff training in 2014: ATR This section addresses the impact of training conducted in 2014 by the employer/enterprise: This allows the employer to rate the impact of the training interventions implemented. 1 Poor Impact 2 Good 3- Average 4- Fair 5 Very Large/Excellent Impact This section is compulsory. General Comments: Any general comments that the employer may have regarding the CETA 2015 WSP process. Authorisation of the WSP and consultation, sign off of the WSP Employer employing 50 employees or more, there must be evidence that the WSP was subject to consultation and sign off by all parties. Evidence such as Minutes of the Internal Employer Training Committee or SDC, attendance registers, original signed WSP signature page. This applies to entities employing 50 or more employees. Both the WSP and ATR must be signed off by the labour representative appointed by the recognised trade union. In the event that the employer has more than one trade union, the signatures of other union representatives must be obtained. The WSP submission must be authorised as true and correct. It is an offence in terms of Section33 of the Act to knowingly furnish any false information in the WSP application and the responsible person may be fined or imprisoned for one year if found guilty of knowingly furnishing such a false information.

7 The responsibility of the correctness of the WSP information rests with the employer. The CETA reserves the right to independently verify the information provided. Banking Details If banking details have not changed: The employers who have submitted banking details and supporting documentation in 2014 and such details have not changed, do not need to submit supporting documentation in The employer must verify this with the CETA based on their previous year s uploads onto the system and the Organisation Info tab. If banking details have changed: Employers whose banking details have changed or who have not submitted WSP to the CETA in 2014 must submit original stamped bank letter or cancelled cheque with the signed WSP. OFO Changes Refer the Qualifications Framework for OFO Changes. SIC Code: The Standard Industry Classification Codes are attached or included in the WSP Source data template as a look up. FINANCE SECTION This section is compulsory. Training Costs The employer is requested to indicate the training costs of the training undertaken. The training costs exclude VAT. SDF Guideline Each employer must designate an employee or any other designated person as an SDF Such an SDF must register on the CETA online WSP submission system The employer must submit to CETA the person who serve as an SDF for the WSP compilation and submission process If the SDF leaves the employer, the employer must appoint the new SDF and submit the name to CETA. The new SDF must register on the CETA system.

8 Change of SDF Template Complete the CETA Request for change of SDF template available from the CETA website. Change of SDF: Change of SDFs Log in and reregister the company. If new SDF, register as an SDF and register the company. Use last year s log in and password to reregister the company. T NUMBERS & IST PROCESS: 3 types of T numbers and usage: NLPEs SITES ISTs Free text is required to capture the current or existing L Number for the IST company. SUBSIDIARIES/SUB LEVY NUMBERS FOR MANDATORY GRANTS PAYMENT The above refers to Subsidiaries/sub levy numbers to be approved for the payment of the mandatory grants. The WSPs for the subsidiaries is consolidated by the employer into the Parent company WSP. The WSP is the consolidation of the sub levy WSPs. CETA approves the WSP submitted by the parent company but make provision for payment of mandatory grants to approved subsidiaries. The payment status on the WSP Online system must clearly stipulate that the subsidiary must be approved for payment of mandatory grants.