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Adult Social Care Workforce Dataset and Workforce Development Fund

Adult Social Care Workforce Dataset and Workforce Development Fund

What is the Adult Social Care- Workforce Dataset (ASC-WDS) and the Workforce Development Fund (WDF)?

 

The ASC-WDS is an online data collection service that covers the adult social care workforce in England. There are currently around 20,000 care providers using the ASC-WDS service. The data collected is vital to the Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, local authorities, and the Care Quality Commission as it allows them to plan, fund and monitor the sector. The service helps care providers run their business and manage their staff training needs. It can also provide access to the Workforce Development Fund (WDF), and this allows you to claim back money towards the costs of workers completing a broad range of adult social care qualifications, learning programmes from L2-L5 and digital learning modules.

What does an ASC-WDS account look like and what are the benefits? Watch this 5 minute video called Inside ASC-WDS to see!

 

What are the benefits?

The ASC-WDS can help you manage your team and makes sure your voice is heard by the government and other key sector decision makers.

ASC-WDS Benefits Bundle

New and existing users of the service now have access to special offers and discounts across products including:

  • Exclusive offers from endorsed training providers
  • 10% off values-based interviewing and valuable conversations bespoke seminars
  • 10% off eLearning modules from Skills for Care

Benchmarking - See benchmarks that show how your business is performing. Benchmark your workplace against others offering the same service in your local authority area. Access information about how your service is performing on workforce metrics. This feature is currently only available for regulated care.

Record your training and qualifications data - Search, record and manage mandatory training by job role and get alerted to make updates and fill gaps in your training. Training reports also help you to evidence that you’re fully up to date with your staff training during inspections.

Provide intelligence to decision makers such as Government, DHSC and local authorities - The workforce is central to the adult social care sector. It determines the quality of care experienced, the success of care providers and the funding needed. So it’s vital that we understand the workforce and the issues affecting it.
 

Get access to the Workforce Development Fund - Check and update your data so that it meets the Workforce Development Fund requirements. You can then claim funding towards training and qualifications for your staff.

Store and access key information about your staff - Create individual staff records that store personal details and other information, and access them all in one place.

 

How to access your account

Creating an ASC-WDS account, you will need to provide a few basic details to get started including:

  • Is your service CQC registered?
  • Add your workplace using your CQC location ID or postcode.
  • Name of workplace
  • What’s the main service you provide?
  • How many staff do you have?
  • Your name, job title, email address and phone number 

This takes around five minutes and once it is done, the support team will check the details you have provided in order to approve your account. 

Click here to create an account

Once your account has been approved you can start to add information about your workplace. To access the Workforce Development Fund you will just need to add this information every 12 months.

Workplace information: Do you provide any other services? If applicable, what service capacity do you have? Who are your service users? Do you have any current vacancies? How many staff have joined and left in the last 12 months?

Staff records: Personal details and demographic information, Employment details such as contracted hours, salary and sickness, Qualification details such as the highest level attained and whether the Care Certificate has been completed.

Keeping your data private, safe and anonymous

Skills for Care use the data within ASC-WDS to provide high-quality intelligence for decision makers such as Government, DHSC and local authorities. However it is important to understand that your data is kept private, secure and all figures anonymous. Your staff cannot be identified from the information you provide within the analysis.

Sharing data with your local authority, by adding your data to ASC-WDS, we can be more aware of business and workforce needs in the area, and can target training events, funding information, advice and guidance and workforce planning regionally, sub regionally and locally. Access to higher levels of valid and reliable workforce data will help us to ensure we have a more comprehensive picture of the local adult social care sector. Your data will remain anonymous unless you opt in to share specific information with Skills for Care. We would recommend that you opt in to share information.

 

What is the Workforce Development Fund?

The Workforce Development Fund allows you to claim back money towards the costs of workers completing a broad range of adult social care qualifications, learning programmes and digital learning modules. To apply for the WDF you will have to apply through the Care Market Development Team, our local partner for Staffordshire. 

The Workforce Development Fund (WDF) supports the provision of high quality care and the continuing professional development (CPD) of staff across the adult social care sector by providing a contribution towards the costs of learning, WDF allows you to claim back money towards a broad range of adult social care qualifications, learning programmes and digital learning modules.

To claim funding an organisation must provide an adult social care service and directly employ care staff within England.

What can be funded?

All learning is claimed on completion of a qualification, learning programme or digital module and evidenced by a copy of the learner's certificate. Funding is only available for the digital learning modules, learning programmes qualifications and apprenticeships specified. A maximum of £2,000 can be claimed per learner per funding year.

How to claim for WDF 

 More information can be found in the How to claim WDF guide

Example courses that can be funded by WDF

 Explore the full list of eligible courses here.

 

How to get support?

If you need help accessing your account or getting set up, Care Market Development Team's friendly support team are available to help. Call 01785 355795 or email wdf@staffordshire.gov.uk 

Did you know?

  • You can access a summary view of your staff’s training and qualifications
  • Quickly identify which staff have training that has expired or will soon expire
  • access each staff member’s training and qualifications record, add and edit data
  • update staff training.
  • You can claim back training certificates from 1st January 2022 to 31st March 2023
  • You will just need to check/edit your data and if you are compliant once a year to access the WDF

 

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