Free training are actually not free
- Holly S
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 2
Free training are actually not free but are free at the point of delivery because someone else has already paid for the training to be delivered.
Free training often have eligibility criteria, set by the organisations providing the funding for the training.
No training is actually free. Someone always pays for the training, to make it free to the learner at the point of delivery.
Who pays for the free training?
This could be the employer, the tax-payer, or the training provider.
Payment by the employer
The employer chooses which courses, qualifications, or other learning programmes they want to be delivered to their staff members. Often the employer provides this to their permanent staff, not agency staff or bank workers.
The employer/manager chooses which staff members will attend the training. Sometimes, the manager only chooses their favourite staff to gain recognised qualifications, excluding specific people, year on year, for various reasons, including revenge. It happens, no one admits it but it does.
Those chosen staff members are not charged by the training provider because the employer has already paid. Therefore, the attendees see it as free training, but it is only free to the attendees because the employer has already paid the training provider.
When the employer pays for the training, the completion certificates are sent directly to the employer, not to the employee. The employer updates their staff records, and add the certificate to the employee's staff file that is kept by HR (Human Resources). In many cases, the employee never actually see the certificate of completion or get a copy of it.
When the employer pays for recognised qualifications, after completion the employee is often required to continue working for the employer (bonded) for an additional number of years, which may be between three to five years. There is a legal agreement that the employee signs, and it is all above board. Often the employer retains the original qualification certificate until the agreed bonded years have been served.
If the employee breaches this bonded agreement and leaves the employer before the agreed period, the employee will pay back the money the employer spent on them, often at the maximum funding rate, for example, £2882 for Level 3 Diploma in Adult Care (RQF)..
For this reason, some savvy care workers may prefer to pay for their own formal qualifications, especially if they intend to find another job with another employer as soon as they have completed the qualification, and they want to retain control of all their own certificates of completion of both qualifications and short courses.
Payment by the tax payer, distributed by government bodies
The so-called fully funded training are actually paid for by the tax-payer. The government disburses the funding via government programmes such as AEB (Adult Education Budget) in England, etc.
The funding has eligibility criteria, and if the prospective learner meets the criteria, the training provider "draws down" the funding and receives the payment before training starts. The learner is not charged anything, and to the learner it is free at the point of delivery, because the tax payer has already paid.
Payment by the training provider
It costs money to develop and deliver a course, including the following:
the fees paid to the qualified professional who writes the courses content,
the fees paid to the quality assurance officer,
the cost of equipment and software used to publish the course,
the fee paid to the administrator who manages the systems, and
the fee paid to the tutor who provides learner support.
All the above costs will recouped by the training provider through course fee charged to the individual learner for undertaking the course. The training provider may or may not have eligibility criteria for their free courses.
If the training provider decides to provide this course free to the learner, then the training provider is the one paying the fee for that learner. In this case, the learner will perceive the course as free, but it was only free at the point of delivery because the training provider had already paid for the learner before learning delivery started.
Eligibility criteria means some people are excluded from the free training.
Not everyone will meet the eligibility criteria for the free training, whatever those criteria are. This inevitably means that those persons that do not meet the eligibility criteria are excluded.
Such ineligible persons have two main choices, either pay for the same training elsewhere that does not have eligibility criteria, or not undertake the required training and "wing it" when performing any tasks.
In the care sector, many care workers have to undertake complicated and specialised tasks, often without supervision (regardless of what it says on paper), and a care worker that is aware of their duty of care will often opt to pay for their own training rather than "wing it" and risk harming the client due to errors, mistakes, omissions, or commissions stemming from lack of training. Our paid courses and qualifications support such care workers to access and receive the high quality training they need.
Prospective learners outside the UK
The UK has a well-developed learning programmes for competence-based and work-based learning for adult social care. Academic programmes often do not meet the needs of hands-on frontline care, in the way that competence-based programmes in the UK. For this reason, a lot of care workers in other countries look for learning programmes in the UK, especially those delivered by regulated and approved training providers. Our paid courses support such non-UK care workers to access and receive the high quality training they need.
Paying for your own formal qualifications or courses
We provide people with an alternative to the "free" training with all its issues.
Our courses and qualifications provide people with the freedom and flexibility to study and gain the knowledge and skills they need, regardless of their personal circumstances, their popularity, or their pattern of work, whether full time, part time, agency, contract worker, bank staff, permanent staff, or freelance.
For employers paying for their staff
If you employ staff who are not eligible for "free" funded training, such as overseas staff or those with degrees, then the paid option will help you get your staff qualified, without breaking the bank.
To find the training you need, click the links below and browse
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