Very few companies consider skills development as an area that can generate BEE points within a very short period of time

And
so begins my posting of useful information. 
I am unfortunately not an expert on Skills Development but I know a lot
of people who are.  Also I am not an expert on inserting tables into the blog and I can't seem to get Word to upload the posts.  I'll have to figure this out – hence the scrunched up tables.  And BEE is all about tables.

A
BEE score is based on the measurement of a set of elements actually initiated
over a year.  Whilst the codes aren’t
specific about what that period should be, most companies are measured over a
financial year.  With the current March
to February financial year rapidly coming to an end most companies should have
the necessary BEE processes in place to achieve a better BEE score than the
previous year.  Our experience has shown
that this often isn’t the case – there is always a mad scramble to do something
to attract points in the last few months of the financial year. 

Most
companies will have regarded it too late to do much more than make desperate
enterprise development or socio-economic development donations and attract
those 20 points, hoping that these will be enough to favourably stack up
against their competitors.  There is
another way to earn at least a further six points under skills development in a
very short period of time.

The
skills development is concerned with two measurements

1             
Spend on skills development

a.   
3% of payroll under the
generic scorecard spent on the training of black people with a strong emphasis
on black women

b.   
0.3% of payroll spent on
black disabled people

2             
Learnerships

5% of staff should be black people on
learnerships.

Learnerships
amount to 6 points on the BEE scorecard. 
To comply with the learnership requirement 5% of all staff should be
black people registered on learnerships. 
This measurement is based on the number of people registered on
learnership during the measurement period. 
It makes little difference to this score whether the learnerships exist
at the beginning of the period or on the last day.

The
added bonus with learnerships is that the salaries paid to the learner whilst
they are on the learnership are considered skills development spend.  This would then make a sizable dent in the
skills development spend target of 3% of payroll.  From a points’ perspective it would be
beneficial to register a learnership as early as possible within the
measurement period.  Nevertheless even if
the learner begins late in the measurement period you can claim their salaries
as skills development spend for the balance on the year which will generate a
few points.  And this same learner will
earn you points in the next measurement period. 
Adding black disabled learners to this programme can attract a further
three points.

The
table below summarises the requirements for skills development, the potential
points’ value for each requirement and offers a few tips for attracting those
points.  Don’t forget the four primary
requirements that need to be adhered to before any points can be had under
Skills Development

• 
  compliance both with the
  Skills Development and Skills Development Levies Acts.
• registered with the
  applicable SETA
• developed
  a Workplace Skills Plan (WSP)
• 
  have implemented programmes
  targeted at developing priority skills 
  generally, and specifically for black people. (this is derived from the
  Workplace Skills Plan)

 I have italicised the word developed above because it doesn't mean that the plan has to be submitted.  The (interminably dodgy) veification manual states that the WSP has to have been submitted, which is not a requirement under the code.