Following from the success back in 2020 when £150k was saved on cyber training through the collaborative pooling of LGA funds for councils, the Northern WARP collaboration has collectively saved a further £124k across the North in 2022!
In early 2022, the Local Government Association (LGA) announced a £1 million cyber training offer to fund cyber security qualifications for council staff. Local authorities had to apply for funding, which was awarded based on need, to send one or two council staff to gain a certified qualification of their choice from a certain list. 22 local authorities across the NW, Y&H and the NE willingly pooled their awarded funds from the LGA to allow the Northern WARP to negotiate deeply discounted rates so that councils could send even more delegates to attend more training courses for the same amount of funding.
This Northern WARP collaboration, led by Yunus Mayat, Bradford Council (Y&H WARP), was able to make huge savings, by doubling the number of intended beneficiaries of the LGA funding. The training was delivered in two rounds. The first round (in December 2022) prioritised the training courses that the LGA had specifically awarded the funding for, to meet the funding obligations. In that first round, 35 course participants attended 6 different certified courses with exams included.
The second round (which will be delivered in the 2023-24 programme year) will send 34 delegates to gain certification over 10 various courses. The variety of courses that were funded include:
- – Certified Ethical Hacking Course
- – CISSP
- – CISM
- – BCS Certificate in Information
- – NIST
- – CompTIA Security+
- – Certified Data Protection Practitioner
- – Certified ISO 27001 Practitioner (QAISOP)
- – Lead Auditor ISO27001 (QAISO27KLA)
- – Management of Risk (M_o_R 4) Total Learning (QAMOR4-TL)
- – Certified Chief Info Security Officer
- – System Security Certified Practitioner
To find out more about joining your regional WARP, please contact iNetwork at info@i-network.org who can sign post you to your regional WARP co-ordinator.
“The benefits of working through the Northern WARP collaboration are clear. We gain from a wider pool of experience and knowledge and enjoy benefits of scale by working across three WARPs. The extra places we secured through pooling cyber training funding from the LGA is just one of the benefits we’ve seen from the collaboration”