CITB Short Course Grants

You can apply if you’re registered with CITB and meet their general Grants Scheme terms and conditions and the course criteria in this grant. Short course grants are available for all directly employed staff and all subcontractors.

Courses can be delivered in a number of ways and the industry-accepted methods of delivery are defined within the published course standard, including:

• classroom, where the course is the full duration as published in the standard
• e-learning, where the course is at least 50% of the published duration in the standard
• a blend of classroom and e-learning, where the course is at least 75% of the published duration in the standard

• Health & Safety Awareness (HSA)
• Site Management Safety (SMSTS)
• SMSTS Refresher (SMSTS-R)
• Site Supervisor Safety (SSSTS)
• SSSTS Refresher (SSSTS-R)
• Directors Role for H&S (DRHS)
• Site Environmental Awareness (SEATS)
• Site Management Environmental Training Scheme (SMETS)
• Temporary Works Supervisor (TWSTC)
• Temporary Works Coordinator (TWCTC)
• Temporary Works Awareness (TWGATC)
• Tunnelling Safety (TSTS)

CITB pay grants at three tiered rates. The tier is determined by the duration and content of the course:

• tier 1 is £60
• tier 2 is £140
• tier 3 is £240

CITB only pay for each individual, per course, unless a standard specifies a renewal or refresher is required. 

Renewals involve the repetition of a full course.

If the standard requires the training to be renewed after a specified time, you can apply for a full grant for it, provided that it’s completed within that time period.

You can only apply for grant once for renewal training within the required time period.

Refresher courses update knowledge and understanding in a shorter duration training course than the original, full training course. 

The grant available for refresher training is 50% of the Tier 1, 2 or 3 rates given for the original full-length course. 

We will only support refreshers once a full training standard has been developed and is in place.

There is a cap on how many applications you can make for short duration achievements in any one Grants Scheme year. This cap does not apply to plant test grant where a maximum number of tests per person, per year are paid (see above).

CITB work out this number from your 2020 or 2021 Levy Return, based on how many employees you have on the payroll and your subcontractor wage bill. 

They add:

• the number of employees on the payroll
• the number of Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) subcontractors who you make CIS tax deductions from (Net CIS subcontractors). (They calculate this figure by dividing your total Net CIS wage figure by £36,000 which is the average subcontractor wage based on earnings of £750 per week over 48 weeks.)

If your Net CIS wage figure is less than £3 million, they’ll use your total CIS (gross and net) wage figure instead, up to a maximum of £3 million.

They then take the sum of the two figures and multiply it by 5 to get the total cap figure for your entire workforce for the year.

Note: if your cap works out to be less than 35 achievements in a grant year, it will be adjusted up to 35.