The IAB Qualifications for business has launched two new qualifications designed to meet an urgent need to raise the personal finance skills of individuals and business enterprise skills of budding entrepreneurs.

In recent years the IAB has broadened out from its core roots as a professional body representing its members. It is now adding significantly to the education and training of young people and adults aspiring to, or already working in, the areas of book-keeping, accounting and payroll.
 
‘In considering the skills needs of those looking for a financial career, the IAB strongly supports the view that it is preferable for them to have first acquired their own, sound personal finance skills. These skills are of course important for all of us as we go through life’, said Malcolm Trotter, Chief Executive, IAB.

HM Treasury, the former DfES, the Financial Services Authority, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, have each identified the pressing need to raise the financial capability of both young people and adults.  In support of several Government led initiatives to address this need, the IAB has responded by developing the IAB Level 2 Diploma in Personal Finance.

'Qualifications in Personal Finance and Business Enterprise will give learners the opportunity to equip themselves with vital skills for the future and allow them to thrive in the competitive and demanding business environment of the 21st Century’, said Graham Ward, Qualifications and Assessment Leader, IAB.

‘The number of new business start-ups each year is not precisely known, nor is the proportion of such that survive their first two years of operation’, said Trotter. ‘However, there appears to be a widespread view across the enterprise community and professionals who serve small businesses, that the success rate remains stubbornly low’.

Primary reasons for failure frequently cited are poor financial understanding and skills of owners or weak business planning.  The IAB appreciates the importance of these business critical skills; not least because many of its members are either working in small businesses or they are themselves self-employed.

To meet this clear need for the bear essential financial management skills, some ten years ago the IAB launched an effective short qualification for owner-managers, now known as the IAB Level 3 Diploma in Small Business Financial Management. Now, to meet the need for sound business planning skills, and as part of the QCA’s important testing and trialling of the new Qualifications and Credit Framework for England, the IAB has devised the IAB Level 2 Certificate in Business Enterprise.

Tony Robinson OBE, Chair and Founder of SFEDI, which sets standards to improve the quality of training and support available to prospective and existing small business owners, said:  “Government must wise up to what entrepreneurs and small businesses really need. The IAB is a perfect example of an awarding body which has developed practical learning, with the bonus of a recognised qualification that will help prospective and existing small and home business owners to survive and thrive.

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