Help yourself – and your Service

ARTICLES

Using your ELC wisely while still in uniform won’t just boost your future prospects, it will benefit your Service too

As noted elsewhere in this publication, the main purpose of ELC is to encourage serving personnel to pursue higher-level learning that benefits both the learner and the Armed Forces. This is to comply with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) rules, which state that any money provided for your personal development has to be of immediate benefit to both the Armed Forces and the individual – if not, the MoD would be liable for tax! (Click here for more tax-related information.)

The best of both worlds is offered by those courses that will benefit your own career and promotion prospects in the Services – and ultimately help you find employment on leaving – as well as offering a benefit to the Service while you remain in uniform.

Some of the areas of education that your Service role might require, but that are also highly likely to prove useful once you leave the Forces, could include accountancy and management qualifications, or courses related to health and safety, and facilities or project management. Depending on your Service role, you could find yourself in a position to embark on a range of studies that will turn out to have a very useful crossover into the civilian workplace when the time comes for you to make the transition.

For example, thinking of IT training as an example, the Tech Partnership (a network of employers working to creating skills for the UK’s digital economy) has been involved in putting together a matrix of eligible higher-level vendor IT qualifications, which in these high-tech times will prove as useful to you on leaving as they are while you remain in Service. Similar work has taken place with Summit Skills with regard to building services engineering-related courses. A great many other areas are likely to serve you well in future, too – not forgetting the benefit to your Service branch now, of course!