SPONSA management tool

We recommend that the construction industry and clients who procure construction set accurate targets and milestones for projects. In a competitive market, valuable data that could help improve the quality and efficiency of construction is rarely shared. That lack of information can lead to inefficiency – which costs time and money and can make the difference between a project’s success and failure.

At ConstructionSkills our job is to build and share skills intelligence; making sure our customers and industry stakeholders benefit from each other’s experience to deliver positive and profitable outcomes.

SPONSA can help make this happen.

What is SPONSA?

“SPONSA” is short for Skills Plans and Outcomes of the National Skills Academy and is a management tool that monitors and records construction performance. It enables you to demonstrate how your project can meet the employment and skills needs of your local community and wider workforce. It provides a bespoke way of recording, monitoring and managing success through a series of defined Key Performance Indicators relating to employment and skills.

Why use SPONSA?

SPONSA is the endorsed management information system of the National Skills Academy for Construction , offers the definitive guide to an employer led approach to training on construction projects and is proven to deliver results.

Who should use SPONSA?

Contractors – via the Project Skills Co-ordinators placed on all Skills Academy Projects and clients who are purchasing construction. This includes local authorities and public sector organisations who procure construction and need to demonstrate community benefits such as generating employment and skills locally.

How does it work?

SPONSA is a user friendly computer based performance management tool. It can be customised to produce a bespoke programme management system for consistent KPI monitoring.

Benefits for clients and suppliers

• Accurate bespoke KPI and target setting – by benchmarking against results of other National Skills Academy for Construction projects
• Continuous real-time project monitoring from start to finish
• Defines the employment and skills related community benefits achievable from construction projects
• SPONSA captures activity across the supply chain to enable consistency of performance
• Options allow modification and customisation for different client and contractor needs
• Open, intuitive reporting that’s easy to access.

Assurance

The system is informed by employers to ensure that Employment and Skills target outcomes enhance productivity. It is the standard of the National Skills Academy for Construction Industry and provides performance management statistics for internal board and management assurance. The tool has been developed by ConstructionSkills the UK’s not-for-profit Sector Skills Council for construction.

What SPONSA users say

More than 70 construction projects of all sizes from across the UK have already benefited from SPONSA assurance and direction.

"The introduction of SPONSA has resulted in a much more efficient and secure way for me to input our training achievements. SPONSA has dramatically reduced the amount of paper based documents required for recording data. As my project has multiple sites, I have been able to access SPONSA from anywhere as required which has helped in the recording of achievements. The reports that can be generated have been very useful in demonstrating outcomes and a vast improvement on the previous employment and skills plans in terms of displaying results.”

Shazad Ahmed, Wolverhampton Homes

“Initially I used SPONSA for recording project outcomes but as I grew more familiar with the system I found it a really useful tool. I use it not only to monitor the Library of Birmingham’s progress against its targets but also to identify areas of focus. We also use the reports to evidence some of our Corporate Social Responsibilities on site. “I found the training excellent. SPONSA is straight forward to use and support was never far away, available through either the Local Performance Co-ordinator or the SPONSA team.”

Sinead Mackenzie, Carillion Construction UK Example projects

SPONSA has aided success on a range of construction projects – housing to schools to PFI hospitals to much of the development for the 2012 Olympics. SPONSA has been utilised in a range of markets including:

• Housing – new build
• Housing – refurbishment repair and maintenance
• Infrastructure and highways
• Schools
• Commercial – office and retail
• Non-housing refurbishment repair and maintenance