South Cumbria Skills Exchange: the systems behind a Millom training CIC
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Client · Community interest company, Millom
Funded training only works when every hour is on record
South Cumbria Skills Exchange is a community interest company that has spent more than ten years helping people across South Cumbria learn, gain qualifications and build confidence. Its learners range from children and teenagers to adults returning to education, and it also works with schools and employers.
Much of that teaching is grant funded, so attendance, hours and learner details have to be recorded accurately and be ready for inspection. Before we got involved, that record-keeping sat in spreadsheets and paper registers. Our job was to replace it with one secure system, and then keep it, and the rest of the CIC's web presence, running.
A learner management system
Learner records, courses, sessions, attendance, grant hours, assignments and invoices in one place, used by staff, tutors, learners and guardians.
Their own server, run by us
The system and the CIC's public website sit on a server the CIC owns. We handle the updates, security patches and monitoring.
Accessibility kept in check
The public website, including its online application form, is checked against WCAG 2.2 AA with our own Site Check tool, and issues are fixed as they appear.
Who they serve
Learners of every age across South Cumbria
The CIC's work falls into three strands. The learner management system had to cope with all of them, from a short first aid course to a learner who attends for months on a funded programme.
Learn
Functional Skills in English and maths, plus first aid courses open to all ages.
Grow
Support for home-educated and neurodiverse learners, including work experience and volunteering.
Take part
Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) sessions offering free activities and healthy meals to eligible children.
The core build
One system for staff, tutors, learners and guardians
We built the learner management system as a custom WordPress plugin with a PHP REST API and four separate React dashboards: one each for administrators, tutors, learners and the guardians of younger learners. Each person sees only what their role allows, and guardians only see the learners linked to them.
Tutors take attendance on a tablet and the funded hours are deducted automatically, so the office can see when a learner is close to the end of a grant. Individualised Learner Record (ILR) fields, assignment marking, PDF invoices and GDPR requests are handled in the same place, and every change to the data is written to an audit log. The full technical story, including the timeline and costs, is in our Learner Management System case study.
Joining up
Applications that arrive ready to process
New learners apply online through a step-by-step application form that collects their details, an emergency contact and any additional information the CIC needs. Instead of being retyped from an email, each application waits in the system's own applications queue for staff to review.
Because the same records feed attendance, grants and reporting, a learner's details are entered once and stay consistent from application to completion.
Ownership and support
Their code, their server, our care
The CIC owns the code, the database and the server outright. There is no subscription and nothing to stop it taking the system elsewhere. In practice, Technophobia runs that server day to day as if it were our own: the learner management system, the CIC's public website and its document-signing service all run on it, and we apply updates and security patches, upgrade the page builder and watch for problems.
The public website is also covered by our accessibility work, the same approach we use for the Cumbrian parish and town council websites we look after.
Built quickly, built properly
From first prompt to daily use in 23 days
The first working version went into production 23 calendar days after planning began. We built it with AI-assisted development, but with the discipline of a senior engineering team: a written project file, small numbered milestones and a journal entry for each one, so every change can be traced.
Since launch the system has kept growing with features that came out of real use. If you run a training provider, charity or community organisation and your records live in spreadsheets, see how we approach custom business systems.
23
Days to production
4
Role-based dashboards
31
REST API controllers
19
Custom database tables
More case studies
Other community projects near Millom
How we'd build yours
How a system like this comes together
Discovery. We sit down with you and map how your organisation works today: who records what, which funders need which evidence, and where the paperwork slows you down.
Specification and fixed price. You get a written specification broken into milestones and a fixed price before any building starts.
Build, launch and look after. You see progress as it happens, the system goes live on hosting you own, and we can run and support it afterwards, as we do for South Cumbria Skills Exchange.
Common questions
South Cumbria Skills Exchange: plain answers
FAQs
Run a training provider, charity or CIC in Cumbria and still keeping records in spreadsheets? Talk to Technophobia Ltd in Millom on 01229 774591 or at hello@technophobia.uk.