WP Helps WA Government Respond to COVID-19

When the Western Australian Government responded to the COVID-19 crisis and set about establishing the  new Apprenticeship and Traineeship Re-engagement Incentive to support WA businesses, and employers of apprentices and trainees, it knew it needed to implement and administer this scheme quickly and effectively.

Under this scheme eligible WA employers receive a one-off payment of $6,000 for an apprentice, and $3,000 for a trainee. For details on the Apprenticeship and Traineeship Re-engagement Scheme click here (external site).

As the Re-engagement Incentive is focussed on assisting organisations to employ an apprentice or trainee which will help WA build a pipeline of skilled employees as it moves into the economic recovery phase post COVID-19, the current WA Apprenticeship Management System was the logical foundation point for the administration of the scheme.

In just 8 weeks from the announcement of the policy, WP worked with representatives from the WA Department of Training and Workforce Development to define, design, build, test and deploy a fully integrated extension to WAAMS that provided end to end capabilities to allow employers to assess and apply for the scheme and the Department to administer the scheme, assess, approve and authorise applications (including automated submission, validation and assessment rules) and distribute funds electronically via an integration to their finance system.

The WP DevOps model enabled the team to define, build, test and deploy almost 200 user stories / functions into an existing application seamlessly and without disruption, whilst the WP engagement model enabled the business to articulate and confirm their requirements in an extremely intensive fashion without sacrificing quality or rigour.  All of this within 8 weeks!