Most write-ups about the CTC grant stop at "form a Company Training Committee and get up to 70% funding." That sentence hides about eight stages of real work. From years of first-hand familiarity with how these projects run from the first conversation through to claims, here is what the sequence actually looks like.
Freemansland Consultancy is unionised, so I've sat on the inside of this process, not just read the guidelines. The grant runs through the labour movement (NTUC / e2i), which is exactly why there's no open online form to fill: it's a facilitated, relationship-based process.
1. The readiness conversation
Before anything formal, the question is whether there's a genuine transformation here — a real change to how work is done — and impacted staff who will be reskilled around it. CTC funds a worker-benefiting transformation across its four cost lines (equipment, software, consultancy, training). If there's no role redesign, there's no CTC project.
Watch out: If the only goal is to buy a tool, this is a PSG conversation, not a CTC one.
2. Forming the Company Training Committee
The committee is formed together with the union. It's the governance body for the project: management and worker representatives who own the transformation and its training plan. This is the step that has no self-serve portal — it happens through engagement with NTUC.
3. Scoping the transformation
You define what's changing operationally and which roles are affected. The strongest scopes are specific: this process moves from manual to AI-assisted, these three roles get redesigned upward, and here is the training that takes them there.
Watch out: Vague "digital transformation" scopes are weak. Name the roles and the before/after.
4. Building the worker-outcome basis
CTC is assessed on worker outcomes — wage progression, role redesign, new skills — not just the technology spend. The committee documents what better looks like for the people involved. This is the part competitors who haven't done it tend to miss entirely.
5. Mapping the four funded cost lines
A CTC project can fund equipment, software, consultancy, and the training itself — together, as one project, at up to 70%. The scoping has to allocate costs cleanly across these lines so nothing overlaps with a separate PSG or EDG claim.
Watch out: One cost, one grant. A line claimed under CTC cannot also be claimed under PSG.
6. Submission through the union pathway
The project goes in through the facilitated NTUC / e2i pathway, with the committee's documentation. The company is the applicant and submits through the official union pathway.
7. Kick-off and delivery
On approval, the transformation runs: the tools go live, the consultancy work happens, and the training reskills the affected staff. The committee tracks delivery against the worker outcomes it committed to.
8. Claims
Costs are claimed against the approved project with the supporting documentation. Because the cost lines were mapped cleanly at stage 5, claims are an administrative exercise rather than a scramble — which is the whole reward for doing the earlier stages properly.
What most people get wrong
- Treating CTC as just a tool or training subsidy. It funds the whole transformation — equipment, software, consultancy and training — at up to 70%; the tool is one cost line, not the point.
- Skipping the worker-outcome basis. It's the assessment lens — a project without it reads as a tech purchase.
- Expecting an online form. There isn't one. The pathway is facilitated through the union.
- Overlapping cost lines with a PSG or EDG claim on the same invoice.
The honest version
The government offers CTC through the labour movement to support worker-benefiting transformation — the company is always the applicant and submits through the official channel. The framing that makes a CTC project work is redesign, not replacement: the technology absorbs the repetitive load so the workforce is redesigned upward. Workforce 100% plus AI 100% is the stronger 200% the grant is built to fund.
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Sources:EnterpriseSG, IMDA, NTUC, Singapore Government open data. Factual content (grant rules, eligibility, vendor data, pricing) is sourced directly from official government portals and remains the copyright of those respective agencies. Analysis, commentary and editorial framing are the author's own. Always verify the latest on GoBusiness, EnterpriseSG, or SMEs Go Digital before applying.