Reform and Consultation on Apprenticeship Schemes

 

The Government, at present, is consulting on funding reforms proposed by the entrepreneur Doug Richard, which will run until the 1^st October. These reforms will give employers freedom to choose the training that is most relevant to the needs of the apprentices and their businesses, and which represents best value. The Richard Review of Apprenticeships, published last year, looked at how apprenticeships in England can meet the needs of the changing economy. Three options are being presented, but alternative models will also be welcome. The three proposals are:

• Direct Payment Model: businesses register apprentices and report claims for Government funding through a new online system. Government funding is then paid directly into their bank account.
• PAYE Payment Model: businesses register apprentices through a new online system and they then recover Government funding through their PAYE return.
• Provider Payment Model: Government funding continues to be paid to training providers, but they can only draw it down when they have received the employer’s financial contribution towards training.

As well as consulting on long-term measures to reform apprenticeships the Government is also taking actions in the shorter term to make it easier for companies to take on an apprentice. Companies with 1,000 employees or fewer can take advantage of a £1,500 Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE) for another year, helping small and medium sized business to take on an additional 35,000 young apprentices.

Here at Fashion Enter (sister company of FashionCapital) we have spent over four years working on the apprenticeship programme. Jenny Holloway the CEO put herself through the A1 assessor’s course and then the IQA course. In total this took three years to achieve the qualifications and also to achieve the Tick Award for Excellence from Creative Skillset.

Jenny Holloway commented: “When we first started to deliver the apprenticeships it felt as though it was a minefield of form filling bureaucracy. However, there is that light bulb moment when all the forms do make sense and you fundamentally ‘get it’. We deliver on ABC Awards and the paperwork and process is right. The apprenticeship scheme could be so easily open to manipulation by a third party and standards could be lowered.

Employers we work with such as New Look, ASOS and River Island are all very engaged in the delivery content of the apprenticeships and this is exactly how it should be. However, I don’t see how busy retailers have the neither time nor resources to deliver apprenticeships themselves? We created a whole new division in the company dedicated to apprenticeships and this is how it should be.”

The consultation period for employers closes beg October – let’s hope that the consultation includes on the ground training providers too.

FashionCapital will be following this Government review closely and will report on the outcome of this consultation later in the year.