Becoming an employer provider – weighing up the pros and cons If you work in apprenticeships, you may already know that if you are an employer, there are two main ways of delivering apprenticeship programmes. One option is to go through a professional training provider, and the other is to become an employer provider yourself and deliver your own programme. However, what does this really mean and what does it involve? Whether you are an employer already using a training provi

We are all, in Apprenticeship Land, very familiar with the concept of End-point Assessment, or EPA. Originally devised by Matthew Hancock as part of his far-reaching apprenticeship reforms, the principle of EPA was intended to put some integrity into the overall value of apprenticeships. By separating the body that undertook the final decision regarding whether or not the apprentice had ‘passed’ their apprenticeship, from the organisation that had delivered the training, it w

I speak to many employers during the course of my work with the National Apprenticeship Show. Whether they are apprenticeship levy payers or SME’s not paying the levy, there is one overriding issue that comes up as a real barrier to employing more apprentices – the fixed requirement for the apprentice to spend 20% of their time, throughout the course of the apprenticeship, on training that is ‘off the job’ To be fair to the government, this requirement has always been a featu

Is it really the right time to be changing the apprenticeship funding bands? Four reasons why I think that now is not the right time So, the Department for Education (DfE) has decided to review the effectiveness of the current funding band structure. Apparently, they are concerned that the anticipated number of employers who are negotiating a price below the funding band upper limit has not materialised. Equally, the DfE want us to believe that many employers are telling them