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Simian Published on Government’s New High Quality Apprenticeship Training Providers List

27th April 2017

The government has published a new register of apprenticeship training providers ensuring that anybody undertaking an apprenticeship in future is doing so with a high quality, registered provider of apprenticeships.

We are delighted to announce that Simian’s application to the new register has been successful. This means Simian can work directly with those employers who pay the new apprenticeships levy, to support the delivery of scaffolding apprenticeships.

Apprenticeship Training Providers

The register of approved apprenticeship training providers

All the training providers on the new register have been through a rigorous assessment process to make sure they meet apprenticeship quality requirements. The new register is an important element of the government’s wider reforms to make apprenticeships more rigorous, independently assessed and more responsive to the needs of employers.

In future apprenticeships will be based on new standards designed by a group of employers making them more relevant and attractive to wider employers in each trade area. The reforms place employers firmly in the driving seat when it comes to defining the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for the new occupational standards. Groups of employers known as Trailblazers are working together to design new standards for apprenticeships, including scaffolding apprenticeships. A feature of the new standards will be the requirement at the end of the apprenticeship for an apprentice to demonstrate their competence by successfully completing a holistic and rigorous end-point assessment.

The reforms include the introduction of the apprenticeship levy from 6 April, which will require employers with a wage bill of over £3 million a year to pay 0.5% of their wage bill to invest in apprenticeships. Levy funds will be topped up by the government by 10%. Levy funds can only be spent on apprenticeships, but an apprentice can be either a new or an existing employee.

Employers who aren’t required to pay the levy can still avail of the new standards and apprenticeship training programmes will attract government funding support.

If you are a scaffolding company paying the apprenticeship levy and therefore considering taking on an apprentice, and want to find out more about the apprenticeship levy or the apprenticeship reforms in general, then we would be pleased to hear from you. You can also find out more about the reforms by clicking here to access Simian’s briefing for employers.

Look out for further updates on the new scaffolding apprenticeship standard from Simian in the near future.