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I reckon there's going to be a relative level of sensibleness about this, he says, crossing his fingers...
Simon Ashworth thinks similar:
https://www.aelp.org.uk/news/news/blog-posts/apprenticeship-funding-rules-202223-version-one/
(I think that's an "open to all" blogpost?) and, also, that they're still looking at it...
As the purpose of a BIL (and this rule) is to suspend funding when the Apprentice is not in learning for over 4 weeks the funding implications are the same as for a general BIL and I see no issues with this but remember for this new rule it includes maths/English as well as OTJ delivery.
As Steve said, I suspect they'll be reasonable about this, but we've just told our Apps team that they need to make sure they have OTJ logged (or English/maths attendance) every four weeks, and we'll be reporting on it. For us, it would be rare that a student went 4 weeks with no OTJ. If that's happening, we've either done a whole lot of front loaded OTJ, or we're getting really far behind. The exception being term time only.
Like you've said, the admin involved in setting up a BIL then a restart, is significant, so we'll just make sure we avoid doing it as much as possible. It could seriously impact durations and achievement too. Some employers won't be able to guarantee extended contracts to cover the extra time required. Make sure you've got achievable plans every 4 weeks, even if it's just one hour of planned coaching or shadowing.
Steve Bowler
Appr Active Learning (P35.2)
Created
Morning,
In relation to the recently released Apprenticeship Funding Rules for 22/23, I have a query/concern about one of them so would like to see other peoples opinion.
In relation to P35.2, this says that a break in learning must be used if there has not been active learning in the last 4 weeks, this would have an administration/financial impact to process holds/restarts every month. It says that this is to “justify the monthly payment” however unless the last date of active learning was the last day of the month we wouldn’t receive the monthly payment. For example, somebody who last made progress on 29.04.22 but hadn’t made progress until 30.05.22 would not have made progress within 28 days and if they were put on a break from 29.04.22 the April OPP would not be received.
It means that a learner who made progress at the very start of the month, would also need to make progress again later in the same month? Just seems like it will be quite messy in the ILR to possibly have multiple holds/restarts and having to re-calculate things each time?
Am I overthinking this new rule or do others have concerns too? We do track learners progress/OTJ to ensure they aren't falling behind, but for various reasons (learner holiday/sickness etc.) there will be learners every month that would fall into this new rule...
Thanks
Steve