UK slashes red tape in apprenticeships scheme

Companies such as BT, Phones4U and McDonalds could benefit from a new streamlined apprenticeship scheme which will let them get young workers into their offices with less paperwork. The cuts to the red tape that currently surrounds apprentice contracts, workplace certification and inspection should mean that employers spend …

[x-oterix]

Welcome to unemployment

Horray!! an army of cheap (slave) labour to come and take all of our jobs.

Tory scum....

[Anonymous Coward]

@Welcome to unemployment

Remind me again, under who's period of government did all these unemployed come from?

Oh, yes. The Labour partys. The party that did even worse than sod all for the working man.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: @Welcome to unemployment

I seem to remember unemployment was worse under the Tories in the 80s and early 90s...

[gribbler]

calm down, calm down

can't we just agree that all the political parties are shite and get back to the topic of apprenticeships?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody remember the YOP

Youth Opportunity Program.

Remind me again who introduced it and what was it for?

[Graham Marsden]

Re: Anybody remember the YOP

Ah, yes, part of the MSC which stood for "Massive Statistical Coverup", just like with "Back to Work" or "Restart" or any of the other government schemes whose main purpose was to keep people off the "out of work and claiming benefit" totals because they were on "training" instead...

Of course what really happened is that employers would take on a "trainee" for whatever the set period was, but at the end of that period, oops, sorry, no job available for you, however we'll take on another trainee who's paid for by the State.

At least with an Apprenticeship system there's a better chance of someone getting employment at the end of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was part of the YTS scheme (re-named YOP or was it the other way around?)

and whilst it may have been a statistics cover-up it put me on the path into IT ( I didn't really know what I wanted to do at 17) and I've never looked back. In fact most of the people who were on that IT course are still very much gainfully employed in IT.

Like a lot of others it is easy to sneer at these types of schemes but if you have the right attitude and have anything above a reasonable level of intelligence you can go far.

[Graham Marsden]

@AC

I'm glad to hear that you got something out of the YTS/ YOP/ Whatever it may be called, but the fact remains that most people on such schemes are just used as a source of cheap, government funded labour doing monkey work with no chance of a job at the end.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Horray!! an army of cheap (slave) labour to come and take all of our jobs."

Or:

Hooray a load of training schemes to break the vicious circle of "no job -> no experience -> no job" that afflicts young people in this country. That's young people who have been educated (woefully badly) during the last Labour govt's ten years in power.

When we had a manufacturing industry, apprenticeships were a very good way to train not particularly academic youngsters for many useful trades. We might hope that modern apprenticeships will provide the same for today's workplaces.

But if instead, you just want to worry about your own job prospects then go ahead and whine; it doesn't seem to me to be particularly socialist (is that what you think you are?) and is certainly not socially responsible.

Where's the knee-jerking moron icon?

[peter 45]

um

if your job can be done by an unskilled apprentice, I am thinking you are probably not very good at it. Can I suggest a period of training to help you lift your skill set. You might try this new thing, called an apprenticeship.

[jake]

Apprenticeships? Eh?

This is 2011, not 1411 ...

Next, you'll be claiming that unions have a place in modern society ...

[Elmer Phud]

2011

Doesn't matter about the scheme as long as they are kept off the unemployment register.

(when I were a lad it was all about taking people off the unemployed figures and on to the sick register - something we are still experiencing, but at least they are not 'unemployed' anymore)

[I'm Brian and so's my wife]

£2.50??

Bloody hell!

[I understand now]

Appreciated?

Here! Take this crisp fiver for 2 hours work.

[Anonymous Coward]

£2.50??

£2.50 per hour * 40 hours per week * 48 working weeks per year = 4800pa to be trained for a real job with a career path as opposed to paying 9000pa for three years for a piece of paper which everyone else who's paid also has. Where's your problem?

I can see a lot of you will sneer at the thought of MacDonalds handing out degress for burger flipping but that is rather short sighted and shows a lack of understanding of the apprenticeship scheme.

[The BigYin]

Err...

...the way major fast-food companies operate is to de-skill people so they are basic automatons and will work for low-pay. What guarantees are in place to ensure that these £2.50 serfs do not get the boot once they become more expensive?

Quite why the government wants to help the fast-food industry when we are facing an obesity epidemic is quite beyond me; and that is before we even consider the methods of food production.

There again - I've never understood why the Olympics (and other sporting events) lower themselves to taking advertising from these purveyors of high-fat convenience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Err

>when we are facing an obesity epidemic

Why blame fast food chains? I enjoy a Burger King from time to time but nobody forces me to live on them or eat three at a time.

And are you suggesting that Governement should have control over what we eat?

[The BigYin]

@AC

No - I'm just saying the government should not be promoting part of the problem's cause.

[Captain Scarlet]

McDonalds Phones4U

Odd places for apprentiships, hopefully its for higher skilled jobs i.e engineering shop fitting etc...

[Richard Cranium]

McD - great place for "apprentiships" [sic]

Attention to detail, hygiene, consistent quality, personal appearance, youngsters learning to handle discipline, work in a team, handle sometimes demanding and difficult customers, wide skill set (as compared with production line or call centre).

A good keen worker should end up earning more than his mates who went to uni, spent heading for £30k on the course, same again on living costs (in London) to emerge into a jobs market where employers are more interested in experience than in devalued degrees in questionable subjects. What are the figures? something like 20% graduates unemployed, average starting graduate salary allegedly over £20k but an awful lot of employed graduates grumbling about ending up in jobs paying under £15k and which don't require a degree anyway.

[Red Bren]

In other words...

"improve your bottom line through motivated new talent"

We've taken away their benefits and right to a decent wage so they can either work for next to nothing or starve.

"funding is in place if businesses cannot afford to pay the new apprentices themselves"

If your business is so uneconomic that ou can't pay £2.50ph, the tax payer will subsidise you with free labour.

So what happens when the apprenticeship comes to an end? The business has to let them go as they are even less able to pay the going rate for a trained employee. Luckily, there's plenty more tax-payer funded apprentices to take advantage of. No money actually get saved, but the jobless figures look better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In other words

>but the jobless figures look better

How? If you let the person you've invested in go making them unemployed and take in a school leaver who has yet isn't on the unemployment register you've made the unemployment figures worse.

At best, making one person unemployed and taking on a registered unemployed person will have no effect on the unemployment figure.

[Red Bren]

@AC

In the long run, you're right, but it does make the figures look better initially. The downward swing won't show up until after the election. If you're back in opposition, you've left a time bomb for the new government to deal with and if you're re-elected, you can defuse the situation with another work creation scheme.

[Paul Johnston]

Cutting Redtape

What's the bet the thing that really irks "SOME" employers is all that Health and Safety rubbish.

I did an apprenticeship with BP in 1979 and some of the stuff we did and worked with was really dangerous stuff (hydrazine anyone?)

Symptoms of acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of hydrazine may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma in humans. Acute exposure can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.

Luckily BP did take Health and Safety more serious than a lot of companies I have worked for.

Just feel sorry for the poor buggers who for £2.50 an hour who will be exploited and most likely some will die.

Still every little helps when generating profit eh!

[LPF]

Sweet weeping jesus

Are you for real ???

"Just feel sorry for the poor buggers who for £2.50 an hour who will be exploited and most likely some will die."

Seriously are you for real, WTF do you think they will be having these kids doing, cleaning out reactors with a mop and bucket?? HAVE A WORD WITH YOURSELF!

And doing an apprenticeship a,d at least learning something for little money, is at least better than sitting in your backside all day , doing jack sponging off working people, and by the way , at my place of work, I know of 3 apprentices , that have been taken on full time, earning 15K plus.

Guess what proving that you can do a job good for a yeah, is a damned good incentive to prove that your worth something, rather than gamberling on a uni student with jack work experience!

[bitmap animal]

I've never particularly like the scheme

because it is very low paid and the fields they are offering apprenticeships in often aren’t what you would traditionally think apprenticeships are for. They used to be skills such as electricians and chippys where you could pick up the basics quite quickly but it took several years to become competent and productive, especially if you wanted any form of independence in your work.

We were persuaded to take on two young lads on this scheme a couple of years ago. We didn't really need any more warehouse staff but decided that it was worth looking at. The lads were not only inexperienced in work, but also in how to behave at work and it took them a while to fit into the culture of a working environment, very different from school which is all they were accustomed to.

We weren't particularly comfortable with the level of pay, but that was the scheme. After a year the lads had developed personally and also were becoming productive for the business and are now both full time employees and earning a fair level of pay for their age and experience. Without this scheme we would not have employed them, we may have taken on someone with more experience at a later date.

I'm sure there will be employers who will abuse the scheme to get cheap drone labour, please don't tar everyone with that brush. I think the scheme is not perfect, but it does help get some people through the door into employment.

[Paul Johnston]

Agreed!

That's why I put "some" in capital letters.

[yossarianuk]

Re: Err

Blaming fast food restaurants for ruining out society is akin to blaming drugs for the same thing.

Only a complete moron who has lead a very sheltered life would do that.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Chris W

Actually its £4800pa to learn how to do a job instead of £0pa sitting in school getting bored - these are apprenticeships for 16-18 year-olds who, under changes to school leaving ages about to come in, are now expected to be in "education" until 18. For non-academic types this seems an excellent opportunity - better than the EMA "bribe" to go to school.

As for the avoiding £9000pa university fees ... that's the higher level apprenticeship schemes you start after A-Levels. My son did his "work experience" week last year at a major aero-engineering firm where at the end they were given a presentation on their apprenticeship schemes and he's totally sold on the idea of earning £10k rising to £20k pa while training and earning a part-time degree instead of paying £9k pa! Also heard on a radio business program of one of the London Accountancy firms who now hire a number of new employees post A-level rather than post-Uni - and they start at £25k pa which the person from the company described as "a very good deal for both sides"

[juice]

Plenty of negativity here...

Blimey: the government cuts bureaucracy and helps to fund employment, and people act like it's a bad thing...

Admittedly, there's almost certainly an element of unemployment-number-fiddling going on here, but at the same time, it's giving a reasonable chunk of young adults a chance to earn a bit of cash (more than being on the dole, judging by how much my younger brother is getting, now he's out of Uni and searching for a job) and gain some skills and experience; even if they're booted out of the scheme once the subsidies stop, they'll still be in a better position than they were when they started...

[Ben Liddicott]

The government has created 360,000 apprenticeships this year - what?

Apprentice tax collectors?

Apprentice social workers?

Apprentice "computer says no" people for the DWP?

Apprentice town planners.

Erm, no. I don't think the gov. created 360,000 apprenticeships. Some other people did, perhaps.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is good

Did my apprenticeship with BT in IT.

Decided Uni wasn't for me as I wanted to be earning, did the 3 year apprenticeship in 2 years to get onto a better wage. They paid to put me through college and get my HND at least.

The work experience was invaluable, as well as learning how office politics work etc. As a developer at uni/college I feel they teach the 'if money and time was no object, how would we do this' method, whereas in real life business those are the 2 overriding factors in almost every decision.

I'm all for apprenticeships and think uk.gov deserve a pat on the back for this.

[Kenno]

Fake apprenticeships

Meh this is just a way to circumvent the NMW..... check out jobcentre and fish4jobs there are tons of fake apprenticeships.

Apprentice cleaner

Apprentice sandwich artiste

Apprentice office admin.

Meh......

[John I'm only dancing]

Or just another name for Youth Training Scheme

Tried and failed by the Tories already. Proper apprenticeships, with day release in the industries the country so desperately needs were abandoned in the early 80s in favour of YTS.

Look where we are now. What skilled people we had have either retired or emigrated. I am a genune time-served apprentice. Four years at Rolls Royce where I came out the other end as fully skilled design engineer

Pity the Government at the time, Thatchler's, was bringing British industry to its knees in pursuit of free markets and becoming a 'Financial Services' centre. What has that got us, Bankers, City Slickers and assorted other spivs who only take from us, rather than create.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

@Sweet weeping jesus

Yes most of them will just be used as cleaners until they get old enough for minimum wage - when they will be fired and replaced.

But outside the big city a lot of them will end up in construction of farming and with no HSE inspections required there will be accidents.

Doesn't matter what you are paying them, put a bunch of 16year olds together and give them a some tools to play with and they are going to have accidents.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what the problem is

Well, I do see one problem and that is bad apprenticeship schemes that don't pay attention to training. In this respect, I hope the whole scheme is reasonably regulated. With a good apprenticeship, it doesn't matter whether or not the employee is ultimately taken on since they will have good training, general work experience and a worth ethic under their belt.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

@I don't see what the problem is

>I hope the whole scheme is reasonably regulated.

I think the point is that the government just removed "the red tape" - ie any requirement to show that you are providing training.

So they have just announced to industry that you can hire 16-19 year olds for 2.50/hour and if you can't afford 2.50/hour they will pay it for you - just sign upto the scheme.

Now obviously it will mostly be companies like Rolls Royce, ARM and merchant banks who will be queuing up to offer real training to these kids - there is no way it will be used by lots of cleaning, french fry frying, and shelf stacking companies to replace their current workers with cheaper labour.

After all we are a modern skill based economy ruled by a far sighted and business friendly government.

[Will Godfrey]

Wrong target

It's small companies that need help not the big ones. Proportionally, the small ones have to jump through far more hoops, but are actually able to give a much better 1-2-1 training, and are usually very happy to do so.

... but then I forgot. Small companies usually actually make something or supply a needed service. Can't have that sort of think going on can we?

[Mark Berry]

YTS Scheme renamed and reanimated.....

I remember being told my apprenticeship with Rumbellows as a service engineer twenty odd years ago was the only apprenticeship in the region. Everything else was YTS. Of course Rumbellows went tits up shortly after, but hey ho. My cousin took a YTS as a mechanic about the same time. He earned less than a quarter what I did. He also worked for the garage for about 5 years on repeated YTS schemes, never became a qualified mechanic, just did lots of services on cars.

The YTS scheme was/is responsible for a whole generation of kids thinking "Why bother?" if all you are going to be is cheap labour without any real prospects after it.

And yes, some do run proper training schemes, mine was one, it was part funded by YTS, but then again, it was the only one in the region.

This is just more of the same. I'm disgusted.