Apprenticeship Certification for England Update April 2011The Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (ASCL Act) was enacted on the 6th April 2011. Part of this Act and the requirements of it, laid down by Parliament, affect the way Apprenticeships are certificated in England. We have received notification that under the ASCL Act with effect from, and including, April 13th 2011 SSCs can charge a maximum of £25 per Apprenticeship completion certificate. Therefore, from this date Skills for Health have reduced their Apprenticeship certification fees from £30 to £25 per certificate for any learner that completes on or after 13th April 2011. There are other changes to the certification process that will affect the way training providers claim for certificates. At this time details are patchy and incomplete and we await further instructions and guidance from the Alliance. In order to ensure we comply with the legislation, it was agreed that we would not issue any certificates for any Apprentice that complete on or after 13th April 2011 until further notice. The changes that we expect to have to make are with regard to certificate design and certificate claim forms – the requirements for which are laid down in the ASCL Act and its requirements and guidance to be issued by the Alliance. Any Apprentice who completes the framework on or before 12th April and where this is clearly indicated on the Certification claim form will be issued with a certificate in the current template. We are currently still awaiting further guidance from the Alliance and are therefore unable to re-commence certificate issuing at the present time. As soon as we have received clarification regarding the required changes we will issue a further news update via our website including an indication of when we expect to be able to commence the issuing of certificates for Apprenticeships completed on or after 13th April. These changes do not affect certification arrangements for Wales |
