We recently communicated with members regarding the mandatory requirement for all apprentices to spend at least 20% of their training programme time on “Off the Job Training” (OTJT), the majority of this time will be spent at the National Training Centre in Darlington.  We monitor and log the OTJT time for each apprentice as this is audited and monitored by the funding agency and Ofsted.

In recent months, TICA has noticed a significant increase in the number of apprentices who fail to show up to the Training Centre for training sessions following out of hours social activities the previous evening.

In the event that your apprentice misses any time at the National Training Centre (sickness, annual leave, workload etc) the time must be made up. This is a requirement of the English Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).

This additional time will be arranged by the training delivery team to ensure that the apprentice attends in line with the Training Centre timetable. If the apprentice misses any specialist training (eg PASMA) this will need to be rearranged to suit the course schedule and consequently may take several months to be re-organised.

We would like to ask all employers again to re-emphasise to their apprentices that when they come to Darlington it is strictly training time and college attendance and is treated by you as the employer as paid working time.  Additional visits to make up for lost time will create additional accommodation costs that are not met through the standard funding and therefore employers will have to absorb these additional costs.

We cannot stress enough how important it is that your apprentice attends for all scheduled training – especially once they have arrived on Sunday night for the week in the Training Centre.