Can the apprentice take a break or pause in learning due to coronavirus?
A break or pause in learning can be initiated where the interruption to learning due to Covid-19 is greater than four weeks. This must be reported as a formal break in learning. In such circumstance the funding to the training provider will be suspended for the duration of the break. Previously, the rules only allowed an apprentice to initiate this break in learning but this has been expanded to give employers and training providers the right to initiate this. Training providers should continue with their monthly IRL submissions to the ESFA. During breaks in apprenticeships it is not necessary for the apprentice to comply with the minimum of 20% on the job training requirement but this will resume when the break ends.
Related FAQs
You should have in place a dispute resolution procedure that sets out the appeal process or contractors or the agency as appropriate. You must respond to an appeal within 45 days.
If the status determination is disputed you should consider the contractor or agency’s reasons objections. You must consider if the original determination is to be maintained and give reasons for this. Or a new determination with reasons can be provided if appropriate.
Records of disputed determinations and the outcome of any appeal should be kept.
The Chancellor announced:
- A new “job retention bonus” for employers to access for furloughed employees subject to certain conditions being met – see below for more information.
- A “Kickstart scheme” which will directly pay employers to create jobs for any 16-24 year old at risk of long-term unemployment.
- Incentives for employers to take on apprentices.
As a result of the CJRS being extended, the Job Retention Bonus will no longer be paid in February 2021.
The NHS Test and Trace service is operated by the NHS in England to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Where an individual displays symptoms of coronavirus they can be tested to determine whether or not they have the disease. Those with the disease will then be contacted by NHS contact tracers and asked who they have come into close contract with.
Close contact is defined as:
- Face to face (within 1 metre)
- Spent more than 15 minutes within 2 metres of another person
- Travelled in a car or on a plane with another person
The contact tracer will then contact those people with whom the individual has come into close contact and tell them to self-isolate for 14 days.
For the purposes of collective consultation, making someone redundant and/or changing terms and conditions of employment, by termination and re-engagement, is also classed as a dismissal by reason of redundancy and so has the exact same consultation requirements.
It remains the case that anyone who has symptoms, however mild, or is in a household where someone has symptoms, should not leave their house to go to work. Those people should self-isolate, as should those in their households.