First Thoughts On The Aprentice Grant For Employers Scheme

In the UK, the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) has initiated its latest apprenticeship

funding process, the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers, or AGE, with the aim of encouraging small to medium sized businesses to take on apprentices.

By using this scheme, businesses will be eligible for a 1500 grant, coupled with either 50% of the training costs for young people aged between 19 and 24 or 100% of training costs for those aged 16 and 18. The total budget for the scheme is 60 million and aims to gain employment for 40,000 young people. Last year, in spite of challenging labour market conditions, over 270,000 young people began an Apprenticeship; however the UK Government is keen to expand this to a greater volume of 16 to 24 year olds.

There are conditions, the incentive is provided on a first come, first served basis and the business will only be eligible to claim the funding for their 1st apprentice assuming they havent previously employed one during the last 3 years. They will also need to guarantee employment for the young person for a minimum of 12 months.

Additional benefits of entering the scheme, aside from the monetary incentive, include free recruitment of an apprentice through the existing network of quality assured, approved Apprenticeship training providers and assistance in devising the right training plan for the businesses requirements.

A similar scheme run in 2010, aimed specifically at encouraging SMEs to recruit apprentices aged 16 and 17 and offering a larger grant of 2500, was largely successful in generating the additional 5000 new apprenticeship placements it was tasked to do with a budget of 12.5 million taken from an overall budget of c. 52 million for backing Young Britain, a now closed government program.

Overall, this scheme should encourage more young people to stay in education or training, although as one report stated entrenched NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training) are probably NEETs for a reason and are unlikely to be encouraged back to education or employment by this. As the average NEET costs the UK approximately 50,000 - 60,000 over their lifetime, so should this scheme prove to be an effective one there is the potential to add significant savings to the public purse.

That aside, any incentive to encourage small businesses to employ young people when they may not otherwise have done so can only be a good thing.

by: Eric Alan

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