Sam Carter

Apprentices doing other courses

Created

Morning,

We have an Apprentice who is currently in the middle of their Business Admin Level 3 but she is interested in doing a 5 week Excel Course, non accredited, using the learning aim code Z0002813 under Adult Skills. A couple of colleagues seem to think this can't be funded by Adult Skills because she's undergoing an Apprenticeship. Is this correct?

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Steve Hewitt

Probably?

It's not *impossible* to do an AEB course at the same time as an App, but it needs to meet these three conditions:

23.11. Are undertaking training funded through the Adult Education Budget 
(AEB), where that training will:
10
23.11.1 Replicate vocational and other learning aims covered by the 
apprenticeship, including English and maths;
23.11.2 Offer career related training that conflicts with the 
apprenticeship aims; or
23.11.3 Be taking place during working hours. Where an apprentice 
has more than one job, working hours refers to the hours of 
the job the apprenticeship is linked to

I'd worry about the first one? Is Excel covered in the apprenticeship itself? If not, I'd say it definitely clears the second one, so it just needs to be outside work hours?

Sam Carter

Hi Steve,

There's no Excel covered in the Apprenticeship itself. We're a local authority and what's essentially happening is one department of the council are sending all their staff for Excel training, including her...

Steve Hewitt

Ah, if it's during work time you'll be stuffed on the third one (at least in terms of funding being claimable, obviously she can still go!)...

Martin West

One of the skills requirements of this standard is IT skills:

Skilled in the use of multiple IT packages and systems relevant to the organisation in order to: write letters or emails, create proposals, perform financial processes, record and analyse data. Examples include MS Office or equivalent packages. Able to choose the most appropriate IT solution to suit the business problem. Able to update and review databases, record information and produce data analysis where required.

In my opinion an AEB course in excel could not be funded as this is a normal skills requirement for a Business Administrator.