Frances Hill

Signatures

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None

I cannot believe I am asking this, but just for clarification.  I have an apprentice who will only do his signature as an X, not because he cannot sign, but he wants to and refuses to do anything else.  Am I right in saying this is unacceptable?

 

Embarrassed to be asking this....!

Replies

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Ruth Canham-James

I'd accept it if the employer witnessed and co-signs saying they saw them mark the paper every time you need a signature. In my experience, the sort of people who will refuse to sign will literally refuse to enrol rather than do what they don't want to do. Would they consider a digital signature? A system where they log in with a verified account and "sign" by ticking a box? We collect lots of signatures that way. Not normally Apprentices, but we could do for the learning agreement part.

Steven Edmondson

I believe it is legally permissible and as long as you have ongoing logs of contact/learning signed and verified by employer I can't see it being an issue that way. You could also get them to confirm they are so via email. I struggle to imagine any such learner is likely to be a good candidate for a successful apprenticeship though!

Ruth Canham-James

Steven Edmondson I once had a learner point blank refuse to enrol because their student number had three 6s in (not next to each other). Had to create a whole new student record for them. I can't comprehend the reasoning, and it was really annoying, but some people just have very strong feelings about things. We did have to turn away the student who refused to give us a Date of Birth (adult learner).

Steve Hewitt

(why didn't they just make a DoB up? It's not like it gets checked/cross-reffed)

Agree with all the other points above, it's "fine" but does start a chain of red flags about what else they might not fancy doing...

Chris Roberts

No commitment to enrolment might mean no commitment to learning. I've seen a learner sign their enrolment form and learning agreement as zippy before. I think as long as the signatures are consistent throughout then an auditor cant really complain. 

Ruth Canham-James

Steve Hewitt I guess they didn't think to make up a DOB, but we absolutely do cross reference their DOB with any ID we see (if it displays a DOB). Mostly to identify students who typed/wrote their own DOB incorrectly (happens more than you'd think).

Steve Hewitt

If I had a penny for every DoB that was "today's date"...

Frances Hill

Thank you all.  After the suggestion of needing the employer to verify this, the apprentice was surprisingly compliant!!😂