Alice Linfield

Apprenticeship eligibility

Created

Hi,

We have a new apprentice who has been living in South Africa. They have a British passport, but have not lived in the UK for the last 3 years. Funding rules suggest they would not be funded- 

280. UK nationals or other persons with a right of abode have an eligible residency status if they have been ordinarily resident in the UK or the British Overseas Territories, or the Crown Dependencies (Channel Islands and Isle of Man) for at least the previous 3 years on the first day of the apprenticeship.

 

Just wanted to double check this is the case, incase I have missed something!

Thanks!

 

Replies

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Ruth Canham-James

It depends how old they are. If they were 19+ at start date then yes, they're not funded. If they were 16-18 at the start date, they're very likely funded, see paragraph 294 (mistakenly labelled as 299):

Alice Linfield

Thank you Ruth, they are 19+ and so as suspected will not be funded.

Many thanks.

Dianna Surman

Alice, I also have this question. I think there's a lot of ambiguity in Annex A following the portion you posted about whether or not temporary residence for employment purposes for UK citizens includes long-term employment outside of the UK. It would be great to gain some clarity around what employment can fall under this guidance:

Ruth Canham-James

Dianna Surman Agreed. It's a very grey area. We'd take length of time overseas and intent to return into consideration. I've had friends work overseas for four years, with every intention of returning. They definitely thought it was "temporary". We do get quite a few British passport holders who've lived most of their lives overseas, so we wouldn't fund them. I guess it's about intentions, so a matter of opinion, which is then weird to base funding decisions on.

Dianna Surman

Definitely Ruth Canham-James - 100% with you. We won't see UK nationals for an apprenticeship who have lived the majority of their lives overseas outside of the EEA, but in the past we've looked at the intent to return after living the majority of their lives in the UK as alright, but with the upcoming audits, we want to be absolutely certain. I've seen others try to get clarity on this with different answers depending on who they've messaged with at the DFE. If we get a solid answer, I'll come back to this thread!

(Edited)