Apprentiship dismissal and internal interviews

dandare2020

Morning all

I have 2 questions I have seemed to become the office go to when it comes to employment problems but I'm a bit lost with these two problems.

Situation 1
there's a young girl 19 years old started as a apprentice 4 months ago. The job was a admin job to help out in one of the departments along side another experienced girl. This girl was going to be training the apprentice but after 2 weeks due to various personal problems this girl left the company. The apprentice was then given most of the work to deal with.

During the last 3.5 months she has received very little traing and has been expected to keep up with the massive work load. She admits that she has made mistakes but she is working as hard as she can to get the work completed. 3 months as starting HR had her in the office saying there where extending her probation period another month due to these mistake. The apprentice said she still required training on many aspects of the role etc. She also gets major hassle from other employees wanting there work complete first and they have realised the situation on any mistakes the apprentices fault or not she gets the blame.

This Wednesday the HR who sits 5ft away from the apprentice placed her on a 2 day review which on Friday came to ahead with HR saying you made two mistakes today one was a wrong digit and one was not her fault and terminated her employment. I will also point out, out of 30-40 items of work these where the mistake. Not bad for someone who has not been trained and has a massive work load with no time to sort it. From what I understand with regards to apprentices this is a massive issue and HR have messed up.

Situation 2
After the girl above left the role became available adverts placed internally and externally a few internal girls applied for the role and various others external applied for the role. The role was then given internally to a girl who did not apply for the job, Does not want the job and is basically useless. But she was told to take the role because her current job was no longer available. Oh I did forget one thing she is related to the director. As you can imagine this has upset quite a few people but they are unsure about the rules behind it all.

Basically I'm after any info, pointers, laws or sites to guide me in advising the people involved.

Many thanks and I really appreciate any info you can provide

D

Sambucus_Nigra

a - are you sure she was an actual apprentice who attended college and should not have been working unsupervised until they were qualified? If so, there should be a tripartite agreement in place and the usual 'getting rid immediately' rules don't necessarily apply. Or did they just call it that to keep the wages low?
b - they can hire who they want and recruit how they want.

dandare2020

A) defiantly an Apprentiship the job was gain via collage and they had the collage accessor visit and HR sign an agreement.

thought so just didn't agree like a lot of people at our place that it was unfair to move someone who didn't apply, want or can do the job just cos there related basically.

Sambucus_Nigra

So the college has also now lost funding...

Why are you wanting to know this? Are you planning on trying to get her reinstated?

dandare2020

This could be a possibility. From what I understand my work when signing there agreement agree to provide certain levels of in house training and support and come September allow day release which have not happened and the collage are also going to pursue the issue because the company get paid for employing apprentices and they have not complied as required. The collage have had there concerns previous to this final act with the way they were providing support and training

Many thanks

Sambucus_Nigra

In that case, yes - and get the parent involved too [if you can persuade the college to contact the parent and get them to put a complaint in that would help].

Or can the college get her apprenticeship transferred to a different employer?

McKneff

Is it any of the parent's business, the 'apprentice' is 19 years old.

Sambucus_Nigra

McKneff wrote: »

Is it any of the parent's business, the 'apprentice' is 19 years old.

Yes. The parents will have signed a Tripartite agreement with the employer and the college. It gives the apprenticeship different status to just employing a standard person and because of that status, you can't just sack them for nothing and you certainly can't have them working unsupervised unless competent to do so. It doesn't matter that they are 19, as they are still counted as being youths under apprenticeship terms until they reach the max age for youth apprentices which IIRC is 24.

saintjammyswine

The funding for the business will be the £1500 apprenticeship grant that is paid to the provider (college) to be passed on to the employer. This will NOT be paid in these circumstances. The employer has breached many areas of an apprenticeship contract to both the provider and the apprentice. The college should be working to get the apprentice placed in another employer whilst continuing to provide the taught elements of what sounds like a Business Administration Apprenticeship. Sambucus Nigra is correct, the apprentice should not have been allowed to work unsupervised even at 19.

mavisangelica

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

Yes. The parents will have signed a Tripartite agreement with the employer and the college. It gives the apprenticeship different status to just employing a standard person and because of that status, you can't just sack them for nothing and you certainly can't have them working unsupervised unless competent to do so. It doesn't matter that they are 19, as they are still counted as being youths under apprenticeship terms until they reach the max age for youth apprentices which IIRC is 24.

Interesting Sambucus Nigra. My son who is 17 signed an Apprenticeship Agreement from the employer a month ago with a clause on it saying that when he turned 18 that he would take full resonsibility for what was included (I had to sign it as a parent).

As it happened, it didn't work out and he resigned with the full consent of the employer, learning provider and us and he is back with the LP doing more training and looking for a new employer.