My right to leave an employer ?

DandelionPatrol

tomtontom wrote: »

She wasn't forced to do anything - she was given the option of completing a qualification or being dismissed. Not ethical, but certainly not unlawful.

Their information on her GCSEs is correct. Bizarre, but correct.

They can't force her to stay - no one can be forced to work. Whether they can enforce the course costs will depend on her training agreement.

The employer said the because of government regulation she could no longer be employed.

Now the information on her GCSE's may well be correct, but this is peripheral to the question of whether it is true that government regulation meant that she could no longer be employed. If this is false, then she has been sent on the courses under a misrepresentation.

A training agreement under a misrepresentation is a difficult argument but in legal terms I think it is at least questionable.

marcarm

It is true that you cannot use an old GCSE or A level to exempt you from the Functional Skills part of your apprenticeship, BUT she would not have had to take them again, she would have had to take the Functional Skills part of the framework and this would give her the full apprenticeship.

Was the apprenticeship funded? Who was it funded by?

The differing NVQ levels do not have a huge amount to do with what you have done in the past, it is to do with what your job role is and what level you are working to presently.

You say they were completed 3 and a bit years ago, so 2012? For a L2 NVQ, GCSE's can be used to exempt from Functional Skills without any achievement date rules with min. grade E. (this assumes the NVQ start date is on/after 6/4/15).

For L3 NVQ, the same applies with min. grade C.

Actually just saw you said she did GCSE's in 2009, so the 5 year rule is true if the NVQ start date is on 5/4/15 or sooner. They are not saying the GCSE's are not valid, but the awarding bodies will not take these to exempt someone from completing Functional Skills.

The start date is very important here, as well as who is funding her course.

Edit: I see it says in Oct last year she was told this, so the 5 year rule is true as it is before April 15.

All this means is that she will have had to complete the Functional Skills part of the framework, which consists of a number of multiple choice tests, a couple of assessments and a couple of presentations. For someone who is educated to A level this would pose no problem at all and would be completed very quickly. For ICT is just an online test, same for Maths. English is a couple of talks and some written assessments.

All this should have been explained by the training provider/assessor, it staggers me how incompetent some of these companies seem to be for giving out information and doing things properly.

marcarm

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

The employer said the because of government regulation she could no longer be employed.

Now the information on her GCSE's may well be correct, but this is peripheral to the question of whether it is true that government regulation meant that she could no longer be employed. If this is false, then she has been sent on the courses under a misrepresentation.

A training agreement under a misrepresentation is a difficult argument but in legal terms I think it is at least questionable.

A percentage of staff in a nursery can be unqualified, forget what now. If the nursery have too many unqualified staff they have to let them go or get them their qualifications. Without a qual the staff member is not counted in the 'staff to child' ratios.

tomtontom

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

The employer said the because of government regulation she could no longer be employed.

Now the information on her GCSE's may well be correct, but this is peripheral to the question of whether it is true that government regulation meant that she could no longer be employed. If this is false, then she has been sent on the courses under a misrepresentation.

No, because if government regulation she could not do the apprenticeship without the qualifications - and if she did not do the apprenticeship she would be dismissed - see later post from OP to clarify.

DandelionPatrol

smallzoo wrote: »

Basically they said to her that she needed to get an NVQ. If she didnt then if there were redundancies she would be the first to go.

This is very different from what you said originally:

In October last year they said as part of the new government regulations she had to re-sit her English.Maths and ICT even though she already has 13 GCSE's(incl maths,english,ICT) and 5 A Levels(incl English) otherwise she couldnt work there.

smallzoo wrote: »

If they had accepted her previous qualifications she could have gone for a NVQ Level 3 with more pay and career possibilities in the Nursery but she was forced to go for an NVQ Level 2.

Once she started that she then was told she couldnt leave without paying the fees back

I hope that makes sense

If they only told her that she had to stay after commencing the course, that would of course not be enforceable. But given that you have had to have 2 goes at explaining how she was persuaded to take the course, you really need to be sure that what you are saying here is correct.

marcarm

I think the issue here is the OP said 'part of the new government regulations she had to re-sit her English.Maths and ICT', which some have taken to mean resit the GCSE's/A levels, but it means she has to do her Functional Skills in these subjects as part of the Apprenticeship framework.

DandelionPatrol

tomtontom wrote: »

No, because if government regulation she could not do the apprenticeship without the qualifications - and if she did not do the apprenticeship she would be dismissed - see later post from OP to clarify.

But OP has now told us that it was not the case that she was told that government regulation meant that she could not work there [unless strictly true, this would be a misrepresentation by the employer].

She was, it transpires, told that without the qualification, she might be the first to go in redundancy [which is fair warning from the employer]

marcarm wrote: »

• A percentage of staff in a nursery can be unqualified, forget what now. If the nursery have too many unqualified staff they have to let them go or get them their qualifications.
• Without a qual the staff member is not counted in the 'staff to child' ratios.

Point taken - although the points seem slightly in conflict. If there are enough staff available and the ratio is correct does this mean that the nursery could not employ an extra unqualified? [Regardless of whether they would on economic grounds - this is more about establishing the bounds of the statement that government regulation means that she could not work there]

tomtontom

DP you might want to stop trying to dig yourself out that hole - your posts are contradictory and your lack of knowledge on the subject means you're not helping the OP at all. The only issue here is what the training agreement says about recouping costs - something the OP does not appear to know.

DandelionPatrol

tomtontom wrote: »

DP you might want to stop trying to dig yourself out that hole - your posts are contradictory and your lack of knowledge on the subject means you're not helping the OP at all. The only issue here is what the training agreement says about recouping costs - something the OP does not appear to know.

I think the problem is that we are getting contradictory info from OP.

You are one of those who are all too ready to dismiss avenues for assisting people. All too ready to tell people to take what is dished out to them. In this case, I believe that a training agreement should not stand if it has been gained on a misrepresentation. OP should not have that possibility denied to them by you on [AFAICS] the grounds that it is not obvious.

Yes, there are people here with more knowledge of the sector, which is why I ask questions - and have got clarification from OP. But the misrepresentation angle is an out of sector issue, which is why I am comfortable pursuing it, because I know you don't have the wherewithal.

marcarm

The issue here is who paid for the training, if it was funded by the government there are no costs to be repaid regardless Of what has or has not been signed, if an adult learning loan or by the employer I believe this might change things but then it comes down to the agreement between employee and employer, and until we know for certain we are just speculating on what needs to be repaid.