Gas Engineer MLP Training

OliviaTwisted

My partner signed up to do MLP Gas Engineer training course in August 2022 completing this at the end of January 2023. He has paid for this out his savings to the sum of £6500. Despite numerous emails and calls to what seems like every gas company in or around norwich, cover letters and CVs and visits to the bigger gas companies with no success,  9 months later he still has no engineer to train against to allow him to complete his portfolio. 
Every response seems to be the same that there is no support and you'll be lucky to get in anywhere as majority either want minimum 2 years experience or school leavers. 
As this is a complete career change, everyday is one more day to potentially forget what he has learnt as he is not in the industry everyday. 

The company he did the training with are not helping and still taking on more people that are paying this sum so he seems to have been pushed to the back of the priority list and every contact he has made with the trainers just results in them saying we are in talks with a potential new engineer and then nothing is jeard for months. 

He has had to pay £6500 up front yet I feel they have not kept up to the promise of the contract. It boasts that this course is perfect for a complete career change yet no support is given to help. 

I think they have had their money and just keep fobbing him off and delaying it for months at a time to respond. 

The course includes helping with portfolio and the final exam to become fully qualified yet nothing has moved for 9 months with no change in sight and there is a time limit on when this has to be done before it expires. He can't afford to pay for it again.  

Where does he stand as I think they are not upholding to the contract yet have took all his money and he has nothing to show for it. 

Is anyone else experiencing this issue or have any advice please? We have evidence of every email and all the companies he has tried or spoken to so it's not from want of trying. It's seriously affecting his mental health as its not a small amount of money. 

Thank you 

MikeJXE

My son retrained on that coarse about 8 years ago and he is now self employed as a gas safe engineer

I think he did it in Birmingham and the cost was about the same

The mentor he finished his training with still uses my son and visa versa when he is too busy to cope on his own and they are great friends 

I guess it's a matter of finding the right person 

Has he tried contacting individual gas engineers or joined a forum discussing same ? 

OliviaTwisted

@MikeJXE he has joined lots of forums and posted for help on them. He's also approached individual gas engineers but no has the capacity to train despite him offering to do it for free a few days a week just to get the experience.
Unfortunately it's very different from 8 years ago. As the government have pushed more for apprenticeships lately,  most companies or people are only interested in taking on school leavers as its a cheaper option for them. 
I think at this stage and how long it's been going on, surely the training centre should be responsible and be doing more to help secure a placement as they will have more contacts to link up with or regular engineers that help the students that come from their courses and and need to complete portfolios. 

Devongardener

Unfortunately there’s not much incentive for plumbing companies to be on a list of contacts with the training centre to take on students of any age.  There are considerable insurance costs to cover employees until they are fully qualified, more so where gas engineering is involved.   The insurance issue will apply to the companies your husband has approached to work unpaid, which again with gas,  could nullify their gas safe certification.

Does the training contract actually say that the college will arrange the final work experience to achieve the portfolio and final qualification?