Joinery firm halts apprentice programme over skills reforms

Staircase and door producer Stairways Midlands has been been compelled into motion by controversial plans from Expertise England to slash the period of carpentry and joinery apprenticeships from 25 months to round eight.

Different strikes embrace altering closing trainee assessments to permit organisations to “pattern” solely a portion of the information, expertise and behaviours standards to find out an apprentice’s competence – reasonably than requiring them to reveal they meet all of them.

Stairways Midlands mentioned the shift would create a “race to the underside” in coaching high quality.

The agency operates three Midlands-based manufacturing facility items and was in a profitable partnership with Walsall School coaching Stage 2 Bench Carpentry and Joinery Apprentices yearly.

Joint Managing Director Karen Wooden Joint Managing Director – who can also be a Go Assemble STEM Ambassador – mentioned the corporate had “no alternative” however to withdraw the provide of apprenticeship placements this yr.

She mentioned: “Apprenticeships have all the time been a cornerstone of our enterprise and an important pipeline for expert expertise. We’ve proudly educated dozens of apprentices over time – together with a number of who’ve gone into administration roles right here – however beneath these new proposals, the mannequin is just not match for function.

“Decreasing coaching time to simply eight months and eradicating thorough impartial evaluation exhibits a elementary lack of appreciation for the vary of expertise and depth of data it takes to do that work, and can set the trade again years.

“We’ve had no alternative however to pause our apprenticeship consumption for the primary time in additional than twenty years. It’s deeply irritating, however we can not in good conscience help a reformed system that appears to prioritise velocity and price over competence and security.”

Commerce physique the British Woodworking Federation (BWF) has written to the Prime Minister calling for a right away suspension of the plans.

Wooden added: “We’d like correctly educated, competent individuals getting into our trade. Quick-term coverage selections like this not solely devalue the arduous work of apprentices and trainers however undermine the tradition of security and excellence that the development sector has labored so arduous to construct.

“The BWF has been clear that the reforms as they stand should not supported by the trade. We stand with them and others in calling for a rethink that places high quality, competence and security first.”