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The split of governance ensures that all key stakeholders have an active voice at a
strategic board level of the company, allowing the company to respond rapidly to

requirements.

The company started in November 2015 and provided 11 ​modern apprenticeships
in the first cohort of 2015/16, increasing this to 13 in 2016/17. The main target group

are small businesses employing less than 25 people and a number of the 20+
companies involved in the programme had either never had an apprentice, or not
taken one for over 5 years.

How does it work?

The company receives in-kind support for aspects such as finance, payroll,
administration and project management from all the partners involved. This allows

overheads (and therefore costs to the companies) to be kept low. Grant funding is
also received to offset some of the costs and again, keep the cost to the companies

low.

Apprentices follow a traditional training programme both at vocational college

and with block site release for on-site training. A comprehensive schedule is
developed with the involved companies detailing when they have work which

would allow them to take an apprentice - the key being that they only take an
apprentice when they require them - removing the concern about the instability

and downtime that small businesses in the sector may have about having a long
term apprentice. During the duration of the programme so far, all apprentices

have been utilised to their full extent and not had any downtime.

Whilst the apprentice is learning and working on-site with an involved business,

the business is charged for their wages plus 20% to offset overheads. This provides
long term sustainability for the project and allows SAL to provide support across all

areas of the apprenticeship.

Host employer benefits
So other than an apprentice, what other benefits does a host employer enjoy?

DELTA (2017-1-UK01-KA202-036810) IO3