The Staff Council has been unable to agree a new provision on apprentice pay for the Agenda for Change handbook after nearly 18 months of talks.
This comes despite the fact that UNISON has exposed over £200m in levy funds going to waste as NHS Trusts in England fail to spend it on apprenticeship training.
The 2018 three year pay deal committed both sides to negotiations but employer financial concerns have proved an insurmountable barrier to reaching a deal. These concerns centre on the cost of releasing and backfilling apprentices and on restrictions over how levy can be spent. As a result the Staff Council talks have ended with a statement setting out
- shared aspirations for high-quality apprenticeships
- shared concerns about funding restrictions
- shared concerns about poor practice on apprentice pay and job descriptions and potential equal pay risks
- the need to preserve pay levels for internal applicants switching into apprenticeships
But no agreement has been reached on pay rates. Instead, the statement reissues the current guidance around how to use Annex 21 of the Handbook for apprenticeships and encourages local partnerships to refer difficulties in interpreting it to the Joint Secretaries for advice.
It doesn’t add up
The breakdown in talks comes at a time when research by UNISON has uncovered that NHS Trusts in England are failing to make use of large sums of apprenticeship levy funds.
This means hundreds of millions of pounds are at risk of being lost to the NHS. This is because apprenticeship levy rules mean that funds expire and are clawed back by the government if employers don’t spend them within 24 months of paying in.
UNISON’s It doesn’t add up report highlights how apprenticeships could make a major contribution to tackling staffing shortages but the NHS is failing to make best use of them.
The report is part of our national campaign for:
- Additional funding to support large-scale high-quality apprenticeship programmes
- A national deal on fair and equitable pay for apprentices
Our new apprentices in health page outlines our campaign agenda and has updated resources for branches.
Branches can support the campaign by organising locally to expose poor pay rates and exploitation of apprentices and seeking to negotiate improvements.
Branches can highlight the financial hit employers are taking by allowing their apprenticeship levy money to expire and push instead for involvement in designing good apprenticeship schemes to use it not lose it.
Action for branches
- Download the branch resource pack for ideas on organising to push for a better deal for apprentices
- Watch our simple campaign film and share it with your employer, local reps, apprentice members and local MPs
- Check the full Freedom of Information request findings
- to see if your Trust provided figures on how much levy money is going unspent
- Read the It doesn’t add up report for more detailed information on the union’s policy agenda
- Access the union-wide apprenticeships page if you need more information on apprenticeships generally
- Contact health@unison.co.uk if you require support