Further details have emerged about the forthcoming Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which will give employees the right to request time off for training from their employers.
Expected to be in place by 2010, the legislation will help an estimated 300,000 to gain new skills and improve their future career prospects.
Although the final details of the bill have yet to be decided, it has been revealed that staff will be able to request time off for training after they have worked for their employer for 26 weeks. This means that 22 million workers in England would qualify for the scheme.
Employees already have the right to request flexible working hours from their employers, and the new measures will be closely moulded around that system. While employers will have the right to refuse a training request, they will have to provide sound business reasons for doing so, for example, the employer could claim that the training requested would not improve business performance.
This places a high degree of responsibility on employers. If they do not provide a satisfactory reason for denying a training request, they could find themselves facing an employment tribunal. The fact that the new system will be modelled around the existing flexible working scheme means that employers should already have a good idea how to keep within the law on the issue.
Under the new scheme, employees will be able to request either accredited courses leading to recognised qualifications or unaccredited training in an area relevant to their employment. The only requirement is that the training must improve their company’s productivity and performance.
Companies of all sizes will be subject to the scheme, although it is likely that smaller businesses will have more sound business reasons not to grant training requests. Employees will be legally entitled to one formal training request every 12 months, although there is nothing to stop them making additional informal requests.
Organisations with less than 50 staff may be entitled to wage subsidies when they release staff for training.
It has not yet been revealed what the penalties for companies who fail to comply with the legislation will be.
1 response so far ↓
1 Perry Sandford // May 1, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Yet another piece of legislation which wraps employers up in more red tape and exposes them to employment tribunal trials if they fail to follow the letter of the law. While it’s truw that employees have the right to expect decent treatment from their employers, this principle can be taken too far.
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