Overview

After the funding rule changes, the terminology in the guidance notes needed to be updated to better inform the apprentice and employer. It is a funding rule that the agreement should make it clear when multiple episodes of learning have taken place where a break in learning and a return have taken place.

Rollout information 

The new Apprenticeship Agreement v3 will be enabled automatically for all tenants who have Apprenticeship Agreement v2 enabled. The new v3 version will be present in the Account Programme, where the previous version existed. So, this new version will be selectable on any programs that the customers want to build. It will not automatically get added/generated, it will do nothing until you choose to add it to a programme.

How to implement changes

The recommended way to implement this is to clone or create a new programme and add this document in as a new document. We do not recommend adding this document directly into an existing program, as this will force every learner who is already on that programme to sign the new document. This would then restrict their access to their learning plan, until they sign the new version.

Where it is assigned to the learner's programme, when Trackers regenerate the compliance documents, they will regenerate the Apprenticeship Agreement v3.

Summary of changes

Text changes

• Text Changes throughout, including:
  
  • Updated Introduction text
  • Updated label text
  • Field references
  • The Note text has been replaced to ensure it is up-to-date and ensure it paginates across two pages neatly.
• Logos, formatting and note text have been updated to the latest ESFA Apprenticeship Agreement template

Functional changes

• Updated Place of Work to include location underneath Employer name.
• In cases where apprentices have one or more breaks in learning, a history of episodes of learning is added to the agreement. The Episodes of learning table will have the following details:
  • Start date of Episode: Populated from Learning start date in the ILR
  • Estimated end date of Episode: Populated from Learning planned end date in the ILR
  • Actual end date of the episode: Populated from the Learning actual end date in the ILR

The aims that will be shown in this table will have an Aim Type: 1, Funding model: 36 or 99, and Programme type: 25.

If not otherwise stated, existing functionality remains the same with respect to where data pulls from. The Apprenticeship Agreement v3 has a compliance document type of Apprenticeship Agreement. Therefore, all existing functionality for Apprenticeship Agreement continues to work the same.

Future changes

In a future release, we are adding the ability to enter an Apprenticeship Start Date. This will pull through to the Apprenticeship Agreement. This will be a new field in Add/Edit Programme Details in Console, and will default to the Practical Period Start Date. The Start date of apprenticeship will also be added to UGR and OData.

Update: The features mentioned under 'Future changes' have been added as part of the May 2023 release.