The HGV & Bus and Coach Standards Trailblazer Group has been working with IfATE to rectify a serious funding mishap in 2019 that reduced the funding band from £18,000 to £15,000 for the three-year HGV technician apprenticeship.
Like many other industries, we are operating in a very tight labour market. It takes nearly four years to qualify as an HGV mechanic and the job is not only safety critical but essential to our economy to keep our supply chains moving.
The core issue lies in IfATE erroneously categorising virtually every vehicle component, batteries and training rigs as capital funded items even though our trailblazer group has confirmed that the items do not last longer than the duration of the individual apprenticeship.
Contrary to IfATE’s view, most of the items are destroyed through constant use by the apprenticeship within a couple of years. Common sense says that if you strip down and rebuild something 12 times a day – when it was only designed to be stripped down once in its lifetime – it does not last very long. Yet no amount of evidence, engineering reports, photographs or even repeat invoices seem to be able convince officials.
