How effective procurement can support your apprenticeship programme

Creating apprenticeship opportunities within your organisation is a sure-fire way to increase specific skill sets and knowledge that’s needed for certain roles, through fresh talent or upskilling existing staff.

In 2017, the government introduced an apprenticeship levy which is paid by employers, in both public and private sectors, with a payroll of more than £3m. It was designed to help organisations offer more apprenticeships and training opportunities.

A year later, YPO launched the first ever national framework for procuring apprenticeships, helping public sector organisations make the most of the levy funds, while ensuring compliancy and increasing efficiencies. The framework is centred around an online portal allowing customers to find apprenticeship providers by filtering via sub-criteria, including cohort numbers, region, facilities and delivery model.

Since launching the apprenticeship framework in 2018, there’s been many changes to benefit how apprenticeship levy funding is used. Our framework has continued to evolve and has had great success across the public sector, particularly with blue light services.

YPO has done the hard work for you, and currently has over 100 frameworks to support your procurement activity, apprenticeships being one! Giving you peace of mind and a compliant route for your procurement needs the apprenticeships framework covers a wide variety of routes and standards to support employment gaps and new opportunities.

Why use the YPO framework for apprenticeship procurement

• Our framework is flexible, meaning new apprenticeship providers can join the framework on a quarterly basis. Once appointed, they can add new standards at any time meaning the framework is always up to date with the latest opportunities.
• We also spend time onboarding potential new providers, so they get those most out of being on our framework and can better meet your important requirements.
• We have an online portal, so it’s easy for you to search for apprenticeship providers and standards, as well as carry out direct awards or further competitions (procurement exercises).
• Our apprenticeship providers can self-service, so they can keep their profiles up to date and manage data, which helps us when reporting on KPIs to make sure they’re delivering what you need.
• As well as all that, you can rest assure that you’re dealing with a professional procurement organisation that has been pioneering public sector procurement for 50 years and our expertise and guidance is second to none.

Our national apprenticeship framework helps you provide a safer, secure future for our communities.

For the police 

Our framework has multiple standards to offer a new career path within the police offering, including:

• Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship
• Optional police training entry routes through our associated training arm of the framework covering Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP)
• Emergency Services Contact Handling Apprenticeship

For fire services

• Community Safety Adviser Apprenticeship
• Fire safety Adviser Apprenticeship
• Emergency Services Contact Handling Apprenticeship
• Operational Firefighter Apprenticeship
• Fire Safety Inspector Apprenticeship
• Fire Safety Engineer (degree) Apprenticeship

Hear from our customers

“We were looking to award a compliant contract for our apprenticeship requirements in a couple of areas. Our organisation is under pressure to make sure we are fully using the apprenticeship levy funds before they start decreasing after 24 months of being in the account. WYFRS has recently awarded via the YPO Apprenticeship framework Supply Chain Practitioner – Level 3 and separately for Level 5 Operations/Departmental Manager.

“We’ve been impressed with the YPO team and the framework has helped to significantly reduce the time to start apprentices on their learning programme. YPO were supportive and flexible, enabling us to be able to follow the process and award a contract.”

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

To find out more on how YPO’s framework can help you unlock apprenticeship opportunities, please visit our website or email apprenticeships@ypo.co.uk

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