Leading electrical trade bodies SELECT and the Scottish Electrical Charitable Training Trust (SECTT) have offered a cautious welcome to the Scottish Government's plans to reshape apprenticeship funding and management across Scotland.

Both organisations have voiced their support for the proposed transfer of responsibility for national training programmes and apprenticeships from Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

However, in a joint response to a consultation on the proposals, SELECT and SECTT emphasised the critical need for the changes to deliver enhanced accountability, improved efficiency, and "greater transparency and streamlined funding opportunities" accessible to all apprenticeship training providers.

The bodies stressed the importance of "a party of esteem among all stakeholders" for the draft Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill to be successful. They argued that the new framework should support a diverse range of delivery partners and insisted that the role of managing agents be explicitly included within the definition of an apprenticeship to prevent further and higher education requirements from becoming dominant.

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SELECT and SECTT also suggested the introduction of incentives to "encourage employers, especially small employers, to invest in accredited training and safeguard future recruitment numbers". Furthermore, they called for the Bill to ring-fence all revenue generated from the apprenticeship levy for investment in skills and to "legislate to revise the apprenticeship funding contribution to make more costly programmes more financially viable for sector training providers to offer".

While acknowledging that the Bill currently "lacks detail in some areas", the organisations expressed their support for the proposed terms of appointment for Council members and welcomed the move away from appointing actively employed further education/higher education representatives, which they believe will minimise potential conflicts of interest.

They added: "We believe the Bill should aim to improve transparency, streamline funding opportunities and ensure fair and proportional allocation of resources. It should also ensure that standard setting organisations are included in development processes and clarify who will be involved in developing National Occupational Standards (NOS) and qualifications."

Additionally, SELECT and SECTT strongly advocated for broadening the skill set of SFC members to include expertise in Scottish apprenticeships and work-based learning, as well as for the establishment of an Apprenticeship Committee. They also recommended the inclusion of representation from the building services engineering (BSE) sector to provide valuable clarity and insight into what they described as "this unique and highly effective operating model".

Fiona Harper, Chief Executive of SECTT, commented: "Our hope is that the Bill will simplify and refine the apprenticeship management process while maintaining a robust operational infrastructure so that SECTT, with the support of SELECT, can continue to deliver the gold-standard apprenticeship on behalf of the industry."