MIKE PRIOR - SHERLOCKS ACCOUNTANTS
We told him that currently, providing someone earns less than £148 per week then there is no employers national insurance to pay and on 30 hours this is £4.93 per hour.
There needs to be a learning agreement in place, but don’t worry about this Chris and the team at County Hall sort all this out for you, and the apprenticeship needs to last for 12 months.
So far it’s been great, since April 2012 544 apprenticeships have been started and there was a completion rate 60% in the first year. This figure is set to rise as they head towards the end of the second year though.
From the employers point of view this is a fantastic way to help grow your business and train the talent that you need. To qualify for the grant you need to; employ less than 1000 people and have not recruited an apprentice in the last 12 months. The prospective candidates need to be claiming out of work benefits. Again though, Chris and his team sort all of this out for you, so all you need to do is let them know you are interested. All candidates are pre selected from local Job Centres so your candidates are local go through a vetting process before the employer gets to see them.
Chris and his team can be contacted on 0800 1018224, or go to www.kent.gov.uk/apprentice or email [email protected] and help Maidstone grow.
In a series of articles Sherlocks will try and give an insight into some of the business related matters that may be applicable to business in the Maidstone area that may not be very well known or you may not have considered. We may also consider some interesting matters that also apply to business generally and occasionally talk about tax!!!
To start then, we thought about that large building County Hall and wondered what contribution it was making to business in the town. It turns out that actually KCC have quite a number of programmes available and Sherlocks Mike Prior spent some time with Chris Homewood from the Skills and Employability Service to find out more.
Chris told me that there is a real drive from Kent County Council to try and help young people into work and one of the key ways is through the Kent Employment Programme. This seemed to me alright for good sized businesses but no use to micro businesses, apparently not my first mistake. Chris said “providing the role is sufficient to complete the qualification and safeguarding checks are carried out by a training provider, it doesn’t matter if the employer is running their business from home.”
So what is available? Well potentially a grant of up to £2000 to take on a young person for at least 30 hours per week. Chris said that he tries to encourage employers to pay more than the minimum wage of £2.68 as it helps to motivate the young.
Chris and his team can be contacted on 0800 1018224, or go to www.kent.gov.uk/apprentice or email [email protected] and help Maidstone grow.