The Chancellor themed his Spring Budget last month around four ‘E’s: Enterprise, Employment, Education and Everywhere. As part of that second ‘E’, the Government is allocating £63m of funding to launch a returnerships programme. The aim is to encourage retirees back to work and to support anyone over the age of 50 looking for a career change by providing a support package to help people update existing skills or retrain in new areas of work.
Returnerships are expected to bring together three existing support measures, refining them to suit a more experienced audience – for example by recognising previous experience to reduce training time – and with additional funding to ensure better availability.
The three offerings are:
- Skills Bootcamps
Skills Bootcamps are arranged with local employers to help fill job vacancies and to improve the skillset and supply of potential employees. The courses are free to attend and offer participants the opportunity to better understand their current industry to help them progress within an existing role, or to learn essential skills needed to enter a new field of work.
Bootcamps last up to 16 weeks and are available across a range of sectors, from construction and engineering to digital and green industries. Those not already in a job will be offered an interview with a potential employer at the end of the course.
Employers are not charged for hosting Skills Bootcamps if they recruit participants from the course. Where employers use the Bootcamps to train existing employees, there is a charge of 30% of the training costs for large employers, or 10% for small and medium sized employers (defined as employing fewer than 250 employees).
Participating employers can work with training providers to tailor the courses to match their own skills shortages, ensuring a supply of suitably skilled candidates for current job vacancies at potentially no cost.
A further 8,000 Skills Bootcamp places will be available in 2024/25 as a result of the returnerships funding.
- Apprenticeships
Paid apprenticeships offer hands-on learning opportunities across a range of industries, supported by structured ‘off-the-job’ training such as classroom theory lessons and work-shadowing opportunities.
Apprenticeships last between one and five years and are not just for school-leavers and younger people. The returnerships programme aims to promote awareness of this scheme to the over-50’s, encouraging them to reskill so they can access new areas of work later in life.
Employers can offer apprenticeships to new or existing employees. The cost to the employer, in addition to salary and normal employment expenses, can be up to 5% of the course costs depending on employer size and the age of the apprentice. Larger employers who pay the apprenticeship levy can access funds to cover the cost of offering apprenticeships.
Specifics of the scheme may differ between the UK nations – see https://www.gov.uk/employing-an-apprentice for details and links to guidance for employers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs)
SWAPs last for up to six weeks and offer the opportunity to learn new skills and gain experience in particular industries, with the promise of either a job interview or help with applying for a job at the end.
40,000 new SWAPs placements will be available from 2023/24 to 2024/25 thanks to the additional funding allocated to returnerships. These programmes are only available to those claiming Universal Credit, Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), so are likely to contribute less to the Chancellor’s objectives of reskilling the existing workforce and encouraging retirees back to work than the above two measures.
The benefit to employers of offering SWAPs is a potential pipeline of individuals who can be trained to match current and future recruitment needs, a chance to undertake a more thorough pre-employment assessment to get to know potential future employees, and that all training and administration costs are government-funded.
Employers may benefit from the returnerships programme either directly or indirectly. Those wishing to recruit could look to offer Skills Bootcamps, Apprenticeships and SWAPs with the aim of securing a stream of potential candidates with skills matched to current and future job vacancies. Employers not wishing to be directly involved with the scheme should still benefit from a general upskilling and reskilling of the over-50’s, who bring broader work experience with them.
Further details on these initiatives can be found at https://find-employer-schemes.education.gov.uk/
This article reflects the position at the date of publication (13 April 2023). If you are reading this at a later date you are advised to check that that position has not changed in the time since.
We regularly publish articles on a range of tax and wider topical issues which affect employers. If you wish to subscribe to our monthly Employer Focus e-newsletter, please contact us.