Time Off to Train

New legislation is being introduced to give employees in Scotland the right to request time off work for education and training.  The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill received Royal Assent on 12 November 2009.

The new scheme will work in a similar way to the right to request flexible working for parents.  The employee will be able to make a request to change their working hours, which the employer would consider against the needs of the business.  The changes will be brought in for large businesses during 2010 and smaller organisations the following year. 

What would this mean for learning providers?

The move will lead to a widening of learning opportunities for many people who work full time, who may now be able to renegotiate their hours to attend courses during the day. This will change the patterns of demand for training providers, who will need to consider this when planning future capacity.

Learners will have support in choosing their courses from Careers Scotland advisors and Union Learning Representatives, who will find course information from the NLOD. This means it will be more important than ever to keep your course information up to date.

• Employees with 26 weeks service can ask their employer for time off to train where the training will benefit both them and the employer
• Requests do not have to be for accredited programmes but could be for short, unaccredited training
• The employer must carefully consider each request but could decline it for a good business reason
• Employers agreeing a request can opt to meet the employee's salary during training, but are not obliged to do so if it is 'off the job' training. The employer may organise the training or pay for it, but there is no obligation to do so. Work-based training would count as 'time to train'.
• The practical arrangements which employers would follow would be based on the existing right to request flexible working, with which many employers are already familiar.