Progress has been made at a training provider where ‘proud’ gas fitting apprentices were left “not sufficiently” supported.
The provider, Hybrid Technical Services, in Heysham Road, Bootle trains dozens of gas fitting apprentices every year across Merseyside and Cheshire.
Following an Ofsted inspection carried out in September last year, the provider was rated as “requires improvement” due to a series of shortcomings, including leaving apprentices “unaware” of what was required of them from assessments or what they needed to do to excel at the course.
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A lack of on-the-job learning, careers advice and personal development was also identified in the previous inspection – a situation which had not improved from a monitoring visit carried out shortly after the service first started up in 2019.
Following a visit carried out in September of this year, inspectors said that while “reasonable progress” had been made on a number of fronts, there was still work to do ” to ensure improvements are consistently embedded across the organisation.”
Inspectors said the organisation had improved its approach to tailoring training to apprenctice’s needs and was working more effectively at making apprentices aware of what was required in order to succeed.
The report noted, however, that formal governance arrangements were still not in place, with a temporary consultant being used to provide scrutiny an oversight, a situation the report states leaders recognise “is not a long-term solution..”
Responding to the latest report, a spokesperson said that the company had been providing training since 2005 and “pride ourselves on being an exciting place for the next generation of tradespiece to learn, to be inspired and to upskill.”
The spokesperon added: “Ofsted state that since our previous inspection in September 2021 we continue to make progress in our journey to becoming a good or better provider, which we are confident we will achieve within the next 12 months.
“While we recognise that there is still work to be done around formal governance arrangements, Ofsted has acknowledged the improvements that have been made so far.
“In particular, they praise us for the support we give our apprentices for when they enter employment, and our commitment in matching them with only the best employers.”
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