The Traffic Operator Apprenticeship has finally been given the green light, seven years after it was first created, and its funding allocation doubled to £6,000.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IFATE) has revealed that Bridget Philipson, the Labour government’s recently appointed Secretary of State for Education, has signed off the long delayed apprenticeship and agreed to boost the funding allocation to £6,000 - the highest award.

The approval of the 12-month, Level Two Traffic Operator Apprenticeship comes after years of concerted industry lobbying by both the Trailblazer Group for Transport and Logistics and Road to Logistics.

The apprenticeship was launched by IFATE in 2017 in the form of a joint apprenticeship programme for both traffic operators and removals operators - a decision which left both sectors puzzled, since there was little if any synergy between the two sectors. As a result both industries spent some time lobbying for the course to be redesigned and then working with IFATE on the redesign.

Jim French, Road to Logistics MD, told MT: ”Combining the two just did not make sense so we worked closely with the British Association of Removers and IFATE to separate the two apprenticeships, making the Traffic Operators Apprenticeship far more relevant to the industry and to what a traffic operator does. And secondly we worked hard to get more funding, which will make the apprenticeship far more attractive to employers.”

French said the Traffic Operator apprenticeship now offers a gateway to a rewarding career. ”I think my time as a traffic operator was the most rewarding  job I ever had - and I say that as someone who has been a operations director and a managing director. It is an absolutely crucial role.”

French is hoping that the new government will overhaul the apprenticeship system, which has seen apprenticeships dogged by bureaucracy, long delays and a lack of funding, under a levy sytem which has seen the logistics industry pay in far more levies than it has taken out in appreticeship funding.

Road to Logistics estimates that the logistics industry has paid in around £1.2bn into the Apprenticeship Levy since 2017 and taken out no more that £400m in apprenticeship funding.

French said: ”The Labour government has said it will look at making the Apprenticeship Levy far more relevant to training needs of the industry and we’re hoping that what they’ll do is make the apprenticeship levy more flexible so it can be used for different sort of training needs, other than just purely apprenticeships.”

 

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