The consultation closed on Wednesday 29 April. Please follow our blog post to keep up to date with progress on this review.

On 26 February 2020, the Secretary of State for Education asked the Institute to undertake a formal review of the L7 Senior Leader apprenticeship in order to ensure that it meets the current policy intent and rules, including the mandatory qualifications policy, and provides value for money.

To meet this request, we have invoked the Institute’s published “Revisions and Adjustments” process and are supporting the Leadership and Management Trailblazer in developing revised versions of the Occupational Standard and End-Point Assessment (EPA) plan that are policy compliant. The Trailblazer Group is working with relevant Training Providers, End Point Assessment Organisations and Professional Bodies to revise content and this consultation covers the Trailblazer’s draft revised occupational standard.

To ensure that the standard meets the intent of Institute’s policy criteria, the Trailblazer Group has made the following key changes to the occupational standard:

  • Expansion of the occupational profile detailing where the role is found, what the purpose of the role is and the key responsibilities.
  • Addition of key duties of the occupation.
  • Separation of some of the knowledge, skills and behaviours into more easily accessible elements.

In addition, unlike the currently live version of the Senior Leader occupational standard, the revised draft does not include a reference to achieving a “Master’s degree in management [either MA, MSc or MBA]” as part of the apprenticeship. This is because the Institute has advised the Trailblazer that requiring the inclusion of such a qualification in the apprenticeship would not meet the intent of our policy on mandated qualifications which was extended to cover Level 6 and Level 7 standards in 2018.

Full details of this policy are available but, in brief, as a Senior Leader, there is no regulatory requirement to hold such a qualification, there is no requirement to be a member of a professional body and an individual would not be significantly disadvantaged in the Senior Leader job market without such a qualification. In addition, the inclusion of such a qualification would not meet the requirements of our “Type 2” category which is intended to cover off-the job technical qualifications and short awards (for example food safety and manual handling certificates) which do not accredit full occupational competence, do not duplicate EPA and add very little to the cost of the apprenticeship standard. The Trailblazer has agreed to revise the occupational standard on this basis, focusing on ensuring that passing the revised end-point assessment (still to be drafted) will provide all the necessary assurance that full competence will have been achieved