Oxford City Council supports National Apprenticeship Week

Oxford City Council’s Economic Development Team are acting as a ‘gateway’ organisation, supporting local employers who provide less than 30 Kickstart placements to take part in the national Kickstart Scheme.

The Council helps them to register and apply to the scheme, helps to create and advertise vacancies and employers are provided with a ‘placement pack’ to support the placements to be set up. The Council also administers a government grant to them once the placement starts.

The Kickstart Scheme was launched by the Government in September 2020 and provides funding to create new job placements for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment. Employers of all sizes can apply for funding which covers:

• 100% of the National Minimum Wage (or the National Living Wage depending on the age of the participant) for 25 hours per week for a total of 6 months
• associated employer National Insurance contributions
• employer minimum automatic enrolment contributions

Employers can spread the start date of the job placements up until the end of December 2021.

“Supporting apprenticeships is even more important now, as young people have lost out on so many education and employment opportunities in the pandemic. Giving them the opportunity to start working and developing their skills now will help us rebuild out of the pandemic.

“We’ve already supported a range of employers such as art organisations, restaurants, accountants, charities, retailers, IT Companies and ODS among others to create over 50 job placements across the city in the first phases of Kickstart. We’re really pleased to see this response from businesses so far, we’d like to see more Oxford businesses taking advantage of this opportunity and getting the most out of this government support.”

Councillor Susan Brown, Leader of Oxford City Council

For more information, visit the Kickstart website.