The Apprenticeship Skills, Children and Learning Act, implemented on 6 April, provides employees with a statutory right to request time off for training, but employment lawyers have warned the new law has much broader financial implication for employers.
Under the Employee Study and Training (Eligibility, Complaints and Remedies) Regulations 2010, employees with at least 26 weeks’ continuous service will be able to ask for unpaid time off work to undertake study or training relevant to their productivity and effectiveness in their job.
Employers must consider any requests received from eligible employees in a similar way to flexible-working requests, i.e both parties must meet within 28 days of the request being received to discuss it, and within 14 days of that meeting, the employer must write to the employee with their decision.
Currently, the Regulations only apply to employers with at least 250 employees but it is anticipated that the right will be extended to cover all employees from April next year.
Employees can usually only make one request in any 12-month period, and it must be made in writing and provide details as to the subject of the training, when and where it would take place, and how it will improve the employee’s effectiveness at doing their job.
The employer does have grounds under the Employment Rights Act 1996 to refuse the request but the employee can appeal within 14 days of receiving a letter of refusal from the employer, which must explain why the grounds apply.
The new rights do not apply to agency workers, those of school age, or young workers between the ages of 16 and 18, who qualify for a separate right to time off for training.
The legislation, which initially affects organisations with more than 250 staff, provides the "statutory right to make a request in relation to study or training" but does not rule out the ability for staff to make a purely financial request for their employer to pay for a course – which could be undertaken outside of work – or to pay for support materials such as textbooks.
John Read, an employment law editor at XpertHR, said "The request must simply be ‘for the purpose of enabling the employee to undertake study or training’, and the purpose of that training must be to improve the employee’s effectiveness in the business, or the performance of the business itself.
"It follows that a purely financial request – for example, for an employer to pay for an employee’s college fees or textbooks – will fall within the new statutory provisions."
Read warned that employers could fact tribunal claims if they failed to seriously consider the requests – and possible payouts if up to eight weeks’ pay.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills confirmed that financial requests were covered by the legislation.