ckm1981:
Ain’t that what the CPC is for so new drivers can learn the above,dragging it over 2 years seems exaggerated imo.
You can’t teach experience in 35 hours of classroom work. One of the advantages of apprenticeships is that they allow trainees to get a feel for every aspect of the job not just how to use a digicard.
Look at how the army does it. It’s a safe bet that a greater proportion of today’s soldiers who have risen through the ranks did so by starting as juniors. That does not mean that adult entrants are in any way inferior, just that the advantage of those two extra years of learning the trade pay handsome dividends once you start rising up the promotion ladder. Would you want your son to finish his career as an officer or a corporal?
I wouldn’t want my son to waste 2 years of his life “learning” a job that if he is lucky would pay him 30k a year
And as for promotion,where do you go from being a lorry driver because if I got “promoted” to TM I’d have to take a 5k a year pay cut as we get paid more than our tm’s.
ckm1981:
Yes but with any other trade you learn the job from day one of the apprentiship,this would not be possible doing a road transport apprentiship as @ 17 you can’t learn to drive a HGV.
So you’d spend a year or two earning £50 or so a week being a general dogsbody,with the promise that in 2 years they may train you as a hgv driver IF they need drivers at the time and IF the companies insurance would even cover A)someone under 25 and B)a newly passed driver.
In a normal apprentice like say plumber you spend the time of your apprentiship learning how to be a plumber,this is not possible to do as a apprentice HGV driver.
Of course it is possible. As has been said before on this thread, the training is about road transport not just being an LGV driver.You’d still be learning the trade from day one, but different aspects of it which the “direct entrant” rarely gets to see or experience, the result being a better informed and well-rounded trainee who can understand and appreciate all aspects of the job, not just how to turn a steering wheel. One who has been taught the legal side of things correctly and not just picked it up as he’s gone along, and at the right age too because it goes without saying that learning becomes more difficult the older you get. In other words, a properly trained PROFESSIONAL driver, something the industry has been desperately short of for years.
When I was a TM back in the 1990’s, I had to recruit a couple of extra class 1 drivers. Amongst the applicants were two ex-Currys men who both had a long list of safe driving awards and training qualifications in their CV’s. Needless to say those two guys went straight onto my shortlist without so much as a second thought, and eventually both ended up working for my company, justifying my selection by being model employees. I venture to suggest that a certified apprenticeship would give today’s young drivers a similar advantage over their peers. We all know good tradesmen but nowadays it’s the ones with the right papers who not only get the work but command better money for doing so.
Basically there are two sides to the job the practical driving and load security one and the admin one.The former is best learn’t as always on the job doing it.The latter is all contained within the management CPC course which can be done on a home study basis.
None of which needs ‘a driver’ to spend any time whatsoever let alone years working in an office or a warehouse.Especially in an environment where it’s legal to train for and hold an LGV rom the age of 18.Anything which doesn’t reflect that fact is just a cheap labour scam to place people who want to train as ‘drivers’ into unsuitable work using the carrot of doing the job they are there for at ‘some point’ in ‘the future’.
ckm1981:
I wouldn’t want my son to waste 2 years of his life “learning” a job that if he is lucky would pay him 30k a year
So what else would you have him do? If he’s good enough then of course he’ll be able to go on to higher education and better things, and avoid driving lorries altogether. Just for example, though, say he’s not academically inclined; the chances are that he’ll spend his life from age 16 to 19 either looking for a job or doing one without any future, probably on no better money than an “apprentice driver” would be. Then he decides at age 21 or so that he wants to drive lorries; so he has to pay out of his own pocket for C licence then C+E, do his training either in his holidays or at weekends when all his mates are out enjoying themselves, and at the end of it be at least three years behind the apprentice trained driver who’s also got the relevant grounding to go on to better things.
It’s all about having an eye to the future. Reputable companies, not just in the transport sector, have realised this after a long period of neglect. I don’t see it as a bad thing; for the record I did an apprenticeship myself, in the Army as a mechanic. It doesn’t earn me a living any more (quickly cottoned on to the fact that fitters get moaned at by drivers AND managers) but the transferable skills have stood me in good stead throughout my life, and I’ve still got my City & Guilds and RTITB papers which are noted on my CV if I ever need to look for another job. Over 30 years down the line that list of qualifications still adds weight to a job application because it’s documented proof that your formative years weren’t wasted.
ckm1981:
I wouldn’t want my son to waste 2 years of his life “learning” a job that if he is lucky would pay him 30k a year
So what else would you have him do? If he’s good enough then of course he’ll be able to go on to higher education and better things, and avoid driving lorries altogether. Just for example, though, say he’s not academically inclined; the chances are that he’ll spend his life from age 16 to 19 either looking for a job or doing one without any future, probably on no better money than an “apprentice driver” would be. Then he decides at age 21 or so that he wants to drive lorries; so he has to pay out of his own pocket for C licence then C+E, do his training either in his holidays or at weekends when all his mates are out enjoying themselves, and at the end of it be at least three years behind the apprentice trained driver who’s also got the relevant grounding to go on to better things.
It’s all about having an eye to the future. Reputable companies, not just in the transport sector, have realised this after a long period of neglect. I don’t see it as a bad thing; for the record I did an apprenticeship myself, in the Army as a mechanic. It doesn’t earn me a living any more (quickly cottoned on to the fact that fitters get moaned at by drivers AND managers) but the transferable skills have stood me in good stead throughout my life, and I’ve still got my City & Guilds and RTITB papers which are noted on my CV if I ever need to look for another job. Over 30 years down the line that list of qualifications still adds weight to a job application because it’s documented proof that your formative years weren’t wasted.
If I’ve read it right the school leaving age is now closer to 18 than 16.At which age it is legal to train for and hold an LGV licence.Which obviously leaves the question as to why any so called driving apprenticeship wouldn’t include LGV training at ‘that’ age and,assuming the test is passed,there’s no reason as to why any ‘driver’ ‘apprentice’ wouldn’t ‘then’ be able to learn everything required to be a ‘driver’ on the job at a reasonable rate of pay commensurate with the job.
The idea of long term apprenticeships to learn a trade like engineering etc is just a red herring in the case of the job of a driver which is a totally different type of career path.In which the training and learning component required to at least do the job competently is totally different and far shorter.Which is a misunderstanding which can obviously be taken advantage of by employers looking to fill unsuited office or warehouse etc roles with prospective new drivers by using the carrot of offering those prospective drivers the job which they are setting out to do.In which case the simple question why aren’t those drivers being trained and then put into the job they are there to do from day 1,being that there’s nothing stopping that from the age of 18,would of course sort that scam out from the start.
Carryfast:
If I’ve read it right the school leaving age is now closer to 18 than 16.At which age it is legal to train for and hold an LGV licence.Which obviously leaves the question as to why any so called driving apprenticeship wouldn’t include LGV training at ‘that’ age and,assuming the test is passed,there’s no reason as to why any ‘driver’ ‘apprentice’ wouldn’t ‘then’ be able to learn everything required to be a ‘driver’ on the job at a reasonable rate of pay commensurate with the job.
The idea of long term apprenticeships to learn a trade like engineering etc is just a red herring in the case of the job of a driver which is a totally different type of career path.In which the training and learning component required to at least do the job competently is totally different and far shorter.Which is a misunderstanding which can obviously be taken advantage of by employers looking to fill unsuited office or warehouse etc roles with prospective new drivers by using the carrot of offering those prospective drivers the job which they are setting out to do.In which case the simple question why aren’t those drivers being trained and then put into the job they are there to do from day 1,being that there’s nothing stopping that from the age of 18,would of course sort that scam out from the start.
As far as I am aware the official school leaving age is still 16. Even if it were 17, that still leaves an aspiring young driver a year before he can actually start his LGV driver training, so surely that year is better spent in a transport environment where he can learn other aspects of the job which will benefit him later. Whilst it might well benefit him even further to stay on at school, that is not always possible and furthermore despite the inescapable fact that he will not be earning a full adult wage (any more than he would in any other business) it is still a wage of sorts.
Incidentally, I do not consider a two year apprenticeship to be long term. It’s pretty much the norm in fact in many areas of employment.
We’ve had years of drivers being “trained” and then put into the job from day one. The net result of this has been one of the reasons for the implication of the DCPC programme. You’ve only got to trawl through some of the questions that get asked, and the ill-informed answers that sometimes follow, to know that such training is undoubtedly necessary in order that drivers avoid prosecutions and company disciplines for cocking up.
I went on a YTS scheme 1986/7 and had 12 weeks in classroom,rest at firm i was placed at then week after 18th birthday had weeks tuition and passed class 3 in a lovely Bedford TM,YTS pay was £26.25 a week,but was topped up by company to around £56 p/week,living the dream eh lads?
pete smith:
I went on a YTS scheme 1986/7 and had 12 weeks in classroom,rest at firm i was placed at then week after 18th birthday had weeks tuition and passed class 3 in a lovely Bedford TM,YTS pay was £26.25 a week,but was topped up by company to around £56 p/week,living the dream eh lads?
And 20 years later they still pay around £50 a week for apprentices lol
Carryfast:
If I’ve read it right the school leaving age is now closer to 18 than 16.At which age it is legal to train for and hold an LGV licence.Which obviously leaves the question as to why any so called driving apprenticeship wouldn’t include LGV training at ‘that’ age and,assuming the test is passed,there’s no reason as to why any ‘driver’ ‘apprentice’ wouldn’t ‘then’ be able to learn everything required to be a ‘driver’ on the job at a reasonable rate of pay commensurate with the job.
The idea of long term apprenticeships to learn a trade like engineering etc is just a red herring in the case of the job of a driver which is a totally different type of career path.In which the training and learning component required to at least do the job competently is totally different and far shorter.Which is a misunderstanding which can obviously be taken advantage of by employers looking to fill unsuited office or warehouse etc roles with prospective new drivers by using the carrot of offering those prospective drivers the job which they are setting out to do.In which case the simple question why aren’t those drivers being trained and then put into the job they are there to do from day 1,being that there’s nothing stopping that from the age of 18,would of course sort that scam out from the start.
As far as I am aware the official school leaving age is still 16. Even if it were 17, that still leaves an aspiring young driver a year before he can actually start his LGV driver training, so surely that year is better spent in a transport environment where he can learn other aspects of the job which will benefit him later. Whilst it might well benefit him even further to stay on at school, that is not always possible and furthermore despite the inescapable fact that he will not be earning a full adult wage (
Whatever the school leaving age,which seems to be a complicated contradiction of you must stay in full time education until 18 but you can leave school at 16 to take up a job as ‘an apprentice/trainee’.I’d say that in the case of a prospective driver the bit that matters is to make sure that there is guaranteed LGV training and then job placement at 18 at a reasonable/minimum adult wage.
In which case it seems difficult to understand what’s in it for either the school leaver or the employer to employ that person before the age of 18,doing totally unrelated work to that of a driver,either in the office or doing warehouse work. When that could possibly result in the justified argument of cheap labour being exploited and doing an office worker or warehouse worker out of a job paid at the going rate.The fact is the job of a driver isn’t really compatible with the idea of an ‘apprenticeship’.When it’s basically a job that needs to be learn’t actually doing it with no need for a low wage and with the only other useful relevant acedemic qualification being the management CPC.
Carryfast:
When it’s basically a job that needs to be learn’t actually doing it with no need for a low wage and with the only other useful relevant acedemic qualification being the management CPC.
It seems to me that the main reason for your antipathy towards apprenticeship schemes is not fuelled by your lack of belief in their benefits, but in your assumption that the apprentices themselves are somehow being disadvantaged by not being paid a full adult wage. This has always been the case in virtually every industry, and it’s quite simply because however much you dress it up, those apprentices represent a cost to the company rather than an asset, because they simply cannot be as productive as an adult employee for various reasons. They cannot do early starts, nights or late finishes, they are limited by law as to what equipment they can use and what environments they can work in, etc etc.
I repeat; if those youths could not access the logistics industry via an apprenticeship, they would simply take a short-term low skill job elsewhere until such time as they were old enough. They would simply be “ripped off”, as you put it, by McDonalds instead of Stobarts. Far better to get them into the industry as early as possible; for one thing it ensures a supply of younger drivers who are doing this job because they want to, rather than half of the current lot who from what they post on here are doing it because they do not see any alternative way of making a living.
Carryfast:
When it’s basically a job that needs to be learn’t actually doing it with no need for a low wage and with the only other useful relevant acedemic qualification being the management CPC.
It seems to me that the main reason for your antipathy towards apprenticeship schemes is not fuelled by your lack of belief in their benefits, but in your assumption that the apprentices themselves are somehow being disadvantaged by not being paid a full adult wage. This has always been the case in virtually every industry, and it’s quite simply because however much you dress it up, those apprentices represent a cost to the company rather than an asset, because they simply cannot be as productive as an adult employee for various reasons. They cannot do early starts, nights or late finishes, they are limited by law as to what equipment they can use and what environments they can work in, etc etc.
I repeat; if those youths could not access the logistics industry via an apprenticeship, they would simply take a short-term low skill job elsewhere until such time as they were old enough. They would simply be “ripped off”, as you put it, by McDonalds instead of Stobarts. Far better to get them into the industry as early as possible; for one thing it ensures a supply of younger drivers who are doing this job because they want to, rather than half of the current lot who from what they post on here are doing it because they do not see any alternative way of making a living.
Being “ripped off” earning £200 a week working in McDonalds or earning £200 a month working as a road transport apprentice without actually getting any real driving experience…I know what I’d chose.
3-4 months wages from a unskilled job would cover the cost of hgv lessons and test ect ect!
Working in McDonalds would supply you with just as much experivnce in hgv driving as a road transport apprentice would unless the company in question trained you up and let you loose on the yard doing shunting ect
lolipop:
Dont you just love the negative on some of these postings. Theres far more to the Transport Industry than sitting on your backside moaning about Road Haulage pay rates and traffic hold ups on the M6 or greasy food at the Red Lion cafe or being stuck at an RDC somewhere in the back of beyond without grub.
If somebody has the initiative to take on an Apprentice, whose to say that he or she is not going to be taught anything, instead of being labelled as somebody working on the cheap.
Start at the bottom and work up
initiative haha! i’m sure companies are offering apprenticeships out of the goodness of their hearts and to help youth unemployment. I doubt very much companies are interested in the cheap slave labour or the various government cash incentives on offer
Companies only have to pay the salary of the apprentices (min wage is £2.68 p/h) and all training is paid for by the government.
Your right, it is a load of corporate BS to give them a good sense of wellbeing, but there are some folk out there who want to get into the industry but age and money is against them, here they have an opportunity to gain qualifications whilst working, so everyones a winner.
We all have to start somewhere, why mock it?
The issue isn’t that of getting young people into the industry early it’s the question of the wage rate while they’re training.
Is that not the same within any training scheme in any trade?
Yes but with any other trade you learn the job from day one of the apprentiship,this would not be possible doing a road transport apprentiship as @ 17 you can’t learn to drive a HGV.
So you’d spend a year or two earning £50 or so a week being a general dogsbody,with the promise that in 2 years they may train you as a hgv driver IF they need drivers at the time and IF the companies insurance would even cover A)someone under 25 and B)a newly passed driver.
In a normal apprentice like say plumber you spend the time of your apprentiship learning how to be a plumber,this is not possible to do as a apprentice HGV driver.
There is a firm local to me that take on kids on a whatever the YTS is now,
You start in the warehouse and go to college 1 day a week either scrubbing up on your GCSE’s or getting somekind of qualification through a combined home study, after 2 years your sent out as a drivers mate for a couple of years, then dependant on which side of the business your on your either getting your own van or being put through your HGV, as they run vans through to Class1 the apprentice is rewarded, ok so they dont pay the big money but they are giving the kids something far more valuable than a decent pay cheque every week.
A lad who worked in the warehouse not long after school is now a big suit for a major international company, he only left school 20 year ago.
2 years in he warehouse and then 2 years as a drivers mate AND then you get to do your hgv…pmsl
It took me combined less that 2 months to do my class 2 and 1,why would waiting 4 years earning yts wage benefit anyone?!
Get em on the road,best and fastest way for them to learn.
ckm1981:
2 years in he warehouse and then 2 years as a drivers mate AND then you get to do your hgv…pmsl
It took me combined less that 2 months to do my class 2 and 1,why would waiting 4 years earning yts wage benefit anyone?!
Get em on the road,best and fastest way for them to learn.
Not that bad when they are leaving school at 15/16/17, with wage increases every year.
Or is it better to work away from the industry earning better money, pay for your own licence and not have a clue which way round to hold a map or load a wagon because you have no experiance in the job.
ckm1981:
2 years in he warehouse and then 2 years as a drivers mate AND then you get to do your hgv…pmsl
It took me combined less that 2 months to do my class 2 and 1,why would waiting 4 years earning yts wage benefit anyone?!
Get em on the road,best and fastest way for them to learn.
Not that bad when they are leaving school at 15/16/17, with wage increases every year.
Or is it better to work away from the industry earning better money, pay for your own licence and not have a clue which way round to hold a map or load a wagon because you have no experiance in the job.
pmsl indeed
I did the latter…11 years driving still survived without driving off the edge of the earth.
ckm1981:
2 years in he warehouse and then 2 years as a drivers mate AND then you get to do your hgv…pmsl
It took me combined less that 2 months to do my class 2 and 1,why would waiting 4 years earning yts wage benefit anyone?!
Get em on the road,best and fastest way for them to learn.
Not that bad when they are leaving school at 15/16/17, with wage increases every year.
Or is it better to work away from the industry earning better money, pay for your own licence and not have a clue which way round to hold a map or load a wagon because you have no experiance in the job.
pmsl indeed
I did the latter…11 years driving still survived without driving off the edge of the earth.
It’s driving a truck,not nuclear physics.
ckm1981:
2 years in he warehouse and then 2 years as a drivers mate AND then you get to do your hgv…pmsl
Get em on the road,best and fastest way for them to learn.
B1 GGK:
Not that bad when they are leaving school at 15/16/17, with wage increases every year.
Or is it better to work away from the industry earning better money, pay for your own licence and not have a clue which way round to hold a map or load a wagon because you have no experiance in the job.
pmsl indeed
My point exactly. Makes me laugh this does; the same blokes who are constantly carping about the lack of professionalism in our trade decrying attempts to make it more professional.
Some of them are so short-sighted it’s a good job they don’t drive in the USA, they’d never see past the end of the bonnet!
B1 GGK:
Not that bad when they are leaving school at 15/16/17, with wage increases every year.
Or is it better to work away from the industry earning better money, pay for your own licence and not have a clue which way round to hold a map or load a wagon because you have no experiance in the job.
pmsl indeed
My point exactly. Makes me laugh this does; the same blokes who are constantly carping about the lack of professionalism in our trade decrying attempts to make it more professional.
Some of them are so short-sighted it’s a good job they don’t drive in the USA, they’d never see past the end of the bonnet!
I’d guess that there’s a bigger problem caused by people starting out late in the job either at best having bought a load of bs that they’ll learn more about driving a truck by working in an office or a warehouse,or at worst suddenly deciding after years of following a totally unrelated career path,that they’d like to try truck driving instead.Than those who start out by actually doing the job at an early an age as possible.Previously that being a case of starting out on 7.5 tonners.But there now being no reason as to why someone who wants to be an LGV ‘driver’ shouldn’t actually be learning on the job by ‘driving’ LGV’s within two years at most from leaving school having done the drivers and management CPC’s in the intervening time.IE no need to spend any considerable time working in a warehouse or an office.
Carryfast:
When it’s basically a job that needs to be learn’t actually doing it with no need for a low wage and with the only other useful relevant acedemic qualification being the management CPC.
It seems to me that the main reason for your antipathy towards apprenticeship schemes is not fuelled by your lack of belief in their benefits, but in your assumption that the apprentices themselves are somehow being disadvantaged by not being paid a full adult wage. This has always been the case in virtually every industry, and it’s quite simply because however much you dress it up, those apprentices represent a cost to the company rather than an asset, because they simply cannot be as productive as an adult employee for various reasons. They cannot do early starts, nights or late finishes, they are limited by law as to what equipment they can use and what environments they can work in, etc etc.
I repeat; if those youths could not access the logistics industry via an apprenticeship, they would simply take a short-term low skill job elsewhere until such time as they were old enough. They would simply be “ripped off”, as you put it, by McDonalds instead of Stobarts. Far better to get them into the industry as early as possible; for one thing it ensures a supply of younger drivers who are doing this job because they want to, rather than half of the current lot who from what they post on here are doing it because they do not see any alternative way of making a living.
Exactly what ‘law’ limits what an 18 year old LGV driver can do,regarding hours,equipment and working environments as opposed to an older one.Yes it is better to get ‘drivers’ into the industry as soon as possible.Which means getting them out ‘driving’ a truck on a fair wage at the earliest legal age possible.Somehow I don’t think that is exactly what is being described in the case of ‘driver’ apprenticeships’.
Carryfast:
Exactly what ‘law’ limits what an 18 year old LGV driver can do,regarding hours,equipment and working environments as opposed to an older one.Yes it is better to get ‘drivers’ into the industry as soon as possible.Which means getting them out ‘driving’ a truck on a fair wage at the earliest legal age possible.Somehow I don’t think that is exactly what is being described in the case of ‘driver’ apprenticeships’.
We were taking about under-18’s if you remember. They, as you well know, are limited by law in regard to hours and shifts; they can’t work before 7am or after 7pm, are limited to a maximum 40 hour week, and must have a one hour break after four hours of work. From September 2013, school leavers apparently have to do some sort of part-time college work which presumably would be covered by the apprenticeship.
As to getting them out on the road at the earliest age possible; well, that is exactly what the Young Driver Scheme sets out to do. Rather than me cherry-pick the points, take the time to have a read through the criteria as set out here;
As you can see, there’s a fair amount that can be done before the trainee actually gets behind the wheel. Whilst this could be done intensively in a matter of a few weeks, it would make better sense to use the time to acclimatise the trainee to the working environment and also assess his capabilities before committing to the driver training. Not something that can be done effectively in a classroom environment. it’s also a two-way street; the trainee gets to see for himself what the job entails first hand, and may well decide it isn’t for him after all before he commits to the driver training.
