Subcontracting fees – English Training Providers. Welcome Patrick Tucker (UK) Apprenticeship Blog Contributor

By Patrick Tucker: Apprenticeship Blog Contributor

I have read many posts recently regarding subcontractor fees being ‘extortionately high’, ‘scandalous’ and ‘Massive subcontracting top-slice’. I am not condoning poor behaviour, however, the fees being charged by primes could be justified, a full drill down of the prime’s activity is required, not just a reaction on what they charge.

I am a strong believer that the % can be charged in accordance with a sliding scale and activities that are being done can be agreed by all parties, and then the % could be high.  

There can be a raft of activities that drive the % upwards, this can be from IQA support, delivery, QA, CI, CPD, resources, IA, registration, FS support, VLE hosting, impact measurement, institutional reviews on employers, TNA’s, audits etc (of course following eligible costs).

Then when you couple in risk (a risk score approach to define the baseline %) to the prime and all of that wrapped up the managing the ILR/Ofsted and taking full responsibility.

Why can’t a provider charge 39% if they are offering excellent Value for Money through a true (Value Chain Analysis) VCA, (Value for Money) VfM index?

Why does the sector seem to be so keen on possible removing good work by primes, just because they may have a high percentage on their fees (which could be perfectly justified).