Policy and guidance Foundation Apprenticeship

Compliance

Once your contract is activated, your Development and Delivery Executive (DDE) will visit. They'll talk you through the Foundation Apprenticeship programme requirements. 

Complete the paperwork

You should first familiarise yourself with the way we monitor contract compliance. Then, you can complete the mandatory Learner Registration Form and Equality Monitoring Form. 

If it's relevant to your apprenticeship, you may need to sign the Work-based Learning Declaration. This can be found in our publications area and you, the learner and employer will all need to sign it.

Upload your documents

There are 2 important steps to remember when uploading a document:

1. Upload the completed Learner Registration Form and the Work-based Learning Declaration document to FIPS.
2. Then, enter the information only from the Equality Monitoring Form Section A into FIPS and securely discard that part. You should keep hold of Section B.

Prepare for the apprentice starting 

First, you'll have to set up the apprentice with an awarding body. Their qualification includes the SQA Group Award, apprenticeship and the awarding body units.

Quality Assurance

You must show you’re meeting quality standards when carrying out Skills Development Scotland (SDS) training. 

This is done by completing a Self-Assessment (SA) and Quality Action Plan (QAP). This is completed in the Mesma software platform and you'll be notified of the deadline each year.

Your Quality Assessor will review your submission and provide feedback. It's then used as part of the ongoing monitoring of your delivery.

You can prepare for your self-assessment by reading our Self-Assessment Guidance.

Our quality review visits 

We’ll tell you at the start of each financial year if your organisation will be reviewed. The assessors will review documents, including your QAP.

The assessors will also interview apprentices, employers and partners, and observe work practices. The length of the review visit will normally be between 2-5 days.

You can find out how to prepare for a review in the Quality Assurance and Improvement Framework.

Your review results

You'll update your QAP with improvement actions from the report. This will be monitored by SDS staff on an ongoing basis. Learn more about what to do after a visit in our Quality Assurance and Improvement Framework.