Assessment is open to all learners who have the potential to meet the requirements of the relevant qualification standards. The internal quality assurer’s role in ensuring learners' access to assessment is to:

• Provide guidance and support to mentors to ensure they don’t discriminate against any learners either intentionally or inadvertently.
• Make sure that assessment and recording methods do not introduce requirements which are not included in the national standards.
• Check that assessors are aware of the flexibility they have in agreeing assessment methods so that they can meet the assessment needs of individual learners.
• Review data to check trends and act to improve access and assessment practice.

Upon application and recruitment onto a programme through the company recruitment procedures all learners have been subject to an eligibility check to ensure compliance with the most recently issued funding guidance from the Skills Funding Agency.  Following this, an in-depth initial assessment is carried out to look at learners' prior experience and areas of weakness to build a detailed Individual learning plan. This will progress the learner through the apprenticeship framework with the correct level of support in the areas where it is needed. This is supported by the internal quality assurer from PLG to ensure the training planned for and undertaken by the mentor and learner throughout the learning journey is as robust as possible and suited to the learners’ individual needs.

Following the completion of assessment which has been planned for and agreed by the assessor and learner, the learner has the right to appeal against any decisions of competency which may or may not have been made against them. The process for this procedure of appeal is defined below:

• An appeal is to be recorded in writing and logged with quality assurance personnel through the BUD system or via email.
• The evidence in which this appeal refers to will then be gathered including all plans and reviews which have been carried out.
• This evidence will then be subject to second assessment by a qualified assessor (D32,33 A1 or equivalent) against the appropriate standards.
• Following this process, the assessor will give their feedback on learning outcomes to be  claimed.
• The quality assurer will review the assessment carried out and place an overall judgement of competency based on the evidence that has been provided.
• Should this procedure not prove sufficient the learner has the right to launch an appeal with the awarding organisation and their own appeals procedure will be launched by the External Quality Assurer.

Note: The learner has the right to appeal against any assessment decision which may have been made against their competency in a particular area; this does not affect the right to future appeals and will not affect the assessment experience of the learner.

A complaint is a grievance which an individual may have against the service which they are being provided by PLG. This can include a potential breach of Service Level Agreement between employer and PLG or unsatisfactory provision of training and services between the apprentice and PLG.

• Complaints will be notified to the PLG Quality Director via email on andy@plgrp.co.uk 
• Complaints are to include as much detail as possibly surrounding the complaint including a timeline of issues to allow for swift resolution of the complaint.
• Complaints are to be logged within 1 month of the issue occurring to allow for the issue to be promptly investigated and resolved.
• All complaints will be responded to by the Quality Director within 24 hours to acknowledge receipt of the complaint.
• PLG aims to resolve all complaints within a two-week period and where this is not feasibly possible complainants will be notified on timeframes for effective resolution of complaints.
• Once the complainant has exhausted the internal PLG complaints process, and if a resolution has not been achieved, the complainant has a right to complain to PLG’s regulatory body.

The process for continuing a complaint beyond PLG is outlined below:

PLG is regulated for the purposes of this policy by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and as such complaints should be addressed to the Complaints Team at the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

ESFA Apprenticeship Service Support on 08000 150 600 or helpdesk@manage-apprenticeships.service.gov.uk

Complainants should note that the Education and Skills Funding Agency will only take up a complaint when they are satisfied that the internal procedure, including appeal, has been exhausted, unless the Agency believes that PLG is not dealing with a complaint appropriately or effectively, when it may intervene before the procedure is exhausted Details on the Education and Skills Funding Agency Complaints procedure can be found in the document entitled, “Procedure for dealing with complaints about providers of education and training” which is available from the Skills Funding Agency

(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfa-complaintsprocedure-aboutproviders).