Education and Training

Employers are required to ensure that their staff are properly skilled or qualified to carry out the tasks given to them. In the event that an employer fails to provide adequate education or training, and the employee sustains some kind of injury as a consequence, the employer may be liable to prosecution under Health and Safety law. In addition the employee may choose to leave the employment and claim constructive dismissal Constructive Dismissal arising from the employers’ failure to provide the necessary education, or training that the employee required.



Certain staff have a right to ask for time off work for training or study. In order to have this right the person must be an employee and have worked for the employer for at least 26 weeks. The training must also help the staff to do their work better. There also need to be at least 250 people employed in the organisation for the statutory right to apply. The right therefore does not apply to agency staff. Clearly an employee that wishes to exercise this right should ask their employer, and make the request in writing stating certain minimum information about the date of the proposed training/study, the subject matter of the training/study, and details of the provider etc. Under the statutory scheme the set information MUST be given, otherwise the employer has the right to reject the request (so see the Government and or ACAS information on the details required with the request).The employee can only make one request a year.Only one request can be made each year. If the request is make properly the employer is obliged to deal with it in a set period, and has limited grounds on which any such request can be rejected. It should be noted that unless the employer agrees otherwise, their is no obligation for the time off to be paid! Similarly the employer does not have to pay for the training or study- it may choose to pay just a part of the cost.

In the UK the law obliges all young people under the age of 18 years to continue in education or training.

Sometimes employers spend significant time and money in training an employee only to see that employee leave very shortly afterwards. The training costs that have subsequently been wasted can only be recovered if there is a written agreement between the employer and the employee to allow it. (see link to recovery of training costs article).