Time to train acceptance letter

Once you’ve held a meeting with an employee under the statutory time to train procedure, you then need to take a decision on their application and notify it to them in writing with 14 days of the meeting date. If you accept the employee’s request, use our time to train acceptance letter to ensure compliance with the statutory provisions.

Details of acceptance

If you’re happy to accept the employee’s request for time to train, you must confirm the details of your agreement to their request in writing. Your letter must include information relating to:

•         the subject of the study or training

•         where and when you expect it will take place and over what period

•         who will provide or supervise the training

•         what qualification (if any) the training will lead to the award of

•         how the training time will be taken

•         how any tuition fees or other direct costs of the training will be met.

You must also include the date of your decision notice. All of these are covered in our letter, although obviously you’ll need to insert the exact details yourself as these will be entirely case-specific.

Possible options

In agreeing to a training request, there are three possible options:

1. You accept the employee’s proposal as it stands.
2. You accept the employee’s proposal in principle but believe their training needs could be met in a different way to their proposal.
3. You accept only part of the employee’s proposal because they requested more than one type of study or training.

We’ve provided optional paragraphs in our letter to cover all of these three options. Option 1 is straightforward. With Option 2, you’ll need to have discussed this with the employee at your meeting with a view to reaching agreement. If, at the meeting, an agreement is reached with the employee to meet their training needs in a different way, your acceptance letter should contain details of that agreement, including written evidence of the employee’s agreement to it. As far as Option 3 is concerned, where you only accept part of the employee’s request, your acceptance letter must include all of the information listed above and make clear which part of their application is accepted and which part is refused. In relation to the part refused, it must also include on which business grounds the part is being turned down, a sufficient explanation as to why the business grounds apply in the circumstances and the appeal procedure.