Introducing APAR: Apprenticeship Providers and Assessment Register

ROATP to become APAR

Training Providers and EPAO’s to be listed on new ‘Apprenticeship Providers and Assessment Register’ (APAR)

From 1 August 2023, when an organisation receives recognition for a standard from Ofqual or the Office for Students (OfS) they will automatically be placed onto the list of approved EPAOs. 

The Department for Education (DfE) will then merge this list with the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (ROATP) and rename it the ‘Apprenticeship Providers and Assessment Register’ (APAR).

New organisations will still need to create an account on the apprenticeship service to confirm their place on the register, but they will no longer have to undertake two application processes. 

Maintenance of the register will be undertaken automatically through data exchanges between the regulators and the awarding bodies, and we are now developing that process.

Although DfE are merging the ROATP with the new APAR, the application process for providers and supporting providers will remain the same.

Both Ofqual and OfS are fully supportive of these changes and are working alongside DfE to implement them.

From 1 August 2023, apprenticeship providers will be responsible for choosing the EPAO for an employer unless the employer wishes to continue to select the EPAO themselves.

Robert Halfon, Skills and apprenticeships minister, and Peter Mucklow, DfE’s director of apprenticeships, teased the change during last week’s Federation of Awarding Bodies EPA conference. They told the audience that they planned to help cut bureaucracy in EPA. But stopped short of announcing the registers would be merged.