Apprenticeship Admission

This topic was considered by the late Charles Sparrow QC in one of his addresses to the annual conference of the Freemen of England and Wales. He was their honorary counsellor from 1978 until his death in 2005 and a highlight of the autumn conference during most of that period was his Saturday morning address on one of the Aspects of the Freedom, as he called them. The text of each can be found on the Freemen of England and Wales website, and they are well worth while reading.

Charles devoted his time at the 1983 AGM in York to the subject of admission by servitude. His first point was the essential one that such admission is permissible only if established by local custom or order applicable to the city or town in question. In Oxford we have for many centuries had an Order for admission to the Freedom, specifying that apprenticeship to a Freeman can be a qualification. So we have no problem there. Charles concluded his address by setting out four requirements for a valid apprenticeship that could lead to admission to the Freedom. First a willing apprentice who wants to learn a trade or profession. Secondly a master to supervise that apprentice, not necessarily on a day to day basis. Thirdly a fixed period of training. Fourthly a written training agreement between master and apprentice.

In recent years apprenticeships have come to the fore, seen as an alternative to a degree as a route into a career. There is now a government website ‘Find an apprenticeship’. It is useful, outlining different apprenticeships for those with different starting qualifications, from GCSE to degree level. An apprentice is described as an employee, who works alongside experienced staff to gain job-specific skills, spending at least 20% of the working hours in related training and study. The term will be from 1 to 5 years.

So could such an apprentice become a Freeman on completion of his or her training? Perhaps: it would depend on whether the requirements outlined by Charles Sparrow could be satisfied. And that would require something more than what is set out in the government website.

I was first alerted to the problem when the Law Society changed the rules for qualification as a solicitor. As described above, I had a one-to-one relationship with my principal. But the Law Society changed the regulations so that an aspiring solicitor took up a training contract with an authorised firm, rather than an individual solicitor. Since qualification I had entered into formal agreements with a number of articled clerks which on their qualification entitled them to the Freedom. The change meant I could no longer do so. I put my problem to the Secretary General of the Law Society who thanked me for drawing his attention to it: nobody had thought of it, and as the Society had to administer scholarships available to aspiring solicitors articled to an individual solicitor practising within a specified geographical area, that would no longer be possible. So we decided between us that the way out of this quandary was for a one-to-one contract to be entered into within the framework of the authorised firm.