After much consideration and having taking advice from all of our apprenticeship stakeholders and from Public Health England, the decision has been taken today to suspend the practical element of our apprenticeship currently carried out at our National Training Centre in Darlington.

We must consider the impact on apprentices, staff and local NHS resources in bringing together large groups of individuals for distance training requiring hotel accommodation.

Currently, a number of our hotels cannot guarantee whether or not they will remain open has also had an impact on our decision today.

This does not mean that the apprenticeship programme is cancelled, work will be provided to the apprentices via Smart Assessor and other digital platforms, details will be provided over the coming days. Maths and English will be taught on-line, and over the coming days/week, a revised timetable of on-line learning will be issued to employers and apprentices, taking into consideration the needs of everyone involved.

There will be regular updates and communication to our employers.

TICA will cancel all accommodation bookings that have been made for the rest of March and April at the Harrowgate Hill Lodge and The Dalesman, this will be reviewed over the coming weeks. If you have booked your apprentice(s) at other hotels, we would advise cancellation at this stage until further notice.

TICA House remains open and fully functioning. Whilst group training sessions will not take place face to face, many of our sessions (including hazardous waste refreshers) will go ahead on-line and any critical training for operatives will be accommodated and considered on a case by case basis.

We continue to limit foot traffic to our site and a number of our staff are now working from home where it is suitable to do so, however our operation remains open as usual.

We would like to thank you in advance for your understanding. If you have any questions relating to this communique, please contact TICA via email at enquiries@tica.uk.com