CSA Apprenticeship case study: Walsall Council Level 4 Regulatory Compliance Officer

Helena Baxter, Apprenticeship Programme Lead, Walsall Council

“We have 400 apprentices across the Council and work with 60 different training providers, 14 of which deal with the majority of our apprenticeships. CSA is one of our ‘niche providers’ which are really important to us to ensure that, where specialist expertise is needed, it is built into the programme and delivery. Regulatory Compliance is one such area where having a specialist provider is really beneficial. In fact, we started working with Credit Services Association (CSA), who we’d previously worked with on credit control apprenticeships, on the Level 4 Regulatory Compliance Officer Apprenticeship (RCO) after not having a good experience with another more general provider. We were immediately impressed with their bespoke approach tailored to our specific requirements and learners.

“Sarah Heath-Marshall, who recently completed CSA’s Level 4 RCO Apprenticeship, is a big success story for us. Not only has the Council got excellent return on investment from the knowledge and skills Sarah’s gained, but she’s become a real ambassador for apprenticeships in general, supporting our other apprentices and even going into schools to tell students about the range of roles and careers available within Local Government. Specialist apprenticeships like the ones offered by CSA in business-critical areas like compliance show the outside world that the Council does a lot more than just empty the bins!

“We’re now working with CSA on a Level 2 Credit Controller & Collector Apprenticeship for a new recruit in our income collection department and we’ve got an existing employee starting on CSA’s Level 4 Counter Fraud Investigator programme.”

Sarah Heath-Marshall ICA QA(RCO), Community Protection Officer, Walsall Council:

“A few years ago, a group of Walsall Council’s services areas– environmental crime, anti-social behaviour, licensing enforcement, statutory nuisance – were merged into one team. Having worked at the organisation for 20 years, I saw my role evolve from Anti-Social Behaviour Officer to Community Protection Officer, giving me a wider remit and set of responsibilities. The Council had identified a need to upskill team members in regulatory compliance and I was given the opportunity to apply to take up one of a handful of apprenticeships available. After sitting a test, I was one of two chosen.

“I’d previously done a foundation certificate for Trading Standards and had a good experience of work-based learning. If anyone gives me an opportunity to further my knowledge and career development, I’ll always take it. The Level 4 RCO Apprenticeship, which has a professional certificate built into it, was a really good opportunity to get another well recognised qualification which would help to secure my career in a regulatory enforcement environment. 

“When I started on the programme with the original training provider, it didn’t have much structure and wasn’t delivered by someone with regulatory compliance expertise or a Local Government background so the course content didn’t tally up with what we actually do, making it hard to apply directly to my day job.

“When I started again with CSA as the training provider, it was a completely different experience. My CSA tutor took the time to pull together all my existing work and experience to understand exactly where I was at so that the course could be tailored to my needs. After a few one-to-one sessions, I was offered the opportunity to join an existing cohort along with trading standards officers and a public health person. I was able to share insights such as our learnings about merging departments which they were able to take back to their organisations and vice versa. Being part of the cohort gave me a good understanding of the wider regulatory environment.

“The RCO Apprenticeship has given me the knowledge and skills to do my job better, but it’s also given me the confidence to challenge things so that we can work better and deliver better services at a strategic level. Because my tutor helped to make assignments really relevant to my job role, I was able to use them to overcome specific problems and challenges. We are going through another service re-design at the moment and I’m hopeful that I can streamline the work in the team to make it more efficient and consistent and try to address silo working by bringing my broader perspective to things. 

“My experience with CSA as a training provider has been amazing, including how they helped me with paperwork to ensure that everything ran smoothly, and that all one-to-ones and reviews were done on time while taking into account my workload and daily pressures. The flexibility offered, especially around the time of the pandemic, made everything a lot easier and the virtual learning was really interactive, bringing all the benefits of being in the classroom without the travel time.

“As well as the benefits to my own career and my immediate team, a big thing for me has been becoming an apprenticeship ambassador as it’s given me the opportunity to ‘give something back’. I truly believe that the opportunity to do work-based learning is empowering and also that employers get a greater return on investment from investing in the development of long-standing staff.”

Level 4 Regulatory Compliance Officer

CSA Apprenticeships

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