The proposal as to whether apprentices should be paid a living wage while training has been put forward by the members of Oxford City's Council's scrutiny committee, which has requested the attention of local officers to discuss further and reach a decision.

In September 2009, Oxford city council reached a decision to pay all agency workers and council employees a minimum of £8.69 an hour, in line with the living wage, and encouraged other Oxford based businesses to do the same.

However, to date the policy doesn't apply to apprentices who earn an average of £4.50 an hour, working while they learn on the job and developing necessary skills relevant to their job role. Despite this, apprentices in the local area including those here at Executive Alarms are still receiving higher wages than the national minimum wage for apprentices who currently receive only £2.73 an hour.

John Keown of Executive Alarms admits that he is always keen to engage new apprentices onto the schemes offered however in recent years has been trying without success to recruit local, enthusiastic individuals to his business.

He said: 'If someone turned around to us and said you have to pay them more money it would not put me off because we need apprentices.

"What is more of an issue than pay is that we have found in recent years that the standard of the recruitment pool has not been high enough''.

And while it is likely to increase interest in apprenticeship schemes, John admits that 'there are other things which are more important.'