The Student Campus Partnership (SCP)

• An intern can bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to your area of work
• Employing an intern can provide existing team members with the chance to be involved with training and supervision
• You can increase your understanding of the student community
• Interns can help you get on top of projects and challenging tasks
• The working hours and the duration of the internship can be flexible
• Students have the opportunity to develop their employability skills in a supportive environment

• Undergraduate Students can work up to 15 hours per week during term time and full-time during vacations
• Postgraduate students can work up to 6 hours per week, sometimes more if they seek permission from their academic
• The minimum length of an internship is 36.5 hours in total or 1 week
• Students can work for the university for a maximum of 23 months

Before the Internships Team can advertise your role, you will need to notify e-claims of your intention to recruit by completing the following steps:

1. Seek written permission form your budget holder
2. Complete the TR2‌ Form with the details of your SCP role.  Under ‘name of worker’ you can enter ‘yet to be recruited’.
3. You can upload confirmation from your budget holder to the TR2 form or email it separately to e-claims@exeter.ac.uk.  
4. Once the e-claims team has approved your job role and set it up on the e-claims system, you will receive an alert from them.
5. You can then send your completed Internal Internship Vacancy Form to internships@exeter.ac.uk and one of the team will be in touch to confirm the next steps and the timeline.

Promoting Your Vacancy

The team will advertise and promote your vacancy using:

• Handshake - the universities dedicated careers portal
• Targeted emails to students by career sector; occupation; and discipline
• Social media - Career Zone; Internships: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
• The Weekly Internships Bulletin which is sent to thousands of students
• Employability Officers throughout the university who can promote to students
• Targeting students who have applied for similar roles
• 'What's On' weekly employability e-newsletter sent to all students during term-time
• Events e.g. Jobs Fairs

Eligibility Criteria for Students Applying for SCP Roles

• Applicants must have current student status or proof of an acceptance on a degree programme at the University of Exeter.
• Applicants must be a University of Exeter student for the full duration of the internship.
• The University of Exeter is committed to developing an environment which promotes equality of opportunity, values diversity and inclusivity.

• The University of Exeter is a Disability Confident Employer, committed to attracting and recruiting people with disabilities and retaining and supporting staff with disabilities. If an applicant declares a disability and meets all the essential criteria, they will be invited to interview.
• We welcome applications from all eligible students and in particular those from underrepresented groups. Selection and recruitment itself will be entirely on merit alone unless there are multiple applicants demonstrating equal merit. In this clear circumstance, preference will be shown to applicants from under-represented groups. This is in line with lawful positive action measures under sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act 2010.

• All applicants are required to provide the university with Right to Work in the UK evidence, before or at the interview and have this documentation verified by the university, if appointed.
• All interns need to reside in the UK whilst undertaking this role.
• Undergraduate students can work a maximum of 15 hours per week in term-term or full-time hours in vacation.
• Full time Postgraduate students can work a maximum of 6 hours per week and no more than 180 hours per year.  This includes those already working as Postgraduate Teaching Assistants (PTA).
• For further details on the Scheme eligibility, please see below.

Student Status Explained

• When applying for an SCP position the applicant must either have:

current student status or

proof of acceptance of an offer of an undergraduate or postgraduate course at Exeter to begin by the start of the SCP internship.

• To undertake an SCP internship, the applicant must be a current University of Exeter student for the full duration of the internship.
• If the applicant is an undergraduate (UG) student, their student status will expire one month after the end of their course. 
• If the applicant is a postgraduate (PG) student, their student status will expire 6 weeks after the end of their course.
• PG students have restricted hours if work in accordance to the Employment of Postgraduate students- Code of Good Practice.
• For both UGs and PGs if their graduation ceremony occurs before this period is over, they will automatically assume graduate status.
• If the applicant is an interrupted student, they will not have current student status and are therefore ineligible to apply for or continue with an SCP internship.
• If the student status ends early the SCP internship will also need to end early.
• If the student is on a part or full-time year in industry placement, they will have the choice to work as a part-time SCP intern too, although we would recommend they do not work more than full-time hours. The only exception to this rule would be if they are undertaking their year in industry placement at the University of Exeter, then they would only be permitted to work a maximum of 36.5 hours per week. 

International, EU and EEA Students Explained 

• Applicants must have permission to work in the UK and be able to confirm their visa status. When called to interview they will be asked to present evidence of their right to work status.
• EU/EEA students are not eligible for funding as a migrant worker under Student Finance Regulations if solely employed on the SCP or SBP scheme. Please see Student Finance for Migrants Workers for more details.
• To work in the UK, students need a National Insurance Number.

Postgraduate Teaching Assistants (PTAs) Explained 

• As per Employment of Postgraduate students- Code of Good Practice.

• Full-time PG students should not normally exceed 6 hours per week and in all cases must not exceed 180 hours per year averaged over the course of the academic year.
• Part-time PG students can work the maximum 15 hours per week during term time and more during vacation, but no more than 814 hours per year.
• All PG students working as Postgraduate Teaching Assistants (PTA) cannot work in total (PTA and SCP work) more than 6 hours per week and more than 180 hours per year.

• If a PG student is employed as a PTA and employed on the main payroll, they cannot be paid through the eClaims system. As a part-time PTA they will need to be paid using the PTA103 form or any other roles using the PD103 form. All forms will need to be sent to the Pay and Benefits team by emailing payandbenefits@exeter.ac.uk. Further guidance will be provided on appointment.

Right to Work Explained

• All students are required to provide proof that they have permission to work in the UK before the interview and have this documentation verified by the university, if appointed
• Applicants should reside in the UK whilst undertaking the internship
• If a student is already registered on the e-claims system, they will still need to bring their evidence to interview and may have to present it again to HR, if it has been 6 months since they last presented it. 
• For more information about Right to Work please see the eClaims webpages. 

Applications

• The internships team offer a managed application process where students will apply using an application form template
• On average you can expect to receive between 5-20 applications.
• The team will check all applications meet the SCP scheme eligibility criteria and we'll let you know if any of the candidates have declared a disability
• We send all the applications by email the following working day after the closing date.

Shortlisting

• You (the recruiting manager) are responsible for shortlisting the applications. You can use the Shortlisting Scoring Grid to help you
• As the University of Exeter is a 'Disability Confident' organisation, you should interview all applicants who have declared a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Inviting to Interview

• It is recommended that you arrange your interviews as soon as possible. We tell students to expect to hear if they have been shortlisted 5 days before the scheduled interview date.
• We recommend you invite 5-6 students for interview, if possible.
• You can call candidates to book an interview time and date and follow this up with a confirmation email. You may wish to use this Invitation to interview email.
• For the candidates who have not been shortlisted for interview, please let them know as soon as possible by email. You may want to use this Not called to interview email. Alternatively the Internship Team can do this for you, if you send us the names of the candidates.
• The university requires all recruiting managers to check the students Right to Work evidence. Please read the Employer Guidance - Verifying RTW in the UK
  

Conducting the interview

• It is best practice to form an interview panel of up to three people and made up of different genders.
• You can use Guidance for interviews via video call if you are conducting interviews online
• Assess each candidate against the selection criteria published in the Internship Vacancy Form. You can use the Interview Scoring Grid to help you.
• You can use these Interview Questions or these Strengths based interview questions.
• You can also conduct a short test e.g. manipulating data in a spreadsheet or writing a short communication with a client.
• You should respond to candidates who have not been successful at interview and be willing to provide constructive feedback if requested. If this is not possible you may wish to use our standard email unsuccessful after interview.
• You will need to check the Right to Work evidence at interview. Please read Employer Guidance - Verifying RTW in the UK.

Informing interviewees the outcome of their interview

• At the end of the interview please let the interviewees know when you will be in touch to let them know the outcome of the interview. This should take place within 3 days of the interview, ideally via a phone call.
• When you contact the successful candidate to offer them the role, please ask them to confirm they would like to accept the job and agree a start date. 
• You should respond to candidates who have not been successful at interview and be willing to provide constructive feedback if requested. Inexperienced students really benefit from learning what they did well on in interview and what and how they could improve. If you thought they were appointable (just not the top candidate), please let them know.
• For further information, you can view our Guidance on Informing Candidates of Interview Outcome. 

Retaining Interview Evidence

It is a requirement for university staff to retain evidence of scoring and selection for all the candidates you interview for 6 months, after which please destroy or delete. 

References

• As the employer, it is at your discretion if you decide to take up references.  If you wish to do so, you may like to use the Reference Template.  
• Please ensure that any references not required after appointment, are destroyed or retained, as applicable, in accordance with GDPR and the University's Retention Schedules

Once you have selected your Intern, you will then inform The Internships Team who you have appointed. Please fill in the SCP Appointment Form‌ ‌and return to us. We will issue an Internship Agreement, which also acts as the Contract of Employment.

You would like to appoint an intern for a role you have not advertised.

At the University each post needs to be openly advertised, unless you have permission of the relevant Human Resources Business Partner to appoint a selected person. Exceptions may be considered if the following criteria is met:

1. The role can only be undertake by that person as they are the only person with the relevant knowledge, skills and experience, or
2. The project timeline means it is not possible to recruit and train a person in time to meet the imminent deadline, and
3. It is a short-term appointment. eClaims can only offer temporary payroll service of 12 weeks, unless utilising the SCP scheme, which has permission to use the payroll for up to 23months.

If the HRBP grants permission, you can liaise directly with e-claims@exeter.ac.uk (for temporary payroll) or humanresources@exeter.ac.uk for main payroll about setting up your new employee. You do not need to utilise the Internship scheme.

The Internship Induction Checklist is a tick list of some of the areas you may wish to cover with your intern during their induction period, including:

• Personnel documentation and information
• Health and Safety (includes COVID-19 issues)
• IT  
• Getting to know your organisation
• Getting to know who the intern will be working with
• Expectations of how the intern will work
• Support and Training

We ask all interns are given a induction. You can use the Internship Induction Checklist. 

Interns now must undertake mandatory training on their first day of employment:

Requests for exemption from the essential training will be considered only in exceptional circumstances e.g. when the internship is for one week only.  To apply for an exemption please:

• Log into the SID Online system.
• Start a New Enquiry”, choosing "Mandatory Training Dispensation" (not the Mandatory Training General Enquiry) from the “Category” drop down list.
• Dispensations must be sought on behalf of a member of staff, associate or casual worker by the line manager or requester (or an individual must attach an email to the enquiry from their line manager explaining why dispensation is being requested).  Dispensation can be requested for individual courses or for multiple courses.
• For all other courses please refer to the Table of Mandatory training and contact the course sponsor / owner directly with your request.
• Please note, the People Development Team can not authorise dispensations.

To check the mandatory training compliance status of everyone within your team please use the ‘Training’ tab of the My Team report. 

Places on other staff training may be available to students, subject to other staff demand and the approval of the Learning and Development team. As your intern will not have a full Trent account, they can view the list of training at www.exeter.ac.uk/staff/development/courses/listing/.

To book training for your intern please email the Employment Schemes Manager (internships@exeter.ac.uk) with the details and we will forward them to Learning and Development.

If you deem the training as essential to the role, we would expect you or your college to pay for the SCPs time. However, if the SCP wanted to undertake training and it was not essential to the role, but was viewed by you as developmental, they could choose to do this in their own time and unpaid. 

Additionally, we ask employers to set clear objectives, and review and evaluate progress with your intern. You have the option to use our Internship Performance Development Review paperwork, or use your current internal performance indicators.

The Making the Most of Your Intern guide explains how you can manage and develop your intern. 

The intern can expect to have regular 1:1 sessions with their line manager. We recommend daily catch-ups during the induction period or if working remotely.

If in the workplace with other team members, 1:1 catch-ups with line mangers can reduce in frequency, depending on the intern’s need for direction, decision making and information. This can range between once a week to once every 4 weeks.

We will be in regular email communication to check the internships progressing well and offer support to you or your intern if needed. 

We are also able to offer advice regarding the disciplinary and grievance procedures: Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures for Student Campus Partnership.

We ask that you please complete the Internship Feedback Form - Employer Submission and also encourage your intern to complete the Internship Feedback Form - Intern Submission. We use the data from these feedback forms for reporting purposes; to develop our schemes and marketing (with permission).

You can take a look at our case studies here. 

Examples of SCP costs

Full-Time Summer SCP Intern= 36.5hrs a week for 4 weeks:

• Management Fee: £100
• Salary: £1,784.12 - Based on 36.5 hrs a week x 4 weeks= 146 hrs x £12.22
• Apprenticeship Levy: £7.14 - Based on 0.4% of monthly wage
• National Insurance: £141.60 - Based on £1,784.12-£758.00 (NI threshold)=  £1,026.12 x 0.138%= £141.60
• Total Costs: £2,022.86

Full-Time Summer SCP Intern= 36.5hrs a week for 6 weeks:

• Management Fee: £100
• Salary: £2,676.18 - Based on 36.5 hrs a week x6 weeks= 219 hrs x £12.22
• Apprenticeship Levy: £10.70 - Based on 0.4% of monthly wage
• National Insurance: £160.10 - Based on £1,784.12-£758.00 (NI threshold)=  £1,026.12 x 0.138%= £141.60 + month two: £892.06-£758.00 (NI threshold) = £134.06 x 0.138% = £18.50 
• Total Costs: £2,946.98

Full-Time (almost) Summer SCP Intern= 35hrs a week for 4 weeks:

• Management Fee: £100
• Salary: £1,710.80 - Based on 35 hrs a week x 4 weeks= 140 hrs x £12.22
• Apprenticeship Levy: £6.84 - Based on 0.4% of monthly wage
• National Insurance: £131.48- Based on £1,710.80- £758.00 (NI threshold)=£952.8 x 0.138%= £131.48
• Total Costs: £1,949.12

Part-Time Term-Time SCP Intern= 6hrs a week for 33 weeks:

• Management Fee: £100
• Salary: £2,419.56 - Based on 6hrs a week x33 weeks= 198hrs x £12.22
• Apprenticeship Levy: £9.67 - Based on 0.4% of monthly wage
• National Insurance: £0 - as SCP's monthly salary does not exceed the £758.00 (NI threshold)
• Total Costs: £2,529.23

Management fees

A fee of £100 per internship is charged, which covers:

• Advertising and promotion of vacancy- includes advising on job details and person specification, advertising your role in a variety of places, and appropriate timescale;
• Managing the application process - includes handling general enquiries and applications;
• Contract/Agreement support – includes providing internship agreements, and general guidance on the eclaims process for SCPs
• Support and guidance – For interns and employers on internship and employability issues

Extending an existing contract carries a charge of £25. These costs will be journalled by us to the account code supplied on your vacancy/appointment form.

Salary

The University has a two tier pay structure for SCPs, depending on the levels of duties and responsibilities of the role of project. Click Tasks by Tier for a list of typical tasks for each tier.

• Tier 1= Salary Scale Point L.1=£12.22 an hour (includes £10.90 basic hourly rate+ £1.32 holiday)
  Tier 2= Salary Scale Point L.2=£12.40 an hour (includes £11.06 basic hourly rate+ £1.34 holiday)

National Insurance

The rates of pay are subject to annual cost of living increases as they are linked to the University grade structure and the Framework agreement.

Employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) are currently 13.8% of pay above the “salary threshold”, which is revised by the Government each year. In practice, employer National Insurance contributions are approximately 12% of salary. Technical information on the contribution rates and thresholds for National Insurance can be found on the UK government’s webpages.

Apprenticeship Levy

The Apprenticeship Levy is a new tax introduced by the UK government from April 2017 to fund its planned increase in apprenticeship training. The Apprenticeship Levy is calculated and applied at employer level (rather than employee level like National Insurance). The Levy is 0.5% of the University’s total payroll costs, less an allowance of £15,000 per annum. In practice, this means that a charge of 0.44% is applied on each employee’s and casual worker’s pay each month The Levy applies to everyone paid through both the main and casual payrolls. Technical information on the Apprenticeship Levy can be found on the UK government’s webpages.

Payment through eClaims or Main Payroll

SCPs will be paid through the eclaims system managed by HR, unless your SCP already has a job paid through main payroll.

If employed as a part-time PTA they will need to be paid using the PTA103 form or any other roles using the PD103 form. All forms will need to be sent to the Pay and Benefits team by emailing payandbenefits@exeter.ac.uk. Further guidance will be provided on appointment.

Pension

SCPs are restricted to working a maximum of 15 hours per week during term time and full-time during the vacation periods (6 hours/week for full-time postgraduates until they have submitted). SCPs are therefore not eligible for the University's pension scheme. To join, an employee must be:

• Over 22 years of age
• Earning at least £787.00 per month, every month over a 3 month period.

- Based on 0.4% of monthly wage (it is actually £5.96 but we round it up incase of a rise)

1. Can I appoint a student into an SCP role without advertising?

The University has a policy to advertise all employment opportunities in the interest of openness and fairness. Exceptions to this rule will only be considered if :

a) the role has a specific skillset and or knowledge that only a specific person can undertake; and/or

b) there is a time limitation that prevents you from going through the normal recruitment process e.g. the project is ending soon or funds need to be spent by the end of the financial year; and

c) these reasons have been approved by your HR Business Partner.

2. Can I conduct my own recruitment process and use the SCP Internship Agreement once appointed?

The SCP scheme offers academics a recruitment process, rather than just providing Internship Agreements (see Benefits section). If you have already conducted your own recruitment process we would recommend you liaise with you College HR Business Partner or Advisor to discuss your options.

 3. Do I need to pay my interns?

The University of Exeter has committed to paying the Living Wage to all our employees and workers. Employer Engagement and Student Employment has a policy of not advertising unpaid opportunities through our vacancy service. The Internship Team only advertise paid internships, through the SCP, SBP and GBP schemes.

4. Can I advertise for an intern with a protective characteristic?

• Protected characteristics. There are 8 protected characteristics: race, gender, religion, age, sexuality, disability, marriage/civil partnership status and pregnancy/maternity (Equality Act 2010).
• Positive Action is defined as measures employers can introduce take to address any imbalance of opportunity and or reduce disadvantage that those with a protected characteristic could face. In order to demonstrate the need for positive action the employer must have at least twelve months’ worth of data indicating that particular groups of people are under-represented in a particular area of work. Positive action can be used to encourage particular groups to apply, or to help people with particular protected characteristics to perform to the best of their ability e.g. positive action statements in recruitment adverts.
• Positive discrimination is illegal. Discrimination occurs when a candidate is given preferential treatment because of a protected characteristic, or is employed specifically because of a protected characteristic, rather than because they are the most qualified or equally qualified for a role.
• Occupational requirement. There are certain instances when an employer can specify particular characteristics for a role, if the role needs to be done by a person with that particular characteristic. For example, it would be legal and appropriate to specify that only women can apply for a role in a women’s refuge. This type of occupational requirement is permitted only if the employer can demonstrate:

1. Robust and demonstrable link between the requirement and the job
2. Good business case or aim for holding the specific requirement
3. Holding the requirement is proportionate (i.e. appropriate and necessary)

5. Can I accept an out of date passport as Right to Work evidence?

Yes, but only if it is a UK passport.

6. If my SCP's staff associate IT account has expired how can it be extended? 

If you set up the account you can extend it by logging into http://directory.exeter.ac.uk/#, click on the IT Access tab, then Check Existing Requests, then find your SCPs name and enter a new end date.

If you did not set up the account and the person who did is unable to do the extension you will need to log in to http://directory.exeter.ac.uk/#, click on the IT Access tab, then Request New IT access, then create a new IT account account (either Exeter or Cornwall Associate) for your SCP, but under Enter IT Account ID to keep an old account, insert the SCP's expired Exeter Staff Associate details. 

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