Hundreds more employers have signed up to the government’s Trailblazer overhaul of apprenticeship design, Skills Minister Nick Boles announced today.
More than 200 new employers have joined the 1,000-plus organisations involved in the Trailblazers programme, which allow groups of employers to join together to design apprenticeships. Today’s announcement of 26 new groups, who will design apprenticeships in 35 occupations, pushes the total number to more than 100.
The announcement comes alongside news that existing Trailblazer groups have also today been given the green light to develop 34 more apprenticeships including mortgage adviser and software developer. There are now more than 150 in development.
Mr Boles said: “I am delighted to announce that these 200 new employers will be designing top quality apprenticeships.
“Giving leading firms from British Gas to video games manufacturer Ubisoft the power to design and deliver high quality apprenticeships, means we can ensure more young people have the skills our economy vitally needs.”
It was also announced today that 56 employer-designed apprenticeships ranging from boatbuilder to chartered surveyor to outside broadcast engineer have been approved, with some aiming to have their first apprentice starts as early as September. There are now more than 120 approved trailblazer standards.
We need to be slightly careful about buying the Government’s rhetoric with “revamp” and “overhaul”. For the sea fishing sector, added to the list this week, the process is much more one of defending hard-won gains, with the near-certainty that after expending a lot of time and effort meeting the new criteria we will end up almost exactly where we are now.
The sole provider of sea fishing apprenticeships in England (there are two in Scotland) is Whitby Fishing School, which has worked hard to sell the notion of apprenticeships to the industry, winning great respect and commitment. But fitting the requirements of this very different sector into Government guidelines is not easy (fishermen are not employed, for example, but paid through their share of the catch). Showing BIS that this is an excellent apprenticeship will take time and carries some risk that too-earnest application of rules devised for other sectors might upset the balance we have now.
None of that invalidates the Trailblazer process. It is a reminder that Doug Richard told Government to be careful not to disrupt what’s working well.