The target has been set and the election won — now the government must set about achieving 3m apprenticeships. But what exactly is being aimed at and is it even the right target, asks Nick Linford.

As the dust settles on a general election result few predicted, the FE and skills sector will be considering the implications of a Conservative government.

Above all else, the manifesto commitment to fund 3m apprenticeship starts over the next five years now takes centre stage. In fact, even outside of our sector, it is arguably the government’s top priority given the newly-elected Prime Minister listed it first in his maiden speech.

So before waking up to the reality and potential hangover of the task ahead, let us start with a raised glass and sector back-slap. The government wants to invest further in our sector and in their own words; apprenticeships support young people to acquire the skills they need.

With the self-congratulation out of the way it is time to consider if the 3m starts is the right target and how it might be achieved.

The Conservatives have chosen to use apprenticeship starts as their target, which is a figure published in official Statistical First Releases. This means within the FE sector it is already well understood and credible as a measure. However, how many listening to the Prime Minister would realise this 3m is neither the number of people, nor does it mean they passed the apprenticeship?

Hard as it may be to believe, the number of individuals participating in apprenticeships has never been published

Firstly, many of the 3m starting an advanced apprenticeship are being counted for the second time, having already achieved an intermediate apprenticeship.

In fact, apprentices joining the accountancy profession often enters at level two and progresses to level three and then continues on to level four. They would be counted three times towards the 3m target.

Hard as it may be to believe, the number of individuals participating in apprenticeships has never been published, and efforts by FE Week to find out the number through a freedom of information request have been rebuffed.

Surely it would be better to count people benefiting — let’s call them ‘apprenticeship entrants’ — to avoid this double or triple counting. This would also save me shouting “wrong!” every time a politician refers to the number of ‘people’ doing an apprenticeship.

The second issue with the target is that it only counts how many apprentices started, which simply means they were on the course for 42 or more days. Last year, a third of all apprenticeship leavers failed to successfully complete the course.

This means we would be counting 1m failed apprenticeships towards the 3m target. How many politicians realise this and would it not be better to be chasing a target that only counts those apprentices who actually graduate?

To achieve 3m starts in five years will require an average of 600,000 starts every year, with an emphasis on supporting the ‘young’, if the Conservative manifesto is to be believed. This is a huge challenge, given last year apprenticeship starts fell 14 per cent to 440,400, of which just 278,900 were aged under 24.

The returning Skills Minister, Nick Boles, is therefore faced with an immediate dilemma. Cop out, and chase growth the easy and cheap way by encouraging more adult apprentice starts, many of whom will be large employers with existing employees. Or stick to the commitment to support the young and incentivise or force more large and small employers to recruit 16 to 23-year-old apprentices?

It is also worth keeping an eye on the development of Degree Apprenticeships, which featured in the Conservative manifesto. For example, might a quick win be to simply rebadge nursing degrees as apprenticeships?

Then there are higher level apprenticeships, but should we be spending public money subsidising level six professional training at law firms and banks? More clues are due soon, with an Apprenticeship Bill to be announced in the Queen’s speech.

Before Nick Boles and the Skills Funding Agency panic and take the cop out route to 3m starts, we need to quickly debate whether ‘starts’ represent the best target to chase and how to ensure many more young people participate.

The government can’t create apprenticeships; only employers can do that, so they need to do their bit too.

Your thoughts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

23 Comments

  1. Neil James

    You could split the data into ‘new starts’ and ‘progressing starts’.
    Then again, would an apprentice who has taken a break in between be counted as a new start or a progressing start? How long a break would be required to count as a new start?

  2. Whether you count starts, achievements or people, there won’t be any at all unless the government drops plans for mandatory cash contributions by small employers. At the FE Week conference just before the election, Nick Boles held out a firm hope that common sense might prevail. Now that he has kept his job, the sector urgently needs to see that it does.

  3. Ashley Hickford

    I think apprentiships are incredibly overlooked. In order to attract apprentices we need to figure out how we can make it look inviting! For example the wage for apprentices is £2.73 absolutely outrageous. The Gov’t has a massive job on its hands to get 3m apprentices

  4. My thoughts are in what sectors the apprenticeships will be offered. Engineering is a growth sector which needs new engineers at an alarming rate but these are not 12 month delivery programmes, they can and should be a minimum of four years. I’m not sure if the government understand the word “apprenticeship” and what it really should look like. I only hope this minister realises before it’s too late and we lose all of the existing Engineers without a plentiful supply of new recruits to take over the reigns and ensure sustainability in the sector.

  5. Alison

    Targets shouldn’t focus on starts they should focus on achievers, afterall these will be the skilled workforce the government wants and needs in the future. The shift of ephasis should not only support those leaving school at 16-18 but we also need to consider a growing number of 19+ and indeed 24+ learners who want to work in skilled industry but are not supported to do so. Lifelong learning needs to be encouraged, this would meet the shortfall if more were encouraged to embark on their first L3 or L4 qualification. Age should not be a barrier to learning.

  6. Max Everson

    “the number of individuals participating in apprenticeships has never been published, and efforts by FE Week to find out the number through a freedom of information request have been rebuffed” – absolutely shocking.

  7. I agree that the number of starts isn’t the best measure of success with Apprenticeships but I would imagine that trying to ascertain the number of individuals instead would be quite a costly task given the extra information required. There is a great deal of movement between employers and sectors that would add to this, particularly within the Health and Social care sector.

    In regards to increasing the number of people starting Apprenticeships, perhaps the government need to look at their prior attainment criteria. Many of my customers are frustrated that their staff are unable to receive funding as they have a degree level qualification that is completely unrelated to their job role. How many people with a 2nd or 3rd Class BSC Honors work in a job role unrelated to their degree?

  8. Carol Mansell

    I agree that by looking at the starting numbers it could be very misleading and give the Government a ‘quick fix’ for their target of 3m.

    My concern is about the quality of the apprenticeships. In the early years sector the quality of some training offered to youngsters comming into the profession has been questionable at best and totally inept at worst. The quality of the apprenticeship impacts on the quality of the trained person at the end of the training.

  9. There are *loads* of ways of getting to a 3M target, even if we are only talking starts (which we basically have to do now, because that’s the trumpeted target. No politician could turn round and say “oh, yeah, it’s not 3M starts now it’s actually 1.75M individual achievers” without both the opposition and press jumping up and down on them).
    .
    So, given that, what are the options? If they’re going to force unemployed under-24s onto an App, “programme-led” apprenticeships are the obvious/inevitable first step, and we all know how well they work out (also, surely a big chunk of unemployed 21-24 year olds are graduates? how’s that going to work?).
    .
    I suspect that subtlety will be lost in the chase for the magical target though and it will be Elmfield/Morrisons part two, where we subsidise huge corporations’ staff development budgets again…

  10. Chris Rowland

    It’s a fatuous target made in the heat of the moment.
    Without the German system of integrated schools and businesses, UK apprenticeships fall into the chasm left by competing 16+ institutions. Furthermore, there are few careers guidance experts who can channel our youngsters’ interests in the direction of apprenticeships.
    Perhaps Nick could persuade his old tutors at Winchester to champion some technical apprenticeships at say, McLaren or Bentley, rather than ensuring their students gain a place at Oxford to study PPE?

  11. Linda Keighley

    We need to also investigate why a third of apprentices do not complete their apprenticeships; this has a negative impact on the apprentices, the employers, training providers’ achievement statistics and effectively wastes time, effort and money spent by all three.
    There is no point in investing more funding until we address this, surely?

  12. Annette Allmark

    Trailblazer employers in the visitor economy, including hospitality and retail, are committed to the apprenticeship reform. They’ve driven the standards and intend to be at the heart of the new apprenticeship system ensuring it’s fit for purpose for their industries. Cop out isn’t an option to keep them genuinely engaged…listening to their needs and working with them is

  13. As ever, this is about working with employers to help them to develop the workforce of the future. So long as the statistics are transparent, it is good to include “starts” on each level of an apprenticeship as we are aiming to develop a highly skilled workforce and be able to compete with our European counterparts.

  14. Tim Buchanan

    the 3 million target will be a millstone for the minister and the apprenticeship reform agenda. High targets and reform create a tension, it is very difficult to radically change a system and expect similar levels of uptake in the short term. It is virtually unheard of to increase numbers in an environment of change. I would expect to see accommodations made to the transition period and the switiching off of high volume frameworks. Secondly the concept of a new job or new job role will not survive existing employees will have to be included to reach the target.

  15. Absolutely fantastic summary! The Government need to invest in engaging with Providers to spend more time with ALL employers large or small, to encourage them to see the benefits for their companies in recruiting apprentices to attempt to fill the aging workforce and massive skills gaps especially in Engineering to help the economy in the future!

  16. 1. If they don’t know how many they have already, how will they know when/ if they ever achieve their target and how can we have any confidence in any data they produce?

    2. The provider base has driven apprenticeship recruitment, most of whom were taken on by very small businesses. Providers now risk becoming marginalised as the funding is routed through employers. How can this ever work for the SMEs that take on 90 – 95% of all apprentices?

  17. What do we do in rural areas or in areas where the majority of jobs are seasonal and with small businesses? Persuading employers in these areas to take on young apprentices will require some extreme creativity

  18. Working in an FE college one of our challenges is poor IAG in schools – it will be interesting to see what measures will be put in place to ensure Apprenticeships and Traineeships are fully integrated into the IAG for ALL (and not just as an aside in the last couple of months!)given in an impartial manner as a credible option for progression.

    • We might call it poor IAG in schools Rose, the schools would call it ‘good recruitment’. It we want more young people 16 and 17 to take up Apprenticeships we have to work with the school system to find a compromise. You will never get them on board if you seek to displace their sixth form students, which is what they will see you trying to do.

  19. David

    A second apprenticeship or progression to an Advanced framework is still a new apprenticeship meeting a requirement of a new or changed job role with entirely different skills so why paranoia and criticism about individual starts? Numbers of participants are released but to say you shouldn’t count one framework after another is misunderstanding their content and the significant differences between them.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416527/SFR_commentary_March_2015_FINAL.pdf

  20. Dion van Overdijk

    If I were an employer would I be interested to invest towards an education of a person that needs telling how to speak other than monosyllabic, dress appropriately and attendance is mandatory? Not all young people are like this but most of those go to university on courses where jobs are no guarantee at all but fill the coffers of the institution. Pay the apprentice a decent wage, yes I agree but train someone for another organisation, no chance. If funding for apprenticeships needs to come from employers than there is little incentive to take them on and if we would only take them on with incentives than there is something wrong with employer motivation. You really need to ask why apprenticeship schemes in the German car industry are so successful.