Top government officials offered updates on key skills reforms during this week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers autumn conference. Here’s what we learned.
Minister defends flexibilities amid apprenticeship reputation fears
Skills minister Jacqui Smith (pictured above) defended the government’s apprenticeship reforms in the face of concerns from providers that increased flexibility could damage the brand.
Ben Rowland, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said while shorter modules and assessment changes were welcome in principle, there were worries about undermining a brand that has been built up over the past decade.
“From 2012 on, apprenticeships were very focused on rigour and employer engagement. Employers can really trust it to mean something,” Rowland said.
Officials who are pushing through plans that involve assessing apprentices on only a sample of knowledge and skills have suffered a backlash from employers. The government will also allow mandated qualifications within apprenticeships to become the sole form of assessment, and employers will be responsible for testing behaviours.
Construction employers have already warned that these reforms risk allowing apprentices to qualify without proving they are competent.
New “apprenticeship units”, set to be funded through the growth and skills levy from April, could also last just one week and involve zero assessment.
Smith acknowledged the challenge, but said reforms were designed to balance quality with widening access.
“The brand has grown because the quality is there,” she said. “People know that if they go onto an apprenticeship, they’re going to get proper training to progress in their careers. But as programmes develop, you have to judge where standards may restrict growth more than they maintain it.”
Smith cited Skills England’s consultation with employers in areas like carpentry and joinery, which led to revisions of proposed assessments.
The employers involved in this consultation have, however, hit out at the approach taken by Skills England, accusing officials of ignoring their concerns.
“Keeping close to employers, being clear that quality is important, but being as flexible as possible – it’s not always easy, but it’s the right approach,” Smith said.
‘Damp squib’ start for foundation apprenticeships
The government’s new foundation apprenticeships have welcomed their first cohort of apprentices, but sector leaders warned the much-hyped rollout has fallen flat.
The first seven foundation apprenticeships launched in August, including three for the construction sector, two for digital, one for engineering and manufacturing and one for health and social care.
The new programme is designed to “give young people a new route into careers in critical sectors” and create “a new pipeline of fresh talent”, Kate Ridley Pepper, DWP director of work-based skills, told AELP conference delegates.
She revealed the first cohort of foundation apprentices had started, but stopped short of saying exactly how many there were.
AELP chief executive Ben Rowland said the delivery had been “a damp squib”.
“Foundation apprenticeships are an idea that AELP helped to generate,” he said. “The prime minister announced them to great fanfare over a year ago. Saying the delivery has so far been a damp squib is an understatement. Government did what they thought would look good, rather than what would do good.”
Rowland added that the initiative had been championed by employers in hospitality and backed by sectors such as retail and care, “but the government began by taking them to industrial strategy sectors who didn’t ask for them, need them or want them”.
FE Week understands the government is mulling over whether it can afford to extend foundation apprenticeships to more sectors.
Registration needed to offer apprenticeship units
Training providers will need to register with the government to deliver new “apprenticeship units” through the reformed growth and skills levy, it was confirmed.
Officials also expect the content of each unit will be drawn from existing apprenticeships instead of brand new or other non-apprenticeship-related courses.
Ridley-Pepper told AELP’s conference that this design approach would ensure government and employers know that all apprenticeship units have “the rigour to be really high-quality products”.
Last month’s post-16 education and skills white paper confirmed the current apprenticeship levy would fund a selection of short courses when it is turned into the growth and skills levy from April.
Apprenticeship units will be offered initially to employers in “critical skills areas” such as engineering, digital and artificial intelligence.
Skills minister Jacqui Smith revealed during an FE Week webinar on Monday that the units’ duration will be as short as one week and up to a few months.
Ridley-Pepper confirmed this approach on Tuesday before outlining which providers would be eligible to offer apprenticeship units.
She said: “I’m sure you’ll be keen to know how you offer apprenticeship units, and I can confirm that you will need to be approved by the department in order to deliver and claim funding for apprenticeship unit delivery.
“Details of how that will work will be published near the time and shared, but I can assure you that we will try and make sure the process is simple and efficient with no duplication.”
Ridley-Pepper added the plan was to use the existing apprenticeship provider and assessment register (APAR) instead of developing a separate register. Providers already on APAR will not need to re-register.
The skills director added the government is also thinking about ways to ensure providers not currently on APAR can get onto it to deliver apprenticeship units.
She also confirmed that apprenticeship units will be “built from employer-designed occupational standards using quality assured knowledge and skills”, adding that the “intention there is to complement existing apprenticeships and to offer employers the greater choice in how they invest in their skills in their workforce, which they have been calling for for some time”.
Ridley-Pepper said the government planned to lift existing content from apprenticeship standards, such as a mandatory qualification, to use as apprenticeship units.
There is, however, concern that providers will be able to deliver apprenticeship unit training without an element of independent assessment.
Asked about this during the conference, Ridley-Pepper said: “So I think that will very much depend on what the particular unit is and how long it is, whether, in the existing apprenticeship, there is an assessment associated with it.”
Minister’s transparency pledge on levy decisions
Skills minister Jacqui Smith said the government would “try to be as transparent as possible” when deciding how to ensure the apprenticeship levy remains affordable.
Officials are turning the policy into a growth and skills levy, which will fund a range of shorter courses from April, following years of employer lobbying.
But as Smith reminded the sector during Tuesday’s conference, the apprenticeships budget was fully spent last year.
It was partly for this reason that ministers have pushed through the defunding of level 7 apprenticeships for people aged 22 and older, which will come into effect from January.
This controversial policy decision was made without consultation and has received sector-wide backlash.
Smith said the government will “try” to be transparent about decisions on levy spending restrictions if more hard choices need to be made.
She told the conference: “As we develop the growth and skills offer, we’re mindful that last financial year, the entire apprenticeship budget was spent.
“So, like any budget, it demands choices, but we will make these in a careful, considered way, taking into account the needs of employers and the economy, so that we make the most of the levy and deliver on our shared priorities.
“We will always try to be as transparent as possible in our decision making, to give you as much chance as possible to feed into that and to plan ahead. But a clear priority is young people. They are front and centre of our plans.”
LLE focuses on ‘missing middle’ to fill skills gap
The government’s new Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) will focus on qualifications at level 4 and above to plug England’s “missing middle” of skilled workers, the skills minister said.
Jacqui Smith faced questions over why the flagship scheme will not cover level 3 qualifications amid calls for a more inclusive approach. The LLE, due to launch in 2027, will give adults access to student-style loans for tuition and maintenance on higher technical and degree-level courses at levels 4 to 6.
AELP chief executive Ben Rowland challenged the government’s decision, asking: “Why are we limiting it to level four and above? Why don’t we want to make it really inclusive?”
Smith said the government’s focus reflected the country’s biggest skills gap. “The majority of the new skills that we need will be level four and above,” she said. “We have a high proportion of people educated at level six, but where we have a gap – the missing middle – is in levels four and five. That is holding us back.”
She added that technician-level roles were vital to improving productivity in key growth sectors, and that lifelong access to funding for higher-level training would help close that gap.
Smith described the LLE as a “big opportunity” for independent training providers to deliver the modular, shorter courses that will be funded under the new system.
However, Learning Curve Group CEO Brenda McLeish warned that private providers face “huge barriers” to participation because they must register with the Office for Students (OfS), which comes with strict conditions.
The OfS is, however, planning to consult this autumn on proposals to remove some conditions of registration for providers in the further education sector already regulated by the Department for Education.
Smith said quality safeguards were essential but confirmed the LLE remained a “work in progress”.
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