A review of apprenticeship funding bands has been launched as an “immediate priority” by the government, with Skills England ordered to identify which standards should be first in line for “potential funding uplifts”. In a letter published today, skills minister Jacqui Smith commissioned the agency to provide urgent advice on which apprenticeship standards may not be funded at a sufficient level. She said the government is “determined” to boost apprenticeship starts for young people and it is “imperative that our funding rates incentivise this rather than hold it back”. The move comes after years of complaints from training providers that funding bands have failed to keep pace with inflation and delivery costs. Smith said employers and providers had flagged that funding rates must be “sufficient” to allow popular apprenticeship standards most used by young people to “grow and flourish”. She highlighted that six of the 20 most-used apprenticeship standards among under 25s have never received a funding uplift since they were introduced. No new money was announced today to fund band uplifts, stoking concern that further savings will need to be found from within the existing apprenticeships budget, which has been fully spent in recent years. The government has already defunded level 7 apprenticeships for people aged 22 and above, and will this year defund 16 other apprenticeships, including popular management standards, that are mostly taken by existing and older workers. In the letter, Smith reiterated Labour’s ambition to deliver 50,000 additional apprenticeship starts for young people by March 2029, reversing almost half of the decade-long decline in participation among 16 to 24 year olds. Apprenticeship starts in that age group have fallen by around 40 per cent over the past decade. The minister also pointed to other recent reforms designed to boost youth recruitment, including fully funded training costs for non-levy employers taking on 16 to 24 year old apprentices from August and a £2,000 recruitment payment due to launch in October. Funding bands determine the maximum amount that can be drawn down from the apprenticeship budget for training and assessment. They currently range from £1,500 to £27,000. Providers have long argued that stagnant bands have made some standards financially unviable, particularly in sectors with rising staffing and equipment costs. Skills England has been told to prioritise standards that make a “strong contribution to supporting our objectives on young people, with a focus on apprenticeships that deliver, or can deliver, a high proportion of starts for those aged under 25” and those that make a strong contribution to “growth and the priority skills to 2030 identified by Skills England across ten critical sectors, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy and plan for change”. Smith told Skills England to hand her advice on “which standards” by July and the advice on potential funding rates by October.