Daniel Chamier, who runs a bag manufacturing firm, explains why he thinks local colleges are failing to train the next generation of young people to work in northern factories.

I own and run a small Carlisle-based manufacturing business called John Chapman.

We are one of the last such companies in the UK that makes bags and luggage — and exist in a market where most products, even at the top end, are supplied by Chinese or Indian firms.

We produce products for other brands like The Brompton Bicycle Company and also sell worldwide under our own label, Chapman Bags.

We make all our bags in a small factory in Carlisle, employing around 25 people, drawn largely from the local community.

One of the major challenges now facing us is to find employees locally with the inclination and skills to make bags.

They need expertise in using a sewing machine, cutting, batching and preparing materials like canvas and leather and using the kind of machinery we employ to cut, prepare and finish leather panels and components for bags.

While historically Carlisle and Cumbria had textile mills, shoe factories and other industries employing thousands of people with these skills, now there are just a handful of companies operating in these sectors.

Manufacturing and construction remain important, however, with companies like Pirelli, United Biscuits and Metal Box all employing significant numbers.

There are sewing machines at the college but the point of the fashion design course is not really to learn how to use one

And while the heyday of the mills has gone, there are a number of specialist companies across the borders with a need for traditional textile manufacturing skills, including Barbour, New Balance, Sealy, Alpha Solway, Linton Tweeds, William Lockie, Johnstons of Elgin and Chapman Bags, to name a few.

In parallel with a shifting economy, cultural and educational developments have resulted in fundamental changes to the expectations and skillsets of young people in the area.

Whereas a 16-year-old might well have gone straight to his or her parents’ factory in the past, now they will likely pursue an FE course at Carlisle College.

The latter, housed in a fairly new campus near the city centre, is a thriving establishment offering a wide range of courses.

Inevitably, however, the majority of students tend to choose courses which align more closely with modern expectations of interesting and rewarding careers — so fore example fashion design rather than a qualification in using a sewing machine.

Yes, there are sewing machines at the college (and more than most), but no, the point of the fashion design course is not really to learn how to use one.

This example encapsulates in a nutshell the FE challenge in places like Carlisle.

Indeed, I would argue across much of the country; the further you get from London, the more skewed the courses appear towards a career in a London centric industry rather than industries in which jobs are actually available locally,.

The problem is, of course, that students attending local colleges are far less likely to get one of those London orientated service industry jobs than a degree level student at a metropolitan university.

This issue is compounded by what I perceive to be the general reticence in FE to involve local employers with local students.

To the extent that careers advice is available, it tends to be from the perspective of people with academic experience, not ex-professionals who know what it takes to become, for instance, a plumber, a bricklayer or a machinist in a factory.

We find this issue most severe with young men, who generally appear woefully unprepared for the world of work.

It’s as if no-one has ever told them what it takes to hold a job down, or even what jobs might be available locally.

We try to address these issues through regular visits to Carlisle College, attending local skills fairs, encouraging students to do work placements with us and offering apprenticeship programmes.

As a small company, however, we simply don’t have the resources to offer a comprehensive solution.

My own view is that, until we have institutions in the North of England specifically resourced to offer courses in skills with a more representative reflection of local industries, we will continue to suffer from skills shortages and relatively high youth unemployment — currently 15-20 per cent or more in many Northern towns and cities.

So where, you might ask, is the nearest institution in which a young person in Carlisle could obtain a qualification to operate a sewing machine or make a bag? The answer is Haute-Savoie, France.

John Hyde explains why he thinks the government’s drive to encourage more employers to run their own training will end in tears.

It comes as no surprise that firms running their own apprenticeship programmes, with some notable exceptions, are less successful in both completion rates and Ofsted grades than specialist training providers.

Indeed, in my sector, hospitality, most employers with their own direct contract are coming in well below a 60 per cent success rate while the major private providers achieve 70 per cent plus.

Quite rightly, commercial companies are in business to make a profit, and public sector organisations to provide value for money to the taxpayers.

Apprenticeships are not their primary business and their priority is to turn their apprentices into skilled employees.

On the other hand, apprenticeship training providers need not only to produce skilled apprentices for their employer clients, but jump through all the hoops Ofsted and the Skills Funding Agency throw at us.

It makes sense that to survive, to retain our existing clients and attract new clients, we need to strive for excellent achievement and completion rates and levels one or two Ofsted inspection rates.

What seems like common sense to the sector was sadly missing from the thinking of Doug Richards, and ministers Matthew Hancock and now Nick Boles.

Apprenticeships are not their primary business and their priority is to turn their apprentices into skilled employees

The empirical evidence shows that overall, private apprenticeship training providers substantially outperform those firms who have direct apprenticeship contracts.

This was never more clearly demonstrated than during the UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ employer-led pilots.

Those who suffer are the learners whose future careers are jeopardised by being taught by the wrong provider.

This is more worrying in the context of the current government’s mantra of putting the employers in the so-called driving seat.

Not only has this been shown to disadvantage learners, it is reducing completion rates at a time when apprenticeships are beginning to be seen by the public as a viable alternative route to university.

Many employers are expected to become providers themselves when the levy is introduced next year.

Lessons must be learned from the past to ensure that employers can deliver to the same or a higher level than private training providers.

The introduction of the levy will increase the funding for apprenticeships by two thirds in England from £1.5bn to £2.5bn in a full year.

While some of the funding will be underspent as some employers will opt out or have insufficient need to spend their whole levy, there will be a substantial increase in apprenticeship numbers.

All the messages we have received to date from the government regarding the levy is about process.

There is a dearth of strategic thinking. Where are all the additional trainers and assessors going to come from?

What work has the Education and Training Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills done to look at the capability of the provider base to recruit and train sufficient staff to meet this growth?

Perhaps more worrying is the financial capacity of the provider base to meet the demands of the 20,000 levy payers.

The revised register of approved training providers needs to look more closely at a provider’s financial reserve or overdraft facilities rather than simply their historical financial health.

Only six providers have an adult skills budget in excess of £20m, and just 28 have a £10m-plus contract.

Whatever else the new register contains, it must show employers searching the Digital Apprenticeship Service for a provider to deliver a multimillion-pound contract, that the provider has the financial reserves or facilities and the staff capacity to undertake such a contract.

The current structure of the provider base, with thousands of small local providers, will not meet the requirements of most of the levy-payers who in the majority of cases are multi-site national or international concerns.

Let’s add this to list of levy questions that the government will need to find an answer for soon.

Gareth Parry has depression, which hasn’t stopped him from rising to the top of his organisation. He explains here why apprentice employers need to change their own perceptions of people with mental health issues.

The government’s new Get In Go Far campaign to encourage young people to choose an apprenticeship at the start of their working life presents welcome opportunities for those who might otherwise be excluded from worthwhile careers.

The target to create three million additional apprenticeships by 2020 is ambitious, and campaigns such as Get In Go Far are compelling, but if apprenticeships are to be truly inclusive, the needs of young people with mental health problems should be understood and addressed.

Disabled people, including anyone with a declared mental health condition, are currently underrepresented on apprenticeship programmes.

The Mental Health Foundation estimates that about one in 10 children and young people are affected by mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, which are often a direct response to what is happening in their lives.

Issues with relationships, self-harm, eating disorders and the consequences of cyberbullying are all increasingly prevalent for young people today, and can challenge a young person’s emotional wellbeing.

It is critically important that a young person facing mental health challenges has the same opportunity to complete their apprenticeship as non-disabled apprentices.

Not to do so can have a negative long-term impact on their life chances, and so two things are required to ensure equality of opportunity.

Firstly, employers and providers must make sure they receive tailored, individual support to remove the risk of their not completing their apprenticeships.

Understanding the pressures and challenges facing young people with mental health conditions, and providing training, help and guidance which acknowledges their issues, will go a long way toward easing them, through their apprenticeships.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) have together to produce a programme which does just this.

I have been open with Remploy colleagues about my own mental health challenges and heartened by the response

Supporting Apprentices, which my organisation delivers for the government, is funded by DWP and is free to the apprentice, the employer, or the training provider.

It provides expert support for young people who are finding it difficult to continue their apprenticeship, or are signed off sick, because of a mental health condition.

Secondly, we should be challenging the perceptions of employers, and even training providers, around mental ill-health.

So how do we change perceptions of mental health in the workplace?

There should be no stigma attached to mental health, which is a reality of daily life for many millions of people.

Being more open about mental health helps normalise something which is all too often still a taboo.

This includes business leaders themselves talking about the issues they may face.

Company executives who are open about discussing their own anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues, can help to change a culture which often compartmentalises colleagues as unreliable and difficult to deal with.

I have been open with Remploy colleagues about my own mental health challenges and heartened by the response I received, and the number of colleagues who have since been more open about their issues.

Government figures suggest that one in six people currently in work are experiencing some form of mental health issue, right now.

Business leaders, including those in the FE sector, have the responsibility to lead by example to make workplaces much more inclusive and accessible for people with mental health issues and, in particular, apprentices, who should have so much to look forward to.

The new chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), Mark Dawe, is keen to portray his members as the apprenticeship ‘experts’ that colleges go to for help.

The scale of college subcontracting should come as no surprise to the Skills Minister and readers of FE Week, which has regularly reported on the issue since our first edition in 2011.

However, what is as welcome as it is surprising, is Mr Dawe’s decision to criticise the continued growth in subcontracting.

Readers of my previous editorials on subcontracting will be familiar with my concern over top-slicing arrangements.

But what’s surprising is that the membership body for so many of the subcontractors has criticised the growth in their use.

Many subcontractors I speak to are happiest out of the spotlight of a direct Skills Funding Agency (SFA) contract.

It’s an important intervention, although with increasingly diminished resources at the SFA it seems unlikely they will rush to issue new direct contracts.

It also leaves the Association of Colleges exposed and alone in failing to face up to the truth.

There continues to be too much subcontracting, and the SFA should step in to reverse the trend.

Will the apprenticeship levy be a subcontracting game-changer alone?

That, like so much of the levy plans, remains unclear, untested and uncertain.