Managing a national training company brings a great deal of variety to my daily workload.

However, this time of the year many of my hours are spent working on our exhibition stands at the various trade shows we attend.

So in the past few weeks I’ve been at Earls Court for the Restaurant Show, Olympia for the Independent Hoteliers Show, I am writing this article from the Care Show at the NEC Birmingham and of course, we’re back at the NEC for the Skills Show in a matter of days.

Then a break until January, when we’re exhibiting at the Hospitality Show at the NEC again.

All this is on top of the local careers exhibitions and activities our area teams attend throughout the year.

So why do we invest to attend these national trade exhibitions? Firstly, it not only promotes our brand to our chosen industries, but brings us sufficient new employer clients to justify the expense and time.

It gives me the opportunity to listen to what employers say they really need for their own staff development and training.

It also enables me to listen to my own staff ‘sell’ to the employers visiting our stands to ensure they understand the full offer we can deliver and the various funding streams we can access. The bonus for me is the number of total strangers who come onto our stands and say they already use HIT and are exceptionally pleased with the service we provide for them.

But worrying is the level of ignorance among employers about apprenticeships, both in hospitality, but also in the care sector, which is highly regulated with mandatory requirements for training.

The new minister in May needs to plan for a decade of no changes, not loans one minute, then withdrawn when learners vote with their feet, or Functional Skills this week instead of GCSEs last week, grants this week, withdrawn the next

While it is generally accepted that FE providers have been the major force in promoting apprenticeships to employers, government has funded the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) and a whole range of advertisements, which in the main appear to have failed.

At HIT, we ensure we get value for money from attending these trade shows. How does BIS evaluate the success of their marketing and advertising of apprenticeships and NAS?

Disturbingly, employers we speak to at these trade shows are confused by the continual changes meddling ministers impose on apprenticeship programmes.

Eligibility for funding, lengths of stay, inconsistencies of age grants, etc, confuse employers and their level of knowledge is normally out of date.

No wonder less than 10 per cent of employers bother with apprenticeships when they need to plan for at least three to five years ahead while a minister can change the apprenticeship funding, content and eligibility rules at a moment’s notice.

Again from the Skills Show last year, it was apparent from many of the school pupils visiting our stand that the vast majority were unaware of the existence and potential of apprenticeships. More alarmingly, their teachers were even more ignorant and the parents we spoke to had only vaguely heard of apprenticeships, and had rarely considered it an option for their children.

Hopefully we will now have a period of no changes as we approach the general election. But the new minister in May needs to plan for a decade of no changes, not loans one minute, then withdrawn when learners vote with their feet, or Functional Skills this week instead of GCSEs last week, grants this week, withdrawn the next — that is no way to improve the skill base of the country to grow the economy.

Employers and parents want assurance that the Trailblazer apprenticeships will contain a valid qualification backed by a reputable awarding body, not just a standard agreed by a minority of employers and signed-off by the current minister.

After all, City & Guilds has been creating and approving apprenticeship since mediaeval times, not just the average 18 months the apprenticeship ministers have remained in post.

The most recent government release on FE loans indicated that the number of applications from learners aiming to study at level four was being hit. Mike Farmer explains what this might mean for the sector.

There has been plenty of analysis of the impact of 24+ Advanced Learning Loans, but one aspect does not appear to have received much attention — the impact at level four, which appears to be much greater than at level three.

In 2012/13, the year immediately prior to the introduction of the loans scheme, about 10 per cent of learners aged 24 and over studying at level three and above were at level four. In 2013/14, the first year of the scheme, the proportion dropped to 5 per cent, which is consistent with the proportion of level four 24+ loan applications since the start of the scheme.

So, leaving aside the apprenticeship ‘fiasco’, the introduction of the 24+ loans scheme appears to have its biggest impact on the numbers choosing level four qualifications. So far as I can judge, this was not predicted.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Regulatory Impact Assessment, published in June 2012, for example, anticipated an overall 45 per cent fall in student numbers, but made no prediction about differential effects on level four.

Why should this be so? And should we be worried?

There are no easy answers to the first question. We all need a much better understanding of this newly-created market and what influences consumer behaviour.

The paucity of detailed published information (eg on qualification uptake) does not help.

By April 2014, for example, nearly 60 per cent of all level four loan applications were in one subject (accounting diploma) — but is that consistent with previous years?

What changes have there been in the types of level four learners? Have employer-supported part-time learners fallen more than self-funded and full-time learners? Since level four+ overlaps with higher education there may be some answers from that sector, on which there is more detailed information.

Leaving aside the apprenticeship ‘fiasco’, the introduction of the 24+ loans scheme appears to have its biggest impact on the numbers choosing level four qualifications

The Higher Education Funding Council for England reports significant recent falls in higher education student numbers on part-time and sub-degree (level four and five) courses such as HNC/HND, DipHE and Foundation degrees following the introduction of the current higher education loans regime.

Employer funding for students is also (consequentially?) reported to have fallen significantly. Could the same trends be happening at level four+ in FE? Policy debate cannot sensibly happen in an information vacuum.

Is the fall in level four numbers a problem anyway? On the one hand the government and just about everyone else is stressing the importance to the nation of higher level skills, particularly in certain key areas (nuclear commissioning/de-commissioning and HS2 spring to mind).

On the other, the loans schemes in both FE and higher education are designed to facilitate student choice, on the basis presumably that the consumer knows best.

However, significant public hand-wringing immediately sets in when consumers make what are perceived to be the ‘wrong’ choices (think ‘endangered subjects’ in higher education).

The recent BIS consultation on the future of FE loans suggested that one of the reasons for a transfer of HND/Cs from the higher education to the FE loans system, was that students at private colleges were ’not in priority vocational areas’ (translation — taking the ‘wrong’ subjects).

For me, the policy lesson is that once you establish a market, you must accept the consequences of consumer choices, although you need to understand them better, and provide better consumer advice.

The dilemma for government is if, in its view, such a market fails for vocational areas where it has a policy on what subjects and qualification levels people should take, it no longer has the financial levers to deliver what it wants. This is exactly what Professor Ewart Keep has pointed to in his paper What does skills policy look like now the money has run out?

Level four is a fascinating test case for this thesis.