Young entrepreneurs get spooky for charity

Entrepreneurs at a West London college raised £150 for local charities with a Halloween event.

Scary treats, ghoulish make-up and spooky dances were all organised by Uxbridge College’s entrepreneurs’ society, the Young Dragons.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Hillingdon joined students for the event, with Mayor Michael Markham even getting stuck in and face painting student Danny Hulusi, 19.

Sharon McCann from student support said: “Everyone involved has worked incredibly hard to make this event a success.

“It was a great opportunity to bring everyone together – and to get some delicious homemade cakes at a bargain price.”

Money raised from the day was split between the Mayor’s nominated charities, including The Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, Hillingdon Young Carers and AgeUK Hillingdon.

Retail student, and one of the Young Dragons, Harsharan Rihal, 19, said: “The Halloween event was extremely exciting. I felt like a real businesswoman taking part in a large-scale event. I really enjoyed working as part of a team.”

Student shows dark side for exhibition

Arts students delved into their dark sides to stage a major exhibition with a haunting theme.

Cleveland College of Art & Design, in Middlesbrough, was approached by Preston Hall Museum, Stockton, to create a gothic horror exhibition of work in its new gallery.

The collection by Year 1 and 2 BTec extended diploma in interactive media students will be on display until the end of the year.

Winning student Mark Nichols, 17, said: “I looked at some gothic art and tried to make it more striking with a shadow watching over the

hall that manifested itself as long tendrils.” Preston Hall exhibition officer Mark Tindle

said: “Students had free rein to wander around the hall and its grounds to soak up the atmosphere and be inspired by its heritage.

“We wanted to get them used to working to a professional client brief and the standard was outstanding.”

College tutor John Stead said: “It has been a great opportunity for all our students to show off their skills. People think interactive media is just games design when it is much broader than that, which this exhibition demonstrates.”

Apprenticeships: hats off to the stubborn geeks

If you relied on mainstream press and broadcasting media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that apprenticeships were something from the past, says Professor John Field

What a mess we’ve made of apprentice- ships. The Select Committee on Business, Industry and Skills found that a sizeable minority of apprentices receive no training whatsoever; the system is riddled with conflicts of interest, often unreported and largely unresolved; profit levels appear to be inflated by government grants; some employers simply badge existing training as an apprenticeship to claim funding; the system involves de facto age discrimination, with no apparent rationale, as well as gender discrimination in some trades. Worse, the uneven quality of training has damaged public perceptions of apprenticeship schemes in general.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who has followed online debate. But if you relied on mainstream press and broadcast- ing media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that apprenticeships were something from the past, inherited from the medieval craft guilds, and unsuited to a modern economy.

And it is true that the apprenticeship system that operated until the 1980s was flawed. Lads followed dads, excluding many women and immigrants; whether a particular craft was included or not was often a matter of historical accident (and workforce gendering); and craft status often became a pawn in collective bargaining, bedding rigidities into a system that should indeed have been modernised as industry and skills requirements changed.

But instead of modernising apprenticeships, the Thatcher government chose to smash them. In place of backward-looking, time-served, tripartite apprenticeships it promoted the go- ahead standards-based competency model of the National Vocational Qualifications system. Apprenticeship systems survived in small pockets, but for the most part they vanished as employers replaced them with short, cheap training schemes.

By contrast, a number of other European countries opted to modernise their apprentice- ship systems. They retained the principle of social partnership, seeking to work out the problems of modernisation through consulta- tion and negotiation. And they tried to match the new, flexible forms of work practices needed for European industry to survive.

The result was by no means perfect. Gender segregation often survived, with young women dominating apprenticeships in traditional female areas and males in engineering and IT.

Flexibility was sometimes insufficiently developed, as shown most notably in Germany’s attempt to impose a (western) model of apprenticeship on the very different labour market of the former East Germany. It is still far too difficult for adults to upskill or reskill.

But these were and are seen as reasons for reforming a high quality pathway to highly skilled labour. Hilary Steedman’s report for the International Labour Organisation identifies a number of features of successful apprentice- ship schemes that, she shows, have helped to reduce youth unemployment and maintain labour quality.

But what interests me particularly is that none of this is new. Campaigners and research- ers have blogged repeatedly on the topic, and there has been sustained coverage in the redoubtable FE Week. Academics such as Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller have written and spoken about the policy flaws. Think tanks and the National Audit Office got involved. And while trade unions have generally been quiet, individuals such as Tom Wilson of UnionLearn have raised tough questions about the treat- ment of this vulnerable group of workers.

Yet the mainstream press has had little to say about another sorry chapter in the long story of Britain’s problem with vocational skills. Hats off, then, to the handful of stubborn geeky buggers who have worked hard to raise concern over what is an important issue, but not sexy, fashionable or high status enough.

Now we move on to the much tougher task of building an apprenticeship system that is fit for purpose. The Select Committee’s recom- mendations cover eight pages. So far the Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock, has issued a bland statement affirming the value of apprentice- ships and promising to look at improvements. FE Week will no doubt be watching.

Professor John Field, director of research in the school of education at the University of Sterling in lifelong learning. 

Action needed for workforce skills goals

Eleven months down the line and plenty to be done on apprenticeships, says the chair of the BIS Committee, Adrian Bailey 

It is fair to say that the past few years have been turbulent for everyone, especially businesses, employees and young people.

It is perhaps timely, then, that in the month when some green shoots of economic growth appear from what has been a long double-dip recession, my committee is publishing a report outlining how, through the apprentice- ship programme, government can help this country up-skill its way through economic recovery.

A highly-skilled workforce is essential to maintaining and enhancing our global competitiveness. Apprenticeships can help create such a workforce, boosting economic growth, employment, education standards and social mobility.

We have made a significant number of recommendations, on how apprenticeships should be improved”

Apprenticeships outdate all of the political parties — they are too important to be used as a political tool. Action, reform and prioriti- sation are needed and I am pleased to see that apprenticeships are, rightfully, high on the government’s agenda.

Skills are what matter, and finding the best way of delivering them is at the heart of my committee’s inquiry.

Our committee spent almost a year inves- tigating what reforms are needed in order to create an apprenticeship programme that is fit for purpose. We considered more than 130 pieces of written evidence, spoke to more than 40 experts, visited several companies and trainers of apprentices and also spoke to apprentices themselves.

We were consistently impressed by the pas- sion and focus shown by all those involved, particularly on the importance of getting this programme right.

We have made a significant number of recommendations, on how the apprenticeship programme should be improved. It is now the government’s job to respond to this report.

Overall, we support the significant increase in apprenticeships, but this has not always been matched by an increase in quality — the purpose of an apprenticeship has been lost.

The government needs to better articulate its strategy for apprenticeships and a good place to start would be by providing a clear definition of what an apprenticeship is. While we welcome the expansion in apprenticeship starts, the success of the apprenticeship programme should not be judged by numbers alone.

At present, the National Apprenticeship Service’s objectives are too heavily weighted on numbers. In the future, the quality of the programme should be seen as an equal priority, and should be assessed rigorously.

One of the most striking moments in our inquiry came when we spoke to an apprentice in Sheffield who told us that, when he decided to turn down his university offers and take up an apprenticeship, his school didn’t even invite him to the school’s awards ceremony. Not going to university was seen as a failure. Sadly this was not a lone example.

Time and again, we found that the underly- ing assumption was that vocational training is only for those unable to take an academic route. This is wrong and must be changed. That is why we recommended that both routes should be given equal prominence in careers advice and that this should be imple- mented in law.

Whenever the government invests, it has to demonstrate that it has achieved value for money. Up to now, the government’s perfor- mance in this regard has been patchy at best.

We have heard of specific examples where training providers claim to have trained ap- prentices for only 50 per cent of the required funding, to undercut their competitors.

We have also heard that some training providers have made a fortune because the government didn’t understand what it was paying for.

The Department has acknowledged that there is insufficient data and we say that this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. The Select Committee backs the govern- ment in its drive to increase the number of apprenticeships. Enhancing skills and boost- ing employment is not only a good thing for a government to do, it is vital.

By implementing the recommendations made by our committee, the government’s apprenticeship programme will be defined by transparency, quality and success. Only then, can apprenticeships play their full role in securing our country’s place in the global economy for years to come.

Adrian Bailey MP, chair of the BIS Select Committee 

Former Saturday girl wins top award

The North West Intermediate apprentice of the year title has gone to a 19-year-old student team leader.

Bury College’s Emily Cooper was presented with the prize at the National Training and National Apprenticeship Awards 2012, held at Legends, Bentley Motors Ltd, Crewe.

Emily is completing her apprenticeship through a local employer, Emerson’s Cafe, and Bury College. She started working at Emerson’s three years ago as a Saturday girl, when she was still completing her GCSEs.

She was promoted to manager and now leads a team of six. She is a mentor for two of her colleagues who are currently completing apprenticeships in catering and hospitality.

“Winning apprentice of the year is absolutely amazing,” she said. “To be selected from all the apprentices in the region and recognised for all my hard work at such a young age, is a real achievement.” Emily did an apprenticeship in hospitality and catering before moving on to an apprenticeship in team leadership.

Asa Gordon, director of employer responsive services at Bury College said: “Emily is a shining example of how an apprenticeship can provide opportunities and training to expand a person’s career.”

Will Torrent, confectionery consultant, Waitrose

 At 26, Will Torrent has achieved more than many chefs could ever dream of. He’s worked with celebrity cook Heston Blumenthal at the Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant, won a host of awards, including a WorldSkills medal for his chocolates and desserts, and is the pastry consultant for the supermarket Waitrose.

He’s recently finished his first book, Patisserie at Home, which is out next year, is working on his own brand of products, and will be hitting television screens this December on a cookery show he’s presenting with Jamie Oliver. And it all started with a cake made by his grandmother, Kath.

“My nan always used to make the best chocolate cake,” says Torrent, who is organising the confectionery and pastry competition at this week’s Skills Show.

“Chocolate Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge icing and chocolate buttons on top. We had it for every birthday.

“I remember vividly that moment of not quite reaching the workbench, mixing the cake together, eating the raw mixture off the wooden spoon, and knowing that we’d always have this chocolate cake to look forward to. “If I have chocolate cake now and the flavour’s right I can instantly be transported back to my fifth birthday. That’s the power of food — that it’s exciting. And that hit me from an early age.”

Torrent grew up in Iver, Buckinghamshire, with younger sister Sophie. His mum, Anne, and dad, Peter, both music teachers, encouraged him to cook, but it was a week’s work experience with Blumenthal at 16 that ignited his determination to become a top chef. A teacher at his school knew a waiter at Blumenthal’s restaurant and used the connection to arrange work experience for him.

“It completely changed my life,” he says. “I was absolutely petrified when I walked in as I’d never been in a professional kitchen before. The restaurant had bought me pristine whites and I was absolutely on the edge of my seat. But Heston was still cooking and took me under his wing. At 8am on the Monday he got everyone together and said ‘this is Will. Be nice to him’.”

One of his first jobs was making mustard ice cream. “That childlike experimentation with food really made me go wow, this is cool. The week went on and I absolutely loved it. I began to understand the science behind food,” he says.

On his last day at the restaurant, Blumenthal told him that if he wanted to be the best, he was the only person who would stand in his way “so go on and do it”.

From that moment, Torrent immersed himself in cookery books and programmes, and dedicated himself to experimenting with food and refining techniques.

The British press could tell things were going wrong. They saw me sweating with my workstation in a complete mess”

When he finished his GCSEs he was tempted to go straight to catering college, but decided to stay on at school and complete his A levels in case things didn’t work out.

At 18 he went to the University of West London to study culinary arts management, achieving a first-class degree and specialising in chocolate, desserts and pastry.

“I had this amazing tutor, Yolande Stanley. She was so encouraging and warm, and brilliantly talented,” he says.

“Our first lesson was strawberry tarts. For me, this meant jam tarts, but here was this ex-pastry chef at the Ritz making a beautiful strawberry tart. It was the first time I’d ever been shown proper desserts.

“The next class was gutting fish and I remember thinking, I’m covered in fish tails and I stink, or I’m covered in chocolate and flour. No contest.”

It was also his tutor who suggested that he compete to be part of the UK team for WorldSkills, billed as the biggest international skills competition in the world.

He was selected to be part of Squad UK and after two years’ training, flew to Japan to compete in the pastry and chocolate heat at WorldSkills 2007.

The first two days of the competition went brilliantly he says, but then came day three. “It was one of the worst days ever for me.

“In the extreme awfulness I felt like I was being eaten up from the ground, but when I finished I felt on top of the world”

Something went wrong in the afternoon, which had a domino effect on everything else I was doing,” he recalls.

“It spiralled and I couldn’t get myself out of the mess. The British press could tell things were going wrong. They saw me sweating with my workstation in a complete mess. People were gathering round and the judges were coming to check what was happening.”

“I was making a pistachio chocolate. But it wasn’t setting and I could feel my shoulders coming over the top of me and this massive dark cloud appear. I had a card with symbols in case something went wrong and I pointed to the exclamation mark that meant you were ill. My time stopped and I was rushed off pale and shaking.”

He was taken to the judges’ office where team leader Bruce Robinson tried to calm him down.

As part of the competitors’ mental training they’d been told to imagine they had a monkey on their shoulder telling them that they couldn’t do it — something that they needed to ignore.

“I came bounding out of the room, did the best chocolates I’ve ever done, got my highest mark of the competition, and finished on time to applause,” he says.

Torrent, who is managing confectionery and pastry competitors at the Skills Show, says he often tells young chefs this story.

“It encapsulates so much. In the extreme awfulness I felt like I was being eaten up from the ground, but when I finished I felt on top of the world.”

He won a medallion of excellence and when he came back to England, moved to a Swiss patisserie in Surrey where he stayed for two years.

Three years ago he decided to set up his own consultancy business, Will Torrent, and as well as working for Waitrose, is advising restaurant chain Zizzi’s.

He says that one of the best things WorldSkills gave him was the chance to encourage young people. “It’s such a joy when you see them do something right. Their eyes light up, and it’s ‘yes, I’ve done a good job, I’ve impressed the judges’,” he says.

“I know what their strengths and weaknesses are, how they compete under pressure, what makes them tick. I’m there to say to them you can be the best, you can do what I did. If you don’t know what possibilities are out there, you don’t know what to strive for it. It gives you ambition, determination, drive.”

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book?

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

What did you want to be when you were younger?

Either a footballer for Chelsea, a singer or a chef

What do you do to switch off from work?

Play football with the boys, play the piano or chill out in front of the television

Who, living or dead, would you invite to dinner?

Frank Sinatra

What would your super power be?

Fly — my childhood hero was Superman

Report casts shadow on apprentices

Careers guidance should be boosting apprenticeships, says shadow minister Gordon Marsden 

The BIS Select Committee has provided a detailed and disturbing commentary of this government’s handling of apprenticeships and highlighted a number of persistent shortcomings.

The committee came down hard on the government for lacking a coherent over-arching strategy for apprenticeships as well as highlighting continuing concerns that they should be a pathway to new skills, rather than accreditation of existing ones.

This remains an unresolved challenge for ministers and officials, but something that one can expect Doug Richard to pick up on in his forthcoming report.

It’s that lack of coherence and progression the report highlights — and the potential waste of money and impact it implies — that needs to be tackled urgently.

Part of this must be the importance of maintaining quality, an issue FE Week has rightly highlighted and which the committee’s report re-emphasised.

It was also good to see the committee underlining the vital role careers guidance plays in supporting young people towards apprenticeships.

But, as Jason Holt in a report the Department commissioned recently pointed out, changes that came about following the abolition of Connexions and the DFE-led axing of ring-fenced funding and statutory guidelines have seen guidance, that could promote apprenticeships among schoolchildren, drastically scaled back.

Guidance that could promote apprenticeships among schoolchildren has been drastically scaled back”

The pressure is rightly building on both DfE and BIS ministers over this — especially given the final data for 2011/12 which showed 16 to 18 apprenticeships falling by 2 per cent in comparison with last year — at a time where youth unemployment remains at its highest level for generation.

The detailed statistics on the numbers of apprenticeship starts falling in key areas like engineering and construction only reinforces that.

The new FE minister, Matthew Hancock, needs to tackle that gap in support and funding with action. Jason Holt, the National Audit Office and now the Select Committee have all rung the warning bells that the government still has work to do to.

It could start by implementing our sensible proposals to boost apprenticeships, which we launched earlier in the year.

These included using public procurement to ensure government contractors offer apprenticeship placements and encouraging larger companies to buddy-up with smaller ones in their supply chain.

But it has so far refused to engage with these practical suggestions.

The government’s done little so far to make it easier for small to medium-sized enterprises to take on apprentices — or to work out ways to get local enterprise partnerships and FE colleges more connected to them — on top of their hands-off attitude to proactive vocational guidance in schools.

Progression must be the backdrop to balance age range, quality and outcomes in the apprenticeship programme with improved pathways to progress from levels two, three, four and beyond — but also into university.

The government’s done little so far to make it easier for small to medium-sized enterprises to take on apprentices”

I am particularly concerned that changes UCAS has come forward with for changing the university tariff system should not leave apprenticeships and vocational qualifications at a disadvantage.

If we truly want to maintain apprenticeships as a gold standard alternative to the academic route, then it must have the same structures for progression as the latter.

What the select committee says about the danger of 19 to 24-year-olds falling through the funding gap is also worrying.

It is a group we need to focus on as strongly as 16 to 18-year-olds because they often have false starts at school and elsewhere. We owe it to them — as we do older learners — to see they have the best chance of securing apprenticeships second time around, but the looming shadow of FE loans threatens a substantial fall-off in adult apprenticeships.

The government needs to engage with what Richard says to ensure that, as the select committee warned, quality does not get lost in the drive for quantity. There is no point chasing ever-inflatng numbers if at the end of the day, you let down the very people taking up apprenticeships in the hope of better future prospects and life chances.

Gordon Marsden MP, Shadow Minister for Further Education, Skills and Regional Growth 

Fears over conflict of interest

The qualifications watchdog is “developing its thinking” on whether providers of apprenticeships should also be awarding bodies after a government report criticised the practice.

An Ofqual spokesperson said it was looking at “potential conflicts of interest and will be saying more about our thinking in due course”.

 “We do not believe it is desirable for training providers and awarding bodies to be owned by the same group or individuals. The government should look critically at this serious issue.

It follows an 11-month review of apprenticeships, chaired by West Bromwich West MP Adrian Bailey, that called on the government to look critically at joint ownership.

The report of the review, carried out by the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee, was released last week.

It said: “We do not believe it is desirable for training providers and awarding bodies to be owned by the same group or individuals. The government should look critically at this serious issue.

“We accept that the practice of joint ownership is not unusual, but learner experience is key and should not be put in jeopardy.

“Robust mechanisms must be put in place to prevent any conflict of interest impacting the learning experience of the workforce.”

Committee members heard evidence from Ged Syddall, the boss of Elmfield, about his company’s contract to provide apprentice training to supermarket giant Morrison. They also heard that he owned awarding body Skillsfirst Awards Limited.

“I set up Skillsfirst because I thought there was a gap in the market for a good, customer-centric, employee-focused awarding body,” Mr Syddall told the committee.

“It is now a very successful awarding body.

“It deals with 30 organisations, including us, so it is a competitive, out-in-the-market business.”

An Elmfield spokesperson said: “It is common practice for awarding organisations and training providers to be owned by the same organisation.

“The two biggest vocational awarding organisations, Pearson and City & Guilds, also receive funding for apprenticeship delivery. As far as we know, Ofqual does not consider this to be a conflict of interest.

“If it is decided that this is not acceptable, we would be happy to restructure accordingly.”

A Pearson spokesperson said: “We work with a range of training providers and awarding organisations and are confident in the high quality and integrity of teaching, learning and assessment we deliver. We welcome a dialogue to provide reassurances.”

A spokesperson for City & Guilds declined to comment.

Ofqual’s spokesperson said: “We have an interest in apprenticeships and, in particular, issues around quality, qualifications design and responsiveness, and the qualifications market.

“We are continuing to develop our thinking about market issues and potential conflicts of interest, and will be saying more about our thinking in due course.”

The qualifications watchdog is also investigating Pearson, which publishes textbooks and hands out academic qualifications as Edexcel. It said its aim was to preserve “confidence in the exam system”.

The Pearson spokesperson added: “We have robust conflict of interest processes and work with a full range of publishers, not just our own imprints.”

Ofqual’s investigation into Pearson, which includes a review of the wider qualifications market, launched around a year ago is expected to take 18 months.

See inside for more on the BIS Select Committee report.

Exclusive interview with BIS committee’s chair

With the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee report highlighting a number of apprenticeship issues, FE Week deputy editor Chris Henwood met chairman Adrian Bailey MP to discuss where he thinks the government is getting it wrong.

Are you critical of the government’s aims on apprenticeships?
The government has interpreted this programme as being a numbers-driven game so that it can proclaim it is improving the skills levels of the country.

However, what is hasn’t done is to ensure that the apprenticeships programme is of the quality that is needed and that it is focused on areas where there are skills shortages. And by not doing that, it is in danger of wasting a lot of public money.

We believe as a committee that the government should define exactly what its objectives are in spending money on apprenticeships, and then back that up with the appropriate policies designed to achieve those objectives.

Which recommendation would make the most difference?
That’s a difficult question because they’re all interrelated, but the crucial one is on the quality and definition of apprenticeships.

Once you have a tight definition and ensure that an apprenticeship course is perceived as having quality, then you are far more likely to get people aware of it and willing to take one on.

Were you surprised by the lack of definition?
Yes. I hadn’t realised the range of courses that were described as apprenticeships when, in fact, the public does have a fair idea of what apprenticeships should involve: a certain length of time, training both on and off-the-job and appropriate accreditation to ensure that whoever has taken one of these courses has genuinely learned something and enhanced his or her ability to take on further jobs.

Did the inquiry hold any shocks or surprises for you?
Yes, there were a couple of things. First, the lack of awareness in schools — we heard of a survey that demonstrated that only something like 7 per cent of young people in schools were aware of apprenticeships as a possible career choice.

That is quite frightening. Further investigation demonstrated that this was very much because schools are judged and geared to delivering A-levels and university entrants. If we are ever to get our best and brightest into vocational pursuits, then we’ve got to raise the status of apprenticeships.

The National Apprenticeship Service has to take responsibility for promoting them in schools and schools need to refocus slightly . . . they have to be judged in part on how many young people they deliver into apprenticeships.

The second thing that came as a shock was the excessive profiteering of one or two operators in the market. When the chief executive of a company, in this case Elmfield, says he has been overpaid by the government, that is a matter of real concern. The government needs to introduce processes to prevent it from happening in the future.

What would you consider a fair profit margin?
I would have said 15 per cent is on the high side. One of the concerns the committee had was that you’ve got this pot of money and you’ve got a delivery chain — and different bodies at different stages in the chain make a profit.
But if they’re all making 15 per cent, it doesn’t leave much for the actual delivery at the workface, which is why the committee recommended the delivery chain needs to be streamlined.

There are too many operators and it appears, in some cases, they are taking too much money out of the programme. That inevitably impacts on the ability to deliver the number and quality of apprentices at the workface.

Do you think there are lots of providers with high profit margins?
The committee didn’t carry out a wide-ranging investigation into this, but certainly evidence has been put forward that there is some abuse.

I wouldn’t say it was widespread. It’s not just a question of abuse. There are legitimate companies — some of them doing a very good job — but there are so many of them and the supply chain is so long that you’ve got to ask ‘couldn’t we organise this delivery of skills in a more cost-effective way?’

That is not to blame individual companies and accuse them of not delivering or taking excessive profit, but just to get a system that gets money to where it needs to go quickly and with fewer people involved.

The government has introduced the Richard Review, which is a belated recognition that it didn’t get it right when it introduced the apprenticeship programme. The committee’s findings will no doubt be reflected at least in part by that review.

Given the combination of the likely outcome of this review and the committee report, to which it’s got to reply, I do think BIS will take the inquiry seriously and hopefully come up with some sort of recommendations or actions to implement these changes. At the end of the day my report has aroused a lot of public interest — the government recognises it has to respond to that concern.

Were there any positives for apprenticeships?
Yes. First, there is an undoubted government commitment to skills and that is shared across the party divide in the Commons — a recognition that there is a need to raise skill levels in this country.

Second, the government recognises that it didn’t quite get it right and needs to change some of its delivery. But there is now a greater awareness among both businesses and young people of the potential of apprenticeships. That is positive, but it’s been a long hard road to get to where we are and we need to go a lot further.

The report is critical of the number of official bodies involved in apprenticeships. Do you see a future for the Skills Funding Agency and National Apprenticeship Service in their present forms?

The committee was inclined to think the SFA and NAS should be merged and I think the government may well look at this again.

There was disagreement among witnesses at the inquiry, but instinctively we felt you would be taking out one link of the long chain delivering apprenticeships and, above all, making it simpler for would-be providers to have one port of call. My feeling is this should happen and probably will happen.

The number of apprenticeships recently topped 500,000. Would you question the validity of any of those?
I would question whether they are apprenticeships in the terms that we would want them to be defined. Something like 70 per cent of the increase has been in provision for those over 24, mainly in the retail sector, and I believe these are mostly people employed already.

That doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing . . . there’s a good argument for raising the skill levels of people in employment so that they can enhance their prospects.

But a lot of work needs to be done to demonstrate that in terms of the money that has been invested, the actual benefits do accrue to both the individuals themselves and the economy as a whole.

We also need to know whether that money might not be better targeted to other groups who may enhance their training more and contribute more to the economy.