Launching an apprenticeship programme is a big challenge for any private sector organisation.

At Barclays, we set an ambitious target at the start of this year to take on 1,000 young people not in education, work or employment and took the programme from conception to getting our first apprentices into work within four months.

The twelve-month programme provides apprentices with the valuable experience of learning the ropes as cashiers, telephone bankers, and mortgage operations specialists.

During this time they receive regular progress review and assessment visits, functional skills testing for learners without GCSEs grades A-C in Maths and English, and 16 hours of additional self-directed study as they work towards achieving qualifications including a BTEC in Customer Service and an NVQ in Retail Banking.

All our apprentices are paid a salary commensurate with new joiners, and all those who complete the 12 month programme are guaranteed a permanent role.

Running a successful apprenticeship programme

First and foremost, senior executive buy-in and support is crucial to driving the programme. Antony Jenkins, our Chief Executive of Retail and Business Banking, has led this drive from the front, giving us huge momentum and communicating clear objectives to everyone involved.

In a large company it is important to form a working party with representatives across the business and ensure you take a wide range of views into account. This is a big challenge but a crucial step in ensuring consistency across all departments and regions.

When planning how to implement the programme, make sure you seek advice from The National Apprenticeships Service (NAS) on how apprenticeship programmes work, the different types of funding processes and their implications – such as who will hold the funding contract.

Finding and selecting the outside expertise you need is vital and well worth spending time on. After a competitive process, Barclays appointed Elmfield Training to bring in their know-how in finding and assessing the right candidates.

Goal-setting

As part of the planning process, ensure you have clear goals, and clear definitions about who you want to target.

Our focus is on young people who are ‘NEET’ but in particular those who have no prior experience or qualifications and by making that clear from the beginning it’s possible to really focus our efforts.

Although we have an ambitious target of 1,000 apprenticeships, it is the ‘quality’ measures that really count: setting tough standards to ensure this is a genuinely life-changing experience, raising young people’s confidence, giving them skills and qualifications, and expanding their horizons about what they can achieve.

It is important to set goals on the business benefits too. We hope to retain even more staff under this programme than we have from our traditional intake in the first 12 months, and this will demonstrate the positive outcomes for the business.

Preparing for culture change

Engaging with employees may require a culture change and preparing for this starts with winning over line managers’ hearts and minds by helping them understand how the programme fits in with our wider strategy and citizenship agenda. We aim to shift mindsets from seeing this as bringing in potentially ‘challenging’ people, to seeing it as an opportunity to harness an untapped wealth of talent.

Of course you need to implement relevant training for line managers, but this can also be an opportunity to make their job easier. We have managed to speed up the screening and induction process for apprentices so line managers have an extra incentive to take them on.

Long-term investment

Many company policies overlook NEETs, seeing them as a ‘challenging’ group to employ, and to date the same has sadly been true of banks. But there can be real rewards for both young people and your business by investing in their untapped potential.

We have 60 apprentices in post so far and we have been overwhelmed by their positive attitude and potential which has exceeded all our expectations. It is not just the apprentices who benefit, Barclays is also becoming a stronger organisation, with a richer and more diverse workforce as a result.

One of the best ways that private sector companies can support our economy and society is through employment and training – and our programme helps to bridge the skills gaps that many young people struggle with when they leave mainstream education.

It is important that large employers like us take the plunge to create that vital first job opportunity for young people. By investing in today’s generation we can create long term value for society.

Lynne Atkin, HR Director, Barclays UK Retail and Business Banking

We are all acutely aware of how tough things are economically and therefore appreciate that Government spending must go towards helping the most underprivileged first.

In Higher Education, loans have been part of the system for over a decade now and while the jury is still out on the long-term financial returns of this system, it was perhaps inevitable that loans would soon be part of Further Education too. In some ways, it is heartening that for once FE and HE are being treated similarly. But as in HE, we need to be alive to how far this system will really benefit and support those who need it most.

At City & Guilds, we welcome the fact that learners will only be required to start making repayments once they are earning £21,000 or more but what we really want to see tested and evaluated is the impact loans, once introduced, have on prospective learners.

It has never been more important to ensure we are building up the high level skills of our society and we need those skills in a range of sectors, but particularly STEM disciplines.

These are the more expensive subjects to deliver. It would be a travesty if the amount required in a loan impedes the take up of these skills at a time when our economy needs them most.

There is no such thing as ‘a job for life’ any more and we no longer have just one career over a lifetime”

Secondly, when FE loans are introduced next year, we must ensure their introduction does not disproportionately disadvantage older learners and inhibit those over the age of 24 from participating in FE. According to BIS’ recent research, Attitudes to FE Loans, older learners seem to be more reticent to take on debt.

This is essential feedback for us to note and respond to. The way we view a ‘career’ is changing. There is no such thing as ‘a job for life’ any more and we no longer have just one career over a lifetime, but several.

Therefore, access to education and training must evolve to support these changing work patterns.

BT has previously commented that 24 is too young as a cut-off age. Here, I tend to agree as how many of us knew what we wanted to do when leaving school or by our early twenties? Indeed, should age determine your decision to participate in education at all?

One thought we have had at City & Guilds is around how we can make the introduction of FE loans fully comparable to the funding system in HE and also to what happens in schools.

16-18 year olds who stay in school are funded to do their A levels. Encouraging young people to stay on in education and training is an absolute priority as Raising the Participation Age becomes a reality – but some will not be ready to do Level 3 qualifications by 18.

Some will want to go straight into a more work-focused training environment and may take far longer to achieve Level 3. Perhaps a more equitable system would be for all individuals to receive funding up to and including Level 3, regardless of age, with loans made available to help those who want to study at Levels 4 and above.

This would make FE more comparable with other parts of the education system – something we have all been building towards for many years now.

Going forward, we want to work with others in the system to ensure that FE loans work for everyone involved – Government, employers, providers and, most of all, individual learners. To do this, we need to build a shared understanding of how FE and HE loans will work together and we all need to help inform the guidance for those learners moving from FE into HE.

As the BIS commissioned research into FE loans shows us – if we do not come up with some agreed messages quickly, damage can be done. We need to ensure that prospective learners are equipped with all the information they need to make informed, well judged decisions about the funding available for their education and training journey.

Chris Jones, CEO and
Director General, City & Guilds

There has been much debate in the education press about the implications for further education colleges of the new powers they have under the Education Act 2011 which came into force on 1 April 2012. Indeed those new powers have been described as, effectively, the privatisation of FE colleges. Is that the case?

Under the Act colleges are now able to:

1. amend their instrument and articles of government (ie their constitution). Thus colleges can adopt a governance structure and constitution specifically tailored to its needs (eg colleges could introduce the Carver model); and

2. colleges can convert to a different legal form such as a company limited by guarantee or shares.

Neither of those events now require the consent of either the Secretary of State or the SFA. However since the SFA will still have a financial memorandum with a college determining the basis on which public funding is provided to a college the SFA will still be able to exercise a significant degree of control over a college.

In addition the Secretary of State has retained his powers, in extremis (eg a financially failing college) to intervene and wind up that college.

However it is true that FE colleges now have powers in excess of those of higher education corporations so that FE colleges are able to operate with a degree of freedom unknown in the HE sector.

It could be a key driver for significant organisational and managerial change in the FE sector”

Changes to the constitution

We believe that a large number of colleges will use their powers to amend their constitution to the needs of that institution.

We might see the emergence of different governance models, less nominated members and perhaps smaller governing bodies.

Colleges will update their constitution to permit them to use electronic communications, internet and extranet sites which the current constitution does not allow.

In addition actions between meetings (for example chair’s action) may become commonplace.

Whilst this may be a general interest to the private sector it is unlikely to create many opportunities for them.

Conversion

It is in the area of conversion from an FEC to a company that we may see the development of new models of interest to the private as well as public sectors. The Act allows an FEC only to convert to a charitable company.

It is possible for a charity to be part of a for profit group or in the future to give up its charitable status. However the tax benefits that colleges get by being charities (particularly business rates relief) means it is unlikely that many colleges will wish to give up charitable status even if they could.

The creation of a company will allow the development of groups. It may be possible, for example, for a college company to be the parent company in a group. That parent might, eg, act as a hub for a federation of other colleges and also higher education and schools companies.

In this way the parent company would set the policy and strategy for the group whilst the operational matters around colleges could be run at a subsidiary level.

In addition it will be possible for that parent company to run for profit subsidiaries either itself or in joint venture with the private sector.

The ability to attract private sector capital and/or to float that subsidiary may prove to be attractive ways of helping a college to realise its mission.

Such a group could also form a cost sharing group and take advantage of the new VAT rules to be introduced in the Finance Act 2012.

Such structures could also be used as a vehicle for the creation of employee ownership, social enterprises and mutuals.

No doubt there are many other opportunities available.

Thus it is unlikely that the Act will turn out to be a damp squib; in fact we believe it could be a key driver for significant organisational and managerial change in the FE sector whilst also allowing the public sector to partner with the private sector in more effective ways than it has been able to do so to date.

Glynne Stanfield is a partner within Eversheds LLP’s education team

There is no doubt that the government’s introduction of Raising the Participation Age (RPA) to age 18 will present a significant business development opportunity to work based learning providers.

For those unfamiliar with the DfE proposals, the RPA is being introduced in two phases: for 16-17 year olds in August 2013 and for 17-18 year olds in August 2015.

A young person in those age groups will be expected to be in some form of education, e.g. at a sixth form or FE college, or in employment where training is being provided.

The DfE recently conducted a consultation on the accompanying regulations which included an attempt to define what a qualifying job and the education or training element would be to classify a young person as not being NEET.

The department is seeking to come up with definitions that differentiate between a qualifying job, i.e. the young person is not NEET, and an internship or a holiday job.

This is why 20 hours per week over 8 weeks was considered the minimum starting point for the definition in the consultation.

Young people in work will still be expected to participate in some form of learning with an employer/provider for a minimum of 280 hours a year.

Where a young person is employed for more than 20 hours a week, there will be a statutory duty on the employer to take ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure that the person is in education or training for this minimum period – hence the business development opportunity for work based learning providers.
We are then into a debate on what constitutes proper learning or training and the DfE is working towards a definition around what is called ‘directed learning’.

If a young person is following an accredited qualification then the guided learning hours (GLH) involved in studying will probably act as a proxy for this.

If work based learning opportunities aren’t available to them, young people may just prefer to stay NEET”

If what they are doing is not accredited study, then they have to show that the learning is somehow directed – for example, they could not sit at home and just read Wikipedia and declare that they are studying.

This sounds like a facetious example, but it isn’t because there are all sorts of thorny issues surrounding home education which have not been resolved yet.

Online/distance learning is also a tricky issue but generally if it is part of a directed programme – that is to say, that the learning is being directed by a tutor of some description (even if they are online) – then in principle it is likely to count towards RPA requirements. But the devil may of course lie in the detail.

Role of the local authorities

Local authorities will be key players for the RPA.

They already have a statutory duty to provide the September Guarantee for a learning place for a young person who wants one and the DfE sees them as having lead responsibility for the RPA at a time when the LAs are having their belts tightened like everyone else.

Equally important is the fact that with the immediate reversal of Labour’s devolution of the 16-18 remit in 2010 after the coalition government came into office, the powers of councils to influence the planning of local FE and skills provision have been limited.

This means that local authorities may not be able to fully and properly address situations where the demand from young people for apprenticeships and other work based learning exceeds supply.

To minimise the number becoming NEET, some of these young people may be inappropriately encouraged to stay on a sixth form or they may be ‘guided’ to over-supplied or completely unrelated courses in the local colleges which may not meet the young people’s or the local economy’s needs and which almost certainly do not satisfy the young people’s own aspirations.

This is one of the reasons why AELP successfully lobbied for the latest Education Act to require that secondary schools in England must provide independent and impartial careers advice from this autumn.

But if the DfE is saying that the buck stops with local authorities on the RPA, then the ‘easy’ answer to meet the statutory duty will be to fill places in sixth forms and colleges whether it’s in the young person’s interest or not.

And if work based learning opportunities aren’t available to them, young people may just prefer to stay NEET.

There is a growing recognition that the funding agencies need to listen more and consult with the local authorities over strategic planning of provision and this may result in changes favourable to work based learning provision because of the demands of young people themselves.

There is also growing pressure for the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to free up market access for new youth provision beyond the rather sluggish and opaque mechanisms that are currently in place.

AELP continues to discuss these issues with the government and the LGA. But in the meantime, the challenge for work based learning providers is to work with local employers to create more work with training opportunities for young people under 19 and the challenge for the EFA is to ensure that this can be speedily and properly funded.

Paul Warner is director of employment and skills for the AELP