We’re prioritising skills to extend the ladder of opportunity to all

Last week, the national finals of the WorldSkills competition were held at colleges across the UK, including Blackpool and The Fylde College and Barking and Dagenham College. These saw talented young people compete in a range of advanced skills – from mechatronics and automation to carpentry and bricklaying. Those who were outstanding will be selected to represent the UK at the next ‘Skills Olympics’ in France in 2024.

WorldSkills is an extraordinary way for participants to competitively hone their skill sets while gaining the confidence and experience they need to forge great careers. They are also inspiring the next generation of students by opening their eyes to the range of opportunities that technical education routes can offer.

Take Jack, who studied advanced manufacturing and engineering at Dudley College and secured a job as a boilersmith at Severn Valley Railway. Competitors such as Jack are all the proof you need that a traditional academic route is not the only path to success.

I would like to congratulate all the competitors: they have done an amazing job showcasing their exceptional talent. They are all winners in my eyes for choosing a pathway that will build their skills and career potential, allowing them to climb the skills ladder of opportunity.

WorldSkills has been running for 72 years, but like the technical and vocational education it showcases it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

I know I’m preaching to the converted here. But if we want this to change, we need more people to recognise the huge value of technical and vocational education – for career advancement, earning potential and the economy.

We have come a long way, buoyed by the government’s skills revolution, but there is still more to do to promote these routes to the point where they hold parity of esteem with academic courses.

I’m passionate about social justice and have for many years been a vocal advocate of apprenticeships and technical education.

We have come a long way, buoyed by the government’s skills revolution

Most of you will have heard me talk about the ‘ladder of opportunity’ before. Now that I am back at the department for education, as minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, you will hear me speak about it a lot more. It is the sequence through which young people and adults can progress to attain good jobs and career progression, beginning with the social justice required to access and achieve good educational outcomes and get on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity.

The government has an ambitious skills agenda, backed by a £3.8 billion investment over this parliament. We’re using this to expand and strengthen higher and further education, ensuring skills training is aligned to the needs of employers to enable communities to thrive.

This includes supporting more people to earn while they learn with an apprenticeship, rolling out more T levels, establishing our network of 21 institutes of technology and expanding our popular skills bootcamps and free courses for jobs programmes.

We are also simplifying and strengthening qualifications at level 3 and below. This will allow all leaners to be confident that their chosen course will set them on a path to success and give employers confidence that employees will have the skills needed to grow their business.

The fourth rung of the ladder is lifelong learning, giving adults the chance to upskill or retrain at any stage of life. From 2025, our lifelong loan entitlement will transform access to further and higher education, allowing everyone access to the equivalent of four years’ worth of student loans to use flexibly over their lifetime.

My driving mission is to provide this ‘ladder’ to good employment to everyone, which will help build the skilled workforce businesses are crying out for, boost our economy and drive growth. It’s not rocket science. It’s mechatronics. And concrete construction, cloud computing and carpentry skills that will propel this country forward.

8 interesting things we learned from today’s FE data drop

The Department for Education released multiple data sets this morning that show the take up of apprenticeships, traineeships and adult education in 2021/22.

Here’s what you need to know…

First full year of free courses for jobs

After a slow start, the government’s ‘free courses for jobs’ offer of fully funded level 3 courses for certain adults had just under 25,000 enrolments.

When the £95 million policy was introduced in April 2021, adults could only access funded courses if they didn’t already hold a level 3 qualification. That rule was changed in April 2022 when unemployed learners, and those earning below the national living wage, become eligible even if they already held a level 3 qualification.

There have been 24,470 enrolments through the scheme from when it launched in April 2021 up to July 2022.

Statisticians have estimated that enrolments on eligible courses were 70 per cent higher in 2021/22 than in 2018/19 as a result of the policy.

Record low loans

Advanced learner loans received the lowest number of applications in 2021/22 since they were introduced in 2016.

Applications have been in steady decline every year, however the drop from 62,870 applications in 2020/21 to just 49,210 is the largest year-on-year drop.

As a result, the total amount of loan funding in 2021/22 was £130.4 million. That figure was £236.2 million in 2016/17.

The introduction of the free courses for jobs policy has meant that potentially thousands of learners that would previously have taken out an advanced learner loan would have been eligible for full funding.

Public sector apprenticeship target missed… again

Public sector bodies in England with 250 or more staff were set a target by government to employ an average of at least 2.3 per cent of their staff as new apprentice starts over the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2021. Figures published last November showed this had been missed as an average of 1.7 per cent of employees started an apprenticeship over that period.

The target was repeated for the period April 2021 to March 2022, as a single-year stand-alone target. Figures published for the first time today show an average of 1.8 per cent of employees started an apprenticeship over that period.

During this one-year target, the armed forces were by far the largest employer of apprentices with an average of 7.1 per cent of employees starting an apprenticeship since April 2021.

The police were next at 2.4 per cent, followed by fire authorities at 2.1 per cent and the civil service, at 1.9 per cent.

Schools have the lowest rate of apprenticeship recruitment averaging at 1.1 per cent since April 2021.

Colleges fail to increase apprenticeship market share

Multiple education secretaries have pleaded with colleges to increase their delivery of apprenticeships in recent years – but the data suggests their calls have fallen on deaf ears.

Of the 349,200 apprenticeship starts in the 2021/22 academic year, private providers were responsible for 65.2 per cent (227,600).

General FE colleges accounted for just 18.7 per cent (65,300) – the same proportion as 2020/21.

Apprenticeship starts increase most for the young

As FE Week reported last month, apprenticeship starts for the whole of the 2021/22 grew 9 per cent on the previous academic year – and it was young people who saw the biggest increase.

Today’s data provides slightly updated figures but the proportions have stayed the same.

A total of 349,200 starts were reported for 2021/22 compared to 321,400 in 2020/21. Last year’s figures are still 11 per cent lower than the 393,400 recorded for 2018/19 – the year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of the 349,200 starts, higher apprenticeship (level 4+) reached their highest volume and now represent almost a third of all starts. They accounted for just 4 per cent of starts in 2014/15.

Encouragingly, the share of starts for under 19s increased to 22.2 per cent in 2021/22 from 20.3 per cent in 2020/21. Starts for 19 to 24s and those aged 25 and older saw their proportion of starts drop overall and now account for 30 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.

Another traineeships flop

The government missed its target of 43,000 traineeships by almost two thirds last year.

Just 15,500 starts were recorded in 2021/22 – 36 per cent of the goal. It comes despite the Treasury investing £126 million in traineeships in 2021/22.

This was on top of a £111 million being pumped into the pre-employment programme in 2020/21, when 17,400 starts were recorded against a target of 36,700.

Read our full story on the traineeships data here.

Overall adult numbers struggling to recover post Covid 

Participation in adult education increased by 80,000 learners in 2021/22 compared to the previous year, the first increase in nearly ten years.

Statistics released today reveal that there were 1.72 million adults participating in apprenticeships, community learning and government funded education and training in academic year 2021/22. There were 1.64 million in adult education the year before. There hasn’t been in increase in overall adult education participation since 2012/13.

While this represents a 4.8 per cent increase on the 2020/21 year, when Covid restrictions were still blighting the sector, it’s 25 per cent, or 380,000 learners, short on pre-pandemic levels in 2018/19.

Community learning sees largest rise  

Compared to 2020/21, numbers of adults on apprenticeships increased 3.3 per cent and on funded education and training courses 1 per cent. But participation in community learning increased by 24.9 per cent from 243,700 to 304,400.

The bulk of that increase came from participation in “personal and community development learning”, up 43,100 on the previous year. However, the community learning sector is 186,000 learners short on where it was pre-pandemic is 2018/19.

Huge T Level employer cash incentive underspend revealed

Just £500,000 of a £7 million budget earmarked to entice employers to take on early T Level students for industry placements was spent.

An evaluation report of the “employer support fund” pilot, which offered businesses £750 to cover their tangible placement costs in four regions in England between 2019 and 2021, found the grants supported 843 placements against a target of 32,466.

Just 8 per cent of the total budget was used.

The incentives were upped to £1,000 per placement for the 2021/22 academic year as they were rolled out across the country, and ministers have indicated they could be extended to future years amid calls for support from employer representative bodies.

But today’s findings, which do not examine take up of the bigger incentives in 2021/22, could discourage ministers from extending the grants.

Officials in the Department for Education and sector leaders have been concerned with convincing businesses to host students for the mandatory 315-hour, or 45-day, placements for T Levels – a flagship new qualification designed to be the technical equivalent to A-levels.

The T Level employer incentives were introduced to help overcome this concern. The pilot was rolled out in the South West and West Midlands in 2019/20 to help businesses prepare for the first T Level students in 2020. It was extended in 2020/21 to the East of England and Yorkshire and Humber.

Researchers noted that the majority of the programme delivery was during a period of social distancing requirements brought about by Covid-19, adding that it is “difficult to fully understand how the programme would work in an environment when these restrictions were not in place”.

However, even accounting for the impact of the pandemic, the targets set for placements and spend “seemed to have overestimated employer need”, the report said.

It added: “In practice, providers felt that most of the employers they engage do not regard cost as a barrier to providing placements and therefore did not have a need for the grant.”

Researchers found examples of T Level providers being “hesitant” to use the £750 grants because of the “risk that some of the funding could be claimed back, and also because of a lack of awareness of how the programme could be used”.

As expected, it was mostly smaller businesses that made use of the incentives. The report said over half of the employers were micro businesses (those with fewer than 10 staff) and a further quarter were small businesses (between 10 and 49 staff).

The funding limit of £750 per placement was “broadly suitable”. Researchers found the only time the placements exceeded £750 was when it was used to purchase expensive IT equipment such as laptops and even in these cases, employers were “generally willing to cover the additional costs, particularly as they mostly kept the equipment afterwards”.

Most employers found the funding “helpful in alleviating resource barriers to providing placements and in ensuring they could provide a meaningful learning experience for learners”, and a few also felt that it helped employer staff “justify providing placements to senior managers”.

But some stated they would have provided placements had they not received the funding.

The impact assessment of the programme did not find conclusive proof that the programme had increased the number of placements provided by providers, the report concluded.

It resonates with research from earlier this year that found just 7 per cent of employers who were not interested in offering T Level industry placements would change their mind with the offer of a £1,000 incentive payment.

Traineeships flop… AGAIN: Starts target missed by two thirds in 2021/22

The government missed its target of 43,000 traineeships by almost two thirds last year, new data has revealed.

Just 15,500 starts were recorded in 2021/22 – 36 per cent of the goal.

The figures, published by the Department for Education this morning, show that uptake on the pre-employment programme has even begun to decline despite huge investment from the Treasury.

The number of starts achieved last year was 11 per cent down on the 17,400 recorded in 2020/21.

Across both years then-chancellor Rishi Sunak pumped an additional £237 million into traineeships. This was made up of £111 million to “triple” the number of starts in 2020/21 – a target that was missed by half – and an extra £126 million in 2021/22.

Officials offered employers a £1,000 incentive in both years for each trainee they took on, and also ran a procurement to expand the traineeship provider market in an effort to ramp up starts.

Earlier this year FE Week revealed that more than half – £65 million – of the 2020/21 traineeships budget had to be handed back to the Treasury. A bigger underspend is now expected for 2021/22.

Introduced as a flagship pre-employability programme in 2013, traineeships are eligible for 16 to 24-year-olds and training providers are funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to deliver pre-employment training and arrange unpaid work placements from six weeks to one year, although most last for less than six months.

But traineeship starts have been on a rapid decline, from a high of 24,100 in 2015/16 down to just 12,100 in 2019/20.

Ministers saw traineeships as a good route to help get young people back into training and work after the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to back the programme with more funding.

Officials have made numerous pleas with traineeship providers to rapidly boost their recruitment over the past two years.

But providers have often warned that the lack of learner incentive means that traineeships are currently limited to those willing and able to take on a placement without getting paid.

Others have other government programmes that do offer payment, like Kickstart and apprenticeships, displaced traineeships.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said: “It’s important to recognise that the additional financial support for traineeships was provided against a backdrop of an expected surge in pandemic related unemployment, which thankfully was not bad as expected. There is no doubt though that Kickstart – with its financial incentive for the young person – made traineeships considerably less attractive for the individual. 

“Whilst demand for traineeships from employers remains strong, the lack of financial support for trainees themselves remains critical – AELP believe that the traineeship underspend should be used to support individual through a training allowance on what is still a very effective programme.”

Today’s data shows that of the 17,400 traineeships started in the 2020/21 academic year, three quarters completed their programme and a fifth moved onto an apprenticeship.

Four priorities to tackle green industry’s diversity problem

With the COP27 climate summit finishing last Friday and the new Prime Minister’s first economic statement reaffirming the UK’s commitment to tackling climate change, this is the perfect time for us all to consider role in building a greener future. Unfortunately, the environmental sector’s diversity is currently one of the worst in the economy. If this doesn’t change, many of the young people who could play a leading role in tackling the climate crisis will be shut out of opportunities in the green sector.

Many parts of the nature sector have a rapidly ageing workforce, with almost half of parks staff aged over 50, so young people are desperately needed. And young people from ethnic minorities, those who are disabled and those from low-income backgrounds are all under-represented in these roles at the moment. Just 4.8 per cent of environment professionals identify as Black, Asian or minority ethnic, compared with 12.6 per cent across all professions. Meanwhile, 57 per cent of disabled people feel excluded from being able to reduce their environmental impact and disabled people are less likely to be employed than non-disabled people.

And our own research shows that young people from low-income backgrounds sometimes feel that green jobs aren’t for them or don’t know where to find them. Requirements for higher education qualifications can put people without degrees off from pursuing careers in the nature sector.

Positively, green employers are increasingly recognising the problem and taking steps to tackle it. But this isn’t a problem industry can solve alone, and further education and skills settings can play a crucial role in helping the sector diversify its workforce. Doing so will benefit learners as well as the planet and deliver on the ambitions of the department for education’s sustainability and climate change strategy.

Groundwork’s Growing Green Careers report set out four priorities and the further education and skills sector can play its part in each of them:

Making every job green

Achieving net zero will require changes across every sector, so knowledge about environmental issues is relevant to every learner no matter what course they are enrolled on. The further education sector should think of sustainability as the fourth functional skill, as essential as literacy, numeracy and digital. Green skills and knowledge should be embedded in the curriculum, operations and through carbon literacy qualifications for staff and learners.

Accessible pathways into entry-level green roles

Through high-quality careers advice, further education settings can share opportunities like the New to Nature programme with their learners, through which young people aged 18 to 25 are given new, full-time, temporary work placements in nature and landscape organisations across the UK.

Organisations like Groundwork are working to expand opportunities like this through a Youth Environmental Service. On a local level, colleges can work with green employers to create green apprenticeships.  

Increasing diversity in green careers

The learners who engage in further education are often exactly those who are under-represented in the environmental sector. Through their curriculum and careers advice, colleges can break down stereotypes and help people to grow their careers in green jobs.

It’s vital that we inspire and show that jobs in the environmental sector are both worthwhile and achievable, ending the misconception that green jobs are only reserved for a particular demographic.

Helping places to thrive

Colleges and other further education settings can show local leadership when it comes to sustainable practices. Working with local green employers to grow the skills base in their area could have a huge impact on combatting the current skills shortages across the environmental sector and ‘levelling up’ local places.

If the further education and environmental sectors work together on each of these priorities, we will forge a greener and more prosperous future for individuals, communities, and the planet. Let’s not miss the opportunity.

Net zero: Small steps with apprentices drive big changes

Green Skills? Low Carbon? Sustainability? Net zero?

We all know how we can make a positive impact on the environment, don’t we? I mean, when was the last time you printed out an email!? That’s another tree saved. Small steps can have a big impact on reducing our overall carbon footprint.

But of course, there are big changes to make, with big stakes at play. With ever increasing focus on the green agenda and the need to fix the planet for us and future generations, supporting our learners into sustainable jobs is high on our agenda.

Working across different boroughs in London and Kent, the Forward Trust Employment Services team is supporting participants returning to the job market, and one of our core activities is to help individuals to really understand what green skills are, and how they too can be involved and not feel left behind in this growing sector.

And through our work with some amazing employers and local authorities, we are looking at greener employment options for participants and developing a growing offer of good jobs with good progression as well as real solutions for sustainability.

But what does this really mean?

Personal responsibility

The first small step towards engagement with sustainability is always a personal one, so as part of their employability learning and readiness for job application and interview, we’re encouraging participants to reflect on what they can do to lower their own carbon footprint. Tutors use online tools with participants to measure their carbon impact and how they could potentially reduce this.

It’s a great discussion piece, but it also gets some positive thinking going around the current cost-of-living crisis. Any quick win to save energy and money is also a quick win for the environment.

We also encourage and support all our participants to make a green pledge while they are in the classroom. Getting them to commit to doing that ‘one thing’ to make a difference has seen them take the lead on a number of initiatives, including:

  • Reducing their need for single-use plastics, from water bottles to plastic-wrapped fruit
  • Reducing their dependence on fast fashion by recycling clothing and using online platforms to sell their unwanted items
  • Reducing water consumption at home and at work throughout the year (and not just to avoid a summer hosepipe ban)

Unsurprisingly perhaps, turning down the thermostat has never been such a hot topic of conversation (if you’ll excuse the pun).

The big picture

Having ‘green’ conversations with our participants has really increased awareness. It has also opened up opportunities they perhaps previously might not have been so aware of, or indeed have thought were not for them.

Working with different employers, we are preparing participants to better understand how sustainability is impacting job offer across different sectors, while promoting better progression opportunities and choice. These include diverse opportunities in sectors such as environmental charities, construction and the built environment, in-house environmental activities, production of renewable energy, and recycling, waste, wastewater and water quantity management.

And given the sustainability sector’s lack of diversity, we know that anything we can do to raise awareness, lift aspirations and include the marginalised members of our communities to join the sustainability movement can only be a good thing.

At the Forward Trust, we have developed flexible working arrangements with hybrid working patterns that work for the teams and the participants we support, and we encourage others to do the same. These can reduce carbon footprint, while making work more accessible to often-excluded groups.

Engaging with employers who are open to embracing the sustainability agenda broadens the scope and offer of job opportunities available to our participants. It’s a win-win situation: better employers, better jobs, with better opportunities having a positive impact on the environment and the lives of those we support.

These are small steps towards driving a an agenda of global importance. But the great thing about small steps is: they leave smaller footprints.

Net zero: level 2 qualifications are crucial to green skills

With the calls of climate emergency sounding loudly from COP27, government and citizens need to act urgently if we are to meet the UK’s net zero commitments. 

However, the transition to net zero will only be possible with a skilled “green” UK workforce to build, operate and maintain the necessary assets for energy, retrofit and carbon capture, as well as related infrastructure in the logistics, utilities and transportation industries. While the UK has strong engineering, science and technology skills to support the drive to net zero, it lacks enough people, particularly within the operational workforce and mainly at level 2, to build, operate and maintain “green” physical environmental assets.

There is also confusion about what is meant by “green skills” and what these mean at a practical level for technical and vocational education.

To resolve these key issues, there is an urgent need for collaboration between employers, training providers, awarding organisations, manufacturers, trade unions and all the industry bodies such as CITB and ECITB on a co-ordinated five to ten-year programme to meet our commitments.

Collaboration on green skills is happening on a local level through green skill bootcamps, for example, where employers, training providers and awarding organisations work together, funded and guided by government policy. 

Exeter College’s green construction skills bootcamps are a case in point, designed in collaboration with local building and house construction businesses, and supported by local authorities, charities and training providers across the south west. Funded by the Department for Education’s national skills fund, the bootcamps offer hands-on training for domestic retrofit, resulting in a NOCN level 2 award in domestic retrofit.

Most retraining will not be as large courses like apprenticeships and T levels

Central government needs to own the governance of the skills system and work in collaboration with the devolved governments and local combined authorities to set the framework, enabling awarding organisations to build training programmes for local provider delivery. 

The green jobs taskforce made a start, outlining the challenge in its 2021 report, but there is little evidence of any urgency in next steps or in wider collaboration to build a green skills framework for career pathways. Yet within each industry there are strong links, and these could be quickly integrated with the taskforce to create industry-appropriate frameworks.

Our new paper Greening the UK’s Skills, in conjunction with the British Association of Construction Heads (BACH), outlines the challenges we face and sets out the range of adapted and new skills the UK’s economy will urgently need over the next five to ten years if we are to be successful in reaching net zero.

We must, as a priority, invest in our tutors and assessors to deliver greening training. This will not be large courses like apprenticeships and T levels, but will be short modules of training, add-ons that could be funded through the levy or the adult education budget (AEB). The big opportunity is using these “greening” modules to upskill the 32.8m people in the workforce.

Some colleges may find this logistically difficult. The challenge for FE leaders is how to start delivering “greening” provision in 2023/24.

Welcoming the publication of the report, IfATE’s chief operating officer Robert Nitsch said:  “There can be no doubt that there is a need to re-orientate to green across the economy and that skills are an essential part of this.” He said that IfATE was “absolutely committed to ensuring that its apprenticeships and technical qualifications fully embrace sustainability priorities and is getting on with this work as a matter of urgency” and emphasised that everyone had a part in resolving what is a sizeable challenge.

The great risk facing the planet is climate change. If we are to successfully tackle this life-threatening challenge we must collaborate across government departments, industry and education to develop and build our green skills within the operational workforce, including – crucially – at level 2.

What’s stopping college campuses from going green?

To understand what is preventing further and higher education institutions from becoming green campuses, we gathered opinions from more than 130 FE and HE representatives and 1,000 16- to 19-year-olds planning on applying to college or university. We also spoke to universities and colleges at different stages of their green journey. 

Our research revealed that 2 in 5 (42%) FE and HE institutions are not confident or do not know whether they will meet the government’s goal of a 78 per cent reduction in emissions by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. 

That so many institutions predict falling short is worrying. They face issues in common and understanding these is key to supporting them. For 77%, finance is the primary barrier, while 42% struggle to deliver renewable energy campus-wide and almost a third (31 per cent) blame a resistance to change within the institution.

The technology doesn’t come cheap, and with college funding notoriously constrained over the past decade, FE needs to look at alternative capital options. Most public sector government incentives are aimed at social housing and local authorities but government support is available. There are also sustainable lending options and strategic advice from banks, including private placement funding, the public sector decarbonisation scheme grant and the green heat network fund.

These funding options may change if the ONS, as is widely expected, reclassifies colleges as public sector bodies. This will result in additional budgeting and consent requirements, complicating matters. Colleges will likely need to compete for funds with other parts of the public sector, making it even more important to develop a clear and compelling case for green investment.

There are very few carbon neutral or net-zero campuses

In our latest report, Building a Green Campus – what’s stopping institutions?, we explore further options for colleges including case studies of institutions that have delivered part of their green strategy using these devices. 

Deadlines loom but there are few easy-to-find examples of carbon neutral or net-zero campuses. Indeed, there isn’t even a standardised definition of a green campus. 

However we have developed a definition, and given the significant undertaking to achieve this status we have proposed a badge for ‘emerging green campuses’ in acknowledgement of those who are en route .

This formal recognition matters. Indeed, 79% of prospective students want institutions to have clear strategies for tackling climate change. But there’s a mismatch in priorities; less than half (48 per cent) of institutions think factoring climate change into decision making is important to prospective students. 

Our research also shows that solutions lie in cross-institutional activities such as leadership and management, teaching and learning, research and innovation, and services and facilities. In short, co-ordinating and implementing green campuses requires a common, cohesive goal for the whole institution. 

One campus making good progress on its net-zero journey is Gloucestershire College: in 2022, it converted its Gloucester and Cheltenham campuses to fully renewable energy. The campuses host 4,500 solar panels from which it plans to sell excess energy back to the grid. With battery storage also on campus, the college is able to purchase cheap power to hold in reserve when daylight hours are shorter or during peak times. The project is expected to have paid for itself in about six years. 

Sustainability targets cannot be achieved overnight. Transparency and collaboration within and between institutions and partners such as lenders, lawyers and consultants could be the key to unlocking the sector’s potential for green campuses.

But to make a real difference, sustainability cannot simply be delegated to estates or sustainability managers. It must run through every aspect of strategy, and its appeal to young people can be just the incentive to put it there.

Decreasing level 2 opportunities compromises levelling up

At a recent roundtable discussion hosted by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) in partnership with Qube Learning, my co-panellists and I discussed how decreasing opportunities for level 2 candidates in further education will compromise the levelling up agenda and force some learning providers to close due to funding shortages and poor policy making.

The discussion, chaired by AELP’s director of policy, Simon Ashworth and including employer representatives from the healthcare and retail sectors, highlighted the extent to which funding cuts, functional skills grade requirements and lack of flexibility will also impact on staff retention.

That the government has remained committed to boosting apprenticeship achievement rates to 67 per cent by 2025 is to be welcomed. However, the cut in level 2 opportunities is a serious setback and will totally undermine this goal.

The withdrawal of this funding is undoubtedly an increasing concern: many employers rely heavily on the apprenticeship levy, so any reductions or removal would place participating businesses and the apprenticeships they offer in jeopardy.

The continuing squeeze on funding and the government’s view of level 2 provision need further attention to ensure learners and employers are offered the right choice of programmes. While we are not against devolution, higher level or degree apprenticeships, there must be a clear pathway to allow all learners to progress in their education and career and to access these routes.

Qube Learning has used single units funded through the adult education budget to allow employers to meet their priorities and help get people into work, with very high achievement rates. However, last summer many of these units were no longer funded impacting on delivery for the initial two months of this contract year.

Many school leavers now lack the skills for a level 3 apprenticeship

Everyone on the panel agreed wholeheartedly that many school leavers are now leaving secondary education with lower-level qualifications and lacking the skills needed to be accepted on a level 3 apprenticeship. This highlights even further the need for level 2 placements, without which a vital pathway to career progression can be closed.

Maths in particular has become a real challenge, because it is not currently being tailored to the apprentice roles which candidates are applying for. This means that if some employers remove level 2 apprentices altogether, then many school leavers will be locked out of careers that they could have excelled in.

Meanwhile, the current economic climate means employers are understandably even more preoccupied with costs and budgets. This means it is all the more imperative that we are able to meet candidates where they are and progress them from there.

But even among those who are able to start at level 3, doing so without the basic skills covered at level 2 only creates a greater risk of dropping out. So not only are employers essentially being forced to reduce (or even totally remove) level 2 apprenticeships because funding has either been withdrawn or is too opaque to access, but the policy is bound to increase risk-averse decisions about who is accepted at level 3.

Non-regulated provision and single-unit funding gave providers the opportunity to agree the types of people, skills and knowledge they needed with employers, and we saw a greater return on achievement as a result. 

So the problem is not solely lack of provision at level 2, but the policy around it. For example, reductions to funding bands have a knock-on effect for other issues such as end-point assessment charges. Where funding bands have been reduced, some providers have gone out of business.

Last week’s autumn statement had precious little to offer the further education and skills sector, but levelling up remains a priority. A transformation of jobs and skills is evidently a central aspiration for Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.

To deliver that promise, this new government must seriously reconsider the lack of funding and provision for level 2 apprenticeships and streamline the policy surrounding them.

This isn’t just a question of avoiding damage to their own political vision and agenda. More importantly, it’s an urgent matter of insulating young learners from the life-limiting damage of becoming NEET and of protecting the economy from more damage from skills shortages and unemployment.