Apprenticeships Jan2013

Building a long-term future for apprenticeships in England rd 23 January 2013
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Westminster Employment Forum Keynote Seminar: Building a long-term future for apprenticeships in England 23rd January 2013
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Contents
About this Publication Agenda Session Chairs opening remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group (transcript) 4 3
Apprenticeships in England - progress, and challenges for the future Richard Marsh, Business Development Director, National Apprenticeship Service (transcript) 8 Questions and comments from the floor (transcript) 12 An effective apprenticeship system for the long term - standards, value and increasing take-up Peter Cobrin, Founder and Director, Apprenticeships England (transcript) 16 David Pollard, Chair, Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group, Federation of Small Businesses (transcript) 18 Abdul Jawula, Student, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Hampshire and Steering Group Member, StudentVoice (transcript) 20 Questions and comments from the floor (transcript) 22 Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Rick Franckeiss, Group Training Officer, Sheffield Forgemasters International (transcript) 28 Dinah Caine, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Skillset (transcript) 30 Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers (transcript) 32 Professor David Guile, Course Leader MA Lifelong Learning, Institute of Education, University of London (transcript) 34 Steve Stanley HMI, Inspection and Improvement, Ofsted (transcript) 36 Questions and comments from the floor (transcript) 38 Session Chairs closing remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group (transcript) Session Chairs opening remarks Gisela Stuart MP (transcript) Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Sara Caplan, Partner, National Government Services, PwC (transcript) Professor Alison Halstead, Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Strategic Academic Developments, Aston University (transcript) Nick Skeet, Employer Relationship Director, Skills for Justice (transcript) Dr Tessa Stone, Chief Executive, The Brightside Trust (transcript) Questions and comments from the floor (transcript)
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Independent Review of Apprenticeships and the next steps for policy Gila Sacks, Deputy Director and Head, Apprenticeships Unit, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education (transcript) 60 Questions and comments from the floor (transcript) 64 Session Chairs and Westminster Employment Forum closing remarks Gisela Stuart MP (transcript)
Westminster Employment ForumImportant: note conditions of use on front page
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Sean Cudmore, Deputy Editor, Westminster Employment Forum (transcript) List of Delegates Registered for Seminar Contributor Biographies
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About this Publication

This publication reflects proceedings at the Westminster Employment Forum Keynote Seminar: Building a long-term future for apprenticeships in England held on 23rd January 2013. The views expressed in the articles are those of the named authors, not those of the Forum or the sponsors, apart from their own articles. Although Westminster Employment Forum is grateful to all sponsors for the funding on which we depend, participation in events and publications is never conditional on being a sponsor. As well as funding ongoing operations, sponsorship enables the Forum to distribute complimentary copies of publications, and offer complimentary tickets for events, to Government ministers, parliamentarians and officials most involved in policy. This publication is copyright. Its copying, in whole or in part, is not permitted without the prior written consent of the publishers. However, extracts of the text may be reproduced for academic or review purposes, subject to the conditions of use outlined in the previous page, providing they are accurate, are not used in a misleading context and the author, their organisation and the Westminster Employment Forum are acknowledged. We would also appreciate being informed.
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publications@westminsterforumprojects.co.uk Directors Peter van Gelder Chris Whitehouse
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Westminster Employment Forum Keynote Seminar Building a long-term future for apprenticeships in England
Timing: Morning, Wednesday, 23rd January 2013 Venue: Johnnie Walker Room, The Caledonian Club, 9 Halkin Street, London SW1X 7DR
8.30 - 9.00 Registration and coffee 9.00 - 9.05 Session Chairs opening remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group 9.05 - 9.25 Apprenticeships in England - progress, and challenges for the future Richard Marsh, Business Development Director, National Apprenticeship Service Questions and comments from the floor with Jessie Buscombe, Head of Employer Accounts, National Apprenticeships Service. 9.25 - 10.05 An effective apprenticeship system for the long term - standards, value and increasing take-up
What should be the core components required in all apprenticeships, taking into account the need for both flexibility and comparable standards? How can apprenticeship programmes ensure learners gain new skills, rather than simply accrediting existing ones, and also improve the transferability of these skills? What steps could be taken to ensure the apprenticeships system is adaptable to changing skill demands in the future? Is careers advice for young people effective at presenting apprenticeships as a worthwhile option; how might the system be improved? Should schools publish the number of pupils who go into apprenticeships, alongside the current destination data for those who go to university and into employment? What changes should be made to pre-apprenticeships to improve their effectiveness in attracting disengaged and disadvantaged learners? How do employers currently perceive apprenticeships and the associated qualifications? What steps might be taken to improve the brand and awareness of apprenticeships in some sectors? Other than increased financial subsidy, what could be done to further encourage employers, particularly SMEs, to provide apprenticeships? Could big employers play a role in encouraging smaller employers in their supply chains to embrace apprenticeships?
Peter Cobrin, Founder and Director, Apprenticeships England David Pollard, Chair, Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group, Federation of Small Businesses Abdul Jawula, Student, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Hampshire and Steering Group Member, StudentVoice Questions and comments from the floor 10.05 - 11.00 Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment
Is public investment in apprenticeships delivering value for money, and what steps might be taken to improve return on investment? Under current funding models, for what types of employers are apprenticeships a worthwhile investment of resources and how might their appeal be widened? What steps could be introduced to address the issues related to subcontracting amongst apprenticeship providers, as highlighted in the recent Ofsted report? Should apprenticeship funding be targeted at particular growth sectors identified by Government, such as renewable energy and the creative industries? Is the current model of shared public and employer investment striking the best balance for financing the apprenticeships system? What is the impact on funding of the new one-year minimum course length for 16- to 18-year-olds?
Rick Franckeiss, Group Training Officer, Sheffield Forgemasters International Dinah Caine, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Skillset Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers Professor David Guile, Course Leader MA Lifelong Learning, Institute of Education, University of London Steve Stanley HMI, Inspection and Improvement, Ofsted Questions and comments from the floor 11.00 - 11.10 Session Chairs closing remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group 11.10 - 11.35 Coffee 11.35 - 11.40 Session Chairs opening remarks Gisela Stuart MP 11.40 - 12.30 Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships
What has been the initial response from both individuals and employers to the introduction of Level 5 Apprenticeships - equivalent to Foundation degrees - and what are the challenges for expansion into a wider range of sectors? What should be the key elements to be included in all Level 6 and 7 Higher Apprenticeship frameworks? How can Higher Apprenticeships at Levels 6 (undergraduate degree level) and 7 (Masters level) meet their aim of becoming a genuine vocational alternative to university study, and achieve recognition as such by universities, employers and the public? What impact could the development of Apprenticeships at Level 6 and 7 have on vocational degrees in universities and university applications more widely? What can be done to increase flexibility for learners so that they can move from apprenticeships to university and viceversa? What is the potential impact of Higher Apprenticeships on improving social mobility?
Sara Caplan, Partner, National Government Services, PwC Professor Alison Halstead, Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Strategic Academic Developments, Aston University Nick Skeet, Employer Relationship Director, Skills for Justice Dr Tessa Stone, Chief Executive, The Brightside Trust Westminster Employment ForumImportant: note conditions of use on front page Page 5
Questions and comments from the floor 12.30 - 12.55 Independent Review of Apprenticeships and the next steps for policy Gila Sacks, Deputy Director and Head, Apprenticeships Unit, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education Questions and comments from the floor 12.55 - 13.00 Session Chairs and Westminster Employment Forum closing remarks Gisela Stuart MP Sean Cudmore, Deputy Editor, Westminster Employment Forum
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Westminster Employment Forums opening remarks Sean Cudmore, Deputy Editor

Ladies and gentlemen welcome. My name is Sean Cudmore and Im the Deputy Editor of the Westminster Employment Forum, and its a terrific pleasure to see you all here this morning. We are waiting for some colleagues to join us, so if you could just allow them to pass when they do arrive, that will be very, very helpful. Im just here to make a few very brief business announcements. First of could I remind everyone in the room to turn their mobile phones to mute. And also, as in the case with all our seminars, everything which is said in this room this morning is recorded and later transcribed and sent to you in the form of a transcript in about a weeks time. So however well-known you might be to others in the audience, if you do ask a question or have a comment to make, could you please say your name, the organisation you are representing, and also just wait for the microphone to arrive so we can just ensure that its on the recording. So thats really all from me, we are in terrifically good hands with both our Chairs this morning, and I will hand over now to our first half Chair, Stephen Lloyd MP. Stephen.
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Session Chairs opening remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group
Thank you very much for that. Good morning everyone. How many went to Number 9, we were all told, now go to 9A. Hands up, yes. I bet that receptionist was very busy this morning. Anyway welcome, Im just going to say a very quick few words to set the scene, but equally Im just going to start off actually with an apology, at ten past eleven, at the end of the morning session I need to shoot out immediately because Ive got to be in the Chamber for 11:32 and if I dont get there in time, because Im supposed to be speaking, Ill almost certainly spontaneously combust. So if anyone does want to have a quick word with me or what have you please send on any queries or questions or what have you, that you might have to my e-mail, because normally I do like to stick around, so I apologise for that in advance, its one of those things. Right before we move onto our first speaker, why am I here? Its not just that Im the Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Apprenticeships, Im equally the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group of FE. I dont know if there is anyone from the FE sector or any people from the FE sector here but I work extremely closely with my own Further Education college which is Sussex Downs in Eastbourne, very closely indeed, as well as the other training providers and also the employers around apprenticeships and in fact we had Vince Cable down to Eastbourne on Thursday last week, where we were launching the NAS Apprenticeship Big Conversation, Big Week of Work, whatever we want to call it, thats starting properly very, very soon, but as I had Vince down we did that last Thursday. Ive worked closely with Vince Cable on this, we all know in the room how supportive BIS and the Secretary of State are, in particular and equally Id like to say that the new Apprenticeship Minister, a chap called Matthew Hancock, who Ive got to know since being elected, hes actually pretty impressive, he really is, its not just Coalition working together because Im a Liberal and hes a Tory, Matthew is equally passionate about apprenticeships and I think already is hitting the ground running within BIS but Vince very specifically, that is one of his passions. Now a lot of this morning is around how do we maintain and grow quality within the whole apprenticeship agenda along with the fact that the quantity frankly has gone through the roof over the last few years. Clearly thats part of Government policy, it follows on I think, the previous Government in the last few years have, when they were in Government began to recognise that apprenticeships, there really was an opportunity to start growing them, improving them and pushing that agenda and so I pay tribute to them. And then the Coalition has picked that up and really run with the baton. To give you a little statistic in my own constituency in Eastbourne that shows an area of apprenticeships that are incredibly important and significant and that is my local FE, Sussex Downs that I mentioned, their Tourism/Catering apprenticeship which is fairly low level, it goes up to Level 3, but theyre running a current conversion rate of 92%. Have a think about that. In the middle of the worst recession since the late 20s with all the challenges were facing, their conversion rate is 92%. I dont know how many people in the room have worked over the years around the area of youth employment, youth unemployment and all the various Government schemes that have been chucked at the whole issue including currently the Deputy Prime Ministers Youth Contract. 92% conversation rate and that is absolutely astonishing, that really is.
Westminster Employment ForumImportant: note conditions of use on front page Page 8
Now one of the challenges that I think we all face as we try and really grow the quality of apprenticeships to try and get to that mythical halcyon world of comparing us to the apprenticeships in Germany which Im absolutely passionate about us trying to achieve that over the next ten years. The only one thing I would put up for you to think about this morning is weve got to make sure as we grow and measure that quality that we dont forget the tail. Because though we are getting more and more people at Level 4, Level 5, Level 6 apprenticeships which I think is a good thing because that really gives it a real gold standard, a real sense of quality, I would just pass it out there that we must make sure that we dont lose the entry level apprenticeships for a lot of our young people down at the lower level. So thats something that I think we need to keep our eye on as we progress over the next few years. Now the next speaker is a gentleman called Richard Marsh, who is the Business Development Director for the National Apprenticeship Service, I can give you a bit of a puff Richard because I was one of the MPs who was one of the first to do the 100 in a 100, almost two years ago now, pretty soon after the General Election and I worked very, very closely with the NAS and they were extremely supportive and very, very helpful and so Ill be looking forward to hearing what you say. One of the things as a final puff for Eastbourne because I may be here generally Chairing it but Eastbourne is my constituency and if you havent been there its 20 miles along the coast from Brighton and is much nicer, trust me Im a politician. But our 100 in a 100 Richard, I dont know if youre aware of, we pulled off 181 in those 100 days. But whats more important, because I kept nagging and badgering the businesses, SMEs as well, the sector has got much more used now to the whole concept of apprenticeships and I can tell you in the last say 17/18 months or so, little old Eastbourne has taken on around about 630/650 new apprenticeships across the piece from motor sales to catering to social care, you name it. And theres a real sense of community engagement and a sense of enthusiasm within my constituency for that. People and the employers feel good about what theyre doing and its become a sort of almost like a rolling stone going down the hill, its got its own momentum now but crucially the NAS were very, very helpful to that 18/19 months ago. So welcome this morning. Im looking forward to hearing what all our speakers have to say and if we start with Richard Marsh from the NAS. Over to you Richard.
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Apprenticeships in England - progress, and challenges for the future Richard Marsh, Business Development Director, National Apprenticeship Service
Okay thank you very much. You see thats a photo of me last time I came looking for a club in the West End; it was a nightclub then rather than a speaking club. You hopefully havent turned up specifically hoping to hear Jennifer Herdman, who is the lady advertised on the schedule, fortunately, or fortunately for her, she lives in a small village in Gloucestershire and is snowed in so Ive just popped in to cover for her. Im mightily impressed that they managed to change all the agendas and the packs and the biographies from yesterday to today so youve got my details in there if you should be interested. Nice to see some familiar faces and some that the people I dont know yet. Unfortunately because Im a stand in I have to go straight after my session Ive got a colleague at the back Jessie Buscombe, so weve got somebody here for the rest of the day if youve got any particular questions or comments for the Apprenticeship Service and I look forward to hearing some of the outputs from the debates because I think theres some really interesting conversations lined up through the day. The way I see my brief is to really talk about whats happened over the last year or two, whats already planned and announced to happen over the near term and medium term and then I think some of the further sessions are slightly more speculative about what you might do differently or challenge or change. So Im not going to get into speculation, Im just going to talk about what weve done over the last few years and where were going to, if its okay, hopefully that fulfils the brief of the session. Its very interesting that Stephen mentioned Germany, I used to work for Volkswagen, as they taught us to say rather than VW as we all wanted to call it, and so I spent a lot of time looking at their different apprenticeship programmes around Europe and while its true to say Germany is the only country that has made apprenticeships work over a long duration and a high volume, you know sort of more than 30 years and more than sort of 10/20% of the population going into them, its not the only model that works. And I think as you go through your debates we oughtnt to be too hamstrung by comparing ourselves to others and thinking about how can we copy or do what others do you know and we have to find our own English apprenticeship model because it isn't evolved enough. And being in the Caledonian Club, which is obviously proudly Scottish, wed do well to remember that. So Im just going to talk about the changes that have happened, the changes that are announced and publically known that are happening and a little bit towards whats next, and then as I say then youve got some discussion points havent you during the day to talk about more speculatively what might be done beyond this. So as weve already heard centre piece of this Governments Skills Policy, the previous Governments Skills Policy, 19 of the G20s Governments Skills Policies, yes. The last G20 in Mexico they talked about apprenticeships for the first time ever at a G20 Conference and pretty much all of the countries in the G20 talked about how they wished to expand or solidify their apprenticeship programme so its very much politically flavour of the month across the world. Where have we got to? Well weve got to a programme where this year, this football season or academic year, however you like to think about it, 2012/13 well have about 700,000 people doing an apprenticeship at one time or another. So not all of those people are starting this year, some of them are carried through from the previous year etc. about half a million people starting an apprenticeship, about 700,000 people
spending part of the year in an apprenticeship. Thats a huge increase in where weve been before, possibly, quite possibly the most we have ever had in this country, although you know records from the 1930s and things are sort of fairly dusty, but probably the most we have ever had, and as many as people are going to do a degree this year. So we can say now the apprenticeship programme in this country is as big as the degree programme. I think that something that hasnt caught up with popular imagination and awareness, but something that were getting towards. Over 200 apprenticeship programmes available, in all sorts of levels and sectors. So as Stephen spoke about, increasingly degree level apprenticeships, so a way of achieving degree qualifications without full time study, but also, you know, a large amount of entry level programmes for people working into work for the first time. Weve got a very modern system of applications and matching support. So if you go to the Governments apprenticeships website youll see the matching service and you can put in there, I dont know, short, bald, middle-aged, Birmingham man seeks exciting new opportunity, and see what it throws up for you. Weve got apprenticeships advertised on there, about 10,000 apprenticeships at any one time advertised on that site and its somewhere where employers and individuals can match up. And actually, you know referring back to the continental cousins and comparisons, which is probably apt given the politics of today, this is one thing that other people in other countries are always really envious over, because most other countries have very fragmented apprenticeship programmes, broken down by sector, or by region, or locality. I think were the only people who have a national place where anybody in the country can log on and look for apprenticeship vacancies in any sector, industry, academic level or location in the country, so something very much to be proud of. So weve a programme for all ages and increasingly at all academic levels, which again marks us out as fairly unique, and we have ourselves as a sort of a support service, and our job is really to help people find out about apprenticeships and take on apprentices or become apprentices. So what are the key features and recent developments over the last few years? Well some of these youll know but theyre worth reiterating because theyre fundamentally important. Since 2011 by statute, which is somewhere short of a law, but a legal thing, all apprentices in England have been in paid employment, and thats a really, really big thing. Previous to that up to 20/30% of apprentices were sort of in pre-work schemes, or extended work placements etc. but over the last 18 months really, weve worked incredibly hard with all of the organisations that deliver training for apprentices and the apprenticeship employers to make sure theyre all employed, that all apprentices in this country are now employed. Its a demand led system so there is no planning, and sometimes thats perhaps to the detriment, but theres no planning. Government announces how much money it wishes to spend on apprenticeships, and its one of the very few budgets thats been increasing over the last few years of austerity, and then we make apprenticeships available to employers that wish to take them. So the apprenticeship market reflects the employment market, and the great advantage of apprenticeships over other types of vocational or education for policy makers is that you cant over supply, or under supply, to a certain extent. So if youre a university or a college thinking about what course to put on, or a Government bod trying to think about how many plumbers we might need in the next five years, how many plumbing courses we need to put on, its almost impossible to get that right. Nobody gets that right generally, you might do in a very small location or a niche industry, bless you, but generally nobody gets that right to the country level. The great advantage of apprenticeships is because the individuals are employed, the demand comes first, the apprenticeship second. Plumber X needs an assistant, employs an apprentice. Because they already have identified they need an apprentice, were not supplying them with somebody thats more than they need, were not flooding the market with things.
So its a demand led system, choice by not compulsion. So in some countries like France or Germany its compulsory for employees to take apprentices, or Columbia, not in this country, its something we encourage people to do. Its not compulsory for young people to take apprenticeships either. So its a demand led, choice based system as I said, it covers lots of sectors and broadly three academic levels, intermediate, which is roughly aligned to a GCSE level, although of course its a vocational package of employment and skills, its not a written test on its own; advanced which is roughly ALevel standard; and higher which covers sort of foundation, intermediate and possibly in the future higher and Masters degree level. As a core minimum to all apprenticeships, and we stress it is a minimum, because what we need is the individual, their employers and their expert training provider, should they use one and most do, to add the other bits that are relevant to that individuals learning journey and to get them where they need to be and that is relevant to the organisation or employees learning needs. So the content, the minimum thats core to all, is off the job theoretical instruction, which is often done through what we sometimes call as a technical certificate, something like a BTEC which will theory based and often done in a classroom. On the job competence and training, often delivered through an NVQ type programme, so first of all do they understand the theory of the job role, secondly can they do it, can we prove that theyre competent to do it? Functional skills which is generally English and Mathematics but can also include IT if that is chosen by a particular industry or employer. And then also, because apprenticeships are predominately aimed at people entering the workforce, people who are early on in their careers, or taking a big career step, we have learning to work skills, so we talk about employer rights and responsibilities, personal learning and thinking skills. Because employers tell us they dont just want people with certificates, they want people who are good at team work, good at working things out on their own when they need to, who are responsible and have got good customer service in all industries really. So thats the core common content of all apprenticeships. Beyond that we offer a huge amount of flexibility and employers and their training organisations can bespoke and expand programmes to cover the specific requirements of the individuals and their employers. And thats something that perhaps we dont shout enough about, and I think sometimes it comes across as bureaucracy. Because very recently I went to the new HR Director IKEA at Wembley, not so far about here, and we spoke about apprenticeships and said, yes we want to start our apprenticeship programme in England in IKEA, how does it work? And I said, well these are the minimums but you tell me what you want your apprenticeship programme to achieve and well design the programme around that. And they said, well thats really interesting because in Norway, France, Sweden, Germany, anywhere else, a Government person comes in and tells you youre having 15 apprentices, theyre starting next Tuesday at this college and this is their programme and enjoy it. And he was at once pleased to be given the choice about how, where and why his programme was chosen but also a little bit daunted about designing an apprenticeship programme from scratch. And I think thats sometimes where the bureaucracy angle comes in because people find that, oh, what do I need to do here? Whereas its fairly simple with a university, you turn up in September and three years later youve got a degree or not, you know A-Levels are fairly straight forward as well, so apprenticeships are a slightly more complex thing which is why you need the expert hand of either an experienced employer or training professional to guide you through generally. So the changes that are most recent. So from 1st August last year, about five months ago, all apprenticeships will last for a minimum of 12 months. We didnt ever have a minimum duration because we wanted employers and individuals to come to an agreement about how long their programme would take and when they were ready, when they were competent they were passed, when they werent ready, they werent ready. But because there were some programmes running an extraordinary short amount of time and that led to concerns around public funding, reputation, etc. the
Government introduced a minimum of 12 months, and that is a minimum, and most apprenticeships took more than a year anyway. So from people who started from August just passed have to spend at least a year in their apprenticeship. Some flexibilities for very small employers about what they can and cant study. So for example referring back to the plumbers mate, because Im a very small plumbing business I might want my apprentice to not only bend pipes but also phone customers, do the accounts and other things, so we can now add things like customer service and business admin and other elements to apprenticeships for small employers. The Access to Apprenticeships Programme, which is a kind of way into apprenticeships for people who arent quite ready to go into employment from day one, the Employer Ownership Pilot which will probably come up later in the day, which is a sort of syphon of money that the Government has taken out of the mainstream and is given directly to employers to encourage them to take more ownership of their programmes. And a clearer definition of what we pay for, which is that apprenticeships should be a new role or if given to someone in an existing role, it should be someone that requires significant new knowledge or skills. An apprenticeship shouldnt be just about assessing whether somebody is good at their job or not, it should be about moving somebody from here to here and this here to here should be a good stretch, a reasonable journey. And then more recently more local coordination and involvement through things like Local Employer Partnership, City Hubs that have started up and so lots of local bodies such as Chambers of Commerce or Local Authorities, taking a more active role in the supply and demand of apprenticeships in their local areas. And then things that are going on but havent quite finished. Theres an incentive payment available to employers up to 1,000 employees who havent had an apprentice in the past 12 months and who are prepared to take on a 16-24 year old as an apprentice, of 1,500 per apprentice they take on up to ten. So they can claim up to 15,000 for employing, thats cash paid directly the employer, for employing an apprentices where these are new jobs and theyre aged 1624. Increasing the higher apprenticeships, this is the degree level end, well have a total of about 22 degree level apprenticeships by the end of this academic year, so its a huge increase in the variety available and were hoping that will be followed up by, you know were very excited by how many people take those up. Prioritising younger people, well in the example above, limiting some schemes and things to younger people. Higher return sectors, so trying to focus on the gross value adding things, you know the engineering, construction and other industries that return more for individuals than the State, although retain a demanding programme, and trying to move the academic mean forward. Im getting the signal on time so Ill try and round off. Ill just do one more slide, Ill leave the rest and Im more than happy for this to be circulated to people if the organisers can do that afterwards. The last thing Id leave you with is rather than listen to myself waffling on, is we are now publically surveying employers every year and publishing the results. And its only a very small link but I promise its a link to a publication so you can have a look at this yourself. And what was really interesting was we asked employers, before and after, what they thought, this is people who had not had an apprentice before, what they thought they would get out of apprenticeships and what they did get out of it. And youll see firstly they were much happier with the apprenticeship than they thought they would be. And theres a bit of a misconception in this country that somehow employers arent satisfied with apprenticeships, theres twice as many employers with apprentices in this country as there were a few years ago. As Stephen mentioned success rates are now up with the best in the world and much higher than theyve ever been, and the employers whove had apprentices are very, very satisfied and pleased with the apprenticeships and willing to stay involved in the programme. So it isn't perfect, and with any rapid expansion there are some areas where you need to tighten up and adjust as you go but weve made huge progress and as I think you can
see for yourself there, although probably not if youre row four or back, you know, its a little bit of a tight font, most employers found that it improved productivity, staff morale, their service, their quality, their image, their retention of people, and it was much better and more powerful than the benefits they anticipated getting from apprenticeships. So if its possible to retain that in your mind as you give your valuable inputs as to where we might go to further improve the programme over the next few years, worth thinking about how far weve come already and how generally satisfied people are who are engaging in the programme at the moment. Thank you very much, hope you and enjoy the rest of your day. Richard Marshs PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/slides/RichardMarsh.pdf
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Apprenticeships in England - progress, and challenges for the future Questions and comments from the floor
Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much Richard. Richard, you mentioned that one of your colleagues is here, can Richards colleague stand up so you can all see who that is. Brilliant, thank you very much. And youre here for the rest of the morning? Im not, actually, Im here until around 10 oclock. Oh right. Im happy to take the questions now. Okay Im more than happy for people to take my contact details and if you do have any thoughts or would like a follow on conversation, they are very welcome. Richard, or to the lady there. Okay, sorry Richard you go. If weve got any questions right now, because the NAS is going. Sorry, can the lady stand up again, my apologies. Does anyone actually, while you are here, have any questions for the NAS, bearing in mind weve probably only got space for a couple of questions, but you have got Richards email. Thank you. From Aston University. Its a really quick one. Could you actually give us the breakdown of the Level 2, how does it split down between intermediate, advanced and then the higher, just ball park, thank you. Okay, we would have to probably email the figures, but broadly I think you are talking about, currently at the moment about 65% is intermediate, so the majority is intermediate, and part of the Governments strategy has been to move greater numbers towards the advanced and highers. Highers are very low number of starts at the moment, I think they represent about 5% or something, but thats mainly because, until quite recently, we didnt actually have any frameworks available, or very few frameworks available in higher apprenticeships, the Government announced a huge package of support to develop new frameworks, for instance, in advertising, human resources, digital media etc., but those are very, very new areas, so we havent got many starts in those programmes yet. But thats something we can certainly supply the data as a follow up. Lovely, thank you very much. If I can just call back to everyone, we are going to make sure that Richards whole presentation is emailed or sent to all the delegates, including me on that, because there were
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Jessie Buscombe: Stephen Lloyd MP: Jessie Buscombe: Stephen Lloyd MP: Richard Marsh:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
Professor Alison Halstead:
Jessie Buscombe:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
some bits there I would like to see. Thank you very much. From the floor: Stephen Lloyd MP: Louise Boyd: There was just one further question. Okay. From Lloyds Banking Group. Could you just share with us a little bit? Youve talked a bit about the demand led side of apprentices and the works that you are doing around that, but what about your links in with the supply side, so how do you link in with the careers service? Because one of the things that we are experiencing is we are doubling the number of apprenticeships that we are offering, but we are not necessarily finding that, particularly those younger candidates are applying to come and work with us, it doesnt seem to be as well-known as I would have expected it to be. Yes, I think thats a very good point actually, its a bit of a politicians answer to perhaps acknowledge the question without giving a definitive response, but one of my experiences working with employers was always that there was sometimes a mismatch between young peoples awareness of certain careers and what was the reality out there in the market, so some employers, hospitality, banking etc. found younger people perhaps not aware of the careers in those sectors. We do work very closely with the National Careers Service, but we have also had some additional investment from Government which we are very lucky to have, to support a greater number of National Apprenticeship Service staff working on our apprenticeship vacancy website. So previously the number of staff we had were very much working on a maintenance duty with that website and now they are doing more careers advice with individuals. So we are looking at individuals who have registered on the apprenticeship vacancies website, who were perhaps unsuccessful sort of three or four times around applications, and looking at giving them a bit of CV advice, but also talking to them about particular vacancies that are out there. And alongside that, what we are also doing is working with employers around particular vacancies to do more work to promote their vacancies. So to give an example, we worked with Starbucks in London, we did quite a lot of Facebook campaign, Twitter, we worked with local authorities to get information out in certain boroughs where there were shops that they were recruiting to. So I think probably as a reference point for you is to talk to the National Apprenticeship Service about what more support we could give on the ground. Very often theres local things we could do, as I say, with local authorities around raising awareness and using social media as, I think, thats mainly And also one of the challenges, because you are absolutely right, this is something Ive been working
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Jessie Buscombe:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
with a lot of my own constituency. One of the challenges over the years, the teachers become deskilled about selling apprenticeships, because theyve all been told by successive Governments, everyone has got to go to university, and the problem with that, and honest heads will acknowledge this, is that teachers dont know how to talk about apprenticeships, because they havent been taught. So there is a recognition within the Government that that is a real issue. Locally Ive got various schemes going with Sussex Downs College and all the various schools, but it is difficult because thats another area where you have an overlap between the DfE part of education and BIS. So, what I would say is that there is a genuine understanding within the Government and a lot of the key strategic areas that schools arent selling apprenticeships as well as they should. I think what weve just got to do is to try and move much, much faster to get better at doing that, and I think the NAS working with employers and slightly going round it a wee bit, so that theres a route into the schools from employers and the NAS, saying what apprenticeships are available, is one way to actually do that. But it is difficult because we are trying to turn back 20 years of the tide going in a particular direction, so it is a really important point. One more question? Yes madam. This is definitely the last question. Rona Macdonald: From OPITO. We are the skills body for the oil and gas industry. It was more really a comment to this lady. I think what weve found, weve been running a modern apprenticeship scheme for 12 years and in the beginning we had to advertise heavily and really try and encourage it, but through word of mouth and because its become very well established, we dont actually need we are massively oversubscribed to it now and we dont really need to promote it. So with the course of time, as the course becomes well known. The other thing we do is we encourage all our young apprentices to go back to the schools they came from and to talk to those schools and to develop links, and I think theres nobody better to talk to young people, yes teachers can sell careers, but to have a young man or woman thats gone through the apprenticeship themselves, talking about their experience, I think is a marvellous way to sell your scheme. That is a brilliant idea, thank you very much for that. Okay, thanks Can I just also say, theres also an organisation called the Education for Employers Taskforce, and they run a sort of online dating service between employers that are interested in speaking to schools, where employers can log their interest, and if schools are interested, they can effectively, via that website, match up to
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Stephen Lloyd MP: Jessie Buscombe:
those employers. So thats another way for employers to go directly to schools. Stephen Lloyd MP: Lovely, thank you very much for that, thank you. And as I said earlier, Richards email will be on the presentation, so feel free to send him loads and loads of questions. Right next could I have the following people to join me on the table please, Peter Cobrin, David Pollard and Abdul Jawula, if you come and join us. Thank you. Right the way that this bit works is Im going to ask each of our participants to speak for 5 minutes, just to give a quick overview from where they are coming from, based on the subject heading of this course, which I dont need to read everything, youve got the sheet in front of you. Then after that I will be taking questions. To try and get through as many questions as possible in the limited time, I will be taking questions three at a time, and asking each or some of the participants to respond. Good, so to start with, Im just going to do it in chronological order on my list, Im going to go with Peter, Peter Cobrin who is the Founder and Director of Apprenticeships England. Thank you Peter, over to you.
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An effective apprenticeship system for the long term standards, value and increasing take-up Peter Cobrin, Founder and Director, Apprenticeships England
Good morning everybody. Now firstly I actually have changed my name, which is part of what I want to talk about, Ive been known for the last month as Employment Pathways, rather than Apprenticeships England. And thats partially as a result of my belief that we have become a little bit over obsessed with apprenticeships and not enough focus is being made on the real crisis that we have which is about youth unemployment which is over a million. Its not as bad as Greece where its 56% of under 25s are out of work, but those of you who walk through the underpass coming up from Green Park Station might well have seen one or two people sleeping rough, and quite a few of those are the people that we need to be helping today. Today, this morning, the Select Committee on Education published its report on information, advice and guidance in schools and it was a very damning indictment of the current situation in terms of what schools are not doing in terms of providing quality careers advice. In fact if you actually read the DfEs submission to the Select Committee you will find some very, very interesting insights into the kind of thinking that characterises the DfEs approach to what is good information, advice and guidance. And the problem is, and this is one of the topics that were asked to talk about during this session, is the need for quality careers guidance to underpin a successful apprenticeship programme. At the moment the Apprenticeship Programme is grotesquely not underpinned by information, advice and guidance in schools. Yes there are pockets of excellent examples but I can give you dozens of examples of schools where the subject of apprenticeships is not allowed to be discussed, where children in years ten and eleven are not allowed to go to open days to the local FE colleges. And I know that the Association of Colleges survey revealed the concerns there were about this. All of this means that in a sense the Apprenticeship Programme, as essential as it is, is not supported by an underpinning within the secondary sector as to the requirements of the, if you like, the apprenticeship pathway in to the world of work, about the skills sets that are required, the employability requirements. And that partially explains why there is some resistance amongst employers to even entertain the problem of taking on young people because young people do not emerge from schools as employable young people. Were not expecting them to have the skills specific to that particular industry, what we are expecting them is to have the skills of the workplace. Simple things from punctuality, cleanliness, personal hygiene, politeness, collaborative working, being able to take instructions, being able to pass on instructions to other people, a whole raft of skill sets that make a person hit the deck running when he enters the workplace so that he can pick up the skills through the FE college or training provider that is available for him. There is great concern from the CBI for example, about the fact that secondary schools are simply not doing this. We need to see employability skills embedded across the curriculum from year seven onwards, and for the last two years Ive sponsored an award in Kent to the school that best embeds employability within the curriculum, and its always won by The Isle of Sheppey Academy. They get a little plaque and a cheque for 50, but thats not the point, the point is they are such an example of whats being done. Lord Baker spoke in this very room a few weeks ago about the effectiveness of UTCs in embedding employability so that the pathways that are there are transparent to young people from the ages of 14 and not suddenly discovered at the ages of 16 and 17.
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If we had employable young people then the apprenticeship programme would be more effective. And some of the stuff that we saw in the earlier presentation, which I think most of us have actually seen before; Im sorry to be a bit snide about that but I was hoping to see something new but unfortunately Ive seen nothing new, but maybe we shouldnt blame Richard he is only a substitute, but I was hoping to see some new things. That they need to provide functional skills and that sort of on the job employability training should not be the responsibility of the employer, or the FE College, it should be the responsibility of the education sector. It is about the employability deficit that we have and large employers, some large employers are now, and I can name a couple such as Barclays, such as Vodafone, such as E.ON, are now working directly with young people through a series of pilot schemes to take employability appropriate to their businesses into the school, into the community. So theres pilots happening in Stoke on Tent, in the West Midlands and East London where young kids, who would not normally cross the threshold of acceptability into the, for example a Bank, are being given the employability skills so that they are actually, if you like, suitable for employment within those institutions. Kids who would not be normally let through the doors of an organisation and are able to get through because companies are actually scaffolding that process. And thats one of the reasons why I focus very much now on employment pathways. Apprenticeships are a solution, theyre not the solution, the problem is providing young people with multiple pathways that are supported and identified and valued equally throughout the secondary sector, which is what happens in Germany, there is no the things we talk about here in this room would not be discussed in Germany because its embedded within the system. So thats what Id like to leave you with just at the moment that, yes, the apprenticeship programme has many strengths, what it shouldnt be doing is repairing the gaps that are left by the secondary sector. So that most of the Level 1 and Level 2 skills sets are in a sense the responsibility of the secondary sector who often gets the vast chunk of the money to train our future scientists and plumbers and engineers and technicians. Thanks very much. Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much Peter. And the next speaker is David Pollard who is the Chair, Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group from the FSB. David.
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An effective apprenticeship system for the long term standards, value and increasing take-up David Pollard, Chair, Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group, Federation of Small Businesses
Thank you Stephen. Good morning ladies and gentlemen it is a pleasure to be here in the Johnnie Walker room at the Caledonian Club, particularly since I took a wee dram or two of Laphroaig last night to finish off my presentation. Peter has covered most of the topics that I was going to mention in terms of the education sort of thing. We have very strong feelings in the FSB about functional skills and that thats the responsibility of schools. What I would like to do is to just give you a quick view of what our policy is, what we are aiming for in policy terms in the skills and apprenticeship arena and to tell you about our vision for the apprenticeship, how wed like to see it in the future. But before I do that Id just like to put things in context for you if possible, just in case youre not all familiar with SMEs and their implications in the economy. There are 4.8m businesses in the United Kingdom, 99% of them are small, employing fewer than 50 people. A little under 1% are medium, employing between 50 and 249 people and 0.1% are the large businesses with more than 250 employers, employees. Small companies employ 48% of the private sector workforce and just under 12% work in medium companies, so only 40% of the public sector workforce works in large companies, the other 60% work in small and medium size enterprises. So when it comes to thinking about apprenticeships and growing the number of apprenticeships and creating jobs for young people, we have to think very much about the SME sector because thats where most of the jobs are and will be in the future. So where do we stand on skills and apprenticeships within the FSB. Well the FSB itself and its members are passionate supporters of apprenticeships. We engage with Government at every opportunity to promote them and we promote apprenticeships to companies actively. Were keen to see the image and the quality of the apprenticeships improve. One of the things weve been delighted with is the move to a minimum 12 month period for apprenticeships, we have to improve the image of the apprenticeship in the eyes not only of employers and potential apprentices but also in the eyes of teachers, parents, family and friends because they are all part of the mechanism that promotes the apprenticeship. Were also keen to promote the idea that there should be more vocational education in schools to engage young people who do not thrive on academic courses, and we want vocational education to have parity of esteem with the more academic courses. We seem to have a view in Britain that academic courses are the bees knees, that they are the best sort of courses. But having said that, when it comes to people choosing university courses, law, dentistry, medicine, are all seen as very high grade university courses, but in reality theyre vocational courses, its vocational education and we need to get the same across about engineering, technology, marketing and business. People in schools need to know something about where they might be going and that follows on with Peters comments about the need for better careers guidance. Which takes me onto my next point, I wont say very much about careers guidance other than to say that I support whats already been said and we did actually give evidence to the Select Committee looking into careers guidance and we are continuing to push that as a major theme of our policy. There is evidence that shows that young people tend to underestimate the entry requirements for their chosen careers; they think they dont have to work at school. Theres also evidence that shows that young people who do not
have some sort of career focus tend to become disengaged from education. And I think that those are some of the reasons that account for the large number of needs that we have in this country at the moment and we have to do something to resolve that. Another one of our policy objectives, and its been covered ably by Peter, is the idea of education about the world of work. Knowing what life is like when youre an adult, that when you have a job if it starts at nine you turn up at nine, not at half past nine or ten oclock, whatever you think is right. That you dress appropriately, if youre dealing with customers you must be smart and you must be polite etc. And those are a lot of the skills that we would like to see developed but I wont go into them in any more detail. So moving onto our vision, what do we think apprentices should look like, what do we want apprentices to look like at some point in the future? Well really, as Peter said, we want careers education to start at the end of primary school, involve parents and then continue throughout young peoples education up to the age of 18. That will enable our young people to understand what a massive range of careers and opportunities there are out there for them and to realise what they need to achieve to follow their chosen career and give them the incentive to concentrate on their school work. The careers guidance should cover all options in an impartial manner, so apprenticeships should be promoted up there along with further education courses and with university. Wed also like to see the situation where all apprenticeships are as a minimum at Level 3 with the Level 2s either being upgraded to more demanding apprenticeships or becoming part of the new traineeship programme that the Government is developing. Within the careers guidance also the schools should be promoting apprenticeships, sorry should be promoting, besides the apprenticeships, the fact that working in a small business is a valid career opportunity, and even starting your own business is a valid career opportunity. We also support a lot of the Richard Review recommendations, particularly routing the finance, Government funding for apprenticeships through employers. I think this will produce a lot more transparency in what it costs to train apprentices, so that people will get an appreciation of the value that there is in an apprentice, both the employer and the apprentice will get some understanding of the money that goes into it and the value that is in there. But I think it will also encourage employers to get much more involved in the whole sort of apprenticeship programme. And then when it comes to a definition of what an apprenticeship is in our view an apprenticeship is an entry route to a career, and thats all. It could be for someone young, it could be for somebody older starting a new career, but its an entry route, its not a way of retraining people or delivering further training for established workers in the company. Thank you very much ladies and gentleman. Stephen Lloyd MP: Good, thank you very much for that David. Thank you. My final speaker in this session is Abdul Jawula who is a student at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, theres a few other bits there but of tremendous interest to me Abdul is, I saw that you had an opportunity to speak to President Obama which impresses the hell out of me. But anyway Abdul Jawula over to you.
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An effective apprenticeship system for the long term standards, value and increasing take-up Abdul Jawula, Student, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Hampshire and Steering Group Member, StudentVoice
So Im an 18 year old who attends a sixth form college in Hampshire and even though I havent actually undertaken an apprenticeship I recognise the fact that they are a viable option for young people and thats why Im here. And Im very excited to be in front of you right now and to be able to express my views. So first off Im going to start off with my experiences on watching the Olympics and the scenes, like all these jubilant scenes of seeing for example the long chimneys coming out of the ground and to me that symbolised a time when everyone worked for each other and worked together. And it wasnt disenfranchised where everyone is doing totally different things, and a time when like sweat was actually you felt proud to sweat and to work hard, and to work hard for things. But now its as if, if youre seen to be working hard for your money, youre almost looked down upon because you shouldnt be trying. But I think thats what apprenticeships actually evokes, the fact that if you do work hard you can succeed, you can move ahead and I think thats what we should instil in our young people, such as myself and people younger than myself, so people who are 16 etc. And when I think of apprenticeships, personally I think of education, when Im at school I study quite academic subjects like biology, chemistry, psychology, English language, English literature. And when Im studying all Im trying to do is try to put as much into my head as possible and Im not actually engaging with the content, Im not engaging with something that could be useful to me in the future, Im just trying to take in as much as I can and regurgitate in the exam, thats all Im doing. And apprenticeships means that people can actually interact with what could be useful later on. So we are developing people who are not just doing things because they almost have to but because they want to. And that means its likely to lead onto careers which will mean more people stay in their careers and sort of saying, well I did a degree in this but I dont really feel like doing it anymore. So then they end up doing something totally unrelated and thats not only a waste of their teachers time but a waste of the tax payers money at the end of the day. And one thing I find really important is that at this present moment in time the culture means, as has been said by both of my respective speakers on this board, its all academics, you need to go to sixth form, you need to go to university, you need to get a degree in certain subject. But at the end of the day the world is changing and robots are now replacing people. Now if you take a if you go down to your local supermarket you find more automatic tellers than actual people there, they have all these self-service checkouts telling you to scan this and telling you to leave when youve given them your money. So the skills we require from our young people and in the job sector is totally different, we need people with analytical ability, with creativity, because creativity breeds innovation and innovation breeds allows the world to move forward. Not just Britain but mankind as a whole because we develop things that means we can meet the requirements of the future. And thats really important, thats something that no brick and mortar institution can claim to be able to instil because its all text books, its all exams, were not given the time to think and to create and to be creative. And Im not just talking about subjects such as drama or art but in other things. Ive never been asked in an exam, can you find a solution to something, but I want to, but Ive never been asked, its just being able to remember. Now in a time when computers and tablets and mobile phones are getting more powerful and even Google has developed a Project Glass which means you put it on and it beams
information straight into your pupil. So later on in the future everyone will have access to all kinds of knowledge, and maybe employees will think well Im not going to employ him because I can just almost beam it instantaneously, will have infinite knowledge about everything. And I think its really important, its a precarious position to think its all about academia, academia, academia, we need people to develop solutions for the future and thats what I find really important personally. Now the fact is apprenticeships seem to be looked upon quite favourably by employers all over Britain because one million businesses have applied for apprenticeships and thats just in 2012. Now if we can carry on this success into 2013 then we can achieve great things. And the apprenticeships on offer I believe should be reviewed on a yearly basis. Now this may be quite difficult but its important because we dont want a situation whereby everyone is giving out apprenticeships and we have the same situation that we have with normal education where people try and find loopholes in order to be able to get people through these loopholes so its very important that theyre reviewed on a yearly basis. And to conclude, were at a pivotal moment in terms of education and employment. The UKs one of the most active countries in the world, after doing my research, and thats really important because its a race, its a global race, this is a new race that has developed, if we can get out of the starting blocks early. And its really important not just for the young people in this country but for the whole economy. And I believe that I hope that hopefully apprenticeships will be a key component, something thats really focused on by the Government because hopefully in this lifetime the big rusty locks of closed factories will click open and machinery that lay dormant will rise again and roar again, the unemployed will be able to find work again and Britain will dominate again. Thank you.
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An effective apprenticeship system for the long term standards, value and increasing take-up Questions and comments from the floor
Stephen Lloyd MP: Okay lovely. What we are going to do is, as I said, a little bit of a Q&A session. Any questions, hands up and then people run round with the mic. We will probably take two or three questions at a time if thats alright. Yes, and introduce yourself as well please. Skills for Care, the sector body for Adult Social Care England, representing employers. I would like to come to David please. David you mentioned, if Ive copied this down correctly, that your federation would like apprenticeships to begin at advanced level. Did I get that right? You thought that apprenticeships shouldnt have an intermediate level, but should begin at advanced level. I think you said that, did I get that right? Yes you did. And I wondered what your memberships rationale was for that, but basing that on the fact that in our sector, weve got 1.56 million workers and a huge amount of vacancies, the majority of our employers are small businesses and they would be horrified if intermediate level apprenticeships were not available. Okay, thats good. What we are going to do, there will be a couple of other questions, and then we will come to them. Thank you very much for that. Any other questions? Yes, theres a gentleman at the back please. From Thamesview Vocational Centre in Gravesend, Kent. It was more of a comment more than a question really. Ive spent 6 years developing, promoting and expanding vocational education in a secondary school, and now at that secondary school our curriculum choices are being pushed towards more academic choices because of the new E-Bacc system from the Government. We had very successful Young Apprenticeship Schemes for 14-19 year olds, and they are now being pushed out of the window due to Government funding cuts at that age group, and also, as I say, we will be deemed as a failing school if we do not hit the Government benchmark figures for the EBacc. So its just a question really, what we are supposed to do, as a secondary school, to keep promoting, expanding and putting students through those vocational qualifications. Good, thank you for that, I certainly have some comments on that. One more, the lady at the front. Im with AAT. We are an awarding body. My question again is for David. You mentioned about children at school, if they dont have a career focus, tend then not to succeed. This isnt really a defence of
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Susan Smith:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
Martin Francis:
Stephen Lloyd MP: Patricia McDonagh:
schools because Im also a School Governor of a secondary school and I do despair of their lack of knowledge about apprenticeships, which I am constantly trying to promote. However, I think you fail to take into account, or mention, the social factor, when we have so many young people coming from homes that dont have an example of work, dont see the need to get up to get in for 9 oclock, wont catch two buses because they dont have any role models, they are in a family that perhaps have two generations now who have never worked. So Im not asking you to answer that question necessarily, but again, like the previous question, there needs to be some joined up thinking and working on this, otherwise apprenticeships for young people will kind of die on the vine, thats my fear. Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much for that. Okay we will answer those questions. Im sure one or two others will have something to come in. But lets start with you David, specifically on apprenticeships starts at Level 3 please. Right. Okay, our policy, our ambition is to see apprenticeships being at Level 3 as the bottom level of apprenticeships, and as I said at the time, we see that happening in two ways through two actions. One is that as the apprenticeships become much more embodied into companies manpower planning and development, then the companies will realise that there is a benefit in extending the apprenticeship and putting more into it because it gives people a much deeper preparation for their role in the business longterm, so they will be putting a lot more training in it. Secondly that for some people the current Level 2 training, if thats required and continues, will become a traineeship rather than apprenticeship, and the reason for that approach is our feeling that one of the things weve really got to do is to establish the image of the apprenticeship as an extremely high quality qualification which is a very valid route for anybody from any social background to take and get, and build a career. So thats why, its not a case of taking away the opportunity for people to train who want to do it at a lower level. Can I add something to that, because this actually came up with Vince Cable when he came on Thursday, there were a number of employers there, at Sussex Downs College, and the view quite strongly was that, from the employers there, as it happens, was that yes they recognise this as an issue, but it wouldnt be a good thing to rebrand it traineeships and apprenticeships, and the suggestions that were coming up at the room, which I know Vince took on board, was maybe there needs to be a partial rebrand of say higher apprenticeships as well as keeping and retaining apprenticeships for Level 2, and the reason that was felt quite strongly, David do take back to the FSB, was that the success of the apprenticeships,
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David Pollard:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
despite all the challenges that we have, the success of the apprenticeships in the last few years in particular, the employers and the college and some of the other training providers would have felt very nervous that if we introduced a traineeship brand, underpinning apprenticeships, then that would be a real tough sell. So they were keen to retain apprenticeships as a brand, but maybe start introducing a phrase of higher apprenticeships, something like that. So that is something I think the FSB do have to take on board. If I can actually answer, because its really down to me, the Coalition thing on the I agree with you, its infuriating, and one of the challenges with the apprenticeships generally is Ive got BIS and Ive got the DfE, Ive got Michael Gove ideologically heading towards the world of John Buchan and Latin, while at the same time Ive got a reality in the modern economy where apprenticeships work because we have a conversion rate. It is schizophrenic, and all I would answer is that some of us, and people much higher up the pay scale than me in Government recognised its schizophrenic, and we need to find a way where the DfE, in particular, Gove can accept that his drive for better standard of academe, which is not a bad thing because we obviously do need a portion of young people heading in that direction, needs to be able to accommodate the very, very necessary drive around vocational, and at the minute its not, and its tough for schools. So all I would say as the representative of certainly the Coalition here, not only do I hear what you say, I know you are right, and we need urgently to find some way of squaring that circle, otherwise frankly the schools will be penalised because they may be growing on the vocational success rate, but failing on the E-Bacc. So I do take on board what you have to say, I really do, and agree with it. If I can turn to Peter for a minute, if perhaps youve got any thoughts on the Level 3 issue and also the points that the lady made at the front around the social factors which is a major challenge and issue. Peter Cobrin: Yes, thank you for the comments on schizophrenia because I would agree with them absolutely, its interesting that two leading Tory grandees, Lord Kenneth Baker, former Education Secretary, and Graham Stuart, seem to share that perspective quite forcefully. On the social issue, it is clearly a major problem, not so much in the South East of England perhaps, but certainly in other parts of the country, where serial unemployment, generational unemployment is a factor and there is no simple solution, again, other than those young people acquiring different and new role models which is where local employers, local colleges, have a role to play, a role model, a mentor, somebody who inspires a young person is a very, very crucial factor in shifting that balance of attitudes. On the subject of schools which are being dumped down the league tables because of their focus on apprenticeships or on vocational
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learning, its not a zero sum gain, schools that assume that by refocusing on academic and lowering their, if you like, their focus on vocational, they will improve their standing, does not stand up under scrutiny. The JCB Academy in Derby, which is a 14-19 UTC, in essence, has equal balance of vocational and academic training. Their GCSE results in the first cohort this year were 98% A-Cs x 5, and over 100 young kids went into apprenticeships. So quite clearly, there is not a contradiction between vocational excellence and academic excellence, the two support each other perfectly. On the Level 3, I think part of the problem that has arisen is that a lot of people have begun to feel that Level 1 and Level 2 were actually producing unemployable young people in the sectors in which they were being trained, but it was a great money making exercise for some training providers. In fact there was nothing wrong with Level 1 and Level 2, it was the concept that this was a fully formed young person ready for the world of work. Stephen Lloyd MP: You are absolutely right, it should be an entry thing to then Level 3, Level 4. Abdul would you like to answer any of the questions? Well I think the problem with what I found when I was at secondary school was that basically most of the secondary schools dont encourage, as you said earlier, they dont encourage apprenticeship providers to come in and talk to the students, because, I mean, lets be realistic, at the end of the day its about getting as many of these children from the secondary school on to college, thats the main focus, because thats what they are judged on and its almost like they feel like, if we promote apprenticeships, our students are going to almost not study as hard, so we wont get those all important 5 A*-C grades which they so treasure. And if we really want to push this apprenticeship agenda, we need to put the number of apprenticeships that have been taken by the students into the actual grading scheme for secondary schools. Until we do that, it will just be a case of trying as hard as we can, it will be like going up a really sloping mountain, its going to be really difficult because you are trying as hard as you can, but the secondary school which are most influential in pushing certain things, just wont do it, because its all about how many of these children can we get into college, and the colleges are doing exactly the same thing, how many of our students can we get into university, because at the end of the day, that is how they are graded, and until we do that we are just going to be fighting a losing battle, thats the main thing. Good, now thank you very for that Abdul. I saw in the delegate list that I think weve got a couple of delegates here from the DfE, Im sure they are well aware of the challenges. What Im going to do is just one more question, if thats alright, then go to the next
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Abdul Jawula:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
session. All three folk are staying around in the coffee break arent you? You are, good. Yes sir. Well two more, you at the back and then the lady at the front, and then we will move on. Tony Ellender: Balfour Beatty. Certainly not an SME but our supply chain is obviously made up of SMEs. I completely agree with the Level 3 thing, apprenticeships should be at that, the higher the skills in our supply chain, the better our buildings and motorways will be built, its quite straightforward really. The problem is, whats in an apprenticeship is not controlled by employers, its controlled by Sector Skills Councils and training providers, and our very own Sector Skills Council Ive heard say, well people dont need to be beyond Level 2 for most jobs in our industry. So until it switches round that employers can actually control whats in an apprenticeship, we are doomed to 65% of them being Level 2. And just as an aside, every school careers fair I have been to, and Ive been to a lot, theres normally more apprentice training providers there than employers. Thats interesting. Thank you very much sir. And the lady at the front please. From Aston University. Its a comment and then a question. Aston University do lead one of the university technical colleges, Aston University Engineering Academy, and alongside our physics, maths A-Level offer, we have put in an apprentice scheme, with an SME, with 15 young learners that are in employment. So it can be done. My question to the panel is, surely this is a solution that schools should, within their frameworks, be offering apprenticeships. What do you think of that as the solution, and what are the challenges? Thank you. Good, thank you very much for that. Peter can I come to you first please. Yes, thank you Alison for that comment. As you know I agree with you totally. Its a huge challenge because schools are now 50% of schools are effectively autonomous organisations functioning directly under the DfE and unfortunately we know what the DfE thinks about this. It can be done, and where its done it works spectacularly. So all I would say, the best encouragement that any school that wish to even consider going down that route, is to make contact with University Technical College Framework, or with the University of Aston, because it is difficult, but the long-term benefits to young people, to your community and local businesses will be remarkable. Good, thank you Peter. Do you have anything to add David?
Stephen Lloyd MP: Professor Alison Halstead:
Stephen Lloyd MP: Peter Cobrin:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
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David Pollard:
Well its an interesting concept and its something that I will be happy to look into it. One of the things thats been exercising my mind is just exactly how do we get an improved system for SMEs to take on apprentices. The one thing we dont want is lots of Government regulation, because that changes the whole basis of economic activity, if we come along with something where Government and local government say we will only deal with companies who have apprentices, that could have major problems in driving work away from small businesses, because its not always appropriate at a particular time for a small business to have an apprentice, and it also, in fact, makes apprenticeships look much more like another one of these Government training scheme, make work schemes, rather than a real career introduction. So finding something that helps small businesses get good apprenticeships, thats well worth looking into. Can I just say, just a very quick thing? Every school is fully capable of taking on at least 4 or 5 apprentices under its own employment, in IT, in business administration facilities management, its happening in parts of Kent, and its a great way of starting this process off. Abdul, very quickly. I think its a very interesting model, from my perspective, as a student, the combination of conventional education and more vocational attitude, because what weve done in conventional education is, its like telling someone how to drive a car, but then not actually putting them in a car, thats what weve done. Weve told our students how to do something, but not actually giving them the opportunity to actually do it. So if you tell someone how to drive a car, you put them in a 4x4 with a family of people, and then you tell them drive, the chances are its not going to be very successful, and thats exactly whats happening. Weve bred millions of student out of university, who dont actually know how to carry out their jobs because theyve just been told how to do it, and not actually doing it. So I think your model, if we did it across Britain, across all the universities, it would be the almost perfect system, because thats what we need, we need a symbiosis of conventional education and actually doing it, so you can actually achieve. Good, thank you for that. Just very quickly, the Balfour Beatty gentlemen, what I would flag up is that more and more employers are working much closer with certainly in the FE sector, with a lot of the FE colleges in the designing of the apprenticeships. So I would urge, get much more involved, Balfour Beatty, with your local training providers, because the good ones are taking on board a lot of the needs of the employers. On the point from Alison about offering apprenticeships as part of their curriculum, I agree
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Peter Cobrin:
Stephen Lloyd MP: Abdul Jawula:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
with you entirely, lets you and I go and have another meeting with Michael, Michael Gove that is. Okay, thank you very much, thank you very much to the panel if you could give them the normal round of applause. Right the next session is around funding, funding of apprenticeships, value for money for public and private investment. If I could invite up to the table please, Mr. Rick Franckeiss, Dinah Caine, hello Dinah, Graham Hoyle, right, Professor David Guile, and Steve Stanley. Lovely, do come up, thank you very much. Okay, thank you very much everyone. The same process folks is I will go through it chronologically as it is on the list, everyone gives a short, no more than 5 minute quick overview on the issue and then I will try and get through as many questions as possible at the end, bearing in mind I need to leave at 10 past 11, otherwise Im in trouble. Okay, first off can we have Rick Franckeiss please, who is the Group Training Officer for Sheffield Forgemasters International. Which ones that. Rick, excellent, yes, hello Rick, nice to see you again.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Rick Franckeiss, Group Training Officer, Sheffield Forgemasters International
A very good morning to you all, its good to see some white stuff on the floor in the south for a change, instead of us getting it up north all the time. Sheffield Forgemasters is a company that spans three centuries and we have a proud history of apprenticeships. We currently employ 790 people and have recruited 77 apprentices in the last five years. 3 unfortunately didnt cut the mustard, 22 are now in full-time, fully paid posts and 52 remain apprentices in a number of disciplines. Our apprenticeships, mostly advanced level, last 4 years and we estimate that for the 15,000 spent by the taxpayer on each apprentice, we will pay on average, or spend on average 70,000 in direct costs only. In years 3, 4 and beyond all of our apprentices will benefit from ongoing internal development and some will complete further or higher education. The technical certificate part of the framework is reasonably helpful if delivered well. The NVQ part less so and we would like to see much more involvement from internal tutors and assessors that know our business and its specific technical requirements. I personally do not believe that we should be spending taxpayers money on functional skills. In effect, replicating what should be happening in our schools. It is our view that an apprenticeship should run for a minimum period of at least two years. The quality of provision varies greatly and we have a plethora of local providers to choose from, all of course talk the talk, but few can actually deliver what we need. A key issue for us is the difference between private and public sector culture, values and ethics. Prior to joining Forgemasters I worked as a partner in a Sheffield based training company called The Leadership Academy and in nigh on 20 years I didnt miss an appointment, I had one short period of absence and I treated all of my learners like special customers, regardless of their age or their position in the company. Sadly, this has not been my experience with public sector colleges. I dont believe that Ofsted understand the business world and they do not give sufficient consideration to the views of learners or their businesses. There is too much emphasis on form filling and bureaucracy and not enough on the issues that matter to us as a business. If Ofsted had extended me the courtesy, one of our key providers would probably not have recently received an excellent report and I wouldnt have wasted a lot of time, effort and energy sorting out numerous problems relating to poor service. We all have a job to do to widen the appeal of apprenticeships, we are a member of Workwise which is a consortium of local employers, set up to ensure a more structured approach to work placements and preparing young people for the world of work and apprenticeships. Taxpayers money would be well spent on this and similar local initiatives. Very few people I am in contact with in SMEs are aware of the National Apprenticeship Service. Funding for apprenticeships should be targeted at wealth creation sectors that can provide real full-time jobs. I notice from the most recent House of Commons Report that most apprenticeships in 2010-11 were Customer Service apprenticeships. Well Im not sure what a Customer Service apprenticeship is. I know what a Welding and Fabrication apprenticeship is, dont we all need well-tuned and well defined customer service skills regardless of our trade or profession. It is disappointing that full funding is only available to 16 - 18 year olds and weve had to turn away some pretty decent older applicants who are clearly disadvantaged by this.
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Wage subsidy should be offered as an incentive, particularly for SMEs but not just for 16 weeks, its not enough, preferably for a year, ideally for a 50% contribution in year two. We do welcome the employer ownership scheme as it could give us more control of our finances and perhaps give us a better deal for our business. However, it is a limited pot and after spending a lot of time putting a bid together we may of course not be successful. Control of apprenticeship finance at the very least should be available to employers in a simple to draw down process as standard. This would certainly encourage colleges to improve their standards and their competitiveness. In closing, dead weight loss can be reduced if we target areas that will produce real transferable skills and trades like ours. Gainful employment at the end of an apprenticeship is and should be, the key measure of success. If one of my apprentices stays with us for 40 years and there are many that have, then the taxpayer will receive a significant return on investment. Finally, please, please lets make sure that if we need to show an apprentice the door for whatever good reason, were not going to end up facing tribunals, fines and bad publicity as a result. Thank you. Rick Franckeisss PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/slides/RickFranckeiss.pdf Stephen Lloyd MP: Good, thanks very much Rick. The second is Dinah Caine, please, who is the Chief Executive Officer for Creative Skillset.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Dinah Caine, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Skillset
Thank you and Im going over here guys, the only woman on the panel, I like to sort of strike a different pose really. But, anyway for us our industries apprenticeships I think are a really big opportunity. Ours are industries that need a major boost to people, with up to date skills, young people. Were an industry thats crucial, industries that are crucial to UK growth. We are higher return sectors. Im interested that the National Apprenticeship Service seems to see that in terms of numbers of apprentices returned, whereas we tend to look at it in terms of GVA and return to the economy and potential growth. And reflecting on that, I dont feel at the moment that actually the apprenticeship offer does fully reflect the current employment market, because certainly in terms of our sectors the uptake so far has been low, something we need to address in terms of fair access. But, we have 84% of our companies employing under 10 people and high levels of freelancing. My organisation, Creative Skillset works and is owned by the employers in the sector, to come together to actually look at how, and I think this is very important, skills strategy actually nests within our overall industrial growth strategy. And sometimes what we do in the skills arena is to segment. The focus of this discussion is on apprenticeships. From where we sit, apprenticeships will be one part of issues that a company may want to address, groups of SMEs in our industries want to address and the industries as a whole want to address. So I think its very important that theyre seen as being nested within those strategies and for too long in this country those strategies have been separated and arguably we havent actually really focused on developing an industrial one. I think theres interesting moves afoot around that and I think its important in terms of actually seeing it as a compelling way to drive uptake. The concern in terms of funding is that if there isnt partnership and collaboration around seeking to achieve that then the drag takes the apprenticeships back to traditional sectors which have delivered high numbers and isnt about actually looking at driving them forward in innovative industries that are actually at the frontier of the potential for new jobs and new growth. To turn to specifically then the employer ownership pilot. I would say that hand in hand with looking at skills becoming part of industrial strategies the move towards actually investing via employer ownership pilots, direct to employers, is a really, really big step. What I would say at the moment is, that I think its a number, its a small amount of the budget, its gone to a number of very different and demonstrating projects, but that actually what needs to happen next is that there is more aggregation across those projects and that it adds up to a more strategic response to particular priority areas and particular areas where we can drive both apprenticeships and meet the needs of the economy more confidently. I think basically that in terms of why its important its because it does put the purchasing power in the hands of employers, but more than that, it actually creates a much greater sense of ownership and certainly in our sectors, since that pilot came in, we have seen whole sub-sectors, groups of SMEs, big employers, coming to the table to engage with actually delivering apprenticeships for the first time. So quality is absolutely key. I think hand in hand with that we as employers and industries have to work to identify key centres of excellence, key training partners, there are really positive relationships in lots of areas, lots of places. That has to go hand in hand because knowing where to invest, knowing who to partner, is absolutely key. What else would I say, five minutes has gone, lots more. I think though Ive been struck reflecting on some of the contributions today, that I think its always dangerous for anybody to speak, including me, on behalf of our employers or all employers. And I think
its dangerous for people to dismiss huge swathes of organisations, colleges and training providers. The challenge is for us all to look at where there is really good practice and for us all to start to work together, which we can do in my belief, to bring the best to the fore and thats whats going to be needed. Those partnerships are going to be needed if actually we are going to do what I think we can achieve, which is to focus in coinvestment, focus it on absolutely clear strategies, employer ownership, but tremendous partnerships with very, very good colleges, training partners and universities. Thank you. Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much Dinah. And next we have Graham Hoyle, whos the Chief Executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. Graham.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers
Good morning to you all. Just for those who dont really know AELP, very, very briefly, were often shorthanded as the private training providers, we certainly have stacks for them in our 600, but we do have third sector providers and we also have 50 colleges of Further Education, so we do span the provider network, though the private sector ones do, I wouldnt say predominate, but they do represent the majority of our members. Is public sector money a good investment? Yes it is, unquestionably and weve heard some good answers this afternoon... this morning, your 40 year thing is spot on. Anyone whos an apprentice and does 40 years in industry, the investment return to the public purse is probably unquantifiable. But, a theme thats come up very strongly this morning, I think it started with Peter and its been picked up, so I neednt go into it, but just to reinforce it, it is good value overall, it is not good value to be reinvesting public money in remedial work post 16. That takes out a massive amount of money in even a generous apprenticeship pot, to do work which should have been done before. Our organisation has a policy position were starting to hawk around the place, saying theres a Government policy which is creeping across all Government departments, its most recently gone into the Ministry of Justice, which is for output related payment, actually paying by results. So why are we not asking schools to take a proportion of their income, which is held back until I would suggest 90% of their young people reach the English and Maths levels that Mr Gove and others think is important and employers have been asking for, for donkeys years. I think that that kind of incentive will actually up the level of output at 16, which is what employers and apprenticeships require and where it doesnt happen, I think it will happen, where it doesnt happen then theres a little pot of gold which can be switched across to actually put into the apprenticeship pot. So it is a good investment overall but weve got to get out of this remedial business of trying to put right what has not been put right through statutory education. And thats a big issue. A couple of provocative things which you may want to come back to me in questions and answers, not to expand on this morning, but just to lay before you, a lot of work over the last year on apprenticeships quality and so on, most of its sound, necessary, solid, all good stuff. However, on looking to the future, I think theres a real great danger here that the increased focus on apprenticeships, weve heard about Level 3, Ill come back on that if you want, Level 3, different levels, quality, 12 months, two years, some good debates in there. But, care, were getting very introspective on apprenticeships where we have a programme which in fact is an employer led programme, with contributions from Government, but weve not positioned it that way for 20 years, we had the figures just now from the earlier speaker that there may be 15,000 worth going into a four year apprenticeship in Sheffield, that goes alongside the 70,000 that the employers have put in. Thats typical. The numbers go down through sectors. Thats a typical rate. That is an employer funded investment with a Government contribution. That again also comes back to employer ownership, theyve always had it. Theres some good stuff going on there, but lets get the picture described properly. It is only a contribution from Government and theres a real, real danger here of becoming really introspective on the details of apprenticeship, which has proved itself, 700,000 apprentices out there, 76/80% of them actually fully completed. More importantly, 92% of employers entirely satisfied and 89% of the apprentices satisfied.
For goodness sake, we dont have a broken truck that needs mending here, we have something where continuous improvement is necessary of course. But, lets watch it because I think theres a much, much bigger issue here and up until a couple of years ago, I havent done it for a couple of years, Im going to subject you lot to it, I used to hawk around a little Hoyle questionnaire, theres only one question. Ive even taken it to Australia and tried it there and Im going to try it with you lot here. All of you, whoever you are, whatever job youre doing now, including MPs, just think about the job youre doing now, answer the one question in your own mind, where did you learn most on how to do that job? Where did you learn most on how to do that job, alright. If any of you think its at work, please raise your hand. Thank you very much. Work based learning is the reality of lifelong learning for all of us and all of them and all of those. Schools must recognise it and prepare people for it; I wont go back to that one. But, weve got to understand that. And can I tell you that we do learn at work and weve always had the benefit, all of us, on unstructured and structured work based learning. Unstructured has value and will continue. Structured has more value and must expand. We have a model that has been around for a couple of hundred years, has been thoroughly tested over the last decade or two and its called The Apprenticeship Model. And I think its now time to get away with comparisons about how Germany do it, fantastic, what a... could we now move apprenticeships saying weve actually cracked this to a firm degree, improve it for young people by all means. But, when are we going to take that model with all of the frameworks at different levels in different sectors and say that should be the background matrix which should be driving the upskilling of the British nation? And, use the apprenticeship model as the model and the base point for upskilling across the country, primarily of course as now, funded by employers, but with the government taking the view of, theyll put the basic stuff up in schools and the remedial work and they may want to incentivise some of that stuff in particular sectors. A big debate there. But, theres a real danger here, apprenticeships are great, carry on improving them, theyre very important, they cover 700,000 people, fantastic, whats the current workforce of the country, 28 million? Hang on, a much bigger agenda there. Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much Graham. I look forward to catching Michael Gove in the lobby later on today and saying, okay Michael if the schools dont get the requisite number can we have the money back. More to the point, I look forward to then receiving numerous splenetic letters and emails from my constituents who are teachers. But, anyway well move on. Next, weve got David, Professor David Guile whos the Course Leader Lifelong Learning at the University of London.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Professor David Guile, Course Leader MA Lifelong Learning, Institute of Education, University of London
Thank you very much. Good morning everybody and thank you for the invitation. Ive been asked to talk about apprenticeship and funding, however, before doing so Id like to start with some comments on firms business models and the organisation of work because these are very important for understanding the challenge of organising and funding apprenticeship. Especially, in sectors such as the creative and cultural sector and IT, where theres a very high preponderance of SMEs and also they happen to be the sectors Ive been researching over about the last eight years, so I have a little bit of knowledge on it as well. I believe if were to respond to the challenge in the Richard Review to grow apprenticeships in sectors with great value to the UK economy then weve got to make a lot more headway with SMEs and obviously several people have said that this morning. Now having just praised the Richard Review I also want to say that there are a couple of important issues that have been glossed over and Im only going to focus on one because of time. This very important issue is the extent to which an SMEs business model and the organisation of work is based on the principle of project rather than the supply chain, which is very much the definition of the SMEs in the Richard Review. The SMEs business model is based on projects; they have to secure funding constantly. They have to tender for contracts. What this means is therefore their staffing fluctuates up and down and it means they employ staff on a contract basis and theyre freelance, which Dinah acknowledged a moment ago. Therefore they may not be, and this is a really important issue and its not going to be a very comfortable issue, they may not be in a position to employ an apprentice at the end of the time of the apprenticeship and we have to recognise this nationally, rather than bury our head in the sand and pretend that this wasnt the case. Weve got to understand its very different for BT compared with for example, my daughter and her boyfriend who have an SME and theyre never going to be able to employ an apprentice at the end of the two years. They havent got them at the moment, but I mean the point is, we really struggle okay. But, this is not bad news because actually you want to use this to tease out how to go forward by the way. If were thinking about funding apprenticeships and SMEs, characterised by the type of business model Ive just described then some of the principles in the Richard Review I do think actually offer us a very good starting point. First of all that funding might persuade SMEs to offer apprenticeship places by making it more employer led and secondly about the mechanisms, the support for apprenticeship that might be provided. Although, Ive got some questions about both. In the case of the former, the recommendations that funding should be allocated to employers to purchase training, that a tax system should be put in place to implement this principle and that SMEs might receive slightly more generous levels of funding to take on apprentices, are good starting points. There are a couple of issues that need further work and actually Im going to echo, but from a slightly different angle, some of the things that some of the other contributors have said this morning. The first issue is around the tax mechanism and the enhanced subsidy. The Richard Review said the State should pay for English and Maths and clearly a couple of contributors and myself by the way, would kind of question that, and that companies should pay for the company specific training. Now in my submission to the Richard Review, I said that the State should pay for a greater proportion of the latter, the company specific reason, for the following... sorry, the company specific training, for the
following two reasons. Firstly, company specific skills are a lot more researchable than the research literature indicates and the policymakers believe. My simple anecdotal example is, I have never heard anybody tell me that a BT apprentice doesnt get work outside BT and its not the English and Maths that gets them the job. The second issue is that much work in the future in the two sectors Im looking at, creative and culture and IT will be freelance and therefore the Government has to help employers to prepare those people who take apprenticeships to ultimately end up with freelance work. So therefore, thats helping them find their way into freelance work and possibly starting their own businesses, which means actually its then the subsidy through apprenticeship is actually to help alleviate unemployment of skilled workers at a later stage. And what makes the later stage employable is actually not the English and Maths again, its actually the transferrable company specific skills, but theyre sector based. The other issue that I picked up is actually the mechanism for clustering SMEs, I think Im completely in favour of the system being more employer led, I think... in the way that its been described. But, actually that poses a big challenge for small SMEs okay, because one is the cost, is finance, the other is the bureaucracy of delivering apprenticeship. Now I happen to have supported the creative skills sit But there are two messages I want to pull out from the work that are supporting it and I think are really important. First of all is, the coordinating mechanism to help small SMEs get involved with apprenticeships has to come from bodies that are either in the sector or that know the sector, okay, because... but theyve also got to adapt their style of working to take on the new challenges because sectors are not static, they change in terms of their skill needs and how they work with one another. So its not a question of always, we know who the right people are, its about will the right people work in new kinds of ways that are actually required. This issue raises something the Richard Review doesnt mention and I dont think I actually heard explicitly this morning, but there are echoes of it, and thats the issue of brokerage. How do you broker in an employer led system? Theres no funding for that, theres no acknowledgement for that at the present time. Its absolutely vital. You cannot have small companies and some of the colleagues from the Small Business Federations will echo this as well, finding their way in this new system if there isnt an intermediary. Its the intermediaries that are going to be vital to actually helping apprenticeship grow and we need to have a kind of an extension of the agenda. So its not a critique of whats happened, its actually arguing weve got to push it a bit further than where weve left it. Thank you very much. Stephen Lloyd MP: Thank you very much David. Thank you. And finally, Steve Stanley, HMI, Inspection and Improvement, Ofsted. Thank you Steve.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Steve Stanley HMI, Inspection and Improvement, Ofsted
Thank you Chairman. Learning and skills providers have made great strides in increasing the number of learners achieving qualifications and improving the quality of delivery for the funding they receive and thats in my lifetime as an inspector over 10 years. Apprenticeships as a brand are now recognised and discussed more widely. In fact, the topic was formed part of an advice and guidance presentation at my sons school. However, in terms of using public money there remain many challenges, like increasing the proportion of apprentices aged 16 to 18 and the progression to higher level apprenticeships. Supporting learners who do not achieve English and Mathematics Level 2. My role is about learning and learners primarily, thats what I do. And addressing employers views, who still routinely complain that many young people they take on do not have the rudimentary English and Mathematics or employability skills. So looking more closely directly at the value for money questions and improving return on the investment, if you were of a mind that successful completions of an apprenticeship programme and what the public money is for, then in this regard, apprenticeships are better value for money now than they were in 2005 and 6 when the national success rate was 49%. However, it is also worth remembering that although a national success rate of around 76% is much improved, looking at it another way, about a quarter of apprentices do not have a job or qualification at the end of their apprenticeship and the rate will be lower than some providers and in some sector subject areas. It is also important to consider how many successful apprentices continue in employment and progress after the completion of their apprenticeship and more fundamentally, there is an urgent need to ensure public funded apprenticeships are adding value to the national skills and not being used to reinforce existing skills. With regards to the Ofsted service which was one of the questions, some steps may be inferred from the positives in the report. The most effective subcontracting arrangements were between subcontractors and likeminded independent learning providers, where arrangements could add value. The true partnership and delivery and management and target setting made savings in shared services and the quality of what was being done with apprentices was thoroughly sampled by people who understood work based learning. Based on the recommendations we should consider a providers rationale for any proposed new delivery. Their strategic reason and plans for expansion and anticipated management fees. The operational overview for maintaining quality, including the right data at all levels, including the supply chain, down the supply chain. Making sure any new procurement arrangements identifies whether a provider is good or better at the start and for new providers and existing providers, that there are the right qualities and capacity in place for the good provision of learning. Whether it was possible or practical to target funding at growth sectors is not for Ofsted to say. However, more needs to be done to match the apprenticeship offer to local and national skills needs. In addition, more needs to be done to identify qualifications that are right for the individual, employer and the relevant professional bodies. Currently, what is true is that the largest number of apprenticeship starts nationally, come from a few SSAs. It has been reported that in some sector subject areas, the number of apprentices significantly outstrips the number of vacancies, whilst in other sector subject areas there are not enough apprentices to fill the demand. Perhaps it is impossible to achieve a direct match, but more could be done in terms of advice and guidance, the importance of which was highlighted in an Ofsted survey, Learning From The Best.
For Ofsted, the duration of a learning programme is not the main focus. I take Ricks point; we are not all as... I personally am for the learners and I focus on the learning when I am on inspection. Any programme of learning should be about the learning, a concentration on excellence, not just competence. The new framework for the inspection of further education skills clearly makes this point, that no matter what the context the focus should be on what the learner has gained in their learning, which includes assessment. We will be critical where learning and skills are not embedded, if the planning is not well thought through and its done in a short period of time. But, its the learning, not the duration. Finally, whilst not wishing to comment specifically on any models of funding, thats not my role, thats not Ofsteds role, or proposed funding for apprenticeships, nevertheless in short before funding or investing in a learning programme we should consider the capacity for delivering at least good quality learning and where applicable, the capacity for good supply management, supply chain management. The quality of the learning being provided. The grade of the learning provider before giving over the money. The maintenance of outstanding outcomes and improvement where applicable, of outcomes and progression, and whether apprenticeships fulfil a clear need in the employment market and sustainable jobs. And finally, good advice and guidance so that my son knows what the best future is for him and has all the facts at his fingertips. Thank you. Stephen Lloyd MP: Good, thank you very much Steve.
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Funding apprenticeships: value for money for public and private investment Questions and comments from the floor
Stephen Lloyd MP: Right I will let Steve get seated, and lets do questions. Again I am going to try and do them in clumps of three. Can I start with this lady here, the lady in the middle and then we will do a third no doubt. G4S Care and Justice Services. One of the rare breed of employers that have a direct funding relationship with the Skills Funding Agency and we are now delivering 350 apprenticeships ourselves. Its been a really long hard struggle to do that, its taken us 3 years to build to those numbers, and to my mind, the way that we still need to look at taking apprenticeships forward is still around reducing bureaucracy. I have two contracts with the Skills Funding Agency, one is Business as Usual, most of our staff go through the Business as Usual, and the apprentices are frontline operational prisoner custody officers. The Business as Usual, the data entry returns each month, it takes an employee of mine two days to do that data entry for 350 people, obviously thats not tenable for an SME. On the large employer outcome pilot, we have stepped away from that very gladly, but it means that our funding is all end result, our apprenticeships are 18 months, so I have 17 months of bank rolling all the effort, all the accreditation, which is paid up front, and in the hopes that we will get to a good end outcome and then you get the funding back, again thats not tenable. Im curious why we havent moved to a payment by results mechanism, a lot of things now are payment by results, most private contracts are, why we could not have moved to a funding mechanism where you are paid by the result of the certification. It seems a simple way of doing it, if you dont achieve at the end you dont get the payment, and the quality is in the outcome. The other thing that I would just like to point out is the move to the 24 plus loans means that 82% of my new employees wont qualify for an apprenticeship in terms of funding, without taking out a loan. We are typically a second career sector, to be a successful prison and custody officer you have to have exemplary people skills and a matureness of outlook, and that means that its very difficult for somebody who has now finally managed to get back into work, to say congratulations, G4S are delighted to welcome you into employment, but if you want to have an apprenticeship you have to sign here for a loan. You dont know us, you dont trust us, we will cover that money at the end when you have completed, but in the interim you need to sign here and this is going to be a loan for 1,500 to 2,000, thats difficult when somebody first starts work. Thank you.
Liz Veasey:
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Stephen Lloyd MP: Mary Costello:
Two very really important points, thank you very much for that, and the lady in the middle please. From the Solicitors Regulation Authority and I work in the education and training team there. Just a couple of observations around, is there a scope for a sort of shared apprenticeship model? Thats worked elsewhere before, Ive seen it working with engineering and construction sectors in Wales where groups of employers got together through group training associations to train up young people so that they dont share the burden they dont have an individual burden there of funding the young person. But also looking at the legal sector, weve got something similar with barristers in their chambers that they are supporting people through the pupillage which is like an apprenticeship state, they fund and support that young person, or older person, through an apprenticeship, a pupillage, but thats the selfemployed sector there, so they could be learning from that as well. Good, thank you. One other question. Thank you. From People 1st, the Sector Skills Council for hospitality, catering, passenger transport, travel, tourism and now retail, so quite a bit, and it gets bigger. Its a comment really for David about the brokeraging around small businesses, SMEs, People 1st as part of the group innovator, growth innovation fund, is trialling those processes in partnership with some providers, with Apprenticeship First on the back of Employment First which is a pre-training entry level into the hospitality and catering sector, and through that process we are learning a number of things about the difficulty of bringing people together to deliver in that area, and its just, I wonder whether he's got any ideas around how we might be able to work on that further. Good, thank you for that. I wont ask everyone to answer all of it otherwise we get through as many questions. Graham, could you deal with the lady from G4S, particularly around the concept of apprenticeships favoured by results and the 24+ issues. I think payments by results is very much the way Government policy is going, I mentioned it briefly in the presentation, and suggested an extension into schools funding, so you know where I stand on it. I think there are, however, dangers in it, I think conceptually payment by results is absolutely the right way forward, I think it really focuses the provider in this situation, the deliverer of whatever service across any section. But we do need to take care about the extent, or the level. Within apprenticeships, for many a long year now, weve had a 25% retention against success, so in other words we are only paid through
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Stephen Lloyd MP: Tim Buchanan:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
Graham Hoyle:
the process of 75% and pick up the 25 at completion. Weve always argued that slightly too high, but weve actually coped with it, and its not a big issue, so I guess objectively one has to say that seems to work. The issue is it needs to be at a level which does in fact give the right incentive to the service deliverer to get through to completion, and thats a matter of judgement, if its too low, its hard, we will do what we can it doesnt really matter, we will forego the 5, 10, 15% maybe. I will tell you now, my members do not forego the 25% and it really has been one of the reasons why we pushed up you mentioned 49% in 2005/6, back in 2002 when I came into this, it was less than 30%, and it really has so yes, but dont go too high, go and talk to some of my members who deliver the work programme, where you have a much, much stronger end and its really problematical in terms of the cash flow and the financial risk. So yes its correct, careful we dont over blow it on that one. Loans Stephen Lloyd MP: Before you get to that, Im sorry, what I would also add, because I think its a good point, but what I would also add is the payment by outcome, if you went down that road, I would say includes a job, because human nature being human nature, we all know in this room that there will be then training providers who somehow will work out that they get to the end, give a diploma, and its rubbish. So I think it is a good concept, but to avoid the anxieties that you are talking about, that Ive been thinking about, it does really need talking through. I know you were going to come back, so youve literally got 10 seconds. The payment by outcome I was talking about, was by qualification, so your literacy, your numeracy, your NVQ, your BTEC diploma, not right at the very end, because I agree if you totally load it to the end it doesnt become something that people can actually financially afford to bank roll to that, to that conclusion Okay, thats fine, then on loans Graham. Loans is, of course, is the big unknown, its coming in this year. Again I can only say that our members have real reservations about loans. Conceptually I think its quite right that individuals are increasingly asked to contribute, weve had it now for some years in HE, and the argument there is about the level not about the policy. I think the extension is conceptually correct, but we have some very real issues here that the people and your example was spot on, second career, the second move, its quite different, I think, asking for 18, 19, 20 year olds to take on a loan, possibly with parental support often, with their whole future ahead of them, to take someone who is 35 with a partner, three children, mortgage, is actually a completely different set of circumstances. So theres a big unknown there. Conceptually sound, I am not sure its going to work.
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Liz Veasey:
Stephen Lloyd MP: Graham Hoyle:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
Okay, what Im going to do, I will try and move on from that one. If I can ask Dinah, would you have anything to respond, particularly to the shared apprenticeship model or the People 1st question who was asking for advice? Yes, I think GTAs, the Group Training Associations networking employers is an absolutely key way to drive forward support and take up for apprenticeships for SMEs. In our sector, if you just take the feature film industry, companies are literally set up production by production. We have real needs in terms of craft and technical areas, the only way we can tackle that is to move people and apprentices across productions. But, going back to what David was saying, what we also know is that does require an intermediary that can corral, can work with and can deliver what those companies need. So I do think thats a very important way forward. I think in terms of People 1ST, that sounds like an example of what we were talking about there, a very good one, and I think probably it needs an off the line conversation with David afterwards in terms of his members. But I would just like to come back to the funding question, because one thing we havent touched on, I didnt have time, was that actually there is a logical sequence which could say that if the employer ownership pilot does demonstrate efficacy and high levels of co-investment and engagement, and critically quality, then actually why cant tax breaks direct to employers work as the main way of supporting financing for the delivery of apprenticeships, so long as, yet to coloured in and something to debate, there is a mechanism which ensures that that which they are delivering has a quality kite mark, a tick, which says that it is actually additional, it is delivering quality and it therefore worthy of that direct investment. Good, thank you. David, Steve or Rick, do you want to add anything to any of those questions, or shall we move on quickly. Just quickly, in terms of payment by results, and Im you qualified that, in the back of my mind always is that the learner at the end of the day, if somebody goes bankrupt, or they cant carry through their promises of delivering through the whole qualification, so providing there is contingency, I think its a good thing. Okay, yes. A really quick one. With respect to the question from People 1st, I think its about having a narrative, theres actually a narrative thats grown up in the area that people contribute to, so I wrote it down in answer to your question, something like, do we want apprenticeship? If so, who takes the lead? Do other
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Dinah Caine:
Stephen Lloyd MP:
Graham Hoyle:
Stephen Lloyd MP: Professor David Guile:
stakeholders see this and accept it as legitimate? And if so, the draft programme, is it a way to begin to get us to talk? So its about inclusion and transparency as the underpinning principles. Stephen Lloyd MP: Good, thank you. Im going to eat in to my wrap up bit, because Im sure you all want to listen to me for hours, but I will just do it in 10 seconds. Yes, any questions at the back, any more while we have got everyone here? No, you all want to listen to me do a really long wrap up. No, I wont do that. Okay, thats absolutely fine, and you folk are all hanging round afterwards arent you? Good.
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Session Chairs closing remarks Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group
I found that really interesting and really valuable. I hope you did. Im sorry it was a bit rushed; its always a challenge with this. To me, theres a number of key things that have come up, one I know about and Im doing my best, back to the gentleman at the back, this whole challenge we have around the DfE or Michael Goves agenda, and broadly speaking, the apprenticeship and employability agenda. It is difficult and Im not going to deny that. But, there are some good things that have come up today that I will go back to Michael and his team, just to keep reiterating that and also reminding Vince and BIS of their key role in trying to guide the Secretary of State, Gove, to a slightly more flexible position. The second thing was the fact of what you were saying Dinah, I know its obvious but its just so often forgotten, there is a tremendous amount of good practice out there. Now there really is, Graham knows this from his trade association. Were still terribly weak at taking that best practice and putting it somewhere else where it will work and were still very strong at reinventing the wheel, and it is hard. The reason is, is its such a vast sector, theres 60 million people in the country, an awful lot of people in training and education and were still weak at it and the Governments weak, not just this Government, all Governments are. One of the things Ive learned, my whole background is business development, and after many, many years went into politics, and I have to tell you, business is a bloody sight easier than Government, it really is, because its smaller and you can make things... even though I worked for quite a large company, can make things work so much quicker and its just harder when youre dealing with millions and millions of people. But, I think thats such an important point and maybe we just need to get smarter at it. And theres much, much more. The final thing Ill just leave you with, Im doing... wheres Nicola from Sussex Downs? Nicole Inckle: Im here.
Right, yes fantastic, I didnt realise you were here, so I hope youre going to go back to Melanie and tell her that Ive been talking the Sussex Downs, up, a good college... is theyre launching, or Im launching actually, tomorrow morning in Eastbourne, which I know is happening around the country, the next phase of the national apprenticeship drive and I know there will be lots and lots of employers there. But, I tell you what Graham, Ive heard you a few times, but this is the best thing youve said, I am going to use this in my speech and Im going to take all the credit. So Nicola, we keep it to ourselves. Where did you most learn to do your current job, hands up who learnt it in work. My god, isnt that a good line. But Nicola, I thought it up alright. Okay, on that note, thank you very much, enjoy your coffee, please talk to them and please enjoy the second session. Thank you.
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Session Chairs opening remarks Gisela Stuart MP

Okay, welcome to the second part of this mornings sessions. Im Gisela Stuart and Ill be chairing the session. Im the Labour MP for Birmingham and Edgbaston, but the reason why whenever the word apprenticeships appears I get hauled out is, that I was born in Germany and served an apprenticeship there. For starters I want to say that ever since Prince Albert, every 10 years there seems to be a British delegation going over to Germany and coming back and saying why dont we do it like the Germans. And I would advise everyone that we ought to give this up and stop doing it. And Im much more hopeful about apprenticeships now than Ive ever been and that actually its going to work and I think its important to kind of share the reasons why. But before that, I just want to tell a little anecdote about the Germans and the Brits and its in relation... it may be helpful in this context. When I was a Health Minister I had to go over to the Treasury and my principal civil servant said to me, it would be really helpful Minister if on this occasion you couldnt be so German about things and I said, Im very happy to oblige if you tell me what it is I do when Im being German, and he said, you think like Lego bricks i.e. you make one decision and then the next one and then the third one and then youre unwilling to revisit the first one on the basis weve already decided that. He said on this occasion if you could just every so often chuck things up in the air and see how they fall down. And that is part of, I think, an approach problem that we kind of think that as long as we train people we can chuck things up in the air and kind of catch them as they come down and are adaptable and are kind of generalist and so much the better. And we have never kind of really appreciated that there must be people in this world who think like Lego bricks, actually have got some logic to their decision making and theres some structure to that. And I think thats kind of bedevilled part of the Higher Education debate. And its also about opening doors and as the world of work changes tremendously I think so do the training providers have to change through that. Now, the first thing about opening doors was this morning when I arrived here. This is the one thing I hate about this country; it drives me nuts after 40 years. Have you noticed? Clubs never say who they are on the outside, because its quite clear that if you dont know that this is the Caledonian, you clearly shouldnt be here. And you go up Pall Mall and its full of these places and unless you know which one the Athenaeum is and which one the Travellers is, you know clearly you shouldnt know and you shouldnt even be asking. So we need to be much clearer of you know, signposting things and say what things are. And then actually deliver what weve got behind the words, and this is the thing, just like the word engineer, it could be anything in this country. Apprenticeships, we need to be much more clear of what they actually deliver and what the ones who are worthwhile having, do. And the reason why I think this is the real time to do it is that were beginning to realise that the world of work is changing so fundamentally. The future jobs will not come from the large companies. The future jobs will come from the small providers thats where the growth is, and they will not be the providers for company in based apprenticeships and that level of training. You know at the moment if you get an apprenticeship at Rolls Royce in Derby, you know, you have just won the lottery, but there are a lot of people in the supply chains, for example in the defence industry, who will also need those kind of skills, who will not have it within the big companies, and therefore our educational institutions have to start to meet that need. The second thing is Im rather glad that were revisiting the debate about the age of transition. We seem to be caught, that its kind of 11, 16 and 18, were looking back and saying, well actually for some people 14 is the right thing and now that were expanding the full-time education age you have the
first cohorts with 17 and 18, what do we do with those? We actually dont want to end up with 18, so thats important. And the third thing and I finish on that before I hand over to an amazing panel of speakers, is that the world of work and what industry needs is now moving into areas like aptitude, which none of our academic education actually has any measurements. You know if I talk to the companies in Birmingham who do gaming and they say, none of the certificates at the moment tell me who is any good at that kind of coding and developing the games, because what I look for is a kind of aptitude, which the current academic approach simply does not measure. So I think for the first time in the 40 years since Ive been here, Im now on my fourth wave of people talking about apprenticeships, I actually genuinely think we are about to get somewhere with it, and I think the panel weve got here is about the best proof of this. So can I start with Sarah Caplan, a partner in PwCs National Government Services Team.
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Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Sara Caplan, Partner, National Government Services, PwC
Thank you very much. I am a Partner in the Government Services Team. That probably doesnt mean much to anybody in this room but what I really am responsible for is running the education and skills business within our consulting practice at PwC and that has involved me in the development of new higher level apprenticeships, which is what Im going to talk to you about today. But Im going to start not by talking just about the Level 7 which is obviously part of the subject of today, but how we ended up developing a Level 7 apprenticeship. And we sort of started on this journey about a year and a half ago because we had a school leaver programme within PwC, wed had it for a few years but we didnt think it was as structured or as formal as what the programme that we had for graduates and we wanted to make sure we were giving them you know, a really good experience. So we decided we would probably look at developing an apprenticeship, but, at the same time the Government came along with the Higher Apprenticeship Development Fund and we thought well why stop at just developing something for ourselves? Nearly all of the firms in our sector in professional services have got the same sort of skills issues. We all want to diversify our workforce, we all want to recruit bright people from as wide as possible talent pool, so why dont we find out if some of the other employees would like to work with us and do this. So we approached all of the other big four firms, KPMG, Deloitte and so on, a lot of the mid-tier firms, a lot of SMEs and said, how would you fancy working together to develop a new higher apprenticeship for all of us. So thats what we did. And we started with Level 4 in audit, tax and management consulting and we literally did start from a blank sheet of paper, saying right, what actual skills do we need people to have? What are the jobs that these people are going to do? So what do we need them to learn? So we designed it ourselves, working with the professional bodies in our sector, so the Institute for Chartered Accountants for England and Wales, the Association of Tax Technicians, the Management Consultancies Association, so we had them involved from the very beginning and we also involved training providers in universities, to advise us on curriculum and an awarding body. So I think it was the first time that a group of employers had actually sat round a table and designed something from scratch and it was absolutely fantastic. So we then thought well why stop at Level 4? Weve finished doing that, weve taken on apprentices, so weve now got 60 tax apprentices at Level 4 in PwC, started this year, five in management consulting so far and audit will come on stream next year. BDO have also got apprentices. Its really starting to get some traction. So now we thought, well lets not stop at Level 4, lets have a look and see if we can do something even better and lets do a Level 7. So were busy developing a Masters Level apprenticeship in audit, tax and accounting, and what that will do is a) provide progression for people from the Level 4 if they want to get full chartered status in any of those areas, itll provide progression for people who have done the Association of Accounting Technicians Level 4 apprenticeship. So everybody can get fully qualified through an apprenticeship route if they want to. If they choose not to go to university they can go straight into work at 18, get a job, start earning, get loads of experience on the job and get exactly the same qualifications. So we feel like were in the middle of developing the Level 7, itll be ready in April hopefully, we are going to hopefully adopt that within PwC and were getting a lot of interest from other employers.
So thats sort of the route weve been on and I think for us this is not just about social mobility and improving access to professions and giving people aspirations they may never have had before, its also really good for our business because were always looking for ways of making sure were recruiting innovative, entrepreneurial people whove got new ideas and new approaches, and we think that through doing apprenticeships we can make sure were always refreshing that pool. So thats what weve been doing. Some of the issues that weve come across along the way and particularly with the Level 7 are, we really need to make sure that when were doing this were working closely with the universities. We want to make sure that in fact for Level 7 there might be two routes, one, a route where youve got full chartered status and a degree within the apprenticeship and a second route where youve got your full chartered status with a vocational competence based business skills qualification next to it. So you may or may not want to do the degree route. So were working very closely with the universities, making sure that a) the curriculum is appropriate for that level, and b) they recognise what were doing and people can progress either to university or from university into the Level 7. I think probably the biggest issue is that getting the message out to parents, pupils and schools about apprenticeship being a really valid and valued route for school leavers is incredibly difficult and we have a team of people you know, going to events, Im now an apprenticeship ambassador or champion for higher level apprenticeships, on behalf of employers. Weve tried to be at as many events as we possibly can to try and get this message out. But I think it needs the help of all employers to say yes, we value apprenticeships, yes we want to take on apprentices from school, to make that really stick with parents. And I also think that there is room for other groups of employers to work together to create coherent frameworks. Its been a fantastic experience for us and I think if more sectors can work together to do that and provide a sort of a coherent set of qualifications for a sector. I think that can only help to make it as simple, easy, well recognised, high value route to careers. Thank you. Gisela Stuart MP: Thank you very much, I think youve uttered, to me, the magic words, to have a full qualification through apprenticeship route, which is an equivalent to another way of accessing it, fantastic. Now our next speaker is Alison Halstead, Professor Alison Halstead, Aston University, and I can honestly say, when I first met her, it was one of my happiest professional days in life, there was suddenly someone who really understood what was going on, one of the first Baker technology colleges with Aston University, and you told me just last night you were signing the contact with Vietnam to work together with Birmingham. So over to Alison.
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Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Professor Alison Halstead, Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Strategic Academic Developments, Aston University
Good morning everybody. Firstly I would like to say, Im in total agreement with everything that Sara has just said, its always a pleasure to speak after her. Often Im on a platform before her, and I know whats coming next, but today I can simply say, that is right. And I would like to then move the comments on a little bit from what Sara has been saying, to expanding higher apprenticeships at degree level and beyond, because I know Saras aspiration goes on beyond, and I want to add to the comments that have already been made. In a way, there isnt a challenge in this space, its about understanding, its about, as Ive said here, its levels of learning, its about outcomes, its about competence, and again to echo what Sara said, its progression, and these things dont just happen, these have to be discussed and agreed on. Level 5, weve already got a whole plethora of higher apprenticeships and I think NAS this morning, when I asked about the numbers, they said 5% higher apprenticeships. Now Im not sure about that, because that would be about 30,000 people, but if thats the number, thats the number, but these are being done. Working with industry isnt new for universities, and this is not just about Aston, this is about the university sector. HNDs, HNCs, foundation degrees, all required progression to both degrees and into work. Now my own university, 80% of our undergraduate programmes have a year in industry, and Aston have one of the highest graduate employabilities, and that was some of the reasons for us developing the academy, but these things about learning, competence, progression, go all the way through the ethos. So what I want to look at then is why its important for universities and employers to work closely together; then a challenge; and then what I think the Government could do about it. So universities and employers, we love working together, and I dont work directly with Sara at all, but theres loads of evidence of this sort of thing. We are already engaged, it builds on our previous experiences, and we work closely with sector skills. Ive picked three here, Aston, Middlesex, Warwick, we are all different types of university and I apologise for any Ive excluded, there are literally hundreds out of 167 universities that engage in this sort of practice. The key is the language we discuss with, and bringing people in to start with and being open to new ideas. Its about effective partnership that makes it work, and its really important that progressions articulated. The challenge again, I will sound like a stuck record, as Sara said, its the perceptions we are up against in this country, with young people, their parents, the employers and schools about apprenticeships, and Ive heard leading people supporting apprenticeships saying, oh but my children are going to go to Oxford and Cambridge. Sorry. I think Sara articulated this really, really well, and what we do need to do is partner with simple, simple, [transcript gap], BIS and DfE. Im not sure if DfE are here today, we certainly havent heard. Really important you work with BIS and Works and Pension, then theres nothing we cant make happen. Training providers, again we need to be speaking with one voice. This is the future of the nation and this is our young people, so very important.
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What about the Government then, what could they do to encourage what amounts to greater flexibility, both in their own thinking, and for that of learners, so we can actually get ladders and bridges. Weve talked for 30 years, but we can collectively make this happen. So my suggestions I throw out to be controversial. Why dont we make this sort of stuff mandatory, and make it stick, and examine the outcomes, not what happens in the middle, the outcomes, paid on results, the Quals, evidence of being in a job. Im not saying we design them today, but thats the way of making things happen. All university courses, people must have some work experience before they can graduate, get them into the work, get them applying their knowledge. Common frameworks, my experience with the academy and creating the apprenticeship in the school left me understanding a tremendous amount about the apprenticeship frameworks, and I say apprenticeship frameworks lack flexibility that has been in both our educational system, our Further Education system, and Higher Education for a long time, so come on apprenticeship frameworks, a bit more flex please, and then we can make things happen. And to finish, its really important that we make these things happen, because we are talking about a future highly educated workforce, and this can only be achieved if we all focus on employability. Dont forget the Sector Skills Councils, dont forget the businesses, and of course the university and other educational partners. Thank you. Professor Alison Halsteads PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/slides/ProfessorHalstead.pdf Gisela Stuart MP: Thank you very much indeed and Alisons point about that this is about the future, I think, is really important. We both come from Birmingham where 22% of the population is under the age of 15, and if we dont provide them with jobs we are going to be in trouble. But they are probably in good hands with us. But Alison finished by mentioning the importance of Sector Skills Council, so Nick Skeet is absolutely the right speaker after this who is now Relationships Director for Skills for Justice and youve been on the Skills Council, and over to you Nick.
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Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Nick Skeet, Employer Relationship Director, Skills for Justice
Thank you very much, and thanks for the invite and the chance to talk to you all today. My five minutes is going to be a bit of a story, its a story of the journey that weve embarked upon recently, the last year or so, 18 months, with the legal services sector. Skills for Justice, why are you working with legal, you might ask, well Justice is the original organisation, we actually cover 8 different sectors now, so its essentially justice, community, safety, Government, the armed services and legal services. So its a huge blend of public, private and voluntary that we are responsible for. The reasons why weve been working with legal services, so many of you will be familiar with some of the headlines and the back story for this sector, unprecedented change affecting employers, professional bodies, long standing institutes in whats probably the second oldest profession. The Legal Services Act, obviously 2007, its exploding all sorts of things for this sector and opening up new ways of owning legal businesses and allowing external capital to flow into the sector in a way it hasnt been able to previously, and this has resulted in a huge amount of activity within the sector in terms of merger acquisition, innovation, new business models being created by the employers, and all of that has created a whole series of debate and appetite around the ways that young people and new recruits can be brought into the sector and trained and qualified to be able to be productive within whats quite a changing profession. The SRA, Im glad to see theres some representative, colleagues from the SRA here today, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, theyve adopted a new entity based regulation system, changing how those businesses are held to account, and all of that has an impact on those employers, of course. And we are in the grip of a double, potentially triple dip recession, so thats reducing big businesses, external spend on legal advice. Employers are having to react to that, those businesses are looking to bring more of that advice in-house. All of that sort of down push, push down on external spend is having an impact on the income streams for legal services businesses, so they are looking at ways of responding to that as well. And of course all of this is happening in the midst of the regulators report into the education and training of those working in the legal profession, which is about to report within the next few weeks or so, we hope, and that will have a huge impact on the way that individuals can come into the legal profession in a number of different guises. And last, of course, is the impact of, if you like, a perceived, or may real, over supply of law graduates at the moment. We heard earlier mention of the fact that law, along with medicine etc. dentistry, has always been seen as one of those, you know, go to university, get your law degree, the streets will be paved with gold. Well its not that way now, many of the employers are reducing the number of people that they take from law degrees into training contracts, they are reducing the number of solicitors, they have been headlines about redundancies amongst solicitors, amongst some firms, and they are increasing their para profession, they are increasing the lower cost people that can take on elements of that work for them. Okay, so Im touching on it there. The response from employers to all of this, and the innovation is quite exciting, its amazing within the legal services world because it is, largely for them, all about the bottom line, and they are creating very, very high value businesses, its a 29 billion addition to the economy in terms of its worth, so they dont
muck about, they are responding very quickly in many sectors, in many parts of the sector. Some have broken their service offering down, they are commoditising many of those services, conveyancing, dealing with personal injury, that previously would have only been sort of carried out by a solicitor, and using this para profession, and they are looking at that non-solicitor resource to complete more and more of these elements, overseen, obviously, by the qualified professional solicitor. High volume business, transactional areas of law which they can obviously extract more value from, and offer better value to their customers. Some firms are looking to recruit new talent in a different way, they are looking to undertake less complex work with these individuals, with appropriate supervision, and the milk rounds now are moving, for many firms, from the universities to schools, to colleges, so its very different for the legal sector, they havent done this before. Okay, so in January 2011 we carried out some very sort of low level research, just sort of quick fire research, and 51 firms that we spoke to of different sizes across the legal sector showed us that they are predicting, amongst those firms, an 18% increase, an 18% increase of that para professional coming into their businesses. You certainly wont see that kind of increase in the numbers of solicitors that they are taking on, or training contracts that they are offering, and we certainly obviously not seeing a growth of that nature in other parts of the sector, other parts of the UK economy. This growth, in terms of those individuals and their qualifications, is unregulated save for those who go through the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives route. Yes the SRA regulate the entity, the organisation, but those individuals, unlike solicitors, have not had, until now, a way of attaining parity in terms of recognition through an accredited qualification, other that this CILEx route. So many firms are taking on people through nationally recognised modified programmes, they are using their business admin apprenticeship and elements of the legal environment training through CILEx, and theyre expressing a big appetite for proper recognised, nationally sort of created, if you like, and regulated apprenticeship frameworks, and thats what we have been developing with them over the last 12 to 18 months. A higher apprenticeship in legal services at Level 4, which will be available from March, end of March, and we are working with CILEx to begin creation of a Level 3 for those para professionals. Some of the headlines that have appeared, and you might have seen sort of front page headlines between Christmas and New Year in The Telegraph, and the Schools Minister, Mr. Hancocks been sort of talking about the appetite from Government for an apprenticeship route, potentially to have degree equivalent status to provide a different route of access into the solicitor equivalent role. Well at the moment we are just looking at the paralegal role, but that is potential, it relies of course upon the outcome of the SRAs report and what moves they decide to make in terms of the entry routes that they will choose to recognise into the profession, but all of these things are telling us that there is a debate out there, employers are looking at innovative new ways of being able to bring different types of people into the workforce. They have a social mobility problem within the legal sector that they are trying to address. They have a perception problem in terms of the types of people that they have traditionally recruited into their business and they are looking for new innovative ways of creating a different type of business for themselves. HE involvement in this, of course it remains to be seen, but we very much see that if what weve got on here, Im sorry its a bit difficult to read, but you will get it afterwards. On the left youve got the traditional route into the profession at the moment, going up to your law degree and legal practice course, and on the right youve got the potential full blown higher apprenticeship framework. At the moment weve got Level 4 and Level
3 coming on, there is potential, and this is what the newspaper headlines have been about, depending on the results of the legal education and training reports and review, to look at that sort of solicitor role and an equivalent to that through higher level apprenticeship up to about Level 6 probably. But as I say, we dont know that thats possible yet, but the appetite is out there in parts of the industry. HE partnerships with employers, and the providers of legal education, BPP, College of Law, to name but two, will be crucial and there will be some really innovative opportunities, I think, there for universities to work closely with those traditional providers in terms of the technical content of what gets provided. Okay, so some of the benefits, just to finish off. Huge cost savings for employers, obviously, they are looking to reduce their cost base and apprenticeships are one way that they are looking of doing that. Potentially, as I say, potentially, ultimately, the way of qualifying as a solicitor without going through university, so for the individual, a way of perhaps saving a lot of cash that at the moment they are spending with no guarantee of a job at the end of it. Employers are really seeing the ability to get the benefit of having somebody within their business, fee earning at an earlier age, but becoming a real sort of productive asset within their business before that age that they would traditionally recruit them out of university, and many of the sort of regional growing employers who are responding most quickly to the pressures on the industry, are looking at this in a sort of very positive way, and taking opportunities, or creating opportunities before they are there almost. And what we are about is creating many high quality new front doors into this sector, certainly no back doors, but some really good front doors and widening opportunity and choice for employers, because for us as the SSE, thats what its all about. Thank you very much. Nick Skeets PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/forums/slides/NickSkeet.pdf Gisela Stuart MP: Thank you very much indeed Nick for making the business case, that its not just the right thing to do, it may also be economically the right thing to do. And I thought your comment about how the milk rounds have changed is a very important one, they have changed fundamentally over the last few years, and internships and all kinds of other stuff comes in which havent before. But it now leads us, I think very importantly, to Dr. Tessa Stone, the Chief Executive of The Brightside Trust and you see what people of my generation are painfully feeling, and some of you will also do, is that the world of how information is absorbed and used and the way the next generation think is changing fundamentally, and the way they access information, and in the sense, as an earlier speaker said, about apprenticeships is about perception and things, I think you will resolve some of the still outstanding problems. Over to you.
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Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Dr Tessa Stone, Chief Executive, The Brightside Trust
Thank you very much. Its an absolute pleasure to be here, I spend a lot of my time talking about social mobility through Higher Education, and its really nice today to be talking and thinking about social mobility through apprenticeships and higher apprenticeships in particular. But I want to just make myself, at least, feel a little bit at home by just rehearsing very briefly the Higher Education context in which this broader debate about social mobility and progression and career is happening. Weve got a combination of the fee increase at universities, and the economic climate potentially pricing some people out of Higher Education and putting others off. Weve got student number controls, a move towards additional places for those getting AAB at A-Level. Everything that we hear about curriculum reform, you will have heard it today, about suggestions for A-Level reform, is pushing us towards a sort of Dickensian or Latin focused or the other things we have talked about this morning, view of education, and risks moving us away from talking about, and understanding and thinking in the same breath as the sort of much more varied, much more exciting pathways that my co-contributors have been speaking about. There is a central conundrum here. Higher apprenticeships will only promote social mobility if they provide a route with serious kudos, as Doug Richard would say, for those currently outside of the HE system, because social mobility is about generational change and we have a whole generation, and a whole group of people stuck outside HE, seeing that as the only route to success, we have to create something with kudos for them. But to achieve that, ultimately we need a period of competition, in fact, for the brightest and the best. We do need people not to be thinking, well obviously my children are going to go to Oxbridge and higher apprenticeships are okay for somebody elses children. We need an Oxbridge poster boy or girl, Doug Richard made this very clear again in his report, he said I want to see an 18 year old who turned down a place at Oxbridge and became an apprentice, because it was the right path for them, and I want to see that their parents are thrilled. And as my other speakers have said, thats the key. Actually we also want the independent sector, I would love to hear Anthony Seldon, instead of talking about teaching happiness at Wellington College, it would be really great, well know weve arrived when he compares his Oxbridge entry statistics with his higher apprenticeship entry statistics. Again similar language from Alison Wolf in her report, higher apprenticeships will be a serious option for our most talented school leavers. At the moment weve got a sort of uneasy halfway house in the language we use about higher apprenticeships. Weve heard it today, I highlighted a few things people said: apprenticeships being appropriate for young people who do not thrive on academic courses; another commentator said something about apprenticeships being something for anybody from any social background. We think about class when we think about the differences between different pathways, we think about different aptitudes for different types of learning, weve got to have a sense of the conversation about that, and get that straight in our heads. Lord Adonis, usually quite clear on these things, very interesting article in The Telegraph last week, talking about apprenticeships, Im sure most of you have seen it, but his confusion articulates this well, I think. On the one hand he says the best apprenticeships could lead you to university, so university is still the end goal of the best apprenticeships. But then he says, actually this is a sensible option that people might want to take, particularly in light of university fees. So theres a lot of confusion about this, and I think its summed up quite nicely by UVAC, the University Vocational Awards Council, very interesting section from them on higher
apprenticeships, do look at their website. Higher apprenticeships present universities and colleges with significant new opportunities to widen participation and develop new HE qualifications for new groups of learners. So this again, its all about widening participation and those we are not getting in at the moment, but they do stress it is important for the HE sector to note, higher apprenticeships need not incorporate a university qualification, there is skills funding, agency funding for this, Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships are being developed across a range of sectors as an alternative to traditional Higher Education. There is therefore an issue of competition facing the HE sector. Very interesting, where we want to get to is, of course, what Alison has been talking about, and that is already going on, but I do think that we are going to have to see this difficult issue of competition first, before we can move on to the sort of symbiosis that I think we all want to see. So we live in interesting times, I do agree with Gisela, however, that I think this is a real opportunity here, not to shake up the Lego bricks, but to shake up how we think and talk about these things. I think UTCs are fascinating as incubators, havent talked very much about them this morning, I was surprised, as a relative outsider to this scene I thought it would be all about UTCs, but I think they are going to open up a genuine alternative track, theyve got university endorsement, and theyve got employer support, and I think in social mobility terms, employers absolutely hold the key here, they will be the biggest drivers for change. What PwC is doing is absolutely fundamental and when they get to the stage where they can say that their Level 7 apprenticeship is a route for the many, not the few, when we see something like the National Pathways to Law Scheme, which my charity is involved in, which at the moment is all about getting young people into elite universities to study law, it ought to be about getting them into higher apprenticeships and the sort of things that Nick was talking about, coming down the pathway. When the Sutton Trust does a summer school, not just for getting engineers into Cambridge, but engineers on to Level 7, Level 6 apprenticeships, then we will know that we have made the change that we need to see. We will see higher apprenticeships as an engine of social mobility. Finally, I cant sit down without continuing to hammer the issue of information, advice and guidance, because what we need is a national debate about progression and we do, as Alison said, we have to gather evidence to persuade people, not just that higher apprenticeships are not going to be a great thing, but actually that this is not another fly by night political good idea. Social mobility is the stuff of generational change, creating parity of esteem between different approaches to getting into a career is also the stuff of generational change, and I really hope that we can commit to this for the long-term, so that we can see the sorts of things that my co-speakers have been talking about, just become the norm, because it really is what we need. Thank you.
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Higher Apprenticeships - expansion of Level 5 and the development Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships Questions and comments from the floor
Gisela Stuart MP: Thank you very much indeed, and of course you have now two dreadful cans of worms, one of them is that if you have social mobility and people go up, by definition unless some go down, and thats the bit they never quite want to face, and the second thing is, and that bedevilled, I think its a really British problem, and we think selecting, anything thats selective is, by definition, unfair and unjust, and we never use the word of what is appropriate. But I would just leave you with that, weve got about 15 minutes for comments, questions from the floor, weve got a roving microphone. If you tell us who you are, that helps as well. The gentleman in the second row first. From Employment Pathways. Thank you very much for the presentations, they were fascinating. I have two questions. Some time last year I had a meeting with some of the PwC team working on this and we had a very interesting conversation about the issues about the presentation to young people and parents and schools about the higher apprenticeship pathway, and I felt at the time that their presentation material was not going to be very, very helpful, and you seemed to have confirmed this today, so maybe we need to pick that one up. My question is this. All doorways are great, more doorways, more opportunities, more pathways, yes, the entry price to go through that door is fixed by the person who owns the door, so Im very nervous about in terms of social mobility, that the entry tariff for higher level apprenticeships at 18 will remain two As and a B, where is the social mobility in that for those kids who have aptitudes, as Gisela has said, who have skills, who have talent, how are we going to identify their suitability to come through your doors. Okay. Shall we take a couple of questions so is the entry to these new pathways still the old fashioned 2 As and a B. Anyone else? The gentleman at the very back. Yes. From Balfour Beatty. Just to echo what was just said in the previous question, it is that entry point through the door. The way to do that, of course, is to offer the higher apprenticeship that someone starts on an intermediate or advanced first, and make sure that they can move from one to the other. What do you think would help it, just the lower level or internships or schools have employability? Do you have an answer to your question?
Peter Cobrin:
Gisela Stuart MP:
Tony Ellender:
Gisela Stuart MP:
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Tony Ellender:
It depends on whether you are talking about direct entry to a higher apprenticeship from day 1, in which case you probably will need people to have A-Levels as a standard. Weve been running part-time degrees for people for about 20 years, which are a higher apprenticeship in everything but name, but if you start somebody at an intermediate or advanced apprenticeship first, you can hopefully get that broader entry point, as long as, when they complete their advanced one, they are able to move on to a higher and then on to a Level 6 later, thats the key. Okay, great. Weve got a lady just there. From Social Enterprise, Kent. My question is just a practical one about marketing these high level apprenticeships. Im actually a chartered accountant, I trained with PwC and I remember the ICAEW. I'd never heard of them. I get a lot of questions because we are community interest company about IAG for people, school leavers and so on, and we try and do our best to give them advice on what to do, especially for people who are looking for alternates to going to college, at the moment theres a lot of people interested in that, and theres not much advice coming from schools, as we have talked about. So whats the practical step, how do we find out how to give that advice out, where are the channels to communicate that? Because its not getting to us. Particularly as Connexions has gone and the schools have now got it in their own budgets. The lady over there. From Lloyds Banking Group. I have a comment and sort of question more for to get your viewpoint on of something that hasnt been spoken about today. My comment first of all would be, Im really glad you said youve been doing this for 20 years, this is the first of these meetings that Ive sort of came along. That sounded like an alcoholic actually, this is the first that I came along to, just thought of that. What surprised me is one of the values that we try to hold on to as an organisation is keeping it simple. I havent felt that today, if Im being honest. Also the concept Im absolutely flabbergasted that PwC needed to put a framework around a Level 7 apprenticeship. Ive worked for Lloyds now for 15 years, I joined their graduate scheme, Im an example of social mobility, the first of my family to go to uni, all of that good stuff. Where they have supported my career, Ive been very lucky. However, as a point of principle, all of my line managers at director level for the last 10 years, have been A-Level entry, to be honest. You know, if you are good when you get into a big company, it shouldnt matter two hoots how you got in there. I agree wholeheartedly around big organisations need to get more involved in getting people in, but surely once you are in there you dont
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Gisela Stuart MP: Claudia Sykes:
Gisela Stuart MP:
Louise Boyd:
need a framework of an apprenticeship to do it. If you are good, and the likes of PwC, you are billing, you should be getting promoted and pushed through in whatever way is appropriate. The question around it, that I havent heard discussed today, is that we have a time lag, almost, in some of this stuff. We currently have a substantial number of people beating down our door with degrees that, being honest, arent particularly meaningful, and we still need to do something with. We dont attract funding for them, we cant put them on to a graduate programme, because they are not hitting the criteria, but we still have to do something with them, and that hasnt been discussed today at all. Gisela Stuart MP: Okay, thats great, and the gentleman over there. But of course one of your problems inherent in your question is that the future jobs are not going to come from the expansion of large companies, and therefore we need to train people who have to knock down doors on small companies with the skills. I work with the Association of Accounting Technicians, and I suppose Im partly going to steal, I suspect, part of what Saras answer to Peter would be. But the access route is very much through schemes like the AAT where you can start at the intermediate apprentice, in fact you can start at Level 1 with an access to AAT course, and progress directly through to full chartered status, via an apprenticeship route, and its a longstanding route. One of the things I think is quite interesting about this debate that we are talking about, as if its all new. If you sit, as I have occasionally, at forums where the ICAEW will be sitting on the panel and you have their board members, a large number of them will pipe up and say, well of course I never went to university. Its a longstanding tradition in a number of professions, that they have had those entry routes where professional training has been open to people from a lower level who can progress through organisations and take chartered training. So I think its about building on a historic experience, as well as developing new initiatives, but absolutely something that AAT has been wholly committed to in its apprenticeship route, and we already deliver out of the 3,000 new higher apprenticeship starts last year, 2,000 of them were in accounting doing the AAT qualification, and the vast majority of them were not starting at Level 4, they had started at Level 2 and were progressing through to that higher level apprenticeship and the advantage of the Level 7 scheme and the reason we are partners in it, is that its another access route to progress those to the full chartered qualification. Thank you very much. But of course, just to add to the panels problems, if you are placed in Birmingham where 10% of the GDP comes from the creative media and gaming industry, and therefore you are not talking
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Nick Gash:
Gisela Stuart MP:
about established professions, but you need to develop a skills base in new ones, that is an extra challenge and all small companies employer fewer than 10 people. So shall we do it? Sara, each one of you pick the bits you wish to answer, I think is easiest. Sara Caplan: Okay, so on the entry requirements and thresholds, Nick is absolutely right, you know, this is not just about A-Level entry, its about other equivalences, so it may be that people are progressing from AAT or other Level 3 qualifications. But equally, I mean our entry threshold is something like, depending on which pathway you go down, something like 240 UCAS points equivalent, but thats not the only measure, so, you know, we take into account a much wider set of criteria and characteristics in an individual, its not just about their academic qualifications or previous qualifications. So I think, I mean, we try, both with graduate entry, and with non graduate entry, to make sure that we are being fair and not just taking peoples previous educational history, and I think that more and more employers are looking at that, they want well rounded individuals who are motivated, entrepreneurial, work aware, all that sort of thing, not just people who have passed exams. Thats one thing. On the IAG and marketing, I mean on the various professional body websites, theres a lot of information about the higher apprenticeships, so there is some stuff on ICAEW, but we are always looking for better ways to get the message out and weve got a whole set of people trying to do that on a regular basis through social media, through brochures that we produce, stuff that we put on the web, whatever. We are obviously not doing it well enough and we will take that on board and see what else we can do. We are slightly hampered by the fact there is no comprehensive national way of getting careers information out to people and that is a great barrier for everybody, whether its firms in various sectors, whether its parents, pupils, teachers, its really difficult to get people to know about whats happening in higher apprenticeships at the moment. Why Level 7 and why are we doing it? Well its not that we had to do it, its that we wanted to do it because we wanted to give people an opportunity to get qualifications however they entered the firm, whether they entered as a graduate or whether they entered as a school leaver, and its really about providing people with opportunities. You can progress without qualifications, obviously, but we didnt want people to have to do that, we want to give them the option of doing a nationally recognised qualification, certainly they can carry around with them, its the same qualification if you do it at PwC or KPMG or wherever, its completely portable, and we are giving people something to say, you know Ive achieved that, and I think thats a good thing to do, but you know, its
not all about big firms either, we designed this with SMEs to try and help a lot of SMEs who say its really difficult for them to recruit, who didnt have access to the same high quality sort of training or qualifications and, you know, by creating this, everybody can use the same things and have the same way of accessing high quality trainees. So, there you go. Gisela Stuart MP: Professor Alison Halstead: Alison. Just a few quick comments from me. I think if we genuinely believe that its a perception problem in the UK, its really important that entry at 16 or 18 is seen as being equivalent. So I think while we are talking about national change, and I know this flies in the face of social mobility, but I think its important that its seen, I have 2 As and a B, oh I can have a higher apprenticeship or I can go to university. Now I think as that is then established, its fine to look at other ways. But I think the solution in the short-term is to have high quality Level 2, Level 3 progression into those routes and entry then would come from success in the previous level qualification. Thats probably a controversial comment. Level 7, I would go higher, 8 and 9, you know, they should be work based professional masters, professional doctorates, we really do need to break this academic/work based divide, you know its about UK plc and globalisation and you can never have enough marketing. Gisela Stuart MP: Professor Alison Halstead: Nick Skeet: Follow that Nick. From a Lego person. Ill start on the marketing piece really and I dont think theres any one answer and in the vacuum thats essentially being created, and lets not kid ourselves, schools arent spending that money on careers information advice and guidance, not wholly anyway. Some firms are taking responsibilities into their own hands, so we are working very closely with the financial skills partnership, and to look at the way that their Directions Service, which employers pay directly for, effectively connects through a series of road shows, over 50 road shows a year with schools, and that provides information about those employers in terms of the careers you can have with Barclays or Santander or whoever it might be, and provides that opportunity to have the discussion about the various ways into careers with those employers. So its one way of doing it, its partial, obviously, because its basically employers paying for a service which connects directly with kids and schools, but in the absence of many other things, its employers telling people, you know, this is what real life in our business is like, this is what a career can give you and here's a way in. So I would advocate those kind of approaches
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as being real information about real jobs, from real people in the industry, obviously with brokers such as ourselves helping along the way. The thing about access, a lot of it for the employers we are working with, isnt about entry at that higher level, it is about a ladder of qualifications, in some parts of the legal services sector, starting at Level 2 with kind of business admin, a bit of legal thrown in, and through Level 3, Level 4, Level 5 and wherever it ends up going, and I dont think thats going to result in a 7 year apprenticeship, many of those employers are seeing it as creating a series of bridge points and port points, so creating bridge points for their most talented individuals who joined straight from school at 16, as a sort of data processor, one of those paralegals who is just punching information into a piece of software, and graduates through the company, gains experience, is productive, is talented and gets an opportunity with accredited routes to progress through the organisation, and the bridge points across to, hopefully in the future, the qualified, the traditional qualified, the solicitor part of that profession. And in terms of access as well, the PwC models a great one to look at, and theres other things, you dont need to go too far into the internet and press to see the sort of concept of guilds emerging around the city industries, ways of connecting all of the different fellowship and marketeers and all the rest of them, the livery companies with student information, with work experience in the summer, theres all sorts of possibilities, and things which are being made real, and these, I think, are the ways that the sort of big changes are going to happen around particular sectors and industries in the future. Gisela Stuart MP: Dr. Tessa Stone: Thank you. Last but not least, Tessa. As this isnt my patch, I spent the last couple of days researching apprenticeships and mugging up, as you do, and so I put my 16 year old hat on to do this, it was no fun at all. To pick up on the simplicity point, my God this is a complex area. It was really and I'd always known that this bit of the landscape was far too hard for a simple minded person like me, which is why I stick to HE, but, you know, we are not going to get young people understanding these pathways and routes unless I found myself getting increasingly centralist in my old age, unless we provide some sort of central careers guidance which combines all of these things, which allows employers to have their say and to put their information into a place where young and older people can go, because at the moment its total serendipity 9 times out of 10, as to what you find and how you find it. I will pledge, Brightside slightly adds to the chaos except that we dont we have a website for young people called Bright Knowledge which has been independently reviewed as the ultimate one-stop shop for all of this sort of
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information. Im going to go back to the office and quadruple check what weve got about higher apprenticeships, what weve got about apprenticeships per se, and make sure that we are plugging this massively and sending it out in our newsletter. But I am also working on a regional based approach to careers guidance, which allows HE, FE, UTCs and employers locally and nationally, where appropriate, to co-create an information advice and guidance offer for the young people in that region with a sort of central organising body so that the schools can come and say, you know, they get a basic not a basic a comprehensive package of information advice and guidance, and then they have access to all of you and the work placements, the internships, its a way for small and medium enterprises to say, well actually we can deliver one or two work experiences a year, and three internships and one apprenticeship, but thats it, and we cant really handle the admin. So you have as locally, regionally based coordination that does all of that. Hellishly complicated, but we are working on trying to pull that together in a pilot way, and unless we think differently about how we can bring all the players together, young people are just going to flounder in this sea of information and chaos. Gisela Stuart MP: Thank you very much and I think its a useful reminder that however complicated things are behind the scenes, weve got to make them simpler for the user, its, you know, front of house services need to be straightforward. We now have a chance to hear where the Government is going to go next. Independent Review of Apprenticeships and the next steps for policy and I terribly failed, I should have checked how to pronounce it, is it Gila? It is. So its Gila Sacks, Deputy Director Apprenticeships Unit at BIS. Over to you. and Head,
Gila Sacks: Gisela Stuart MP:
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Independent Review of Apprenticeships and the next steps for policy Gila Sacks, Deputy Director and Head, Apprenticeships Unit, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education
Thank you very much. I know youve been hearing from an awful lot of people throughout the morning about whats happening in apprenticeships now, and what apprenticeships policy and delivery looks like, and the challenges and opportunities that that presents. What I want to do is talk a little bit about the future and so Im actually, although I work in Government, as you say, I head up apprenticeships policy in the Education Department and the Business Department, Im actually mainly not going to talk about Government policy today. I was asked instead to talk about the Independent Review of Apprenticeships, which published at the end of November, headed up by Doug Richard, which was commissioned by the Government, but is very much an independent take on what the future should look like. And because its an independent review, most of what Im going to say this morning is not Government policy. The Government has received the Review, received it very warmly and enthusiastically, as you will see, but has not yet formally responded. So thats kind of an important caveat. So for the purposes of this discussion, I am largely going to be being Doug Richard, as it were, as opposed to being the Government, but I can try and slip in out of both, if that would be helpful. So briefly some context, very briefly. I know this will be very familiar to many of you. In what context, at what point in time in the development of the programme does this Review come? Well it comes at a point where the apprenticeships programme has gone through an awful lot of change and has expanded and broadened quite dramatically, really, in recent years. So both in terms of just sheer numbers, you effectively have had, basically a kind of a doubling in about 3 years, but also the footprint of the programme has broadened considerably, so you now have a programme that is genuinely all age, that encompasses jobs, type of employers, sectors right across the economy and to support this growth, to help ensure that this growth is sustainable, the Government has been increasing its investment year on year. And alongside trying support that sustainable growth, what has the Government been trying to do? Again, what is the context in which this Review came? Broadly speaking, obviously a brief summary, the Government over the past year or so, has been trying to do three main things in apprenticeships, and hopefully this touches on some of the themes that youve been discussing this morning. Firstly, a strong and consistent commitment across the programme to safeguard quality and to really raise standards. Im not going to go into all the details of how weve done that, Im happy to discuss it, hopefully much of it is familiar to many of you, but I would say kind of key things that stand out has been the introduction of minimum durations to make sure that all apprenticeships allow people the time that they need to really, not just learn new things, but really embed that learning; quite a rigorous push on identifying and removing any instances of poor quality provision; and I think a greater effort across the sector, working with Government, to develop some clear understandings about what quality really means in apprenticeships. Secondly a strong push to make apprenticeships easier for employers, touching, I think, a little bit on some of the discussion you were just having, and that runs from everything from simplifying paperwork and stripping out bureaucracy, thinking particularly about SMEs, a number of you might be familiar with Jason Holts work that he did for us last year on how SMEs, in particular, understand, interpret and engage with the programme. And then something called the Employer Ownership Pilot, which you might be familiar
with, and experiment in giving employers directly access to skills funding, allowing them to shape how skills get designed and delivered. So quality and standards, making the world easier for employers. And then thirdly, amidst this big and growing and diverse programme, how do we really focus our efforts and our investment on the parts of the programme that deliver the most, and obviously thats a source of much debate, but overall I would say that meant a strong push, particularly on 16 to 24 year olds in terms of our investment, in terms of how we market apprenticeships, and a big push on advanced and high level apprenticeships, where we know that the returns for the individual and for the economy more widely are even stronger. So thats what weve been trying to do. But alongside trying to deliver that, our Ministers wanted to take a step back and ask some quite big questions about the future. They wanted to ask, lets not kind of wait and see where the future goes, and then be playing catch up, lets not try and kind of keep tweaking the programme and trying to make sure we stay relevant, but rather can we think right now about where the economy is going, what employers need, what learners need in 5, 10, 15 years time, and try and get ahead of the game. So to do that in classic Government style, they wanted a good fresh independent pair of eyes and they dont get that much fresher or more independent that Doug Richard, as any of you who have read his Review or worked with him will know. So the two Secretaries of State, Michael Gove and Vince Cable, jointly asked Doug to answer this quite challenging question, to look at how the programme can meet the needs of the changing economy, deliver high quality training and qualifications which employers and learners need, and maximise the impact of Government investment. And those kind of became his key questions. Now the Review published at the end of November, as I say, its available on line, please do have a read. I think its quite readable, and its certainly quite exciting and interesting for any of you with a background or engagement in apprenticeships. And I will just flag, before I go into a bit more of the detail, some kind of key features of the Review which are important to bear in mind when we unpack its recommendations. Firstly it is high level and it is focused on the future. Those were two things that it was asked to be, but they create certain challenges for us, which I will come to. Its independent, its employer led, its not by definition it was almost it was not quite the way Government officials would go about answering questions, it was intended to be quite a challenging look at the future, and, probably the most important thing, it was just the beginning. So sadly for us, its not quite as saying, Dougs done his work, off we go, it was really the start of the challenge, the start of the vision. So, what did he say? I would summarise the Review, and this is kind of my take on it, around four key themes, which hopefully will give you a bit of a sense of what Doug saw when he looked at the programme, and more importantly, when he looked at the future needs, again the future needs of the economy, the future needs of learners, what were his priorities? And I kind of draw out four key things in particular. Firstly, he argued very strongly that apprenticeships need to be redefined to focus where they really add the most value. Secondly a strong, a pretty intensive focus on quality and rigour, because the value of an apprenticeship comes both in the quality of its training, but also, and almost as importantly, the extent to which that quality is trusted, is understood, is recognised. Thirdly, employers, putting employers genuinely, its easy to say, we all say it, but very genuinely, very firmly and in some ways quite radically, right at the heart of every aspect of apprenticeships. And finally, a really strong focus on outcomes, where does the apprentice get to at the end, and allowing a lot more flexibility on how they get there.
So lets just unpack some of these briefly, with some of his key recommendations. Apprenticeships should be redefined, and the key things I would highlight here are Dougs assertion that apprenticeships should be very clearly targeted on those who are new to a job or job role, and a job which, to do it well, requires substantial sustained training. So theres quite a lot in that. Its a new job, it might be with an employer youve been with for some time, but you are very clearly being trained to do a new role with that employer, and its not any job, its only those jobs that really need quite a lot of training. Ive drawn out a couple of key quotes, but I think I suppose kind of the key message here, and its obviously a point thats been hotly debated in recent years, is this sense of definition, what has happened to the brand of apprenticeships, is diversity in all sort of things that apprenticeships means, a good thing or is brand stretch very challenging, and certainly Dougs view, we cant expect apprenticeships to be well regarded if we are not clear what they stand for. So redefine and refocus your brand, jobs that are new and jobs that require a substantial amount of training. Secondly, and this really kind of runs right through his Review, reshape the content and the assessment with a really rigorous focus on outcomes and their assessment. So Doug argues for basically a total overhaul of the qualifications which comprise apprenticeships, because apprenticeships are basically only as good as the qualifications that you have to do. So qualifications should be totally overhauled, employers, in Dougs view, should be right at the heart of redesigning them, really quite directly, much more directly than they might be today, and critically, there should be a kind of a finite amount of them, we shouldnt have world of many hundreds of competing qualifications doing just about very similar things, but every job role should have one clear qualification that is assessed independently and broadly, or mostly, at the end. And assessment there is absolutely key, again, unless the assessment is trusted, how does a future employer know what that certificate or that piece of paper really means? So new qualifications and really rigorous independent assessment. And in some ways I think this is probably, for me, I suppose in terms of kind of really trying to capture what Doug was trying to do on the key messages, we, the Government, shouldnt focus on how apprenticeships reach the standard, it really matters how they get there, but its not for Government to define it, its for the educator, the employer and the learner. And alongside that, if you have new qualifications, designed by employers, independently assessed at the end, that should absolutely free up the journey, because its all about the end point. So for Doug, he wants to see a lot more diversity in how you get there, how you get there should not be prescribed, it shouldnt be prescribed by Government, it shouldnt be prescribed by the qualifications, the qualifications should prescribe what you need to know at the end, they shouldnt prescribe how its taught, the length and shape of the journey, there should be a lot more diversity on how you get there. There are going to be many paths to getting there, and we need to strip out the things that get in the way of allowing the individual, the educator, the employer to determine the shape of that journey. Different people learn in different ways and Government can never keep up with that, and nor should it try. Funding, extremely challenging, if Im very honest, part of the Review, and which Doug came out with some very radical, very innovative proposals, largely around routing Government funding through employers and freeing up the price so instead of Government trying to guess how much it actually costs to do something, and then magically the price fitting whatever Government is prepared to pay, if we have a genuine market, employers would go out and buy training, they would go and decide what the best quality and best value training was that they could find, and Government investment would support employers choices, and employers would act as informed and demanding consumers. And finally, and in some ways kind of obviously, but Doug felt it was very important to add this in. We may have, if you implement all his recommendations, an apprenticeships programme that was much more out there, much more removed, in some ways, from
Government, much more up to employers and learners to direct. But, he said, this must not allow Government to think that the responsibility for promoting apprenticeships is any less on their shoulders in the future. Doing all these things will make apprenticeships more attractive, more relevant, high quality and better value, but Government still has a big role, much as you were just discussing at the end of the last session, in promoting apprenticeships, in helping young people, in particular, understand the value of apprenticeships and in helping learners and employers find each other. So, as I said, the review published at the end of November, was warmly welcomed, right across Government, across both departments, across both parties and from the centre of Government down, and our Ministers, the reason I put their quotes up here is because I think they highlight kind of the key things that really stood out to Government when it received Dougs review, this strong focus on putting employers right at the heart is uncompromising, genuinely uncompromising focus on quality and standards, and a commitment that we really could bring all apprenticeships up to the standard of the very best weve seen today. The Government is committed to responding to the Review in the spring, probably the early spring, so probably fairly soon. But the key thing there will be, the response will be a consultation, so the response will set out the overall approach the Government wants to take in response to Dougs review, but then ask a series of questions about the how, because thats really, just to conclude, the challenge that we now face. As I said when I began, the Review was set up to be bold and challenging and high level, and because it was high level, and because it was long-term, it wasnt a map for the future. It was a vision, and the challenge now, for us, for officials and for Ministers, is to consider a) how we feel about this vision, but b) to the extent that we accept it and welcome it, how do we get from here to there, because the Review, I think rightly, raises many, many questions, more questions really than answers, it raises questions about how you do the things he describes, and it raises questions about how you get from here to there. So the work that my team are now doing is really trying to understand, whats the way forward that does these various things, that allows us to preserve the very best of what we have now, its an awful phrase but we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater, that must be ringing in our ears the whole way through, there is an awful lot good out there now, and in our pursuit of a different, better future, we have to capture the very best, and push the rest up to that standard. We have to make sure that although this programme of responding to and implementing parts of Dougs Review, is something that is now sitting with Government, the very essence of what he was trying to do was say this thing has to be led by employers and learners, so how do we, Government, help to move this forward, but in a way that absolutely stays true to that spirit of being really led by employers and learners. The classic challenge is a big reform, how do we reform for the future without disrupting delivery today. There are employers and learners who are benefiting from, engaging from, need apprenticeships today, and we cant compromise their experience and what they need to get from the programme, whilst trying to deliver this longer term change. But we also dont want to dampen down our ambition, so how far are we prepared to take on some quite big challenges in pursuit of the bold vision, whilst managing these various risks? And finally, what are we really trying to do, again it might sound obvious, but I think its quite important to remember when thinking about how we embrace Dougs vision. We are trying to deliver a long-term sustainable change so that we have a long-term sustainable programme, this is about the long-term, and that means its going to take us time to really work out exactly the best way to deliver it and implement those changes in a sensible and careful way, but we really do believe, and theres been a lot of enthusiasm, as I said, right across Government, that there is something in the core of Dougs vision, his focus on outcomes, his uncompromising approach to quality and his
commitment that if you put employers right at the heart of the programme, its our best way to ensure that the programme delivers the value it really can, that if we find the best way to take that vision forward, we really will be securing a more sustainable, higher quality and better value future for the apprenticeships programme. So, thats the overview of what he was trying to do. As I said Government will be coming forward with its response and its consultation very soon, pretty soon, and Im happy to take questions if theres time. Gisela Stuart MP: Perfect, thank you very much indeed.
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Independent Review of Apprenticeships and the next steps for policy Questions and comments from the floor
Gisela Stuart MP: Lorcan Seery: Weve got 10 minutes. The gentleman there. Thank you for that. Im the Acquisition Manager for Talent for Santander. Weve heard a lot about how efficient effective Germany is, in terms of they put something right at the heart of what people leaving school or whatever. I mean, is that even on the table for sort of future review, because it seems to me that obviously a lot of onus has been passed to employers and whilst thats very good a lot of the accountability, the money, the responsibility has also at the hand of the employers and there doesnt seem to be much Government involvement in terms of having any more responsibility than that other than maybe offering funding, if that makes sense. The lady over there. From OPITO. We are the skills body for the oil and gas industry. We were very pleased to input into the Richard Review, and we were very pleased to see the result about pushing high level apprenticeships, because thats one thing that we were very keen on. Just a question to yourself. The team that is putting together the consultation, how many in your team have actually been through the apprenticeship route themselves? Oh, a very good one. The lady at the front there. G4S. As an employer that has two direct funded contracts with the Skills Funding Agency, I dont underestimate. Im delighted with the view that theres a drive for employers to own this, absolutely you must. Every time that you take the learning provision a step further away from the employing organisation, it gets diluted. So knowing how to do the job, being able to do the job, proving on the ground that you can do the job for me is absolutely imperative for the employer. However, I dont underestimate the difficulty in running apprenticeship schemes internally, Ive spent two years and nearly every month stumbled across a new requirement, which knocks you and you have to put something else in place to be able to make it work. So just really very keen to see this move forward, but please, please involve the employers and involve the employers that are doing it now, because there is so much to learn to be able to make it work in its current format. Shall we take a fourth one. The lady there at the back and then hand it back to you.
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Gisela Stuart MP: Rona Macdonald:
Gisela Stuart MP: Liz Veasey:
Gisela Stuart MP:
Susan Smith:
Hello, I think its a comment and a bit of a question. From Skills for Care. I also fed into the Doug Richard Review, was lucky enough to go to many round table discussions during that period. I was interested to see the results of the Review and anticipate greatly the outcome of the consultation and want to be involved with that. One of the things I feel its very important to say, I think that the apprenticeship model that we have now, underpinned by the specification of standards in England, the SASE or the SASW, its a very robust model, the problem that I feel often happens is that some of the rigour that Doug mentions in the Review, about making sure the quality is then delivered and embedded throughout the model being delivered, perhaps has caused some disappointment with some apprenticeships. Good practice would mean that employers would always be involved and I think its important for people who arent familiar too much with what happens in apprenticeships at the moment, is for them not to assume that there is not fantastic practice out there, but it is not 100% and for me, I like the idea that you said not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, thats the first time something sensible like that has been said in the context of this Review. Ive sat in many audiences where Ive thought, my God, I know he looked forward, will somebody actually look now and the lessons that weve learnt. Weve got an apprenticeship model that over many sectors, and lots of employers and lots of apprentices, they have had a satisfactory journey, they have been able to go on and do other things as a result of this, money is being saved through companies, recruitment, retention, and I do think its very important that we dont lose sight of that and we should celebrate the fact that the model and its branding is highly respected in many, many places. Now if its not, if youre an employer and youre not satisfied, go back to your sector bodies and make them listen to you, because otherwise they are not working for you and between you, you need to find a way to talk about that. Thank you very much. The last word is yours. Great. Let me take those in reverse order. I couldnt agree more. I think in way that was kind of my final slide about the challenges that now sit with me and my team about trying to kind of get this right, you know, how do you get the balance right between saying the future could be better, there are things, we will hold our hands up, weve worked very hard, weve delivered a lot, but there really are things that we could do to improve this in quite a serious way, but make sure you get there in a way that is careful enough, and not necessarily gradual in time wise, but gradual in process, if that makes sense, that really capture the best of what we have now. There is an awful lot of good practice out there now, but I suppose kind in your final point about, you know, if there are
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Gisela Stuart MP: Gila Sacks:
problems in the current system, you know, employers should go and challenge them. I completely agree, but I think the reality is, lots of employers, particularly small employers, but not only small employers, wont necessarily have the tools to know what else they can demand, and I think thats part of the challenge of the programme. So youre right, in principle you could do an awful lot of this now. Employers can, and should be, involved in directly or indirectly, designing qualifications, employers should be demanding consumers of training and if employers arent getting the training they deserve, they should be going out and finding something better, but we hear too often that that is too hard to do and it requires a degree of knowledge and ability to navigate the systems that most employers dont have right now, and we need to lock in some of these things into the system, so that its the norm not the exception. It is very complicated for employers now in many ways. Again, as I said, one of our big focuses right now, and is only going to continue, is looking at how for large employers and the small employers, the process can be simpler and hopefully again, subject to how much of this we accept and how we take it forward, a lot of what Doug is proposing is about, you know it might not sound it, is about making things simpler, because if really there are some straightforward qualifications that are about testing what happens at the end, we all should care a lot less, again, about the exact intricacies of how you get there and how its assessed along the way and so on. So I think getting there will be quite challenging, but I think once we are there, the process should be a lot simpler for employers, because thats really the point, the point is to say an apprenticeship is at its heart about a relationship between an employer and an individual, and anything that gets in that way should be stripped out. That relationship should be the thing that defines what comes next. Very good question about how many apprentices we have. Im glad to say we have some. Well to be honest we have quite a small team to start with. We have one apprentice who is currently employed by my team, so by the Department, directly in our team. We had a seconded apprentice from Rolls Royce, who offers a different perspective, on the Review team itself, which was great because, well as I say, its called the Rolls Royce of apprenticeships for a reason, but even there we found some quite interesting things about whats great about it and what was less great about it. So that was really good. And there are apprentices right across the various organisations who are coming together to take this forward, so obviously its not just about what happens within the Department core, but its also about the Skills Funding Agency, and the National Apprenticeship Service, and the Education Funding Agency and all different kind of bits of the system who all now have apprentices and are helping to kind of keep it real, I suppose is the phrase, so that
we really can see, I suppose, the good bits and the challenging bits about the current programme. And finally Germany. I mean theres no kind of short way, I suppose, to answer the question. Certainly Doug and we looked at Germany and at Switzerland and at France and various models to try and understand, I suppose a little bit below the hype whats actually going on there, because obviously Germany has an extremely strong programme, but some parts of our programme are actually stronger, I think. It is a fundamentally different programme because well firstly its built on a very, very strong social partnership whereby employers are kind of intrinsically deeply committed, and in some ways by regulation, slightly indirectly, to doing it, so you dont just sell it to employers in quite the same way we do here, and that has big implications for what you can do with the programme, but also because its quite State directed, so although its seen to be very employer led, and in many ways it is, the Government they are actually funding much of it, directly structuring the framework, in which it operates. I think there are some things, and actually I think Doug touched on this in his introduction, he was very clear, he didnt want to try and be Germany, he wanted to try and be something that really works for our labour market, with its regulations and with its structures and with its flexibilities, and thats, in some ways, much harder, we cant rely on quite the same things that they do. But I think the main thing that we really want to capture from Germany, the thing which when I went and visited German apprentices, the single thing which struck me the most, I dont know I'd be interested if others have this experience, the single thing that was most impressive was the total confidence that people involved in the system have, that if you got your apprenticeship in X from the Berlin Chamber of X you could take that to any employer in the country and they would know what it meant. And its kind of so simple, but I think thats probably one of the most powerful success measures. Im going to back to this idea of having a small number of qualifications, probably one qualification per job, test it at the end, make sure employers are involved from the beginning, make sure there are clear industry standards that underpin it, and then, when you take it to another employer they know what it means. So theres an awful lot to learn from Germany, but sadly its not quite so simple as being able to, you know, pick it up and transplant it, but we will keep learning, I hope. Gisela Stuart MP: Well thank you very much. And just another, which complicates the German picture of course, its a federal education is done by the lender, so youve got 15 different authorities in the Federal State who do it differently. But just as one example of how entrenched the apprenticeship system is there, is in the national psyche, is that if you in Germany you
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get a driving licence when you are 18, if youre an apprenticeship aged 17 who lives in a rural area who requires to be able to drive to work, because there is no public transport, you can get a conditional driving licence which only allows you to drive from home to the workplace whilst you serve as an apprentice. And that just gives you an indication of how this is steeped into the whole thing.
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Session Chairs closing remarks Gisela Stuart MP

My panel has run away before I got the chance to thank them. Gila Sacks can I thank you, can I thank you for allowing me to be here and to actually be enormously cheered, I think for once, I think we are going places and we are going the right way. Thank you very much.
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Westminster Employment Forums closing remarks Sean Cudmore, Deputy Editor

Thank you Gisela. Can I just make a few very brief closing remarks on behalf of the Westminster Employment Forum. First of all, if there is a question or comment you havent been able to make, or further thoughts you might like to add, do you have an opportunity to submit an article into todays publication which, as I mentioned at the start of the seminar, will reach you in about a weeks time. Details on how to do this are in your event delegate packs, and we suggest articles of around 600 words. Also you will find in your delegate packs, feedback forms, please do feel free to complete these, all feedback is very, very useful to us. And now on to thanks, and this comes from us all at the Westminster Employment Forum, including from my colleague, Cormack Hayes, who organised todays seminar. Im sure you will all agree, all our speakers have been tremendous, from first until last. I will highlight our two keynote speakers, Richard Marsh from the National Apprenticeship Service, and thank Gila from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the DfE to both of you, but thank you to all our speakers. And thank you also to both our Chairs, Stephen Lloyd who guided us so well through the first session, and thank you Gisela for guiding us so well through the second session. So please join me in thanking speakers, Chairs and all in the time honoured and traditional way. Good day to you all.
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List of Delegates Registered for Seminar

Denise Selena Sophie David Krisztina Adam Mark Louise Judy Nynke Barbara Tim Jessie Aida Dinah Sara Mary Peter Mary Darren John Jayne Emma Yvonne Mike Jennifer Martin Tony Adrian Atkinson Ayers Bain Bateman Biliczky Blenkharn Bodger Boyd Brandon Brett Brown Buchanan Buscombe Cable Caine Caplan Castledine Cobrin Costello Coughlan Cubitt Cullen Davidge Day Dennehy Dewsnap Eatough Ellender Fantham Local Labour and Business Coordinator Student Apprenticeships Consultant Work Based Learning Manager Development Manager Assistant Economist Head of Contracts and Standards Head of Apprenticeships National Policy Manager Head of Corporate Partnerships Director of Central Services Policy Implementation Project Manager Head of Employer Accounts Volunteer Programme Management Advisor Chief Executive Officer Partner, National Government Services Manager, Way to Work Founder and Director Research Executive Head of Specialist Education Service Deputy Cabinet Member for Education Learning and Skills Business Director Operations Manager Human Resources Director (UK) PR/Public Affairs Manager Operations Manager Head of Apprenticeship Programmes Training Manager Financial Controller London Borough of Lewisham City University Lloyds Banking Group Havering College of F & D Education SkillsActive Department for Education CITB-ConstructionSkills Lloyds Banking Group Association of Employment and Learning Providers Future First Babcock International People 1st National Apprenticeships Service Greenhouse Creative Skillset PwC London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Apprenticeships England SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) Southwark Council Kent County Council TMP Worldwide JHP Training Fabricom GDF Suez Babcock International YHATA (Hull College) ECITB Balfour Beatty Construction Northern TBG Learning
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Victor Andrew Janet Neil Martin Rick Dr Michael Richard Jackie Nick Paul Kevin Professor David Karen Professor Alison Michael Jennifer Gary Graham Kirsty Nicole Abdul Gillian Richard Ray George Stephen Colin Suzana Lauren Rona
Farlie Fennemore Fortune Fowkes Francis Franckeiss Frearson French Garner Gash Godber Griffin Guile Hall Halstead Hart Herdman Howard Hoyle Huntington Inckle Jawula Jenkins Katz Kemp Khoury Lloyd MP Long Lopes Macdonald Macdonald
Executive Chair Talent & Development Business Partner Head of Corporate Human Resources and Business Services Learning & Development Manager Vocational Center Manager Group Training Officer Research Leader Director of Educational Policy Operations Director Policy Advisor Work Based Learning Manager Graduate Intern Course Leader MA Lifelong Learning, Institute of Education Operations Manager - Employer Services Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Strategic Academic Developments
London Work Based Learning Alliance The Guardian News & Media City of London Rolls-Royce Thamesview School, Kent Sheffield Forgemasters International RAND Europe BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT Devere Academy of Hospitality AAT Totton College, Hampshire UK Commission for Employment and Skills University of London TBG Learning Aston University
Head of National Accounts Director of Employer Partnerships Chief Executive Talent Development Consultant Employer Engagement Team Leader Student/Steering Group Member Organisational Development Advisor Glass Academy - Delivery Manager Policy Official Director of Business Development Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and Vice-Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group Apprenticeships Project Manager Senior Vice President - Sales and Marketing Academy Coordinator, Talent and Resourcing Policy Affairs Manager
National Apprenticeship Service Norfolk Educational Services Association of Employment and Learning Providers Cable&Wireless Worldwide Sussex Downs College, Eastbourne Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Hampshire/StudentVoice South Tyneside Homes British Glass Department for Work and Pensions Eos House of Commons NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Learndirect Nestl UK OPITO Page 79
Alastair Andrew Richard Peta Julia Deborah Theresa Patricia Tim Kerry Nick Ceri Fiona Varsha Gordon Johanna Jim Janet Sarah Alexander Adele Polly David Kathy Zeeshan Sue Mary Josephine Charlotte Amanda Gila
MacGregor Marsh Marsh Marshall McCormac k McCormac k McDermott McDonagh McHanwell McLennanMcKenzie McManus Mercer Miller MistryHand Mole Mothander Mowatt Murray Newall Ofoedu Oxberry Persechino Pollard Prior Rahman Richardson Rivers Roarty Robinson Ryalls Sacks
Head of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics Business Development Director Business Development Director Organisational Development & Skills Advisor Apprenticeship Officer Senior Learning (Regulatory) and Recruitment Manager Assistant Director Head of Special Projects Learning Coordinator Portfolio Manager Senior Advisor Apprenticeship Manager Nestle Academy Manager Young Peoples Learning Manager Employment and Brokerage Manager Consultant Director Education Journalist Director of Curriculum and Business Development Student Head of Commercial Training WBL Co-ordinator Chair Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group Head of Skills Researcher Head of Product and Service Management Development Officer Business Development Executive Organisational Development and Learning Consultant Director, Marketing and Intelligence Deputy Director and Head, Apprenticeships Unit
SQA Derbyshire County Council National Apprenticeship Service Surrey County Council Northumberland County Council Pinsent Masons UK Commission for Employment and Skills AAT Skills for Health City & Guilds Cabinet Office BAM Nuttall Nestle London Borough of Havering Crossrail PwC UNITE the Union
Aylesbury College, Buckinghamshire University of Greenwich London College of Beauty Therapy South Thames College, London Federation of Small Business Department for Work and Pensions City & Guilds Pearson QAA Reed in Partnership Bupa Skills for Justice Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education
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Andy Lorcan Sarah Geoff Nick Lynn Susan Trevor Steve Sarah Dr Tessa Matthew Gisela Claudia Jen Amanda David Dianne Paul Liz Susan Alistair Jon Maxine Breda Duncan Paul Phil Jo Cheryl
Sanders Seery Simons Simpson Skeet Smith Smith Spencer Stanley HMI Stephen Stone Stratford Stuart MP Sykes Teulon Thomson Thorp Travis Turner Veasey Walford Wallace Wallis Warr Watson Weeks Welch Wilkinson Wood Woods
Apprenticeship and Skills Development Manager Early in Career Acquisition Manager Consultant
Cambridgeshire County Council Santander UK West Nottinghamshire College
Employer Relationship Director 14-19 Manager Programme Head - Apprenticeships Apprentice Support & Mentoring Officer Inspection and Improvement Head of Finance and Operations Chief Executive Economic Regulation Project Manager
Skills for Justice Lincolnshire County Council Skills for Care YHATA (Hull College) Ofsted League Football Education The Brightside Trust Ofqual House of Commons
Director Director Director of Recruitment Director of Research and Professional Development Director of Training - Service Sector Futures Leader Talent & Development Manager Apprenticeship & Work Based Learning Manager Operations Manager Assistant Economist ETU Policy Manager Apprenticeships Coordinator Apprentice Training Advisor Operations Director Chief Executive Development Marketing Manager National Campaign Manager
Social Enterprise Kent Alliance of Sector Skills Councils Big Choice Group The Chartered Institute of Marketing Babcock International NCFE G4S Buckinghamshire County Council British Glass Department for Education SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NG Bailey Prospects Services Ascentis ICAEW Pearson
Contributor Biographies
Dinah Caine, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Skillset Dinah Caine is Chief Executive Officer of Creative Skillset. She is a member of the Creative Industries Council (CIC) and Chairs the CIC Creative Skillset Skills Group, whose 2012 report was fully endorsed by the Industry and Government, and is now in implementation. She serves on the Ministerial Advisory Group on Skills and is a member of the National Skills Forum & Associate Parliamentary Skills Group. She has previously served under two Mayors as an Advisor on the London Skills and Employment Board, on the Joint Board of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, and as a Board member of the Northern Ireland Film & TV Commission. She is a member of the British Screen Advisory Council and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Television Society for her outstanding contribution to the Television Industry in 2002. She was awarded the OBE for her services to the Media Industries in the Queen's Golden Jubilee Honours List in 2002. Sara Caplan, Partner, National Government Services, PwC Sara Caplan is a Partner in PwCs National Government Services team, responsible for leading our work in the Education and skills arena. She has extensive experience in the education sector and worked for 10 years in FE sector both as Head of the Business School and Director of Registry in an FE College. Sara has led a number of education and skills-related programmes. These include: Achievement for All, a school improvement programme designed to raise the attainment levels of pupils with Special Educational Needs; World Class Skills, which was designed to transform the FE sector to become more employer and employee focused and involved working across the public and private sector with both education and training providers and employers; and is leading the development of new Higher Level Apprenticeships for the Professional Services sector which will be introduced in September 2012. Sara is a member of the National Skills Forum and has spoken on skills issues extensively on a national basis. Peter Cobrin, Founder and Director, Apprenticeships England Peter graduated as a mature student from the London School of Economics in 1979 having previously worked in journalism and PR. He entered teaching in 1981, spending thirteen years teaching history and politics first as a classroom teacher, then as head of department and sixth form. He pioneered innovative careers advisory programmes that focused especially on students looking for less academic careers routes, working closely with local and national employers. During a career break in IT, Peter worked on several innovative education programmes including a ground-breaking scheme to transform the traditional processes of course and career selection for young people. He returned to education in 2003 and since then has been a leading figure working with schools, local authorities and major IT, design and construction companies in the previous Governments Building Schools for the Future and Academies programme. He was particularly active in ensuring projects offered employment and training opportunities to young people. Since the axing of this programme in July 2010 his energies have been focused on the apprenticeship programme. He has been closely associated with the founders of notgoingtouni since 2008, and continues to played an advisory role. Peter established Apprenticeships England as a community interest company in 2011 to enable him to dedicate his time to what is a major area of concern to teenagers, parents, educators, employers and ministers - maximising the opportunities for every teenager to get the best possible start in the world of work. He organised two highly successful conferences in 2012 on the theme of Make Apprenticeships Better, and has given evidence to the Wolf Review on vocational qualifications and the Holt Review on the challenges of getting smaller employers to take on apprentices. He regularly speaks at conferences where his robust views, in his own words, rattle cages. His anger is invariably focused on those who put up barriers to getting young people onto meaningful career pathways. Rick Franckeiss, Group Training Officer, Sheffield Forgemasters International Rick Franckeiss joined Sheffield Forgemasters as Group Training Officer in August 2012. His role included the management and oversight of all learning and development
schemes and programmes, including the apprenticeship scheme. Ricks experience in learning and development spans two decades as a partner at the Leadership Academy in Sheffield which works with organisations across the UK to help them improve their performance by developing the skills and competencies of their managers and leaders. At Sheffield Forgemasters, his key responsibility is to ensure that all staff, whether they are apprentices or senior managers, continue to build on their skills and knowledge for the benefit of the business and that all learning and development delivers value for money. Professor David Guile, Course Leader MA Lifelong Learning, Institute of Education, University of London David is Course Leader for the MA Lifelong Learning, and a founder member of the ESRCfunded Research Centre, Learning and Life-Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies. He is interested in the field of vocational, professional and workplace learning. David has just completed two year project on apprenticeship in the Creative sector and is currently researching internship in the Finance and Creative sectors. His most recent book - The Learning Challenge of the Knowledge Economy was published by Sense in 2010. Professor Alison Halstead, Pro Vice Chancellor: Strategic Academic Developments, Aston University Alison gained a Physics degree and Materials Engineering PhD at Imperial College. Her early career was with Tube Investments before returning to Higher Education. She has held academic posts at Brunel University, Coventry University, the Open University and the University of Wolverhampton, before joining Aston University as the Pro-ViceChancellor for Learning and Teaching Innovation in 2007. At Aston she created a new Centre for Learning, Innovation and Professional Practice bringing together widening participation, learning technologies, peer mentoring and pedagogical research, and in her role as Head of Quality and Standards oversaw the successful institutional quality audit. Alison led the development of the Aston University Engineering Academy for 14-19 year olds from the outset and for the last year of the Schools development relinquished her learning and teaching portfolio to support the national creation of University Technical Colleges as the Director for University Partnerships, at the Baker Dearing Trust. In 2011 she chaired a Skills Commission Inquiry into Higher Level Technical Skills and City and Guilds recently awarded her an Honorary Fellowship for her national work on Apprenticeships, University Technical Colleges and High Level Technical Skills. In September 2012 Alison returned full-time to the University as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategic Academic Developments, currently working on the creation of the Aston-led Vietnam UK University in Danang. She is a Board Member of EU Skills, The Childrens University and the University Vocational Awards Council. Andy Hardy, Apprenticeship Manager, Premier Carpets & Flooring Andy Hardy owns and manages small business Premier Carpets & Flooring based in Launceston Cornwall. Started the business in 1999 & recognised a lack of official qualifications for operatives in the industry that would give customers, contractors or the public confidence that the products were being installed to any given standard. Became an NICF (National Institute of Carpet & Floor-layers) Master Installer in 1999 and represented the South West of England in 1999, 2000 and 2001 at the national carpet & floor-layer of the year competition. Searched for apprenticeships for employees. Severe lack of assessors was a major stumbling block. Started a D32 & 33 qualification that came to a dead end in 2002. Achieved A1 & A2 assessor award in 2009. Premier Carpets & Flooring signed up 9 installers to the carpet & flooring full frame-work apprenticeship with a private provider in 2010. Became one of the Top 100 National apprentice employers in 2011. Attended introduction to apprenticeship graduation ceremony at Buckingham Palace 2012. Premier Carpets & flooring (Andy) are delivering 2 year full framework apprenticeships in carpet & floor-laying from January 2013 in partnership with Launceston College. Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers
Since 2002 Graham has been Chief Executive of the Association of Learning Providers, representing over 560 members, primarily involved with Work Based Learning. In this capacity he is a member of a whole range of National Steering Groups. He also chairs the National Improvement Partnership Board responsible for both the FE systems National Improvement Policy and the development of the course labelling initiative. He is regularly called on to give evidence at Parliamentary Select Committees. Following an early career working for the Employment Service for over 20 years, (9 years as a fulltime trainer), Graham transferred in 1986 to the Training Agency firstly as Area Manager for Devon and Cornwall, then for Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Throughout the 1990s he was Chief Executive of the Gloucestershire TEC, into which he merged the Gloucestershire Enterprise Agency and Business Link (Gloucestershire) to form The Link Group. He also was creator of the Gloucestershire Development Agency and the 5 County West of England Development Agency, the forerunner of the SW RDA. Also at this time he was Chair of the TEC National Councils Education and Training Committee, which amongst much else was responsible for the creation of Modern Apprenticeships and what was to become the Adult Learning Inspectorate. He was also a founder of the Guidance Council. Grahams contribution to skills sector was recognised when he was awarded an OBE for services to training in the Queens Birthday Honours in June 2008. Abdul Jawula, Student, Barton Peveril Sixth forum College, Hampshire and Steering Group Member, StudentVoice I am a student, currently attending Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, Hampshire. As a result of being a steering group member in Student Voice, I have had the humbling opportunity to speak at this event. In my short life, I have had the opportunity to speak in front of inspiring people, such as Barack Obama when he visited my home-country of Ghana in 2008. I look forward to speaking to you about apprenticeships and young people. This is a subject which is believe is paramount to the advancement of all citizens, regardless of their socio-economic background. Stephen Lloyd MP, Member, Work and Pensions Select Committee and ViceChair, All-Party Parliamentary Apprenticeships Group Stephen Lloyd was elected as Member of Parliament for Eastbourne in May 2010. Within Parliament, Stephen successfully stood for election for the Work and Pensions Select Committee, an influential and important body tasked to hold the Government to account across the entire welfare benefits, employment and pension sectors. He is also a member of a number of All - Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) including Justice for Equitable Life Policy Holders (Secretary), Town Centre Development (Vice-Chair), Microfinance (ViceChair), Deafness (Vice-Chair), Small Business, Pharmacy (Secretary), Citizens Advice and Trading Standards (Secretary), Ageing and Older People, Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia, Renewable Energy, Disability, Autism and Tourism. Over the last few months, he has tabled Early Day Motions on English Language Schools, Neuromuscular Services, Legal Aid and the alleged medical malpractice at the Gosport NHS Memorial Hospital. Richard Marsh, Employer Services Director, National Apprenticeship Service Richard manages the Employer Services teams at the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS). He is responsible for the quality of service offered by NAS to small employers that have or wish to have Apprentices. Immediately before this he worked on quality assurance programmes for the LSC. He has previously been employed as a training manager for the Volkswagen group, introduced Apprenticeships at Vodafone UK (1999), and worked in Sales within the travel sector. David Pollard, Chair Education, Skills and Business Support Policy Group, Federation of Small Businesses David is Policy Chair for the Education, Skills and Business Support portfolio. His career has included stints in the RAF as an engineer officer, corporate roles in multinationals and running SMEs. He now runs a one - man company which leaves him time for his voluntary work as a business mentor and business ambassador in schools. He is also a
director of Centaur Seaplanes, a startup trying to raise funds to launch a new design of seaplane and is supporting his sons efforts to launch a computer games company. Locally he works with Young Enterprise, as a Business Ambassador in local schools and with Portsmouth Universities School for Professional Skills programme which gives undergraduates practical work skills. Gila Sacks, Deputy Director and Head, Apprenticeships Unit, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education Gila Sacks is a Deputy Director at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Head of the BIS/DfE Apprenticeship Unit. Before joining BIS in autumn 2011, Gila was a Private Secretary to the Prime Minister; prior to that she had roles in the Prime Ministers Policy Unit, the Cabinet Office, and HM Treasury. Gila has degrees in sociology and social policy from LSE, and a background in the voluntary sector. Nick Skeet, Employer Relationship Director, Skills for Justice As a Director with Skills for Justice, Nick has responsibility for leading the management of employer relationships across their UK network. He joined Skills for Justice, the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the Justice, Community Safety, Legal Services and Government sectors in 2004, performing a variety of roles before his current appointment in May 2011. Nicks current focus is helping to lead the transformation from a traditional SSC to an HR and professional services charity that retains the core SSC remit and ethos whilst operating as a sustainable and growing business valued by the employers it represents. Previous achievements include leading the negotiation of a sector wide Train to Gain Compact on behalf of employers resulting in significant take up of development opportunities across the sector. Prior to all of this Nicks background is in the Civil Service and learning, working for a number of years in the law enforcement and training areas of HM Customs where he developed an extensive knowledge of work-based learning and strategic training projects. A graduate of Newcastle University with a BA (Hons), Nick is currently completing his MBA at the University of Warwick. His passions are Bath Rugby, QPR, cooking, his family and music. Steve Stanley HMI, Inspection and Improvement Ofsted Steve joined Ofsted in April 2007 following the merger with the Adult Learning Inspectorate where he was a full-time inspector. He held a role in Ofsteds Development Directorate as Principal Officer in Adult Skills and Employment from 2010 until 2013 creating and implementing the new inspection framework and methodology for further education and skills which started in September 2012. His current responsibilities as one of Her Majestys Inspectors are for Ofsteds inspections nationally and quality improvement in the London region. Before becoming an inspector, Steve was Director of Courses in a higher education audio engineering training company. The company worked in partnership with a London university. He has also been Head of Music and Performing Arts in a further education college. Steve has a rich experience of working with learners in many different vocational, academic and community settings. He has a Masters degree in Inspection and Evaluation, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Fine Art, a Graduate Diploma in Music Teaching to Adults, and holds assessor and internal verifier qualifications. Dr Tessa Stone, Chief Executive, The Brightside Trust Dr Tessa Stone is the Chief Executive of Brightside, the education charity which uses online technology to connect, inform and inspire more young people to achieve their potential through education and employment. Brightsides online mentoring service connects disadvantaged young people with volunteer mentors from universities or professional and industry backgrounds who can support them into and through apprenticeships, further and higher education. Its free online resources at www.brightknowledge.org provide accessible, impartial information about education, money, student life, independent living and careers. Tessa is actively involved in the national debate about the provision of careers information, advice and guidance, as the convenor of the CHOIR group of online information and advice providers. Gisela Stuart MP
Gisela Stuart has been the Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston since 1997. She served on several select committees, represented the British parliament at the Convention on the future of Europe and was a Health Minister in the Blair administration. Gisela Stuart completed an apprenticeship in bookselling and publishing in Germany, worked with Ernest Hochland in Manchester in the late 1970s before coming to the London Book Fair. She left after the Fair had succeeded in establishing itself as the premier place for rights in Europe in the Spring. She was returned in 2010 as one of the few Labour MPs who bucked the trend. David Cameron presented her with the Spectators Survivor of the Year award last year. Gisela Stuart has translated books, wrote the Fabian Societys The Making of Europes Constitution and edits the Westminster political weekly journal The House Magazine.
All biographies provided by speakers
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Building a long-term future for apprenticeships in England rd 23 January 2013

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About this Publication

Westminster Employment Forum

publications@westminsterforumprojects.co.uk Directors Peter van Gelder Chris Whitehouse

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Westminster Employment Forums opening remarks Sean Cudmore, Deputy Editor

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

Professor Alison Halstead:

Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Jessie Buscombe:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

Stephen Lloyd MP: Patricia McDonagh:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Professor Alison Halstead:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Abdul Jawula:

Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Mary Costello:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Graham Hoyle:

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Stephen Lloyd MP:

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Stephen Lloyd MP: Professor David Guile:

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Session Chairs opening remarks Gisela Stuart MP

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