Apprenticeships, White Papers and Lists

The Federation of Awarding Bodies conference in Leicester last week was surprisingly optimistic in tone; surprising to me, anyway. I left with a sense of hope that I didn’t have beforehand, with Charlotte Bosworth (MD, Innovate Awarding and chair, FAB), David Gallagher FIEP (CEO, NCFE and vice chair, FAB), David Hughes (CEO, AoC), Ben Rowland (CEO, AELP) and Rob Nitsch (CEO, FAB) all talking of encouraging conversations with new education and skills ministers since Labour’s General Election win this year. I think the reason I was surprised at their optimism is because those of us without the same access to ministers have no idea what the reality of their policy announcements will be. And those of us with responsibly for delivery, like providers, employers and awarding organisations, need that certainty so we can get on with our jobs with confidence and clarity.

Then, with slightly unfortunate timing, just after the FAB conference ended, we saw two significant publications in our sector:

1.???? Apprenticeship facts and figures, and the headlines are:

-????????? Starts up by 0.7%

-????????? Achievements up by 9.8%

-????????? Participation down by 2.1%

-????????? Under 19s made up 23.2% of starts

2.???? Get Britain Working White Paper, headlines:

-????????? ￡240m of investment in radical reform

-????????? Joined up approach between skills, health, employment and welfare

-????????? Place-based ‘Youth Guarantee Trailblazers’ from Spring ’25, led by metro mayors

-????????? An 80% employment rate target, meaning 2m more people in work

Most of this is truly encouraging in headline form, but I still have a slightly anxious feeling stemming from the imbalance between what we do and don’t know.

When you feel uneasy, it’s always good to make lists. So, focusing on apprenticeships…

We know:

-????????? That Skills England is coming

-????????? That there will be foundation apprenticeships

-????????? That there will be ‘shorter duration’ apprenticeships

-????????? That the apprenticeship Levy will be transformed into the Skills and Growth Levy

But we don’t know

-????????? How much power Skills England will have or who will lead it

-????????? What Foundation Apprenticeships will look like (a rebadged traineeship?)

-????????? How short, shorter duration apprenticeships will be

-????????? How Foundation and shorter apprenticeships will be assessed

-????????? How much funding will be directed away from current apprenticeship provision to ‘growth and skills’

There’s a fifth ‘we know’: We (almost certainly) know that the defunding of L7 apprenticeships will happen. And we know that this will save about ￡240m per year.

Is it a coincidence that this saving is ￡240m, and the total investment touted in the White Paper to Get Britain Working is also ￡240m? Almost certainly, yes. But it’s these little things that appear joined up, even if they aren’t, that put anxious minds like mine at ease.

For what it’s worth, I now share Charlotte, the Davids, Ben and Rob’s optimism but I would love to know more of the detail sooner rather than later. Our young people need those of us who operationally deliver these policies to have as much time as possible to maximise their potential impact.

Here’s to confidence and clarity. And when you haven’t quite got that, make a list; Christmas is coming, after all.