The new Labour government is abolishing the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) – rather it will be subsumed into a new body called Skills England. Created in 2017 to revamp the UKs ailing apprenticeship system, its remit was widened to include responsibility for the new T-level qualifications, to be delivered as full-time courses, originally in colleges of further education, but then extended to school sixth forms.
But in terms of increasing opportunities for young people not continuing on the academic route, the IfATE has hardly been a success. Apprenticeship starts have continued to fall. Around 500 000 per year in 2014/15, the number fell to under 350 000 by 2022/3. Provisional figures for August to April 2024 (the period when most apprenticeships are likely to begin) indicate a further decline. Equally disappointing, is that it’s still existing employees rather than young people transitioning into the workforce who have continued make up a large majority of new apprentices – latest data showing only 1 in 4 enrolments by under 19-year-olds.
Since the creation of IfATE, over 600 apprenticeship standards for various occupations have been established. ‘Off the job’ training has now also become mandatory – though this doesn’t and often doesn’t take place in further education colleges. But more significantly, an ‘employer levy’ has become the main way through which apprenticeship funding is provided. Even if in other parts of Europe, large employers are expected to both provide and also to fund apprenticeships, the imposition of the levy resulted in continued criticism from employer representatives, who’ve claimed amongst other things that it’s bureaucratic and inflexible – a more serious issue is that large amounts of levy have not been used, written off, or effectively returned to government.
Approaching 40% of all apprenticeship starts are at level 4 or above. On the face of it this is not a bad thing with around 1 in 6 at degree level or above. But only a fraction of these have been started by school or college leavers. Instead, facing a compulsory training levy, a growing number of large employers have used the funding for existing management trainees on MBAs – with cash strapped universities, particularly those lower down the pecking order, falling over themselves to align course specifications with level 7 apprenticeship requirements.
In 2020 there were over 6500 MBAs funded this way. It’s reported that spending on level 7 apprenticeships alone rose from £11 million in 2017/18 to £216 million in 2021/22 – totalling £588 million over that period. Meanwhile, spending on level 2 apprenticeships dropped by a third, from £622 million to £421 million. (FE News Sept 24th)
Labour’s plans. What will Skills England actually do?
Responding to the continued fall in employer willingness to spend money on training the workforce, Labour went into the election committed to broadening the way in which a new Growth and Skills levy could be used, specifying that 50% could be used for non-apprenticeship training – though hardly surprisingly this barely merited any media interest. Since the election, sources have also revealed that the new government wants to prevent money being used at level 7 and commit itself to funding more intermediate level training and for shorter, more intensive programs.
While the IfAT had an extensive staffing structure -including a 15 strong senior management and numerous more specialist committees, Skills England hasn’t yet been properly set up – being only a shadow structure within the DfE (IfAT was classified as a public but ‘arm’s length’ organisation). Also, given Labour’s self-imposed fiscal restrictions it’s unlikely to been given generous (if any?) funding.
Despite not yet operational Skills England has published an initial report which like other publications that came before it, cites skills mismatches and skill shortages as a major reason for the poor productivity in the UK economy. But arguably, rather than a skills problem, the UK has a jobs problem – there are not enough high skill jobs being created. The reason for the low number of apprenticeships starts below level 4, is because employers don’t want them. As previous posts have argued, it’s more the case thousands of young people are overqualified rather than under-skilled. A skills strategy needs to be part of a wider and well planned ‘industrial strategy’ which creates the employment opportunities in the first place. This is how things worked in successful post-war economies like Germany. This is how it would need to work as part of a Green New Deal.
T-levels and BTECs
In the meantime, if it’s goodbye to the Institute of Apprenticeships, there’s no indication as yet about Labour’s plans for technical and vocational qualifications post-16. It’s always supported T-levels as alternatives to academic qualifications, but in pre-election press releases it did commit itself to a ‘pause and review’ of Tory plans to defund over 140 qualifications which were considered to ‘overlap’ with the Ts, including many popular and established BTECs.
Bridget Phillipson also announced that any new decisions would be communicated by the end of this year, so as to allow providers to plan for the future. There’s no evidence, in fact there’s no time for this to happen now – or that Skills England will play any role. Besides, the new body is much broader and managing technical education will be just one of many remits. As a result, T-levels will trundle on, but future opportunities for post-16-year-olds be severely limited.
Education, Economy and Society 