Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Professor Lorna Unwin: There are a number, which partly stems from the fact that for too long employers have not been properly involved. That might sound a strange thing to say when we think about apprenticeship, but I think it is because the key apprenticeship organisations are the training providers, which contract with the Learning and Skills Council to organise and manage apprenticeship places in particular localities.
We know from Government estimates that only 5 per cent. of employers contract directly with the LSC for apprenticeships. The rest have managed contracts through training providers. In a sense, there is a barrier between employers and young people, but there is an intermediary organisation. Talking to employers, some have good relationships with training providers in localities. Often, if the main apprenticeship training providers are local colleges, those colleges have long-standing relationships with employers and ongoing dialogue about apprenticeship. However, that is not always the case, and employers struggle to discover whom they need to talk to, not just to recruit young people, but to establish what sort of apprenticeship they might be able to provide.