Clause 1

Part of – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:00 pm on 10 March 2009.

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Photo of Siôn Simon Siôn Simon Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills 5:00, 10 March 2009

No, I do not think so. In only a small minority of cases will the employer be a training provider. The more conventional model is for apprenticeship employers to be businesses. Off the top of my head, they make up about 55 or 60 per cent. The rest break down into a dozen or so categories, of which training providers are a relatively small proportion. It is more conventional for there to be an employer, a learner and a training provider to provide the training portion.

There are arrangements through which training providers and coalitions of companies can club together in group training associations, which are now called apprenticeship training associations. They effectively hire out apprentices—that might be the wrong term—to smaller businesses that would struggle to bear the burden of a full-time apprentice. A group organisation can share the burden. That model has been very successful in Australia, where about 20 per cent. of apprentices are retained in that way. It is not something that we would like to lose. It is something that we intend to encourage and extend but it does remain a relatively small part of the total package.