Welfare Reform and Work Bill (First sitting)

Amanda Milling Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Timms]

That was a good answer.

Rebecca Plant: I would break it down and give transparency. What is a level 2 apprenticeship? What are people signing up to? Badging level 2 programmes as an apprenticeship is fundamentally wrong. That should be an entry point into an apprenticeship but there needs to be tightening up of these low-skilled, dead-end, monotonous jobs for these poor people.

Finally, just to add, traineeships should not count towards that 3 million at all. The traineeship piece is a really good on-ramp for some people, but does it lead to real job opportunities at the end? I question that completely. It is hard for employers to digest the traineeship, in my opinion. There needs to be an onboarding Work programme into an apprenticeship so that, no matter where you come from in your life, you have a level playing field with everybody else. That is what my particular passion is.

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

Q 10 I have several questions for both Rebecca and Marcus. In the previous Parliament, about 5,000 apprenticeships were created in my own area, and I have met businesses and apprentices themselves. What can the Government and businesses—other providers as a collective—do to raise awareness of apprenticeships and the value of apprentices to firms both in the short and long term?

Rebecca Plant: This is the same question that has been going around for the past six years. On raising awareness, Sue Husband from the National Apprenticeship Service has done a fantastic job of trying to engage, but we always seem to be stuck at the same point. There is a real difference between delivery on the ground and understanding the National Apprenticeship Service and what it takes to deliver an apprenticeship, which is really different from what it feels like for an employer. There is still a massive mismatch between what Government-funded bodies are saying takes an apprenticeship to the reality of delivery on the ground—a huge disparity. When we hear that some of the large organisations in this country are struggling to take five apprenticeships, we really should be worried.

Marcus Mason: A good way of increasing awareness is to focus on the small and medium-sized businesses, because our research suggests that that is where there is the most potential for growth, and networks like the Chamber network can be an effective way of reaching that market. We have had events in partnership with other business groups and also the Skills Funding Agency, identifying businesses that had not previously taken on an apprentice and informing them about how they could go about doing that. That also has to go hand in hand with finding ways of incentivising schools to promote apprenticeships in their careers advice, because there is still a bias towards the standard A-level to university academic route, and a lot of schools judge themselves against that benchmark. We hear of businesses that offer high-quality, well paid apprenticeships, but still do not get enough applicants for those apprenticeships, so I think it has to work on both sides.

I would like to echo Rebecca’s comments and the worries about the 3 million figure and flag up that, ultimately, we are talking about a huge increase in apprenticeships. When you bear in mind that, the apprenticeship starts from the previous Parliament—just over 2 million—included a lot of rebadging of Train to Gain programmes, and we do not want to see that again. We do not want to see a decline in quality because we are just chasing an arbitrary figure. Ultimately, if we get the quality right, the businesses will take them on and will offer apprenticeships, and so will the young people go for them. So the focus has to be on that. When it comes to reporting, we need to absolutely think about how many of these people are going to progress into jobs and the quality of these apprenticeships. We really need to dig into all of that in the report that the Secretary of State does.

[The Chair]

A number of people want to come in. Amanda, if you have more points, do them all together, please.

[Amanda Milling]

Q 11 I will try to do them all together. There is awareness and understanding of the benefits of apprenticeships to both the employer and apprentice. In the previous Parliament, I was pleased to see levels of satisfaction on both parts being really high. I am keen to know what we can do collectively to continue to build satisfaction among apprentices themselves and also among employers. If the employers have a great experience, they will take on more apprentices, and they will become their future workforce. Many of the people I meet when I am out and about started out as apprentices, so you can see the long-term benefits to the economy. This question is to Rebecca and Marcus.

Rebecca Plant: I think there is a fundamental piece missing in the chain, which is an apprenticeship charter. How do you make sure that a young person and a parent know what they are actually signing up to? Has it got a full-time job at the end? Measuring quality in that way and raising awareness of apprenticeships—there needs to be a formal agreement between the parent or guardian and the employer, to understand what they are taking on.

There is a big nut to be cracked with the SME market. I think they can take more apprentices, but how do we create an on-boarding ramp to make it easy for people to consume apprenticeships? When they are in, everybody loves them, but it is that scary thought: “How am I going to do this?” Sorry, I didn’t really answer your question.

Marcus Mason: In terms of satisfaction, we still hear from businesses that, ultimately, they feel some apprenticeships just do not fit their needs and are not flexible enough—there needs to be more control over design, and through the Trailblazers we have seen some of that. I would encourage the Government to look at how you can involve more SMEs in that as well, because I think the Trailblazers have been dominated, by and large, by bigger employers. It is great that they are designing apprenticeship programmes that fit the work for them. Sometimes, businesses and their supply chain raise concerns about some of the standards being set, because they do not fit their small and medium-sized business environment.

[Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

Q 12 My question is for Marcus. On the Conservative manifesto commitment to halve the disability gap, there is a huge difference between wanting to go back to work and being physically and mentally able to. Is there a disparity between the commitment and the actual opportunities that are out there?

Marcus Mason: To be honest, that is not something we have consulted our members on much, so I am probably not best placed to answer.