Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the proportion of staff currently employed by his Department who are apprentices.

As set out in the Civil Service apprenticeship strategy, the Civil Service has pledged to achieve 30,000 apprenticeship starts in England by 2020, annually delivering 2.3% of our workforce in England as apprenticeship starts.

Public sector organisations with 250 or more staff in England have an apprenticeships target of 2.3% of their headcount between April 2017 and March 2021. The target is for new apprenticeship starts, which includes new hires and existing staff that begin an apprenticeship.. The Civil Service is subject to the target and is treated as one organisation for this purpose. The target is assessed as an average over four years between April 2017 and March 2021, and is set annually by taking 2.3 per cent of headcount in England the day before the financial year begins.