Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent steps he has taken to encourage people from ethnic minorities to apply for apprenticeships.

The Government commissioned research into gender and apprenticeships and ethnicity and apprenticeships. A report was published in December 2013. Following this a new advisory group has been established to help address barriers and increase diversity within apprenticeships.

In the last two years, projects under the Skills Funding Agency’s Equality and Diversity Good Practice Fund have encouraged people from ethnic minorities to apply for apprenticeships, including Chiltern Training, Awaaz and Heba.

Additionally the ‘Get In. Go far’ campaign launched in September this year, aims to promote apprenticeships to a wide range of potential applicants and has generated over a million hits on YouTube.

The number of applications made through the Apprenticeships Vacancies website from ethnic minority candidates increased from 328,110 in 2012/13 to 382,520 in 2013/14. Full information on the number of apprenticeship applications by ethnicity is published here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/371696/ApprenticeshipVacancyReportNumberofapplicationsbyAgeGenderEthnicityorSSAorProgrammeLevelNov14.xls