Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of staff employed in each group of his Department that are apprentices.

The department currently employs 209 apprentices. This can be broken down into the following groups in the attached table, which also shows the proportion against the total number of employees.

Regarding the proportion of apprentices employed at the Institute for Apprenticeships, this is a matter for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. I have asked the Chief Executive, Sir Gerry Berragan, to write to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Within the Education and Skills Funding Agency, 5 employees working on apprenticeships strategy, policy and delivery are apprentices, which represents 1.6% of the total of 317 employees.