Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reach the public sector apprenticeship target.

The Department has taken a proactive approach to apprenticeships and is working to embed apprenticeships so that they are a core part of our learning and development offer. We continue to increase the take-up of apprenticeships year on year and apprentices currently make up 2.5% of the Department’s 1,808 workforce.

We are refreshing our apprenticeship strategy and working on our engagement strategy across the Department to continue raising awareness.

We are continuing with our proactive approach to align apprenticeships opportunities more closely with our recruitment activity.