Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to meet the public sector apprenticeship target.

The Department remains fully committed to the Government’s apprenticeship agenda and is actively encouraging both the recruitment of apprentices externally, through proactive outreach and the utilisation of apprenticeships to develop internal capability and strengthen talent pipelines.

Due to the diverse work of the department, DfT core and each of its executive agencies (DfT Group) have developed localised strategies to support ongoing work against public-sector apprenticeship targets, and improve the overall quality of the apprentice experience.

For mainstream recruitment, we have embedded a process standard across DfT Group requiring vacancy holders to consider recruiting apprentices as the default resourcing option to fill vacant roles. This is alongside work with the policy, HR, project delivery, finance and other technical operational professions to actively encourage apprenticeship uptake to support skills and capability growth and talent retention.

From Autumn 2020 we plan to move to volume-based recruitment and apprenticeship management. Alongside this, we will continue to focus on developing our corporate support offer for apprentices and their line-managers, and strengthening supplier engagement to drive quality of provision.