Department for International Trade: Apprentices

(asked on 15th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to reach the public sector apprenticeship target.


Answered by
Greg Hands Portrait
Greg Hands
Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
This question was answered on 20th July 2020

The Department for International Trade (DIT) is committed to building a diverse, inclusive and expert department. Apprenticeships play an important role in delivering that commitment and helping our employees to achieve their full potential.

DIT offers a range of apprenticeships across different disciplines to build both individual and departmental professional capability. This year, we exceeded our Civil Service target (of 51) with 57 new apprenticeship starts.

We have achieved this by:

  • Putting in place good quality apprenticeships that reflect DIT priorities and with the right level of support for participants.

  • Offering (where appropriate) an apprenticeship qualification when recruiting to some entry-level roles externally.

  • Targeting key capability priorities within our current workforce, giving them additional opportunities to retrain and up-skill.

We intend to maintain this and have every confidence that we will achieve the target of 2.3% by March 2021 as part of the Civil Service.

Reticulating Splines