Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to meet the public sector apprenticeship target for 2020-21.

The department is maintaining strong performance on its internal apprenticeship programme, having met the public sector target for the past 3 years. We have made plans for the department to support the government’s Plan for Jobs through 4 external apprentice recruitment campaigns during the Autumn. We are also changing our recruitment approach, to ensure that all Executive Assistant and Executive Officer positions are filled using apprenticeships, for a pilot period between 1 September to 31 December 2020.