Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department is making on meeting the 2.3 per cent public sector apprenticeship target; and when her Department will meet that target.

As of 31 March 2020, the Civil Service has achieved a total of 2.1% of its total workforce as apprentices against the legislative target for the public sector of 2.3% by March 2021. The Department for Work and Pensions has achieved 1.8% of the total staff employed within the department. The Department is looking to recruit more apprentices over the coming months, and current forecasts predict we could achieve the target in 2020/21. Given this target is a percentage of the total workforce the percentage changes in line with workforce fluctuations over time therefore making it challenging to predict when a department will meet it. The data for 2018/19 can be found here. The data for 2019/20 will be released on gov.uk by the end of September 2020.