Trade union concerns


However, unions across the private and public sectors are sceptical about the government’s intent regarding union involvement, and the TUC has highlighted a number of reservations about this and other skills policy areas.


The country’s largest union, general union Unite says that apprenticeship targets and the levy “raises more questions than answers — from both sides of industry”. It fears the system will be” too complex, will exclude unions as well as smaller firms … and won’t offer enough quality placements”.


Assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said the ambitious scale of the government’s pledge to create three million apprenticeships in the lifetime of this parliament has given rise to legitimate concerns regarding quality and funding. “It remains to be seen if the new body set up to oversee the apprentice levy will include our union voice,” she said.


Richard Clarke, Unite’s researcher on apprentices for construction trades, said the union is a strong supporter of quality apprenticeships, regardless of who is in government. “Having a proper, three-year apprenticeship and coming out with a proper qualification can set people up for the rest of their working life,” he said, expressing concern that the government proposals focus on “12-month training programmes, with low pay, which show how quickly companies want their money back”.


Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke is not confident that the government will involve unions in the system and is blunt in his criticism of the levy: “No one knows how the new levy will work — it looks like it’s been drawn up on the back of a fag packet. Governments have tinkered with the apprenticeship system, and despite the announcement of three million new placements by 2020, no one is saying if they are going to be quality apprenticeships, leading to real jobs, or just short term training with no real value at the end of it.”


Construction union UCATT have warned that urgent action is needed to tackle the growing skills shortage in the sector. The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has upped its latest forecast for the number of new entrants needed in the industry every year between 2016-2020, by 8,000, and now estimates the industry needs 46,400 new entrants every year (January 2016).


UCATT point out that this figure is far above the number of construction apprentices undergoing training. The most recent figures from the Department of Business Innovation and Skills for 2014-15, show that just 24,850 people were undergoing construction training. “The gap between those undergoing training and the industry’s needs is actually greater as not everyone will complete their apprenticeships and of those who do some will decide against working in construction”, said the union.


TUC apprenticeships policy officer Matthew Creagh, said: “We would like to know what formal role there will be for unions in ensuring the quality of apprenticeship programmes? Unions represent young apprentices in the workplace and have a vital role to play in ensuring young people are represented in the apprenticeship system."


The public sector


A key element of the government’s approach to reaching its three million apprenticeships target involves public sector bodies being given targets for their contribution to this, and new public procurement regulations for private sector companies that win major government contracts. A BIS press release confirmed that since 1 September 2015 it is now a requirement to take a company’s apprenticeship offer into account when awarding large government contracts.


The government has introduced new procurement regulations so that all bids for government contracts worth more than £10 million, and more than 12 months in duration, now need to demonstrate a clear commitment to apprenticeships. The TUC has been lobbying government for many years for the introduction of tougher procurement regulations to require contractors to recruit more high-quality apprenticeships. 


The Enterprise Bill currently going through Parliament will introduce new statutory targets “for public sector bodies to contribute to our goal of achieving three million apprenticeship starts”. The targets will apply to bodies in England with 250 or more people working for them. Where this applies, a minimum of 2.3% of employees will be expected to be apprentices. The policy would create an extra 200,000 public sector apprenticeships by the end of the parliament.



The government is conducting a consultation on its proposals for imposing apprenticeship targets on public sector employers in England. The consultation invites views on, among other things, the list of public bodies to be included within the scope of the new duty, whether or not the reporting requirement should be wider to include more information, and whether or not the proposed approach to setting the target is correct.


Local authority leaders have already criticised these centrally-imposed targets.


And civil service unions have warned the government not to use apprenticeships as "an excuse for making civil servants redundant" following a Cabinet Office report which suggested that more redundancies could make room for more apprenticeships. The civil service has a quota of 30,000 apprenticeships to be created by 2020.


In early February 2016, the government published plans for a wide-ranging shake-up of redundancy terms across the civil service, including cuts to exit payouts and an end to employer-funded early access to pensions. 


The PCS civil service union said: "We want the civil service to grow and develop, and to provide opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds to help tackle persistent under-representation in the senior ranks. But the government's perverse policies of cutting jobs and redundancy pay, while bringing in apprentices on the cheap, is not the way to do it.”


Public services union UNISON has expressed concern about the proposal stating: “More information and clarity is needed to ensure that the funding and delivery of public sector quality apprenticeships are guaranteed to meet the prescribed targets.”


The union is also worried that public sector levy funds will be used for private sector apprentices. It states that: “The public sector should deliver its fair share of apprenticeships but only to train public sector workers. Given that the NHS, police and probation, education and local government are already under severe financial constraint, the proposed levy on the public sector is an extra skills tax … These services already make provisions and contributions for staff training and development. There is a danger that these funds will be diverted to apprenticeship placements outside the public sector.”


UNISON also believes that providing apprenticeships should not be a mandatory condition in winning public procurement contracts and that the provision of apprenticeships should be treated like any other social criteria that is considered in a public contract award. “This might include social criteria, such as payment of the National Living Wage, for all age groups regardless of whether they are on an apprenticeship or not, equalities considerations and the delivery of quality of service though higher level skills”, the union said. It added: “Underpinning the creation of apprenticeships through public procurement contracts with an emphasis on price only and quantity over ‘price-quality’ ratio will not deliver the quality public sector apprenticeships needed to meet identified skills gaps.”