The Summer Budget – Will apprenticeships be tackled?

Steve Nash, CEO of the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), hopes that tomorrow’s Summer Budget includes tactics to help achieve the target of 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020.  

With data from the Skills Funding Agency suggesting that apprenticeship starts in the motor retail sector alone have plateaued in the last 12-18 months, he believes it’s vital that employers are given much more control of apprenticeships so that they can ‘teach in the workplace’.  

“This was a component of the Conservatives manifesto, so we really hope to see announcements that address this in tomorrow’s Summer Budget”, said Steve Nash.  “We firmly believe that employers need to be able to tailor apprenticeships to their specific needs.  

“We do, however, still have some concerns about the plan to replace job seekers allowance for 18-21 year olds with a ‘youth allowance’, limited to 6 months and then requiring the young person to take on an apprenticeship, traineeship or community work to continue to receive benefits.  We believe this presents a real risk of attracting trainees or apprentices that are not actually in it for the training but just to secure their benefits.  

“High quality apprenticeships of the type that the government is exhorting businesses to create require high quality candidates, not conscripts….!

“If the Government wants to achieve its goal of 3 million apprenticeships in 5 years, 50,000 new apprenticeships need to be created every single month.  Making the task even more challenging is the fact that young people will soon have to be in education or training until they are 18, which means that schools will inevitably be reluctant to release all but the least academically able students into vocational training, which is not what business needs. Furthermore, the desperate lack of careers advice in schools will make it extremely difficult for candidates and their families to make reasoned choices.

“We fervently hope George Osborne tackles some, if not all, of these challenges in tomorrow’s Summer Budget.”

Steve Nash will be available on Wednesday 8th July to provide comment following the Summer Budget.