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Written question asked by Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 2 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 4 February 2010. It was answered by Lord Brennan of Canton (Labour) on Monday, 22 February 2010 on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Apprentices: East Sussex

Question
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many small and medium-sized businesses in (a) Lewes constituency and (b) East Sussex are employing apprentices.
Answer

Record numbers of people are taking up and achieving an apprenticeship. Table 1 shows the number of apprenticeship starts in Lewes parliamentary constituency, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove local authorities.

Table 1: Apprenticeship starts, Lewes parliamentary constituency, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove local authorities (2003/04 to 2008/09)
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09
Lewes parliamentary constituency 240 240 230 210 280 280
East Sussex local authority 1,500 1,500 1,400 1,400 1,800 2,000
Brighton and Hove local authority 600 700 700 600 700 800
Notes:
1. Parliamentary constituency volumes are rounded to the nearest 10. Local authority figures are rounded to the nearest 100.
2. Parliamentary constituency and local authority are based upon the home postcode of the learner.
3. Information is not currently available on the size of the employer for apprentices. For the 2009/10 academic year, this information will become available on the ILR when a unique employer identifier will have to be provided by all employers of apprentices.
Source:
WBL/ER Individualised Learner Record

We can provide an estimate of the size of employers, nationally, that offer and have recruited apprentices from the National Employers Skills Survey (NESS). These data are based on repeated surveys of up to 79,000 employers across all business sectors in England. Table 2 shows information from the published 2007 National Employer Skills survey¹ on the number of organisations that had any staff undertaking an apprenticeship in the 12 months prior to interview, by size of employer.

Table 2: Percentage of employers that had any staff undertaking an apprenticeship over the previous 12 months (NESS 2007)
Percentage
All employers 8
Number of employees of employer
2-4 5
5-24 10
25-99 15
100-199 18
200-499 25
500+ 33
¹ http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-nessurvey2007mainreport-may08.pdf
accessed on 4 February 2010.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
506 c279-80W; 315760
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Apprentices East Sussex
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk