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Apprenticeships (EAC Report)

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, and his committee for producing this excellent report on a very important topic. Rightly, it was critical of the Government for their failure to develop a set of coherent initiatives and to carry them through consistently and with consistency over time. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, that the answers that we have had from the Government in their response are very disappointing. In most cases, they merely repeat the initiatives that the Government are already making and in no way respond to the criticisms in the report. At this point, I declare an interest. I am a member of the Guildford College Corporation, which is involved in work-based learning and, in that sense, in training apprentices. At present, apprenticeship is in essence, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Layard, training on the job, which combines earning and learning with a career progression pathway. As my noble friend Lady Garden pointed out, in medieval times the guild system was the main form of training by which those seeking to become craftsmen made their way into a profession. Here, perhaps I disagree slightly with the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, but it seems to me that the system survived the Industrial Revolution to provide the main distinction between skilled and unskilled and semi-skilled craftsmen. Quite a few of our leaders of industry in the 20th century rose to that position through the apprenticeship system. However, in England, unlike in much of northern Europe, it did not survive the post-Industrial Revolution. In 1975, there were 400,000 apprentices in the UK, many of them on five-year or even seven-year apprenticeships. By the early 1990s, this number had dropped to fewer than 100,000, and that led to the introduction of the modern apprenticeship programme. This was to be a three-year post-16 training programme, rather like the one in Germany mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, leading to a vocational qualification judged to be equivalent to A-level. Sadly, this proved to be too difficult for most of those entering the new programme and, in 2000, the intermediate, or level 2 NVQ, qualification was introduced. Today, of the 250,000 studying for modern apprenticeships, three-fifths are doing the one-year level 2 training and only 100,000 the full three-year level 3 training, in spite of the fact that, as came through very clearly in the evidence received by the committee, most commentators agree that the level 3 qualification is required to confer full craftsman status and that it is at this level of skilled craftsman or technician that Britain’s key skills shortages lie. Why do we find ourselves in this position? The committee pinpointed a large number of issues but perhaps I may start with the two identified by the noble Lord, Lord Layard. The first is the fact that for the past 40 or 50 years the secondary school curriculum in this country has failed to interest or motivate some 50 per cent of young people. In consequence, far too many leave school having been turned off learning and have a totally inadequate command of literacy and numeracy to be able to join the world of work. The Tomlinson proposals for an overarching diploma that offered a mixing and matching of academic and vocational qualifications was supposed to be the answer to this, and Mike Tomlinson worked with a group of experts for two to three years to try to come up with the right answer. Sadly, the Government rejected those proposals and instead have chosen to introduce a separate diploma stream, with specialist diplomas that will be rolled out from September this year and which will provide an alternative practical and vocational option to the GCSE/A-level route. At present, it is not at all clear where apprenticeships lie in relation to those diplomas. In his evidence to the committee, the Minister implied that apprenticeships were a third and different route to qualification. Surely it would be logical to align the two and to make, say, a level 2 diploma the requisite entry point to an apprenticeship. I would like the Minister to clarify the relationship between apprenticeships as the Government see them now and the diploma system that they are introducing. Side by side with the failures of the school system have been the failures of careers guidance. The committee points out that neither teachers nor young people and their parents know what is involved in apprenticeships these days. Many of them assume that apprenticeships are for those who fail GCSEs, yet, when they learn more about them, many young people and their parents are very interested and like the thought of being able to earn and learn and gain substantive qualifications. I pay tribute to the programme being put forward by the Edge group in promoting apprenticeships. Its advertisements on television are opening up the minds of many parents about what is involved in apprenticeships. We need to see more of that kind of initiative. In many respects, as the committee indicated, an apprenticeship should be the career of choice for many students. I was very taken by the evidence of Mr David Sherlock, the Chief Inspector of Adult Learning, when he spoke of his visit to Land Rover. I shall quote the paragraph, because it is very interesting. He said that Land Rover, "““had not only a substantial apprenticeship scheme and a foundation degree scheme, but they got in kids for summer schools from the age of six for a couple of days to be involved in what industry was about, what Land Rover was about and so forth. They had then junior apprenticeships from the age of 14, kids coming in from school a day a week with the company taking all the responsibility for looking after 14-year-olds and the difficulties that are associated with that. By the time young people reached the age of 16, they were enthusiastic about the whole business of working in industry and they were aware of the status of it, they were aware that the experience could be just as enriching and exciting as going to university and they were fully signed up to Land Rover””." That should be the experience of many of the 50 per cent who are failed by the system at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, and I would like to see the development of skills academies for those post-14 because we feel that they could more easily lead to that sort of experience. The Government are reforming the secondary school agenda, they are introducing the new diplomas, they are reorganising the careers service and they are backing the Leitch agenda, which puts employers in the driving seat. Can we be confident that they will now be able to achieve their goal and double the number of people in apprenticeships? The committee rightly expressed reservations about whether we are now in a position to enable young people to have the Land Rover-type experience. The Government response does not answer those reservations. First, as the committee and others have pointed out, there are too many fingers in the pie. The responsibility is split. Now the Government have added to the alphabet soup—the LSC, SSCs, QCA, SSDA and so on—by splitting responsibility between two departments. The split is right down the middle, at the age of 19. Those who are under 19 are dealt with by DCFS and those over 19 are dealt with by DIUS. Who will champion apprenticeships in the face of competition from GCSE and A-levels and these new diplomas? The Minister said that he hopes that the diploma will become the qualification of choice for young people, universities and further education colleges seeking candidates for foundation degrees. Secondly, there are far too many initiatives and no coherent relationship among them. We have already instanced the lack of clarity between diplomas and apprenticeship qualifications. The major initiative now for employers is Train to Gain, with £500 million going in this year. By 2011, the figure will be £1.4 billion. Again, however, it is quite unclear whether Train to Gain comprehends apprenticeships. Indications are that it does not. In his evidence, the Minister stressed that Train to Gain is the upgrading of qualifications for those who are already members of the workforce. If an employer is to be paid for training an employee to gain an NVQ level 2 qualification but not for taking on an apprentice for training for a similar level of qualification, what incentive is there to take on an apprentice? Can the Minister clarify the position? The information issued with the draft legislation on apprenticeships indicates that there will be funding. If so, can the Minister tell us the answer to the question? Thirdly, are the SSCs up to the job? One of the perennial problems with apprenticeships in Britain has been to get sufficient support from employers. Many see this as the classic example of the free rider. Employers are reluctant to spend money on training because they fear that they will lose their trained, skilled craftsmen to the unscrupulous employers who spend nothing and then poach from those who have spent, so we end up with no one being prepared to invest in training. This was the logic that led to the levy grant system, which was not popular, so instead we tried to develop institutions that instil a training ethos into employers. In the late 1980s, we had the local TECs and the NTOs. We then replaced those with the employer-led local LSCs and the SSCs. Now we have Leitch, the training pledge and Train to Gain, with the SSCs being elevated to a role where they are entrusted both with enthusing their sectors with a training ethos and with the role of setting and accrediting standards. There are two questions to ask. First, are employers up to providing the training places? The noble Lord, Lord Layard, was enthusiastic about this solution, but experience shows that it is extremely difficult to gain training places from employers, even though they are key players. Secondly, as the committee suggested, there are problems relating to whether the SSCs are up to the role that will be imposed on them in both enthusing and accrediting. Some SSCs can and undoubtedly will live up to this role, but others may struggle. Fourthly, there is the unclear role of brokers. This was one of the committee’s main criticisms, which has been mentioned by others. Then there is the problem of standards. The committee detailed the sorry story of the technical certificate, which at one point differentiated those with the ordinary NVQ level 2 from those studying for apprenticeship, but was then dropped in favour of the apprenticeship blueprint. But that still leaves the situation very unclear. It is not helped by the fact that, according to evidence, what constitutes a completed apprenticeship in one sector would be seen as only just the beginning of one in another. There surely has to be a clear framework on what constitutes completion at the different levels and incentives for young people and others to progress from one level to another. It is an indictment of the present system that so few progress to the advanced apprenticeship and from advanced apprenticeship to foundation degrees. We are told time and again that all will be solved by the new qualifications framework coming soon from the QCA, but it has been a bit like waiting for Godot. Can the Minister tell us when this new qualifications framework will be published? Will it be based on a system of credit accumulation and transfer, enabling those who are half way through a qualification to transfer to a new base if their work is moved? Will it link the SSCs and the new diploma framework? The story told by this report is a sorry tale of government failures to develop joined-up, coherent initiatives, to think through the consequences of their actions and to carry them through consistently and with consistency over time. As always, part of the blame lies with the inheritance, but after 10 years that argument begins to wear a little thin and much of the inconsistency is of the Government’s own making. Now with the introduction of the new specialist diplomas in schools and with the Leitch agenda for skills dominating the industrial scene, it is argued that we are entering a new era. I have suggested that an apprenticeship ought to be the career of choice for many young people, as it is in Germany, the Netherlands and much of Scandinavia. Is that likely to be the case? Have the Government got it right? I very much doubt it. As I and others have suggested, there are still a lot of questions to be answered and far too many inconsistencies to be ironed out for us to be confident that the future is rosy for apprenticeships.