The study says many firms have rebranded existing roles after being obliged to contribute cash to on-the-job training. It adds that 40% of government-approved apprenticeship standards do not meet a traditional definition of them.
Firms are entitled to pay apprentices lower than the standard minimum wage. The minimum rates range from £3.70 an hour for anyone in their first year of an apprenticeship to £7.38.
The report says: “As part of the government’s wider package of reforms to apprenticeships, groups of employers came together to write the new ‘apprenticeship standards’.
“Some used this opportunity to generate high-quality standards, but others appear to be simply rebadging low-quality, low-skill and often low-wage roles as ‘apprenticeships’ instead.”
In 2013, the government said apprenticeships had to be skilled roles, requiring substantial and sustained training of at least 12 months, leading to full competency and should provide the apprentice with transferrable skills in an occupation.
But a quick glance at the government’s official apprenticeships website shows many high street firms advertising for apprentices in what appear to be unskilled roles.
Recommendations:
- The target for 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020 should be abandoned so that the focus can be placed on apprenticeship quality above all else
- The Government should introduce a new internationally-benchmarked definition of an ‘apprenticeship’ and any apprenticeship standard that does not meet this definition should be withdrawn
- The requirement for 10 per cent employer co-investment towards the cost of training apprentices should be removed with immediate effect to avoid employers disengaging from apprenticeships
- The Government should replace the existing HMRC digital payment system with a simpler ‘apprenticeship voucher’ model to give employers control of government funding while reducing their administrative burdens
- All apprenticeship standards and end-point assessments for apprentices should be assigned a fixed cost by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to remove the need for complicated price and contract negotiations between employers and both training and assessment providers
- The exam regulator Ofqual should be made the only option for quality assuring the end-point assessments for apprentices to ensure that standards are maintained over time and poor practice is quickly identified and eradicated.