The LGA welcomes the Government’s ambitious commitment to create three million new apprenticeships by 2020. However we have significant concerns about the proposed policy approach to achieve it.
The LGA welcomes the Government’s ambitious commitment to create three million new apprenticeships by 2020. However we have significant concerns about the proposed policy approach to achieve it. National targets are being imposed on a reducing local government workforce and it is a missed opportunity not to have given councils a key role to commission provision using local Apprenticeship Levy contributions.
It is disappointing that the Government has chosen not to utilise the significant wider economic development role that local authorities are increasingly playing in creating and attracting apprentices in their area: as employers, working with local businesses both large and small, and through their contracting arrangements as a major purchasers of goods and services.
Councils should have a formal commissioning role in the apprenticeship system. Local partnerships, led by employers and supported by local authorities, should be allowed to target funding to increase the quality of apprenticeships and target employers and residents with the most to gain from the Apprenticeship Levy and any remaining public resources.
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