Agenda and draft minutes

Please introduce yourself and outline the roles and responsibilities that your post involves.

I am the Learner Services Director for National Apprenticeships in the South East.  I am responsible for the learner journey and apprenticeships in Kent. The National Apprenticeships Service (NAS) applies in England only, now that Wales and Scotland both have devolved governments.  The NAS is organised in regions, and my region is the whole of the South East.  Its remit is to build up the number of apprenticeships.  To develop this market, we work with employers in companies which employ more than 250 staff, to encourage them to take on an apprentice. We need to galvanise both young people and employers to grow the apprenticeship initiative.  Young people can register online and access an Apprenticeships Vacancy system.  NAS links with KCC and other local authorities to put apprenticeships on the agenda.  Our contacts include the Economic Development teams of local authorities, the Institute of Directors and Chambers of Commerce, and through them we access as many employers as possible.  We keep a database of who in an organisation is the appropriate person to deal with, and we go and visit them to encourage their interest and participation.  Apprenticeships are a proven way to train a workforce.  We work on both sides of the deal – with employers and with potential apprentices. There is a wide range of apprenticeships available.

NAS is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, so we work for central government with agency status.  Our independence helps us to deliver the agenda. We work with partners to help them access funding from the Skills Funding Agency and ensure that it gets to where it is needed.  We fund organisations which support the training of individuals.

There is an expectation that all apprentices will ultimately be employed by their hosts once their apprenticeship ends, and the Apprenticeships Skills and Learning Act of 2010 stressed the need for all apprentices to be employed.  NAS funds the training of an apprentice; it is the employer’s responsibility to take them on at the end of the apprenticeship.

How do you rate the providers? I know Further Education Colleges vary in quality. There are the private providers and people like Kent Association of Training Organisations.  Who does it best?

KATO are not involved in the delivery of services, so your comparison is really between colleges and private providers.  There is no trend which distinguishes between the two groups, but there are differences between providers within each group.  Nationally, the success rate for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year olds is 72.4%, while in Kent it is 71.8%.

How do you measure success?

A successful apprenticeship is one which is successfully completed.  If an apprentice drops out after the sixth week, that is counted as a failed apprenticeship.  If the time is completed but the qualification at the end is failed, then that is counted as a failed apprenticeship.

Are apprenticeships more successful as full-time or part-time  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Please introduce yourself and describe the roles and responsibilities that your post involves.

I am the Chief Executive of Connexions Kent and Medway, a post which I have held since September 2010. I have previously worked with Connexions in Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley.

Connexions is a charitable body which is run on a not-for-profit basis.  Its focus is the delivery of Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) to young people. Connexions has a contract with the KCC, by whom it is commissioned as service provider.  The contract was re-let in 2009 for a 3-year period.   Its brief is extensive – to supply IAG to all young people in Kent, via schools.  It targets particularly those in vulnerable groups (those with Learning Disabilities or Mental Health issues, young offenders, looked after children and care leavers, and teenage mothers).

There is a universal IAG offer, to all young people in Kent between the ages of 13 and 19 (up to 25 if they have Learning Disabilities), and a targeted offer, to those who are at risk of becoming NEET.  The universal offer has been reduced due to cuts in government funding.  We work with all training providers, including schools and colleges, and we are impartial in the advice we give about career paths.

Kent Connexions has work-related learning in its contract. We drew together careers IAG and liaised with employers about work-based learning.  We also did work-related learning, but this has since been removed due to lack of funding.  We now have a challenge about how to pull these threads together. The work-related learning that we used to deliver was made up of work experience and packages which brought employers into schools to give work training.

Under the Connexions contract, every school in Kent has free IAG, and we negotiate annually the number of days each school receives.  This number is calculated taking into account the school population and the percentage of pupils who are likely to become NEET.  We do the same with colleges, to ensure an even spread of IAG availability.

What sort of things should the Select Committee be asking about the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA)/Schools package?

You could ask why YPLA funding was withdrawn at two days’ notice this March, giving no time for a transition period, and where this withdrawal fits with the Wolf review’s support of a switch in work-related learning from under-16 to post-16 next year.  Also, why are current Year 11, 12 and 13 pupils left with no provision, and how are schools meant to address this?

The Wolf report had said that work-related learning was expensive but ineffective, and the government seems to agree with that view.

I agree with Wolf’s view about the switch but there needs to be a transition period.  When we lost out on £600,000 of funding and had to discontinue the service, knowledge was lost as experienced staff were made redundant, but we will need to gather that knowledge together again later to run whatever  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.