Adult apprenticeships : eighty-fourth report of session 2010-12, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills works with the Skills Funding Agency (the Agency) and the National Apprenticeship Service (the Service), to deliver the Apprenticeship Programme.

Adult apprentices represented 325,500, or 71%, of the 457,200 apprentices who started their apprenticeship in the 2010/11 academic year.

During the 2010-11 financial year the Department spent GBP451 million on adult apprenticeships.

The Programme has been a success more than quadrupling the number of adult apprenticeships in the four years to 2010/11 and the proportion of adult apprentices successfully completing their apprenticeship has also risen, from around a third in 2004/05 to over three-quarters in 2010/11.

Further work, however, needs to be done to maximise its impacts.

The Department should improve its understanding of which apprenticeships offer the biggest returns.

The Service should give both employers and individuals better information about the benefits arising from different types of apprenticeship, as well as about the quality of the many training providers. The Service should do more to increase the number of employers offering apprenticeships, and to increase the proportion of advanced skill level apprenticeships achieved, moving England closer to the levels delivered in other European countries.

Importantly, around one in five apprenticeships lasted for six months or less.

The Service accepts concern that apprenticeships lasting for such a short period are of no proper benefit to either individuals or employers.

The Service says it is tackling the problem but it needs to do more to guarantee the length and quality of training -especially the off-the-job training apprentices receive