Delivering his keynote speech at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today, Sir Keir Starmer announced new apprenticeship reforms to ‘boost opportunities for young people’.
As part of this, a new growth and skills levy will come in to replace the existing apprenticeship levy. The new levy will allow funding for shorter apprenticeships. Under the existing levy, training must run for at least 12 months.
To fund this, employers are being asked to ‘rebalance’ their funding for apprenticeships, asking them to invest in younger workers.
The Department for Education has said it will set out further details on what training is covered and how it will be accessed in ‘due course’.
The Foundation apprenticeships will be for learners that are ‘not ready’ for Level 2 or 3.
The Prime Minister said, ‘We’ve got to give businesses more flexibility to adapt to real training needs and also unlock the pride, the ambition, the pull of the badge of the shirt that young people feel when building a future, not just for themselves but for their community.’
Skills England, the Government’s new body for the skills system, has also published its inaugural report. It provides an initial assessment of the nation’s working skills, as well as future skills needs and gaps which employers are struggling with across the country.
