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21 July 2009 : Column 1674W—continued
Over the past few years we have focused public funding away from a high number of short, and poor quality courses towards longer and more valuable courses providing adults with the skills for employment and further progression in learning. This resulted in the reduction in the overall number of LSC funded adult learners between 2004/05 and 2006/07, but has led to significant increases in Skills for Life literacy and numeracy and full level 2 qualification achievements.
Adult Learning Grant
Mr. Laws: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people in each age group received an adult learning grant in the latest year for which figures are available. [287526]
Kevin Brennan: The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) for England administers the adult learning grant (ALG) nationally on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The ALG is specifically aimed at economically active adults who do not have at least a level 2 qualification but are working. Cost can often be a barrier to learning for those on low incomes and ALG is designed to help meet those additional costs.
To date in 2008/09 29,794 individuals have received an ALG payment. This can be broken down into the following age ranges:
| Age range | ALGs awarded and paid |
Advantage West Midlands: Finance
Bill Wiggin: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what funding his Department allocated to Advantage West Midlands in each of the last five years; and what funding his Department will provide to Advantage West Midlands in each future year for which provision has been made. [288037]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The budget allocations made to Advantage West Midlands (AWM) in the last five years are shown in the following table.
| Budget allocations (£ million) | |
AWM's budget allocation for 2009-10 is £295 million, and they have indicative allocations for 2010-11 of £212 million.
Apprentices
Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps his Department plans to take to increase the number of apprenticeships. [279349]
Kevin Brennan: We are taking a wide range of steps to encourage more people to take up apprenticeships and to encourage more employers to offer high quality places. Government are already committed to increasing spending on apprentices in 2009-10 to over £1 billion. At a time of economic downturn it is vital that we continue to invest in people and their skills. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister announced a £140 million package for 35,000 additional apprenticeship places, of which at least 21,000 will be in the public sector.
In May we announced an £11 million investment to provide 3,000 additional apprenticeship places for young people. This new approach will see large employers expanding existing apprenticeship programmes and allow small businesses to benefit from the expertise of companies which have been training apprentices for some time. We also announced a £7 million fund for up to 10 new apprenticeship training agencies this year, with the potential to deliver up to 15,000 apprenticeship places per year by 2014-15. The funding will also be available to help develop and expand new or existing group training associations, which can help attract new and hard to reach employers and new individuals to become apprentices.
We have now established the new national apprenticeship service to provide a single point of contact for employers and apprentices. A key part of this service is the new online system for apprenticeship vacancy matching, which is already proving successful in bringing together employers and prospective apprentices.
We are also putting in place procedures to use the public procurement process to encourage companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises, with access to Government-funded contracts to offer apprenticeships. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Office of Government Commerce jointly published new guidance in April this year (promoting skills through public procurement) on how to embed skills and training in procurements.
We want apprenticeships to be a mainstream option for young people and are taking forward a range of measures, as part of our 16-18 apprenticeships action plan, to increase the number of apprenticeships available for 16-18 year-olds. The Children, Skills and Learning Bill, includes provisions to ensure that an apprenticeship place is available for all suitably qualified young people by 2013.
Stephen Williams: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much he expects his Department to spend on level four apprenticeships in each of the next five years. [286796]
Kevin Brennan: The budget for apprenticeships is not separated according to the level of the framework undertaken. The total budget available for apprenticeships for 2009-10 is £1,098 million.
The budget for 2010-11 has not yet been agreed but will be published towards the end of this calendar year, and budgets for the following years will be agreed in line with our commitment to ensure that an apprenticeship place is available for all qualified young people by 2013. Over time, as we encourage the development of more level four apprenticeship frameworks, we would expect that more people will progress from level three apprenticeships to develop these higher level skills.
Stephen Williams: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many level four apprenticeships have been (a) started and (b) completed in each year since 2001. [286797]
Kevin Brennan: The first level four apprenticeship starts were in 2006-07, when these higher level frameworks were introduced. In 2006-07, there were 90 level four apprenticeship starts, with 60 in 2007-08, the latest full year for which we have data. Due to the length of these programmes, as of 2007-08, there are no recorded completions of level four apprenticeships.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people aged between 16 and 24 years started an apprenticeship in each region in the period (a) September 2007 to July 2008 and (b) September 2008 to July 2009. [287751]
Kevin Brennan: Table 1 shows the number of apprenticeship starts for 16 to 24-year-olds, by region. Data are shown for the 2007/08 academic year (1 August to 31 July), and the first nine months of the 2008/09 year (1 August to 30 April). Apprenticeship starts for the whole of the 2008/09 academic year are due to be published later in 2009 in a statistical first release (SFR)-the next post-16 education and skills SFR is due to be published in October 2009.
| Table 1: Apprenticeship starts, 16 to 24-year-olds | ||
| Government office region | 2007/08 (1 August to 31 July) | 2008/09 (1 August to 30 April), part-year, provisional |
| Notes: 1. Data have been rounded to the nearest hundred, and may not sum to totals due to rounding. 2. Region is based on learner's home postcode. 3. 'Other' includes unknown postcodes, and those outside of England. 4. The data shown include a small number of learners below 16 years of age. 5. Age is calculated based on age at start of the programme. | ||
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people went on to higher education after completing an apprenticeship in each year since 1997. [287752]
Kevin Brennan: Information on the destinations of apprenticeships is not routinely collected in administrative data.
However, there are other sources of information which give an indication of the progression of apprenticeship completers to higher education. One such source is a report published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in May 2009, "Pathways to Higher Education":
The report states that 5 per cent. of those who completed an apprenticeship in 2002/03 had progressed to some form of higher education by 2006/07 (or by 2005/06 for those progressing to work-based HE).
A greater proportion of apprentices who completed an advanced (level 3) programme progressed to HE: 6 per cent. compared to 4 per cent. of those who completed a level 2 apprenticeship.
The analysis excluded a minority of apprenticeship completers, who are discussed in the report.
We do want to see much greater progression from apprenticeships into higher education. That is why in World Class Apprenticeships the Government set out their commitment to apprenticeships being a route to higher education where desired, and we have recently consulted on our proposal that all advanced apprenticeships should be accredited with UCAS tariff points.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people aged (a) between 16 and 24 years and (b) 25 years and over stopped claiming jobseeker's allowance in order to start an apprenticeship in each year since 1997. [287753]
Kevin Brennan: My Department, the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus do not currently hold data on the number of jobseeker's allowance claimants leaving the benefit to start an apprenticeship.
At present, DWP do not hold information regarding specific training destinations of jobseeker's allowance leavers. The Integrated Employment and Skills Programme Unit is currently working to link data sets held by DWP and BIS which will allow us to identify the specific training destinations of jobseeker's allowance claimants in the future.
The Integrated Employment and Skills Service is being developed jointly by DWP and BIS to implement the Government's response to the Leitch Review. The new integrated system will allow everyone to easily access information, advice and guidance to help them progress in their careers and be flexible and responsive to the different demands of individuals and employers.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people aged between 16 and 24 years started an apprenticeship in (a) construction, (b) manufacturing, (c) health and beauty, (d) engineering, electrician and building services and (e) other sectors in the period (i) September 2007 to July 2008 and (ii) September 2008 to July 2009. [287754]
Kevin Brennan: Tables 1 and 2 show the number of apprenticeship starts for 16 to 24-year-olds by all frameworks for the 2007/08 academic year (1 August to 31 July), and the first nine months of the 2008/09 year (1 August to 30 April), respectively. Apprenticeship starts for the whole of the 2008/09 academic year are due to be published later in 2009 in a statistical first release (SFR)-the next post-16 education and skills SFR is due to be published in October 2009.
Copies of these tables have been provided and the relevant data will be placed in the Library.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many and what percentage of apprentices were unemployed 12 months after completing their apprenticeship in each year since 1997. [287755]
Kevin Brennan: An apprenticeship is a work-based programme and an apprentice must have a job or a work placement as a condition of completing their apprenticeship framework. Many will already be in permanent employment prior to the end of their apprenticeship.
Information on the destination of apprentices upon completion of their apprenticeship is not readily available. This type of information will in future be collected using the Framework for Excellence learner destination survey with the first results for all further education colleges and work based learning providers available later in 2009. The survey will be conducted nine months after the end of the academic year and so will not relate exactly to 12 months after the completion of the apprenticeship.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills pursuant to the answer of 25 June 2009, Official Report, column 1124W, on apprentices, what the most recent figures are for the number of apprenticeship vacancies (a) advertised and (b) filled through the National Apprenticeship Service online vacancy matching system. [287784]
Kevin Brennan: At the end of June 2009, 4,372 vacancies were live on the National Apprenticeship Service online vacancy matching system. A total of 17,588 vacancies have been posted since 12 January 2009 when the system went live. There have been 616 confirmed cases of successful offers made as a result of the service, and a further 2,508 vacancies have current applications.
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills pursuant to the answer of 13 July 2009, Official Report, column 182W, on apprentices, whether all existing learners who have started their training since 1 April 2009 on (a) apprenticeship programmes and (b) Train to Gain courses funded by the Learning and Skills Council will be funded to complete their existing training at the agreed rates. [287785]
Kevin Brennan: The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is responsible for agreeing with each provider the scope for continued recruitment for 2008/09 academic year on apprenticeship programmes and Train to Gain courses.
Where learners start within the 2008/09 academic year the funding rates will continue at the same level for the remainder of the academic year.
For the 2009/10 academic year, funding rates in respect of apprenticeship programmes (for those aged 19 or over) and Train to Gain courses will increase by 1.5 per cent. compared with 2008/09 academic year. The exception to this is the funding rate for learners aged 25 or over starting an apprenticeship programme in 2009/10 academic year. For these learners the funding rate will be 90 per cent. of the uplifted rate.
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