Apprenticeships

APP 128

Written evidence submitted by Sheffield Independent Film and Television (SHIFT)

Summary

· Apprenticeships could work across more than one sector skills area e.g. creative and media and business administration to develop much needed transferable skills

· Access to apprenticeship routes are essential for NEET young people

· The creativity and talent of NEET young people is in danger of being lost through lack of development and the changing context of Higher Education i.e. raising of university fees making apprenticeships a viable option for more academically gifted students

· SMEs do not take on apprentices because the time involved supervising an apprentice is costly to a micro-enterprise

· An Apprenticeship Agency would miss the point as to why SMEs do not take on apprentices

· An Apprenticeship Agency could be another layer of publicly funded bureaucracy

· If you want to help SME’s give them a direct subsidy to support an apprentice

Skills Development

1) To succeed in the current employment market young people need flexible and transferable work based skills. Does an apprenticeship framework tied to a specific sector skills council work best at developing a future workforce with transferable skills able to respond to the employer needs of SMEs working in volatile and changing marketplaces.

2) Young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) who have a history of non-achievement in formal education are often talented creatively and able innovate in practical and applied situations. For these young people accessing an apprenticeships is crucial.

3) Apprenticeships could become the pathway of choice for academically gifted young people who in other economic circumstances might choose universities. This has two possible negative consequences:

a. NEET young people are denied a viable pathway to progression through larger employers taking only the best students.

b. Through lack of development the creativity and talent of these NEET young people is lost to employers and the wider community. In an increasingly complex employment market this has the added negative social consequence of creating an unskilled under class.

4) 4b is particularly worrying in relation to the current proposed labelling of young people as being in danger of becoming NEET at the age of eleven.

Supporting SMEs

5) SME’s in Creative and Digital Industries (CDI) do not take on apprentices because they cannot provide the necessary supervision within the company to help the apprentice gain skills. This is to do with time and the complexity of work within a CDI company not the complexity of existing apprenticeship frameworks burdening employers.

6) CDI companies being able to develop apprentices is crucial to companies benefiting from the innovative talent and left field thinking of creative young people

7) Within CDI an Apprenticeship Agency who paid the apprentice and offered the apprentice to employers on a short term basis e.g. 6 weeks would create a centralised bureaucracy. It also misses the point that projects are long in development and delivered in the short term. Production companies have a large number of highly trained freelance people while in production. This is not the point at which they want an apprentice in what would effectively be a shadowing role. The last thing SME’s need is the creation of a publically funded, centralised agency which pressurises them into taking an apprentice at a key point in their companies delivery cycle.

8) To support SME’s in taking on apprentices give SMEs direct support i.e. a subsidy to employ someone on a pro-rata basis to support the apprentice in the work place into a long term work placement and a job opportunity.

14 February 2012