The apprenticeships programme: progress review Contents

2Apprenticeship training and assessment

Quality of training providers

24.Ofsted inspected 113 established training providers in 2017/18 and rated 58% of them as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ for their apprenticeship training.48 We note that this compares poorly with schools, 86% of which are rated good or outstanding.49 Because the good and outstanding apprenticeship training providers were generally training larger numbers of apprentices, around a third of apprentices recorded at the time of inspection were being trained in providers rated as ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’.50 Ofsted prioritises its monitoring and inspection activity to focus on providers that it considers to be higher risk, so its inspection ratings may not be representative of all providers.51

25.Over 30% of apprentices fail to complete their apprenticeship successfully each year. In 2016/17, this equated to more than 132,000 apprentices.52 Since 2014/15, a growing proportion of training providers have fallen below national minimum standards for their apprenticeship achievement rates. When the ESFA intervenes with providers that are under-performing, it initially issues additional conditions of funding or additional contractual obligations, or both. In most cases, the provider is required to develop and implement an improvement plan in order to avoid more serious sanction. In the most serious cases, the ESFA may terminate providers’ contracts, but it has taken this step with only 11 providers in the past five years. For example, in 2016/17, the ESFA terminated the contracts of five out of 737 providers.53

26.The Department acknowledged that it was not satisfied with the overall quality of training providers. The ESFA told us that it had taken steps to improve its register of apprenticeship training providers. It had strengthened the criteria that providers had to meet to get onto the register and existing providers had to re-apply. The ESFA also highlighted that, since January 2018, it had been able to remove from the register, with no questions asked, providers that received an Ofsted rating of inadequate. Inadequate providers were therefore no longer able to provide apprenticeship training. The ESFA explained that it also worked closely with Ofsted to share intelligence about providers in real time.54

Assessment arrangements

27.As part of an apprenticeship standard, each apprentice is assessed by an independent third-party at the end of their apprenticeship, to determine whether they are occupationally competent.55 However, the ESFA’s register of assessment organisations indicates that, in late 2018, there were 19 standards (with a total of 1,600 apprentices on them) that did not have assessment organisations in place, and 98 standards (with a total of 18,300 apprentices) which had only one assessment organisation.56

28.The ESFA told us that there were 220 approved assessment organisations, which between them covered over 99% of the 140,000 apprentices that it expected would require an end-point assessment in the next 12 months. The ESFA also explained that the availability of bodies to assess apprentices varied between sectors—some sectors had numerous assessment organisations, but 130 of the 220 approved organisations worked only in one particular sector or setting. The ESFA said that it knew where the gaps were and was working to address them. It was confident that all apprentices would be assessed at the end of their apprenticeship.57

29.However, Sunderland College told us that, for many of the standards that they were encouraged to deliver, there were no assessment organisations in place. It also referred to an assessment organisation withdrawing from its contract close to the end of an apprenticeship. This may lead to logistical problems for training providers and employers, and unnecessary delays for apprentices.58

30.Each apprenticeship standard also has a quality assurance body which is responsible for ensuring that the assessment of apprentices is fair, consistent and robust. A range of different bodies are involved in providing quality assurance, but it is not clear whether they all provide a consistent level of assurance. For example, one of the bodies—Ofqual—is a regulator and therefore has greater powers than other quality assurance bodies.59

31.The ESFA confirmed that the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education was responsible for the quality assurance regime, and that the two organisations were working together to simplify the arrangements. It was also liaising with Ofqual and the Office for Students about the arrangements for higher-level apprenticeships specifically. The Department said that it was working on the most efficient way of assuring the quality of end-point assessments and would report on that in due course.60

48 C&AG’s Report, paras 22, 3.24

49 Q 124; The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills 2017/18, para 29