Collaborating with providers and employers
to deliver quality higher apprenticeships
18th May 2017 – Inside Government
Midland Hotel, Manchester
Speaker: Simon Ashworth
Chief Policy Officer
Association of Employment & Learning Providers (AELP)
@AELPUK & @sashworth80
Association of Employment and
Learning Providers (AELP)
 AELP is a national trade association, representing the interests of
800+ organisations delivering vocational learning, assessment,
sustainable employment and employability support.
 AELP membership includes Independent Training Providers
(ITPs), FE Colleges (FECs), Higher Education Institutions (HEIs),
employers, Awarding Bodies (ABs) and Apprentice Assessment
Organisations (AOs).
 AELP members deliver 76% of England's apprenticeships plus
other skills & employment programmes.
Themes to explore and examine today:
1. The benefits of higher and degree apprenticeships.
2. Delivery models for higher and degree apprenticeships,
including collaboration with employers and with providers.
3. Employer-led apprenticeship standards tailored for companies
in order to best reflect and develop the role of the apprentice.
4. Key risks and challenges of work based learning.
5. How the skills gap can be addressed.
6. Current and future funding landscape.
Defining the Apprenticeship Reforms: Richard
Review 2012
 Funding: The way that apprenticeships are funded has changed…
the Apprenticeship Levy and a new co-investment model for nonlevy payers.
 Frameworks to standards: Mid-transition from apprenticeship
frameworks to new employer led apprenticeship standards.
 Delivery: Significant change in the actual make-up of
apprenticeships. Moving to a model of independent third party
End Point Assessment (EPA) for new Apprenticeship standards.
 Governance: Implementation of the new Institute for
Apprenticeships (IfA), formally started last month in April 2017.
The benefits of developing new degree and
further higher apprenticeship programmes.
 Apprenticeships (at all levels) are a central part of government policy and potentially
an important new income stream for new entrants, such as HEIs.
 Apprenticeships can be attractive to non-traditional HEI students, thus providing an
opportunity for degree apprenticeships to support widening participation.
 They offer a way for HEIs to diversify their offer and develop alternatives to
traditional full-time on-campus study and utilise their existing infrastructure.
 Degree apprentices are likely to be highly employable, having benefited from
studying a course tailored to sector needs, and several years of workplace
experience with the latest skills and knowledge for that sector.
 Degree apprenticeships can help develop new employer relationships and cement
existing ones. We’ve seen some behaviour of employers in Financial Services already
switching from graduate recruitment programmes to degree apprenticeships.
Examples of developing delivery models and
approaches
1.
Direct full end-to-end delivery.
2.
Co-delivery/co-design: work-based / class-based split
 Provider (FEC or ITP) / HEI
 Employer / HEI
 Employer / HEI / Provider (FEC / ITP)
3.
HEI accredited: Provider delivery > HEI accreditation.
4.
Subcontracting > Supporting, Delivery and Primes.
5.
Supply chain management / Prime contractor model
Being employer-led not employer focused.
 Key to engage employers early in the process, ensuring that their needs and
requirements are fully understood up front.
 Understand what the demand for a degree apprenticeship looks like through use of LMI
on priority sectors, skills shortages and other labour market trends. Engage with
strategically important employers and work closely with LEPs and other key
stakeholders.
 Deliver programmes in a flexible way that meet individual employer needs. This may
mean delivering the same programme by different methods (block, day release, face-toface, blended etc…) for different employers.
 Consider how best to co-ordinate degree apprenticeship activity across your business.
 Due to the relatively new nature of degree apprenticeship there is a clear role for HEIs
to help make employers and learners aware of degree apprenticeships and to assist in
providing IAG.
 Many HEIs are significant levy paying employers in their own right…
Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
 Engage employers early in the design process – “by employers, for employers”
 Build on existing employer relationships.
 Process and programme mapping, bringing academics and employers
together; be clear about the expertise that both bring.
 Consider delivery mechanisms carefully; ensure they are relevant for
employers and learners. Important to consider the 20% off-the-job
requirement in all new standards.
 Share good practice with other HEIs, engage with national trade bodies such
as AELP to and develop policy and programme implementation.
 Talk to established providers who already have a wealth of experience in
delivering apprenticeships.
 Work with schools to promote the benefits of degree apprenticeships to
learners and their parents who are often the key decision makers.
Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
 In work based learning employers are generally used to “roll-on,
roll-off” provision and expect a level of flexibility. Case study:
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Well known and internationally recognised blue-chip household brand.
Annual Apprenticeship Levy circa £500k, starting in May 2017.
Expecting to spend their levy and keen to utilise existing legacy funding.
Wanted to recruit a cohort of 15 Level 6 Chartered Managers.
15 @ £27,000 = £405k of potential revenue, all on one site.
Wanted to start pre-May and utilise Trailblazer £2:1 methodology.
Approached 3 ESFA prime HEIs, all offered a September in-take.
Employer approached an ITP in March, provision commenced in April.
Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
 Clear thought and timetabling into recruitment and
recruitment windows to meet the needs of employers.
 New programmes need be more than simply the
adaptation and accreditation of existing degree offer for
funding purposes.
 The Apprenticeship Levy should be marketed as an
opportunity not just a cost!
Collaboration and Challenges
Typically many HEIs will have little experience of the requirements around funding,
reporting and quality assurance of apprenticeship programmes and they often do not fit
easily with existing HEI and reporting or the degree apprenticeship model.
Quality Assurance:
• Ofsted responsible for levels 2 through to 5.
• HEFCE and QAA statutory responsibility for levels 6 and 7.
• HEIs need to be aware of the requirements, challenges and risks of dipping below
degree level and into higher apprenticeship programmes.
Data Returns:
 Apprenticeship funding returns regardless of level will need to be submitted through
the ILR to the ESFA each month. Existing providers have lots of experience of
apprenticeship delivery and are well placed to work with HEIs (and new entrants) to
support them to meet the administrative requirements with the ESFA.
The changing role of the provider in supporting
employers in filling their skills gaps.
Under the regime change is required, and required quickly...
 Employers will be in the driving seat.
 Funding is being channelled through employers.
 Employers are leading on developing new programmes they
want and they require, including new technical and professional
skills.
 Employers have the ability to stop funding to providers.
Changes are putting the employer in the centre of the process…
The changing role of the provider in supporting
employers in filling their skills gap.
What does this mean to providers?
 Need a higher quality of service.
 Need to be more responsive.
 Need to develop new programmes.
 Need to upskill their own staff or recruit talent with new skills.
 Need to properly understand their individual employers’ needs.
 Provide a service, not a product led approach.
 Recruitment services for all age apprenticeships (Funding driven)
Key risks and challenges
 Many of the larger employers are interested in higher level and
degree Apprenticeships. This is not the current space for existing
mainstream providers.
 Nick Bowles famously told the FE Colleges: “Don’t let private
providers steal your lunch…” many established providers will have
this view of HEIs! Trade-off between collaboration and competition.
 Lack of consistency in regards judgements on quality of training:
 Ofsted responsible for levels 2 through to 5.
 HEFCE and QAA statutory responsibility for levels 6 and 7.
 HEIs need to be aware of the requirements, challenges and risks of
dipping below degree level and into higher apprenticeship programmes.
Key risks and challenges
 Requirement for a 20% off-the-job training commitment from
employers and the cost for providers to develop and deliver this.
 Many candidates undertaking an apprenticeship are more suited to
vocational programmes. It will be vital the HEIs develop
programme and the supporting curriculum that meets the needs of
apprentices and not just the employer.
 There are a number of commercial providers moving into the Level
6 and Level 7 space offering shorter and more blended programmes
than seen offered by many HEIs.
 New world measures of success for Standards? Overall and Timely?
Risk of completing the Degree, but not the Apprenticeship.
Skills gaps? Building a coherent skills escalator.
Not all gaps start at high levels – the importance of well planned and coherent
career pathways:
Management
Team Leader – Level 3 Advanced
Operational Manager – Level 5 Higher
Chartered Manager – Level 6 Degree
Senior Leader – Level 7 Degree
TBC – Level 8
Accountancy
Book-keeper (?) - Level 2
Assistant Accountant - Level 3
Professional Accounting Technician - Level 4
Professional Accountant – Level 6/7 (?)
Significant relaxation on
candidate eligibility. Ability to
retrain, regardless of prior
attainment.
Availability of Funding….
AELP positon: welcome the principle of the levy and the
commitment of employer contributions, but 16-18 Apprenticeships
should remain as a fully funded commitment by government.
Levy-employers (2% of market)
 In essence, the underpinning methodology of the skills system is
that underspend washes through and forms part of the 90%
government co-investment for non-levy paying employers.
 Growing concerns about the planned consumption of a number
of levy paying employers and the wider implications this.
 Lack of awareness of the “double lock” requirements around levy.
Availability of Funding….
Non-levy paying employers (98% of market)
 Pause in procurement to the ITT for non-levy allocations.
 New prime contractor allocations (May-December 2017) for new
non-levy starts.
 Limited funding in allocations.
 Very significant impact on existing subcontractors.
 Early July growth point.
 Separate carryover allocations for apprentices who started prior
to May 2017 and ESFA commitment to fund all those on
programme.
Availability of Funding… finally what's on the horizon?
 All employers move to the TAS. No further allocations systems and
truly a system of employer choice.
 Awareness of the different levers and mechanisms to manage
future funding flows:
£3m levy threshold.
0.5% apprenticeship levy.
Standards and frameworks funding band allocations.
Co-investment methodology (90:10)
24 months levy period.
% of funding levy paying employers get to spend.
Questions
Simon Ashworth
AELP Chief Policy Officer
@sashworth80
@AELPUK
[email protected]