Agenda item

Purpose of the Report:

This report provides an overview of how Surrey County Council’s is fulfilling its responsibilities in respect of the Apprenticeship Levy which was introduced by Central Government in April 2017. The report focuses on the Council’s internal apprenticeships training programme and does not consider the wider picture among Surrey employers

Declarations of Interests:

None

Witnesses:

Lien Cross, Consultant – Organisational Development, Surrey County Council

Joy Hurman, Lead Consultant – Learning and Development, Surrey County Council

Mary Lewis, Cabinet Member for All Age Learning

Luis Moore, Apprentice (Recruitment Team), Surrey County Council

Key points raised during the discussion:

1. An introduction to the report was provided by officers who highlighted that apprenticeships would support Surrey County Council (the Council) to develop and retain a skilled and flexible workforce capable of responding to future changes in local authority service delivery. Apprenticeships also created opportunities for staff by providing a framework for the whole workforce to undertake relevant qualifications helping to raise knowledge and aspirations. Members were informed about the “Vision for Apprenticeships 2020” which outlined the UK Government’s aspirations to increase apprenticeships nationally through a 0.5% levy on all employers in the UK with an annual pay bill in excess of £3 million. As part of the Apprenticeship Reforms, the Council is required to pay £2,040,000 annually into the Levy and has a target to employ over 600 apprentices per year across the Council and local authority maintained schools. The Committee was reminded that information contained within the report was orientated specifically towards the Council’s internal apprenticeship recruitment.

Rose Thorn arrived at the meeting at 10:10am

2. The Committee heard that factors such as the recruitment freeze as well as the Council’s Transformation Programme had impacted on the ability of services to recruit apprentices and that this would continue to cause challenges over the coming months. Members were informed, however, that it was important to ensure the right structures were in place to support recruitment and retention of apprentices by ensuring effective linkages between services within the Council and improving collaboration with external partners. An Apprenticeships Task Force had been convened to establish the structures required to ensure that the Council was in a position to recruit and retain apprenticeships once there was greater stability across services.

3. The Committee asked how the Council would measure success in delivering against its Apprenticeship Strategy. Officers highlighted that recouping the money committed to the Levy and delivering against the Council’s Public Sector Target for annual apprenticeship starts would collectively provide a good barometer of success in delivery against the Council’s Apprenticeships Strategy. Members heard that it was also important to ensure the Council was able to keep apprentices once they had completed their training to ensure that the skills and knowledge they had developed were retained in-house. The Council was in the process of gathering evidence to understand what made a good apprenticeship to inform is own training offer.

4.     Clarity was sought by the Committee on the number of apprentices that were employed by the Council. Members were advised that the Council employed 371 apprentices who were each at different stages of their training. Members heard that funding drawn-down from the Levy could only be spent on training costs and not on salaries pre-apprenticeship programmes.

5.     Members asked whether there was potential to collaborate with partner organisations through the Levy to establish apprenticeships. Officers indicated that 10% of the Council’s Levy funding has been made available to partner organisations for the 2018/19 financial year and that this would be increased to 25% from next year. None of the funding which had been made available to partner organisations had been used, however, due to the fact that many were already struggling to spend their own allocation. Officers did, however, highlight a rotational apprenticeship pilot that the Council was undertaking with Virgin Care which had provided a blueprint for how the Council could work with other organisations to deliver training for apprentices.

6.     Discussions turned to poor perceptions of apprenticeships and how attitudes could be changed to improve uptake of apprenticeship training qualifications. Officers stated that attitudes had begun to change regarding apprenticeships fuelled in part by the debt associated with completing a degree and the fact that apprentices earned a salary during their training. Despite this there was still pressure to go to university which was a better known and more established route for young people to enter the labour market. Better advertising was required to build awareness of what apprenticeships could offer and create parity of esteem with university degrees.

7. The Committee asked about the role of Ofsted in promoting and encouraging apprentices as a career path for school leavers. Members were advised that the measures used by Ofsted to judge success acted as a disincentive for teachers to promote apprenticeships to students as Ofsted took into account the number of pupils that attended university when forming a judgement.

8. Further information was sought on how the Council ensured that its apprentices received high quality training from providers. Members heard that providers had to be evaluated by the Institute of Apprentices before they could offer qualifications funded through the Levy. The Council also had its own quality assurance processes in place which included quarterly review meetings with all of its training providers as well as mechanisms for both apprentices and providers to report problems to the Learning and Development Team for resolution.

9. Members asked whether there was an opportunity for the Council to offer apprenticeships for people living with learning disabilities. Officers stated that new criteria introduced by the Government which required all those who had their apprenticeship training funded through the Levy to have certain pre-existing English and Maths qualifications had put people with learning disabilities at a disadvantage but that extensive lobbying was taking place by a number of groups to rescind these requirements.

10. The Committee highlighted that there appeared to be a particular problem in recruiting and retaining staff within schools and asked whether the Levy could be an opportunity to address these challenges. Members were advised that schools had had challenges in engaging with the Apprenticeship Levy due to a lack of apprenticeship standards that were relevant to schools. This was a national problem which had been recognised by organisations such as the Local Government Association (LGA) who had highlighted the need for relevant apprenticeship standards to be introduced for schools.

11. Attention was drawn to references within the report which highlighted variation across services and directorates to the recruitment and training of apprentices. The Committee sought clarity on how the Council would seek to promote apprenticeships among managers and empower them to commit the time required to train apprentices. Members were informed that the attitude of managers was vital to the recruitment of apprentices. To this end the Learning and Development Team would shortly embark on an apprenticeship roadshow which aimed to highlight the benefit of apprentices and demonstrate how to conduct good training. The Committee also heard that there were models of good practice within the Council such as in the Library Service as well as in the Surrey Adult Learning Team.

12. Members asked whether the Council had sought to identify and implement best practice from other local authorities. Officers highlighted that the Council went out to procurement jointly for training providers with Brighton and Hove City Council, East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council which had provided insights into how apprenticeship training is provided at other local authorities. Officers had also reviewed Hampshire County Council’s apprenticeship training separately to identify and take forward best practise.

13. Members sought clarity on how the Apprenticeship Task Force would actually address the key challenges confronted by the Council in recruiting and retaining apprentices. Officers stated that the Task Force would produce an Action Plan that would be submitted for consideration by the Adults and Lifelong Learning Select Committee at its meeting on 13 February 2019. 

RESOLVED:

That the Adults and Lifelong Learning Select Committee:

i.       welcomes the formation of an Apprenticeship Task Force and recommends that it produces an action plan which outlines specific steps that the Council will take to improve retention of qualified apprentices, enhance the perception of apprenticeships among residents and partners and embed higher apprenticeship Level standards across the Council (Recommendation: R1/18);

ii.      requests that the Task Force submits its action plan to the Committee for consideration at its meeting on 13 February 2019 including an update on those specific areas identified in recommendation I (Recommendation: R2/18);

iii.     supports the decision to exclude apprenticeship positions from the recruitment freeze currently in place at Surrey County Council; and recommends that the Cabinet Member writes to the Minister of State for School Standards to encourage Ofsted to include apprenticeships within their measures of success for assessing school performance (Recommendation: R3/18).