Wednesday, 6th August '08
Apprenticeship Summer Campaign
The LSC are committed to expanding and improving Apprenticeships. They are a key component in the drive to increase economic prosperity and a main route to increase participation of young people in education and training.
Apprenticeships in London show a mixed picture. Despite having 14% of England’s population, London provides only 5% of the England’s Apprenticeships. Apprenticeship achievements have risen substantially over the last 4 years from 16% to 53% (new measures). However, this improvement in quality has been at the expense of volume with participation with apprenticeship starts falling by 10% from 10438 in 2004/05, to 9336 in 2006/07. The reduction in apprenticeships starts is higher amongst 16-18 year olds than 19+. Apprenticeships starts for 16-18 years olds fell by 13% from 5786 in 2004/05 to 4991 in 2006/07, while 19+ apprenticeship starts fell by 7% from 4652 to 4345 in the same timeframe
If London is to meet the 16-18 entitlement to an Apprenticeship by 2013, and the government’s expectation that London will be the most improved region in the delivery of apprenticeships, we need to act quickly.
The current route for employers to access information about apprenticeships is via the Learning and Skills Councils contact service, from which they are redirected to SMART. SMART send an initial information pack to the employer and refer their query to an appropriate skills broker. The brokerage services are tasked with taking forward the referrals, however, brokers have little information about Apprenticeship delivery in London and their knowledge of Apprenticeships varies across the capital.
The poor quality of the information, advice and support available to employers, has curtailed the development of apprenticeships specific marketing campaigns in London. To date we have been unable to establish a London specific campaign to raise the awareness of apprenticeships amongst employers.
The Summer Campaign
The aim of the summer campaign is to increase employer supply of Apprenticeships. The campaign would run between May and October, and aim to deliver 200 new Apprenticeship starts.
More specifically the campaign will:
1) Be driven by a direct marketing campaign based primarily on a mixture of telemarketing and direct mail;
2) Focus on sectors where there is capacity for growth and sufficient provider capacity;
3) Provide direct information, advice and support to employers to increase apprenticeship supply
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