Value for money doubts on apprenticeship expansion

The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns the Government’s target to create 3m apprenticeships “risks increasing quantity at the expense of quality”.

Its report found 44 per cent of new apprentices are already over 25 and ‘apprenticeship’ risks becoming a term to cover any kind of training.

The Government is funding the proposed expansion with a new apprenticeship levy on large employers.

The IFS report highlights figures suggested the knock-on impact will be a reduction in wages paid by firms.

It also argues that the subsidies that will be paid to employers will have to pay 10 per cent at most of off-the-job training costs and will have little incentive to find lower cost providers.

Neil Amin-Smith, one of the report’s authors, said: “We desperately need an effective system for supporting training of young people in the UK.

“But the new apprenticeship levy, and associated targets, risk repeating the mistakes of recent decades by encouraging employers and training providers to relabel current activity and seek subsidy rather than seek the best training.

“There is a risk that the focus on targets will distort policy and lead to the inefficient use of public money.”