Summary of Government Skills Initiatives
October 6, 2021
Recruit an apprentice is the official government service for posting and managing apprenticeship vacancies and traineeship opportunities in England. The system enables training organisations to post vacancies on behalf of employers to be viewed and applied for by candidates that use our find an apprenticeship service.
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Traineeships are designed for young people aged 16 to 24, who want a job or an apprenticeship but who aren't yet ready, so need to get some work experience first. A traineeship can last from six weeks up to one year but most last less than six months. Trainees spend at least 70 hours on a work placement with an employer. The rest of the time is spent with a training provider learning other work and job search skills, and working on English and maths if you didn't get a grade 4 in these subjects at GCSE. Over half of trainees go on to do an apprenticeship.
Traineeships aren't paid but employers sometimes pay expenses for things like travel and meals. Depending on the circumstances, some young people may get a bursary and their families may continue to get child benefit and child tax credits or part of Universal Credit that is for the trainee.
Almost 400 qualifications are available to take from 1 April - backed by £95 million in government funding in 2021/22 - as part of the government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee. The qualifications on offer range from engineering to social care to conservation and are available to any adult who has not already achieved a qualification at Level 3 (equivalent to A-levels). The Guarantee aims to transform the skills system so everyone, no matter where they live or their background, can gain the skills they need to progress in work at any stage of their lives. It will also ensure employers have access to the skilled workforce they need, and more people are trained for the skills gaps that exist now, and in the future.
As well as the free courses, as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, thousands of adults have taken advantage of new Skills Bootcamps which offer free, flexible courses lasting up to 16 weeks covering areas including construction, digital and technical. Skills Bootcamps – which are currently running in six areas of the country - provide a chance to learn specific skills and offer a fast-track to an interview with a local employer at the end. Skills Bootcamps will be expanded across the country later this year.
Adults who take up the free courses have the potential to boost career prospects, wages and help fill skills gaps, while supporting the economy and building back better. Free courses to help you learn new skills or change jobs. Including general skills that apply to all sectors and more specialised skills.
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The National Careers Service provide information for parents, teachers, employers, coaches and advisers to support others in their career journey and work with organisations, employers and professional bodies to promote the importance of up to date careers guidance.
The Careers and Enterprise Company exists to facilitate a world-class careers education, inspiring and preparing young people for the world of work. Over recent years, they have established the foundations of a new approach to long-standing issues affecting the quality and availability of careers education for young people across England. Their work began with a transformative employer-led programme to connect business with education. Today, they support schools and colleges to deliver world-class careers education, responsive to individual pupil needs and underpinned by the internationally recognised Gatsby Career Benchmarks.
DWP Train and Progress (TaP), a DWP initiative aimed at increasing access to training opportunities for claimants, will see an extension to the length of time people can receive Universal Credit while undertaking work-focused study. Initially available for 6 months, the amount of time Universal Credit claimants can take part in full-time training will extend to up to 12 weeks throughout Great Britain - up from the current 8 weeks.
Institutes of Technology (IoTs) are new employer-focused providers specialising in delivering higher technical education across England. They are collaborations between further education (FE) providers, higher education (HE) providers or universities and employers, delivering a wide range of technical courses in advanced manufacturing, digital and cyber security, agri-tech, aerospace, automotive engineering, healthcare and laboratory science.
The courses cover a range of levels including:
Each Institute of Technology (IoT) starts with a group of local anchor employer partners, who are on the license agreement. However, the number of employers an IoT works with is not limited.
A United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund, specifically designed to reduce inequalities between communities across our four nations. The money that is spent will help deliver sustainable, inclusive growth based on our modern industrial strategy. The method for doing this is “strengthening the foundations of productivity as set out in our modern Industrial Strategy to support people to benefit from economic prosperity”. The role of the Industrial Strategy is heavily emphasised, both at a national and local level, with local areas in England “being asked to prepare Local Industrial Strategies to prioritise long-term opportunities and challenges to increasing local productivity”.
The sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) can support you to create a skilled workforce for your business. Sector-based work academies help prepare those receiving unemployment benefits to apply for jobs in a different area of work. Placements are designed to help meet your immediate and future recruitment needs as well as to recruit a workforce with the right skills to sustain and grow your business. SWAP is administered by Jobcentre Plus and available in England and Scotland.
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