Andrew Percy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to improve apprenticeship standards among employers.

Nick Boles

We have taken significant steps to improve the quality of apprenticeships. Apprenticeships now must have substantial training; last at least 12 months; and lead to full competency in an occupation.

We are going further by giving employers the opportunity to design high quality apprenticeships across a range of occupations to meet their skills needs. More than 1300 employers are involved with 205 new apprenticeships standards already published and more than 150 are in development.

The new Institute for Apprenticeships will support improvements in the quality of apprenticeship standards in England. It will be responsible for setting quality criteria for the development of standards and assessment plans, reviewing, approving or rejecting them; and quality assuring some end point assessments.