Written statement on Skills Update - Dec 12

Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon): As part of the Government’s commitment to provide a comprehensive and clear skills offer for employers and individuals, the Government has decided to integrate the Traineeship programme into 16-19 study programme and adult education provision from 1 August 2023. Integrating Traineeships into general provision means the Department for Education will no longer fund the delivery of Traineeships through a standalone national programme. All the elements of the Traineeship programme - English and maths, work experience, employability and occupational skills, and qualifications - will continue to be funded for 16-19 year olds as part of the national 16-19 study programme, and for adults through the adult education budget. This means that providers with access to funding can choose to continue to offer Traineeship programmes for young people who need support to get into work, apprenticeships or further learning.

In addition, there are other great alternative opportunities provided by other programmes such as T-levels and the T-level transition programme, Bootcamps, Apprenticeships, and Sector-Based Work Academies.

In areas where the Adult Education Budget has been devolved, Mayoral Combined Authorities and Greater London Authority will decide on how best to support young adults in their areas.

Integrating the national Traineeship programme will simplify the skills landscape making it easier to navigate for young people and employers. It will also enable employers, training providers and local authorities to tailor their programmes, as they will have greater flexibilities to design a Traineeship around the learner or business need as we will be removing the national framework which sets strict requirements on providers, in how they must deliver a Traineeship. This will better support individual learners and focus on local needs to support growth at a local level, and help young people gain the skills they need to get into apprenticeships and sustainable employment.

The Traineeship programme has been running for nearly 10 years and the number of starts has remained relatively low. To encourage growth, we introduced occupationally specific Traineeships, an employer incentive and featured Traineeships within various communications campaigns. However, the 17,400 starts achieved in the 2020/21 academic year and the 15,500 starts in 2021/22 remains a small number of starts for a nationally administered programme. It is right, therefore, that we focus our offer on our mainstream provision. This change will make it easier for young people and employers to navigate our skills offer and will enable providers to better tailor their programmes to deliver the key skills needed to drive growth in local communities.