1. 18th May 2017 – Inside Government Midland Hotel, Manchester
Collaborating with providers and employers to deliver quality higher apprenticeships
18th May 2017 – Inside Government
Midland Hotel, Manchester
Speaker: Simon Ashworth
Chief Policy Officer
Association of Employment & Learning Providers (AELP)
@AELPUK

2. Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP)
AELP is a national trade association, representing the interests of 800+ organisations delivering vocational learning, assessment, sustainable employment and employability support.
AELP membership includes Independent Training Providers (ITPs), FE Colleges (FECs), Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), employers, Awarding Bodies (ABs) and Apprentice Assessment Organisations (AOs).
AELP members deliver 76% of England's apprenticeships plus other skills & employment programmes.

3. Themes to explore and examine today:
The benefits of higher and degree apprenticeships.
Delivery models for higher and degree apprenticeships, including collaboration with employers and with providers.
Employer-led apprenticeship standards tailored for companies in order to best reflect and develop the role of the apprentice.
Key risks and challenges of work based learning.
How the skills gap can be addressed.
Current and future funding landscape.

4. Defining the Apprenticeship Reforms: Richard Review 2012
Funding: The way that apprenticeships are funded has changed… the Apprenticeship Levy and a new co-investment model for non- levy payers.
Frameworks to standards: Mid-transition from apprenticeship frameworks to new employer led apprenticeship standards.
Delivery: Significant change in the actual make-up of apprenticeships. Moving to a model of independent third party End Point Assessment (EPA) for new Apprenticeship standards.
Governance: Implementation of the new Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA), formally started last month in April 2017.
Apprenticeship Reforms – important this is not just about the Levy and is a much wider raft of changes including:
How apprenticeship training is paid for
How the product we will be offering is changing from Frameworks to Standards
How the delivery of the programmes are changing – more focus on training, with independent EPA
How apprenticeship programmes are being governed and managed (governance)
Reference Ex-Dragon Doug Richard, his review and recommendations about getting employers to pay and apprenticeship programmes being designed by employers dates back to 2012 – this isn’t a sudden shift in policy…

5. The benefits of developing new degree and further higher apprenticeship programmes.
Apprenticeships (at all levels) are a central part of government policy and potentially an important new income stream for new entrants, such as HEIs.
Apprenticeships can be attractive to non-traditional HEI students, thus providing an opportunity for degree apprenticeships to support widening participation.
They offer a way for HEIs to diversify their offer and develop alternatives to traditional full-time on-campus study and utilise their existing infrastructure.
Degree apprentices are likely to be highly employable, having benefited from studying a course tailored to sector needs, and several years of workplace experience with the latest skills and knowledge for that sector.
Degree apprenticeships can help develop new employer relationships and cement existing ones. We’ve seen some behaviour of employers in Financial Services already switching from graduate recruitment programmes to degree apprenticeships.

6. Examples of developing delivery models and approaches
Direct full end-to-end delivery.
Co-delivery/co-design: work-based / class-based split
Provider (FEC or ITP) / HEI
Employer / HEI
Employer / HEI / Provider (FEC / ITP)
HEI accredited: Provider delivery > HEI accreditation.
Subcontracting > Supporting, Delivery and Primes.
Supply chain management / Prime contractor model

7. Being employer-led not employer focused.
Key to engage employers early in the process, ensuring that their needs and requirements are fully understood up front.
Understand what the demand for a degree apprenticeship looks like through use of LMI on priority sectors, skills shortages and other labour market trends. Engage with strategically important employers and work closely with LEPs and other key stakeholders.
Deliver programmes in a flexible way that meet individual employer needs. This may mean delivering the same programme by different methods (block, day release, face-to- face, blended etc…) for different employers.
Consider how best to co-ordinate degree apprenticeship activity across your business.
Due to the relatively new nature of degree apprenticeship there is a clear role for HEIs to help make employers and learners aware of degree apprenticeships and to assist in providing IAG.
Many HEIs are significant levy paying employers in their own right…

8. Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
Engage employers early in the design process – “by employers, for employers”
Build on existing employer relationships.
Process and programme mapping, bringing academics and employers together; be clear about the expertise that both bring.
Consider delivery mechanisms carefully; ensure they are relevant for employers and learners. Important to consider the 20% off-the-job requirement in all new standards.
Share good practice with other HEIs, engage with national trade bodies such as AELP to and develop policy and programme implementation.
Talk to established providers who already have a wealth of experience in delivering apprenticeships.
Work with schools to promote the benefits of degree apprenticeships to learners and their parents who are often the key decision makers.

9. Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
In work based learning employers are generally used to “roll-on, roll-off” provision and expect a level of flexibility. Case study:
Well known and internationally recognised blue-chip household brand.
Annual Apprenticeship Levy circa £500k, starting in May 2017.
Expecting to spend their levy and keen to utilise existing legacy funding.
Wanted to recruit a cohort of 15 Level 6 Chartered Managers.
£27,000 = £405k of potential revenue, all on one site.
Wanted to start pre-May and utilise Trailblazer £2:1 methodology.
Approached 3 ESFA prime HEIs, all offered a September in-take.
Employer approached an ITP in March, provision commenced in April.

10. Collaboration – understanding the employer’s needs
Clear thought and timetabling into recruitment and recruitment windows to meet the needs of employers.
New programmes need be more than simply the adaptation and accreditation of existing degree offer for funding purposes.
The Apprenticeship Levy should be marketed as an opportunity not just a cost!

11. Collaboration and Challenges
Typically many HEIs will have little experience of the requirements around funding, reporting and quality assurance of apprenticeship programmes and they often do not fit easily with existing HEI and reporting or the degree apprenticeship model. Quality Assurance:
Ofsted responsible for levels 2 through to 5.
HEFCE and QAA statutory responsibility for levels 6 and 7.
HEIs need to be aware of the requirements, challenges and risks of dipping below degree level and into higher apprenticeship programmes.
Data Returns:
Apprenticeship funding returns regardless of level will need to be submitted through the ILR to the ESFA each month. Existing providers have lots of experience of apprenticeship delivery and are well placed to work with HEIs (and new entrants) to support them to meet the administrative requirements with the ESFA.

12. The changing role of the provider in supporting employers in filling their skills gaps.
Under the regime change is required, and required quickly...
Employers will be in the driving seat.
Funding is being channelled through employers.
Employers are leading on developing new programmes they want and they require, including new technical and professional skills.
Employers have the ability to stop funding to providers.
Changes are putting the employer in the centre of the process…

13. The changing role of the provider in supporting employers in filling their skills gap.
What does this mean to providers?
Need a higher quality of service.
Need to be more responsive.
Need to develop new programmes.
Need to upskill their own staff or recruit talent with new skills.
Need to properly understand their individual employers’ needs.
Provide a service, not a product led approach.
Recruitment services for all age apprenticeships (Funding driven)

14. Key risks and challenges
Many of the larger employers are interested in higher level and degree Apprenticeships. This is not the current space for existing mainstream providers.
Nick Bowles famously told the FE Colleges: “Don’t let private providers steal your lunch…” many established providers will have this view of HEIs! Trade-off between collaboration and competition.
Lack of consistency in regards judgements on quality of training:
Ofsted responsible for levels 2 through to 5.
HEFCE and QAA statutory responsibility for levels 6 and 7.
HEIs need to be aware of the requirements, challenges and risks of dipping below degree level and into higher apprenticeship programmes.

15. Key risks and challenges
Requirement for a 20% off-the-job training commitment from employers and the cost for providers to develop and deliver this.
Many candidates undertaking an apprenticeship are more suited to vocational programmes. It will be vital the HEIs develop programme and the supporting curriculum that meets the needs of apprentices and not just the employer.
There are a number of commercial providers moving into the Level 6 and Level 7 space offering shorter and more blended programmes than seen offered by many HEIs.
New world measures of success for Standards? Overall and Timely? Risk of completing the Degree, but not the Apprenticeship.

16. Skills gaps? Building a coherent skills escalator.
Not all gaps start at high levels – the importance of well planned and coherent career pathways:
Management
Team Leader – Level 3 Advanced
Operational Manager – Level 5 Higher
Chartered Manager – Level 6 Degree
Senior Leader – Level 7 Degree
TBC – Level 8
Accountancy
Book-keeper (?) - Level 2
Assistant Accountant - Level 3
Professional Accounting Technician - Level 4
Professional Accountant – Level 6/7 (?)
Significant relaxation on candidate eligibility. Ability to retrain, regardless of prior attainment.

17. Availability of Funding….
AELP positon: welcome the principle of the levy and the commitment of employer contributions, but Apprenticeships should remain as a fully funded commitment by government.
Levy-employers (2% of market)
In essence, the underpinning methodology of the skills system is that underspend washes through and forms part of the 90% government co-investment for non-levy paying employers.
Growing concerns about the planned consumption of a number of levy paying employers and the wider implications this.
Lack of awareness of the “double lock” requirements around levy.

18. Availability of Funding….
Non-levy paying employers (98% of market)
Pause in procurement to the ITT for non-levy allocations.
New prime contractor allocations (May-December 2017) for new non-levy starts.
Limited funding in allocations.
Very significant impact on existing subcontractors.
Early July growth point.
Separate carryover allocations for apprentices who started prior to May 2017 and ESFA commitment to fund all those on programme.

19. Availability of Funding… finally what's on the horizon?
All employers move to the TAS. No further allocations systems and truly a system of employer choice.
Awareness of the different levers and mechanisms to manage future funding flows:
£3m levy threshold.
0.5% apprenticeship levy.
Standards and frameworks funding band allocations.
Co-investment methodology (90:10)
24 months levy period.
% of funding levy paying employers get to spend.

20. Questions Simon Ashworth AELP Chief Policy Officer @sashworth80
@AELPUK