The Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA) has only been in existence for a few months and Tom Richmond, in his article for the Tes [article free for subscribers] already thinks it could be abolished. He makes some good points...but there’s a time and place for organisational change. A few weeks into the biggest reform of apprenticeships for decades is probably not the time for this.

The main purpose of the IfA is to take an independent and expert ‎view of apprenticeship standards and technical education routes. The work involved in developing, approving and assessing education and training programmes is one best left to experts. IfA has the powers and opportunity to foster this expertise both within its own organisation and those it engages with. It may not do this perfectly, but we need to start somewhere. The experience of the apprenticeship trailblazers shows the problems of too much direct ministerial and departmental control. Civil servants on job rotation have let hastily-formed employer groups secure approval for micro-standards. The territory needs reform. IfA is the organisation to start on this.

A second point about the IfA is that it has a separate legal identity from the government and therefore has the chance to negotiate. It will clearly be strongly directed by the Department for Education, but the notion that it has a weak board is nonsense (as anyone who has met some of its 10 members will attest) and it can’t really be compared to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). When UKCES closed, it had 22 commissioners who were all highly skilled and experienced but none who really worked in education or training.

‘Focus on the bigger picture’

The IfA’s first annual plan shows that it has too much to do in the next 12 months but that is because everything in apprenticeships has been reformed at speed and all at the same time. When everything was hidden within a joint unit reporting to two government departments, this wasn’t so clear‎. As we say in our manifesto, we need a period of stability in apprenticeships to let the reforms take effect and make a difference.

Some of the biggest challenges in apprenticeships involve re-negotiating the role of powerful agencies such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Ofsted. Again, the creation of the IfA opens this discussion out rather than burying it.

Finally, there’s a need for a focus on the bigger picture. Apprenticeship provision has been distorted in the last two years by the 3 million apprenticeship target invented in 2014 and legislated in 2016. The target remains in law until 2020 but there are no legal consequences if the government misses it. We need to continue to expand the number of apprenticeships in areas where there are skills shortages and skills needs but the bigger challenge is to focus on quality. The regulation and inspection of apprenticeship provision requires improvement which may need changes to the IfA’s role, but abolishing it before it has even started would be a mistake.

Julian Gravatt is assistant chief executive of the Association of Colleges

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