Employers have struggled with the administrative burden created by apprenticeship reform, representatives have told a Westminster committee.

Speaking in front of the House of Commons Education Select Committee this morning, Sally Gilson, head of skills and Welsh policy at the Freight Transport Association, said the logistics sector’s main challenges around the apprenticeship levy had “to do with delivery, but also on the writing [of the new apprenticeship standards]”.

“We as businesses are not qualification writers,” she said. “Employer-led doesn’t always work. There needs to be a lot more support for employers while developing these qualifications.” She said her sector had waited years for a level 3 warehouse supervisor standard, which had been dominated by “back and forth” between employers and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.

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Levy-funded opportunity

She also told the committee that the sector “loved” apprenticeships, but the system was not working for them and the number of starts in the logistics sector had dropped significantly post-levy. She said being allowed to use their levy funding for non-apprenticeship training would be welcomed by her sector.

Stephen Radley, director of strategy and policy at the Construction Industry Training Board, added: “Delivering the new qualifications has been very challenging. It is great in theory for the system to be employer-led, but that is really, really challenging for small businesses to be involved in.”

The committee also heard from those attending that businesses had struggled with the number and scale of reforms. Laura Burley, apprenticeships ambassador at the Open University, said that this had slowed down any progress on attracting a more diverse cohort into apprenticeships. Large providers had “tested the water for the first couple of years of the levy”, she said, and only now, as skills strategies were being signed off, they were beginning to say “how can we target underrepresented groups”.

She added that for that to happen, funding for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) needed to be ensured. Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), highlighted his organisation’s calls for £1.5 billion in ring-fenced funding from the government for SMEs to take on apprenticeships. This would not just address the funding issues, but also support lower-level apprenticeships.

Many employers were still treating the apprenticeship levy like a tax, the panel stressed, and Paul Raby, group HR director at Balfour Beatty, said the business was struggling to draw on its full apprenticeship levy pot, and the number of apprentices had remained broadly the same, compared to the years before the levy was introduced.

This, he said, was down to that number being based on business need, not levy funding available. He added that there will be unintended consequences to businesses looking to spend more of their levy funding - including transferring people onto different types of training.