Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the quality of traineeships.

We know that traineeships have significant positive outcomes for young people. 66% of trainees progressed into work, an apprenticeship or further learning in 2018/19 academic year, the year after they completed their traineeship.

We are supporting the largest ever expansion of traineeships, providing funding for an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. We have extended the £1,000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities to July 2022. We are also providing an additional £126 million to create a further 43,000 places in 2021/22 academic year.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak we have also introduced flexibilities to enable traineeships to support more young people into work wherever possible. These include extending the maximum duration from 6 to 12 months and extending the programme eligibility to include young people with level 3 qualifications who require support to access an apprenticeship or other employment.

We are working with employers to develop new traineeships which will provide young people with a tailored springboard into their chosen industries. From May 2021 we will start to deliver the first ever traineeships developed alongside trade bodies and employers specifically for construction and rail, with further sectors to follow in the summer. These traineeships will be aligned to apprenticeship standards and will significantly increase the opportunities for young people to progress into apprenticeships or other employment.

To help improve traineeship quality and share best practice, we run provider webinars through the Association of Colleges and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. We have introduced one-to-one meetings with providers to discuss their programmes and achievements with them.