Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, representing the House of Commons Commission, whether the House of Commons is taking any steps to exceed the public sector apprenticeship target.

The House does not currently meet the public sector apprenticeship target but plans to meet or exceed it by March 2021. That would require around 55 apprentices per year based on current headcount. A new lead provider was appointed in September 2018 with a broader training offering. Work is also ongoing across the House to identify apprenticeship roles including upskilling of existing employees through an apprenticeship, and recruitment of new apprentices.

The House’s priority is to meet the 2.3% target by March 2021. However, if in a position to do so we will review this to see what more can be done, once the target has been met.

The number of apprenticeships offered has increased from 10 per year (2012–2018) to 12 in January 2019, with further enrolments planned over the coming months to reach around 25 to 30 apprentices by April 2019.

The range of apprenticeship programmes on offer has been expanded from two to fourteen Standards since September 2018 and this is expected to be expanded further during 2019.

A ‘Standard’ is the name of the apprenticeship training which replaced the older style ‘Frameworks’ training when the Apprenticeship Levy was introduced in May 2017.