Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Apprentices

(asked on 27th October 2016) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many apprenticeships have been created in her Department in each region in each of the last five years; and how many participants in those apprenticeships subsequently secured a job within the Civil Service.


Answered by
George Eustice Portrait
George Eustice
This question was answered on 3rd November 2016

Departmental apprenticeships within Defra have recently been introduced as a response to the Civil Service annual apprenticeship targets.

Apprenticeship data was not collected in Defra prior to January 2016. Data on apprenticeships is now collected and reported to Cabinet Office quarterly. In the most recent return to Cabinet Office, as of the end of the first quarter of 2016/17, it was reported that two apprenticeships had commenced within the Department, one within London and one within the West Midlands. Both participants are still undertaking their apprenticeship. The data collection exercise for those apprenticeships starting in Quarter 2 is currently underway.

Defra plan to considerably expand their apprenticeship programme in light of the Government’s manifesto commitment to achieve three million new apprenticeship starts in England by the end of the Parliament. We are currently in the process of onboarding new apprentices from a recent recruitment campaign as well as looking at further opportunities to develop our existing employees through apprenticeship schemes.

The Cabinet Office will be centrally collecting data on all future apprenticeships to allow the Civil Service to report on its contribution towards the national target and enable tracking of initial outcomes of apprenticeships (e.g. successful completion and continued employment in the Civil Service).

Reticulating Splines