Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to encourage (a) awareness and (b) uptake of apprenticeships, supported internships and traineeships among young disabled school-leavers.

In the ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper, published in January 2021, we announced the introduction of a three point plan to enforce provider access legislation (the ‘Baker Clause’, commenced in 2018). This requires that all maintained schools and academies provide opportunities for providers of technical education and apprenticeships to visit schools to talk to all year 8-13 pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This plan includes creating clear minimum legal requirements, specifying who is to be given access to which pupils and when. This is an important step towards real choice for every pupil.

Through the Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) we support careers leaders in schools and colleges to design and deliver careers education programmes tailored to the needs of young people with SEND. As part of this work, the CEC has worked with the Gatsby Foundation and Disability Rights UK to create support material to help schools and colleges use the Gatsby Benchmarks to deliver high-quality career guidance for students with a wide range of needs and disabilities.

As set out in the National Disability Strategy, we will work to improve supported internships in England, including updating guidance and, through our contract/grant delivery partners in financial year 2020-21, developing a self-assessment quality framework for providers, and helping local authorities to develop local supported employment forums. In addition, the CEC continues to encourage employers to provide work experience and supported internships for young people with SEND.

We are also encouraging more young people to consider apprenticeships through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge (ASK) programme which reached over 600,000 students across England in the last academic year. As part of this, we are working with 40 schools through the ASK Development Schools project to support students who have the potential to progress into a traineeship or apprenticeship but who are facing significant personal barriers, including disabilities.

In partnership with Disability Rights UK, we have launched a Disabled Apprentice Network to provide valuable insight and evidence on how to attract and retain disabled people into apprenticeships. We have also improved our ‘Find an Apprenticeship’ and ‘Find a Traineeship’ services to allow people to identify Disability Confident employers offering opportunities.

We are also taking several measures to raise awareness of traineeships and increase uptake. We have created a new online collection of free resources for schools including factsheets, case studies and a guide for teachers. We are also working with the National Careers Service and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that young people understand the different options available to them and are supported on the right path.