Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department is making on meeting the 2.3 per cent public sector apprenticeship target; and when his Department will meet that target.

The department is maintaining a strong performance on its internal apprenticeship programme, having met the 2.3 per cent public sector target for the past 3 years. We are confident that we will meet this target again in 2020/21 by the end of the financial year.

We have made plans for the department to support the government’s Plan for Jobs through 4 external apprentice recruitment campaigns that will close on 30 September. We are piloting a new approach to external recruitment for junior roles from 1 September to 31 December – all of these vacancies will be advertised as apprenticeships.