Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many young people have completed the Skills Bootcamps; and what has been the drop-out rate.

Skills Bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving adults aged 19 and over the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills and fast-track to an interview with a local employer.

The first Skills Bootcamps (wave 1) launched in Autumn 2020 with £8 million funding in six areas of England: West Midlands, Greater Manchester with Lancashire, Liverpool City Region, Leeds City Region, Heart of the Southwest Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area, and Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire LEP area. The department is now expanding the Skills Bootcamps across the country during the 2021-22 financial year, with £43 million from the National Skills Fund.

Thousands of adults have already accessed Skills Bootcamps, and case studies of some Skills Bootcamps participants can be accessed through the link available on the Free Courses for Jobs page on gov.uk. We expect that there will be approximately 16,000 Skills Bootcamps places available across the country in this financial year.

Robust data collection on outcomes for wave 1 Skills Bootcamps has been ongoing from March to September 2021. This data is currently being validated and will be published shortly. It will provide more insight into the outcomes for learners that took part in wave 1 of Skills Bootcamps.