The Skills Funding Agency has announced that it will stop funding 60 apprenticeship frameworks for new starts from 1 December of this year.

This comes after the organisation announced in March that 150 new, employer-led apprenticeship standards were being developed, which would eventually replace the apprenticeship frameworks. At that time, the SFA also also named the first frameworks that would no longer be available from June.

The latest 60 frameworks to go, which will cease to be available from December, include advertising and marketing communications, ceramics manufacturing and criminal investigation, as well as fencing, automotive clay modelling and learning support.

Low uptake

“These frameworks had a low number of reported starts in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 funding years or have provision covered by developing apprenticeship standards,” the SFA said. “This change will not affect those apprentices currently completing their apprenticeship on these frameworks.”

According to the government website, the SFA expects to move from the current apprenticeship frameworks to new standards over the course of this Parliament as part of the apprenticeship reform programme.

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