With the dust beginning to settle on the 2017 general election, the hard work now begins for this government to deliver on the policy pledges that were set out during the campaign trail.

In particular, it must act on the cross-party consensus that technical excellence has not been valued as highly as academic success and ensure that the UK closes the skills gap to the same levels as its international counterparts.

While we should welcome positive rhetoric that seeks to create a competitive technical education system in the UK, as with all these things, the devil will be in the detail. And that is why it is crucial this government reaffirms a commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020.

Quite rightly, there is an overall acceptance that apprenticeships will become increasingly vital to the UK’s future economic prosperity post-Brexit. The UK’s ongoing access to European labour markets will inevitably be disrupted and it is crucial to tap into the abundance of homegrown British talent we have to drive our economy forward.

Most importantly, this point of view is supported by industry. A recent survey of our members at The 5% Club, the employer-led movement that champions investment in the next generation through workplace training, found employers are confident that apprenticeships can help bridge the gap should the UK lose access to skilled workers. Of our 200 members, who operate in a variety of different sectors and range from small and medium enterprises to FTSE 100 companies, 89 per cent said that Brexit would not impact on the number of apprentices they take on.

We at The 5% Club welcome the renewed focus on apprenticeships and upskilling the UK workforce. However, it is crucial to remember that the 3 million apprenticeships target set out by the previous government refers to the number of people who start apprenticeships rather than the number who successfully complete it.

This is a vital distinction that is too often overlooked. While the increase in apprenticeship starts may indicate a general positive trend, the benefit to the economy in terms of addressing skills gaps lies in increasing the number of people successfully completing their apprenticeship. In fact, recent statistics on apprenticeships from the House of Commons found that around 30 per cent of those starting an apprenticeship fail to complete it.

If this current success rate stays the same throughout the new Parliament, the 3 million target will only produce 2.1 million successfully trained apprentices. That is why in our recent report, Providing the Skilled Workforce for Post-Brexit Britain, one of our 18 recommendations calls for the measure of success for apprenticeships programmes to be based on completions rather than starts.

It is our view that eventually shifting the measure on to completions rather than starts will improve the status and quality of apprenticeships, and ensure the focus is on getting the qualified, skilled workers the economy needs and for which the levy is intended.

Make completions a priority

We have also called for the Institute for Apprenticeships to be required to report annually on a number of apprenticeship outcomes.

We believe that increasing the number of completions of high-quality schemes should be a priority. This could involve outcomes such as how many apprentices go on to full-time employment, earnings growth and progression of those who have undertaken apprenticeships and the proportion of former apprentices who go on to further learning.

Completion rates are also important because they demonstrate whether the training meets the requirements in terms of supporting the student, whether apprentices find their apprenticeships a valuable step to a rewarding career and whether the careers and recruitment advice is working.

The latter point is particularly vital: the survey of our members found that nine out of 10 respondents believe that improving the quality of information offered by school career services could help to change the image of apprenticeships at a national level.

With government and industry seemingly agreed on the need to deliver apprenticeship opportunities, the focus now needs to be on ensuring young people successfully complete these high-quality courses.

Get it wrong and we will be deprived of the skilled workforce needed to deliver a prosperous future for Britain. Get it right and we have the opportunity to create the UK’s workforce of tomorrow.

Lady Penny Cobham is director general of The 5% Club