Over half of providers delivering apprenticeships are set to receive a letter from the Education and Skills Funding Agency over their performance against the ESFA’s minimum standard achievement for all-age apprenticeship provision.

In an update to the sector published this week, the ESFA said that where the provider had failed on the minimum standard achievement for all-age apprenticeship provision, it would “take positive action to challenge this situation”. 

“Our position on minimum standards is to continue to be rigorous in driving up the quality of apprenticeship delivery,” said the update, adding: “We will be writing to all providers from next week on our proposed action for those providers that have failed all-age apprenticeship minimum standard for 2018-19.”

The government has told Tes that 399 apprenticeship providers would now receive such a letter because they did not meet the minimum standard for 2018-19.

That is around half the number of providers in England who currently deliver levy or non-levy apprenticeships, although the number of providers listed on the Register for Apprenticeship Training Providers is much higher. 

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‘No decline in quality’

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “The falls have absolutely nothing to do with a decline in the quality of the training apprentices are receiving”. 

He said: “Instead, they relate to how the official data system records changes in employer or apprentice behaviour in a system that is now very much employer led. Employers not retaining apprentices on the payroll counts as a negative against the provider and there are some sectors such as hospitality where staff turnover at an employer can be way over 50 per cent. 

“The ESFA has promised to look at how they measure provider performance for future years and we look forward to renewing discussions on this when the immediate Covid-19-related crisis is over.”

Mr Dawe added that the figures would be “dire” for next year due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic - and that the Department for Education should start putting measures in place now to support retention and achievement rate.

He said: “The real issue we are going to face is that there are a whole load of furloughed apprentices at the moment and we know that there will be a whole load of redundancies as soon as furlough is over.

“There will be a lot of apprentices in that category, and we need flexibility around funding those apprentices for more than 12 weeks to complete their apprenticeship, but secondly, if they then start with a new employer, at the moment, they have to restart the whole apprenticeship and there should be a way of continuing what they were doing rather than starting from the beginning again.”