My Lords, in moving Amendment 49E I will speak also to Amendment 50A, which is purely consequential. The purpose of the amendment is explicitly to try to pull in the clout of public purchasing to encourage companies that are contracted to public sector organisations to take on apprenticeships, and to encourage private sector organisations to pick up the baton.
I have two very good examples of where this has been done pretty systematically. One is the Olympic Park in 2012. The noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, knows this example quite well. It is quite an inspiring example. The original target for apprenticeships in the park was 350, but it ended up with well over 450; 12% of them were black, Asian or ethnic minority, compared to 5% generally within the country; 64% came from London and 30% from the boroughs involved with the Olympics, the eastern London boroughs, so apprenticeships were being provided for local people. In addition, 6% were women, whereas in the construction industry only 3% of apprentices are generally women, so they managed to double that even though 6% is pretty abysmally low. They had only a 6% dropout rate from the apprenticeships, whereas nationally the dropout rate at that time was about 25%.
An evaluation was done and it is interesting to look at the success factors. The report says:
“Many activities were undertaken to deliver the Apprenticeship Programme”,
including:
“The tangible ownership and driving influence of senior project leads”.
That is very important. Senior management was involved and absolutely behind it. The report also says:
“Robust and effective working relationships were fostered with a number of colleges and training providers”.
This is what we are all saying these days: partnership between industry and the training providers—colleges, independent training providers and, for that matter, schools—is vital. The report also points to:
“Full stakeholder engagement that included relevant industry bodies”—
it was not just the firms themselves but the sector skills agencies, the funding agencies, national and local government, and the trade unions were all involved in helping to design the programme and get it moving. There was also:
“The implementation of a contractual requirement that three per cent of a new contractor’s workforce be apprentices”—
picking up the 3% that the Minister was talking about and deliberately putting a target on the subcontractors. The report also points to:
“Implementing a follow-up monitoring process, in partnership with the National Apprentice Service”.
It was followed up, it was well monitored and the figures are there. Finally, the report points to:
“The active promotion of construction as a positive career choice”.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, was quoting figures earlier. As he was saying, sadly we have not seen a very considerable increase in the number of apprenticeships in traditional areas such as construction and mechanical engineering. The big growth has been very much in the service sectors, particularly care, retail and hotel and catering.
I also quote this from the evaluation, because it makes an important point:
“Something very positive and supportive was in place in the environment that the ODA”—
the Olympic Delivery Authority—
“created on the build programme and the markedly low drop-out helped to promote apprenticeships among those employers who were reluctant to take on young people, some of whom feared a high turnover and a wasted investment”.
That was a very positive experience.
I also quote another example, which the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, who is sat behind me, will know. Last week we had in evidence to the Select Committee on social mobility and skills a presentation from Crossrail’s director of talent and resources, Valerie Todd. I found her testimony extremely impressive. Crossrail needed some 3,500 skilled workpeople. It realised that it had not nearly enough people, so it set about training them with three main aims: to ensure that those who came on site recognised what safety precautions were necessary; to inspire future talent; and to provide local jobs.
Crossrail has taken on more than 300 apprentices and linked them with local schools. It has gone to the local schools and recruited apprentices from areas where it has been working. Some 39% of them are from black, Asian and ethnic minority groups and 20% are women, quite a number of whom have come in through both the construction and civil engineering areas, but also to some of the secretarial and administrative areas. This also applied to subcontractors. Crossrail worked very closely with its subcontractors. As Ms Todd has said:
“They all knew that if they were going to bid for our work they were going to have to support us in achieving these goals”.
Both these examples of what has been achieved by a deliberate attempt to use public procurement to raise the numbers of apprentices in private companies are very inspiring. They have clearly achieved well. Both are planned examples. As drafted, the amendment purely says that:
“The apprenticeship targets set for prescribed public bodies under subsection (1) may include apprenticeship agreements entered into by sub-contractors working for the prescribed public body”.
It is not a “must”; it is a “may”. We are not saying that they have to, but it is a useful way of doing it and I suggest that it is one we should back. Using public procurement to promote apprenticeships is something that has been widely discussed and approved of. It would be nice to see the Government doing something about it. I beg to move.