The apprenticeship levy may have opened up a ‘window of opportunity’, but there are still many barriers for smaller firms wishing to provide training. Martin James (pictured), commercial director of training provider Didac, explains how an Apprenticeship Training Agency (ATA) for the furnishing industry could be the solution
One of the key things from the Mind the Gap report in 2015 was that employers had great difficulty in finding apprentices and apprenticeships and bringing the whole thing together in a way that worked.
What stuck out for me was that almost half of manufacturers felt that their businesses were unattractive to youngsters.
In a way, that hurt. The furniture industry has been my home since 1977, and I couldn’t understand why that was, because people like to do crafts, people like to make things.
We’re a highly fragmented sector, we’ve got a lot of specialisms, different craft areas and different technical areas. We’re represented by multiple trade associations, so we need something that draws us all together. I just won’t accept that we’re in a sector that is not attractive.
So recruitment is key.
We took over the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) apprenticeship scheme in 2011 and that brought us into contact with the Electrical Distributors Association (EDA). It’s that experience that I think could become a template for solving some of the issues in our industry.
One of the central activities of the EDA learning and development ATA (Apprenticeship Training Agency) is to have an apprentice recruitment service. They only target apprentices. They also provide information, advice and guidance, and connections for employers.
An ATA is a regulated company that employs apprentices on behalf of employers. So it employs the learner, it handles the payroll and it handles the administration.
The apprentice works full-time in the host employer, and the host employer provides the knowledge, practical skills and experience, while the ATA organisers engage with the training provider, who then goes into the employment setting to deliver the training and assessment.
ATAs are very highly regulated and they’ve been around for quite some time in the UK. In England, there are currently 69 ATAs listed and another 200 in the pipeline.
A lot of companies have realised that the ATAs could be a solution to some of the funding and structural issues that many sectors have.
Going back to comments that came out of the Mind the Gap report about a lack of connectivity, the ATAs also provide a matching service where they connect employers with learners and a syndicate of training providers.
It’s the employee and employer benefits of working through an ATA that I think is really the key.
If you employ a 16 to 18-year-old, the Government will give you a £1,000 bonus payment. And the training provider also gets £1,000, because the assumption is that an under 19-year-old is going to take longer to get through the programme and there will be some additional support.
After May 1, the training plan for a merchant will change, with programmes going all of the way up to degree-level six. Including all areas of procurement, administration, sales and selling, information technology and management and leadership.
So it’s a fantastic opportunity and a starter can come in at any level and migrate around a plan to develop their training.
In the furnishing sector, many of you will be able to take advantage as employers, because some of those areas are common across most businesses, whether it’s manufacturing, retail, warehousing or wholesaling. We’ve got a whole range of new areas that are coming through on Trailblazer schemes. They’re needed, but clearly they’re quite specialised.
For the new qualifications, up to level six and across all of the commercial areas, there’s going to be an expanded syndicate of training providers.
Non-levy-payers
Those firms not required to pay the Apprenticeship Levy [those with a wages bill of less than £3 million] will have to partner with a training provider with an Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) budget, just as before. The issue there is, overall, that the Government has cut budgets by 80% and there is virtually no money.
The reality for non-levy-payers is that it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to find training.
Now the key thing about an ATA is that it is a levy-payer itself. So if that apprentice is employed by an ATA, they can access any training provision so long as the training provider is on the approved list for the levy.
I think it will be more difficult to do this with the specialism and skills required in the furnishings industry. For EDA, they have three qualifications in merchant teams, which was quite easy.
In our sector, it’s much more tricky, but that’s not a reason not do it.
Why shouldn’t we create the same structure as an ATA, with the recruitment, so that it becomes an operating entity delivering a national strategy?
A furnishing industry ATA?
The Apprenticeship Management Group has got three new ATAs in the pipeline for approval and they’re rolling that out to other sectors.
One of those ATAs is going to be, if you like, a group ATA for small sectors and soft-starts.
So what you can do is go through a soft-start using a group ATA and as it grows, you might choose to segment it away and have your own ATA.
I would hope that as an industry we can come together and start being cohesive and driving apprenticeships forward.