New Government Procurement Guidelines Are A Huge Boost For Apprentices

Construction union UCATT have welcomed new procurement guidelines, which require all contractors on Government projects to train apprentices.

The new policy is a vindication of UCATT research Apprenticeship – A Firm Foundation which was published last year. The document warned that unless the Government, which is the industries biggest client, made having apprentices mandatory on its projects, then training would collapse.

The new procurement guidelines were launched on Thursday (April 16) by John Denham the Skills Secretary and Angela Eagle the Exchequer Secretary. UCATT have worked closely with both ministers to ensure the new policies were successfully introduced.

It is estimated that Government construction contracts are worth £7 billion per annum and the introduction of the new rules will create an additional 7,000 apprenticeship places. Building Schools for the Future and the rebuilding of further education college project, already require companies to train apprentices.

Britain has not been training sufficient construction apprentices for decades. In recent years ConstructionSkills the main provider of apprentices have only been able to find around 7,000 apprentice placements despite 48,000 seeking a place. Despite the economic downturn the construction industry needs 37,000 new entrants a year, a figure that will rise as the industry recovers.

UCATT are now campaigning for the new guidance to apply to all construction projects in the public sector, including local authorities and devolved administrations.

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “The new procurement rules are a massive step forward in the training of apprentices. A construction apprenticeship gives young people skills for life. Employers are having to be dragged kicking and screaming into apprenticeship training as the voluntary approach has failed.”

Despite the Government’s support for apprentices, UCATT has had to fight off attempts by employers to weaken the training provided.

Employer members of ConstructionSkills have attempted to end the requirement that apprentices should be full-time with one employer and argued instead they could be part-time or on unpaid work placement.

Also employers have attempted to downgrade the traditional three year craft based apprenticeship and introduced inferior Programme Led Apprentices. Under a PLA young people are required to spend two years in full-time college and then at the end of it if they can find an employer, they can only achieve an NVQ 2. While a craft based apprentice can achieve NVQ Level 3.

Despite PLAs being inferior the grants for employers are more generous than those available for the superior traditional craft based training.

Mr Ritchie, added: “At every turn we have had to ensure that employers are not allowed to downgrade apprentice training. They are incapable of long-term thinking.”

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