CIMSPA comment on Prime Minister’s speech at Labour Party Conference

In his first Labour Party Conference speech since becoming Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has reinforced the plan to reform apprenticeship funding and make changes to aspects of skills policy.

As part of the ‘Breaking down the barrier to opportunity’ mission, one of five that is underpinning the government’s approach to delivering on its objectives, in his speech the Prime Minister stated that, “We’ll get our skills system right”.

The speech aligns with policy commitments made in Labour’s election manifesto and in early statements made by the new government including:

• The apprenticeship levy transformed into the growth and skills levy and will be able to be used to pay for other training outside of apprenticeships.
• Foundation apprenticeships introduced to provide pre-apprenticeship skills development for those not yet ready to commence a level 2 or 3 apprenticeship.
• Shorter duration apprenticeships available for certain sectors.

The Prime Minister said;
"We’ve got to give businesses more flexibility to adapt to real training needs and also unlock the pride, the ambition, the pull of the badge of the shirt that young people feel when building a future, not just for themselves but for their community.

So we will introduce new foundation apprenticeships, rebalance funding in our training system back to young people, align that with what businesses really need.

The first step to a youth guarantee that will eradicate inactivity and unemployment for our young people – once and for all.”

Commenting on the Prime Minister’s speech, Tara Dillon CEO of CIMSPA said;
"It is great to hear skills featuring prominently in the Prime Minister’s speech. The fact that the new government is recognising that a focus on our skills system is imperative to supporting economic growth is encouraging.

Our work with employer partners and through our professional development boards has highlighted the need for more flexibility in how organisations can utilise the levy to fund the training that they need to address skills gaps that are impacting their business and operations. We welcome the move to the skills and growth levy and will be working hard to ensure that for our sector, the criteria for how the levy can be spent aligns with the employer needs based on the skills gap analysis that we have carried out with hundreds of employers across the country.

Apprenticeships offer great opportunities and it’s brilliant to see more and more employers in our sector embracing them and reaping the benefits of the fantastic skills and employees that they develop. However, some employers find it challenging to provide opportunities, so greater flexibility will be very helpful.

The sport and physical activity sector offers fantastic career and professional development opportunities so we will be looking very closely at how we can make the introduction of foundation apprenticeships work effectively across the sector, both for career entrants and employers.

We are interested in hearing more about the youth guarantee and know that our sector can be a huge driver for engaging young people and helping them to build positive futures. However, it’s important that we don’t lose development and training opportunities for older members of the workforce, particularly those who are changing careers or looking to re-enter the workforce after a period of economic inactivity.

Apprenticeships don’t just offer great career starts for young people, they allow people of all ages to develop the skills and knowledge that the economy needs. To engage those communities and demographics that have the lowest levels of physical activity, it’s vital that we have professionals that participants feel represent them. We must ensure that there are opportunities for older people and those that are changing career for a variety of reasons, including as part of a recovery from illness or injury. These people will be the professionals that ensure as a sector we are more representative of the communities that we desperately need to engage to improve the nations health and support economic growth through reduced economic inactivity.”