Member

I have a personal story to tell. As a local ward member in Leeds, a grandparent came to my surgery, very concerned about his grandson, and said that there did not seem to be the opportunities and that he was not getting the help he needed. I started trying to talk to him about the apprenticeship route and he said, “Oh no, I don’t want my grandson to go down the dirty rag route that I went down”. There is an issue about stigma and promotion, making sure that everybody gets adequate information to promote apprenticeships: the young people themselves, obviously, but also parents and carers, and teachers—do we know how much they are engaged in this area? It is absolutely critical. I stress that this is about rebalancing apprenticeships back towards young people who have the most to gain from them. But we have to be honest that the rate of starts has fallen dramatically over the last decade. We cannot get away from that; we cannot dress it up. The performance just has not been good enough. I go back to the time of the introduction of growth deals. The other point I emphasise is that, where relationships are built locally, bringing together employers with education providers and young people themselves, that is where you start to see success and things really starting to move forward.