Politics Today

[elginCity]

OK.
I guess you and perhaps others can't see past your dislike/distrust of BJ and would rather not discuss the issue.
No probs.

Much prefer to discuss the man's actions (or rather inaction) like his government's COVID19 response.

To discuss his promises, those either coming out of his mouth, or written on the side of a bus, is a total waste of time IMO.

 

[Avening Posse]

We send too may youngsters to University to take useless degrees of no value in the market place and of dubious educational value. There is good money to be made by skilled trades people and they are in short supply. So yes, more apprenticeships please and cut out the stigma of "not getting to university"

On my last job in the uk (365 houses) we employed a big contractor who managed all the subbies. Almost all the subbies didn’t run apprenticeships. They pretty much said they cannot be competitive with that extra cost burden as others don’t have it as an overhead. To the local authorities credit, they ran a training scheme for them, and we insisted on our principal contractor only using subbies that signed up, but unfortunately those kinds of initiatives are few and far between

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

On my last job in the uk (365 houses) we employed a big contractor who managed all the subbies. Almost all the subbies didn’t run apprenticeships. They pretty much said they cannot be competitive with that extra cost burden as others don’t have it as an overhead. To the local authorities credit, they ran a training scheme for them, and we insisted on our principal contractor only using subbies that signed up, but unfortunately those kinds of initiatives are few and far between

It’s a shame cost has got in the way of apprenticeships.
When I started on South West Gas,it was very good training & apprenticeship(3 years)
Being paid to go to college from 16-19
It cost the Gas Corporation a fair bit to run the apprenticeship but they had someone for the next 40 years(unless they decided to work on their own,which very few did) So you were invested in.
It was fantastic training in all aspects of the industry.
After the Gas industry(I’m sure in common with other utilities) was messed with in the early 1990s,cost became the driver & they were all stopped.

The country was sold short for a quick buck & sell offs of infrastructure.I’m afraid it’s paying the consequences of the subsequent skill shortage.

 

[Alistair20000]

It’s a shame cost has got in the way of apprenticeships.
When I started on South West Gas,it was very good training & apprenticeship(3 years)
Being paid to go to college from 16-19
It cost the Gas Corporation a fair bit to run the apprenticeship but they had someone for the next 40 years(unless they decided to work on their own,which very few did) So you were invested in.
It was fantastic training in all aspects of the industry.
After the Gas industry(I’m sure in common with other utilities) was messed with in the early 1990s,cost became the driver & they were all stopped.

The country was sold short for a quick buck & sell offs of infrastructure.I’m afraid it’s paying the consequences of the subsequent skill shortage.

Shift some of the money the government spends funding pointless university courses to craft apprenticeships.

 

[arthur]

It’s a shame cost has got in the way of apprenticeships.
When I started on South West Gas,it was very good training & apprenticeship(3 years)
Being paid to go to college from 16-19
It cost the Gas Corporation a fair bit to run the apprenticeship but they had someone for the next 40 years(unless they decided to work on their own,which very few did) So you were invested in.
It was fantastic training in all aspects of the industry.
After the Gas industry(I’m sure in common with other utilities) was messed with in the early 1990s,cost became the driver & they were all stopped.

The country was sold short for a quick buck & sell offs of infrastructure.I’m afraid it’s paying the consequences of the subsequent skill shortage.

When we lost the manufacturing sector in the 1980s we lost a culture of taking on and developing apprentices. This then had to be reinvented and, because a lot of the sectors that used to employ apprentices had shrivelled or disappeared altogether, apprenticeships were introduced for a load of sectors that had never traditionally employed them.

What was also introduced at the time, and accelerated by New Labour post 1997, was the idea of numerical targets. The other problem was that these new sectors, such as retail and warehousing, were not skilled enough to require the amount of learning associated with traditional apprenticeships. The combination of having low skilled apprenticeships together with an imperative to have lots of them backed up with generous funding meant that the concept of an apprenticeship - the "brand" if you like - was severely devalued.

As I said before, you can talk about apprenticeships as much as you like, but until employers are able and willing to do what's necessary to develop a young person, no real progress will be made. Obviously you don't just sit there and say "pull your fingers out, employers", you support them to improve their own workplaces and culture so that they are "apprentice ready". Unfortunately though, the main support talked about for employers is financial which is usually counter productive.

 

[DB9]

One of the worst things that did it for apprentiships and turned it into "Cheap Labour" was the YOP and later called the YTS schemes for 16-18 yr olds, Firstly for 6 months then 12 months firms were paid by the Government to employ kids who either didn't go to college or have many CSE's or O levels but while it said they'd be given "On the job training" most were there to do the crap jobs and after the 6 or 12 months they'd be given the push and someone else took their place, Kids were in a cycle of one YTS job after another.

 

[arthur]

Shift some of the money the government spends funding pointless university courses to craft apprenticeships.

There is already money. Employers pay an apprenticeship levy which they can then access to fund apprenticeships. However a lot of this goes unused as and is just seen as another tax, like corporation tax or employer's NI

The apprenticeship system is bedevilled by a lot of short term quick fixes designed to enable the achievement of a government targets that have been plucked out of the air. A proper think about apprenticeships and how they can be embedded into UK industry in a way that will be self sustaining is long overdue.

But sitting down with all those with a stake in apprenticeships, listening to people with expertise on the subject and developing a cross party consensus on how to crack this problem (cf social care) does not appear to be one of this government's hobbies.

 

[Rosencrantz]

One of the worst things that did it for apprentiships and turned it into "Cheap Labour" was the YOP and later called the YTS schemes for 16-18 yr olds, Firstly for 6 months then 12 months firms were paid by the Government to employ kids who either didn't go to college or have many CSE's or O levels but while it said they'd be given "On the job training" most were there to do the crap jobs and after the 6 or 12 months they'd be given the push and someone else took their place, Kids were in a cycle of one YTS job after another.

Having worked in the catering trade for a bit in the nineties this was true. By no means all hotels or restaurant but quite a few would have a cycle of YTS in to do the menial jobs, mainly veg prep and sandwiches with very little intention of keeping them on. For £35/45 per week it was a bit of a no brainer for some. Then again the catering trade had that ethos of starting from the bottom which is no bad thing but rotten payers for long hours even when you qualified.

 

[DB9]

Having worked in the catering trade for a bit in the nineties this was true. By no means all hotels or restaurant but quite a few would have a cycle of YTS in to do the menial jobs, mainly veg prep and sandwiches with very little intention of keeping them on. For £35/45 per week it was a bit of a no brainer for some. Then again the catering trade had that ethos of starting from the bottom which is no bad thing but rotten payers for long hours even when you qualified.

Nothing wrong with starting at the bottom, In fact thats what most apprentices have to do, A sort of "Right of Passage" but with the YOP/YTS schemes, They were very rarely kept on and just used as cheap labour.

 

[Alistair20000]

There is already money. Employers pay an apprenticeship levy which they can then access to fund apprenticeships. However a lot of this goes unused as and is just seen as another tax, like corporation tax or employer's NI

The apprenticeship system is bedevilled by a lot of short term quick fixes designed to enable the achievement of a government targets that have been plucked out of the air. A proper think about apprenticeships and how they can be embedded into UK industry in a way that will be self sustaining is long overdue.

But sitting down with all those with a stake in apprenticeships, listening to people with expertise on the subject and developing a cross party consensus on how to crack this problem (cf social care) does not appear to be one of this government's hobbies.

I think you should be appointed Craft Apprenticeship Czar/Tsar art