The new plan for Apprenticeships in the coming year shows increased funding with greater emphasis on boosting course completion rates.

Over 255,000 young people are now taking part in the schemes and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) plans to increase the budget by 6.6% from £1,037 million in 2004/05 to £1,105 million in 2005/06.

Mark Haysom, LSC Chief Executive, said that this would fund an additional 3,000 places for the coming year.

However, he added that funds would be concentrated on key priorities. A main priority being improved Apprenticeship completion rates, which he referred to as "framework achievements".

Priorities include:
• Funding rates for young people in the key priority 16–18 age group will be increased by 2.5%.
• 25% of the NVQ funding in 2005/06 will be paid when young people complete their full training programme.
• The LSC will work urgently with sectors such as construction, health care and early years trainees to help them improve their achievement rates.
• Funding rates for learners aged 19 and over when they start an Apprenticeship will be reduced by 6% from 2004/05 levels; providers will be expected to recoup these funds by seeking a greater employer contribution for the training of employees aged 19+
• The LSC will introduce a ‘planned mix of provision’ by which local LSCs will be able to focus local training provision on meeting the skills needs of local employment sectors.

Mark Haysom told training providers delivering Apprenticeships: “From 2005/06 onwards, we will measure the success of Apprenticeships as successful framework achievements. Our target, agreed with the Department for Education and Skills and the Treasury, is to achieve a 75% increase in framework achievements in 2007/08 when compared to the number in 2002/03. This means an increase from 45,000 in 2002/03 to 75,000 in 2007/08.

“If we are to achieve this figure, we need a step change in the framework achievement rate and this is a key feature of our plans for 2005/06.”