TUC Response to the Richard Review

The Government asked the entrepreneur, Doug Richard, to carry out an overarching review of Apprenticeships in the summer of 2012. The TUC responded to the review and highlighted the following key themes:

The urgent need to drive up the quality of all apprenticeship programmes and to tackle exploitation and poor quality by strengthening regulation and enforcement, in particular as regards minimum pay rates, duration of apprenticeships, time off for training, progression, and employer funding contributions

The introduction of a social partnership model as is the case in those European countries where extensive access to high quality apprenticeships is a central feature of their labour market and where active industrial policies are more closely integrated with skills policies

Boosting employer engagement in apprenticeships through the introduction of a number of measures, including more proactive use of procurement by government, requirements on supply chains, targeted tax relief, binding sectoral and sub-sectoral agreements by social partners and human capital reporting requirements in annual reports

Urgent action by government is required to tackle the major equality and diversity challenges affecting the apprenticeship programme, with women, BME groups and disabled people facing significant barriers to accessing high quality provision.

Download the TUC's response to the Richard Review [PDF].

A press release about this is also available in the media centre.