Get a move on!

National Union of Students (NUS)

For some time NUS has been campaigning extensively about the barriers that apprentices and students face when it comes to transport costs. NUS has recently drawn together much of its analysis and recommendations on this issue through the work of the NUS Poverty Commission, which published a landmark report11  in April 2018. The TUC was a member of the Commission and also submitted evidence to inform its work. One of the key recommendations in the TUC evidence called for the “development of a national discounted public transport card for all post-16 students and apprentices” that would draw on the best aspects of existing good quality discount schemes.

The NUS Poverty Commission report, Class Dismissed, includes detailed findings about the impact of transport costs on apprentices and students. For example, it highlights that it “was the most commonly cited problematic area of expenditure in the evidence submitted to the Poverty Commission.” It also concluded that “almost all respondents who identified transport costs as a barrier for working class students recommended that the government should provide free or heavily subsidised public transport for students and apprentices in order to attend their place of learning or training.”

The NUS #MyFEJourney campaign led by Emily Chapman (NUS Vice President FE) has drawn on individual feedback from apprentice and students about the impact of transport costs. Last May the NUS made a commitment that over the coming 12 months “#MyFEJourney will be the campaign to make this government keep its promise to apprentices”.  12 The campaign has consistently highlighted this policy failure and drawn on the “#MyFEJourney survey13  of 1,000 young people, a third of whom were apprentices. A key finding from the survey is that apprentices are excluded from many existing discount schemes. It shows “that there is currently a gap in the offering, where many local councils will offer discounts to those aged up to 18, and those in full-time education, but this does not cover apprenticeships [our emphasis]”. 

NUS has also highlighted that whilst apprentices can use the railcards for young people to reduce their travel costs in certain circumstances, this is generally not the case during peak commuting times when most apprentices will be travelling to their place of work. It has therefore called for the peak time minimum fare cap to be lifted from the rail card usage conditions to allow it to provide a discount to apprentices travelling during normal commuting periods.

In the long-term NUS has said that it would also “like to see free bus and tram travel, if not all travel, extended to all 16-19-year-olds, enabling young people to access further study, training or work without a financial barrier.”

Education Select Committee’s findings

As highlighted in section 2 of this report, the Education Select Committee has been lobbying government ministers for the last two years to deliver on the policy commitment to provide discounted travel to all apprentices. Like the NUS and other stakeholders, the committee has pointed out that travel costs for apprentices in rural areas can be even more acute because public transport can be inconvenient and unreliable when it is available at all, and car ownership is beyond the means of most apprentices. It has also highlighted that in some circumstances “investing in a season ticket may not be possible when an apprentice’s employer and training provider are far apart”. 

Evidence submitted to the committee’s recent inquiry on apprenticeships suggested a range of potential solutions, including “allowing employers to use levy funds to help disadvantaged apprentices with such costs” and the fact that “local authorities can mandate discretionary fares for apprentices.” However, the government is not currently willing to support such flexibilities to the apprenticeship levy and the reality is that only some local authorities and Combined Authorities are taking a proactive approach on providing discounted travel to all apprentices (see following section for more details).

Research by the Skills Commission

Another body that engages closely with Parliament – the Skills Commission – has produced14  a report  of an inquiry it held into barriers to social mobility for apprentices, including travel costs. This inquiry also welcomed the government’s commitment to develop a national apprenticeship travel discount entitlement but raised concerns that “as yet there is no indication of how or when this pledge will be implemented.” The Commission’s inquiry into barriers facing young people drew on the findings from focus groups with apprentices themselves and this highlighted the extent to which transport costs limited opportunities on a number of fronts.

A key conclusion of the commission’s inquiry was that travel costs not only limit take-up and completion of apprenticeships. Important as that is, the barrier also means that low-income groups cannot afford to apply for apprenticeships outside a very circumscribed local area because of travel costs and/or limited public transport. Apprentices from Doncaster involved in a focus group organised for the inquiry, said the following:

“I think transport’s key, if you have transport then you look…with just public transport we were kind of restricted to the area… there is quite a lot, but it does restrict you. It’s not the best pay either so it’s expensive to travel far…It can be like £20 a week to get to work and that’s quite a lot out of your wage, nearly a fifth out of your wage already.”

As well as calling for urgent action by government to deliver on the universal travel discount, the inquiry highlighted the inequitable treatment of apprentices compared with FE/HE students in many existing public transport discount schemes across the country. While full-time FE/HE students are often entitled to discounts, this is not the case with apprentices, including those aged 16-18 who are now mandated to be in full-time education or work-based training. The inquiry concluded that “it seems illogical to the Commission” that young apprentices are not entitled to these student discounts on a similar basis, especially in light of the very low wages that are paid to many apprentices”. The Commission recommended that “the government should urgently introduce subsidised travel for apprentices, bringing discounts in line with those in full-time education.”

• 11NUS (2018) Class Dismissed: getting in and getting on in further and higher education. Report of the NUS Poverty Commission
• 12NUS Press Release (21 May 2018), Getting There is Half the Fun - where next on #myFEjourney?
• 13Available at: www.nusconnect.org.uk/resources/myfejourney-survey-briefing
• 14Skills Commission (2017) Spotlight on Apprenticeships and Social Mobility