Get a move on!

The above discount schemes include a range of best practice options that can be drawn on to develop a national entitlement that the government could roll out, including the following:

• All apprentices should be entitled to the same public transport discounts that are made available to school pupils and students attending sixth form/FE colleges and universities in a local area (e.g. along the lines of the Liverpool City Region scheme)
• Young apprentices aged 16-17 are a special case - they are mandated to be in education or training and employers can pay them the apprenticeship minimum wage of £3.90 an hour while they are this age. There is a strong case for boosting the travel discount for apprentices in this age groups (e.g. along the lines of the GLA scheme, which offers completely free travel on buses and trams and 50 per cent off tube journeys and most rail journeys for apprentices in this age group who are resident in London)
•  Apprentices aged 18-24 are too often not offered any discount or a much more limited offer in localities that are currently providing some form of discount (with the exception of the scheme offered in Liverpool City Region). Many apprentices in this age group are on low wages (e.g. they can be paid £3.90 an hour in the first year of their apprenticeship) and they should as a minimum be entitled to the same discount as local FE/HE students
• Many existing discount schemes only apply to bus travel and this discriminates against apprentices who are obliged to use train travel to commute to their place of work. Apprenticeship discount schemes should extend to tube/train transport (e.g. as in the GLA scheme and the West Midlands and West Yorkshire schemes). In addition, peak time minimum fare caps should be lifted from the rail card usage conditions to allow it to provide a discount to apprentices travelling during normal commuting periods.
• The option of cycling should an element of any apprenticeship travel discount scheme along the lines of the “cycle offer” that is currently provided by the scheme in Greater Manchester.

A new national entitlement drawing on the above principles of best practice would be a powerful policy driver. In addition to reducing the number of apprentices failing to complete, it would increase the numbers willing to apply for an apprenticeship in the first place, thereby boosting recruitment, retention and completion rates. And importantly, the impact of this would be felt greatest among young people from our most disadvantaged communities who face major barriers to accessing apprenticeship programmes because of financial barriers, especially transport costs.