Prime minister announces launch of overhauled apprenticeship levy

During his attendance at the Farnborough Airshow, Keir Starmer, the newly appointed Labour prime minister, announced the launch of an overhauled apprenticeship levy, a widely anticipated initiative he had initially introduced the idea of during his election campaign.

Now under the title ‘Skills England’, the programme is one of the cornerstones of Starmer’s overarching mission to “get Britain building again”, a motto the prime minister continued to repeat in his latest speech alongside his staple stance that the Labour party has “taken the brakes off Britain with a plan for wealth creation in every community”.

Next to the launch of a new Industrial Strategy, Starmer’s plan to achieve this wealth creation also comes down to building on the relationship between business and the education system, and thus how young people and adults are trained.

As such, Starmer ushered in Skills England, a new organisation that he described as a “plan to make sure that we are training young people, not just for any business, but for the businesses that exist in their community.”

Former Co-operative CEO appointed interim chair of Skills England

In light of its launch, Starmer announced the appointment of Richard Pennycook as interim chair of the programme. Pennycook is the former CEO of the Co-operative Group and a lead non-executive director at the Department of Education (DfE).

In a release, details of what to expect from Skills England were already outlined, as were the issues to which the programme aims to address.

According to data provided by the government, between 2017 and 2022 skills shortages in the UK “doubled to more than half a million, and now account for 36 percent of job vacancies”.

With this in mind, Skills England plans to bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needed across all regions, while supporting local areas to develop the skilled workforce they need.

‘Our skills system is a mess…’

In the release, Starmer said in a statement: “Our skills system is in a mess, which is why we are transforming our approach to meet skills needs over the coming decades.

“They will help to deliver our number one mission as a government, to kickstart economic growth, by opening up new opportunities for young people and enabling British businesses to recruit more home-grown talent.

“From construction to IT, healthcare to engineering, our success as a country depends on delivering highly skilled workforces for the long-term. Skills England will put in place the framework needed to achieve that goal while reducing our reliance on workers from overseas.”

The roll out of Skills England will take place in phases over the next nine to 12 months, with the first phase dedicated to setting up the organisation in shadow form within the DfE while further assessing future skills needs and building relationships with employers. A permanent board, chair and CEO will also be appointed at a later date.