AELP writes to Secretary of State on non-levy apprenticeship allocations

Following AELP CEO Mark Dawe’s communication to AELP members in this week’s Countdown, AELP has continued to lobby the government and ESFA on the non-levy apprenticeship allocations. Since the Countdown article appeared, many providers have emailed our Apprenticeships mailbox with details of their allocations. The emails make for shocking reading and Mark and Simon Ashworth have endeavoured to answer all of them. Cuts in allocations of around 80% are not uncommon (one or two even higher) and the range is typically between 50 and 80%. Some grade 1 and 2 providers have not been spared the carnage. Many members tell us that their allocations cover barely a month’s new starts and we have informed ministers and officials of the likely consequences. 

Today we have issued a press release to the media and AELP has for it taken the unprecedented step of publishing a letter that we sent to the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, yesterday. There is no doubt that the election campaign and purdah make a satisfactory rectifying of the allocations issue harder to achieve but we are doing everything we can. We have informed the Secretary of State that members are already taking their complaints to their local Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. Ministers should hardly be surprised if more members choose to do the same.