Defunding The Level 2 Cleaning Hygiene Operative Apprenticeship Could Put Public Health and Social Mobility at Risk, Says £72bn Sector

I was among the cleaning and hygiene sector staff who celebrated when we won approval for the Level 2 Cleaning Hygiene Operative apprenticeship. 

This was after being told that our staff were ‘exempt of skill’.

As British Cleaning Council (BCC) Chair from 2021 to 2023, I was fortunate enough to start and then lead a fantastic team that worked so hard in the campaign for the apprenticeship, which was then passed on and completed under my successor as BCC Chair, Delia Cannings. 

So I know the dismay and incredulity felt across the sector following the Government’s announcement that the apprenticeship will be defunded from September, just two and a half years after its launch.

The fact that we found out via social media has only made things worse.

In 2024 and 2025, the programme rose by 160 per cent and, so far, 88 learners have been certified, 245 apprentices are currently on the programme and 16 training providers are delivering the standard, with a month on month increase in starts and the number of employers involved in the program. The trajectory is firmly upwards.

So the idea that the £72bn cleaning, hygiene and waste sector, one of the largest and most important sectors in the UK, will lose this foundational cleaning and hygiene accreditation makes no sense at all.

Let’s be clear, sector staff help to achieve a daily standard, support pandemic preparedness, help limit the spread of common infections such as flu and meningitis, and we keep vital facilities and crucial sectors such as schools, hospitals, food manufacturing and the chemicals industry safer and healthy to work in. Additionally, and again to be crystal clear, our teams perform a service that is safety critical!

Without an agreed uniform standard for entry-level technical cleaning and hygiene skills like the Level 2 Cleaning Hygiene Operative apprenticeship, public health may suffer with the result that lives could be put at risk. 

The Government’s argument is that the defunding of this apprenticeship, along with the other 15 apprenticeships affected, will free up funds to create youth training and job opportunities.

Our sector has plenty of career opportunities available for young people but we struggle to recruit, leaving the cleaning and hygiene sector with an ageing workforce. The sector is acutely aware of this demographic challenge and has already been actively engaging with students in schools, colleges and universities to highlight the opportunities available. 

These projects (such as the schools’ framework or Cleanstart via the Cleaning & Support Services Association (CSSA)) are planned or have commenced, which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were already aware of…. and now this.

A key reason why our industry campaigned for this apprenticeship was to help create a professional pathway for staff career progression, in order to help attract more young recruits. This decision will make recruitment even harder.  

More than 70 percent of participants on the apprenticeship are female and 44 per cent are from ethnic minority backgrounds. Getting their skills recognised via the apprenticeship opens doors to career progression, so this decision deals a blow to social mobility.

It is also baffling why this Level 2 apprenticeship taken by frontline cleaning staff is being treated in the same way as the Level 5 and Level 6 apprenticeships also affected which are taken by managers and specialists.

Despite the decision to defund and effectively remove the Level 2 standard, the Government has decreed that businesses must continue to pay the same payroll percentage to the Growth and Skills Levy. 

We in cleaning collectively pay an estimated £45-£50 million annually in compulsory Levy payments, and many cleaning and hygiene sector firms will be unable to invest these or other funds into the majority of their workforce because of the lack of a suitable apprenticeship or accreditation, making the Levy effectively a stealth tax.

The apprenticeship units due to launch in April that sector firms are being told to spend their Levy funds on instead cover subjects such engineering and AI and have little relevance to cleaning and hygiene sector skills.

We have already held one meeting with DWP, and despite confirmation that there will be no reversal of the decision to defund the Level 2 apprenticeship, the industry will continue to actively engage with the DWP and Skills England with the aim of (a) changing this decision, (b) having a full review as to whether the Government can continue to demand payment for an apprenticeship that they have simply decided to remove or (c) collaboratively identifying and collectively developing an alternative product within the wider skills ecosystem.  

The cleaning and hygiene sector is steadfast and united in its determination to ensure the industry retains a regulated, funded qualification that will address workforce challenges and continue to develop this critical workforce.

While we sincerely hope that current engagement will deliver an appropriate solution, if this critical sector is left with no suitable alternative to the apprenticeship we will, if necessary, use all means at our disposal. With that in mind we are already in discussions with other sectors who have suffered the same fate to look at forming coalitions.

By Jim Melvin, Director, British Cleaning Council

The BCC is the authoritative voice of the UK cleaning, hygiene and waste industry, with a membership made up of 20 trade associations from across the sector.