Reform UK has, for the first time, put some detail behind its skills policy. Suella Braverman’s announcement in Enfield set out a 30% wage rebate for SMEs taking on young apprentices, a £2,000 retention bonus, permission for employers to run training in house, and a target of 600,000 apprenticeship starts a year.

So is it a revolution, or the status quo in a high-vis jacket?

In our latest Insights briefing, PLMR’s Senior Counsel John Cope, a former board member of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and Executive Director at UCAS, takes the package apart line by line. His verdict: the diagnosis is largely right and engagement with apprenticeships is genuinely welcome, but much of the package continues existing Conservative and Labour policy, the costings look light against the ambition, looser controls on training need serious thought, and the plan to swap Ofsted oversight for trade association sign-off deserves serious scrutiny.

With over a million young people now NEET, and all political parties converging on subsidised apprenticeships for young people, this is a debate no college, training provider, employer, or university can afford to sit out.

Read the full briefing here

If you would like to discuss what this means for your organisation, get in touch with the team.