Dr. Mary-Liz Trant:

Mr. Tony Donohoe, who is on the Apprenticeship Council, might wish to comment on this as well. The Senator started with the very good example of auctioneering. A new programme started in the last six weeks with 53 apprentices. That was very positive for a start-up programme. There is great interest and a large number of potential apprentices applying for all the new programmes, without exception. In some cases there are five times more applicants than there are places available. What has been slower is the number of employers coming on board. The number of employers that are stepping forward and agreeing to take apprentices on the new programmes is lower than envisaged. However, the trend is positive and upwards. For example, the number of employers for the insurance apprenticeship, which started in 2016, has grown each year. As these programmes become embedded the numbers become positive.

When we started with the targets in 2016 we were trying to imagine what would happen. We are optimistic that, by 2020, it will have accelerated significantly but the big challenge, and we discussed it in our submission, is to get employers on board.

The apprenticeship council has been engaging with the new consortia to talk about what is happening, their ambitions and issues. The feedback is that it is taking time. The whole concept of apprenticeship is new for many of these employers. Switching from graduate-only entry to taking people on and developing them within their workforce is a whole new concept. Multinationals, for example, have to figure out things like headcount and get agreement. It is just slower than originally envisaged. There is a complex picture there.

We had 335 registrations last year and this will reach 800 this year. We think it will continue accelerating next year and into 2020.