Mr. Andrew Brownlee:

We are a kind of strategy and a funding and oversight body so we do not have some of the technical requirements some of the other agencies have. We are, however, very conscious that we are the statutory authority for apprenticeships. We have taken on three apprentices from the newer apprenticeships. We have a cybersecurity apprentice, we have a recruitment apprentice and I think we have a software development apprentice, so we have three in the organisation. We have just over 200 people in all and three apprentices in there.

On Deputy Higgins's question as to how many of our apprentices go into the construction sector, the 22,500 are craft, that is, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, so the vast majority of them will end up at some point in the construction industry sector. What we are trying to do - it is a big focus of people like Mr. Dalton - is to move away from that sense that one has to be a skilled tradesman to work in the construction sector. We are trying to develop offerings for retrofit technicians and construction technicians, building up a skills pipeline that does not involve that long, four-year apprenticeship route and trying to fast-track the skills needs we all know we have.