Ms Anne Marie McDonnell:

We were talking about different stakeholders. We have spoken before at different times about the lack of career guidance, particularly in special education schools. Even among teachers and families, there may not be awareness of apprenticeships and the value of apprenticeships in supporting disabled students to transition into those career pathways. When we are looking at practicalities, organisations like ours see the real value in being able to have pre-apprenticeships to bridge the gap, even before progressing to an apprenticeship, for people who are quite distanced from the labour market. Again, the cost of disability, which we have discussed so many times before, needs to be addressed in tandem for real change to happen.