Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for attending. I know that a woman of her political experience knows the importance of government at the local level and that healthy and high-functioning local authorities that are well-funded, well-staffed and constantly innovating can make huge changes in local areas and the people and families who live in them. My passion for local government is certainly no secret. That is why I have been pushing for apprentices to play a greater role in our local authorities since taking my seat in this House.

In September 2020, we met in this Chamber to discuss key priorities for the Minister's Department. I raised the matter of the under-utilisation of local authorities as a community employment resource. Apprenticeships are an excellent way of learning, earning and getting into permanent paid employment. There is much scope for local authorities to engage with the public through these apprenticeships directly. So many of our industries and education partners are heavily involved in the successful provision of apprenticeships, yet there is no national programme promoting apprenticeship opportunities within local government.

Local government is an ideal workplace in which we can provide a programme for structuring education and training. Where better for young apprentices to learn about politics, law, society and much more? Dozens of our local authorities have engaged and are engaging in the training of apprentices. That is great to see and they are to be commended for it, but should we not have a national approach to this - some sort of local government apprenticeship scheme - so that various aspects of the apprenticeship will be standardised and regulated to ensure that all prospective apprentices in each local authority know where they stand? There is no shortage of people who are interested in such apprenticeships and no shortage of ways in which local government could use them. We could run apprenticeships in the planning department and train architects, electricians, plasterers and bricklayers. What about all the vehicles owned by the councils? We could have in-house mechanics training up apprentices to maintain our own local fleets. We could have carpenters and stonemasons employed by the councils to fix and maintain public amenities and even add to them. I am sure there are many more areas where young men and women could receive wonderful training in a life skill of their choice, all in their own local authority.

How much money would it save us in the long run to have all these people trained up and possibly then employed directly by the councils? Think of all the money we would save on contracts with our own in-house tradespeople putting their time and skills back into their local communities and the councils supporting local workers. We have 31 local authorities. If we could get 20 apprentices into each of them across the different departments, we would have more than 600 young people in employment and every local authority would be invigorated by the injection of young talent.

I know the programme for Government commits to reaching 10,000 newly-registered apprentices each year by 2025. In December 2020, there were 313 apprentices employed across 48 Departments, agencies and State bodies, only 55 of whom were employed by local authorities. I ask the Minister of State to provide an update on how those numbers are progressing and what the Government is doing to create apprenticeship roles in local authorities.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for her questions on this important issue for local authorities and the apprenticeship programme. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, who cannot be here.

As the Senator is aware, a key commitment in the Action Plan for Apprenticeship 2021-2025 is to grow the number of apprenticeship registrations across the public service, including local authorities, as the Senator highlighted, to 750 annually by 2025. This represents in excess of a sevenfold increase on the 2020 registrations number and will support the long-term goal of 7% of the apprentice population being employed by public service employers.

The diversity of the public service in terms of service delivery provides a wide basis for involvement, as the Senator correctly pointed out, with a range of apprenticeship programmes already in place and new programmes in development. Apprenticeships are national programmes that provide an opportunity to target and widen the recruitment pool for both generalist and specialist roles within the public service. A great deal of work has already been done to advance that ambition. Following a series of information sessions with civil and public service HR managers, a working group representing Departments, agencies and local authorities was established in January 2022 to develop a framework to support the adoption of apprenticeship programmes as a mode of recruitment, upskilling and reskilling across the public service. The group's work was based on surveying more than 100 organisations on their skills needs.

There has been extensive bilateral engagement with the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, to assist with surveying local authorities on their skills needs. The results of the survey showed an appetite and opportunity within the civil and public service to meet the target of 750 public service apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025. While existing experience of apprenticeships was limited, the survey demonstrates a particular willingness and demand across the majority of respondents for programmes in the areas of accounting, software, cybersecurity and recruitment. The Senator highlighted the range of trades, which are also important and have been a key focus of the apprenticeship programme nationally.

Feedback from individuals involved in the pilot ICT apprenticeship scheme for Departments and Government offices emphasised the need to have relevant supports and procedures in place for apprentices at the commencement of their programme. Last month, in partnership with representatives of the Civil Service management board and the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science hosted the first face-to-face workshop meeting, which included significant attendance from across the civil and public service. Officials in the Department are now moving forward in capturing the outputs of this workshop in a formalised framework that will provide civil and public service bodies with a roadmap for engaging with existing apprenticeship programmes and forming a consortium for the establishment of new apprenticeship programmes for the purposes of meeting organisations' skills needs. The planned framework document will be completed by the end of quarter 1 of this year. There has also been engagement with the HSE and the Department of Health on the commitment in the action plan to explore a healthcare assistant apprenticeship programme within the HSE and the options for how it might be piloted.

We are very much aware of the recruitment challenge across a range of different skills, both in the public service and more broadly. The apprenticeship programme offers a new way of training, retraining and upskilling at different stages of a person's career and providing new pathways to work in a whole range of different fields. It is a very strong programme and the Senator is right to highlight the opportunity within local authorities.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for her attendance and her reply. This is a very important opportunity for local government and for the Minister, Deputy Harris, and his Department. I admire the work he and the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, have been doing in their brand-new Department. There is always scope for improvement, however, including in respect of some of the issues I highlighted. I welcome the proposal for 750 public service apprenticeship registrations per annum by 2025. However, we are a long way from that, with only 55 in place at this time. I will come back to this issue every year to see how it is progressing and what opportunities are available for young apprentices within local authorities.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is very important that the Senator should do so. These matters must be supervised and overseen and it is important to provide an update. The requirement to give an update always focuses the minds of civil servants in ensuring targets are reached. Not every target can be reached but a failure to do so must be explained and there must be a clear pathway to meeting it.

The response from the Department is focused very much on the professional side, including cybersecurity, accounting and so on. Those gaps are there but the Senator is correct to highlight the importance of trades and having apprenticeship programmes in that field. I joined the Minister recently in visiting some of the apprenticeships programmes in place in my constituency, which are training young people and retraining people at different stages of their career. The opportunities are always there to work and the apprenticeship programme offers a pathway at any stage of life. I thank the Senator for raising this matter.

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, has not yet arrived to take the next matter. I propose that we suspend briefly in the meantime. Is that agreed? Agreed.