The Apprenticeships Task Force were set up in 2003 in order to increase the opportunities available for young people to participate in high quality Apprenticeships programmes with a range of employers; and to recommend effective and innovative ways of ensuring that Apprenticeships and Entry to Employment programmes respond to the changing needs of employers and young people. Since then there have been further developments consistent with the intention that there is a key role for apprenticeship to play in skill development policies in the future. The Apprenticeships Task Force produced their interim report in November 2004 and their final report in July 2005. Employers still believed that that the delivery system was complex and that there was a need for greater collaboration and partnership between the key players. Areas of common purpose related to the structure of frameworks, including key skills, and the further linking of employers’ own training arrangements to the requirements of the Apprenticeship framework. A new ministerial-led steering group had been set up to address these issues and to consider include the balance in numbers between Apprenticeships and Advanced Apprenticeships and ensure adequate funding to support the expansion of Apprenticeships.

The Employers for Apprenticeships website which supports the work of the Apprenticeships Task Force has produced a number of documents on apprenticeship, including:

• an article in the CBI Human Resources Report, December 2004. by Richard Wainer, CBI policy adviser, on the business case for apprenticeships;
• the Joint DfES/LSC end to end review of modern apprenticeships, January 2004;
• a paper by John West on Improving completion rates in apprenticeships, 2005
• a background paper Finding Our Way: Vocational Education In England produced by John West and Hilary Steedman in April 2003. The paper analyzes the weaknesses of vocational education in this country and suggests how to remedy them. It argues that vocational education should be about progression, both to skilled employment and to further levels of education. Despite some strengths in the current system, the authors argue that vocational education has suffered a chequered history with numerous intiatives that has resulted in: "a confusing plethora of qualifications, with no image in the minds of young people, parents and employers about what vocational education involves;
  high degrees of non-completion with switching between the many different courses and a dropping off of participation at 17; poor linkages both between the various types of vocational courses on offer, and between them and vocational offerings in higher education. A third of vocational students are on courses which could not lead to higher education, either directly or through further related course, even if someone excelled on it; poor linkages to the labour market, not helped by the fact that the industry bodies who are meant to set standards have been reorganized five times in the last thirty years, and twice in the last five years alone" (West and Steedman, 2003, pp i- ii).

West and Steedman (2003) went on to argue from the experience of other countries that the lessons for the UK are:

• "trying, as we seem to be, to offer vocational courses both as pathways in their own right and as options which can be mixed with academic subjects is unlikely to succeed;
• linkages with both higher education and apprenticeship is both possible and desirable;
• vocational education can be a respectable option, and certainly is not seen abroad – as it sometimes is here – as an alternative to academic subjects for those who are struggling at school;
• the quest for ‘parity of esteem’ between academic and vocational subjects is a wild goose chase. Far from raising the reputation of vocational courses it is likely to distort them and make them pale imitations of academic studies, with little purpose of their own.
• The right way forward is to develop substantial national vocational programmes, perhaps 15 to 30 in all, each culminating in an award at level 3, the first point at which vocational education has a demonstrable pay-off in the labour market" (West and Steedman, 2003, p. ii).

The Skills White Paper (2005) and the 14 - 19 White Paper (2005) are also relevant in this respect and reinforce the notion that apprenticeship cannot be viewed in isolation from ther aspects of skills development policy both for young people and adults.

As a contrast, listen to the experiences of former apprentices in the BBC programme 'The apprentice'. 

Fuller and Unwin (2003) in their article on Learning as Apprentices in the Contemporary UK Workplace: creating and managing expansive and restrictive participation illustrate the variable learning opportunities that are being created for apprentices under the Modern Apprenticeship. The following report on the effective delivery of apprenticeships was produced by the LSDA in June 2005.

Effective practice in the delivery of apprenticeships

This report identifies characteristics of good practice in relation to the delivery of Apprenticeship programmes, provides a commentary on the extent to which these are currently in place and provides examples of good practice and barriers to further development of good practice. A review of authoritative sources of information on the delivery of apprenticeships and work-based learning identified characteristics of effective practice and informed the development of criteria for good practice. The criteria suggest what would constitute good practice in relation to different stages in the delivery of Apprenticeships.