Article published in FENews 26 August 2025 

Written by Dr Mandy Crawford-Lee, Chief Executive, UVAC

The ink is barely dry on the legislation to abolish the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) that gives its powers over technical education and apprenticeships to the education secretary when we are now seeing early deployment of those “exceptional” powers to bypass employer groups to design and approve standards and apprenticeship assessment plans. Or not to…as in the case of the level 6 chartered manager degree apprenticeship (CMDA) revised by the Trailblazer and ready to be launched as a fully integrated leadership and management professional degree apprenticeship (LaMP) in the autumn. The wait since last December for a decision on the funding band for the revised standard and end point assessment (EPA) plan is over for now with what could quite possibly be an indeterminate delay.

It is…important that DfE takes considered decisions about how to prioritise apprenticeship funding…Following the Spending Review, the department will be working through a detailed business planning process, and we may need to await that work, before DfE are able to approve certain significant new standards or changes to existing funding bands (Skills England, August 2025).

Management Talent Still Represents The Biggest Skills Gap In The UK

This is worryingly unfair practice and exasperating for every employer and provider who have planned recruitment to, and delivery of, the revised standard this academic year. The CMDA is now 10 years old and this very late decision drives a coach and horses through a recent DfE statement that “The transfer of IfATE’s powers to the secretary of state may enable closer integration of employer input with broader government strategies and policies”. The deficit in management talent still represents the biggest skills gap in the UK and a key factor explaining the nation’s productivity gap. To their credit the Trailblazer remains committed that the LaMP will be of direct support for the UK’s industrial strategy, across all 10 key sectors, but the pause also necessarily casts doubt as to the status of the policy which presumes new and revised degree apprenticeships must integrate EPA with the degree and, where applicable, professional requirements.

Poverty Of Ambition 

The Government is struggling to convey a coherent narrative on skills and has issued some very tepid, if not predictable, phrasing. It came into office after 14 years on the political sidelines with a series of vague proposals built around a single institutional change: creating Skills England. I do think this one but significant decision is reflective of the Government’s poverty of ambition for both adults in work and a higher level skills strategy as a consequence of Labour in opposition listening to the many myths about degree apprenticeships including the idea of ‘fake apprenticeships’, a ‘middle-class land grab’, too many starts in leadership and management programmes, and the misguided view that highly paid senior executives benefited from free MBAs. 

Progression-Routes For Individuals From All Backgrounds

This Government has forgotten its own history. It was New Labour that first explored the idea of apprenticeships being the bridge to the professions and the missing link in work-based training to support progression into higher paid careers. Degree apprenticeships provide a very effective means for further development for people already in work and are creating progression-routes for individuals from all backgrounds in assistant, support and technician-level roles. The current view by ministers and officials is that apprenticeships are now about opportunity for young people stepping into entry level job-roles, and less about progression. Which makes me think that policy decisions are rolling back apprenticeships to a former time when there was a gross failure by government to recognise that the development of young adults through many of the best apprenticeships in traditional crafts and trades and occupations does not simply stop at Level 3.