Skills Minister urged not to overlook food apprenticeships – FTC
The Food and Drink Training & Education Council (FTC) has joined the Provision Trade Federation (PTF) in writing a letter to the Skills Minister, calling for food apprenticeships to be added to the next round of Standard reviews.
The letter, which was addressed to Luke Hall MP, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, said: “Before Easter your predecessor wrote his annual letter to the apprenticeship sector listing his department’s achievements, which we now see as his valedictory.
“He stated, ‘We also approved funding uplifts for almost 80 standards last year at an average of 35%, in key sectors such as social care, transport and logistics and engineering, helping to maintain quality as costs of delivery increased’.
“We were very disappointed that although he highlighted the department review of over 100 standards, not one of them was a Food and Drink (craft and technical) apprenticeship and would like to ask you, why have these apprenticeships been overlooked so far?”
The letter went on to highlight that the UK’s food and drink industry is the “country’s biggest manufacturing sector by turnover, valued at £104.4 billion”. It said that MPs must be aware of the skills shortages in the industry, as during the pandemic food production was seen as one of the most important sectors.
It also said that “since the UK left the EU the shortages of staff and skills has meant that companies have raised salaries significantly above inflation to recruit and retain staff”, and highlighted butchery, bakery and fishmongering as the areas in which the staff shortages have been most “keenly felt”.
FTC and PTF said that they aim to “support food and drink employers and their employees in being able to select the right training providers for apprenticeships or qualifications.”
They wrote: “We urge you to investigate the matter with the IfATE [Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education] as a priority. It would be of benefit to the industry if the food and drink apprenticeships were added to the next round of Standard reviews.”
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