SNP GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF "BLATANT CON" ON APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMME

Over 10,000 publicly-funded apprenticeships designed to help unemployed people have been given to people already in work, figures released by Scottish Labour today show.

Four out of ten apprenticeships in Scotland went to people who had been in their job for more than six months. The Scottish Government has previously claimed that most apprenticeships are given to so-called “new starts”, coming out of unemployment.

Labour’s Shadow Youth Employment Minister, Kez Dugdale, obtained the figures from Skills Development Scotland.

Among the 26,000 Modern Apprenticeships started last year, 61 per cent had been in post for up to six months, with the rest – 39 per cent – in work for longer than six months. Among 16-19-year-olds, the figure for those in work for less than six months was 81 per cent – with 19 per cent having been in their job for longer than that.

Kezia Dugdale MSP, Labour’s shadow minister for youth employment, said:

"One of the Scottish Government’s flagship policies has been exposed as a blatant con.

"They said they had created 25,000 apprenticeships. What they actually did was take at least 10,000 people who were already in jobs and re-badge their employment as apprenticeships.

"There is a huge gap between the rhetoric from Alex Salmond and the reality for young Scots facing a future on the dole.

"There are over a hundred thousand unemployed young people in Scotland and they deserve real and credible help to get into work.

"Instead, the Scottish Government offers a piece-meal approach which is having limited impact on a lost generation."

10 June 2012