Further to the scoping work that CFE carried out around Apprenticeships, CFE also worked with the LSC National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) team to provide programme implementation support in the run up to the launch of the service in April 2009 and beyond. The NAS national Delivery Plan aims to deliver the Government’s commitments in ‘World Class Apprenticeships’, the central target of which is to achieve 400,000 learners in Apprenticeships by 2020.

In December 2008, CFE carried out a risk review in the lead up to the soft launch of the new National Apprenticeship Vacancy Matching Service (VMS).  This is a new online service set up to match potential Apprenticeship candidates with employers recruiting for their Apprenticeship schemes.  The service was launched to employers in December 2008 and went live for learners in the January 2009.  The review identified the key service risks and put forward respective mitigating actions to inform risk management handling procedures. The final report was put together following a review of the VMS project so far, and incorporated stakeholder consultation views from regional NAS teams, employers, providers and Connexions. The report was reviewed by the LSC team ahead of the service launch to learners in January.

CFE also carried out a round of regional consultations working with NAS project leads to review progress on the development and implementation of regional employer engagement strategies. At the same time project work was undertaken to inform the development of national NAS protocols. The first stage in this task was the analysis of ways of working agreement formats and their implementation.