Q&A with Karan Peer, Social Impact Lead at GIST Impact’s Research and Innovation Lab

Q: What are apprenticeships in the UK?

A: Apprenticeships in the UK are a combination of on-the-job training and classroom-based learning that allow individuals to gain practical work experience, earn a wage, and obtain formal qualifications in various industries and sectors.

Q: How are apprenticeships linked to the UK Social Value Model Act (2020)?

A: Apprenticeships can be seen as a way to deliver social value by providing training and skills development opportunities to young people and adults. This can help to improve their employment prospects and boost their social mobility. The Social Value Model Act (2020) specifically mentions apprenticeships as an example of a social value deliverable. This means that businesses and organisations that offer apprenticeships can score extra points in procurement bids if they can demonstrate the social value of their apprenticeship schemes.

Q: What are the benefits of apprenticeships for businesses and organisations?

A: There are a number of benefits of apprenticeships for businesses and organisations. These include:

• Improved employment prospects for young people and adults
• Increased social mobility
• Reduced skills shortages in key sectors
• Improved reputation of businesses and organisations

Q: What are the future trends for apprenticeships in the UK?

A: The future trends for apprenticeships in the UK are positive. The number of apprenticeships is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, as businesses and organisations recognise the benefits of apprenticeships. Additionally, the government is committed to increasing the number of apprenticeships, and it is likely to introduce new policies to support this goal.

Q: How GIST Impact enables corporations in reporting on apprenticeships in line with the Social Value Model Act?

A: We follow the Driver-Outcome-Impact approach to measure and quantify impacts, capturing all significant outcomes generated by an activity – planned and unplanned – hence comprehensively valuing the economic impacts on the beneficiary and larger society.

In case of apprenticeships, we would not only be helping an organisation to report say X individuals were trained in Y location but estimate the $ impacts of the future income opportunity that the skill attainment will create for the individual. We would benchmark this impact by region, demography (gender & ethnicity). For example in Greater Manchester, we can help a company report how much $ impact it created for women apprentices belonging from Minority Ethnic groups. Now in the process of measuring the impact, we would be collecting the whole programme data on apprenticeships from the company, so not only we would help them measure $ impact values but also help them in identifying how many apprenticeships they trained at hyper local level (say Bolton) in line with the relevant MACs and this information they can use to report in their bids.

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Reach out to learn more about how GIST Impact can help measure and report the social value created in line with UK Social Value Model 2020.