Labour has questioned why ministers are spending more than £2.5m with a single advertising agency to promote apprenticeships, when the number of people entering such schemes is dropping and the government seems to have abandoned its targets in the area.
A written parliamentary question to the Department for Education (DfE) from the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, found the department was paying £2.55m in the 2018-19 financial year to promote apprenticeships.
The money going to M&C Saatchi, which is a favourite advertising agency of the Conservative party, was being spent on “a new integrated communications campaign to change perceptions of apprenticeships and to encourage more people to see the positive value that apprenticeships can have on their business or their career”, the junior education minister Anne Milton said in the reply.
The contract was awarded after a competitive tender, she added, and also covered areas such as research and digital services.
