Remember the Employer Ownership Pilots (EOPs). These were the government’s way of testing the water on letting employer’s lead a demand led system. The DfE has now published a process evaluation of the Employer Ownership (Round 2) pilots which says that whilst there were some positives in terms of value for money, beyond that the project was under spent volumes were poor, much of it suffered from “the frequent absence of a clear strategic case”, and there were shortfalls in the way it was monitored. It is also interesting to note the frequency with which employers required the help of providers and other intermediaries to manage the SFA’s systems. Some will see a resonance here with current issues with the apprenticeship reforms.
