To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many and what proportion of apprentices (a) were school leavers, (b) were further education college leavers, (c) were already employed by the employer providing the apprenticeship, (d) had been in employment with a different employer and (e) were from another category in each year since 2002. (235175)

Information on what route apprentices have come from is not currently available. However, a national apprenticeships vacancy matching service is being developed by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to provide a high quality service to employers wishing to recruit apprentices, and to young people and adults considering an apprenticeship. This service will help deliver the objective outlined in World-class Apprenticeships to expand and improve the quality of our apprenticeships programme. The service will be available across England by April 2009. Part of the future role of the service will be to provide the new National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) with management information on apprenticeships.

To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (1) how many and what proportion of (a) large employers, (b) medium-sized employers and (c) small employers in England offered apprenticeships in each year since 2002; (235176)

Data on the number and size of the employers supporting apprentices are not collected via the individualised learner record (ILR) and hence the information requested is not currently available.

From the 2009/10 academic year, this information will be available on the ILR when a unique employer identifier will have to be provided by all employers of apprentices.

We can provide an estimate of the size of employers that offer and have recruited apprentices from the National Employer Skills Survey (NESS). These data are based on over 79,000 establishments that were surveyed April and July 2007.

Findings of the NESS show that (from Table 1) 6 per cent. of all employers surveyed have recruited an apprentice. 15 per cent. of employers with between 100 and 199 employees have recruited an apprentice, while 26 per cent. of employers with over 500 employees have recruited an apprentice.

From Table 2, 14 per cent. of all employers surveyed have offered an apprenticeship. 25 per cent. of employers with between 100 and 199 employees have offered an apprenticeship, while 40 per cent. of employers surveyed with over 500 employees have offered an apprenticeship.