CHILDREN’S charity Barnardo’s may have to stop offering apprenticeship opportunities to vulnerable young people in Bradford.

The charity says it is because of a controversial government procurement exercise which has left the charity without a skills and training delivery contract.

Barnardos has been providing apprenticeships for more than 30 years nationally and only last year opened a new employment training centre in Bradford with plans to get hundreds of young people into jobs or further education.

Chief Executive of Barnardo’s, Javed Khan said: “We have extensive and very successful experience of working with vulnerable young people often with multiple and complex barriers to work. However, we have been penalised for bidding for funding to deliver an apprenticeship training contract that we felt we could realistically provide, rather than overbidding for something that we could not deliver.”

He said it meant the Education and Skills Funding Agency, (ESFA) would lose “a great opportunity” to deliver high quality and successful apprenticeships to more young people in need and he added: “We urge the Agency to reconsider and award a £200,000 allocation so we can continue to provide apprenticeships next year.”

Mr Khan said the only option now to providers like Barnardos to stay in apprenticeships was to become a subcontractor of another large provider or college, but they could potentially lose 20 per cent or more of the funding in management fees which would reduce the amount of funding available to deliver apprenticeships to the most vulnerable.

Last year Barnardo’s support helped 74 per cent of its apprentices successfully complete their programmes with a positive impact of that training felt in Bradford, said Mr Khan.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers fears areas of the country will now be left without apprenticeship opportunities in sectors key to local economies.

At the same time, the ESFA has awarded 250 contracts to new providers with no experience in apprenticeships and is expecting them to help deliver the government’s target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020, said ALEP Chief Executive Officer Mark Dawe .

The Association has now written to Department of Education ministers calling for an urgent review of the procurement outcome.

Mr Dawe said: “It is great there are new providers involved, great that employers are more involved, and the investment in apprenticeships is amazing.

“However, the current implementation is damaging to many providers and it will set back progress in improving productivity and social mobility. Ministers have to think again.”

In 2015 Barnardo’s employment training service supported 80 young people aged between 16 and 19 to complete accredited qualifications, with 81 per cent of them progressing into employment, an apprenticeship or further education. It also supported 101 young people aged from 18 to 24 to find full-time work.