Co-op, Iceland Foods and Unilever, along with other members of The Royal Foundation’s Business Taskforce for Early Childhood, are spearheading an intervention to invest in over 600 early years apprentices.
The members, which also include NatWest Group and Ikea UK and Ireland, will pledge a combined £1m over the next 12 months, with the apprenticeships spanning employers across the public, private and voluntary community sectors who support the wellbeing of 0 to five-year-olds.
The initiative will also help to play a role in delivering the workforce required to staff the creation of 3,000 nurseries across England, as the new government has pledged to create more than 100,000 new nursery places for children from nine months old.
For Co-op, the move will be achieved through its Levy Share service, which allows like-minded partners to pledge up to 50% of annual unspent apprenticeship levy funds and share them in a targeted way to support the provision of apprenticeships in underrepresented groups.
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The convenience retailer has also set out a commitment to raise £5m over the next five years, which will help to fund the apprenticeships, with additional pledges from Mid-Counties Co-operative.
Co-op CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq said: “Whether we are parents or not, we will all have young children in our lives, and we will understand the importance of supporting them and also their parents through the early years.
“As the Case for Change report shows, supporting early years greatly benefits business. A quarter of our Co-op colleagues have caring responsibilities, which is one of the many reasons why we are absolutely committed to playing our part in the work of The Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood.”
She added: “With the government’s pledge to create much needed physical capacity in the early years sector, it is great that through our levy initiative we can help attract more people into the sector, giving them the opportunity to consider an early year’s career and the correct training.
“We’re currently in talks with other taskforce members to see how they can contribute to provide further funding, but we are also looking to other businesses not already involved in the taskforce to get involved and support the Levy.”
