Cabinet Office to review civil service’s approach to apprenticeships Strategy eyes “focus on quality and rigour” that goes “beyond a numerical target” Pexels 05 May 2021 Departments are being told to adopt an “apprenticeships first” approach to recruitment over the coming year and ensure they hit a target of recruiting apprentices equivalent to 2.3% of their workforce. But a new strategy document published by the Cabinet Office says the government is “revising its approach” to apprentices. More than four years on from the launch of the original apprenticeship strategy that set the 2.3% target and sought the creation of 30,000 new government apprenticeships by 2020, the Cabinet Office said it was time to revise Whitehall’s approach to on-the-job training.