More than 10,000 publicly-funded apprenticeships designed to help unemployed people have been given to people already in work, Scottish Labour has claimed.

The Shadow Youth Employment Minister, Kezia Dugdale, obtained figures from Skills Development Scotland which showed that 81% of 16-19 year-olds starting Modern Apprenticeships had been in their jobs for up to six months.

Ms Dugdale said it exposed the SNP government’s drive for apprenticeships as a "blatant con".

But the government said young people have to be working before they can start an apprenticeship, and there may be delays due to college term times or the employer wanting to assess the potential apprentice.

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A spokesman for Skills Development Scotland said 16-19 year-olds were "a priority" for the Modern Apprenticeship scheme and more than £70m had been invested in the programme in the last 12 months.

Figures showed that of 26,000 Modern Apprenticeships started last year, 61% of apprentices had been in post for up to six months while the rest had been in work for longer than six months.

Ms Dugdale said: "One of the Scottish Government’s flagship policies has been exposed as a blatant con. They said they had created 25,000 apprenticeships. What they actually did was take at least 10,000 people who were already in jobs and re-badge their employment as apprenticeships. There are over a hundred thousand unemployed young people in Scotland and they deserve real and credible help to get into work."

(NE/GK)