THE low productivity of British workers has several possible culprits. Inefficient family-run companies are sometimes blamed, as are poor workforce skills. But whereas these problems are well documented, another factor is glossed over: the mediocre performance of British bosses. John van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, argues that the standard of British management is “significantly below” that in leading countries. His team carried out 14,000 interviews with employees around the world and found that British workers rated their supervisors lower than those in countries such as America, Germany and Japan (see chart). “We are not in the premier league,” he says. Management as a skill has rarely been taken seriously in Britain, where the cult of the gifted amateur prevails. Ann Francke, the head of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), says that four out of five bosses are “accidental managers”: they are good at their jobs but are then promoted into managing a team or a department, without further training. Unsurprisingly, “they flounder”, she says. Mr van Reenen reckons that about half the productivity gap between Britain and America could be attributed to poor management.

Now British business is trying to catch up with the competition. Last month the first “degree apprenticeship” in management was launched. The Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship was developed by several big firms in conjunction with the CMI and higher-education institutions. The government has promised to pay for up to two-thirds of the cost. Its budget for such things got a boost on November 25th, when the chancellor unveiled a new “apprenticeship levy” on companies with a wage bill of over £3m ($4.5m) per year. The government expects this levy to pull in £3 billion a year by 2020, to help to fund 3m apprenticeships.

The degree apprenticeships in management will be taught by universities and should take between three and five years to complete, during which the apprentice will remain in full-time employment. The baby bosses will move between company and classroom to acquire the skills of motivating others and “leading change”.

For the apprentice, it is a way to get a degree without going to university and racking up a mountain of debt. Nineteen-year-old Harry King, one of 13 to have just begun a degree apprenticeship at Nestlé, a food and drink giant, points out that rather than paying to do a conventional university degree, he is getting paid to earn an equivalent qualification, which he hopes will “massively fast-track” his career. Nestlé, for its part, says it wants to “build leaders” for the future, with a better knowledge of all aspects of its business.

All promising, and overdue. Plenty of industries, from chartered accounting to cheese-making, have run apprenticeships for skilled workers for years, but paid, degree-level training in management is new. Mr van Reenen agrees that the skills that would-be managers should learn on such courses are crucial, but warns that the schemes need to be tested over time to see if they work. Britain’s many mismanaged employees must hope that they do.