Skills Minister Matthew Hancock (pictured) has been accused of “leading Parliament up the garden path” with claims to be cutting spending on qualifications that were never even eligible for public funding.
He told the House of Commons on Wednesday that more than 5,000 qualifications, including “balloon artistry and instructing pole fitness will no longer” be paid for by taxpayers.
But, having learned of the qualifications’ learning aim reference numbers (see below) from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), FE Week found the two examples had never been listed for government money anyway, and so could not have had any publicly-funded adult enrolments.
Speaking in the House of Commons about reforms to vocational qualifications, which featured in FE Week last year and most recently two months ago, Mr Hancock said: “We support vocational qualifications that help people into work, so we must focus support on those that employers value.
“As a result of these reforms, qualifications in subjects such as self-tanning, balloon artistry and instructing pole fitness will no longer attract government funding.”
His comments have been branded misleading by Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne, while other sector leaders have also accused the government of belittling valuable qualifications.
Mr Byrne told FE Week: “We all agree with the need to simplify qualifications, but this is evidence that hapless Matthew Hancock has been leading Parliament up the garden path.
“He’s either messed it up again or deliberately set out a false impression. Either way, he needs to come up with some straight answers for Parliament — and fast.”
The move, according to a BIS press release on Wednesday, meant that “nearly £200m of the adult skills budget will be re-directed towards the highest quality and most relevant qualifications”.
But Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Jill Lanning accused the government of misleading the public with the press release, which also mentioned said qualifications.
She said: “I think by choosing examples not eligible for funding, it has added insult to injury. It is misleading to have put them in the introduction of the press release.”
A BIS spokesperson declined to comment on the claims, which relate to the reform publication Getting the job done: the government’s reform plan for vocational qualifications.
However, Ms Lanning added: “We take issue with the government’s assertion that qualifications that have not met their criteria for the performance tables or for funding, such as minimum size, are automatically of poor quality.”
Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel said: “It’s unfortunate that there’s little understanding or recognition that some of the courses derided in this announcement are those which are important in encouraging vulnerable adults, for example those who are recovering from mental or physical health issues or redundancy, back into work-related training and into employment.”
David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, said: “Often, people find so-called ‘low-value’ courses a great way to step back into learning, to help them rebuild their confidence and they then go on to take further courses and qualifications.”
Mr Hancock said: “We are determined to make sure that people who work hard to achieve a qualification can be sure that it is recognised as meaningful and valuable to employers and that it makes a real contribution to our long-term economic plan for Britain.”
It comes with providers still waiting for the Skills Funding Agency to publish the funding rules, rates and allocations for 2014/15.
The three qualification learning aims in the BIS press release and mentioned by the Minister in the House of Commons
60121920 City & Guilds Level 1 Award In Designing and Creating a Display of Aerial Balloons for an Event
60119974 Active IQ Level 2 Award In Instructing XPERT Pole Fitness
50088439 City & Guilds Level 3 Award in Self Tanning
Spreadsheets of qualifications at risk of losing 19+ funding eligibility
Annual Review 2012: Qualifications for which funding ceased on 31 July 2013
Congratulations to FE Week, and Nick personally, for your relentless work to get at the truth, and your refusal to be bamboozled by the distractions of balloons and pole dancing. Everyone who looks at this page will readily agree that ‘adult ed’ matters a good deal, but we all also know that the politics of adult ed are different from the politics of vocational skills for adults – and when you go through the full list you’ll see that the issue here is much more about vocational skills for adults than about ‘adult ed’.
I am working to protect two of these qualifications. One – just 7 units – meets the statutory need for safety training for seafarers required by international legislation. It is a serious qualification. And there were 250 awards last year, so this is hardly “low take up”.
To be fair, there is an appeal mechanism and I expect our appeal to succeed. Next to it on the list, however, is a copycat qualification from a small awarding body with no take-up. It would feel a bit odd to make the case for market mechanisms and competition to a Tory Minister, but in truth I am entirely relaxed about the copycat qualification being removed. Better to hold fire for some bigger fight.
We need to get to the truth about what’s really going on here, pushing past the Minister’s distractions – and also past protestations about the value of ‘adult ed’ which, however valid, are off-target on this occasion.
This story is a real worry. I have had no dealings with Minister Matt Hancock since I retired last year. Beforehand I found him genuinely concerned to improve the skills and apprenticeship set-up despite disagreeing with some of his positions. This story poses real doubts about his integrity and motivation which is bad news. It could be, however, that he is being let down by his current team of Civil Servants? Will reserve judgment and hope it is the latter, which of course he will need to sort out-quickly
Some Apprenticeships are BOGUS. Ask The Scottish Government. They wasted £1.5 million on one such scheme. The Qualification awarded in 2010 will no longer be accepted by one particular organisation. Therefore this makes a mockery of the Apprenticeship and the Qualification. As the Scottish Government cannot be trusted with £1.5 million for an Apprenticeship – then how can they possibly be fit to run a country?