Fury as DfE cuts adult education budgets

Adult education budgets are set to be slashed by the government, FE Week understands, sparking a fierce backlash from FE leaders.

Mayors have been told to expect cuts of around 2 per cent to their adult skills fund and free courses for jobs allocations for the 2025-26 academic year.

FE Week understands the same reduction will also apply to non-devolved allocations as the Department for Education scrambles to find savings for the Treasury.

Sue Pember, policy director at Holex, said cutting funding after more than a decade of debilitating budget freezes “flies in the face of the change we were promised at the general election”.

She added: “This decision is anti-growth, and anti-opportunity.”

Prime minister Keir Starmer warned last month that the Treasury would be “ruthless” with public spending decisions ahead of this summer’s spending review to meet its fiscal rules by not increasing borrowing or raising taxes.

FE Week estimates the cut to adult education budgets will save the department around £30 million.

Unlike schools, further and adult education budgets are not protected within the Department for Education, making them vulnerable to Treasury demands for cutbacks.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, adult education funding rates have remained frozen for a decade, with learner numbers halving over that time. Year-on-year erosion of the value of per-student funding has made lower-level courses particularly unaffordable to deliver.

Mayoral combined authorities were told yesterday they would see reductions in their adult skills fund and free courses for jobs budgets of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent for 2025-26.

Over half, £828 million, of the DfE’s overall £1.4 billion adult skills fund is now devolved to mayors. This funding is topped up with funding for other programmes, including free courses for jobs and skills bootcamps. 

Department of missed opportunities

Sources across multiple combined authorities confirmed they were re-forecasting reduced adult skills budgets for the coming academic year.

Pember, whose organisation represents local authority-run adult education organisations, accused Labour of “ignoring the visible and dire consequences of cuts to adult education”.

She said: “The requirement for retraining has never been so important. Home Office ministers were only saying at the weekend that retraining would lower migration. We know DWP is looking to DfE to support nine million economically inactive people into work.

“Adult learning is core to growth, core to challenging the dangerous rise in populism, core to keeping all of us active and engaged in the economy.

“The secretary of state calls her department the “department for opportunity”, but the evidence points to a ‘department for missed opportunities’ on her watch.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Skills will power our mission-driven government, which is why we are rewiring the system through Skills England and our overhauled Growth and Skills Levy, as well as funding Mayoral Combined Authorities to deliver schemes such as Skills Bootcamps.

“This government inherited an incredibly challenging fiscal context, including a £22bn black hole in the public finances, which is why we’ve had to take tough decisions to fix the foundations.

“We will work closely with mayors on our skills agenda to unlock opportunity, drive growth and deliver on our Plan for Change.”

Sending the wrong message

Adult education providers have battled rising costs with flat central government funding for years while reporting significant demand for courses in basic skills and English for Speakers of Others Languages (ESOL).

The WEA, one of England’s largest adult education providers, said more adult education cuts will “make it harder for people to thrive in life and work”.

It added: “The adult skills fund is key to supporting people into work as well as delivering crucial health and wellbeing outcomes. Cuts now will lead to greater spending need on benefits and the NHS.”

Last year’s autumn statement provided £300 million for further education, but the cash has been ringfenced for 16-to-19 education providers such as FE colleges.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “That [£300 million] decision looks less positive now that adult funding is being cut, because it sends the wrong message, just at the time employers in key sectors of the economy like construction are calling for growth in adult education, not cutbacks. 

“It also poses a risk for the delivery of the youth guarantee and the commitment to increase the employment rate to 80 per cent. Both of those ambitions need colleges to have the capacity to deliver training to help people into work.

“The decision to reduce adult skills funding across combined authorities for 2025-26 takes funding away from an already deeply diminished budget.”

Recent FE Week investigations have revealed that the DfE struggles to spend its non-devolved adult education budget. Meanwhile, mayors now return underspends on the free courses for jobs scheme. 

Association of Employment and Learning Providers deputy CEO Simon Ashworth said reducing adult education funding “shows a lack of appreciation of the importance and impact of adult education when setting funding priorities and will reduce opportunities for those who need support the most”.