The government will legislate to ban “unsuitable” FE leaders from the sector, introduce a new 16 to 19 funding formula and raise higher education tuition fees in line with inflation, a long-awaited post-16 white paper has revealed.
Ministers also have plans for boosting the number of students who successfully resit GCSE English and maths, tracking attendance in colleges, and are mulling over the introduction of “skills passports” for adults.
The white paper, 70 pages and 35,660 words long, was published this evening. Officials also tonight launched a consultation on plans for new V Level qualifications, an expansion of T Level subjects and the scrapping of the troubled T Level foundation year (read the full story on this here).
FE Week has pulled out the key new policies that have not been previously announced.
‘Unsuitable’ people barred from FE leadership
Ministers plan to legislate to “bar unsuitable people” from management positions in further education providers.
There have been multiple high-profile cases of college and training provider mismanagement over the past decade, but it is not clear whether any single case has triggered this move.
The education secretary can already “prohibit or restrict an individual” from taking part in the management or governance of a school by “issuing a direction under section 128 of the Education and Skills Act 2008”, according to government guidance.
FE Week revealed in 2023 that the principal of the first college to be put in administration agreed to never work in the education sector again – but this ban, which will trigger a £250,000 fine if breached, was agreed with liquidator BDO, not the government.
Ministers seemingly now want the power to enforce their own bans on FE leaders through the law.
The white paper said extending the power it has to ban individuals from schools to further education providers will “protect staff, individuals, and public money”.
“We want to ensure that leaders of further education providers are the right people to be leading their institutions, ensuring that the highest standards underpin leadership and governance,” the white paper added.
“We will legislate when parliamentary time allows.”
16-19 funding: A formula review and real-terms rise
As per this summer’s spending review, the government will provide £1.2 billion of “additional investment per year in skills by 2028-2029”.
The white paper said this “significant investment” will ensure there is increased funding to colleges and other 16 to 19 providers to “maintain real terms per-student funding in the next academic year to respond to the demographic increase in 16 to 19-year-olds”.
Ministers believe this funding boost will help colleges with the “recruitment and retention of expert teachers in high value subject areas”.
Officials will also undertake a “16 to 19 funding formula review” to “maximise the impact of this funding”.
A revised formula is expected to be in place for the 2027-28 academic year.
Details are light but here’s what the white paper teased the review will explore: “We will look at how we are supporting high-value courses to ensure sufficient funding is reaching the most critical subject areas, for example those linked to priority sectors.
“We will aim to simplify the formula, whilst ensuring we support courses that drive economic growth and support providers to offer more provision that will help young people to thrive in areas with growth potential.”
Better prepare students for GCSE resits, colleges told
The government appeared to criticise colleges for entering unprepared students for GCSE English and maths resits.
The white paper said too few learners with low prior attainment – a grade 2 or below in English and maths – are “achieving a grade 4 by the time they leave education at age 18 or 19 yet are resitting, sometimes repeatedly, when they are not ready”.
Each student that failed to achieve a grade 4 pass in English or maths at school must study towards the subjects as a condition of their post-16 place being funded. Government guidance makes clear this is a study requirement, not a requirement for students to resit an exam.
“Too many students are entered into resit exams in the November after their GCSE entry the previous summer, without sufficient additional teaching to enable them to succeed,” the white paper said.
To aid the sector, the government said it will introduce a new 16 to 19 English and maths “preparation for GCSE level 1 qualifications designed to consolidate the foundational skills and knowledge needed to prepare lower prior attaining students (grade 2 or below) before they then take a GCSE resit”.
These new qualifications will “build on” Becky Francis’ curriculum and assessment review’s “analysis of the evidence and developing recommendations”.
Officials will “work closely with the sector as we develop the new qualifications and plan to consult in 2026”.
College and ITP ‘improvement’
The government plans to introduce regional improvement teams in further education, taking a “similar approach” to the regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) programme in schools.
Overseen by the FE Commissioner, these teams will create a “clear governance structure” for the Department for Education to “ensure that each region has the provider capacity and capability to support students at risk of being left behind, and respond to local skills needs identified in local skills improvement plans or by strategic authorities”.
The white paper said officials “know that many colleges are already performing brilliantly in these areas”, and they will continue to work with them through this new “universal offer of support to all colleges”.
Details on how exactly what this new support offer will entail are sparse.
But the white paper did reveal that regional improvement teams will also look at capacity in the independent training provider market to “identify gaps in provision and to identify effective practice and collaboration across colleges, independent training providers, local authorities and Strategic Authorities, which other areas could benefit from”.
Skills ‘passports’ and apprenticeship ‘units’
Too many adults lack the basic English, maths and digital skills, yet participation in essential skills courses has plummeted over the last decade.
To get more adults to improve their skills, the white paper suggests a review of English, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), maths and digital skills training. The review will check whether the existing offer of courses is meeting the needs of people classed as most disadvantaged in the labour market and whether they deliver the learning needed to access technical training and jobs in priority sectors.
Meanwhile, Skills England has been tasked with “exploring” the development of “skills passports”. The new government agency will “review best practice and learn from previous experience”, but the idea is the passports would show employers what skills, competencies and work experience an individual has in a standardised way.
There was no timetable set out for skills passports, but the white paper said it would be tested with unemployed people in jobs and careers service pathfinder areas.
Sector based work academies will be “significantly” expanded, the white paper suggested but did not quantify. The “highly effective” programmes form part of a package of initiatives aimed at people facing barriers to employment. This also includes a new pathways to work guarantee for disabled people and benefit claimants with health conditions and continuing with plans to devolve skills bootcamps to strategic authorities.
Short courses funded through the growth and skills levy will be introduced in April 2026 as planned, but with their own special name: apprenticeship units. As previously announced, an initial wave of fundable short courses will be offered for employers in “critical skills areas” such as engineering, digital and artificial intelligence.
The white paper had little to say about future waves of fundable apprenticeship units, only that decisions will be informed by Skills England’s analysis of employers’ needs.
Level 4 and 5 awarding powers for FE providers
The prime minister’s new higher education target specifically included expanding training at levels 4 and 5. As announced following his Labour party conference speech, and confirmed in the white paper, the Office for Students (OfS) will become the “single primary regulator” for all providers teaching level 4 and above courses.
DfE will “encourage” further and higher education organisations to work together on progression pathways through level 4+ training, even floating “novel alternative business models, including federated models and partnerships” between the two sectors.
There will be a “stronger expectation” on higher education providers to set out how they will deliver technical skills needs identified in local skills improvement plans.
While there was no timeline, DfE has revealed that it will work with the OfS on a process to grant colleges and training providers their own awarding powers for “occupationally focused” level 4 and 5 higher technical qualifications.
Awarding organisations will continue to be able to develop and market higher technical qualifications, if they’ve been licensed by the OfS to do so.
All of this will be scrutinised by a new “market monitoring function” within DfE, with Skills England charged with identifying cold spots in supply of higher-level education and training.
HE fees to rise with inflation
Ministers have also decided to rise higher education tuition fees in line with forecast inflation for the next two academic years.
Legislation will then be brought forward, “when parliamentary time allows”, to enable “automatic increases to fee caps in future years in line with inflation” but only for institutions that meet “tough new quality thresholds set by the Office for Students”.
Auto enrolment from schools
Young people will be unable to leave school at 16 without an education or training place to go to next, the white paper revealed.
The move comes as part of a range of measures outlined in the white paper to cut the rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
Pilots will test the idea of designating a “default provider” in an area, which could be a college or other provider, that would contact and place a school leaver who hadn’t selected a post-16 option. A process would also be put in place for young people that drop-out in-year.
“Our ambition is that the default for any young person who isn’t sure of their next steps post-16 is to be in a college or further education provider, rather than out of education and training,” the white paper said.
Funding for education and “wraparound support” is yet to be determined.
Other anti-NEET measures in the white paper include improving data sharing and tracking of young people between schools, local authorities and further education providers.
New “risk of NEET” indicators will be introduced using “artificial intelligence to enhance this approach”.
Schools will be asked to do more to help young people at risk of becoming NEET “successfully transition into post-16 education and training” which will be monitored by Ofsted.
Attendance tracker for 16 to 19s
The white paper rehashes the government’s announcements from last month’s Labour Party conference around tackling soaring numbers of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) – namely its new “youth guarantee”.
But it also reveals plans for the government to track student attendance in all 16 to 19 providers.
This will enable providers and the government “intervene early when attendance starts to decline” to try and prevent the young person from becoming NEET.
Officials will take the “best practice” from school attendance tracking and “bring it into further education, to identify those at risk of becoming NEET through data sharing and embedded strategies to address persistent absence”.
“This will factor in the contextual differences between further education and schools,” the white paper added.
“For example, many further education providers do not expect every learner to be present by a certain time every day so identifying absence will reflect this. We will also draw out existing best practice in further education to strengthen guidance and accountability.”
Teacher professional development
“Expert bodies” like the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Education Endowment Foundation and WorldSkills UK will develop a new career-long professional development framework for FE teachers in a bid to raise standards and improve recruitment and retention.
The white paper makes numerous commitments to programmes that support professionals from industry into FE teaching, with technical excellence colleges mentioned numerous times as organisations expected to be at the forefront of new ways to recruit, train and retain teachers.
It said: “As leaders for their specialism, technical excellence colleges will focus on developing excellent specialist curricula and teaching practice. Through a hub and spoke model, technical excellence colleges will share these with
other local providers.”
For example, technical education colleges will lead on providing “cutting edge” professional development to FE staff, alongside teacher industry exchange schemes giving teachers access to industry placements in return for masterclasses and guest-teaching opportunities on modules in FE for industry professionals.
A call for evidence was launched on Friday to inform new statutory guidance on initial teacher education (ITE). It comes as part of a DfE crackdown on “contested and outdated theories” being taught to trainee FE teachers.
The government also plans to extend its teaching vacancy service to include further education roles and pledged to continue its teacher recruitment marketing campaigns and teacher incentive payments for this academic year.
FE data will be “safely and appropriately” used with EdTech companies to develop artificial intelligence tools to ease workload burdens on teachers and leaders. The white paper was light on detail, but DfE said AI could “transform and improve” teaching and will “support the technology market to develop the products that leaders and teachers need”.
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