Researchers at the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have contrasted cuts to 16-18 funding with “spending shifting towards earlier in youngsters’ lives” in the last 25 years.

The IFS today publish a report into education spending and are keen to point out that despite school funding cuts hitting the headlines in recent weeks, in the last 25 years they “have done rather well in terms of funding per pupil” with spending “set to be at least 70% higher in 2020 than it was in 1990.”

By contrast, they say the “bigger story” is that 16-18 funding in school sixth forms and colleges has been “continually squeezed” with “spending per pupil set to be no higher at all than it was in 1990.”

The report, ‘Long-Run Comparisons of Spending per Pupil across Different Stages of Education’, was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the IFS claims it is the first time “consistent data on day-to-day or current spending per pupil on different stages of education in England over a long time period” has been published. The report does not include research on adult further education funding.

Luke Sibieta, one of the report authors and an Associate Director at the IFS said: “The actions – as opposed to the rhetoric – of both Labour and Conservative governments suggest that they agree 16-18 is a low priority area for spending. Why they think that is unclear”.

The report concludes that “The overriding challenge for the 16–18 sector concerns the long-run stagnation in the level of resources available. By the end of the current Spending Review period in 2019–20, we expect that spending per student in further education will only be just above the level seen 30 years ago at the end of the 1980s.”

Angela Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said “cuts to further education especially are leaving behind thousands of young people that want to pursue technical skills and education and the Tories are once again proving themselves to be the party of the few not the many.”

A Department for Education spokesperson commented on the IFS findings, saying: “We are transforming post-16 education and investing £7 billion to ensure there is a place in education or training for every 16 to 19-year old who wants one. As a result we have the lowest proportion of young people not in education, employment or training since consistent records began in 1994. This supports future economic growth, by meeting the needs of our economy and helping everyone, regardless of background, get onto the ladder of opportunity so they can fulfil their potential.”

The IFS report comes a little over a week before the Spring Budget on 8 March, with the Association of Colleges already calling on the government to increase the 16-18 national base rate as well as shift spending on education and training from 4.3% now towards 5% of GDP to “introduce fair funding for colleges.”

New Institutes of Technology could be based at “wholly new” institutions, not just existing FE providers, a Department for Education briefing document leaked to FE Week has revealed.

In January, the release of a green paper called ‘Building Our Industrial Strategy’, confirmed that £170 million of capital funding would be spent on IoTs.

At the time the DfE indicated that they would be based at existing providers.

The latest document, seen by FE Week, goes into far more detail about the “next steps” for IoTs, including confirmation that they could be established as “a wholly new institution”.

The DfE document, which has not been made public yet, states that the delivery model will not be “one size fits all” because of the “nationwide variance in skills needs and provision”.

Instead, bidders looking to establish an IoT will be able to “adopt models best suited to their local needs”.

Different delivery and governance models provided include “extending technical education provision from within an existing high-performing college”, “delivery through partnerships of FE and HE”, or “a group of employers partnering with an education provider to create an IoT”.

And a further option would be to establish “a wholly new institution where there is evidence that existing providers cannot meet higher level STEM skills needs”.

The government first announced plans for the institutes in July 2015, then again through its Post-16 Skills Plan in July 2016.

Until now it has also been unclear whether independent training providers would be able to get involved with setting up new IoTs, through applying for the £170 million which will come as capital funding across the next three years to 2019/20.

However, this latest update from the DfE indicates that IoT bids “can be submitted by the lead partner of a consortium, who could be either an FE college, higher education institution, private training provider or employer consortia representing more than one employer; or by the local enterprise partnership or combined authority.

The document does state that the DfE expects “the majority of proposals to emerge from the area review process which has stimulated many local areas to consider how an IoT could best be established to meet their specific needs”.

It adds: “In most cases, these are based on a FE College working collaboratively and innovatively across further and higher education and industry usually as part of a consortium.”

Proposals, it says, should be supported “in most cases” by an FE college, “unless there is robust evidence that this is not appropriate for the local area”.

Backing from the local economic partnership or combined authority and local employers identified as potential “anchor partners” is required as well.

The paper warns bidders: “We would not expect to see competing bids which duplicate provision in an area and we would expect the requirement that bids are supported by the LEP or Combined Authority to ensure this does not happen.”

An FE college has climbed its way out of being ‘inadequate’ while an adult and community learning provider and a private provider boosted their provision upwards to ‘good’ in this week’s Ofsted reports.

City College Coventry was rated ‘requires improvement’ in a report published Wednesday (February 22) following an ‘inadequate’ grade in November 2015.

While the 3,500-learner college still has areas to improve, inspectors said its current interim principal, Dr Elaine McMahon, who joined the college shortly after the previous inspection has been “successful in bringing about improvement across the college”.

However, too few learners on classroom-based programmes are successful in developing “appropriate levels of skill in English and mathematics or achieve their qualifications in these subjects,” the report said.

And while safeguarding at the college was deemed “effective”, inspectors noted that too few learners have a “well-developed understanding of life in modern Britain and how to keep safe from the dangers of radicalisation and extremism”.

Meanwhile, Brighton-based adult and community learning provider Friends Centre rose from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’ in a report published on Tuesday (February 21).

Inspectors said that college leaders had “taken very successful action to raise achievement rates” with most learners now achieving their qualification or individual learning goals.

The 1,000-learner provider has also built “excellent partnerships” and ensure that courses “align well” to its city’s needs while providing learners with “good advice, guidance, support and progression routes”.

Another adult and community learning provider, was found to have made “significant” progress in areas including improvement in teaching, learning and assessment including English, maths and English for speakers of other languages courses, in a monitoring visit report published February 20.

It was the third such visit to the provider after it was rated inadequate following an inspection in November 2015.

Gateway sixth form college in Leicester had its first monitoring visit on February 22 since its ‘inadequate’ rating in November 2016.

Senior managers at the sixth form have worked with inspectors to create a post-inspection action plan, based on the improvement actions identified in the previous inspection report.

Bishop Burton College meanwhile retained its ‘good’ rating in a report published February 22.

In order to reach ‘outstanding’, inspectors said teachers should “plan additional activities and offer extra qualifications to their most able learners on study programmes to enable them to achieve high grades”.

They also need to extend apprentices’ skills “beyond the expectations for competence set out in the apprenticeship qualification frameworks”.

It was bad news for Jancett Childcare & Jace Training Ltd who slumped from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.

Leaders at the 620-learner private training provider, which has five training centres in London, Surrey and Kent, have not “followed up sufficiently the majority of the recommendations from the previous inspection”, inspectors said.

They found too few apprentices completing their qualifications “within the time planned”, and the achievements of learners on 16 to 19 study programmes, including English and mathematics, are “low”.

Anderson Stockley Accredited Training Ltd however went in the opposite direction and achieved a ‘good’ grade this week following a ‘requires improvement’ rating in March 2015.

Inspectors said the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and outcomes for apprentices have improved since its last inspection, and a “more rigorous” approach to observations of teaching, learning and assessment has “been introduced that is linked clearly to continuous professional development and effective action planning to ensure improvement”.

Also holding on to a grade two this week following a short inspection were independent training provider Outsource Vocational Learning Limited Intec and St Brendan’s Sixth Form College.

No employer provider or other FE and skills provider inspection reports were published this week.