The chair of the Skills and Education Group (SEG) board has resigned with immediate effect on health grounds.
Atholl Stott stood down as chair and trustee of the awarding and professional development charity earlier this month, ending 15 years in non-executive roles in further education.
Nottingham College principal and chief executive Janet Smith, already a trustee of the group, has been made interim chair before a permanent chair is recruited later this year.
The group is now led by an interim chair as well as an interim chief executive.
Paul Eeles, its long-standing CEO, resigned and was thensuspended pending an investigation in October.
SEG hired law firm Eversheds Sutherland to lead an investigation into Eeles “in response to new information that has emerged since his resignation”.
That investigation remains ongoing.
Stott joined what was then the Emfec trustee board in 2016 and took over as chair in 2017. Emfec became Skills and Education Group in 2018, following the acquisition of ABC Awards and Certa Awards. The group grew further to include a grant-giving foundation, awarding and assessment arms and the British Institute of Innkeeping Awarding Body acquired in 2021.
Yultan Mellor
In a message to SEG staff last week, interim chief Yultan Mellor said: “Atholl Stott has made the difficult decision to stand down from his role as chair of the group board and as a trustee with immediate effect for health reasons.
“I know you will join me in thanking Atholl for all the support he has offered Skills and Education Group over the years he’s been with us.”
Stott was a board member of North Nottinghamshire College from 2009, seeing through its 2016 merger with Rotherham College to form the RNN Group. He chaired the group until 2019 as it was placed in FE commissioner intervention.
Other roles in the sector included serving four years on the board of the Association of Colleges and chairing its governors’ council from 2016 to 2019.
The Boomtown Rats did not like Mondays. Kylie had the Monday blues, and Monday found the Mamas and Papas to be cryin’ all of the time. In contrast, South Essex College really does not like Fridays – despite there being no anti-Friday supporting discography.
Back when Liz Truss was/was not crashing the economy (sub editors – please check for libel), South Essex College announced that rising energy bills meant that they would close most of their campuses and not teach on Fridays, with staff working from home on that day. Their opinion piece last week highlighted some of the benefits the switch had brought.
With a caveat I will get to later, this is basically a good idea and others should follow in their footsteps.
We know that people like working from home. A lot. When a large US tech firm offered half its workers (decided randomly by birth date) the chance to work from home on Wednesdays and Fridays, that group were 35 per cent less likely to quit than those who had to come in every day. They worked fewer hours on Wednesdays and Fridays, but did more work at the weekends.
In fact a lot of Americans, given the chance to “work from home”, play golf in the afternoon, and make up the hours in the evenings and at weekends. Afternoon golf course use has more than trebled.
Turns out playing golf in the light, and working after dark suits a lot of people. And work they do – those workers randomly allowed to work from home produced 8% more code than those who came into the office.
People worry about being seen to slack, and they appreciate the saving of commuting time, and they work harder.
Now whether or not my readers play golf, being able to sort your own work routine is likely to appeal to most people. I am quite literally writing this at home, in the early evening. There is a whole lot of prep-work, marking, report writing, end of year summaries, all sorts that can be done at home perfectly well.
Offering this flexibility matters more in the UK than elsewhere, because working from home is 40 per cent more common in the UK than in other English speaking countries, and it is particularly common for graduate workers.
Workers expect it. Since workers like it, employers offering flexibility can offer lower pay and still recruit well, and have happy staff. Turns out that employees value the flexibility at about 8% of salary.
Given the cash constraints on colleges, that seems like a win-win for South Essex, and others. We can’t pay you more but we can give you flexibility.
Many, although not all, further education staff could work in schools. Schools will find it much harder to offer this level of flexibility – they pretty much have to be open five days a week in term time.
Colleges pay less well, but hopefully this sort of flexibility will help them attract and retain staff who might otherwise choose to work in a school.
So three cheers for South Essex. I have only one quibble – and it is a quibble. They shut campuses on Fridays. But if you have enough floor space to do your teaching on four days, it sounds to me as though you have too much floor space.
It might be sensible to reduce the size of the campuses by about 20 per cent, then assign each member of staff to a different day working from home. That way one fifth of workers would no longer find their Mondays manic.
Even better, they should ask their staff what their preferred work patterns are. Maybe lots want Fridays off. Maybe others want to be on campus five days a week, but for fewer hours each day.
It isn’t just working from home that people value, it is flexibility as to when you work from home. South Essex is scoring highly on the former, but it would be even better if the right to work was more flexible.
Walk around any college and you’ll hear the same conversations. You’ll even hear identical phrases – ‘And then she…’, ‘Who does she think…?’, ‘So he says…’
You’ll then hear unfold a deep analysis of some interaction, usually filled with plenty of side-taking, side-swiping, and general sniping.
It’s often the sort of analysis I struggle to get students to do. But they can do it here in the corridors with ease. I’d estimate such chat accounts for 80 per cent of students’ conversations and consumes 90 per cent of their energy.
When all this is going on it can be a real distraction from academic learning.
Expecting a student to analyse a poem when they’ve just been excluded from their friendship group is a big ask. They’re engaging in learning that seems far more urgent, visceral and essential than anything I can present them with.
But they are learning. This shouldn’t be mistaken for mere distraction. A teacher’s job is simply to direct that learning spotlight onto a particular subject.
Young people need to know how to navigate their social worlds, filled with complexities us older souls have long since left behind. They are still knee-deep in the swirling social milieux of in-groups and out-groups and urgent deep relationships. Underlying this, their survival instincts are engaged.
Social complexities once occupied us all; they had to because social survival and personal survival have always been interlinked.
In fact, social status has often been a lot more important than academic learning. Imagine yourself as the inhabitant of a Neolithic village, where you must fit in to be fed; where exclusion means exile and almost certain death.
The Neolithic human still resides deep inside, our modern manners serving only to hide the self-same creature within.
Survival used to centre on being accepted or excluded from the group, and we’ve not come too far from our ancient ancestors’ villages, where decoding social cues was an essential skill to develop. Our students are experts at this.
I’ve lost count how many times a student has sought me out to confide about some social crisis crucifying them. Social insults and slights can fill their horizons.
One student recently sadly said she was being excluded from her social group, and then added they were the group who didn’t even fit in anywhere else. Where else could she go?
You could hear her despair as she saw her social road running out before her eyes. How could I brush that aside? In that moment, my work was taking a solid back seat to her survival needs. I had to help her process this before she could study.
We’ve taken our Neolithically-minded kids and thrust them into a cyber world. We’ve opened a Pandora’s box of social media and left them at the mercy not just of their limited circle of peers in the Neolithic village but of a worldwide morass of confusing and conflicting social signals and stimulation populated by millions, where acceptance is ever unattainable and the pressure always on.
Put that together with a young adult’s unformed frontal lobe, which should help them regulate their emotional responses and assess risk and consequence but can’t yet, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
No wonder anxiety is at record levels amongst our youth, and there’s the constant cry of mental health preventing academic learning. No wonder so many feel they have run out of road before they’ve even begun their journeys.
Meanwhile homework still has to be done. So what do we teachers do?
The old Neolithic village might have been built with a stockade around it, providing a safe space to slowly develop social skills. In the 1990s, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested most of us could only really manage social relationships, of differing degrees, with 150 people.
In 2013, a Pew Research project found that people have, on average, around 425 ‘friends’ on social media. Maybe our young people simply need smaller social circles.
Australia is currently trying to erect a legal stockade around their young people. Do our youth here not deserve similar protection? Tech-savvy teens might find ways around any ban, but some might still be saved.
The government’s announcement that it will leverage AI to transform productivity holds vast potential. But will this technological advancement equally benefit all societal sectors?
When we examine it through the lens of adult and community education and the HOLEX membership, the answer is more complex.
While AI offers enormous promise, it can also be overwhelming, especially for adults who haven’t grown up with this fast-evolving technology.
The reality is, without significant and targeted investment many adults risk being left behind.
As a recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report highlights, “by 2024-25, total skills funding will be 23 per cent lower than in 2009-10, with classroom-based adult education funding still over 40 per cent below 2009-10 levels.”
This severe underfunding directly affects the communities that could benefit most from learning, especially when adult education is key to boosting productivity, social cohesion and educational attainment.
The £50m overlooked the adult education sector
The recent announcement of an additional £50 million for the FE sector is a further disappointing blow to adult education.
While any investment in education is welcome, this funding is solely directed towards general FE colleges and sixth forms, completely overlooking the adult education sector.
This exclusion only deepens the divide and risks marginalising millions of adults who need essential skills development.
The decline in investment is widening the skills gap. Why is it so difficult for the government to commit to supporting the nine million adults in need of essential skills development?
These people are integral to achieving its ambitions in AI, health, construction and the green economy, yet are still treated as secondary to other educational priorities.
AI technology is complex, requiring an understanding of new tools and concepts. Many adult learners will need extra support to grasp AI’s potential, and adult education providers must be part of this investment.
We need flexible, local environments to ensure all adults can benefit from AI.
The so-called grey digital divide is another key challenge. Older adults with low digital literacy could greatly benefit from AI-enabled jobs but are disconnected from this digital transformation.
AI won’t necessarily replace jobs, but those able to use AI to enhance their performance will replace those who can’t. This widening divide is concerning.
Funding fight
My key arguments for government investment in adult learners during this revolution focus on four areas:
Digital literacy – Basic digital skills are necessary to fully utilise AI. Adults who are not digitally literate need support to improve their confidence and proficiency with technology.
Workplace adaptation – As AI transforms the workforce, workers need to adapt to new tools and processes. Training and support can help bridge the gap between traditional methods and AI-powered innovations.
The learning curve – While younger generations may seamlessly integrate new tech into their lives, adults often need help finding practical and meaningful ways to incorporate AI into their routines – whether for work, learning, personal use or hobbies.
Trust and security – Understanding ethical and other potential risks associated with AI is crucial. Support is needed to help adults make informed decisions, use AI responsibly, and feel empowered to navigate this new digital world. AI and fake news widens the digital deficit and harms social discourse.
Dipa Ganguli, principal of WM College and chair of HOLEX, recently said: “By recognising the role we play and actions we can take to arm and deploy adult colleges in the fight against disinformation, we can be an effective part of the arsenal against activities that undermine all that we – as educators – are trying to achieve in building a cohesive society”.
Ultimately, the goal should be to ensure that everyone can benefit from AI, regardless of age or background. Providing support helps level the playing field and empowers people to take advantage of the opportunities AI offers.
However, if the government continues to underestimate the investment required to engage adults in the AI journey we risk deepening the socio-economic and educational divide.
It’s essential to equip adults and educators with professional tools, resources and support to actively participate in this revolution, rather than leaving them as ‘at risk’ bystanders.
“Now that you’re in,” I was told on my first day working in the Department for Education, “there are loads more jobs you can apply for”.
While some civil service roles are advertised externally, far more are open to existing staff.
It facilitates a system where less-effective staff can always be moved around because the bar to bring in outsiders is set high.
It can mean that key posts within the DfE are open to those struggling in other departments such as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or the Department for Transport, while not being open to anyone with relevant, successful experience from a college or school.
It was soon clear that, for a few, applying for jobs was a bigger priority than doing their own job. And it paid off, because civil service recruitment is usually abstractly detached from reference to either your past performance or suitability.
Not doing your job at all and writing 20 applications a day provides better odds of promotion than trying to achieve something.
While FE English and maths was (probably concerningly) my dream government role, I did occasionally indulge in some wistful cross-government job browsing.
From head of nuclear submarine strategy to exotic animal welfare inspector, the posts I clicked into were an exciting list of what I might once have liked to be when I grew up.
What I came to notice though was that those roles, outrageously, required actual experience to be eligible to apply. As I had neither commanded a submarine nor achieved a veterinary degree, those doors were closed.
For education on the other hand, we are so lacking in reverence, so culturally opposed to being exceptional, that non-specialists are actively preferred.
The absence of domain knowledge in the DfE has led us into what I would describe as postmodern policy making; non-teacher lobbyists telling non-truths to non-teacher civil servants. It is a simulation of governance that has no concern for young people.
The rub for FE is that the distance from reality is even more severe, because most in Whitehall can at least imagine some version of a school.
The scale of colleges, the delivery of technical education, and its genuinely diverse student populations are not things that boarding school and a degree in ancient cartography familiarise you with.
The problems this causes are plain to see. Transition of exam access arrangements from schools remains unacceptably burdensome for colleges because civil servants picture a SENDCO having a friendly chat with their opposite number from the local comprehensive about a dozen learners. They cannot conceive of 50 feeder secondaries and half of your students with a specific need.
I’m sure we wouldn’t have been made to wait until just a few weeks ago to learn which level 3 qualifications can run this September if DfE officials had ever tried to predict staffing needs while on shoestring FE funding. It’s not like throwing Mr Chetwyn-Jones some cricket coaching because his A-level geography numbers are down.
Personally, I see it in the department’s credulous parroting of laughable lobbying lines. The recent retreat on condition of funding suggested that English and maths might have an impact on those “at risk of dropping out”. Those who’ve actually worked with students on the edge of NEET-dom will be all-too-aware how trivial lessons are compared to the real-life issues, barriers and anxieties of the vulnerable.
A warm classroom and a warm teacher never made anyone NEET.
The same DfE, in a crude effort to boost apprenticeship numbers, killed a lifeline for those students; traineeships. Again, the idea that those learners didn’t need extra support prior to an apprenticeship could only come from the professionally-clueless.
Imagine being in a meeting weeks after the decision to end traineeships and the senior civil servant responsible remarks that ‘what we really need is a form of pre-apprenticeship’.
If you’re unfamiliar with the jauntily absurd soundtrack to Terry Gilliam’s dystopian film Brazil, just know that I was whistling it in my head non-stop for five years.
We’re currently awaiting confirmation of the appointment of the Skills England CEO, knowing that the ad was seeking ‘senior leaders from government’, and pitched at the level of a DfE director (typically managing around 50 people, so about equivalent to a college middle manager). We can be confident that it won’t be someone with experience in either the classroom or industry.
If we are going to reverse the perverse distaste for education in England, I propose a simple benchmark for those shaping policy: Could they cover a lesson?
These include merging the Department for Education-funded National Careers Service with job centres across England in a bid to raise employment rates.
Committee chair Debbie Abrahams said the cross-party group of MPs would examine how job centres could support people with careers advice and training alongside its “current priority of overseeing benefits”.
She added: “Due to the way the job centre touches peoples’ lives, being both an access point for benefits and employment opportunities, getting this formula for reform right, if it needs it, is essential.”
The committee is inviting submissions to its inquiry until March 3.
Extra two million in work
The government has set a target of raising the employment rate from 74.8 to 80 per cent – which would mean an extra two million people finding work.
It has also announced a “youth guarantee” of a job, training or apprenticeship, and has suggested the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, health services and mayoral authorities work more closely.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, claimed “too many” people who want to work miss out on support, with only one in 10 jobless disabled people getting help to find work each year.
He said: “That needs to change, meaning a more open-doors approach from Jobcentre Plus and joining up with other services including learning and skills.”
Gareth Thomas, a skills policy adviser and former director at the Learning and Skills Council, said it was important to offer outreach services since many people lived far from their nearest job centre.
Jobcentre Plus is a job support service run exclusively for benefits claimants by the DWP.
The DfE-funded National Careers Service offers free advice and guidance on training and careers to anyone over the telephone, online, or face-to-face in some locations.
In England, the service is currently outsourced to eight regional “prime contractors” that subcontract the service out to about 70 smaller providers at a cost of about £53 million per year.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We welcome the committee’s review of our plans to transform Jobcentres into a fully equipped public employment service, delivering personalised support to help everyone secure employment and get ahead.
“This is just one part of our plan to Get Britain Working which will deliver the biggest employment support reforms in a generation, boosting growth in every corner of the country and putting extra pounds in the pockets of working people.”
Fashion Retail Academy principal Lee Lucas on the impact of 20 years of industry transformation- from physical shops to same-day deliveries, influencers and drone flying
A delicate fragrance lingers in the air as I pass through the grand pillared archway under a stained-glass goddess, and into the home of the Fashion Retail Academy.
The lavish décor of the Ofsted ‘outstanding’ training provider’s new home, Electra House in London’s Moorgate (a former wartime secret operations base), embodies the emphasis on aesthetics that defines the fashion industry.
Five industry players founded the Fashion Retail Academy (FRA) 20 years ago and still play a role in shaping it. But the decimation of the high street means the skills required of its learners are quite different two decades on.
When we meet, principal and chief executive Lee Lucas is looking dapper in his crushed velvet jacket and jeans, as you might expect. But he laments that the CEOs of fashion companies he meets turn up in “really scruffy jumpers and trainers” and “could be selling the Big Issue”.
The entranceway of Electra House, Moorgate, which the FRA moved into in 2024
Unlike his fashion-loving students, a gaggle of whom are taking selfies in the corridor, Lucas “cannot stand” having his picture taken and jokes that his children (aged 11 and 22) “won’t remember I existed” as there will be “no proof” when he is gone.
Then he tells me about the FRA’s origins, which underlie its purpose as the UK’s only specialist fashion retail institute.
Retail giants Arcadia, Marks & Spencer, Experian, Tesco F&F and Next were “rivals beyond compare” who “would sooner kill each other than do anything together”, but such was their “frustration” with the calibre of graduates joining their industry that they united in 2005 under a “common cause”.
At first, the firms tried to work with the universities, offering to help write a programme of courses tailored to industry needs. None took up their offer, so they pooled £10 million to form the FRA. They started with 50 students on level 2 qualifications. Now, there are 3,500 students and apprentices, ranging from level 2 in fashion retail to a master’s in international fashion marketing.
“The litmus test” of success, both then and now, is how many go on to work in the industry, and Lucas is “really proud” that 94 per cent end up in “positive destinations”.
Lee Lucas, CEO of the Fashion Retail Academy
Tracksuited apprentice
Lucas admits that his own academic record makes him a “very bad example” for his students. As a tracksuit-donning teenager growing up near Carshalton, South London, he quit his A-levels and a GNVQ in business because he found them “incredibly dull”.
Instead he did an IT apprenticeship with Kingston University. Apprenticeships then had a “real stigma” attached to them, with “this idea” that those on them “maybe weren’t very clever”. But he loved the hands-on nature of the work.
Lucas progressed quickly into an “exceptionally well-paid” IT manager role for a recruitment company but “hated” it. Three years later, aged 24 and feeling “disillusioned,” he quit to seek a new career path.
He realised the only part of the IT job he had liked was training apprentices. So he retrained in FE as an IT teacher and assessor at Richmond upon Thames College and ended up leading its community outreach programme.
Lucas admits “the work that FE does changes lives”, although the often-used statement is one that “needs to come with a sick bag”.
He adds: “When you find something like that that you can do for a living, it feels far less about doing a job and much more about just who you are.”
Beholding beauty
Lucas’s next move was to the London College of Beauty Therapy (as head of student services), which last year was bought by the FRA’s parent charity, Education for Industry (EFI) Group.
Both providers have a lot in common; Like the FRA, the London College of Beauty Therapy serves one sector so “everyone marches in the same direction”. Lucas believes having that shared purpose is “quite special”, and having the group run both providers gives students access to a broader industry network.
He spent the next seven years, before joining the FRA in 2014, leading the British Academy of Jewellery (then known as Holts Academy), another niche provider operating in the basement of a shop in London’s historic diamond district, Hatton Garden.
He worked with brands to write the first official qualifications in jewellery-making, and helped grow the academy to a multi-site campus with 800 students, which has since moved to Camden.
Lucas believes the key to success with such sector-specific providers lies in working with brands to “capture the sentiment of what their skills needs are”, but “making it as simple and light touch as possible”.
Lee Lucas shortly after joining the Fashion Retail Academy
FRA-bulous times
When he took over at the FRA, the high street was a “very different place”.
Retailers still boasted plenty of town centre stores and were opening outlets in retail parks across the country.
Now, much of retail has moved online, with all the logistical complexities that entails, plus there’s intense competition from the likes of Amazon and Temu.
Lucas is determined to be optimistic, although the brand leaders he works with are “always miserable – I don’t think they ever feel like times are great”, he says.
The FRA prioritises teaching the soft skills that will help students find work, whatever the future has in store.
In all, the FRA works with around 250 brands that help shape its curriculum and provide mentoring and work placements so students “learn about the realities” of life in retail.
This means students are often “not sitting in a classroom just hearing the same teacher who has spent the last 10 years regurgitating; they’re hearing from people doing that job today”.
The fashion retail sector is incredibly diverse, with “no barriers to head office roles based on gender, religion or sexual preference”. Reflecting this, many chief executives of the brands the FRA works with left school with no qualifications and worked their way up.
Lucas muses that “as in a lot of walks of life, there are a lot less big personalities left in retail than there used to be” – which in some cases, he concedes, is not such a bad thing.
The FRA does “first-come, first-served” enrolments; there are no interviews or personal statements (apart from for degrees, as it’s a UCAS requirement).
This means the FRA’s classes have a “wonderful mix” of people from different backgrounds, with no ability streaming of classes (“because that’s not how the workplace works”).
Lucas says: “We probably don’t blow our own trumpet about that enough. It’s one of the few industries that, if you roll up your sleeves and you get stuck in, you can make it far”.
The Fashion Retail Academy advert on London buses
Influencers wanted
Large, eye-catching ads for the FRA, saying ‘influencers wanted; specialist courses for fashion careers’ were recently emblazoned across London’s buses.
Although the FRA does not train young people to be influencers, “the focus of those campaigns is really trying to meet young people where they are”.
“If you’re great at spotting trends and being influential on social media, then you could retrain and get these amazing jobs in the marketing or PR office of brands, where those skills are really in demand,” Lucas tells me.
But the most in-demand skill in the fashion industry is not one on most young fashion connoisseurs’ radars; data analysis.
Although Lucas sees data as “the new asbestos from a GDPR perspective”, analysis skills are “the new gold” for which there is a “massive skills gap”. “It doesn’t matter what job you do, if you can’t interpret data, actually, you can’t do your job that well. And that’s a real challenge.”
Brands “struggle” with the fact that young people are more enamoured by the glamour of online influencing and catwalk shows than the prospect of number-crunching.
“Do you think a 16 to 18 year old wakes up in bed one morning and thinks, ‘I’m going to be a data analyst?’ No. So there’s a limit to what we can do.”
The academy’s most popular FE courses are in visual communications, styling and fashion design, while buying and merchandising and marketing and PR courses attract the most HE students.
Lee Lucas, the Fashion Retail Academy
Self-funding research
The FRA funds independent research in partnership with a consultancy firm, assessing retail companies’ job forecasts and what emerging skills are required for different roles.
This helps the brands, which get a sense of what their competition is up to, as well as Lucas in his curriculum planning.
He’s found that retail roles are becoming “broader and more complicated”. “Rather than having a real depth in one specialism, you need a breadth of understanding of the end-to-end impact in retail”, he says. This is partly down to job cuts, with head office staff now spreading themselves across roles.
The research also throws up surprises with the jobs some brands now require, such as drone controllers – which isn’t yet taught at the FRA.
Lee Lucas, the Fashion Retail Academy
Apprenticeships journey
Lucas says apprenticeships were “not on the radar” of the brands the FRA works with until the levy came into force and tells me it was an “interesting journey” for the FRA to develop “something meaningful”. This year it will have about 450 apprentices on its books.
At first, “some brands wanted huge volumes of apprenticeships”, which the academy tried to meet – then decided not to.
Lucas explains: “If you were a classic independent training provider, perhaps having 500 apprentices with just one brand is a good business to have.
“For us, it’s not particularly high quality, and there are not the jobs for apprentices to go onto at the end. We could have made more money that way, but it wasn’t in our core values.”
Then along came Covid, which the FRA “weathered well”. “But it was “a real challenge” for their industry. And the public appreciation of retail workers as “key workers” in lockdown did not last long, with “physical and verbal abuse becoming really prevalent”.
Lee Lucas, the Fashion Retail Academy
Faster fashion
The FRA’s students learn all about the impact of customer abuse, as well as the rise in shoplifting, demand from consumers for super-fast deliveries and the increase in the rate of returns. They also learn about the complexities brands face in trying to ensure their products are ethically sourced.
One of the biggest challenges retailers face is how they will meet national insurance cost rises in April, which Lucas fears will “alter the mix of head office functions and have a seismic shift in the expectations of skill sets and roles”.
But there are also many exciting opportunities emerging for the sector, for example with experiential shopping, which Lucas believes makes it a “fantastic industry” to work in.
The “wonderful thing” about fashion retail is it “moves at breakneck speed” – more so, Lucas found, than the jewellery and beauty industries.
He says: “The brands’ need for innovation and new products, their need for winning, is really finely tuned.
“Nothing stays still. People in it have to love it because if they didn’t, they’d burn out.”
Low uptake of a flagship government retraining scheme that offers free courses to adults resulted in mayors handing back £64 million in the first three years – half of what they were allocated.
Free Courses for Jobs (FCFJ), announced in 2020, offers fully subsidised level 3 courses in hundreds of subjects to adults with low qualifications or wages.
At the time, the then prime minister Boris Johnson made headlines with the promise his “lifetime skills guarantee” – backed by a wider £2.5 billion national skills fund – would “boost career prospects, wages and help fill skills gaps”.
But analysis by FE Week, based on information shared through freedom of information requests, has revealed that half of the cash handed to mayors between 2021 and 2023 – £133 million – was quietly returned.
England’s 10 mayors with devolved skills powers are responsible for about two-thirds of the £98 million in funding handed out each year for FCFJ, but records of exactly how much they or the government spend have never been routinely published.
Experts have blamed low spend on FCFJ on the narrow eligibility offer, the cost-of-living crisis, and the way the programme was procured at short notice during the pandemic.
Who is eligible?
Before FCFJ was rolled out, only 19 to 23 year olds were fully funded for their first level 3 qualification, while anyone older had to take out an advanced learner loan to pay for the course.
At launch the courses were only free for adults without a level 3 qualification. This was expanded in 2022 to include any adult who was unemployed or earning less than a typical salary provided by the national living wage, regardless of whether they already held a level 3.
In August last year the government limited the offer to adults earning below £25,000.
Mayors told FE Week the DfE gradually relaxed rules on what courses they could fund through FCFJ, and which learners could be eligible.
‘Flaws from the outset’
Sue Pember, director of policy at adult learning body Holex, argued the FCFJ scheme was not always tailored to the needs of its target audience, who face an increasing cost of living and may “carry baggage of past educational struggles”.
She said: “Although the intent was commendable, it faced flaws from the outset.”
While official statistics show enrolments on level 3 courses on the FCFJ list increased from 32,000 per year in 2018-19 to 80,000 in 2023-24, only about 50,000 achieved their qualification.
Pember said low participation and retention was “flagged early on” to the DfE.
But officials failed to put in place a “preparatory ladder” of courses in basic English, maths and study skills that would bridge the gap for learners to move on to a more demanding level 3 course, she added.
Skills policy consultant Gareth Thomas said some training providers may be “risk averse” about FCFJ courses in a bid to hit achievement targets.
There may also be “market saturation” with learners also being offered shorter employment-focused training schemes such as sector-based work academies and skills bootcamps.
Mayoral spending
Mayoral authorities told FE Week they handed back £64 million of their £133 million allocation between 2020 and 2023.
Underspends mayors hold at the end of the year are subtracted from the next year’s payment, unlike leftover funds from the main adult education budget which mayors can keep as reserves.
Most mayoral skills teams said the rushed introduction of the fund towards the end of the 2020-21 academic year meant there was little time to plan for it.
In the three years up to 2023, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority handed back the highest underspend – 74 per cent of its £6.1 million pot.
A spokesperson for the authority, which gained devolved skills powers in 2021-22, said it “mobilised” FCFJ provision in the second year (2022-23) and introduced local flexibilities around who could access courses for free, which resulted in a “significant improvement” to a 90 per cent spend in 2023-24.
Less given back
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which spent just over half of its £9 million FCFJ pot in the three years, said “slower initial delivery” was common with new programmes. It achieved full expenditure and delivery in 2023-24.
The Greater London Authority said it most recently used 87 per cent of its budget after spending only 16 per cent in the first year.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “It’s disappointing that, at a time when money for adult education is scarce, specific funding for the free course for jobs scheme hasn’t reached front-line delivery.”
He told FE Week that removing fees “does not, in itself, increase participation in courses, particularly if the core funding for those courses keeps reducing and therefore makes it hard for colleges to retain and recruit teaching staff”.
The English devolution white paper published in December revealed mayoral strategic authorities would no longer have to ring-fence FCFJ funding, meaning they can spend allocations on other adult education initiatives that better fit local needs.
