With notable past experience advising those in the corridors of power on FE, Roger Dawe outlines what he’d be saying if called upon for his views today.

Bromley College has been doing relatively well and has been diversifying into new areas — a Career College for hospitality, food and enterprise, the recruitment of 14 to 16-year-olds, securing approval for a University Technical College, setting up a Multi Academy Trust, establishing strong links with employers in the community and wider, and becoming a technical and vocational hub for local schools.

For me, it has been a new and exciting experience to be at the sharp end of FE for the first time. But it is becoming increasingly sharp.

Compared with some colleges, our financial position is good but we are coming under increasing pressure. Looking ahead, with the large cuts in adult funding for 2015-16, the financial outlook for us as for all colleges involves formidable challenges especially for our courses for adult students.

The increasingly serious financial position of the sector is not at all surprising. All the significant education and training expenditure cuts throughout the last Parliament were focussed on FE, both on 16 to 18-year-olds and on adults, and there are further huge cuts to come on adult funding in 2015-16.

It can be an uphill task inside government to get the right deal for FE compared with schools and higher education

Expenditure on schools up to 16 has been protected in real terms. Most universities have done very well out of the £9,000 student fee and are in a strong financial position. And expenditure on apprenticeships has increased and will continue to do so.

At Bromley College we are doing our best to link into all of these areas through sponsoring academies, through providing a large number of higher education places and through linking with employers on apprenticeships. But the core business remains, as it should be for a college, FE — and that is under increasingly severe financial pressure.

In my Departmental days in the period before a General Election the major task during the election campaign was to look ahead and prepare advice for incoming Government of any colour. Usually in those days it was sufficient to prepare two briefing folders — a larger number may be required this time.

If I were still an official advising whatever party or parties come to power in May on FE, I would want to emphasise a number of things. Firstly, the FE sector has a central part to play in lifting the qualifications and skills of young people and adults. This is absolutely key to the continued growth of the economy, to promoting social mobility and to helping young people and adults into apprenticeships, work or higher education.

Next, the financial position and prospects of the sector are more serious than they have ever been since it was set up in 1993. As a result a record number of colleges are in serious financial difficulties. There needs to be an immediate review of the overall financial position of the sector and rapid action to tackle the serious problems which have developed.

Then, and looking ahead, protection of expenditure on children up to 16 should be extended to young people aged 16 to 18.

I’d also want to raise the fact that 2015-16 cuts to adult funding are particularly severe and threatening for the future provision of adult education of all kinds and for the future sustainability of colleges. They should be reviewed in the light of the representations made from the sector. Looking further ahead, there should be an examination of the purposes and financing of adult education.

Finally, I’d emphasise the pressure on all FE colleges to improve performance, results and employability and to work closely with employers and the local community should, of course, continue but within a reasonable financial context.

I know from my Departmental days that it can be an uphill task inside government to get the right deal for FE compared with schools and higher education. Schools are more ‘political’. University leaders have strong political links, and most Ministers and journalists are more familiar with universities where they received their education than with colleges. So good luck to my successors working on the FE front — for all of our sakes.

 

Anthony Mann looks at the issue of careers advice with the demands of employers for workers with certain skills becoming ever-more complex.

Two elements of education and skills policy have, of late, attracted particularly intense controversy. Both are Cinderellas of their sectors and the two are related: careers education and adult skills provision.

What connects them is that they are at the sharp end of action to ensure there is a meaningful relationship between the skills delivered by providers and those actually demanded by employers.

Careers provision and adult skills training should be acutely sensitive to the labour market’s touch.

There are indications to suggest, however, that sensitivity levels are falling into evil step-sister territory with scale and volume of provision in both areas out of kilter with demand.

It’s a concern that has been identified by thinktanks like Reform, which recently brought together leading FE figures, including Professor Alison Wolf, to take stock of the issues with a roundtable conversation under the title Adding value in the labour market: what role for ‘second chance’ education? What was clear from the debate is that a crisis is coming into view, not just of short term funding, but of structural change requiring strategic response.

We see people finding themselves possessing skills now unwanted, while employers struggle to expand into new fields because they can’t find the skills they need

In an attempt to get to grips with this change, last month I ran an experiment. The charity where I work runs a free, national volunteering programme called Inspiring the Future. Employee volunteers sign up to make themselves available to schools and colleges looking to help students make careers choices and develop skills for employment.

I wanted to know how many of the volunteers signing up had unique job titles. I was interested in the ways in which work is becoming more complex. Over recent years, a chorus of commentators, led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has argued that complexity is growing and it is a problem — for young people, for adults, for education and training providers and for governments.

Analysts highlight the rise of self-employment, small and medium sized enterprise (SME) employment and the ways in which economic sectors can experience rapid changes in skills demand linked to technological innovation: witness online retail, electronic engine maintenance, replacement of people with machines at every multiplex cinema.

Essentially, the argument runs that if the labour market is more complex, then it is harder for employer demand to be signalled and for providers to put on the right courses and for students to choose them.

More complex labour markets increase the risk of skills mismatch. Complexity relates to ways in which technological innovation changes work, the ways that it can and does destroy trades, creates new jobs and rapidly changes working practices. The new wave of digital automation is changing work fundamentally.

Young people have long struggled to understand demand in their local labour markets, making decisions on the basis of aspirations which, collectively, have nothing in common with projected skills demand.

The risks of poor decision making have long been high, it will only get greater if high quality careers provision, rich in first hand experiences of the workplace, does not become the norm.

The risks, moreover, to individuals of getting caught out grows too. We cannot trust the market to provide — where once teenagers got tastes of the local labour market from part-time work, the Saturday job is now dying; and with liberalisation of labour market regulation, employers (predictably) are investing less in training.

Through no fault of their own, we see people finding themselves possessing skills now unwanted, while employers struggle to expand into new fields because they can’t find the skills they need.

The moral and economic case combines to drive a re-evaluation of how the worlds of education, training and work relate.

Which brings me back to my test. I looked at the job titles of 675 Inspiring the Future volunteers who registered over a three-week period in January. How many were unique? The outstanding answer: 670. Economic life is changing and quickly: the need is for a strategic response to the challenges it presents.