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The Treasury’s productivity plan proposes converting colleges into Institutes of Technology, moving away from the per-qualification funding system for adult learning and further devolution of skills matters to regions. Here, FE Week brings you the sector’s response.

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Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary, Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)

“It is worrying that the government is suggesting that high-level, sector-specific skills training will be provided by new institutes of technology, presumably in place of FE colleges.

“It is naïve of them to assume that these institutes will be sponsored by employers, given the funding issues there are currently around apprenticeships. With continual cuts to the adult education budget, where will the money come from when employers won’t cough up?

“The government is proposing that it will simplify and streamline the professional and technical education system.

“In doing so it must be mindful that lower-level vocational qualifications are important in motivating young people who have been alienated by much of the national curriculum and the methods of assessing GCSE and other key stage four qualifications.

“Access to these vocational qualifications in FE colleges prevents many young people from becoming a ‘NEET’ statistic (not in education or training).”

 

Chris Jones, chief executive, City & Guilds Group

“It is important that the government takes steps to boost the UK’s productivity. As I wrote to the Chancellor last week, broadening high-quality skills education

and training is a vital piece of the ‘productivity puzzle.’

“In fact, recent research from the Cebr, commissioned by the City & Guilds Group, shows that the annual return on investment for training an apprentice is £10,280 in productivity gains. We welcome increased devolution but we must recognise this will result in difficult decisions over which colleges survive long-term.

“As ever, the devil will be in the detail. I always get worried when I hear government talk about ‘radical change.’

“As our recent report into skills policy showed, we’ve had three decades of constant change in skills and employment policy.

“In order to boost productivity and strengthen the UK’s skills base, we need stable, long-term planning that gives new policies a chance to mature. I am keen to see how core aspects of this plan will be implemented in practice, including the apprenticeship levy.’

 

Martin Doel, chief executive, Association of Colleges

“We are pleased that the government recognises that a strong professional and technical education system is critical to increasing productivity. The government is also right to identify the need for well supported and strong institutions to make this happen.

“Colleges must be at the core of this, whether as Institutes of Technology or in providing high-quality career pathways that are responsive to the local economy. Colleges have and will continue to adapt and we anticipate that they will now be able to evolve in new ways, forging even stronger links with employers, professional bodies and local agencies.

“We look forward to discussing the government’s ambition with them in the months ahead, prioritising the interests of the students, employers and communities that colleges support.

“The plan also suggests a review of validation arrangements but focuses just on degree awarding powers. One component of a professional and technical education system that we can be proud of will be stronger, faster validation arrangements, with institutions working alongside employers. This would help to prevent academic ‘drift’, which as the OECD and others have identified, has been a perennial problem in the English education system.

“We also support the moves to simplify the way that adult further education is funded in the future.”

 

David Hughes, chief executive, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education

“Whilst it is absolutely right that education and skills are a key focus of the Government’s Plan to raise the nation’s productivity, the proposals announced today place too narrow a focus on young people and qualifications.

“Supporting young people with better pathways is critical, but we need to promote a universal culture of lifelong learning that fosters the skills and talents of the entire UK workforce to achieve a truly bold vision for tackling the current low and damaging levels of productivity. Helping more people through high quality apprenticeships will help improve productivity, but that alone is not enough.

“The productivity plan ignores those already in work. Fiona Kendrick, CEO at Nestle set out clearly this week how important it is for her company to support better pathways for young people as well as supporting her existing workers to progress into new roles.

“She is right and most employers now recognise that the basic skills, including digital skills of all workers are holding back improvements in job design, continuous improvement approaches and learning of higher level skills. The productivity plan does not address these challenges enough.

“As a nation we need to get to grips with our ageing population and start to view that as an opportunity rather than a problem. Older workers have all sorts of skills, but they often lack the support and the confidence to be able to learn new skills as the workplace evolves.

“Technological changes and new approaches to work need confident, competent people and that requires a new approach and attitude to learning in the workplace. We look forward to working with the government to help them get this right.”

 

Sir Charlie Mayfield, chair, UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES)

“Improving productivity is challenging and complex but it is essential if we are to maintain business competitiveness, increase wages and raise living standards.

“Competitive advantage will depend on creating the best conditions for businesses to thrive, innovate and move into higher value markets and for employees to be engaged in fulfilling and productive work. This is the real route to prosperity and a fairer society – where everyone benefits from growth.

“Not all sectors in UK are realising their potential in terms of productive growth. As the Treasury’s productivity plan notes, five sectors – financial services, ICT, professional services, wholesale and retail and transportation and storage – represent around 40 per cent of the economy but have accounted for around 65 per cent of the productivity shortfall.

“By addressing productivity on a sector by sector basis, the specific issues dogging these industries can be better identified and addressed.

“Up to 90 per cent of the current workforce will still be in work in the next decade. If we are going to tackle the productivity deficit for the economy as a whole, therefore, there must be a much greater focus on job design, technology and progression for those in work.

“This was our stance in UKCES’s ‘Growth Through People’ statement last year, and creating more and better jobs must be at the heart of productivity growth.”

The fourth annual Brathay Apprenticeship Challenge was the closest fought yet and after a nail-biting race to the finish two teams were crowned joint champions.

Apprentices from Dale Power Solutions and Sellafield shared the victory after the three gruelling days of team building and outdoor challenges.

Second place was also split between the team from Plymouth City Council and the joint team from Pera Training and Emfec (self-titled Perfec), while the Nottingham City Homes team took third place. Also in the final were teams from Redrow Homes South West, HSBC and British Airways.

To get there, the teams had to complete a project in their community, as well as raising awareness of apprenticeships.

Once at the final, held at youth charity Brathay’s headquarters on Lake Windermere in the Lake District over three days from Monday, they also faced the challenge of a series of team building tasks — from orienteering and coracle boat building to an assembly line puzzle.

The challenge came to a dramatic conclusion with a whaler boat race — a timed five-mile rowing and navigation trial around Lake Windermere.

Adam Sharp, aged 21 and a level three mechanical design apprentice for Sellafield told FE Week he was “really pleased” by the shared victory.

“It’s been a culmination of six minutes hard work – everyone’s pulled together at the right time and its been testament to us as a team,” he said.

“We all came in as strangers and for us to come out as friends and winners is something else.”

Dale Power Solutions level three supply chain apprentice Amber Rushworth, 21, said: “It’s been absolutely fantastic, it’s been hard, it’s been challenging, but it’s something we’ll remember for a lifetime.

“There’s a real sense of achievement, we’ve really worked together a team and we’ve really pushed ourselves to the limit so we’ve found new boundaries.”

Nick Wilson, deputy director of the National Apprenticeship Service told the 72 apprentices who made it though to the final: “You really are living proof of what apprenticeships are all about, you’ve have shown how skilled you are, what qualifications mean and what an inspiration you can be as apprentices to other people.”

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The scores from the community project and awareness raising element, the assembly line puzzle and the whaler boat race were combined to give the final ranking.

The team from power plant Sellafield smashed the previous record of 11 seconds on the assembly line puzzle, figuring out a solution as a team in just 8.1 seconds.

FE Week joined the teams’ mentors to watch the action on board a tug boat which also formed a part of a key task in the race when rowers had to collect a token from their mentors – without touching the boat.

The task led to tense scenes with mentors leaning perilously out over the water to hand over the tokens, but fortunately, with the exception of one token – belonging to the Dale team – taking a dip in the lake, everyone remained dry.

For their community project, the Sellafield team organised a site-wide collection for North Lakes Food Bank — which involved negotiating their way around tight nuclear security but ultimately raised almost £9,000.

Accompanying the team was Sue Hunter, apprentice programme support at Sellafield, which has entered teams into the challenge in the previous two years but never made it through to the finale.

She said: “We’re aware of the way the challenge gives apprentices experiences they wouldn’t normally get and the company encourages that kind of initiative, motivation and inspiration for its apprentices.

“They’ve worked very hard for the last six months and I’m very proud of them.

“Their personal skills have increased dramatically — self-confidence, leadership communication, team working and they’re all things that they’ll bring back to work.”

Their co-winners Dale Power Solution also showed they could pull together when it counts, coming first in the whaler boat race final in a time of 54 minutes and 56 seconds.

“The whaler was the highlight, I thought that was fantastic, we really blew ourselves away with the race,” said Amber.

For their community project, the team took on the task of restoring a 150 year old park shelter in Scarborough, which, Dale chief executive Tim Wilkins said, had presented more of a challenge than they’d expected.

But, he said: “It’s superb the way the whole team has worked together on all the initiatives over a sustained period of time. Being here the last few days has been great but the work they’ve put in over the last six months has been tremendous.”

The company began its apprenticeship scheme a decade ago, and two years ago heard about the Brathay Challenge.

“We decided it was the right thing to do to enter and to be here two years on as a winner is a dream come true,” said Mr Wilkins.

Over the course of the four years of the competition, 280 teams, involving 2,500 apprentices, have carried out 174 charity projects and have promoted apprenticeships to an estimated 2.5m people, through 12,000 pieces of media and social media.

Mr Wilkins added: “Promoting apprenticeships is something a lot more people should be doing in the UK and I’d like to thank the Brathay Organisers – a lot of work goes into this sort of event, please, please, please keep it going and lets hope for many years to come more apprentices can go through this exercise and get the enjoyment that our guys have had.”

The Treasury this morning published its eagerly-awaited productivity plan. Here, FE Week examines the main headlines for the FE and skills sector.

Apprenticeship levy

Announced by Chancellor George Osborne during his emergency summer budget on Wednesday, the apprenticeship levy has already divided opinion in the sector. The productivity plan expands on the rationale behind the policy, but doesn’t offer further details, which will be confirmed in the autumn.

The report says: “The government will introduce a levy on large UK employers to fund the new apprenticeships. Levies to fund training are already in place in Germany, France, Denmark and over 50 other countries, often supporting high quality apprenticeship systems.

“The levy will apply to large employers and will support all post-16 apprenticeships. In England, any firm will be able get back more than it puts in by training sufficient apprentices.

“The government will put control of the funding in the hands of employers via the digital voucher scheme to ensure that it delivers the training they need. Crucially, this will enable an increase in the quality of apprenticeships at the same time as an increase in quantity.”

Funding

Funding for 16 to 19 education is already issued on a per-learner basis, but the government seems to want to extend that to adults.

The report says: “The government will move away from the funding per qualification model for adult learners and, with input from local areas and employers, will develop options to ensure provision is targeted at training with the greatest impact.”

Technical education

The government’s commitment to national colleges is well-documented, but Institutes of Technology are new, although the document is light on detail.

The report says: “The government will simplify and streamline the number of qualifications so that individuals have a clear set of routes which allow for progression to high level skills, rather than thousands of qualifications.

“The government will invite some colleges to become prestigious Institutes of Technology to deliver high-standard provision at levels three, four and five.

“Building on international best practice, Institutes of Technology will be sponsored by employers, registered with professional bodies and aligned with apprenticeship standards. The government will empower National Colleges, Catapults, and elite professional institutions to design each route, alongside employers and professional bodies.”

Destination data and careers advice

The last government was under a lot of pressure to improve both of these, but the plan doesn’t include anything it hasn’t said before.

The report says: “The government will improve destination data to enable informed choices. The government is supporting the development of online portals to present all post-16 learning options to young people in a user-friendly way, and is strengthening the provision of destination and earnings data.

“The new careers and enterprise company will encourage greater collaboration between schools, colleges and employers, helping young people to access the best advice.”

Devolution and localism

Involvement of regional authorities in the skills agenda was a well-publicised policy of the last government, so it’s no surprise to see their wish to extend skills devolution beyond its traditional flagship areas like Manchester and Sheffield in this report.

The report says: “The government will invite local areas to participate in the reshaping and recommissioning of local provision to set it on an efficient and financially resilient footing. A differentiated approach to local involvement will be adopted which will enable areas with the strongest governance and levers to shape provision, building on the skills flexibilities agreed with Greater Manchester, London and Sheffield.

“These devolution packages could be extended to other regions. The government anticipates that many colleges will be invited to specialise according to local economic priorities, to provide better targeted basic skills alongside professional and technical education, and that some will be invited to become Institutes of Technology.

“Following on from this restructuring process, the government will enable local involvement in the ongoing commissioning of provision, putting power in the hands of people who are best placed to tailor provision to local economic needs.”

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Chancellor George Osborne said: “The only way to sustainably raise the living standards of the citizens of our nation is to confront the challenge of our lifetime, to raise productivity.

“This will not be achieved over night and will require a truly national effort by government, business and working people.

“But with this blueprint to fix the foundations of our economy, I believe that we have taken the vital first step towards securing the prosperity and a livelihoods of generations to come”.

Business Secretary Sajid Javid said: “This is a bold and ambitious plan, to achieve our vision of a more dynamic economy, with a business environment that fosters long-term investment, raising our living standards and become the best of all the major economies by 2030.

“The plan we are publishing today shows we are taking the decisions necessary to address issues of productivity and build a foundation for Britain’s future.”

 

More details about the new proposals in the plan are expected in the autumn.

Former Whitehall FE and skills chief Dr Sue Pember has backed Chancellor George Osborne’s “brave” apprenticeships levy plan for large businesses.

Dr Pember (pictured above) outlined her views in an exclusive FE Week webinar yesterday on how Wednesday’s budget announcements would affect FE.

“The announcement on apprenticeship levies was very brave and something that should have happened years ago,” she said.

Chancellor George Osborne said in his budget speech that the levy will help fund the drive towards 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

But Dr Pember, who will head up adult learning provider membership network Holex from next month, added: “The area that concerns me most is there doesn’t seem to be an agenda for working with those not in work and the low skilled work force.

“If we are to become more productive as a nation then we need to work with and support those who need training the most.

“Apprenticeships are great and we have now won that battle [to secure more support for them from government].

“We now have to turn our minds to supporting those not yet ready for apprenticeship or higher level education.”

The webinar was hosted by Nick Linford (pictured right), director of Lsect, which publishes FE Week, and watched by 644 subscribers.

They heard Dr Pember’s attention turn to the sector’s longer-term future, taking on board the economic priorities set out in the budget.

Dr Pember, who worked with 10 FE and skills ministers and eight Secretaries of State over her 10 years up to 2013, thought that the government could well look again at expanding FE loans, including lowering the “age range”, by 2020.

The FE loans system introduced in April 2013 currently applies to learners aged at least 24 and studying at level three or four — but a government consultation last summer proposed that FE loans should also apply to younger learners and those that remain at level two or three.

“If we get really good national college provision for the over-19s, with really good accommodation, then I can see [FE] loans playing a key part in how they work,” said Dr Pember.

She added: “I don’t think that national colleges are just a line in a minister’s speech, I see a real future for them.

“They can become quite prestigious and centres of high quality specialist training.

“I think that we may have five or six national colleges with residential accommodation in new growth areas in place by 2020.”

The government has over the last 18 months announced plans for the development of specialist national colleges for manufacturing, nuclear, wind energy, creative and cultural industries, digital skills, HS2, and fracking, with at least £80m of public funding.

Dr Pember also said in the webinar that she supported increasing specialisation for FE colleges, saying that “something needs to be done to stop inefficient duplication”.

She said: “I think it’s on the cards [increased specialisation]. Colleges will increasingly have to look at what other local colleges, schools and academies are offering, and work in partnership so there are clear progression routes.”

She said that at the moment there are two types of area reviews — one type being triggered by an FE or sixth form college commissioner’s visit and the other by “core city agreements”.

Dr Pember could, she said, see more of latter happening, with local councils, local enterprise partnerships and colleges initiating reviews and recommending what education and training was most needed across their area.

They could, she said, make recommendations on what skills areas and different qualification levels colleges should focus on.

But Dr Pember added that “these reviews would not be useful if they didn’t consider sixth forms, academies and UTCs [university technical colleges]”.

She also said that “unless the formal status of colleges changes, the final decisions over the direction colleges would still remain with independent college boards”.

Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers will meet in Central London today for its annual FE conference.

FE Week will be joining them at the conference, entitled Vocationalism is Professionalism, will be providing live coverage on Twitter.

General secretary Mary Bousted (pictured above) will be speaking, as well as Professor Ann Hodgson, director of Learning for London at the Institute for Education, who will be talking about how localism affects the idea of professionalism in FE.

Professor Frank Coffield will also be speaking on rights for FE lecturers,  while Professor Bill Lucas, director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, will be exploring apprenticeship pedagogy.

There will also be an update from the Society for Education and Training, the new membership body from the Education and Training Foundation to replace the Institute for Learning, which was disbanded in November.

To keep up with all the latest news from the conference, follow @FEWeek on Twitter.

The country’s most outstanding BTec learners and providers were celebrated in the plush setting of London’s Royal Horticultural Halls.

Comedian Rob Beckett hosted Pearson’s national BTec Awards 2015 on Tuesday with an audience of around 150 guests.

Attendees included the winners and their nominees, family members, lecturers, college principals and other stakeholders including Lady Garden of Frognal, and Stewart Segal, chief executive of Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

They were treated to dance performances from Miskins — dance students from North West Kent College — before a keynote address from Zoe Jackson MBE, award-winning entrepreneur and founder of talent agency Living the Dream, got proceedings under way.

One of the stand-out winners was 20-year-old Stephanie Trembath from Penwith College.

She was awarded outstanding BTec student and outstanding BTec child and social care student for her role in many local voluntary projects to help individuals in her community who are isolated and alone.

The level three diploma in health and social care learner is on track to receive a triple-distinction and is described by her tutors as “dedicated, mature and completely committed” to her studies.

Stephanie said: “I am so very thrilled to win this award. My BTec has helped me understand so much about working within community care and health and social care related employment.

“It has also given me so much more self-confidence as well as the determination, motivation and the desire to accomplish my ambition of becoming an adult nurse in the future.”

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Now in its fifth year, the Pearson National BTec Awards 2015 received more than 800 nominations across the 20 award categories to celebrate vocational excellence among the nearly one million BTec learners across the UK.

The judging panel, which included FE Week publisher Lsect managing director Shane Mann, was said to be “blown away” by the quality of the individuals.

The nominees were longlisted and then the judging panel agreed the winners of each category. During the ceremony each winner was presented their award by the previous winner.

Father-of-five Nathan Headington, who returned to education at Leeds College as a mature student with no academic qualifications, won outstanding BTec adult learner of the year.

The 36-year-old began his journey back into education with a BTec subsidiary diploma in civil engineering at Leeds College of Building, gaining distinctions in all units before progressing onto an HND in civil engineering and a full time site management role.

Nathan said: “Having caught the education bug a bit later in life, I simply can’t get enough of it and I just love all the opportunities that studying at Leeds College of Building has given me.

“To be named Outstanding Adult Learner of the Year at these awards is very special and it makes all the hard work even more worthwhile.”

Pearson UK managing director Mark Anderson said the awards was an opportunity for “us to shout from the rooftops” not just about the winners, but also about the achievements of BTec students, apprentices, teachers, schools, colleges and training providers up and down the country.

“It is vital to support and celebrate the hard work and achievements of outstanding BTec students and their teachers. This year’s judges were impressed by the quality and number of nominations we received, but these 20 really stood out as a truly exceptional candidates,” he said.

The Skills Funding Agency was today unable to say when providers would learn if their quarter three growth requests had been approved — despite assurances there would be news after the Budget.

Providers had originally been told the deadline for them to find out from the SFA if they would be paid for apprenticeships, and other programmes, they had already started delivering was the week commencing June 1.

But, as FE Week revealed on June 8, the SFA wrote to providers warning that the announcement would instead take place following the government’s emergency budget, which was unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne yesterday (Wednesday).

And FE Week has learned that — even after the Budget — SFA officials were still in talks with colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

An SFA spokesperson said: “We are working with BIS on the outcomes of the Chancellor’s budget and will be communicating to the sector shortly on the outcome of growth requests for 2014/15 and 2015/16 financial position.”

When asked to define what “shortly” meant in this context, she added: “I can’t give you anything more specific than that at the moment.”

News last month that the delay would be taking place caused the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and Association of Colleges (AoC) to issue warnings that resulting uncertainty over funding would “make it more difficult” for providers affected to help the government deliver on its target of creating 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

A number of providers even put their recruitment of apprentices on hold in light of the uncertainty over whether they would be paid for provision they had already delivered.

An AELP spokesperson said that they “would certainly normally expect providers to have learned of quarter three growth requests by early June” and the ongoing delay was making it “very difficult” for them to plan provision.

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “We need to get answers quickly to growth requests so that providers can respond to employers and apprentices.

“To drive the growth, we need a contracting system that gives providers a long term commitment to increasing apprenticeship starts.

“We heard at the recent AELP conference that the freeze decision has already affected planned volumes for next year, so unless the agency moves fast, the 3m aspiration will become harder to achieve.”

David Corke, AoC director of education and skills policy, said: “The over-delivery of apprenticeships affects colleges and other providers and they must be paid for the work they’ve done in order to meet the needs of both employers and apprentices.

“We hope there is no further delay in communicating with colleges and other providers about the outcome of growth requests.

“If colleges and other providers cannot train apprentices because they have not got the funding, this will be frustrating for employers who want their staff up to speed and ready to work.

“It will also make it more difficult for the government to meet its target to provide 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.”

BIS declined to comment.

Careers advice, the government’s 3m apprenticeship target and impact of the FE funding cuts were at the top of list for the House of Lords social mobility committee in inaugural hearing.

The committee, chaired by Lady Corston (pictured above), was set up to investigate the transition between school and work, and what happens to young people who do not go on to university but are not included in the statistics for young people not in employment, education or training (Neet).

In its first evidence session on Wednesday (July 8) for a report due in March, the committee heard from Peter Clark, joint head of the Department for Education (DfE) participation and careers unit, and Juliet Chua, DfE director for post-16 and disadvantage.

It also heard from Oliver Newton, head of apprenticeship growth, strategy and legislation at DFE and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Andrew Battarbee, BIS deputy director, vocational education strategy.

The committee had dubbed the young people they were interested in as “the missing middle”, however, Ms Chua said the government did not recognise the term.

She outlined the options available to a 16-year-old, pointing to A-levels, apprenticeships and vocational courses.

She added: “We wouldn’t recognise that missing middle as a homogenous group, we would say there is different programme available depending on a young person’s employment and interests.”

When asked by committee member Lady Sharp what the government was doing to promote the apprenticeship option, to allow people to progress through to top level careers, Ms Chua replied: “Our strategy for meeting the 3m is to essentially grow provision across a number of strands — firstly, we want to continue the reforms we’ve started.

“We know that giving employers greater control over the development of apprenticeships and the standards means that they’ll be relevant to their needs, and we know that we want to encourage existing employers to keep offering apprenticeships and to draw new employers into the programme and we know that a having the right product is the core building block of that.

“Secondly, the public sector needs to pull its weight so we’re bringing forward new legislation that will place a duty on public bodies to create new targets and do more to offer apprenticeships.”

She added the third strand would be to expand higher level apprenticeships and continue to address quality.

There was a heated exchange between members of the panel and Lord Patel over the effect of the cuts to the adult skills budget.

Mr Battarbee said: “It is very much on colleges to respond to these funding changes.

“What we have done is reduced the funding in ways which reflect the priorities that government has set, so over the past years we’ve more than doubled the funding that we’ve put into apprenticeships.”

However, Lord Patel accused him of not answering the question, again asking what the impact would be on colleges, learners and potential learners — and whether it would limit their social mobility.

Ms Chua said: “In tackling the deficit the government has had to take some difficult decisions.

“This has clearly been very tough for colleges and we’ve seen some very good examples of colleges really grappling with some difficult financial decisions but that is because we’re prioritising apprenticeships in the way that the budget is being used and given what we know about the return from apprenticeships we want to see the programme grow.”

A key concern for committee members Lady Howells and Lady Sharp was careers advice.

Lady Howells asked whether information, detailing clearly and simply the progression and earning expectations for individual careers, was available to young people.

Mr Clark said: “There is that sort of information available from the National Careers Service and individual professions will often make that information available through national websites of professional bodies.”

Ms Chua said: “We know Ofsted has highlighted that for careers guidance in schools, the pattern of provision is variable across the country and there’s more to do to strengthen it and this is an area we have seen as a priority for us as a department.”

She also pointed to the careers and enterprise company launched by the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan in December.

Lady Sharp asked how the company would “fill the gaps” in careers advice provision.

She added: “Will it provide advice across the whole age group? — Because it is as important that a 12-year-old knows about careers education as that the 15 or 16-year-old does and sometimes it’s the 18-year-old who needs it.”

Ms Chua agreed. She said: “The company’s remit is to cover the age range from 13 to 18.”

Lady Sharp also asked whether those working for the careers company would be “appropriately qualified”, however, Mr Clark said that would not be relevant.

“It will be a championing and facilitating body involved in linking up schools and employers and good practice and so we don’t envisage a role in providing careers advice directly to young people so that question about the standards for providing guidance won’t apply directly.”

Afternoon session of the House of Lords social mobility committee on social mobility — #HLSMC

Evidence came from Dr Claire Crawford, research fellow at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, Dr Abigail McKnight, senior research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Moira McKerracher, deputy director of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).

Lady Tyler asked what the three panel members thought were the key things the government should bear in mind when trying to improve social mobility in the transition from work to school.

Ms McKerracher said: “Streamlining and improving the vocational pathway for young people. We have about 50 per cent going through the traditional university route but for the other 50 per cent, the progression routes are not clear, they’re not easy to navigate and you can’t always guarantee this will lead to a really good outcome.

“Yes that means apprenticeships but … the others are going to college or school to do vocational qualifications so we must make sure these other qualifications count as much as apprenticeships do — they should be based on a similar occupational standard.”

Dr McKnight said: “I think we shouldn’t think that there’s a magic bullet to this, small incremental gains are going to be the way to go. There isn’t one policy change, otherwise we would know what it was and we could do it. As an economist, we need to improve numeracy — the UK is particularly bad in terms of the gap in numeracy skills between rich and poor children.

Dr Crawford said: “We need to watch out for what’s happening in the FE sector.

“FE has seen very big [funding] falls and that is the sector which is going to be the one catering to the people your committee is most interested in.

“And I’m sure the FE sector is doing its utmost to ensure the quality of provision doesn’t fall but when you’re seeing cuts of 30 per cent to date and expect to see more, it’s inevitable that that’s going to have some impact on education being offered.”

The committee is next expected to meet on Wednesday, July 15, when it will hear from former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who had responsibility for social mobility in the last government. Click here to view the first two evidence sessions.