Government policy on English and maths resits and reforms to technical qualifications are putting young people at risk of becoming NEET, a new report suggests.
The commission on post-16 education and training, led by Youth Employment UK, has proposed a “young person’s entitlement” which would give every young person a personalised route through qualifications and into employment.
Its report, published today during the Annual Apprenticeship Conference, found too much “complex” policy focus on level 3 and above qualifications and excluded large groups of young people, including some learners with SEND, learning at lower levels.
The commission also slammed the government’s English and maths GCSE resit policy for putting “many young people at risk of becoming NEET (not in employment, education or training)”.
For young apprentices, the report said it was “costly and time consuming” for employers to support them to reach English and maths standards. They said this was likely to “restrict social mobility” because “many” employers would rather insist on level 2 English and maths standards as entry criteria.
The commission called on the government to allow more young people to take lower level English and maths courses, including those without an EHCP or formal SEND diagnosis.
This comes as the government doubles down on its compulsory English and maths resit policy.
A new minimum teaching hours requirement for English and maths was announced during half term alongside the phased removal of the 5 per cent condition of funding tolerance.
Beyond ABS
In 2022, 8.4 per cent of 16-18-year-olds were NEET, up from 7 per cent the year before.
The report outlined concerns that too many young people were not receiving “appropriate” careers education and work experience, which can lead to learners picking the wrong pathway and increased dropout rates.
To produce recommendations, the commission identified Kettering and Darlington as two areas with average youth unemployment in England.
The commission found local concerns that DfE does not have “sufficiently fine-grained data to know how qualifications reform is impacting on young people”.
“It is disadvantaged students who are most likely to find themselves with no, or unsuitable, pathways,” the report said.
The commission made several recommendations for the short term. These include pausing and reviewing plans to defund qualifications and reviewing compulsory English and maths resits.
It also recommended to “work with employers to make English and maths an exit, rather than entry, requirement particularly for apprenticeships, and provide resources and funding to enable young people to achieve that”.
The commission agreed with the government’s intention to develop the Advanced British Standard but stressed that “too many young people could fall through the gaps” once rolled out.
“There’s some really good stuff in [the ABS], but actually, it’s very level three focused,” Laura-Jane Rawlings, CEO of Youth Employment UK, told delegates at the AAC 2024.
“What happens to our entry-level – level 1 and level 2 – I wanted to develop our commission showing the Young Person’s Entitlement, which is a step after the ABS that includes everybody.”
Its recommendation for the long term was a more “flexible” form of post-16 education called the young person’s entitlement.
“Our recommendations are for post-16 education and skills, but we believe that the young person’s entitlement should also underpin a review of KS4 curriculum,” the report added.
The framework encompasses four reforms:
Clear pathways for young people who want to move into apprenticeships, and supported apprenticeships for those who require them.
A meaningful programme of work experience, at different ages and stages of the learner journey, from the earliest ages possible, and a clear understanding of what makes for good work/industry placements.
A progressive careers programme that is embedded in school and college provision, supporting pupils from an early age to make the best choices.
English and maths qualifications that are proportionate to pupils’ level of study and course content, and properly embedded in all pathways including apprenticeships.
Rawlings added: “During the commission, the plans for an Advanced British Standard were announced and so the commission used the evidence gathered to also look at long-term education and skills reform. And I am delighted to bring to this Report the Young Person’s Entitlement, a new framework for post-16 education.
“The entitlement puts young people back at the heart of the education and skills system, and sets a bold and ambitious plan for realising a system that will meet the needs of the learner, employer and the future world, whatever that may look like in 10 or 20 years’ time.”
Labour’s proposed reform of the apprenticeship levy to fund other types of training will not “devalue” apprenticeships, the shadow skills minister has claimed.
Seema Malhotra attempted to reassure today’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference that plans for a “growth and skills levy” present “pretty broad opportunities” to training providers while insisting that the money is there to expand the scheme.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has announced his intention to reform the apprenticeship levy so that it can be spent on other types of training if the party comes into power.
The “growth and skills levy” would allow businesses to use 50 per cent of their funds to pay for non-apprenticeship training.
Sector leaders have warned that such a plan threatens to devalue apprenticeships and there is a danger that employers might be driven to the easiest training option.
The current government’s attack line also claims that Labour’s plan would limit the country to 140,000 apprenticeship starts per year – around half the current rate.
But Malhotra, who was appointed as Labour’s shadow skills minister in September, rejected the concerns.
She told today’s conference: “I don’t think that’s likely at all, and I’ll give you my reasons why.
“Firstly, we’ve said 50 per cent of the levy would still, as a minimum need to be spent on apprenticeships. And in actual fact, that is probably about what is currently spent by many employers.
“The proposal is actually greater flexibility for different types of courses because we are hearing that a broad range of adult skills and retraining, where it’s not always possible to deliver an apprenticeship, that having more modular and more stackable courses [is desired]. Those are pretty broad opportunities for training providers.
“I don’t think it will be a replacement, I think it [the growth and skills levy] will be a really important valuable addition that will also keep our skills system competitive, and create the best possible choices that we need for our learner.”
Labour would continue 95% SME co-investment
Experts have also warned Labour’s growth and skills levy would swallow up funding for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are funded by the levy as well as large firms.
In June 2023, then shadow skills minister Toby Perkins committed to additional spending for a ringfenced budget for apprenticeships in SMEs.
Asked today if that commitment from the shadow Treasury team was still in place, Malhotra wouldn’t give a direct answer but pointed out there are billions of pounds of funding generated by the apprenticeship levy that has either not been allocated for spending on apprenticeships or clawed back by Treasury.
She also made clear in her speech that for SMEs who do not currently pay the apprenticeship levy, under Labour they will continue to receive 95 per cent co-payments.
Apprenticeships will finally qualify for UCAS tariff points from the next academic year, the admissions service has revealed.
UCAS’s apprenticeship lead Lindsay Conroy told today’s tenth annual apprenticeship conference (AAC) in Birmingham to expect a public consultation on adding UCAS points to apprenticeships by May.
Conroy said UCAS has “a view” for the plans to be ready for September of this year.
This time last year at AAC, then-UCAS chief executive Clare Marchant announced that the organisation was working on greenlighting tariff points for apprenticeships by the end of 2023.
The delay appears to be due to the “challenging” education environment across the UK and UCAS having to consult with regulators and stakeholders.
“As you can imagine, it’s challenging because we cross all four nations and education is devolved so what we don’t want to do is disadvantage any learners,” explained Conroy.
“We’re in a position where we have a model that we think works. We’re going through some engagement at the moment and regulators and stakeholders.”
A public document is expected to come out for consultation this April or May, Conroy said, adding that students should be able to rollout the scheme by September 2024.
Post-16 level 3 qualifications have attributed UCAS points to determine entry criteria for university courses, such as levels, T Levels, BTECs and Cambridge Technicals.
Apprenticeships will be the latest qualification to carry UCAS points, but it is not yet clear how many points apprenticeships may be eligible for.
When asked if the points system will bring parity of esteem to apprenticeships compared with other post-16 routes, Conroy admitted it is not “the whole answer”.
“I think that requires a lot of work from all across the sector to bring true parity, but it’s part of it because it provides a signal to people that this pathway has routes and avenues,” she told AAC.
The move forms part of the government’s ambitions to make UCAS a “one-stop shop” for education and training.
Earlier in October last year, UCAS launched an apprenticeships service, showing students apprenticeship vacancies listed alongside higher education courses. It plans to allow students to apply for apprenticeships through its website from 2024/25.
Less than three per cent of apprenticeship-levy paying businesses have transferred funds to pay for apprenticeships in smaller employers, sparking calls for the 25 per cent transfer cap to be scrapped.
New figures have emerged in a response to a written parliamentary question from skills minister Robert Halfon that reveal 580 businesses used the apprenticeship levy transfer scheme to allocate part of their generated funds to non-levy paying employers in 2022/23.
That equates to just 2.7 per cent of levy-paying businesses.
Levy-paying businesses can choose to hand up to 25 per cent of their apprenticeship levy to fund apprenticeships in other businesses.
The proportion of transfers to non-levy businesses has risen steadily, according to Halfon’s data, from two per cent in 2020/21, to 2.5 per cent in 2021/22, and 2.7 per cent in 2022/23.
However, the policy has “struggled to talk off”, according to Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP).
The transfer scheme could be made redundant altogether if the government scraps the requirement for small businesses to pay five per cent of apprenticeship training costs, especially now there is no longer a cap on the number of starts in SMEs.
Ashworth said: “AELP believes that scrapping the remaining five per cent co-investment requirement in the spring budget would not only remove a barrier for more SMEs to benefit from apprenticeships but also negate the need for levy transfer completely. This would mean a simpler and streamlined system for both employer and providers.”
Transfers don’t have to go to smaller, non-levy paying businesses, but the scheme is often cited as a mechanism to help small businesses take on apprentices.
In his reply to a question from Luke Evans MP, Halfon said the Department for Education’s data isn’t specific enough to differentiate between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and non-levy employers, but did confirm the majority of non-levy businesses on the digital apprenticeship service are SMEs.
Halfon added some employers make full use of their funds, so have no funds to transfer.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said apprenticeships in small businesses have halved since the levy was introduced.
Tina McKenzie, policy and advocacy chair at the FSB, told FE Week: “There is a big opportunity to further improve the number of businesses transferring their levy funds and to make sure large businesses are supporting small businesses in their supply chain to take on more apprentices.
“Our members are telling us it’s tough to get that funding and when they do, they’re hitting a wall with a 25 per cent cap on what they can actually receive. That cap needs to be scrapped to get more money flowing where it’s needed.”
Justine Greening, who introduced the levy when education secretary, called for the transfer cap to increase from 25 per cent to 40 per cent last year.
The DfE said the transfer scheme gives levy-payers more choice on how they spend their funds and allows them to support businesses in their supply chains or help meet other local or sector-specific skills needs.
FE Week analysis of apprenticeship starts through the transfer scheme reveals that while most go to non-levy paying employers, a sizable proportion go to other levy payers.
In 2022/23, 61 per cent of the 9,451 starts funded through a transfer were in a non-levy employer and 39 per cent was in a fellow levy-payer that could have, for example, already maxed out its own levy.
There have been 28,003 transferred starts since the scheme was introduced in 2018/19. Of those, 17,200, 61 per cent, of starts were aged 25 and over. Just nine per cent of starts through the transfer scheme have gone to apprentices aged under 19.
Our analysis also shows that most apprentices funded through the transfer scheme to date, 51 per cent, work in health, public services and care. The next most popular subject area was business, administration and law making up 18 per cent of starts to date.
The DfE said the transfer policy remains under review.
The prison population is estimated to pass 100,000 by 2030. With re-offending rates starting to increase and new prison education contracts out to tender, Jessica Hill and Sophie Carlin explore this hidden world – and find out what needs to change
After prisoners at HMP Warren Hill in Suffolk have been unlocked from their cells, got showered and had breakfast, they wander over to a building with a sign above the door that reads ‘college’.
Mike Hallatt, a teacher there for PeoplePlus (one of four core education providers operating in prisons) smirks at this.
“Don’t be fooled. It’s all smoke and mirrors,” he says.
The ‘college’ boasts a “huge chapel”, “massive kitchen”, supermarket and medical rooms. But its core education provision is “a tiny office where we’re literally sitting on each other’s laps” and four classrooms – one which Hallatt claims has not been used since courses were “cut back” during Covid, although PeoplePlus says it rotates classrooms.
HM Inspectorate’s last report on Warren Hill found it “excellent”, with “impressive” educational activities on offer. There are far worse prisons for education. But there’s little choice for prisoners over what to learn, with all core courses being only levels 1 and 2. PeoplePlus says its delivery model is “both inclusive and well established from entry level up to level 2”.
Since one inmate, ‘Tom’ (name changed) was incarcerated seven years ago, he’s completed 42 courses – including three level 2 courses in food safety and preparation. But none will help him achieve his ambition of becoming a mechanic.
Similarly, Josh Betford found all the courses he took while imprisoned at HMP Guys Marsh “too easy, teaching me things I already knew”.
“It felt like a box-ticking exercise, they even give you the answers half the time. The focus was on people getting maths and English qualifications and maybe forklifting or bricklaying. But being a tradesman isn’t for everyone.”
He wishes he’d been taught “investing or law, something useful”.
Government funding changes have resulted in a 90 per cent drop in prisoners studying level 3 or above courses since 2010, a 2022 House of Commons report found. Hallatt says his learners are “crying out for decent qualifications. They keep asking me, what does an employer want?”
A poem written by a prisoner who is a student of Mike Hallatt’s
‘Toilet roll’ contracts
After the 2016 Coates Review called for education to be put “at the heart” of the prison system, 11 prison ministers have overseen a decline in both quantity and quality of provision. The number of prisoners doing courses dropped from over 100,000 in 2014/15 to 63,744 in 2022/23.
In 2014/15, four per cent of Ofsted judgements for education, skills and work provision were ‘outstanding’, 20 per cent were ‘good’, 60 per cent ‘required improvement’ and 16 per cent were ‘inadequate’. But by 2022-23, none were ‘outstanding’, nine per cent were ‘good’, 47 per cent ‘required improvement’ and 44 per cent were ‘inadequate’.
Prisons’ chief inspector Charlie Taylor sees this as “catastrophically bad”.
“Prison education was nothing to open the champagne about before the pandemic, but it’s got worse.”
Much of the slide in standards is blamed on the Ministry of Justice prioritising value for money in the contracts it signed in 2019 with providers such as Novus (LTE Group), Milton Keynes College, PeoplePlus and Weston College, to provide English, maths, IT and ESOL classes. (Prisons buy in other education activities under a separate system.)
The University and College Union (UCU) prisons official, Paul Bridge, claims these contracts introduced “a greater layer of administration” and that the “purpose of education has been lost”.
“Educators are tasked with managing the regime, instead of delivering a broader-based educational experience. There is gaming and perverse incentivisation… it’s pretty fundamentally flawed.”
UCU prison education chairperson Brian Hamilton says the “very binary” contracts treat education “like they’re buying toilet roll”. But education can make a “measurable” difference because ex-prisoners are “contributing to society if they don’t re-offend”.
Prisoners are nine per cent less likely to re-offend if they’ve engaged in prison education, research shows. The re-offending rate fell from 31 per cent in 2010 to 24 per cent in 2021, but rose to 25.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2022.
Narrowing the curriculum
UCU rep Paul Bridge
The MoJ’s ambition through the 2019 contracts was that “every prisoner can finish their sentence with a basic level of English and maths”. But its focus cut off the opportunity for many prisoners to learn what interests them.
Pierre Reid, 33, found during his seven years in prison that “still having to go through basic maths and English offends a lot of prisoners and makes them shy away from education”.
He took a range of courses, all at levels one and two, apart from a peer mentoring course which he credits with helping him change his ways. Reid, who just got a job at Domino’s, wishes he could have learnt “physics, or astronomy [as I have] interests in that”.
While the level one and two classes are unchallenging for some, more than half of prisoners are believed to be functionally illiterate and there are few courses available for them either.
Hallatt says some of his learners “can’t read or write, and are thrown on courses they clearly shouldn’t be on. They do the courses anyway, just to keep employed… for the money, not anything else.”
Prisoners are paid to attend classes – £13.50 a week at HMP Warren Hill – which Hallatt says is usually spent on vapes and phone credit. Some jails pay inmates less for attending education than work activities, although Taylor believes more governors are now “evening out” the pay differential.
Hallatt estimates that only an hour of his six hours a day of classes is spent teaching, with prisoners socialising for much of the time.
“They talk about nothing more than going home and their parole hearings … it’s fascinating. We don’t stop them.” Similarly, Taylor finds when visiting classrooms that prisoners “often seem to spend more time sitting around chatting” than learning.
But not all prison education is poor.
Taylor says category D (open prisons) inspections have been “slightly better” in the last year. A recent report on HMP Ford found an “impressive” construction school set up with Chichester College Group.
But most prisons are category C, designated ‘training and resettlement’ prisons, locations where provision is “most concerning”.
Officer shortages
Former prisoner Pierre Reid
Prison education never fully recovered from Covid, with “far too many prisons continuing to operate greatly reduced regimes”, Taylor says.
Of the 51 prison education provider contracts assessed for quality by the MoJ, two-thirds (34) went unrated between October and December 2022 because classroom-based delivery was “significantly restricted” due to “safe systems of work”.
A recent Inspectorate report blamed reduced activity on “insufficient” prison officer numbers, “poor delivery by prison education providers”, “industrial relations” and “overcrowding”.
While the number of prison officers rose by three per cent between 2022-2023, the prisoner population increased by seven per cent. Long-term sickness among officers is on the rise, with average days lost rising from 10 to 14 between 2018 and 2023.
HMP Bedford’s recent inspection report said high levels of long-term sickness was “affecting the delivery of many core services”. Leaders “frequently shut down” education services and the library.
Covid also led to education being provided on the wings, instead of classrooms.
Bridge says this “transition from the talk and chalk approach to developing bespoke packages for learners in their cells” was a “light bulb moment” for some governors, as it could “save money and control prisoners by keeping them locked up”.
Bridge sees it as “inherently unsafe” for educators, with UCU in “proactive discussions” over the issue.
Providers lose out financially when classes don’t take place.
Across five prisons in the first quarter of 2023/24, 18 per cent of planned learner places were lost for operational reasons including prison officer shortages. Only five per cent were lost due to lack of teachers. Across the four publicly run prisons, this represented 1,892.5 education hours lost and £35,197 recoverable from providers.
The MoJ says new performance measures on attendance and learner progress will increase the “priority” of education for prison governors.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “We know how important education is in helping offenders gain the skills they need to turn their backs on crime. That’s why we launched our Prisoner Education Service and are holding governors to greater account for performance, while rolling out more specialist staff, technology and hardware.
“Our approach is working – with the percentage of prisons rated ‘good’ by Ofsted increasing significantly over the last year.”
But FE Week found that of the last ten inspection reports (since November 2023) Ofsted rated eight ‘inadequate’ (for education, skills and work) and two ‘required improvement’.
The Shannon Trust, working with mentors and mentees in prison to help people read inside HMP Featherstone. Wolverhampton, UK.
Retention woes
Bridge believes that prisoners being “banged up for longer” is leading to “more frustration and increasing violence”.
His reps in the Midlands report rising sexual harassment, and UCU’s “more experienced members” are “concerned about how we’re trained and supported”.
“Younger, less experienced educators don’t have jail craft. They’re not quite aware that some prisoners are well versed in forms of subconscious behavioural control.”
Hallatt sometimes feels “unsafe” in classes, “particularly in the kitchen” among carving knives.
The report into Five Wells, where Weston College is currently advertising seven vacancies, said its head of education “raised serious concerns” about his staff’s “safety”. Taylor has found there are “not enough” teachers to run workshops in “many prisons”.
However, David McBride, education manager for Novus at HMP Isis says his jail is “nearly fully staffed” and “doing really well with retention and recruitment, as are Novus”. The provider is currently advertising 47 vacancies across 50 prisons.
What’s changing?
Many blame problems on education funding in prisons staying the same (around £129 million a year) since 2015, representing a real terms drop of eight per cent between 2019 and 2022.
Another £30 million a year is believed to be spent on contract management. The funding rate for the male prison population is less than a fifth of the rate for students in community-based adult education, analysis by Novus suggested.
The government is not expected to increase funding substantially when new contracts kick in next year. It’s Future Skills programme, launched last year, was intended to provide training in 30 prisons but is only running in 23.
And 12 contracts were published last week for HMP Academies employer-led work programmes, which was intended for 17 prisons. The programmes’ emphasis is on work rather than training, with contracts stating that “the scope, content and pace of learning” is at the employer’s discretion.
A joint DfE/MoJ prisoner apprenticeship scheme launched in 2022 was expected to include up to 300 apprentices by 2025, but so far fewer than ten prisoners have enlisted.
To improve quality, the prison service will be able to claw back up to 10 per cent of funding if providers have not met their targets under the new contracts. Currently, the clawback mechanism’s focus is on service levels rather than quality. Providers will continue to be financially penalised when classes cannot take place due to prison officer shortages.
Last year, heads of education, skills and work and neurodiversity support managers were introduced to over 100 prisons to improve support for prisoners with additional learning needs.
But Hamilton says “you could employ a lot of teachers with that money. These people don’t deliver education, but make others jump through hoops to fulfil contracts”.
Jon Collins, chief executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) believes there “needed to be a reset” through new contracts as “there’s a general view that the current set haven’t quite delivered what people hoped”.
But the new model is not substantially different to the current one.
FE Week understands that Weston College, which currently provides education in 19 prisons, is not bidding for lots in these contracts. It did not respond to a request for comment.
Population growth impact
Prisons minister Edward Argar
Overcrowding could make it even harder for educators to operate in jails. Longer sentencing saw prison populations rise over five per cent to 87,936 in the year to February, with numbers expected to pass 100,000 by 2030.
“The rate at which new prison places are being created is not keeping pace,” says Taylor. “It’s far tighter than it should be, which makes things very risky. There’s a danger we’ll hit an absolute crisis point in the future.”
Reid recalls how at one prison, “education fell to the wayside” because “they were overwhelmed with prisoners. It just becomes about keeping everyone alive.”
As a solution to overcrowding, the government is seeking to rent prison space from other countries. Collins warns this would make prison education “very difficult and expensive” to deliver.
There are also concerns about the poor state of some education facilities. Milton Keynes College tutors report “rotting walls and doors, mould, leaking roofs requiring buckets, and lack of adequate heating”, while prison observer Danny Barrs describes “classrooms where windows were broken” and “disgusting toilets”.
Digital divide
HM chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor
Charlie Atkinson, training manager at the Dusty Knuckle, a London bakery employing former prisoners, recalls one trainee who never made it to work due to his lack of digital awareness.
“He saw somebody tapping on their Apple Watch and thought he was hallucinating. He’d never seen an Oyster card before.”
Atkinson has been asked to “help ex-offenders learn to use Argos self-checkout machines”, because upon their release the probation service gave them vouchers “to buy a tent and sleeping bag”. Her insights highlight how fast the digital world is moving, and how painfully slow the MoJ is to catch up.
In-cell technology is only so far available in 15 prisons, with four more planned by March 2025. As a separate pilot, 1,500 education-specific offline laptops have been deployed across 35 prisons.
Prisoners can access some online learning materials on education departments’ computers using the intranet programme Virtual Campus. But digital skills courses are “pretty limited”, says Collins.
Hallatt teaches an essential digital skills course that “states quite clearly learners must have internet usage”.
Without it, teachers must design offline resources on how to send emails, so learners “pretend” to send them. Inmates are then “very strictly monitored” to go online in a ten-minute window during exams.
Igniting the learning spark
Sharon Berry, chief executive of Storybook Dads
PET provides 130 distance learning courses to prisoners, including in bookkeeping, running a business, and even beekeeping (for prisons with beehives). Last year, it received around 2,500 applications and funded 1,300 courses.
Collins says their courses help with wellbeing, and they “try to offer things people will find interesting rather than just what’s good for job prospects”.
Some partnerships have begun bringing universities into prisons for teaching, but Collins says most are on hold awaiting new MoJ safety guidance.
Storybook Dads helps prisoners make audio comics for their children. Its chief executive Sharon Betty says prisoners tend to have “poor memories of school” – almost half were excluded – but they feel “more encouraged” to improve their reading or digital skills after making a comic.
Betty recalls an illiterate Irish traveller who went on to learn to read, after the experience of creating an Ugly Duckling comic for his daughter’s eighth birthday moved him to tears.
But reduced prison regimes mean the charity produces 3,500 stories a year now, compared to 5,000 pre-Covid.
“They may not want to go into a formal education setting to learn digital skills. But after they’ve made a comic they’re really proud of it and think, ‘actually, maybe I can learn to use a computer.’ So we’re making those little inroads.”
A comic made by a prisoner for their child, thanks to the charity Storybook Dads
Students in Birmingham have been advised to study from home more as their cash-strapped local authority axes local transport subsidies to balance its books.
Birmingham City Council’s cabinet will meet next week to agree its budget which includes savings worth £300 million.
Cuts to services targeted at sixth-form-age students risk excluding the most vulnerable students from education, a local principal has said.
Among over 200 proposed savings is a review of its non-statutory transport support for post-16 students.
Hikes in fees and cuts to services are forecast to save the council just over £7 million.
“We must be candid and recognise that this proposal involves a reduction on what is offered. That is not something the council wishes to do, but rather considers itself driven to by the current financial situation,” the council said.
If approved, the plans will see the fees paid by parents of post-16 students towards travel support, such as minibuses and taxis, increase from £780 to £1,028 per academic year.
The council issued a section 114 notice in September, effectively declaring bankruptcy.
City councillors were told to immediately stop all non-essential spending, reduce running costs, and not commit to new expenditure.
Local authorities are only obliged to provide transport support for children of mandatory school age. Sixth-form age students, including those with SEND, are not entitled to transport support from their local council.
The council is seeking savings in these “discretionary” services.
Kim Everton, executive principal of The Hive College, a specialist college in Birmingham, said over 50 per cent of her students currently used subsidised transport to get to college.
“All our learners have SEND and many of them come from low-income families with working parents. If this is removed, many learners will not be able to attend college and many will become NEET (not in education, employment, or training),” she said.
The council is recommending local colleges deliver more of its courses online to reduce the need for young people to travel. It also admits its cuts could lead to students choosing courses based on proximity, rather than career aspirations.
Birmingham is not alone in hiking charges on parents of SEND young people to help fill budget blackholes in local authority finances.
An FE Week investigation earlier this year found multiple examples of cash-strapped councils charging families as much as £933 per year towards travel to and from colleges.
Birmingham City Council has launched a consultation on its plans, but it closes ten days after the full council is due to approve the budget cuts.
A spokesperson told FE Week: “The council is in a challenging period due to its finances, and we understand it is an unsettling time for many of our residents.
“The children and young people’s travel service are already undertaking work to make savings in this area, primarily through a substantial re-tender exercise that was carried out during Summer 2023, these savings have been incorporated into the council’s savings.”
A major T Level awarding body has written off over £2.5 million because of low student recruitment on the flagship qualifications.
NCFE’s latest accounts, published this week, reveal the charity added the loss to its planned deficit for 2022/23 as an “impairment charge” due to lower-than-expected enrolments on the T Level courses it has developed.
It follows the news that the government’s Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is taking steps to make the next wave of T Level licenses “more commercially attractive” for awarding organisations as low student numbers and high development costs are leaving awarding organisations out of pocket.
Kris Todd, NCFE’s chief financial officer, told FE Week the write-off was a “prudent” step to accurately reflect the value of T Levels on the organisation’s books.
He said: “T Levels represent a long-term investment by NCFE and as such we recognise their development costs as assets on our balance sheet. In line with financial reporting standards, and subject to external audit, we are required to consider the value of these assets in our accounts each year.”
NCFE’s accounts state that “to date, student enrolments have fallen below expectations”.
“As a result, we have written down our development investment relating to T Levels which has resulted in an impairment charge of £2.5 million in the year,” the financial statements added.
The accounts go on to explain that the charity’s deficit for the year of £6.8 million, and group deficit of £7.9 million, were budgeted for, except for the T Level impairment charge.
Prudent write-down
Guidance from the Charity Commission says charity trustees should typically expect full costs to be met when a public authority is purchasing a service from them.
However, trustees can decide to use charity funds to subsidise or supplement a service purchased from a public authority, but only if doing so furthers the interests of the charity and its beneficiaries.
Todd said: “If we believe the value of the [T Level development] assets are overstated, we are required to make an adjustment. We do not anticipate generating the same level of surplus over the life of the contracts as we initially did and have prudently taken the decision to write down the value of the assets accordingly.”
NCFE generated £43 million in income in its 2022/23 financial year, up from £39 million the year before. Its expenditure however increased to £50.8 million, up from £41.9 million.
Previous accounts explained that the charity had budgeted for deficits because of its “planned and significant” investment in its business, including developing T Levels.
The latest accounts said the charity plans to get back to a surplus position in the next two years as its investment programmes are delivered.
T Level losses
NCFE currently holds exclusive contracts with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to develop and award T Levels in education and early years, health and science, and digital.
Ministers last month scrapped the development of the T Level in hairdressing and barbering, which NCFE was contracted to develop, citing low interest from employers. NCFE is continuing with the development of a T Level in beauty and aesthetics with VTCT, though it won’t be launched for students until at least 2025. These courses were originally scheduled for delivery in 2023.
And in July last year, NCFE passed its licenses to develop and award the T Levels in craft and design and media, broadcast and production to Pearson.
Awarding licenses are currently up for grabs for so-called “gen 2” T Levels in education and early years, construction, and digital to replace the current contracts as they expire. A separate procurement is due to launch next month for health, healthcare science and science T Levels.
NCFE is yet to declare whether it will put itself forward to continue to run the T Levels.
IfATE is taking steps to make T Levels more “commercially attractive” to awarding organisations in its gen 2 contracts through a funding model that would guarantee a certain level of profit.
Low student take-up
The new contracts will feature a “demand-sensitive” adaptive pricing model which will mean awarding organisations can charge providers higher fees if student numbers are lower than expected. Fees could also be reduced if student numbers are higher.
Awarding organisations with generation two T Level licenses will be allowed to make a “one-off adjustment” to the entry fee it charges providers if the projected number of students increases or decreases over the contract term.
The move was slated by college leaders when FE Week broke the news last month for forcing providers to pick up the risk for low T Level recruitment at a time when students and parents are questioning the value of the qualifications in light of the government’s plans to replace them with the Advanced British Standard.
A survey carried out by the Association of Colleges in October 2023 found that 11 of the 18 T Level subjects being taught in colleges had under-recruited in at least 50 per cent of colleges. The T Levels which under-recruited the most in the surveyed colleges were in digital, health and construction.
DfE’s latest T Level action plan reported 1,750 students starting a T Level in digital, 2,150 in education and early years and 1,800 starts in health and science in 2022.
Several colleges cancelled T Level courses this year, blaming falling GCSE maths and English pass rates among school leavers.
Politicians right across the UK have placed a high emphasis on the role that post-16 education and training can play in achieving a vast range of policy goals, from improving social mobility and productivity to increasing civic cohesion and individual well-being.
There have also been a dizzying array of policy reforms and changes over time. In a new joint EPI/SKOPE report released this week, we chart the different approaches to post-16 education and training across the four nations of the UK, and differences in educational and labour market outcomes. This article draws out the key lessons for England.
Participation is high
There are some clear positives on education participation in England. Participation in full-time education among 16- and 17-year-olds has risen from 40 per cent in the 1980s to about 84 per cent today. There are also fewer young people not in education, employment or training (so called “NEETs”), down from 7-8% in the 1990s and 2000s to about 5 per cent today. We have also seen rising levels of participation in higher education, with 37 per cent of 18-year olds in England accepted on to higher education courses in 2023 as compared with 25 per cent in 2006.
The growing level of participation in full-time education has come partly at the expense of young people doing part-time education, training or work-based learning, such as apprenticeships. In the 1990s, 12-13 per cent of young people aged 16 and 17 were enrolled in some form of work-based learning. This has fallen over time, and now stands at just 7 per cent. Indeed, only 20 per cent of apprenticeships are taken by under 19s in England today, which compares with 37 per cent in Scotland and 50 per cent in Northern Ireland.
This reflects active decisions by policymakers in Scotland and Northern Ireland to focus apprenticeship on young people. In England, apprenticeships have been more focused on adults, partly to achieve arbitrary and (now defunct) targets for so many millions of apprenticeship starts. Despite a cross-party consensus on the benefits of apprenticeships for young people in England, they have largely become a means of re-training for adults.
But inequalities persist
There are, however, many sources of concern when it comes to inequalities. Parental background still plays a disproportionate role in shaping children’s life chances in England. Around 80 per cent of young people whose parents working in professional occupations possess A level or equivalent qualifications, as compared with less than 60 per cent of young people from working-class backgrounds. This then further maps into differences in higher education participation, employment and earnings.
Of greatest concern is the difficulty in tracking inequalities across all areas of post-16 education and training. With the exception of higher education, it is surprisingly hard to examine socio-economic inequalities in post-16 education and training over time. It is even harder, if not impossible, to compare socio-economic inequalities across the four nations of the UK. This is a great shame as there is potentially much we could learn from the diverging approaches being tried across the UK.
And policy churn doesn’t help
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of post-16 education and training policy is the sheer volume of changes and reforms over time. The post-16 education sector has been in state of permanent revolution for at least the past thirty years, particularly technical and vocational education.
There are major changes almost every three years, and significant reforms are rarely left enough time to bed in or achieve their goals before they are replaced by new ones. The latest example is the creation of T Levels and their planned replacement by an Advanced British Standard even before they have been fully rolled out. Constant policy churn implies that the system is at best flawed and at worst failing. This has the potential to harm the morale of staff and students.
A political consensus is needed on the goals and ambitions that can be realised by the post-16 education and training system, well-funded institutions and structures, and a stable set of qualifications.
This may sound fanciful within the UK’s adversarial political system, but the main political parties are not actually that far apart on this issue. They all describe wanting to see a parity of esteem between academic and technical qualifications, a desire for well-funded institutions and the potential benefits from young people doing apprenticeships. The missing elements have been delivery, funding and a willingness to leave reforms to bed in.
Despite its faults, the Butler Act of 1944 was a clear example of political consensus across parties that enabled policymakers to achieve ambitious goals for schools, and it created a system that remained in place for decades. The same is needed now for further and technical education.
Previous Job: Operations Director for Skills, PeoplePlus
Interesting fact: Sandra says the best holiday souvenir she has brought back home is a dog
Neil Bates
Chair, Gen 2
Start date: January 2024
Concurrent Job: Managing Director, Technical Professional Education Ltd
Interesting fact: Shunning university after his A-levels, Neil’s father insisted he walk to the Jobcentre, some 6 miles from home. He came back later that day with a job… working in the Jobcentre!
