Burnley College’s principal Karen Buchanan has been suspended pending an investigation, a spokesperson has confirmed.
It comes two weeks after the college stated Buchanan was “absent for personal reasons”.
In a new statement to the Burnley Express today, the college said the suspension is “in line with its normal policies and procedures to ensure a fair and transparent process” while an investigation takes place.
The nature of the investigation remains unknown.
Buchanan stepped down from her position shortly before Ofsted inspected the large college earlier this year.
The college has appointed deputy principal Kate Wallace as interim principal post.
The college said today: “Burnley College can confirm that the principal, Karen Buchanan, has been suspended pending an ongoing investigation.
“The college has taken this step in line with its normal policies and procedures to ensure a fair and transparent process. In the meantime, deputy principal Kate Wallace will act as interim principal. We will make no further comment at this time.”
Buchanan began working at Burnley College in 1986 as a part-time lecturer and became deputy principal in 2011 before taking the helm in 2018.
Meanwhile, Wallace joined Burnley College in 2022 and became deputy principal in 2023.
The 10,000-student college is in a financially healthy position according to its latest 2023-24 accounts, which show a £1.9 million surplus, £21.5 million in reserves and an ‘outstanding’ financial health rating.
Almost 700 people are employed at the college which was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2021, and last year self-assessed as ‘outstanding’ on the watchdog’s scale.
It boasts on its website that it is the “number one” college in England for 16 to 18 achievement rates on the government’s most recently published achievement rates table in March 2024, and claims to have held the position since 2018.
The Department for Education’s annual funding rule changes for apprenticeships have become a defining feature of the skills landscape. Intended to refine the system and raise standards, they now risk creating an unintended problem of their own: instability.
This isn’t an argument against reform. It’s an argument for better reform. More specifically, recognising that constant change, without sufficient time or support to implement it, risks damaging the very quality we are all trying to protect.
Quality demands stability
In quality management theory, there’s a long-established warning against the risks of frequent system-level change. W. Edwards Deming, the American statistician whose thinking helped shape global manufacturing standards, called it “tampering”, making constant adjustments in the name of improvement, but without evidence or systems thinking to back it up. Instead of improving outcomes, this approach introduces variation, confusion, and operational noise.
That’s the pattern apprenticeship providers now face each year.
Revised rules demand updates to programme structures, funding claims, evidence requirements and employer and learner guidance. Each new rule might be sensible in isolation, but the cumulative effect is disruption and stress on those individuals who need to make the changes.
Even the best-prepared providers must divert time and resources away from teaching and learning to rework documentation, retrain staff, reprogram data systems and reassure employers. This reactive culture chips away at capacity for long-term improvement. It fosters risk aversion. It creates compliance habits, not quality habits.
More fundamentally, it raises a question of trust.
If the rules change every 12 months – sometimes more frequently – how can providers build sustainable delivery models that learners and employers can rely on?
Lessons from other sectors
Other sectors offer cautionary tales about the cost of regular change.
One of the starkest is the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Inquiry. While the causes were complex, the final Francis Report highlighted how frequent policy shifts, performance targets, and structural changes created a loss of clarity and accountability. Staff were overwhelmed, systems became misaligned, and—ultimately—care quality declined.
The aviation industry offers another instructive example. Over a three-year period, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration introduced multiple software and procedural updates to its air traffic control systems. These weren’t inherently bad ideas, but because they were introduced too frequently and with limited integration planning, they triggered temporary breakdowns in service and control, as well as operator confusion. A review found that “change fatigue” had set in, even among experienced professionals.
And in the private sector, the 2010 Toyota recall crisis is often cited in business schools as a case study in how a drift away from disciplined, stable improvement practices (like Kaizen) contributed to systemic design issues and reputational damage. Toyota’s rush to innovate – without enough time to embed new processes properly – undermined the company’s long-standing reputation for quality.
These examples show a consistent pattern: change without system-level planning weakens performance.
Reforming the reform process
The current system of annual funding rule changes in apprenticeships increasingly mirrors this pattern. It’s not that the changes themselves are unhelpful—it’s that their frequency, timing, and cumulative effect disrupt the conditions necessary for quality delivery.
In many cases, providers are implementing new rule sets in September that were only finalised in May. There is little room for piloting or evaluating impact. No other publicly funded education programme -school or university – operates with this level of operational fluidity.
If policymakers want providers to plan, invest, and deliver consistently high-quality apprenticeships, then we need to deliver the same level of planning and consistency at policy level. That includes longer lead-in times, clearer rationale for changes, and a more transparent impact review process.
Because right now, it’s not the apprenticeship delivery model that’s broken. It’s the process for changing it.
The vast majority of level 7 apprentices will be ineligible for government funding under new age-based restrictions, new data reveals.
From January 2026, the Department for Education will only fund new Master’s level apprenticeships for apprentices who are aged 21 and under. Ministers said this will “rebalance” funding towards lower-level training, where it would have the most impact.
Existing apprentices can continue as planned.
New data published today in response to a written parliamentary question from shadow education minister Neil O’Brien shows that 11 per cent, one in nine, level 7 apprenticeship starts in recent years have been under 22.
Neil O’Brien
O’Brien told FE Week: “Huge numbers of employers and educators have warned the government about the disastrous effect this cut will have on the public services and on access to the professions for the less well off. But they have done it anyway”.
Until now, the sector has relied on government apprenticeship statistics to assess the impact of the removal of level 7 funding, which presents apprentices as under 19, 19 to 24 or 25 and over.
Today’s figures show that in the most recent full academic year, 2023-24, 2,710 of the total 23,860 new level 7 apprentices were under 22 when they started.
The new data doesn’t list standards, but previous FE Week analysis showed the accountancy and tax professional and the solicitor apprenticeships were the most popular for younger learners and are therefore the least affected by January’s funding change.
But the rest are likely to become unviable. This includes the senior leader apprenticeship, which had over 7,000 starts last year, as well as the advanced clinical practitioner degree apprenticeship.
O’Brien said: “It is shameful that they have snuck this out as soon as the commons is not sitting, and more shameful to have sat on the information that this is a 90 per cent cut until after the announcement was made.
“It is just total contempt for the people delivering these life-changing apprenticeships.”
Numbers starting level 7 apprenticeships are expected to rocket this year before the tap get turned off in the new year.
Employers wishing to continue with level 7 apprenticeships for learners aged 22 and over after December will need to pay for them themselves.
Yesterday’s announcement also confirmed that the apprenticeship budget for 2025-26 will be a record £3 billion, drawn from the record £4.2 billion in levy payments by employers, for that year.
The government pledged 120,000 new training places for young people and new construction courses and skills bootcamps for adults.
Business critics
Business groups have argued that placing the cap at age 21 restricts access to top professions to young people who don’t go through an academic pathway through education.
Lizzie Crowley, senior skills adviser at the CIPD, said: “The decision to restrict government funding for all level 7 apprenticeships to those aged 16 to 21 is unlikely to meaningfully boost youth participation, given that fewer than one in 10 apprentices who train at this level fall within this age bracket.
“While the aim of rebalancing the system towards young people is important, this blunt approach risks undermining the breadth and ambition of the apprenticeship offer. We have previously argued for a more nuanced approach to managing the cost of delivering higher-level apprenticeships, for instance via reduced subsidies for older apprentices.”
Petra Wilton, director of policy at the Chartered Management Institute, said: “The government’s decision to restrict level 7 funding does not address the UK’s ongoing skills gap in management capability. In practice, this wipes out virtually all funding for the senior leader apprenticeship.
Senior leader apprentices are “overrepresented by people who were on free school meals and who were the first in their families to go to university”, she said.
Meanwhile, the Russell Group warned the move could see universities scrap other apprenticeship programmes.
Policy manager Jamie Roberts said: “As well as the direct impact, universities across the sector will be concerned about the effect on wider apprenticeship provision. Without level 7 it may not make economic sense for some to continue with any apprenticeship provision”.
Ben Rowland, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said the level 7 announcement was “a disappointment” but “delaying implementation to the start of 2026 is a sensible step and gives some time for adjustment”.
Funding for adult education and apprenticeships faces “intense pressure” if the government wants to protect schools and 16-19 funding in colleges over the next three years, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned.
Ahead of the government’s spending review on June 11, an IFS analysis has found that the Department for Education’s (DfE) £86 billion projected budget has a “severely limited” chance of ‘protected’ funding increases due to government commitments to increase health, defence and early years budgets.
This means the government is facing a set of “difficult trade-offs” between evenly spreading cuts of about one per cent in each of the three financial years between 2026 and 2029 between its main spending areas, or protecting some areas and implementing harsher cuts to other spending areas such as universal infant free school meals.
The think tank estimates that rising student numbers in FE colleges and sixth forms will require an extra £290 million each year to prevent cuts to per-student funding.
Trade-off pressure
But protecting schools and the £8.8 billion colleges budget, about 9 per cent of the DfE’s overall funding, would require “concentrating” the full £2.6 billion cut on adult education, apprenticeships, higher education – a real terms reduction of about 20 per cent.
Protecting those budgets as well would result in even harsher 50 per cent cuts to smaller DfE budgets, such as universal school meals or physical education.
This would probably require “cutting entire programmes”, the IFS estimates.
The report concludes: “None of the available options is straightforward. Each involves trade-offs between different areas of the education system, with consequences for the level and quality of provision.
“In the absence of additional funding, difficult choices will be required about which pressures to prioritise and where savings can be realistically made.”
6,500 falls short
Longstanding staff recruitment and retention issues in FE also mean that the government will fall short of the growing need for staff, even if it delivers on the 6,500 extra teachers promised during the election, according to the think tank.
This comes following a further £190 million funding boost to 16-19 education in 2025-26 on top of a share of £300 million announced at the last fiscal event, the autumn budget.
Yesterday, the DfE announced a bundle of skills funding packages, including confirmation that level 7 apprenticeships will be removed for people aged 22 and older and a £345 million apprenticeship budget funding increase.
It also confirmed that a hike to the immigration skills levy, targeted at employers hiring immigrant workers, will fund “up to 45,000 training places”, although details on what type of training remain vague.
Some adult education budgets have already taken a hit under the new government. Mayors were told in March that their 2025-26 adult skills fund allocations will be reduced by around 3 per cent, with some mayors reducing the amount they contract to private providers and others making up the cut from reserves.
Meanwhile, in non-devolved areas, a 6 per cent “affordability” cut will be applied to allocations.
FE ‘crucial’ for productivity
Josh Hillman, director of education at the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the report, said decisions made during the funding review will “shape the opportunities available to children and young people” for years to come.
He added: “The evidence shows that short-term savings decisions risk undermining long-term outcomes – particularly in areas such as further education, skills and adult learning, which are crucial for productivity, labour market resilience and social mobility.
“If policymakers are serious about closing attainment gaps and building a more capable and inclusive workforce, they must prioritise strategic investment across the education system, not just in schools.”
The DfE declined to comment on speculation about spending decisions ahead of the spending review.
The Treasury did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s been on the cards for a while, but that won’t soften the blow.
From January 2026, those over the age of 21 will no longer qualify for funding for level 7 apprenticeships, considered the equivalent of a Masters’ degree.
The decision, confirmed by the Department for Education this morning after months of speculation, will have ramifications for many. For the thousands of young people – including those from disadvantaged backgrounds – who rely on this tried and tested route into a highly skilled professional career, it will come as a major blow.
Firms who hire apprentices at this level and who depend heavily on the supply of skilled workers will also suffer.
A recent ICAEW poll revealed that, for 46 per cent of our members surveyed, scrapping level 7 funding would impact their organisation. For SMEs, that impact would be particularly severe (48 per cent). Also, according to the members we asked, axing funding would not only lead to an immediate reduction in apprenticeship starts but result in lower tax revenues (37 per cent) and reduced business advice (47 per cent).
The government’s rationale behind the changes is interesting.
Heralding a record-breaking £3 billion apprenticeship budget and an additional 30,000 starts across this parliament in today’s announcement, they pointed to the ways that level 7 apprenticeships could be accessed by older or well-qualified people who were not intended to be the recipients of apprenticeship levy funding.
Consequently, the government has opted to refocus investment towards young people at the start of their working lives, rather than those already in work with high levels of prior learning and qualifications.
Call me an accountant, but this doesn’t quite add up.
Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, the number of school leavers entering our profession has doubled, while the average age of a level 7 ICAEW apprentice is 22. Therefore, stripping funding from this cohort could have unintended and profound consequences for firms, the talent pipeline, social mobility and the health of the wider economy.
While I support the idea of an age concession, the likely effect of a 16-21 exemption is a skew in recruitment towards school leavers, who typically follow a longer pathway to qualification as a chartered professional, either as an accountant or engineer or going into the legal profession.
Considering this, an age restriction of 18 to 25-year-olds would be a much more effective compromise.
In our view, the government must also prioritise investment in skills and abandon policies, such as this one, that could undermine economic growth.
These changes, coupled with uncertainty over the impact of the Employment Rights Bill, increasing costs to employers and future UK visa constraints, all paint a very worrying picture. Not only will they damage the attractiveness of recruitment into the professional services sector, but they run the risk of UK businesses choosing to offshore work – a concern shared by 41 per cent of our members polled.
Additionally, these changes fly in the face of the government’s commitment to its growth agenda, especially after it included professional and business services as a key growth-driving sector in the new industrial strategy.
The central question facing the country is: Where on earth are economic growth and rising living standards going to come from? The answer is very clear – indeed, the industrial strategy points the way to those sectors in which the majority of economic growth will derive. It is those sectors in which the UK is world-class – our great defence industry, advanced manufacturing, life sciences and professional services. Access to that talent pipeline is vital to the growth prospects of those sectors.
Skills are critical to the growth prospects of businesses and the economy, and apprenticeships help to close that skills gap – so they must be protected at all costs, or at least be consistent across all government policy.
At ICAEW, we’ll work closely with firms, apprentices and training providers to help them navigate this period of change, while remaining committed to an open dialogue with Skills England and employers to ensure access to talent is protected.
But it’s key that the government closely monitors these changes through the lens of economic growth so they can reconsider if they’ve been effective in a year’s time.
Level 7 apprenticeships are exactly the kind of qualifications that businesses need, and on which the UK’s foreign direct investment depends. In solving one problem, the government is in danger of undermining its wider objective for growth, as well as hitting the jobs and aspirations of ambitious young people.
The full board of Skills England was unveiled today, just days before the new body formally replaces the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE).
Board chair Phil Smith and vice chair Sir David Bell were announced in February alongside joint chief executives Tessa Griffiths and Sara Maclean and deputy chief executive Gemma Marsh.
They will be joined by AELP chair Nicki Hay, Skills Federation chief executive Fiona Aldridge and college principals Fazal Dad and Zoe Lewis as newly appointed Skills England board members on a three-year term.
IfATE’s powers around technical education and apprenticeships have already been transferred to the Department for Education (DfE) and will officially be abolished on June 1 at 2am.
Dame Fiona Kendrick is the only serving IfATE board member to move to Skills England.
Skills England’s chiefs report to senior civil servants and DfE ministers. It was set up as a DfE executive agency, but has a cross-government remit and an independent board.
Establishing Skills England was one of Labour’s manifesto pledges and was launched by the prime minister Keir Starmer shortly after the general election.
Its role is to advise the government on the skills needed in the economy, publish sector skills assessments and develop and approve occupational standards for apprenticeships and technical qualifications.
Board members are paid £15,000 per year and are expected to provide “independent perspective and insight” to ministers, help set strategic objectives and identify “high-quality feedback loops” between the government and skills bodies across the country.
Here are the board members
Fiona Aldridge
Dr Fiona Aldridge is currently the head of The Skills Federation, also known as the Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards (FISSS). She joined last July after the federation, which represents 18 sector skills bodies, was left without a chief executive for three years.
Aldridge was previously head of skills insight at West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and had been at the Learning and Work Institute for 20 years in its policy and research division.
One of Aldridge’s notable achievements was being part of the negotiations with the government for the employment and skills elements of the combined authority’s trailblazer devolution deal.
Fazal Dad
Dr Fazal Dad will join the Skills England board while concurrently serving as principal of Blackburn College.
Dad has worked in FE for the past 30 years, heading up Walsall College and steering it to an ‘outstanding’ institution during his leadership before joining Blackburn College in 2019.
Dad himself is committed to lifelong learning, studying part-time whilst moving up the FE career ladder, which resulted in obtaining two Masters degrees and a PhD aged 50.
Dad has also been Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) reviewer for over 15 years, a part-time Ofsted inspector and a police special constable for nearly 20 years.
Sian Elliott
Sian Elliott joins the board as director of organising, services and skills at the Trades Union Congress (TUC), leading on growing the trade union movement. She joined the TUC in 2019, first as women’s equality policy officer and then senior policy officer.
Elliott began her career in secondary education at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation and the Runnymede Trust and in various policy lead roles at a child poverty charity and Bromley council before joining the TUC.
Nicki Hay
Nicki Hay is the first ever female chair of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), the representative organisation for independent training providers.
Hay entered the apprenticeships world when she joined ASM, part of the now-dissolved Quantica Training. She also sold her own ITP, Outsource Training, to Seetec Group in 2016 before joining Estio Training as chief operating officer.
Estio Training was acquired by BPP Group in 2021 where Hay now works as director of apprenticeship strategy and policy.
Brian Holliday
Brian Holliday is a senior board member at German technology giant Siemens’s UK arm, overseeing its digital and software business.
Reportedly a former apprentice, a chartered engineer and computer systems graduate, Holliday has worked at Siemens since the early 90s and is described as a “keen advocate for engineering, innovation, skills”.
He’s also the multi-national’s ‘UK government affairs programme lead’ and has reportedly worked on “several” digital projects with Skills England chair Phil Smith.
He has also been a non-executive director of Make UK and has chaired the Confederation of British Industry
Anthony Impey
Entrepreneur and business leader Impey is chief executive officer at Be The Business, a non-profit that helps small and mediums sized businesses improve their productivity.
In 2021 he was appointed chair of the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network for three years and has also chaired apprenticeship stakeholder and policy groups for the DfE, Federation of Small Businesses and the Greater London Authority.
He has also founded initiatives to help disadvantaged young people into the technology sector, has advised with City and Guilds and served on the board of London’s Capital City College.
Fiona Kendrick
Fiona Kendrick, a former chair and chief executive officer of Nestlé UK and Ireland, is the only IfATE board member to move to Skills England.
Aside from her experience at the Swiss food and beverage behemoth, Kendrick has been a senior advisor at management consultants PWC and Newton Europe, UK Commissioner for Employment and Skills, a training provider director and owns management consultancy Treo.
She was made a dame in 2015 for services to the food and drink sector and was the deputy chair of IfATE between 2017 and 2025.
Zoe Lewis
Zoe Lewis has been principal and chief executive officer of Middlesbrough College since 2013.
She has worked in senior management at the college, which has 15,000 students and a £43 million turnover, since 2005.
The college principal, who is a qualified accountant, previously worked in finance for local government, the police and an “outsourced private sector company”.
In the past, she has voiced frustration at FE being treated as the “poor relation” by government compared to other education policy areas.
Lewis is also a director at the Education Endowment Foundation, which tries to break the link between family income and educational achievement.
Sara Todd
Alongside Skills England deputy CEO Gemma Marsh, Sara Todd hails from Greater Manchester where she leads Trafford Council as chief executive and is the lead chief executive for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s education, work and skills portfolio.
Todd has led Trafford Council since 2019 and has over 30 years’ of local government experience.
Before joining Trafford, she was deputy chief executive of Manchester City Council where she worked for 14 years.
Andy Westwood
Andy Westwood is currently a professor of government practice at the University of Manchester and has been a respected adviser, strategist and commentator in higher education and skills for over two decades.
He worked in government as an official and a special adviser when Labour was last in power in several government departments, including the Treasury and the then Department for Innovation, Universities and Science.
In 2010, he left Whitehall to lead the higher education representative body, GuildHE. Between 2014 and 2017 he was a professor of politics and policy at the University of Winchester.
His expertise in regional development, skills and higher education policy has seen Westwood also advise on the international stage with the OECD, IMF and the EU.
Helen Woodward Davies
Helen Woodward Davies holds a number of high-profile roles in the nuclear training industry. She has worked at EDF for over eight years and was their head of construction workforce capability before becoming the resource programme director for Hinckley Point C.
Alongside her Skills England role, Woodward Davies is a board member of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB).
She also chaired the National College for Nuclear between 2021 and 2023 and co-chaired the Nuclear Skills Strategy Group from August 2023 until April 2024.
Public funding for level 7 apprenticeships will be removed for people aged 22 and older from January 2026, the government has confirmed.
From the new year, employers will only be able to use the apprenticeship levy to fund the master’s level courses for existing apprentices and new starters up to age 22, as first reported by FE Week earlier this month.
Level 7 apprentices who are care leavers or have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) can be funded up to age 25.
The Department for Education (DfE) said today the reforms “rebalance” the apprenticeship budget “towards training at lower levels, where it can have the greatest impact”.
It comes as part of a bundle of skills announcements, including 45,000 “domestic” training places funded through the immigration skills charge, a boost to the apprenticeship budget and £132 million for skills bootcamps in “priority sectors”.
Appointments to the board of Skills England are also expected today.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “A skilled workforce is the key to steering the economy forward, and today we’re backing the next generation by giving young people more opportunities to learn a trade, earn a wage and achieve and thrive.”
The controversial cut to level 7 apprenticeships has been trailed for months, with prime minister Keir Starmer first announcing plans for the restrictions last September alongside shortened apprenticeships and new foundation-level programmes.
FE Week first revealed that young people up to age 21 would be exempt from the level 7 funding axe earlier this month. A leaked letter from Phillipson to Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden revealed the age cap was introduced as a concession to win the support of her ministerial colleagues.
FE Week analysis for the most recent full academic year, 2023-24, shows that out of 23,860 level 7 starts, 468, or 2 per cent, were for under-19s, while 7,995, or 34 per cent, were aged 19 to 24. The government only publishes data on apprenticeship starts in three age groups: under-19s, 19 to 24-year-olds, and 25-plus.
It means very few level 7 apprenticeships will remain viable from January, with only the solicitor and accountancy and tax professional standards clocking up sizable volumes of starts for under 25s.
The senior leader level 7 apprenticeship, which the Chartered Management Institute claims is largely taken by professionals in the NHS, education and civil service, has less than 1 per cent of starts for those aged under 25.
Other popular level 7 apprenticeships likely to become unviable to due to the age limit include senior people professional, digital and technology solutions specialist, chartered town planner, artificial intelligence (AI) and architects.
Just under £240 million was spent on level 7 apprenticeships in 2023-24, but DfE have not confirmed how much would be saved by removing levy eligibility now the age cap is in place.
‘Record-breaking’ apprenticeship budget
DfE has also confirmed a “record-breaking” apprenticeship budget for 2025-26.
Treasury documents published earlier this month already confirmed the 13 per cent budget boost, from £2.73 billion in 2024-25 to £3.075 billion in 2025-26, as reported by FE Week at the time.
DfE said today the extra funding, the largest cash increase in the apprenticeship budget since the levy was introduced in 2017, “will open up opportunities for young people to succeed in careers the country vitally needs to prosper”.
Latest forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show £4.2 billion is expected in apprenticeship levy payments by employers in 2025-26, another record figure.
Accounting for DfE’s £3 billion apprenticeship budget and allocations to devolved nations, this will leave around £600 million retained by the Treasury in 2025-26, down from £800 million in 2024-25.
Part of DfE’s pivot towards young people is the new foundation apprenticeships, designed for 16- to 21-year-olds, or up to age 24 for apprentices who were in care, in prison or with an education, health and care plan (EHCP).
The first seven approved foundation apprenticeship courses were announced last week; three in construction, two in digital, one in health and social care and one in engineering and manufacturing.
Starts are expected from this August, once the government has changed the law to reduce the legal minimum duration of apprenticeships from 12 to eight months.
Maximum funding on offer to deliver the training ranges from £3,000 for health and social care, which one provider chief branded “laughable”, to £4,500 for engineering.
Employers who take on, retain, and progress a foundation apprentice will receive incentive payments worth up to £2,000.
The DfE said today that an extra 30,000 apprenticeship starts will be created during this parliament.
Boost for ‘priority’ bootcamps and construction
DfE has also earmarked £132 million for skills bootcamps “across a range of priority sectors” for 40,000 learners in 2025-26. This is alongside £100 million already announced to extend the courses in the construction sector.
The government had previously told training providers that the programmes in sectors other than construction would no longer be funded.
Providers in non-devolved areas will have access to 13 new level 2 construction courses through the Free Courses for Jobs (FCFJ) scheme, while mayors will share £14 million for in academic year 2025-26 for up to 5,000 new construction training places.
A £600 million construction sector training deal was announced back in March which included funding for ten technical excellence colleges that will specialise in construction training.
Immigration Skills Charge
A tax hike on employers hiring immigrant workers will fund up to 45,000 training places “to upskill the domestic workforce and reduce reliance on migration in priority sectors,” the DfE has claimed.
The immigration skills charge (ISC) will rise by 32 per cent as part of the government’s recent crackdown on immigration.
This is the first time the government has given any indication, albeit vague, that revenue generated by the ISC actually funds any training.
A previous FE Week investigation found the charge had raised nearly £1.5 billion since it was introduced in 2017, but neither the Treasury, DfE, nor the Home Office would say how the money contributed to skills budgets, sparking criticisms over transparency.
Further education members of the University and College Union (UCU) have voted for a national ballot on strike action against low pay at its annual agenda-setting conference.
UCU members came together this weekend for the annual congress in Liverpool and voted to bring college branches across England together to launch a ballot for strike action this Autumn.
This means that the union will start to coordinate with each branch to consult on a disaggregated nationwide ballot following the upcoming spending review.
Paul Bridge, UCU’s head of further education, said: “Coordination is going to be essential if we are going to win a new deal for FE, it can’t just be driven from the head office”.
If teachers vote to strike, it could mean one of the first national strikes in the FE sector in well over a decade.
Congress took place just days after the government announced £190 million for 16-19 education this September.
But UCU members were not convinced of the material benefits of the funding on teaching staff in colleges, saying that it could well result in just a 2 per cent pay award, below the government’s deal for a 4 per cent pay rise for school teachers.
Motions by UCU branches from Bolton College, City of Bristol College, Merton College, South and City College Birmingham and Bradford College as well as the UCU FE committee all called for ballots on co-ordinated national industrial action.
Union members who argued against the motion said launching a ballot in September was “too soon” and that more time and strategy was needed before escalation.
All the motions passed and this summer will see branches engaging with members to build a campaign before preparing for a national ballot in September. UCU has already laid out a consultative ballot, closing on June 20.
Labour’s employment rights bill, currently in the House of Lords, seeks to remove the 50 per cent turnout threshold introduced by the Conservatives.
General secretary Jo Grady told delegates she was meeting chancellor Rachel Reeves next week to discuss education and vowed that FE funding will be part of her conversation.
She told delegates that “the time is now” to start making plans to escalate and taking the next steps to organise.
“The time is now to start escalating our campaigning, to start preparing, to start briefing branches, to getting all of our members in line, on message, clued up, educating each other. Because however many people we have at the beginning of a dispute, we want just as many at the end, really, we want more at the end,” she said.
“We are putting employers on notice that unless they come to the table with a decent offer, England wide strike action is on the cards,” she added in a statement about the motions passing.
Pay and deficit motions also passed
Other motions calling calling on UCU to up its campaign to close the teacher pay gap with schools, also passed.
It comes as UCU officials prepare to begin negotiations with the Association of Colleges next month. FE unions have demanded a 10 per cent pay rise in their annual pay claim for 2025-26.
UCU members also voted overwhelmingly to pass a motion that demanded FE college leaders stop using deficit budget an “an excuse” not to fund pay awards.
City and Islington College branch argued college management teams were pursuing “emotional blackmail” with the threat of redundancies if they were to enter deficits.
“Even if they are in deficit, so what? The government is in deficit, we are in deficit with our mortgages…” they said.
AI is here to stay, but staff need training
Elsewhere, Bolton College delegates convinced union colleagues to vote in favour for a motion calling for training and resources for teachers on “the alarming rise of inappropriate behaviour” due to students’ use of mobile phones and artificial intelligence.
“We need safeguards, we need training, we need policy,” proponents of the motion talked about recent cases of teachers having their images digitally altered to “get them fired”.
Additionally, a motion heard in a private session yesterday demanded that the union to “routinely” publish information it holds as if it were a public authority operating under Freedom of Information Act rules. However, FE Week understands that motion fell.
As green skills emerge as a future megatrend, projections indicate that one in five jobs will soon require these competencies. Building a skilled green workforce will not only spur substantial economic growth but also meet the surging demand for environmentally friendly solutions across various sectors.
To address these needs comprehensively, Skills England has been established to identify key skills priorities and deliver them through the new Growth and Skills Levy. The Adult Skills Fund (ASF) is administered by devolved mayoral authorities, making it possible to fund green skills programmes through tailored learning and innovative provision funding streams.
Study Programme Funding Updates
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has closed, and funding responsibilities have transferred to the Department for Education (DfE). The funding formula can be used to add green skills into all study programmes. Many providers use induction, enrichment, or work readiness to deliver green skills. This framework facilitates the creation of innovative green skills programmes that integrate short accredited and non-accredited learning components into all study programmes. Another urgent priority is the development of the sector, and the sector-specific short courses in areas such as green construction, heat pumps, and hydrogen technology.
Innovative Training Resources
Green Skills Solutions is at the forefront of this transformation, having developed a comprehensive suite of curriculum and training resources employed by numerous educational providers through the Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF). Our extensive online training programmes, assured by City & Guilds, serve as valuable additions to study programmes, provide enrichment opportunities, and can function independently as ASF-funded initiatives. These resources effectively bridge the skills gap, offering flexible training solutions for students, staff, organisations, and companies while supporting their environmental, social, and governance objectives.
Additionally, Sabre Rigs has created a range of practical training rigs and resources essential for developing high-demand skills in low-carbon heating (heat pumps), solar energy, wind power, hydrogen, electric vehicles, and battery manufacturing. These training tools are utilised by learners pursuing careers in plumbing, construction, and automotive sectors.
Conclusion
The future workforce must be equipped with green skills to meet employers’ increasing demand. However, a persistent skills mismatch remains challenging due to the lack of a cohesive industrial strategy and the complicated skills landscape.
The future is green, and it is time to take action. Partner with us to ensure that your organisation is prepared to develop the green skills needed for a sustainable future. Contact us today for more information on accessing funding and leveraging our green skills training resources.
Over the next few months, we will be drilling down and exploring further the challenges of;
Green Skills in building construction, plumbing and heating
Green Skills in study programmes and adult learning
Green Skills in transport, logistics and energy infrastructure
