The Education Funding Agency has announced it is freezing rates for 2014/15, prompting criticism that the sector is facing a “real terms” cut.

The agency said it would continue paying an unweighted full-time rate of £4,000 for 16 and 17-year-olds while implementation of a 17.5 per cent rate cut for 18-year-olds will see the age group’s funding drop to £3,300.
It also said the part-time rate for 16, 17 and 18-year-olds would go untouched.

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “The freezing of the funding rate means in real terms providers are being asked to deliver more for less.”

The deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association James Kewin said the national rate for 16 and 17-year-olds was “still well below what colleges need to ensure all students can successfully progress”.

“Rather than conjuring up a national rate and telling colleges to deliver what they can for it, funding should be based on an assessment of what it actually costs to provide a rounded and relevant education,” he said.
He described the 18-year-old rate cut as “ill-informed and pernicious” and likely to affect “educationally vulnerable” learners.

The agency confirmed allocations, due to be published this month, would incorporate a 2 per cent cap limiting the effect of the 18-year-old cut on providers’ total budgets.

It further said it would fund places for 1.54m young people in 2014/15 with a total budget of £7.18m. “These volumes will keep us on track to provide a place for all young people who want to participate and to enable 16 year-olds to meet their new duty to participate in education or training,” it said.

However, the Association of Colleges (AoC) also argued this amounted to a real terms cut. Julian Gravatt (pictured), AoC assistant chief executive, said: “It will mean colleges, who’ve coped with year-on-year cuts since 2010, will need to do more with even less money.”

He added he was “relieved” by the 2 per cent cap, but said the measure “doesn’t address the underlying financial challenges facing colleges and sixth form colleges and will only cushion the blow for a year”.
“Funding for 16 to 18 cannot sustain a further cut without quality suffering and the financial health of colleges being irreparably damaged,” warned Mr Gravatt.

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “It is disappointing that the government has chosen not to review its decision. While the one-year mitigation is of some relief, we continue to make the case very strongly that this cut will hit those who most need education the hardest, and to push for a review.”

Ofsted’s careers guidance boss has called for “flexibility and functionality” in English and maths GCSEs.

Karen Adriaanse, the education watchdog’s national lead for careers guidance, told MPs on the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee how she thought the government could improve adult literacy and numeracy.

“One of the things that government could do, and certainly has started to do, is to raise the profile nationally of English and maths across the board,” she said on Tuesday, March 18.

“I think talking about basic and skills in literacy and numeracy is not necessarily helpful, but talking about English and maths almost instantly raises the profile.

“We also need to diminish the stigma through things in everyday life, even in things like and soap operas and films, so people understand that this is a problem that anybody can have, and also then celebrating when it makes a difference.

“What there still isn’t in this country is a strong culture that teaching English and maths to adults who haven’t been able to succeed in class is a difficult thing to do and it needs to be recognised as a high professional career with postgraduate qualifications, and support to make sure that they really have the expertise to motivate.

“I know the government is revising GCSE qualifications in English and maths, and it’s important that this isn’t just seen as a qualification for schoolchildren. It is a qualification for adults, too, but there needs to be flexibility and functionality — flexibility in assessment procedures and functionality in content.”

The committee, which was holding its second session on adult literacy and numeracy, also heard from Skills Funding Agency executive director of funding Keith Smith, who defended qualifications from suggestions they put off adult learners.

He said: “What’s important when you’re putting investment into such an important area is that we’re clear about the standards we expect to be achieved and qualifications are a measure of that and it’s vitally important that qualifications that people study are the right ones.

“I think that’s very much been the discussion over the last couple of years. That was certainly the debate around the investment that went into adult literacy and numeracy pre-Functional Skills — that it wasn’t making people progress — therefore the qualifications were made more rigorous through Functional Skills and that’s obviously being looked at again through GCSE reforms.”

The Education Funding Agency is to continue paying providers an unweighted full-time rate of £4,ooo for 16 and 17-year-olds while 18-year-old funding drops to £3,300.

The agency is notifying providers of its funding rates for 2014/15 and has said the full-time, and also part-time, rate for 16 and 17-year-olds will be untouched.

The unweighted full-time rate for 18-year-olds drops 17.5 per cent, as reported in FE Week in December, to £3,300. It will be untouched for the age group’s part-time learners.

The agency also confirmed its allocations, due out by the end of the month, would incorporate a 2 per cent cap limiting the 18-year-old funding rate cut’s effect on provider budgets.

A scheme which provides employers with grants of up to £1,500 for each apprentice they train has been extended to 2016.

In his budget today, Chancellor George Osborne announced the apprenticeship grants for employers (AGE) scheme would be funded with £85m in both 2014/15 and 2015/16.

It had originally been due to end in December.

The National Apprenticeship Service provides AGE funding of £1,500 per qualifying apprentice aged 16 to 24.

The scheme was set up to target employers with fewer than 1,000 employees, which are new to apprenticeships or haven’t enrolled a new recruit or existing employee onto an apprenticeship programme in the previous 12 months.

See edition 97 of FE Week, dated Monday, March 24, for more.