Plans to cut almost a fifth of the Adult Skills Budget have been savaged by organisations across the FE sector, with one leader saying the cut “flies in the face of economic good sense”.

The proposal to cut the budget by 19 per cent from around £2.4bn to £2bn was unveiled in the Skills Funding Statement (SFS), which came out yesterday — more than two months after Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement.

Serious concerns have been raised across the sector about the cut and the impact it will have on colleges and independent learning providers, although some elements of the SFS have been welcomed.

Stephan Jungnitz, colleges specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “Report after report has highlighted the economic benefits of FE both to individuals and society as a whole.

“Cutting the Adult Skills Budget flies in the face of economic good sense. With unemployment among 19 to 24-year-olds stubbornly high and the economy just teetering towards growth, we need to invest in skills. The recently-announced swingeing reductions in the budget can only bring a short-lived cash bonus.”

University and Colleges Union (UCU) general secretary Sally Hunt said: “We welcome the government’s continued recognition of the importance of FE in meeting the nation’s skills needs, but are deeply concerned by the downward funding trend outlined in the SFS.

“The government’s intention to expand apprenticeships is commendable, but the Adult Skills Budget is reducing dramatically while ostensibly providing support for more learners.

“By narrowing the focus onto apprenticeships and traineeships, support for other vital skills provision will come under increasing pressure. The government needs to devise a long-term strategy for funding skills provision which won’t compromise on the quality of learning opportunities.”

Institute for Learning chief executive Toni Fazaeli said: “We know from research recently published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills [UKCES] that a sharp rise in skills shortages could be holding back the UK’s economic recovery, so a significant a reduction in the Adult Skills Budget makes little sense.

“And when teachers and trainers in FE and skills are rightly being called upon to upskill and be at the top of their game, to deliver what the economy needs, how can the reductions UKCES found in the investment in their training help? Government schemes to support maths and English professional development programmes and bursaries are welcome, of course, but do not go far enough.

“We are also concerned about the potential far-reaching impact of the budget cuts on the range and quality of teaching and on the sector’s ability to attract the best from business and industry to teach and train in the sector.

“On top of the funding cuts for 18-year-olds, the net reductions in the Adult Skills Budget, after taking into account income from loans, are set to have unfair and undesirable consequences for a substantial group of adults and young people.”

Other organisations said they were in two minds about the statement’s contents.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), said: “I am pleased that they have paid heed to our desire for a complete system and offer from the very lowest levels right up to higher education.

“Across HEFCE and the SFS they want to maintain a system in which adults progress to higher levels of education.

“The difficulty is that they are asking for cuts and reductions to be applied at institution level, so colleges are going to have to make very difficult decisions about which learners to fund.”

And Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “These budget reductions mean that providers have to focus on delivering high quality programmes that deliver the most benefit for employers, learners and the local economies.

“The cuts come after a number of years of overall budget reductions and real term rate cuts.  Providers have responded positively and continue to deliver higher quality provision.”

But he also raised concerns about the future funding of apprenticeships.

“The statement confirms that the government will launch another funding consultation in the spring although we have yet to see the results of the previous consultation,” said Mr Segal.

“We have expressed concern over some of these proposals in relation to compulsory contributions and employers managing the funding. This will have a significant impact on small and medium-sized enterprise employers taking on apprentices.

“Many of these employers only have one or two apprentices so these employers will not want to manage the funding directly.

“We have always believed in giving employers the choice of funding route and most would prefer to work through an experienced training provider although clearly the choice as it is now is with the employer.”

Association of Colleges (AoC) chief executive Martin Doel said: “We are pleased that the government has taken the decision after prolonged discussions at Cabinet level not to reduce the skills budget beyond the cuts announced in the comprehensive spending review last year.

“The pre-existing planned cuts will leave colleges with a sizeable reduction in the 2014/15 academic year and the level of funding will not fully be known until next month. A 20 per cent cut in the Adult Skills Budget comes at a time when colleges are coping with increasing numbers of apprentices, adult learners and unemployed in training.

“We called for an increase in the 2014-15 capital spending budget in autumn 2013 and it is good news that government has listened and added £58m to the total available which will allow more colleges to make much needed improvements to their buildings and respond to employer demand.

“The statement provides clarity in some areas but we are still waiting for clearer information on the new HMRC-led apprenticeship funding model and the LEP-led capital funding system. Uncertainty is a disincentive to investment.”

Adult literacy and numeracy levels in England came under the spotlight of select committee MPs for the first time this morning.

The Business, Innovation and Skills committee has launched its investigation into the findings of last year’s survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which revealed adults in England and Northern Ireland were falling well behind the rest of the world in English and maths skills.

The opening committee session heard from a range of experts in adult skills about the impact of social class on learning, the need for specialist teacher training and the potential of “peer-to-peer” training to help solve the problem.

They also heard about the role of the Job Centre Plus (JCP) in raising adult skills standards.

Speaking in front of the committee, Dr Helen Casey, executive director of the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, said it was difficult to identify adults in need of help with reading and maths.

“We have very high numbers of people in the adult population who are very good at hiding what they can’t do,” she told MPs.

“Nobody likes owning up to their weaknesses and once people come through the school system and into adult life it takes a lot of courage to admit the thing you’re not good at, especially when there’s a big social stigma attached to that.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, pointed to evidence suggesting that socio-economic class, with people from deprived backgrounds tending to do worse at English and maths,  was “one of the key issues in the school system”.

When asked by committee chair Adrian Bailey MP what was contributing to this in schools and society, Mr Hughes said: “There are a lot of people who make it but the schools system is geared towards supporting people who are already supported at home and it stays with that child throughout their lives.”

Mr Hughes’ comments were echoed by Libby Coleman, whose book Yes, We Can Read teaches people how to tutor adults who are unable to read.

She told the committee: “Those of us who can read were given help long before school — a big target for us is young parents so that they read with their children long before they hit school.”

However, when challenged by committee member Brian Binley MP as to how the skills sector could change the situation, Mr Hughes, along with Dr Casey called for more qualified, specialised adult skills teachers, particularly for maths.

Dr Casey said: “We need to do something to combat the opinion that anybody can teach basic skills and there’s a feeling that if you can do it then you can teach it and that clearly isn’t the case.”

However, Ms Coleman spoke in favour of teaching members of the public to teach those who cannot read as part of peer-to-peer programmes.

“We are talking about people who are never going to go to classes or a group,” she said.

“It’s not an issue of specialisms, it’s about giving the confidence to go out and teach it.”

Also appearing before the committee was Neil Couling, director of benefit strategy for JCP at the Department for Work and Pensions. He told the committee that in the last year JCP had referred more than 500,000 people into skills provision.

However, he said: “We seem to be seeing the same people over and over again, so I think we’re quite good in identifying the problem, we’re less good at following through and making the problem is addressed.”

Despite this, when questioned by Caroline Dineage MP, Mr Couling said JCP did not measure claimants’ skills progress, only whether they remained on benefits or not.

Mr Couling said: “The primary responsibility of my organisation is not to address literacy and numeracy issues.”

The committee’s first evidence session on adult numeracy and literacy came a week  after the government said graduate maths teachers who choose to teach in FE colleges would get a bonus of up to £10,000 under a £20m plan to recruit 500 new maths teachers in the sector.

Under the scheme, graduates who choose to teach in the sector will receive a bonus of £7,500, payable in their first year, and rising to £10,000 if they train to support learners with special educational needs.

The policy will also reward colleges with up to £20,000 if they recruit a specialist grade maths teacher, and £30,000 for those which share teaching expertise with other colleges and learning providers.

The move was welcomed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, which called for the scheme to be extended to also cover English.

The University and Colleges Union has ruled out further strike action in FE colleges in the near future, despite an ongoing dispute over pay.

The union’s further education committee met on January 24 to review feedback from branches and discuss the next steps in its campaign.

The committee decided not to pursue further strike action at this stage, but is going to consult with branches with a view to building support for the next round of negotiations.

A spokesman said: “Although UCU remains in dispute over the 2013-14 offer, negotiations around the 2014-15 claim are about to start and we are currently consulting with sister unions to agree this year’s claim.

“It is clear that members remain aggrieved at their falling pay levels. It is time that the employers recognised that they cannot continue to cut real-term salaries and expect service as normal.”