Latest news from FE Week | FE Week

Civil service misses own apprenticeships goal

A target for boosting apprenticeship numbers in the civil service has been missed by more than half, figures reveal.

Data obtained by FE Week shows just 2.4 per cent of the UK civil service workforce were apprentices by 2025 – way below the original 5 per cent commitment.

Conservative ministers, who set the target in 2022, pledged that one in 20 civil servants would be apprentices by 2025 in a bid to “diversify the pipeline of talent into government”.

But only around 13,000 apprentices were employed across the civil service’s 550,000-strong workforce by January – far short of the 27,750 required to meet the goal.

The figures, revealed through a freedom of information request (FOI), also show a benchmark requiring nearly four in 10 apprentices come from lower socio-economic backgrounds was missed.

Experts suggest that hiring freezes, a lack of career development structures and problems with releasing apprentices for off-the-job training have impeded civil service apprenticeship take-up.

Numbers fall year on year

The Cabinet Office provided an annual breakdown of apprentices per government department from the 2022 financial year to the end of 2024, when it stopped collecting data.

Apprentices accounted for 3.3 per cent of the civil service in 2022, totalling around 16,900.

The proportion remained flat in 2023 – with headcount of apprentices rising only slightly to 17,211 – but dropped to 2.7 per cent with 14,651 apprentices in 2024.

By the end of 2024, just 2.4 per cent (12,943) of civil servants were on an apprenticeship programme.

The drop could have been caused by a civil service numbers cap announced by then chancellor Jeremy Hunt in October 2023, which sought to save £1 billion by March 2025.

Hays UK & Ireland, a civil service recruiter, said it was “understandable” that targets were missed.

“Budget constraints, hiring freezes and operational demands often make it difficult to commit to structured training or release apprentices for learning time,” Matthew Lewis, the firm’s public services director, told FE Week.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “These figures are largely from the previous administration, and this government remains committed to apprenticeships as a vital pathway for developing the skilled workforce the civil service needs to deliver national renewal.”

‘Elitist Britain’

The government was also unsuccessful in meeting the Social Mobility Commission’s national benchmark for having 39 per cent of the workforce from a lower socio-economic background.

Representation of working-class civil servant apprentices remained largely unchanged over the last four years. They made up 36 per cent of the apprentice workforce for all four years of data provided, aside from 2024 when representation dipped one percentage point.

Popular government graduate schemes such as the “fast stream” have attempted to improve socio-economic representation through blind recruitment measures, but privately educated people are twice as likely to be accepted onto schemes, according to the Sutton Trust’s recent Elitist Britain report.

In August, applications opened for a new level 3 civil service career launch apprenticeship for people who “haven’t followed traditional academic routes”.

The scheme will enrol apprentices on the business administrator standard and will place them in government departments around the country.

But union representatives said improving social mobility in the civil service was not enough – apprentices need “support once they get here”.

Deri Bevan, head of organising and learning at FDA union, which represents 24,000 civil servants, said: “Many apprentices struggle to find opportunities or resources to progress their careers within the civil service, often finding the career development structures and frameworks too difficult to navigate.”

The FOI data shows the civil service apprenticeship decline was driven by falls in level 2 and 3 apprentices over the last four years. At its peak in 2023, there were over 10,000 level 3 apprentices in the civil service, which almost halved to 5,527 by 2025.

Lewis agreed government employers should “embed” apprenticeships more strategically, not just as entry-level roles.

The figures suggest the government aimed to upskill civil servants through higher-level apprenticeships as the number on level 5 and 6 programmes grew by more than 50 per cent between 2022 and 2025. Meanwhile, the number of level 7 civil service apprentices more than doubled from 805 in 2022 to 1,640.

The government will remove level 7 apprenticeships from public funding for people aged 22 and older from January.

Treasury tops apprenticeship league

The Cabinet Office also provided a departmental breakdown of apprentices, showing HM Treasury was the biggest recruiter with 8.2 per cent of its 2,720-workforce in January being apprentices. At the Department for Education, 5.4 per cent of its 8,185 staff were apprentices.

Ofgem and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) had the lowest proportion, both achieving under 1 per cent. The FSA had 12 apprentices across levels 4 to 7 and recently advertised for two level 3 roles, taking its proportion to 0.9 per cent.

It recruits and trains between 20 to 30 meat inspectors annually and said it looked at apprenticeship pathways for the role, but no suitable option exists in the national apprenticeship framework.

Ofgem had 17 apprentices on programmes in digital, data engineering and economics, 0.8 per cent of its staff cohort, but is working to offer a programme in project management.

The Cabinet Office’s spokesperson said: “Since the collection of this data, we have launched a new cross-government apprenticeship programme to create more opportunities for young people across the country to access quality employment, particularly those who haven’t followed traditional academic routes.

“More broadly, we are committed to giving young people the skills they need to thrive in tomorrow’s job market, including through apprenticeships, which is why we will ensure that at least 10 per cent of young people pursue higher technical education or apprenticeships by age 25 by 2040, a near doubling of today’s figure.”

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 511

Lucy Jeynes

Chair. South and City College Birmingham

Start date: October 2025

Previous Job: Vice Chair, South and City College Birmingham

Interesting fact: Lucy is a poet and is currently putting the finishing touches to her first collection. When not at work, she spends as much time as possible in France, which now feels like a second home.

Mandy Crawford-Lee

Governor, The Bedford College Group

Start date: September 2025

Concurrent Job: Chief Executive, UVAC

Interesting fact: Mandy is an art collector and has pieces gifted by Ed Sheeran’s parents having worked with them in 1993, and has been a magistrate and youth court magistrate for over 20 years.

Paul Eaton

Commercial Director, Training Qualifications UK

Start date: October 2025

Previous Job: National Sales Manager, Sky

Interesting fact: Paul has seen 29 of the 32 NFL teams play live, and is itching to tick off those final three.

Closing the digital divide: Beyond devices to true inclusion

When Covid hit, FE colleges scrambled to move online. For many, the priority was simple: get learners a laptop, get lessons onto Teams and keep things ticking over. In that sense, the sector achieved miracles. But now, several years on, it’s clear that digital inclusion must mean more than distributing devices or uploading PowerPoints.

Why this matters now

Almost every employer now demands digital competence. From spreadsheets to hybrid meetings, these skills are as essential as literacy and numeracy. Yet too many learners still leave FE without the confidence or ability to engage with digital tools in the workplace.

At the same time, digital overload is creating new barriers:

Learners with autism, ADHD or anxiety often report that online spaces can be overwhelming.
Disadvantaged learners still face patchy Wi-Fi, lack of private study space or insufficient digital skills at home.

If FE is serious about employability and inclusion, it cannot ignore this divide.

What we’ve learned at Apex

At Apex College Leicester, our core digital platform has always been Moodle which we use to structure learning, deliver resources, and manage assessment. To strengthen interaction around that, we introduced Microsoft Teams as a complementary space for workshops, discussion and formative feedback.

The combination worked well:

Learners reported feeling more supported because communication with tutors became quicker and clearer, with feedback arriving in real time.
Staff found it easier to track learner progress as there was clear reporting mechanisms such as assignment logs, and live analytics, allowing them to provide more targeted formative feedback.

At the same time, we faced some challenges:

Digital fatigue – some students found it difficult to stay on the call for the full duration.
Screen anxiety – some learners were reluctant to turn on their cameras or contribute in the sessions.
Connectivity inequalities – not all learners had the connectivity to access the online workshops. These were extra optional sessions for learners on top of the compulsory face to face sessions learners had.

These experiences show us that digital inclusion does not mean learners have digital access. A device alone does not guarantee opportunity. Without digital resilience, equity, and wellbeing, the gap only grows.

A new model for digital inclusion

What FE now needs is a model that goes beyond devices and embraces inclusion in its fullest sense. Four pillars stand out:

Beyond devices – Current training for both staff and learners, not just how these tools are used but in how to integrate them effectively into pedagogy, project work and teamwork.
Digital wellbeing – Teaching learners how to balance screen time, manage online relationships and build resilience against cyberbullying and misinformation.
Equity by design – Ensuring all neurodiverse learners and SEND learners have the accessibility to the platforms, including captioning, dictation and adapted learning spaces.
Employer-aligned skills – Embedding real-world digital tasks into assessments and projects, so this allows learners to be confident on how to use digital technology.

From theory to practice

We’ve seen the benefits of this blended model – Moodle providing the structured learning environment, and Teams adding a layer of collaboration and feedback – play out in practice:

Business HND group projects were organised through Moodle for resources and assessment, but run collaboratively in Teams. Students worked in shared online spaces, assigned tasks, and tracked progress using project-management tools. One student reflected: “I didn’t just learn business — I learned how to manage a team online, the same way companies do.”
HND learners also strengthened their digital presentation skills, developing the confidence to plan, rehearse and deliver professional-standard presentations in virtual workshops.
Tutor collaboration was transformed. While Moodle held the core curriculum materials, Teams gave staff a space to peer-review lesson plans, share best practice, and provide mutual support – reducing isolation and raising teaching standards.

We showed that digital inclusion is not about the tool itself, but about how we embed skills, confidence, and equity into the way those tools are used.

A call to the sector

If digital inclusion is limited to just handing out devices, we are failing are learners and this will affect employers. Preparing learners to thrive using digital technology requires:

Investing in staff training, not just infrastructure.
Curriculum redesign to integrate digital skills in each subject, not just as an add-on.
Sector-wide collaboration to ensure platforms and practices are easily accessible for all learners.

If FE is looking to ensure to prepare learners for life and work, then ensuring digital inclusion must be at its core. This means shifting from access to empowerment.

Thriving providers are the ones who’ve stopped performing for Ofsted

The further education and skills sector has long been accustomed to change. New Ofsted frameworks, shifting government policy and evolving business demands are constants in a landscape that requires resilience. The release of Ofsted’s latest Education Inspection Framework (EIF) is another such moment, testing the ability of providers, colleges, universities and employer providers to steer a steady course.

Each new framework can create nervous energy, with leaders pressed to reconfigure provision or inspection readiness. Yet while frameworks change, the essence of inspection does not. High-quality delivery, with learners at the centre, remains the anchor. Providers who prioritise sustained quality, not short-term compliance, are the ones who thrive. At the Fellowship of Inspection Nominees (FIN), members with multi-year quality strategies consistently withstand turbulence.

National Grid illustrates this resilience. The employer provider was graded outstanding for the fourth consecutive time in September 2025 for its transmission apprenticeships, confirming two decades of excellence in education and training. Delivering apprenticeships at Levels 3 and 4 across engineering and power networks, it currently trains more than 160 apprentices. Inspectors praised the company’s investment in both training and well-being, noting that apprentices “value their trainers’ expertise and the high-quality resources that support their learning”.

Employer providers lie furthest from the apprenticeship regulatory framework, since their primary focus is operations, not education. For National Grid, keeping the nation’s lights on remains paramount. Yet the company’s culture of continuous improvement, reflected in the question “What could we do even better?”, has ensured provision stays learner-centred, staff are supported and programmes align with industry needs. Excellence has become routine rather than exceptional.

As a FIN member since 2019, National Grid has drawn on training, networks and external challenge to sustain performance. Over two decades it has successfully navigated the transition from frameworks to standards, shifting funding body rules, successive Ofsted frameworks, business restructuring, safeguarding pressures and rapid technological change.

FIN highlights that too often data, such as qualification achievement rates, sits quietly with management information teams rather than shaping curriculum or strategy. National Grid provides a contrast: its leaders adopt a forensic approach to analysing data, explaining anomalies and remaining resilient through change. FIN’s experience shows that when data literacy and strategic leadership combine, providers gain confidence to tell their story, impress inspectors and improve outcomes.

Strong oversight is equally vital. National Grid has long recognised that weak governance underpins poor provision. It has used FIN to provide scrutiny, guidance and challenge. Ofsted’s latest report confirmed that its governors “provide strong strategic oversight. They work closely with leaders to review safeguarding, curriculum quality and apprentice outcomes”.

Unlike providers who treat governance as a compliance exercise, National Grid embraces it as a driver of sustainability.

The EIF also places new emphasis on inclusion, requiring evidence that provision is accessible to all and that additional needs are met. Inclusion is not an add-on: it directly shapes outcomes and progression. National Grid demonstrates how embedding inclusive recruitment, tailored support and mentoring can ensure apprentices with special educational needs or neurodiverse profiles progress on par with their peers.

The challenge ahead lies in Ofsted’s shift from a “best fit” to a “secure fit” model, meaning providers must meet all criteria within an evaluation area to gain the expected grade. For safeguarding, only “effective” or “ineffective” judgements remain, with effectiveness requiring all six key standards to be met fully. The bar has been raised.

Yet the fundamentals remain unchanged. Sustained quality rests on multi-year improvement plans, clear vision, effective use of data, investment in staff and the empowerment of the Ofsted nominee as a strategic leader. Collaboration through networks like FIN remains central, enabling providers to stay agile and share practice.

Frameworks and policies will evolve, but providers anchored in quality, inclusion and oversight will adapt and thrive. As Ofsted concluded of National Grid; “Leaders are highly ambitious for their apprentices. They view them as an important investment in the company’s future and aim for them to stay long after completion, which most do”.

By asking what could be done even better, embedding inclusion and treating quality as a strategic journey rather than a compliance exercise, providers can hold steady in choppy waters and emerge stronger.

AI is reshaping our minds, not just our jobs

We have spent years discussing AI in terms of productivity, automation, and economic disruption. The headlines focus on job losses and the development of miraculous new tools. But this tactical focus risks obscuring a far more profound transformation already underway: AI is acting as a culture, systematically redefining the very nature of human thought and work.

As leaders, our immediate concern is the bottom line. As educators, it’s the skills gap. But our long-term responsibility must be to our people. To navigate this future, we must look beyond the quarterly report and understand the mid-to-long-term psychological and cultural impact of this shift.

The new cultural AI operating system

Every dominant technology introduces a new cultural logic. The printing press standardised knowledge. The industrial clock regimented time. The internet connected information.

AI’s cultural contribution is delegation. We are learning to offload not just manual tasks, but cognitive ones: synthesis, ideation, drafting, and even elements of strategy. The fundamental question shifts from “how do I do this?” to “what should be done, and how do I guide the process?” This is a reskilling of human cognition itself, redefining the fundamentals of knowledge work.

The mid-term reality: augmentation anxiety

For the next 5-10 years, we face a period of “Augmentation Anxiety,” characterised by three key challenges:

The erosion of mastery: Career progression has long been built on accumulating specialised skills. When an AI can code a function or analyse a legal document, what constitutes “mastery”? Workers may feel their hard-won expertise is devalued, leading to a crisis of professional identity and purpose.

The burden of curation: AI doesn’t eliminate work; it transforms workers into editors and curators. The mental load shifts from creation to constant evaluation, a different, often more ambiguous and taxing skillset. The pressure to perpetually oversee, correct, and refine AI output can lead to decision fatigue and mental exhaustion.

The isolation paradox: While a powerful collaborator, AI is not human. The decrease in routine collaboration, like asking a colleague to proofread something, reduces the micro-interactions that build team cohesion and provide informal mental breaks.

Long-term prognosis: A fork in the road

The long-term future (ten-plus years) is not predetermined. It hinges on the cultural and structural choices we make today. We stand at a fork in the road:

Path A: The human-centred renaissance
In this future, AI handles the algorithmic, freeing the human mind for tasks it is uniquely suited for. We could see a surge in:

Meta-cognitive skills: Roles focused on ethics, empathy, complex problem-framing, and strategy.
A renewed value for “soft skills”: Leadership, mentorship, creativity, and negotiation become the premium currency.
Enhanced wellbeing: By automating mundane tasks, work could become more engaging and aligned with human purpose, potentially making a shorter work week standard to facilitate high-level creative thinking.

Path B: The “lidless eye” workplace
If managed poorly, we risk an environment of perpetual pressure:

The accountability gap: Who is responsible when an AI makes an error? The human curator?
The pace paradox: The expectation of AI-speed output ignores the biological limits of the human brain.
Skill atrophy & dependency: Over-reliance on AI for cognitive tasks could lead to deskilling.

A call for conscious leadership

The outcome will be determined not by the technology, but by the human systems we build around it. Our role as leaders is to architect the human-centred renaissance.

Redefine “productivity”: Stop measuring value by output volume. Start measuring it by impact, creativity, and strategic value. Reward human skills like judgment, ethics, and collaboration.
Invest in psychological literacy: Train managers to spot signs of augmentation anxiety and burnout. Create forums for open discussion about the emotional challenges of working with AI.
Champion “human-time”: Actively protect time for non-AI-mediated work—brainstorming, mentorship, and human connection that doesn’t need to be “productive” in an algorithmic sense. We are social beings who need interaction.

AI is not just a tool. It is a cultural force, reshaping our cognitive landscape. The mental health and well-being of our workforce in the coming decades depend entirely on our ability to lead with humanity, not just efficiency.

Apprenticeships can staff from front desk to the front line of digital

Marketing apprenticeships are helping admin staff step into digital and social media roles, supporting career progression and staff retention.

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, it’s important for businesses to realise that professional development isn’t limited to managers or specialist staff. Some of the biggest opportunities for growth actually lie with employees in administrative roles, many of whom already sit at the heart of business operations. With the rise of government-funded marketing apprenticeships, including digital marketing apprenticeships and social media marketing apprenticeships, forward-thinking organisations now have a powerful opportunity to upskill admin staff and develop them into the next generation of marketing leaders.

Why marketing apprenticeships make sense for admin teams

Administrative staff often have unique insight into the day-to-day running of a business. They have strong organisational, communication and customer skills, which is an ideal foundation for a career in marketing. By offering marketing apprenticeships, businesses can enhance these strengths, giving admin employees a structured pathway to develop new skills in branding, digital campaigns, and customer engagement.

This creates a mutual benefit: employees gain a recognised qualification and the confidence to take on more strategic roles, while employers develop in-house talent without the high cost of recruitment.

The rise of digital and social media skills

It’s no secret that digital-first strategies dominate modern marketing. From paid advertising and content creation to data-driven campaign analysis, companies now compete in a space where digital marketing apprenticeships provide essential training. For admin staff who may already be managing newsletters, client communications, or basic website updates, this progression feels natural.

Equally important is the rise of social media marketing apprenticeships. Platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok aren’t just places for social connection, they’re business-critical channels. Training admin employees in content planning, audience targeting, and performance analytics ensures that businesses stay competitive in a crowded marketplace, regardless of industry.

What’s included in digital marketing apprenticeships

A key strength of today’s evolving marketing apprenticeship structure is the comprehensive range of skills they cover. Each area directly benefits both the learner and the business:

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): Improve website visibility and drive organic traffic.
Content Marketing: Equips employees to create blogs, videos, and resources that engage audiences and strengthen brand authority.
Google Analytics: Builds analytical skills to measure website and campaign performance, leading to data-driven decision-making.
Google Ads & Paid Campaigns: Manage cost-effective paid advertising that delivers measurable results.
Email Marketing: Enhances communication with clients through targeted, personalised campaigns that increase engagement.
Social Media Strategy: Strengthens brand presence across platforms with effective content planning and audience growth tactics.
AI in Marketing: Builds skills in automation, content generation, and customer insights, helping businesses adapt to an AI-driven digital landscape.

By gaining qualifications in these areas, staff can directly contribute to scaling a business, turning admin employees into valuable digital marketers who can generate leads, boost visibility, and improve return on investment.

Building career pathways and retaining talent

Admin roles are often viewed as jobs with limited progression, but that doesn’t have to be the case. By investing in government-funded marketing apprenticeships, organisations can create clear progression routes that keep staff motivated and engaged. For employees, it means their work is recognised and invested in. For businesses, it reduces turnover by providing career growth internally rather than relying on external hires.

Many companies now use apprenticeships as part of their talent retention strategy, ensuring that staff not only stay longer but also contribute more creatively to growth and innovation.

Why now?

As marketing technologies evolve, organisations that upskill their workforce will adapt faster, stay competitive, and lead with confidence. AI is now central to marketing apprenticeships, giving learners hands-on experience with tools that automate content creation, personalise campaigns and analyse customer data. For admin staff, this means gaining future-ready skills at the point where technology and creativity meet. With government funding available, training admin employees through digital and social media marketing apprenticeships is not only cost-effective but also a long-term investment in business growth.

City & Guilds sold to ‘secure its future’

One of the country’s oldest and most well-known organisations in technical education is to be sold – ending nearly 150 years of charitable ownership, FE Week can reveal.

City & Guilds, the awarding, assessment and training giant, will be acquired from its parent charity, the City & Guilds of London Institute, founded in 1878, for an undisclosed sum by PeopleCert, a Greek-owned global certification company, at the end of this month.

The deal is said to unlock “significant investment” for City & Guilds’ awarding, assessment and training businesses, avoiding the need for internal restructures.

It comes amid ongoing reforms to technical education qualifications, apprenticeship assessment and higher-level training, disrupting market conditions for the awarding sector.

City & Guilds of London Institute will continue its charitable functions, such as funding bursaries for disadvantaged learners, conferring “fellowships” and running the Princess Royal Training Awards, through the City & Guilds Foundation.

The charity’s trustees said the foundation will benefit from “a very significant sum” as a result of the sale, including up to £200 million in “gross assets under management” and up to five years’ rent-free office space, allowing it to grow to become an “innovative social investor and change maker”.

All awarding and assessment functions, and City & Guilds’ subsidiary training businesses, including providers Gen2, Intertrain and Trade Skills 4U, will transfer to new owners but remain under the City & Guilds brand.

City & Guilds is the second largest qualification awarding organisation in England by number of certificates issued and the largest provider of apprenticeship end-point assessments, according to Ofqual.

Staff were informed today that the sale was necessary to secure the long-term future of both the charity and the awarding and assessment businesses. It marks the end of a two-year search for investors, without which “we would need to look at our organisation structures to ensure we remained sustainable”, leaders said.

Dame Ann Limb, chair of City & Guilds of London Institute, said her trustees had found “an organisation with similar educational vision and values” and “a track record of successful delivery in people and technology” in buyer PeopleCert.

She added: “Almost 150 years ago, the City & Guilds of London Institute broke the mould by creating an organisation, together with City of London livery companies, that served the skills and employment needs of the second industrial revolution.

“Now in the age of the fourth industrial revolution, it is right to take steps to ensure City & Guilds thrives for another century and beyond.”

CEO Kirstie Donnelly and 98 per cent of City & Guilds’ 1,400 staff will transfer to the new owners. Remaining staff who work on charitable functions will remain employees of the City & Guilds Foundation.

Donelly will report to PeopleCert CEO and founder Byron Nicolaides and a new City & Guilds Limited board.

Donnelly said the sale “brings the freedom to compete, the investment to innovate and the market access to scale in the UK and internationally alongside a parent company that shares the City & Guilds values and ambition”.

An interim CEO, Mike Adamson, has been appointed to run the foundation. Adamson is currently the chair of the homelessness charity St Mungo’s and was CEO of the British Red Cross for nine years. Limb will remain in post as chair.

The buyer

The acquisition means City and Guilds’ awarding and training services will now operate under the name City and Guilds Limited, which has already gained approval from regulators.

It will be the second, but dominant, Ofqual-regulated awarding organisation in the PeopleCert group of companies alongside LanguageCert, most known for its international ESOL qualifications.

Alongside delivering language examinations in over 200 countries, PeopleCert also certifies the PRINCE2 project management and ITIL IT management courses.

Byron Nicolaides founded PeopleCert in 2000. Following a EUR450 million acquisition of Axelos in 2021, PeopleCert was described as the first Greek ‘unicorn’ company owing to its combined value exceeding EUR1 billion.

Nicolaides said the City & Guilds acquisition begins “an exciting new chapter of growth and unlocks even more potential together”.

“By investing in City & Guilds’ products, platforms and people, we’ll deliver even greater impact. We’re especially pleased to join forces with their talented employees and senior leadership team as we shape the future together,” he added.

Testing reforms for awarding

Creating a City & Guilds fit for the fourth industrial revolution

While City & Guilds’ group income has grown year on year since the pandemic, from £130 million in financial year 2020-21 to £174 million in 2023-24, so has its expenditure. The organisation made a small net surplus of £3.6 million in 2023-24, recovering from a near £10 million loss the year before.

It was one of the first awarding organisations to throw its weight behind T Levels, alongside Pearson and NCFE. It won the first licences to develop and award T Levels in onsite construction and building services engineering for construction in 2020.

When the licences came up for renewal in 2023, City & Guilds didn’t retender. The onsite construction T Level was later scrapped due to lack of demand.

Alongside retendering for City & Guilds’ other current T Levels in engineering and management, the government is also embarking on reforms to change the apprenticeship assessment system, potentially reducing reliance on external end-point assessment organisations, such as City & Guilds.

Last month, Downing Street announced the upcoming post-16 education white paper will contain proposals to grant colleges and providers their own awarding powers for higher-level courses. This was part of the prime minister’s flagship pledge for two-thirds of young people to become higher-level qualified through academic, technical or apprenticeship training routes by age 25.

Creating a City & Guilds fit for the fourth industrial revolution

Sometimes the stars align, and the cosmos offers an opportunity to make a bold choice that can shape the course of history, do something good for society, and secure a significant boost in investment for the FE and skills sector.

This is exactly what is happening with City & Guilds. In this post-Brexit, post-Covid, government policy-hungry AI-dominated era, delivery of 21st century qualifications, credentials, awards and skills must adapt.

This is why this month we will close a landmark deal which in a single move secures the long-term future of the charity at the same time as bringing significant investment to the commercial awarding and skills businesses. It’s a win-win all round. 

In Ann’s case, maybe it’s something to do with getting older – after half century in further education a predilection for legacy has become a preoccupation.

Set this alongside Kirstie’s legendary capacity for innovation and maybe you could have predicted we would come up with something as momentous as the road on which we have now embarked with City & Guilds – or City & Guilds of London Institute, to give it its full Royal Charter title. 

This transaction unlocks new and exciting opportunities for the awarding organisation and skills training businesses, enabling continued growth and scale.

Backed by significant investment and infrastructure, the businesses will continue to trade under the world-renowned City & Guilds brand, upholding and promoting the long-standing reputation of City & Guilds throughout the UK and internationally.

The CGLI charity, known as the City & Guilds Foundation, will further its ambition to become an innovative social investor and change maker, continuing to play a significant part in addressing societal and skills needs of the 21st century. 

The charity will retain its authority to grant CGLI Fellowships to individuals who achieve educational and vocational distinction and will continue to operate its national employer recognition awards scheme, the prestigious Princess Royal Training Awards.

Almost 150 years ago, the City & Guilds of London Institute broke the mould by creating an organisation, together with City of London livery companies, that served the skills and employment needs of the Second Industrial Revolution.

Now in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is right to take steps to ensure City & Guilds thrives for another century and beyond. We believe that a strengthened City & Guilds Foundation with sound finances, and the resources and people to develop innovative philanthropic ways of working, will enable the funding of a prosperous future for skills which will create greater societal impact and long-term systems change.

What we have announced has been two and a half years in development. There was no crisis, no major financial imperative, no sudden loss of key staff or customers and certainly no lack of confidence in the collective leadership across the City & Guilds group. On the contrary, one option was for trustees simply to carry on.

However, had we chosen that option, City & Guilds could have started to slide imperceptibly into irrelevance. 

The board and executive of City & Guilds, led by us both as chair and CEO respectively, decided what could have seemed the easier road to take risked leaving a trail of diminished returns for our successors.

Trustees judged this to be irresponsible and a dereliction of our duties as charity trustees. We chose to face the reality and summon the courage – just as our forebearers did in 1878 – to collectively harness our strategic faculties and commercial acumen to navigate a route forward.

To quote the US poet Robert Frost: “Two roads diverged… and we took the one less travelled by, and that makes all the difference”.

Her PET project

For 30 years Fleur Sexton has led training provider PET-Xi, with its staff of largely neurodiverse leaders and can-do attitude to learners. She tells Jessica Hill how a crisis-induced pivot from adult education is bringing a fresh opportunity to help young people

It’s a special day today at PET-Xi, a small training provider that specialises in getting the hardest-to-reach young people back into education and work.

Staff and learners are gathered around a big pink cake at their open-plan office in Coventry, singing ‘happy birthday’ to commemorate 30 years since their vivacious CEO, Fleur Sexton, started the company.

The atmosphere is joyful, if slightly chaotic; the head of IT is dancing, while some teenagers giggle as they push each other about in office chairs.

They may have been ticked off for such behaviour at other education providers, but Fleur sees their breaktime antics as “time to let off steam”.

“It’s really important for them to see that business isn’t somewhere you’ve got to go into and be boring. Business is somewhere they’re accepted,” she says.

Today is a day for celebration, but it has been a tough year for PET-Xi.

In May, the number of full-time permanent staff was halved from 62 to 30 as it pivoted from being an adult education-focused provider towards supporting more children and young people.

PET-Xi’s on-site provision now consists of a Path2Apprenticeships programme for 19 to 29-year-olds and a youth guarantee trailblazer for 18 to 21-year-old NEETs, both funded via West Midlands Combined Authority. PET-Xi is also local-authority funded to provide alternative provision for school-age learners, and subcontracted by SCL Education Group for a 16-to-19 NEET study programme.

PET-Xi is a unique place to work. Like many of its learners, almost all its staff are neurodiverse.

Fleur and her 24-year-old son and chief operating officer, Jake Sexton, have ADHD, as have almost all her senior team. In a reversal of industry norms, during a recent diversity, equity and inclusion audit the pair were challenged on how they make “neurotypical” people “feel comfortable and fit in”, says Jake.

PET-Xi CEO Fleur Sexton and her son and COO, Jake Sexton

Teacher’s PET

It’s hard to mistake the staff since they all wear black with a top or necktie of cherry pink – a colour that perfectly reflects Fleur’s vibrant personality.

Fleur says she “never really planned to set up a company”, but after starting her career as a French teacher at a Catholic school in Kenilworth, at age 23 she began offering extra support to pupils struggling with languages and gained a reputation for being “good with the naughty kids”.

PET-Xi got its name from Teacher’s PET (progressive educational tools), which teachers would shorten to pet. ‘Xi’ stands for ‘explosive inspiration’, which was coined by learners but could just as well refer to Fleur’s thought processes as she bounces from one topic to the next.

Family affair

In the office that Fleur shares with Jake, he refers to her as ‘Fleur’; she reverts to being ‘mum’ when they’re back home.

Jake had occasionally accompanied his mum to work since age seven, but his training really began at 16 when he began an apprenticeship at PET-Xi.

Fleur’s husband, sister, mother and father have also worked for her.

Fleur sees PET-Xi as a second family to those it supports, with many former learners progressing to become mentors.

She says the provider has never excluded anyone, nor has a member of staff ever been attacked, which she puts down to its adoption of trauma-informed practice.

Bad behaviour is generally interpreted as unmet need, and staff “operate rules based on equity”, with a “shared power balance” between learners and staff.

“If somebody’s got an incredibly volatile, hostile home life and they’re turning up late, then social equity would tell you they’ve turned up on time,” says Fleur. “For them, they’ve turned up as soon as they can.”

The modus operandi doesn’t suit everyone; staff “tend to stay forever or not at all”.

Fleur only wants employees for whom the work is “a vocation”, and who believe that “if they’ve got learners phoning them on a Saturday, that’s just how it pans out”.

PET-Xi’s interview process includes placing a young person in its lobby when the candidate enters; “If the candidate ignores them, we know they’re not going to last five minutes here”.

Recruiter Kirstie Price entered PET-Xi aged 14 as a learner when she lived in a children’s home. She says Fleur became a “second mum”, dropping her off at counselling sessions, putting her up in a hotel when she had nowhere to stay and advocating for her when she was excluded from college.

Life moves quickly at PET-Xi. As Fleur introduces me to her curriculum and quality lead, Chris Haresign, she casually informs him that he is being promoted to managing director.

Haresign ran a web development firm, then worked in senior management in schools for 10 years before joining PET-Xi. Today, he is advising a school on its alternative provision unit which he explains it’s “spending a fortune on”, but which is “not working”.

His lead trainer in schools, Ma’asoom Mahmood, joined PET-Xi over a decade ago after studying accounting and finance at university. He could have got a higher-paid role in the city, but chose this job for the “dopamine” hit of helping others. “It’s so important to society that companies offer this profit-for-purpose service,” he says.

Personalised provision

Meanwhile, peer mentor Teddy Kendrick, 15, is not in a talkative mood, having recently broken up with his girlfriend and stayed up all last night playing games. But Fleur lavishes praise on him for showing up for work.

“That shows incredible resilience – six weeks ago he wouldn’t have turned up.”

Teddy’s mum, Emma, says PET-Xi has been “life-changing” for her son. His autism and ADHD meant he struggled in mainstream school, then experienced challenges in his £54,000-a-year placement at an independent special school.

Emma had to lobby her council hard to get Teddy moved to PET-Xi, despite its fees being more than 50 per cent lower.

PET-Xi provides Teddy with accelerated GCSE learning, pastoral support and gym membership, and today Fleur has given him responsibility for taking PET-Xi’s promotional photographs.

Fleur explains how PET-Xi can write courses on a week-to-week basis, creating “individualised plans” for learners with specific needs, which “colleges can’t do”.

Emma says Teddy’s previous school “labelled him as not wanting to engage”, but she believes “it should be the other way around – you’ve got to find the right provision to engage with the child”. She adds: “PET-Xi had more resources available. If Teddy didn’t work with one maths teacher, they’d try another personality.

“He can still be a bloody nightmare behaviourally at home, but he’s thriving academically.”

PET angels

PET-Xi’s alternative provision now even extends to primary school-aged children. One of its incoming learners is seven years old; he had “nowhere else to go” after being rejected from 40 schools, Fleur explains. His EHCP requires him to have a padded room, which she has promised to provide.

“It’s not hard, is it? You just get a load of carpets. There’s no, ‘we’ll have to see if we can meet need’ – we will meet need.”

Fleur always makes a point of meeting the young person and their parent(s) before reading their EHCP.

She admits PET-Xi’s culture of making decisions based on “what’s right for the learner”, means some decisions “make no commercial sense whatsoever”.

“I think angels look after us at PET,” she adds.

Two Learners with Char Bailey, head of AP And (right) her partner author Megan Jayne Crabbe

Trailblazer NEETs

PET-Xi has just clinched £144,000 through a youth guarantee trailblazer to support 18 to 21-year-old NEETs, which Fleur considers an ideal-sized contract as it’s “small enough to have time to put the individual effort in”.

Operating this and Path2Apprenticeships gives PET-Xi a “buffet of provision” that “means you can really get young people what they need”.

PET-Xi starts both courses with a ‘Find My Why’ welcome session.

At today’s, author Megan Jayne Crabbe is talking to two young female NEETs about her book We Don’t Make Ourselves Smaller Here, about the importance of “being yourself”.

Nearby is a music room with donations on the way from Coventry Music to link guitars up to computers for recording. It’s where head of music therapy Jamie Sheerman, a musical theatre director who also leads three choirs, gets learners to write songs to help them release their trauma, “rather than just talking about it”.

Independent life skills are taught next door in a brightly coloured, homely ‘studio apartment’ room, where guests are invited in to talk to learners about debt and dealing with landlords.

While much of PET-Xi’s learning is done on screens, little of it is remote. Fleur professes to “hate remote teaching with a passion,” seeing it as a “desire for efficiency that puts everybody in their bedrooms”.

PET-Xi’s ‘studio apartment’ where life skills are taught

Changing times

PET-Xi therefore tried to deliver its adult provision (which extended from Hull to Brighton and Bournemouth) face-to-face, and Fleur admits they “almost went bust in the process”.

A three-month delay in issuing adult education contracts was the last straw for Fleur. “It’s a hell of a long time when it costs £180,000 a month to keep this place just break even. I don’t think government understands the reality of business, because they’ve not been in it.”

PET-Xi has had to stop running its adult courses in counselling, cybersecurity and health, and its remaining freelance adult education staff are focused instead on “employability” and “community stability”.

Fleur lavishes praise on one of her remaining, longstanding adult skills trainers, Ruth Lowbridge, for staying on as a freelancer. But Lowbridge admits that at the time, she was tempted to leave the ITP sector, given its “instability” due to reliance on short-term, unpredictable funding streams. “How many quality people are being lost from this industry?” she asks.

Ready for college

PET-Xi has also just started working with Coventry College on a programme to get ex-AP learners college-ready, which Fleur says will teach them “resilience, self-regulation and knowing their own triggers”.

Its upstairs space will soon be transformed into a “college for kids from AP” to do mainly level 2 courses and English and maths GCSEs.

There is a growing national market of unregistered AP, and Fleur is critical that much of it is “diversional”, such as farm and football-based provision. She believes it is becoming harder for young people coming from AP to access apprenticeships, because of their limited qualifications.

“Football is great, but it’s not what they can build a life on. Our job as educators is not to babysit young people, it’s to give them a place in the community. We’ve got to be really careful of the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Joy first, skills second

Fleur still loves teaching and is added to the teaching rota when there’s a gap. She hopes to pass the strategy side of the business over to Jake. Meanwhile, she will help run a school Coventry Council has asked PET-Xi to set up. “I want to be working with children again – as I get older, I think that’s where I’m best,” she says.

Fleur has no ambitions to become a large provider, as this might limit her ability to put her learners’ needs first. She has had “a lot of requests” from private equity interests seeking to buy her out, but is determined not to succumb.

As I leave, she sums up the key to what makes PET-Xi different; it is “all about joy” rather than skills.

“The skills are secondary,” Fleur says. “It’s about that moment when a young person realises they can make friends, that they have got something to offer the world.”