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Conservatives pledge 100,000 apprenticeship boost

The Conservatives have pledged 100,000 more apprenticeships by 2029 if they win the general election.

The policy, estimated to cost £885 million by 2029/30, would see apprenticeship starts rise to around 440,000 by the end of the next parliament, paid for by shutting down “underperforming” university courses.

This comes as the Conservatives once again take aim at “rip-off degrees” in a new pledge that would see the Office for Students empowered by new laws to close university courses it deems offer poor value to students and taxpayers.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak said: “Thanks to our plan, apprenticeships are much higher quality than they were under Labour. And now we will create 100,000 more, by putting an end to rip-off degrees and offering our young people the employment opportunities and financial security they need to thrive.”

Apprenticeship starts, particularly for young people, nosedived since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017. There were 122,750 apprentices aged under 19 in 2016/17, the year before the levy was introduced, and just 77,720 in 2022/23.

For apprentices of all ages, there were just short of 500,000 apprenticeships starts in the year before the levy was introduced, but 337,000 in 2022/23.

Continuing trends

The party have set their numbers assuming the same completion rates and trends on the distribution of apprentices across levels as in 2021/22. In that year the completion rate was just 54.8 per cent, meaning nearly half dropped out. This is despite the Conservative government setting an achievement rate target of 67 per cent.

It also assumes continuing dominance of more expensive, higher-level and degree apprenticeships predominantly going to older workers.

The Conservatives said their 100,000 apprentices pledge would be backed by new funding and strengthening flex-job apprenticeships in the creative sector.

This follows the prime minister’s announcement in March that the government would fully fund starts for apprentices aged under 22 in small businesses, eliminating the 5 per cent training fee firms were required to pay. The move boosted the apprenticeships budget from £2.669 billion to £2.729 billion for this year and would deliver an extra 20,000 apprenticeships, the government claimed.

Ben Rowland, chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, which represents apprenticeship training companies, welcomed the extra funding but said employers had to step up.

“Whichever party finds itself in government there will need to be a commitment to encouraging more employers offering apprenticeship opportunities. After all, if individual employers don’t step up, we will be failing the 900,000 young people not in employment, education or training,” Rowland said.

This is not the first time the Conservatives have claimed to boost apprenticeships at the expense of university degrees.

Last summer, the Department for Education launched a funding review of over 100 apprenticeships as part of the government’s campaign at that time to “crackdown on rip-off university degrees.”

The Conservatives are now pledging “bold action to replace these degrees with apprenticeships” which they claim will “boost young people’s life chances and stop the taxpayer rip-off.”

Just last week, CIPD became the latest employer body to point out that recent apprenticeship reforms have “clearly favoured those aged 25 and above.”

However, Conservative ministers have consistently rejected suggestions from sector and employer bodies to reform the apprenticeship levy to reverse the decline in young people, lower level and small business apprenticeships.

Further education colleges, which trained 17 per cent of apprentices last year, are among those calling for levy reforms.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, welcomed the Conservatives’ 100,000 target but added: “Urgent reform of the apprenticeship levy, ensuring that at least half of the levy should be spent on apprenticeships for new job starters and entry level jobs, would lead to more young people across the country completing an apprenticeship.”

Savings from ‘underperforming’ degrees

Alongside efforts to increase apprenticeship starts, a returned Conservative government would empower the Office for Students with new laws to close down university courses with high dropout rates, poor progression to graduate jobs and poor graduate “earnings potential”.

“Improving education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for boosting life chances. So it’s not fair that some university courses are ripping young people off,” Sunak said.

Closing so-called “underperforming” courses would save £910 million, the party claimed, based on 13 per cent of the student cohort.

This has been estimated on the basis of £1.1 billion being saved from the above-average taxpayer offset of year 1 student loans in “poorer quality” courses and then an assumption that 50 per cent of the cohort whose courses have closed going to an apprenticeship, 25 per cent to employment and 25 per cent choosing a different degree.

Gravatt said it was “hard to see” how savings from shut down degree courses would transfer to apprenticeships.

“There is no cap on higher education, so if you shut down some courses which government deems to be low quality, students may simply take a different degree-level course,” he said.

‘Laughable’ says Labour

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “It is laughable that the Tories, who have presided over a halving of apprenticeships for young people, are now announcing this.

“Why on earth should parents and young people believe they’ll create training opportunities now, after 14 years of failing to deliver opportunities for young people and the skills needed to grow our economy?”

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, Munira Wilson said: “The Conservative party has broken the apprenticeship system and this announcement does nothing to address the major issues the sector faces.

“The shockingly low pay for those on apprenticeships will remain, doing nothing to encourage more people to take apprenticeships up or tackle soaring drop out rates.

Cornwall College out of intervention after eight years

The government has withdrawn its financial intervention at The Cornwall College Group (TCCG) after eight years.

Withdrawal of the financial notice to improve (FTNI) was confirmed by the Department for Education on Friday.

However, while the college has welcomed the news, its most recent financial health rating remains ‘requires improvement’ as it grappled with a deficit of £2.3 million last year.

A spokesperson for TCCG said it is “delighted” with the outcome, which comes after five years of “transformative leadership” under John Evans, who plans to stand down in July.

They added: “The Cornwall College Group is now in a strong position, having under John’s tenure secured Ofsted ‘good’, [teaching excellence framework] silver, a multimillion-pound campus redevelopment in St Austell and establishing ourselves as the top performing [general further education] college for education and training in Cornwall.

“It’s therefore a great time to transition to the new principal and chief executive Rob Bosworth, who will steer the next phase of growth and achievement for the group.”

A decade of financial challenges

TCCG has been in financial trouble for about a decade – beginning with a turbulent period that included the rapid restructure of multiple campuses into a single college group, shrinking funding and learner numbers.

When the Further Education Commissioner first issued the FTNI in 2016, the college group had recorded large operating deficits for two years running.

Its then principal and chief executive Amarjit Basi resigned the same year, amid the the reality of the college group’s acute financial problems and criticism from the University and College Union (UCU) for his £229,000 salary package.

It received an ‘inadequate’ financial health rating after defaulting on loans which the Commissioner said had been taken out at high, fixed interest rates.

The group turned a corner in 2019 after a £30 million government bailout and the appointment of Evans.

In a bid to balance its books, the group sold its 35-year-old Saltash campus – affecting about 500 students – in 2020.

Group’s financial health still ‘requires improvement’

The Commissioner confirmed the withdrawal of the FNTI on May 24 .

Unlike when such notices are issued, they did not publish a letter or report detailing why it is no longer concerned about the group.

According to its most recent accounts, for the year ending in July 2023, TCCG had about 12,000 learners – about half of whom were adults.

It operates across seven campuses in Devon and Cornwall, under five “core brands” include Bicton and Duchy land-based colleges, Falmouth Marine School as well as general, engineering and business focused campuses.

It had a turnover of £55 million, had assets of £39 million and “no long-term debt”.

However, the group’s self-assessed financial health rating remained ‘requires improvement’ and it recorded a net deficit of £2.3 million due to “lower than budgeted” learner enrolments and “extraordinarily high levels of inflation”.

The consolidated loss for the year would have been higher without more than £1 million in pension adjustments and a staff “restructuring exercise”.

For about a month, TCCG held the longest-running open financial notice after City of Wolverhampton College’s notice was withdrawn in late April after 12 years.

Moulton College, which has been on notice for seven years, is now the commissioner’s longest-running financial concern.

Election will delay college pay rise recommendation, AoC confirms

College leaders must wait until the next government is formed before getting a pay rise recommendation for their staff from the Association of Colleges (AoC), it has been confirmed.

Last week, before the general election was called, the AoC told further education unions it would not recommend a staff pay rise to colleges until the government responded to the recommendations of the School Teachers Review Body (STRB).

It’s now been confirmed by the education secretary the government will not publish its response to the STRB on school teacher pay before the general election on July 4.

The AoC has confirmed it will therefore delay making its pay recommendation.

In a letter to school unions, seen by sister publication Schools Week, Gillian Keegan said “all government decisions, including a response to the [School Teachers’ Review Body’s] recommendations, will need to be carefully considered in light of the sensitivity of the pre-election period.”

“The government will publish its response in due course, but will not be able to do so during the pre-election period.”

Talks between the AoC and five further education staff unions for the 2024/25 began last week before the general election was called.

A ‘very early decision’ for next government

Now the election has been announced for July 4, the AoC has confirmed it will continue to hold out before making its recommendation.

The AoC is pinning its hopes on the next government stumping up enough additional funding for colleges that will prevent the “completely unjustifiable” pay gap between schools and colleges from getting any wider.

David Hughes, AoC chief executive said: “The pay gap of around £9,000 between school teachers and college lecturers is completely unjustifiable and needs to be closed as soon as possible, so the delay in setting school teacher pay in turn means AoC will delay making a formal offer in response to the college unions’ claim this year.

“We want to give the education secretary after the election the chance to make a very early decision on school and college pay at the same time, to ensure at the very least that the pay gap does not widen.”

The National Joint Forum of unions, comprised of Unite, UCU, Unison, GMB and the National Education Union demanded a 10 per cent or £3,000 pay rise for FE staff next year. The unions’ pay claim also called for a £30,000 minimum starting salary for college lecturers, matching schools.

The University and College Union, which is mired in industrial unrest among its own staff, is also pushing for binding national pay agreements, as there are for schools and sixth forms.

Government won’t be ‘let off the hook’

Leaving the STRB response to the next government, potentially putting Labour on a collision course with unions on day one, was branded a “shameful abdication of duty” by Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union.

“The STRB process should have been concluded by now, as per the terms set by Keegan following last year’s [pay] dispute. School leaders absolutely need to know what pay award to budget for. Teachers deserve to know what pay to expect in September.”

A college pay deal wasn’t reached last year until September and came following a two-year deal worth £470 million for colleges through their 16-19 education allocations, which Keegan insisted was for staff pay. This meant the AoC could recommend a 6.5 per cent pay award for colleges, matching the STRB recommendation for schools.

“One of our five general election asks is for the pay gap to close over the next few years and for a starting salary of at least £35,000 to be in place for college lecturers. Making a pay offer now would let the government off the hook in putting right the unfair pay position in colleges,” Hughes said.

Senior leader apprentices ‘lacked resilience’ at ‘inadequate’ provider

A training company has been graded ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted inspectors found its senior leader apprentices lacked “resilience” to complete the course alongside the demands of their jobs.

Hertfordshire-based London Examinations Board Limited received ‘inadequate’ for its apprenticeships, quality of education, leadership and management and overall effectiveness in a report it deemed “very inaccurate” published yesterday.

Inspectors visiting the provider, which trained 73 apprentices at the time of the February inspection, said apprentices didn’t have access to enough planned training and “learn most of the intended curriculum on their own.”

Ofsted’s claims that learners don’t have enough access to tutors were disputed by the provider, but complaints were not upheld.

Just over half (42) of the provider’s apprentices were on the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship, which attracts up to £14,000 in funding per apprentice. The rest were on the level 4 and 5 children, young people and families standards.

“Too many” apprentices miss lessons and drop out of the course early, the watchdog said. The inspection report points to “too few” apprentices developing “resilience to manage the challenges of studying while managing their workplace pressures.”

London Examination Board chief executive, Kevin Johns-Putra, said he felt inspectors treated his provider “like a school or college, doing sixth form or A-levels,” pointing out his senior leader apprentices “run big organisations” so can’t always attend lessons.

But inspectors said, “Too few apprentices develop strategies and, therefore, the resilience to manage the challenges of studying while managing their workplace pressures.” As a result, “too many apprentices leave the course within the first year of study and do not complete their final assessments” according to Ofsted.

Controversial MBAs

Achievement rates at London Examinations Board were “hindered” because apprentices dropped out once they had achieved the MBA qualification but before the required end-point assessment, the provider claimed.

The MBA was dropped from the two-year senior leader apprenticeship for new starts from March 2021 following concern employers were using apprenticeship levy funds to subsidise Master’s degrees for their managers.

The average achievement rate for senior leader apprenticeships in 2022/23 was 56.3 per cent, slightly higher than the national average for all apprenticeships of 54.3 per cent, but 11 percentage points lower than the government’s 67 per cent target.

Completion volumes at London Examinations Board were too small to be published in the government’s national achievement rate tables.

The provider said “more than 67 per cent” of its apprentices achieved the MBA qualification in time but “many” refused to then go through the end-point assessment.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency can terminate a training provider’s contract following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted judgment. London Examinations Board said it had not been notified of a contract termination at the time of going to press.

Senior leader apprentices at London Examination Board can choose to “top-up” their senior leader apprenticeship to an MBA with University of Gloucestershire or University of South Wales “for a small additional fee.”

‘Very inaccurate’ report

Johns-Putra said he exhausted Ofsted’s complaints process to challenge the report and decided against pursuing legal action due to costs.

In a statement to FE Week, he said he was “extremely disappointed” with the inspection outcome:

“There were over 20 inaccurate statements and comments that we raised from the draft report, none of these factual inaccuracies were accepted by Ofsted.

“Ofsted did not recognise that our achievement rates were seriously hindered by the old Master’s degree senior leader standard where achievement of a Master’s degree was compulsory before apprentices could undertake end-point assessment.

“While we recognise that we have areas for improvement, there have been many positive areas we have implemented effectively but these were not reflected in what we feel is a very inaccurate report”.

Johns-Putra claimed Ofsted’s criticism that tutors do not provide apprentices with enough “well-planned training or support” was inaccurate because they have access to tutors “at any time.”

Inspection reports continue to be published during the pre-election period.

Ofsted was approached for comment.

Reviewing post-16 qualifications is a start – but it’s not enough

Introduced in 2020, T Levels are vocational qualifications aimed at 16- to 19-year-olds, which provide hands-on experience via industry placements alongside class-based learning for topics such as agriculture, manufacturing and engineering.

Badged with benefits for both students and employers, such as industry insight, real-life learning, early access to a talent pipeline, improved innovation and increased productivity, you would think – and hope – that they’d be in high demand. However, figures have shown uptake and completion of courses has been slow.

Last week saw the government announce a post-16 qualification review update and the introduction of new technical qualifications, including a new engineering qualification – but is it enough?

Parent choice

Technical education is key to ensuring students get exposure to the right skills and qualifications in preparation for them joining the workforce. It’s also an important step in raising awareness that university is not necessarily the best route for all students aspiring to become engineers.

Hands-on vocational courses such as apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships as well as post GCSE T Levels are just as strong qualifications when entering the engineering workforce.

We need to make sure they receive the same respect and prestige as academic routes and are presented as a worthwhile option leading to good jobs when young people make crucial decisions about their futures.

The vocational route holds no lesser value than other traditional academic routes and should be considered as equal. We need schools, parents and businesses to collectively push this message to encourage uptake.

Employer demand

While progress on vocational learning has been made, our latest International Green Skills Survey (2023) revealed a different story.

Near two-thirds (63 per cent) of engineering employers stated that the UK education system does not prepare graduates well for industry – falling substantially behind other nations.

To combat this, nearly half of UK employers suggest more industry placement years and over one-third think more industry-targeted projects will better prepare graduates.

Therefore, more needs to be done to address the current issues in the T Level curriculum and bridge the gap between industry and providers.

More work is also needed to ensure T Level education across the UK is equitable regardless of location. As raised in Ofsted’s thematic review last July, they have varied levels of success across the UK and the quality of industry placements varies considerably across providers.

This is partly due to the location of providers and a lack of overall strategy to engage industry with the skills and education agenda. As referenced by the education committee’s report The future of post-16 qualification “regional variations in economic activity are limiting factors in students’ access to T Level courses and placements, as many industries, such as engineering or media and creative arts, are concentrated in larger cities”.

This remains a real issue and has not been addressed in this latest announcement. It risks undermining the government’s levelling up agenda. Again, this links back to raising the profile of T Levels and the benefits that they can have on regional skill demands in local areas.

Too little too late

The current government skills education starts too late and more needs to be done to introduce skills and particularly engineering education at an earlier stage.

The IET’s Engineering Kids’ Futures report calls for much-needed curriculum reform and to introduce engineering at primary level. Teaching children vital skills in engineering from an early age allows students to understand the real-world applications of subjects like science, maths, and design & technology.

This valuable context is often missing in the current curriculum which is content-heavy and allows very little time for in-depth learning or investigation into topics.

We know more needs to be done to empower more young people to think about what a possible career in engineering and technology could be. Without this there will be no way to future-proof the next generation of engineers and technologists and the UK’s skills gap will continue.

The model that could make CPD greater than it is

In 2022, Milton Keynes College Group won a government contract to run a professional development programme for post-16 English and maths teachers and called it the Greater Than Network.

It was a new model of continuing professional development (CPD), so a few months were spent setting up and recruiting a network lead. They then built up a membership of colleges across four different regions, delivered some well-received CPD including a sold-out face-to-face conference, and hit their engagement targets.

Sadly, the network closed this February, but the model has great potential and should be considered as a way to run a professional development programme in future.

My colleague at Sheffield Hallam, Sarah Boodt and I were commissioned to conduct the evaluation of the Greater Than Network. We worked on it from March 2023 until the programme closed. (In fact, I was a governor at Milton Keynes College Group from 2016 to 2023, so I was involved in the evaluation from the bidding stage.)

The Greater Than Network was one of a series of programmes commissioned by the Department for Education and intended to provide CPD to teachers and leaders of post-16 GCSE English and maths resits.

The funding was due to run from autumn 2022 until March 2025, but DfE took the decision to end the contract in February 2024 and the network closed when funding ceased.

The Greater Than Network was a different kind of CPD. It was neither a content-heavy traditional programme nor a fully informal teacher-led network. It was designed to create a space where English and maths GCSE resit and functional skills teachers and managers felt they belonged.

The intention was that some of the CPD would be driven by Milton Keynes College Group, that the network lead would encourage staff across the network to share, and that an individual at each college responsible for the link to the network (typically a manager) would encourage their staff to engage, either by sharing their good practice or asking for support from others.

All the indicators we accessed showed that the programme was working effectively

The network would facilitate the development of communities of practice and would be sufficiently flexible to adapt to new information, while also having a structured programme of CPD. The intention was a regular learning and discussion forum with some in-person events.

All the indicators we were able to access (mostly feedback surveys and some interviews with college, but also some session observations), showed that the programme was working effectively.

There were some regular attendees, teachers and managers were beginning to plan their college contributions, and the only full-day conference was sold out. It achieved its first-year targets around numbers of participating colleges (32 against a target of 30) and engaged individuals (690 against a target of 500).

The intended model had to shift to accommodate changing priorities. More CPD than had originally been planned was directly delivered by staff at Milton Keynes College Group. The stipend that had been intended to be shared equally among members of the network to make participation as easy as possible had instead become claimable only against specific receipts and expenses.

In addition, a planned autumn conference was cancelled at short notice, and there was a perception that there was too great a focus on digital which is unsurprisingly integral to the Milton Keynes College Group way, given it is the home of the Microsoft-backed South Central Institute of Technology.

Although the programme took time to get going, it is our feeling as evaluators that it showed promise. It was an interesting contribution to the range of CPD currently available to FE staff, one which aimed to empower teachers and managers in member colleges to present their own good practice, experiments and challenges in a supportive environment.

It was certainly an innovative addition to the FE CPD landscape, and a successful one. Future CPD programme developers and commissioners should consider developing the model further.

More information can be found in the evaluation report here

Sir Ian Bauckham is Keegan’s pick for permanent Ofqual chief

Sir Ian Bauckham, the interim head of exams regulator Ofqual, is Gillian Keegan’s preferred candidate to take on the role full-time.

But his confirmation will be left up to whoever forms the next government.

The government chose to appoint a chief regulator on an interim basis for a year after Dr Jo Saxton stepped down to head up the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

Bauckham, the regulator’s former chair, stepped up to the role in January.

Now education secretary Keegan has put him forward for the full-time role “following approval by the prime minister”.

But Bauckham’s pre-appointment hearing with the Parliamentary education committee will not take place until after the election on July 4.

Confirmation won’t come until after election

It leaves a potential incoming Labour government facing the decision on whether to keep the Conservatives’ pick for chief regulator or find their own.

The government said Bauckham had been selected for the role “following an open recruitment competition and assessment process led by a panel, conducted in accordance with the governance code on public appointments”.

Bauckham served on the Ofqual board since 2018 and was its chair from January 2021 to December 2023.

He was also chief executive of the Tenax Schools Academy Trust but stepped down to take the interim Ofqual role in January. He has also chaired the Oak National Academy since 2020.

Bauckham has strong links to the Department for Education and has chaired a number of reviews for Conservative governments, including one on modern foreign languages and another on initial teacher training.

All parties must commit to keeping the GCSE resit policy

I have an unhealthy relationship with the GCSE resit policy.

I was head of English in a large college in the early years of the Condition of Funding, leading a steep trajectory of improvement. This ultimately led to me helming both the policy and its major workforce programme for the Department for Education. For most of a decade, it has been a mania.

I’ve tried to go cold turkey and I’ve tried resits-free policy cordial. But I can’t help myself. Because the policy is the most important moral and pedagogical battleground in any phase of education.

Resits are the crucible in which we show that great teaching can genuinely make a life-changing difference at a scale of 300,000 young people per year, with externally-assessed exams that at least help to level the playing field a little, and outcomes that quite literally correlate with life expectancy.

The moral case is unassailable.

We know that the disadvantage gap at 16 is an injustice. Outcomes are influenced far too much by privilege, with those achieving below a GCSE grade 4 being disproportionately from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds.

Unless anyone is a subscriber to a nasty form of eugenics, we need to understand that “these students” (as they are too-often termed) have just as much potential as their better-off peers, only less opportunity.

It’s not a distant leap from there to see that whether or not we provide the equity of classroom time, extra tuition and expert training for teachers is a measure of our commitment to social justice.

The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee recently described this safety net as ‘ritual sacrifice’, calling for a future Labour government to end “tormenting so many-16 year-olds” and advocating for a “basic” qualification instead. A reminder; we are talking about a group of young people who are disproportionately likely to have been on free school meals.

These young people simply have more unrealised potential

There is a danger, when the daughter of a literary critic advocates for something not-quite-the-same-as-the-English-and-maths-all-the-middle-class-children-will-be-getting, that it can sound a little bit like class prejudice. Especially when you can’t help imagining the dinner-party conversation that probably spat this idea out, far removed from classrooms of hard-working teachers and their students.

“Can’t they just do Duolingo? That worked wonders for my eco tour of Micronesia.”

Days after Toynbee’s column, the DfE published remarkable data (facts, if you will) which the Guardian has not so far covered, although perhaps nobody is shouting loudly enough about the incredible and inspiring job FE colleges are doing.

Levels of achievement in English and maths by age 19 are the highest they have ever been, with 16-19 progression significantly higher than before the policy.

But more importantly, among those resitting while in 16-19, the proportion of disadvantaged students attaining was higher than for non-disadvantaged.

The same counter-intuitive effect was observed in the randomised controlled trial of mastery teaching conducted as part of the DfE’s Centres for Excellence in Maths (CfEM, and for transparency, I was the project director in its latter years): Students taught with the mastery lessons averaged higher scores in their GCSE mark, but the effect for disadvantaged students was greater.

Professor Geoff Wake at University of Nottingham, DfE’s partner on CfEM, has written on this. He poses the question to himself as to why the disadvantaged students perform better. His answer: “Well, we don’t know.”

But he goes on to speculate about it being the effect of what sounds like ‘discovery’ learning; “without teacher instructions and assistance”. That would seem in tension with the mastery pedagogy I assume the Department thought it was paying for, and doesn’t explain why it would have more impact on disadvantaged students.

I am not a university professor, but I have had hands-on experience raising disadvantaged measures above the national average for non-disadvantaged, so perhaps that’s why it seems obvious to me. These young people simply have more unrealised potential than their advantaged peers.

I hope that, in this election, all political parties will commit to protecting, and continuing to support, a policy that is unpopular at middle-class dinner parties, but which is vital for other people’s children.

Skills Bootcamp results missing in action

More than a third of the money allocated to the government’s flagship Skills Bootcamps programme has gone unspent, despite learner number targets being exceeded.

The figures, published following a Freedom of Information request, suggest high numbers of participants fail to complete their course or gain employment.

Skills Bootcamps are intensive and “flexible” Department for Education-funded training programmes lasting up to three months and ending with a “guaranteed” job interview that aims to improve adults’ careers in areas of national skills priorities.

Despite their significant budget – £584 million up to 2025 – the scheme had received little coverage in the national media until Tuesday, when work and pensions secretary Mel Stride claimed they would be “targeted” at sectors facing staff shortages due to tightened immigration rules.

Unexplained underspend

The government aims to train at least 150,000 people through Skills Bootcamps by next year.

Figures show that for each of the three financial years between 2020 and 2023, starts targets were surpassed. Most recently in 2022-23, enrolments totalled 40,400 against a target of 36,000.

However, just £130 million of a total £206 million allocated over the 2020 to 2023 period was spent. In 2022-23 the government allocated £150 million but only spent £85 million.

Training providers who deliver the majority of bootcamps are paid 40 per cent of the total course fee at the first “milestone” of 15 hours’ guided learning hours, followed by a further 30 per cent when a participant has a job interview that is “guaranteed” as part of the course.

Providers who can show evidence their learners have found a job or moved to a more senior role at the same employer can claim the final 30 per cent payment.

The programme’s underspend suggests providers are unable to claim payments for their learners completing the bootcamp or moving into a new or better job, which account for 60 per cent of the total fee.

No proof to claim of ‘great success’

Former skills minister Robert Halfon told Parliament late last year that bootcamps were a “great success” and resulted in “good” outcomes for many learners.

But the DfE does not publish outcomes data for the programme – officials only release numbers of participants.

The government has published initial research reports about bootcamp participation which included partial data on outcomes for a few thousand learners.

It revealed half didn’t achieve a positive employment outcome.

A follow-up report found participants were being given “inappropriate interviews”, while a separate Ofsted thematic review in 2022 warned of inconsistent training quality and poor oversight from the government.

The Department for Education refused to explain the large underspend figures.

A spokesperson insisted that Skills Bootcamps provide learners with opportunities for “higher-paid, future-proofed careers”.

They added that course completion and outcome data for 2021-22 was “due” to be published this summer, with further evaluation reports expected “later this year”.

Delay in performance data ‘unacceptable’

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said that while bootcamps are a good idea “in principle”, early evaluations have suggested they do not reach people who “needed the most help” such as those with lower qualification levels.

He added: “The government needs to be much more open and timely about on programme performance; it’s unacceptable that we don’t have timely information on how many people complete bootcamps and find jobs.”

Director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) Simon Ashworth said bootcamps have an “important role” to play in solving the country’s skills shortages.

He added some providers have “struggled to deliver Skills Bootcamps at the agreed funding levels and when funding is realised, and there is a lack of certainty about future investment post-election”.

Sue Pember, policy director of adult education body HOLEX, told FE Week that while her organisation supported the concept of bootcamps, it had long been “concerned” about the quality of training from unproven providers.

She added that many learners who drop out are likely to struggle because they lack level 2 qualifications or English and maths skills when they start.