Team UK celebrated winning six medals at EuroSkills Herning after a long three-day competition in Denmark this week.
Earlier this evening, family, friends, experts and officials applauded Team UK’s duo Patrick Sheerin and Caolan McCartan for winning the bronze award in the industry 4.0 competition.
Patrick Sheerin and Caolan McCartan win bronze in industry 4.0
Overall, the UK ranked fifteenth in the medal table out of the 33 countries taking part in Europe’s largest skills competition.
WorldSkills UK officials said the experience has given competitors a taste of what’s to come at the global WorldSkills competition in Shanghai next year.
McCartan and Sheerin both train at Southern Regional College in Northern Ireland and finished the competition yesterday with a casual handshake with each other and their training manager, Marcin Regulski.
McCartan, who works for A J Power, told FE Week he didn’t believe the results when they were announced as bronze awardwinners.
“We were sitting there all evening and the nerves started to kick in towards the last five minutes,” he said.
Sheerin, who works for Pronto Engineering Group, added: “We’ve done our college pride. We’ve Sean [Mac Diarmada] proud, Marcin proud, and we like to think we’ve done Team UK proud too. We gave it our all.”
Sheerin and McCartan celebrate their bronze medal
Both will continue their training for WorldSkills Shanghai after some downtime and say their main competition is the Danish competitors after the Hungarian winners will not be eligible next year.
“I don’t think we were too far behind them so we have to up our game and get the heads down for next year,” McCartan added.
At the last EuroSkills event in Gdańsk, Poland, the UK placed thirteenth in the medal table, bringing home one gold and two bronze medals.
Ben Blackledge, chief executive of WorldSkills UK: “We selected a young, driven team that shows huge potential to develop into world-class skilled professionals, to compete against more experienced competitors from across Europe.”
He said this has allowed the team to “accelerate their development” in preparation for the global competition in China next year.
“We are firmly on track to showcase the very best of UK skills on the global stage next year,” he added.
Restaurant services competitor Yuliia Batrak wins Medallion for Excellence
Restaurant services competitor Yuliia Batrak was one of five champions from Team UK that were awarded Medallions for Excellence, which demonstrates meeting the international standard.
Batrak was joined by her mother and younger sister in Herning as well as training manager Shyam Patiar, who was seen wiping tears of pride on the final day of competition yesterday.
Batrak’s family fled the war in Ukraine in 2022, and she began studying catering and hospitality at Grwp Llandrillo Menai when her family moved to Wales.
EuroSkills also awards a best in nation award to the competitor from each competing country that achieves the highest individual score in their competition. Alongside her medallion of excellence, Katie Sime was named the UK’s best in nation.
She told FE Week she was excited to celebrate with Team UK at the farewell ceremony for the competitors after the medal ceremony and plans to celebrate with her family when she returns to the UK.
“I’ve got annual leave for a few days and I’m so excited to see my family,” she said.
Countdown to Shanghai
Tonight’s ceremony ended the ninth biennial EuroSkills competition hosted by Herning, Denmark. Next year, countries from around the world will compete at WorldSkills Shanghai, and then, in 2027, the next EuroSkills will take place in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Blackledge, in his role as chair of WorldSkills Europe, officially closed the competition and passed the baton to Düsseldorf.
“From digitalisation and artificial intelligence to tackling climate change. Your skills are the key to building a brighter future.
“And I also want to take a moment to recognise again, the incredible work of the experts, of the trainers, of the mentors who have supported our competitors. You are the guiding hands behind every competitor’s journey, and your dedication is what makes excellence possible. Thank you for your passion and for investing so much in the next generation.”
Look out for a full analysis of Team UK’s performance in next week’s edition of FE Week.
The final day of EuroSkills 2025 came to an emotional close with floods of tears from Team UK, families, supporters, and even reporters.
The 19 students and apprentices had expertly navigated months of training in their 17 disciplines.
After three days of intense competing, Team UK were cheered on by swathes of supporters at the MCH Messecenter Herning as they completed the final moments of the competition.
Some finished with embraces with their family members and training managers who had patiently supported them during their uncompromising training schedule.
Painting and decorating competitor Shelby Fitzakerly with her training manager Mike Swan
Others were more stoic; competitors such as Patrick Sheerin and Caolan McCartan in industry 4.0 shook hands with each other and their training manager Marcin Regulski after the 10-second countdown.
And level-headed health and social care contestant Grace Longden finished earlier than anticipated and returned to her workshop so Team UK officials and friends could celebrate her achievements.
Meanwhile, training manager for mechanical engineering CAD, Ryan Sheridan, reportedly had “tears streaming” on a videocall when Team UK champion Stuart Lyons finished earlier in the day.
Sheridan had to drop out of the competition for personal reasons, and additive manufacturing expert Bryn Jones stepped in for pastoral care at the last minute.
Restaurant services champion Yuliia Batrak was also emotional at the finish line with her mother, younger sister and Batrak’s training manager Shyam Patiar was also seen wiping tears of joy.
Joinery competitor Jamie Mathews at the opening ceremony
Batrak told FE Week she was so proud of herself on her final task of the competition: cocktail serving duty, where she was asked to make a manhattan, a tequila sunrise and two daiquiris.
Leaky ducts have been an issue elsewhere in the competition. At the beginning of the hairdressing contest, competitors were reportedly given extra time following a leakage in the roof above the competition floor, impacting some of the hair models.
Meanwhile, joinery champ Jamie Mathews said he kept the “constant pressure” on himself in the final day.
“Then towards the last half hour of day three, I really had to go very hard to get it completed,” he said, adding that he had to sacrifice the tidiness of his work that he would normally uphold outside of a competition.
“It wasn’t too bad. A couple of errors, but I was happy enough,” he said.
Minister makes it
Skills minister Jacqui Smith cheered on Team UK for two days this week.
Yesterday she arrived at the exhibition hall and spoke with Team UK competitors, families and officials.
(left to right) WorldSkills UK chair Marion Plant, minister for skills Jacqui Smith, WorldSkills UK CEO Ben Blackledge
Smith is the first skills minister to travel to a WorldSkills event on foreign soil since 2017, when then minister Anne Milton visited Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates for the global competition.
She was due to come to WorldSkills Lyon in France last year, but was called last minute to vote in the House of Lords.
“I wanted to come to support our team and our competitors who are demonstrating the highest levels of excellence in the skills that they are competing in,” she told FE Week.
The UK last hosted a WorldSkills event in London in 2011, and Smith said she would have to think “quite carefully” about considering it again.
She added: “This competition isn’t just about the five days that it’s been happening here in Denmark.
“It’s important for us to be able to support them, and how that then impacts back into the skills system in the UK and through the Centre of Excellence.”
Regarding the 15 per cent cut in grant funding the Department for Education made to WorldSkills UK in 2025-26, Smith told FE Week it wasn’t the only organisation that had experienced a DfE funding chop.
“To govern is to choose in a time of real financial and fiscal challenge for the government,” she said.
“We had to make that cut, but we have also of course boosted the support for WorldSkills through the links that we made into the tech programme for WorldSkills, through the presence of ministers, and through the continued work that we will do with them, including in the forthcoming white paper.”
A university-run skills bootcamp programme has been rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted for its “highly effective” courses that are popular with learners leaving military service.
During an inspection in July this year, the education inspectorate found Bath Spa University’s adult learning offer, which includes four-week skills bootcamps and tailored learning courses, was “exceptional” and “expertly” designed.
Taught from a grade 1 listed manor house in Corsham, Wiltshire, the university’s level 3 skills bootcamps train learners who are transitioning from military to civilian life in project management skills combined with artificial intelligence.
Inspectors said the course includes an “exceptional” curriculum that is co-designed by industry experts, taught by “exceptionally helpful” staff, and leaves learners with industry-recognised qualifications.
This includes British Computer Society certificates in ‘agile’ project management and artificial intelligence.
Vice-chancellor Georgina Andrews said the university is “incredibly proud” of its work and the ‘outstanding’ Ofsted judgement.
She added: “It’s wonderful to see the ‘highly supportive and welcoming environment’ recognised, alongside the ‘exceptional’ and ‘highly impactful’ provisions provided with it.
“This recognition is a testament to the short course unit and inclusive communities teams within [Bath Spa University’s] Centre for Innovation and Knowledge Exchange who have worked tirelessly to ensure our provision is of the highest possible standard.
“This standard runs across all of our short courses and adult skills work and we pride ourselves in delivering an outstanding service across all of our work.”
The university also runs publicly funded tailored learning courses in creative arts from centres in Radstock, Somerset, and Twerton, Bath, which are aimed at learners who are not in education, training or employment.
Ofsted found the courses, which served fewer than five people when they visited, help “almost all” learners into employment or pathways to higher education.
Teachers “skilfully” inspire adults, including those facing “barriers to learning” in disciplines such as printmaking and painting through interesting and “stimulating” courses.
Managers at the university ensure a “highly effective culture of continuous improvement” and governors provide a “high level of challenge” to support leaders, Ofsted noted.
University bootcamps
Skills bootcamps are a relatively new format of DfE-funded learning that involve training, work experience, and a guaranteed job interview over a period of up to 16 weeks.
Several universities including Bath Spa University, Nottingham Trent, and Northeastern University London have launched skills bootcamps programmes since their launch in 2020 as part of then-chancellor Rishi Sunak’s attempt to train more adults in areas of national skills shortages such as digital skills, manufacturing and construction.
The skills bootcamp programme is ultimately funded by the Department for Education, with a total of £350 million allocated through a national contract or shared out between mayoral combined authorities and local authorities this financial year.
With its £12.8 million allocation for the 2025-26 academic year, West of England Combined Authority is funding 98 skills bootcamps, including £58,000 for Bath Spa University’s project management course.
Other skills bootcamps offer training for sectors include retrofitting, leadership and management, digital animation, HGV driving, and festival workforce.
The most up-to-date national statistics for the courses, for 2022-23, show that about one third of the 42,340 adults who started courses progressed in their current jobs, or secured new business opportunities if they were self-employed.
Control over apprenticeships policy will shift to the Department for Work and Pensions following last week’s reshuffle, the skills minister has confirmed.
Adult skills will also move while Skills England will “continue to work across government,” Jacqui Smith told FE Week today.
It comes after a shock reshuffle last week, where Pat McFadden took the “skills” brief from Bridget Phillipson’s Department for Education and Smith was appointed skills minister across both departments.
The skills sector was left to ponder over the last week precisely which policy areas would be moved to DWP under plans for growth-boosting “super ministry” under McFadden.
In an interview with FE Week at the EuroSkills competition in Herning, Denmark today, Smith said policy responsibility for apprenticeships, apprenticeship policy and adult skills will move to DWP.
The minister said: “Apprenticeship policy and the apprenticeship levy and policy around that will sit in DWP.”
Alongside apprenticeships, “certainly the adult skills fund and all that work in adult skills … Skills England has already been working across government so that won’t make such a difference. But those things are essentially now the responsibility of DWP, except they’re my responsibility and I work across both departments,” Smith added.
“Further education” and higher education will remain with DfE. A ministerial statement on the changes will be published “in the very near future”.
Bigger emphasis on skills
Smith described moving skills policy to DWP as a “logical next step” because she is “really determined that we bring skills work out of the DfE across the whole of government.”
She told FE Week: “What it means is a bigger emphasis on skills in a larger part of government.
“It means Pat McFadden, who alongside Bridget [Phillipson], is a leading cabinet minister within the government taking on that responsibility with respect to adult skills both to continue the work that’s happened in the last year, but also to make sure that work is integrated into all of the labour market work on the ground, the work that Job Centres and job services are going nationally.”
The minister pointed to a range of skills policy initiatives which are already involving other government departments, such as the defence technical excellence colleges with the Ministry of Defence, and digital skills work with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
“It’s always difficult in government to break down silos, but we have put skills much more centrally at the heart of what the government is trying to achieve than has ever, and I’ve been around a bit including two previous stints at the DfE, that I have ever seen before in government.”
A NEET solution
McFadden has already identified tackling rising numbers of young people not in education, employment and training (NEET) as a priority for his new department. An estimated 948,000 young people aged 16 to 24 are NEET.
Smith said McFadden’s vow was a “bringing together” of the work in schools and colleges to prevent young people from becoming NEET and the post-19 initiatives already led by DWP.
“We’ve invested in youth guarantee pathfinders, and where we’ll be able to bring all of that work together, along with the benefit system, along with the work that’s happening in Jobcentres to make sure that we really do make a difference to the wholly unacceptable numbers.”
The government has consistently underspent on a scheme to boost awareness of T Levels despite chronically poor understanding of the qualifications, new figures show.
Officials have failed to recruit enough T Level ambassadors, tasked with publicising the courses and encouraging take-up from businesses and students, and have spent just three quarters of the allocated budget for the ambassador network.
In March, the National Audit Office (NAO) cast doubt on the scalability of T Levels after finding that student number forecasts were missed by three quarters. This resulted in an underspend of almost £700 million from the qualification’s launch in 2020 to 2024-25.
To achieve revised student enrolment numbers the Department for Education (DfE) “recognises it must do more to improve awareness”, a follow-up report from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said this summer.
The DfE told MPs on the PAC that despite T Levels being in their fifth year of delivery, only half of school students and a third of employers knew about them.
The T Level ambassador network was set up in 2021 to “advance the recognition and adoption” of T Levels. New figures obtained by FE Week through a freedom of information request show that the DfE has failed to spend its budget for this network in each of the past four years.
Of the network’s £360,000 total budget since its inception, three quarters (£258,000) has been spent. While a £102,000 underspend is small compared with the full T Levels budget, it raises questions about the DfE’s efforts at raising awareness of the qualifications.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the figures were disappointing.
“Lack of public awareness of these qualifications is one of the key challenges that we face in embedding them in post-16 education and it is vital that awareness-raising initiatives are delivered,” he told FE Week.
Missed milestone
The ambassador network has recruited over 1,000 providers, students and employers as volunteers. But it has missed a key target for employer ambassadors to make up 65 per cent of the network by June 2024.
Documents released by the DfE show that as of February this year, just over one third (313) of the 861-strong network were business representatives.
Industry placements are a key part of T Levels but there are concerns that there are not enough employers willing to offer work placements when T Levels are fully rolled out. T Levels suffer from a high-dropout rate, in part because employer placements have not been secured.
A report by the Edge Foundation last year found that while industry placements were a major draw for T Levels students, the reality had been “polarising”, with some students blamed when work experience could not be obtained.
Imran Tahir, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “I think that is one of the big issues with scaling up a qualification like T Levels … they need buy-in from local employers to actually make them possible.”
The government launched a T Level Employer Support Fund in 2023 to incentivise employers to host the mandatory 45-day industry placement. But an FE Week investigation found that nearly half of the £8.5 million available was clawed back.
In June the DfE launched a fresh £6.3 million fund to incentivise employers to provide T Level industry placements, but only in construction and health for large companies and all subjects for small employers.
Offline ambassadors
Budget figures obtained by FE Week show that the main annual expenditure of the T Level ambassador network was hosting and sending ambassadors to events as well as establishing the T Level ambassador national conference.
In March 2023 the DfE injected £10,000 into an app for ambassadors to talk to each other and share ideas.
Documents of app usage data, which cover November 2023 to January 2024, show the number of users increased over the quarter but activity dropped. By early 2024, 192 of the entire cohort had downloaded the app, but only 19 were active.
Shifting responsibility for skills between two government departments risks further destabilising the “sofa surfing” policy area, experts have warned.
The surprise announcement that skills will move from the Department for Education to the Department for Work and Pensions came last Friday after Angela Rayner’s resignation triggered a Cabinet reshuffle.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer appointed trusted problem-solver Pat McFadden as work and pensions secretary under an expanded brief.
McFadden reportedly told DWP staff he will be “expanding” access to skills training to tackle stubbornly high numbers of young people who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET).
However, it remains unclear which skills budgets this new growth-boosting “super ministry” will hold alongside employment and welfare.
Neither the DWP, DfE, nor Downing Street would comment on how skills programmes and budgets will be carved up between departments.
However, FE Week understands the adult skills fund (ASF), skills bootcamps, and other DfE policy levers for getting adults into work are likely to move to the new department, while decisions are yet to be made on who has responsibility for apprenticeships and Skills England.
The government has confirmed that Jacqui Smith will continue as skills minister but her role will straddle both the DWP and DfE, where she will retain responsibility for higher education and elements of FE that will stay at the DfE, such as 16-19 funding and college oversight.
Realignment or upheaval?
Experts and sector leaders see the move as an opportunity to tackle unemployment rates with a long-needed alignment of skills training with employment support, reinventing the role of Jobcentres, and reducing “frustrating duplication” between some DWP and DfE training programmes.
Sector leaders have been speculating about how the government plans to rapidly align work and welfare policies with skills in a way that will impact growth, productivity and employment rates.
Former skills minister Robert Halfon said the move will have “pluses”, such as creating a “coherent, focused approach” to tackling unemployment and removing “frustrating duplication” caused by two departments running parallel training schemes.
But he warned that “another upheaval” in government, soon after the launch of Skills England, risks “confusing the policy landscape” for learners and employers.
Moving the brief risks the government being distracted by “moving the furniture around” rather than important issues such as achievement rates and recruitment of FE staff, he added.
Tim Leunig, ex-government adviser and director at Public First, said: “My own view is that ‘machinery of government’ changes are a nightmare, and usually lead people to think about internal issues, not the real issues in the country.
“Things like incompatible data storage systems, analysts and policy people who need to be divided into two, teams who are based in a DfE location that has no DWP office and have to commute a long way, or seek a new job, sometimes with a real loss of expertise.”
Joined up policy dreams
Working-age benefits are projected to rise from £48 billion to more than £70 billion by 2030 and more than 900,000 young people not in work or training.
Having direct control over skills funding could bolster DWP’s efforts to target youth NEET numbers, which have so far been limited to funding pilot-style regional programmes known as ‘youth guarantee trailblazers’ with a relatively small overall budget of about £45 million per year.
Stephen Evans, CEO at the Learning and Work Institute, said that moving skills is an opportunity to “genuinely join things up” by offering training to the estimated 4.5 million out-of-work people who have low numeracy and literacy skills.
Figures within the sector note that skills has been part of six different government departments in the past 30 years.
“[Skills] has been around the houses, it’s the sofa surfing policy area… but what matters really is what you do,” Evans added.
“I would say the risk is that just we carry on as we are in a different building – the opportunity is to genuinely join things up a bit.”
This could include rationalising the various training programmes aiming to help people gain skills for work and merging the array of plans to improve skills, employment, and growth that local areas are now required to produce.
Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes added: “The big risk with this shift is that senior officials spend lot of their time negotiating the change and implementing rather than getting on with the day job.
“The opportunity is that we’ve got another secretary of state fighting for and advocating for funding for post-16, skills, apprenticeships and the adult skills fund.
“So I think the positives outweigh the negatives for me. Isn’t it great that someone wants it and really thinks they can do something?”
‘Avoiding the trap of short-termism’
The skills policy control shift comes at a busy time for FE, as Labour continues to turn the apprenticeship levy into a growth and skills levy offer, and ahead of a post-16 white paper expected before Christmas.
Without apprenticeships, the work and pensions secretary will gain limited extra funding from taking over skills, as about two thirds of both adult skills fund and skills bootcamps are dished out to mayors and local authorities to manage.
Ben Rowland, CEO at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said apprenticeships are critical for Jobcentres to be able to get people “onto a more productive path”.
He added: “If they’re keeping apprenticeships in the DfE, it doesn’t give Pat McFadden tools he needs – he needs to have apprenticeships, short courses and [higher technical qualifications] at his disposal.
“Otherwise, it’s a non-significant announcement.”
For Halfon, who first became skills minister when the policy brief moved from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2016, the reorganisation has potential to deliver a “long-needed” joined up approach to skills and employment.
He added: “But success will depend on avoiding the trap of short-termism and ensuring that quality apprenticeships and skills programmes remain at the heart of our national mission.
“The stakes are high: get this right, and we can transform lives and boost productivity. Get it wrong, and we risk undermining years of progress in skills development.”
Starts on level 7 apprenticeships have surged, prompting warnings about a “totally predictable” run on the stretched apprenticeships budget before government funding is axed.
FE Week analysis of official figures reveals a 24 per cent spike, year on year, between August 2024 and April 2025.
The figures, based on the latest available data from the Department for Education (DfE), show that new starts rose by 5,000 to reach 25,799 for the first three quarters of the last academic year. There were 1,939 more starts than for the entire 2023-24 academic year.
The biggest surge came this spring, when starts rose by 65 per cent year-on-year, while in March alone they more than doubled, from 1,457 in 2024 to 3,023 this year.
Monthly spikes in starts are expected to intensify further this autumn as employers, training providers and universities scramble to beat the levy cut-off in January 2026.
The ‘big financial headache’
The DfE recorded its first overspend on the apprenticeships budget last year. Despite a record £3.075 billion allocated for 2025-26, ministers are relying on headroom saved from axing level 7s for over 22-year-olds to fund new schemes such as foundation apprenticeships for young people and short non-apprenticeship ‘growth and skills’ courses in priority sectors.
Tom Richmond, an education policy analyst and former adviser to DfE ministers, said the growth in level 7 provision had “placed a huge strain on the apprenticeships budget for years”.
He added: “If, as these numbers suggest, many providers have piled into level 7 apprenticeships before the axe falls next year, then it will present ministers and officials with a big financial headache.”
Baroness Alison Wolf called the rush “totally predictable” and said she was “astonished DfE didn’t move to prevent it”.
She told FE Week: “It will put huge extra pressure on the budget at a time when NEET numbers are high, and when apprenticeship openings for the young have been falling fast.
“Many of the organisations increasing their senior leadership numbers could be creating openings for young people and should be ashamed of themselves.”
Level 7 data deepdive
Much of the level 7 surge has been driven by senior leader apprenticeships, which climbed from 5,866 starts in the first three quarters of 2023-24 to 8,670 over the same period this year – a 48 per cent rise so far. By April, there were already 1,500 more senior leader apprentices than in the whole of last year.
Accountancy and taxation professional apprenticeships also grew by just over 1,000 starts. The only major programme to shrink was the advanced clinical practitioner, down by 539.
Data covering the final quarter of academic year 2024-25 isn’t due until November, and the picture for August 2025 to December 2025 won’t be clear until March 2026.
Individual training providers have seen a significant increase in level 7 starts.
Corndel started 1,334 level 7 apprentices in the whole of 2023-24, but had already enrolled 1,875 in the first three quarters of 2024-25. Comparing year-on-year for quarters one to three, its numbers jumped by 993 extra starts. FE Week asked Corndel how it was resourcing the training for such a large increase in level 7 apprentices, but it declined to comment.
Ian Prentice, CEO of Fuel Learning, which grew from 8 to 162 senior leader starts year-on-year, is confident his learners experience no drop in quality. He told FE Week growth was “always planned” with employers, enabling him to recruit facilitators, coaches and learning managers he needed.
“We will reach a point where we won’t take any more. It’s not possible to grow by thousands and maintain quality,” he said.
Petra Wilson, policy director at the Chartered Management Institute, which does the vast majority of the end-point assessments on senior leader apprenticeships, was confident CMI could scale its operations to meet rising demand.
“We do not foresee any challenges in meeting the needs of education providers and learners who are embarking on senior leader apprenticeships,” she said.
The Department for Education said it will “not hesitate” in intervening if a provider’s quality falls short.
A spokesperson said: “Apprenticeship starts by young people under 25 fell by almost 40 per cent over the last decade. That’s why through our plan for change we have asked more employers to invest in upskilling their staff aged over 22 at level 7, to enable levy funding to be re-balanced towards young people and training at lower levels.
“All current level 7 apprentices and any who start before 1 January 2026 will be funded through to completion. We gave this degree of notice because employers and providers needed time to plan their future skills provision.
“We will continue to hold providers to account through our rigorous apprenticeship accountability framework, and where performance falls short we do not hesitate to intervene.”
The Department for Education has promised to “capture views” before determining new intervention triggers for colleges and training providers from reformed Ofsted inspections.
A new style of report cards comes into force from November 10, with no routine inspections of FE and skills providers in the first half of the autumn term.
The DfE this week published a refreshed school accountability regime alongside Ofsted’s final plans for how the report cards will look and work.
But there has been no word on how post-16 intervention, accountability and oversight policies will change when the new inspection process is rolled out.
Until now, training companies receiving an ‘inadequate’ grade in an inspection, either overall or for a sub-judgment, faced contractual penalties. These range from enforceable requirements to improve and suspensions to learner starts through to contract termination.
The DfE extended Ofsted performance rules to independent providers with back-to-back ‘requires improvement’ this August.
Colleges have also been kicked out of the apprenticeship delivery market if they received Ofsted’s lowest possible judgment.
From November, there will be no overall headline judgments for FE and skills providers. Instead, there will be a new colour-coded five-point grading scale which will be applied across up to 16 areas and grade providers as either ‘urgent improvement’ (red), ‘needs attention’ (orange), ‘expected standard’ (green), ‘strong standard’ (dark green), or ‘exceptional’ (blue).
The DfE told FE Week it will soon start engaging with the FE sector to update intervention and accountability policies in line with Ofsted’s new methodology and grading.
Officials said this will involve determining new intervention triggers which will be published and communicated to the sector “prior to Ofsted commencing inspections using the renewed framework evaluation areas”.
The DfE added that it is planning a series of stakeholder engagement activities with the sector over the next month to set out proposals and capture views.
Officials made clear, however, that where provision is “clearly of poor quality, our response will remain firm” and added: “We will continue to act where judgements in the new framework highlight serious concerns about quality.”
The DfE said it recognises the sector’s concerns around increased complexity and rushed implementation timing, and committed to taking a “pragmatic, proportionate approach, particularly during the first 12 months, ensuring decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, with the learner experience at the core”.
Report cards will ramp up leader anxiety
Ofsted commissioned Sinéad Mc Brearty, CEO of the charity Education Support, to carry out a wellbeing impact review as part of its proposed report card reforms.
Published this week, Mc Brearty warned that stress related to inspection is “unlikely to materially change whilst the ‘high stakes’ consequences remain broadly intact” despite the reforms.
Ofsted’s revised framework will also require leaders to “evidence impact across a larger number of evaluation areas, which may drive new forms of bureaucracy and data collection” in providers.
Chris Todd, principal of Derwentside College, said the education sector needs a “paradigm shift” on inspection instead of “another rebrand”.
“Colleges are complex organisations, and reducing them to short, high-stakes judgments risks oversimplification,” he said.
“Research shows inspection can increase stress, narrow the curriculum, and contribute to staff attrition – outcomes that run counter to genuine improvement.
“The truth is, politically, our thinking on inspection is still too narrow. What we need is not another rebrand, but a genuine paradigm shift, one that places improvement, collaboration, and trust at the heart of the system.”
Unions have been quick to slam the watchdog’s reforms.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The tweaks made to its proposals following the consultation period are minor and cosmetic changes to a flawed rationale.”
He warned the “consistency” of Ofsted judgments will continue to be “unreliable” and the new inspection system will place a “huge amount of stress on school and college leaders and their staff because they will face so many judgements across so many areas”.
“Let’s remember that this entire process began with the suicide of a headteacher under the previous inspection system. Yet here we are with a reformed system which appears to be even worse. We are gravely concerned about the welfare of leaders and teachers as well as the impact on recruitment and retention,” Di’Iasio added.
ASCL is considering whether to recommend Ofsted inspectors that are members “withdraw their services”.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said Sir Martyn Oliver “has failed” in his attempt to bring in a system that reduces pressure.
“Removing the single word judgment was meant to be a powerful revolution, but this makes things much worse. More of the same. More pressure. More ranking and competition. More labels.”
Both the Association and Employment and Learning Providers and Association of Colleges said they were concerned about the speed of implementation of Ofsted’s reforms.
“We’re all ships on a turquoise tide, headed ever closer towards winning the next general election”, began Nigel Farage as he strode on stage and gazed out at a sea of thousands of jubilant faces at Reform UK’s party conference last weekend.
Moments before, a sparkly jumpsuit-clad Andrea Jenkyns, the former skills minister who is now one of Reform’s regional mayors, declared Farage to be “our last chance to truly save Britannia” and led the audience in chanting “Nigel will be prime minister”.
Whether you find their anti-immigration rhetoric to be unhinged scaremongering or the inspired thinking that’s needed to fix “broken Britain”, recent polling suggests Reform could well form the next government. They claim to be the fastest-growing political party in British history.
Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns singing at the Reform UK annual conference
Skills policy vacuum
Finding out what they could have in store for our skills and further education system wasn’t easy.
The conference featured sessions on cryptocurrency and the car finance scandal, but none on education. It is not a priority for its supporter base. When Reform supporters were asked in a recent poll to pick the biggest issues facing the country, “education and childcare” came fifth from the bottom out of 17 issues, garnering three times less support than “social care for the elderly”.
Similarly, when asked who the government should protect most when making spending decisions, so-called Reformers rated teachers bottom of 13 categories – below “rich people” and “big business”.
Gawain Towler, who sits on Reform’s board and has been described as Farage’s right-hand man, told FE Week that the party is currently in the process of drawing up a skills policy – creating a window of opportunity for the sector’s lobbyists to help shape their policies. The Association of Colleges sent a representative to the conference, but not the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.
Nigel Farage at Reform UK party conference
Curbing immigration
Currently, theonly mention in Reform’s policy papers to ‘skills’ is to clarify that the only exceptions to the strict limits they would put on immigration would be for those with “essential skills, mainly around healthcare”.
Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf, told FE Week that cutting migration would create “issues” around recruiting the engineers needed to meet another of its goals – to “proliferate small modular reactors across the country at unprecedented speed”.
But he indicated that Reform was prepared to pump more money into reskilling British workers.
Visas for skilled migrants would “only ever be sanctioned if we are simultaneously launching the most audacious and unprecedented scale-up process to upskill and train British people in those jobs…and yeah, that will take funding.”
The “challenge” of plugging skills gaps currently filled by migrants was why Reform would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
“You can tell we’re serious about cutting net migration to zero because at least because we’re talking about such policies,” he said, adding that they have “a little bit of time to put this stuff together”.
Towler indicated that a Reform government might use more bursaries as incentives to train people to fill critical skills shortages. He claimed that when the nursing bursary was cut under George Osbourne as chancellor, 50,000 fewer British people trained as nurses and the same number then had to be imported from overseas. (FE Week could not corroborate those figures).
“We made it harder for British people to do these things,” he added.
Zia Yusuf on the main stage at the Reform UK party conference
More ‘trade’ skills
Towler said that “underpinning our agenda” was getting young people to “learn a skill” rather than getting “a big debt” for “something that’s going to be killed by AI”.
He claimed that the advance of AI would make Surrey “like Cornwall was when the mines closed”, as “middle-ranking white collar work is fucked”.
“It’s going to be a long time before AI can do your gardening, landscaping, smaller engineering, mending, fixing, making things work. So there will be a lot of positivity in that direction.”
Similarly, Farage said: “Let’s start teaching kids at school trades and services” and quipped that “one thing that AI will not replace is the local plumber”.
He wants to set up new regional technical colleges for plumbing, electrical trades and industrial automation in Wales if they win power there next year.
The first such college in England appears to be planned by Lincolnshire mayor Jenkyns, who told FE Week she is committed to opening “the biggest and best trade college there, which can serve the country” and where “young people can learn building, plumbing, welding and other trades that are the backbone to rebuild our nation”.
One Lincolnshire principal told FE Week, “I thought we already were”.
Jenkyns is taking inspiration from the “amazing” CATCH, an industrial skills centre near Grimsby.
“I’ve never been to a college with such cutting edge facilities, and industries pay for that. Isn’t that a great model? We know that colleges are struggling. Can you imagine if we get industry talking to colleges, investing so that they have got school and college leavers with the right skills to go to a job in their area?”
She described her plan for Lincolnshire as a “Reform blueprint” to create “a microcosm of what Reform can do in government”.
As skills minister, Jenkyns said she had been “disgusted that literacy and numeracy has been on a downward spiral for the last decade,” and believes this “might be to do with closing of a lot of colleges.”
She had wanted to “bring a parity of esteem between vocational, technical, academic and trades” as “for too long, colleges have been seen as the poor relation”.
She will be “trying to push” for that parity on Reform’s decision-making board which she was appointed to last month.
Andrea Jenkins at Reform UK party conference
HE ‘waste of time’
Universities’ current financial pressures might just implode under a Reform government.
The party has pledged to limit the number of undergraduate places to “well below” current levels, enforce minimum entry requirements and mandate all universities to offer two-year undergraduate courses.
Yusuf said there were “way too many young people taking on degrees”, some of which “do not make them more employable [or] earn more”.
Towler sees “a lot” of higher education as “a complete fucking waste of time” and launched a tirade against Blair’s government for expanding university provision. “We now have…people who are highly educated doing basically grunt work. [It’s] a disaffected population, as people feel entitled to something marvellous when there’s nothing marvellous there.”
Jenkyns – who said she was “torn” as a single mother over whether she would want to be skills minister or education secretary under a Reform government – when asked whether she would bail out bankrupt universities, responded: “Do we need as many universities, or do we need a more diverse climate?”
Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns at the Reform UK annual conference
‘Woke’ curricula
The most vehement anger was directed at the education system’s “communist” biases.
Yusuf said the party had to “stop schools from becoming indoctrination camps”, with universities being “even more so indoctrination camps”.
The curriculum and assessment review, currently poised to make its recommendations to government, has pledged to “look across the curriculum to examine where opportunities exist to increase diversity in representation”.
This might jar with Reform’s own pledge to allow “no discussions on gender-questioning, transitioning, or pronoun swapping” in schools, and to teach history in a “patriotic way”.
Jenkyns said the UK should “stop being ashamed of our history…we weren’t perfect, and certain things we should not have done, but it’s about learning from the past…not about trying to silence the past or apologise”.
Reform also wants to cut funding to universities that undermine free speech.
Yusuf claimed his inbox was “absolutely full” with emails from “not just worried parents but kids…admonished by teachers” and “asked to stay behind in class” for saying they “like Nigel Farage”.
“We’ve got to look very seriously at that,” he said.
Climate sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton, who believes there is a “sporting chance” he would be made “the Secretary of State, not ‘for’ but ‘against’ the climate change nonsense” under a Farage government, was particularly militant in his views.
Claiming that parents have “absolutely no idea what nonsense is being drip fed into their child’s mind by these wretched communist teachers”, he said there should be a “sound feed for every class, available for every parent of that class” so “the communists will no longer be able to get away with that propaganda without at least the parents finding out about it and raising a stink”.
He also called for making every university lecture, seminar and tutorial “filmed as well as recorded and made publicly available to everybody at all times and permanently for ever”.
Similarly Mansfield MP Lee Anderson, claiming some teachers were “brainwashing our kids”, said that Reform would “root these teachers out and hold them to account”.
“The more you try and indoctrinate children, especially young boys, the more they’re coming to us now, 15-16 year old boys…it’s great.”
George Finch, 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire Council, referred to the “communist conveyor belt of universities” and described how he had dropped out of Leicester University after finding it “depressing”.
“If you want to succeed, you have to keep your head down and be quiet and not say anything. But that’s where I was a bit different. I did say I was a Reform member. Didn’t make many friends.”
But he believes “the world’s changing”, which is why it is “really important” for Reform to take on this agenda.
The other item on Reform’s education agenda is to not only “undo” what Yusuf describes as “the vandalism” this government has done through its pledge to charge VAT on private school fees, but also offer a 20 per cent tax relief on fees.
Devolution disarray
Whereas the last two governments have been in favour of devolving powers to regional areas and reorganising local government, Reform’s central commandbelieves that the country may have bitten off more than it can chew and is reticent about the benefits of devolution.
Towler described the devolution process as “incoherent” and said his party was “not really comfortable with” mayors, despite the party now having two of its own with Jenkyns in Lincolnshire, and Luke Campbell in Hull and East Yorkshire.
He believes that “the idea of governing at Westminster” was a “driving force” for Brexit.
Devolution has been an attempt (by Labour-controlled areas) to “strip from national democracy that electoral authority created at general elections… making it more difficult for [the government] to prosecute their policies right the way down”.
Reform will win mayoralties next year in Essex, “probably” Suffolk/Norfolk and “may well win” Sussex and Hampshire too, which was “was not in the plan” for Labour. “They have now built in whole areas of the country that are going to be run by people in this room today,” he told a panel session.
Meanwhile, “the rapid change” involved with local government reorganisation was “very, very confusing for the average punter”.
Andrea Jenkins on stage with Hull and East Yorkshire mayor Luke Campbell
Governance: reform and suspicion
This time last year, Reform had eight local councillors across the country; Towler, then Reform’s head of communications, predicted they “might win four councils” in the local elections; “I’m an optimist”.
It now has over 900 councillors and leads on 12 councils.
This has created a “problem of rapid success”. Reform is now “rapidly trying to fill those holes”.
It has formed a ‘Reform Council Association’ to help newly elected party councillors learn from each other.
But there is much suspicion over the intentions of officials in all tiers of government.
Jenkyns said she had already sacked one of her officers and has a “close eye” on another, but also lamented that she was the only mayor in the country without her own special advisor and has “no team”. She is “literally doing a lot of case work myself” which has been “difficult”.
She felt officials at DfE when she was skills minister were often politicised and unavailable, with around six in eight of her private office often working from home. She is insisting on her current staff working from the office.
Highlighting her lack of trust for officials, she said as a DfE minister she had been asked to sign off a £2 million package for a failing college, with £1 million for management consultants; she refused, and civil servants then got it signed off by the Secretary of State.
Calling for people with experience of government to join their mission, Farage said the party was “beginning to see already through the county councils that we run certain obstructions from the civil service being put in our way”.
“I imagine if we win the next election, we may face similar barriers to the kinds of real change that this country needs.”
In his main-stage speech, Farage said having government departments run by MPs “doesn’t work, does it” pledging to recruit “ministers of all the talents” from outside the Commons and “to hell with convention”.
Over in the Lords, Towler said the first act of a Reform government would be to create about 500 peers, which would be “utterly essential” to govern.
Warwickshire Council’s Reform leader George Finch
Doge days
Reform has been parachuting Elon Musk-style ‘Doge’ units into the areas it runs, on a mission to root out wasteful spending.
Councils’ pressure to make savings, combined with the recent six per cent cut to the adult skills fund, is putting the survival of some adult education centres under threat. Reform-led Derbyshire Council is closing a third (five) of its adult education centres this year and Kent is closing one in Gravesend and consolidating its provision. Its leader Linden Kemkaran told FE Week that “adult education as a whole is something that unfortunately is being cut back because we have no money. We have to slice things where we can.”
With SEND costs ballooning, Reform has hinted that it would cut SEND-related entitlements. Richard Tice said “there is a level of abuse” of the SEND system which will “bankrupt most councils within the next three years”, and Farage has touted “significant” cuts to the welfare bill.
When asked whether she supported restricting the issuing of education, health and care plans, Jenkyns referred to the “need to teach in a different way, because we haven’t got a never-ending pot of money”.
Finch said Warwickshire Council has a SEND deficit of £87 million with SEND transport pressures escalating it next year to £147 million. “We do need to look” at why demand was increasing for SEND services, he admitted.
Zia Yusuf speaking to Michael Gove at the Reform UK party conference
“Freebies” for migrants
The party’s hardline stance on immigration does not bode well for ESOL provision. As part of cutback plans Kemkaran has launched an investigation into cutting ESOL classes for migrants, suggesting they could use the app Duolingo on their phones instead “for nothing”.
With the investigation “ongoing”, she told FE Week: “if you come to this country, you should learn English. You shouldn’t necessarily expect someone else to pay for that.”
Finch took a similar stance, saying that if migrants were coming here “legally and it’s done properly, then they should already be speaking English…why are we bringing people in who can’t speak English? They’re already not supporting the economy because they can’t communicate.”
There is strong support among Reform supporters for making the requirements for British citizenship more stringent: 96 per cent of Reform supporters endorse the view that immigrants should be required to pass strict language and culture tests before they can become citizens.
Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns took aim at the City of Sanctuary network, which helps refugees feel more welcome and which many FE colleges are members of.
“Some of our towns are being pitched to become sanctuary cities for migrants – you know the type – freebies for migrants. But we at Reform say no freebies,” she said.
City of Sanctuary denied that “freebies” are being handed out, pointing out that asylum seekers live on as little as £9 a week. They described English classes as “essential for survival and early integration”.
City of Sanctuary is pausing work with new colleges in 2026-27, after inflammatory narratives about its programmes were widely shared on social media, putting its team under strain.
