Latest news from FE Week

Three things Andy Burnham must do for colleges first

Well, here we go again. The country is set for its seventh prime minister in ten years, with Andy Burnham almost certain to take office next month. Understandably, there is widespread speculation about what a Burnham government would mean for education and 101 other issues.

So much to do, so little time. With an election due before 2029, the new administration will have to prioritise the areas it wants to change while also ensuring that change is delivered quickly.

What is that likely to mean for 16 to 19 education? As FE Week summarised last week, Burnham both understands and values the sector. He was also a supporter of the #ProtectStudentChoice campaign and has worked hard to raise the status of post-16 education.

In practical terms, there are three changes a Burnham government could make that would have an immediate and positive impact on 16 to 19 year olds in England.

Introduce a real terms, real time, funding guarantee.

The 16 to 19 funding rate should increase by at least the rate of inflation each year. That should not be a controversial ask, but despite the commitment made in October to “maintain real terms per-student funding in the next academic year”, per-student funding will actually increase by just 1.66 per cent in 2026-27 (and the all-important core funding rate by only 0.5 per cent).

Ministers have deployed the unconventional defence of insisting its real terms commitment has been met, because this increase matches the inaccurate forecast of inflation made at the time.

As a country, we must be able to fund the growing number of young people participating in education (by reducing the number not in education, education or training and responding to demographic growth) without impoverishing their experience when they get there.

A real terms funding guarantee (focused on the core rate), combined with a commitment to fund increases in student numbers in real time (early in the same academic year) would end the current trade-off between participation and quality while preserving the financial stability of institutions.

Take the time to get V levels right

We welcome the introduction of V levels as a high-status qualification that will sit alongside A levels and T levels at level 3. But it is important to take the time to get them right.

The first three V levels will be rolled out next year. But at the time of writing, content, assessment, grading and UCAS points for these qualifications have still not been confirmed.

Our members are very concerned about the impact such a rushed implementation will have on the first cohort of V level students.

It would be straightforward for a Burnham government to delay the rollout of V Levels and use the time to revisit some of their fundamental features. For example, there is a near-universal view among our members that V Levels should be available in larger sizes.

Research presented at our summer conference based on student data from our members showed that after controlling for prior attainment, the two qualification pathways with the worst retention rates are T levels and three extended certificates (the same size as V Levels). The pathways with the best retention rates are those that will not be available as V Levels: extended diplomas and diplomas plus another qualification.

Removing these larger size vocational qualifications is much more likely to hinder, rather than help, Alan Milburn’s mission to reduce NEET numbers.

The priority here is to make the right changes in a realistic timeframe.

Start a devolution revolution

Andy Burnham’s position on devolution is well known. But we are making the case for a different type of devolution – one that sees more autonomy and responsibility being extended to colleges.

Governments love to talk about slashing red tape on business, but the opposite approach has been taken with colleges – new duties and requirements are imposed on a regular basis, with existing duties and requirements rarely removed.

Burnham has created a business-friendly environment in Greater Manchester. Business leaders in the city would be aghast if they saw the environment that colleges operate in. Perhaps one could be persuaded to undertake an independent review of the bureaucratic burden placed on colleges?

The revolution we would like to see involves replacing government micro-management (national or devolved) with a high-trust model of delivery where college leaders have the freedom to tailor their curriculum and resources to meet the individual needs of students.

This is one area where a new administration can achieve a lot more, by doing a lot less.

Ministerial churn is the biggest threat to SEND reform

As I write this, Keir Starmer has resigned as prime minister and Andy Burnham has just been sworn in as an MP, paving his way to take the leadership of the Labour party and the country. Inevitably the speculation of who in the cabinet will stay and who will go has begun and left me wondering where this will leave burgeoning SEND reform.

Since this government’s landslide victory, and for many months before, countless teachers, families, campaigners, and young people have been speaking to policymakers about their experience of SEND education. From my personal perspective, I feel like they were beginning to not just listen, but understand. Now, in the face of Starmer’s demise and Burnham’s ascendancy, I wonder if this is the start of another Sisyphean cycle of lobbying?

The knowledge that schools minister Georgia Gould and skills minister Jacqui Smith hold is a testament to the tenacity of campaigning groups working with them and their policy advisors, not to mention the work done with the education select committee and its chair, Helen Hayes to champion our sector and the young people we serve. Now, we face the very real prospect of a fresh cabinet reshuffle and a brand-new ministerial roster. Can this sector, and the disabled people we serve, truly afford yet another round of backtracking, delays, and re-education?

There are hidden costs to any change in politics. Tweaks to funding formulas or English and maths conditions of funding all create workload for staff in settings to accommodate and adapt to. Much has been written about the workload schools and colleges have faced in adapting to updated Ofsted Toolkits. So it’s no small wonder that ministerial change will do the same, but this feels an especially risky time for SEND reform. How many times in the last decade have we written consultation responses only for them to be changed, ameliorated, or shelved as a new administration changes its focus?

In the last 10 years we’ve had nine education secretaries (albeit one for less than 36 hours). Churn has become an accepted feature of our politics, but this is at the cost of our young people’s futures.

That’s why we need some consistency of message, a perseverance that change in the SEND sector is needed and it needs to be done correctly. Civil servants won’t change and their knowledge is high, but we have to ensure SEND still sits high on the agenda. We don’t want to start from scratch again to secure the meetings, write the briefing papers, simplify the acronyms, and explain all over again why a specialist college is not the same as a mainstream school base. We have to re-litigate the arguments we thought we had won six months ago.

Job changes rarely come at a convenient time for the place we’re leaving, whether it’s too close to an Ofsted window, or too soon after a change to see it embedded. But for the most part in schools and colleges there are several months of notice periods, handover, planning, and preparation that takes place. When ministers move departments they’re gone in a matter of hours, leaving civil servants to complete the handover and be at the behest of potential new directions. This is change management which wouldn’t even make it to the “what not to do” pages of a leadership book as it would be too unfathomable anyone would think it a good idea!

The government committed to a ten-year plan of renewal under Every Child Achieving and Thriving, but it cannot commit to keeping the same secretary of state or ministers in post for even the early months of its implementation. If we are to stop this endless cycle of backtracking and re-education, we must demand a different approach to how Westminster values our sector.

I’d love to see a world where portfolios like education and health are taken out of party politics, perhaps through cross-party delivery commissions and for ministerial roles in education and health to be held in high enough regard they are not just seen as career stepping stones to those politicians. But perhaps I need to be more realistic. If political churn is an inevitable feature of modern British governance, then we must find a way to churn-proof our reforms.

We need to see SEND reform embedded into a new manifesto and central delivery plans so that it becomes non-negotiable. Successive ministers should be tasked from day one with taking this forward, to realise a renewed system that is fit for purpose for all young people.

If the incoming administration is serious about delivering a ten-year reform programme for SEND, it must understand that political churn is the single greatest threat to its success. Our young people do not have another two years to wait while a new team learns about the issues. We can’t afford to let the trajectory of political careers dictate the limits of our children’s lives.

DWP revisits unloved 30/70 apprenticeship unit payment split

The payment model for apprenticeship units may change after providers warned the current structure was destabilising delivery.

Speaking at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ national conference, Department for Work and Pensions work-based skills director Kate Ridley-Pepper revealed officials were already exploring alternatives to the 30/70 payment split.

It comes months after FE Week reported provider concerns that the apprenticeship unit funding model was stacked against them and deterred some providers.

Currently, providers receive 30 per cent of funding at the start of delivery and the remaining 70 per cent on completion.

It means a provider that delivers 90 per cent of planned hours when a learner drops out risks suffering a huge shortfall.

Ridley-Pepper said early feedback from providers had highlighted the model’s unsuitability for longer units.

“As promised, we are committed to undertaking a period of test and learn to make sure those apprenticeship units give employers what they need and that the design works for providers. That work will be completed in the next few weeks,” she said.

The government had expected “high levels of retention and achievement” and therefore wanted “a payment model that gets the money to providers in a sensible way with as little admin burden as possible, because obviously additional milestones mean extra audit”.

Feedback from providers suggests the model works for shorter units but not longer units, she added.

“Feedback is telling us that this 30/70 payment model has worked well once a programme is up and running, however, it’s not perfect.

“It works for smaller units of up to 60 to 70 hours, where funding is likely to be drawn down over one or two paper cycles, but it won’t work as well for larger units, such as the modular building, which has 140 hours of content.

“So we’re already exploring options to make some changes for those larger units, and we’ll keep you posted.”

Proposals by late summer

Asked when the sector could expect a decision on potential changes, Ridley-Pepper suggested recommendations would reach ministers within weeks.

“It’s very sort of live information. We’ll be giving that to ministers before they finish for the summer, so hopefully that will be relatively soon.”

She declined to speculate on what a revised payment profile might look like, indicating providers would play a key role in shaping any changes.

Positive early feedback

The government launched the first ten apprenticeship units at the end of April as part of its drive to offer employers more flexible training options alongside full apprenticeships. This is the first time that non-apprenticeship training can be funded through the levy.

Ridley-Pepper told delegates that units in artificial intelligence and mechanical fitting had generated encouraging responses from providers.

“The first of these in key industrial strategy priority areas are now well underway, and early feedback from the providers who delivered the first cohorts in AI and in mechanical fitting has been incredibly positive,” she said.

Ridley-Pepper also confirmed more apprenticeship units were coming, and added Skills England would reveal which sectors would get them, and when.

‘Not the end of the road’ for apprenticeship funding restrictions, Smith suggests

Jacqui Smith has refused to rule out further restrictions that shift apprenticeship funding towards young people, warning it is “not the end of the road” for reform following the recent defunding round.

Speaking to FE Week after announcing a review of apprenticeship funding bands, the skills minister re-asserted the government’s determination to “pivot” the system towards younger apprentices, and failed to guarantee that future reforms would not include additional age restrictions or the defunding of standards.

The Department for Work and Pensions has asked Skills England to review funding bands for apprenticeships that support government priorities, with a view to increasing rates where provision for younger people is considered more expensive or risky to deliver.

But ministers have not allocated any new money to pay for potential uplifts, prompting concern that employers and providers could face further cuts elsewhere in the programme.

Smith said any funding band increases would come from within the apprenticeship budget, currently set at £3.3 billion, which has been fully spent in recent years.

“We have already made some decisions that have shifted resources around,” she told FE Week, citing the decision to remove levy funding for level 7 apprenticeships for over-22s and the defunding of 16 apprenticeship standards, including popular management courses, used largely by older employees.

Meanwhile, a long-awaited level 2 administration assistant apprenticeship set to launch in August will only be available to learners aged under 25.

“The overarching objective here is to shift the apprenticeship system back towards younger people,” Smith added.

Starts for under-25s have fallen 40 per cent over the past decade, while more than one million young people are now not in education, employment or training.

No plans ‘at the moment’

Pressed on whether some apprenticeship funding bands in non-priority areas would be decreased to make way for rate uplifts, Smith insisted ministers were “not proposing at the moment to reduce funding levels for any apprenticeships”.

Asked directly whether there would be more defunding exercises similar to the recent removal of 16 apprenticeships, she replied: “Not at this moment, no.”

Smith also denied that further age restrictions were being planned.

But after her FE Week interview and her speech at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) national conference, Smith signalled that ministers were not finished with reforms.

“I don’t think we can continue in a way where we are coming back every year and saying we’re going to defund some standards,” she said during an audience Q&A.

“I don’t think this is the end of the road in terms of reforms that we might want to put in place to help that shift to young people.”

The comments come amid fears ministers will need to find further savings within the apprenticeship budget if they want to increase funding rates without securing additional Treasury support.

Alongside a package of cash incentives for employers to hire young apprentices, ministers have also rolled out foundation apprenticeships and apprenticeship units – enabling employers to use their levy funds for non-apprenticeship training for the first time.

And ministers set a precedent by handing £140 million of the apprenticeship budget to mayors to fund an apprentice brokerage pilot, which appears to be the first time apprenticeship levy funds have been used to fund initiatives beyond training and incentives.

Bust budget

The government increased the apprenticeship budget by £180 million between 2025-26 and 2026-27, taking total spending to £3.3 billion.

It followed the first-ever overspend of the apprenticeship budget in 2024-25, which forced the government to inject £345 million and pushed total spending beyond £3 billion in 2025-26.

Smith could not say whether the apprenticeship budget would be increased further in future years.

“It’s hard for me to say what we’ll be able to persuade the Treasury to do,” she said.

However, she argued apprenticeships would remain a priority regardless of who succeeds Keir Starmer as Labour leader.

“Young people in particular, the opportunities offered by apprenticeships, is not an area that this government, under whichever leadership, is going to be de-prioritising.”

Providers expected to ‘pivot’ to youth

Smith said the funding band review was needed because employers and providers had consistently told ministers that younger apprentices cost more to train and present greater delivery risks.

She hopes increased funding rates will incentivise providers to turn their delivery focus to those standards mostly taken by young people.

“One reason for doing this is because employers and training providers tell us that it is more expensive and more risky to train young people, so that needs to be reflected in the funding bands,” she said.

“If we want providers to be willing to lean into that pivot that we’ve been quite clear that we’re making in the system to young people, one of the ways that we can signal that is by increasing those funding bands.”

Co-investment proof announcement

Smith also used her AELP speech to announce that the government will no longer require training providers to prove that they have collected co-investment from employers before completion payments are paid.

Simon Ashworth, AELP deputy CEO and director of policy, said: “Decoupling the link between collecting all the co-investment and releasing the completion payment to providers is welcome news.

“The current situation penalises providers operating on tight margins, so this change should help their cash flow. It will also see a reduction in bureaucracy and administrative burden, alongside an uptick in achievement rates.”

More ITPs will be ‘exceptional’, says Ofsted boss

Ofsted’s top ‘exceptional’ grade is achievable for independent training providers despite only one provider achieving the feat, the inspectorate’s new FE chief has said.

Jonathan Childs, Ofsted’s deputy director for post-16 education and skills, told FE Week he was “sure and confident” that “plenty more providers” would secure the highest judgment as more inspections were completed.

His comments, made during an interview at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ national conference, follow concerns from independent training providers that the new grade is virtually impossible to achieve.

Since Ofsted introduced report cards and its five-point grading scale in November, just one of more than 150 published independent provider inspection reports included an ‘exceptional’ judgment.

This was for adult achievement for a relatively lower number of skills bootcamp learners.

More than 120 exceptional grades have been handed to schools since November, from 1,300 school reports.

Childs acknowledged there had been “relatively few” exceptional grades across the post-16 sector, but argued this was because the inspectorate had intentionally set an “extremely high bar”.

“We are eight months in, so we definitely don’t have a representative view yet,” he said. “But the exceptional grade is designed for any provider to be able to reach.

“It is definitely not out of reach for any provider type. It is about you doing the very best job that you could be doing with your learners, that is having a transformational impact on their outcomes and is sustained over time.”

‘Transformational impact’

Under Ofsted’s new framework, providers must first meet the requirements for a ‘strong’ judgment before being considered for exceptional.

Multiple providers, including Kleek last week and Corndel in March, have received ‘strong standards’ across the board and were left frustrated at missing out on exceptional.

Childs said exceptional was intended to identify “the really best sector-leading provision that is out there”.

“Where we see that we want to celebrate and share it so others can learn from it,” he added.

Childs rejected suggestions the grade may be harder for certain provider types to achieve.

Instead, he argued exceptional performance would look different depending on the learners being served.

“Exceptional will look different depending on who your cohort of learners are,” he said. “When I talk about achievement I talk about distance from starting points. It is not just about exam results or whatever.

“Transformational is like that. If you are taking a group of disengaged young people who are not really involved in education, not attending, and you take them to a place where they are attending all the time, they are achieving high levels and exceeding expectations, going on to fantastic outcomes afterwards, that is what exceptional might look like.”

Challenged on whether “transformational impact” was too subjective, Childs said: “We’ve tried to be clear in the toolkit about what we think exceptional looks like, but I accept that there will always be different views as to whether someone has met that level or not. Inspectors are humans; we are an organisation of lots of humans who will go out and make decisions. The toolkit tends to make that a much more consistent process.”

Earlier in his speech, Childs had said Ofsted’s drive for greater consistency did not end at inspection.

“Every inspection is quality assured – both in real time and after the event – to give us confidence that the evidence gathered supports the grades given and the standards in our toolkit,” he explained.

“Where we need to, we will do a further review of the evidence or even return to gather additional evidence, and where necessary we will amend a grade. And before every report card is published, we will review it to make sure it fairly and accurately tells the story of the provider and the quality of their provision.

“These quality assurance processes are there to ensure fairness and consistency. And of course, if a provider remains dissatisfied with their inspection, we have a rigorous complaints procedure that they can follow.”

No ‘urgent improvement’ trigger

Childs also dismissed suggestions that Ofsted uses apprenticeship achievement rates as automatic triggers for poor inspection outcomes.

Four providers have so far received the lowest ‘urgent improvement’ rating for apprenticeship achievement. Their qualification achievement rates ranged from 16 per cent to 39 per cent.

FE Week analysis found one provider scored ‘needs improvement’ for apprenticeship achievement despite a QAR in 2025-26 of 28 per cent.

Asked whether there was a performance threshold that would lead inspectors towards an urgent improvement judgment, Childs said: “Absolutely not.

“We definitely don’t have criteria that says if your achievement rates are at this level or that level, it equates to a certain grade.”

He said inspectors used performance data only as a starting point before examining wider evidence during inspection visits.

“We wouldn’t want to be in a position where you could anticipate, predict or give out inspection grades from a desk-based exercise looking at the data,” he added.

City College Norwich CEO to step down

City College Norwich’s principal Jerry White will step down this summer.

White, who has led the Norfolk college group since 2022, will move to a role supporting colleges to engage with SEND reform at the Association of Colleges (AoC) from September.

In an announcement today, the college said future leadership arrangements will be published “in due course” and that governors “will now begin” recruiting White’s successor.

White said it has been the “greatest honour” of his professional life to serve the college and the Norfolk community, but that the time was right to “pass on the baton”.

“I am confident that the college is in a strong position – financially and academically – and ready for its next chapter under new leadership,” he added.

White’s leaving date has been set for August 31. He joined the college from Norfolk County Council’s adult education service in 2009 and replaced Corrienne Peasgood as principal and CEO in 2022.

The college, which has three campuses, taught about 9,000 students in the 2024-25 academic year and retained its ‘good’ overall Ofsted grade in 2024.

Its accounts for 2024-25 also show a surplus of £615,000 before pension scheme actuarial losses, on an income of about £64 million.

Marcus Bailey, chair of the college group’s board, said: “On behalf of the board and communities we serve, I want to thank Jerry for his dedication and commitment to our young people, adult learners and the wider population of Norfolk.

“He leaves the college ready for its next chapter, and we shall be grateful for his leadership over the past 17 years. We wish him well for his next endeavours.”

Apprenticeship funding band review ordered by skills minister

A review of apprenticeship funding bands has been launched as an “immediate priority” by the government, with Skills England ordered to identify which standards should be first in line for “potential funding uplifts”.

In a letter published today, skills minister Jacqui Smith commissioned the agency to provide urgent advice on which apprenticeship standards may not be funded at a sufficient level.

She said the government is “determined” to boost apprenticeship starts for young people and it is “imperative that our funding rates incentivise this rather than hold it back”.

The move comes after years of complaints from training providers that funding bands have failed to keep pace with inflation and delivery costs.

Smith said employers and providers had flagged that funding rates must be “sufficient” to allow popular apprenticeship standards most used by young people to “grow and flourish”. She highlighted that six of the 20 most-used apprenticeship standards among under 25s have never received a funding uplift since they were introduced.

No new money was announced today to fund band uplifts, stoking concern that further savings will need to be found from within the existing apprenticeships budget, which has been fully spent in recent years.

The government has already defunded level 7 apprenticeships for people aged 22 and above, and will this year defund 16 other apprenticeships, including popular management standards, that are mostly taken by existing and older workers.

In the letter, Smith reiterated Labour’s ambition to deliver 50,000 additional apprenticeship starts for young people by March 2029, reversing almost half of the decade-long decline in participation among 16 to 24 year olds. Apprenticeship starts in that age group have fallen by around 40 per cent over the past decade.

The minister also pointed to other recent reforms designed to boost youth recruitment, including fully funded training costs for non-levy employers taking on 16 to 24 year old apprentices from August and a £2,000 recruitment payment due to launch in October.

Funding bands determine the maximum amount that can be drawn down from the apprenticeship budget for training and assessment. They currently range from £1,500 to £27,000.

Providers have long argued that stagnant bands have made some standards financially unviable, particularly in sectors with rising staffing and equipment costs.

Skills England has been told to prioritise standards that make a “strong contribution to supporting our objectives on young people, with a focus on apprenticeships that deliver, or can deliver, a high proportion of starts for those aged under 25” and those that make a strong contribution to “growth and the priority skills to 2030 identified by Skills England across ten critical sectors, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy and plan for change”.

Smith told Skills England to hand her advice on “which standards” by July and the advice on potential funding rates by October.

What would Andy Burnham in Number 10 mean for FE?

The House of Commons doesn’t sit on Fridays. The corridors of power in the Palace of Westminster are quiet today. But on Monday, MPs will gather for the swearing in of their newest member – the now former mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

Over today and the weekend, though, one question is on everyone’s mind: what happens next?

Will Keir Starmer offer Burnham a job in cabinet? How soon does Burnham officially launch his leadership bid? Will Wes Streeting move first? Will we get the contest Streeting says he is pushing for, or will he settle in return for a big job?

Those are important Westminster questions. For further education, there is another one: What sort of prime minister would Andy Burnham be for FE?

Burnham’s win today ends a nine-year stint as mayor of Greater Manchester. Voters in the north west city region now have to choose a new mayor, triggering another Labour vs Reform UK battle which shouldn’t be overlooked.

During his two-and-a-half terms in the role, Burnham has not shied away from picking fights with Westminster on devolved powers for 16-to-19 education, and spoken out loudly and consistently about equally valued technical and academic education routes.

But the sector should resist the temptation to swoon just because a senior politician can say “technical education” without sounding like he’s only just been briefed on it.

Burnhamism may mean a higher political status for FE, more devolution and a more serious alternative to university narrative. Burnham’s brother, Nick, is principal of Cardinal Newman College, a sixth-form college in Preston. His most famous policy innovation over his two-and-a-half mayoral terms, the Greater Manchester baccalaureate (MBacc), made headlines, but not necessarily headway.

College leaders are looking down the barrel of more squeezes on funding on every budget line. Unfortunately for Burnham, they can’t hire construction lecturers or fund teacher pay rises with rhetoric.

Not a recent convert

Burnham’s record on technical education and apprenticeships didn’t start as mayor.

In his first stab at running for Labour leader in 2010 following the downfall of Gordon Brown, his pitch was what he called “aspirational socialism”. His case was then for all young people to be given the chance to be the best they can be.

There wasn’t a detailed FE pitch. He was better known at the time for his stances on health, social care and his idea for a National Care Service.

But he did, more than his 2010 rivals, talk about young people not pursuing traditional academic education pathways and warned against declining practical and vocational education opportunities for 11 to 16-year-olds.

The clearer FE offer came in 2015, Burnham’s second go at the Labour leadership.

His manifesto promised “true parity between academic and technical education”, a national UCAS-style system for apprenticeships (since tried and dropped), and access to student finance to help people relocate for an apprenticeship. He also proposed, as was fashionable at the time, replacing higher education tuition fees with a graduate tax.

That was a decade ago. A time before “skills for growth” was mainstreamed into the lexicon.

Burnham was an MP for 16 years, was a non-education cabinet minister, and later shadow education secretary under Ed Miliband, fighting against Michael Gove’s cuts to the education maintenance allowance for 16 to 19-year-olds.

His pre-mayoral record on FE was more thematic than substantial: devolve power out of Westminster, labour-market fairness, social mobility and scepticism about markets in public services.

The Greater Manchester experiment

“Saying Westminster’s where it’s at, that’s where everything happens and you’re not really a serious politician unless you’re in Westminster would be the biggest mistake”, Burnham told The Guardian in 2016. Fast forward ten years, he’s heading back to “where it’s at”.

Burnham’s first mayoral manifesto in 2017 promised a “revolution in technical education”.

The language was classic Burnham at the time; confident, unambiguous and designed to suggest that Greater Manchester could succeed where Whitehall had failed.

A “UCAS-style application system for apprenticeships” reappeared as part of a catalogue of commitments for 14+ education and training, which also included expanding adult education and retraining.

His 2017 manifesto also talked about retaining apprenticeship levy cash raised by Greater Manchester businesses to spend locally, and turning it into a wider skills levy. If that sounds familiar, Labour’s 2024 general election made the same commitment but without letting mayors control funding.

By his 2021 re-election run, Burnham’s Greater Manchester Apprenticeships and Careers Service (GMAC) a local alternative to UCAS for young people who didn’t want to go university, was on offer. His manifesto also committed to using the £92 million devolved adult education budget for green and digital courses while prioritising digital literacy and ESOL.

Then came the MBacc proposal – the Greater Manchester baccalaureate.

When it was time to run again in 2024, he was ready to roll out his quasi-qualification, designed to challenge the Govian EBacc with a badge for a more inclusive basket of subject choices at age 14 to 19.

“While the English baccalaureate concentrates on the subjects most valued by universities, the MBacc will focus on those most valued by Greater Manchester employers,” the manifesto said.

So with A Levels, UCAS and university as one route, Burnham’s MBacc, T Levels, GMAC and apprenticeships would form the other “of equal value”.

His plan was that, by 2030, Greater Manchester’s year 11s would be firmly in one of two neat education pathways taking them through to employment, apprenticeships or higher education.

But neat pathways on paper don’t always make for neat delivery.

Burnham on the buses

Burnham has a gift for turning a policy problem into a branded mission across his portfolio, with the notable exception of adult education.

The Bee Network, Live Well, Housing First, the MBacc. This approach gives people something to organise around, but wouldn’t necessarily go down well nationally in a sector reeling with ‘initiativeitis’.

The MBacc is not yet a national model. It’s not even fully embedded in Greater Manchester, and it relies on a chain of organisations locally to behave in a certain way, which is easier to marshal as a mayor than as prime minister.

But Burnham does appear to have understood something that ministers in Westminster often miss in education – participation is about more than curriculum and qualifications.

His 2017 mayoral pledge for free or cheaper public transport for 16 to 18-year-olds was central to his technical education plank. His 2024 manifesto recommitted to maintaining Our Pass – a travel subsidy scheme for 16 to 18-year-olds and care leavers – and promised half-price monthly passes for 18 to 21-year-olds to back up the MBacc.

Meanwhile in Westminster, conversations about public transport subsidies for young sixth formers and apprentices are shut down as unaffordable.

College students need to travel. Apprentices need to get to work and to training. Young people on specialist courses may need to travel even further these days to get to a new technical excellence college.

A prime minister serious about technical education needs to understand that “parity” and “opportunity” mean transport and maintenance, not just new qualifications.

Adults in the room

Burnham was one of the first mayors in England to have full control of a devolved adult education budget back in 2019. Despite that, local sources struggled to pin down a flagship Burnham win on adult education or lifelong learning beyond the common “flexibilities” you see across devolved areas.

Burnham himself said progressing an agenda on adult education was “hard to achieve” because he needed “more control” over employment support from the Department for Work and Pensions, and his budget from Whitehall was being cut.

At an MBacc launch event last year, one education leader told FE Week that Burnham was “too quiet” on adult education, where he has statutory powers and responsibilities, and was instead prioritising “vanity projects” like the MBacc.

But Burnham did secure Greater Manchester as one of the first two “integrated settlement” areas, effectively exempting ringfence restrictions around various adult skills funding pots.

One of the first things Burnham did with those new powers was to drop skills bootcamps.

Prime devolver Burnham

Whitehall bureaucrats famously resist devolving things, not least at the Department for Education.

Last year, skills minister Jacqui Smith admitted to “tensions” with mayors, led by Burnham, over calls for more devolution of education funding.

Burnham has had some wins. Greater Manchester was one of two “trailblazers” announced in 2023 afforded “deeper” devolution powers. But trailblazers in reality only offered minor tweaks and flexibilities compared to the full control of apprenticeships and 16-to-19 education he wanted.

If Burnham goes all the way, the keys to Downing Street come with strings attached. If he is successful in ousting Starmer, he inherits a manifesto and a mandate the country voted for only two years ago.

He didn’t have a defence investment plan to finance while in Greater Manchester. As mayor he could comfortably argue for devolution because he wasn’t the one giving power away.

As PM, Burnham would no longer be the man outside the Treasury blaming the centre for hoarding power to justify lack of progress.

It is one thing to put technical education on a pedestal from afar. It is quite another to do what needs to be done on school accountability, on careers and, crucially, on 16 to 19 and adult education funding.

FE leaders will likely then welcome Burnham’s return with interest, rather than applause.

£3m in bonuses for C&G bosses? It doesn’t add up

Conflicting accounts continue to emerge about whether City & Guilds Foundation trustees knew large bonuses were paid to senior executives after the sale of their awarding business.

Bosses at new owner PeopleCert this week alleged former awarding body chief executive Kirstie Donnelly and chief financial officer Abid Ismail paid themselves bonuses worth almost £3 million without PeopleCert’s or City & Guilds charity trustees’ knowledge.

But Donnelly and Ismail said they “categorically reject” PeopleCert’s allegations and claim to have evidence showing both the charity and PeopleCert were “fully involved” in structuring and approving their payouts.

The pair are accused of independently making the payments on November 3 last year, the first working day after control of the awarding business – City & Guilds Ltd (CGL) – passed to PeopleCert.

City & Guilds Foundation has also repeatedly denied any involvement in discussions about post-sale bonuses.

In a joint statement, legal representatives for Donnelly and Ismail, who were dismissed for gross misconduct in April following an internal investigation, said: “Our clients will present all their evidence to the courts in due course.

“That evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that all bonus payments referenced in PeopleCert’s statement were approved, documented and implemented as part of the wider transaction process.

“It further shows that both the seller and the buyer, along with their advisers, were fully involved in the structuring and approval of the bonuses paid.”

Charity ‘not involved’?

The former CEO and CFO’s claims contradict the account offered by the charity.

Its account of how much it knew about bonuses linked to the sale has changed since details of the cash first emerged.

When news first hit in December, the charity and PeopleCert issued a joint statement claiming “no payments” were made outside of its existing bonus scheme.

The charity later claimed, on January 3, that trustees were “not involved in any pre or post-deal conversations” about post-sale pay.

However, in response to media reports that trustees did discuss bonuses, and a formal investigation launched by the Charity Commission, the City & Guilds Foundation updated its statement on January 13, admitting that trustees did have “a discussion” about post-sale bonuses in May last year, but scrapped the proposal shortly before the sale was completed in October.

It claimed trustees decided bonuses were no longer necessary “principally because a higher sale price had been agreed”.

But according to former trustees who spoke to The Telegraph, during the May board meeting trustees approved bonuses of four times the CEO and CFO’s gross salary, similar to the amounts they were eventually paid on November 3.

The statement from the charity, which was led at the time by chair Ann Limb – also a friend of Donnelly – claimed that “trustees were not involved in the widely reported bonus payments to CGL executives”, adding that “these post-sale payments are solely a matter for the new CGL owners”.

The claim from Donnelly and Ismail that the charity and PeopleCert were fully involved, and City & Guilds Foundation’s claim that it was “not involved”, cannot both be true.

City & Guilds Foundation declined to comment on the contradictory claims.

Bonus mystery

PeopleCert said it did not learn about the bonuses until December, but refused to explain how its former executives managed to pay themselves and more than 60 other staff members such a large amount of money without authorisation.

The payouts, worth about £5 million in total, were given to Donnelly, Ismail, several other senior executives, as well as 60 more junior members of staff. They also received significant salary increases.

Donnelly and Ismail claim to have already shared their evidence that proves the transactions were approved with “other appropriate agencies”, including the Charity Commission, which launched a formal inquiry in January when news of the bonuses was first leaked to the media by insiders.

However, the pair have declined to share their evidence with FE Week and PeopleCert has not published the full findings of its investigation.

The former CEO and CFO are now understood to be preparing legal action over their dismissal, while PeopleCert has said it will seek to recover the £3 million paid to them.

A PeopleCert spokesperson said: “As stated, the investigation found that bonus payments totalling approximately £5 million were authorised and paid from CGL funds without authorisation, approval from, or knowledge of, City & Guilds London Institute, the CGL Board or PeopleCert.

“The investigation further found that these payments were not brought to the attention of PeopleCert until December 2025, after they had been paid, and that there was no provision, board resolution or other binding document from either City & Guilds London Institute, the CGL Board or PeopleCert that authorised them.

“Concerns came to light through a number of channels, including internal processes and media reporting, following which the matter was investigated.”

PeopleCert’s findings came from an investigation carried out by a committee of non-executive directors, led by Michael Milanovic, chair of PeopleCert subsidiary LanguageCert, with support from legal advisers at Balfour+Manson.

PeopleCert said a subsequent appeal process, led by CGL non-executive director Richard McCarthy CBE, did not uphold appeals against the dismissal decisions.

Donnelly and Ismail claimed that the process leading to their dismissal was “fundamentally flawed and lacked the necessary independence”.

IBIS Capital, which advised City & Guilds Foundation on the sale, declined to comment, citing “confidentiality obligations that prevent us from commenting on any aspect of the matter”.