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Financial independence should be the goal of careers education

I spend a lot of time visiting schools. The fact that as an apprenticeship provider I am invited shows that the headteachers no longer see traditional options as a guaranteed route to employment or financial independence and equally do not want their students to add to the serious challenge which Alan Milburn is addressing in his NEET review.

Yet with many of the hundreds of students I talk to, the picture can be more nuanced than simply finding a job which comes with an apprenticeship. The need for financial independence often leads to the blunt question of “how can I make some money?”

The Diverse Futures model delivers a multi-stepped approach to supporting the objective of more local jobs for local people. It comprises three pillars: selecting talent based on character, attitude and aptitude for learning (not grades), work readiness training and further training which is flexible to individual learning and needs. This approach has led to Ofsted declaring the organisation to be ‘exceptional’ for inclusion, the first independent training provider (ITP) to be awarded this.

Our focus on inclusion is not at the expense of achieving successful outcomes; our overall apprenticeship completion rate is an almost unmatched 86 per cent for an ITP. For those learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, 73 per cent get distinction.

Achieving more successful career starts begins with providers being able to speak to pupils as young as 12. From then on until they leave school, it is vital that learners receive a constant update on local jobs, apprenticeships and other opportunities. The pathway to financial independence needs to be made clear.

The first pillar requires schools to encourage young people to lean into what they enjoy or are passionate about. They should start following people in that area, reading blogs and commenting on social media feeds.

It may be that what they thought was interesting was actually boring, but more often it isn’t dull at all. Those whose interest is piqued should start their own activity – set up a website, do demonstrations, sell products or do something else. When they approach an employer, the employer will see the passion, the person’s tribe and experience.

The best reason to land a job is based on “I love what I do but I want to do more of it” or in other words, “I’m doing it now but joining you could open up so much more opportunity”. This makes the young person very employable.

This is all new to most parents and schools, but highly relevant to increasing youth employment.

Diverse Futures has shared with the Milburn review team details of our second pillar, a blueprint for work readiness training which was described by inspectors as “distinct”. It has been proven on a commercial basis through Westminster City Council, Mazda and other employers.

It involves teaching practical workplace skills, human and professional skills, and future-focused skills. Obviously making this available as part of a national or devolved government programme presents ministers with a funding challenge, but a consequential reduction in the benefits bill would be a major pay-off.

Work readiness training can make a difference to securing a much sought-after apprenticeship opportunity which is the third pillar. As has been pointed out in these pages, Ofsted has not defined what exceptionally inclusive provision for apprenticeships looks like. But the report of our inspection offers clear pointers.

The first thing inspectors observed is that inclusion is embedded as “a defining feature” of our organisation. This starts with the leadership investing significantly in staff expertise and what Ofsted describes as “very effectively focused development in teaching, sector knowledge and additional learning support”.

Colleagues have protected time for professional learning. Partnerships are also key with employers, charities and specialists such as psychologists to strengthen apprentices’ experiences and progression.

The result is that the organisation uses detailed on-boarding, initial and cognitive assessment and ongoing coaching to build an accurate understanding of apprentices’ starting points and barriers. Apprentices then receive highly personalised support which can be adapted as apprentices become more independent and confident.

Targeted coaching, specialist resources and workplace adjustments lead to employer confirmation of improved resilience and ability to take on greater responsibility.

Inspectors concluded that apprentices with learning difficulties and disabilities achieve at least as well as their peers and frequently achieve higher grades. They add that the combination of tailored coaching, adjustments and work readiness support means apprentices developing “new technical knowledge and skills that far exceed the requirements of their qualification”.

We hope that young ex-offenders will also soon benefit from our approach. For policymakers who wish to learn from our ‘exceptional’ provision, the lesson is simple: clearly there is a lot of talent out there – young people just need a pathway and preparation.

Movers & Shakers: Edition 554

Building my own AI agent made me a better skills coach

Until recently I was a digital skills coach at a Manchester university, supporting degree apprentices in digital technology solutions and user experience. Every three months I met each apprentice and their line manager to talk through wellbeing, where they were up to with the requirements of their programme and progress against their knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs), then I wrote it all up as a formal review. This was meaningful work, but took 40 to 45 minutes to get done.

Over the past year I’ve built a review write-up agent in Copilot. It analyses the meeting transcript and produces a structured draft, aligned to KSBs and quality expectations, which I then refine into the final document.

My write-up time is now down to 18 to 20 minutes, more than 26 hours saved every three months across my caseload. That’s welcome, but my real excitement has come from the effect it’s had on my working practice.

Knowing the session would be transcribed changed how I run the meetings. I’ve become more deliberate in how I structure them, and I take fewer notes, knowing the agent will read the transcript. Because I’m not half-focused on writing, I’m more present in the room, which means better developmental coaching and pastoral support.

As one apprentice I work with put it: “I’ve noticed in our more recent reviews that our conversations certainly have flowed more freely in a greatly productive and natural manner without the need to pause or capture written points.”

Building the agent has sharpened my sense of how to capture impact and quality in my write-ups too. I don’t see it as doing my job for me, I see it as helping me get better at what actually matters: my ability to support and coach apprentices.

This matters beyond my own practice, too. Ofsted’s inspection guidance for FE and skills providers, in place from September this year, is explicit that its focus is the quality of decision-making about AI, not simply whether providers use it. How thoughtfully we use these tools is now part of how quality gets judged.

I didn’t develop that instinct for what good quality looks like on my own. Around a year ago I joined an AI working group at my university. We experimented with basic Copilot and talked about our worries and our hopes about the ethics and practicalities of using it in reviews.

Our head of quality endorsed and facilitated the sessions, which gave us the confidence to speak openly. Talking to colleagues there shaped how I thought about efficiency and about capturing impact in our roles.

When I later got access to Copilot’s premium tier, I was encouraged to build my own agent, which pushed me to look harder at how I conducted reviews myself, and at what counted as good evidence of quality, not just what the agent produced. The group had a steer on quality from our central team, but real autonomy within that. Its purpose was to establish whether there’s a business case for the university buying licenses for all skills coaches, grounding us in what the role needs, not just what the technology can do.

FE Week opinion writers have argued that AI adoption succeeds when it’s employer-led, from the top down. My experience points to something that sits alongside that: if agents like mine are adopted more widely, they’ll likely be standardised through Copilot Studio. But the working group stage that got me there matters in its own right, building a culture where skills coaches feel able to explore what AI can do for their practice, rather than being handed a finished tool.

Skills coaches are best placed to know what’s worth exploring and how to do it responsibly. But that only works with endorsement from senior leaders, so exploration gets recognised, not just tolerated. Concretely: give practitioners protected time and a sanctioned space, like a working group, to design their own workflows, not just training on someone else’s finished agent. That’s where the gains that don’t fit in a spreadsheet come from.

A fake press release put our college in an AI-generated story

I walked into work one day last week anticipating a fairly standard Thursday in the office. Perhaps this was my downfall. About halfway through the morning, I read an email and had to quite quickly put my coffee back down on the desk.

I’d been forwarded a press release from a media contact, with a message essentially along the lines of “is this you?” It had Nottingham College in the headline and peppered throughout the copy, which was being pitched to journalists and only loosely attributed to a client based in the US that was not linked to education.

The story itself isn’t especially relevant – though it wasn’t exactly glowing with praise – but what struck me was that this had come completely out of the blue.

Usually, myself or our PR leads work really closely with partners to fact-check and provide comment if we are mentioned in another organisation’s news release, even if the angle is negative. It’s the done thing to add legitimacy to any story while maintaining positive stakeholder relations. In previous roles heading up PR and communications teams, both in private sector agencies and in the charity sector, I had found it pretty standard practice; approvals are sacrosanct regardless of industry.

Upon closer inspection, it transpired that in this instance, the individual sending the email doesn’t exist. Nor does the ‘agency’ ‘she’ purports to work for, nor does the ‘client’ ‘she’ is requesting a back link for. Even the quoted ‘expert’ in the release doesn’t appear to exist. Or if she does, she’s a really busy woman working for at least 16 different organisations with a similar number of job titles.

The phenomenon of AI-powered PR has been a subject of interest for the Press Gazette for several months, which is maintaining a tracker of publications which have fallen for such antics. It makes for sombre reading, and the list of certified examples is long.

I still cannot fathom the exact purpose of this particular campaign. It appears to be a link-building effort but the destination is just a website full of links out elsewhere. Maybe it’s a wild way to generate clicks and advertising revenue; it’s certainly not an organisation with a genuine purpose, like an FE college.

All I know is that had the story been used, its impact could have been significant in how we appear in AI-powered search. If legitimate press outlets had taken the press release as genuine and covered it, our reputation would have been influenced by this false narrative.

It cannot be underestimated how potentially damning the impact of this type of activity could be, not only on our organisations’ reputation, but then subsequently what this means for our students looking to trust us with their future goals and aspirations.

We have a huge responsibility to young people. Choosing a qualification and then a place to study is often not a quick ‘purchase’ but a considered decision over many months and even years. For this to be undermined by AI, in an attempt to boost web traffic for an irrelevant source which has no bearing on the futures of our local young people, is irresponsible and immoral.

Perhaps the wildest thing of it all is how I wouldn’t have even known this was going on, had our relationships with the local media not been as good as they are. It troubles me to think this could happen far more frequently in the future, unbeknownst to any of us until it’s too late.

We keep a keen eye on our media coverage, whether they are mentions generated by our own stories or citations elsewhere. But the idea of having to expand this monitoring to consider false citations, written by machines, adding no value or truth or context… It feels like a game we’re playing that we haven’t signed up to.

What a waste of time when our efforts should be amplifying the authentic and inspirational stories of our students who are doing great things on their own.

I was at a bit of a loss yesterday as to what to do about it. After I’d calmed down, unable to contact the named individual, PR agency or client (probably lucky for them), I posted about the experience on LinkedIn and it blew up with incredulity.

And then we started the “well what do we do about this?” conversation.

If our media strategy must now factor in reputational impact entirely orchestrated by machines, I will have to lie down in a dark room temporarily. Then, the best course of action I’ll be following goes like this:

Continue to have good relations with local media. People to people, with trust, open conversation and two-way understanding to give journalists what they need in a format that works best for them. It also helped us find out about unscrupulous goings on like this.
Emphasise the importance of visible PR leads. Colleagues working in press / media engagement need to be known both internally but externally as well, as trusted sources of news and stories.
Ramp up our media monitoring. We unfortunately cannot snoop in journalists’ inboxes, but we can set up alerts to track if any rogue stories get through the newsrooms and out into the public domain.
Fight misinformation with accuracy and positivity. Prioritise sharing stories that people (and AI powered search!) value, about our students, overcoming adversity, achievements and impact we having in our communities.
Add AI-generated press activity to our organisations’ risk registers and deliver targeted media training to key spokespeople who can articulately and authentically rebuff any whiff of misinformation.

It’s an evolving picture and dare I say in a week or month’s time this bizarre situation may be happening more, or differently. I welcome more suggestions and experiences on a postcard. Just please don’t ask AI to come up with the answers first.

Burnham: If you want real technical parity, start with VAT

Last week in Liverpool, Andy Burnham told his party that it is time for Britain to have hope again. As Greater Manchester’s mayor for years, he saw what its young people could achieve and how often opportunity depended on their postcode.

Now, as prime minister, he has a chance to take the handbrake off the colleges that have the ability to change that.

LTE Group works in the communities he knows, and we share his determination to end what he calls the academic bias in our education system and make technical education a respected route into good work.

One change to the VAT rules would let us do much more with the money the government has already committed – and drive down youth unemployment.

Picture a teenager from the Harpurhey suburb of our city arriving at The Manchester College’s campus there, curious about science but unsure where it might take them. We have just opened a new science laboratory at this campus. With the right teaching and equipment, that interest could lead to a qualification, the confidence to pursue further study, or a route into employment in the healthcare sector.

That is what a technical education should offer: somewhere to start and somewhere to go next. There are thousands of young people like that across Greater Manchester, ready for a chance to seize opportunities.

Alan Milburn’s interim review shows why this matters, and the Chancellor also gets it. John Healey has told his party of a moral duty to get a generation of young people into work. Almost a million young people are outside education, employment, or training. Yet 84 per cent of those surveyed said they wanted a job, education, or training.

Milburn identifies FE as the main route into vocational education for young people from a wide range of backgrounds. When the first rung of the ladder into work is getting harder to reach, a college place matters more than ever.

Burnham took barely ten days in office to set out his ambition: technical pathways from 14 with the same prestige as the academic route, shaped by mayors, employers, and local leaders. I welcome that, and Greater Manchester is ready to go first. Here we know the jobs and skills our communities need. But the first of those pathways are due in 2028, and they need workshops, laboratories, specialist teachers, and enough places for the young people who want to take them. That means building now, and every pound counts.

At present, a school or academy can recover VAT on relevant publicly funded spending. An FE college generally cannot.

Education itself is VAT exempt, but we still pay VAT on much of what we buy to deliver it. A workshop can cost a college up to a fifth more than an equivalent facility at an academy school. That is a practical limit on how many learners we can serve, and an obvious anomaly that a government that wants technical and academic routes treated as equals would fix.

The mismatch became harder to explain when colleges were reclassified into the public sector in 2022. We took on tighter borrowing and spending controls, but the VAT treatment schools and academies enjoy did not follow. Public money for skills loses some of its value before it reaches the learner.

LSE Consulting estimates that irrecoverable VAT costs colleges around £200 million a year. LTE Group’s annual VAT bill is about £5 million. We estimate that, if we could recover it, we could offer around 400 additional places for 16-18-year-olds in Greater Manchester. Imagine what those places could mean for young people in Harpurhey, Openshaw or Wythenshawe, and for the employers looking for their skills.

The Treasury will rightly want to know what a change would cost, and this is a Budget with little room to spare. But this is not a request for new money. It is a request to let money already committed to skills do its job.

Colleges should show exactly what every pound recovered buys: more places, better equipment, skilled staff.

As more decisions on skills pass to mayors and strategic authorities, it makes little sense for devolved money to buy less when it is spent through a college.

Alongside Activate Learning, Capital City College, Luminate Education Group, and New City College, I am asking for a targeted VAT refund arrangement for eligible FE colleges, on the same footing as the one academies already have.

On 28 October, in the first Budget of the Burnham era, the Chancellor can commit to reform, or set a clear Treasury timetable to deliver it by Budget 2027.

The Prime Minister says he wants to draw a line under a decade of drift and division. He knows the streets these learners come from, and what good technical education could mean for them. If hope is to mean something in Harpurhey, it starts with a college place. Let’s take the handbrake off our colleges and let every pound reach the learner.

Hundreds of outsourced careers staff move in-house to DWP

About 800 careers advice staff have moved to work in-house at the Department for Work and Pensions following 14 years of outsourcing.

From 1 October, about 500 qualified careers advisors and a further 300 back-office staff transferred into the DWP following the government’s decision not to renew National Careers Service (NCS) contracts from 30 September.

According to the DWP, adults seeking careers advice will now access support through jobcentres rather than NCS providers, creating a more “joined up” service.

Since the contracts were launched in 2012, more than 50 organisations with NCS contracts delivered careers advice to about 300,000 customers per year at an annual cost of up to £55 million per year.

A DWP spokesperson told FE Week that it plans to continue serving about 300,000 customers per year to help “everyone” seeking careers advice, either on the telephone or face-to-face in jobcentres.

Last year, an estimated 1,000 staff worked for NCS contractors. The DWP said it offered roles to about 800 through the service transfer process.

DWP minister for employment Andrew Western, said: “Everyone deserves the chance to find secure, meaningful work and build a career – and we are delivering a modern employment service to make that a reality.

“Bringing careers advice under the same roof as the jobcentre will join up fragmented services and enable thousands of people to access joined-up careers advice and employment support.

“This builds on the wider employment support we are already providing young people as well as disabled people and those with long-term health conditions to ensure everyone has the chance to get on life.”

Last-minute transfer concerns

MPs have repeatedly raised concerns about an “information void” around the how many of the estimated 1,000 NCS staff would move into the DWP.

In correspondence published by the work and pensions committee in September, chair Debbie Abrahams said she was concerned that the department “only” started its formal staff transfer consultation period in August – leaving “many staff” in a state of uncertainty about what roles they would move to last week.

She also cited “deep uncertainty” at the future of community-based organisations about to lose a key source of income.

The DWP said moving NCS staff in-house is part of its development of a new “jobs and careers service”, although jobcentres will continue to be known as Jobcentre Plus.

Last month, the government announced a new “insourcing unit” that will identify outsourced services that could be delivered more effectively under direct public control, such as security and cleaning.

The Cabinet Office also issued guidance on insourcing and the public interest test in June, which asks decision makers to “holistically assess long-term value for money, service quality, and broader economic and social goals” when making sourcing decisions.

AoC recommends 3.5% FE staff pay rise in 2026-27

College staff should receive a 3.5 per cent pay rise this year where members can afford it, the Association of Colleges has said.

The recommendation, published after talks with five trade unions representing the further education workforce, also encouraged college employers in a favourable financial position to “go beyond” the pay offer.

The recommendation is lower than the joint pay claim submitted by unions in March, which asked for a 10 per cent pay rise, or £3,000, whichever is greater, to reverse real-terms cuts over the last 15 years. They also called for a binding national bargaining agreement and pay parity with school teachers.

The AoC has matched the 3.5 per cent rise confirmed for school teachers from September, though the Department for Education expects schools to fund 1 per cent from their existing budgets.

Education secretary Lucy Powell told the NEU last month that schools at a national level will be able to meet the costs thanks to lower Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) employer contributions.

Unlike schools, the Association of Colleges’ (AoC) recommendation is non-binding, meaning college employers can offer their staff a pay award above or below the AoC proposal.

University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady said the non-binding offer falls “way short” of its asks and does not recognise the contribution of FE staff.

“Colleges will only be able to fix the recruitment and retention crisis by closing the pay gap between further education staff and their counterparts in schools,” she told FE Week.

She added: “A pay recommendation of 3.5 per cent does not make up for years of below-inflation awards or come close to remedying the £9,000 pay gap between school and college teachers. Workloads are at record high levels, staff need a proper pay rise, and we need a workforce and investment strategy and a new national bargaining framework for further education.”

Gerry McDonald, group principal & CEO of New City College and chair of the AoC’s employment policy group, said the recommendation was possible after the government’s July announcement of an extra £485 million for college recruitment and retention.

He said: “The AoC is recommending a 3.5 per cent pay increase for all college staff for the 2026-27 academic year, where colleges’ financial circumstances and funding allocations allow. Where colleges are able to go beyond this recommendation because of their financial position and funding allocations, AoC encourages them to do so.”

The funding is split into £120 million for the 2026-27 financial year and £365 million for 2027-28.

McDonald said the cash boost reflected the “sustained” campaigning by colleges, the AoC and unions for funded staff pay rises.

“We acknowledge the role played by all those involved in securing this investment and will continue to work together to make the case for further funding for the sector,” he said.

The National Joint Forum brings together the AoC and five trade unions: GMB, NEU, Unison, Unite, and UCU.

At the first NJF meeting in June, the AoC told unions it risked making a very low, possibly zero per cent, pay award. Both sides then wrote a joint letter to then-education secretary Bridget Phillipson urging of the risk of a real-terms pay cut without significant funding.

After the funding announcement, the forum agreed to reconvene in September.

Following the recommendation, Unison’s head of education Mike Short told FE Week: “The offer will be considered by Unison’s further education committee later this week to determine the next steps.”

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede added: “In the context of this year’s increased funding settlement for further education, and the significant pay disparity between FE staff and schoolteachers, the AoC’s offer of a 3.5 per cent pay award falls well short of expectations. We will be consulting members on the offer to determine our next steps.”

Government approves ‘more than 9 in 10’ local SEND reform plans

More than nine in 10 plans outlining how local areas will implement government’s SEND reforms in return for a near-complete write off of historical deficits have been approved by ministers.

The Department for Education has today confirmed that “more than 90 per cent” of local SEND reform plans – submitted to the DfE by councils and integrated care boards – have been given the green light. This equates to at least 137 councils with responsibility for education.

Ministers said they would wipe 90 per cent of councils’ historical SEND deficits in return for approved plans. It is estimated doing so will cost the government more than £5 billion.

FE Week has published copies of the first 40 draft local SEND reform plans released by councils in an interactive map. Our investigation found that nearly half of council plans contained little information on post-16 provision, sparking concern that proposals with thin post-16 detail could be passed if the rest of the document is strong.

Our sister paper Schools Week also uncovered most councils feared a shortage of specialist staff for the new “experts at hand” service threatens to undermine proposals.

Clare Howard, chief executive of specialist college body Natspec, said the news would be “welcome relief” for councils needing historical deficits written off, but warned the plans “must translate” into better provision for young people.

“We are concerned that many plans were developed without specialist colleges and, in some cases, explicitly propose reducing their role – despite the DfE asking local areas to work with the full range of education providers,” she said.

She added: “This runs counter to the government’s ambition for an inclusive system. The essential role of specialist colleges, in providing for young people with the most complex needs and working with LAs to support an inclusive mainstream, should be more fully recognised in the plans.

“The DfE should require local areas to revisit any plan that misunderstands specialist colleges or overlooks FE and the needs of 16 to 25 year olds.”

‘Work closely’ with councils

A government spokesperson said: “Local authorities and integrated care boards are central to improving support for children and young people with SEND. That’s why we asked every area to show how they will deliver our reforms.

“With over 90 per cent of plans approved, almost every part of the country has now set out how it will improve SEND support.”

The announcement means around 15 councils had their plans “deferred by the DfE”, meaning they have until November to re-submit them. The DfE said it would publish their names shortly.

“Councils and integrated care boards are accountable for the local partnerships delivering reform plans and we will work closely with the small number that have been deferred, before they re-submit them.”

The DfE said local authorities with deferred plans should continue to “deliver services as normal”.

WorldSkills Shanghai 2026: FE Week’s Team UK supplement

FE Week followed all 28 Team UK competitors to Shanghai as their official media partner. This special edition supplement has every competitor’s result, from the golds won by Ruth Douglas and Samuel Jones to the 13 medals for excellence. It also has the best of our photos from the competition floor.

Senior reporter Anviksha Patel’s Shanghai diary covers the countdown to gold with exclusive behind-the-scenes details and competitor interviews. She also brings you the WorldSkills president’s message to employers: “invest in the human”.

Editor Shane Chowen looks at how the highest-performing nations build their champions. He also sets out the next three dates for the sector’s diary: the UK national finals in Wales this November, EuroSkills Düsseldorf in 2027 and WorldSkills Aichi in 2028.

Anna Trethewey, chief strategy and vocational officer at our reporting partner AQA, writes about what AQA and WorldSkills are both working towards, and where vocational education goes next.