Latest news from FE Week

London calling: Capital to host WorldSkills UK national finals in 2027

The boss of Worldskills UK is seeking more competitors from independent training providers for the national finals in London next year.

Chief executive Ben Blackledge used this week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference to confirm the annual national skills competition would return to the capital after four years in south Wales and Greater Manchester.

And he revealed his view that college students are over-represented in skills competitions, and called for ITPs to “get involved”.

The last London FE provider to host a UK national final was Barking & Dagenham College in 2022.

The host venues for 2027 will be announced in autumn and work in partnership with the Greater London Authority.

Last year, more than two dozen national finalists hailed from London’s FE colleges and secured two medals.

WorldSkills UK presents gold, silver and bronze medals to competitors who excel in professional skills at their national finals. Top-performing competitors are then in with a shot of being selected for specialist training and coaching to represent the UK internationally at EuroSkills and WorldSkills.

Blackledge, who leaves Worldskills UK in October to become chief executive of the City & Guilds Foundation, was joined on stage at the AELP conference by four Team UK competitors who will compete at the global WorldSkills competition in Shanghai in September.

Asked what the training provider sector could do to support the UK’s competitive performance on the world stage, he said: “Registrations for the next cycle [of competitions] open in March and they will be hosted in London in 2027-28.

“If you’d like to get a sense of them, come to Wales in November this year. Loads of educators will be there, loads of team leaders will be there. It’s a great chance to learn.”

Colleges ‘over-represented’

For the next cycle of national and international competitions, Blackledge said he wanted to see more entries from a wider range of providers.

“You’ll have heard from two competitors here who trained at a college. We are making real progress in having a full range of sectors represented, but we still have an over-representation of colleges,” he explained.

“I know there is such quality in absolute numbers within the independent training provider networks, so I guess my plea is – get involved in this.”

WorldSkills UK is expected to announce the competitors for the 2026 national finals next month.

And as well as preparing for Shanghai, WorldSkills UK is already laying the groundwork for the EuroSkills 2027 in Düsseldorf, and WorldSkills 2028 in Aichi, Japan.

Left to right: bricklayer Joseph Shingler, restaurant services Yuliia Batrak and renewable energy Madeleine Warburton

Knuckling down for Shanghai

The four champions from Team UK selected for Shanghai discussed their experience of preparing to compete on the world stage.

Team UK’s 26 competitors have three months of intense training left before they join 1,500 other young people from across the globe.

Yuliia Batrak, restaurant service competitor and Medallions for Excellence winner at last year’s EuroSkills Herning, told delegates she was practising breathing techniques to cope with the unpredictability of her skill.

“You don’t know what customers you’re going to get, you don’t know what tasks you’re doing to get on the day and you just need to think very quickly to deliver a five-star service,” she said.

“I’m really looking for the gold medal. I’ve been working for it for the last three and a half years.”

Joseph Shingler, a bricklaying competitor from Shrewsbury College, said he used ear defenders to zone out background noise when competing in front of a crowd.

“The national final taught me that no matter what, I can just go and give it go. My attitude has been to have fun, give it 100 per cent and see what comes out of it,” he added.

WorldSkills Shanghai is on from September 22 and 27.

Movement is helping my traumatised ESOL students to engage

Sometimes looking around an FE ESOL class can feel demotivating, when you’re greeted by blank faces, drooping eyelids and surreptitious tapping on phones under the table. As ESOL teachers, we carefully plan our lessons and it is disheartening to see students not focused and engaged.

Many of our students arrive in our classes desperate to learn English so they can build a better life in this country. Sometimes it can feel frustratingly difficult for teachers to find ways to fulfil that goal.

Perhaps we need to look closer at the reasons students are unable to concentrate.

Many have experienced war, poverty, trafficking, or other traumatic events over several years. Recently, I had a student from Sudan who was constantly taking bathroom breaks, falling asleep in class and failing to make any progress in his English skills. After a one-to-one tutorial, it became clear that he was carrying an avalanche of unprocessed trauma from a war-torn childhood. Along with navigating the UK visa system and temporary accommodation, he was struggling to take in any more of life, let alone my lesson on the present perfect continuous.

I started to investigate how trauma affects learning, which led me to the work of Bessel van der Kolk. In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk argues that trauma is not only stored as memories or thoughts, but also in the body. When an individual remains in a constant state of threat over time, the part of the brain that affects concentration, memory, and emotional regulation can be severely affected. Therefore, traumatised students might find it hard to focus or remember information, and their emotions can be unpredictable.

Thankfully for ESOL teachers, students’ behavioural challenges are often signs of stress, not a reflection of bad teaching.

Van der Kolk discusses different practices to ease the effects of trauma, one being yoga. Kolk maintains that yoga helps to reconnect traumatised people with their body and brings them back into the present. It helps to regulate breathing and calms the nervous system. In traumatised individuals, it can encourage self-awareness and mindfulness, a pause that allows a sense of safety in the present, instead of dwelling in past danger.

So how can we work with yoga in the classroom? Should teachers be wearing Lycra and burning incense?

Well, research would suggest that even small moments of movement can help students calm their nervous systems, focus, and feel safe enough to participate in learning. Some simple activities which include movement, such as ‘find someone who’, where students move around the classroom talking to classmates to make a survey, can activate a sense of physical awareness.

Running dictations can not only reinforce reading, writing and speaking skills but also get the heart pumping and bring a sense of ‘now’ to the classroom. Stretching, reaching for the sky, and swaying to the left and right eases tension in the shoulders. Rubbing hands together until they get really hot gets students ready for writing. Balancing on one foot helps foster focus and awareness of surroundings before heavy grammar lessons. Simple box breathing exercise – breathe in for 4 hold for 4, out for 4 hold for 4 – can reset focus and reduce stress before assessments. Asking students to give themselves a hug always brings smiles to their faces. Encourage stamping of feet if there’s no one under your classroom!

All these activities are particularly useful before assessments, speaking activities or presentations. Over time, they can help students self-regulate and raise confidence in themselves.

This year, I have incorporated more movement in my classroom. At the start of the class, I open the windows and we run through our exercises. The students now anticipate movement throughout the lesson. There’s nothing quite like seeing a row of glum faces dissolve in giggles as they watch classmates try to stand on one foot. And my Sudanese student? I’m happy to say that after a year, he has progressed to the next class.

Successful language learning needs risk-taking, concentration and self-belief.

Students are far more likely to learn when they are mentally and physically in the classroom with you. Movement encourages a link to the present while also giving students a chance to communicate and learn. In ESOL classes, movement is not a distraction from learning – it can be what makes learning possible.

We need clear boundaries around parental access to learner data

Parental involvement in further education can be supportive, appropriate and genuinely in the learner’s best interests. Parents often arrive at FE after navigating school and other education providers on behalf of their child, particularly where there are additional learning needs, mental health concerns, or safeguarding issues. When something goes wrong at college, it is understandable that they want answers. Data subject access requests (DSARs) are sometimes used for that purpose.

The difficulty for colleges is that, as learners get older, the right of access to personal data under UK GDPR shifts to them from their parents. In fact, for many school learners, they are deemed competent enough to exercise this right themselves. So even where a learner is under 18, parental responsibility does not automatically confer a right to receive their child’s personal data. This can come as a surprise to parents who are used to being closely involved with their child’s education.

When parents’ rights end and learners’ rights begin

In practice, colleges are already seeing the impact of these tensions. For example, a parent submitted a request for detailed attendance records to support a child maintenance dispute. The learner had not consented to disclosure, and there were safeguarding considerations linked to an estranged parental relationship. The college couldn’t therefore confirm any student data, even whether or not they attended that establishment.

This led to repeated attempts to access the data from alternative channels, including direct emails to different teams, increasing the administrative burden and requiring consistent, coordinated responses to maintain confidentiality.

That tension can be difficult to manage in practice. Colleges may face repeated follow-up requests, demands for wider disclosure, pressure to release third-party or confidential material, or attempts to use the DSAR process as a substitute appeal route. Sometimes the information disclosed does not reassure parents; instead, it may confirm concerns, provide access to statements or reports that they disagree with, or document decisions they feel are unfair.

Colleges also need to navigate the limits of disclosure carefully. Any data provided must contain only the information to which the learner is entitled, with personal data relating to other students and, in certain cases, select staff members appropriately redacted. Generally, the names of staff directly working with the learner will not be redacted. For parents who are already distressed or frustrated, those legal limits can feel obstructive rather than protective.

This means colleges must often explain, sometimes repeatedly, that the DSAR right belongs to the learner, and not all information is disclosable. DSARs are not mechanisms for challenging academic or disciplinary decisions, and the process has legal limits. In practice, this can be hard when parents are distressed, persistent or convinced they are acting in their child’s best interests.

DSARs are not an appeals process

In another case, a parent sought access to documentation relating to a disciplinary investigation involving their child, with the request appearing to be driven in part by disagreement with the outcome. While the college disclosed the learner’s personal data where appropriate, significant portions of the records required careful redaction to protect the personal data of other students and staff.

This process is rarely straightforward; it often involves reviewing multiple documents line by line, applying consistent redaction decisions, and ensuring that exemptions are correctly applied. The parent viewed the response as incomplete and challenged the college further. However, they are unlikely ever to gain access to information reflecting other individuals’ views or recollections of the events, as this constitutes third-party personal data.

In some instances, parents may escalate concerns to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), but where the college has complied with its obligations under UK GDPR, no further regulatory action is typically required. Nonetheless, managing such cases can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, requiring coordinated input across teams to review material thoroughly and ensure a compliant response.

Understanding and communicating the respective rights of parents and learners will become even more important as the volume of DSARs received by colleges grows.

Clear boundaries protect everyone

The most effective response is not to discourage parental involvement. In many cases, it is positive, constructive, and rooted in genuine care. Instead, colleges need a clear, consistent framework for handling parent-led DSARs. This framework should respect parents’ concerns while making clear that the rights of access and rectification belong to the individual learner and have legal limits.

In practice, that means engaging with the learner directly where appropriate or making clear to the parent that the learner’s consent is required before their personal data is released. Learners will often agree, particularly where parents are supporting them with wider issues such as attendance, a change of course, a complaint or disciplinary procedures.

It also means responding professionally and transparently to the scope of the request. Parents may be surprised that the names of other students in an incident involving their child have been redacted, or that a college can refuse to amend an incident report where the parent or learner simply disagrees with the account recorded. Colleges that explain these limits clearly and consistently are better placed to maintain trust without compromising legal compliance.

The data use and access act 2025 reinforces that colleges are not required to undertake unreasonable or excessive searches when responding to DSARs. However, colleges must give individuals a clearer route to complain if they believe their rights have not been met. Against that backdrop, the process works best when colleges communicate limitations clearly and consistently. Colleges must ensure all parties understand that data protection law exists to empower and protect the learner.

Rights requests are not a substitute for appeals or complaints procedures.

The problem with EDI-deology in education

College leaders are alarmed by criticisms of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), most recently set out by Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, who wants to ban public bodies (including colleges) from engaging in or promoting EDI (also known as DEI) policies.

But it is time to rethink this agenda. The general public is already shifting in its stance. Recent research shows a modest majority still support EDI, but the numbers have fallen dramatically in a year.

Pollsters find that policies such as flexible working, inclusion training and blind recruitment are popular, but only 19 per cent want EDI to go further, while 36 per cent say it has gone too far.

Critics, including academics, come from across the political spectrum.

I too am an EDI sceptic. I think it delivers a formulaic, spreadsheet version of equality, diversity and inclusion, and rarely does much to help the most disadvantaged.

Most EDI-related issues originate in real struggles in civil society, where groups such as trade unions, or movements for civil rights or women’s equality, organised and represented themselves.

It is now the preserve of “expert” consultants, compliance officers, trainers and accredited bodies who can be, and often are, promoting an EDI-deology.

This EDI-deology has a recognisable methodology. Society is thought of in terms of groups, defined through fixed identities (such as class, race, or gender). Equality is about average group outcomes. In a world of big data, these are relatively easy to analyse, with the aim being to spot disparities in the average outcomes for each group. These disparities are assumed to be unfair and caused by structural advantages and disadvantages. Solutions are actions which close the gaps and equalise the average outcome.

This methodology does not receive a great deal of public scrutiny, although it should, because it is widely practised but deeply flawed. Among the general public, the solutions gain more attention, often being a source of discontent. They can seem like social engineering, playing off one group against another, producing results no fairer than the injustice they set out to redress. In assessing impact, EDI advocates frequently celebrate the beneficiaries of different interventions, but they almost never consider the losers.

Frank Dobbin, author of Getting to Diversity, What works and What Doesn’t shows that many widely used EDI initiatives are ineffective and often counterproductive. And he is critical of the professional culture, among the expert class, of diffusing “best practice” without any evidence to back it up.

The result is that they drive EDI “norms” through consultancy, professional bodies and regulators – defining problems, prescribing solutions and certifying compliance. But they have no one holding them to account.

The result is that we are surrounded by EDI myths.

The “McKinsey myth”, for example, claims there is a “business case” for board-level diversity, because it makes companies more profitable. Academics have scrutinised the original research and shown the evidence to be flimsy. There is evidence that diversity of thought matters, but demographic diversity is a different story. We might like the idea and want it to be true, but confirmation bias and binary thinking should not cloud reality.

Throughout my career, which has involved working on some high-profile projects in area-based regeneration, community cohesion, and initiatives to improve educational and economic outcomes for the most disadvantaged, I struggle to think of any examples where EDI made a positive contribution in shaping effective interventions. This is because of the flaws in the method.

Groups are rarely as easy to define as we think, and average outcomes mask more than they reveal. They can help spot broad patterns, but cannot be easily transposed into individual cases because few individuals are average. In any statistical group, there is a range, and within group-variation can be larger than between-group variation. It is not safe, therefore, to assume disparities in group outcomes are, in themselves, unfair. It is too easy to confuse correlation with causation.

And the most disadvantaged can get lost. If we divided the world into five socio-economic groups and planned, arbitrarily, that 10 per cent from each group could have a free income for life, 70 per cent worked for a living and enjoyed relative comfort, but 20 per cent were condemned to a life of misery, the group averages would all be equal. Would this be fair? Or would it be formulaic EDI-deology?

These are not abstract problems.

Has the attainment of poor white boys been masked, until recently, because group averages suggested white children as a whole were doing reasonably well? Has the NEETs problem received so little attention for the past decade because equalising group outcomes meant focusing on those with greater potential for “long upward” social mobility? Does the use of the “disadvantage gap” actually help anyone, or does it reinforce inequality by measuring all against a standard academic criteria which some will always fail to live up to? And what exactly does it propose we do for those who don’t do well academically, but are apparently not disadvantaged? Has EDI been much of a friend to FE, or do better group outcomes for the disadvantaged usually mean FE is the least desirable option?

Refusing to subscribe to the full-fat EDI methodology does not mean rejecting equality, diversity or inclusion. It means thinking differently about how we help all individuals to achieve their potential, being less attached to a rigid methodology for delivering this (there are other approaches), being more critical of those who set the agenda, and being much more anchored in the evidence. And it definitely means listening to different points of view.

After all, surely the form of diversity which we should most value, give equal treatment to and include, is diversity of thought.

T Levels are helping build NHS workforce pipeline

The main reason the previous government introduced T Levels was to provide young people with the necessary technical knowledge and experience to step into a career in their chosen industry, either through direct employment or via a higher apprenticeship or an undergraduate degree.

Are they delivering this objective? Recent research I have undertaken at King’s Business School (KBS), supported and funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, suggests that for the healthcare sector at least, they are.

The NHS is the country’s largest employer and has long experienced workforce shortages. Currently, there are 100,000 unfilled posts. The research, which looked at 20 NHS employers in England who have hosted (or plan to host) industry placements for students studying on the T Level in Health, showed how T Levels can address this workforce gap.

The NHS employers felt that the qualification not only met their knowledge and skills needs, but was also a more effective recruitment tool than other vocational qualifications or traditional careers interventions such as general work experience or careers talks.

The breadth, relevance and structure of the curriculum along with the 45-day industry placement, meant employers reported that students were ‘work ready’ and work-orientated once they had completed their studies.

Employers felt that students’ familiarity with working in a wide variety of healthcare settings meant that they were more likely to remain in NHS employment once they began working than direct recruits.

One employer, for example, had been unable to retain staff they had externally recruited into healthcare assistant roles in their accident and emergency department. In contrast, when these posts were made available to T Level students, all the vacancies were filled, and turnover dropped to zero.

Around half of the students completing the T Level in health began working for their host hospital or other local care provider after finishing the T Level. This included a number who began studying a healthcare higher apprenticeship.

The other half progressed to healthcare degrees to become registered nurses, midwives, or other healthcare professionals. Employers anticipated that these students, once they had completed their degrees, would return to them as employees; some had joined degree apprenticeship programmes.

Employers particularly valued the opportunity, through placements, to provide experience of careers students might not have been as familiar with, such as speech and language therapy and radiography. Indeed, some students had changed their career aspirations, typically from nursing or midwifery to a different healthcare role and in some cases to social care jobs.

T Levels provided employers with an opportunity to widen workforce diversity and access to NHS employment by recruiting young people from the communities their hospital served, people who might not have traditionally considered a career in healthcare.

Employers reported additional benefits. The Independent Commission on the College of the Future reported that links between the NHS and further education could be improved. Our research showed that delivering T Levels had strengthened partnerships where they already existed (which was in the minority of cases) and created partnerships where they had not previously existed.

These partnerships developed beyond the T Level in health to support other non-clinical T Levels and other college offers, such as apprenticeships or functional skills programmes.

Historically, vocational education has been criticised for not meeting employers’ needs or not delivering meaningful progression opportunities for young people. It has also too often been seen as being less valuable than ‘academic’ qualifications.

The clear message from employers was that the T Level in health simultaneously provides students with the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need for a career in health or social care, and provides a pipeline of future talent to draw from that reflects local communities.

Given the rising demands on the NHS and the enduring workforce shortages, T Levels represent an effective means of building long-term capacity and capability.

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.”