Two regional authorities are ditching the skills bootcamp training model after gaining greater freedom over adult skills plans in new devolution deals.
Under a gradual roll-out, the government is lifting ring-fencing rules for mayors around funding for courses and training programmes such as bootcamps.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) has confirmed it will phase out the courses, worth around £2.5 million of its £65 million total skills budget, once it is handed a single “integrated” funding settlement in April.
The mayoral authority is following Greater Manchester, which decided to cease all funding for skills bootcamps when it gained integrated settlement freedoms last April.
WYCA, led by Labour mayor Tracy Brabin, said it would evolve the employment focused training it funds into locally tailored programmes that avoid some of the strict rules imposed by national government.
Brabin told FE Week: “Devolution is working for West Yorkshire. It’s enabling us to do things differently and empowers us to build a region of learning and creativity, where our communities and businesses can flourish.
“By co-designing targeted employment programmes with local firms, we’ll drive up employment, fill vital gaps in the local labour market, and ensure more of our young people are either earning or learning.”
Greater Manchester quietly scrapped the courses last March. Its website now states the authority has transitioned to a more “integrated, place-based funding approach”.
It is unclear how the authority has chosen to spend its share of the skills bootcamp budget allocated via the integrated settlement, which was £6 million in 2025-26, and will be £4.6 million per year between 2026 and 2029.
Integrated settlements
Under plans started under the previous government and continued by Labour, mayoral authorities with a “strong track record of delivery” can ask for a “deeper level of devolution” in the form of an integrated settlement.
The settlement means each mayor is handed a single sum of money for each year of the spending review period, which now runs to 2029.
This replaces the system of giving mayors a collection of ring-fenced funding lines for training such as skills bootcamps, adult education and free courses for jobs, a budget aimed at increasing level 3 qualification levels.
Under integrated settlement rules, the authorities have the “discretion” to move up to 10 per cent of funding between seven “themes” of policy delivery, which include adult skills. They also have “full flexibility” on how funding is spent between years.
From April this year, five more mayoral authorities are set to be handed integrated settlements running up to 2030: West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region, the Greater London Authority, and North East.
However, in exchange for this flexibility, mayors will also be asked to agree “outcome targets” with central government.
For the first two authorities to go through this process, Greater Manchester and West Midlands, targets include reducing the number of residents with no qualifications and increasing working-age residents qualified to level 3 or above.
Liverpool City Region told FE Week it had no plans to axe bootcamps.
Other authorities had not responded at the time of going to press.
Well-trodden path
Skills bootcamps were introduced by the Conservatives in 2020. They offer learners intensive, industry-focused training for 12 to 16 weeks, followed by a “guaranteed” job interview.
National funding for the courses, which aim to help adults into work, a new job or a better paid role, increased to a peak of £350 million this financial year.
While the courses have proved popular with some learners, data for 2023-24 shows 43,000 of the 60,000 starters completed their course, and less than half had a positive job outcome.
Training providers are paid for bootcamps in three “milestone” instalments based on learners’ performance.
The final payment is conditional on whether positive outcomes, such as a new job, have been achieved.
Evaluations have also suggested some training providers treat the “guaranteed” job interview aspect of the course as a “tickbox” exercise.
In April, Labour announced changes to skills bootcamp commissioning, which included restricting funding through its national contract to construction-focused courses, and increasing the funding granted to councils and mayors from £170 million to £248 million.
But the government appears to have shrunk its skills bootcamp budget for the next financial year, with West Yorkshire suffering a 68 per cent budget cut to about £2.6 million per year for the next three years.
West Yorkshire’s approach
WYCA plans to review and eventually phase out skills bootcamps in favour of targeted employment programmes (TEPs), which are modelled on the Department for Work and Pensions’ sector-based work academy programme (SWAPs).
The authority says its TEPs model shares several features of both SWAPs and skills bootcamps such as intensive training, a focus on local job demands and a guaranteed job interview.
However, TEPs – which it launched in 2023-24 – have more flexibility on course length, do not strictly require a work placement, and may not include a qualification.
This means the training can be tailored to the needs of the sector it is focused on.
Stephen Evans, chief executive at Learning and Work Institute, said: “This seems like a sensible approach to test, the combined authority have identified changes to existing models like bootcamps that they think will get better results.
“As with all provision, a proper independent evaluation will be needed to show whether this does, in fact, work better so I hope they’ve planned for that.
“And with the adult skills fund [being] a fixed pot from government, they will need to be clear which provision will be reduced to pay for this.”
Ministers stand accused of downplaying the scale of cuts to prison education budgets after an arms-length body found evidence of “seismic” reductions.
In a letter to prisons minister Lord Timpson, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) claimed the Prison Service provided misleading information on “swingeing” cuts to education across the prison estate, which could reach up to 65 per cent in some jails.
IMB national chair Elisabeth Davies said the Prison Service told IMB policy leads and board chairs that there had been no funding cut, it had “in fact” increased the monetary budget, and the appearance of a reduction was “inflationary pressures increasing the cost of education delivery”.
But Davies said a survey of 60 independent monitoring boards found budget cuts extended “far beyond” inflation which “appears to contradict” the statements given by the Prison Service, sparking calls for a “clear and public” ministerial explanation on how allocation decisions have resulted in “such severe and uneven” impact nationwide.
Five IMBs reported cuts in individual prisons they oversee of between 56 and 65 per cent, while six reported cuts of 46 to 55 per cent, 14 reported cuts of 36 to 45 per cent, and eight reported cuts of 26 to 35 per cent. The remainder of surveyed IMBs reported more modest reductions of between five and 25 per cent.
The IMB has over 100 boards nationally and utilises 1,000 volunteer members to monitor the treatment and conditions of detainees in the prison estate.
IMBs warn that teaching posts have been cut and class sizes expanded, leaving prisoners demotivated.
In the scathing letter sent to Timpson last week, Davies, who has since “unexpectedly” stepped down from her role, expressed overwhelming concern over the lack of transparency around the MOJ’s new £1.5 billion Prison Education Service.
“This situation is rapidly evolving, and some boards have reported that the prisons they monitor were not yet clear, at local level, on what cuts would be made,” Davies said.
“Still more have noted that the effects of the cuts will not be fully realised for many months. The majority of boards expect the impact to be seismic.”
Prisons were informed of their budgets for October 2025 to March 2027 last April.
Nearly £148 million was earmarked for core prison education across 94 jails, according to budget figures obtained by FE Week.
The value of the previous Prisoner Education Framework contract, from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025 was £138 million.
But comparisons between budgets were “not straightforward” due to changes in contract structure and delivery arrangements, parliament under-secretary Jake Richards said in answer to a parliamentary question in October.
The MOJ has insisted inflationary pressures mean core education provision delivery has changed but it committed to publishing a prison-level breakdown of changes in “early 2026”.
“We know the vital role education plays in turning offenders away from crime,” An MOJ spokesperson said.
“That is why we are increasing the opportunities for prisoners to access the training and education they need, including extending daily regimes in a number of jails so prisoners can work for longer, and launching sector-specific training with guaranteed job offers on release.”
MOJ ‘in chaos’
The IMB also detailed “dramatic” cuts to Dynamic Purchasing System budgets, said prisoners with learning difficulties were disproportionately affected by the cuts, and revealed a construction tutor was asked to deliver a motor mechanics course.
“The letter sets out that the impact to prisoners is substantial, goes well beyond inflationary pressures, and is affecting prisoners’ ability to engage in education, progress through sentence plans, and spend time out of their cells,” an IMB spokesperson added.
Paul Bridge, head of further education at University and College Union, estimated around 300 teaching staff had been made redundant and warned of “more to follow” as a result of cuts.
He also told FE Week that he was “picking up on” temporary teachers being employed to backfill the redundancies.
“It’s chaos and the MOJ are hiding,” he said.
Bridge demanded an independent review to shed light on prison-level budgets under the new Prison Education Service contract, which after a two-year procurement handed contracts to three existing providers – Milton Keynes College, PeoplePlus, and Novus, part of Manchester-based LTE group.
While IMBs do not directly monitor contracts, Davies said some boards had raised concerns about the “quality” of contractual arrangements under the Prison Education Service contract.
Prisons are subject to incentive payments from the MOJ if they achieve quarterly KPIs such as ‘teaching and quality’ and ‘supporting additional learning needs’, outlined in the Prison Education Service contract documents.
The contract also confirms a 9-month “shadow period” where prisons will still receive incentive payments even if they miss targets.
But Davies claimed the ‘teaching and quality’ KPI had been omitted from the national contract, implying that problems were “anticipated”.
Prison chief inspector Charlie Taylor declined to comment on whether he would launch a review but previously warned that “devastating” real-terms cuts to education in prisons were likely to worsen “appallingly high” reoffending rates.
Andy Slaughter, chair of the House of Commons justice committee, reiterated his November call for clarification on the scale and rationale for any planned cuts.
“Prison education is already underfunded when compared to provision in the community, and such cuts risk undermining efforts to reduce reoffending,” he said.
The Department for Education is counter-suing a former apprenticeship provider for more than £800,000 after alleging widespread dodgy funding claims – including that public money was unlawfully used to pay apprentices’ wages.
The World of Work Ltd, which focused on the care sector, recently launched a £500,000 High Court claim against the secretary of state for education following a suspension of payments in July 2021 and termination of its skills funding contracts six months later.
But in its defence, the DfE said the “plainly unsustainable” claim was a “misguided attempt” to avoid repaying £825,106 that investigators assert was wrongly claimed between 2017 and 2021.
Ineligible jobs
The dispute centres on apprenticeship contracts The World of Work held from around 2016 that were investigated in June 2021 following whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing.
Payments were suspended and the DfE’s now-closed Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) terminated all of the provider’s contracts in January 2022, citing inaccurate data submissions, missing evidence, apprentices not being in genuine employment, and failures to meet minimum duration requirements.
According to the defence, investigators examined 30 learner files and found 21 apprentices recorded as working more than 30 hours per week for a connected recruitment company, Goodsted Recruitment Ltd, were in fact only engaged for six hours of training per week.
The DfE said this revealed there was “no proper apprenticeship arrangement” in place between apprentice and employer.
The World of Work Ltd’s owner, Myrofora Georgiou, was a director of Goodsted until 2019. Goodsted was also run by a business partner of Georgiou and the pair currently operate a property firm.
DfE officials also allege funding claims were made for learners who never commenced training and were recorded as continuing months after they had exited their programme.
Using a sample audit and its controversial extrapolation method, the DfE calculated an overclaim of £825,106.07 across four academic years, with error rates ranging from 65.7 to 83.8 per cent each year.
The World of Work could have taken the option of a 100 per cent audit of its performance if it “did not wish to accept the use of figures extrapolated from the error rate identified in the sample”.
‘Strong appearance’ of illegal wage payments
One of the most serious findings came after the ESFA reviewed bank statements from both companies.
The DfE said the evidence showed Goodsted was “totally reliant” on funds from The World of Work, leading investigators to conclude that ESFA funding “strongly appeared” to have been used – directly or indirectly – to pay apprentices’ wages.
Using public apprenticeship funding to pay wages is explicitly prohibited under funding rules.
The defence said the conduct of the provider “amounts to a fundamental breach of the contract which is incapable of remedy”.
Provider claim ‘bears no relation’ to reality, says DfE
The World of Work disputes the findings and said it was denied “natural justice”.
In its claim against DfE, the provider argues it was never told the substance of the whistleblower allegations, was not properly allowed to remedy any breaches, and was required to continue training learners after payments were suspended.
It said its delivery model, involving apprentices employed part-time by care providers while also on zero-hours contracts with Goodsted, was known to the ESFA.
The World of Work’s lawyers explained: “For two cohorts of apprentices, from 2019 to 2021, there were some apprentices who already worked part-time in the care sector, but who (with the support of their employer) wished to undertake further qualifications.
“These apprentices continued their part-time work but were also employed on a zero-hours contract by Goodsted Recruitment Limited. Goodsted then arranged for training through the claimant, and seconded these apprentices for work.”
The provider said its individualised learner record data was “incomplete” but only “because the computer architecture did not allow for the provision of the complete data” – that is, the ESFA’s learner entry tool initially only allowed one employer to be nominated for each apprentice.
“All the complete data was submitted to the defendant as part of the investigation. The terse letter, in the same words as the suspension of funding letter, suggests that the defendant did not consider this at all,” The World of Work’s claim added.
The DfE was accused of acting “capriciously”, and its termination of the contracts itself “amounted to a repudiatory breach”.
The DfE countered that the provider’s funding claims were not eligible because “there needed to be a qualifying apprenticeship arrangement between the apprentice and their employer, involving a genuine job allowing for on-the-job training”.
The provider is seeking £500,000 in damages, calculated at £50,000 per month between July 2021 and April 2022, on the basis of “unjust enrichment”.
The DfE strongly disputes the valuation.
Its defence said The World of Work averaged less than £12,500 per month in total funding before the investigation, and had just four apprenticeship learners remaining at termination.
It claimed all eligible training was reconciled and paid in December 2022, and that any unpaid activity was ineligible for funding.
The DfE confirmed it intended to counterclaim for recovery of the £825,106 and is seeking “security for costs” from the court in this legal claim, citing the provider’s negative net assets and minimal ongoing activity.
“The position remains that the claimant has received more than £800,000 in public funding to which it was not entitled,” the department’s defence said. “The claimant’s claim appears to be a misguided attempt to pre-empt a claim by the defendant for the recovery of those funds.”
The proportion of students passing their English language GCSE resits in November increased this academic year, new figures show.
Results published by the Joint Council for Qualifications this morning show 37.5 per cent of English GCSE students who resat the exam in November 2025 in England achieved a pass of grade 4 or above.
This is a 2.6 percentage point increase from November 2024, when 34.9 per cent of English GCSE resitters attained the standard pass.
It also marks a reversal of last year’s 5.4 percentage point drop and surpasses 2019 pre-pandemic levels when the pass rate was 32.3 per cent.
The November 2025 series registered nearly 10 per cent more registrations for English GCSE resits than 2024. A total of 69,973 retook English, rising to 76,601 in November 2025.
It comes months after the government warned, in its recent post-16 white paper, that “too many students are entered into resit exams in the November after their GCSE entry the previous summer, without sufficient additional teaching to enable them to succeed”.
Pass rates for resits taken in the summer exam period sit much lower than the November series. For GCSE English, 20.9 per cent of 175,118 post-16 students achieved a grade 4 pass in summer 2025.
The government mandates students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 study towards these qualifications as a condition of their post-16 places being funded. Most end up resitting the exams.
Women retaking English GCSE had a higher pass rate than male students. A total of 40 per cent female students overall achieved a grade 4 or above, an improvement from the 36.1 per cent that passed last November.
Male students had a pass rate of 35.5 per cent, a nudge higher than the 34 per cent that passed last year.
Meanwhile, the proportion of students passing maths GCSE resits dropped marginally by one percentage point to 23.2 per cent from last year.
The rate remains behind pre-pandemic levels, when the pass rate was 26.4 per cent in 2019.
The November series also registered 4.6 per cent more entrants, to, 72,321 retook maths GCSE up from 69,139 in November 2024.
Male students did better than females in maths resits but performed poorer than the year prior.
The results showed 23.8 per cent of males secured a pass, higher than the 22.8 per cent pass rate among females. However in 2024, 25.7 per cent of male students achieved a grade 4 or above. Women performed similarly last year, with 22.9 per cent scoring a pass in maths GCSE.
A breakdown of age groups published alongside the overall results also found younger learners did better than all other students in English.
Figures show 41 per cent of 17-year-olds passed their English resit exam, whereas 19-year-olds had the lowest pass rates this year with just 29.6 per cent scoring a grade 4 or above.
In maths resits, the 20 and over age cohort had the highest pass rate of 28.2 per cent, compared with 26.1 per cent of 17-year-olds passing and 17.2 per cent of 19-year-olds gaining a pass.
However, students aged 20 and over saw their performance in maths dip. In 2024, 34.1 per cent of the age cohort achieved a pass, representing a 5.9 percentage point fall in 2025.
The charities watchdog is “engaging actively” with the City & Guilds Foundation following reports that two executives were in line for million-pound bonuses after its commercial awarding body was sold off.
It comes as the foundation’s chair, Dame Ann Limb, has confirmed plans to step down from her role early after being nominated for a peerage. Limb has come under fire in recent weeks after admitting to misleading claims about her educational achievements.
Concern has grown about the charity’s trustees’ decision to sell City & Guilds’ commercial awarding organisation and skills training activities to Greek-owned global certification company PeopleCert in October 2025.
According to a report by The Guardian, chief executive Kirstie Donnelly has been awarded a £1.7 million bonus alongside a £100,000 salary increase to £430,000, while finance director Abid Ismail reportedly received a £1.2 million bonus and 30 per cent salary increase to £300,000 per year.
City & Guilds Limited has not disputed the figures and declined to comment on whether the bonuses were known to the pair ahead of the sale when approached by FE Week. A spokesperson said: “The accounts for City & Guilds Ltd will be published at year end in 2026, as required for private limited companies. Any awards to employees are a matter for City & Guilds Ltd and are guided by commercial practice to ensure talent and expertise is retained.”
A spokesperson for the foundation did however confirm that trustees were “not involved in any pre or post-deal conversations regarding remuneration matters for City & Guilds Limited executives that would apply after the sale”.
The spokesperson added: “This is a matter for the new City & Guilds Ltd owners. City and Guilds of London Institute (CGLI) will publish its accounts as normal in January 2026 and details of pay and renumeration up to the sale will be reported in the accounts in the usual way.
“Bonuses for eligible employees reflecting performance in 2025 are payable in line with CGLI’s remuneration policy.
“No payments outside CGLI’s existing bonus schemes have been paid.”
Donnelly’s bonuses have ranged between £190,000 and £67,000 in each of the last four years, according to City & Guilds’ financial statements.
Regulator wants ‘more information’
The Charity Commission this week confirmed that in response to “recent media reports” about City & Guilds’ sale it is now “engaging actively with the charity to obtain more information to assess and next steps for us as a regulator”.
A spokesperson for the commission told FE Week it was aware of plans to sell City & Guilds to PeopleCert and received assurances about trustees’ decision making.
Selling the charity’s business was a lawful decision for the charity’s trustees and formal permission for the sale was neither required nor provided by the commission, the spokesperson added.
Neil Bates, who sits on City and Guilds’ advisory council, said: “I am concerned about the bonuses that appear to have been paid to Kirstie and the finance director and about the process of governance that was followed or not followed. Both, I think, are deeply concerning.
“What I really want to happen is for there to be full and open disclosure of the circumstances and details of how the decision was arrived at to sell these parts of the business.
“What process was followed to ensure that the charity got best value for the disposal of those assets and that nobody benefitted personally from sale of those assets?”
Charity chair steps down
City & Guilds Foundation chair Dame Ann Limb also this week confirmed that she plans to step down from the charity this year. She became chair in 2021 and her current term was due to end in 2027.
The resignation is understood to have been prompted by Limb’s appointment to the House of Lords last month and was decided in early December.
Mike Adamson, newly appointed interim CEO of the foundation, said recruitment for a new chair and permanent CEO will begin “in the next two weeks.”
Sale ‘secured the long-term future’
At the time of the sale of the 150-year-old charity’s qualification and training business, Limb and Donnelly argued it was necessary to “secure its future” and ensure the operation “thrives for another century and beyond”.
Following the sale, a document published by City & Guilds’ new owner PeopleCert suggested the company plans to cut £19 million from its permanent and short-term staff costs in the next 24 months by making vacant roles redundant or relocating them to Greece. The document was later removed from PeopleCert’s website.
The charity, officially known as The City & Guilds of London Institute, operates as City & Guilds Foundation, while the now privately owned business now trades as City & Guilds Limited.
The foundation plans to continue its charitable functions as an “innovative social investor and change maker” with the proceeds of the sale, which include up to £200 million in “gross assets” and provision of office space for a period of five years.
In response to what it describes as “a number of inaccurate claims” about the sale of City & Guilds, the foundation released a detailed statement on January 2, saying it decided to sell the business amid “instability of political cycles, policy reform and competitive pressures”.
The trustees said they considered five options to protect the future of the institution.
“These ranged from doing nothing, to merger, borrowing funds, and sale,” a spokesperson said.
“After thorough consideration over a 30-month period, supported by extensive input from highly respected commercial and legal advisers, the final decision was to sell the charity’s awarding and training businesses.
“This approach secured the long-term future of the charity while also providing the necessary investment and capabilities for the commercial training and awarding business, which required significant capital to remain competitive in a highly regulated market that is increasingly reliant on technology infrastructure to meet learner demand.”
School leavers will be able to prove their GCSE results to post-16 settings and employers on a government app on their phones from this summer.
The “education record” app is being rolled out nationally after a pilot in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands last year, where only six per cent of invited settings took part.
If taken up nationwide, ministers believe it could save schools and colleges up to £30 million in administration costs, including by eliminating photocopying of documents and reducing manual data entry.
Year 11 pupils will still go into school on results day to meet face-to-face with their teachers and receive their grades, which will later be available on the app. They can then present and share their results digitally with their post-16 setting.
If schools choose to sign up, they will have to link pupils’ data to their mobile devices. The Department for Education populates the records.
While only available for GCSEs, they will get A Level and other qualifications updated in the Learner Record Service in future.
Skills minister Jacqui Smith said no student “should have to rifle through drawers looking for a crumpled certificate when preparing for a job interview”.
“This app will give young people instant access to their results whenever they need them while freeing up teachers and college staff from unnecessary paperwork.”
Only 29 schools took part in regional pilot
When launching the pilot earlier this year, DfE said more than 95,000 young people would get their results via the app. A total of 487 schools and colleges were invited.
But only 29 schools took up the offer, meaning the pilot only involved about 4,000 pupils. The DfE said it was run on an optional basis, and it was not mandatory for schools or pupils to take part.
DfE said it will remain optional this year before they “reflect on findings to look at next steps” for the record.
Schools and colleges will also be able to easily access information on “which students need extra support, including whether they need to continue working towards English and maths GCSEs, have SEND requirements or qualify for free school meals”.
The £30 million cost saving is based on the number of 16 and 17 year old students and the number of courses studied in 2023-24 and 2024-25. They assumed cost estimates of £10 per learner and £10 per course.
Photocopying could be ditched
“Extensive user research” with colleges identified enrolment activities that could be stopped or reduced as a result.
This included getting rid of photocopying of documentation and the manual process of matching emails with applications.
It could also reduce manual data entry and delays linked to pupils not having the correct documentation.
The savings assume that nearly all young people moving from a school into FE and apprenticeships would use the app to enrol at a new setting.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the move as well as retaining the face-to-face option as it “not only allows them to celebrate with peers and teachers, but also to receive any advice or support they may require regarding next steps”.
He added: “We are sure that school and college leaders will also welcome the administrative savings made possible as a result of this change, although this will only amount to a drop in the ocean compared to the funding pressures they remain under.”
It is almost 30 years since Tony Blair as opposition leader declared his top three priorities were “education, education, education”, back when the political landscape felt very different.
The Conservatives are now tasked with holding Labour’s feet to the fire from the opposition benches through their shadow skills minister Saqib Bhatti, while Ian Sollom holds the skills baton for the Lib Dems.
Reform UK and the Greens are surging in popularity, especially among young voters, but have been relatively quiet on skills and further education issues, and neither party has a spokesperson with those briefs.
Their political priorities reflect the public mood. In a recent PLMR poll, only 8 per cent of voters said they would like the government to prioritise education, compared to 59 per cent for the cost of living and economy.
But at a time when skills shortages are holding back economic growth, skills and education policies have arguably never been more important.
Sollom, skills and universities spokesperson, Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems are the only opposition party that have put education at the centre of their agenda. And Sollom is well-versed in the FE sector’s challenges. The skills white paper sits open on his Westminster office desk as I enter the room. He proudly claims to have read every page, as well as “putting it into AI” to “probe little bits”.
He answers some tricky policy questions I put to him with relative ease.
But even he admits education is “low down on public priorities” – and “skills is even further down”.
“I’m pulling my hair out thinking, ‘but the economy comes really far up’ – there is a disconnect in people’s heads,” he says.
The movement of skills to the Department for Work and Pensions makes life complicated for opposition skills spokespeople as they must now liaise with both DfE and DWP departmental teams. “The speaker doesn’t necessarily recognise me as a DWP spokesperson”, says Sollom.
He believes that “skills is not getting the attention or the priority” it deserves because skills minister Jacqui Smith sits in the Lords, so cannot be held to account directly by opposition MPs in the Commons.
Many of the Lib Dems’ 2024 manifesto policies, such as replacing the apprenticeship levy with a “broader and more flexible skills and training levy”, developing some colleges as “national centres of expertise for key sectors”, rejoining the EU’s Erasmus+ scheme, and scrapping single-word Ofsted judgments, have since been rolled out by the current government, which Sollom admits has “certainly” been “frustrating” for him to watch from the sidelines.
His party favours boosting lifelong learning, but wants to achieve this through a £10,000 grant rather than student loans, which people could choose how to spend at different points throughout their lives.
Ian Sollom of the Lib Dems, with his copy of the skills white paper
Sollom sees the skills system as being akin to a three-legged stool, with the learner, the education provider and the employer each being the legs and all requiring the right balance of support.
He believes that “governments tend to rush to fix one leg, but if another of the legs is too short, it still falls over”.
Currently, he believes the employer leg is the weakest one; “The long-term decline in investment by employers into training and skills needs to be reversed”.
Sollom is concerned about the decline in SMEs taking on apprentices, and says his party would reverse it by enabling them to create “skills cooperatives” – groups of companies that would “pool the resources and risk” of taking on apprentices. This would mean apprentices moving between companies during their apprenticeships.
“SMEs are a vast pool that you could tap into if you can get the skills system working for them,” he says.
The party’s “ambition”, Sollom explains, is that FE teachers are paid the same as those in schools. He sees FE workforce shortages as “increasingly problematic, as you’ve got an ageing workforce in the FE sector because of the pay issues. And it’s no good putting skills front and centre if you’ve actually got no one to teach them.”
But – ever mindful of previous promises his party broke 16 years ago while part of the coalition government not to raise university tuition fees – he adds: “I don’t want us to make promises we can’t keep, and I’m aware of the constraints that the Treasury would likely place on us”.
The Lib Dems also support the Association of Colleges’ recent campaign to extend the pupil premium to disadvantaged 16-18 year olds.
Sollom is critical that Skills England is being “run by the civil service” (it’s joint CEOs are both ex-DfE directors) despite the government’s first King’s Speech “heavily implying” it would be put on a “statutory independent footing”.
Current polling indicates that the closest chance the Lib Dems could have to gaining power would be to form a coalition with other left-of-centre parties against Reform – in which case, their general alignment with many of Labour’s own education policies may be an asset.
“The Lib Dems have shown in the past that they’re prepared to be grown up in those circumstances,” Sollom says. “But ultimately, we’ve got to look at what we think is the best way of delivering the best outcomes for people.”
Saqib Bhatti, shadow education minister
Saqib Bhatti, shadow education minister, Conservative Party
Unlike Sollom, who is not a keen Ticktocker, Bhatti is trying hard to build up a following on the platform, although he has not been using it to discuss FE issues. His top-pinned video uses a filter to show Kemi Badenoch mocking Rachel Reeves while wearing scribbled-on sunglasses, to the tune of a Snoop Dogg song.
His most successful post to date was one claiming the post-Covid shortage of lorry drivers was not down to Brexit, as the US and Poland faced a similar recruitment challenge. To his surprise, it got a quarter of a million views.
“You just never know what interests people,” he muses.
Bhatti sits to the right of the party. He supported Liz Truss’s party leadership bid in 2022 and saw her as a “very effective” international trade secretary while he served as her parliamentary secretary.
But he also sees himself as a “collegiate politician”, which he says he learned from Sajid Javid, whom he served as a private parliamentary secretary when Javid was health secretary, and who dealt with trade unions in a constructive way.
Bhatti is now offering education unions an “open door” to come to him with their ideas, because “it doesn’t matter where our politics are, ultimately we all have the same aim”.
Bhatti is an accountant by trade who “never planned to be in politics”; the prospect of the UK leaving the EU galvanised him into it.
I meet Bhatti and his two advisers outside Westminster tube station. To reach his favourite café from there, we must navigate our way past some rather rowdy protestors campaigning to rejoin the EU.
Little do they know that Bhatti is their political nemesis. He sat on the ‘Vote Leave’ board and founded Muslims for Britain campaign, helping persuade 800,000 Muslims to vote for Brexit by arguing that doing so would create a “fairer landscape” for those coming over from the Indian subcontinent.
“I was reticent to put my head above the parapet on political issues, but I just thought this was so important around Brexit. Being a British Muslim, I wanted ethnic minorities to have a voice in the campaign,” he says.
Like Labour, the Tories have put apprenticeship growth at the heart of their skills mission and, as ever with politicians, they are keen to show they have walked the talk.
Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative party conference
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claims to have taken an apprenticeship in software engineering, although her office has not responded to multiple queries from FE Week as to whether she completed it. Bhatti studied law at the London School of Economics but says “it’s very possible” that he would take an apprenticeship if given the chance again, in “something techie”.
At this year’s party conference, Badenoch unveiled proposals to double the apprenticeships budget to £6 billion a year by slashing enrolments onto “poor value” university courses, and directing “savings” towards apprenticeships and “worthwhile” courses.
The Tories are continuing to throw their support behind the T Level qualifications they introduced, despite their lacklustre take-up. Bhatti derides new V Level qualifications proposed in the skills white paper as “insulting, lower-level qualifications that reinforce a soft bigotry of low expectations for working-class students”.
He believes that cutting funding to level 7 apprenticeships will do “huge amounts of harm”, as those who “benefit” from them are “proportionally more the poorest in society”.
When it comes to skills, Bhatti discovered in his former role as president of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce how “very convoluted” the sector is. He helped campaign for fellow Conservative Andy Street to be the first mayor of the West Midlands.
However, these days he is more reticent about the benefits of devolution, fearing that combined authorities are becoming “super bureaucracies”.
Like Sollom, Bhatti believes that not establishing Skills England as an independent body was a “missed opportunity”, thereby “taking away the business voice”.
Bhatti also criticises the government for cutting adult education funding, an issue “we have to fight hard for” which “matters incredibly,” given rising unemployment.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
Reform UK: No spokesperson for education in post
Reform UK is storming the polls, with one recently predicting it would win 293 seats if a general election were held tomorrow, with Labour trailing on 191. But its leader, Nigel Farage, knows his rhetoric has made him unpopular among teachers. He predicts the entire UK teaching profession, who are “poisoning our kids”, would go on strike “very quickly” if Reform wins the next general election.
He believes that the “Marxist left” is “now in control of our education system” which requires an “absolutely herculean” job to turn it around.
Farage made these remarks during a recent visit to Hillsdale College, a small private Christian college in America which offers free online educational courses including The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narratives, Ancient Christianity and The American Left: from Liberalism to Despotism, and is affiliated with Regent’s University London.
Farage made a “commitment” to “help Hillsdale in the United Kingdom garner hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people to your online courses”.
Reform has so far revealed few details about its wider education and skills policies. But its politicians have indicated their support for the apprenticeships system.
The party’s policy papers say it would impose a higher national insurance rate (of 20 per cent) on foreign workers, which “could raise more than £20 billion over five years to pay for apprenticeships and training for young Brits”.
Reform also indicates that it would provide tax relief for businesses that take on apprentices.
But some other Reform policies could have undesirable knock-on effects for young people in FE. Its proposal to “front-load” the child benefit system in support of those with the youngest children would mean less money for college-aged offspring. And many ESOL learners would struggle to cope with its proposed requirement for five years in residency and employment before claiming benefits.
The party is already moving to cut ESOL provision in some areas where it holds power, including Greater Lincolnshire, Kent and Derbyshire.
3CJ5WDP Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns singing at the Reform UK annual conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. Picture date: Friday September 5, 2025.
UK universities have good reason to fear the prospect of a Reform government; the party says it would withhold funding to universities that undermine free speech, and shorten degree duration to two years.
Reform has set up a working group to come up with a SEND policy paper, chaired by Greater Lincolnshire mayor and former Conservative skills ministerDame Andrea Jenkyns.
Whereas others in the party have taken a more hardline approach to SEND spending (deputy leader Richard Tice has said it was “being hijacked” by too many parents “abusing the system”), Jenkyns has a more nuanced perspective as she is neurodiverse herself and has a son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Tice has suggested that redundant church buildings could be used to teach children with SEND closer to home, and has criticised the excessive profits of independent special schools run by private equity companies. But his party shares the Tory aversion to VAT on independent school fees.
As part of its ‘war on woke’, for schools, Reform has pledged a “patriotic curriculum”, a ban on “transgender ideology” and the permanent exclusion of violent and disruptive pupils.
Reform would also “reopen high-intensity training camps for young offenders to teach basic education, teamwork and values”, to “tackle youth crime”.
The party’s only reference to adult education is to say it would provide free education to military personnel both during and after service.
Green party leader Zack Polanski
The Green Party
The Greens are also riding high, having overtaken the Lib Dems in polls. They have the support of over 40 per cent of 18-24 year olds, with the largest youth and student wing of any political party. But the party has no discernible policies around further education or skills, and did not respond to repeated requests for comment and information from FE Week.
Their school policies include abolishing Ofsted, ending “high-stakes testing”, increasing school funding and teacher pay and extending free school meals to all school children. They have also pledged to restore university grants and end tuition fees.
The party’s education spokesperson since 2016 is Vix Lowthion, an Isle of Wight history, geology and classicsschoolteacher who has built relationships with the teaching unions but has said very little publicly on education issues in recent months.
Green party leader Zack Polanski says he wants to create a country “where education is free and entirely about the joy of learning”. In his role as a London Assembly member, he recently called on Sadiq Khan to “review” adult skills funding cutbacks and provide support to struggling Morley College London.
Youth inactivity is not a marginal issue, it’s a defining fault line in our economy, and the places feeling it most sharply are cities like Bradford.
Leeds and Bradford are neighbouring cities with a shared history and a connected labour market. But the opportunities open to young people in each look very different.
Leeds is moving ahead, buoyed by high-value industries and clear routes into professional work. In Bradford, for all its creativity and cultural strengths, too many young people still face limited progression, lower wages and fewer opportunities for social mobility.
This is not a failure of ambition. Bradford’s young people simply lack access to the routes that turn aspiration into opportunity.
The national data backs this up. Youth inactivity and unemployment remain higher in Bradford than Leeds, with some wards showing alarmingly high levels of disengagement among 16 to 24-year-olds.
This translates into long-term scarring in earnings, health and confidence. In a city that has just marked its year as UK City of Culture, that contradiction should concern us all.
Alan Milburn’s review is rightly focused on the scale of the problem. But the real test will be whether its conclusions recognise that youth inactivity is deeply place-based. National policy alone will not solve it.
The decision to move responsibility for skills into the Department for Work and Pensions is one of the most significant shifts in a generation. In theory, it offers an opportunity to better connect training with jobs and reduce the numbers of young people drifting out of the system. In practice, it could just as easily entrench short-term, work-first approaches that push young people into low-progression roles.
Whether this change helps or harms places like Bradford will depend on whether the government’s £820 million package of place-based employment support for high-need areas is matched by a clear commitment to skills development and progression, rather than treating entry into any job as an adequate measure of success.
Bradford’s challenge is not that work doesn’t exist. It’s that the pathways into good work are fragmented, poorly signposted and too often disconnected from the realities young people face. Colleges, employers, health services and employment support still operate in silos, even though the barriers young people experience are rarely a single issue.
Skills provision has to intervene early, support learners holistically and stay connected to the labour market beyond the first job.
In Bradford, that means making professional and technical pathways visible and local. High-value work exists across West Yorkshire, but too often young people feel they have to leave their city to access it. Skills routes into digital, health, green construction and the creative industries should be designed with regional employers and delivered in ways that feel attainable, not abstract.
It also means building ‘earn and learn’ routes that reduce risk. Short, paid pathways that blend learning with real jobs can be the tipping point between staying engaged and walking away, especially for young people who simply cannot risk studying without an income.
We must also fix the transition points where young people are most likely to disengage. The move from compulsory education into further education or work remains fragile for those facing disadvantage. Literacy, numeracy, confidence and wellbeing need to be embedded from the start.
Health cannot sit outside this conversation. Anxiety, long-term conditions and caring responsibilities are major drivers of inactivity.
Milburn’s review into the cause of rising numbers of NEETs must look beyond national levers and employment metrics. It needs to recognise that places like Bradford are not problems to be fixed, but systems to be enabled.
Real change will not come from redesigning benefits rules alone. It will come from skills systems rooted in local economies, connected to employers and designed around the realities of young people’s lives.
Bradford doesn’t need expectations to be lowered. It needs coherent pathways, joined up support and the confidence that investing in skills is about building futures, not just filling vacancies.
If we get this right, Bradford will not just close the gap with Leeds. It will show how skills can be our most powerful tool for tackling youth inactivity and restoring faith in opportunity.
