The government’s reasons for wanting to de-fund dozens of technical qualifications seem reasonable. As the DfE says, the aim is to ‘simplify the system for young people’ and create a ‘ladder up for all’.
An impressive range of T Levels is now available which offer an attractive option for those seeking to mix their studies with industry placements. But while curriculum reforms are welcome, there are some worrying gaps in replacements for all of the NCFE, BTEC and other applied general courses which are set to be phased out by 2025.
This is one of a number of concerns about the proposals that demand urgent action. The challenge is to introduce these reforms in a manner that doesn’t disadvantage any students or cause successful existing pathways into work to disappear.
In this regard, the DfE’s claim that only unpopular or failing applied general courses, or those that overlap with T Levels will be defunded deserves scrutiny.
Uniformed public services courses that are currently offered by FE colleges are a prime example. These help students, often with very few qualifications, to develop the skills they need to progress and pursue a career in the police, fire service, army, prison service or ambulance service. These are all crucial sectors for our society, and all are facing challenges in terms of recruiting or retaining staff and ensuring their workforces are sufficiently diverse.
Undermining social mobility
These courses, running from Level 1 to 3, provide a unique pathway for young people for whom a direct route into A Levels (or indeed T Levels with their five-GCSE entry requirement) is simply not available.
And there is strong demand for them. At Leeds City College, some 350 16- to 18-year-old students want to join a uniformed service. In addition to these, 40 adults have also come to us to acquire the 80 UCAS points they need to acquire through a Level 3 qualification to join the police through Leeds Trinity University’s Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, which is funded by the West Yorkshire Police apprenticeship levy.
But the government’s planned reforms provide no direct alternative qualification for learners who want to work in the uniformed services. Instead, the DfE has made arrangements for colleges to apply for funding to run a ‘small Alternative Academic Qualification (AAQ)’ in their place from 2026.
The expectation will be for these small AAQs to be studied in combination with two A levels, which will make this new pathway much less attractive (and in some cases inaccessible) to many. This change would restrict choice and, nationally, lead to a significant reduction in the number of people attempting to join our uniformed services.
That would represent a disastrous blow for social mobility.
Delivering a diverse workforce
Our uniformed services still have a long way to go to ensure their workforces reflect our society. The government’s police workforce report for England and Wales, for example, shows that as of March 2022, white officers made up nearly 92 per cent of personnel.
In West Yorkshire, last year’s racial diversity report showed that just 7.4 per cent of the force’s officers were from a ethnic minority backgrounds. Rightly, the region’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe described this as ‘woeful’.
Our courses are helping to address these shortcomings. Some 20 per cent of our Level 3 public services students in Leeds last year identified as BAME.
The gender split among students is also helping to address the historical imbalance which the police still suffers from. In England and Wales, the workforce is 66.5 per cent male. At Leeds City College, our public services students last year were 60 per cent female.
In addition, 40 per cent of Leeds City College’ public service students in 2022 came from some of the country’s most deprived postcode areas.
FE providers are doing the work to create the diverse workforce our public services are crying out for – through courses that could soon disappear. Gillian Keegan must ensure that a public services T Level is created to continue meeting skills needs in these crucial sectors.
Previous Job: Director, Delivery and Schemes, Ofgem
Interesting fact: Philippa enjoys walking in the countryside with her family. A trip up Scafell Pike last summer completed a family challenge of scaling the three peaks (although the challenge was completed over a six-year timescale!)
Robert Herriot
Strategy and New Business Manager, 1st for EPA
Start date: May 2023
Previous Job: Sales Marking Manager, Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards
Interesting fact: In a previous role, Robert met with the top 19 entrepreneurs in Scotland to get their signatures for charity. Robert hopes his role at 1st for EPA will involve meeting the same calibre of customers.
The HGV & Bus and Coach Standards Trailblazer Group has been working with IfATE to rectify a serious funding mishap in 2019 that reduced the funding band from £18,000 to £15,000 for the three-year HGV technician apprenticeship.
Like many other industries, we are operating in a very tight labour market. It takes nearly four years to qualify as an HGV mechanic and the job is not only safety critical but essential to our economy to keep our supply chains moving.
The core issue lies in IfATE erroneously categorising virtually every vehicle component, batteries and training rigs as capital funded items even though our trailblazer group has confirmed that the items do not last longer than the duration of the individual apprenticeship.
Contrary to IfATE’s view, most of the items are destroyed through constant use by the apprenticeship within a couple of years. Common sense says that if you strip down and rebuild something 12 times a day – when it was only designed to be stripped down once in its lifetime – it does not last very long. Yet no amount of evidence, engineering reports, photographs or even repeat invoices seem to be able convince officials.
According to IfATE, the required specialist buildings and training rigs such as engines and gearboxes are all ineligible cost items. Funding rules state that a provider can claim for premises if mandatory to run the course, but IfATE are refusing to add these costs. Instead, they say that the costs are covered by the 20 per cent non-teaching costs, which they themselves calculate. As a result, we are left with insufficient funding to pay for specialist training centres.
Skimping on kit literally endangers the public. And the fact that the programme is a loss-maker has resulted in most providers exiting this provision altogether.
What is the point of trailblazers if IfATE insists it knows best?
The funding process is supposed to be transparent and fair. Our experience is that it is opaque, bureaucratic, and slow. I would go as far as to say it is not fit for purpose and is not providing good value for the taxpayer’s money.
The question we ask ourselves as a trailblazer group is what happens if the training providers do not want to or cannot provide this eye-wateringly expensive equipment. What happens to the day release local college courses that do not have a manufacturer who is willing or able to fund all the training equipment for their apprentices to learn on the right kit?
If those courses exist, the reality is that learners are more likely shown how to do things on cars only, or taught ‘in theory’ and left to do the practical back at the workplace. This is not good enough. It fails our apprentices, our businesses and our economy.
We have invited IfATE officials to come along to a training centre, but they have declined saying ‘they already know’. We have offered them to come to a meeting of our 50-strong trailblazer group to hear the views of the manufacturers, employers, training providers and EPA organisations, but they don’t feel they need to.
The sector route panel may be well-intentioned, but it has no heavy vehicle experience. More than that, the route is enormous and no one panel can really make good decisions in these circumstances.
This has been a very difficult process since the latest review began in October 2022, when it was supposed to be a simple costing exercise driven by an IfATE error. More than six months on, we are left asking ourselves what the point of a trailblazer/employer lead group is if IfATE do not trust and respect the industry and insists it knows best. As wealth creators for the economy, we do not feel valued or listened to.
As we stare down the worst shortage of skilled technicians our industry has ever experienced, it is easy to conclude that apprenticeships, led and funded as they are, are no longer our go-to source of high-quality future talent.
After 30 years of supporting apprentices, that makes me extremely sad. Everyone else should be worried about the implications.
The post-pandemic recovery in apprenticeship starts has stalled during the current academic year with the biggest fall (8.3 per cent) in the first two quarters occurring in the 19-to-24 age group. The fluctuation in start numbers is largely determined by employer demand and there is no doubt that the slowdown in the economy since last summer has had a negative impact on what had been an encouraging post-lockdown recovery for the apprenticeship programme.
So how can we go about reinvigorating the apprenticeship brand? Here’s a summary of the main points I put forward at the recent FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference 2023.
Responsiveness and relevance
First, more needs to be done to bring apprenticeships in line with the needs of business. In particular, the employer trailblazer structure under IfATE is not functioning as it should. Employers can make recommendations to make apprenticeships more attractive to other businesses, but too often IfATE won’t accept them, such as allowing flexibility in the off-the-job training rule.
Then, as I wrote in FE Week in March, the apprenticeship requirement for attaining functional skills in maths in its current form is putting off a lot of businesses and would-be apprentices from engaging in the programme.
Remit Training has since conducted an online poll in which household-name employers and many training providers participated. Of these, 88 per cent of participants agreed that the maths aim needs reform. The key objective should be to reduce and achieve contextualisation of the curriculum to be more relevant to the apprenticeship.
Funded for success
The same proportion of respondents agreed that the separate funding rate, unchanged since May 2017, requires a significant uplift.
Our calculation is that the rate needs to be £1,800 to adequately cover monthly taught sessions with each apprentice. Without it, lower functional skills attainment will remain a major factor in the disappointing apprenticeship completion rates overall, which undoubtedly damages the brand.
Apprenticeship funding in general has not increased over the past six years, and in some cases has gone down. Over the same period since March 2017, the rate of inflation (Retail Price Index, RPI) has increased by 36 per cent in absolute terms. It is hardly surprising therefore that we hear almost weekly stories of providers going bust or withdrawing from apprenticeships.
Some observers may not care about providers, but they should at least care about the futures of thousands of young apprentices who are left in the lurch. An announcement on remedial action since promises on funding were made in early November cannot be delayed any longer.
The DfE’s apprenticeships director, Peter Mucklow recently visited Remit Training’s automotive apprentice academies in Derby. There, he saw the high level of investment needed to provide good quality training as the UK responds to the surge in new electric vehicle registrations.
We emphasised that we had to generate commercial training income in order to pay for our apprenticeship provision and grow it, adding that inflation has turned our HGV technician apprenticeship programme into a loss-maker. It means that Remit has to find alternative ways to raise funds to establish more academies when the economy needs these vital skills to keep our supply chains moving.
Consistent messaging
Lastly, the mark of any successful brand is its attractiveness to potential consumers. But apprenticeships are still not competing with other sectors on a level playing field. To attract more young people to apprenticeships, we should review how best to work with schools on the Baker Clause requirements for providing information and guidance to pupils.
Instead of potentially lots of providers trying to come into schools carrying different messages, a collaborative approach is needed to agree a manageable programme of visits. The government should also commission some bite-sized videos featuring apprenticeship completers talking about opportunities opened, career progression and increased earnings.
The key point emanating from independent training providers is that boosting the apprenticeship brand is not just about government funding. There are other changes with the potential to make the programme much more attractive to employers and young people, which all need government vision and leadership.
And of course, funding has to be addressed urgently too.
Ten years on from the introduction of direct entry for 14- to 16-year-olds in college, FE Week hears of its transformative impact on learners. But inequitable funding and reputational damage have led to a postcode lottery for the provision and prevented the policy hitting the heights first envisioned
Cath Sezen is unequivocal. “Where it does exist, it offers a great opportunity for young people who really want to study a vocational area and some young people for whom school hasn’t quite worked. Without it, there will be a big gap in provision,” she says.
Sezen, interim director of education policy at the Association of Colleges, is talking about direct entry provision, where colleges enrol and teach students aged 14 to 16 where a mainstream school is not the right answer for them.
Announced back in 2012 by the coalition government, the policy was a response to the Wolf review and aimed to help those for whom a vocational route was more appropriate, and in turn, hoped that would help improve those students’ academic subject performance too.
Sezen says it also provided a replacement for the increased flexibility programme – where key stage 4 students could do one day a week in college – and the similar young apprenticeship programme after funding for those ceased.
In the first year (2013/14) 170 learners took up the offer across five colleges in England.
A decade on, a Freedom of Information request by FE Week can reveal that just 12,860 young students have been taught through direct entry.
Only 27 colleges (either general FE or sixth form) have attempted to offer the provision.
And just 14 colleges are listed as planning to offer provision this year, according to government guidance.
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College is a new name to enter the arena this year, but 14 others over the years have stopped offering the provision. So why has provision that insiders say has such a transformative impact on young learners had so little take-up?
‘Doing more for less’
One answer lies in the funding model. Per-student 14 to 16 funding comes at the same rate as college 16 to 19 students, £4,542 for the basic rate this year. That is despite direct entry provision being for 25 taught hours per week (the same as schools) compared to around 16 or 17 hours usually seen on 16-plus college courses.
Basic per pupil funding for their key stage 4 peers in mainstream schools however is £5,831 – nearly £1,300 more per student.
Coupled with the requirement for colleges to provide a separate space on their campus for teaching direct entry, and difficulties for colleges to access high-needs funding, Sezen says it has left colleges “asked to do more for less”.
Alan McKenna (pictured inset) is deputy director of SEND and inclusive provision at Leeds City College, which is one of just two colleges to offer direct entry every year since its launch. He is also chair of the AoC’s 14 to 16 special interest group.
He says: “Funding is the number one reason why colleges have pulled out because, until you get to a certain size, I don’t think you can do it at a profit, or even break even.
“It’s only in the last couple of years that we actually broke even. Up until that, the first eight years it was costing about 20 per cent more than the money being brought in.
“Unless you have got a very altruistic chief executive who sees the moral compass, who sees the social climbing of these young people and how they can get there… I can see why most colleges would pull out if they are struggling financially in the first place.”
According to the DfE, an implementation group was formed in 2012, chaired by Mike Hopkins, then principal of Middlesbrough College, and Tony Medhurst, who was at the helm at Harrow College, which set out the arrangements for delivery – including funding.
Some colleges, like Accrington and Rossendale and The Oldham College, ceased delivery of the offer after just one year. For others, such as Hereward College of Further Education, low numbers appeared to be behind the decision to quit.
But Tyne Coast College is not listed for this year, despite 600 direct entry students being taught there over the past eight years. Annual overall numbers of direct entry students appear to be falling too – 1,336 were recorded in the 2022/23 academic year compared with a peak of 1,741 in 2019/20, a 23 per cent fall.
FE Week has approached a number of colleges that have ended their provision, but none wished to comment on their reasons why.
For those who do offer the provision though, the clear need in the community appears to be a key driver, rather than income.
Mike Hopkins, principal at South and City College in Birmingham (and not the same Hopkins as at Middlesbrough), says the college opened its direct entry centre in 2017/18 because the local authority was closing down a large school in the city which left year 10 and 11 students displaced.
“We stepped in and set up a centre and it’s really successful,” he says, albeit after a “baptism of fire” in the first year as it got to grips with the provision.
He adds: “If we didn’t do it, there would be a significant number who have a problem.”
Reputational damage
Funding is far from the only problem. With the same accountability regime as schools, progress 8 scores are published for direct entry in colleges.
This left Leeds City College (pictured main) in the bizarre situation of having one of the country’s lowest progress 8 scores in England in 2018 despite receiving an ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted for its 14 to 16 direct entry provision.
Two colleges – NCG and London South East Colleges – opted to axe their direct entry entirely over the reputational damage they suffered from low progress 8 scores in 2017 and 2018, not helped by national media running stories listing them among the “worst schools in the country”.
Since the outcry, the DfE has added a footnote to its progress 8 releases that explains why the data should not “allow robust conclusions to be drawn about their performance”.
Ironically, experts are agreed that the progression that direct entry students make – usually into 16-plus college courses, apprenticeships or employment – is outstanding.
Those reasons alone have cost some localities their direct entry provision, but the landscape could have been thinner than it already is.
“It has never hit the heights it meant to due to that exact same problem [with funding],” McKenna says. “You will find that some of the colleges that even now are still doing it are only doing it because usually the local authorities are paying top-up fees to try to keep it going, because they know that is successful.
“That becomes a postcode lottery to a certain extent. What it needs is a national funding mechanism that allows for and understands the kind of young people we have got in colleges.”
The DfE told FE Week that targets were never set when the policy was established and confirmed that it was up to individual colleges whether they wanted to offer direct entry or not.
‘I have got my child back’
Leeds is on track for 260 students this year – 130 each in years 10 and 11. But the college’s data reveals the huge demand for places.
McKenna says: “We are the size we are because of the funding model – we can’t go any bigger because of the space it takes and with such an inequitable amount of money that comes in per learner. We turn down approximately 200 learners a year – that’s a lot.”
And, he says, some learners travel 25 or 30 miles just to get to college each morning.
Providers have flexibility over what they deliver, but the personalised approach by staff appears to pay dividends for students who often need additional support. Some may have been at risk of exclusion, others will have special educational needs or anxieties.
At Leeds, learners spend a dedicated one day a week on their vocational programme, a level 1 or 2 in areas such as hair and beauty, digital, childcare, performing arts or engineering, as well as a curriculum of English, maths, science, business studies, PSHE and IT.
Its provision also includes broader support in areas such as anxiety and mental health, as well as life skills such as wiring a plug or opening a bank account.
The college also keeps cohort sizes small – no more than 20. With that support, coupled with progression to vocational programmes or work post-16, it is clear why demand is so high.
As McKenna says, “we have parents who say, ‘I have got my child back’. It’s phenomenal”.
Time will tell if the decline in annual starts, since a high of 1,703 in 2018/19 can be arrested and more colleges can get on board. Sezen (pictured inset) is spearheading research by the AoC and the Institute of Education, to assess all kinds of 14 to 16 provision in colleges (including alternative provision and part-time hours for electively home-educated students).
But experts say it is clear that “the model fits for what young people want to do” and, in the meantime, McKenna and the AoC are lobbying to get the funding changed.
They recognise, however, that it is a “vicious circle”, because “the DfE say you haven’t got that many numbers, so it is not on their agenda”.
Peter Marples is holding firm in his High Court battle as his family lawyers attempt to pick apart the government’s defence.
The co-founder of 3aaa is attempting to sue the Department for Education for the then-Skills Funding Agency’s refusal to sign off on the change of ownership of the former apprenticeship giant in 2016, two years before the company went bust amid an investigation and police referral.
In the latest instalment of the legal action, Marples’ lawyer, Mark Harper KC, has countered the DfE’s claim that the case is “fundamentally flawed” and attempted to justify why a financial loss was suffered.
The reply to the defence also submitted evidence which alleges that the SFA had originally intended to sign off on the sale before U-turning at the 11th hour, and claims that the DfE has admitted the funding agency “did not have the power to approve a change of control”.
Bargaining power lost and shares rendered ‘worthless’
Marples claims that the consequence of the SFA’s refusal was that the proposed sale of shares fell through and caused a loss of at least £37 million.
The DfE’s lawyers hit back and said this “represents no loss because they retained the shares”, adding that the main reason why Marples suffered any loss is because the value of the shares “fell for other reasons, in particular when the company went into administration in October 2018”, which is “unrelated to the pleaded causes of action and is not recoverable”.
But Marples’ lawyer argued this was “specious” because the claimants “lost the benefit of the bargain that they had, in principle, agreed”.
The reply said: “It is not pleaded in the defence that there was an alternative, available market for the retained shares. Indeed, the effect of the refusal letter was to deprive the claimants not only of the intended sale to TLP (Trilantic Capital Partners LLP), but also to any other interested purchaser, to whom that refusal letter would have been disclosable.
“The shares were rendered worthless by the refusal letter.”
‘Duty of care’ contested
The DfE said Marples’ claim of negligence is premised on the idea that the SFA, in exercising a right under a contract, owed a “duty of care to its contractual counterparty’s parent company’s shareholders”.
It added that there is “no room for any such duty of care, which would conflict with fundamental principles of privity of contract, the corporate veil and public policy”.
Marples’ lawyers disputed this: “There is no principle of law that such a duty is not owed to the shareholders of a company, by a contractual counterparty.
“The fact that the claimants were shareholders in the SFA’s counterparty is no bar to the existence of a duty of care in their favour, and the material facts show that the SFA assumed a duty of care when purporting to have the right to approve or deny a change of control request.
“Ultimately, the SFA purported to act as gatekeeper to a deal where it was reasonably foreseeable that its conduct would cause the abandonment of the TLP acquisition, and therefore cause the claimants’ loss.”
DfE ‘admits’ it had no power to refuse sale
3aaa’s funding agreement with the SFA included the following clause (5.10): “The contractor must notify the chief executive if there is a change in its name and/or ownership. The chief executive reserves the right to terminate the contract if they consider in their absolute discretion that the change in ownership would prejudice the contractor’s ability to deliver the services.”
Marples’ lawyer argued that, accordingly, the SFA exercised an effective veto over any change of control, because no reasonable intending purchaser of the company’s shares would agree to buy it without assurances that the funding agreement would not be terminated.
The DfE’s defence then said that, while the SFA “did not have the right to approve a change of control, it is admitted that it was commonplace for providers to seek the assurance of the SFA that it would not immediately exercise its right to terminate the contract”.
But it denied that approval by the SFA to the proposed change of control was “agreed to be a condition precedent to the TLP acquisition”.
Marples’ lawyer said the defendant has “therefore admitted that, whereas it purported to be entitled to decide upon a change of control, it had no contractual basis on which to do so”.
The latest reply continued: “The most the SFA could properly have said was that it reserved the right to exercise its discretion under clause 5.10 in the event of a change of control. Had it done so, the acquisition would have been completed.
“The SFA still had the opportunity to not renew the contract at the end of the then current term, being 1 August 2017, if it so wished; something which TLP were aware of as part of the acquisition when agreeing the consideration for the company.”
Marples’ lawyer added that, if the SFA was “truly concerned” about the future deliverability of the contract, then its options were to either terminate the funding agreement post-acquisition or simply not award a further annual contract.
But the “reality is that the SFA increased its funding to the company the following year”.
The mysterious draft letter
Marples claims that on December 22, 2016, he telephoned then-SFA deputy director Sharon Forton to enquire about the status of the sale approval. She allegedly informed him that she had placed a letter on the desk of then-SFA chief executive Peter Lauener, which “confirmed that the SFA would consent to the change in control”.
The DfE’s defence said the claimants are required to prove the telephone call and contents pleaded, adding that the letter refusing consent was drafted by Forton on December 22, 2016, and “at no time before that letter was drafted” did Lauener indicate to Forton, or any other person, that he intended to approve the change in control.
Marples has now claimed that there existed a draft version of the letter (see image) which “differed substantially from the refusal letter…which was presumably signed off by Peter Lauener”, adding that the defendant has “not explained how such amendments were finalised”.
Show us the evidence!
The DfE’s defence denied that 3aaa was “unique” in not being granted approval to a proposed change of control and claimed that the SFA had “terminated the contract of another provider upon a proposed change of control”.
In its reply, Marples’ lawyer said the DfE is “put to strict proof” on this matter, adding that the department must “prove that the alleged termination of contract occurred in the same period and pursuant to the same contractual provisions as governed in the funding agreement”.
You can download and read the full claim from Marpleshere, the DfE’s defence here, and Marples’ reply to the defence here.
Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick has resigned, FE Week can reveal.
The former Labour councillor turned Brexit party parliamentary candidate has led the membership organisation, which represents 120 awarding bodies and apprenticeship end-point assessment organisations, for five years.
Bewick will remain in post until the end of September. The federation’s board is working on plans to find their next leader.
From October 1, Bewick will join Ecctis, an international qualifications body, as chief executive.
Kirstie Donnelly and Alan Woods, chief executives of City and Guilds and VTCT respectively, and co-chairs of the FAB board said: “We thank Tom for five successful years leading FAB. He’s built a strong foundation for FAB to continue representing its members during these important times in policy for skills, apprenticeships and technical education.
“On behalf of the board and the membership of FAB, we thank Tom for his committed service and we wish him well for the future.”
The skills and enterprise expert is co-founder of Franklin Apprenticeships in the US, and founded the Transatlantic Apprenticeship Exchange Forum in 2015 to promote opportunities for UK training providers in the US.
He led the International Skills Standards Organisation Ltd from 2011 to 2015, and prior to that was chief executive of Enterprise UK, a former government quango, from 2010 to 2011.
Other government roles include adviser to the minister for adult skills in the early 2000s.
He was a Labour councillor at Brighton and Hove City Council from May 2015 until he resigned in January 2017.
He left the Labour Party in 2019 to run as the Brexit Party’s candidate for Dagenham and Rainham at the 2019 general election.
In July last year Bewick was made a visiting professor of skills and workforce policy at Staffordshire University.
Richard Hastings, the chair of Ecctis’ employee ownership trust board, said: “Our new CEO will progress our ambitious plans to invest in and grow our skills recognition and verification services and our global insights work, developing the business within the context of an employee-owned trust.”
Colleges’ hopes of claiming an exemption from VAT have been dashed again, after a Treasury minister confirmed there are no plans to change the law despite strong opposition from MPs.
Victoria Atkins, financial secretary to the Treasury, told a Westminster Hall debate this week that exempting colleges from VAT would cost around £200 million a year, which she implied would mean a significant loss of public spending elsewhere.
The debate, tabled by Conservative MP George Eustice, argued that, while academies and schools with sixth forms do not have to pay VAT, FE colleges and standalone sixth form colleges are in a “ludicrous situation” where they are not exempt from the tax.
“At the moment, it is incredibly difficult for those FE colleges to be able to recruit and retain staff because of the squeeze on their budget,” he told MPs.
Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex Sir Bernard Jenkin said that VAT exemption had led to negative consequences in his area. He told MPs that Colchester Institute, which serves his constituency, was suffering an “unparalleled financial squeeze” leading to redundancies and cost reductions at the college.
“Unless the government can resolve this anomaly, they are facing a crisis,” he said.
Labour MP for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner, Conservative MP for Chelmsford Vicky Ford, and Conservative MP for Torbay Kevin Foster also made pleas for the Treasury to exempt colleges from VAT.
But Atkins resisted the calls, stating that the Treasury has no plans to make amendments for FE colleges mostly because of the amount it would cost the department each year.
“There is a balancing act here,” she said. “If that is £200 million that we are attributing to this scheme, then that is £200 million elsewhere in our vital public spending priorities, like the schools budget.”
She said the Treasury was facing its own post-Brexit bureaucratic pressures regarding requests for VAT exemptions. “We have had requests for more than £50 billion-worth of relief from VAT since the EU referendum,” she said.
Currently, Section 33 of the VAT Act 1994 allows local authorities and other such public bodies to reclaim VAT from non-business activities. In 2011, the law was amended to include Section 33b for academies to become exempt from VAT on costs incurred.
But Atkins said that sixth form colleges and FE colleges are not included in section 33 or 33b section of the law as “they do not fit the rationale for either”.
The rationale of Section 33, she said, is to “prevent VAT costs from falling as a burden on local taxation”.
She added that sixth form colleges can restructure as academies if they want to take advantage of the tax benefit.
Atkins also said the eligibility for VAT refunds is “not related” to ONS classification.
“There are a number of public bodies and publicly funded activities that make significant contributions to our lives but are not eligible for VAT refunds, for example, the Bank of England and university research grants,” she explained.
The opposition also raised concerns about colleges’ financial stability but stopped short of committing to exempting colleges from VAT if Labour wins the next general election.
Abena Oppong-Asare, shadow secretary to the Treasury, said the Labour party’s mission is for colleges to play a “vital role” in breaking down barriers to young peoples’ access to further education. “The Labour party will evaluate the situation properly before putting any proposal forward,” she added.
Complementing the growth of Learning Curve Group’s existing Ed-Tech solutions, CareersPro is designed to provide individuals, young or old, with the tools and resources to make informed choices about their education and career paths. This platform harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to deliver personalised recommendations, guidance, and costings that are tailored to each individual’s unique skills, interests and aspirations.
Last year’s Ofsted inspections revealed that 80% of educational institutions required improvement in their Careers Education, Information and Guidance (CEIAG). The platform has been built with this in mind and will give the likes of schools, colleges, local authorities and independent training providers the ability to offer careers guidance through an easy-to-use online resource.
Taking career advice and guidance to the next level
With a vast library of resources, including industry insights, salary data, and job descriptions, CareersPro has made it easier than ever for individuals to explore different career paths, empowering users to choose careers that align with them.
Users can explore careers that complement their skillset and make use of their existing qualifications. CareersPro gives them all the facts, so they can make well-informed decisions.
This innovative platform uses comparative judgement to discover what is most important to people in their careers. If users already have an idea of a career, they can browse the database of over 500 careers and explore which qualifications they’ll need, what the local labour market looks like, and consider which skills they already have that match that career.
Building a CV has never been easier. CareersPro identifies transferable skills and provides a personalised career report for each user, meaning they can tailor their CV with the rich information from the platform.
World-class careers advice using the power of software
CareersPro is at the forefront of EdTech solutions and has been designed to support education providers meet the Gatsby Benchmarks to offer world-class careers provision. It has been developed to align with the Gatsby framework, which all providers are responsible for implementing within their education setting. Legislation states that “careers information is a fundamental right for all children in the UK”, so it is imperative that providers have the resources to facilitate young people’s understanding of their possible career routes and how they can get there.
Far more than a career quiz, what really sets CareersPro aside is its AI-powered recommendation engine, which uses sophisticated algorithms to analyse the user’s interests, skills, and career aspirations and builds a personalised career report. With this platform, users can be confident that they are making informed decisions about their futures.
Providers can purchase access for users in bulk, so they can explore careers, job opportunities and qualifications that will get them to where they want to be. There are a range of licence options available to support organisations of all sizes.
