SEND plan: less big bang and more damp squib for FE

After an extended period of review and consultation – and many missed deadlines – at last we have a SEND and alternative provision (AP) improvement plan. But has it been worth the wait? For the FE sector, the answer has to be no. 

It’s no surprise that the improvement plan is largely focused on addressing the two key issues that were foremost in the SEND and AP green paper: the spiralling costs of the system, in particular the call on the high needs budget, and the rising numbers of children with SEND being educated outside of mainstream schools. 

National standards setting out ordinarily available provision may well help in this mission. 

It remains to be seen, however, whether the tension between retaining young people’s rights and reducing costs can be satisfactorily resolved. 

The increased focus on accountability, with more oversight and clearer sanctions for local authorities failing to fulfil statutory duties, is welcome. Lack of accountability has certainly been a factor in the failure of the current SEND system.

Of course, Natspec was hoping that the improvement plan would include some bold reforms to address the intransigent issues affecting 16-25 year olds, especially those with more complex needs. 

Sadly, they are not to be found. There is more post-16 content than in the green paper but that is a pretty low bar. 

Missed opportunity

We may have played a small part in ensuring some of the more controversial proposals in the green paper, such as tailored lists and mandatory mediation, are trialled before final decisions about implementation are made. But we haven’t seen these off by any means. 

Our disappointment is rooted in the missed opportunity to set out a vision for 16-25 SEND provision that addresses the key challenges in meeting the needs of young people effectively. 

What the improvement plan offers is an assortment of initiatives already announced: investment in supported internships, the access to work passport and qualification reform.

There is an acknowledgement of the need for reform but without any new commitments, for example, on re-working the dysfunctional FE funding system or providing dedicated funding for students with lower-level needs. All we get here is a promise to keep working with the sector to find solutions. 

The main offer to FE is new transition standards. These may be helpful, but they will need to drive change well beyond interactions between schools and colleges if young people are to be spared the anxiety caused by late decision-making and missed statutory deadlines.

We were hoping for clear recognition that that the circumstances of FE are very different from the school sector. 

Capital omission

While only 50 per cent of children with EHCPs are in mainstream schools, 90 per cent of FE EHCP-holders are in general FE colleges. 

The issue in FE is how to keep it that way. There are already early signs of a slow but steady increase in demand for specialist college places. We need an equivalent commitment of funding to support SEND learners in mainstream FE colleges as that going to mainstream schools. 

We also need similar levels of support for specialist colleges as that shown for maintained special schools. While £2.6 billion has been poured into funding new special school places and a new tranche of special free schools will be opening, specialist colleges are in desperate need of capital funding just to maintain the fabric of their buildings in many cases. 

Surely the children who benefit from these brand new special schools also deserve high quality facilities when they move on to college? 

Government could have required local authorities to commit a proportionate amount of funding to those aged 16-25 or at least been explicit in stating that the funding should be used to secure quality provision in local specialist colleges as well as special schools. 

Omissions like this leave us uncertain as to the government’s understanding of and commitment to specialist further education. 

They tell us that they have heard from Natspec and its members that specialist colleges are often regarded by local authorities as external rather than integral to the FE system. They propose to work with us to review the way the Department defines and manages specialist further education.

It’s just a pity they didn’t set that in motion within the improvement plan itself. 

SEND improvement plan ‘offers no solutions’ to post-16 problems

Ministers finally published their special education needs and disabilities improvement plan today, three years after the SEND review was first launched. 

The government has pledged to go ahead with most major reforms it set out in its green paper last March but had very little new to say on post-16 SEND education and training.

Further education leaders were left disappointed by proposals in the green paper, which they didn’t go far enough in addressing complex bureaucracy, under-funding and inconsistencies in the system. 

Today’s implementation plan provides some clarity that was missing in the green paper about the role of specialist colleges and post-16 settings within the government’s proposals for a coherent national system. 

Plans for national standards to hold local authorities and education settings to account won’t be introduced in full until 2025 at the earliest. 

Proposals to standardise and digitise education health and care plans (EHCPs) will go ahead, but again won’t be rolled out fully until 2025.

The Department for Education has kept its pledge to double the number of supported internships by 2025 and commits to continuing to pilot English and maths “flexibilities” within apprenticeships which allows some apprentices with an EHCP to achieve with a reduced level of English and maths. 

Natspec, the representative body for specialist colleges, said it welcomed greater commitments to work with post-16 SEND providers but the plan fails to deal with the sector’s urgent staffing and capital needs. 

Clare Howard, Natspec chief executive said: “We support the government’s aim to create a more inclusive system where children and young people’s needs are more swiftly met. However, we cannot fully endorse a plan which fails to make much-needed commitments to support the FE sector.

“Whilst the improvement plan acknowledges some of the issues for FE, it still fails to include concrete solutions or new proposals, and does not provide the urgent funding for specialist staffing and facilities required by both general FE and specialist colleges.”

One of the headline announcements from today’s implementation plan is for 33 new specialist free schools in 30 local authority areas, mainly those with large high needs deficits. 

But there are no plans for capital investment for post 16 specialist colleges. SEND leaders highlight that specialist colleges are often not eligible for funding under the government’s existing capital programmes for colleges, such as the further education capital transformation fund. 

“We are pleased to see more capital funding for special schools, but the children who benefit from new buildings at school also deserve quality facilities when they reach college. Many specialist colleges are now in desperate need of capital funding but there are no new resources for refurbished or extended facilities at specialist colleges,” Howard said.

David Holloway, senior policy manager for SEND at the Association of Colleges, said: “The plan acknowledges critical issues faced by college students with SEND – like the muddle around the status of specialist colleges and the lack of distinct funding for those who do not qualify for high-needs support. But the plan offers no solutions to these problems, nor even a timescale for review.

“Some issues, such as investment in college buildings for students with SEND, are not addressed at all.”

Here’s what you need to know about the “new” policies announced in the government’s improvement plan.

National standards (not until 2025)

By the end of 2025, new national standards will be introduced which outline what provision young people and their families should expect to be made available for them from early years through to further education. The standards also aim to clarify who is responsible for making provision available and which budgets should be used to pay for support.

The standards will be underpinned by legislation to “facilitate intervention in education settings if standards are not met”. But the department confirmed that there won’t be legislation this parliament. 

From this spring, parents and “frontline professionals” will be among those ministers talk to on how the standards could look.

By the end of this year, government will “start testing some elements” of the standards with the regional expert partnerships. 

Then by the end of 2025, “a significant proportion” of the standards will be published, “with a focus on those that are most deliverable in the current system”.

Accountability to ‘ensure expectations met’

Ministers will also look at designing accountability mechanisms “to ensure the government’s expectations are met, including considering the role of Ofsted and Care Quality Commission”.

The new national standards could set out how colleges must adapt physical and sensory environments to enable students with SEND to learn alongside peers, as well as the council’s role in supporting this. 

Clear standards for universal and SEN support provision (so those without an EHCP) will enable “better accountability at this stage”. 

National SEND tariffs to come alongside standards

The SEND review also proposed a national system of funding bands and tariffs for students with special needs to ensure more “consistent” funding.

This will go ahead, with bandings clustering “specific types of education provision” and tariffs setting the rules and prices that commissioners use to pay providers.

No specific dates for implementation were provided, just a pledge it will be “alongside our broader changes to the national funding system and the development of national standards”.

The new system will give providers “clarity on how much funding they should expect to receive in delivering support or a service and enable commissioners to determine the funding required”.

EHCPs go digital – but trialled first

DfE is going ahead with plans to create a standardised EHCP template, but guidance won’t be in place from 2025. It will “consider the case for mandating its use through legislation”, but will “encourage” councils to adopt the template.

On plans for a digital EHCP, this year DfE will work with councils, suppliers and families to test how “digital solutions might best improve their experiences of the EHC process”. 

In 2024 they will design digital solutions and testing drafts, before beginning “rollout of requirements” across councils in 2025.

Inclusion plans in, but no council admission powers

Government is going ahead with “local inclusion plans” (LIPs), created by local SEND and AP partnerships. Non-statutory guidance will be published this autumn on expectations for the partnerships, alongside a “self-assessment tool”. 

In 2024, the change programme’s regional taskforce teams will target support to areas most in need. The DfE’s regions groups will work with the local partnerships to develop and agree LIPs by the end of 2024.

From 2025 onwards, government will introduce primary legislation at the “next available opportunity” to put make partnerships statutory.

Transition to post-16 and employment 

For students with an EHCP, local authorities are supposed to specify post-16 provision by March 31, though “this deadline is regularly missed” according to the plan. Information about students’ needs isn’t shared early enough, which means transition to post-16 settings is often hampered late decisions and poor planning. 

The government’s answer is to develop new good practice guidance for each transition stage from early years through to employment and adult services. Key partners, including students and the Association of Colleges and Natspec, will be involved. 

There’s also a commitment to research the experiences of young people applying and enrolling in post-16 settings “to improve the sharing of information”.

The plan restates the government’s commitment to spend £18 million over the next three years to double supported internships by 2025. Internships Work have been appointed as “delivery partner” and are tasked with “levelling up the quality of internships across the country”.

There were 2,500 supported internship starts in 2020/21, but an investigation by FE Week that only one in foursupported interns achieved sustained employment. 

Mandatory mediation to be scoped out first

Ministers had controversially proposed to make mediation between councils and families during the EHCP process mandatory. Currently thousands of appeals go to the first-tier tribunal with some parents waiting up to a year for help.

The move will be tested through the change programme to ensure there are no “unintended consequences for families”. It will look at options to “strengthen mediation” before deciding whether to bring forward legislation. 

This year it will work with organisations such as the Civil Mediation Council, the College of Mediators as well as families to review and build on professional standards for mediators. 

It will improve mediation advice for families and evaluate the outcomes and impacts of the process. 

Next year, it will “clearly set out” what processes should be followed locally and say how the mediation process “will be monitored to give families confidence in it”. 

Workforce support for schools, but not for FE

Ministers will go ahead with plans to introduce a new leadership level SENCo National Professional Qualification. The Department confirmed to FE Week that the implementation plan did not contain any new workforce development measures for post-16 settings. 

Instead, the Department pointed to three new practice guides, to be introduced by the end of 2025, which “will equip frontline professionals with the skills and expertise to make best use of provision and to identify needs early, accurately, and consistently.”

Inclusion dashboard demo next month

The SEND review pledged new “inclusion dashboards” for 0 to 25 provision to offer a “timely, transparent picture” of how the system is performing at local and national level for “strengthened accountability and transparency to parents”.

A prototype will be tested from this April “with a view to making a fully public version available in autumn 2023”.

However, where new mandatory data collections are proposed, they will be assessed to check if they are “genuinely necessary, non-duplicative, comparable and coherent with all other data collections”.

Double tax on employers to boost training, says former education minister

The next government should at least double what businesses pay in to the apprenticeship levy to repair the country’s poor record on training, according to a former Department for Education minister.

Jo Johnson, who was universities minister at the DfE when the apprenticeship levy was being developed, told an event in parliament today that increasing employer contributions would enable the levy to fund “a wider range of courses”, without reducing the resources available for apprenticeships.

The now Lord Johnson of Marylebone was speaking on a panel organised by the Future Skills Coalition – a new campaigning group set up by the AoC, AELP and City and Guilds. The panel event was part of a day of action with colleges and training providers lobbying MPs for greater investment in FE and skills ahead of next month’s budget. 

Johnson said taking more money from employers to fund adult training, as well as apprenticeships, was the most realistic way of solving the country’s skills gaps. 

“There is a need to ramp up training spending. As a country we spend less than half the Europeans on training employees and virtually all economists are in agreement that the UK needs to invest substantially more into training and development of its workforce.”

Johnson, who is chair of independent training provider Access Creative College, would increase the amount employers pay in to a rebranded “apprenticeships and skills levy” from 0.5 per cent of their annual pay bill to 1 per cent. 

He suggested half of the increased funding raised should be ringfenced for apprenticeships, and the rest could be spent by employers on “non-apprenticeship training, including modular courses to tackle key skills gaps.”

The Labour Party announced last year that it would also reform the levy to a “growth and skills levy” so businesses could use half of their contributions on non-apprenticeship training. Unlike Lord Johnson’s suggestion however, Labour didn’t announce any plans to raise extra funding from employers, leading to concerns that its plans could shut out smaller businesses. 

At today’s “mind the skills gap” event, which also saw speeches by Kirstie Donnelly, chief executive of City and Guilds, Jane Hickie, CEO of AELP, David Hughes, CEO of AoC and Lord David Blunkett who led Labour’s Council of Skills Advisers, Johnson took aim at the government’s record on investment in skills and training. 

“I think there is a really shocking mismatch between government rhetoric on skills and the actual resources that have been made available to colleges and independent training providers” he said.

“Government funding itself is not going to be the whole answer. So I don’t think anybody should be under the illusion that the Treasury is just going to write a cheque. 

“That’s why reform of the apprenticeship levy is so important, because it will potentially bring more employer funding to the table in a way that absolves the taxpayer and the treasury of the sole responsibility of addressing this mismatch. 

Smaller businesses should also pay the levy, Johnson suggested, so “more SMEs have skin in the training game”.

Currently businesses with an annual pay bill of over £3 million are liable to pay the apprenticeship levy. Johnson said that £3 million threshold could “potentially” be brought down, though he didn’t specify by how much. 

“As a country, we really need to double, or more, mandatory spending on training. An apprenticeship and skills levy in the next parliament, I think, is the only game in town in that respect,” he concluded.

Elsewhere in his speech, Johnson took aim at the government’s plans to defund applied general qualifications that overlap with T Levels. 

According to Johnson, the government is “proceeding at a really alarming pace” and has “created a burning platform with the defunding of BTECs and other applied general qualifications in order to accelerate the rollout of T Levels”.

“There is a clear evidence base that T Levels are not yet ready to take the weight and shoulder the burden that’s being placed on them, and I am extremely concerned, looking at the situation on the ground and talking to providers, that there is a real risk of a large number of learners being left with no option that really suits them,” he added.

His comments come on the day 360 headteachers and principals wrote to education secretary Gillian Keegan to ask the government to postpone plans to defund most BTECs and applied general qualifications.

‘Innovative’ colleges honoured in 2022/23 AoC Beacon Awards

The “best and most innovative practices” in UK colleges have been celebrated this week in the Association of College’s Beacon Awards.

Ten colleges were recognised for their “inspirational work” across the awards event, with another being “highly commended”. Gongs recognised achievements in areas such as engagement with employers, widening participation, excellence in governance and use of digital.

Mark White, chair of the AoC’s charitable trust which runs the event, said: “The AoC Beacon Awards showcase exactly why colleges are so important to every community and why people value them.”

Colleges in Nottingham, Preston, Oldham and Brighton were among those to scoop awards, with Weston College celebrating more success this year following its two award wins last year.

Skills minister Robert Halfon Tweeted his congratulations to all of the evening’s winners: “These winners represent the best and most innovative practices in FE colleges,” he said.

The evening also celebrated the Student of the Year award winners, who were announced at the end of last year.

The full list of winners is as follows:

The AoC Award for Widening Participation: Hopwood Hall College (pictured)

The British Council Award for Internationalism: Gower College Swansea

The City & Guilds Award for College Engagement with Employers: Preston College

The Edge Award for Excellence in Real World Learning: EKC Group

The JISC Award for Effective Use of Digital Technology in FE: Activate Learning

The National Centre for Diversity’s Award for Inclusive Learning Leadership: The Bedford College Group

The NOCN Group Award for Mental Health and Wellbeing: Nottingham College

The Nous Group Award for Education for Sustainable Development: Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College in partnership with FE Sussex

The AoC Award for Excellence in Governance: Weston College

The RCU Award for Support for Students: Oldham College

Highly Commended College: Bishop Auckland College

DfE’s college loans scheme won’t be ready until summer

A new Department for Education loans scheme for college capital projects has been confirmed today – but cash for the “time-limited” scheme won’t be available until the summer.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency in its weekly update said the DfE capital loans scheme will provide vital funding for FE capital schemes that are either under way or in the pipeline that have been held up as a result of reclassification of colleges into the public sector.

Full details are set to be published next month – which crucially will include eligibility criteria – with loan funding set to be available from “early summer”.

In November’s re-classification by the Office for National Statistics, the DfE said that colleges must gain special and rare permission from the DfE for finance deals with the private sector.

It said that was “very unlikely” given the costs of private sector borrowing were higher than in the public sector.

It left colleges putting key projects on hold and at risk of not being completed.

In January, the DfE said it was “possibly” considering its own loan scheme, but had put in place an additional £150 million of grant funding to be shared among colleges in April.

Today’s announcement confirmed the new DfE loan scheme will be time-limited, with the repayable loan funding to be drawn down by March 2025 at the latest.

The ESFA said it has written to accounting officers at colleges to clarify any undeclared commercial borrowing they had in place at the point of reclassification with regard to capital projects up to March 2025.

The Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said: “The fact that DfE will be announcing a two-year loan scheme in April 2023 is progress because this will unlock college capital projects that are currently stalled because of uncertainty about cash.

“However, it’s now three months since DfE introduced a bank borrowing ban so it is disappointing that there’s another month to wait for the terms, conditions and interest rates for the new loans.”

Last week the AoC said colleges have made 55 loan applications to the DfE since the ban on borrowing came into effect on November 29, of which 22 were refused and 10 are pending. The 23 applications that had been approved were all for short-term loans.

‘Significant’ in-year cash boost to national adult education budget funding

A “significant” boost to national adult education budget funding has been announced for this academic year and next to help ease delivery challenges faced by the sector.

But the increases, which involve a 20 per cent uplift for “vital” subjects such as engineering and maths and are expected to cost around £20 million in total each year, will not be funded with new money – it comes from the existing AEB.

Experts have also pointed out that the commitment from the Education and Skills Funding Agency still lags below the increases announced by several mayoral combined authorities in the devolved areas.

The ESFA announced on Wednesday that colleges and training providers will be paid for any over-delivery up to 110 per cent of their contract value in 2022/23 and 2023/24, as they were in 2021/22 – up from the usual threshold of 103 per cent. The ESFA said this was a “permanent” change going forward.

A 2.2 per cent increase to the final earnings for all AEB formula-funded provision – excluding associated learner and learning support – will then also be applied.

It means that, if a provider delivers 109 per cent of its allocation, they will receive a 2.2 per cent boost to 111.2 per cent.

In addition, the ESFA will apply a 20 per cent boost on top of earnings for AEB provision in six sector subject areas: engineering, manufacturing technologies, transport operations and maintenance, building and construction, ICT for practitioners, and mathematics and statistics.

The earnings uplifts come ahead of the introduction of new funding rates that will apply to the ESFA’s new skills fund from 2024/25.

Robert Halfon, the minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, said he was aware that the FE sector was facing “financial pressures in key subjects like engineering, mathematics and construction, which is why we’re giving an additional significant boost in funding for these essential courses”.

The annual AEB pot stands at about £1.5 billion. The ESFA currently dishes out about 40 per cent of the total budget, with the rest devolved to 10 mayoral combined authorities.

Sector leaders welcomed the ESFA’s earnings uplifts, particularly because the current formula rates for the national AEB have not changed in 10 years. But they flagged that the policy does not go as far as some devolved areas, such as London, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire, that have already implemented new funding rates that at least match inflation of 10 per cent.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “In the current circumstances, any uplift in funding rates is always welcome, especially as rates for AEB qualifications haven’t changed for ten years.

“However, the uplifts disappointingly still lag below increases already announced by a number of the mayoral combined authorities in the devolved areas which better reflect the increases in costs that providers are experiencing.”

Marguerite Hogg, senior policy manager for adult education at the Association of Colleges, added: “While we look forward to the new formula with higher rates set to be introduced in 2024/25, this interim measure will go some way to easing the burden for colleges during the current economic climate.

“Some mayoral combined authorities have gone further than this, with 10 per cent increases in rates, and we would encourage the others to learn from their example.”

The ESFA told FE Week that, based on existing patterns of delivery, it expects the earnings uplifts to cost around £20 million in each academic year they apply. A spokesperson also admitted this is not additional funding, it represents an allocation of underspend from the AEB.

The ESFA said it will apply the uplifts automatically to providers’ total earnings at the end of each of the two academic years, meaning providers will not see the increases in their earnings each month through the current system.

Officials promised to provide further details on the operation of the earnings boosts and allocation thresholds in the AEB funding rates and formula guidance.

Sue Pember, a former director of FE funding in the Department for Education who is now policy director of adult education network HOLEX, said: “This seems a good short-term solution to use the existing AEB budget. However, at the next spending review, there needs to be new money and increased funding in all areas including health and care programmes and adult community learning.”

This week’s announcement comes in the middle of the ESFA’s national AEB tender process, which requires bidders to submit enrolment numbers and funding values based on current formula and rates.

The ESFA told FE Week that providers will not be expected to factor the earnings uplifts into their bids. The deadline for tender bids is March 6.

The key to bridging the skills gap is staring us in the face

Bridges are some of the great engineering wonders in our country. The Iron Bridge in Shropshire is the oldest cast iron crossing in the world, a marvel dating back to 1779. The Humber Bridge was the world’s longest suspension bridge between 1981 and 1998. Indeed, in Lowestoft in my constituency work is well under way on the Gull Wing Bridge, which once completed will be the largest rolling bascule bridge in the world.

Why all this talk of bridges? Well, a bridge has the purpose of making something impassable passable. Whether it is fording a great river, traversing a mighty gorge or crossing a motorway. The bridge is the solution to the problem of navigating a gap we would otherwise struggle to cross.

Sitting on the green benches, we regularly hear about the skills gaps we face and how they are a major problem for our economy. It is a challenge which has spanned Conservative, Coalition and Labour governments. Last autumn, the ONS estimated there were almost 1.2 million job vacancies which went unfilled. While this is partly testament to the record low unemployment we now enjoy in this country, it means many employers cannot find the skilled people they need to fill posts.

While this problem has proved hard to overcome, the solution is staring us in the face. Our fantastic colleges and independent training providers, which serve communities the length and breadth of the country, are there to bridge skills gaps. The very purpose of further education is to provide younger and older people alike with the training they need to get on in the workplace.

I am proud to chair the All Party Parliamentary Group on Further Education and Lifelong Learning and I am always astounded by the excellent work East Coast College does in my own constituency. But colleges and the wider FE sector could do so much more if they were given the means to fulfil their full potential.

The sector could do so much more if they were given the means

Today, I joined a panel discussion in parliament to explore these issues in greater detail. Clearly, the issue of funding is high on the priority list for college principals, but there are non-monetary ways to help the sector too.

The Future Skills Coalition is a new partnership between some of the major players in the FE sector: the Association of Colleges, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers and City & Guilds. They have a clear sense of the priorities to tackle this problem: A right to lifelong learning; fair, accessible and effective funding; and a national strategy to support local, inclusive growth.

The Conservatives have laid strong foundations for this. Policymakers now understand and value the FE sector more. However, the autumn budget did not deliver a funding boost for colleges, despite a sizeable package for schools to deal with inflationary pressures. It was encouraging that the Chancellor announced a review of FE reform implementation by Sir Michael Barber, and it is very important that this is quickly followed by a positive statement on revenue funding, so that colleges’ concerns that Whitehall does not understand their worth are allayed.

I am hopeful the Chancellor will make colleges and the FE sector the keystone of his plans to boost growth and increase productivity in his spring statement on 15 March. Jeremy Hunt recognises the issue but is in the unenviable position of having to make tough decisions for the sake of our future prosperity. I urge the Treasury to consider that the return on investment for any additional funding for colleges will be vast both economically and socially, as the lives of our constituents are forever improved by access to education and training.

A gap is a problem which invites ingenuity to bridge. With the blueprint already laid out by our colleges, I am sure this is not a bridge too far for the Chancellor.

How ITPs can ensure more SMEs benefit from levy transfer

It’s fast approaching six years since the Government’s apprenticeship levy was introduced and it’s safe to say it remains contentious. In the past two weeks we’ve seen a number of organisations lobbying the government for change. Recent research from City & Guilds found that an overwhelming 96 per cent of UK businesses would like to see a change to the levy. Others are calling for wholesale reform. 

Ministers have so far resisted such calls and even in the unlikely event a reform is proposed, it is likely to take a significant amount of time. So, what happens now?

Returned levy funds are often presented as opportunities missed, but within the current system levy payers can in fact generate opportunities with their unused funds. They can do this via transferring up to 25 per cent of unused levy to non-qualifying businesses in need. This was among the key recommendations of City & Guilds and it is a way of reducing skills shortages in the sectors most affected.

Supporting SMEs by widening access to apprentices is a key aspect of this. Not only will it address the issue of access to apprenticeships for non-levy paying smaller businesses, it will also help to address the differences in outcomes for levy-paying and non-levy-paying businesses, which the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) set out in its ‘Fit For The Future’ report.

Leveraging support

I strongly believe this is where the ITP industry can effectively step in.  Working in partnership with employers and colleges, they can use existing infrastructure, connections and knowledge to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from quality apprenticeships in the sectors that need it most.

ITPs should use their voices to champion ways of supporting SMEs within the current system. A lack of resource, knowledge and time are some of the key barriers that are currently preventing smaller businesses taking up apprenticeships.  Many smaller employers simply don’t know about the support that is available to them to invest in and expand their workforce. 

ITPs can remove some of these barriers by facilitating levy transfers. They are well placed to understand the transfer mechanisms and can ease the process by managing the relationships between partnerships, which will help to encourage more take-up.

Levy transfer has numerous benefits for SMEs and the large levy-paying organisations. It’s an opportunity for large employers to meet their wider objectives such as social mobility and support the regions and communities that they operate in.

For sectors with the most acute staffing shortages – such as the care sector – this collaboration between levy and non-levy paying businesses is vital.

Tackling shortages

Lifetime provides apprenticeships in sectors such as retail, hospitality, care, early years and active leisure. We identified a need and opportunity for additional levy funds from our partners, who are among the UK’s largest employers, to be channelled within the care and early years sectors.

The number of people starting apprenticeships in the early years sector fell from just over 27,000 six years ago to just over 16,000 last year. While in the care sector, there were over 165,000 vacant posts when the results were published last Autumn. 

We believe everyone deserves to learn the life-changing skills they need to realise their full potential, and we work with our employer partners to achieve this. That’s why we set up a levy transfer service. Channelling funds to trusted and vetted SMEs in the care and early years sectors enables employer partners from any sector to support those with the most acute shortages.

On balance, reforming the levy risks leaving millions of businesses and learners temporarily in the lurch. Meanwhile, expanding it to include other forms of training risks impacting quality.

But by working together to improve the current system, it’s possible to provide tangible impact and outcomes for more employers and learners from otherwise unspent levy.

Six years is a very long time in politics but a short time to embed a new system and build the capacity to deliver it. That capacity is growing, and more leadership from ITPs could negate the need for levy reform.  

How mandatory work experience could be a win for colleges

Mention universal work experience to somebody working in a college, and they’ll probably go a little pale. While it is near universally agreed that exposure to the workplace brings great benefits to students, the practicalities of arranging meaningful placements for every student are challenging. And schools and colleges understandably fear that formidable task will fall to them.

All the same, continued concerns over skills shortages have led several organisations (among them, Speakers for Schools, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Labour party) to call for work experience to be made accessible. So we at the Social Market Foundation have spent the last few months exploring how such a policy could be feasible, in a way that would not be too painful for educational institutions. 

Concerns with supply

We need to start by recognising where we are. Employer engagement with education is low and has weakened further over the pandemic. Generating enough placements for T level students is already proving tricky. Speaking to career leads and college representatives, there is concern that creating further competition for work experience could make this worse.

We should therefore avoid over-burdening the limited number of employers that currently do provide placements. Without careful planning, universal work experience risks becoming a tick-box exercise, where students are put on any available placement simply to meet the requirement.

Local coordination

This is far from inevitable, though. Handled well, a push for universal work experience could expand the number of employers and placements. To make this a reality, we need investment in brokerage services to support them to sign up more employers to participate in work experience.

Colleges tend to have quite good relationships with local employers, but developing these takes significant time and effort, which all too often is duplicated. Schools, Education Business Partnerships, Career Hubs and dedicated careers services are all trying to build relationships with the same employers. That means the process of engaging employers is less efficient than it should be, and that it is often unclear for employers where to start if they want to contribute.

We should establish a single, local point of accountability

What would work better is embracing economies of scale and establishing a single point of accountability for local coordination. Employers, educators and careers services would benefit from a single point of contact.  As they already have broad geographical coverage, and a majority of schools and colleges are already part of one, we believe that Careers Hubs would be best placed for this role at a local level.

Clearly assigning responsibility for coordinating work experience within an area to a single organisation, such as a Careers Hub, would allow them to get on with the sustained, proactive outreach needed to engage more employers with the education system more broadly. Armed with a full menu of ways to support students, employers would be gradually moved up the ‘ladder of opportunities’ – perhaps starting with presentations and workplace visits, and then working up to short placements, and eventually T levels.

Learner benefits

The reduced administrative burden of sourcing placements means that those responsible in schools or colleges can pour their time and resources into supporting students on work experience to make sure they make the most of them. Placements can be appropriately matched and shaped to the students’ needs and interests, and students themselves can be better prepared for them. Not only will colleges avoid competing with each other or with local schools for employer contacts, but they can also coordinate to ensure that placements don’t clash, improving access to opportunities.

Effective, universal work experience also presents a more indirect benefit for colleges: better support to younger students at key stage 4, a group that faces key decisions over their educational futures and careers with often too little understanding of the workplace to make those calls.

In turn, that could be good for colleges, creating a better informed and motivated student body, ready to take on the qualifications that are right for them.

‘Learning from experience: How to make high quality work experience for all a reality’ can be accessed here