‘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

Time in student services transformed my approach to learners

There is one area of my college I always feared to tread. Not the management suite or the smoking area, but student support services. To me, it has always felt like a place of pain. I’ve heard others describe it as the place where poor behaviour finds its excuses.

A college has a single reason to exist, which is education rather than social care, but in recent years my college has been overhauled this area to become an award-winning provision, and the enormous and highly effective student support team is the foundation of that success.

While every staffroom in the land still plays host to debates about whether our youth are ‘snowflakes’ or whether they are truly suffering, the fact is that they need and rightly expect support. What we see in our young people is a social and societal problem but it is also a profoundly educational one. High stress levels are an obvious hindrance to learning, and while the Covid years knocked many off balance, the truth is that the causes of their stresses pre-date the pandemic.

There’s the age-old exam stress, of course, which an obsession with league tables has heightened to a pitch almost from day one of their schooling. And today, even the winners have the weight of student debt and impossibly priced rents to look forward to – not much of a prize. Behind this hovers a deep corrosive fear that comes from a poorly addressed climate emergency, putting everything they are working for at risk. Many no longer feel the future is a place of hope, but despair. Social media compounds this, since there is no sanctuary from these pressures. 

But there’s a more positive aspect to all this, which I’ve learned from listening to students. Many talk of the normalisation of seeking help. And they’re right. Where once people would have been ashamed to pose personal questions in public, now there are networks dedicated to the nichest of issues. Where not so long ago we looked on puzzled at America’s apparent obsession with therapy, now we employ counsellors on our college staff.

There is something serious and worrying going on

Does that make them snowflakes? I can see why Gen X teachers might find the whole thing confusing, but if shame has simply evaporated when it comes to struggles with mental health that is surely no bad thing.  

No matter how hard you search the historical record, you will find no mention of prostate cancer before 1853 when the disease was first recognised, but it existed. PTSD was only identified in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, but its effects were quite evidently described millennia ago in the Aeneid. As educators, are we willing to mirror WWI generals who thought shell-shocked soldiers should simply snap out of it and return to the front line? 

In this light, the snowflakes vs suffering debate is only really asking whether there has been an increase in need or an increase in our ability to identify need. Either way, suicide rates are falling worldwide and in the UK, so all the talk about mental health clearly helps.  

However, in an awful twist, the teen suicide rate bucks this trend. Intentional self-harm is now the third most common cause of death for UK teenagers after accidents and cancer. Like far too many teachers, I have more than once been on the edge of such awful tragedy and have seen enough self-harm to last a lifetime. There is something serious and worrying going on, which can’t be put down to the scandalous underfunding of CAMHS alone.

Whatever the reason, we teachers have a role to play. When anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked about the earliest sign of human civilisation, she spoke of a 15,000-year-old human femur which showed signs of having been broken and healed. The person had been cared for while convalescing. This, Mead said, is civilisation.  

I now see our student support services area as a place of healing, a place where poor behaviour and poor learning find their reasons. That is the kind of place where I want to be. So that is where you’ll find me, listening to the youth of today – not in the staffroom debating their problems.  

Alumni agree: Losing BTECs will exclude many from success

The government’s review of level 3 qualifications has concluded that BTEC is neither a technical qualification, nor a good preparation for university. As a result, BTECs are being defunded. At UP2UNI, we have personal experience of BTEC dating back to 1988, as teachers, managers, franchisers, assessors, selectors and evaluators in schools, FE and HE.

We see lots of positives in T levels, but we strongly object to the removal of applied generals so that T levels can ‘flourish’. We’re not alone: our position is shared by many educators, employers, universities and senior politicians of all parties, making this ironically one of the most unifying political actions ever taken in the education sector.

The government’s response to the level 3 review coincided with the launch of UP2UNI’s 3-year evaluation of Professional Pathways, a programme in which a wrap-around curriculum runs alongside the level 3 BTEC in Ark sixth forms. Surveys, interviews and focus groups with some 600 students and alumni refuted the stereotypical view of BTEC as ‘second-best’; these students made ambitious and sustainable post-18 choices in the same way as their A level peers.

As objections to the defunding of BTEC spread from educators to the general public, we felt there was a gap in the debate: the voice of adults who could reflect on the impact of BTEC on their education, employment and career trajectories over their lifespan. Our response was a life histories project with adults who took a BTEC diploma between the 1980s and 2010s, in ten different industry sectors.

The research produced rich data supportive of the concerns being expressed in the media, but one of our findings seems to be a topic receiving less attention: those students who progress from “failure” at school to demonstrate their full potential through a BTEC route that offers a smooth transition from entry level to level 3, suggesting a failure of the school system, not the students.

Alumni refute the view of BTEC as ‘second-best’

As our participants described their BTEC experience, it emerged that two of them had followed this pathway. One had a story familiar to many FE practitioners: a school curriculum that simply failed to deliver for a young person who was ‘dyslexic, not academic, often sitting in a classroom without really understanding, and found that everything went out of their head in the exam hall’. Four years on, the student had a level 3 diploma, level 2 English and maths, and work experience that prepared them for employment in their chosen sector. The other participant, having arrived in this country at 18 with no prior schooling or qualifications, progressed from entry level to top grades at level 3, followed by a first-class university degree and graduate employment.

Anyone who has worked in FE will have similar examples; it’s a feature of BTEC that really does support levelling up and enhances social mobility. If this is lost, what will we offer 16-year-olds who feel they have failed? T levels, even with a transition year, won’t fill this gap – and anyway, many of these young people will not want a technical route.

In the ‘Imagined Futures’ section of our report, there are some strong views on the loss of BTEC. However, our participants were not simply protective of the distinctive BTEC brand; they were calling for the retention of an approach to learning and assessment that was very different to their experience of school, that had allowed them to shine, prepared them for employment and represented an educational concept they felt should not be denied to young people in the future.

A growing movement in England is arguing for assessment to be fairer, broader and more equitable than the exam-assessed GCSE curriculum that leaves many 16-year-olds with nothing to show by way of achievement. There are many reasons why BTECs should not be summarily withdrawn, but defunding a pathway that enables such young people to gain recognised qualifications, with progression routes to employment in sectors crucial to our national economy, may be the most important reason of all.

Ministers must heed colleges on their move to defund BTECs

The FE sector has united this week to send a clear message to DfE ministers about their planned reform of level 3 qualifications.

The ambition to have robust, universally recognised and valued qualifications cannot be argued against. But what policy makers need to be completely clear on – and what colleges are shouting about – is the impact that defunding 75 level 3 qualifications will have on the lives of people studying them, now and in the future.

Level 3 students at our college have chosen not to take an academic A level route at school. This may be because they didn’t achieve the GCSE grades required to stay on at sixth form or because they prefer a more practical learning route with an identified career at its end.

We currently have around 40 Level 3 courses for 16-18-year-olds in a range of areas from art and design to uniformed protective services. By 2025, based on the new reforms, we will be delivering a fraction of these courses and instead be offering seven T Levels.

While I am supportive of T levels and believe them to be an excellent alternative route for some students, they are in no way a direct replacement for the vocational qualifications that will be lost. 

T levels are rigorous. They are ultimately an A level alternative for people who get at least five GCSEs as opposed to being an alternate vocational 1-3 level for those who don’t.

There’s an obvious gap here, and until we improve the school system enough to ensure everyone is leaving with five GCSEs we need a range of fully accessible level 3 qualifications. T levels aren’t the answer as the bar is just too high.

In addition, they are ‘large qualifications’ and remove scope for a broader set of subjects to be studied. This means that learners will be very much tied to the industry they have chosen at age 16. This simply isn’t right for everyone.

The skills system isn’t failing T levels; The school system is

It’s not the skills system that’s failing T levels, it’s the school system. We need qualifications and accessible pathways for people who don’t achieve as well academically but have got talent in many other areas. 

Such young people and adults need and deserve high-quality alternative routes to achieve social and economic mobility. This equality of opportunity can only be achieved with accessible, sustainable and industry-relevant skills-based qualifications.

The definition of social mobility is ‘a change in someone’s socio-economic situation, either in relation to their parents or throughout their own lifetime’. In short, this is about ensuring people have access to the same opportunities as others to do well in life and are able to successfully improve their own prospects.

We know that inequality starts at birth. For many young people, this disadvantage gap widens throughout their education. While this clearly needs to be addressed much earlier on, further education offers pathways to support young people and adults to gain qualifications, skills and knowledge, often after years of being unable to access the traditional learning on offer at school.

The suggested reforms risk blocking these progression pathways by narrowing options at this crucial level.

My hope is that government ministers (including the opposition) and policy officials hear the concerns the FE sector is voicing and act on it.

I urge them to listen to the experts on the ground and to look at lessons from the past – for example, the failure of GNVQs, which were never given the kudos of being an A level alternative – and realise that change takes time to embed. 

The mistake they are making now is positioning T levels against BTECs, when in fact they should be positioned against A levels.

2025 is just around the corner. We need more time to develop a complete, long-term solution to create a system that truly recognises and rewards the diverse abilities of all learners.

Getting these reforms right is important to so many people’s lives, as well as to the wider economy. It’s imperative we get it right.

Principals call for 12-month delay to ‘reckless’ plan to defund most BTECs

Hundreds of school and college leaders are pleading with ministers to delay their “reckless” plan to scrap most BTECs and other applied general qualifications by 12 months.

In a letter to education secretary Gillian Keegan, 360 headteachers and principals warn that without the postponement they will not have sufficient time to ensure that “students are on the right courses, or the right staff are in place with the right level of training”.

The Department for Education is working to introduce a streamlined system for students finishing their GCSEs that pushes them to study either A-levels, their new technical equivalent T Levels, or an apprenticeship from 2025.

Alternative applied general qualifications (AGQs), like Pearson’s popular BTECs, will only continue to be funded if they do not overlap with T Levels or A-levels and pass a strict new approvals process.

But FE Week revealed last month that of the 134 AGQs included in the DfE’s performance league tables, which were reformed in 2016, more than half have been excluded from this process by government edict. The qualifications account for almost two-thirds of current sixth-form college students and almost a third of courses available in general FE colleges.

Today’s letter to Keegan, co-ordinated by the Protect Student Choice campaign, states that removing such a significant proportion of AGQs will have a “hugely negative impact on many of our students”, adding that this “would be disastrous for social mobility and economic growth”.

The DfE plans to publish a list of new courses that will replace the current suite of AGQs in July 2024, for schools and colleges to start delivering in September 2025.

Leaders have told Keegan that this plan is “simply not credible” and urged the education secretary to introduce the new qualifications in September 2026 instead.

Schools and colleges that signed the letter point out that prospectuses and marketing materials for courses starting in September 2025 will already have been finalised by July 2024, and engagement work with students will be well underway. They go on to write that “it will be very difficult to provide effective information, advice and guidance to young people if we do not know what qualifications we can deliver until the end of July 2024”.

Leaders have reiterated the call of several Lords for the DfE to remove the 134 reformed AGQs from the scope of the department’s defunding review.

But if ministers decide to continue with the proposals, leaders have pressed that a change of timing would at least “minimise the disruption to young people’s education caused by implementing this policy”.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he was “dismayed by the government’s plan to scrap lots of hugely popular BTECs and similar qualifications” with a timescale that “lacks any understanding of how the education system actually works”.

Lucy Heller, chief executive of Ark Schools, said that compressing the time frame for the implementation of this policy “does not serve schools and colleges well but, most importantly, it short-changes our young people who have already suffered so much disruption to their education”.

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, added: “The fact that BTEC students are more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds makes the government’s strategy, and the timeline for implementing it, detrimental to both society and the economy.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Our reforms will simplify the system for young people. Students will continue to be able to study BTECs and other AGQs where they meet new quality criteria and support young people to progress.

“The BTECs that will no longer be available are only those with low take up, poor outcomes, or which overlap with T Levels. We have also introduced a transition year to support students who may have taken BTECs, into T Level qualifications.”

College leaders to fight ‘destabilising’ free school bids

College leaders in west Yorkshire have vowed to fight proposed new free schools in the region, warning that the “unnecessary” competition will provide a “significant risk” to their viability.

Five colleges from the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges have written to the Department for Education’s free school assessment team opposing a series of planned new free schools in the region that the colleges claim are “destabilising”.

The latest wave of free school applications include two in Bradford – a BRIT School North and iExel Elite STEM Sixth Form College for Females; a Northern Technology Sixth Form in Kirklees, Edith Cavell College in Wakefield; and for Keighley a New College Keighley.

In Leeds, two applications have been lodged – Dixons East Leeds Sixth Form and Thorpe Park College.

The bids follow a government commitment to opening “a number” of “high-quality, academic focused” and “elite” 16 to 19 free schools in education investment areas – regions with the lowest student outcomes that have been promised extra support.

According to the DfE, just a quarter of the wave 15 applications will be approved – around 15 of the 60 bids. Leaders at the five colleges opposing the plans say the proposed schools are not needed on their patch because the existing colleges can already accommodate additional students.

Principal and CEO of Kirklees College Palvinder Singh

The five colleges protesting the plans are Leeds City College and Keighley College (pictured) – both part of Luminate Education Group – as well as Bradford College, Kirklees College and Wakefield College.

Principal of Kirklees College, Palvinder Singh, said: “Should the proposals go ahead, there is a significant risk that existing providers will have to make savings, requiring cuts to the curriculum and staffing, and some will no longer remain viable.”

Singh added that the increase in school leavers predicted in north Kirklees in 2026 will fall after a few years, with that growth happening before the new schools are even ready.

According to Leeds City College, an 8 per cent rise in the city’s school leaver numbers is predicted between now and 2026, which the existing colleges can accommodate.

Colin Booth, Luminate chief executive, said the DfE should be focusing on growth in T Levels, explaining that the new bids could cause “real damage” to existing provision.

He added: “This policy and planning vacuum leads to catastrophic failures as can clearly be seen, for example, in how university technical colleges and national colleges have fared.”

The college heads are set to lobby their MPs at tomorrow’s Mind the Skills Gap event in Westminster organised by the Future Skills Coalition – the collective of the Association of Colleges, Association of Employment and Learning Providers and City and Guilds.

FE Week has approached all of the college’s MPs to determine whether they are in support of the free school bids or back the concerns of the five colleges, but has yet to receive responses.

However, in November Bradford East Labour MP Imran Hussain said he backed plans for a new elite all-girls STEM sixth form in the city which will “open new doors” for girls’ participation in STEM  (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects.

Heart of Yorkshire Principal and Chief Executive Sam Wright

“With girls woefully underrepresented in science., technology , engineering and maths field and careers, particularly computer science and engineering, the whole country is missing out on the potential that they can bring, and we need to be doing much more to break down the barriers that many women and girls face in taking up these subjects and seeing it as a viable future career,” he told FE Week.

Chris Webb, Bradford College chief executive and principal said the city is already served by “three colleges, two specialist sixth forms and 15 secondary schools offering post-16 education” with new bids risking investment “going to waste”.

Sam Wright, principal and chief executive of the Heart of Yorkshire Education Group which includes Wakefield College, added: “If they come to fruition, these free school proposals have the potential to severely jeopardise the ability of our colleges to not only thrive, but indeed survive. The government should reconsider investing this level of funding and support into existing providers, which would enable us to grow, align our curriculum offering, increase our resources through recruitment, and expand our facilities to meet any rises in demand.”