FE is the missing partner in social prescribing

On Social Prescribing Day today, the national conversations focus on the vital role of the voluntary and community sector in supporting health and wellbeing. But there’s a critical gap that risks limiting its impact, just as the NHS seeks to redefine prevention.

The government’s health mission aims to create a fairer Britain where people live well for longer, recognising that health is shaped by more than clinical care. Tackling inequalities requires collaboration across sectors, including organisations like WM College, London embedded in the communities most affected.

Social prescribing reflects this shift.

It recognises that loneliness, low confidence, poor mental health and economic inactivity cannot be solved through medical intervention alone. They require sustained, community-based responses that rebuild confidence, connection and purpose.

FE colleges already deliver this every day, at scale. At WM College, we see this first-hand: adults referred through wellbeing networks rebuilding confidence through creative learning, often taking their first steps back into structured activity after periods of isolation.

So why do colleges remain largely absent from the systems designed to deliver health and wellbeing?

At a time of unprecedented NHS pressure, this is no longer a minor oversight.

The NHS 10-year plan places prevention and neighbourhood health at its core, with Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) tasked with shifting from reactive care to earlier intervention and joined-up provision.

But intent alone will not deliver this shift.

Social prescribing pathways rely heavily on the voluntary sector which is vital, but often constrained by short-term funding. If social prescribing is to operate at scale, the system must draw on existing infrastructure.

Colleges are exactly that.

They are anchor institutions with the space, workforce and reach to deliver high-quality provision – already engaging many of the individuals social prescribing is designed to support.

For many, entering a college is not seen as a health intervention, but as a positive step forward. That distinction reduces stigma and enables re-engagement – particularly important given rising economic inactivity.

Social prescribing helps stabilise wellbeing. But too often it lacks a clear onward pathway, meaning impact can plateau.

FE provides the missing link connecting wellbeing to skills, confidence and employment.
NHS England recognises that people with little or no English are more likely to experience poorer health outcomes. Only 65 per cent of people who could not speak English reported good health in the 2011 census, compared to 88 per cent of those who spoke English well. They’re more likely to face healthcare inequalities, including significant barriers and delays in receiving care.

ESOL classes do more than teach language – they build belonging, reduce isolation and prevent mental ill-health. Yet this impact is rarely funded through social prescribing.

As Integrated Care Boards shift toward strategic commissioning for population health outcomes, excluding FE is a failure to align delivery with policy intent.

Where partnerships do exist, they’re often fragile – reliant on individuals and vulnerable to bureaucracy and staff turnover – rather than embedded in system design.

Integrating FE fully into social prescribing  would mean recognising colleges as core partners within neighbourhood health models, embedding them in commissioning frameworks and aligning health, skills and employment funding to support joined-up outcomes.

Funding remains a critical barrier. When patients cannot afford medicines, the NHS subsidises them. The same principle should apply to social prescriptions. If a GP refers someone to a wellbeing activity, colleges are often expected to provide it free, absorbing the cost. A prescription is a prescription – and it should be funded as such.

The need for preventative support is growing, and national conversations – including the ongoing inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Further Education and Lifelong Learning – increasingly recognise the role of adult education in driving health, wellbeing and economic resilience.

These agendas are converging. But policy has not yet caught up with practice.

If we fail to act, we risk maintaining a fragmented system where health, education and employment operate in parallel – missing a critical opportunity for individuals, communities and the public purse.

Further education is not simply a pathway to skills. It is part of the UK’s health infrastructure.

And it is time our systems were designed to reflect that.

A night in the cells set students free to play and make connections

When my students arrived at Shrewsbury Prison for our overnight residential, they were singing and dancing on the coach.

An hour later they were in prison jumpsuits, choosing their cells for the night.

Each cell contained nothing but a metal bunk. The heavy doors clanged shut. The reality of the environment settled in.

The aim of the trip was simple: to bring criminology and psychology to life. Students took part in escape-room challenges across A Wing, explored the history of punishment through a guided tour, and debated the realities of prison life in the same corridors where inmates once walked.

But the most interesting learning moment of the trip did not happen during the formal activities. It happened later that evening when the structure faded away.

Learners from different classes, many of whom had barely spoken to one another before, began playing games. Hide and seek echoed down Victorian corridors. Small groups gathered on landings talking and laughing together in what could only be described as impromptu circle time.

At first glance, it looked like chaos. In reality, it was something much more valuable: play.

Resilience and independence

In education we often associate play with early years. Somewhere around the age of 11 we quietly remove it from the learning environment and replace it with seriousness, structure and assessment. But teenagers still need play.

Psychologist Peter Gray has long argued that play is one of the primary ways young people develop social competence, resilience and independence. Through playful interaction, young people practise negotiation, cooperation and emotional regulation in ways that structured activities rarely replicate.

In other words, play is not a distraction from development, it is part of the mechanism that drives it. What I witnessed in that prison wing was exactly that process happening.

Students who normally sit in separate classrooms were suddenly mixing naturally. Conversations were flowing. New friendships were forming. Students who can sometimes be quiet or withdrawn in lessons were confidently participating in group games. The environment had changed, and with it the dynamics between students.

A prison, a space historically designed for isolation and control, had unexpectedly become a place where connection and community flourished.

Of course, the trip had taken weeks of planning, risk assessments and organisation. Experiential learning always does. But moments like that remind me why it matters.

Further education students are navigating one of the most complex periods of their lives. Many are managing anxiety, uncertainty about the future and the pressures of adulthood arriving fast. In that context, opportunities for genuine social connection are not just enjoyable, they are developmentally important.

Play allows teenagers to experiment socially without the pressure of performance or assessment. It gives them a space to negotiate friendships, develop confidence and regulate emotions in ways that traditional classroom environments often struggle to facilitate. And perhaps most importantly, it reminds them that learning environments can be human.

Bringing people together

When we reflected on the trip afterwards, several learners said they would happily do it again.

What stood out was how aware they were of the way the evening had unfolded socially. Some even complimented classmates for starting the games that brought everyone together.

What began as hide and seek soon evolved into sardines, with students squeezing into the same hiding places and encouraging others to join in.

Perhaps most importantly, some of the younger learners said they now felt they had someone in the year above they could approach if they needed support. In a single evening, students who had barely spoken before had created connections that may last far beyond the trip itself.

As educators we often talk about engagement strategies, retention and wellbeing initiatives. Sometimes the solution is simpler than we think.

Give young people a space where they feel safe enough to laugh, explore and play together and learning will follow.

That night in Shrewsbury Prison certainly proved it.

‘Meets expectations’ isn’t good enough if old mindset persists

When Ofsted confirmed the removal of the overall effectiveness grade, I welcomed the decision. For years, that single-word judgement dominated headlines, banners, leadership discussions and tender requirements.

It was a blunt instrument that consumed unnecessary deliberation time during inspection and likely skewed decision-making. Its absence should, in theory, take some of the heat out of inspection.

But removing the overall grade does not remove the culture that grew around it.

A new challenge is emerging as inspections under the revised framework take place: a branding problem with the grading scale.

Under the previous framework, the centre of the bell curve of inspection outcomes broadly sat above ‘good’. Sector shorthand evolved accordingly. Leaders aimed for at least ‘good’. Governors asked whether provision was ‘good’. Staff knew where they stood if feedback suggested they were working at a ‘good’ standard.

Under the revised framework, that centre sits above ‘meets expectations’. That is the structural shift Ofsted has made. Even so, more ‘needs attention’ grades are being awarded than ‘requires improvement’ were previously, as Ofsted has highlighted.

Yet in many organisations, I’ve noticed a translation happening. People mentally convert the new scale back into the old one. ‘Strong’ becomes the new ‘good’. ‘Meets expectations’ is interpreted as something less than acceptable.

That is not what the framework intends, and I’d argue it’s within our gift to address this rather than wait for an unlikely change in the framework.

Culture takes years to unravel

This matters because any inspection system brings both intended and unintended consequences. When grades were removed from teaching observations, the intention was to reflect extensive research showing both the damage caused by grading individual lessons and the lack of validity in judging teaching quality from a single observation.

Yet the culture built around grading lessons took years to unravel. Even where providers stopped using grades, teachers still asked the same question at the end of feedback conversations: “But what grade would that have been?”

The culture did not disappear simply because the system changed – something social scientists call cultural lag.

The revised inspection grades risk following the same path. Even without an overall effectiveness judgement, organisations can recreate the same pressure if they interpret the framework through the lens of the old system.

The phrase ‘meets expectations’ can sound modest. In everyday language it may imply adequacy rather than strength. But within the inspection model, it means something quite different.

It describes provision that is working as it should. Learners are benefiting. Systems are functioning. Standards are being delivered. While ambition for improvement is essential, it should not come at the expense of balance.

‘Meeting expectations’ can, and should, be regarded as success. If you have been through an inspection recently, you’ll know it’s not easy to hit every indicator in the toolkit, and I don’t think we should shy away from calling it a checklist with nuance.

Perhaps the issue, therefore, is not the wording itself but the narrative attached to it.

This matters particularly for governing boards or senior leaders further removed from the mechanics of Ofsted inspection, such as employer-providers or universities.

Understanding recalibration

Without clear explanation, some will understandably anchor the new scale to the old one. And that risks recreating the high-stakes pressure that the reforms intended to reduce.

Those furthest from the inspection process, yet accountable for outcomes, need support from leaders to understand the recalibration. The most common outcome now is ‘meets expectations’. That’s where the bell curve sits.

The revised framework’s success may depend less on Ofsted and more on how the sector chooses to use it. We can avoid the public flogging that poorer overall grades once triggered, normalise honest conversations where attention is needed, and celebrate meeting expectations as well as exceeding them.

Leaders have an opportunity to shape the narrative. That means being clear, internally and externally, about what the new grades represent. It means briefing governors and employers carefully.

The framework has shifted. The culture needs time to catch up.

We must measure what matters in this new era of AI upskilling

In the three years since generative AI entered the public consciousness, it has moved faster than any technological shift in our history. In 2025 the skills and education sector had to grapple with how to equip people for that shift, leading to a year of profound tension.

We were caught between an economy sprinting toward an AI-driven future and a regulatory system that moves at a more measured pace.

Skills England in its AI skills for the UK workforce report characterised it as “slow curriculum responsiveness to emerging AI tools and sector-specific needs”. 

The Department for Education and Skills England have now made admirable progress. By launching a dedicated level 4 AI apprenticeship standard, committing to a faster approvals process and signalling the start of shorter ‘apprenticeship units’ from next month, the government is paving the path that employers and providers have been walking for months. 

The key question now is how to measure the quality and impact of these skills programmes.

Existing measures that merely tell us whether a learner passes a programme do not adequately capture the value delivered. It does not tell us whether the government’s aims on AI skills have been delivered – nor does it demonstrate to employers the return on their investment.

AI’s rapid growth means we must keep pace with best practice in measuring successful outcomes, just as we’ve broadened the scope of what an apprenticeship can be. 

Bridging the innovation-regulation gap

By the time the dedicated AI and automation apprenticeship standard fully enters the market, it will have been 3.5 years since the launch of ChatGPT. 

UK businesses couldn’t wait that long. So providers innovated within the system we had. At Multiverse we integrated AI training into relevant existing standards, like business analyst.

Broadly, it worked: we’ve equipped thousands of people with the skills to harness this powerful technology. Those skills have had real-world impact: bringing down waiting lists in hospitals; offering charity support services to more people; and enabling small businesses to innovate at a fraction of the typical cost.

But businesses didn’t yet know exactly what AI skills they required and for whom; and not all of our assumptions on what would work came right.

Measuring what matters

Apprenticeships by nature require skills to be applied on the job. It’s not easy to capture the success of that only through an assessment at the end. 

That’s why we measure success in other ways too: things like costs avoided, revenue generated, issues solved for local residents, and better patient outcomes. And at a learner level, we track promotions and pay rises; nearly half of our apprentices secure a promotion.

Yet the qualification achievement rate (QAR) captures none of it. The primary measure of apprenticeship quality is still whether a learner crossed a finish line – not what they built along the way.

QAR is a lagging indicator. It measures against decisions made up to two years ago or more. In AI, two years may as well be 20.

If a learner gains the skills they need to secure a promotion and then moves into a new role before reaching an end-point assessment, the system records that as a failure of retention. But in reality it’s a triumph of social mobility and economic impact.

Better success metrics exist in other areas of education. The Higher Education Statistics Agency’s graduate outcomes survey, tracking salaries and career paths, is a great example: has your study enabled you to advance in your career and earn more?

We know training pays dividends. The Learning and Work Institute found how those who access training see a 15 per cent salary uplift across their lifetime compared to those who don’t. Why not measure the size of that prize?

The UK has the potential to lead the world in AI adoption, not least because of its world-class education systems. Our regulatory frameworks should incentivise innovation and impact. 

Only then will we move from surviving the AI transition to truly leading it.

Northampton colleges plan to merge next year

Two Northampton colleges are proposing to merge to offer local students a “wider range” of courses and strengthen their finances.

Northampton College and land-based Moulton College – which exited government intervention two years ago – are aiming to merge by January 2027, according to a joint statement today.

The colleges said merging into a single £70 million turnover group will improve local access to courses and open up progression routes that “neither organisation” could deliver alone.

They also promised to become a “more resilient organisation” that can respond to changes in policy, funding and local community needs.

Jason Lancaster, principal of Northampton College, said: “Exploring a merger gives us the opportunity to build an organisation that can meet these expectations and better serve our students and communities.”

An announcement on Moulton College’s website said governors at both colleges have now approved plans to “explore the benefits” of a merger.

It added: “A final decision will be made by the corporations of both colleges once this work is complete and all considerations have been carefully evaluated.

“There is still a long way to go but we are aiming towards January 2027 for completion.”

Public feedback is invited through an online form that allows questions or comments to be submitted.

Moulton College exited seven years of FE Commissioner intervention in 2024, after a turnaround that included selling land and the Department for Education refinancing £13 million in commercial debt.

Its most recent accounts, for 2024-25, show it ended the year with a surplus of £300,000 from a total income of £28 million. The colleges teaches around 4,000 students and employs 400 staff.

Moulton College principal Oliver Symons, who joined in 2024, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to bring together the strengths and expertise of both colleges.

“Our goal is to offer students more choice, clearer progression routes and improved access to specialist facilities. Employers will also benefit from a single, stronger partner that is responsive to local skills needs.”

Northampton College, a general FE college, currently has about 7,000 students and 640 staff.

The college ended 2024-25 with a surplus of £3.3 million on a total income of £45 million.

Northampton College is located in the eastern suburbs of Northampton, relatively close to Moulton College, which sits on the outskirts of the town.

Battery apprenticeship unit added after ‘rapid’ employer consultation

A new apprenticeship unit in battery manufacturing has been announced by Skills England – just days after the first tranche of short course apprenticeship units was unveiled.

Officials said this latest unit has been created following a “rapid consultation” with employers and sector experts to help meet the needs of a new gigafactory under construction in Somerset for global battery business Agratas.

It was developed at pace through Skills England’s new ‘investment and infrastructure skills service’, which was set up to identify where internationally mobile investors and large infrastructure projects face skills challenges.

Industry had told officials that the existing 36-month level 3 battery manufacturing operative apprenticeship was too long and broad in scope for the imminent skills needs of the gigafactory.

A special design workshop was held in early February with the Electrification Skills Network, and representatives from the north east and west midlands battery clusters, followed up by further consultation with Agratas, wider employers and academic experts.

Skills England said this is an example of its new fast-track approach to delivering apprenticeship updates and new apprenticeship units “that are critical to the major projects in just three months”.

It is not clear why the battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit was not announced with the first batch of seven apprenticeship units unveiled last Monday.

The units are designed to be short course alternatives to apprenticeships and are fundable through the reformed growth and skills levy.

Phil Smith, chair of Skills England, said: “This new gigafactory will create thousands of jobs and apprenticeships in the south west and beyond. I’m proud of Skills England’s work at pace with sector experts to find a skills solution that works for them.

“The new battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit will be a valuable addition to the growth and skills levy offer. By working together, we are building the jobs of the future, keeping skills training at the cutting edge.

Officials said the new battery manufacturing unit was launched today (March 23), but it is unclear when delivery can begin.

Like the other seven apprenticeship units, no funding band or typical duration has been assigned. This information is expected to be communicated to the sector from April 1.

Units will be restricted to employed learners aged 19 or older and involve 30 to 140 hours of training, delivered over one to 16 weeks. Learners will need to pass a “skills test” at the end of their course.

The other seven units are in AI leadership, electric vehicle charging point installation and maintenance, electrical fitting and assembly, mechanical fitting and assembly, permanent modular building assembly, solar PV installation, and maintenance and welding.

Initial delivery will be restricted to a “targeted group” of existing apprenticeship providers that already show “strong performance” in the occupational standards linked to the units.

Today’s announcement suggested just one provider will offer the battery manufacturing apprenticeship unit for Agratas. It said UCS College Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the employer “which will see it lead with delivery of training for the new gigafactory”.

Agratas’ new gigafactory, near Bridgwater, in Somerset, is estimated to generate over £700 million in annual economic value to the south west and 4,000 jobs once fully operational.

Paying employers to hire youth ‘risks huge waste’

Employer incentives for hiring young people could be a multi-million pound waste of taxpayers’ cash, experts have warned.

Later this year, the government will roll out two financial bonuses of up to £3,000 for businesses that hire young unemployed people or apprentices.

The incentives are part of a £1 billion package over three years, which includes the ‘jobs guarantee’ subsidised work programme.

But experts said evaluations of past incentive schemes show that while there was a good case for supporting young people in the earlier stages of unemployment, the latest plans risked “deadweight” spending on grants for hires that would have happened anyway.

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden announced the measures last week, arguing the government needed to help NEETs who are out of work long-term avoid “lifelong scarring effects” on their health and wealth.

The number of NEET young people (not in education, employment or training) has risen to almost one million since a pre-pandemic low of about 800,000.

New incentives

From June, a ‘youth jobs grant’ of £3,000 will be available to employers who hire anyone aged 18 to 24 who has been on universal credit for six months. Around 60,000 people are forecast to be taken on over three years.

Then in October, the government will also pay an ‘apprenticeship incentive’ of £2,000 to small and medium-sized businesses that hire 16 to 24-year-old apprentices.

A £2,000 employer incentive is also available for every young foundation apprentice start, although figures covering August to October last year reveal there were only 36 starts.

Each new grant can be “stacked”, so an SME hiring a foundation apprentice aged 18 to 24 who has been unemployed at least six months could claim grants totalling £7,000, officials have confirmed.

The incentives come alongside a youth guarantee jobs programme for people in receipt of universal credit for 18 months or more, currently launching in six UK regions and due to expand nationally in October.

McFadden has widened the scheme’s scope from 18 to 21-year-olds up to 24-year-olds, more than doubling the eligible group from 30,000 to 72,000.

Deadweight risk

Business groups welcomed the new incentives, but experts warned the policies were likely to benefit only a “small percentage” of the almost one million NEETs.

Xiaowei Xu, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said there was a “good case” for supporting young people before their skills and confidence were “eroded” by long spells out of work.

And she explained wage subsidies should boost long-term youth employment levels by encouraging hires that would not have otherwise taken place – a concept economists call “additionality”.

But offering £3,000 to all employers without checking for additionality could result in “substantial dead weight” spending, Xu warned.

And while a £3,000 grant would reduce the cost of hiring a young person by between 27 and 35 per cent over six months, the benefit of the grant to employers would be “negligible” when spread over the long term, she added.

Xu said it “remains to be seen” how much the government policies would increase long-term employment as they will only benefit a “small share” of the nearly one million NEET young people.

The IfS estimated the 60,000 job grants apply to 420,000 NEET young people, including 100,000 looking for work on universal credit for six to 18 months, and 320,000 on the benefit regime for six months or more for health reasons.

An old tool

Cash incentives for businesses that hire young people and apprentices are an established government policy for boosting uptake.

The government already offers long-running incentives for hiring younger apprentices, including £1,000 for a 16 to 18-year-old’s employment-related costs, and relief on employer national insurance contributions for under-25s that is expected to cost the Treasury £570 million this financial year.

From 2012 to 2014, the government offered a ‘youth contract’ wage incentive of £2,275 for employers hiring 18 to 24-year-olds on the government’s ‘work programme’.

Between 2012 and 2017, the government also offered a £1,500 ‘Apprenticeship Grant for Employers’ to businesses that were new to apprenticeships, had fewer than 50 employees, and recruited an apprentice aged 16 to 24.

Evaluations of both programmes estimated that deadweight accounted for about 22 per cent of apprenticeship grants and 76 per cent of youth contract grants.

However, both studies suggested the schemes were successful at encouraging recruitment of young people and that benefits “substantially surpass the costs”.

Stephen Evans, CEO of the Learning and Work Institute, told FE Week that conclusions about whether incentives were successful were “mixed at best”.

And he said the government risked getting “quite a high level” of deadweight if it was not careful about who it targeted with incentive payments.

An ‘apprenticeship incentive payments’ scheme that ran between 2020 and 2021 paid grants of up £3,000 to 162,000 employers.

Only 20 per cent of employers responding to a DfE survey said this caused them to recruit more.

An independent review of spending during the pandemic later found about £4.7 million was lost to fraud and error through such apprentice and trainee hiring incentives.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ director of work-based skills Kate Ridley-Pepper told FE Week the new apprenticeship incentives would be paid to training providers then forwarded to employers in an attempt to avoid fraud.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 527

Sarah Young

Chief Learning Officer, Inspire Education Group

Start date: March 2026

Previous Job: Vice Principal – Student and Staff Experience, Inspire Education Group

Interesting fact: Having spent 14 years in the travel industry, Sarah has travelled the globe, getting engaged in Australia and married in Mexico

Josh Hill

Operations Director, PET-Xi Training

Start date: March 2026

Previous Job: Business Development Director for Adult Education, SCL Education Group

Interesting fact: Josh is a gigging musician and performs in a number of bands, playing rock and blues on bass, keys, guitar and vocals gives him a real avenue of expression outside of the working world

Apprenticeship units funding model is ‘stacked against providers’ 

Training providers have warned the apprenticeship units funding model is “not a winning formula” and could choke off delivery before it begins.

Draft funding rules for the new short courses set to be paid for through the reformed growth and skills levy from next month show funding will be heavily end-loaded and paid on two milestones to providers.

The first 30 per cent of the funding band will be paid once the learner has completed 30 per cent of the planned delivery hours. The second milestone payment will come once the learner has completed all hours and passed their skills test.

It means a provider that delivers 90 per cent of planned hours when a learner drops out risks receiving just 30 per cent of the funding.

On top of this, the Department for Work and Pensions said it would keep the “affordability” of apprenticeship units “under review” and could withdraw a unit with just four weeks’ notice.

Providers fear the model leaves them exposed and could dampen their appetite for involvement.

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and director of policy of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “As it stands, the methodology places significantly more risk on providers, with funding heavily end-loaded so providers absorb the upfront costs of delivery. This will create real cashflow pressures.”

He added that despite skills minister Jacqui Smith telling FE Week there was no cap on the amount of levy funding employers could spend on new apprenticeship units, the “reference in the small print to DWP being able to withdraw funding with just four weeks’ notice effectively acts as a backstop”.

“Taken together, this is not a winning formula,” he warned.

High risk, low reward

The government confirmed this week that from next month, apprenticeship units would be available for delivery in seven areas: AI leadership, electric vehicle charging point installation and maintenance, electrical fitting and assembly, mechanical fitting and assembly, permanent modular building assembly, solar PV installation, and maintenance and welding.

The content for apprenticeship units comes from the knowledge and skills from existing apprenticeship occupational standards “needed to address specific critical skills gaps”.

Units will be restricted to employed learners aged 19 or older and involve 30 to 140 hours of training, delivered over one to 16 weeks. Learners will need to pass a “skills test” at the end of their course, delivered by their training provider and validated by their employer, with independent assessment being an option.

Initial delivery will be restricted to a “targeted group” of existing apprenticeship providers that already show “strong performance” in the occupational standards linked to the units.

Funding bands and delivery hours for individual units are still being tested with “critical stakeholders”, but should be confirmed from April 1.

Robert Halfon, former skills minister and now executive director of external affairs at manufacturing giant Make UK, welcomed the “strong focus on critical engineering and manufacturing skills” such as welding, fitting and assembly in the newly announced apprenticeship units.

However, he added that the approach to funding their delivery “must be sustainable for training providers, otherwise employers will find themselves once again unable to access training they want to invest in”.

“Too often, the problem that employers encounter with the skills system is a lack of local provider capacity to deliver the training they need,” Halfon told FE Week.

“A funding model that makes it too risky for providers to deliver apprenticeship units only deepens this problem if it means there is little appetite to offer the courses. Providers need to be backed with the right funding from this new flexibility in the growth and skills levy to ensure that they can offer the right training in the right places.”

Ashworth warned that without a meaningful level of funding to incentivise delivery, it is “hard to see strong take-up”.

“It is now for government to demonstrate whether these new products have real substance or risk being superficial,” he added.

A DWP spokesperson said: “These apprenticeship units will offer employers more flexibility to upskill their staff while addressing the nation’s skills shortage.

“As part of their introduction, consultations will be held with employers and providers.”