Latest news from FE Week

Healey’s apprenticeship brokerage misses 28m people

Half of England’s population will be excluded from a £240 million mayoral brokerage programme to boost apprenticeship recruitment, prompting warnings of a “two-tier skills system”.

Chancellor John Healey told Labour’s conference this week that all 14 mayoral strategic authorities (MSAs) in England would get funding from spring for “local apprenticeship services”.

The brokerage services aim to connect young people with apprenticeships and boost employer take-up, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.

But the decision to restrict funding to areas with mayoral devolution deals means around 28.5 million people will live outside areas eligible for the programme.

Local leaders, MPs and skills experts have warned the approach risks creating a postcode lottery for apprenticeship support.

FE leaders have also questioned the government’s unprecedented decision to use apprenticeship levy funding to pay for the brokerage services, with tens of millions of pounds spent on strategic authority “delivery” rather than training or assessment.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers CEO Ben Rowland said: “This money should not come from the levy, all of which should be dedicated to its original purpose: supporting the delivery of apprenticeships.

“We are also concerned that learners, employers and providers in non-devolved areas are, in effect, second-class citizens, leading to a two-tier skills system.”

MPs to lobby for non-mayoral areas

Several Labour MPs representing areas without mayors were understood to be frustrated by Healey’s announcement.

One, who asked not to be named, told FE Week: “My colleagues and I will be seeking urgent clarity on this and will continue to lobby for non-mayoral areas to benefit from these critical initiatives.

“I would encourage others to do the same, so that no area is left behind.”

A County Councils Network spokesperson said its 39 members’ areas were home to 12 million jobs and 48 per cent of the country’s businesses, but 30 do not have a directly elected mayor and 22 do not have a devolution deal.

“This means large swathes of England currently do not have access to powers such as the local apprenticeships programme announced this week,” they said.

“To avoid a country of urban ‘haves’ and county ‘have nots’, we are calling on the government to complete the devolution map, and ensure every area has access to a devolution agreement by the end of 2028, where there is local consent.”

‘Skills shortages do not stop at mayoral boundaries’

The exclusion has particularly frustrated leaders in areas that have already established local apprenticeship “hubs” to provide brokerage support.

The Solent Growth Partnership, which covers Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight, launched an apprenticeship hub in 2019, offering support and training for employers and training providers alongside a levy transfer service.

A spokesperson said: “It is particularly frustrating that many of the approaches being tested through the new pilot closely mirror models that hubs such as Solent have already developed, refined and delivered successfully over a number of years.

“While we understand the government’s desire to work through existing mayoral combined authorities, this approach risks creating a postcode lottery for employers.

“Skills shortages, recruitment challenges and the need for apprenticeship brokerage do not stop at mayoral boundaries.”

The election of a mayor for the new Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority has been delayed by a year to 2028.

FE Week reported earlier this year that local authorities and training provider networks outside devolved areas had established brokerage-style apprenticeship hubs, some of which are now threatened by the loss of regional development funding.

In May, training provider networks wrote to work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden warning that the end of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) in March threatened their work.

The government replaced UKSPF this April with the £225 million Local Growth Fund, which is worth 75 per cent less than its predecessor and will only go to 11 mayoral strategic authorities in the North and Midlands.

Edge Foundation CEO Alice Barnard said it was “vital” that government support for apprenticeship brokerage services extends to non-strategic authority areas “where hubs face an increasingly uncertain future owing to their reliance on various short-term funding streams, not least the recently expired UKSPF”.

Apprenticeship money diverted to ‘solve the wrong problem’

Last year’s autumn budget allocated £140 million from the apprenticeship budget to fund the brokerage pilots in up to eight mayoral areas between late 2026 to March 2029.

Up to £60 million of this was earmarked to fund “MSA delivery” while £80 million would fund associated training and assessment.

Healey’s announcement this week added an “extra” £100 million to the programme and extended the funding to six more mayoral areas.

It is not yet known whether the additional cash will also be taken from the Department for Work and Pensions’ annual apprenticeship budget, or how it will be split between MSA delivery and training costs.

The Treasury would only say that the brokerage expansion would be “fully funded” by savings identified by the DWP, with further details expected in the budget on October 28.

Ben Pike, an adviser and board member at multiple training providers, criticised the use of apprenticeship levy funding for brokerage programmes.

“I believe it is diverting huge amounts of money to solve the wrong problem,” he said.

“Incentives for employers are really positive and will drive work opportunities, but spending millions on a matching service isn’t going to change the volume of available roles which is our core challenge.”

The government is already facing pressure on the £3.3 billion annual apprenticeship budget, which overspent for the first time in 2024-25.

Ministers are redirecting funding towards young people, including by removing funding for level 7 apprenticeships for over-22s and defunding a range of management apprenticeships.

Pike said: “We are cutting investment in higher-level skills, which we know has a high return on investment, to fund this [brokerage] exercise which is concerning for our economy longer term.”

DWP accounts this year revealed forecasts that show apprenticeship spending is expected to reduce from 2027-28.

Seven mayoral areas will begin piloting the new brokerage services from “early 2027”, months behind the original schedule, with the remaining seven due to follow in spring.

The first seven are London, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, West Midlands and West of England.

The other seven areas to receive funding are the North East, West Yorkshire, Cambridge and Peterborough, East Midlands, Greater Lincolnshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire.

Although details of the services remain limited, a successful bid by South Yorkshire Combined Authority included a “targeted employer brokerage” service focused on SMEs, “personalised support” for young people and a “talent pool” to redirect applicants who narrowly miss out on apprenticeships towards alternative opportunities.

The government has trialled multi-million-pound SME apprenticeship brokerage pilots in the past but struggled to make them work.

Healey said local leaders “know their areas best” and were better placed to match young people with small employers to create apprenticeships for their communities.

ITPs hit with £800k in clawbacks for subcontractor breaches

Two independent training providers that used the same subcontractor have been hit with a combined £797,000 funding clawback after government investigators found multiple rule breaches in traineeship and 16 to 19 education provision.

Acorn Training Consultants and Central YMCA both used Gateway Education (London) to deliver provision on their behalf. Almost £500,000 of the discovered overstatements relate to that shared subcontractor.

The Department for Education’s investigations also found learners on traineeships subcontracted by Acorn Training Consultants to another provider called Learning for Futures, which now trades as Wise Origin, were placed at an independent school to clean rooms, wash pots, serve food and staff a tuck shop.

The report said Acorn Training Consultants failed to demonstrate the placements met funding requirements for high-quality work experience.

The DfE has recovered £276,840 from Central YMCA (CYMCA) and is recouping £520,234 from Acorn Training Consultants, according to two reports published on Wednesday.

But publication was marred by a naming error. DfE initially identified Acorn Training Consultants as “Acorn Training Ltd”, which is a different training provider.

Acorn Training Ltd was forced to publicly reassure its learners and stakeholders that it was not the subject of DfE’s investigation.

Officials confirmed the correct identity to FE Week today, but the incorrectly named report remained live until 5pm this afternoon, more than 24 hours after the DfE was notified of the error.

Learning Curve Group, which bought Acorn Training Consultants in 2020, said the investigated activity took place before it acquired the business from Babington. FE Week approached Babington and its owners, Knovia Group, for comment, but they declined.

Neither Learning Curve Group nor Babington would confirm who was ultimately liable for the £520,000 clawback.

Placements and progression

The Acorn Training Consultants investigation began in July 2024 and examined traineeship and 16 to 19 study programme funding involving Gateway and Learning for Futures.

Investigators identified £218,206 in overstatements relating to Gateway provision and £302,027 relating to Learning for Futures.

For Gateway’s delivery, 19 learners were enrolled on qualifications they had already recently achieved. Acorn Training Consultants could not prove that repeating them represented progression.

The provider could also not evidence attendance registers for 19 learners as required under the funding rules.

For Learning for Futures’ delivery, records showed work placements for 33 learners took place at the same independent school, where their tasks included cleaning, washing pots and serving food.

The DfE’s report said Acorn Training Consultants did not demonstrate these were high-quality placements. They took place at the same site as the learning, rather than with an external employer as per the rules at the time.

Acorn Training Consultants also recorded 80 learners had progressed into further learning, but reviews of DfE learning records showed the progression had not taken place.

A Learning for Futures spokesperson said: “In relation to this delivery, Learning for Futures had no direct contractual relationship with the department and our involvement was under the arrangements, instructions, control and direct management of the main provider [Acorn Training Consultants].”

Before the takeover

The DfE report points out that ownership of Acorn Training Consultants changed after subcontracting relationships with Gateway and Learning for Futures ended.

Learning Curve Group acquired the Derbyshire-based business from Babington in 2020.

A Learning Curve Group spokesperson said: “The matters highlighted in the DfE report relate to activity undertaken during the 2018-19 academic year, prior to Learning Curve Group’s acquisition of Acorn Training [Consultants] in September 2020.

“Since acquiring Acorn [Training Consultants], it has operated under Learning Curve Group’s governance and compliance framework, and we remain focused on maintaining the highest standards across the group.”

Learning Curve Group did not answer FE Week’s question about who would bear the cost of repaying the £520,234 overclaim, and Babington declined to comment.

Ofsted rated Acorn ‘good’ in November 2021, following LCG’s acquisition. Inspectors said: “Processes to oversee the quality of the subcontracted provision are appropriate.” The subcontractors listed at that inspection were White Rose School of Beauty and Health, and Knights Training Academy.

The investigations into Acorn Training Consultants and CYMCA both found the lead providers could not evidence required subcontracting checks including checking eligibility, observing delivery and making regular unannounced visits to subcontractors’ sites.

Postcode problems

The CYMCA investigation began in October 2024 and looked into traineeships delivered through Gateway.

Investigators found the provider could not evidence high-quality work placements, and at least 100 hours of work experience or placements with an external provider.

CYMCA also failed to evidence pre-placement preparation and meaningful written feedback from employers to help learners improve.

Some learners were enrolled on funded qualifications with another provider at the same time as their CYMCA courses were taking place.

Investigators also found “significantly different” planned employment, enrichment and pastoral hours for learners in the same cohort without a documented explanation. And they found CYMCA could not evidence the timetabled activity reported to DfE or that attendance registers had been signed correctly.

CYMCA’s data returns recorded a central London delivery postcode, while learner evidence packs revealed delivery took place elsewhere. This meant area uplift funding was paid that the provider could not prove it was entitled to.

The report did not specify how much of the £276,840 recovery related to the postcode error.

Across CYMCA and Acorn Training Consultants, £495,047 in overstatements related to provision subcontracted to Gateway. The recoveries must be paid by lead providers who are accountable for subcontracted delivery.

Gateway could not be reached for comment. An application to be struck off the Companies House register was filed on August 10 this year, followed by a first Gazette notice for voluntary strike-off on August 18.

CYMCA was approached for comment.

Nuts cracked over wrong Acorn

Both investigation reports recommended stronger eligibility checks, attendance controls, data validation and subcontractor monitoring. Although traineeships were abolished in 2022 after years of low starts, the recommendations also covered 16-19 funding controls.

Yesterday’s report drop alarmed staff and leaders at Acorn Training, a Stoke-on-Trent-based training provider, as it named “Acorn Training Ltd” as the subject of an investigation.

A “clarification statement” published on its website, said: “Today, the Department for Education published a report on GOV.UK relating to an organisation named “Acorn Training Ltd.

“Following a review by our executive team, concerns were raised directly with both the Department for Education and FE Week regarding the potential for confusion with Acorn Training Ltd.

“We have since received confirmation from the Department for Education that the report does not relate to Acorn Training Ltd (UKPRN 10023489) and understand that steps are being taken to correct the published information.”

The incorrectly named report remained on the DfE’s website until 5pm today, despite the department acknowledging yesterday the investigation related to Acorn Training Consultants.

The department has not provided FE Week with an explanation for the error.

Masters of the Multiverse net 45% apprenticeship income gain

Multiverse has stretched its lead as England’s biggest training provider based on apprenticeship income after revenue jumped 45 per cent in a year.

FE Week analysis of latest Department for Education data shows the tech provider generated £85.3 million from apprenticeship training in the 2024-25 academic year – up from £59 million the previous year.

Its next closest rival is now Corndel, which also reported a bumper year, moving from £43 million in apprenticeship income to £63.5 million. This 48 per cent rise lifted Corndel from a ranking of seventh highest earner in 2023-24 to second highest in 2024-25.

BPP Professional Education also climbed the ladder, moving from fifth to third after its apprenticeship income increased from £51.9 million to £62.7 million.

QA fell from second to fourth despite income rising from £53.3 million to £57.5 million, while Kaplan dropped from fourth to fifth as revenue edged up from £52.8 million to £55.1 million.

Lifetime Training was the only provider in the top 10 to record a fall in apprenticeship income – although the reduction was marginal, from £53.1 million to £52.9 million.

Lifetime was previously England’s largest apprenticeship provider until it was knocked off the top spot by Kaplan in 2021-22. It fell to third in 2023-24 and now sits in seventh.

Multiverse’s rapid rise

2024-25 was Multiverse’s second year as England’s biggest apprenticeship provider earner. The company has grown rapidly – in 2019-20 it ranked 39th after generating less than £4.9 million.

The firm, run by Euan Blair and valued at an estimated £1.6 billion despite recording a pre-tax loss of over £60 million last year, has come under increased scrutiny over its apprenticeship recruitment and delivery.

Its overall qualification achievement rate (QAR) dropped from 59 per cent in 2023-24 to 52.6 per cent in 2024-25.

And Ofsted this year handed Multiverse four ‘needs attention’ judgments – the second-lowest of five possible ratings under the watchdog’s new report card system – covering leadership and governance, apprenticeship achievement, curriculum and teaching, and participation and development. It received an ‘expected standard’ judgment for inclusion.

Multiverse had been rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted under the previous inspection framework in 2021.

The watchdog’s latest report suggested some apprentices were enrolled on courses that did not match their work roles and staff were overstretched.

The Times also reported this year that Multiverse had been accused of placing learners on apprenticeships ill-suited to their careers as part of an “aggressive” focus on recruitment.

Among the examples cited were funeral planners and security guards enrolled on data and artificial intelligence apprenticeships.

Multiverse’s apprenticeship starts rose from 7,910 in 2023-24 to 12,030 in 2024-25.

The company paused starts on multiple apprenticeship standards where performance was poor, following an agreement with the government earlier this year.

A Multiverse spokesperson said: “Britain needs more apprenticeships, particularly as AI continues to transform the workforce, so growth across the sector is essential.

“Our incentives are clear: use our learning product to continue to drive retention, meet learners and employers where they are, and ensure those programmes lead to improved economic outcomes for both.”

Level 7 rush boosts Corndel and BPP

Corndel’s rise up the rankings came as starts increased across almost all of the standards it delivers, notably level 7 apprenticeships.

In September 2024, the government announced plans to axe the master’s-level apprenticeships and later decided to end public subsidy for people aged 22 and over from January 2026. This triggered a rush of level 7 starts ahead of the deadline.

Corndel’s level 7 starts rose from 1,716 in 2023-24 to 2,303 in 2024-25. However, its biggest percentage rise was for level 4 apprenticeships, which went from 842 starts to 1,215. Corndel’s highest area of starts in 2024-25 was level 3 programmes, which hit 2,893.

A Corndel spokesperson said a key driver of its revenue was its “high and improving QAR rates – the best of any large provider”.

Its overall QAR has risen every year over the last four years, reaching 78.3 per cent in 2024-25.

“We start lots of learners and complete lots of learners. That’s very different to some of our competitors,” Corndel’s spokesperson said, adding that its QAR would “improve again in 2025-26”.

The provider also received a strong Ofsted report this year with ‘strong standard’ judgments across the board.

Corndel’s spokesperson said: “Following a strong Ofsted report, leading QAR rates, and a reputation for quality, more and more employers are coming to Corndel.”

BPP Professional Education also recorded a significant apprenticeship revenue increase in 2024-25 – up £10.8 million, or 21 per cent.

The rise was driven largely by a surge in level 7 apprenticeships, with starts increasing from 2,907 in 2023-24 to 4,000 in 2024-25.

However, BPP’s largest rise in starts was level 4 apprenticeships, which rose 38 per cent from 1,366 to 1,890.

Lifetime shifts focus from quantity to quality

Lifetime Training continued to record more apprenticeship starts than any other provider, despite a decline in overall starts.

After recording more than 16,000 starts in each of the previous three years, its total fell to 13,100 in 2024-25.

The provider has withdrawn from delivery in some sectors in recent years.

Charlotte Bosworth, CEO of Lifetime Training, said the company had made a “deliberate strategic choice” to focus apprenticeship delivery on the sectors where “we believe we can have the greatest impact for learners, employers and the wider workforce”.

She told FE Week: “That means concentrating our expertise and investment in sectors where we have deep employer relationships and a strong understanding of the skills businesses need.

“This more focused approach has enabled us to invest in the things that matter most: our quality, learning and curriculum, technology and learner support, while working closely with our employer partners to make sure the apprenticeships we offer are relevant to the workplace and deliver the outcomes employers need.

“We are seeing the benefits of that focus with improved outcomes for our learners.”

Lifetime Training’s QAR improved from 40.5 per cent in 2023-24 to 51.2 per cent in 2024-25.

Public sector providers also featured in the top 10, with the British Army drawing down £42.7 million and the Royal Navy £21.1 million.

Manchester Metropolitan University was the highest earning university, placing 14th with £19.7 million, while the college that generated the most from apprenticeships in 2024-25 was Bridgwater & Taunton College, placing 33rd with £13.1 million.

Shift to young people could reshape top earners

The figures come as the government reforms the apprenticeships system to shift funding towards young people starting their careers and away from older, existing employees.

As well as defunding most level 7 apprenticeships, ministers this year scrapped 16 standards, including popular management programmes, after arguing they were directing large amounts of the apprenticeship budget to older workers.

Skills minister Jacqui Smith told this week’s Labour Party conference that further “fundamental levy reform” may be required. Rumours are circulating that the government could increase employer co-funding for apprentices aged 25 and over.

More than 90 per cent of Multiverse and Corndel’s starts were for people aged 25 and over in 2024-25, while the same was true of almost three quarters of starts at QA and Paragon.

Most starts at BPP and Lifetime were also for people aged 25 and over.

How Burnham bounced FE into the policy spotlight

‘Hope again’ was the slogan underpinning this Labour Party conference, with the Burnham buzz reverberating across Liverpool’s docklands as the prime minister delivered what he hopes will be an era-defining speech.

If you work in FE and skills, there were some reasons to feel hopeful.

Britain now has a prime minister who has put vocational education, skills and young people unusually close to the centre of his political project – and who arrived in Downing Street with a track record of doing the same in Greater Manchester.

But across the conference halls, hotel boardrooms and bars of Liverpool, a tension was brewing.

Burnham is betting heavily on devolution to fix systemic problems that central government has failed to solve for generations. Yet ministers, combined authorities, colleges and training providers are still grappling with fundamental questions about what exactly is being devolved, and whether some areas will have the capacity to cope.

Devolution is a medicine with effects that take time to show. The electorate is unlikely to be so patient; the conference bookstore was brimming with books about why populists are winning.

The political imperative for Burnham is to prove quickly that shifting power out of Whitehall can improve people’s lives.

One of the books on sale at the Labour party conference

What exactly is being devolved?

An air of uncertainty hangs over Burnham’s plans to devolve 16-19 funding to mayors, with important details not expected until the Budget. Sector insiders told us the promised devolution white paper may now not arrive until November.

For example, colleges had been under the impression that devolved funding would include school sixth forms. Some combined authority delegates had assumed otherwise.

Strategic authorities are also gaining greater influence over employment support, transport, housing, planning and public services. In theory, putting those levers in the same hands could help areas join up education with employment opportunities and prevent post-16 cold spots emerging.

And as one source observed, civil servants would argue that “the logistics of unpicking” the separate funding elements would be “just too hard”.

Employment minister Andrew Western expressed frustration that he could not answer FE Week’s questions about what 16-19 funding was being devolved, because it sits with the Department for Education – or the “Department for Hope”, as education secretary Lucy Powell rechristened it.

Western said the barriers to responsiveness were a “problem”, and he had “fed [this] into the spads this morning”.

“Ninety per cent of the questions I’m being asked as minister for employment, I don’t know the answer to,” he lamented.

At first, Western thought this was because he was new in post (he started in July). But he concluded the problem was structural.

Although skills “technically” sit at the Department for Work and Pensions, skills minister Jacqui Smith spends “80 per cent” of her time at the DfE because of her wider Lords responsibilities.

“So people are coming to me with questions that I don’t know the answers to. They do need to find a way to join it up better.”

The solution, he added, was “not me sitting there looking like an idiot, not knowing the answers to things”.

An EPI session with skills minister Jacqui Smith

It was a remarkably candid illustration of precisely the Whitehall fragmentation Burnham says he wants to overcome through his ‘rewiring of the state’.

Alan Milburn, the former health secretary leading the government’s review into young people and work, described the problem starkly.

He let delegates into a “secret”: “there is no system” in government, merely “a series of vertical siloes, whether that’s education, health, skills [or] welfare”.

When you sit at the top of one and pull a lever, he joked, “amazingly enough, occasionally something happens”.

But the NEET crisis is horizontal. It crosses all those departmental boundaries.

For Milburn, government therefore needs to build a “horizontal architecture” around it.

That will not be “straightforward”, he admitted, with “some extremely difficult decisions to take, particularly around benefits and welfare”.

Last year’s attempt to reduce the benefits bill was, in his assessment, “the elephant in the room”.

“The truth is, the Labour Party screwed it up… because they framed it in exactly the wrong way.”

This time, his team has been “very careful” to make the conversation not simply about welfare, but education, skills and health – and about how government can increase both opportunity and the support people receive to take it.

It seems Milburn has already been busy galvanising departments to focus on his mission. One source close to the government described him as a “unifying thread across all departments, making sure we don’t have a lost generation”.

His review therefore “may well be a catalyst for lots of other things”.

Alan Milburn (second from left) with Alice Eardley of Get Further, CSJ policy director Joe Shalam, Susannah Hardyman, CEO Impetus and Szu Ping Chan, Economics Editor at The Telegraph

Local government capacity

Even if Whitehall succeeds in joining itself up, another question looms: are the towns and cities receiving powers ready for them?

Western acknowledged that some of the “less established” combined authorities lack capacity, and spoke of combined authorities with just “six members of staff”.

But he insisted this should not become a “barrier to devolution”.

“We need to talk about how we can give them capacity to deliver, not restrict them from doing so and hold them back, but give them that surge capacity to make sure that we make a difference.”

Jess Tulasiewicz, head of policy and public affairs at Centre for Cities, has interviewed officers at the six most established combined authorities as part of a research project.

“Officers are nervous,” she said. Taking responsibility for more funding requires an “absolutely huge new skill set” in a system that has often operated on “goodwill” between organisations.

Nor, she said, is there yet consensus among devolved areas about what they actually want from 16-19 devolution.

College leaders may therefore be reassured by Smith’s insistence that “power should remain with college principals and shouldn’t be removed to a level one up”.

How that principle is protected once funding decisions move closer to mayors is another question.

Training providers have their own reasons for scepticism.

AELP chief executive Ben Rowland described an “understandable caution across the training provider community”, pointing to the history of devolved adult skills procurement.

It has “not necessarily [been] a happy one”, he said, with some authorities having “made a bit of a hash of it by their own admission and have had to pause it and start again”.

Contracts have been challenged or delayed in Tees Valley, East Midlands, West Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Tulasiewicz nevertheless considers adult skills devolution “broadly a success”. But she warned that areas are not starting from a level playing field.

Some allocations are based on “outdated or currently inappropriate measures” around deprivation, age and demographics, while English skills needs are not properly reflected.

Integrated settlements can introduce another tension.

Targets attached to them can constrain the very flexibility devolution is supposed to provide. If an area commits to level 2 provision, for example, it can be difficult to shift resources towards level 3 even when local needs change.

And how different are those local needs anyway?

When the previous government asked regions to identify the sectors they wanted to grow, Tulasiewicz said almost every authority came back with “the exact same sectors”, barring a couple of references to tourism.

“Maybe there is not as much variation as you would think.”

Fabian Society general secretary Joe Dromey has seen similar analysis from the DfE.

“It was amazing how many areas had clusters in life sciences, tech, financial services and clean energy,” he said – some “probably more aspirational than real”.

AELP is now working with combined authorities on a model intended to bridge the national-local divide when it comes to devolution.

Rowland described a possible “core” layer, including apprenticeship standards, remaining nationally controlled, alongside a “flex” layer allowing areas to vary eligibility or add funding.

That, he hopes, might “take away some of the polarisation”.

Andy Burnham delivering his speech to conference

FE at the heart of NEET mission

If Burnham is placing enormous faith in devolution, similarly high expectations are being put on the shoulders of FE and apprenticeships providers.

“The apprenticeship system and the levy have failed,” declared Milburn, adding that he was yet to meet an employer who told him the system worked for them.

Training in-work adults remains “extremely important” as AI reshapes the labour market.

But with around 40 per cent of apprenticeship funding being spent on older workers, the system must be “reoriented”.

Milburn described apprenticeships as “probably the single biggest factor that could change the NEET rate, alongside increased funding for further education”.

He hopes implementation can begin “from day one”, as with Burnham being a “half-term prime minister”, there is “not a moment to waste”.

However, he expects this to be a “10-year programme, not two or three years”.

Within five years, he wants public policy aligned around bringing the NEET rate down through welfare reform, employment support and other interventions.

Rather than the usual independent review submitting recommendations for ministers to consider for six months before producing a white paper, Milburn envisages his final report as being something closer to a “manifesto” or “national plan”, executed in a “very systemic way because it’s not one thing; it’s everything”.

Milburn said his “yardstick of success” will be how the “really hard cases” are dealt with – the young people who have been “doom scrolling” in their bedrooms for five years.

“Those are the ones that we should be thinking about, obviously the hardest, and trying to make the biggest effort behind it”.

Police and campaigners on a long stroll between fringe sessions

The 45-day challenge

But hope may have dissolved into scepticism for some when Burnham, while setting out plans to “rebuild a system of comprehensive education”, cited a “45-day work placement between 16 and 18”.

If that means every young person – including A Level students – the scale would be enormous.

Currently, 45-day industry placements are a defining feature of T Levels, while school work experience placements have a standard duration of two weeks.

Colleges have long complained about the difficulty of securing enough lengthy T Level placements.

The DfE has responded by relaxing its rules, including allowing placements to take place remotely and removing limits on the number of employers that can contribute to one.

Burnham knows the challenge well. As Greater Manchester mayor, he boasted that the region had secured more T Level work placements than any other area as part of his Manchester Baccalaureate approach.

John Healey on stage to give his Keynote speech. Credit: Will Colebourne/Alamy Live News

But it did so partly by offering employers £1,000 incentives to take learners. Replicating that nationally would be an expensive gamble.

Milburn believes part of the solution to scaling up placements lies in scaling back burdensome information governance rules. Responding to a young person wanting to embark on a psychology career who could not get work experience because of “ethical issues around overhearing confidential information “, he described confidentiality and data as a “real bugbear across the whole system”.

His “very uncomfortable” solution is to find ways of overcoming this “tyranny”, which “might involve changing the law”.

Smith also referred to “unhelpful” red-tape headaches.

The Youth Guarantee requires 300,000 work experience opportunities for unemployed young people, while expansion of T Levels will require “considerably more placements”.

It was a “big ask” of employers, and government therefore has a “responsibility” to remove unnecessary bureaucracy, she added.

Shortly after chancellor John Healey announced from the stage that the government is expanding local apprenticeship brokerage led by mayors, Smith suggested those services could ultimately help broker work placements too.

“It’s going to grow with funding the development of brokerage arrangements at a mayoral level, and I think there’s a real opportunity there to provide some of the capacity to bring employers and individual learners together that otherwise it’s difficult to find the place for,” she said.

Skills minister Jacqui Smith and former education secretary Justine Greening

Vocational ambitions

Lucy Powell used her conference speech to hit back at former education secretary Michael Gove’s accusation that her curriculum reforms were “bringing back stupid”.

What was stupid, she said, was being “stuck in the past while the world changes fast”.

“Further education was decimated by the Tories,” she added.

“We’ll reverse that decline because further education is the link between school and work.”

But unlike with her Reform and Conservative counterparts, her rhetoric did not suggest she envisages increasing the role of further education as being done at the expense of universities.

“We’ll make sure that young people today see the value in going to university,” she said. “The future requires more, not less highly qualified young people.”

Burnham’s ambitions stretch to new vocational GCSEs for 14-16 year olds, and one academy trust leader suggested colleges should step up their role in helping schools here: “We can’t do it all, and FE colleges can do a much better job.”

Powell called Labour’s proposed vocational GCSEs “great subjects” that she would want her own children to take, and spoke of lingering “snobbery about BTECs and tech awards”.

The aim was to give the new qualifications strong standards and employer involvement so young people “don’t turn their nose up at it”.

In making this case, she stated that T Levels are “becoming high demand”, which not everyone will agree with.

T Level entrants increased by 7.6 per cent to 27,446 in 2025-26, a sharp slowdown from the previous year’s 59 per cent growth. Around 300,000 students complete A Levels each year.

Smith acknowledged the government’s tricky balancing act around the content of forthcoming V Levels, which need a “currency wherever you go in the country” and national standards, while still reflecting local needs.

Former education secretary Justine Greening responded with a warning shot from experience.

Any prospect of creating a new qualification was “like policy catnip” for officials, she said. “They’d be coming up with new qualifications all the time if you didn’t keep a tight rein on them.”

Rubber ducks and alpacas

Meanwhile, there were lighter moments to enjoy in the strange world of the party conference.

Burnham rubber ducks – complete with his trademark glasses – appeared lurking in corners at fringe events, a life-sized giraffe loomed over exhibition stands, and Smith, while sipping on a ‘Jacqueri’ cocktail, raised some giggles by comparing her political durability to that of a cockroach and revealing NESCOT had recently named an alpaca after her.

Milburn meanwhile revealed that his own early encounter with the labour market ended with him being sacked from his paper round. He seemed to be everywhere at once, prowling between numerous jam-packed NEET-themed sessions as delegates tried to divine what would eventually emerge from his review.

But at all of his sessions, he made the same overriding point.

Modern politics, he argued, has too few “Causes” with a capital C – the equivalent of the last Labour government’s ambitions to halve child poverty or eliminate pensioner poverty.

He and Burnham believe young people’s participation in work should become this government’s Cause.

Successive governments, Milburn said, have “invested in every generation, bar the one that counts”.

“That’s the next generation.”

Universities must be part of the next chapter of skills devolution

A skills system that responds to the changing needs of people, employers and local economies is an ambition we can all share. But as greater responsibility for skills moves closer to local communities, we need to think carefully about who that system serves and which institutions are around the table shaping it.

I saw why this matters when I recently joined the University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC) on a visit to Liverpool Hope University in my constituency.

There I met 30-year-old Louis Abernethy, who grew up in Liverpool and now works at King David Primary School. Louis had already spent several years working in education, but without a degree felt his opportunities to progress were limited.

The cost of university had been a barrier and he had reached the point of considering leaving education altogether, despite his passion for the sector. A degree apprenticeship offered another route: Louis can continue working while studying at Liverpool Hope and apply what he learns directly in the classroom.

Nobody in his family had attended university and, as he put it, university was never something he had considered an option. He is now working towards becoming the first person in his family to gain a degree and hopes to use his experience to support other working-class boys facing similar barriers.

Louis’s story demonstrates why we need an all-age approach to apprenticeships. There is rightly a strong focus on helping young people, including those not in education, employment or training, access opportunities to begin their careers. But that should not mean losing sight of people already in the workforce who need to develop new skills, progress or retrain.

An all-age approach is not about choosing between younger and older learners. It means providing strong routes into employment for young people while ensuring opportunities to learn and progress remain available throughout people’s working lives.

Louis’s experience also challenges how we talk about academic and vocational education. He has not chosen between going to university and taking an apprenticeship. He is doing both.

That matters as the Milburn review considers how our post-16 education and skills system should evolve. Degree apprenticeships demonstrate why the traditional divide between academic and vocational routes is increasingly outdated. Greater parity requires us to recognise the value of different forms of learning and make it easier for people to combine them and progress between them.

Devolution provides an opportunity to put these principles into practice. Liverpool City Region has been responsible for devolved adult skills funding since 2018 and last year committed £68 million to adult training, including level 3-5 provision developed in consultation with employers.

As local control grows, universities should be considered part of this regional skills infrastructure, rather than simply providers brought in once priorities have been determined. They are major employers and anchor institutions, convene employers and other partners, and contribute research and intelligence about emerging economic and workforce needs.

This will look different across the country. Liverpool City Region is prioritising sectors including life sciences, maritime and advanced manufacturing, while other strategic authorities will develop skills strategies reflecting their own economies. That is precisely the point of devolution.

A genuinely responsive system therefore needs strong relationships between universities, colleges, employers and local leaders, while ensuring opportunities remain available to people at every stage of their careers.

Louis’s experience shows what that can mean in practice. At 30, his apprenticeship has allowed him to remain in a profession he loves, work towards becoming the first person in his family to gain a degree and develop skills he can use every day.

That is what an all-age skills system should enable: opportunities to enter work, retrain and progress, wherever someone is in their working life.

Last call for FE’s social action champions

Colleges have just over a week left to nominate their volunteering and fundraising champions for this year’s Good for Me Good for FE awards.

Entries close on 9 October for the fourth annual awards, which recognise staff, students and teams who have made a difference in their communities.

This year, a special award will honour David Gallagher, former NCFE chief executive and supporter of the campaign, who died earlier this year.

Nominations are currently open for twelve categories covering student and staff volunteers and fundraisers, volunteering projects, inspirational role models and community partnerships.

Student and college changemaker excellence awards will also recognise achievements through the campaign’s volunteering programme, which rewards learners’ skills and commitment with digital badges.

One winner and two highly commended finalists will be selected in each category, with successful nominees announced at the Association of Colleges’ annual conference in November. Winners will then be invited to a House of Lords celebration hosted by former higher education minister Lord Johnson of Marylebone on 11 December.

Among last year’s winners was USP College, which received the volunteering accreditation excellence award after taking part in the pilot that helped develop the changemaker programme.

More than 100 students contributed 1,080 hours to community projects.

The college said: “This programme gives the students something tangible for their hard work, and many ended up doing far more volunteering hours than were required, which was fantastic!”

Queen Mary’s College took last year’s overall award after nearly 1,000 first-year students raised more than £30,000 for over 100 charities through its social action programme.

Mark Henderson, college principal, said: “We are so proud to receive this award, but it is all about our first-year students. They absolutely shattered our expectations, putting in huge effort and raising an amazing amount of money. It just shows what young people can do when you give them an opportunity and put your trust in them!”

The individual fundraiser of the year award went to James Shields, an accounting lecturer at Loughborough College Group, who raised more than £10,000 to support a colleague with a rare brain tumour, organising sponsored walks, raffles and a half-marathon.

This year’s judges include FE commissioner Ellen Thinnesen, AoC chief executive David Hughes, Natspec chief executive Clare Howard and Chartered Institution for Further Education director Lesley Davies.

The awards are sponsored by NCFE, NAMSS and FE Associates, in partnership with The Skills Network. FE Week is the media partner.

Nominations must be submitted through the Good for Me Good for FE website by 9 October.

Is the LLE really a ‘worklong learning entitlement’?

Not too long ago, Sir Alan Tuckett warned that England was “overwhelmingly obsessed with initial education”: a clockwork model that begins with early years and ends with labour-market entry.

At first glance, the lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) looks like a serious attempt to break that model – unless, that is, one considers that ‘lifelong learning’ has never been a settled concept. Its definitions encompass economic purposes, certainly, but also personal development, democratic participation, social connection and learning valued for its own sake.

The LLE adopts a narrower interpretation. It connects learning to employment, retraining, skills needs and future economic return. In that sense, it might more honestly be called a worklong learning entitlement. That is not to diminish the importance of learning for work in an ageing economy, but worklong and lifelong are not synonymous. That distinction has consequences, especially for older workers, and is precisely why the policy deserves scrutiny.

Awareness itself is already a problem. An omnibus survey found that only 12 per cent of adults had heard of the LLE, with a steep decline among those aged 45 and over. Information campaigns may improve that figure. But if the economic interpretation of lifelong learning is repeatedly communicated, some adults may reasonably conclude that the offer is intended for a certain worker at a particular career stage. The challenge is therefore not only telling people that the LLE exists but ensuring they can recognise themselves as legitimate learners within it.

From January 2027, eligible learners will be able to use LLE funding for approved modules as well as full courses. Modularity is presented as flexibility: learn when you need to, build credit over time and retrain as needs change.

But flexibility for whom?

I argue as an educational gerontologist with just over a decade of experience in FE that we cannot design effective lifelong learning policy without fully understanding the nuances of learning across the life course. My research into the LLE’s policy texts found that its language “imagines” an adult learner who is employable, self-managing and able to navigate learning as an investment.

Modularity may not improve access for all eligible learners. A prospective learner still needs at least a rudimentary understanding of credits and residual entitlement, financing and digital accounts, as well as the ability to accommodate interruptions and sustain a learning pathway over time. For some, such autonomy will be liberating. For others, it may create further barriers to participation.

Chronological age is also a poor proxy for a learner’s ability or motivation to learn. Older learners are profoundly heterogeneous. Yet the assumption of a “frictionless learner” appears built into policy design: confident, informed, digitally competent, able to tolerate debt and free enough from competing responsibilities to assemble their own learning pathways.

There is another reason these hidden assumptions matter in FE. The LLE is frequently discussed from a higher education (HE) perspective, despite the fact it will be enacted substantially through FE providers. Colleges have long acted as a vital safety net for learners who became disengaged or felt “written off” during compulsory schooling. This is arguably the context where the distance between the reform’s ideal learner and learners’ actual lives will reveal itself: employment gaps, caring duties, financial constraint and changing health circumstances affect the decision to commit to formal learning.

Real lives experience unpredictable friction

In more established lifelong learning systems, movement in and out of education is ordinary. Instead, the familiar framing in the LLE of the older “returner” to education subtly reinforces the very assumption that education belongs at the beginning of life, and anyone studying later is exceptional.

Meanwhile, despite this lack of a sophisticated conception of lifelong and life-wide learning, England is extending working life through the rising state pension age. The LLE’s age-60 tuition-loan boundary, seven years before state pension age, highlights that contradiction.

And while policy attention to the unprecedented numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) is critical, population ageing is not a temporary policy challenge. Longer lives and extended working lives mean that growing numbers of older people will remain in employment through choice or necessity, while continuing to need and want opportunities to learn, retrain and adapt.

The LLE could well become an important step towards rebuilding access to higher levels of adult learning. Avoiding another policy blind spot, however, requires equitable access to education throughout increasingly longer working lives.

Approved providers therefore have an opportunity as implementation begins. Human-led guidance, age-inclusive recruitment, recognition of interrupted learning experiences and pathways that do not presume linear progression can make modularity work for today’s adult learner.

AI is moving fast. SME training is stuck in the slow lane

There’s no shortage of ambition among small businesses when it comes to digital skills. SME owners I speak to know that AI and data capability will underpin their future competitiveness.

And AI adoption is rising quickly. A recent study by the Resolution Foundation found that nearly half of businesses are now using AI in some form.

Yet while AI adoption is growing, the use of it in businesses remains relatively shallow. The same study found that only one in 20 businesses say they are using AI extensively.

The challenge now is how businesses unlock the technology’s true potential, one that’s solved by SMEs addressing foundational skills gaps in their businesses.

Of course, SMEs can’t address these skills gaps alone. Trade associations, local authority networks, and external training providers each have an important role to play in helping them to level-up their AI capability.

But if we think of the SME AI capability gap as a round-shaped hole, this support network – with the best intentions – is often offering a square peg to fill it. Much of the support available isn’t designed with the day-to-day reality of the SME in mind. So, what’s holding SMEs back and what could optimal support look like?

The expectation and opportunity gap

In an SME, one person might handle customer data, manage suppliers, oversee compliance and run social media – often all in the same week. Naturally, it’s difficult for most funded training to be built specifically around the many hats SME employees may be wearing.

Apprenticeships, skills bootcamps and most regional funding routes are designed around a single, defined specialism – a data analyst, a cyber apprentice, or even a dedicated AI role. These routes are great at producing people who can walk into a specialist role. But SMEs need generalists, and these routes aren’t built to add a capability onto a role that already covers five other hats.

SMEs cannot always afford to open up dedicated digital or AI roles, and when they do bring people in, they need someone who can contribute across the business from day one. When those expectations are not met on either side, the development stalls.

Calls for more funding tend to be the go-to solution for addressing skills gaps. But layering new schemes and funding streams on top of the routes available risks building in added complexity. SMEs aren’t short of options, but they are short of time, management resource, and confidence that the next programme will fit their business.

The mismatch is more likely to be solved by how training and support is delivered around them.

Building the pathway

In practice, that means a blend of support rather than a single course. At Kaplan, this is the model we have built through Education 4.0: combining expert-led tuition, AI-enabled learning support and flexible digital content that adapts around the learner and their working pattern. And crucially, it means the learning is contextualised to the size and sector of the business, not built around enterprise-scale case studies that bear no resemblance to how an SME actually operates.

But delivering the right model is only part of the challenge. Devolved funding currently skews toward FE and HE institutions, which can mean SMEs are directed toward providers whose traditional delivery models – full-day release, fixed timetables, classroom-based programmes – do not flex around how small businesses operate.

Independent providers working at national scale can bring something different here. Support teams can guide both apprentices and SME leaders on integrating training and getting a return from it, while a wider employer network offers credible use cases and implementation advice from businesses that have already balanced growth with skills investment.

This isn’t about the quality of local provision. It’s about SMEs being able to reach the delivery model that fits them.

Many of the SMEs I speak to have already been through training that didn’t fit their business, and it’s left them wary of the next offer. Flexibility has to be demonstrated before it’s believed.

Government ambition on skills is real, and it’s matched inside small businesses. What’s missing is a system that lets SMEs act on it. That means training that builds real-world capability and makes a measurable impact, delivered in a way that fits around the business rather than pulling people out of it.

Providers who can combine strong content with genuine support for managers and mentoring will be the ones that help SMEs make AI adoption genuinely stick. That is the partnership SMEs need, and it is the one the skills system should be making easier to access.