Latest news from FE Week

The future is hands-on: the labour market is finally catching up with FE

For most of the last forty years the cultural wind blew against further education. University was the route ambitious parents pushed their kids towards, trades were positioned as the back-up, and a generation of young people picked their post-16 pathway based on a status hierarchy that had little to do with what the labour market was actually asking for.

A recent report pushed this to the front of the conversation. Microsoft’s research team analysed 200,000 real conversations with Copilot, mapped them against occupational data, and produced an applicability score for every job in the US economy. The roles with the highest AI applicability turned out to be interpreters, historians, writers, sales staff, customer service representatives, and almost everything in the computer, mathematical, office, and administrative categories.

The roles with the lowest were the ones that FE has spent decades training people for: nursing assistants, ship engineers, roofers, tyre repairers, plumbers and electricians. Microsoft’s own framing of the finding speaks directly to this sector: occupations that require a degree have higher AI applicability than occupations with lower formal education requirements.

This will not be news to anyone reading FE Week. The sector has been making this argument for years, often into a headwind. What is different now is that the broader labour market is starting to make it without prompting. Wages in the skilled trades are rising. Vacancy backlogs in care, construction, and engineering run years deep. The risk-adjusted return on a level 4 apprenticeship is starting to compete seriously with the risk-adjusted return on most undergraduate degrees, and Microsoft is far from the only research outfit publishing data that points the same way.

Look at the sector’s own numbers and the same shift shows up. Apprenticeship starts rose 11.9 per cent in the first half of 2025-26, with higher apprenticeships up 23.5 per cent on the same period last year. The achievement rate climbed from 51.4 per cent in 2022 to 65.4 per cent in 2024-25, the biggest sustained improvement since standards came in. ITPs led with a 5.7 percentage point jump in a single year.

Government has clocked the structural argument, which is what the youth guarantee and the £1.5 billion youth opportunity package are about, alongside Starmer’s repeated push for more young people in apprenticeships.

Set against this, supply is the harder problem, and the case has been made well in these pages already. Engineering apprenticeship starts have fallen 25 per cent since 2017, level 2 apprenticeships have halved, and employers are choosing higher-level apprentices partly because they are less risky to take on. Even with the moment now running in the sector’s favour, not enough of the people who would benefit from these routes have been completing them (65 per cent in 2024-25).

The DfE’s 2023 evaluation survey of non-completers shows that the single most common reason for leaving an apprenticeship was getting a better job offer, at 16 per cent. Personal or domestic factors accounted for 36 per cent. 65 per cent of all non-completers leave within the first 12 months of their programme, and the survey shows how many simply realised the work was not what they had imagined it would be.

That is a clarity-of-pathway question and is one of the cheapest, fastest levers the sector has to pull.

Vocational careers guidance in this country is thin. Most young people pick an apprenticeship the way they pick a degree, with a hazy sense of what the work involves and an even hazier sense of which kind would suit them. There is real work to do here, and I have been building Rumbo in part to help with the self-understanding piece, but the bigger point is sectoral.

The hands-on economy is going to keep rising. The sector’s job now is to make sure the people who arrive on its programmes are arriving with their eyes open.

The cost of getting that wrong shows up as a non completion statistic. But underneath the number is a young person who tried something the country needed them to try, found it was not what they thought, and added one more data point to a story the sector cannot afford to keep telling.

Teen jailed for nearly four years over Stafford College bomb threats

A teenager who threatened to blow up Stafford College with homemade explosives has been jailed.

Jagger Strang, 18, was sentenced today in Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty last month to seven offences including making threats to kill his classmates, possession of an explosive substance and possession of information likely to be used for terrorist purposes.

Justice Wall handed him a sentence of three years and 11 months in a young offender institution, reports said.

Authorities were alerted last September after Strang, who was 17 at the time, told fellow college students that he had access to weapons that could blow up the college.

Officers at Staffordshire Police arrested him on the same day and uncovered “black powder/gunpowder” and thermite, a pyrotechnic that burns at 2,200 degrees celsius and can melt steel.

They also found a blow pipe, which can be used to direct air or gas onto a flame to increase heat, and containers filled with powdered aluminium, activated charcoal, copper oxide, iron oxide and magnesium ribbon.

Police also found a manifesto, internet searches release to “notorious mass killers”, including the 2024 Southport killings, and YouTube tutorials on how to make gunpowder and improvised detonators.

“You wanted to be like the serial killers,” Justice Wall said in his sentencing remarks, the BBC reported.

“At the same time, you developed an unhealthy interest in explosives. You acquired the chemicals necessary to make gunpowder and thermite, and you made them.”

Strang has been in custody since his arrest. He had pleaded guilty seven charges as his trial was due to start in May.

Detective Inspector Dave Rowlands of Staffordshire Police said: “This was an extremely concerning case involving a teenager with a clear and troubling fixation on violence. The threats he made caused genuine fear among students and staff.

“Thanks to the vigilance of the college community and the swift response from Staffordshire Police, we were able to intervene quickly and prevent any potential harm.”

Burnham’s speech: Groundhog Day rhetoric, Manchesterism in practice

When a new prime minister or education secretary arrives, the further education world takes a deep breath and waits for them to say the thing. He didn’t disappoint. Burnham pledged an education system built on parity “between academic and technical”.

Like a nervous tic, we have heard this from every senior politician for more than a decade. Vince Cable “abolished” Blair’s 50 per cent university target in 2010. Gavin Williamson, as education secretary did so again in 2020. For good measure, Keir Starmer abolished it again just last year. The “how” always gets missed off the speech.

Perhaps we are expecting too much, given how fast Burnham has become prime-minister-in-waiting. But setting aside the sense of Groundhog Day, the ballooning NEET figures of the last two years, almost a million young people out of education, work, or training, should be a source of national shame. Burnham is right to anchor on this as the core challenge of our times.

What does this mean in reality?

Let’s start with what is unlikely to change. This is a Labour-to-Labour handover, so most of the reform programme is already bolted down.

The growth and skills levy has run since April. The youth-first tilt, including the end of funding for level 7 apprenticeships for over-22 starters, is settled and sits comfortably with how he thinks. If your strategy rests on another levy reset or a level 7 reprieve, set it aside and read the Milburn review instead.

One qualifier. His enthusiasm runs to degree and higher apprenticeships, so he may prove warmer to higher-level routes than the Starmer period allowed.

The real shift is where almost no engagement strategy is pointed: the architecture itself.

Burnham has questioned whether bodies such as Skills England need to exist, calling central oversight of a local matter an inefficient “halfway house”. I have argued, forlornly, before that its success was in all our interests, and that without teeth it would drift. The question now is whether it survives, and how much will be devolved.

What Burnham prized most as mayor was control of post-16 funding and employment support, and the mechanism already exists to make this happen.

Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Combined Authority already hold integrated settlements, single pots a mayor can flex. Follow that line, and you reach a more regionally commissioned, potentially more fragmented system.

Colleges have the most at stake, yet are oddly absent from the commentary.

Mayoral commissioning redraws who a college answers to, away from the department and towards the combined authority. For those aligned to their city region’s sectors, it is a chance to become the anchor institutions Burnham talks about. For those with no combined authority, it is ambiguous and worrying. Remember, most of England has no mayor, nor the prospect of one soon.

Unnamed but unmistakable, the Manchester baccalaureate, with its guaranteed work placement, is the model he will default to, tied to the Milburn review and bringing down the growing benefits bill. A national work placement guarantee would take Manchesterism to scale.

The intellectual centre of gravity has moved to No 10 North

In the ascendancy is an influential Manchester circle that includes Andy Haldane, rather than established FE thinkers.

Having met him recently, I’d say no one should underestimate his scepticism about Whitehall, or his passion for skills. Burnham has called the DfE his single biggest frustration as mayor. A skills agenda built in opposition to the department is not a detail. It is an organising principle.

So the moves are not hard to name. Build the regional and mayoral dimension in first, frame propositions in his terms, not the department’s, treat the national architecture as up for debate, and read the Milburn review again (have I said that already?).

A Burnham government will set its direction fast, and the window to shape it before it hardens will be measured in weeks, not months.

Burnham: Public contracts must deliver more apprenticeships

Andy Burnham’s first speech since launching his bid to be the next prime minister was widely trailed to go heavy on devolution, but alongside his pledge to shift power out of Whitehall, he set out plans to use government contracts to create apprenticeships and work placements for young people, end a university-first education system and devolve employment support. FE Week looks at what he did and didn’t say.

Andy Burnham has pledged to demand more work placements and apprenticeships for young people in return for giving British companies a better chance of winning government contracts.

The former Greater Manchester mayor said public procurement rules would be changed to help domestic suppliers become “more stable and competitive,” while ensuring firms winning contracts delivered greater benefits for young people and communities.

In his first major policy speech since returning to parliament last week, Burnham attacked a procurement culture he said had focused on “chasing cut-price deals around the world” rather than supporting British-based companies.

He promised “all eligible public contracts” would be subject to “proper social value weighting”, including contracts awarded through the government’s defence investment programme.

Burnham added: “In return, we will recycle maximum benefits for our communities and our residents, for instance by requiring a much greater supply of 45-day work placements and apprenticeships for young people.”

He stopped short of giving any targets or details on what sorts of contracts would be “eligible”.

Burnham pointed to Greater Manchester’s work with employers as evidence that the approach could deliver.

He said the city region had rung round businesses and secured “1,000 extra work placements” over the past year.

“That’s 1,000 extra young lives changed every year, and it shows what a place can do when it works as one,” he said.

However, Greater Manchester’s announcement in January described employers as having pledged 1,000 placements. It is unclear how many have so far been delivered.

Requirements already exist

Using government procurement policy to lever apprenticeships is not new, but evidence the current rules are creating new opportunities is hard to come by.

A policy introduced by the Conservative government in 2015 asked government departments and agencies to consider apprenticeships and skills places when awarding contracts worth at least £10 million and lasting 12 months or more.

It meant bidders could be asked how many apprenticeships they would create if they won, with successful suppliers’ commitments then written into contracts and monitored.

But public bodies were only “strongly encouraged” to do so.

Apprenticeship-specific guidance was withdrawn in 2023 and replaced by a wider central government “social value model”, worth at least 10 per cent of the available score when in-scope bodies assess contract bids.

The model lists apprenticeships, supported internships and T Level industry placements among other jobs and skills opportunities suppliers could offer.

But public bodies are not currently required to demand apprenticeships or work placements. Guidance provides public bodies with a menu of social-value outcomes that they can decide are most relevant to the contract they’re awarding. They also have to make sure those requirements are proportionate to the value of the contract and must not create disadvantages or barriers to potential suppliers, particularly small businesses.

Respondents to a recent government consultation on including a firmer measure on jobs and skills when assessing procurements worth over £5 million warned overly prescriptive requirements could increase bureaucracy and favour large companies.

Burnham did not offer details on overcoming those barriers for smaller businesses in his speech.

Parity klaxon

Burnham also promised a “complete rethink” of how young people are supported into work, saying he was taking “very seriously” Alan Milburn’s recent report on the rise of young people not in education, employment or training.

The report warned as many as one in six young people could be out of education and employment in the next five years, up from one in eight currently, without major reforms.

Burnham said the rethink “has to start with the education system”.

“The days of a school system configured entirely around the university route will be brought to an end,” he said.

“University is great for those who want it, but when are we going to focus on the life chances of those kids who want something different?

“The country has not done that for a long, long time.”

Burnham said politicians had argued for years for parity between academic and technical education.

In a speech following Labour’s major local election losses last month, which triggered Burnham’s run for parliament, Keir Starmer himself framed doing more for “the kids who are ignored, frankly, because society often only puts those who go to university on a pedestal” and then pledged to “go much further on our investment in apprenticeships [and] in technical education”.

Burnham echoed Starmer’s sentiment, saying he would build a “clear path” for “every young person into a reindustrialised Britain.”

Today’s speech follows the Starmer government’s claim last week that it will bring to an end a “degree by default” culture through its own “new deal for young people” by removing funding from degree courses that were deemed not to deliver good outcomes.

Burnham didn’t mention any changes to funding or provider accountability in his speech today.

Devolution without the detail

The bigger idea running through Burnham’s speech was a dramatic expansion of devolution across the country.

He described Britain as “one of the most over-centralised countries in the world” and argued that economic growth had been held back by power and resources remaining in Whitehall.

“It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down,” he said. “Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up.”

Burnham promised what he called the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”, giving regions greater control over public services, industrial policy and regeneration.

That would include powers tailored to the needs of rural areas, coastal towns and places undergoing industrial transition, as well as “more powers for London too, over education and housing”.

But education was not among the three main areas of devolution Burnham went on to identify.

His proposed “Number 10 North” operation in Manchester would support regions with reform of essential utilities, reindustrialisation and the regeneration of places.

Burnham said the new operation would be “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain” and “the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK”.

It would coordinate national and local government, support areas to set long-term economic strategies and require government departments and agencies to provide local and strategic authorities with staff and resources.

“The days of Whitehall fighting the devolution of power into the regions and nations are over for good,” Burnham said.

“I have had 10 years of fighting the Whitehall machine, blocking this place’s progress, the progress of people here, and I am simply not prepared to accept the same for any area coming after Greater Manchester.”

However, Burnham did not say whether his devolution drive would extend to 16-to-19 education, apprenticeship funding or greater mayoral control over colleges and training provision.

Nor did he explain whether the reference to giving London “education” powers would be offered elsewhere or what those powers would cover.

The only skills-related responsibility he explicitly committed to devolving was employment support.

As mayor, Burnham argued that Greater Manchester could not deliver a fully integrated adult skills and employment system because the Department for Work and Pensions retained control over employment programmes and funding.

“We will answer the call from the mayors, and particularly the mayor of the North East, for devolution of employment support,” he said.

Burnham said services should work more through community and voluntary organisations “at a grassroots level”, using organisations people trust rather than requiring them to go to “places that they fear”.

Young people who need mental health support should also receive it as part of help to enter and remain in work.

Burnham claimed the approach would reduce the welfare bill “in a way that is fair and lasting and helps people move forward”.

DWP questions June 2026: live blog

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden and his ministers will take questions in the House of Commons this afternoon shortly after 2.30pm.

Follow below for live updates

Education has lost the confidence of too many white working class families

I’m rarely shocked or even greatly surprised by statistics that show how unequal life chances are in this country, but I was astounded by some of the findings in the independent inquiry into white working class educational outcomes, for which I was a board member. There are many, but how about this one – only 36 per cent of white working class children achieve grade 4s in English and maths GCSEs at the age of 16, compared with 72 per cent of the whole cohort not on free school meals.

Those findings have helped to shine a light on the fundamental misalignment between what many children, young people and their families want from the education system and what they are being offered. A misalignment that for far too long has been denied or overlooked by government, in the vain belief that ‘making the current system work better’ will close the enormous educational and life outcomes gaps driven by social class.

First of all, the report completely dismisses the myth that poor outcomes are somehow the fault of the children and young people themselves, as did the recent Milburn review report on young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs). White working class families and children do not lack ambition or potential, but they are not experiencing an education system they believe is meeting their needs or aspirations.

Time and again, the surveys, roundtables and interviews revealed a fundamental lack of belief that ‘education is designed for people like me’. For instance, only 43 per cent of parents believe that their child is learning skills they will use in real life.

That misalignment and lack of belief in education results, as the report shows, in large numbers of children disengaging with education because they do not believe it will help them in their lives. One headteacher said that absence has almost become normalised across groups of children and their families. And the data is shocking, with 38 per cent of white children on free school meals being persistently absent and 5 per cent severely absent.

So much for the shocking statistics, and there are many others that we should all be ashamed about. But it is not a report without hope; the inquiry found lots of schools and colleges doing excellent work to buck the trends.

For colleges, there is good recognition of the work they do to help young people belong and engage with a curriculum that inspires and motivates them. The report talks about colleges “as environments where many white working class young people successfully re-engage with education after difficult experiences in school”.

The report sets out a vision of hope and a call to arms, with pragmatic and well-thought through recommendations. For us in post-16, there are good recommendations to properly invest in colleges, in apprenticeships and in new higher education pathways that can be accessed locally. There’s also a focus on free public transport for all under 21s which would be a major enabler for all learners.

I do hope that this work gets the consideration it deserves. Across the education system, we can and must do better, because the ambitions and potential of too many children will continue to be wasted if we dbon’t. I also hope that the government and the education system collaborate now to implement the recommendations and rise to the call for action so that this picture changes, and changes soon.

The apprenticeships tipped for a rate rise

Business administration, accountancy and carpentry could be among apprenticeships in scope for funding band uplifts, FE Week analysis suggests.

Skills minister Jacqui Smith this week commissioned Skills England to provide urgent advice on which apprenticeship standards most used by under-25s are not funded at a “sufficient” level to incentivise take-up among training providers and employers.

And she admitted that six of the top 20 standards used by young people had never received a funding increase since their launch.

The stagnant six

Funding bands determine the maximum amount that can be drawn down from the apprenticeship budget for training and assessment per apprentice. There are 30 bands, which range from £1,500 to £27,000.

Providers have long argued that funding bands have failed to keep pace with inflation and course delivery costs, and employers fear it is financially risky to put young people onto such apprenticeships.

Smith said: “The government is determined to boost apprenticeship starts for young people and it is imperative that our funding rates incentivise this rather than hold it back.”

FE Week analysis of 2024-25 data (table below) shows the six apprenticeships the minister was likely referring to include the level 3 business administrator, which had 8,250 starts for under-25s and a funding rate of £5,000 since it launched in 2017, and the level 7 accountancy and taxation professional, with 7,650 starts for the same age bracket and funded at £21,000 since its approval in 2017. The accountancy standard is, however, now only available for people aged 21 and under, following the government’s crackdown on level 7 apprenticeships.

The pair were the second and third most popular apprenticeships for young people in 2024-25, behind the level 3 early years educator on 12,540 starts for under-25s, which itself was launched in 2019 with a £6,000 funding band before receiving an uplift to £7,000 two years ago.

Also in the group of six are the level 3 engineering technician and level 3 maintenance and operations engineering technician standards with 3,460 and 1,860 under-25 starts in 2024-25, respectively. Both were funded at the maximum band of £27,000 when approved a decade ago before receiving rate cuts to £26,000.

The level 3 maintenance and operations engineering technician was, however, replaced by two new standards at the end of 2025, both of which are funded at the maximum band of £27,000.

The level 3 information communications technician standard, which had 1,860 starts for young people, hasn’t had its £15,000 funding band change since its launch in 2021, nor has the level 3 dental nurse apprenticeship, also receiving 1,860 under-25 starts, which has been funded at £8,000 since it began in 2024.

Growth priorities

Smith said funding reviews should also be prioritised for apprenticeships that make a “strong contribution to growth and the priority skills to 2030 identified by Skills England across ten critical sectors, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy”.

The ten critical sectors are: creative industries, digital and technologies, housebuilding, clean energy, adult social care, professional and business services, life sciences, financial services, defence, and advanced manufacturing.

Popular apprenticeships among young people that fit into those sectors and could therefore be in line for funding band uplifts include the level 3 installation and maintenance electrician, with 6,390 starts in 2024-25 and a current funding band of £23,000, as well as the level 2 carpentry and joinery standard, which had 3,780 starts for the age group in the same year with a funding rate of £13,000.

The level 3 motor vehicle service and maintenance technician (light vehicle) apprenticeship, with 3,050 starts and a £16,000 funding band, could also fall into scope of an uplift, as could the level 3 assistant accountant, funded at £12,000 which had 2,560 starts, and the level 3 plumbing and domestic heating technician, funded at £22,000 with 2,350 starts.

Level 3 lead adult care worker, which had 1,970 starts for under-25s and a funding band of £4,000, is also in a priority sector and is among the 20 most popular standards for young people, as is the level 2 bricklayer with 1,850 starts and a £13,000 funding band.

Smith told Skills England to produce guidance on which standards should have their funding reviewed by July, and advise on potential rate changes by October.

The agency announced today that it will adopt a temporary model to decide funding bands in the coming months. Rather than asking occupational groups to supply quotes for costings, the agency will now use “actual assessment cost data to help set our estimate”.

Skills England scales back employer role in funding decisions

Skills England has announced it will no longer rely on employers when deciding funding levels for apprenticeships.

The agency today said it was implementing an “interim funding model” that it claimed would be “more responsive” and “enable faster, more consistent decisions”.

Skills England currently invites “occupational groups”, made up of employers, to submit their own costings, which are then balanced with the agency’s funding rates created using an independent evidence base and Office for National Statistics data.

But rather than asking occupational groups to supply quotes from assessment organisations, the agency will now make use of “actual assessment cost data to help set our estimate”.

“We may continue to ask occupational groups for advice and to offer on-programme costings where needed,” the agency added.

The interim model will be in place for the rest of 2026 at least, with a permanent new funding model to be tested this summer.

It comes days after skills minister Jacqui Smith instructed Skills England to urgently review apprenticeship funding bands with a view to uplift some rates to grow the number of people aged under 25 starting apprenticeships. Skills England must identify priority standards by July and recommend potential new funding rates by October.

‘Sensible step’

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said the membership body agreed that the funding band review model needed a refresh.

“The current process has been too slow, with some of the most popular apprenticeship standards for young people not having their funding bands reviewed since they were introduced in 2017,” he told FE Week.

“Making greater use of actual delivery data is a sensible step, and Skills England has previously indicated it wanted to move away from a quote-based approach as apprenticeship assessment reforms take effect, so this change is not unexpected.”

Skills England’s funding model change applies to all “skills products” within its remit, including apprenticeships, apprenticeship units and foundation apprenticeships.

The agency, which is the successor to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, has not disclosed which datasets or calculations underpin its interim model, other than “actual assessment costs”, or whether employers will be able to challenge its decisions.

It did reveal that the agency “may” seek advice from its expert network, made up of occupational and sector stakeholders, before making a final recommendation through its “internal governance processes” and then approaching the work and pensions secretary for approval.

The guidance outlined scenarios where funding for a skills product would be reviewed. These included instances where there is a significant change in duration, the addition or removal of a mandatory qualification or significant changes in content.

Ashworth added: “Getting funding band decisions right is essential and we will continue engaging closely with Skills England as the new model develops.

“There are still wider concerns that need addressing though, including the longstanding £27,000 funding band cap, which continues to affect the deliverability of provision in some of the government’s priority sectors. It is also too early to judge how assessment reform will affect future funding bands, but this is something we will be watching carefully.”

SEND help to general FE, specialist teachers told

Expert staff at specialist post-16 institutions could guide general FE colleges on how best to spend new inclusion cash, officials have said.

Under guidance published today, the Department for Education said 16-to-19 providers receiving a share of its £73 million inclusive mainstream fund could commission specialist colleges to deliver bespoke training to staff, or organise shadowing or placements in specialist settings.

The suggestions were among an outline of how the grant money could be spent, including delivering adaptive teaching, an inclusive environment and “ambitious” leadership.

A new “inclusive education estates” strategy was also published and reminds local authorities that high-needs capital allocations should be spent in post-16 settings as well as schools.

The two initiatives are among a package of reforms to embed inclusive practice across mainstream education in England.

Earlier this month, the DfE published a breakdown of colleges and training providers receiving a share of £73 million of inclusive mainstream fund allocations for 2026-27. The fund will run until 2029.

Putting heads together

Explaining a desire to build partnerships, the inclusive mainstream fund guidance says: “FE institutions already draw on a range of expertise to support learners with SEND, you may wish to further strengthen this by building on existing partnerships with specialist colleges.”

It adds that specialist providers could help develop alternative approaches to inclusion in areas where colleges have failed in the past.

Other tips include recruiting additional staff to learning support teams, strengthening data collection systems, and setting up informal information evenings for parents and carers of SEND learners.

Providers receiving inclusive mainstream fund cash will be required to set out how they use the money in their annual accountability statements. They also must explain how they respond to SEND and local skills needs. Furthermore, Ofsted will check how the funding is improving outcomes for learners during inspections.

The DfE also recommended using the inclusive mainstream fund for accessible campus maps, sensory tools in classrooms and assistive technology.

It highlighted Stoke-on-Trent College, which set up bespoke timetables, sensory-aware environments and real-world embedded curriculums for learners.

“This initiative is scalable, sustainable and sector-leading, offering a replicable model of inclusive excellence that transforms lives and communities,” the DfE said.

David Holloway, senior policy manager for SEND at the Association of Colleges, said the fund was a “welcome” way to level the playing field for the majority of students with SEND who do not receive any high-needs funding.

“Colleges are highly inclusive in both their enrolment and the way they support students,” he added. “But inclusiveness is fragile in the face of the many financial pressures colleges face.”

Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, agreed that the partnership idea would achieve “greater inclusiveness” but warned DfE that its push for mainstream inclusion should not overlook specialist provision.

“Young people in specialist colleges frequently say that specialist provision has given them a sense of belonging, of being valued and understood, and of being supported and challenged to achieve their goal – in other words, of being included,” she said.

Howard added: “This guidance will support FE colleges to build on the highly inclusive practice that already exists, but focussing solely on mainstream risks letting down children and young people with a higher level of need and the specialist providers who serve them.”

The DfE’s guidance said grants should be used at a cohort and whole-institution level, rather than as a personal budget for individual students.

“It is for 16-to-19 settings to decide how to allocate their total funding allocation, after assessing the needs of their overall cohort and the evidence-based activities and approaches that will be effective in their context,” it added.

Officials also clarified that 16-to-19 providers can carry some of their 2026-27 allocation beyond March 31, 2027, provided it is used alongside core funding to strengthen their inclusive offer.

Estates cash ‘for FE too’

The government also rolled out its non-statutory inclusion estates strategy setting out expectations on making school and college estates more inclusive.

It makes clear that high-needs provision capital allocation, an £860 million pot for local authorities to distribute, can be used to adapt college classrooms to make them more inclusive, such as fitting height-adjustable benches or creating wellbeing gardens.

Local authorities have been able to direct capital funding to FE colleges since the fund launched in 2021. They are now required to specify in local SEND reform plans how their capital strategy will cover the full newborn-to-25 age range.

Holloway said: “It is welcome to see the inclusive estates guidance make the point that high-needs provision capital allocations can be spent in colleges as well as schools.”