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‘SEND more to FE’ policy risks a raft of problems

As the SEND system buckles under spiralling demand, the government is embarking on radical reforms to make education more inclusive and cut costs.

The plans, set out in February’s Putting Children and Young People First consultation, were designed primarily to respond to problems engulfing the schools system.

But they have seismic consequences for colleges too, as the Department for Education envisages more young people with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) receiving specialist provision within mainstream settings.

Many FE colleges already face capacity constraints, while specialist colleges risk more restrictions as EHCPs are reserved for those with the most complex needs requiring a specialist provision package.

An Association of Colleges (AoC) report shared exclusively with FE Week paints a troubling picture of colleges already being expected to accommodate more young people with SEND at precisely the point when the commissioning system is pushing them beyond what they can safely provide.

Seventy-one per cent of responding colleges said local authorities had used the statutory ‘duty to admit’ rule to direct them to enrol young people whose needs the college had formally said it could not meet. One college reported this happened 80 times.

When ‘duty to admit’ goes wrong

In another case, a college said it was told to admit a learner on a hair and beauty or catering course but they could not have access to sharp objects.

“In such situations, there are no reasonable adjustments that would enable the learner to safely participate or achieve the qualification,” the respondent said.

More than two-thirds of respondents said they had encountered cases where, after a college declined a placement, a local authority rewrote the learner’s EHCP, even removing descriptions of behavioural or medical needs.

In one instance, an EHCP was amended to erase information about a young person’s police involvement even though the college said, “evidence was not provided to suggest behaviours had reduced”.

Another college said a learner it had initially sought to refuse caused “significant damage” to a college building, for which he was subsequently prosecuted.

The same college claimed councils were, in an “increasing number of cases”, removing wording that might have prompted a refusal, such as “violent outbursts at school”, and sending the consultation back.

“This cynically leads to a breakdown in placement later on but has for them met deadlines to ‘place’,” it said.

AoC wants Department for Education guidance to make explicit that safeguarding and health and safety considerations take priority.

David Holloway, AoC’s senior SEND policy manager, described the duty to admit as a “mechanism being put in place with schools in mind, that then has perverse consequences for colleges”.

AoC estimates only around 11 per cent of college-age learners with EHCPs attend specialist SEND colleges, whereas nearly half of school-age pupils with EHCPs are educated in specialist settings. The reforms rely on FE doing even more of something it already does at scale.

David Holloway, senior SEND policy manager for AoC

From EHCPs to individual support plans

The reforms will also change how support is recorded and funded. Where an EHCP is currently seen as a ‘golden ticket’ to individual high-needs funding, more support would in future come through ‘universal’, ‘targeted’ and ‘targeted plus’ tiers funded mainly from mainstream money.

Where the financial boundary falls between ‘targeted plus’ and ‘specialist’ becomes extremely important for colleges. If learners who currently attract individually commissioned high-needs support fall below the future specialist provision package (SPP) threshold, colleges will need to know whether the additional mainstream funding genuinely covers the cost of supporting them.

Colleges and schools will be legally bound to produce an individual support plan (ISP) for all those requiring targeted or specialist support, recording needs, reasonable adjustments, provision and intended outcomes.

The DfE wants the digital documents to move with learners between settings, partly to tackle the chronic loss of information at transition.

But more than two-thirds of colleges surveyed by AoC said they received EHCPs that were inaccurate, uninformative or out of date. One in ten reported what they regarded as unreasonable attempts by councils to cease plans.

“We have asked for out-of-date EHCPs to be reviewed, with the local authority response being that there is no capacity to undertake said reviews,” one college said.

Holloway warned that “without a mechanism to ensure accuracy”, ISPs could reproduce existing problems while adding an administrative burden if their digital design does not integrate with colleges’ own systems.

Orchard Hill College opening new SEND provision last year in Sutton

Age concerns

The first young people transitioning into the new EHCP system are due to be assessed from 2029, with changes taking effect from 2030. Existing support is protected until then. But significant uncertainty remains over what happens after learners reach 19.

Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, a membership body for specialist colleges, says some are already encountering councils seeking to cease EHCPs at age 19.

The DfE has said the new system remains a 0-25 system, and Alasdaire Duerden, its head of post-16 SEND, told Natspec’s recent conference that young people with the most complex needs would continue to receive specialist support beyond 19.

But Holloway fears plans could nevertheless be “ceased anyway because people have misunderstood the rules”, and wants local authority staff making such decisions to be made “more accountable”.

A less-heralded part of the reforms could also reshape which specialist colleges are allowed to deliver EHCP-funded provision.

Currently, independent special schools and special post-16 institutions can apply to join the education secretary’s approved list under section 41 of the Children and Families Act 2014, which brings them under the same statutory duties on EHCPs as general FE colleges. Joining is voluntary, and institutions can receive council high-needs funding without it.

The DfE plans to replace that with a regime where only approved institutions can deliver provision secured through an EHCP. Duerden said the new list would be “similar” to section 41, and the department’s “starting intent” was that institutions already approved would continue, with the process principally applying to new entrants.

But some specialist colleges have deliberately asked to come off the section 41 list when already full, because inclusion increases placement requests. The DfE allows voluntary removal, and added guidance on how to request it in April, though institutions cannot subsequently reapply for a year.

Duerden acknowledged details remained unresolved, including a need to “check that everybody on that list” should be there. But he said ministers did not want to lose capacity: “We can’t afford for any of you guys to not be doing what you’re doing because that demand isn’t going to go away,” he said.

Safety Valve’s unfinished experiment

The government’s previous ‘safety valve’ scheme aimed at pushing councils to lower their high-needs requirement is now replaced by the local SEND reform plans that local authorities have submitted to officials.

Between 2020 and 2024, the DfE signed 38 safety valve agreements with councils carrying the largest dedicated schools grant deficits.

Although often presented as school reform programmes, FE Week analysis found that 22 included a discernible post-16 or preparation-for-adulthood element, with around 16 making explicit commitments involving colleges, training or employment.

However, DfE’s own evaluation of the programme found that many college leaders reported “little involvement” in it.

“There is nothing that I am doing currently that is being done because of the safety valve,” one college principal said.

That creates a tension; the DfE was holding councils to financial commitments which, in some cases, depended on colleges taking more SEND learners. But some of those colleges did not even regard themselves as meaningful participants in the programme.

Going forward, post-16 does seem to feature more prominently in new local SEND reform plans, which include a national template specifically asking councils how they will work with FE colleges, including those outside their area.

Several new plans aim to boost supported internships, but safety valve documents show how these programmes do not always lead to the cost savings that councils hope they will.

Perhaps the biggest post-16 SEND commissioning failures were seen in Kent, which received £140 million through its 2023 Safety Valve agreement – a third more than any other authority – and committed to developing a robust post-16 offer.

But that offer never got off the ground, and the planned “transitions to mainstream pathways” project intended partly to help young people move from special schools into FE failed to attract its intended pilot schools.

This left 293 year 11 learners with EHCPs, 31 per cent of the cohort, still awaiting a post-16 placement in August 2024.

By December 2025, Kent was still refreshing its post-16 coordination group to develop “a clear strategy” (despite this having been a formal safety valve condition since 2023), while forecasting a £68 million dedicated schools grant overspend for 2025-26.

The county’s structural problem remains, with Kent using specialist post-16 institutions at around three times the national rate. Kent’s post-16 planning work identifies multiple “cold spots” and a need for more level 1 and level 2 provision. Meanwhile, the county’s NEET population increased 50 per cent from 1,355 in June 2024 to 2,029 in March 2026.

Elsewhere the picture is mixed. Wokingham, which had no local FE college, is opening a 40-place SEND hub with Activate Learning, and Bexley said 32 learners moving out of independent or out-of-borough special schools saved an estimated £36,787 per student. But Kingston upon Thames saw plans for a flagship 16-25 SEND campus fall through.

Many of those ‘safety valve’ policies have survived into the new local SEND reform plans. Councils can only receive the high-needs stability grant, covering 90 per cent of eligible deficits accumulated to the end of 2025-26, once the DfE approves them.

A funding system already ‘in disarray’

Much remains unknown about how SEND funding will be distributed in the future, particularly with 16-19 funding being devolved to strategic authorities.

Jerry White, AoC’s new policy consultant and former principal of City College Norwich, said many colleges now receive more income associated with SEND than from apprenticeships and adult education combined.

“The risk of these reforms going wrong for the post-16 sector is really significant,” he said, adding that the reforms’ post-16 element remains “underdeveloped in DfE’s thinking”.

The government has already begun shifting money towards mainstream inclusion. Its new inclusive mainstream fund includes £65 million this financial year for colleges, supporting adaptive teaching, accessible environments and earlier identification of need.

Allocations are based primarily on the disadvantage block 2 (DB2) formula, which uses prior attainment in GCSE English and maths as a proxy for whether that learner has additional support needs.

White pointed out that a young person can have strong GCSE results but nevertheless require expensive support because they are blind or deaf, while another learner without GCSE English and maths might have no SEND-related support requirement at all.

Only 21 per cent of colleges responding to AoC said councils consistently took account of the actual cost of provision when agreeing high-needs funding.

Almost a third reported payments arriving after the academic year in which the support had been delivered, while only a quarter said payments consistently followed an agreed schedule.

And just 7 per cent thought local authorities consistently complied with the SEND code of practice on consultation and commissioning.

Barking & Dagenham College governors were told last year that some learners waited so long during the complex EHCP funding process that they were ultimately not offered a place and became NEET. South Hampshire College Group had around 300 applicants on hold in February pending conversations about EHCPs or criminal convictions.

The government’s reform paper acknowledges how critical college transitions are: young people with SEND are considerably more likely to become NEET, and transition planning should begin at least 12 months before entry to post-16 education.

AoC concluded that college SEND provision was being “hindered by a commissioning and funding system in disarray”.

Putting a price on specialist support

The DfE also intends to develop national price bands that cap what councils pay for independent special school and college placements, which it says charge an average of £63,000 a year against £26,000 for a state special school.

More than 30 per cent are backed by private equity. In Somerset, one such provider raised its upper annual fee from £51,500 in 2018 to £99,339 in 2025.

Post-16 independent specialist college costs vary, with councils reporting costs of £38,000 in Kingston and £53,000 in Surrey, where an FE college high-needs place costs around £23,000. Natspec says that charges vary widely across both GFE and specialist colleges depending on the cohort, the level of support required and a range of other factors.

But nearly half the colleges in AoC’s survey said local cost-banding had already produced funding that did not reflect the actual cost of provision, and eight described local costing models as unfit for purpose.

Colleges cannot be an afterthought

The government is also trying to strengthen support around mainstream institutions.

Its Experts at Hand programme, backed by around £1.8 billion over three years with delivery starting this month, is intended to give schools and colleges greater access to occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists. But councils have questioned where those experts will come from, and integrated care boards are restructuring after being told to halve running costs.

Lee Lister, SEND lead at Education Partnership North East, said better co-funding could “easily resolve” many of those problems.

His group is discussing jointly funding a speech and language therapist with its council to work in one college three days a week.

“Any college that wants to deliver exceptional SEND provision… will have the places and expertise to do it,” he said, but highlighted the “disparity between the learners’ needs, the funding and what colleges can provide”.

Those relationships are about to change. Local government reorganisation will abolish county councils in several two-tier areas, with Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk challenging the decisions in court.

White’s former employer, City College Norwich, has around 900 learners with EHCPs, of which roughly 800 were issued by a council due to disappear in 2028.

He says: “At the moment most colleges know their local authorities, they know the people they deal with. If that’s going up in the air at the same time as the system’s changing, you’ve got a double whammy.”

The reforms offer colleges plenty to welcome: earlier transitions, better data sharing, more specialist staff in mainstream settings and legal recognition of support below EHCP level.

But the architecture remains more developed for schools, and the Local Government Association has warned of insufficient detail on preparation for adulthood.

Just over half of area SEND inspections published so far in 2026 have found “widespread and/or systemic failings”, against roughly a third previously.

Every part of the government’s plan assumes colleges will absorb more. Almost none of it was designed with them in mind.

DfE and councils turn tables on collapsed Prevista

A collapsed training provider that claimed it was owed nearly £1 million by public funding bodies has been hit with counterclaims worth nearly double that amount amid allegations of misconduct.

North London-based Prevista Limited went into liquidation in May 2025 with more than 400 apprentices on its books.

Liquidators appointed to oversee the company’s affairs said their “particularly complex” investigation was expected to last “for some time”.

According to a progress report, liquidator Farheen Qureshi of Parker Getty Limited is probing misconduct allegations about unauthorised and undisclosed subcontracting arrangements, inaccurate record-keeping, failure to produce the required certification for learners and “various other serious matters”.

At the time of its collapse, Prevista’s records suggested it was owed £966,000 by the Department for Education and “various local authorities”.

However, Qureshi said the same public bodies have now issued claims of about £1.9 million against the company.

The DfE is understood to have been investigating Prevista’s funding claims at the time of its collapse.

Total claims faced by the firm, including from the Redundancy Payments Service which covered the outstanding wages for the company’s 40 staff members, are expected to reach £2.7 million.

Management concerns

According to the liquidator, senior staff who were interviewed after Prevista’s collapse raised concerns about the “adequacy of the company’s record keeping” and controls to ensure learners were appropriately enrolled and supported.

Staff also made allegations “concerning the conduct of the company and certain key personnel”, Qureshi added.

Prevista’s sole director, Salik Miah, is yet to respond to questions about transactions linked to a government-backed coronavirus business interruption loan of £1.2 million, according to the liquidator.

Commenting on the investigation, Qureshi said: “The level of involvement by higher-grade staff is significantly greater than would ordinarily be expected in a standard creditors’ voluntary liquidation, reflecting the complexity, sensitivity and potential implications of the matters under investigation.”

Miah, who was sole director of the company from 2022, did not respond to requests to comment.

Turnover tanked

Miah put Prevista into voluntary liquidation, a process that places a company that cannot pay its debts into the hands of insolvency practitioners.

The company was founded in 1996. Previous owner and managing director James Clements Smith sold it to an employee ownership trust in 2020.

Since its sale, the ownership trust ultimately controlling the company has been run by Miah and three independent directors, who resigned earlier this year.

At the time, the training provider had a turnover of about £10 million, but this had fallen to less than £4 million by March 2023.

An Ofsted inspection from 2023, which graded the business as ‘requires improvement’, said it had more than 1,000 apprentices on early years and care programmes, of which one third were trained by six subcontractors.

Inspectors criticised the curriculum quality taught by subcontractors, which they said focused too closely on “passing embedded qualifications”.

Subcontracting disclosures for 2021-22, which are still available online, show the company had arrangements with 16 apprenticeship and traineeship providers across England worth more than £1.1 million.

Prevista Ltd won a national adult education contract from the government in 2023 but was not listed on the Department for Education’s final allocations database.

The provider also appeared to hold adult skills fund contracts with the Greater London Authority worth £1 million per year from 2023-24 until its collapse.

A GLA spokesperson said: “Since the training provider went into insolvency, the GLA has been working with liquidator, Parker Getty, to reconcile the final funding position. We are unable to comment further at this stage.”

The DfE was approached for comment.

Sheffield braced for £5m clawback over ESOL scandal

More than £5 million could be clawed back from a Yorkshire college following an investigation into alleged maladministration and fraud, accounts have revealed.

A probe was launched into The Sheffield College’s English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision last year by its adult skills funder, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.

It is understood to have found dubious achievement rates, which were among the highest in the country. The college conducted its own internal audit and uncovered “unsatisfactory practice”, identified as “maladministration”.

Two senior staff reportedly lost their jobs as a result and achievement rates have plummeted.

The college expects a full external audit of its adult skills fund (ASF) to complete by the end of the 2026-27 financial year but is bracing itself for a significant clawback.

Operating surplus figures in its accounts for 2023-24 have had to be restated due to the issue, according to the college’s 2024-25 financial statements, which have been published in recent days, seven months after the government’s annual publication deadline of January 31.

Around £5.18 million of ASF “provision” has been included “based on a risk assessment of areas included in an external funding audit”. The accounts state that the figure is currently an estimate and the college has made “no commitment to repay any amounts whilst audit continues”.

They added that there is potential for “phased payment of any liabilities arising”.

A £5.18 million clawback would be nearly half of the college’s annual £11.58 million ASF contract it receives from SYMCA.

A spokesperson for the college said: “Money has been put aside as a contingency measure should the college be required to repay any adult skills funding on conclusion of an ongoing external audit.

“As the audit is ongoing, it would be premature to conclude whether any funding will need to be repaid and we will not be making any further comment at this stage.”

The college refused to confirm the full scope of the external audit, including whether it extends beyond the ESOL concerns.

Achievement rates plummet

The Sheffield College is South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority’s largest grant provider – receiving around a quarter of the authority’s overall ASF budget in 2026-27.

It is also the third largest ESOL provider outside of London, recording over 5,350 leavers from the language courses last year.

A SYMCA report from November stated its investigation was into “claims of maladministration and fraud in relation to The Sheffield College’s adult ESOL delivery”, adding that the “actions being taken were in accordance with the MCA’s fraud response plan”.

The nature of the alleged maladministration and fraud has not been revealed.

But awarding organisation City & Guilds reportedly revoked the college’s “direct claims status”, which allows the college to mark exams and verify results without confirmation from the exam body. This was according to local news outlet The Tribune, which also reported two senior staff members at the college had left as a result of the ESOL investigations.

The Sheffield College has refused to confirm what disciplinary or other action has been taken against staff members and the college as a result of the investigations.

In a media statement released in February in anticipation of the government’s latest ESOL achievement statistics, chief executive Angela Foulkes said “maladministration” had been identified, adding that this was now addressed through “rigorous quality processes” which have resulted in a drop in achievement results in that area of the college.

A month later, the data was published and showed the college’s level 1 regulated ESOL achievement rate had crashed 52.9 percentage points, from 81.3 per cent in 2023-24 to 28.4 per cent in 2024-25.

Meanwhile, the college’s entry-level regulated ESOL achievement rate fell 34.6 percentage points, from 92.4 per cent to 57.8 per cent.

The college’s non-regulated English language courses still achieved strong results of around 90 per cent, but the number of leavers fell by around two-thirds from 3,840 in 2023-24 to 1,350 in 2024-25.

A South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority spokesperson said: “As investigations are ongoing we are unable to comment further at this time.”

A City & Guilds spokesperson added: “While we cannot comment on internal investigations related to third parties, we can confirm we continue to work with The Sheffield College to ensure our robust assessment and quality assurance processes are followed in the delivery of our qualifications.”

Six-month delay for Tees Valley adult education

Money earmarked for adult education in Tees Valley will not be released for another six months as the region’s mayoral authority reruns a procurement.

The three-year adult skills fund (ASF) contract, worth up to £21 million, was due to begin delivery last month, providing training for unemployed people studying up to level 3.

But Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has now published a fresh tender, with a late September deadline for submissions and a planned contract start date of February.

The authority’s procured ASF contracts are worth £7 million a year but providers would lose money if they fail to spend the annual allocation in six months. However, it is understood TVCA expects contract-winning providers will compress a year’s worth of training into the shortened timeframe.

In the meantime, only grant-funded training from FE colleges will be available until February.

TVCA abandoned its original tender in May after independent training provider Learning Curve Group launched a legal challenge in the Technology and Construction Court, which handles procurement disputes.

At the time, TVCA said it needed to “review the specification” of its contract to ensure it met local skills needs.

The new tender says contractors will be expected to deliver “high-quality, innovative provision” aligned to regional priorities such as manufacturing, construction and digital skills.

Learning Curve’s challenge came shortly before TVCA commissioners were due to move the tender process from stage one, which assesses whether bidders meet compliance requirements, to stage two, which evaluates detailed submissions.

Although Learning Curve Group is understood to have submitted a bid for the TVCA contract, neither the provider or authority have confirmed whether the procurement withdrawal was linked to the legal claim.

Unemployed learners adrift

One independent training provider manager with knowledge of the bidding process, who asked not to be named, said the delay would affect thousands of unemployed learners who are helped into work through training programmes run by ITPs.

They estimated that at an average cost of £750 per learner, a £7 million annual contract would fund about 730 learners a month.

The manager said TVCA had “questions” to answer about advertising a public tender that was not “legally robust”, adding the situation had left some training providers “looking at potential redundancies”.

But they also criticised training providers that launched legal action when bids were rejected because they “think they have a given right” to public funding.

The manager explained that TVCA policy has a subcontracting clause so bidders for the new tender must avoid subcontracting for local colleges or local authorities.

Millions held back

The value of TVCA’s procured ASF contracts remains unchanged at £7 million a year for the next three academic years.

A spokesperson for the Conservative-run authority confirmed that previously procured contracts ended on July 31.

TVCA’s ASF and level 3 free courses for jobs provision has funded more than 18,000 learners per year in recent years. It is unclear how many of these learners were funded through grant or procured provision.

The £7 million sum represents the contracted part of TVCA’s total adult skills fund allocation it receives from central government. Last year, about £9.4 million of the authority’s annual adult skills funding was allocated to 14 ITPs.

This included around £1.5 million each to Learning Curve Group and Triage Central, and £1 million to Orangebox Training Solutions.

The remaining £32 million available to the authority for ASF was distributed to nine education colleges and five local authorities through grant funding.

Procurement disputes

Lancashire Combined County Authority (LCCA), which began its first year of devolved adult skills commissioning this year, has also delayed part of its ASF delivery contract.

An email to bidders, seen by FE Week, said one of the 12 contract lots in its new £5.7 million adult skills framework was “discontinued” due to an error made in the tendering process.

LCCA did not respond to a request for comment.

Legal action, or the threat of it, has caused other delays to devolved adult skills contracts in recent years.

East Midlands Combined County Authority delayed the awarding of £6.5 million in contracts last year after losing bidder CT Skills launched legal action.

And in 2024, West Yorkshire Combined Authority abandoned its £7 million ASF tender to minimise the risk of legal challenges to its botched procurement process.

Learning Curve’s latest ASF legal threat follows the payment of an undisclosed settlement in January 2025 by the Department for Education linked to the provider’s unsuccessful bid for a national adult education contract awarded in 2023.

Learning Curve Group declined to comment.

Why we need to count homeless college students

It was an FE college tutor who Lydia turned to when she was homeless. Lydia, then 16, was sleeping on her aunt’s sofa after deciding she could no longer live with her parents.

Her tutor listened, and put her in touch with a homelessness charity who in turn found her a social worker.

For Lydia, who I met last year, that first conversation was life-changing. Within weeks, she moved to a women’s hostel where she stayed for 18 months until she was allocated a council flat. She finished college and went to university.

How many other FE students experience housing insecurity while at college? The answer is, there is no way of telling. We have some anecdotal signals, but no reliable data.

Concerns about ‘the closure of community services and increased homelessness within the student population’ were raised in an Association of Colleges’ annual health and wellbeing survey in 2024, while its mental health survey this year found 41 per cent of respondents citing homelessness as a significant influence on the increase in student mental health difficulties.

Concerns were also highlighted in a report by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Students in 2023 which found that ‘cost-of-living pressures on further education students were contributing to homelessness, higher demand for free school meals and social housing, and intergenerational unemployment’.

Clearly, housing instability is a barrier to study and vocational training. Evidence also shows that child and youth homelessness is associated with stress and poorer health, and higher risk of homelessness in adulthood.

It is high time, surely, for some rigorous data collection and analysis of the prevalence and patterns of homelessness among UK further education students.

Risks of homelessness are stacked unevenly; some individuals, and cohorts, are at much higher risk than others.

A key driver of homelessness is low, insecure and fluctuating family income. One in five college students (21 per cent) claimed free school meals at the age of 15 due to low family income, according to the Association of Colleges, almost twice the rate in school sixth forms. Students who are care experienced or have poor mental or physical health face a greater likelihood of housing insecurity.

Periods of transition are also associated with elevated risks of homelessness. For young people aged 16-18, in particular, going to college and often attending three days a week, rather than daily as at school, represents a big, sometimes unsettling change.

The context, of course, is that colleges have suffered perennial neglect over decades, with severe squeezes on funding.

Many college staff, including non-teaching staff, do vital pastoral work in challenging circumstances. Some provide on-campus support for students facing housing insecurity, such as hygiene items or clothes washing.

The goal, however, should be to prevent homelessness from occurring, not to treat its symptoms.

Councils share data with schools about pupils’ backgrounds and financial data; local authorities should do the same with colleges, so that bursaries can be targeted simply and rapidly at students in greatest need.

We need leadership, too, to improve data on homelessness among college students. Ideally, government should do this. But the Association of Colleges could survey member institutions specifically about homelessness. An individual college, or group, might lead the way.

Lydia’s life changes were transformed by a tutor she turned to when she experienced homelessness. One suspects many more college students don’t seek help but struggle to study in temporary housing, sleep on friends’ sofas or compromise their welfare in unsafe housing. We should try to find out.

We need joined-up skills system supporting people from classroom to career

Almost one million young people in the UK, one in eight, are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). Alan Milburn’s review estimates this costs the nation £125 billion annually, while leaving a 24-year-old NEET facing up to £300,000 in lost lifetime earnings. At the same time, half of business leaders say the UK’s skills system is fundamentally unfit for purpose. If we want to solve both problems, we need a decisive strategy that tackles these twin challenges together.

Economic growth depends on having people with the right skills in the right jobs. That is why careers education, skills development, employment support, and lifelong learning must be seen as parts of the same connected system, rather than separate policy challenges. A productive economy relies on helping young people make the transition from classrooms to work, while supporting adults to retrain, upskill, and adapt throughout longer, less linear careers as technology transforms the workplace.

FE providers understand this challenge, as do businesses who are already doing their part by providing work experience, offering apprenticeships, and supporting mentoring programs. They want to do more. However, business investment does not happen in a vacuum. Employers need a stable policy environment, clear incentives, and a skills system that is easy to navigate. Too often, firms encounter complexity, fragmentation, and constant short-term policy changes that undermine confidence and stifle investment.

I see the difference a targeted, locally-led approach makes when I travel across the country meeting businesses of all sizes. Take the situation in Berkshire, where the local skills improvement plan (LSIP) led by Thames Valley Chamber identified screen industries as a priority sector. Windsor College used capital investment from the local skills improvement fund to establish cutting-edge film and podcast studios. Around 400 local students are now benefiting from the facilities, gaining employer-ready skills.

The lesson is clear – when the system is coherent and locally responsive, businesses invest and results follow. But across the wider economy, 58 per cent of businesses face active skills shortages, while two thirds say better access to training would unlock growth.

On top of this, the business cost stack has ballooned by 70 per cent in a decade, squeezing the very employers that colleges rely on for placements, apprenticeships and work experience. While the government’s focus on tackling economic inactivity and improving youth opportunities is welcome, the challenge extends across the whole workforce.

So what can the government do to ease this pressure and build a stronger lifelong learning system?

First, the Treasury should immediately cut the cost of hiring a young person. Bringing in an employer national insurance contribution holiday for under-25s would significantly lower entry barriers, giving businesses the financial room to invest in young talent.

Second, businesses need a seat at the table when the growth and skills levy is redesigned. Skills England must commit by 2027 to a formal co-design process with businesses so that levy training directly reflects real operational workforce needs.

The lifelong learning entitlement also needs fixing before it rolls out fully in January 2027. Without a clear employer co-investment model, it risks becoming just another loan product that neither employees nor employers trust enough to use.

The government should also adopt a single national framework for flexible work experience, along the lines of the Careers & Enterprise Company’s ‘equalex’ model. A consistent, straightforward process would make it far easier for businesses, particularly SMEs, to take part. We also need schools to be measured on delivering high-quality work readiness to their students.

Finally, every school and college should be connected to an employer-led mentoring network by September 2027, backed by long-term support for local skills brokerage through lsips. Embedding careers education early throughout schooling, aligned with local labour market needs, ensures more young people benefit from meaningful employer interactions before drifting out of the workforce.

The goal should not be to introduce more short-term initiatives, but to build a simpler, more coherent skills system that supports people from classroom to career, one that catches young people long before they become another NEET statistic. If policymakers in all parts of the UK can provide that framework, businesses stand ready to play their part.

Transition support matters more than ever in college-based HE

The world of higher education has been changing rapidly. More students are now choosing to stay in their family homes throughout the course of their studies and to study locally.

There are many different reasons for this. After all, higher education is no longer the exclusive preserve of 18 year olds looking to move away from home.

Many students may not be able to afford the cost of campus accommodation. The cost-of-living crisis hasn’t made this any easier. They may be supporting family members as parents or carers. They may want to stay in their hometowns to sustain family relationships, friendships and social connections. They may find that staying and studying close to home supports their own wellbeing.

They may want to continue working in jobs close to home. Their studies may be connected to those jobs, through apprenticeships, internships and work-based and lifelong learning. Each will make that choice based on their own reasons, responsibilities, expectations, ambitions and needs.

Many universities have adapted their timetables and modes of delivery to support local students who continue to live at home. This is also a space in which FE colleges have shown particular aptitudes and strengths – and this has resulted in the growth in recent years of high-quality college-based HE.

Even for those students who move into HE at the same college at which they’ve just completed their A Levels, T Levels, BTECs or NVQs – and more so for those older students who are returning to learning – the transition into HE can be challenging. Approaches to self-directed study assessment can, for example, make students feel like they’ve been thrown in at the deep end of higher education.

This is why we’ve been working with a group of five FE colleges on a collaborative enhancement project funded by the Quality Assurance Agency to research effective approaches to these transitions. In partnership with colleagues and students from Bishop Burton College and University Centre, Derby College Group, Nottingham College, Solihull College and University Centre, and Walsall College, we’ve explored how flexible pathways and effective transitions in college-based higher education can be enhanced through a structured approach to student-staff collaboration.

Our project involved staff and students in an approach designed to support dialogue and engagement between students and staff, through a cyclical structure of observation, reflection and discussion.

Our pilot study demonstrated remarkably positive results. Students found that participation enabled them to develop a stronger sense of ownership over their learning, alongside enhanced reflective and critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, staff found that their participation supported the development of more student-centred and facilitative pedagogical approaches, reinforcing the value of student voice in shaping their teaching practice.

The study involved 18 members of staff and 45 students. Over 80 per cent of the students across all five of the colleges reported increased confidence, improved understanding of assessment expectations and greater engagement with feedback processes. Some even reported concrete impacts on attainment levels: for example, some of the students observed that, when they’d started, they were achieving marks between 45 and 50 per cent, but that by the end of their engagement in the project they were averaging marks in the mid-to-high 60s.

What was particularly striking was the uplift that students experienced in what are often called “soft skills”. When it comes to students making the transition into higher education – especially in the cases of “non-traditional” students – confidence, self-esteem and belonging are key to their success. Students involved in the project noted significant improvements in these qualities, and in their abilities to communicate with their tutors and with each other, as well as major boosts in their beliefs in their own abilities.

Our study highlighted the importance of collaborative relationships in supporting these crucial transitions, and highlighted the value of embedding transition support within curricula. It has shown that educators and institutions should work to promote opportunities for reflective learning and dialogue, and prioritise the development of pedagogical relationships in inclusive and supportive learning environments. They also need to recognise the importance of staff development and the allocation of appropriate resourcing.

The focus, contexts and scale of college-based HE raise unique sets of challenges for students and educators – as well as extraordinary opportunities to add value to communities and to transform people’s lives. We have found that a collaborative approach to these transitions, by mirroring the best aspects of that provision itself, can enhance both the learning experience and the learners’ prospects of success.

New GCSE-level technical qualifications may be needed, says Powell

New or reformed national GCSE-level qualifications may be needed as part of Andy Burnham’s plans to introduce technical pathways for 14-year-olds, the education secretary has said.

But the pathways will initially use existing qualifications such as technical awards when they launch in 2028.

The government announced earlier in the summer that it would create the new pathways to start in two years’ time, but provided little detail on what the policy would mean in practice.

Education secretary Lucy Powell wrote to the education committee on 28 July, shortly after the policy was announced.

In the letter, published yesterday, she said her department would work with schools, employers and mayoral and strategic authorities to “explore what new or reformed national qualifications, at GCSE level, might also be needed as part of these pathways”.

This is the first time the government has explicitly said it would consider creating new technical qualifications at GCSE level, FE Week understands.

Pathways to use existing technical awards

Technical equivalents to GCSEs – such as technical awards – already exist. FE Week’s sister title Schools Week revealed last month around nine in 10 schools already offered these qualifications.

Approached by Schools Week, the DfE clarified that the new technical pathways will be rolled out in 2028 using existing technical qualifications already available.

This is because any new or reformed qualifications would not be ready for first teaching by then.

The DfE added that work will be done in parallel to explore what new or reformed qualifications could be introduced at GCSE level.

The timescales for introduction are yet to be determined.

‘Technical education superpower’

Powell added in the letter that her department “would work with partners across the country to make England a technical education superpower”.

This would be done “by placing technical and academic education on an equal footing and creating a system where technical excellence is recognised, rewarded and valued as highly as academic achievement”.

“Building on successful models such as the MBacc in Manchester, we will work with schools, colleges, employers and strategic authorities to ensure every young person can access high-quality locally tailored technical qualifications.”

It is not clear how far the qualifications will differ depending on the region, or whether different qualifications will be offered in different areas.

Analysis by Schools Week found that nine in ten mainstream schools entered at least one key stage 4 pupil for a technical award in 2025.

The government acknowledged that while most schools offer technical qualifications already, their plans would “boost the quality, availability and status of the offer”.

But Powell pointed out in her letter that only half of pupils in mainstream state schools studied a technical award.

“Most take just one alongside their GCSEs, and a small minority take more than two.

“This is not surprising when access to pre-16 technical education is uneven across the country and between regions.”

Variation in qualifications offer

She added that schools in the north east offered twice as many technical award options on average compared to schools in London.

It is not yet clear how the technical routes will fit into ongoing plans to update the national curriculum or progress 8, which are already in motion.

The government is set to publish the programmes of study for the new curriculum, as well as its response to the progress 8 consultation, this September.

There are plans to introduce V Levels – which are worth the same as an A Level and would be studied post-16 – with the first being taught in September 2027.

Powell said: “The revolution in post-16 which shows early promise needs more pathways into it and a stronger relationship between KS4 and KS5.

“This over-focus on academic pathways only has limited opportunity for young people, leaves many disengaged and is a major factor driving the growing NEETs crisis.”

‘Too many’ written off by Gove reforms

Setting out his plan for government in the House of Commons this week, Burnham defended his proposals to reform education “so that it balances academic and technical, and offers a path in life for all young people”.

One of his fiercest critics has been former education secretary Michael Gove, who declared in a Spectator column that Burnham and Powell “want to bring back stupid”.

“Michael Gove calls this ‘bringing back stupid’, when in fact, for too many young people written off by his reforms, it is bringing back hope.

“Allowing mayors to shape technical pathways and provide work placements for young people, building back into colleges and schools from the needs of the regional economy, is the way to support more young people into work.”

College campus safety starts long before an incident occurs

When people think about campus safety, they often think about security guards, CCTV cameras or access controls.

Those measures have an important role to play. But in my experience, the most effective way to keep young people safe is not responding to incidents when they occur – it is preventing them from happening in the first place.

That is why the conversation about safety in further education needs to move beyond physical security alone.

Today’s colleges are supporting young people through a far more complex landscape than existed even a decade ago.

According to figures, around 20 per cent of young people have a probable mental health disorder, with 65 per cent feeling unsafe online. The UK’s annual crime survey shows that young people aged 16 to 24 are consistently among the age groups most likely to be victims of violence, while national safeguarding data continues to show concerns around criminal exploitation and county lines activity.

Many of these issues do not begin when a student arrives at college, but they often become visible there.

As a result, safeguarding and security have become inseparable.

FE colleges have always been places of opportunity, environments where young people develop skills, confidence and independence as they prepare for adulthood. But over the past decade, the role colleges play within their communities has evolved significantly.

Today, colleges are not simply education providers. They are large, open, public-facing institutions supporting thousands of young people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances, often with increasingly complex needs. As that landscape changes, so too does our responsibility to safeguard and support the students in our care.

At West Herts College Group, we see first-hand how the challenges affecting young people have become broader and more interconnected. We must think differently about safety and wellbeing from the way we may have done in the past.

Effective safeguarding cannot be limited to responding when concerns reach a crisis point. The most effective approach is one that identifies issues early, provides appropriate support and builds resilience before problems escalate into more serious safeguarding or security concerns.

The rollout of mental health support teams in schools has been a welcome step forward, but while 79 per cent of secondary school pupils are in settings now covered by a mental health support team, only 42 per cent of 16 to 18 year olds are. We would always welcome greater access to specialist mental health support across the FE sector.

It is important to recognise that schools are intervening further upstream, helping children develop resilience and coping strategies from an earlier age. Ultimately, effective safeguarding is a shared endeavour across the entire education system.

Keeping young people safe today requires a much more holistic approach, one built around prevention, partnership working, staff training, student education and early intervention. This means maintaining strong relationships with police, local authorities, safeguarding agencies, youth services and community organisations so that concerns can be identified and addressed before they escalate.

In many cases, the most effective intervention is not a physical security measure at all. It is a timely conversation, an appropriate referral, information shared between partner organisations or support put in place before a situation reaches crisis point.

Recent national discussions around Martyn’s Law have helped highlight the importance of robust emergency planning and security awareness across publicly accessible spaces. In many ways, however, the direction of travel reflected in the legislation aligns with work already taking place across the education sector. Colleges have long understood that creating safe environments requires ongoing review, investment and adaptation.

Young people thrive in environments built on trust, belonging and support. While colleges must be realistic about the challenges facing society today, we must also avoid creating cultures driven by fear or alarmism. Safety should provide reassurance, not anxiety.

The safest campuses are not those with the most visible security measures. They are the ones where students feel supported, connected and able to access help before problems escalate.

A huge amount of work in this area happens quietly behind the scenes, often without public visibility. Yet it has become one of the most important responsibilities colleges carry.