Sunak’s ‘new austerity’: Spring statement offers no new money for education

The failure of the spring statement to address spiralling costs “signals a return to the austerity of the 2010s”, a union has warned.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his spring statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday, which began with a stark warning to leaders of public services hoping to see extra funding.

Interest on government borrowing next year is forecast to quadruple from last year’s payments to a record £83 billion, the highest on record.

“That is why we have already taken difficult decisions with the public finances, and that is why we will continue to weigh carefully calls for additional public spending,” the chancellor said from the dispatch box.

From the outset, framed against what the Office for Budget Responsibility described as “unusually high uncertainty around the [economic] outlook”, expectations for new money for education, had there really been any, will have dissolved.

While the chancellor acknowledged continuing skills challenges in his speech, the Treasury has made it clear that it won’t foot the bill and will assess what more employers could be doing to pay for training.

“We lag behind international peers on adult technical skills. Just 18 per cent of 25-to-64-year-olds hold vocational qualifications, which is a third lower than the OECD average, and UK employers spend just half the European average on training their employees,” the chancellor said.

Treasury documents state that “government investment alone will not address this challenge”, paving the way for its elusive ‘review’ of the tax system and how it can better incentivise employers to invest in “the right kind of training”.

Standout interventions announced in the spring statement were designed to ease the cost-of-living crisis facing households and rising costs to businesses. Policies included an immediate cut in fuel duty, raising the earnings threshold for national insurance contributions from April and a one percentage point cut to the basic rate of income tax in 2024.

Organisations with class 1 national insurance liabilities less than £100,000 will be eligible for a £1,000 increase in the employment allowance. From this April, this will allow those eligible to reduce their national insurance payments by £5,000, up from £4,000. This may bring some relief to smaller training organisations and charities.

There were, however, no measures in the spring statement to alleviate the broader funding concerns of colleges and training organisations, who have been warning of increased costs, particularly rising energy bills and inflation.

Inflation hit a 30-year high of 6.2 per cent in February this year. The OBR predicts even further price rises over the course of the year, peaking at 8.7 per cent in quarter 4 of 2022, and remaining above seven per cent until at least April 2023.

In a briefing for Association of Colleges members, its deputy chief executive, Julian Gravatt, wrote that the current predicted rate of inflation was “enough to wipe out the majority of the extra 16-to-18 funding announced in the 2021 spending review and to cause significant real-terms cuts in post-18 spending”.

The per-student national base rate for full-time 16- and 17-year-old students is set to increase from £4,188 to £4,542 from August 2022. However, in return for the increased funding, the Department for Education wants providers to deliver 40 additional teaching hours for students.

Increasing prices, energy costs and funding additional teaching hours will place even greater financial pressure on colleges and training organisations.

Yet the spring statement did not include any additional financial support for FE and skills providers.

Geoff Barton of the Association of School and College Leaders said he was “disappointed that the chancellor failed to address the financial pressures facing the education system amidst soaring inflation”.

And Mary Bousted, joint leader of the National Education Union, warned that the chancellor’s “refusal to increase education funding in the face of this inflation surge signals a return to the austerity of the 2010s”.

Marine specialist takes aim at Ofsted after grade 4 report

A marine training provider has accused Ofsted inspectors of lacking “experience” to judge their specialist apprenticeships and has made the “strongest of complaints” following a grade four report. 

Thames Marine Academy Ltd (TMA) confirmed to FE Week that it will no longer be able to offer apprenticeships because of the judgment published this week. 

In its report, Ofsted claimed that apprentices “make very slow progress”, too many are behind with their studies and that most employers, skippers and masters of apprentices “do not know what apprentices are studying”. 

However, Thames Marine Academy’s principal, Edmund Hadnett, has claimed that inspectors used criteria that was inappropriate for a vocational qualification in support of the marine industry. 

“Regrettably, the Ofsted report will mean that the Thames Marine Academy will no longer be able to offer these much needed apprenticeships to the marine industry,” he told FE Week. 

“The Thames Marine Academy and principal employer, GPS Marine, have made the strongest of complaints against Ofsted regarding the recent report citing the poor correlation between the process used for the inspection and the nature of a marine apprenticeship scheme.” 

TMA is a marine training company based on the banks of the River Medway in Kent. It became an approved apprenticeship provider in October 2019 and started training apprentices in January 2020. 

TMA offers standards-based apprenticeships in boatmaster and workboat crewmember, at level three. Currently, there are 12 apprentices on the boatmaster apprenticeship and five apprentices are studying the workboat crewmember apprenticeship. 

Three are aged 16 to 18. At the time of Ofsted’s visit in January 2022, training was a blend of face-to-face group lessons and one-to-one tutorials through live video-conferencing software and independent distance learning. 

Inspectors said: “Too many of the apprentices are behind with their studies. They do not benefit from regular progress reviews with their trainer and employers and rarely receive useful feedback to enable them to improve their work.”

The report claimed that “all apprentices” face delays to the completion of their apprenticeship as a result of leaders failing to ensure that arrangements were in place for their formal examinations and external assessment. 

“Apprentices studying the workboat crewmember standard have received very little training despite being on programme for over a year. Most are losing interest in the apprenticeship and others are restricted in their career progression plans,” the report added. 

Inspectors also found that most employers, skippers and masters of apprentices do not know what apprentices are studying. 

The report said they did not attend progress reviews and were not aware of what apprentices needed to do to achieve. 

However, TMA’s principal took aim against the judgment. 

“Despite the employer and apprentices expressing overwhelming support for the academy and the apprenticeship scheme, Ofsted used criteria that were appropriate to a secondary school rather than methods that aligned with the express purpose of delivering a vocational qualification in support of the marine industry,” he said. 

“The apprentices expressed disgust at the questions they were asked by the inspectors which were considered to insult their maturity and professional competence gained from working in the demanding and challenging environment of the workboat industry.” 

Hadnett claimed it was “clear that neither inspector had any appreciation of what is required to deliver a programme of training in support of the certificates of competence required to be employed as member of crew”. 

He added: “It is considered that Ofsted should amend the process for inspection to address the specific nature of a marine apprenticeship scheme and in order to make an informed assessment inspectors should have relevant experience of the sector of industry they inspect.” 

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “The inspection was carried out in accordance with the further education and skills handbook. Issues raised by the provider after the inspection were reviewed, in line with our complaints process.”

College pauses ‘stop and search’ security checks after student protests

“Stop and search” knife crime security checks at a London college have been paused after students staged a mass walkout, saying the measures left them feeling “violated”. 

Some 150 to 200 students attended the protest on Monday at City and Islington College, and a student governor resigned over the issue. Leaders at the college have now stopped the searches while they plan discussions with students to try and address their concerns. 

“We have paused the searches at that centre and we are going to be in further discussion with students with a view to finding a way of doing these searches that works for people and helps reassure them,” a spokesperson for City and Islington College told FE Week. 

“We want to do the right thing and we realise that we need to bring our students with us. That’s why we want to have these discussions and find out a bit more about what their concerns are.” 

City and Islington College started conducting random security checks at the entrance to its sixth-form campus on February 28, something leaders said was necessary because of a rise in knife crime. 

The policy change was met with strong opposition from both students and staff, who say that the measures amount to the “stop and search” tactics used by the police – a term the college disputes. 

A campaign against the policy has been ongoing since its introduction. But students said that following the scandal around Child Q, where a 15-year-old black girl was strip searched, they decided to stage the walkout.

Some 150 to 200 students attended the protest, according to the college. FE Week has also learnt that a student governor on Capital City College Group’s quality oversight committee – the parent group of the college – resigned over the issue. 

Justifying the college’s decision at the time, Kurt Hintz, City and Islington College’s principal, said: “There have been incidents resulting in injury or the death of young people, including students of our colleges in London. 

“As one of London’s largest sixth-form colleges, our duty is not only to educate and inspire our students, but to do whatever we can to keep them safe while they are in our care.” 

However, students told FE Week that the checks were unnecessary, and that they ended up making them feel less safe. 

“For me, personally, I don’t feel safer if, when I come into college, I have to be searched. I’ve never felt unsafe in college before,” one student at the college said. 

“The college is really welcoming. The teachers are really lovely. And the college has been great throughout Covid and throughout the two years I’ve been there. 

“I’ve never felt unsafe inside the college. But as soon as they started to introduce stop and search, I started to feel unsafe, because I felt like at any point I could be pulled up and I could be searched and my personal space could be violated.” 

Speaking about the fact some students said they had felt criminalised by the security measures, the college’s spokesperson said: “We are just really sorry that some students felt like that… We don’t want anyone to feel like that. That’s why we want to sit down calmly with students to get to the bottom of what it is that we have done so far that’s made them feel that way, and see if we can make it right.” 

The spokesperson did not say that the security measures would be abolished altogether, but that the situation would be addressed following discussions with students. 

He made the point that the security measures have been in use for three to four years at other sites in the college group. 

The decision to extend them to City and Islington sites this year was made due to increased risks regarding knife crime.

In 2019/20 Islington recorded 554 knife crime offences, which was a 19 per cent reduction compared to 2018/19. However, levels are still higher than five years ago. 

“According to intelligence we receive from local police sources, including the Violence Reduction Unit, they are seeing an increase in violent incidents,” the college spokesperson told FE Week

Eton: ‘Elite’ sixth form plans impossible without our £1m top-up

Eton College will pump £1 million per year into each of its three proposed elite sixth forms in the north and midlands, declaring current funding levels are inadequate for its lofty ambitions.

The prestigious private school has partnered with the Star Academies trust to open the new sixth form colleges in areas identified for levelling up support by government.

However, FE Week can reveal Eton is stumping up an “in perpetuity” financial top-up that works out at around £2,000 extra per student, if each college meets its 480-student quota over two year groups. That’s effectively a 50 per cent uplift on top of what students in other post-16 institutions get.

Eton said the extra cash is needed to offer the educational and co-curricular opportunities available at the all-boys school, which charges nearly £50,000-a-year, as government funding rates are too low.

“The kind of provision we envisage is simply not possible under the current per student funding provided by the government for 16 to 19 settings,” an Eton spokesperson said.

The government has pinned its “levelling up” promises on delivering “elite” sixth forms to get pupils in deprived areas into the top universities.

But Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “If that is what it takes, to provide an education that everyone should receive, then for me it begs the question, why aren’t all pupils funded at that level?”

Tom Richmond, a former adviser to two skills ministers and now director of think tank EDSK, added the investment was a “curious interpretation of ‘levelling up’, particularly when the government has yet to address the miserly funding settlement for 16 to 19 education in recent years”. 

Eton and Star intend to bid in the next wave of free schools, with a view to opening the sixth forms in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham in 2025. 

They will provide “knowledge-rich teaching from subject-specialists; access to talks, academic essay prizes and debate clubs; Oxbridge-style tutorial sessions and the chance to learn Latin”. 

Eton told FE Week it is drawing up an admissions policy to prioritise pupil premium students, looked after children, those would be the first in their family to attend university and also youngsters from particular postcodes.

Eton has repeatedly said the proposed colleges would not pose a problem for other post-16 providers in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham.

But experts have questioned whether the extra cash will create an unequal playing field for student recruitment.  

Richmond said the “question is how many potential winners and losers their philanthropy will create. The early signs are not encouraging”.

He said “far from expanding opportunities, they are seeking to limit the beneficiaries of their plans to the tiny number of students ‘lucky’ enough to attend these new institutions”.

Best way to ‘level up’?

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said private institutions like Eton are free to target resources at a tiny number of high performing students, but this is “unlikely to make a significant contribution to the governments levelling up agenda”.

“If Eton really wants to make an impact, it should invest in, and work in partnership with, existing sixth form providers that are busy transforming the lives of students of all abilities and doing so with a much lower unit of resource,” he added.

These sentiments were echoed by Jayne Clarke, executive principal of Oldham Sixth Form College, who said it is well understood that funding for sixth-form education should be increased.

And Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said the investment “is an argument in favour of wider investment in post-16 education and not just for those on track to selective universities”.

Eton told FE Week that it intends to increase opportunities for young people over and above those who might attend the new sixth forms.

“For example, EtonX future skills courses will be offered for free to all 11 to 16 partner schools in these towns, as will other digital content via our Eton Virtual platform,” a spokesperson said.

The institution will offer opportunities for those in partner schools to access career education, society speaker and academic enrichment programmes run by Eton and Star. Eton will also host a free residential Eton Connect summer school for year 10 students from these areas.

Some multi-academy trusts have benefited from philanthropist investments in the past.

But Sam Freedman, an ex-government adviser now at Ark Schools, said Eton’s proposed level of investment is “quite unusual” particularly in the post-16 space.

He added that he has no problem with Eton taking money from rich parents and giving it to kids who need more help, but added: “I just wish they were offering these schools to a wider range of students, rather than just those at the top.”

A DfE spokesperson said the department welcomes proposals for new sixth forms “where they are most needed to ensure that talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have the opportunity to progress to leading universities” as part of its levelling up agenda.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article said students at Eton’s sixth forms would receive around £4,000 extra per student. This was based on Eton sharing the £1 million perpetuity between each year group of 240 students. Eton has now clarified it will be £1 million between two-year groups totalling around an extra £2,000 per student per year.

FE Week asks the skills minister: are apprentices paid enough? 

Apprentice pay is “better than it looks on paper”, the skills minister has insisted.   

FE Week quizzed Alex Burghart on the issue in the face of a cost-of-living crisis during this week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference.   

Experts, including the Low Pay Commission, recognise that many deem the minimum wage for apprentices to be “unfair” and a disincentive for those considering the programme.   

A campaign was launched last year to encourage employers to pay apprentices over and above the minimum rate, which currently stands at £4.30 an hour but will increase to £4.81 an hour next month.   

Burghart said he “knows it is a difficult time” but asked people “to bear in mind a few points” which show apprentice pay isn’t as bad as some fear.   

“I completely appreciate that this is a very increasingly difficult time for a lot of people across the country with increasing inflation and increasing cost of living, particularly energy costs. I know that everyone is starting to feel the squeeze,” he told FE Week.   

“Obviously, when it comes to apprenticeship pay, I think there are a few things to bear in mind. The first is that it’s set by the Low Pay Commission. But the other is to remember that this is a minimum, and most apprentices will be earning more than that.”   

The skills minister added that he thinks the median income for apprentices is actually closer to about £8.24 an hour.   

Plus, apprentices are entitled to the minimum wage for their age if they are aged 19 or over and have completed the first year of their apprenticeship.   

An apprentice aged 21 who has completed the first year of their apprenticeship, for example, is currently entitled to a minimum hourly rate of £8.36.   

Burghart said: “Whilst that’s still difficult for some people, it [apprentice pay] is better than it looks on paper.”   

The Low Pay Commission produces a report every year to set national minimum wage rates. 

Its report for 2021, published in December, pointed out that the latest growth in median pay for apprentices has been driven by the fall in the number of apprentices doing lower-level apprenticeships.   

But the commissioners said the volume of evidence over a period of years has indicated “widespread dissatisfaction” with the level of the apprentice rate.   

They added that unions, employers and other groups repeated the message that the apprentice rate did not ensure a decent standard of living for young people; left them struggling to cover basic living costs; and could cause hardship and distress.   

The report also pointed out that underpayment of even the national minimum wage for apprentices “continues to be a problem across all ages” as identified by the government’s Apprenticeship Pay Survey, which was last published in January 2020 for the 2018/19 academic year.   

Research into the “reasons for non-completion” in apprenticeships was also published by the Department for Education in 2019 and found that “offer of a paid job” was the third most common reason for apprentices dropping out. “Apprenticeship did not pay high enough” was another common reason.   

A campaign called Back the Future was launched last year and called for a “decent” minimum apprentice wage of at least £6.25 an hour to be implemented. 

Cambridge sixth form still ‘outstanding’ in first Ofsted inspection since 2006 

A principal has hailed the hard work of staff and students after her sixth-form college retained an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ judgment over 15 years since its last inspection.   

Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridgeshire was lauded by inspectors for creating a “highly ambitious and inclusive community” in a report published this week that resulted in grade ones across the board.   

Principal Jo Trump said: “Delivery of educational excellence is about enduring habits and values that have students at the heart of everything. And we do that so well, Ofsted or no Ofsted.   

“Throughout every aspect of our work with young people, we strive for excellence, and it’s wonderful to see the hard work of our staff and students recognised in this way.”   

‘Outstanding’ schools and colleges began to be inspected last term for the first time since 2010, after an exemption was removed last year.   

Hills Road Sixth Form College was last inspected in November 2006.   

In the latest inspection, Ofsted found that students “consider it a privilege to study” at Hills Road and “enjoy studying alongside other like-minded students who challenge and inspire them”.   

Students also have a “strong work ethic and dedicated focus to achieve the very top grades of which they are capable”.   

The college’s “highly ambitious, inspirational and effective curriculum” was also recognised by Ofsted, which found that learning extends “well beyond… academic expectations” by, for instance, creating a “wealth of enrichment opportunities that are highly effective in building students’ character in preparation for their next steps”.   

Ofsted said the college teaches around 2,640 level 3 students aged 16 to 19, and there are 13 students with high needs.   

Thirty-five A-level subjects are on offer. Inspectors found the college maintains curriculum breadth by supporting small class sizes in specialist subjects, such as dance, Latin, history of art, German and geology.   

The college was praised for “extensive investment in specialist tutors, whose role is to support students to cope with such a demanding curriculum”.   

Teaching staff were described as “enthusiastic, skilled and highly qualified in their subjects” and who “use their knowledge and skills to successfully inspire and motivate students”.   

Senior staff were found to “encourage and achieve extremely high levels of collaboration with parents and carers” as leaders “recognise the considerable benefits of involving and informing parents in their decision making and student progress monitoring”.   

Within the college’s provision for students with high needs, “staff are highly proficient and extremely proactive in planning the curriculum for students with SEND”, Ofsted added.   

“Students with high needs are supported exceptionally well to integrate with their group and gain confidence in their ability.”   

Trump said: “We look forward to maintaining and improving on these standards at Hills Road for many years to come.” 

Treasury plays down apprenticeship levy review

The Treasury has denied the apprenticeship levy is under “formal” review, despite the chancellor promising to “consider” and “examine” its effectiveness.   

Rishi Sunak delivered his spring statement on Wednesday and told the House of Commons he would “consider” whether the current tax system, including the operation of the apprenticeship levy, is “doing enough to invest in the right kinds of training”.   

Final decisions from this apparent review are set to be announced in the autumn budget, he told the chamber.   

Accompanying documents published after Sunak’s speech added: “The government will consider whether further intervention is needed to encourage employers to offer the high-quality employee training the UK needs.   

“This will include examining whether the current tax system – including the operation of the apprenticeship levy – is doing enough to incentivise businesses to invest in the right kinds of training.”   

But in what one expert described as a “bizarre” backtrack, the Treasury has now played down the review when FE Week approached the department for further details.   

FE Week understands the prospect of a formal review into the apprenticeship levy is strongly opposed by officials in the Department for Education who, sources say, pushed back against the Treasury following yesterday’s spring statement.   

The Treasury has now said: “There will not be a formal review of the apprenticeship levy or system.   

“All taxes are under constant review and we will continue to engage with businesses on the levy. We are committed to protecting the quality of apprenticeship training and improving the system to respond to the legitimate concerns raised by employers.”   

Calls for greater flexibilities of the apprenticeship levy have come from employer representatives for years, with various groups welcoming yesterday’s news, as many want to use funds for other training courses and associated apprenticeship costs, such as travel and wages.   

Ed Reza Schwitzer, who worked in the DfE for six years before becoming an associate director at public policy think tank Public First, said he suspects the chancellor is likely to announce a “discrete tax credit” in the autumn budget, rather than wholesale change of the apprenticeship levy.   

“From what I can pick up from government, this is fundamentally about looking at the skills landscape more broadly and how the current tax system does or doesn’t incentivise the best possible behaviours from business in terms of training and retraining,” he told FE Week.   

“Whether this was clear in the original statement is definitely up for debate, but I’m assured that while Treasury will want to ensure any proposed changes work well in tandem with the existing levy set-up, they are not intending to substantially unpack the levy itself.”   

He added: “Given the chancellor is clearly working to develop his own personal brand and ‘offer’ to the electorate, I would suspect what would suit the chancellor most is to announce a discrete tax credit of some sort in the autumn budget.”   

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, said it was “frankly bizarre that the chancellor would tell parliament on one day that he was reviewing the levy, only to be flatly contradicted by government officials the next”.   

Bewick said no one is expecting the levy to be scrapped, or for an entirely new system to be adopted, but to “try and pretend there is no discussion to be had about the efficacy of the levy is to be tone deaf to what has actually happened to the performance of English apprenticeships” a decade on from the Richard Review.   

The Institute of Directors called on the Treasury to clarify its plan for engaging with business on this issue as it believes greater flexibilities are needed in the levy, which was echoed by the Confederation of British Industry.   

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, urged for details of any type of review to be made available as quickly as possible.   

And Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow skills minister, said the apprenticeship levy itself “demonstrates the government’s chaotic failure to deliver a plan to drive forwards the training opportunities needed to help individuals and the economy prosper”. 

Spring statement: Chancellor will review apprenticeship levy

Rishi Sunak has announced that he will review the apprenticeship levy.

In his spring statement today, the chancellor said a review of the apprenticeship levy will be part of a new Treasury tax plan, which will be finalised in the autumn. 

“We lag international peers in adult technical skills. Just 18 per cent of 25-64 hold vocational qualifications, a third lower than the OECD average,” he told the House of Commons.

“And UK employers spend just half the European average on training their employees

“So we will consider whether the current tax system including the operation of the apprenticeship levy is doing enough to incentivise businesses to invest in the right kinds of training.”

Treasury documents published just after Sunak’s speech outlines the government’s new ‘Tax Plan‘. The plan has four themes; cost of living, capital, people and ideas.

Under ‘people’, the Treasury states that “the government is increasing skills funding significantly over the parliament. We want businesses to do the same.”

Calls for flexibilities of the apprenticeship levy have come from employer representatives for years, with various sectors wanting to use funds for other training courses and associated apprenticeship costs like travel and wages.

The Treasury appear to have heard calls for reform. In the main spring statement document, it states: “The government recognises that employers have frustrations with the way that these apprenticeship levy funds can be spent within the apprenticeships system and is delivering a suite of improvements to address these.

“As part of this, the government is looking at how more flexible apprenticeship training models can be supported, while ensuring apprenticeships remain a high-quality training route for employees of all ages and stages of their career.”

Skills sector bodies however have warned against going too far in providing employers with greater levy flexibilities.

Responding to today’s announcement, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Jane Hickie, said: “We would strongly advise that levy funding should remain ring fenced for training and assessment only.

“We look forward to seeing more details about the government’s plans to boost training investment and productivity rates by reforming the apprenticeship levy. Like everybody else, employers and training providers face rising costs over the coming months. Training providers will be disappointed there is little in today’s statement that offers the support they need.”

And speaking at yesterday’s FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conferece, Association of Colleges boss David Hughes said it would be an “unmitigated disaster” to add radical flexibilities to the levy.

“The funding in the apprenticeship levy is for apprenticeship training, not for things like wage subsidies,” he said.

“I think it could be a really dangerous line to go down. In my view the levy is a tax to pay for training that leads to apprenticeships, it’s really simple. We shouldn’t let it be spent on other things.”

Tom Bewick, the chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, said the review of the levy was the “most welcome” in today’s spring statement.

“The brutal fact is that this payroll tax, levied on just 2 per cent of British companies, has not delivered on its original policy goals because we have fewer people and companies, overall, engaged in apprenticeships than we did in prior to 2017,” he said.

“We look forward therefore to making positive proposals to the government of how to improve the operation of the levy, but crucially, to bring an end to the decline in employer investment in training which has halved over the past decade.”

Revealed: AAC Apprenticeship Awards 2022 winners

The winners of the 2022 Annual Apprenticeship Conference Awards have been revealed at a glitzy ceremony in Birmingham. 

From a record-breaking 370 awards entries, judges have selected 24 award winners and 12 highly commended recipients. Categories included awards for diversity in apprenticeships, SEND apprenticeships, campaigns that promote apprenticeships as well as 15 sector-specific awards. 

Gower College Swansea scooped two awards, taking home care services apprenticeship provider of the year and the SEND apprenticeship champion award.

Shane Mann, managing director of FE Week’s publisher Lsect and AAC awards co-host, said “Tonight we’ve proved that there is so much to celebrate in the apprenticeships sector.  

“The providers, employers and individuals we’ve recognised tonight represent the innovators, risk-takers and pioneers that are not only doing amazing things for apprentices, but are also proving that apprenticeships are a first-rate pathway through education.

“Congratulations to all the winners and thank our team of amazing judges, sponsors and partners. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

The evening culminated in the award for apprentice employer of the year, won by Lloyds Banking Group, and apprentice provider of the year, won by Realise.

Also co-hosting the awards ceremony was AELP chief executive Jane Hickie.

“The AAC apprenticeship awards are a highlight of the conference every year – and it’s great that AELP and FE Week have been able to work together to put this event on once again. 

“I would like to send congratulations to all the finalists but especially to the winners. The last 12 months have been tough for many apprenticeship providers as we have come out of the pandemic, so it’s even more remarkable that the entrants were so strong this year” she said.

See below for a full list of awards winners.

The winners of the AAC Apprenticeship Awards 2022