When you look, suicide dangers are everywhere in our colleges

I’ve had enough of the tragedy. Earlier in my career, students I knew were lost through violence. Knives, guns, silly misunderstandings or random unfortunate encounters.

Having been through that, I never ever want to shake another mother’s hand following the murder of her son, trying feebly to express my sympathy in the face of an all-consuming and unfathomable loss that can never be eased or really lived with.

And neither do I ever again want to see parents, siblings or friends broken by the aching, chasm-cracking grief that follows the self-directed violence of yet another student suicide.    

 I’m not sure those outside education know what is going on amongst our much-maligned Gen-Z population. An Association of Colleges report last year revealed that 75 per cent of FE colleges had five or more students who attempted suicide over the previous 12 months, while 30 per cent reported 10-14 such attempts. Many had more.

Maybe this news has come to most people only as a rumble, distant and quickly passing on the horizon of their awareness. It might even sound hyperbolic or far-fetched.

But it seems that suicide is at pandemic levels for this generation. Over the course of my career, I’ve known more students die by their own hand than from cancer, accidents or any other single cause.

A recent Department of Education review placed greater responsibility on universities to consider the safety of student accommodation from a suicide-prevention point of view. Rightly so.

I’ve seen bright young people who were bursting with life leave our care at college only to then get lost in the wider world of HE, some of them never to return home again.

HE must do what it can to prevent this. Nobody disputes that. But the responsibility placed on HE institutions has forced me to consider our position in FE too.    

There’s one area in particular which should stop us in our tracks. You should try walking around your college with the eye of a young person struggling with suicidal ideation. It’s an act that demands some empathy.

What do you see from such an awful angle? Easily-accessed workshops filled with blades? Toilets in which someone could lock themselves away and forever disappear from view?   

Maybe, and perhaps most shockingly of all, you start to see the far more fundamental and structural dangers. Many of our college architects of recent years seem to have fallen in love with walkways and balconies.

They provide wide vistas and a sense of scale that might well befit an institution of learning which seeks to open up horizons. They look great, those airy atriums surrounded by floors and floors of learning spaces suggesting scale and ambition.

But now imagine you’re a young person who is finding everything too much. What the dizzying drops now suggest starts to look very different.  

I don’t know what to do with the fear this realisation has chilled me with. I don’t know how to retro-fit a college to ensure it is suicide-proof. Maybe that isn’t even possible.

You could employ the kind of netting you see in prisons, which would of course change the whole dynamic and feel of a place, but is that really any kind of solution? You could raise balustrades to make them harder to breach. I just do not know.   

I’ll care for the young people in my charge as pastorally as a subject teacher possibly can. I’ll watch for when they’re moving towards the edge. I’ll flag to them the phenomenal services and counselling our colleges try to provide. I’ll do whatever I must to help them navigate this tricky time of life in these pressurised days.

But I cannot help worrying that we’re walking in a dream every time we go blithely through another day without a preventable disaster happening somewhere on our FE estate.   

I never want to meet another stunned mum or see another heartbroken dad. So maybe we in FE need to be raising our voices just a little bit more, shouting and screaming to shock wider society into awareness. Before another voice is all too suddenly stilled.     

How a £25m crisis and intervention forced us to rebuild – and made Brooklands stronger

After an intensive six years of FE Commissioner intervention, Brooklands Technical College proudly achieved its standalone status as an independent provider in September.

This journey was triggered by a subcontracting issue that exposed the college to a £25 million debt repayable to the Department for Education.

This crisis brought us to the brink of insolvency and destabilisation. But while the last six years were challenging, they were also immensely rewarding.

I share this journey because the intervention period profoundly shaped my leadership. I learned that leading transformation is as much about emotional intelligence and managing change as it is about finance.

The framework of intervention created an environment of pace, focus and purposeful action.

My priority was to build a firm foundation for prosperity. To achieve this, my leadership strategy concentrated on two distinct, yet parallel, areas, which enabled me to compartmentalise the crisis:

  • Sustaining core operational success, which meant relentlessly focusing on the college community to ensure our learners, stakeholders and wider community received high-quality provision.
  • Navigating the political landscape and managing the financial crisis bydirectly addressing the £25 million debt via immediate curriculum efficiencies, and generating sufficient cash to repay a significant proportion of the money owed.

Culture changes

Firstly, we created a culture of collective ownership and fostered a sense of belonging for our staff (belonging@brooklands) by establishing new shared college values.

This created an inclusive and inspirational learning environment and provided the framework for our professional standards, behaviours and expectations.

In synergy with the governors, we made a bold decision to rebrand, using our new identity to redefine our place in the communities we serve.

We fostered deeper alliances with our local employers and borough councils. This wasn’t merely dialogue; it was a strategy to ensure the college’s curriculum aligned directly with local economic need.

Gaining community trust through clear, consistent communication enabled us to demonstrate relevance and secure backing for the college’s growth and capital project.

The capital project, (two new-builds and three major refurbishments) was financed through land sales and grants from the Education Skills Funding Agency and Surrey County Council. 

I constantly reflected on how I would lead and navigate staff, students and stakeholders to preserve the college’s future.

In synergy, I was managing high-level communication with the DfE whilst working to project a sense of resilience and confidence to my team. Crucially, it demanded complete transparency and a willingness to be held accountable by our corporation and external partners, whose endorsement was essential.

Secondly, on the point of navigating the political landscape, every intervention milestone was internally translated into a critical objective, allowing us to maintain the stability of the college community while simultaneously meeting external demands.

Proactive partnership

At no point was the learner experience, our ultimate purpose, allowed to falter.

I shifted our relationship with DfE and the FE Commissioner from one of transactional compliance to a proactive, solution-focused partnership. We demonstrated progress through an open and honest approach, communicating not just our achievements but also our challenges.

This transparency gained their trust and secured their endorsement. Strategic oversight of these key areas running in parallel, for six years, enabled us to channel our energies and secure stability.

Exiting intervention means taking back full control of our destiny. My role now transitions from leading a recovery to leading a sustainable legacy.

The resilience developed in the past six years is not a reaction to a debt, but a proactive mindset, defining our college as a dynamic, independent anchor for the local economy and educational landscape for years to come.

Intervention advice

To the FE Commissioner, those who have lived through intervention have valuable insight that could enhance future policy design. We will be happy to share our experiences with you.

To sector colleagues going through the process, reach out as much as you can to experts and colleagues who can support you. This was critical for me and I thank all the FE leaders and my executive coach for being my critical friend and for listening.

Be kind to yourself too. Intervention can be a turbulent environment. However, it can also be a purposeful, rewarding and powerful learning experience – if you have the appetite.

Dame Ann Limb becomes a Baroness

Dame Ann Limb has become the first former further education college principal to be appointed to the House of Lords.

Downing Street announced this afternoon the life peerage has been approved by The King on the recommendation of the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer.

Limb will sit on the Labour benches and will take the title Baroness Limb of Moss Side in the city of Manchester and the county of Lancashire.

Limb, who grew up in Moss Side and currently chairs The Manchester College, said: “Having worked in and championed FE colleges for half a century, the cosmos has conspired to put me in the right place at the right time. Improving skills levels of all young people and adults is critical to strengthening the nation’s economic, cultural and social fabric. I want to play a role in making this happen.”

She led Milton Keynes College for a decade from 1986 before moving to Cambridge Regional College from 1996 to 2001, and led Learndirect in its formative years until 2005. 

She is currently chair of The King’s Foundation, the City & Guilds Foundation, Lloyds Bank Foundation and the Lifelong Education Institute. Limb is also pro chancellor of the University of Surrey and founder and vice president of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, a charity that has supported thousands of students to access higher education. Limb made headlines as the first woman to chair The Scouts and City & Guilds.

Queen Elizabeth II made Limb a dame in her 2022 birthday honours for services to young people and philanthropy.

Limb said: “I have not spent my career believing I would ever be offered a life peerage. However, the opportunity to serve as a life peer in the House of Lords is an experience my parents and grandparents would have deemed both inconceivable and incomprehensible.

“My decision to accept this honour follows a period of personal reflection and discernment over the last two months. In this, I have been sustained by prayer and upheld by my life partner, Maggie Cook. As a Quaker, and as a peer, I shall be guided in all decisions I take by my faith, values, conscience, and independence of mind.”

An outspoken advocate for the sector and its students, Limb has championed inclusion, social justice and leadership. She recently spearheaded the historic sale of City & Guilds to PeopleCert, securing ongoing “significant investment” in the now independent City & Guilds Foundation.

Among Starmer’s other appointments for life peerages was Sir Michael Barber, who was a skills policy implementation adviser under the last government, and Russell Hobby, the former CEO of Teach First and former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers.

Pearson drops out of EPA top 10 list

Awarding giant Pearson has fallen out of the top 10 largest apprenticeship end-point assessment organisations after almost halving its number of EPA completions last year.

The finding was part of Ofqual’s annual round-up of EPA statistics, published today for the period March 2024 to February 2025.

It comes as the government pushes through controversial reforms that involve scrapping EPA and replacing it with a new streamlined version of assessment for apprentices.

Here’s what we learned from today’s Ofqual data.

City & Guilds dominates as Pearson falls off

City & Guilds of London Institute delivered the most Ofqual-regulated apprenticeship assessments for the third year running. 

In 2024-25, 18,610 EPAs were completed by City & Guilds – 12.5 per cent of all in-scope assessments. 

There were some moves in the top 10 most prolific EPAOs.

DSW Consulting and NOCN were new entries with 5,050 and 4,050 EPA completions respectively.

Meanwhile, Pearson Education Ltd and VTCT dropped out of the top 10.

Pearson dropped from 6,630 EPA completions in 2023-24 to 3,650 in 2024-25. VTCT’s total completions dropped slightly from 4,150 to 3,935 over the same period.

Ofqual’s data does not provide a breakdown of awarding bodies’ EPAs by standards or pass rates.

First-time pass rate returns to the 90s

Between March 2024 and February 2025, EPAs in 616 apprenticeship standards were in scope for Ofqual regulation. Out of the 157 awarding organisations recognised by Ofqual to offer EPAs, 139 AOs delivered EPAs across 491 apprenticeship standards.

A total of 153,155 EPAs were completed over this period.

Overall, the average first-time pass rate for Ofqual-regulated EPAs in 2024-25 across levels 2 to 7 was 90.8 per cent. 

This was a slight rise from the 89.7 per cent first-time pass rate recorded in 2023-24. In 2022-23, the first year this data set was published, the first-time pass rate was 91 per cent.

There was a 6.8 percentage point difference between the highest and lowest first-time pass rates by level in 2024-25.

Assessments on level 2 standards, of which there were 38,480 last year, had a first-time pass rate of 89.7 per cent, whereas non-degree apprenticeships at level 7 had a first-time pass rate of 96.5 per cent from 9,615 completed EPAs.

First-time pass rates fall slightly as each level gets lower.

The vast majority (72,305) of in-scope EPAs were at level 3, which had a first-time pass rate of 90.3 per cent, followed by level 2 which had a first-time pass rate of 90.6 per cent.

Senior leaders most likely to pass first time

Apprentices on the level 7 senior leader standard had the highest first-time pass rate – 99.5 per cent of 4,050 completed EPAs were passed the first time. 

This was followed by a 95.9 per cent first-time pass rate for the level 5 operations manager apprenticeship, and 95.7 per cent on the level 3 lead adult care worker apprenticeship.

Ofqual’s figures only list first-time pass rates for the 10 most popular apprenticeships.

Ranked ninth and tenth were the early years educator level 3 standard and the level 3 engineering technician with first-time pass rates of 85.2 per cent and 77.6 per cent respectively.

Business route is the most popular

Mirroring previous years, by far most EPAs were delivered in the business and administration subject route, taking up 22.7 per cent of all EPAs passed between March 2024 and February 2025, 34,780 in total. 

Engineering and manufacturing was the next most popular apprenticeship route, with 15,600 regulated assessments, followed closely by education and early years, which had 15,035.

At the other end, the creative and design route had 765 completed EPAs, protective services had 3,115 and hair and beauty had 3,425.

What LSIPs need to cut through the noise and make an impact in 2026

How employers, providers and local leaders work together to equip people with the skills their areas need is about to change.

Work is underway across England to produce the next round of Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs), with updated government guidance just published. 

This refresh matters to the economy. With the country facing well-known productivity and unemployment challenges, LSIPs offer an opportunity to deliver skills plans that make tangible inroads. 

As we look to 2026, the question is whether LSIPs can now prove their value. There are four factors at play that will shape the answer to this challenge.

Navigating complexity

LSIPs sit within a patchwork of policies and plans that point to the same goal: boosting productivity and growth. There are now several government initiatives that come forward together alongside LSIPs; the new industrial strategy with its associated sector plans, skills packages and now jobs plans, emerging local growth plans and the Get Britain Working white paper.

This is a complex landscape for LSIPs to navigate. LSIPs are expected to face two ways at once: driving productivity by responding to the industrial strategy and their area’s local growth plan, while supporting efforts to re-engage people in the labour market through Get Britain Working.

These two missions are not the same. The sectors at the heart of growth strategies – digital, engineering, green technologies – are not typically the ones providing large numbers of accessible jobs for unemployed or economically inactive people.

Balancing those priorities requires careful judgement and clarity about what each LSIP needs to achieve. Their task throughout is to stay focused on occupations where training can address local needs.

Engaging providers to shape provision

Good LSIPs also bring clarity for providers about what their strategic authority and employers expect of them.

The focus in the refreshed LSIP guidance on identifying priority occupations is therefore welcome, because this better enables providers to identify relevant technical education provision. 

Collaboration is key here and LSIPs provide the bridge towards this. Under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, providers must engage with their local LSIP. This statutory footing means LSIPs should take precedence over overlapping local skills and labour market strategies that many colleges already juggle. This clarity is no bad thing for providers.

Providers’ expertise about technical education delivery, curriculum design and funding mechanisms is essential for delivering skills plans that local areas need to thrive.

Sitting alongside an area’s local growth plan and Get Britain Working plan, LSIPs bring post-16 education and training into a more central role in the drive for local growth and opportunity.

Employers at the heart of skills planning

As LSIPs evolve, one principle must remain constant: employer leadership. LSIPs were created to ensure local training and qualifications reflect real business needs.

The new guidance expects employer representative bodies to be at the heart of skills planning. These bodies learned a great deal from the first phase of LSIPs. Many will be determined to make the next generation of plans more practical, focused and better connected to local priorities.

Beyond this, it’s essential to LSIPs’ credibility that employers are at the forefront of skills plans. Strategic authorities should consider these bodies the lead for employer-facing activity on skills.

Governance of LSIPs should also be employer led. Without this, LSIPs risk being seen as another bureaucratic layer rather than a bridge between education and the economy.

Making collaboration work

The best LSIPs will blend collective strengths between employer insight and provider expertise. For the first time, there is a structure through which employers, providers and local political leaders can co-own a shared plan for skills that supports growth and inclusion.

Strategic authorities should see strong LSIPs with actionable priorities as a step forward for devolution, because it helps post-16 education and training meet local needs.

To make that work, the next wave of LSIPs needs constructive engagement by providers, employer representative bodies and regional leaders to shape clear priorities and build a curriculum response.

Lots has changed since LSIPs were first published in 2023. LSIPs have the right statutory basis, political backing and policy direction.

The challenge is to take this opportunity by prioritising employer leadership, strengthening collaboration, and delivering the skills that support local growth.

If everyone is a SEND teacher FE needs to train them, and fast

That Ofsted’s inspection framework introduces inclusion as a standalone point of evaluation sends a clear message: meeting the needs of learners with SEND is essential, not optional, in FE.

With the schools white paper delayed until next year, the FE sector faces both uncertainty and opportunity.

But, regardless of what the white paper delivers, the reality remains that with learners requiring additional support rising year on year, supporting learners with SEND must be a core outcome via planning and assessment, not the exception.  

Every FE practitioner, irrespective of specialism or vocational background, must be trained and confident to support learners with SEND; we cannot afford to wait for policy to catch up. Equipping staff with inclusive practice isn’t just a regulatory requirement, it is a moral imperative.

In theory, the framework updates feel like long-overdue progress. But in practice, they expose a significant disconnect between expectation and reality.  

Professional challenge 

The Chartered College of Teaching recently highlighted that teacher retention problems are exacerbated by systemic failures in SEND provision, with staff feeling under-prepared to meet diverse learner needs.

Within FE, many arrive from industry with strong vocational expertise but little training in inclusive pedagogy or specialist interventions.

In 2013, the government removed the requirement for newly appointed FE teachers to undergo formal teacher training, creating a workforce with varied prior experience.

While this enabled FE providers to tap into vocational talent, a significant proportion of staff may never have encountered the complexities of supporting learners with SEND. 

The scale of SEND need in FE is staggering. In 2024-25, 88,200 young people with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) were in FE settings, and over 80 per cent of these were in sixth form and FE colleges.

At Activate Learning alone, our student support and safeguarding team supported over 7,000 learners with additional needs and reviewed around 2,200 EHCPs from a 16-19 cohort of 10,000. 

Nationally, while 26.3 per cent of EHCPs are for learners aged 16-25, less than 10 per cent of the high-needs budget goes to this age group.

As the education select committee recently concluded in its report on the SEND crisis, FE is “disproportionately underfunded”, primarily because the SEND system extension to age 25 was never fully costed.  

Post-16 cliff edge 

It also described a “sharp decline in support” for learners at 16 where FE infrastructure and wraparound support rarely mirrors what is provided in schools, and funding is significantly lower.

Any learner requiring SEND support without an EHCP gets nothing, as there is no dedicated funding for SEND support after 16. 

Only 43 per cent of SEND learners surveyed had received a careers interview, and many reported receiving advice focused solely on university pathways, thus excluding vocational or supported employment options.

Industry professionals entering teaching roles navigate not only curriculum delivery but also a policy landscape that has failed to account for their sector, and without the pedagogical foundation to recognise and respond to diverse classroom needs.  

What the schools white paper must deliver 

  1. A clear investment in the development of the FE workforce in the form of comprehensive SEND and inclusive pedagogy training for all practitioners, beginning with embedding SEND awareness into initial teacher training and CPD. 
  2. Address calls for dedicated, ring-fenced funding for post-16 SEND support to enable the recruitment of specialist staff and high-quality tailored provision.  
  3. Improve data-sharing protocols and cross-sector collaboration to reduce reliance on challenges such as self-disclosure.  
  4. An alignment of FE and SEND policy across both white papers (schools and post-16 education and skills), Ofsted frameworks and the curriculum and assessment review, to ensure genuine coherence and impact. 

Moving forward 

Ofsted has rightly placed inclusion at the heart of education. Now, the white paper must deliver the tools to enable this.

Every teacher canbe a SEND teacher, as outlined in SEND policy, but only if they are equipped with training, infrastructure and policy support. FE providers need systemic investment to make genuine inclusion possible rather than aspirational.  

Government has ‘no plans’ for FE pay review body

The government has rejected calls for a pay review body that would set equal pay for further education college staff across the country.

Responding to calls from the House of Commons education committee for a statutory pay body for FE teachers and staff, ministers said the “diversity” of colleges means a “one-size-fits-all” approach to pay “may not be appropriate”.

There is “clear value” in colleges having autonomy to set their own pay so they can respond to local labour market and skill needs, the government argued.

MPs on the education committee called for a pay review body for college staff in a wide-ranging report on further education and skills, published in September.

The committee issued more than 40 recommendations, including calling for devolution of 16-19 education, reinstatement of some level 7 apprenticeships and introducing a funding premium for disadvantaged pupils aged 16-19.

Ministers rejected the first two of these and argued that “extra funding” is already available for disadvantaged students via “disadvantage block” and English and maths funding.

The government said retaining central control ensures it can maintain a “universal education offer” for 16 to 19-year-olds which is “consistently high quality across the country”.

In response to calls for a youth guarantee that “expands eligibility” from 18 to 21 to all 16 to 24-year-olds, the government claimed measures are “already in place” through the September guarantee, Jobcentres, and adult education funding.

Review body would ensure ‘equity of pay’

One of the committee’s key concerns was the government’s approach to the ongoing teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

It recommended that the Department for Education (DfE) establish a statutory pay review body for colleges comparable to the School Teachers’ Review Body.

The body should provide “independent, evidence-based pay recommendations” to ensure “equity of pay” across the post-16 education sector, with the goal of closing the gap between college and school teachers by 2029.

In a detailed response to the committee, the government said it is “right” to highlight ongoing challenges with pay and retention, but argued that colleges are “diverse” organisations delivering a range of vocational, technical, academic and functional skills provision in a variety of settings that mean a single approach to pay “may not be appropriate”.

This diversity is reflected in “existing sectoral arrangements” such as Sixth Form Colleges Association’s voluntary binding pay recommendations agreed via the National Joint council, and the Association College’s (AoC) non-binding pay recommendations for FE colleges via the National Joint Forum.

The response added: “The range of approaches within the sector currently reflects the needs of a diverse college system, including recognising the autonomy and flexibility provided to the sector to address its needs via the 1992 Higher and Further Education Act.

“More broadly, it is important to note that the wider FE system is more complex and less uniform than in the schools sector, with provision for young people and adults taking place not only in colleges but also a range of other types of organisation, including independent training providers and local authority providers.”

The government concluded: “While there are currently no plans to establish a dedicated pay review body for FE, we will remain in dialogue with the sector to understand their views on pay arrangements.”

Officials also pointed out that it has increased funding by £800 million in the spending review period to “support colleges and other 16-19 providers to address priorities”.

Statistics also suggest FE college teacher pay increased by 6.1 per cent in 2023-24, the response added.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said rejection of pay review body recommendation “comes as no surprise” given the “enormous costs” that it would incur.

He added: “Our latest submission to the Schools Pay Review Body to support their consideration of the impact of school pay on colleges showed that the pay gap between school teachers and college lecturers has now widened to an unacceptable £12,000.

“This gap and similar differences with industry are making college recruitment and retention incredibly challenging, and is grossly unfair on all college staff.

“A college pay review body would not solve this, because in the end, what colleges need is better funding rates which allow them to set pay competitively compared to others.”

Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “We welcome the Government’s stated commitment to further education and the £8.5 billion allocated to 16-19 year olds, but claims it recognises the transformative impact of adult education ring hollow given budgets have been cut by 6 per cent.

“Likewise, many college staff will rightly be disappointed to see the DfE reject key recommendations from the education committee, including its refusal to consult the sector on how a statutory pay review body for colleges could be introduced to bring them more in line with schools.

“Thirty colleges are set to strike next month because increases in funding have not done enough to close the pay gap between school and college teachers.

“Much higher levels of public investment are now needed to help end industrial disruption and ensure colleges deliver Labour’s promised economic growth.”

Perm sec advises against ‘blanket’ council duty on post-16 SEND transport

The Department for Education’s top civil servant has warned against imposing a “blanket duty” on councils arranging transport for disabled learners amid soaring spend on post-16 transport that has outpaced pre-16 costs.

Young people in England must remain in education or training until age 18, but there is no legal duty for local authorities to provide free transport for SEND students over 16. It is instead a discretionary service.

In a scrutiny session by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, Susan Acland-Hood, permanent secretary in the DfE since 2020, told MPs that it was appropriate to have a different framework for determining transport arrangements for disabled 16-18 learners, but a “blanket duty” would be difficult due to the widespread provision across the country.

She told MPs that young people want to make the “right” choices on their education that might mean a trade-off between travelling “significantly longer distances” and the “rightness of the provision”.

“We see patterns of travel for 16 to 19 are much more widespread because there’s a much wider range of choice of settings,” she said, adding that a blanket set of entitlements could constrain where young people are able to go.

Acland-Hood also revealed that post-16 transport spending has shot up by 170 per cent nationally since 2015-16, a higher rate than the 140 per cent increase in pre-16 spending for the same period.

NAO: SEND transport cuts could increase NEETs

The PAC arranged the scrutiny session on home-to-school transport after the National Audit Office (NAO) recently found “significant” barriers to participation for young people with SEND stemming from cost pressures from councils providing transport.

In October, the spending watchdog reported that councils’ annual transport costs have soared to £2.3 billion, and the Department for Education estimates they could exceed £3 billion by 2029-30.

The NAO found that the government does not have the data needed to understand who is using the transport and why costs are rising.

Here are the key highlights from the PAC session:

‘Blanket duty’ difficult to impose

Councils do not legally have to provide free transport for 16-18 learners or 19-25 aged learners with education, health and care plans (EHCPs), but can provide travel allowances, shared transport or personal travel budgets. Some have introduced parental financial contributions for council-arranged transport. 

They are, however, required to make sure no young person is prevented from attending education. Acland-Hood said councils are adhering to that “broader duty” seriously.

“We do, however, recognise that sometimes the provision will change for children as they get older through the system, and that local authorities may use that moment of the change in support to lift it again,” she said.

Acland-Hood added: “Although there isn’t a statutory duty of the same force there, we don’t think local authorities are wholesale removing that support.”

The permanent secretary said the department is aware of more widespread patterns of travel for 16 to 19 learners due to a “much wider range of choice of settings”.

“[It] also might mean that it’s increasingly right for them to make the trade-off between the challenge of travel and the rightness of the provision, and that makes it hard to produce a blanket duty.”

The House of Commons education committee called for an extension of the statutory duty to FE SEND students aged 16 to 25 in their FE and skills inquiry. The government’s response, published today, said that councils are already required to annually publish the arrangements they consider necessary to facilitate attendance for 16–18-year-olds and 19-25 students with an EHCP. 

Transport not linked to rising NEETs

The NAO’s report warned that councils “scaling back” their post-16 provision could increase NEET numbers and the impact could be felt more by disabled young people.

NEET numbers have soared in recent years, edging close to the one million mark. Current figures from the Office for National Statistics estimate around 946,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were NEET. 

Addressing the concerns, Acland-Hood refuted that lack of transport access was driving the increase and that it was more about the disempowerment of young people to become economically active.

“Transport is obviously something which improves access to the labour market,” she told MPs.

“I think it may be more about what are we doing to try and make sure that young people aren’t getting to the age of 16 or 18 feeling like they’re disempowered, not able to enter the labour market, and there may be some transport component in that.

“I don’t think it’s quite as clear.” 

Data ‘central’ to understanding gaps in provision

The session also addressed gaps and low response rates in home-to-school transport data collection from local councils.

Around 50,000 post-16 learners receive council-funded transport, based on DfE’s inaugural data collection survey back in February from 153 local authorities in England.

But the survey only garnered a 75 per cent response rate, to which DfE vowed it was planning to make it mandatory for local authorities to routinely report.

Anna Bird, chief executive of Contact, a charity which supports families with disabled children, told MPs there was a real “lack of data” to show the knock-on effect of the lack of school transport on attendance.

The spending watchdog also confirmed “insufficient” data to judge how any changes to home-to-school transport might impact attendance.

A Natspec survey last year revealed anecdotal evidence of specialist colleges experiencing learners dropping out or reducing attendance due to revoked council-arranged transport for young people with SEND.

“Data is central to understanding the challenges and pressures that we see in systems,” Juliet Chua, DfE’s director general for schools, told MPs.

She admitted that the government had not received enough “detailed data” of the different modes of transport that young people take and confirmed next year’s collection will ask for more detail.

Determining ‘socially necessary’ transport services

Acland-Hood confirmed DfE is working with the Department for Transport (DfT) on non-statutory guidance to help transport authorities determine services that are “socially necessary”.

Chua also referenced the integration of transport provision into local planning in the post-16 white paper, which stated strategic authorities will have a stronger role in transport interventions to “tailor progression pathways to jobs”.

Let’s ensure this youth guarantee works for every young person

The government’s new youth guarantee represents the most significant investment in young people for many years. It arrives at a time when youth unemployment, long-term NEET (not in education, employment or training) levels and rising economic inactivity demand a coherent, long-term response rather than short bursts of initiatives. This welcome development now requires collective leadership to shape it.

The guarantee sets out:

  • A youth guarantee gateway providing every young person on universal credit with a dedicated session and four weeks of intensive support.
  • An expansion of youth hubs to over 360 locations.
  • Nearly 300,000 additional opportunities through work experience and sector-based work academy programmes.
  • Fully funded apprenticeships for eligible young people in SMEs.
  • A jobs guarantee providing six months of paid work for those furthest from the labour market.

Alongside these sit strengthened NEET prevention measures, including improved data sharing, enhanced risk-of-NEET tools, attendance monitoring and pilots of auto-enrolment into post-16 education or training for young people without a confirmed destination.

For the FE and skills sector, the government’s decision to expand foundation apprenticeships, particularly in hospitality and retail, is also significant. These pathways broaden entry points into the labour market, support young people with lower prior attainment or confidence, and strengthen progression routes into sectors where many begin their careers. Combined with wider apprenticeship reforms aimed at improving accessibility and flexibility for the 16-24 group, this creates a much-needed shift towards more inclusive, practical and employer-aligned opportunities.

These measures reflect what Youth Employment UK, the Youth Employment Group, the APPG (the all-party parliamentary group) for youth employment and many leaders across the system have been calling for. Early intervention, personalised support, locally rooted delivery and a stronger supply of high-quality opportunities have long been the backbone of every credible youth employment strategy. The government has listened; now we must help turn ambition into reality.

Four priorities must guide implementation

First, the system must reach economically inactive young people who are not currently engaged with benefits.
If the guarantee is truly universal, it must flex to include young people managing ill health, SEND needs, caring responsibilities or long-term disengagement – many of whom sit outside conditionality. The policy intention is right, but delivery must ensure that support finds these young people, rather than waiting for them to enter the system.

Second, the foundations of post-16 transition must be strengthened.  The guarantee can only deliver if young people can access meaningful destinations. That requires sustainable post-16 funding, high-quality and impartial advice and guidance, sufficient work experience capacity, strong employer engagement, and an FE system capable of delivering new foundation apprenticeships at scale.

Third, non-Mayoral areas must not be disadvantaged. Much early development has taken place in mayoral combined authorities, where capacity, data and partnership structures are more established. To create a genuinely national guarantee, areas without mayors will need clear frameworks, investment and coordination to deliver with equal ambition. A postcode lottery would undermine the guarantee before it begins.

Fourth, employers must be supported to play their full part. The scale of opportunity promised, from work experience and SWAPs to jobs, foundation apprenticeships and early careers roles, depends entirely on employers having the confidence, clarity and capacity to engage. Our APPG inquiry on employer engagement and the youth guarantee highlighted the need for simple and consistent routes into the system, clear quality expectations, practical brokerage to reduce administrative burden and targeted support for SMEs, who often want to help but face the biggest hurdles. Employers must be able to navigate the system easily and trust they are supported to create the high-quality pathways young people deserve.

A shared responsibility

FE will play a vital role, but not in isolation. The youth guarantee requires coordinated action across local authorities, employers, Youth Hubs, Jobcentre Plus, training providers, and youth services. National direction is welcome; delivery will come from local systems working together with clarity and purpose.

Youth Employment UK’s 2030 strategy commits us to acting as a system leader and the national body for youth employment. Through our tools for transition, Good Youth Employment membership, youth voice insights and policy leadership, we will support partners across the country as implementation begins.

This work will take ambition, honesty and shared responsibility. But if we get it right, every young person will have a meaningful pathway into work, learning and progression.