McFadden: Youth guarantee will have ‘more opportunity’ than the YTS

The government’s new “youth guarantee” will have “more opportunity” than the youth training scheme that ran through the 1980s, the work and pensions secretary has said.

Pat McFadden, who was moved to the DWP in prime minister Keir Starmer’s reshuffle three weeks ago with an expanded brief that includes skills, will lead on the new policy and wants to make the offer “more attractive” than what has come before.

He spoke about the promised youth guarantee after it was announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today.

Aimed to tackle spiralling levels of youth unemployment, Reeves said the initiative will involve every young person being “guaranteed either a place in college for those who want to continue their studies, or an apprenticeship to help them learn a trade vital to our plans to rebuild our country, or one to one support to help them find a job”.

She added: “But more than that, our guarantee means that any young person out of work, education or training for more than 18 months, will be given a paid work placement, real work, practical experience, new skills.”

Ahead of full detail in next month’s budget, the Treasury has revealed this new initiative will “build upon existing employment support and sector-based work academies currently being delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions”.

And it will include a “targeted backstop”, where “every eligible unemployed young person on Universal Credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be provided guaranteed paid work”.

Eligible young people who refuse the job opportunity will have their benefits docked, according to reports.

Sector experts have suggested the youth guarantee is a rebadged version of the youth training scheme (YTS) that was introduced under Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1983.

Backed with around £1 billion, the YTS offered paid work placements and training for hundreds of thousands of 16- to 17-year-olds to tackle youth unemployment. It was abolished in 1989 with critics arguing the placements were little more than a source of cheap labour with limited prospects of progression.

Asked whether the new youth guarantee will be another version of the YTS, McFadden said: “I hope the scheme that we are bringing in, sorry to keep returning to my word of the day, but there’s more opportunity built into it.

“I think we’ve got to make the offers and the options attractive for people. We want good work experience, good training, good skills, but it’s important as part of it to have a paid employment sort of backstop, to use a phrase from another day, as part of the system, and the reason for that is to avoid a situation where a young person just drifts from education into long term on benefits.

“The reality of this is there are families around the country of multi-generational unemployment, and we’re trying to break the pattern of something that can be a hard thing to do.”

He added: “I will say it’s about policy meets life, and again, the easy answer rubs up against sometimes very untidy circumstances. So I hope it’s a match of opportunity and responsibility.”

DWP taking on skills is ‘potentially exciting’

McFadden’s expanded brief at the DWP includes apprenticeships, adult further education, skills, training and careers, and the newly created agency Skills England.

Asked by FE Week for an insight into his plans for skills policy, McFadden said that while it is “early doors”, he mentioned how he wants “shorter courses” to become more available for employers.

He said: “The traditional first visit for a new secretary of state at DWP is to a job centre. They said, do you want to go to a job centre and I said, well, no, we’ve just taken on skills, I should go to an FE college.

“So I went to Waltham Forest FE College, where the job centre were already present. It’s quite interesting. They said to me, we come here because it’s easier to get to the students here at the FE college and asking them to commence […] there’s another debate there about making the job centre offer more flexible. I think this is potentially exciting.

“There’s a lot of debate on the apprenticeship levy and courses, the length of them and so on. You know, I hope we get to a position where we can offer shorter courses that face the employers and help them use the training opportunities in a way that benefits them.”

The government’s industrial strategy, published this summer, revealed that new courses will be funded through the reformed growth and skills levy from early next year. But no detail has since been released about what the courses will be.

Maintenance grants to return under the LLE, Phillipson announces

The government will offer grants to higher education learners from low-income households funded by a new tax on international university students, the education secretary has announced.

Bridget Phillipson said today that means-tested maintenance grants will be available to university and HE college students studying technical qualifications at levels 4 to 6 in priority courses “by the end of this Parliament”.

The grants will be funded by income from the new levy on international students at universities in England, which could raise more than £600 million per year, according to estimates.

Phillipson said the move would target “students who need them most” and ensure learners at college or university aren’t “working every hour God sends” to fund their studies.

However, it is not yet known how much the grants will be worth to eligible students.

Further details of how the grants will work, the funding available, and the amount a levy on international students is expected to raise will be set out at the autumn budget on November 26, Labour has said.

It comes almost ten years after the previous Conservative government scrapped means-tested grants for university students of up to £3,387 each year.

Students will be able to access the grants through the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) loan system, due to launch for HE college and university courses in January 2027.

Phillipson said: “The Tories treated our universities as a political battleground, not a public good. Labour is putting them back in the service of working-class young people.

“Last year, I took the decisive steps we needed on university finances, so opportunity is there tomorrow, for all who want it.

“But I know, you know, that we must do more. So that is why today I’m announcing, that this Labour government will introduce new targeted maintenance grants for students who need them most.”

According to guidance for the LLE, which will cover all post-18 student finance, maintenance loans were planned for learners on face-to-face college or university courses depending on characteristics such as where they live, what they are studying and their household income.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: “Treating international students as cash cows to fund maintenance grants amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“This country is already charging international students through the roof to prop up our crumbling education infrastructure. Instead of attacking foreign students, the Labour Government should be fixing our colleges and universities through huge public investment.”

Alex Stanley, National Union of Students vice president higher education, said it was “immoral, unfeasible and financially impossible” to have given the “poorest” HE students the highest debt through extra maintenance loans.

He added: “Today’s announcement is the first piece of tangible action that any UK government has taken to change course on this broken financial funding system since the introduction of £9,000 fees. 

“This has to be the beginning of wholesale change in our broken education system. Let us be clear: we do not welcome the introduction of a levy on international students, and we will continue to push back on measures that impact our members.”

Labour conference 2025: Pat McFadden’s full speech

As you know, I’ve been around a time or two. A long time ago, back at the start of the 1980s – yes, that far back – as a teenager, I went to the people’s march for jobs rally in Queen’s Park in Glasgow, near where I grew up.

At a time of high unemployment, factories closing everywhere, hope was in short supply. But in the midst of all of that, people organized themselves to march to say that they wanted the pride and purpose that came with having a job. Now, that march and that aim were in line with Labour’s history.

It is a long time ago, but now many years on. The task for me and for this Labour government is to once again put work at the heart of our mission for the country, because Labour’s mission has always been to match the good society with a strong economy, to give people a chance, not a grievance.

And we who steward that mission today stand on the shoulders of those who made change before us. People who built the NHS, created the welfare state, lifted millions out of poverty.

The twin goals of opportunity and security have run through every Labour Government. 100 years ago, the very first Labour government in office for only a matter of months, made the rules fairer for the unemployed.

The evolving Labour welfare state

Attlee’s government created not just the NHS, but the modern welfare state and national insurance, the principle that people pay in when they can and benefit when they need. Wilson’s government comprehensive education and expanded state pensions, a recognition that opportunity must start in the classroom and security must extend into old age.

And in more recent times, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown reformed the welfare state, brought in tax credits and created the new deal to take people from welfare into work. And with the national minimum wage, they created the greatest anti-poverty measure in modern times, something we should always be proud of.

This is our tradition. These are our values, and this is what we believe in. And none of these governments regarded the welfare state as a museum to be preserved exactly as it was on the day that they took office.

Each one of them changed it to meet the demands of the times, as we must, too, and Labour the party that more than any other, built the welfare state did it not to keep people down, but to be a platform upon which they could rise.

We built the NHS not as a charity, but as a right. Auto-enrolment, because we wanted security in retirement for all workers, and now in this Labour government, we will rebuild work as the foundation for dignity, independence and pride. Because let’s face the truth, the Tories left us a welfare state that was broken, battered, shamed.

They talked about welfare reform, but what did they actually do? They promised to make work pay and then trap families in poverty. They spoke of compassion and sent children to school hungry. They talked about responsibility and left millions on benefits.

That’s not responsibility. It’s not a hand up, and it’s not a system that should just be left as it is. And as we saw last week, reforms welfare policy fell apart before it had even been announced, not so much a policy as a missile aimed at the Tories, but within it, a pledge to turn on people who have come here legally, worked here legally, and paid tax legally well conference, let me tell you breaking your promise to people who have contributed to this country, in some cases, for decades, is not the British way.

‘The opportunity welfare state’

So the right can wage war on one another. Our job is different. Our job is to wage war on the hopelessness and the lack of belief that they left behind, because we believe in a system which has work at its heart and support when times are tough, a Britain which gives security in retirement, the triple lock protected worth up to £1,900 a year more by the end of this Parliament because of the actions of this Labour government.

A Britain where no child should go without food, no disabled person should live without dignity, and no worker should labour without decency. And it’s that which drives us to extend free school meals, to provide new pathways to work and to guarantee a decent living wage.

So, here’s our mission: we will turn this Department of Work and Pensions into something new, not a system that counts the cost of failure, but one that invests in success and protects those who need it most.

And we will give this mission a name, not a dependency welfare state, but the opportunity welfare state.

And opportunity starts with work. The jobs market is changing faster than at any time in living memory. Many of the jobs in it today didn’t even exist 20 years ago, and that pace is only going to increase as AI both creates jobs and replaces old ones, and if we just stand back and let that unfold, we will be failing in our duty to give people hope in a changing world, because the task of leadership is to prepare for the world that’s coming, not just the one that we have today. 

And that is why skills is at the heart of our economic plan, and that matters most to those without money or financial means, because this is about equality, too.

Fighting for opportunity ‘is rebellion’

Conference, fighting for opportunity is an act of rebellion against people’s fate being decided by their circumstances.

And I know that some of you quite like about rebellion, so we want apprenticeships that lead to real careers, training, not just once, but throughout life, taking the ambitions that we have as a country to build more homes, strengthen our defenses, ensure clean energy and equip our people to do the jobs, that is how we will make work pay.

That is how we will fire ambition and hope, not only a matter of rights, but of responsibilities and opportunities too. 

And no one needs this more than young people today, almost a million of them not in education, employment or training. It’s wrong in human terms, and it’s costly for the nation too, and we will not stand by while a generation is consigned to benefits almost before their lives have begun. 

We will never accept that children should graduate from school onto a life on benefits, and we will not allow wasted talent to become Britain’s story. 

So, as the chancellor spelled out this morning, Labour will make a new offer: if you are young, you will not be left to drift. You will have a pathway, an apprenticeship, a place in training, or real work experience that leads to a job, a youth guarantee, meaning opportunity is not just for the few, but for all.

And we will bring the help to where young people are, with a doubling of the number of youth hubs throughout the country over the next three years.

A duty to accept help

And with that opportunity comes responsibility. too: to take up the training, the apprenticeship or the work that is offered, and the youth guarantee is how we will offer every young person a chance to get up and get on.

And of course, every person who’s in work who’s no longer on benefits, not only has a better life for themselves, but it’s better for the public purse too. 

Our pledge is to pay for better chances in life, rather than just paying people to survive.

Because when young people succeed, Britain succeeds. When working people thrive, Britain thrives. And when work is fair, secure and properly rewarded, then Britain is stronger, too.

This is our tradition, and our task now is to recast it anew. Because let me tell you conference this battle between opportunity and grievance is with us.

It is the fight of our times and the fight that we will wage in the coming years.

So let us be ambitious. Let’s offer hope to those who feel forgotten or who can’t see a clear path to the future. Renew the bond between work and the welfare state, make work the pathway to dignity, security and pride, and in doing that conference together, let us build that opportunity welfare state.

Chancellor to ‘guarantee’ job or training place to young NEETs

Rachel Reeves will commit to abolishing youth unemployment by “guaranteeing” a job or training place for 18 to 21-year-olds on long-term benefits.

The chancellor will use her mainstage speech at the Labour Party conference this afternoon to unveil a “youth guarantee” to combat rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).

She will say the government is committed to “nothing less than the abolition of long-term youth unemployment”.

Young people who have been claiming benefits for more than 18 months will reportedly lose their benefits if they refuse a work or training place.

The Treasury said the youth guarantee will “build upon existing employment support and sector-based work academies currently being delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions”.

It will include a “targeted backstop, where every eligible unemployed young person on Universal Credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be provided guaranteed paid work”.

Participants will receive “support to take advantage of available opportunities, with the aim of helping them transition into regular employment”.   

Full details, including eligibility criteria and the structure of placements, are expected in November’s budget, but the chancellor admitted to the BBC this morning no employers had signed up yet.

It follows a £45 million extension to the eight youth guarantee trailblazers to March 2027.

There was an increase in the number of young people aged 16 to 24 years NEET in April to June 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics. The total is currently estimated to be 948,000, almost 13 per cent of the 16 to 24 population.

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden, who now controls part of the skills brief, will lead the new scheme. He is expected to tell Labour’s conference this afternoon: “We will not stand by while a generation is consigned to benefits almost before they’ve begun.

“We will not accept that school pupils, full of promise, become adults, full of frustration. We cannot, we will not, allow wasted talent to become Britain’s story. The youth guarantee is how we will offer every young person a chance to get up and get on.”

Funding will come from existing budgets

It’s not yet clear how much cash the chancellor will splash on the scheme, but the Treasury confirmed it will be funded from within existing budgets.

The last government’s post-pandemic youth jobs scheme, Kickstart, cost around £2 billion, but was slammed by the National Audit Office for missing its recruitment target by nearly 100,000, and for costing nearly £7,000 per participant, becoming DWP’s most expensive employment scheme before it was axed.

It is also not yet known how employers will be incentivised to provide the jobs or how the extra college or training places will be funded under the youth guarantee.

Experts have questioned whether targeting young people on benefits will reach all young people that need support.

Laura-Jane Rawlings, chief executive of Youth Employment UK, told FE Week: “We must remember that many of the one million NEET young people Rachel Reeves talked about are not claiming universal credit and risk further disadvantage by being left out of key policy.

“We also need to ensure the employers get the right support to create quality opportunities for young people, and believe that there should be an adoption of the good youth employment standards.”

Stephen Evans, chief executive of Learning and Work Institute said only one in four NEETs are on benefits and required to search for work.

“This is a welcome announcement that can make a real difference, given our research shows more than half of NEETs say they’ve never had a paid job. It’s important this offer is open to all young people who need it, regardless of their benefit status.”

Khan puts business bosses in skills driving seat

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is seeking employers in key sectors to join boards to “ultimately lead commissioning” of skills, work and careers programmes in the capital.

The employers would have unprecedented levels of influence over the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) £334 million adult skills fund and £27 million skills bootcamps budgets.

This autumn, three boards will be set up to put employers in construction, life sciences and creative industries “in the driver’s seat” – followed by health, social care and hospitality early next year.

The initiative goes a step further than most other mayoral combined authorities which have launched single boards of business representatives from a mix of sectors to guide devolved adult skills powers.

According to a report before the adult skills fund mayoral board last week, the boards will shape a more “employer-responsive talent offer”, reduce skills gaps, and ensure more Londoners can access work in key growth sectors.

It said: “In addition, the sector employer boards will inform and co-design responsive curriculum, shape and ultimately lead commissioning of skills, employment and the careers offer.”

Each sector will have a business-facing “hub” to deliver training, and the capital’s four “subregions” will each have a “multi-sector hub” to coordinate local talent supply and support for small and medium-size businesses.

The GLA’s move to seek direct input from employers has been cited as a potential driver of growth – but was criticised as unnecessary by a Conservative London Assembly member.

Alessandro Georgiou, the Conservative group’s skills spokesperson, said the GLA should survey the capital’s industries on what training they need and “that’s where you leave it”.

He added: “It’s all well and good inviting the big boys around the table, but they need to look at industry as a whole.”

Essential skills offer

According to the mayor’s report, his new “systemwide approach” reflects “other examples of best practice in London and internationally”.

Alongside the boards and hubs, an “inclusive talent strategy” will focus on helping underrepresented people from racial minorities, who have lower earnings and employment rates, into industries with the biggest skills gaps.

The talent strategy could include an “essential skills offer” passport, improved ESOL training, embed problem-solving and communication skills into all GLA-funded essential skills programmes, and create “stronger pathways” to higher-level training.

Lizzie Crowley, senior skills adviser at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, said putting employers “at the heart” of the skills system would “build social partnership, identify shared skills needs and set clear industry priorities”.

She added: “If they are to take on commissioning responsibilities, they will require representation across businesses of all sizes, and close alignment with existing structures such as LSIPs and the Skills for Londoners board to prevent duplication.”

Get Britain Working

It comes as England’s mayors and local authorities publish local growth and Get Britain Working plans, designed to boost employment rates through a focus on priority sectors in line with the government’s UK-wide industrial strategy covering the next 10 years, published this summer.

These plans are expected to align with government-funded local skills improvement plans (LSIPs), which have been coordinated by employer representative bodies since 2022.

London’s growth plan, published in February, promises a new “integrated workforce plan”, to “start to change” the way London commissions adult education, and launch a new fund to reduce key skills gaps.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of Learning and Work Institute, said he hoped “the new boards will look at increasing employer investment in training, which has fallen 36 per cent in the last 20 years, as well as how to make the most of public investment.”

Echoes of the past

Some other mayoral combined authorities have begun to take similar steps to the GLA.

In February last year, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority created three “cluster boards” for priority industries to help advise on policy, economic growth and productivity.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority published six “cluster action plans” for its priority sectors earlier this month in collaboration with employers.

A single ‘employer board’ was also set up by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority in 2023 to share “sector insight” on how the local skills system could be improved, with a particular focus on seeking placements for T Level students.

Setting up sector-specific boards to shape the capital’s skills, employment and careers offer echoes of the 23 levy-funded industrial training boards set up in the 1960s.

Of them, only the Construction Industry Training Board and Engineering Construction Industry Training Board survived cuts by Margaret Thatcher’s government in the early 1980s.

More recently, New Labour set up more than 20 sector skills councils in 2002, but many shrank in size or became dormant after funding was fully withdrawn in 2016.

Government promises details of 6,500-teacher manifesto pledge

The government has finally committed to publishing the full details of how it will deliver on its pledge for 6,500 more teachers – a year and a half after being elected.

The House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said in June that it remained “unclear” how the Department for Education would honour its pledge or measure its progress, or the impact this would have on resolving workforce shortages. 

Now, in its response to the report, the government has said that the DfE will publish a full delivery plan by December.

“This will include: the definition of the pledge, how the department will track progress over the duration of this Parliament, progress to date, and the levers it will use to deliver the pledge (including how it will focus on both recruitment and retention).”

The response adds that the DfE has “made strong initial progress” on recruitment. The workforce grew by 2,346 full-time employees between 2023-24 and 2024-25 in secondary and special schools – schools “where they are needed most”.

The government said it is seeing “positive signs” that the 5.5 per cent and 4 per cent pay rises over the past two years are “starting to deliver”.

The DfE has come under repeated criticism for failing to publish details of the pledge, which formed a part of Labour’s 2024 election manifesto. It initially promised 6,500 “expert teachers in key subjects” as one of its six “first steps for change”.

Over the summer, the government revealed that primary teachers would not be included in the targets. Schools Week then revealed that not all of the teachers will be “new”. 

Instead, the target will reflect how much the workforce has grown overall – meaning it will include increases in retention rates.

The government said it agrees with all six of the PAC’s recommendations and is providing implementation dates for them. Among the recommendations was for the DfE to work with schools to understand why those in deprived areas have bigger workforce challenges. 

The government said it will “continue to invest in evaluation and understanding of the workforce” and set an implementation date of August next year.

The PAC report also recommended that the DfE develops a “whole-system strategy” for recruitment and retention, saying it had “no clear or coherent approach bringing together its various initiatives” for the two.

The government responded that it is now investing in analysing policies to understand their impact, and “continues to review the balance between recruitment and retention”.

Another recommendation was for the DfE to “work to better understand why teachers leave” and better support schools in addressing these factors.

The schools white paper and the 6,500 teacher plan will provide the detail on this.

Report cards: Q&A with Ofsted national director Lee Owston

As pilots of Ofsted’s new inspection framework begin ahead of full reform rollout on November 10, the inspectorate’s national director of education, Lee Owston, spoke to FE Week senior reporter Josh Mellor about inspection anxiety, transparency, and why the ‘inclusion’ grade is nothing new.

  • Do you think Ofsted’s reforms will reduce inspection anxiety?

Inspection exists as part of a wider accountability system, so regardless of how hard we try, we’re not going to be able to remove anxiety that’s associated with an accountability system where, essentially, people are evaluating and then determining an outcome against a team or provider.

However, what we’ve done with this framework is bring in measures to reduce anxiety and to think carefully, not only about the wellbeing and welfare of those that we are inspecting, but also the inspectors.

It’s multi-faceted. I don’t think we’re going to remove anxiety altogether, but we are doing everything within our power to reduce it as far as possible, so your inspection sees providers as they are.

  • FE leaders and the independent wellbeing impact assessment have both suggested that inspection-related stress will remain the same, given we’ve got up to 16 graded areas instead of the current 10. Has the framework for FE turned into a bit of a monster?

I don’t think so at all. What we’ve done is made it more transparent and explicit – the different grades that we’re giving to parts of provision, as well as what we think about the provider as a whole. All those decisions were made under the previous education inspection framework, it’s just they didn’t make it to an explicit grade on a report card.

The report card is reporting on the light and shade, with further nuance than we’ve had before, so everybody can see whether it’s learners, their parents or employers themselves where the strengths lie. They can also see where they might need to turn their attention next to continuously improve.

When we introduce something new there will always be an element of anxiety, because it’s different to what has gone before.

  • Is there a risk that the sheer volume of information, such as the new toolkits, is overwhelming for providers given the short rollout timeframe you’re working to?

There shouldn’t be anything in the toolkit that people don’t recognise as being part of what makes great FE provision. There is more detail in the toolkit than we had in the handbook previously, but that’s in response to what we heard through the Big Listen, which was that people didn’t understand the descriptors that we had because they were too high level, and there wasn’t any detail to explain what they meant in practice.

We’ve had to use slightly more words than we have in a handbook, but if people look at those words, it should be far more transparent and accessible in terms of what inspectors will be seeking in evidence, and how that then relates to the standards we use to grade them.

  • Are you saying that in the long term, providers and Ofsted will be in a better position because there is more clarity? That we’ll face increased anxiety in this period, followed by a longer-term payoff?

I think once we have inspections underway in November, people will see what we’ve put on the page is the reality of what we’ve put into practice.

  • Is it a bit late, in terms of the order of events and publication of new framework training for inspectors, if pilots have already started?

This is the traditional way in which we’ve worked. We had test visits, which were testing different methodologies, different versions of the materials, from consultation to launch. And once we’ve published, then we start our piloting process, which is with the finalised methodology.

That gives providers an opportunity to understand how it works in practice, but also gives inspectors an opportunity to get to grips with what it means for them.

Then, of course, we have the inspector training programme in October. We can feed all of that into it, and, in time, that will be published and available to anybody who wants to see it.

  • Is the timeline rushed, given that we don’t yet know how the Department for Education’s accountability framework will work, particularly for independent training providers facing high stakes as a result of inspection outcomes?

We exist for learners and young people. It’s about ensuring they get the absolute best, so that’s always first and foremost. And of course, there can be no gap in terms of ensuring that those learners do get what they deserve and need.

However, that doesn’t mean we’re not conscious of the landscape in which leaders and staff are having to work.

I want to make clear that you cannot equate the grades or judgments that went before with the grades we have in this toolkit. We were charged with changing the culture of inspection, and one of the ways we do that is by drawing a line in the sand and having something different to move forward with.

  • There are lots of small, independent training providers that deliver higher-level apprenticeships in advanced professional occupations such as accountancy. How would the inclusion criteria be applied in that context?

We shouldn’t be so focused on just SEND or high needs. Yes, they are vitally important, but there are a whole host of other vulnerabilities or barriers to learning and wellbeing that we need to be conscious of.

It is about speaking to the context in which leaders are working, and saying, what are having to support learners with? It could be a family bereavement – obviously you need to take account of that in terms of why somebody might be reacting the way they are in a classroom, or wherever the training is taking place.

We do not want to increase bureaucracy, to introduce all sorts of systems and processes.

  • Another question on inclusion – let’s say Ofsted inspects an inner-city general FE college with a lot of disadvantaged learners, and a sixth-form college with a lot of high-attaining level 3 students. Would inclusion apply in the same way to both?

There shouldn’t be any tension between inclusion and achievement. Every institution should have the same opportunity to be graded as ‘expected standard’, ‘strong’ or ‘exceptional’, regardless of the context.

Some institutions will have more challenges than others, but every provider will have challenges of some sort, and that’s why inspection is trying to get underneath their context so we can understand it and factor it into the evidence we collect.

Inclusion was in the last framework. We’ve just shone a brighter spotlight on it.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 508

Reza Schwitzer

Director of Assessment Reform, AQA

Start date: September 2025

Previous Job: Director of External Affairs, AQA

Interesting fact: Reza’s wife wouldn’t take his surname after she found out it literally translates as ‘sweaty one’ in Yiddish.

David Marlow

Chair, Nottingham College

Start date: August 2025

Concurrent Job: Chief Executive, Age Partnership

Interesting fact: Since retiring from full time work, David has become a sports tourist and loves watching all the key finals in football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis and F1.

UCU’s 76-college hit list shocks principals

College leaders have expressed shock at being threatened with industrial action if they fail to make “serious” pay offers by next Friday.

The University and College Union (UCU) has written to 76 college principals demanding their members get a 10 per cent or £3,000 pay rise – whichever is greater – plus action on workloads and a commitment to national pay bargaining.

The letter, seen by FE Week, gives colleges until 10am on October 3 to agree, or face a formal declaration of a trade dispute.

It comes after an Association of Colleges’ (AoC) recommendation that colleges offer staff a 4 per cent pay award in 2025/26 – despite the AoC admitting “many” colleges would struggle to afford it.

Several colleges told FE Week they had matched the AoC’s 4 per cent recommendation, so were surprised to be singled out on the UCU’s strike list.

Liam Sloan, principal of Bolton College, said: “I would like them [staff] to be paid best in the sector, but affordability is a challenge.”

He added the college’s UCU branch had recommended members accept the 4 per cent offer, but the outcome of the ballot would be revealed at the end of the month, cutting it fine with the October 3 deadline.

Following publication of this story, Sloan said he has now received confirmation from UCU that the letter he received was sent in error.

A spokesperson for Chichester College Group also said they were “surprised” to be on the list “after we have in fact honoured staff with the 4 per cent pay rise in question”.

And the sentiment was echoed by several other college leaders who declined to comment on the record while negotiations with unions were ongoing.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said last week: “College leaders now have a clear choice; make a serious offer or the sector will be hit hard with industrial action this autumn.”

UCU south west official Nick Varney added that “most colleges will try to get away with the AoC recommendation”, while the union’s northern official Chris Robinson said some bosses were waiting to complete enrolment to calculate what they could afford.

“Some college bosses’ argument is we’ve got to wait until we see the bums on seats before we can put an offer in,” he added.

A spokesperson for Blackpool and The Flyde College said it was “too early” to decide what they could offer for this year’s pay award.

“We will be discussing this with colleagues and the trade unions first,” they said.

Meanwhile, WCG said it was not surprised to be targeted by the UCU as “we have not been able to confirm that a 10 per cent pay award is affordable”.

A spokesperson added: “We are carefully considering the AoC’s recent pay recommendation and, like many colleges, we face significant financial pressures which make decisions around pay awards extremely challenging.”

Collective bargaining call

Varney told FE Week that negotiations at colleges involved in mergers – such as Petroc and Exeter College – were particularly complex as pay disparity exists between teachers at the different campuses.

“We desperately need to rectify pay scales across colleges,” he said. “The main thing here is we’re campaigning for binding national pay bargaining.”

Exeter College said it would take a pay recommendation that “reflects the difference staff make to the college” to its board of governors in October as normal.

The AoC’s pay recommendation is not binding, meaning colleges can set the pay in their own organisations.

Parliament’s education select committee this week recommended the government set up a statutory pay review body for colleges after finding “fragmented” and “inadequate” FE teacher pay decisions.

AoC chief executive David Hughes said the idea would have “many supporters” but posed risks due to current funding levels.

The UCU has demanded the 76 colleges on notice make a public statement of support for a new binding negotiating agreement for FE or face a formal dispute.

Adult budget erosion

Colleges with large adult provision will struggle to meet the AoC recommendation this year after being left out of the government’s boost to 16-19 funding rates and suffering cuts to the adult skills fund.

Teachers at Derwentside College accepted a 2 per cent pay award this year, according to UCU’s Robinson. “We haven’t pushed them because we know that the money is not there to push them on,” he said.

“That was a measure brought in because a pay award couldn’t be made in line with AoC recommendations and other local colleges,” Robinson added.