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Technical reform needs stability as much as ambition

It is no surprise that Andy Burnham has made reforms to technical education one of his first announcements as prime minister. His record as mayor of Greater Manchester, and everything he’s said over the last few weeks, pointed in that direction.

While the announcement came earlier than we might have anticipated, it’s clear that the PM wanted to respond to recent reports of the plights of young people who are left behind, notably the interim report from Alan Milburn, Young People and Work, and the Public First inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes.

Both reports give a similar diagnosis of issues that are often related. Disadvantage is baked in early, and the system has consistently failed to mitigate it.

Education can feel irrelevant to young people, leaving them disengaged, and often resulting in high rates of absence. Schools and colleges lack the resources needed to respond to students’ diverse and growing needs. And the economy is changing fast, so that even when young people do get qualifications, they too often struggle to find roles in a labour-market where entry-level jobs are increasingly automated.

The two reports recognise that strengthened vocational education is an important part of responding to these challenges.

At AQA, we can see at first hand the importance of credible national qualifications: we are best known for GCSEs and A Levels, which remain profoundly important to us. But we are also expanding our technical and vocational offer, bringing assessment expertise, a dynamic approach and a moral purpose rooted in our charitable status.

TQUK, an important part of the AQA Group, is helping us to develop new 16-19 vocational qualifications, including V Levels.

And we also see that the current system is not working for many communities. We have bases across the country, particularly in the north of England. Our training provider, Realise, helps people prepare for careers in bus driving, early years and gas engineering, from adult skills centres in areas such as Bradford and Blackpool.

That means we are plugged into communities that have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country.

So we recognise the urgency driving Burnham’s announcement on 14-16 technical education. But schools and colleges have been left uncertain about what the changes mean for them. They are already planning for 2027 and 2028, and now they do not know what they are expected to do or what qualifications will be available.

For decades, vocational qualifications have suffered from constant policy churn, so the government must take the opportunity now to end this cycle.

We suggest three priorities for the government as it finalises its policy thinking – notwithstanding the need to make sure that schools and colleges are resourced to deliver an expanded offer.

First, set out how the new plans align with existing reforms to both vocational and general qualifications. The Department for Education should be open to some quick replanning, to make pathways coherent and to give providers space to think.

There is a very limited window to do this before the government’s ability to introduce reforms in this parliament becomes impossible, and so it needs to work quickly to ensure that opportunities are not missed.

Second, challenge awarding organisations to produce new, high-quality Key Stage 4 technical qualifications. That will give local areas a good choice of 14-16 options to help engage young people and give them a range of positive choices at 16 and beyond.

Finally, give local areas the flexibility to shape provision in ways that work where they are. Work experience, employer partnerships and the role of colleges will all look quite different in different parts of the country.

It is tempting to come up with reasons why meeting the PM’s ambition is going to be difficult. But communities and young people across the country deserve better than that.

We’ve taught technical education from 14 since 2017 – the curriculum was the easy part

The government’s plan to expand technical education from age 14 is welcome recognition that young people don’t all learn in the same way. We’ve been doing it since 2017.

At South Devon College, those nine years have shown that a strong academic curriculum can sit alongside technical education without limiting anyone’s future choices. They have also shown that the curriculum is only one part of a much bigger job.

South Devon High School opened in September 2017 with 51 year 10 pupils. We could see young people locally who wanted a different key stage 4 experience without giving up the core curriculum, and nobody was offering them one.

The school now has 228 pupils across 11 pathways, including engineering, health and social care, automotive, hospitality, and games and digital development. All of them study English, maths and science throughout.

The approach is finally getting national attention, and the apprenticeship measures announced alongside it will help too, particularly the bursary for families who stood to lose more in benefits than the apprenticeship itself paid.

My concern is that the year 10 reforms will look far simpler on paper than they prove in practice, and schools have until 2028 to get them right.

Behind the visible curriculum

My advice to a school preparing for that deadline is not to underestimate the infrastructure behind the visible curriculum.

The workshop or qualification is only the front end. Behind it sit staffing, equipment, quality assurance, employer engagement, safeguarding, careers guidance and progression planning.

And transport, which nobody ever budgets for properly and which in a county like ours quietly decides who can take part at all.

We learned that the hard way. Pastoral care for 14 to 16-year-olds doesn’t sit easily alongside the more adult atmosphere of a further education college, and it took us a good two years to get that balance right.

You can’t simply adapt an existing college programme for younger learners and expect it to succeed. Behaviour systems, parental communication and transition arrangements all need designing around that age group, and so does the curriculum, which has to be rigorous and properly sequenced rather than assumed to be easier because it’s practical.

Employer engagement takes years to build and constant attention to maintain. It’s not simply a matter of finding businesses willing to offer a placement.

Employers need support to understand safeguarding, the curriculum, the age group and what’s expected of them, and they need it again whenever their own capacity changes.

Our strengths in South Devon are health and care, engineering, marine, construction, tourism and hospitality, and a great many of those businesses are small or medium-sized.

We can’t rely on one large employer offering opportunities at scale, so we work with dozens of organisations that each contribute something different. The answer can’t be to limit a young person’s ambition to whichever employers happen to be within five miles of their school.

This is where colleges can help.

Many of us already hold established relationships through apprenticeships, adult learning, technical education and workforce development, and schools shouldn’t have to recreate those networks from scratch when partnership offers something more sustainable.

Avoid a workforce scramble

Recruiting professionals with current industry expertise has never been straightforward, particularly in coastal and rural areas where geography, housing and transport all affect it.

You can’t expect someone to leave industry on Friday and become a fully formed teacher on Monday. If every school begins recruiting from the same limited pool, we’ll redistribute existing expertise rather than increase it, so curriculum reform needs a workforce plan alongside it.

The concerns raised about funding and capacity are legitimate, because this requires specialist facilities, equipment, consumable materials and sustained employer coordination.

The greater risk is fragmentation. If thousands of schools are separately expected to recruit the same specialists, buy the same equipment and approach the same employers, we’ll spend a great deal while producing uneven provision from one town to the next.

Parity of esteem is earned through quality, not announced.

After nine years of this, my advice is to give the partnerships, the people and the infrastructure as much attention as the curriculum itself. Those are what will decide whether young people get the opportunities this policy promises them.

EAL hit with record £150k apprenticeship assessment fine

Ofqual has fined engineering awarding body EAL £150,000 for serious and repeated failures that left apprentices assessed against the wrong standards, in some cases covering skills with workplace safety implications.

The assessment regulator confirmed to FE Week it is the largest financial penalty it has imposed in connection with apprenticeship end-point assessment, three times the sum imposed on the last assessor it fined.

More than 1,400 learners were caught up in EAL’s failings, according to the financial penalty notice published today.

EAL, registered as Excellence, Achievement & Learning Limited, admitted ten separate breaches of Ofqual’s conditions spanning assessment delivery, results management, data controls, oversight of third parties and handling appeals.

The most serious concerned 41 apprentices on an engineering qualification who were assessed against an incorrect version of the assessment plan. Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs) that should have been tested were left out and results were issued before anyone noticed. EAL later concluded the omitted KSBs related to matters with potential workplace safety implications.

EAL’s attempt to fix the problem broke the rules as well. It allowed affected apprentices to demonstrate the missing KSBs through extra multiple-choice tests or professional discussions, which the assessment plan did not permit. Ofqual recorded that as a further breach.

Eight apprentices had their certificates revoked for not complying with EAL’s remedial measures, a decision EAL took before it recognised the remedy was itself another breach.

An EAL spokesperson said the organisation “respects Ofqual’s decision, which relates to specific areas of historic non-compliance”, and acknowledged the details of the case.

They added: “Throughout the process we have engaged constructively, cooperated with Ofqual and have taken significant steps to further strengthen our governance, assurance and compliance systems. We will fully deliver the agreed undertakings.”

EAL said it delivered qualifications and assessments to more than 75,000 learners a year and its priority was maintaining confidence in their quality, validity and reliability. It declined to comment further.

Ofqual’s notice said breaches were repeated and occurred over a sustained period.

Assessment material errors

A second set of incidents involved incorrect results caused by errors in assessment materials, which Ofqual traced to system migration problems that introduced errors in the display of images and symbols. EAL’s quality assurance processes did not detect them and the errors surfaced only after results reached learners.

Those assessments were sat by 1,375 apprentices. All were still on programme when results were corrected, so their progression was unaffected.

Amanda Swann, Ofqual’s executive director for delivery, said EAL’s failures were “serious, repeated and preventable”.

Ofqual will recover its legal costs on top of the penalty of £10,000.

EAL has also given the regulator a formal undertaking, a binding commitment to carry out a set of actions to bring itself back into compliance. It must report to Ofqual monthly and provide a statement of assurance by January 31, 2027, signed by the chair of its governing body, confirming whether the actions have been completed and whether they have worked.

Ofqual has not published the list of actions EAL has committed to.

Lax appeals

Ofqual’s audit found EAL failed to follow its own appeals procedure in two cases covering 13 apprentices.

EAL’s policy barred anyone involved in an earlier stage of an appeal from taking part in later stages.

In one case, the same investigators used at stage one of an appeal also supplied information at stage two, which Ofqual found breached the requirement that appeal decisions be taken by people with no personal interest in the outcome.

EAL argued the integrity of the process was not compromised. Ofqual said it found no evidence of a conflict of interest or any adverse effect.

Early warnings

The regulator listed its March 2025 direction to EAL, over incorrect results on an end-point assessment, among the aggravating factors behind the fine.

Ofqual told FE Week that the case was a separate incident. In that case, EAL failed apprentices on a multiple-choice test, rejected their employer’s appeal, then issued replacement pass results based on non-compliant assessments.

Ofqual opened its audit three months later, in June 2025, after concerns emerged from ‘event notifications’ EAL had filed, which are formal reports awarding organisations must send the regulator when something goes wrong.

The audit reported in October 2025 with no assurance on results correction, no assurance on assessment plan controls and limited assurance on appeals. A statement of allegations followed in January 2026 and EAL responded the next month.

In mitigation, Ofqual accepted EAL reported many of the incidents itself, cooperated throughout, found no evidence of deliberate conduct or concealment, and noted the company has spent around £570,000 over two years on compliance and operational improvements. It was EAL’s first monetary penalty.

EAL settled on July 22, agreeing to admit the breaches. Ofqual said the settlement meant a lower penalty than it would have imposed in a contested case.

Previous penalties

Qualifications for Industry was fined £50,000 plus £15,846 in costs in 2024 for breaching special conditions capping learner registrations. Owner Richard McClelland refused to pay and the firm went dormant, having accused the regulator of forcing it out of the market.

The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives faced a £50,000 penalty in 2019 after delivery failures hit all 73 apprentices sitting the level 3 paralegal end-point assessment. The final fine was £1,000 once CILEx satisfied Ofqual it had fixed the problems.

EAL is owned by the engineering and manufacturing skills charity Enginuity, recognised by Ofqual since 2010. It reported turnover of £14 million and pre-tax profit of £3.3 million in 2023-24, and holds generation two T Level contracts with WJEC Eduqas for building services engineering and onsite construction.

First college hit with Ofsted safeguarding ‘not met’ judgment faces intervention

TEC Partnership has become the first college to fail safeguarding under Ofsted’s new inspection framework – triggering government intervention.

The college group’s report, published today following an inspection in May, found that leaders had failed to establish an effective safeguarding culture and had not acted quickly enough to protect some learners from harm.

Inspectors criticised leaders’ oversight and record-keeping of learners’ attendance, including for the group’s 14 to 16 academy at its Grimsby campus, particularly where there were known safeguarding concerns and for those with “complex home lives”.

TEC Partnership leaders “do not ensure learners’ safety and wellbeing by supporting them to return to the academy”, they do not liaise sufficiently well with parents, and nor do they accurately fulfil their statutory duties for reporting on 14 to 16-year-old learners to stakeholders such as the local authority.

Inspectors found that qualified safeguarding staff were in place but that leaders had failed to create a culture in which all staff were sufficiently vigilant about risks affecting vulnerable learners.

A “few” learners also do not have a “sufficiently well-developed knowledge of the risks posed by radicalisation and extremism”, Ofsted added.

Department for Education policy states that it will place a college into intervention where safeguarding is judged ‘not met’.

A TEC Partnership spokesperson confirmed that the college has engaged in discussions with the FE Commissioner following Ofsted’s findings.

The spokesperson said: “Our outcome for safeguarding was not as expected due to a specific issue identified within a small area of our wider offer – specifically within our 14 to 16 provision and a small cohort of 16 to 18 learners at one of our sites.

“We have addressed the specific issue raised by the inspectors. Importantly, no learners were ever at risk, as the matter was strictly procedural. Immediate remedial actions have been taken to ensure all processes, without exception, meet the rigorous standards expected across every part of our provision.

“Our commitment to maintaining a safe, supportive, and high-quality environment for all our learners remains absolute. The core delivery, governance, and day-to-day safeguarding across our provision continue to operate with full integrity and rigour.”

The DfE was approached for comment.

‘We can improve’

TEC Partnership is a large college group that operates mainly across East Riding of Yorkshire and Hull, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire.

It teaches more than 9,500 students across campuses in Grimsby, Scarborough, Beverley, Bridlington, Hull and Skegness.

The college received nine ‘expected standard’ judgments, including for local skills needs and inclusion, as well as six ‘needs attention’ ratings, including for leadership and governance, young learner achievement and participation, apprenticeship achievement and provision for learners with high needs.

Ofsted praised the quality of teaching, learning, and support provided to adult and younger learners, highlighting their knowledge and skills development as well as high rates of positive destinations.

The report was also positive about the group’s apprenticeship curriculum that responds effectively to local and regional needs.

Inspectors noted that learners and apprentices learn in a “generally inclusive college” where most are supported to overcome their barriers to learning.

Ofsted acknowledged that the college group has appointed campus principals to “ensure local leadership, oversight and accountability”. However, their actions have not led to consistent or sustained improvement in relation to achievement, retention or attendance, according to the report.

A TEC Partnership spokesperson said: “Our recent Ofsted inspection highlighted numerous strengths across our organisation. Inspectors commended the strong relevance of our curriculum, our direct contribution to meeting local and regional skills needs, and the high level of support provided to our learners and apprentices.

“The report also praised our ongoing investment in industry-standard facilities and recognised the significant progress made since our last inspection, including effective improvements to support staff.

“The report also identified areas where we can improve further. We welcome this feedback and are already implementing targeted actions to address these priorities across our organisation.”

Hull council education arm fails Ofsted safeguarding standards

Hull City Council’s education arm has failed to meet Ofsted’s safeguarding standards after inspectors found leaders had not responded effectively to “potentially serious” issues posing risks to learners.

Hull Training and Adult Education (HTAE), which teaches almost 300 young people aged 16 to 18 and more than 900 adults, today became the first local authority-run provider to receive a ‘not met’ safeguarding judgment since Ofsted introduced its new report card approach in November.

Inspectors found that safeguarding cases were too often recorded as closed before suitable steps had been taken to reduce the risk of harm.

Leaders also failed to review whether actions taken to protect learners and apprentices had been effective, meaning they could not assure themselves that safeguarding concerns had been dealt with appropriately.

Ofsted said: “Leaders and governors do not ensure that safeguarding concerns are reported fully and in sufficient detail. Leaders do not respond effectively to potentially serious safeguarding concerns that pose risks to learners and apprentices.”

Intervention prospect

Department for Education guidance states that colleges will be placed into intervention where safeguarding is ‘not met’.

Similar guidance for local authorities says the DfE “could” terminate the contract, issue conditions of funding or impose an FE Commissioner capability assessment in the event of a ‘not met’ safeguarding judgment.

An HTAE spokesperson said the council is “not currently” in formal intervention, but its leaders are in “ongoing communication with key stakeholders to assure them that the required improvements are being implemented as soon as possible”.

FE Week has asked the DfE whether HTAE will be placed into intervention following the Ofsted judgment.

While HTAE leaders were criticised, Ofsted praised staff at the provider’s local centres and subcontractors for establishing a culture of safeguarding.

Staff “care” about their learners and apprentices, inspectors said, and receive appropriate training and provide students with the support and guidance needed to keep them safe.

Learners and apprentices “feel safe and understand how to stay safe from the risks of extremism and radicalisation” and know how to report concerns.

Councillor Linda Tock, portfolio holder for learning and a HTAE governor, said improvements were underway.

“Hull Training and Adult Education is an essential service for so many people across the city and the report acknowledges the great work it does,” she said.

“At the same time, there is clearly the need for improvements to be made, and the team is getting on with that job straightaway.”

HTAE received three ‘needs attention’ judgments alongside eight ‘expected standard’ ratings and three ‘strong standard’ verdicts in the report.

The three low judgments covered leadership and governance, achievement on education programmes for young people, and achievement on adult learning programmes.

Aside from safeguarding, Ofsted criticised the provider’s English and maths results.

It said: “Too few adult learners, and those aged 16 to 18, achieve well in their mathematics and English functional skills qualifications, particularly on level 2 courses.”

HTAE recorded an achievement rate of 78 per cent for education programmes for young people in 2024-25, compared with a national average of 84 per cent.

For adult learning programmes, its achievement rate was 78 per cent, against a national average of 87 per cent.

Ofsted said leaders had “generally realistic plans” to improve achievement across adult learning and study programmes, but these had “not yet been fully realised”.

Staff shortages on some adult courses and apprenticeships had also “negatively impacted on the progress of a few learners and apprentices”.

Some students were left “frustrated” by delays to their learning caused by “frequent staffing changes or cover staff who do not have the subject expertise to teach them fully the curriculum they need to know”.

Ticks for Tock

Ofsted’s highest praise for HTAE was for its provision for learners with high needs, which was rated ‘strong standard’ across achievement, curriculum and teaching, and participation and development.

Learners with high needs were found to make “significant progress”, develop “substantial new knowledge, skills and behaviours” and “consistently produce high-quality written and practical work”.

Tock said: “It is important to recognise that a ‘strong standard’ was awarded for provision for learners with high needs, as well as ‘expected standard’ in the majority of other areas.

“We would like to thank our staff, learners, employers and partners for their continued support as we build on these strengths, make improvements and move forward with confidence.”

Powell hires Get Further boss as special adviser

The boss of a further education tutoring charity has been appointed a special adviser to education secretary Lucy Powell.

Sarah Waite, founder and chief executive of Get Further, advised Powell in opposition, working as a political adviser when the Manchester Central MP was shadow education secretary between 2015 and 2016.

Powell was appointed education secretary last month, replacing Bridget Phillipson in prime minister Andy Burnham’s first cabinet.

Waite began her career teaching maths in Leeds before becoming head of policy at the Social Mobility Commission under Alan Milburn’s chairship, where she developed the concept of Get Further. She also worked on the devolution of the education budget for the Greater London Assembly.

She founded Get Further in 2017, winning the Teach First Innovation Award the following year. The charity delivers small-group tuition in English and maths to students resitting GCSEs in post-16 settings, and has campaigned for disadvantaged learners to receive a student premium equivalent to the pupil premium in schools.

Alice Eardley, Get Further’s deputy chief executive, will take over as interim CEO.

Waite joins two special advisers already appointed to Powell’s team.

Donjeta Miftari previously worked on communications for Andy Burnham, spent a short time as a foreign policy special adviser in Downing Street under Keir Starmer, and advised Shabana Mahmood in opposition. Ant McCaul has returned after serving as Powell’s special adviser when she was leader of the House of Commons, a role that ended when she left cabinet last September.

Special advisers are temporary civil servants appointed personally by ministers and paid from public funds. Unlike permanent officials, they are exempt from political impartiality rules and offer party political advice, brief the media and push their ministers’ policy priorities within the department. Their appointments end automatically when the minister who hired them leaves office or when parliament is dissolved.

Powell used an article in The Times this weekend to reveal a review of what schools teach and blamed the former education secretary Michael Gove for the million young people now outside education, employment and training.

She wrote that a one-size-fits-all system had left too many pupils branded a failure instead of realising their potential, and argued high-quality vocational options should carry equal esteem rather than being treated as a second-class choice.

Her in-tray also includes the transfer of 16 to 19 funding to mayors, Burnham’s technical education pathways for 14 to 16-year-olds and the introduction of new V Level qualifications next year.

Waite and see… Get Further boss and her insights on Powell and Milburn

Mayors to take control of 16-19 funding

Mayors will be handed control of 16-to-19 funding in a radical break from England’s Whitehall-run post-16 education system.

Further education colleges, sixth form colleges, school sixth forms and independent training providers are all within scope of major reforms announced by prime minister Andy Burnham tonight.

Number 10 described the plans as the biggest transfer of power, funding and responsibility from Westminster in a generation.

Local leaders will also gain greater control over employment support, transport, housing, planning and public services.

The statement gave no detail on how the new 16-to-19 funding system will operate. The wider transfer of powers is due to be implemented within this parliament, with proposals, legislation and a timetable to be set out in a white paper alongside the autumn budget.

The government expects arrangements to differ between areas and will work with colleges, schools, mayors and other partners to agree the precise parameters and protections before powers are devolved.

A cabinet statement published on Friday said the reforms would amount to “devolution, not delegation”, with central government no longer duplicating functions once they had been transferred.

“We will give mayors the powers, flexibility and accountability to bring together education, employment, health and local support into a clear route for young people, so that no one falls through the cracks,” it said.

The government wants every area to have a strategic authority by the end of 2028 but said it would not impose mayors where there was insufficient local support.

Non-mayoral authorities will receive an enhanced set of powers, although the government said the suite available to mayors would be greater.

‘Nightmayor’

The announcement marks a dramatic reversal after years of tension between mayors and the Department for Education over control of post-16 funding.

Mayors have repeatedly demanded influence over the national 16-19 budget, arguing local leaders are better placed to align courses to the needs of their local economies

But ministers have until now resisted those calls.

Skills minister Jacqui Smith, recently reappointed by Burnham, acknowledged last year there was “tension” between DfE and mayors on this issue.

She told MPs: “I could not envisage that we would devolve all of 16-19 funding to mayors,” although she suggested individual elements could be transferred.

Burnham himself, then mayor of Greater Manchester, had described DfE, then led by Bridget Phillipson, whom he demoted in last week’s reshuffle, as his “biggest frustration” because it would not release control over post-16 education.

It comes days after plans were unveiled for mayors and other local leaders to design new technical education pathways for pupils from the age of 14.

‘Tread very carefully’

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said the announcement could be a “very positive step”, giving colleges greater investment, support and prominence in local economies.

But he warned the plans would “tear up” the national system and make colleges and school sixth forms accountable to elected mayors.

AoC said the existing £9.5 billion system serves 1.275 million students across more than 2,500 colleges, schools and training organisations.

Hughes urged ministers to “tread very carefully”, work through the detail with the sector and pilot changes before a wider rollout.

He called for a strong national framework with “guide-rails” to reduce the risks of devolution.

Colleges would also need freedom from national regulations that prevented them responding to local priorities, alongside long-term capital and revenue investment to expand provision and improve staff pay, he said.

Hughes added that mayors would need to convene employers more effectively and exercise stronger powers over schools to ensure they collaborated with colleges post-14.

“None of these things are straight forward, and this devolution will take significant time to work through the system and best serve students,” he said.

Sixth Form Colleges Association chief executive Bill Watkin also welcomed the opportunity for schools and colleges to work more closely with devolved authorities.

But he said any new model must give college leaders freedom to respond to local needs while preserving equal access to academic routes.

Watkin said: “We look forward to a high-trust system where college leaders have the freedom to tailor their curriculum and resources to meet the individual needs of students.

“That means a system in which colleges can both meet local skills needs, and deliver a core academic curriculum that gives students equal access to higher education and graduate jobs, irrespective of where they come from.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Ben Rowland welcomed the focus on skills but said the reforms must work for employers operating across several regions.

He said: “As the detailed plans are developed, it is important that the government focuses on what will work for employers, including those employers who work across multiple regions.

“Even better news for the prime minister and the chancellor is that many independent training providers are able to raise the upfront capital to prepare for this next chapter without recourse to the public purse.

“This is an exciting new chapter for England, but one fraught with risks.”

Already devolved adults

Mayors have had control over adult skills budgets since they were devolved out of the Department for Education in 2019.

Those powers allow local leaders to commission courses against local economic and social priorities, set their own funding rules and eligibility requirements within budgets determined by central government.

Devolution has allowed authorities to set local priorities, widen access to selected courses and vary funding rules according to regional needs.

This has led to varying eligibility rules, funding rates and accountability arrangements in different parts of the country.

The freedoms have also given elected mayors the ability to exclude groups from accessing public funding.

Greater Lincolnshire’s Reform UK mayor, Andrea Jenkyns, decided that English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses will not be funded from the area’s devolved adult skills budget for most learners from August 2027.

Elsewhere, the announcement confirms trailed plans to allow mayors to retain a greater share of locally generated business rates and income tax revenues. Meanwhile, in Whitehall, the civil service will become “smaller and more strategic, focusing on the responsibilities that are best exercised at a national level.”

SWAP job outcomes hit lowest rate as starts surge

Fewer than 36 per cent of jobseekers who started a sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) last September were in work six months later, the worst result since the Department for Work and Pensions began publishing the figures.

SWAPs are short programmes for benefit claimants, running up to six weeks and made up of pre-employment training, a work placement and a job interview.

Jobcentre Plus staff arrange them locally with employers, and colleges and independent training providers deliver the training, funded from adult skills budgets.

Ministers have raised the annual delivery target twice in two years, from 80,000 to 100,000 and then to 115,000 for 2026-27.

Quarterly management information published today showed the three lowest monthly results since the data began, all in the most recent figures available. Jobcentres also recorded their busiest opening quarter on the programme.

Here are five things we learned.

1. Outcomes have fallen to their lowest level since the data began

DWP tracks SWAP participants through HM Revenue and Customs earnings records and reports the proportion with earnings six months after they started.

Of those who began a SWAP in September 2025, 35.2 per cent were earning six months later.

No monthly cohort has performed worse since the series started in April 2021, when the figure stood at 55.6 per cent. Participants who started in October and August last year, at 35.8 per cent and 36 per cent, produced the second and third worst results.

All three of those months appeared in the data for the first time today.

The department also tracks participants at nine months, which allows for people who take longer to find work. That measure is falling too, from 44.5 per cent for those who started in February 2025 to 39.9 per cent for those who started in July.

The figures cast doubt on a claim DWP made in May, when it said around four in ten SWAP participants moved into “sustained work” within six months. The measure counts anyone with earnings in a single month, not sustained employment.

Outcomes data was published for the first time this April, five years after the programme was expanded and following an FE Week investigation into the department’s refusal to release it.

2. Ministers missed last year’s target, then raised it by 15 per cent

Jobcentres delivered 97,130 SWAP starts in 2025-26, short of the 100,000 target. That target had itself been raised from the 80,000 that applied in each of the four previous years.

Ministers increased it again, to 115,000, for 2026-27.

Delivery so far suggests the higher target is achievable. Jobcentres recorded 28,490 starts between April and June, up 22.9 per cent on the same quarter last year.

Last year’s first quarter accounted for just under 24 per cent of the eventual annual total. On the same trajectory, 2026-27 would finish close to 119,400 starts.

3. Public sector, construction and security dominate

Pre-employment training is bought to match local employer vacancies, so the sector mix shows what colleges and providers are being asked to deliver.

Three sectors accounted for close to half of all starts in the quarter. The public sector was the largest at 5,190, followed by construction on 4,960 and security on 3,190.

Construction has grown 33 per cent since 2021-22 and recorded 16,620 starts last year, its strongest yet. Security has grown at a similar rate and now takes more than one start in ten.

The fastest growth over the life of the programme has been in education and teaching, which covers support roles in schools and colleges rather than teaching posts. Starts rose from 3,120 in 2021-22 to 8,910 last year, close to a threefold increase, though growth flattened this quarter at 5.6 per cent.

Elsewhere, the figures have reversed. Logistics and freight transport was the fourth largest sector in 2021-22 and has fallen 40 per cent since, despite rebounding 61 per cent this quarter. Administration is down 12 per cent over the same period and manufacturing down 30 per cent.

Ministers named health and social care in May as one of three priority sectors for the expanded programme, alongside construction and hospitality.

Healthcare recorded 3,880 starts last year, unchanged from 2021-22. Adult social care reached 3,270, having grown 30 per cent over four years from a low base. Between them the two sectors account for under 7 per cent of starts this quarter

4. Earnings have not improved in real terms

Participants who found work earned an average £1,415 a month six months after starting during 2025-26, up from £1,215 for the first group tracked in 2021-22.

That 16.5 per cent cash increase is slightly below inflation. Consumer prices rose 18.3 per cent between the months the two groups were actually earning, leaving the latest figure around 1.6 per cent lower in real terms.

Adjusted to today’s prices, the four earlier years land between £1,376 and £1,438. Four years on, participants who find work are earning no more than the first group did.

DWP has used the figure itself, citing average earnings of £1,400 a month when it announced the expanded target in May.

What the data does not show is the quality of the jobs behind it, a gap flagged when the department published its impact assessment of the programme last year.

That assessment found that for every 100 people who started a SWAP, roughly an extra 13 were in work two years later than in a matched comparison group. It also found the programme returned £1.83 to the exchequer for every pound spent.

But Institute for Fiscal Studies economist Imran Tahir said the assessment gave an “incomplete picture” because it could not show what kind of jobs participants moved into, warning they “may be insecure and low-paid”. The monthly earnings figures are the first published data to address that.

Earlier DWP research, based on 93 interviews and published after FE Week pressed for it, found only a “small number” of claimants reported moving into work. Few were offered the work placement and job interview the programme is supposed to guarantee.

5. London dominates, and Greater Manchester lags

London accounted for 20,220 starts last year, more than one in five nationally, and recorded 6,330 in the quarter, up 40 per cent year on year. No other region reached 3,300.

Growth was fastest in the north east, where starts nearly doubled from a low base of 630 to 1,230, and in Yorkshire and the Humber, up 40 per cent. The east of England was slowest at 7.7 per cent.

At combined authority level, Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs recorded 4,180 starts in 2025-26. The seven boroughs of the West Midlands Combined Authority, covering a similar population, recorded 7,080. Birmingham on its own recorded 4,200, more than the whole of Greater Manchester.

West Yorkshire, with roughly a fifth fewer residents, also outstripped Greater Manchester on 4,500.

Mayoral combined authorities control adult skills funding in these areas. Mayors have separately told the National Audit Office they feel treated as “delivery arms of central government”, naming DWP among the departments initially reluctant to give ground on delivery targets.

Colleges hit hard as high-cost HE funding withdrawn

College higher education grant allocations for the 2026-27 academic year have fallen more than twice as fast as those across the wider sector, with Bradford College warning some arts courses will have to close.

FE Week analysis of initial Office for Students allocations to 139 further education colleges and designated institutions found their combined recurrent funding has dropped by £2.72 million, or 9.3 per cent, from £29.15 million to £26.43 million.

Comparable allocations across all providers fell by 3.9 per cent, from £1.243 billion in 2025-26 to £1.195 billion this year, meaning the college reduction was around 2.4 times faster.

Seven in ten colleges analysed, 98, will receive less than last year. Sixty-nine lose at least 10 per cent and 39 lose at least one-fifth.

Around £1.59 million of the college reduction was in high-cost course funding, while about £1.13 million was in student access and success allocations. Those allocations also reflect changes in weighted student numbers and other formula elements.

The government required the OfS to stop providing general high-cost subject funding for computing, nursing, geographical systems, archaeology and creative and performing arts. A separate £32.1 million supplement for nursing, midwifery and allied health courses remained.

Bradford College’s allocation was cut by £223,600, or 64.9 per cent, from £344,429 to £120,829.

Deputy chief executive Christopher Malish said removing high-cost funding for creative subjects meant some specialist higher education arts provision was “no longer financially sustainable”.

Many programmes had small student numbers and were delivered at a loss because of their educational and cultural value to Bradford, he said.

“We will now need to review, and in some cases close, niche higher education arts provision that can no longer be supported,” Malish added.

He criticised the timing, saying the changes came too late in the business-planning cycle and would place college-based higher education offers nationally at risk.

Bradford will accelerate its focus on employer-led level 4 and 5 higher technical provision in line with the industrial strategy and the West Yorkshire local skills improvement plan.

But Malish warned the wider reductions could harm widening participation and social mobility in a city where many learners were the first in their families to enter higher education.

Luminate Education Group’s allocation fell by £162,366, or 25.7 per cent.

The group said reductions to strategic priorities grant funding for creative arts and computing explained its loss.

University Centre Leeds will continue to offer the affected courses, but Luminate said the funding model failed to recognise their contribution to the UK economy, “creative arts in particular”.

NCG, the largest college group in England, received the biggest cash reduction among the colleges analysed. Its allocation fell by £708,687, or 30.7 per cent, from £2.31 million to £1.60 million.

A spokesperson said its allocation reflected “a number of changes to the funding methodology and eligibility criteria applied across the sector”.

NCG had anticipated the changes and planned accordingly, they added, with “no current plans” to alter its course offer.

Individual changes can also reflect providers’ student numbers, subject mix, study intensity and completion rates.

A government spokesperson said universities and colleges would receive more than £1.25 billion through the strategic priorities grant, alongside £336 million in capital funding over four years.

“While we have had to make difficult decisions across all our budgets, we have protected support for high-cost subjects and funding for students with disabilities and mental health needs,” they said.

DfE pointed to retained funding for chemistry, engineering and physics.

It said removed funding represented less than 3 per cent of total per-student funding once tuition fees were included, while inflation-linked fee rises were expected to generate around £6 billion for the sector over five years.

DfE and the OfS are reviewing the grant to target funding more closely at future skills needs and disadvantaged students.

DfE did not address why college allocations had fallen 2.4 times faster than comparable allocations across all providers.

The Office for Students was approached for comment.