The King’s Speech: Much to celebrate but something is missing

As the priorities for our new government were laid bare in today’s King’s Speech, there is much to be excited about for those working in the further education and skills sector. However, as is often the case in politics, interpreting the legislative agenda is as much about what isn’t said as what is.

Labour’s previous promise to ‘pause and review’ the Conservatives’ plans to defund qualifications that compete with T Levels was never gong to feature today, because it doesn’t require primary legislation. However, continued silence on the matter is of grave concern, especially after yesterday’s intervention by Gordon Brown and Lord Sainsbury.

The formal announcement of the new Skills England is welcome. It promises to partner together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade. 

So is official recognition in Labour’s report Breaking down the Barriers to Opportunity that in recent years there has been a lack of clarity and an absence of a long-term strategy under which learners, businesses and training providers could thrive.

But why no mention of that promise to pause and review Level 3 qualifications? If it wasn’t technically necessary for the King’s Speech, the sector would nevertheless benefited from some certainty in this regard.

As reported in FE Week, former prime minister Gordon Brown and Lord David Sainsbury have called on the new government to ignore that promise. They call for an end to “the ‘wild west’ situation that currently exists”. According to them, the multiple and overlapping vocational courses of “varying quality” on offer to school leavers “supress talent”.

At the Skills and Education Group, where our core mission is to advance skills and education to improve the lives of individuals, we couldn’t disagree more.

Limiting post-16 education to a choice between A Levels, T Levels or an apprenticeship, narrows learner and provider choice, reduces opportunity and does absolutely nothing for social mobility. 

The result would be many learners falling by the wayside

It puts the emphasis on and the opportunity back into the hands of those who are academically driven and causes us to ignore the heavily practical, hands-on training that currently epitomises vocational training.

I am a product of an FE vocational training course. I did not thrive in a classroom setting. I am also the former chair of the Federation of Awarding Bodies. Now, as chief executive of the Skills and Education Group, I know that a choice of courses, of ways in which to learn and of environments to learn in is crucial if we are to serve all of the young people we should.

Yes, options may need tidying and standards may need clarifying, but to eradicate a breadth of choice would be a big mistake. The result would be many learners falling by the wayside: the carers, chefs, computer programmers, engineers, builders and the chief executives of tomorrow.

Let’s not forget: we know there are already problems with T Levels. Reports are starting to emerge of low attainment, especially in deprived areas. We know there aren’t enough work placements to fulfil the T Level offer. And we also know it is near impossible to create T Levels in some disciplines.

So we would ask the government to give our sector that pause and review. You say you want economic growth, to partner businesses and working people and to break barriers to opportunity. Please don’t start by reducing the opportunity currently open to many. 

Why Gordon Brown is wrong to go against Labour’s T Level promise

Few former Prime Ministers have been as vocal in championing FE and skills as Gordon Brown, who has picked out skills for young people as “central” to Labour’s growth mission. He makes a hard-to-ignore call to action for the new chancellor to move skills and post-16 technical qualifications “from the sidelines to centre stage” in the upcoming budget. 

Unfortunately, on the basis of Edge’s latest interim report, What do students really think about T Levels?, I’m not sure we can agree on the best way to do that. 

Brown has recently written a foreword to a new report, Delivering Skills for Growth. The report blames the “critical skills gaps” (which we have highlighted consistently at Edge through our Skills Shortage Bulletins) on “failures in post-16 technical education”.

This is a grossly unfair argument, when technical skills and preparing young people for the world of work pre-16 have been supressed by policymakers embattled in ideological debates for decades. 

The WPI Strategy report, “supported by” T Levels architect Lord Sainsbury, suggests: “T Levels are already producing strong outcomes. Almost all T Level completers move on to employment, apprenticeships, or university degrees”. This is intended to bolster the case for accelerating their roll-out and to ignore calls to pause and review the bonfire of BTECs. 

However, our research finds that T Levels are not (yet) well enough established in the qualifications landscape for students to feel confident that employers and universities will value, recognise or even be aware of their qualification on completion.

Students told us they felt “apprehensive” about their prospects, sometimes limited by the very specialist nature of the course. The path to “good pay in the very sectors of the economy where we are experiencing key shortages” may be there, but it takes time to be realised. 

That “almost all” who complete a T Level do not become NEET at the end of their course is not exactly the marker of successful outcomes you might expect from a report calling for their accelerated roll-out. 

But critically, this claim also skirts the major challenge affecting T Levels: poor retention. It therefore masks a whole host of issues with the qualification which we must first examine and address, before cutting off viable alternatives for good. 

T Levels have potential – but potential is where they currently stand

According to FE Week’s analysis, among the 2021/22 cohort, nearly one in three (31 per cent) of 16-year-old T Level students withdrew from their course. This compares with one in five students on other large VTQs and one in ten A Level students that same year. 

The risk of making such bold claims is that we skew the truth and mislead young people.

During our focus groups, many students described having been ‘mis-sold’ the qualification. The actual experience of their T-Level course diverged significantly from their expectations, set by the guidance and information they received when making choices.

These include reliance on rote learning and PowerPoints over opportunities for practical, hands-on work, limited subject-specific teacher knowledge, high teacher turnover, as well as a lack of textbooks for certain courses and of past papers for exam preparation. 

Where we can agree is on the importance of rocket-boosting communication and promotion efforts with employers.

Industry placements were a key selling point for the students we spoke to, and often their favourite part of the course. However, we heard how a limited pool of employers meant common delays (of more than a year) to commencing placements, causing unnecessary stress for students over whether they would actually be able to complete their qualification. 

It’s great that 65 per cent of firms who hadn’t previously heard of a T Level would look at offering an industry placement, but we’ve got to make it easy for them. That means solid communication between parties, reliable guidance and support, flexible delivery and bureaucracy kept to an absolute minimum. 

Of course, one way to force T Levels to ‘work’ is to remove the competition. That is definitely an option available to the new skills minister, who served under Brown at the end of the last Labour administration.

After all, the post-16 landscape is over-crowded. But there is a balance to strike. Our polling of adults in England at the start of this year revealed that 57 per cent think young people should actually have more choice in 16-18 education. 

There are also much bigger questions around T Levels as a replacement for other level 3 technical qualifications:

  • the chunkiness of the qualification
  • squeezing out any room for modularity and ‘mix-and-match’ with other subjects (currently possible with BTECs and A Levels)
  • whether a twin-track system of A Levels and T Levels would actually entrench divisions, undoing years of progress to build parity of esteem
  • their value in a properly functioning apprenticeship system, with lower-level apprenticeships readily available to young people, and progression pathways onto degree apprenticeships for those wishing to pursue more ‘academic’ study. 

T-Levels have potential. They sought to raise the status of technical qualifications, and that can only be a good thing. But potential is where they currently stand.

So, while young people, their advisers (parents and careers leaders), educators and employers get to grips with the many benefits that T Levels can offer and we resolve the teething issues to deliver high-quality provision and good outcomes for all young people, it would be re-miss to toy with the credible alternatives in the meantime. 

It’s good to see healthy debate and challenge within the Labour party’s education and skills policy, but let’s listen to the views of young people undertaking these qualifications to make sure they don’t get caught in the crossfire. 

Between October 2023 and May 2024, we visited 11 colleges across England, conducted 28 focus groups and 13 interviews with 210 T Level students (Foundation Level, Year 1 and Year 2), and 24 teachers and staff supporting T Level students. 

Positive trends hide serious 16-19 challenges for the new government

EPI has this week published its latest annual report, which highlights inequalities in students’ educational attainment in 2023. The findings show that since 2019, economically disadvantaged students have fallen further behind their peers in the early years, key stage 2 and key stage 4 phases of education. In contrast, the 16-19 disadvantage attainment gap appears to have returned to 2019 levels.

Comparing through time has been somewhat messy in recent years. Two years of cancelled exams and a staggered return to usual grade boundaries make direct comparisons a bit of a non-starter, so we instead focus on how gaps compare to 2019, prior to the pandemic.

In the 16-19 phase, economically disadvantaged students appear to be no further behind their peers than they were in 2019, though this is no cause for celebration. We know that there have been changes in the participation rate, retention and choice of post-16 qualifications since 2019 too.

These compositional effects will impact our measurement of the gap, and we will be exploring this through a deeper analysis to be published later this year. 

Moreover, a return to 2019 levels means we have seen no meaningful improvement since before the pandemic. Disadvantaged students are still 3.2 grades behind their peers across their best three results by the end of 16-19 study.

If we dig a bit deeper than our headline trend, we see other less positive patterns emerging.

Looking at A Level students only, economically disadvantaged students are over half a grade behind per qualification. This is a small increase since 2019, and we see similar trends among disadvantaged applied general students and those taking other level 3 qualifications.

It is safe to say that the new government has inherited a post-16 education system that has not worked well for a large cross-section of the young people it is meant to serve. This could be a moment of opportunity, but are the plans set out to date bold enough to make a material difference?

Disadvantaged students fall further behind during the 16-19 phase

There were some good ambitions set out in the Labour manifesto, as scrutinised in our recent general election report. However, they lacked detail.

Rolling out T Levels looks set to continue, but challenges with take-up and securing work placements remain.

Meanwhile, pausing and reviewing the defunding of the alternative level 3 qualifications is a positive step to ensure students from all backgrounds have suitable options available to them; but not going ahead with a planned Conservative policy is hardly the kick-start that the sector desperately needs.

Enabling providers to become ‘Technical Excellence Colleges’ formed another key part of Labour’s post-16 vocational offer, which will be funded through local skills improvement plans. If well executed, this may improve outcomes for the students attending these institutions. However, there is a long history of specialist institutions struggling to recruit students. They sound great in a manifesto or policy announcement, but focusing more on supporting existing colleges may ultimately be a more effective approach.

Reforms to apprenticeship funding are long overdue, as the decline in take-up under the current system demonstrates. Despite this, it is not clear how the increased flexibility Labour are proposing will boost take-up among young and disadvantaged learners, for which apprenticeship numbers have dwindled in recent years.

More positively, Labour’s commitment to form a cross-government child poverty strategy is a very welcome pledge and reflects a long-standing EPI recommendation. We know that much of the attainment gap in the 16-19 phase is a result of disadvantaged students falling behind in earlier phases. Therefore, addressing poverty at younger ages will also have the benefit of helping to reduce this gap.

However, it is also the case that disadvantaged students fall further behind during the 16-19 phase. None of the policies set out so far by the new government would appear to do much to address this. They are largely tinkering at the edges.

Plans to raise participation, retention and attainment among the most vulnerable students are needed if we are to make progress in closing the gap.

The new government should begin by focusing on addressing the teacher recruitment and retention crisis in the FE sector, where the majority of disadvantaged learners study. More support for disadvantaged students in 16-19 education is also required, preferably in the form of a student premium.

For many young people the 16-19 phase is the final opportunity to address the educational inequalities that they have experienced over their lifetimes. If the new government is to make progress on closing long-standing inequalities, it must not forget the 16-19 phase.

Personal statements reforms to ‘level playing field’

Personal statements for university hopefuls will be reformed to replace the “love letter” free text box with structured questions to help “level the playing field” for poorer students. 

UCAS has announced three new questions students will have to answer (see below) after concerns progress is stalling on encouraging disadvantaged students to apply for university.

It hopes the change will help “level the playing field” and make sure students from all backgrounds “better understand the key information universities and colleges want to know about them when making admissions decisions”.

The new format will be introduced in September 2025 for students applying for 2026 entry.

In England, the application rate from the most disadvantaged backgrounds has slightly declined by 0.4 percentage points to 25.4 per cent. However, this has risen by 0.1 percentage points to 60.7 per cent for the most advantaged. 

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at Exeter University, said the reform “was a significant step in making the university admissions system a little bit fairer for all applicants”.

“The love letter from a university applicant to their chosen university subject has increasingly become a barometer of middle-class privilege as so many personal statements are now co-created and polished by advisers, teachers and parents.

Dr Jo Saxton
Dr Jo Saxton

“This welcome reform strikes the right balance between a more structured approach to deter fabrication, while not limiting the opportunity for applicants to personalise their statement.”

Previous UCAS research found 89 per cent of students felt that the purpose of the personal statement is clear, but 79 per cent reported that the process of writing the statement was difficult to complete without support.

Kevin Gilmartin, post 16 specialist at the Association of Schools and College Leaders, welcomed the change, adding: “The current ‘text box’ approach is far too vague and has favoured students who are able to draw on support from family members that have previously been to university and submitted personal statements themselves. 

“The switch to structured questions will provide much needed clarity to students about what information they should be including. These questions should also be of more use to admissions tutors than the old-style personal statements, which research has shown were barely being read in many cases.”

Dr Jo Saxton, UCAS chief executive and former Ofqual chief regulator, said the new approach will give “greater confidence” to students as well as their teachers “when advising on how to secure their dream course”.

Last month, UCAS also waived the application fee for students on free school meals. 

The questions:

  • Why do you want to study this course or subject? 
    This is an applicant’s opportunity to showcase their passion for and knowledge of their chosen subject, to demonstrate to universities and colleges why they are a good fit, and to outline any future ambitions.  
  • How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject? 
    In this section applicants can describe relevant or transferable skills they’ve gained in education, and demonstrate their understanding of how these will help them succeed in their chosen course or subject area.  
  • What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences helpful? 
    Here applicants can reflect on their personal experiences, and any other activities they have undertaken outside their education to further demonstrate their suitability for the course.  

King’s Speech 2024: What’s in it for FE and skills?

Labour will use its first term in government to devolve even more skills powers to local areas alongside its high-profile plans for a new national skills body, Skills England.

King Charles III officially opened this parliamentary session this morning with the customary speech from the House of Lords. The King’s Speech outlined 40 new pieces of legislation that the government will seek to pass in the next 12 months.

He said: “My ministers will seek to raise educational standards and break down barriers to opportunity. Action will be taken to get people back in employment following the impact of the pandemic. A bill will be introduced to raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing.”

Here’s what you need to know about legislative plans for FE and skills:

Teacher bans back

Labour could be about to revive plans to impose lifetime bans on teachers guilty of serious misconduct in colleges and training providers. 

A children’s wellbeing bill was announced in today’s King’s Speech that will extend teacher misconduct rules and allow regulators to investigate cases “regardless of when the misconduct occurred” and “the setting the teacher is employed in”.

The Department for Education consulted on widening teacher misconduct rules to FE providers in 2022. The last government planned to include legislation in its schools bill, but the bill was dropped.

Under previous plans, FE colleges, special post-16 institutions and independent training providers will have a legal duty to decide whether to refer cases of serious misconduct for the Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA) to investigate. The TRA has powers to issue prohibition orders – preventing someone from working in teaching. 

The broadened remit for the TRA would “reduce the risk of a prohibited person trying to work between [pre and post-16] sectors”, the DfE said when it consulted.

FE Week has asked the DfE to confirm if this measure in the King’s Speech will apply to post-16 settings.

Qualified teachers?

New teachers in FE, as well as schools, could be required to have or work towards teaching qualifications.

The children’s wellbeing bill announced today will “recognise the status of the teaching profession” by mandating qualified teacher status.

The last government removed requirements for FE teachers to have or work towards qualified status in 2013. Since then, individual colleges and providers have been allowed to decide for themselves what, if any, teaching qualifications they expect from their teachers.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said last week Labour’s manifesto commitment for 6,500 new “expert” teachers will apply to schools and colleges. In its manifesto, Labour said it will also introduce a teacher training entitlement as well as returning to mandatory qualified status. 

DfE has been asked to confirm whether new qualified teacher requirements will apply to FE settings.

Wake me up, before you devo

Labour’s pre-election promises to give local leaders, like mayors, more powers over skills and employment support will be part of an English devolution bill. 

Details emerging from the King’s Speech are scarce, however Number 10 said the bill will introduce an “ambitious standardised devolution framework” with “greater powers” in return for new local growth plans. 

According to Labour’s manifesto, the plans will involve employers, colleges and universities setting out how they will support local growth sectors. It’s not clear whether these will replace existing local skills improvement plans. 

The government will also speed up devolution settlements in areas currently without one. For established devolved areas, “advanced mayoral settlements” will be created “where there is capacity and ambition to do so”.

MCAs and the Greater London Authority will be responsible for 62 per cent of the adult skills fund budget in academic year 2024/25 and “further devolution is planned”, a Number 10 press briefing announcement said.

Employment rights

Proposals to introduce minimum service levels, which the last government said would limit the impact of strikes, have been dropped. 

Labour’s workers’ rights drive will also see new laws banning zero-hours contracts and giving employees the right to sue for unfair dismissal from the first day of employment. 

An employment rights bill will be introduced to give employees immediate access to parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal.

Since 2012, employees don’t obtain “full” employment rights until they have clocked up two years of consecutive service. 

Pay reporting

Organisations with over 250 employees will be required to report on the pay of their ethnic minority and disabled staff. 

A draft equality (race and disability) bill will be introduced by the government, mirroring existing requirements for reporting on gender pay gaps. 

“Surfacing pay gaps will enable companies to constructively consider why they exist and how to tackle them,” Number 10 said. 

What’s next?

Politicians will begin six days of debates on the King’s Speech tomorrow. 

Baroness Jacqui Smith, the new minister for skills, further and higher education, will make her debut maiden speech in the House of Lords on Friday introducing the education elements of the King’s Speech.

After the debates, bills will begin to be introduced and make their way through both houses of parliament.

Nobody benefits from endlessly delaying level 3 reform

What is happening in terms of qualification reform, and in particular much of our sector’s response to it, brings to mind an activity I have built in to a programme on organisational culture and leadership I have delivered on and off over the years.

Over lunch, when everyone is out of the way, I set about adjusting one of the pictures in the room so that it is crooked. Then I just leave it and say nothing. By the end of the afternoon, without exception, someone always feels the need to put it back in place. And here we are.

We have entered a very interesting phase of the reform debate, with Labour having made a commitment when in opposition to “pause and review” of the current direction of travel with regards to T Levels and BTECs.

Notably, this was not a manifesto commitment. Then today, Gordon Brown and Lord Sainsbury used their powerful voices to counter that this would be a mistake.

The last Labour government’s answer to technical education was to introduce the 14-19 Diplomas. This set of unwieldy qualifications were a watered-down response to the 2004 Tomlinson Report, which had recommended reform of academic as well as technical education.

Initially, these 14-19 Diplomas were intended to support a simplified and streamlined post-16 offer which would ultimately consist of the Diplomas, A-levels, apprenticeships and a foundation learning tier for young people operating below level 1.

However, this aspiration was also watered down as competing qualifications – such as BTECs – were not discontinued. The sector’s resistance to change won the day.

It was unsurprising that the new Diplomas were promptly ditched by the coalition government when it came into power in 2010. With them went millions of pounds, countless hours of pointless meetings deciding how these damn things were to be delivered between schools and colleges, and several rainforests’ worth of resources and paperwork.

Nearly a decade later, the last government’s panacea to the thorny issue of technical education was of course the T Level. Sitting alongside A-levels and apprenticeships, they would finally allow us to attain the nirvana of a simplified and streamlined post-16 offer, supported by a review of qualifications below level 3.

At the time, I couldn’t help feeling we’d uncannily ended up in very similar territory to where New Labour finished, with at least two notable exceptions. This time there was a determination to switch off the alternatives, as well as an aspiration to ultimately merge A-levels and T Levels into the Advanced British Standard (ironically taking us full circle to realise the key ambition of the Tomlinson Report).

Now, of course, all of this is up in the air again. What does seem clear is that unlike the 14-19 Diplomas, T Levels will remain. This is a good thing. T Levels have real potential whereas those 14-19 Diplomas were just awful.

It is also still widely expected that there will be the eagerly awaited ‘pause and review’ announcement, even in spite of those influential voices speaking out against it. If so, I hope we avoid going completely backwards to witness T Levels suffer their own demise – only to be replaced by some other new solution in a decade’s time.

What I can’t subscribe to is the argument that the current system worked fine before the latest reforms. It didn’t.

The qualification landscape is far too bewildering. Many vocational (i.e. applied general) qualifications at level 3 provide reasonable preparation for higher education courses (predominantly those in post-92 universities), but do they all adequately provide the actual skills employers are looking for?

There are major skills shortages across many sectors, but no shortage of young people taking existing qualifications in these areas. In some cases we are even struggling to meet student demand, so something isn’t right – and yes, I know I’m at risk of oversimplifying a very complex issue.

We should not in any case cease the current direction of travel, but we do need to make sure it’s on the right tracks. So if a ‘pause and review’ is to be useful, here is what it should address:

Meeting needs

The first job will be to conduct a sector-by-sector review of the current reform agenda to ensure the approach to new and discontinued qualifications will meet industry and learner needs. The removal of level 3 electrical is a good example of where the current approach hasn’t been well thought out.

Progression coherence

The review should specifically look at the content and assessment of the new T Levels. In their current form they remain niche given entry requirements are as rigorous as A-levels.

A wider issue here is that GCSEs are geared towards A-levels and ultimately university education. They aren’t really fit for the purpose of supporting progression into technical education (something we are at the beginning of thinking about in Greater Manchester).

Progression breadth

Any reform below level 3 should also be a consideration so that it provides clear and effective progression routes into further study and also into employment.

Regarding the latter, we shouldn’t assume that the main purpose of any qualification is to lead immediately to another – a good job with training can be an equally valid progression outcome.

Protecting student choice

We also need clarity on the role and purpose of the new proposed Alternative Academic Qualifications (AAQs) and Technical Occupational Qualifications (TOCs) and their potential to protect student choice. This will help avoid the predicted armageddon that will swiftly follow any bonfire of BTECs.

Ultimately we have to ensure that whatever the result of any pause and review process, we end up with a system that more effectively aligns with the skills employers need, and with students at the heart of its design and delivery.

And what we absolutely must not do is to put the picture back in its place, only for the cycle of reform and resistance to resume.

Labour must keep choice at the heart of post-16 pathways

It would be fair to say that Labour has not wasted any time since the election in ensuring there is real energy and noise around their commitment for change. This week will surely be the week where they focus on what it means strategically for their departments, what can be tackled quickly versus what needs to be done thoughtfully and based on a longer-term plan and, we hope, real evidence. 

The inbox of education secretary Bridget Phillipson will undoubtedly be piling high with a range of stakeholders and influencers trying to ensure their messages land and are put on the top of the to-do list. I do not envy her or her team!  

Among those messages today is one from Lord Sainsbury, backed by former prime minister Gordon Brown, calling on the government to commit to the T Level programme and the defunding of similar technical qualifications.

It is agreed by many, myself included, that technical education needs to be a priority. 

A good technical education system will be pivotal for closing skills gaps and driving economic growth. Many young people are excited by the opportunities of technical education; more practical, more career-relevant and more skills-based curriculums suit them. 

But they need to be the right quality programmes, at the right levels and meet the needs of the learners, which over the years have grown more complex. 

We know that with 900,000 NEET young people and employers identifying the continued challenge of skills gaps, that the system is not working. Young people feel disconnected from education and opportunity. 

In February we released our year-long commission on level 2 and level 3 education reform. The commission found there are clear gaps in the system left by the T Level rollout and that young people, particularly those who are disadvantaged, are at risk of falling out of the education system with a binary choice A- or T Level choice at age 16. 

The practical delivery and costs of T Levels certainly, along with dropout and success rates need careful consideration before a carte blanche approach is taken. 

But the answer to solving these issues cannot be to simply “do like the Conservatives did”.

In the schools world, Labour has committed to its election promises to review the school curriculum and to increase access to work experience. Careers education could also become hyper-local with greater devolution if the mayors get their way. 

All of that means young people should have choices. No one is arguing T Levels shouldn’t be a valid and aspirational choice for school leavers. But qualifications are just one piece of the puzzle. When it comes to choosing what to do post-16, schools and colleges must be able to access qualifications that suit the needs of students. 

Lord Sainsbury’s report today glossed over the needs of students who need to work alongside their post-16 studies, as well as those pursuing a career not covered by T Levels. There are valid and legitimate reasons why a T Level isn’t attractive to some young people, in the same way that other qualifications also have their pros and cons.

Keeping choices open isn’t about protecting vested interests as Lord Sainsbury’s report alleges. It is about having an offer that reflects the real priorities and demands of students.

I would therefore add to Bridget Phillipson’s growing inbox with a call to commit to a pause and review, and to explore with the sector how we can bring all these pieces together to simplify and improve the system. We are close but not yet there. 

At the centre of the system should be Labour’s mission to breaking down barriers and ensuring our education system works for everyone.

Labour must seize the opportunity to revitalise creative FE

As policymakers across the UK adjust to the new political landscape following the general election, there is a desire in each of the four nations to enhance economic growth. There will be a focus on supporting priority sectors with high growth potential. The creative industries are one of of these, as recognised in each of the UK nations through dedicated sector strategies.

Each places a strong emphasis on skills, given the extensive demands for a highly skilled creative workforce across the UK. Current skill reform interventions and strategies in different parts of the UK seek to strengthen pathways to the creative industries to reduce skills shortages.

As the labour market continually changes, there is significant focus on the role of further education (FE), not only to support progression routes into higher education but also to enhance opportunities to get into, and progress, in creative careers.

So, how is it faring? Research published today by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC) and carried out by Work Advance aimed to find out.

Due to there being four separate skills systems in the UK, the research presents evidence on creative FE in each nation. While the policy contexts are distinct, with differences in the learning programmes and qualifications each nation delivers, we find a similar picture of the current state of FE in each.

Low and falling take-up

Despite common policy aspirations to grow lifelong learning, the research shows that creative FE has been declining in each of the UK nations over the past decade. While this is the case across the FE sector generally (in part reflecting reductions in funding), enrolments in creative subjects have been falling much more rapidly than in other subjects.

Although each nation has aimed to extend the range of work-based learning programmes such as apprenticeships, growth in these areas has been insufficient to counter the wider declines. Indeed, the take-up of creative apprenticeships remains very low in all nations.

Mixed outcomes

The research also points to a mixed picture of outcomes among creative learners pursuing different pathways. This raises the importance of continuing to enhance the quality and relevance of skills programmes over time in response to labour market changes, so that they support stronger learner destinations.

Disparities across the board

Moreover, while broadening access and enhancing the inclusiveness of learning have been common UK-wide policy intentions, the research points to limits in diversity. Creative learners tend to be less ethnically and socioeconomically diverse than the wider FE student population. Furthermore, creative FE is highly concentrated in more urban regions, with more limited provision in rural areas.

Evolution, not revolution

Several implications emerge from this research. Chiefly, it highlights the importance of sustained policy commitments to strengthen FE, and in particular industry-facing technical training for the creative industries.

Across each nation, there have been common principles and design features guiding individual skills reforms. These seek to encourage lifelong learning, greater inclusion in learning among adults as well as young people, and stronger mechanisms to enhance the responsiveness of programmes including the customisation of FE to better meet varying geographical and sector labour market needs.

While the research highlights some of the challenges in achieving these goals, this does not point to a need for wholesale change. Instead, the dramatic realignment of the political landscape presents an opportunity to take stock, refocus and look to ways to build on existing progress.

With the likely introduction of a new industrial strategy by UK Government, the dedicated sector strategies in each nation can be revisited and policy and funding priorities reviewed.

This will present opportunities to more closely reflect on sector skills interventions to support greater learner and employer engagement, including incentives, communication tools, and the design and delivery of a broader range of skills programmes co-designed with creative employers.

Differences in the existing initiatives between the home nations provide fertile ground to share insights on what’s working. There will also be benefits in ongoing research to track changes in skills needs to understand trends in creative FE and how best to respond in future.

Creative Further Education in the four UK Nations: 2024 is written by Work Advance for and published by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, which is led by Newcastle University with the Royal Society of Arts and funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Read it in full here

King’s speech: Government to shift powers from IfATE to ‘Skills England’

New legislation that paves the way for a body called Skills England by “transferring functions” from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has been announced in the King’s speech.

In his address for the first state opening of parliament under a Labour government in 15 years, the monarch also confirmed his ministers will “reform the apprenticeship levy”.

The speech sets out the government’s legislative agenda for the next year, which will include a Skills England bill.

Labour pledged to establish Skills England in the run up to the election. The aim of the body will be to “bring together businesses, providers, unions, mayoral combined authorities (MCAs) and national government to ensure we have the highly trained workforce that England needs”, a Number 10 press briefing document said.

There will be consequences for existing quango IfATE, which currently works with employers to develop, approve, review and revise apprenticeships and technical qualifications.

FE Week reported this month that IfATE had reduced its headcount by 30 staff, including second-in-command Rob Nitsch, after being ordered to find savings by the Department for Education.

It is not clear from today’s announcement exactly what parts of the institute will be transferred to Skills England. A timeline for launching the new body has not yet been released.

There is also no mention of Skills England’s responsibilities in areas of higher education, such as the incoming lifelong learning entitlement. Its relationship with HE regulator the Office for Students also gets no mention in today’s King’s speech documents.

Number 10 said: “The Bill will transfer functions from IfATE to Skills England, which will sit at the heart of a system that provides learners with the skills required to thrive in life, businesses with the trained workforce they need to succeed, and local areas with access to the right skills to spur economic growth.

“Skills England will support economic growth by greater coherence to the assessment of skills needs and training landscape; ensuring training programmes are well designed and delivered to meet these needs; and that regional and national skills systems are providing the skilled workforce needed to enable businesses to thrive and to contribute to the Industrial Strategy at the heart of our growth mission.”

Reformed apprenticeship levy role

One key task of Skills England will be to identify non-levy training eligible for funding under Labour’s proposed “growth and skills levy”, set to replace the apprenticeship levy.

Today’s announcement didn’t include any further details about how Labour’s new levy would operate, but the party previously said it plans to allow up to 50 per cent of employer payments to be spent on non-apprenticeship training.

Skills England will “consult on (and maintain a list of) levy-eligible training to ensure value for money, and that the mix of government-funded training available to learners and employers aligns with skills needs,” Number 10 said today.

The body will also be tasked with developing a “single picture of national and local skills needs”. This will involve Skills England working with industry, the Migration Advisory Committee, unions and the Industrial Strategy Council to “build and maintain a comprehensive assessment of current and future skills needs” to help inform the Department for Education’s policy priorities.

Number 10 said the volume of skills shortage vacancies in England more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, from 226,500 to 531,200. Skills England will “build the evidence base needed to address these gaps and will be responsible for sharing this insight with actors at a national and regional level, supporting the development of provision that addresses this need”.

Skills England will also “ensure that the national and regional skills systems are meeting skills needs and are aligned, including using local and regional vacancy data as part of a robust evidence base”. The body will “convene MCAs and other key stakeholders to identify system issues and provide advice to Government, leading to a more coherent system”.

IfATE and DfE have been approached for comment.