Skills England ‘doomed to fail’, says former education secretary

Skills England is “doomed to fail” if the government presses ahead with plans to establish it as an in-house agency without the independence of its predecessor, a former education secretary has claimed.

Damian Hinds, who headed up the Department for Education from 2018 to 2019, urged the government to amend legislation to guarantee the new skills “quango” independence from ministers.

Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate on T Levels and apprenticeships this afternoon, Hinds slammed Labour’s plans to introduce Skills England as an executive agency within the Department for Education, arguing its close proximity to ministers risks “eroding” public confidence in technical education standards. 

It comes as members of the House of Lords prepare to gather for the first committee stage debate of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions, etc) Bill tomorrow afternoon. The bill abolishes IfATE and hands its standards-setting powers to the education secretary. 

Hinds warned: “There is no guarantee of business continuing to be involved in setting those standards. I’m afraid public and business confidence is set to be eroded … Everybody knows that if you are in government and you are trying to increase the numbers of people doing anything in education, the easiest way is to erode those standards to get more people through.” 

Put it in the Treasury

Hinds also accused the government of undermining its own claims that Skills England will be a cross-government body with influence over other government departments.

“The instinct, I know, in difficult circumstances is to break glass and reach for a new quango. But Skills England isn’t even a quango, it is nada. It is not quasi-autonomous, it is a non-accountable department agency.

“If the government was really serious about creating something new to join together the Home Office, the business department, the DfE and everybody else, you’d put it in the Treasury, or you might put it in the Cabinet Office, but you wouldn’t just make it part of the DfE management structure.”

Defending the government, education minister Janet Daby repeated skills minister Jacqui Smith’s message to this month’s AELP conference: “I have heard worries that Skills England will not have the independence or authority that it needs, and I would like to dispel those concerns today. Skills England will have an independent board which will provide leadership and direction as well as scrutiny to ensure that it is operating effectively and within the agreed framework.”

However, the job description for Skills England’s chief executive, which has a salary of £130,000, doesn’t mention the board and states that the post reports to a more senior DfE civil servant.

Lords shadow education minister Baroness Barran has filed amendments to the bill that would require the Skills England chief executive to report to its board and establish the new organisation as an arms-length with IfATE’s powers.

Smith previously addressed concerns that employers would be left out of setting technical education and apprenticeship standards. She told the House of Lords second reading of the bill that employer involvement in designing standards and assessment plans will “remain the default position”.

The minister explained that the use of the secretary of state’s powers in the bill to approve standards themselves “will allow greater flexibility in scenarios where preparation by a group can be unnecessary or restrictive”.

Smith also committed to publishing any government-led changes to standards “in draft for stakeholder comment before they are finalised”.

However, the opposition is likely to continue to push for commitments in law.

Hinds said today: “So now the secretary of stater is going to have responsibility for standards for T Levels, can you imagine if that was for A-levels? If it’s not alright for A-levels, why should it be alright for T Levels?”

“I’d ask the minister to build into the design of Skills England proper, full independence from her department and a proper, full guiding role for business. And not just for ministers to say it, but for them to write that into the legislation.”