Funding for Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy to improve UK adults’ maths skills ends in March, the government has confirmed.
The former prime minister hoped to “change people’s lives” when he revealed his “bespoke adult numeracy programme” Multiply in 2021.
Up to £560 million was set aside for a three-year period, part of the larger UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) that replaced European Union funding.
Sunak aimed to improve “poor” adult maths skills, based on estimates that about half the working-age population has the numeracy level of a primary school child.
A share of the budget was allocated to metro mayors and councils across England, which had flexibility to pay for courses they felt met local maths needs.
Last month the government reduced its commitment to the UKSPF from £1.5 billion to £900 million without confirming whether Multiply would continue.
The Department for Education, which was responsible for signing off each area’s Multiply plans, has now told FE Week the programme will end in March “as intended”.
Local government expert Jack Shaw said the Multiply programme was “poorly rolled-out” by the previous administration and “struggled to gain the momentum it needed” leading to an overall underspend.
Rishi Sunak’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
What is Multiply?
The aim of the programme was to boost people’s ability to use maths in daily life by offering free, flexible courses to people over age 19 who didn’t have a grade four or above in GCSE maths, or an equivalent qualification.
This fell under the previous government’s “levelling up” mission to secure a significant increase in the number of people who had completed high-quality skills training by 2030.
Public bodies commissioning courses from colleges, independent training providers and voluntary sector organisations were given flexibility to choose from a “menu” of course types, as long as they didn’t overlap with existing adult education.
These included courses designed to increase confidence with maths, money management, support for parents and carers, small business bookkeeping and employer-focused maths.
Did it work?
The decision to end Multiply comes before evaluations of its success are published.
The DfE hopes to receive the final report of a full national evaluation next autumn, six months after the programme ends, and has also commissioned randomised control trials into learner outcomes.
However, statistics released on Thursday suggest positive outcomes, with 68 per cent of 188,000 learners achieving in the first two years (2022-23 and 2023-24).
A DfE spokesperson said a core aim of the programme was to gather evidence about what works, and the findings of the evaluations will provide valuable lessons for future policy development.
Sue Pember, policy director at adult education network Holex, said: “The scheme has been instrumental in fostering collaboration and innovation across learning organisations and the voluntary sector, and we are confident that its legacy will continue to have a lasting impact.
“The amount of information and performance data each provider had to supply… you will see that this has been a robustly managed programme with several levels of scrutiny.
“Compared to skills bootcamps, this has been the gold standard of performance management.”
Local authority praise
Local authorities such as Essex County Council, which received a £7.9 million budget, said more than 8,600 learners benefitted from courses.
The county’s most popular courses were money management and family learning, with the highest uptake in Basildon, Colchester and Harlow.
Derby City Council said its Multiply programme was a “great success”.
Its “innovative” courses included maths embedded into creative arts and cooking on a budget courses.
Anna Mimms, head of employment, skills and adult education at the city council, said: “I don’t think there’s ever been a government initiative that has produced so many cakes.
“All of us found so many ways of using food… we’ve all done some quite joyous things.”
But as with the wider UKSPF, the programme’s launch was delayed by months while some local authorities waited for the government to sign off their investment plans.
This caused underspends, with only 27 per cent of the £270 million budget forecast to be spent by March, according to DfE estimates published this summer.
What’s next?
The DfE said councils and mayors can continue to fund other adult numeracy courses through UKSPF.
Derby City Council said it is “investigating alternative funding” to continue with maths projects, while Essex County Council said residents can continue to learn through community providers such as ACL Essex.
Marguerite Hogg, senior policy manager in adult education at the Association of Colleges, said: “Multiply has been a revelation in finding new and innovative ways to support adults with numeracy skills.
“We understand that there will be flexibility within UKSPF for mayoral combined authorities to continue to offer numeracy programmes to adults, even if they are not badged as Multiply.”
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