The government’s top civil servant in charge of apprenticeships, Peter Mucklow, is set to retire.
He will be replaced in the job in the Department for Education by Kate Ridley-Moy “later this year”.
Mucklow has been a civil servant working in the education and skills sector for over 25 years, mostly recently overseeing the apprenticeships reform programme and rollout of skills bootcamps.
Ridley-Moy is currently a senior civil servant at the Home Office, working as head of central crisis command. She previously worked at DfE for over 11 years as assistant director and head of participation and careers.
Mucklow assumed the position of apprenticeships and skills bootcamps director from fellow high-profile civil servant Keith Smith in 2020, who left the DfE to become chief executive of Harrow College and Uxbridge College.
That year, Mucklow was also named the official delegate for WorldSkills and WorldSkills Europe.
Before that, he worked as the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of further education from 2018 to 2020.
The DfE told FE Week: “Kate Ridley-Moy has been appointed as Peter Mucklow’s successor as director of apprenticeships and skills bootcamps and is currently working alongside Peter at the Department for Education ahead of his retirement later this year.”
Central crisis command. A very appropriate role to be currently occupying for her new role. Hope she brings those skills to bear given the crisis she will be inheriting from Mr Mucklow who has been almost invisible since his appointment.
Careful what you wish for Jonathan. Given that it is the Home Office, the previous role was probably creating central crises not fixing them!
As the ApprenticeShip Titanic is now stationary, the Captain has withdrawn early having achieved less than 50% of the journey. Somebody has now been asked to leave their home office to take over the rest of the journey. She will immediately be wondering why the operating rules and instructions are so complicated and unnecessarily detailed, and no doubt will be bemused on the insistence on hitting a minimum of 20% of the target visible which is going to sink the ApprenticeShip !