I welcome Members and witnesses to our evidence session this morning. This is the penultimate public evidence session in our inquiry on further education and skills. Can I start by asking witnesses to introduce yourselves to us and make any relevant declarations of interest? You will not necessarily have declarations, so do not feel obliged to do that, but if you have, please do at this stage.

Hello. My name is Clare Howard. I am chief executive of Natspec. We are the membership body for specialist disability colleges, and we undertake training for professionals across the further education sector in SEND.

Good morning. I am Emily Tanner. I am from the Nuffield Foundation, which is an independent, UK-wide funder of research addressing complex issues facing our society. We are one of the leading funders of education and skills research across the life course, with a particular focus on inequalities and disadvantage. I lead our work on post-14 education and skills.

Good morning. I am Qasim Hussain from the National Union of Students. My role is vice president for further education. A lot of my work involves speaking to colleges and student unions in further education. I am really excited to be here.

Good morning, everyone. I am Denise Rawls. I am the executive director of the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers. We are a charity working UK-wide with colleges and universities to transform the educational outcomes of young people with experience of care. I am care-experienced.

Thank you all very much for coming this morning. I will start our questioning. Can each of you summarise the most significant challenges facing further education students today, and what the Government should be doing to support students to overcome those challenges? Obviously, each of you will bring a different perspective from your organisation to that question.

There are two things for us. The first is the lack of consistency of support from local authorities. I looked through not all the jobs, but at least 10 of the live application routes into being a personal adviser, and not one of them had any requirement for the candidates to understand the educational pathways for young people and to be able to support them on that. The second thing would be the holistic approach required for young people to be successful in post-16 education. We have seen that our Quality Mark is having a real impact for young people, and we would like to see all colleges to make sure that they are signed up to the care covenant and to be required to come and work with NNECL, so that we can drive up those standards.

Could you tell us a bit about the Quality Mark?

The Quality Mark is a change management framework that looks at young people’s mental wellbeing and how the institution is supporting that young person in the round. We look at education, the learning space and how the institution works with those young people so that they don’t have to keep repeating their circumstances. As a result of that, we see that the dropout rate—whether it is to do with finances, accommodation or their mental health—significantly reduces and those young people complete their studies.

And that is specifically thinking about young people with care experience.

Yes. Those with care experience or who are estranged.

Qasim Hussain?

Thank you for having us here to share the student perspective. For us, it is about two things. One of the more concerning things that we have seen in further education is students being in literal poverty. We are seeing more and more students juggling work with caring responsibilities, and they are struggling to keep up with their courses and academic lives. The cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on students’ further education, especially those who are coming from lower income backgrounds. In fact, around one in three FE learners comes from the most disadvantaged backgrounds in England. With this crisis impacting more and more learners, we are seeing their mental health decrease and more cases of mental ill health across FE because of how much of an impact it is having on learners and apprentices. There are cases where learners are struggling to get to college or their place of work, and to keep up with transport and meals. Another thing within the whole aspect is that learners are struggling to have a voice within their college. We are seeing some really good examples of student voice at colleges where there is funding and student voice mechanisms to make it work. But unfortunately, that is not the case everywhere, and student voice is pivotal in listening to what learners want from their educational experience. I came from Leeds City College and we had a really good student union. We were able to work with learners to build community and to have those conversations. But in this role I have realised that that is not the case in FE across the country, and some learners are really struggling to fit into college and have that space where they feel like college is more than just an academic experience. That is picking up more and more, and we are starting to see learners feeling disengaged with college and like it is system where it is them versus the college.

Dr Tanner?

I have three points that I would like to raise, based on the research funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The first is the challenge of the resourcing of FE and skills, which is not currently adequate to meet student needs or deliver economic growth. We have funded major research programmes recently, such as the Skills Imperative 2035, the Economy 2030 inquiry and the Pissarides review into the future of work and wellbeing. Those programmes make very clear the importance of FE and skills for increasing the skill levels to meet the changing labour market needs. I know that you heard from the IFS in a previous session. Its education spending work that we have funded, including last week’s report for the spending review, makes clear in detail the extent to which current funding levels fall short. The second challenge that I would raise is the insufficient alignment between qualifications at all levels and labour market needs. We think that stronger co-ordination between stakeholders and the skills system is really important for enabling young people to access good jobs. Through their comparison of skills systems across the UK, the University of Oxford and the Education Policy Institute made a strong case for stronger integrated tertiary systems across FE and HE, and also for improving the mechanisms for employers to engage in the education system through levers and incentives. The third point that I would raise is the need for a much greater focus on young people who are lower attainers—those young people who do not meet the pass thresholds in English and maths at GCSE. They are disproportionately likely to be disadvantaged and with SEND. We have seen from recent evidence how they are facing increasing barriers in accessing learning programmes at the start of year 12, and also how their employment outcomes, despite reforms over the past decade or so, have not improved. We think a much stronger focus is needed on that in particular.

Clare?

From the perspective of students with SEND, if you think about before they go to college, during their time at college and after college: before, particularly those that are high-needs funded are faced with massive anxiety about placements—about late decisions, late placements. We have heard in the SEND review around the 31 March deadline not being meant, so if you are a student not knowing where you are going to go, that is hugely anxiety-provoking anyway, and even more so for those with SEND and specific additional needs. Also, before college, if you are not high-needs funded, the school-college transitions are not universally brilliant, and often the college won’t know about the students’ needs until they come. Then there is a huge period of time when those have to be assessed and so on. On the time during college, I am sure this Committee has heard a lot about funding throughout your evidence. There are two impacts for SEND students: for those that are not high-needs funded there is nothing in the 16-to-19 formula, and the pay gap is really having a big effect, particularly with SEND where you have higher proportions of support staff. Figures published just last week in the Department for Education workforce survey showed that the teachers’ pay gap between specialist colleges and schools has risen to £16,000. That is much bigger than the pay gap between general FE and schools, which is big enough, but it is even worse for specialists. And after college we are looking at transitions out; social care placements; employment support; and access to adult learning, which has been cut. If we don’t get those right, we will have wasted the investment during college.

The evidence that we have received on this inquiry so far describes the range of post-16 qualifications as narrow, rigid and failing to accommodate the diverse needs of all students. What considerations should the ongoing curriculum and assessment review be taking to ensure that post-16 education is inclusive and can meet the needs of all learners?

As you have said, with a broad range of learners’ need, it is absolutely essential that the further education curriculum remains broad and flexible. We are concerned about prescription. For example, last year the English and maths rules, which didn’t work for students with SEND, were changed. The current approach sometimes undervalues practical skills; these are really important for all four preparing-for-adulthood outcomes. Although it is really important that we get students into work where possible, and where practical and realistic for them, it is also really important that we have a curriculum framework that values independence skills, social skills and becoming an active citizen. We want to ensure that that is protected in particular. Then, in terms of assessment, it is really important that the curriculum, assessment and qualifications are seen together, holistically, because you can have SEND learners that can do very well with curriculum content, but the assessment methods do tend to be less appropriate—for neurodivergent learners, for example. That needs to be looked at at the same time. So we want the flexibility and the breadth of the curriculum to stay.

There are a few issues that we have been in discussion with the curriculum and assessment review committee about. One is GCSE resits. It is clear that a lot of young people are not benefiting or succeeding through the situation that we currently have, and one alternative that we have been looking into is the possibility of an alternative, post-16 maths GCSE. We funded the MEI to develop that, and the idea is that young people who haven’t met the threshold first time round could do an equivalent GCSE that focuses on maths skills for life and work, with a more scaffolded, staggered assessment system. We think that would be really worth looking at. Secondly, I would like to touch on the evidence about the pathway from BTECs into higher education, which, alongside other research showing the increased interest in mixed pathways among young people, is important. We know that a quarter of university entrants get there via a BTEC pathway. That is much higher—40%—among those who are disadvantaged. There is a social mobility role there that it is important to keep sight of. The work that we funded around the lower attainers, who I mentioned previously, plus other recent work around the education maintenance allowance, highlighted the importance of young people having opportunities to engage early with employers and employment alongside their studies, and how important that is as a route into employment. We should keep hold of those opportunities. That links to my final point, which is about essential employment skills. The programme I mentioned earlier, the Skills Imperative 2035, focuses on the kinds of skills that employers talk a lot about—problem solving, communication, collaboration and that sort of thing—which we do not think are the explicit focus within the education and training system. By looking at international evidence and how high-performing systems across the OECD perform, NFER has made a strong case for integrating essential employment skills much more explicitly across post-16 pathways.

With regard to the national curriculum inquiry, we had our own shadow curriculum and assessment review where we worked with young people in colleges and further education to ask them what they would like to see from their FE journey. Some of the things that came out were about more curriculum on the climate and having a broader curriculum. A lot of stuff came out around democracy, civic engagement and political education for young people within their curriculum, which they are not getting much of currently, and young people themselves being involved in the curriculum design. With regard to maths and English resits, we see again and again that they are not working for young people. We are in a constant loop. We made recommendations to the national curriculum inquiry that we need to look at a broader and more holistic approach rather than being in a constant cycle of getting young people to resit their maths and English when it is not working. It will be interesting to see whether those recommendations are taken forward.

I echo that we recognise that BTECs and T-levels are significant pathways to higher education for our young people who are in care or who have ever had a social worker. Nearly 40% of care leavers who enter higher education come via a vocational route, and it is more supportive for males than for females. We also know that colleges offer young people a much more supported opportunity to learn self-study, which means that they are well set up for university. It is during that process that our young people will have their additional needs picked up or reassessed, which is really important. We would like to see that support go beyond the age of 25 and up to the age of 30, recognising that care leavers will take longer to progress through those routes.

NHS data suggests that almost a quarter of those aged 17 to 19 in England have a probable mental health disorder, such as depression or anxiety, but only 35% of post-16 students have access to a mental health support team. Full coverage will not be achieved until 2028 or 2030. What impact is that having on further education students and how should the Government deal with this crisis?

First of all, you are absolutely right. We are seeing more and more of an increase in mental health cases across the country. From our data, we are seeing that there is a direct link between mental health and the cost of living crisis. Students are very anxious about this, and it is having a day-to-day impact on them in terms of getting to college, showing up to their lessons and completing their courses. We have seen budget cuts to mental health provision across the country, and that is not great, because what it means is fewer counsellors. But we are seeing that, in this situation, learners are not confident to go and speak to a counsellor, so I don’t think the answer here is pouring in more counsellors. There is a conversation to be had about paying young people more because of how hard it is for them to get to college in the first place. In terms of getting young people to feel confident enough to speak up about mental health, that is something that is really integrated into the student voice of a college. It is becoming more and more difficult for learners to have these conversations and to speak to their teachers and tutors about this. Some 92% of learners who we have spoken to in our survey have reported that their mental health is directly linked to financial strains. I think putting more money into FE for mental health without knowing where it is going to be directed is not the answer in this case.

It is really clear from our own recent direct engagement with young people, which is part of the “Grown up? Journeys to adulthood” programme that we are running at the moment, just how disruptive mental health problems are to education—and also, of course, as the biggest factor explaining the rise in economic inactivity among young adults. For all young people, flexibility in the education system is important. Our research has focused more on that than on mental health support more generally. I will give two examples of what that looks like in practice. I have talked already about the GCSE having some flexibility around resits and having the kind of content that really meets young people’s needs so that they are able to move forward, on to the programmes and subjects that they really want to be studying, and have the skills that they need. Another example was a study carried out by the Association of Colleges with UCL about 14 to 16-year-olds who were studying in FE colleges at that stage, and that was for a whole range of reasons, but we saw a lot from that study how, for young people with anxiety or who did not feel able to engage in mainstream school, having some flexibility in terms of a different kind of provision and early access to vocational pathways was really important. I think that, with all the factors that we are going to discuss today, it is a question of understanding the overlap and intersection between them, and the complexity of issues that young people are facing as they make their way through FE and into employment. New research will be coming out in the next few weeks about raising the participation age. It will focus on the transition and reveal some really interesting insights, I think, so I would be really happy to put the Committee in touch with the researchers for more detail on that.

Clare?

To reiterate the point about the growth in students with education, health and care plans, it is a 20% rise since 2019, with SEMH—social, emotional and mental health—as the primary need. Just in terms of Natspec, 10 new colleges joined Natspec last year. Five of them only deal with students with SEMH as a primary need. That just shows how we need things like earlier intervention, a broader curriculum and a less pressured school environment, because these are students who have dropped out of school because of their mental health crises and often have become NEET. The interventions that are needed now, when they are 17, 18 or 19, are about getting them to come out of the house, so it’s very one to one; it’s very personalised. It is about finding the vocational area that they need or the interest that they have, so we have colleges working on water sports, skateboarding—a whole range of things. It’s a bit depressing, really, because if we had had the work earlier, if the schools had been supported more or were able to be more flexible or if there had been more vocational options earlier on—I am not saying this would all have been prevented; there are other issues, too. But in relation to the rise in further education students with mental health problems, a lot of those new colleges are picking up the pieces from what happened earlier on.

Denise?

Mental health support is one of the key pillars of our Quality Mark framework. I will give you an example of the work we are doing with Greater Manchester, where all the colleges are going to achieve the Quality Mark. They have recognised this problem, so all the colleges are becoming trauma-informed, which means that any young person joining the college will automatically go via their pastoral team, which means they will get counselling, financial support and mentoring. The young person does not know that all of this is happening in the background, but the support that they need is put in place before they arrive at the college, and we see that it works. I think we would want to see every college be able to operate that system. It means that the local authority, the virtual school and the universities are all speaking to each other, so they are understanding what a student needs before they arrive, and they can make sure that that is put in place. But, because we are doing this collectively across the region, they also have the opportunity to learn from each other. So when someone says, “We don’t know how to do this,” we have good examples of what is already working. Within the college I am thinking of, the dropout rate is 10%—they have got a 90% success rate for care-leaver students—so the kids are staying.

I have just one last thing to add. We are getting really good feedback from the free mental health training that DfE has provided. It has been a definite help.

The evidence is clear that economically disadvantaged students are not performing as well as their peers across their studies. Based on your experience and expertise, what interventions would you suggest the Government make to narrow the attainment gap? I will start with Clare.

Would you mind starting somewhere else? My colleagues may have more things to say on this than me.

I am happy to start. As you say, the attainment gap at 16 to 19 for disadvantaged students is substantial, and the really interesting evidence over recent years from the Education Policy Institute, which has looked in depth at this, is that the gap cannot be fully explained by the gap seen at key stage 4; something else is happening there. So it is a real missed opportunity at a time when actually the gap should be closing. Through that research, which also went into the covid years and saw how the gaps widened during 2020 and 2021 under the different assessment process, they have made a case for a student premium, which would be a payment similar to the pupil premium for schools targeted for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. That would enable extra resource and extra intervention to support students. I think it is a really interesting idea. I would add that ideally it needs to be underpinned by really robust evidence. We have seen that in a schools example, with the teaching and learning toolkit that tracks the effectiveness of different interventions. Obviously, we are in difficult financial times, and we need to make sure that resource is really effective in what it is aiming to do. So that is something that I would point to. In trying to understand this, we have, as you might know, recently funded the IFS to evaluate the long-run impacts—this is going back a bit—of the education maintenance allowance: the policy that was scrapped in England in 2011 but continues in some form in other UK nations. Learning from past policy is really important, and we have fantastic education data which allows us to look at the long-run impacts on education, employment and crime. It was interesting that despite promising results from the pilot, the rolled-out EMA was not as effective in achieving its outcomes as might have been expected. Some of the reasons for that given were around weaker connections of young people with the labour market and diversion from training they might have otherwise been involved with. We are conscious that a lot has changed since 2011, not least the raising of the participation age, so it is not directly equivalent—other things need to be looked at—but it does suggest that alternative approaches to support and to tackling youth poverty are needed.

Does anybody else wish to add to that?

Again, there is not an EMA in England. We don’t have EMA, and we don’t have maintenance systems in colleges like those we have in universities. That makes it extremely difficult for learners who are trying to juggle their studies and trying to make a living while in college. As colleagues mentioned, the idea of a pupil premium would be really good in supporting learners to be in college and not drop out. We see that a lot of dropouts relate to financial restraints and social inequalities. If we put in place measures that allow learners to get to college—not a replica of an EMA, but something that provides learners with some money to get to college—that would help them to attend every day, get reliable transport to college and have a good time there.

Denise?

There are a number of things. There is a lot of evidence that says that young people with multiple changes in their personal advisers and social workers are more likely to become NEET, so having that consistency is really important. We need personal advisers to understand the post-16 educational landscape, because it is a real mismatch at the moment. There is also a general lack of aspiration for children in care, beyond getting a level 3 qualification. Too many of the young people we speak to and survey say that they were not asked about their aspirations. How can we meet their aspirations if we don’t ask them?

I have just one quick thing to add. Pupil premium—absolutely. There is also the drop-off in core funding at 18, and that seriously disadvantages the disadvantaged group, within which SEND is over-represented.

Can I add a really quick point? If we look at some of the topics shared by colleagues here, it is clear that if we listen to learners themselves, we can start to get an understanding of where they are with their educational experience, what they want to see from college, and practical tips that they think would help them. The student voice is itself an answer. We should listen to learners and see what they think would help them. We have to understand that every learner in FE is at a different stage. We are not just talking about 16 to 19-year-olds; we have adult learners and care leavers. It is very difficult for those learners to balance their lives and their studies. Adding the student voice is a practical tip. It would be good if colleges and the Government invest in it and listen to the learners who have not been listened to for a very long time.

I want to pursue this idea of financial support for disadvantaged students. As you mentioned, Dr Tanner, the EPI has suggested a student premium for 16 to 19-year-olds, and yet at the same time the IFS and your organisation, the Nuffield Foundation, have claimed that the EMA—which is not dissimilar from what is being proposed—did not actually achieve the attainment and earnings advantages that it was meant to. What, then, is the answer? Is it more funding? If so, what forms should that take for disadvantaged students in order to get the best bang for our buck and be most effective in turning around that disadvantage?

It is a really difficult balance, because we want more of everything. The distinction between those two ideas is that the EMA was a direct payment to students, and the student premium would, as far as I understand it, be a payment to the institution according to the number of disadvantaged students, so the funding would be used in a very different way. There are also wider issues around funding for teacher pay. That has an enormous influence on disadvantaged students, just in terms of their ability to be taught by specialist teachers who are able to stay and be retained within the profession. The issues are very broad—there is no single answer to this. Also, I think it is very apparent from the evidence that, when we are talking about disadvantage for students aged 16 to 19, it is the cumulative effect of their experiences through school—having been disadvantaged—and the impacts of that, combined with very in-the-moment inadequate resources, whether that is for transport or something else. I don’t have an easy answer to the question, but I would draw out those nuances.

If I can just press you—and maybe others will want to come in on this—if that money is coming from somewhere to go to something, what should that be? If it is not, like with the EMA, a direct payment for transport or materials for the individual to use to their advantage, what is it that you are saying instead? You mentioned teacher pay—that is helpful. But what else should institutions have the resources to do if we want to see those improvements?

I am sure others will have more to say on that. I think the idea of the student premium is that it could cover a range of different types of intervention, but that it needs to be underpinned by evidence to identify what is most effective. We don’t have the same amount of intervention evidence in the FE and skills sector as we do in schools, and I think it is really notable that we don’t have the same kind of underpinning for where it is most effective to direct that resource. So that is what I would point to—but others with direct experience may want to add more.

Absolutely. What is interesting about this is that, if you look at the bursary in its current form, it operates in two ways. You have the usual bursary, which covers travel and meal costs at college. There is a threshold for this, and many learners meet it. But for those who don’t, it means they are on a very thin line—their household income is not low enough to receive it, but they are still in that struggle. Then you have the discretionary bursary, which is a direct payment to students who have been in care and who need that to get to college. For those learners who are eligible and in receipt of the bursary, it is a massive benefit for them to get to college and not having to worry about skipping a meal. There are many learners who fall outside of that bracket who would still benefit from having that. I think that, in terms of providing a direct payment to students for transport or meals, it would go a long way. Because some of our members who are in rural parts of England—for them, trying to get to college is like a £12 or £13 train ticket to get into Bridgwater from Weston. If you are an apprentice that is earning the minimum wage, you are working to lunchtime just to pay for your travel costs. What is also interesting, outside of the support that colleges can be doing, is in terms of providing young people with a living wage, which is something the Government are already working on. That has huge potential to help learners in FE who are currently struggling to get to college because of their wage. It is an interesting conversation. We are seeing more money being pumped into FE, but learners themselves should be able to feel that money—that it is benefiting them directly. Sometimes they don’t know where it goes, yet the conversation is that there is a lot going on in the background. Learners themselves don’t always feel that.

I will move on, if that is okay. I ask witnesses and hon. Members to be cognisant of time, because we have a number of topics we want to ask about, and we will not get to all of them if we are not efficient in the answers we are giving.

Just one quick thing. Qasim, you made quite a powerful argument that some students find it difficult to continue their studies because of the personal costs they incur. Dr Tanner, you made an argument about why you think institutions need more money to deliver their resources. However, the Government are operating in quite a financially constrained environment at the moment. Which do you think is most important? Does it need to be money? Qasim talked about the cost of transport, which can vary hugely—from a couple of pounds to, I think, the example he gave of £13. Would a travel pass be more helpful? If the Government can only afford one, or want to choose just one, which do you think they should prioritise?

It is a really tough one, because you have a variety of learners in FE. For some of these learners, a bus pass or a train pass would be effective in allowing them to get to college, but sometimes it might be better for some of the learners to receive some of that money directly, so that they can spend it themselves and see how it allows them to get to college. It is a tough one, because there is the argument of where the money will go if you give it to the learner, but the point I am trying to make is that learners are currently struggling. Any help for them to get to their place of work or study would be effective. What that looks like is a conversation for the DfE and the colleges, and hopefully there would be some student consultation within that to see where it would work best. Q86        Dr Caroline Johnson: Do you think that giving money directly to the students is more important than giving it to the institutions?

I think young people are struggling at the moment, and there is a huge cost of living crisis. Students receiving some of that money themselves would go a long way. Giving students the power and autonomy to choose where they spend that money would be good. It is a tough one, in a way, because you can’t just assume that students would not spend the money on travel or food.

The Committee has a number of questions on SEND and further education specialists. I am going to start with a fairly general question specifically to Clare Howard: what are the main challenges facing students with SEND in further education, and how does this affect their learning, their progression and their overall experience in further education?

You have already heard me talk about before, during and after. I will not repeat that, but the system is broken at the moment; as you heard in your SEND inquiry, some of the issues in FE tend to be neglected in overall SEND policy. We have a binary system where students are placed in either mainstream FE providers or specialist providers. That has an impact on those who could benefit from both, such as through specialist support or specialist tutoring within a mainstream environment. We need more partnership working and more planning to achieve that. The other issue that affects students is a lack of understanding of the purpose and value of further education, particularly when it comes to non-accredited provision on independence pathways for students who may not end up in paid work, but who could still make a big contribution to their communities. We need much more understanding of the value there, and what we are seeing as a result is that local authorities with very stretched high needs budgets don’t want to pay for post-19 education for those students and are granting only one year’s funding. We are even hearing that students on two-year A-level courses are being granted funding for only one year or one term at a time. That is hugely stressful, as you might imagine. Even when it does get funded, it is the waiting. Therapies are also an issue, as general FE colleges find it very difficult to access therapies. Local authorities find it very difficult to find the funds for therapies and specialists. Even where therapies are included in an EHCP as absolutely essential for a young person to access their education—they might need speech and language therapy to access their communication device in order to learn, for example—we are seeing them stripped out of education, health and care plans and sent back to the general FE college, which is then asked, “Can you do it now?” Those are the sorts of things. Lastly, on the overall way in which FE is funded, colleges are finding it really difficult to make lower-level vocational qualifications and vocational courses pay. They are finding it difficult to subsidise them. As a result, those courses are being stripped out, with colleges instead going for level 3 and above. That means SEND students have less choice about where they go. So there are a few.

I know, there are quite a few. My colleagues will question you in more detail on some of the things you have just referenced. I have one question. Natspec has called for specialist further education to be given its own ministerial brief to stop it falling through the cracks of ministerial responsibility. How would consolidating this under one brief help students with special educational needs?

First, we think it is logical and equitable. The FE and Skills Minister is responsible for all other students aged 16 to 19 and for adult education, so why would 30% of 16 to 19-year-olds and 18% of adults be dealt with elsewhere? That is inequitable and illogical. It would mean that all FE and skills policy, as it develops, has to have SEND at its heart and has to be thought about in advance. At the moment, we tend to get a situation where policies are developed and then the question is asked about how we can make things accessible to SEND students. It is about looking at the accessibility of T-levels, for example—rather than starting with the needs of the students themselves—and designing a curriculum and personalised programmes around that. So, I think it would fill the policy vacuum. You have talked about things falling between two stools. We at Natspec and the AoC’s SEND staff find ourselves being passed between the FE team and the SEND team. Although they are both working very hard, it is difficult for them to pick up on each other’s work. When it comes to the SEND team, FE tends to be boxed in with supported internships. Supported internships are a very important policy for those who can access them, but that is only 1% of EHCP holders. We have 85,000 students with EHCPs in FE across the board. We have to work with organisations such as combined authorities, Skills England and local skills improvement bodies on mainstream FE policy, in order to deal with SEND in FE. If we had such a Minister, those organisations would realise the benefit of disability employment, for example. We would have more LSIPs looking at disability employment as an issue. We would also be able to access more data. There is very little data on SEND in FE, and very few meaningful metrics. They measure how many people have passed level 2 and how many have gone on to employment. But for the vast majority of SEND learners, we need better metrics on issues such as whether they have achieved their personal learning goals, whether they have achieved independence, and so on. We think it is a no-brainer, but we need somebody to step up and take responsibility for SEND in FE, because it is such a big part of every college and every FE provider’s work.

We are very keen that the designation of specialist colleges is looked at. There is no alternative to mainstream FE other than specialist colleges, so in effect they are the equivalent of maintained special colleges. If you can imagine a situation where the Department for Education did not know how many buildings there were in special schools or what their condition was, that is the case for special colleges. There are no condition surveys and no records of the number or state of buildings, of who owns the buildings, and so on. The reason given—you asked about the reason—is that specialist colleges are outside the public sector. Specialist colleges are not part of the statutory FE sector, so it is a legal reason. However, there is precedent for support going to those colleges. They are a defined group, so it will not open up DfE funding to a whole range of providers. There are just 128 providers at the moment. The precedent is that in 2012 there was a £15 million capital pot just for that group, so it cannot have been a legal reason then. Every year, specialist colleges get small amounts of condition funding as part of the school conditions allowance—they are treated as schools for that, so there is no legal reason there, either. I don’t think that the legal reason adds up, and I think we need to bring specialist colleges into the FE sector, as I said in my previous answer, and make them part of FE estate condition planning and the FE capital grant. We have buildings falling apart and learners missing out. Colleges are not able to change their environment if there is a new cohort of need—they are not able to adapt buildings and so on. Colleges are looking at fundraising and private loans, and it is very difficult for them.

This has been fascinating. All of your evidence suggests there is a gap that leads to SEND children and young people falling out of employment opportunities and pathways. That is at odds with the situation whereby SEND young people over the age of 16 have disparities in access to statutory home-to-school transport. My question is directly to Clare. The Government have been called on to extend the statutory duty on local authorities to provide home-to-college transport for all those with an EHCP up to the age of 25. With local authorities already facing significant financial pressures, how feasible is that recommendation? What other transport solutions might there be?

First, local authorities are really struggling to pay for transport out of their high needs budgets. If FE had SEND much more firmly within its brief, we could take some pressure off those high needs budgets by ensuring that FE budgets included a SEND element in the 16-to-19 formula, as I said earlier. The transport issues for young people aged 16, 17, 18 and above are severe, as colleagues said earlier. We have examples of the age cut-off being so strictly adhered to that, when one of two sisters who had previously been transported to school together became older, the taxi was allowed to take one of the sisters but not the second, even though they were still going to the same place. The age cut-off is understandable, because local authorities need to look at their portfolios and say, “That’s not statutory, so I can cut that.” But if they looked more broadly at need, and if we invested more in travel training for those who can access travel independently, we could have a more holistic, planned solution involving all the agencies, rather than just expecting local authorities to pick up all the bills. Colleges would potentially like to provide more of their own home-to-college transport with their own minibuses, but they don’t have the capital funding to buy them. Lastly, on student voice, Natspec has a Student Voice Parliament, and its members discussed bus passes. They were hugely frustrated that their disabled bus pass could not be used before 9.30 am. They cannot get to work, college or work placements. One group of students wrote to their local council and successfully got that policy changed—only if they were wearing their college lanyard, though. I think people have been frustrated by such initiatives. Nationally, a group of students wrote to the previous Government and was not able to get anywhere. There are some potential solutions, but it is really to do with a more joined-up approach.

I point the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I was employed by a university up until last April. Could there be any more innovation? You talked about colleges putting on minibuses. In addition to the travel pass that you suggested, is there an opportunity for a hybrid smart-vehicle model that could be done across local FE and sixth forms in an area as an alternative to individual taxis paid for by the local authority? Or is there something that could enable the pooling of disability mobility allowance, where young people are in receipt of it, to make a more sustainable local option?

I think colleges would be really pleased to enter discussions about any of those sorts of ideas, because at the moment we are spending money on lost learning. I think our survey showed that 65% of colleges had students who could not get to college in the autumn term because of lack of transport. That is a huge cost, emotionally and financially. We need to discuss innovative solutions and find ways that colleges can work with families and local authorities to get different solutions. For those students who can travel independently—not all will be able to—let’s get the travel training in earlier at school as well as at college, and let’s make sure they are ready to access travel independently as and when they need it.

I have a couple of questions for Denise about looked-after young people and care leavers. We know that young care leavers are up to three times more likely than their peers not to be in education, employment or training. First, could you briefly summarise what you think the main causes of that disparity are, and what you think can be done to prevent that level of disengagement?

As we said earlier, there is evidence that young people who have multiple changes in their personal adviser or social worker are more likely to become NEETs. We have a student voices network, and when we do our Quality Mark we do a survey with the young people, and they tell us that lack of mental health support is the third reason why people are dropping out of their studies. The first reason is lack of finances, the second is lack of accommodation, and the third is lack of mental health support. Where those things are put in place, we see that our young people are successful. Leaning into the innovative things that people are doing, we know that some of the colleges have really good relationships with Better gyms, for instance, and the kids get a 50% discount. Every single one of them loves it; they can run off whatever they are feeling, which is fantastic. If we look at local authority-run gyms, it is really hard to find the discounts. Where we see local authorities, virtual schools and colleges working together, sitting in the same room and discussing things, great outcomes for those young people are much higher. When we keep operating in silos and we don’t provide supported transitions for young people, they drop out and fall through the cracks. The average age of leaving home is now 25, but we are expecting our young people to just crack on at the age of 16, and then we are surprised when it does not work. A lot of it is just about being pragmatic. The local authorities, colleges and schools that we work with are pragmatic, which is why they are working with us and doing so voluntarily.

You have described further education as a second-chance pathway for many care leavers, and you have said that better support for the transition from school to college could improve educational outcomes. What steps do the Government need to take to improve the further education landscape for care leavers?

I think young people need to know that it is an option for them, which comes down to the personal adviser training. We know that budgets are stretched, and we have seen that the pupil premium is not necessarily being used for the purposes it was intended for. We spoke to a local authority recently that said it could not afford to take young people on campus visits—it is statistically proven that if we take young people to a campus, they can see themselves there—but the local authority could not tell us why it could not afford to do it. The evidence suggests that the pupil premium is being used to prop up wages. We need to have a conversation about how meeting your statutory duty is not the same as supporting young people’s aspirations. I personally think that is the underlying problem.

What is interesting about all of this is that when learners enter FE they have multiple pathways. There is a vocational route, an academic and a technical one. For learners who wish to get to higher education, that choice is there for them, to get to the next stage. We are seeing a lot of learners who are from under-represented communities who want to stay on their BTECs and use those as a pathway to get to higher education. Although there has been huge investment in T-levels, which are great, for us the argument is that we need to protect student choice for the learners who wish to stay on a BTEC and get to higher education. If that is the route for them, that should be the route we invest in and we should not take that away from them. Academic pathways are great also—getting A-levels and getting into university—but for the learners who prefer the more flexible option of vocational routes I think we should invest in those, particularly with some of the learners we are talking about, which include SEND learners and care leavers. Unfortunately, T-levels as they stand would be quite substantial to complete for them in their current circumstances, and BTECs would be their preferred option.

We see a lot of success with contextual offers. Our colleges and universities work closely together so the young people can have contextual offers and be talked through what that journey is going to look like. That means that when a young person arrives at university they have everything they need in place. For the universities we work with and the widening participation teams, those contextual offers, including for BTECs and T-levels, are really significant for our young people to enter higher education.

I mentioned earlier the research from Oxford Brookes about BTECs, so I will not repeat that, but I wanted to add a point about disparities and the type of HE institution that young people are accessing. There is a series of research from UCL looking at undermatch. There was a particular project focusing on the pathway from state schools to universities, but there are some relevant findings there for all students: young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, from some ethnic minorities, and girls more than boys, are more likely to undermatch in the sense of accessing a university that is less selective than they might be able to achieve given their prior attainments. That is an important dimension worth looking at. It is also really worth emphasising the importance of increasing the participation in level 4 and 5 qualifications specifically when we are looking at labour market need and skills gaps. That came through very clearly from The Economy 2030 Inquiry report by the Resolution Foundation. Q95        Dr Caroline Johnson: Denise, you talked about contextual offers helping some students to get a university place. What evidence is there on how those young people perform when they get to university? Do they need extra support to achieve their best, or do they achieve equally to the children who got there on an ordinary offer?

For our care-experienced and estranged students, the universities that we work with all put in a framework of support. I can give one example. The University of Sunderland will offer contextual offers for our care-experienced young people. The average dropout rate from university for care leavers is 38%. At the University of Sunderland, the dropout rate is 11%, so those kids are graduating and they are graduating well. You will also see the widening participation team in lots of wedding photos because they stay with those young people until they are well settled into adulthood.

We have heard that the school system does not currently prepare children and young people well for progression into technical education routes. Studies show that children tend to disregard certain options, particularly because of the narrowing curriculum. That means that certain options to get into education or employment are shut off. Do you agree? Also, what can be done to ensure that children in secondary school receive the support that they need in order to make more informed decisions about their post-16 options?

In a personal capacity, from my previous role, I am very familiar with the career guidance structure that operates in schools and colleges. I am sure you have had submissions that have addressed that specifically, so I will not cover it, but I think that, from Nuffield Foundation research, there is a really strong case for greater co-ordination between employers and the education system. What that looks like in practice is a whole range of different ways of engaging, in terms of greater involvement in curriculum design and in qualifications, and providing routes into employment through different kinds of internships and apprenticeships. We haven’t talked about apprenticeships today; I know that you have covered that previously. I think that at the moment—and especially when we talk to young people—we are seeing a clear disconnect between the pathways that some young people are following and their ability to access employment, so the co-ordination is important. I also strongly highlight the research about essential employment skills and just how important it is to employers that young people have communication, problem-solving and creative-thinking skills, and increasingly so. When we look at how the labour market is changing, the very data-driven approach taken by the NFER and colleagues shows the increasing importance of young people developing those skills in the education system, as well as in employment.

We did some research with foster carers, and found that very few had a good understanding of the education pathways. They also were not speaking to their young people about what would happen next: “What would you like to do? What are you interested in?” That happens in families; we know the importance of those conversations in all families. We know that our young people are missing out on that. This is a critical part of young people thinking what they might like to do in the future: who influences them.

That is really helpful. I have one last follow-up for both of you. Picking up your point, Dr Tanner, on working more closely with employers, how might schools or indeed Government facilitate that at a significant scale, to capture the children and young people who are currently ending up not in education, employment or training?

I think there is a strong case, from the evidence, for increasing the support and the targeting of career guidance—the whole range of career guidance interventions. The evidence from beyond the Nuffield Foundation shows the increased infrastructure through careers hubs, and the work that schools and colleges are doing, which is achieving the scale, but I think that there is a strong case, from the evidence, that more of that is needed. For example, if you look at young people who struggle with the transition from school to post-16 college—the lower attainers, in particular—their needs are much greater and they really need support to be able to make vocational choices earlier than some of their peers, who might stay on academic pathways. They need much greater guidance to be able to make that transition.

Just to add to that, our young people also need the opportunity to build social capital, so that they know the local employers and can get entry-level work experience. Usually, it would be your family who would help you to access that. That is a really basic thing that we can do.

Just a quick point. In terms of the whole conversation around young people working with employers and with the institutions, back when IfATE existed, the NUS set up an apprentice learner voice panel on IfATE. That was a really good way for learners to be part of the conversation, with apprentices feeding directly into that and being part of the whole idea of a social partnership. Any opportunity for learners to be in the driving seat or at the table would be quite significant.

So that is a message for Skills England, essentially, as the successor body to IfATE. Thank you all very much for coming to give your evidence to us this morning. As always, we have been very constrained by the time. If there is anything that you would like us to take into account in our inquiry that you did not have time to get across to us this morning, please feel free to write to us. We would really welcome that. Witnesses: Dr Fiona Aldridge, David Gaughan, Jane Gratton and Dr Susan Pember.

Welcome to our second panel. I ask our witnesses to introduce themselves and make any declarations of interests.

Good morning. My name is Fiona Aldridge, chief executive of the Skills Federation. We bring together a shared perspective from different industries on how the UK can build a workforce who have the skills that we need across the UK. My members are 18 employer-led sector skills organisations that are funded by employers in their sector—150,000 of them—in order to understand and address the skills needs in the UK economy.

I am Susan Pember, the policy adviser for HOLEX, which is the adult community education representative body. In our membership, we have 150-plus local authorities that provide an adult ed service and the 10 specialist designated institutions, now known as the institutes for adult learning. Those members between them have the furthest reach in FE; they work out of over 10,000 venues. Most of their funding goes into the most deprived areas of the country. On top of that, they are amazing—96% are good or outstanding, and on top of that, they educate 4,000 young people that nobody else wants. They have a very interesting remit.

Good morning. I am Jane Gratton, deputy director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce. We are a network of 51 chambers of commerce across the UK. Our members are around 55,000 businesses of all shapes, sizes, sectors and locations, predominantly SME. Chambers are leading 32 of the local skills improvement plans.

Good morning. My name is David Gaughan. I am the interim director for employment and skills at West Midlands Combined Authority. We have a statutory role for adult skills training through the devolution powers given to the West Midlands. Since devolution, we have leveraged almost £1 billion of investment into the region and trained over 700,000 adult residents.

Thank you very much. Does one of our witnesses have a role in relation to Skills England that they would like to make a declaration in relation to?

Yes, sorry. I was recently appointed to the Skills England board.

Thank you for that. I will begin our questioning. What is your assessment of the Government’s strategy to address the country’s skills shortages? What interventions in the last year have they got right? Are there any policies that they should reconsider? Is there more that they need to do?

We really welcome the strategic approach that the Government have taken to skills. We have not had a skills strategy for a considerable while thinking about how we need to invest in skills in itself and skills for our wider Government missions and ambitions, including economic growth. The Skills Federation is really pleased that the Government are taking a sector focus. It is really clear that a national policy that is based on a one-size-fits-all approach does not meet the needs of sectors, or indeed of places—I know that we are talking about devolution later. There are lots of commonalities across sectors, as there are places, but some key differences, too. Therefore, taking that sector lens and engaging with employers and their sector bodies on their specific needs, and then having the flexibility to meet them, is really important. We welcome the announcement on a growth and skills levy. I think we are still waiting to see what those flexibilities would be. We have seen some flexibilities on the apprenticeship model, but I would argue that actually not every skills challenge has apprenticeship as its solution, and part of the flexibilities that many of our sectors need to see are the other training solutions apart from apprenticeships that could really help people to either move into the labour market or—importantly—be able to upskill and retrain. We know that 80% of our 2035 workforce have already left initial education, and thinking about how we upskill, green-skill and reskill those adults to be able to be productive and have fulfilling careers is really important. Those additional flexibilities on a sector basis would really enable us to boost places and sectors and achieve Government ambition.

I think Fiona is a bit more positive than me, so I will come from that side. First of all, yes, we can say this Government have already done quite a bit—we have the new set of policies that came out yesterday covering 10 sectors, and there was an overall report from Skills England—however, I do not call that a lifelong learning strategy; I call that a bit of a lifelong learning strategy and a bit of the skills bit of a lifelong learning strategy. If you look to other countries—Singapore, China and the Scandinavian countries—when they talk about lifelong learning, they talk about a whole strategy that brings together, yes, the skills bit, but also the wider benefits of learning, with what it does to their health and what it does for other Government Departments. It starts much earlier—it starts with children going to school—so by the time they are seven or eight, they already know that they are learning for life. In this country, we are nowhere close to having a lifelong learning strategy. That is the bit I am disappointed about. When this new Government came in, I thought we were going to get a lifelong learning strategy, and what we have got is a rehash of the stuff that has been happening for the last 20 years by a different brand. However, saying that, it is good to know that skills is out there, and it was fantastic to hear all those policies in the last couple of weeks. We have had a migration policy that I think talked about skills 69 times, we have had the industrial strategy that talked about skills, and we have had Connect to Work, which was all about skills. We also got Health talking about skills, but we are still looking for that joined-upness to come out of DFE to provide us with a lifelong learning strategy.

We welcome the recognition that access to a skilled workforce is critical to business success and economic growth. In our data from just a few weeks ago, we have seen an increase in the percentage of firms this year reporting skills shortages—it is getting worse year on year, now at 67% of all firms, rising to 79% of manufacturers—so it is critical that the Government address this with some urgency. We welcome the creation of Skills England. We asked for a skills strategy to underpin a strong industrial strategy, so it is good to see the focus on addressing the specific needs of particular sectors, the commitment to local skills improvement plans to address the needs of areas and sectors in those local areas, and that deep engagement with employers that is really important. As you know, industry has long been calling for a focus on greater flexibility of funding through the growth and skills levy and a joined-up skills and immigration policy. Generally, we are very supportive. We also welcome the focus on NEETs, addressing the NEETs challenge through various interventions. Our main concern at the moment is the defunding of level 7. All the evidence shows that, as well as being at entry level, there are skills shortages at the higher level, and we are concerned about the impact on growth of removing those higher level skills options.

I will not talk too much because colleagues have already covered quite a lot of this. A key point is that this Government have been very busy. A lot of White Papers are in production or have already been issued. The “Get Britain Working White Paper”, the “English Devolution White Paper” and the post-16 strategy, which is due out imminently, are in that space. I welcome the focus on key policy areas and key priorities, certainly on addressing the challenges around 16 to 19 and youth unemployment, and also around economic inactivity. That is where policies probably need to go a little further—around how we integrate employment and skills more effectively. My job title is about our ambitions in the region to create an integrated employment and skills system, recognising the importance of stabilisation, early first engagement and supporting through health barriers, before we even start to think about skills interventions and work transition. There is more to be done in how we integrate all those offers, both nationally and regionally. As part of that, as an enabler I hope that the role of combined authorities continues to develop, to establish those ambitions around integrated employment systems, which we think will better support our residents and businesses in the region.

Thank you very much. To keep going with you, David, if that is okay, could you briefly tell us the role that the further education sector should play in the Government’s skills strategy?

Further education is vital in that skills system. If we look at the challenges presenting in colleges currently, we must recognise that covid impacted on year 6 students. Those students are now at year 11 and in September they will be going into colleges for the first time. There will be challenges around stabilisation, and we need to think about support for their longer-term progression. Colleges play a key role in that space. They also play a key role in providing statutory responsibilities in basic skills in English and maths. That is not necessarily the qualifications of functional skills but more about providing functional maths and English to support residents to progress. Part of our statutory responsibilities is to ensure that we have a basic skills offer to support our residents to enable them to progress into good jobs. English and maths are important within that, alongside digital skills. Our colleges are in a good place to deliver that. Moving forward, our colleges have to build high-level skills provision, certainly at level 3 and level 4, recognising that our economy is shifting at a tremendous rate. By 2035, 55% of all jobs in the West Midlands will have a point of entry at level 4. We already have an attainment gap at level 3 and level 4 in our region. Our colleges are enabling them to bridge that gap. It is not just the colleges within the system. Our independent training providers play an important role in that space with apprenticeships. They supported us with our apprenticeship levy transfer scheme, which supports more SMEs and employers engaged with apprenticeships. We have been able to leverage 5,000 apprenticeship starts through our levy transfer scheme, and support another 2,500 employers. Independent training providers provide an important piece of engagement with employers. Finally, the role of HE is really important in this space, especially when thinking about the challenges of staffing and capacity within the FE colleges, certainly in the more specialised areas around green engineering, manufacturing and construction. HE can support some of that activity and provide a bridge into level 4 and level 5 qualifications that we need to support the regional economy and our residents in high-level skilled jobs.

Jane, could you tell us about the role of FE within the skills system?

It is absolutely crucial. Employers, local colleges and independent providers have a very close relationship, which needs to be even closer going forward. We need employers to work with colleges to look at qualifications and whether the curriculum meets needs and is evolving fast enough as the workplace changes, and around work placements and other opportunities for young people. It is crucial in terms of the pipeline of future talent coming into businesses, and preparing young people, but it is equally important for upskilling the adult workforce as well. It is absolutely crucial. We have heard concerns from our network about staffing difficulties, as David was saying, and the ability to attract and retain teaching staff with the skills, who can pass those skills on to the future generation and adult upskillers.

Colleges are the mainstay of the post-16 education system. Also, there are all these local authority services that we represent—adult community ed services. Over 500,000 adults attend those institutions for their education. When we think of FE, we need to think a bit broader. As colleges move into levels 3 and 4, that means there is a vacuum for level 2 and below. That is what local authority providers have picked up. They are doing more of that, but could do more and could grow, if the funding was available to them to do that. What is needed in every area is a proper pipeline. If you are a learner living in a deprived area, where do you go next? How do you start? How do you get that confidence to make the first step into learning? And once you are there, where is the ladder that goes from entry level, level 1, level 2, learning your English language as you are going, so that you do end up in a college at level 3 and with, a bit of luck, a university for 4 or 5, or an apprenticeship? That is what is missing, still—that ladder of achievement.

Further education is absolutely critical. As I said, the majority of our workforce for decades to come has already left initial education, so however good we get that initial education—and it is important that it gives people a really good basis—it is unrealistic to assume that people have the skills, knowledge and behaviours for what is, for most of us, a 50-year career. We will need to update. Even if we don’t change jobs or sectors, changes in the economy will mean we need to do that. That is colleges and local authority providers. It is a whole tertiary system. The challenge is to create more of a systemic approach so that it is easier to engage with. I think far too many employers would feel that they do not know where to start, and they do not know what is asked of them or how to engage with them. The other point I would make is that it is really clear that the funding for FE in recent decades has fallen dramatically. If we believe that skills are critical to achieving our ambitions, we need to ensure that is well-resourced and well-equipped to meet that challenge.

Just a couple of things. The bell will ring twice in a minute, but we don’t need to do anything when that happens. Also, we have quite a few topics that we want to ask you about this morning so I encourage you to be succinct in your answers. That would be really helpful to us in making sure that we can cover everything that we want to cover this morning. We are going to Caroline for the next question.

Good morning. In its first report last year, Skills England warned that there are significant skills barriers in the UK and reported that 36% of UK job vacancies were due to skills shortages in 2022. What do you think Skills England should prioritise in order to address these barriers and to improve the skills landscape? I’ll start with Fiona.

Our economy is changing, so the idea that at any one point we will have everything sorted is unrealistic, but we do need a flexible and responsive system so that, as we are identifying skills needs and as we are working with employers and industry to do that, we have a system that can flex and can respond and can do that quickly. Some of that is about setting those national frameworks. From an employer’s point of view, they are really keen on having competency standards that can be applied across the piece, but then having the flexibility in a place or a sector to be able to respond really quickly. That means thinking about small bits of training as well as those large pieces of qualifications. Devolution has a key role to play in ensuring that we connect to local people and the local labour market, but I would say that there is a challenge from large employers about how you make that coherent within England and across the UK, so that we are supporting people to succeed in their careers across the country, and really positioning ourselves to be good and competitive internationally as well as at home.

To close that gap, there needs to be at least a three-pronged attack. The employer needs to do something, like put up salaries—you can’t let them off the hook; they have responsibility—or change the conditions of work. Then there is the FE sector itself and the role of Skills England within that, ensuring that those of us who provide education know what is necessary in the future and in the locality. The third part is something that I think we are missing at the moment. We do not tell the learner, the future student, the worker about where the jobs of the future are. We are now very poor in this country about educating them, but they also have a responsibility. If you are in a job and AI is about to call at your door, you should not wait till the state tells you that you need to retrain; you have the responsibility to do it. And the state needs to put the processes and systems there to do it.

From an employer perspective, we need ongoing robust engagement with employers, because they are creating the jobs; they know what skills and knowledge they are going to need in the medium to long term. That robust engagement is not just number crunching; getting beneath the surface through conversations with employers is really important. That is also part of educating employers as to what is available. Another priority is to reduce complexity in the system. It is very confusing for employers, and that is another barrier to engaging with the skills system, so the more slick, stable and coherent we can make it as a system, the better. Thirdly, we are now waiting to see what flexibility we will get on the apprenticeship levy. I think those would be our immediate priorities.

From a mayoral combined authority perspective, we certainly welcome the fact that Skills England is now active. We also welcome what the Secretary of State said in a letter yesterday about the role of Skills England in co-developing solutions within this space. I think collaboration is really important in the role of Skills England, and certainly working with mayoral combined authorities in doing that. We made great progress in working with IfATE to develop new qualifications in what we call the missing middle. We have a missing middle of qualification at levels 4 and 5, and we have bridged that gap. One of the areas we were working on was around life sciences and developing a new medical- technical qualification with IfATE. That is the type of relationship we want—one where we can co-develop, co-produce, and then look at how that can be implemented within a region, but then also shared nationally, so that we are just doing this once and each of the regions can be innovators themselves. Skills England can actually be an enabler for that and add value to the system.

The Government have said that the UK has a lack of technical skills that is directly impacting on growth-driving sectors such as advanced manufacturing and clean energy industries. One aim of the Government’s industrial strategy is to increase participation in technical education. How can the Government and Skills England best achieve this? We will start with Dr Aldridge.

It is really welcome that there is such a focus on skills as part of industrial strategy and that within the sector plans there will be a skills element. I would argue that these need to be very sector specific—we need to think hard about the vacancies, the trends in those sectors and what our skills requirements are, and then be able to come up with sector-specific flexibilities and provision and programmes that enable those skills needs to be met. They will be very different across some of those sectors. There will be lots of commonalities, but the labour markets in those sectors are different and the skills requirements are different, so if we take a one-size-fits-all approach and say, “We will just do this and it will meet all those skills needs,” we are going to fall short of that. I would argue that the sector bodies are key for bringing together the evidence about what is needed in their sector, but also acting as a trusted partner to be able to oversee those flexibilities, so that we do not have a complete free-for-all but can focus on what is needed to support growth. I think that also makes for a much more responsive system. However good the civil servants and the board in Skills England will be, the challenge is really understanding places and sectors and being able to bring together the employer voice. We know from when Government have engaged with employers before that you get a set of big employers who have resource and expertise that they are able to bring to the table, but most of our employers are small and medium-sized enterprises, so we have a kind of collective action problem and therefore we need to think about who are the intermediary organisations that can represent employers and bring those skills needs to the table, but have the authority to say, “Actually, this is what is needed and therefore this is how a growth and skills levy”—or other investments—“could be adjusted to meet those sector needs.”

This is not a new problem. I have been in education and training for a long time now, and even at the start of my career we were talking about why the demand for technical programmes was not there. That is one of the things that we should learn from history: we have got to create the demand. Very early on, in both primary and secondary school, our young people must not just think that there are only A-levels. We have done a lot of work in the last 10 years about apprenticeships, so that parents and young people can see that there is another route into a good job. But we need to promote it more, and we also need a bit of stability. The BTEC programmes were well loved and respected, and the threat over them in the last few years has made a real planning blight. I keep on seeing remarks by the DfE saying “quality T-levels,” and “high-quality product and programme,” but as yet there is no proof of that. There is very little demand for T-levels, the retention on them is dreadful compared to other FE courses, the pass rate is really poor, and they cannot go very far with them. We need to be honest about that and not reiterate the rhetoric of the past. For me, more work needs to be done with young people, and when I say young, I am talking about nine-year-olds—from nine onwards they need to know that there is an alternative to A-levels.

There are four things on my list. The first is promoting technical education from a very early age, on a par with academic education. We have still not achieved that parity. We talk about it, and it is absolutely critical. Technical skills are critical for employers and what they talk to me about most. I would say that we should maintain the focus on T-levels, because we need them. They are not right for everyone, but for some people they are—they are that quality alternative to the A-level. Our view is that we cannot afford for them to fail, and things take time to embed. It takes an employer a long time to understand and hear about a new initiative, so I would say to hold your nerve on T-levels—they are important. Also on my list is to introduce more standards at level 2, as an entry level to a vocational technical route. Finally, shorter modular technical qualifications are going to help with upskilling.

There are quite a few important pieces here around technical skills. We need to look at our ambitions around the industrial strategy, and also at our local growth plans within regions. STEM is the enabler of a lot of those industries, and STEM skills are important. For those existing workers in the workforce, what are the transferable core skills required? We often talk about soft skills, but we are now moving into a space of having core transferable technical skills that we can adapt and move as residents move into different sectors and jobs. They are going to be jumping much more. We need to recognise that businesses are becoming much more technically enabled. Another aspect is to focus on how we are going to leverage employer investment in a slightly different way. We have seen positive moves with the potential adoption of the growth and skills offer and what that will look like through the levy. How we leverage and prioritise employer investment in regions is going to be really important for longer term economic growth. So when we talk about level 3 or 4 qualifications, how do we prioritise non-apprenticeship training in those areas? We need to both support residents into those high-level skilled jobs and support longer term business growth. There are opportunities to think about how we are going to leverage employer investment in a slightly different way.

I believe that you have touched on this, but I will give you an opportunity to share a little bit more. Is the current post-16 curriculum fit for purpose? In terms of the offer, is it adequate enough to resolve the current skills mismatch? Bear in mind, I am thinking of a trade such as welding, where there is a severe shortage. Does the current post-16 curriculum meet that purpose?

We mentioned the word “tertiary” earlier—the tertiary system within this space. We need to recognise that the 16-to-19 system is in quite a difficult position in terms of being able to manage sufficiency in that space. I do not necessarily think that we have connected a national framework into regional and local areas. For example, our conversations with the local authority in Walsall are about a particular bulge in young people, students, coming into colleges who have high needs. How is that being factored and planned into the 16-to-19 offer in Walsall? There is an element of disconnect there in terms of what that planning in local places looks like from a national perspective. There is the other opportunity in terms of the broader offer in 16 to 19. The rise in participation age has created some challenges, certainly around sufficiency, funding, capacity and capability within the college space to respond to that alongside school sixth forms. The introduction of the foundation apprenticeships is a good thing, but I think that needs further development. It is a new policy area. It needs to be funded adequately, it needs to be covered, and it needs to be aligned to the labour market, where we recognise there will be lots of job opportunities in health, construction, engineering, manufacturing and hospitality. There are opportunities for further development of the 16-to-19 technical offer. I also think there is a role for the combined authorities in that space in terms of how we co-develop, co-produce and co-commission what a 16-to-19 offer should look like aligned to the labour market need.

Through the work we have been doing with LSIPs we have identified gaps. The whole point was to try to align the skills and knowledge that businesses need with local provision. To that extent our cities are working well, but employers need to be able to identify and articulate that need. LSIPs can aggregate demand and then it is up to employers to work with the FE system, the colleges and providers, to shape the curriculum so that it meets need. That process, those green shoots, are there now at the local level. Employers are engaging with the colleges to make that happen. It is a process of evolution as employers become more confident and that relationship between providers and businesses strengthens.

You are absolutely right. On the level 2 trades, which include welding, bricklaying, plastering and health, the infrastructure has been dismantled over the last few years. Even on the apprenticeships side, we have had key apprenticeship standards missing level 2 admin. But those trades are what gave people real jobs with certification and they could go to work at 19. Because we have lost that, we do not have the welders that you are talking about and we do not have the bricklayers. I am hoping that Skills England with its sector strategies will understand that we have to replace them. To be fair to LSIPs, in the first year they were told not to feature level 2, which I think was a really big mistake because they were there to do level 3 and above. It has taken two and a half years now. There are some great LSIPs. It has been a really fantastic initiative bringing people together. Only now have they been able to talk about level 2, because it was not in their scope. You need to be the champion of welders.

I am up for that, absolutely, especially in a constituency like Wolverhampton North East with our heritage.

I support lots of those comments. Clearly, with the skills gaps that we have, the curriculum is not fit for purpose. The idea that we can make one attempt at a curriculum review and then it will be fixed will just put us in a position where there will be gaps. It is about creating a responsive system, being able to think about how we get really good data on what jobs we have, what skills we need, what skills we will need in the future, and then thinking about preparing young people, but also adults. I am really conscious that most of the people whose skills we are trying to develop are already at work and have already left initial education. They are in our places, in our sectors. We should think about how we develop those shorter bits of training that will really respond to the economic need that we have. That is not just about getting a snapshot now and meeting it; it is about developing a responsive system where we can test and learn. Our focus now on sectors and places really gives us an opportunity to have a more agile, responsive system where we test and learn things. We might test some things that do not work, but unless we are ambitious and test things that could work we are never going to get to that position where we have really cracked that issue. The point about employer investment is critical. We know that there are some great employers who do great things, but we have to move to a system where there is a greater expectation of employer co-investment. Whatever the spending review says next week, it will not be enough to address those skills needs, so it will be really important to think about how we better engage employers and sectors as co-investors and co-collaborators in the skills system, rather than as customers of it.

One of the big tasks that Skills England has to achieve is to ensure a comprehensive suite of apprenticeships that meet the needs of the individuals who want to do them, but are also aligned with the skills gaps and with employer needs. In your view—Jane Gratton, I think you touched on this a moment ago—what should Skills England do to ensure that apprenticeships are meeting the needs of apprentices, employers and local economies?

The first thing to say is that employers really like apprenticeships. Those who use them really value them as a high-quality product. That is the first thing to say. Partly, it is about making sure there are progression pathways throughout the apprenticeship system, from level 2 all the way up to level 7. That is really important. Secondly, it is about getting the views of employers about the changing needs of industry. The industry trends, the adoption of technologies—all those things will shape what employers need from apprenticeships, so it is about making sure they are agile and more responsive and can be updated quickly. It is about mapping those in a coherent system—where do apprenticeships fit with the offer? Where can they make the most impact, based on what employers are telling us—and then making sure that there are routes into those apprenticeships and out the other side. In short, I would say that it is about engagement with employers, robust data, using LSIPs, again, as part of that process, and then mapping to the occupational standards, making sure that, where employers are telling us they need the skills, we have got an apprenticeship at every level and a pathway to progression on to and through that route.

I absolutely love apprenticeships. You see the powerful effect they have in supporting young people into the labour market and supporting careers to be addressed. One of the errors we sometimes make—I’m sure you won’t make it—is to forget that an apprenticeship is not an FE programme; it is a job. Therefore, if we want to increase apprenticeships, we have to think about the labour market and what would encourage employers to offer those employment opportunities with training. It is not just an FE issue. There are some other things we can do to reform apprenticeships to make them fit for purpose. The Government have done some of them, although not all of them work well across some sectors. There is some concern, for example, about whether shorter apprenticeships will deliver occupational competency in some key areas. We might also want to think about how to introduce modules for apprenticeships, which could help to ensure that they are suitable for different employers and different parts of sectors. That would also provide a mechanism to avoid having to go through a long process to update them every time the economy or that particular sector changes, because we need to get quicker at this. The independent endpoint assessment is also critical in giving employers a sense of credibility and confidence in programmes. However, while apprenticeships are brilliant, they are not the right solution for everyone, in every circumstance. One of the consequences of the apprenticeship levy was that lots of people turned lots of things that perhaps should not have been apprenticeships into apprenticeships. One of the potentials of the skills and growth levy is to say, “Absolutely, this is great training provision for your workforce, but it might not need to be an apprenticeship.” We might not need to flex the model, but instead just think about other things—short courses, modules: other types of provision—that could be funded too.

I do not disagree with anything my colleagues have said; however, Skills England is supposed to be impartial, so there is a bit of a tension and conflict with it also being the owner and the deliverer of apprenticeships. When the time comes, does it recommend that Government put funding into short courses that are not apprenticeships, or will it understand that it is not meeting the apprenticeship target and therefore say that money should be put more into apprenticeships? I think it is a very difficult organisation—especially if you on the board, Fiona—to manage the outcome and the performance. We will have to see how they manage to do that, maybe with some glass walls and different things. The other thing that I think is now missing is that apprenticeships is a much bigger programme than it was 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, when I did the first review. There is a role now for MCAs—the mayoral combined authorities—and there is a big role for employers. Demand is now outstripping vacancies, especially at the level 2 end. Somehow, Skills England has to readdress that, and I think it can readdress it with the support of combined authorities.

I agree with everything that has been covered so far. There are two key things around apprenticeships that we need to address rapidly. First, we need to get more SMEs engaged in apprenticeships. We have lost momentum in that space, and we need to move that around and shift the dial on that. We certainly want to create more apprenticeship places for young people to move into those jobs. Secondly, we need to reverse the trend in terms of the decline in young people participating in apprenticeships. That goes back to the points and the challenges around 16 to 19; that is creating a problem. With the rise in participation age, we have lost apprenticeship places for 16 to 18-year-olds. We have also lost employers wanting to recruit 16 to 18-year-olds. We need to think about how we will incentivise those employers and leverage that employer investment in a slightly different way to incentivise SMEs to engage and support young people into work. I would not be here if it was not for a work-based learning route. I really value it, and I think we need to value it again with our young people as a point of transition into the world of work.

I am going to drill down into devolution of skills policy now. The Government have set out their intentions in the English Devolution White Paper. They want to deepen and widen devolution, which means giving more areas greater responsibility around skills provision, as I am sure you are aware. I am happy for anyone to respond first to this question. What have been the main lessons from the past decade of skills devolution that the current Government should apply to their policy now?

I should start on this one. It goes back to what Sue mentioned earlier. Adult skills and apprenticeships are now extremely high-profile. Back in 2008 or 2009, adult skills was nowhere. I think that it was impacted through the austerity cuts and it lost a little bit of momentum. Through the devolution of adult skills, we have been able to refresh what the adult skills offer should look like within regions and localities. Devolution has been really important in that space and I would welcome the opportunity to be able to do more of that. We have also had the opportunity through devolution of adult skills to think about alignments with labour market needs. In Wolverhampton, working with the City of Wolverhampton College, we have just developed a new electrification offer, supporting upskilling and reskilling of adults who want to move into the electrification sector, recognising that we have a lot of residents currently working within retail and motor retail who need to upskill around electrification. So, the City of Wolverhampton College has been able to develop that. We have been able to invest in that type of offer to make it available to residents and support businesses. However, devolution needs to go a step further, recognising that we have high levels of economic inactivity within the region. In the West Midlands, we have 500,000 economically inactive residents in our region. We estimate that 88,000 of those people want to work. We also have 27,000 young people who are not in education, employment or training. Those are big numbers and that represents the scale of the challenge within our region, but that is replicated elsewhere across the rest of England in terms of those mayoral combined authorities. Where devolution needs to go next is to think much more about the tertiary system—the post-16 tertiary system—to ensure that we have a system that focuses on first engagement pieces, stabilisation, community learning elements, building resistance and confidence, and then moving forward in terms of transitioning to work, and then upskilling and reskilling to higher levels, up to level 4 and level 5. That is where devolution needs to go at a regional level, so that we can actually bring our residents on and support longer-term economic growth.

Lessons have definitely been learned from the early days and we are happy to provide a list, because every time there is a new area, we do some training with that area. The biggest lessons are that the local authorities, including combined authorities, are already sitting on data. They know where the inactive are; they know where their deprived wards are. They know what people need. Bring that data together quickly and do not try to create your own. The other failure is that it took ages for combined authorities to realise, again, that level 3 is really important but, actually, 30% or even 40% of their residents had no qualifications whatsoever, and they were likely to be the inactive or the NEET. Therefore, you need a broad strategy to engage them, and that is when community education came in. Some of us on this panel know that six or seven years ago, we had to fight for combined authorities to realise that they needed to do something for basic literacy, numeracy, ESOL and all those basic functions—not just level 3 and level 4. Those are the lessons to learn: build on what your local authorities are already doing and give your local authorities, probably, a bigger role in delivery.

I used to work alongside David at West Midlands combined authority, so I got to see some of the benefits at first hand, and I was also involved in the trailblazer devolution deal for the West Midlands around employment and skills. I have seen lots of the benefits, but I would say that some of the challenge of the next step of devolution is that it seems to be dependent on what the centre is willing to give away, rather than what is the challenge and what levers we need to fix it. For example, in the earlier session you talked such a lot about transport and enabling people to get to education and to work. Combined authorities have great potential to bring those transport and skills budgets together, but they can be really limited by a central Government Department saying, “Actually, you can have this bit but not that bit.” You cannot really think about the full levers and what the challenge is that can be fixed in a place, and giving them all those levers. One great example is on skills: David has done great things with skills devolution, but he probably has leverage over just 10% of the overall skills spend in the West Midlands. He does not have access to apprenticeships, and no access and no ability to influence the before-19 provision. Therefore, a lot of time is spent picking up the pieces of people who have got to 19 and do not have their English, maths or digital skills, or have been turned off learning. There is something about making sure that combined authorities have the right levers and the flexibility to do the things with them that they think will solve those issues. Have high accountability—absolutely—but also the flexibility to meet those. What I would say in my new role, working with sector bodies and large employers who work across England and the UK, is that there is a risk that devolution can lead to further fragmentation. If you are an employer with staff everywhere, the idea that you would have to talk to West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Cambridge and Peterborough just to get your staff trained is really challenging. We need to think about how we support those employers and sectors that need core standards and a core offer across the piece. There is already a lot of disconnect around devolution across the UK, so part of the challenge for Skills England and for combined authorities is to think about how we ensure coherence within all that potential of devolution as well.

We are running really tight on time, I’m afraid, so I ask you to be more succinct in your answers. Please feel free to follow up with us in writing if there are things that you cannot get across today. We are not going to cover all the topics as things stand.

In terms of collaboration, we talked a little earlier about the importance of the sector approach within this space. From a regional perspective, where we are seeing that collaboration taking place with key stakeholders and partners, we have taken on a sector-based challenge in building that collaboration. For example, I talked a little earlier about med tech being an area of high growth opportunity in this region. But how do we develop a curriculum in that space and co-produce that? We brought Government into that conversation alongside employers—and us, for a combined authority perspective. We are also that element of cluster leadership. Within each of the combined authority areas they have sector leadership or cluster leadership recognising where we have high growth areas and how we build our solutions. There is good, strong collaboration among those partners. Colleges and HE institutions are also involved in those conversations at a regional level. Skills England has a role to play, certainly in terms of sector bodies. But there is also that open invitation, certainly from a combined authority perspective, to those other sector representative organisations. We are working with the Electrical Contractors’ Association at this moment, trying to bridge the gap for young people transitioning from college into work in the electrical industry. We need to do more of that within that space. Although resources are sometimes limited, Skills England helps us in that space of collaboration. Where are local skills improvement plans at? They are a work in progress. Employer voice is really important. Our work with the employer representative body has been really important. We have a very strong relationship with Coventry and Warwickshire chamber of commerce, which has been driving our LSIP. But LSIPs are a little bit limited and I don’t think we should put all our eggs in one basket in focusing on an LSIP. It is a component of the skills system within a region, and the employer voice has been a real core component of that. We also need to think about the wider system piece. We need to think about local authorities and people and places within that space when it comes to a system response to the challenges within the region. We need to think about connecting that 16-to-19 system. We talked earlier about technical skills in 16 to 19. Some 50% of young residents in the West Midlands cannot do a T-level, so they need to look at an alternative skills model, which will help them progress into work. They will get through their study programmes at 16 to 19 to the point where they can progress into work, but at that age they will still not be able to do a T-level. We need to think about that system approach within a region. We have a national framework, but what is the regional ask within all that?

I am really sorry, but we need to be much more brief if we are to get through.

LSIPs are making a positive impact on the ground. They are only a few years in and they have been evolving over that time. But over 65,500 employers engaged with them within the first few months, and many had engaged for the very first time in a skills conversation. So LSIPs are really important. The priority is to build on those positive steps—again, long-term commitment and funding will be really important. The fact that they are mentioned in the devolution White Paper and will be embedded in local growth plans is critical, but I also stress that the LSIP itself needs to remain employer-led because it is a trusted, impartial partner that brings employers to the table. The other, third thing—I am conscious of time—is that employers get frustrated if they are contacted by one organisation asking for their skills needs, then another one and another one, but nothing happens because it is not joined up. I would say commit to LSIPs and have LSIPs as part of that critical skills plan. Then you will keep the employer buy-in. We have raised expectations already and we need to deliver around that change. Let us not duplicate effort and waste resources with multiple skills plans; let us just have one as part of the growth plan and stick to and build on it.

There are two things there. The LSIP is only one of the plans that anybody has to get involved with; I have just written down about seven. If you are a college principal or head of service, which one of the plans do you really work to? I have a plea: if it is going to be LSIP, let it be LSIP, but actually there are so many other vested interests. We are going to have the growth plans, we have the mayoral combined authority plans and we now have the Connect to Work plans. There are just too many. The infrastructure is too heavy, not only for the employer but for the provider, who has to demonstrate to Ofsted that they are actually taking notice of all these plans. On top of that, you have Skills England. There is room for a bit of rationalisation. I like them all, but there are just way too many of them. But what do we mean by “collaboration”? Is it sharing data, a progression route for students or collaboration to stop duplication? When we use the word “collaboration”, we all have different meanings. Many times it is used by the Government to stop duplication. We need to be clear about that because the word now comes up in a lot of documentation. We need to collaborate.

Local skills planning and employer voice are really critical. I question whether creating 38 separate local skills plans, where you cannot always tell which place they are associated with, is the best way of doing that. With modern technology and AI, we could perhaps think of other ways of taking us forward. MCAs, where there are devolved arrangements, should own those because they will be responsible for delivering on them.

David, you will not be surprised to hear that I welcome that the West Midlands Combined Authority is one of eight youth guarantee trailblazers, which will provide tailored support for our young people to access employment and education in the region. What are your priorities and how will you measure the effectiveness and success of that programme?

As I mentioned a little earlier, we have a big challenge in terms of youth unemployment within our region—27,000 young people. We are an element of an outlier in the national statistics. Wolverhampton is one of those areas where we have that challenge alongside Birmingham and Sandwell. We welcome the opportunity of having a youth trailblazer within our region. We recognise that one of the key barriers and challenges for young people is that you are six times more likely to be unemployed if you have not had any form of work experience. That is one of the key challenges that we are trying to address through our youth trailblazer. Through our Mayor’s youth plan, we want to create 20,000 work experience placements, to support young people and to give them industry experience to support their longer-term employability. That is a key part of that transition: recognising that that element of employability is a barrier for the transition into work. We are focusing on that, and we will be measuring our performance in that space. That is why we welcome the development of the foundation apprenticeships within that space. For a year now, the combined authority has been working on its path 2 apprenticeship programme, recognising that many of our young people who are not apprenticeship-ready need some form of transition programme to progress into a good apprenticeship job. We have been able to provide that stepping-stone in terms of the importance of basic skills of English, maths, ESOL and digital skills within that, alongside elements of net zero and the employability skills through work experience to support that transition. We will be scaling that activity through that youth trailblazer, but we will also be looking at how we can incentivise employers to provide those work experience placements and that transition from education into work.

Some of the written evidence we have received describes the devolution of adult skills policy as “uneven” and “disparate”. What problems does that cause, and how should those problems be addressed to support the co-ordination of adult education? Starting with Dr Pember and then Dr Aldridge.

We have been an observer and participant for all the different devolution deals over the last five or six years. What we now see is a postcode lottery. If you live in one area you will get free basic skills fully funded. If you live in another, there is hardly a basic skills offer. As an adult you cannot do a GCSE in the evening any more because it is not on offer. If you look at ESOL, there is large demand in lots of the metro areas. Now some mayoral combined authorities are having to limit ESOL spend because demand is so great, while others don’t. One combined authority decided not to do community learning but turn it into something else. Wherever you look now, it is a disparate mix. There could be good reasons for that. Localism is all about doing what is right for the area, but it does not feel like there is a good rationale in all areas. We are working with those furthest away from the workplace and community, and they are often not integrated into the community. For me and the people that we represent, we can see funding for those people being deprioritised and often going to the people who have already always been well funded by the state system. We would like to see some sort of framework so that it does not go to the extreme. That is why we see it as being disparate.

I always have a bit of a problem with the concept of devolution creating a postcode lottery, because if you think about your own constituencies, they already existed, and the point of devolution is to try and identify the needs in those places to see how we can better meet them. She is absolutely right. We are still quite early on in the devolution experiment or the move to devolution. There are definitely lessons to learn about how we set a good national framework, perhaps looking again at national entitlements, our accountabilities to local places, and resourcing those combined authorities well. That might include reflecting on the size of some of those combined authorities in the West Midlands. There is quite a lot we could do because they are a certain size. Some of those combined authorities are really small. Some questions about not being able to meet ESOL numbers, for example, are about limitations in budget that fall well short of needs. We should stick with devolution and think about our overall strategy and how we resource it well, including giving devolved areas good access to data. Something we might do with devolved areas is use them to test and learn what might work. If we change national policy, it is really big and high risk. Getting places to try things out, with the view that if it works we can think about pulling it across a broader geography, could be a helpful way of improving policy incrementally and taking account of need.

Dr Pember, no pressure—this is all on you. My two questions are about funding for adult education, which we know has plummeted over recent years. How much funding is needed to ensure that the adult education sector is properly supported? Do you have thoughts on the impact on learners, providers and employers of the Government’s 6% reduction in adult education skills funding?

On the first one, if we simply went back to 2010, before the previous austerity measures, with just an inflationary rise, we need about £3.7 billion as the budget. That is without compensating for ESF. In our submissions we are looking for £5 billion, which would only take us back to the 2010 level, which was not the highest; that was actually 2006. That is one thing, a base budget. Every Government Department now is looking towards DfE to help them with skills. Whether it was Defence yesterday, whether it is Connect to Work getting people into jobs, we have 9 million people inactive. A large percentage of them have basic skills needs, ESOL needs and language needs. We are going to fail in integration if we don’t do something about language. There have never been so many international requirements for adult skills, whether AI, the thought of more war, whatever. When you look to nations across the world, they are all putting more money into adult education, and we are not. What will that mean? We will have more people inactive, and more tension from employers saying they want to bring more skilled workers in from Europe or wherever. We will make a divisive society where those who did well in school, colleges and university will continue to do well and start thinking about paying for their own skills development. Those with poor basic skills will be just deprived and set aside. We definitely have a two-strand economy, and it will not be a good place to live.

Thank you all very much for giving evidence today. I am sorry we were not able to get through all the topics we wanted to ask you about. If you want, please write to us about anything you were not able to cover or with any further thoughts, particularly about the mandatory requirement in English and maths, which we had hoped to ask you about. I cannot let the session go on any longer, I am afraid. Please feel free to follow up with us in writing. Thank you for being here this morning and thank you, Members, for your questions.