In November 2010, the UK coalition government published its strategy for the reform of further education and training in England. This follows the comprehensive spending review, which announced a 25% reduction in the further education budget by 2014–2015. One of the government’s main aims is to increase the number of adult apprenticeships, while expecting employers and learners to pay more towards the cost of training. Social partner responses were broadly positive.
Key measures
On 16 November 2010, the UK’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government published a new skills strategy, Skills for Sustainable Growth (393Kb PDF). It outlines the coalition’s plans to address ‘current failings’ in England’s further education and training system. One of the main aims is to create an additional 75,000 adult apprenticeship places on top of the previous Labour government’s plans (UK1001019I), with 200,000 adults expected to start an apprenticeship by 2014–2015. The government will pay GBP 250 million (€295 million as of 15 December 2010) towards this over the spending review period. There will also be a focus on making level 3 apprenticeships (A-level equivalent) the level ‘to which learners and employers aspire’.
Full funding will be maintained for young adults, aged 19–24 years, taking a first full level 2 qualification (GCSE equivalent) or first level 3, and for all adults who left school without functional reading, writing and maths abilities and who are taking basic skills courses. For learners aged 24 and over, a new system of government-backed loans will be available to support those wishing to take level 3 or higher qualifications. The government also plans to invest GBP 210 million (€248 million) in adult and community learning.
Labour’s flagship adult training programme, Train to Gain (UK0302106F), will be abolished and replaced with a much smaller and more targeted initiative aimed at helping small employers train low-skilled staff. As part of a drive to cut bureaucracy and red tape in the sector, colleges and providers will also be given the freedom to respond to the needs of learners and employers, in what will be a more market-led and less target-driven system. The ‘Leitch targets’, aimed at developing a workforce whose qualifications would be among the top eight of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by 2020, have been abandoned, but ‘the Leitch ambition’ of a ‘world-class skills base’ remains (UK0612049I).
Business Secretary Vince Cable, who launched the strategy in a speech to the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: ‘If we are to achieve sustainable growth, nothing is more important than addressing the current failings in skills training, and this strategy reflects this government’s determination to do both.’ He added: ‘It has been a tough spending round but we have fought hard to defend the critical parts of [further education] . . . It is about supporting those most in need and encouraging more people to take up an apprenticeship. It is also about employers doing their fair share.’
Response of the social partners
Susan Anderson, Director for Public Services and Skills at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), welcomed the government’s ‘ambitious targets’ for expanding apprenticeships and said that it was ‘right that those who have left school without basic literacy or numeracy will continue to have access to state-funded training’.
Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said there was ‘much to welcome in the strategy – plans to increase the number of apprenticeships, continued free courses for adults who struggle with their reading and writing, and the recognition that unions are key to helping people sign up for learning at work’. However, he also warned of the damage of cuts to skills funding, adding: ‘At a time when inflation is high, pay is being squeezed and hundreds of thousands of job losses are on the cards, paying for training is likely to be a very low priority for cash-strapped workers.’
Commentary
The coalition government’s skills strategy, developed in a period of austerity, seeks to ‘shift profoundly the balance between the state, businesses and individuals’ in terms of who pays for training. It states that employers are ‘willing to invest – invest far more than they do at present – in the skills of their workforces if they can be sure that the training they buy will be of high quality and geared to their needs.’ However, the White Paper does not provide any evidence in support of such a bold assertion. Research has highlighted that the UK skills problem is, in part, one of weak employer demand for, and usage of, skills (UK1001019I). In a voluntarist training system, it will be interesting to see whether employers and individuals respond in the way that policymakers hope.
Jonathan Payne, SKOPE, Cardiff University