17 training providers, employers and sector bodies have today joined The Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) campaign to ‘Save Our Skills System’. Previously, AELP warned that the skills sector is under immense threat due to a perfect storm of rising costs, reduced Adult Education Budget (AEB) funding, the end of the traineeship programme and an apprenticeship system where funding bands have experienced real term cuts since their introduction in 2017.
The 17 providers, employers and sector bodies have signed an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education, The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP, calling for immediate action from the government to save the skills system or risk a situation where learners will see a drastically reduced choice in where and what they’re able to learn.
The letter warns that spiralling costs for providers combined with traineeships contracts and non-devolved adult education budget contracts ending at similar times, alongside an apprenticeship funding review system that takes far too long, has created a perfect storm. This means that training providers are on a financial cliff edge which will get worse without urgent action. This will have a massive impact on the supply side of skills, leaving learners with fewer opportunities and exacerbating skills gaps. Once high-quality established providers are lost, the reduction in capacity and expertise is very difficult and expensive to renew.
