Four years after it was first proposed by the Augar review, the government’s response to the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) consultation still leaves us with many unanswered questions.
Broadly, LLE encourages people to develop skills throughout their working life by providing four years’ worth of tertiary education funding, available for courses in a range of shapes and sizes. It aims to bolster adult education by offering retraining at higher levels to fill national skills gaps.
However, the details of the policy suggest it is unlikely to meet its ambitions due to potentially limited take-up. As the Bill makes its way through parliament, however, there’s an opportunity for policymakers to seek clarification and gain answers.
A key aim of the policy is to address the mismatch between the supply of skills and demand from industry. In 2019, skills shortage vacancies in the UK amounted to 214,000 (an increase of just under 3 per cent from 2017), of which 199,000 were in England, accounting for roughly 22 per cent of total vacancies. Over a third of vacancies in professional occupations were due to skills shortages, a figure second only to skilled trade occupations (where they are over 47 per cent). Despite these figures, the amount of training provided to employees has diminished over time and correlates with a decrease in government funding for adult further education, which fell by 38 per cent between 2010-11 and 2020-21.
