Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 26 July 2024

Education Eye will appear briefly over the summer break as news dictates. 

Was this the week when reality firmly kicked in for the new government? 

A difficult debate over the two-child benefit cap, a series of damning reports from the National Audit Office (NAO) on everything from potholes to the NHS, and a revealing report about the ‘hollowing out’ in areas of the public sector including schools, seemed to suggest so. 

As The Guardian put it, ‘Labour is facing a moment of truth’.

Some of those ‘moments of truth’ hit education too this week, with headlines about universities and the SEND system both facing financial crisis, concerns about growing economic disadvantage among young people in education, and teachers agitating for news about their pay deal. ‘Before the end of the month’, the education secretary said reassuringly about pay, ‘before the end of the month’. 

Of course it’s not all been bad news.

The DFE confirmed the responsibilities of its new ministerial team, the education secretary made a well-received speech at the Embassy Education Conference, and she also managed to send everyone off on their summer hols with a heartfelt message. “To everyone working in education, thank you for all your hard work this year”.

She added, perhaps ominously, that they wouldn’t be taking much of a break in the Department as they prepare for a busy year ahead. “At @educationgovuk, we'll get our heads down over summer so that on the other side of the holidays, you have what you need to do your vital work”. No rest and all that.

More immediately, there’ve been three important developments for education this week, largely around skills.

First, the education secretary announced ‘a pause and review’ of the L3 and below qualification reforms. 

It means that the defunding of many applied qualifications, including many popular BTECs, due to take place next week will not now happen. As the education secretary explained, “defunding decisions will be taken after the short review, and the Curriculum and Assessment Review will reflect these decisions”. An interesting marker.

The review, which will begin ‘immediately’ and run to the end of the year, will allow a wider look at T levels, BTECs, and how these and other aligned applied qualifications ‘fit’ into a responsive qualification system for young people. More importantly, it means that many such courses will now be available for young people starting training in September.

It follows an extensive campaign by the Sixth Form Colleges Association which, however, went on to express concern that the defunding only applies to this year’s qualifications not those in succeeding years. “What we have got is a 0 years pause” they tweeted, before going on to label it “a betrayal”. 

Others were more sanguine. The AoC said this is ‘just what we asked for’ and 'will come as a great relief to college staff up and down the country'. ASCL said ‘it was extremely welcome that the government had listened to the profession’, but urged the government to extend the review for a year or so to take in the rest of the qualifications in situ. While City and Guilds called it ‘one step in the right direction’.

Second, the government launched its long-expected major new skills body, Skills England, which had been promised in the manifesto and was listed in the King’s Speech last week.  

It came with the education secretary claiming that ‘the skills system we inherited is fragmented and broken’. It’s not a new charge of course, as previous approaches could testify, but comes at a critical moment with issues over continuing economic inactivity, the role of migrant labour, and the reliance on growth, all urgent priorities.

The new body will aim to do what previous incarnations have struggled to do, namely map skill needs and bring together products and services to meet such needs within a neat, responsive system. 

The body comes with a strong coordinating role but it’ll be no easy gig. As reeled off by the education secretary, “It will bring businesses together with trade unions, mayors, universities, colleges and training providers to give us a complete picture of skills gaps nationwide, boost growth in all corners of the country, and give people the opportunity to get on in life”.

Two relationships may prove critical. They include those with the Migration Advisory Committee and with the Mayoral Combined Authorities, both important given the government’s declared ambitions to kickstart local economies and to reduce what the PM called ‘our reliance on workers from overseas’.

Lego building for the new body will begin straightaway with an interim chair now in place, the transfer of functions from the IfATE being legislated for, work on mapping future skills needs beginning, and plans for both an industrial strategy and a post-16 strategy shortly to begin.

The ‘building’ work will take a good 9-12 months. 

Key players appear to be on board. 

The AoC welcomed the fact that ‘ministers were working so quickly’ on getting the body established. The AELP urged the government to be ambitious, 'simply rebadging old institutions with a new name won’t be enough'. And the British Chambers of Commerce added 'the new government must work at pace to establish Skills England, reviewing and joining up skills initiatives across the departments, aligning with immigration policy, and working closely with the devolved administrations to drive impact for local communities'. 

Although as Isabel Hardman explained in The Spectator, ‘skills is one of those things, like immigration, that politicians like to talk about while not necessarily knowing how to improve things’. 

We shall see in a year or so perhaps.

Third, the new Work and Pensions Secretary outlined plans to "get Britain working and boost growth," one of the key missions of the new government. 

Acknowledging that “the causes of the problems we face are complex”, she set out a number of proposals of potential interest to education and skills. 

These included: creating a new jobs and careers service; establishing a new youth guarantee of training or an apprenticeship for 18–21-year-olds; devolving more responsibilities for skills provision to local leaders; and setting up a new Labour Market Advisory Board, which arguably will need to link in with the aforementioned Skills England body. 

Further details to follow in a White Paper.

The CBI and the Learning and Work Institute were among the bodies offering their support.

On to particular parts of the education system.

In schools, local councils published a commissioned report, arguing in its opening words that 'the SEND system is broken'. 

It pointed to four ‘key facts’ including: more children being identified as SEND; fewer having their needs met; tightening budgets; and families’ experiences not improving. It went on to make a number of recommendations, including a call for a new ambition, framework and core offer.

In another difficult report, the NAO reported on the government’s support for disadvantaged children in schools in England as part of its ‘value for money series’, pointing to ‘a lack of sustained progress over the last decade’ .Despite spending £9bn, things have got worse, it concluded.

A stronger evidence base, intervention strategy, and progress map were among its recommendations.  

In FE, the CBI added its voice to the now confirmed pause and review L3 qualification reform. 

And the Education Policy Institute called for the pupil premium model applied in schools to be extended to 16 -19-year-olds, arguing that 'economically disadvantaged students in 16-19 education are over three grades behind their peers'. 

ASCL welcomed the move, adding that 'in time we would like to see funding increased to ensure a consistent approach across 0-19 education, that accounts for varying levels of disadvantage across different communities'.

In HE, in her first major speech, the education secretary set out the new government’s commitment to universities in general and international students in particular. "Be in no doubt: international students are welcome in the UK”.

The Russell Group seemed pleased. 'We hope these positive comments will draw a line under previous political rows and herald more stability in student migration policy'.

In a swansong report, the EDSK thinktank argued that the 2019 Augar vision for post-18 reform had not worked out. 'The experiment has failed'. It called instead for 'a rebalancing between HE, FE and apprenticeships if a future such system is to work'. The point was echoed by many respondents, including notably LSE’s Professor Barr.

Elsewhere, Universities UK promised a new blueprint for universities this autumn, and moneysaving expert Martin Lewis took up the case of student living loans in an open letter to the new Chancellor. “These have been substantially cut in real terms and are often not enough for some to live on”.

So we wait now for a key statement from the Chancellor before MPs head off for their summer break on Tuesday night. 

Not everyone will be off and far away. Departments such as the DfE and DWP are set to be slogging away over the summer months, and a number of new bodies and papers are being lined up.  

It’s already looking like a busy autumn. 

Links to most of these stories below starting with the week’s headlines.

The top headlines of the week:

• ‘Unis told to manage own budgets after call for bailouts’ (Monday).
• ‘Private school VAT from January will price more pupils out, headteachers warn’ (Tuesday).
• ‘DfE pauses post-16 qualifications reform and BTEC defunding’ (Wednesday). 
• ‘£5bn debt crisis of special educational needs could ‘bankrupt’ English councils’ (Thursday).
• ‘Rachel Reeves expected to reveal £20bn shortfall in public finances’ (Friday).

More specifically ...

Schools:

• SEND worries. Local councils published a commissioned report into what they described as ‘a broken SEND system’, with councils struggling to provide for a massive increase in SEND numbers and costs, a system ‘weighed down by legal disputes, and families frustrated with the lack of support, calling for a new core offer within a National Framework, with improved partnership working and access to clear progression data.
• Curriculum and assessment review. Former Chief Inspector Amanada Spielman outlined ten key principles around assessment reform ahead of the recently announced review of the curriculum and assessment, pointing to the need to keep things simple, being clear about assessment purposes, valuing expertise, and ensuring value for pupils.
• Disadvantaged children. The National Audit Office (NAO) argued that the government needs to build a better picture of what works for disadvantaged children as it published a new report on the matter, acknowledging that while it can be a complex matter with a range of issues, the current approach has hardly improved things and does not secure value for money.

FE/Skills:

• L3 qualification reform. The education secretary confirmed to MPs that there would be ‘a short pause and review of post-16 qualification reform at L3 and below’ that would conclude before the end of the year. 
• Skills body. The government announced work on its promised new skills body, Skills England, with the appointment of an interim chair and the transfer of functions from the IfATE, with the new body expected to be fully operative over the next year, and aiming to bring together key players and products to help develop workforce skills and reduce dependency on foreign workers.
• Student premium. The Education Policy Institute called in a new report for the creation of a 16-19 student premium, based on the model of the school premium and using both area-level and student-level measures of disadvantage, to help tackle economic disadvantage in 16-19 education.

Not-to-be-missed numbers of the week:

• 5.5%. The recommended pay increase for some public sector workers including teachers in England this year, according to media rumours.
• 80%. The employment rate ambition set by the government in its latest Back to Work plans.
• 2.1m. The number of children in state-funded schools in England who qualified as disadvantaged in 2023/24, according to the NAO.
• 23,385. The number of postgrad trainee teachers in 2022/23, down significantly from (31,747) the year before, according to latest government data. 
• 968,968. The number of national tutoring courses started this year up to May, according to latest government data.
• 34%. The number of parents surveyed who found it difficult to meet childcare costs last year, according to latest government data. 

Everything else you need to know ...

What to look out for next week

• Chancellor’s financial audit statement (Monday 29 July.).
• MPs’ summer break (Tuesday 30 July – Monday 02 September).