The latest edition of our policy newsletter leads with the announcements on further education and skills in the Budget and Spending Review and in particular widespread concerns that the government’s promise of a long-term boost to funding failed to materialise.
The newsletter also includes an overview of the key points that the TUC made in its responses to the consultations on the National Skills Fund and proposed changes to the FE funding and accountability system.
The newsletter is packed with other learning and skills developments, including an update on the campaign to save BTECs and a roundup of the amendments to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill passed in the House of Lords.
Commenting on recent skills policy developments, Kevin Rowan, Head of Organising, Services & Skills at TUC, said:
The heavily trailed messaging by the Treasury of a skills revolution very quickly evaporated under a closer examination of the funding figures in the Budget & Spending Review. The overall skills spending increase is largely a rehash of previous commitments and even the increases announced for FE will still leave a shortfall of 10% compared with the funding level back in 2010. This completely fails to meet the necessary scale of ambition needed to tackle the skills crisis and to help workers upskill and retrain in these uncertain times.
The latest edition of the policy update is available here.