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This year’s Autumn Statement included very little about education, despite calls from the sector to safeguard the Adult Education Budget (AEB), increase the levels of funding available for 16-19 year olds, and increase the amount the government will spend on English and Maths in the delivery of apprenticeships. Chancellor Philip Hammond opened by talking about the state of the economy. He said that the UK has the ‘fastest growing major economy this year’, but growth will be downgraded next year to 1.4 % from 2.2%. He confirmed that there would be no surplus in 2019/20 – which was in the Conservative manifesto. Instead, the government budget is to be balanced ‘as early as possible’ in the next parliament – bringing the welfare cap back – and debt is to fall as a share of national income by 2020. The deficit is now projected to be £21 billion going into the next General Election.

The Education for All bill has been shelved this month, in a move by Education Secretary Justine Greening. This means that measures planned by her predecessor Nicky Morgan for all poor or low performing schools to convert to academies have now ended and the process for schools to convert is now voluntary. The bill has been replaced by the Technical and Further Education Act 2016. The Act aims to set out extending the role of the Institute for Apprenticeships to cover school and college-based technical education as well as apprenticeships. This bill will then combine all current apprenticeship and further education reforms in one act of parliament.

The thorny issue of GCSE resits has come to the fore recently, with stories of colleges and training providers having to hire out huge venues to house the numbers of students retaking the examinations. Whilst I support the aim of ensuring learners that are able to, achieve their A-C (or 9-5) grade in GCSE maths and English, I feel that the focus on driving those learners who are unable to achieve the GCSE to retake the examination serves no purpose other than to frustrate these learners.

This month saw the long anticipated feedback from the Department for Education (DfE) on the changes to apprenticeship funding, due to be implemented from May 2017. Following overwhelming feedback from the sector, the DfE has engaged with employers, training providers and interested stakeholders to inform and adapt the provisional funding levels for frameworks and standards initially rolled out in the summer. One of the key issues was around the additional costs associated with training 16-18 year olds on an apprenticeship framework. To resolve this issue, providers will now receive an additional payment from government, equivalent to 20% of the funding band maximum for that framework.

Learning Curve Group were delighted to attend the International Technology in Care Conference this month as the TSA’s Educational Partner of Choice. The conference, which is the biggest of its kind, saw telecare providers and innovators from across the world meet at the ICC in Birmingham. The LCG stand attracted a lot of attention over the two-day event due to the brilliant fully-funded training and bespoke courses that we are offering to all TSA members.

The government has released further details on the levy and how it’s going to work from April/May 2017 – we’ve summarised the key information you need to know below. It appears that some changes and concessions have been made to certain aspects following the consultation round, subsequent analysis and a touch of press campaigning.

NCFE spent some time at the Conservative Party Conference this year, seeking insight into the new government’s education and skills reforms. Here’s a round-up of what we found out during the four days of the Conference and what the government will be focusing on. What is immediately striking is the extent to which the decision to leave the European Union is overshadowing all other government discussions and decision-making for the foreseeable future. Prime Minister Theresa May has clarified that Article 50 will be invoked by spring next year – effectively giving a minimum of 2 years for negotiations to leave the EU. This will involve a significant level of negotiation with existing EU members as well as a substantial amount of work removing EU legislation from UK statute (the ‘Great Repeal Act’).

There appears to be some confusion in government over apprenticeships at the moment. Perhaps it’s an inevitable consequence of changing the Prime Minister, Education Secretary and Skills Minister in the middle of one of the most ground-breaking reforms to skills policy for decades. At the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister listed some of her party’s achievements over the past 6 years. Included in this list was the claim that the government has “created nearly 3 million apprenticeships.”

The FE Week newspaper, which I edit, has reported that the government is on the verge of announcing a u-turn on the apprenticeship funding rate. Unless you’ve been ‘off the grid’ for the last two months, you’ll be aware the government approach to reform meant cuts to 16-18 apprenticeship framework funding rates from 1 May 2017.

At the beginning of the summer, it would have been inconceivable that the government would be considering bringing back academic selection in schools. Yet here we are in September, with the story attracting news headlines in the national press, all starting with a photo of a document being carried into 10 Downing Street mentioning new grammar schools. The timing of the issue is the most surprising. The new Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, had one of the rarest and most useful things in politics; a fresh slate. There could be a real risk to her image with a controversial policy like this, and it seems like a political own goal for the first Education Secretary who was educated at a comprehensive school to be the one to re-introduce academic selection. In fairness to Ms Greening, it’s clear that the driving force behind the policy is the Prime Minister herself.