Last Friday morning, the UK woke up to an uncertain future outside of the European Union after 52% voted to leave in the EU referendum.
The result has already had, and will continue to have, a great deal of impact across government, as I’m sure we’ll all have seen in the news over the last few days.
There will of course be an impact on education and skills. We can say with certainty that there will be a change in the UK Prime Minister and Cabinet, with David Cameron announcing last week that he would step down by the time of the Party Conference in October, and talk of George Osborne potentially stepping down too. How much impact Brexit will have on education and skills will be partially determined by the individuals that end up on the Cabinet, and what they decide to prioritise while working to negotiate our exit from the EU.
The result was followed by a significant economic shock, with the pound falling and the London Stock Market opening 8% down on Friday. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, hinted heavily at reserves of £250bn to ease liquidity in the banking sector.
Upon invocation of relevant Lisbon Treaty articles (whenever this happens), there will be a 2 year period before the UK ‘officially’ leaves the EU, and it’s likely that government departments will spend this period working out the legislative and financial impacts on their relevant areas. With this being the case, we have to consider whether they will continue to see Further Education and Skills as a priority. We’ll be interested to see whether the much talked about 3 million Apprenticeship target and focus remain – unfortunately it’s possible that these may disappear off the agenda, at least in the short term.
FE and Skills may potentially be displaced on parliamentary agendas by higher profile actions the government wishes to undertake – decisions in skills policy may be placed in ‘stasis’ for 2 years, but we’ll have to wait and see.
In terms of the important issue of skills funding, we know that European Social and Investment Fund (ESIF) funding will be maintained through the current round until 2020 – a total of £2.53 billion based on 2014-2020 allocations. However, there will be no further UK involvement in negotiations for allocations of ESIF funding post-2020. As an unprotected department, BIS and SFA budgets may then be threatened if they’re assigned to backfilling EU funding elsewhere (including ESIF), especially if ongoing economic performance was to suffer.
Despite indications that the Apprenticeship Levy may be dropped to compensate for the anticipated economic shock, Skills Minster Nick Boles seemed to announce on Monday that he would be pressing ahead with the reforms, and that the commitment to apprenticeships was absolute. It’s still possible that the finer details of apprenticeship reform may be delayed, but for now it seems to be business as usual.
For more information on what’s next for education and skills following the result, sign up to our free webinar on 7 July, which will provide a snapshot of the major political and economic factors that will impact education and skills.
