Blog Archives: October 2017

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How not to manage a market

By Mick Fletcher, FE Policy Analyst, Friday 06 October 2017

Mick Fletcher blog.jpg

The core problem with government skills policy is that it is ultimately founded on a deceit.  The claim is that employers are in the driving seat.  In practice however all it means is that government has chosen to manage a pseudo-market by manipulating employers rather than manipulating providers.  I’ve made this point before (see FE Week 22/04/14) but now some of the perverse consequences of this shift are becoming more apparent. Manipulation, or as ESFA would prefer to say ‘adjusting the incentives to employers’ is necessary because not every outcome of an unfettered market would be acceptable to government.  Since we are talking about public money (remember even the apprenticeship levy is a tax) this is right and proper.  It underlines the point however that, like bus drivers, employers may turn the wheel but they are not free to fix the destination.

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