Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of college capital projects delayed as a result of her direction for FE colleges to suspend any capital projects which were likely to rely upon private sector borrowing arrangements.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Following the decision by the Office for National Statistics to reclassify colleges to the public sector, the department is supporting colleges to meet the requirements of managing public money while retaining many of their key areas of autonomy and flexibility. Public sector organisations may only borrow from private sector sources if the transaction delivers value for money for taxpayers.
A consents process has been put in place for any new commercial borrowing and the department aims to respond to requests from colleges as quickly as possible. Through this process, as of week commencing 9 January, the department has received 63 consent requests, of which 36 have capital projects as part of the request, from 24 colleges. We estimate up to 28 of consent requests relate to projects that are currently underway at 20 colleges.
The department is working through the consent requests and will seek to mitigate the risk of delays to capital projects as far as possible.
To take into consideration the new restrictions on commercial borrowing, the department will be providing an additional £150 million of capital funding that will be available to further education colleges, sixth form colleges and designated institutions in April 2023. In late 2022, the department published the allocations to ensure colleges have certainty about how much they will receive so that they can factor this into their plans.
To help colleges manage their cashflow, the department is addressing the historical issue of uneven monthly payments from central government for 16-to-19 funding and the adult education budget. The department is investing £300 million before the end of the current financial year by bringing forward payments. The new funding profile will better match colleges’ needs, recognising the challenging environment the sector faces.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on traineeship programmes in each year since they were introduced in England.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The table below sets out the last three full financial years of data held by the department relating specifically to traineeships budget and spend.
Financial Year | Budget £ million | Spend £ million |
2019/20 | 49 | 50 |
2020/21 | 159 | 57 |
2021/22 | 189 | 62 |
Prior to this, traineeship financial data was incorporated as part of the department’s wider accounting and so specific data relating to Traineeships is currently unavailable.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) principals and CEOs and (b) senior managers were black, Asian and minority ethnic in each FE college in England on 1 January 2023.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The most recent information held by the department is based on the 2018 College Staff survey. The survey found that approximately 9% of principals and CEOs, and 4% of leaders (including senior, middle and junior managers, and governors) are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Updated data from the current Further Education Workforce Data Collection will be available later this year.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support sixth-form colleges with costs associated with increases in the level of inflation.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is keeping under review the potential impacts of the rising cost of energy on providers across the department’s remit.
Colleges are autonomous institutions responsible for their own financial sustainability and are taking actions to respond to inflationary pressures, for example through reducing energy consumption.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has outlined the range of support on energy cost increases that will be available for businesses, the public sector and households. As part of that, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to ensure that all businesses and other non-domestic customers, including colleges, are protected from excessively high energy bills over this winter. Discounts will be applied to energy usage initially between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Schools and colleges in England will also be allocated a share of £500 million in capital funding in the 2022/23 financial year to spend on energy efficiency upgrades. This comprises £447 million for schools and sixth form colleges and £53 million for further education colleges.
This funding will not only help schools and colleges save money, but it will also make them more energy efficient during the cold period and increase winter resilience for future years. Allocations were published on 6 December 2022 to help colleges plan and payments are expected to be made in January 2023.
The department assesses and reviews colleges’ financial health on a regular basis and uses this information to determine where support and intervention from the department, the Education Skills and Funding Agency and Further Education Commissioner can help colleges to improve their position. Further information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-oversight-support-and-intervention.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support sixth-form colleges with rises in the cost of energy.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Department is keeping under review the potential impacts of the rising cost of energy on providers across the department’s remit.
Colleges are autonomous institutions responsible for their own financial sustainability and are taking actions to respond to inflationary pressures, for example through reducing energy consumption.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has outlined the range of support on energy cost increases that will be available for businesses, the public sector and households. As part of that, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to ensure that all businesses and other non-domestic customers, including colleges, are protected from excessively high energy bills over this winter. Discounts will be applied to energy usage initially between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Schools and colleges in England will also be allocated a share of £500 million in capital funding in the 2022/23 financial year to spend on energy efficiency upgrades. This comprises £447 million for schools and sixth form colleges and £53 million for further education colleges.
This funding will not only help schools and colleges save money, but it will also make them more energy efficient during the cold period and increase winter resilience for future years. Allocations were published on 6 December 2022 to help colleges plan and payments are expected to be made in January 2023.
The department assesses and reviews colleges’ financial health on a regular basis and uses this information to determine where support and intervention from the department, the Education Skills and Funding Agency and Further Education Commissioner can help colleges to improve their position. Further information can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-oversight-support-and-intervention.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many further education college infrastructure projects are affected by the reclassification of colleges.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Following the decision by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to reclassify colleges to the public sector, we are supporting colleges to meet the requirements of managing public money, while retaining many of their key areas of autonomy and flexibility. Managing public money means public sector organisations may only borrow from private sector sources if the transaction delivers value for money for His Majesty’s Treasury. The department has put in place a consents process for any new commercial borrowing that colleges would like to undertake. We have already responded to six colleges which had urgent requests for commercial borrowing in December. The department has received 63 consent requests, of which 36 have capital projects as part of the request, from 24 colleges. Department officials are working through the requests for January in priority order and we will respond to colleges as quickly as possible.
In response to the ONS decision on reclassification, the department has designed a package of measures to enable colleges to deliver on the priorities in the Skills for Jobs White Paper and continue to invest in their estates. This includes an additional £150 million allocation of capital grant funding for condition improvement for 2023/4. These allocations are published on GOV.UK under Further Education reclassification capital allocation, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fe-capital-funding#fe-reclassification-capital-allocation.
The overall skills capital investment in this spending review period is £2.8 billion over the 3 years.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of young people starting (a) level two and (b) level three engineering related qualifications.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Students are able to take small academic qualifications in engineering alongside A levels to progress to higher education. Our reforms to level 2 will improve the quality of qualifications on offer and the support for those who need it, including qualifications supporting progression directly into employment, and transition support to progress to level 3. This includes the T Level Transition Programme which already provides a high-quality route onto T Levels for those who need it. It also includes our pilot of an Academic Progression Programme, supporting students who may not be able to progress to level 3 academic study straight away, but could do after some further preparation.
The introduction of T Levels, alongside technical education reforms, will boost access to high quality technical qualifications for thousands of young people. This September the department launched three T Levels in Engineering and Manufacturing in further education providers across the country, giving young people the skills employers need.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to publish a new careers strategy for England.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The careers strategy, published in 2017, set out the department’s long-term plan to achieve a high-functioning national careers system that is available to all, regardless of background. The subsequent careers measures announced in the 2021 Skills for Jobs and 2022 Schools white papers focus on continuing to meet these goals.
The department will set out future priorities for the careers system in England as part of our response to the conclusions of the current Education Select Committee inquiry into careers, which is due to report in 2023.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to work with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to develop progression maps for T Level students and employers.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is supporting the development of Progression Profiles by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE). IfATE has been working with employers, providers, and industry experts to identify the progression options for a learner following the completion of a T Level. Profiles are being developed to capture these options, including apprenticeships, skilled employment and higher education.
Profiles for T Levels in Education & Childcare, Construction and Digital have been published at: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/qualifications/t-levels/t-level-progression-profiles/, and will eventually embed into the revised occupational maps. Profiles for the wave 3 T Levels will be published early next year and wave 4 T Level profiles will be published next summer.