Apprentices: Finance

(asked on 17th December 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the adequacy of funding for apprenticeships.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Agnew of Oulton
This question was answered on 20th December 2018

The departmental budget for spending on further education and apprenticeships in England from 2015-16 to 2019-20 was set initially in the 2015 Spending Review. Skills is a devolved matter and the funding for the devolved nations for the current spending review period was set at the same time. As with other areas of departmental spending, further education funding from 2020 onwards will be considered as part of the next Spending Review.

The department has protected the base rate of funding for 16 to 19 year olds for all types of providers until the end of the current spending review period in 2020. The department has been allocated £1.5 billion for the adult education budget for each year of the 2015 Spending Review period up to 2020, to engage adults and provide the skills and learning they need up to level 3 to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.

Since 2016, the department has made over £330 million available to support major college restructuring, supporting significant improvements to financial sustainability in the sector. The department is currently considering the final applications for the restructuring facility and expect the final figure to rise significantly before the programme ends next year.

The department is actively exploring the funding and resilience of further education and will be assessing how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures enable high quality provision. This work will align closely with the Post-18 Review in particular, to ensure a coherent vision for further and higher education.

By 2019-20, the funding available for apprenticeships in England will have risen to over £2.5 billion, including the additional £115 million confirmed at Budget 2018. Spending on the apprenticeship programme is demand-led and employers can choose which apprenticeships they offer and at what level, how many and when. Further, levy paying employers have two years to spend the funds available to them in their apprenticeship service accounts.

The department will publish details on further education and apprenticeship spending in our annual report and accounts as part of our normal financial reporting cycle. The department published 2017-18 spending in July and the annual report and accounts can be found on GOV.UK.

Reticulating Splines