This year's Budget will be the first indication of how the new Government intends to go about the difficult balancing act of improving public finances and investing in economic growth, without unduly raising the tax burden.
The array of new Education and Skills policies is impressive and welcome, but the fact remains that 2024/25 is already proving to be a tough year for the Tertiary Education sector, as the financial challenge facing universities and colleges is steadily worsening.
Given this context, here are our top ten asks of Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Lifelong Education
Make grant funding as well as loan funding available to lower-income adult learners as part of a reformed Lifelong Learning Entitlement.
Inject extra funding into the DWP “Pathway to Work” strategy to revive adult learning for the growing pool of economically inactive adults.
Allocate funding to develop an Adult Skills Account system through which the costs of training are shared between employees, employers and the state.
Widen the eligibility for Research & Development corporation tax relief to include investment to support higher skills training and the secondment of industry-expert staff to teach in colleges and universities.
Further Education
Provide an injection of funding for a pay award in line with the one recently given to schoolteachers. What we really need is a multi-annual pay settlement to tackle the staffing crisis which is already affecting the delivery of crucial STEM subjects.
With a large number of colleges still in deficit, signal a clear intention to use the three-year spending review to give FE confidence over funding and enable them to invest in supporting the Skills England agenda.
Grant VAT relief to colleges. It would be good to get some tangible benefit from the reclassification of colleges into the public sector which so far has brought nothing but additional bureaucracy and delay.
Higher Education
Raise the student tuition fee cap, even if only by a relatively small amount, pending a wider review of HE funding.
Re-introduce means tested Maintenance Grants for HE students.
Raise the budget for the Growth and Skills Levy in line with the increase in the amount of money raised by the apprenticeship levy, in order to minimise any restrictions on Level 7 apprenticeships.
The LEI appreciates the severe financial constraints the government is facing, although the rumoured relaxation in the rules around government borrowing would offer some wriggle room. We believe that investment in education, if properly calibrated and targeted, will soon bring important economic and social returns. Any strategy to boost the UK’s growth and productivity needs to be based on raising our level of workplace skills. On top of that, social cohesion and community health will be greatly enhanced by extending adult education to as many as possible.
Our mission is to get colleges, universities, employers and adult education providers working much more closely together to open up lifelong learning opportunities and drive productivity growth.
Our message to the Chancellor is quite simple: invest in lifelong education.
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