Fiscal Statement Update

Following on from the latest Fiscal Statement, there are a number of key points we’re sharing that we feel are important for our college and students:

•Employers will be paid £1,000 per trainee taken on as part of a plan to treble the number of traineeships from 10,000 to 30,000 as an estimated cost of £100 million. Funding for traineeship places is split between 16-18 and adult education budgets.

•There is a new plan to spend £101 million to support 18 and 19-year-olds in further education to take “high value” courses at Level 2 or 3 in a number of sectors. AoC has been arguing for action to help this age group for months but this plan has nothing for living costs and does not extend above Level 3.

•Employers will be paid £2,000 for each new apprentice aged under 25 and £1,500 for those aged over 25. This scheme builds on the existing employer payment for 16-18 year old apprentices, so comes to £3,000 for them. We understand that this might be from August to the end of January next year.

Even though the measures for 16 to 24-year-olds are small in the grand scheme of things, there are some significant extra sums coming into our system in the next eight months. The government intention is to:

1.Create a package which builds on existing arrangements to speed implementation
2.Provide a range of offers so that nobody falls through the cracks
3.Layer the incentives so that those in most need get the most.

Of course we’re all still in a state of relative ‘flux’ with regards to what the short-term future looks like – but what’s important is that at Lambeth College we’re committed to guaranteeing a place to be educated for 16 year olds and as more people look to ‘reset’ their future careers – as the Careers College our commitment to supporting education to help people build their career continues.