In his blog for Lifelong Learning Week 2024, David Hughes CBE, Chief Executive at the Association of Colleges, reflects on the chancellor’s first budget and highlights three opportunities to make the case for lifelong learning.
The first ever government Budget speech by a woman – and the first for the new government – made for compelling watching for many of us last week.
While the announcements were about spending and tax in the year starting April 2025, I was looking for any signals or clues as to the direction this government will take for the next five years, particularly the direction on post-16 skills, education and training and for colleges and for lifelong learning.
For colleges, starved of investment for so long, the Budget suggests a bit of a turnaround, with a mention in the chancellor’s speech, a modest increase in revenue funding and a decent dose of capital too. Probably as much as we could have expected and a lot better than we feared, but that revenue increase of £300 million is squarely focused on young people, not on adults, so not a great Budget for lifelong learning. And as Learning and Work Institute analysis has shown so clearly, the cuts to the adult budgets and the reductions in employer investment over the last decade or so have resulted in simply too few opportunities for adults to get into and benefit from learning.
For any change to that picture, and for increased lifelong learning investment, we now need to wait for the spending review announcement in the spring of 2025, where the chancellor will set out her plans for the subsequent three years. The chancellor’s speech gave us some important hooks and hints about her priorities and gave me some hope that we might be about to turn a corner on lifelong learning.
There are three areas where the Budget speech opens up opportunities to make the case for investment in lifelong learning.
The first is that in announcing £300 million of extra money for young people, the chancellor recognised the need to invest in skills and in further education. It is noteworthy because it is unusual for there to be an explicit mention of further education in Budget speeches, and a positive sign that we are in the mind of the Treasury. It might open up the discussion we need with government about the role of colleges as anchor institutions, supporting not just young people but also adults, communities as well as employers, social as well as economic growth. If that happens, it opens up the role of colleges as key local players in a lifelong learning ecosystem, working with a whole range of others.
The second relates to the expected focus the chancellor had on the Government’s ambitions to boost economic growth. She set out seven pillars, including this: ‘… to improve employment prospects and skills we are creating Skills England, delivering our plans to Make Work Pay and tackling economic inactivity.’ A new link like this between skills, the employment rate and economic growth has to open up a discussion about lifelong learning because we know that there are millions of people in work, or inactive who would flourish in good jobs, if they were able to find opportunities to improve their skills.
The third was the announcement that the Government will shortly be publishing the ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper, aimed at tackling the root causes of inactivity with an integrated approach across health, education and welfare. For this, there will be £240 million for 16 trailblazer projects which will try to tie together the services needed to support people into good jobs. As Learning and Work Institute has shown over the years, lifelong learning needs to be at the heart of this approach, underpinning the confidence, self-esteem, well-being and relevant skills that all of us need to secure good jobs.
There are other signs that lifelong learning might be higher priority than for many years. The government’s opportunity mission aims to break down the barriers to opportunities and better life chances for all. In a pre-election document they said that: ‘Labour believes education should be available to everyone all our lives long’ and pledged to: ‘… ensure that three million adults are supported to improve their basic skills over the next decade.’ Both welcome commitments, but both absent from the election manifesto itself, suggesting that they might not be top and immediate priorities.
So where does it leave us and what are the prospects for lifelong learning under this new government? There are enough signals for me to believe that ministers want to see a new lifelong learning culture, and that they understand the wider role learning can have in a good society, strong communities, flourishing families as well as the productivity, labour market and economic growth benefits.
Once again, though, the proof really will be in the investment and the ambition of their plans and funding. I’ll be looking with interest at the forthcoming post-16 skills strategy to see if those wider benefits are properly highlighted and valued. I hope they are.