“Among my proudest achievements, I’d like to highlights the UK’s excellence at producing world-beating cold remedies, P45s and self-adhesive plastic letters,” Theresa May most definitely didn’t say after her cringeworthy appearance at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month. After all, why would anyone voluntarily flag up their biggest embarrassments in a public arena?
That’s a pertinent question for our very own apprenticeships and skills minister, Anne Milton. Speaking at a conference taking place alongside WorldSkills 2017 in Abu Dhabi this week, Milton brought up the touchy subject of apprenticeships. Of course, she was keen to highlight the 3.5 million apprenticeships created since 2010. But given that her speech came just four days after new official figures revealed a 61 per cent drop in apprenticeship starts in the three months after the introduction of the much-vaunted levy, it seemed an odd topic to bring up.
Devolution gone awry
Even more striking was the fact that she highlighted the devolution of skills funding to English cities and regions, such as Manchester and London. This, the minister continued, was allowing for “great innovation, as colleges and organisations devise imaginative plans to overcome local skills obstacles”.
Only, this process is not exactly going smoothly. The target of devolving the adult education budget to several regions - not least Manchester - by 2018-19 is looking increasingly challenging as the weeks pass by. In Sheffield, too, the process appears to have gone awry, with a High Court judge sending the programme back to the drawing board after ruling that the original consultation had gone “significantly wrong”.
And devolving adult skills funding to London, even by 2019-20, appears a “big task”, David Pack, senior manager for economic and business policy at the Greater London Authority, told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ national conference in June.
Perhaps Milton hoped an international audience would be less clued up on UK skills policy. Luckily, FErret was there to keep an eye on proceedings.
You’re welcome, minister.
Share your gossip, scandal and intrigue with FErret by emailing ferret@tesglobal.com
