Warwickshire County Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2026

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Grand Committee

Considered in Grand Committee

18:44

Moved by

[Baroness Smith of Malvern]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Warwickshire County Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2026.

Relevant document: 54th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to ask the Committee to consider these three instruments together today: the Buckinghamshire Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2026, the Surrey County Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2026 and the Warwickshire County Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2026.

These statutory instruments were laid before this House on 25 February 2026 under the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016. If approved, the Department for Work and Pensions will transfer adult education functions and the associated adult skills fund to these local areas for the start of the new academic year, 1 August 2026. These local areas will then have the freedom to use their adult skills fund to help their residents meet their skills needs, fulfil their potential and contribute to the growth of their region.

Since 2018, a portion of the adult skills fund has been devolved to local bodies, which have exercised control over that spending in their area. For the most part, these organisations have been combined authorities, although functions and funding were devolved at Cornwall Council one year ago.

In March 2024, the previous Government agreed devolution deals with the three local authorities we are considering today. Those deals, taken forward by this Government, committed to full devolution of the adult education budget, now called the adult skills fund. This was to be exercised from the academic year 2026-27, subject to readiness conditions and parliamentary approval. It has been judged that all three authorities have demonstrated readiness to acquire functions; therefore, these instruments are the final step in ensuring that they are able to deliver from August this year.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will confer the same functions on strategic authorities, to be exercised from at least one full academic year after the authority’s establishment. The package of these instruments, and that Bill, will increase the percentage of the adult skills fund that is devolved from 67% to 76%.

Six further areas agreed devolution deals through this Government’s devolution priority programme. The Government are going through the legislative process to form these areas, with the intention that they deliver adult education functions from August 2027, subject to ministerial approval. Taken together, these actions deliver on the Government’s commitment to empower local leaders and unlock growth.

The specific adult education functions being transferred to these three local areas are under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, and will be exercisable by these local authorities. These SIs transfer three specific duties set out in the 2009 Act from the Secretary of State to each local authority. These duties are: Section 86, which places a duty to secure appropriate facilities for education for individuals aged 19 or over, excluding those under 25 with an education, health and care plan; Section 87, which places a duty on the authority to secure the provision of facilities for adults who lack particular skills to obtain relevant qualifications; and Section 88, which places a duty on the authority to ensure that these courses of study are free for eligible learners. The duties above, solely exercisable by the local authority, are subject to an exception in relation to apprenticeships training, persons subject to adult detention or any power to make regulations or orders.

The SIs also confer other powers and duties on each local authority to be exercisable concurrently with the Secretary of State. These are also set out in the 2009 Act and are: Section 90, the duty to encourage participation in education and training for persons aged 19 or over; Section 100(1), provision of financial resources, which is the general funding power for the adult skills fund; and Section 100(1B), provision of financial resources in connection with technical education.

The adult skills fund supports millions of adults across England to develop the skills they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. Local areas are best placed to identify what their local people, communities and businesses need. Strategic authorities decide how they spend their funding to deliver opportunity and growth in their area, and they will be able to respond in a more agile way to local priorities and emerging challenges, and address barriers more effectively.

Local areas can apply the flexibility that devolved adult skills funding offers to identify adults in their region who are most in need and invest more funding to support those groups, to work directly with employers, training providers and other local partners to commission new provision to meet local needs, and to set funding rates that incentivise delivery of provision that offers the most positive impacts for their region. Within this local flexibility, strategic authorities must offer free courses for adults to deliver national statutory entitlements in English, maths, digital courses, level 2 and 3 qualifications for those who do not yet have those skills, and free courses for jobs. This funding provides an essential stepping stone for adults with the lowest skills.

I recognise that the nature of skills challenges and the solutions will be different in every region. That is why I am pleased that three new areas are poised to take the opportunities and to develop new thinking and priorities for the adult skills fund in their areas. If the draft statutory instruments are approved, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire will be responsible for managing their adult skills funding allocation efficiently and effectively to deliver for their local residents. The DfE and the DWP have worked closely with each area over the last two years to ensure that they are ready to take on these functions and have provided implementation funding to help them to prepare effectively and support a smooth transition.

Each area has consented to the transfer of these powers and the making of these statutory instruments. They have also provided assurances that a permanent skills team is in place to manage delivery effectively. They have each developed a strategic skills plan setting out how they will use their devolved adult skills funding to meet key priorities, and I can confirm that, on the basis of the evidence submitted, Ministers have concluded that the statutory tests have been met. Each area has given its consent and demonstrated that devolution is likely to improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of people who live and work in the region, and a report has been laid before Parliament explaining how these conditions have been met.

To support future devolution and identify best practice, the Department for Work and Pensions will continue to hold constructive conversations with existing strategic authorities, other local areas and our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on how devolution can help to shape future skills provision to meet local needs. I take this opportunity to thank all our partner organisations, particularly colleagues at Buckinghamshire Council, Surrey County Council and Warwickshire County Council, for their expertise and input in getting to this important milestone.

These statutory instruments will give those three authorities the opportunity to shape their adult education provision, address local barriers, focus provision to meet local needs, enhance economic growth and bring greater prosperity to their areas. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving us that introduction. It is nice to have her back, and I hope she is fully recovered. The most pedantic thing I could think to say is that the Minister said Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire but the regulations are in a different order on the Order Paper, which says Warwickshire, Surrey and Buckinghamshire.

Having got that out of the way, my main question is this: we are in a situation where we are reforming local government involving different groups. Could she give us a slightly better idea, as I may have missed this in her initial statement, of how this actually transfers? Which authorities are expected to take it on once the county councils change? That is something that I would like to hear because it would give us an idea of what is going on. I remember from when we discussed this that the idea is that authorities will respond to local needs in their training. I had reservations because I am not quite sure how you define that, who should be moving on and what the structure will be, but that is for another day. Could we have an idea of which group will be taking charge after we have had the changes to local government?

I do not really have any other fundamental objections to these instruments, but I will add that the Minister spoke about those with low attainment. I wonder if one day I will get up in a debate on education and not mention special educational needs—I suppose it is quite possible—but what about identification of those who would benefit from this support and structure in acquiring these local resources? Do we have any development plans for it? That is a speculative question. If the Minister has any information that could be sent to me then I would be grateful to receive it, and if she has it now then I would be grateful to hear it.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak on these regulations, which transfer adult education functions to Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire councils from the 2026-27 academic year and, as the Minister said, from 1 August 2026. I am very grateful for the detail that the Minister has given in setting out these measures.

The principle of devolution in adult skills is well-established and enjoys cross-party support. Bringing decisions closer to local labour markets and employers makes intuitive sense and these regulations build on that foundation. I do not oppose them; indeed, this policy is in line with the principle that we established during our time in government of devolving the adult skills budget. However, I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance on a number of points.

First, on funding, the Department for Education has cut the adult education budget by 60% for this academic year. Devolution is of limited value if it simply transfers responsibility without the resources to deliver. I know that the Minister gave some details on this, but can she confirm the indicative allocations for these authorities and explain how the Government will ensure that funding keeps pace with local demand? What data will the Government collect on devolved adult skills fund money spend and how this is being translated into outcomes? I am aware that industry experts have expressed some concerns about this.

Secondly, on accountability, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised this point, but I want to go a little bit further. One of the long-standing concerns with devolved skills funding is the absence of consistent comparable outcome data. Will the Government commit to publishing performance information at local authority level across both devolved and non-devolved areas so that Parliament and the public can assess whether the model is actually working? Can the Minister please tell us more about the lines of accountability and reporting? Who will have oversight of how adult education services in these authorities are performing, and how often will they be kept abreast of outcomes?

Thirdly, on structural stability, Surrey County Council is due to be abolished in 2027. Warwickshire is expected to be reorganised in 2028. The Government have indicated that functions will transfer to successor bodies, but I would welcome further clarity on the providers during this period of change. I know the noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised this issue. To go further, what safeguards are in place to protect learners and providers during this period? More broadly, why have the Government chosen to devolve these powers to local authorities now on the eve of their abolition?

Finally, on coherence, with some areas now holding devolved powers and others not, there is a real risk of a patchwork system emerging with uneven provision, inconsistent entitlements and fragmented oversight. How do the Government intend to maintain a coherent, national skills strategy while pursuing this localised approach? I am certain that the Minister is well placed to cover this area with her portfolio profile.

These regulations change not what adult education is provided but who controls it. That shift can bring real benefits, but only if accompanied by adequate funding, robust accountability and, of course, stable governance. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to the points I have raised but, as I have said before, we are broadly behind the measures that are being taken today.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I start by thanking noble Lords for their contributions and questions. I will endeavour to answer them and to get the SIs in the right order as I do so. Before I turn to the questions and the reasonable points that have been raised, I reiterate the important strategic role that devolution has to play in the growth of our economy across our country. These instruments broaden the scope of devolution, meaning more local decision-making in more areas across England than ever before. I recognise the noble Lord’s point, and I reiterate, as I did in my opening comments, that this was a process for these three authorities, started by the previous Government in 2024 and taken forward by this Government.

19:00

It is critical that we support people to become an active part of our workforce, so as to deliver on our growth agenda and for them to secure a better future. Devolving adult education functions and funding to Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Warwickshire—I think that might be the wrong order, I am sorry—will ensure that adult education provision is tailored to local needs and supports economic growth in these areas. In supporting adults to gain skills and enter the labour market in these areas, we are enhancing opportunity.

I turn to the point raised by both noble Lords about the relationship between this devolution and the local government reorganisation currently under way. Local government reorganisation is happening in Surrey and in Warwickshire, but not in Buckinghamshire, which is already a unitary authority. I am pleased to have my noble friend Lady Taylor beside me, who has worked so hard on this area in recent weeks, months and years. It is a critical reform programme to deliver strong local councils that will improve public services, reflect their communities and support economic growth. These areas, notwithstanding the reorganisation, have prepared extensively for devolution and are working closely with government to ensure that the benefits of devolving adult skills are not delayed or disrupted by local government reorganisation.

The Government intend to deliver a foundation strategic authority across Surrey at the same time as the new unitary authorities are established. The foundation strategic authority would take on the adult skills functions and is subject to the relevant statutory process, including consultation, statutory tests and a statutory instrument. On 9 March this year, the Minister of State for Local Government and Homelessness signed the Surrey (Structural Changes) Order 2026, which abolishes the existing councils in Surrey and creates two new councils, East Surrey and West Surrey. There will be elections in May for these new unitary authorities, which will assume their full powers on 1 April 2027. In the case of Warwickshire, a decision will be taken this summer but a new authority or authorities will not be formed until April 2028, providing ample time to plan for continued delivery.

In both these areas, the work that has been supported by the Government has enabled the authorities to consider how they set up the teams, how they think about their priorities and how they will report on them—and I will come to that point in a moment. There is therefore no justification for delaying the significant benefits that can come from devolving this funding to those areas, despite the reorganisation that two of the areas are going through.

On the point about the level of funding being devolved, I may have misheard the noble Viscount, but I think he said that this Government had cut funding by 60%.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I said 6%.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

We could argue about the figures but, in the academic year 2025-2026, it was the case that the Government made a small cut to the adult skills fund in the very challenging fiscal context that we inherited. There have been no further reductions, nor will there be for this forthcoming academic year.

I do not want to get into a row about this, but adult skills funding has seen a considerable cut, along with its predecessor funds, from 2010 onwards. The job for this Government is to at the very least stabilise this important contribution to developing skills and providing opportunities for adults. We will determine the proportions of funding for each of these areas using historical spending from 2017-2018, with each area’s share calculated as the proportion of the ASF spent on local learners prior to devolution. We will continue to work closely with devolved areas to support them and to ensure efficient use of funding and the long-term sustainability of skills provision.

Noble Lords understandably asked how that accountability and reporting will work. Accountability arrangements for devolved organisations are set out in the British devolution accountability framework. As part of this, local areas with devolved powers are required both to submit annual assurance reports to the Department for Work and Pensions and to publish them on their own organisation’s website. They will set out what a devolved area has delivered against its strategic skills priorities over the previous academic year; that will include an assessment of key outcomes, local partnership work, achievements, challenges and lessons learned. Key data against which local areas are expected to report include adult skills fund data on spend and data on the number of learners in their local areas who are taking up their statutory entitlements. Skills England uses the information in each of these reports to undertake annual skills stocktakes with each local area in order to discuss key findings, including how any issues can be addressed.

Finally—I would have been disappointed if the noble Lord, Lord Addington, had not raised special educational needs and disability—I reiterate the point I made on devolution when I talked about the exception being for young people with education, health and care plans up to the age of 25. Those young people will still be funded through the 16-to-19 funding and will still have the provisions in their education, health and care plans delivered through that funding; the responsibility will remain.

More broadly, the statutory national entitlements focus in particular on those people who, perhaps by virtue of special educational needs or disabilities, have not been able to get a grade 4 in their English or maths GCSE, for example; have not had the opportunity to get to a level 2 or level 3 standard of education; or have not been able to develop digital skills up to level 1. They have a statutory national entitlement that must continue to be funded, regardless of the devolution of funds here. I hope that that provides some reassurance.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

What I would like to extract is the identification of those who have a learning disability or special educational need and who will require slightly different learning patterns to get the best results. More of the same in a system in which you have already failed will probably lead to more failure. That change in style requires some identification. It is something that we are told we will talk much more about in the next parliamentary Session; I just wondered whether there is any information available to us today about that.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Much of what we will be talking about in the next parliamentary Session will obviously relate to special educational needs and disability funding and provision in schools, both in early years and post-16. What we are talking about today is adult skills funding, which, as I said, for those with special educational needs, will be above the age of 25.

This does not mean that I do not think the noble Lord is making an important point. One of the things that devolution enables authorities to do—and one of the things that the adult skills fund already does—is provide opportunities for people who are a very long way away from the labour market, perhaps by virtue of disability, to get the necessary training for that. Perhaps I could write to the noble Lord about the other routes supported by DWP that would help enable people with learning disabilities, for example, to access work and get the sort of development that they might need in order to succeed in life. I will provide some more detail about that.

I reiterate that this fund carries out a very important function: supporting adults with the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. It can provide a stepping stone to progression and prosperity, particularly for disadvantaged adult learners. We believe that it can be delivered to greater effect, more efficiently and in line with local priorities through these devolution proposals. For that reason, I commend these regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.