Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what contractual and financial flexibilities he will put in place for training providers and colleges to ensure that the apprenticeship provider base is sustained during the covid-19 outbreak.

The department is very grateful to education providers who are responding to the unique challenge of COVID-19, including making provision to continue support for vulnerable children and key workers following the announcement of 18 March. Clearly, there will be a substantial financial impact on the sector, which requires a strong response.

Firstly, where there are current planned payment profiles, we are seeking to provide stability. The Education and Skills Funding Agency will continue to pay grant-funded providers their scheduled monthly payments for the remainder of the year. Allocations for 2020/21 will have been confirmed by the end of March and payments will made as profiled. We are also looking to put in place a process for providing reimbursement for additional costs imposed by responding to COVID-19.

Secondly, we want to ensure that apprentices can continue and complete their apprenticeship, wherever possible, despite any break that they have to take as a result of COVID-19. We are committed to working with training providers, end-point assessment organisations and external quality assurance organisations to mitigate the operational and financial impacts of this disruption and maintain the integrity of apprenticeships. We have published apprenticeship guidance and this is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-apprenticeship-programme-response. For other funding streams, we will be making decisions on where existing rules and models may need to be modified in relation to any planned reconciliation and future year allocations.

For colleges in significant financial difficulties, the existing support arrangements remain in place including through short-term solvency support through emergency funding.

My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has also announced a series of wider measures to support employers and employees, recognising the significant impacts caused by COVID-19. Education, training and assessment providers who operate as businesses or charities are able to access the package of measures to support businesses. Details of this support are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19/covid-19-support-for-businesses. We are working closely with HM Treasury to monitor how the support packages are benefitting organisations and to consider any further action which may be required.

To provide more detailed information for further education providers, we have published operational guidance available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision.