Further Education: Finance

(asked on 18th December 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional funding has been made available to further education colleges since their reclassification as public sector organisations in November 2022.


Answered by
Robert Halfon Portrait
Robert Halfon
This question was answered on 8th January 2024

The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/24 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education sector. This funding is to help colleges and other providers to address their key priorities, particularly tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value subject areas that are critical to the economy.

The above investment is in addition to the £125 million of funding made available in the 2023/24 financial year to boost the national 16 to 19 funding rate and subject-specific funding.

In the 2023/24 academic year, the department is applying a 2.2% increase to the final earnings for all adult education budget (AEB) formula-funded provision, excluding associated learner and learning support. In addition, the department is applying a 20% boost on top of earnings for all AEB formula-funded provision in six sector subject areas, including: Engineering, Manufacturing Technologies, Transport Operations and Maintenance, Building and Construction, ICT for Practitioners, and Mathematics and Statistics.

The department will make an initial downpayment over the next two years ahead of introducing the Advanced British Standard, with funding benefiting further education as follows:

- An additional investment of around £150 million each year to support those who do not pass mathematics and English GCSE at 16 to gain these qualifications. This will particularly benefit further education colleges, who play a vital role in helping close the attainment gap by 19.

- An increase in funding to colleges and schools so they can deliver maths to more students aged over 16, increasing the Core Maths and Advanced Maths Premium and investing in a digital platform for tutoring in Core Maths. In total this is £60 million of additional funding for maths education over the next two years of which further education institutions will potentially be able to benefit from the Core Maths Premium and Advanced Maths Premium.

- To improve the recruitment and retention of teachers of key shortage subjects around £100 million will be invested each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium and expand it to cover all further education colleges. All teachers who are in the first five years of their career, teaching shortage subjects and working in disadvantaged schools and all further education colleges, will be paid up to £6,000 per year tax-free.

Since reclassification, £884 million of capital funding has been confirmed for further education colleges and designated institutions to fund condition improvement, expansion and the provision of specialist equipment and facilities. Some capital programmes have wider eligibility to also include sixth form colleges and other statutory sixth form providers.

  • £286 million further education capital transformation funding (final stage of £1.5 billion programme)
  • £150 million prioritising condition improvement of the college’s estate
  • £140 million Post 16 Capacity Funding (second round)
  • £125 million Local Skills Improvement Fund capital funding
  • £100 million T Level capacity funding (wave 5)
  • £53 million to improve energy efficiency
  • £30 million Higher Technical Education skills injection fund (round 2)

The department has also opened the college capital loans scheme in April to enable capital projects reliant on commercial borrowing to proceed as planned.

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