"So it seems unfortunate that more than a week after Keir Starmer's drastic reshuffle, ministers are still wrangling about exactly which bits of the skills agenda will now move to Pat McFadden's beefed up Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Broadly speaking, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, is expecting to hang on to responsibility for further education, while McFadden will probably take on apprenticeships and adult skills. Lady Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, will work across both departments."
"Over the past two decades alone, responsibility for skills has bounced around Whitehall, from education into the short-lived Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (2007-2009) then on to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2009-2016), back into education again, and now across to DWP. Perhaps this nomadic status helps account for successive administrations' chronic neglect. Government spending on adult education halved between 2011 and 12 and 2019 and 2020."
Labour seeks to improve social mobility and economic growth by aligning workforce skills with a rapidly changing economy. Recent cabinet reshuffling has prompted debate over which parts of the skills agenda should transfer to the Department for Work and Pensions, with further education likely staying with the education secretary and apprenticeships and adult skills expected to move. A cross-department skills minister will coordinate efforts. Experts see merit in linking training to reducing economic inactivity, but frequent departmental transfers have caused disruption. Adult education spending fell sharply in the 2010s and remains substantially lower in real terms.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]