UK Skills Funding Needs a Long-Term Plan

Recently, we wrote to Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, to ask for more certainty over the future of skills provision that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UK SPF) and Multiply scheme funding. These programmes provide essential support to vulnerable individuals and businesses, helping to bridge the skills gap and drive economic growth.

Without adequate funding, individuals and communities who are already furthest from the job market will face significant barriers to accessing the skills and training they desperately need. As the government navigates a challenging economic and political landscape, it is vital to ensure that the most vulnerable do not get left behind.

Our letter to the Secretary is below.

Dear Bridget,

I’m writing to express my real sense of anxiety about the plan to replace the funds in the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UK SPF) for training, as well as plans to replace the Multiply scheme. We are now six months away from most of this funding ending. The end of this funding or prolonged uncertainty about its future could bring about a hole in support for some of the most vulnerable people in our country. I’m writing to you on behalf of them, the most disadvantaged and most distanced from the job market, to urge you to address this as a pressing matter and ensure not only that funding continues but that the industry is given time to prepare to implement any new government proposal without any stop in funding for existing programmes.

Over the last several years, uncertainty in funding and ending of some support has caused significant difficulty for our industry. More urgently, this has caused untold damage to the people that we work tirelessly to support. In 2022 alone, we saw, with the end of the European Social Fund (ESF), a gaping hole left in support for young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEETs) and no plan to replace these funds. The impact has been clear: the number of people who were classified as NEET has grown by more than 20% since the end of the ESF funding; and youth unemployed has increased from 9.6% to 14.2% in that same time, despite a decrease in the unemployment rate for other age groups. This comes on top of there being little to no increase in the funding we receive to deliver courses since 2014, even as inflation has exceeded 30% during that period. At the same time, our industry saw several bankruptcies as companies struggled to deal with the impact of these changes. This means that today there are fewer organisations able to make the life-changing impacts that our industry was set up to deliver.

We know that the people we work with, often left behind or left out, will create the wealth that the UK needs to compete: investing in them will spread opportunity and increase prosperity. We know this first-hand at Workpays: from supporting people to gain the skills they need to put their first foot on the ladder to giving career advice and helping them find an interview and a career, the work we do is fundamental to ensuring not only that our communities can enter the labour market and compete, but that they can thrive in sustained careers too. We also know that we could not do this without the funds that are currently provided by the UK SPF and Multiply. Since the start of the Multiply initiative, we have helped almost a thousand people gain confidence in their maths skills, allowing them to support their children with their homework, progress in their careers, and even enter into new jobs that previously they were blocked from entering from a lack of skills. With investment in training half of the EU average and down 75% in real terms since 2005, now is not the time to take away this vital lifeline to the most disadvantaged people in the UK. 

As the recent Skills England Report notes, the UK has a severe skills gap. This is not only holding people back from progressing, but holding our economy back from growing; with a workforce that is “particularly underqualified”, now is not the time to stop funding: it is the time to invest and provide certainty. At a time when the Government has pledged its commitment to building a stronger economy based on a fairer Britain, we should not leave these most vulnerable young people behind. Put simply, Britain and our future economy cannot afford to leave these people behind either.

Therefore, I am writing on behalf of Workpays and the wider Training Provider industry to ask the government to take steps as a matter of urgency to ensure that we can continue to support some of the UK’s most vulnerable people with sufficient funds and a clear mandate. We would be pleased to work with the Government to create long-term programmes of support for people for whom skills training would impact the most in our region and across the nation. We know that your Government is new, yet we ask that you provide our industry and the ambitious people we support – who just want a chance to succeed – with the certainty we all need to rebuild the foundations of our country and drive economic growth through expanded opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Glasner

Managing Director, Workpays