Impact of EU referendum result on apprenticeships policy and funding - analysis
The recent EU referendum will have an impact across many sectors of public policy, including education, especially as a change of Prime Minister and administration is now a certainty.
Our in-house experts have recently published their analyses of the potential and likely impacts. Here’s a summary of the key points as they relate to apprenticeships and work-based learning.
Policy
By Steve Besley, Head of Policy, Pearson UK
Arguably there are four phases of activity over the coming months:
Phase 1: now until 21 July. Watch for some long-awaited announcements that the respective ministers want to get out before Parliament goes into recess. The Skills Minister has said that he hopes the Sainsbury Review and the Skills Paper will be among these.
Phase 2: 22 July until 5 September. Politically, attention will be on the policy platforms of the respective leadership candidates, while education and training continues with business as usual.
Phase 3: September to October. With a new Prime Minister installed, we find out which old policies will be revived, and any new ones will get an airing as we approach Conference season.
Phase 4: to the end of the year. It’s only in this period, with the short-term economic impacts of Brexit taking shape in the autumn financial statement, that we’ll find out where the new government’s priorities really lie. Until this point, it’s “wait and see”.
Read more in Steve’s full Policy Watch article
Funding
By Sian Owen, Head of Stakeholder Relations (Funding), Pearson UK
The key news in this period is that the stated plan to introduce the Apprenticeship Levy in April 2017 is still going ahead, however the impact of the Brexit vote will mean that the detail of funding bands is now unlikely to be published until the autumn.
Elsewhere, a BIS consultation on the criteria for a new register of apprenticeships is imminent, and registration will be open to providers “best placed to deliver”.
The Skills Funding Agency will release version 3 of the 2016/17 funding rules shortly.
