Budget 2006
Employment, Skills and Education News
New 'New Deal'
Waiting for Leitch,
… and the customary surprise for DfES
In an Education-heavy Budget Speech, Gordon Brown yesterday started to sketch out the political battle ground for the next election and gave an insight into what he sees as THE key priorities. He pledged to match Private School funding per pupil by 2010… a major pledge and one that will be tough to keep, particularly if the attempts to limit expenditure growth within Government Departments continue to come under sustained pressure.
The Chancellor also couldn't help but hold a surprise up his sleeve for the DfES (or so our source tells us) with the revelation of a new Level 3 entitlement for all 19-25 year olds studying advance level courses from 2007/8 – Classic Gordon Brown and as effective a way of reminding Ministers and their Aides of who is really running things as you could possibly envisage…
Below you will find some thoughts on the Budget, a series of highlights and finally some links that will enable you to find out how much Gordon has put on the price of tabs, booze and sundry other necessities…
Andy Dean
NB - Many thanks to CESI, and the Guardian website (for bits and bobbins of what is used below).
NEWS FOCUS in this edition
The Budget
The big surprise here was the new Level 3 entitlement which seems to have caught even DfES out – the subsequent DfES press release focusing almost exclusively upon the personalisation and capital investment measures announced for schools. The new entitlement will tackle the key Level 3 skills gap and to provide a 'seamless transition' from the 14-19 phase through to 25 for those young adults who have not achieved Level 2 or Level 3 qualifications by 19.
There was also significant money for Adult Learners, Women and HE Partnerships, as well as a potentially new research assessment method for Universities. There was also direct support for the Leitch Review and at least the indication of a willingness to support its conclusions with action when it finally reports later this year.
New Deal will be strengthened and re-branded "New Deal for Skills and Jobs" with – as you would guess from the title - more of a focus upon skills.
Many of the highlights within the budget were related to schools and one in particular being the money for increased personalisation of learning - the £580m announced when added to that which is already committed will mean £930m to deliver tailored support to meet children’s particular needs and interests.
The biggest £1000s were saved for the continuing investment in capital and ICT for schools – with £1.6Billion. Teacher recruitment is set to benefit – a cynic may point out that the announced £18m for teacher support in science and maths may end up being combined with the new personalisation of learning monies as there are so few kids wanting to do these subjects they may as well have a teacher each…
Less well-off families should benefit directly through changes to the Working Tax Credit and indirectly through the capital grants for SMEs to provide workplace nurseries, which will hopefully persuade employers not to replace their nurseries with vouchers… as has happened to some recently.
There was also very little here for Trade Union activities – notably the Union Academy, but with substantial sums already committed I wouldn't be surprised to see a press release on this later this month.
Highlights
Further Education, Higher Education and Adult Skills
· £25million will be provided to fund new learner entitlements for all 19-25 year olds studying advance level courses from 2007/8. This will fund a package of support for 19-25 year olds, to tackle the key Level 3 skills gap and to provide a seamless transition from the 14-19 phase through to 25 for those young adults who have not achieved Level 2 or Level 3 qualifications by 19.
· £11m will be available to allow the roll-out of the Adult Learning Grant to be brought forward to the 2007/08 academic year, providing maintenance payments to adult learners on low incomes.
· £40million will be provided in response to the employment issues faced by low-skilled women, with a focus on skills training and targeted career advice.
· £4million will be allocated over two years (2006-2008) focused on building Higher Education partnerships with India, Russia and South Africa.
· The adult rate of the National Minimum Wage will rise to £5.35 from October 2006.
· Reform of further education colleges to match FE provision with the demand for skills from employers. Less popular and less successful courses to be replaced by those that individuals, employees and employers want.
· Six-monthly work focused interviews will be rolled out From April 2007 to all lone parents who have been on benefit for at least a year and whose youngest child is under 14.
· The child element of the Child Tax Credit will rise at least in line with average earnings until the end of this Parliament. The child element of CTC will increase by £75 to £1,765 per year in April 2006.
· A new assessment system for quality-related Higher
Education (HE) research and the firm presumption that after the 2008 RAE the
system for assessing research quality and allocating "quality-related" (QR)
research funding to universities from the Department for Education and Skills
will be mainly metrics based. More on this at:
www.ost.gov.uk/policy/science_consult.htm.
Schools, Family Learning and 'other associated'
· £220m in 2006-07, and £365m in 2007-08, to be paid direct to schools to help them to provide greater personalisation of learning in and beyond the school day, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This increase is means that schools will receive a total of £930m to deliver tailored support to meet children’s particular needs and interests.
· Official statistics to be produced by an independent board.
· New memo of understanding between the Treasury, Bank of England and Financial Services Authority to prepare early warning and response system to economic shocks.
· Public sector pay pegged to an average of 2.5%.
· Economic growth predicted at 2-2.5% this year and 2.75%-3.25% for next two years.
· Further capital investment in school buildings and ICT, increasing by £1.6 billion to £8.035 billion by 2010-11
· 18 million to support teaching and learning in school science to create a £30.5 million package over the next two years to support achievement of the 10 year Science Framework.
· £2 million announced to be used to create 23 enterprise summer school pathfinders to be delivered by Young Enterprise to 1000 pupils across the UK in summer 2006.
· £10 million (£5m in 2006-07 and £5m in 2007-08) for ICT to ensure access to the internet for the most disadvantaged secondary school pupils.
· £2million for the Youth Opportunities Challenge Fund.
· £8.4 million of new capital grants in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 to help small and medium sized employers establish workplace nurseries. This will help make life easier for working parents and their children, and benefit employers who will find it easier to attract and retain staff.
· £3 million in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 to help young people to participate in media related activity and to set up their own media projects.
SLIM Comments
This appears to have been a budget for stability, rather than a high-profile giveaway, but with a clear focus upon education. A number of things can be welcomed - particularly the new Level 3 entitlement, the boost to childcare and the child tax credit; investment in schools, support for New Deal and the extra incentives for research and development. But probably most of all we welcome the broad support and reform for FE – too often the Cinderella service which offers a second chance to so many… and with new entitlements and the Leitch Review soon to appear – it may get the opportunity to offer that chance to even more… We may also see a significant re-structuring and linking of LSC and Jobcentre Plus at the local level… watch this space…
Measures to help low-skilled women into work in response to the Women and Work Commission are particularly welcome. As is the continuing focus on childcare and childcare support. The introduction of capital grants for SMEs to provide workplace nurseries is intriguing and it will be interesting to see what the take-up level is. The recent focus on childcare vouchers has seen some workplaces shut their on-site childcare support and replace them with vouchers. This initiative may help to reverse that trend.
On the negative side there wasn't very much new here - we would have welcomed more support for capital investment in manufacturing for instance, and I suspect we will have to wait until Gordon is no longer Chancellor and moves 'next-door' to see any startlingly new initiatives…
Budget itself at:
http://budget2006.treasury.gov.uk/
Finally the important stuff - cigarettes went up by 9p a packet, but duties on sprits were frozen, while wine went up 4p a bottle and beer 1p a pint. Mr Brown joked that duty on champagne was frozen in anticipation of World Cup success this summer. Presumably, as a Scotsman, World Cup success will mean England being dumped out of the tournament and is therefore inevitable…
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