What does a General Election year mean for FE and skills?

With the opinion polls indicating a return to power for the Labour Party – in what is an expected general election year – the skills policy analyst, Prof. Tom Bewick, makes some predictions about what the main party manifestos are likely to offer to a beleaguered FE and skills sector, that is short on cash and high on hope.In 1996, Peter Mandelson and Roger Liddle published a book called, ‘The Blair Revolution: Can New Labour deliver?’.At the time, the musings of these two close confidants of the Labour leader were seen as a comprehensive blueprint for what the party would do if it won the upcoming general election, held 1st May 1997.Of course, we all know what happened next. But re-reading the book three decades on from Labour’s famous landslide victory, the narrative is remarkably similar on FE and skills, with perhaps one major exception. On page 89 discussing ‘opportunity and investment in skill’, the authors lament at what was typically the view towards training of the then ‘left-wing chattering classes.’‘Next time I hear the Labour Party talking about training, I’m going to scream’, which Mandelson and Liddle said was the kind of comment a modernising Britain could well do without.Back to the futureFast forward to 2024, and you could say that talk about skills and how to improve productivity through investment in training is now taken up by nearly all the chattering classes, including the mainstream media.As the next general election draws near, the link between skills and migration policy will perhaps never be so hotly contested between the main parties as the upcoming contest between Sunak and Starmer, as they battle it out for the position of the UK’s 58th Prime Minister. Because the most depressing aspect of the New Labour blueprint, analysing it nearly 30 years on, is just how little progress – measured in objective economic terms – that skills policy has had on correcting many of the historical imbalances cited by commentators going back decades.In the 1990s, we were trapped in a ‘low-wage, low-skills equilibrium’, yet, today, the position is not so different.For example, read these selective quotes, from the 1996 book:‘Concern has long been expressed about the poor level of understanding mathematical concepts among UK trainees.’‘The absence of a proper structure of technical qualifications and certified training has been a particularly long-standing complaint.’‘Further education colleges have been given the incentive to attract as many students and lay on as many courses as possible, without paying too much attention to quality, drop-out rates and inspection.’‘British business has regarded money spent on training as a cost rather than an investment.’What goes around comes around, as the old saying goes. And every single one of these quotes could be applied to the current FE and skills debate.Part of the rationale for introducing the new Advanced British Standard (ABS) is to boost maths attainment up to 18, as well as to find a more integrated, mix and match approaches, in the upper secondary curriculum, for both A levels and T levels in future.Despite hyper-active reforms of further education over three decades, colleges and independent providers still face similar complaints that securing ‘bums on seats’ have often trumped any concerted attempts to chime with national or local industrial strategies.Depressingly, the sector probably stands just as accused of not being equipped to meet the country’s economic skills needs, just as it did in 1997. Critics point to the fact the skills shortage occupation list held by the Home Office has hardly changed in years.Meanwhile, employers bemoan the skills gaps they face, while investing about half in workforce training as their counterparts in Europe.Overall, it’s become a vicious cycle.UK skills and productivity gapLast summer, I wrote extensively about the UK skills and productivity gap in a report, ‘Running to Stand Still.’ It was a clarion call for a shift away from the...