Major funding changes coming

Major funding changes coming

At the AOC conference earlier this week, Nick Boles spoke about funding and apprenticeships. Whilst everyone (not just this sector), is awaiting news from next week's spending review, a few things became very clear.

Overall budgets are going down - but by how much is still speculation. 

Currently, the Government is spending £1.5bn on Apprenticeships, Colleges get around 35% of this total.  Nick Boles made it clear that this budget will increase over the next 4 years as the Government closes in on the 3m Apprenticeship starts.

The Minister made it clear to the AOC audience that he was expecting Colleges to increase their share of this budget and reduce reliance on sub-contracting. So with overall budgets going down, but Apprenticeship funding protected, budgets in other areas will come under major pressure.

The Minister also said that the way that funding is distributed will also change.  By 2020, the SFA and EFA will not be the key funding source, instead employers, the apprenticeship levy and vouchers will be the source on Apprenticeship funding - this represents a very significant change over the coming years.