Devolution of the Adult Education budget
From 1st August 2019, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) became responsible for certain adult education functions of the Secretary of State under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. This transfer of functions was achieved by way of orders made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 and the West Midlands Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2018 (SI 2018/1144)
Ministers have agreed under a Memorandum of Understanding and a Data Sharing Agreement certain functions and activities will be undertaken by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) on behalf of the WMCA for the 2021/22 funding year.
The WMCA is publishing these funding rules, which will apply to providers in receipt of devolved WMCA adult education budget (AEB) funding from 1 August 2021, for AEB delivery to residents in the West Midlands. This excludes the 19-24 traineeship programme and apprenticeships.
To deliver our ambitions for the AEB, we are seeking to create an ‘Adult Offer’ that moves us towards the following for our residents:
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Every adult should have the opportunity to achieve a basic level of English and maths
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Every adult should have the opportunity to gain basic digital literacy skills
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Every adult not working and wanting to work should have the opportunity to undertake short, job-related training or longer occupational qualification training
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Adults furthest from the job market should be able to access the first steps and community-based learning that builds confidence and prepares them for further learning
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Adults on low wages or in unstable employment should be able to access a re-training offer that helps them gain entry into a new occupation or gain higher-level skills
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Every adult should be able to access training that leads to higher-level qualifications
In 2019/20, we introduced a range of flexibilities to support residents into work, upskill those in work earning below the real living wage and address skills gaps at higher levels. We will continue with these flexibilities and also extend our support for unemployed and low wage individuals for level 3 entitlement qualifications.
In addition, we also introduced sector gateway and construction gateway programmes, specific to occupational job roles to move residents into work quickly, especially those who have recently been impacted by the pandemic COVID-19.
We introduced job outcome payments to support the progression of individuals into work from Sector Based work Academies and Sector Gateways.
There are some areas where we need to have a sharper focus to ensure that we are supporting residents to not only move into work but also progress in work. Through delivery plans it is important to us that providers deliver their delivery plan commitments this year; even pre-COVID we had seen a significant deviation from the expected outcomes. We need to see improvement in completion, accuracy and timeliness of the data collected in relation to destinations.
We will seek greater transparency in relation to the supply chain delivery agreement and those services provided by third parties in the delivery of AEB programmes.
We’re happy to share the risk to see changes delivered through AEB. To enable us to do this it’s important that we work proactively, collaboratively, be open and transparent. Providers may have specific flexibilities over and above these agreed as part of their delivery plan and we want to hear from providers their ideas around further flexibilities.
The additional flexibilities available in 2021/22 funding year are:
- Extension of full funding for 24+ unemployed to undertake a level 3 entitlement-based qualification
- Testing the partial or full funding of economically valuable Level 4+ qualifications and units
- Extension of low wage trial to include level 3 entitlement qualifications