Andy Burnham is passionate about localism and devolution.
We should, however, be wary of anticipating policymaking that sees everything through that lens – there are many areas of government activity that require policy and implementation at a national level. While aspects of everything can – and arguably should be – devolved, there is much that cannot be. And higher education is a great example.
The story begins
Changing the Prime Minister, and tweaking the cabinet, may improve the “vibes” of government. Certainly it will make a difference to the quality and relatability of public communication at a senior level. It is emphatically not going to transform the economy over the summer – the latest rumours about Shabana Mahmood as chancellor emphasise just how much the financial sector craves continuity and orthodoxy within a very narrow boundary.
That said, his leadership acceptance speech reversed the Brexit arguments and claimed “the right gave away control.” If we read this as a commitment to making active choices rather than passively accepting the decisions made by the market, we assume not only a desire to pick winners (and become unpopular with those who are not chosen) but a need to have the data and evidence required to underpin radicalism and the courage to act on these conclusions.
If Ed Miliband’s net zero plans – plans that were themselves both Treasury orthodoxy and Conservative party policy in recent years, but are now routinely downplayed in an attempt to win the support of the so-called “hero voter” – are beyond the pale, we can probably rule out massive changes to policies around government borrowing or spending. Some variants of the existing fiscal rules will remain, and given existing commitments, the chances for new spending at anything other than a marginal level are limited.
Caught in a rat race, terminally
In the education portfolio, commitments to SEND reform and increases to teacher pay will almost certainly be honoured, and will form a big part of departmental discretionary spending. We should also expect a material response to the second (recommendation bearing) half of Alan Milburn’s review of support for young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) as a signature Burnham policy. The response to the next phase (tentatively expected in the autumn) could well be the new administration’s first serious intervention in the skills debate.
This also chimes in well with Burnham’s experiences in Manchester – last weeks’ Greater Manchester post-16 pathways report doesn’t directly address the NEET issue, but aims for a more cohesive system that addresses the transition and guidance issues that can put learners off post-compulsory training. The tentative Milburn recommendations run along similar lines – if there is even a small amount of additional funding available for post-16 education this is where it will go. Anyone looking to arrange higher education lobbying activity should lean into this agenda.
I’m a professional cynic but my heart’s not in it
The lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) is – as we’ve been over on Wonkhe many times before – a potentially transformative policy hamstrung by questionable implementation decisions. Why, for instance, can you only access modules drawn from existing courses? – and if the answer to that is “to enable progression”, where is the national work on credit transfer? Why are eligible subject areas determined by priority industries rather than employer needs within those industries? How is LLE provision regulated for quality and academic standards?
Most glaringly of all, the LLE posits a world in which workers borrow from the government in order to fund their own development and training. The UK has historically been weak in employer-provided training – a facet of our culture that might well explain elements of the productivity puzzle.
It would be a straightforward win – for the economy and for learners – to re-examine some of these Johnson-era guardrails. The plans, and the associated uncapped spending commitment, which could contribute substantially to loan outlay and repayment debt, could achieve much better results with a bit more flexibility. And, frankly, a bit more promotion at a national level – it’s an agenda that calls for a minister to champion it. We could also raise the question of localism: why can’t the people who write local skills improvement plans have a say in what is in and out of bounds, based on local needs?
Whoever Burnham appoints to the Education or Skills brief, the LLE is the big plan currently in train. With a few tweaks it could offer better answers to some very current and very Burnham-esque concerns.
For the faint at heart, a brand-new start
The LLE, is – when we get down to it – an intervention aimed at spurring access to and participation in higher education. Although participation rates are rising – slowly – and both the number of applications and the number of offers made are the highest on record, there is a sense in which a message has been sent that university is not for everyone. There are concerns about shrinking rates of return (though it is not methodologically straightforward to tease out what is going on here), and a growing cultural sense that young people traveling for university study is antagonistic to local growth and development.
Burnham has expressed his take within the growing cross-party consensus that university should not be the “default” route. This policy direction should not be read as expressing a need to “deprioritise” higher education, after all a large and growing population of young people (and their parents) are deciding that university is the right route to support their aspirations and aptitudes.
But the data is clear. Working class and minoritised people are less likely to apply to university – a factor that has informed recent Office for Students work on access, which again is focused locally and designed to drive aspiration. It just needs a bit more focus, a bit more visibility, and a bit more accountability. And an increased focus on non-traditional routes.
Life’s a different story
The idea that the default university experience is three years of undergraduate study (as pervasive as it has been against decades of trumpeted innovations) often starts with the application process. However much we promote other routes into higher level study, the experience appears to be designed to funnel people towards what students have done for generations. It should be as easy to find and take an LLE module, a level 4 apprenticeship unit, a higher technical qualification, or anything else that may emerge as it currently is to find an undergraduate degree.
UCAS’s course finder is the principal means by which people find courses, and although recent changes have improved things it does still slant people towards the three-year default and the classic application cycle. And it still doesn’t integrate with the way people access student finance via Student Finance England. There are some cheap fixes that could happen here – with much better use made of the government’s own Discover Uni platform – or the (public) data on (publicly supported) courses could be opened up to allow for other means of discovery.
There is a similar articulation job to be done around advice and guidance – which again plays into the NEET discourse. The advice you are able to access on post-compulsory education and training depends on your background: the experiences of your family and friends, the focus of your school or college, and your own finances. There’s been various attempts to bring these various sources together, and Milburn looks set to recommend another go.
Paying the price of living life at the limit
Higher education has been on a crisis footing ever since the pandemic, and arguably for some years before that. While there have been some questionable (to say the least) policy decisions made during that time, a big part of the problem has been so much change and so little stability.
A case in point is on international recruitment. Long a key income stream for many providers, the rules (both in broad and very technical terms) have changed so often it has become impossible to think strategically about where and how to intervene. The fee levy is just the latest constraint to consider – what professionals at this end of the sector are primarily asking for is stability and reliability. It feels an easy win to leave stuff well alone, but sadly clampdowns on immigration are both cheap (in the short term) and popular.
Likewise, there are many options as to how best to assess the quality and standards of provision – after a decade in the wilderness we are gradually edging back towards some kind of cyclical review process via the redesign of the TEF. There’s still work to be done – notably, the outcomes measures don’t really work for modular study – before the final form is announced, but it would be really good to see an emphasis on predictability and stability rather than any further regulatory innovations. And even better to come up with a regimen that supports improvement rather than aims to catch out providers who don’t fit the standard model and expectations.
The final piece of the puzzle for the Burnham years may well be unleashing the power of collaboration both within and around higher education. Various rules around competition and tax prevent some of the very efficiencies that the post-16 education and skills white paper (whatever happened to it?) looks to identify and implement. If the government remains committed to collaboration, and for that matter the specialisation that would follow, it probably needs to tidy up some of that.
It’s a helping hand that makes you feel wonderfully bland
Like the rest of the country, the sector appears to hold the opinion that things might – if we are lucky – be a little bit better than under Starmer. Expectations, especially at the senior end, are very limited.
Burnham starts his premiership offering “Manchesterism” and good vibes. Neither of these things will address the many problems higher education currently faces, and anyone hoping otherwise will be disappointed. When our main ask is a special administration regime, and even that feels unlikely, it is an accurate indicator of the lack of bandwidth available to deal with the sector’s problems.
The strength arising from a change in prime minister is a change in the narrative. Burnham – an experienced political operator, is good at narrative – people genuinely seem to like him. And a track record of local delivery is encouraging. Higher education won’t be his priority – but maybe it can demonstrate how it can help him get to the things he really cares about.
