Tom Stannard says there is much to support in the Augar review for local government in terms of fixing a broken policy and funding system for further education (FE) and higher education (HE), but there is a ‘risk it goes the way of the adult social care Green Paper in the Spending Review and suffers multiple delays and dilutions’

Many council areas across the UK are grappling with entrenched economic disadvantage and static labour market mobility. Low pay and low skills with high rates of employment are arguably a toxic mix leading to community and political fragmentation in these areas. The strength of the anti-EU leave vote, and the recent upsurge in support for the Brexit party can be seen as predictable electorate responses to these challenges. Wakefield’s economy, like many counterparts in the Leeds city region, bears many of these characteristics.

Along with colleagues in the FE and skills sector, I have consistently argued the point that one of the fundamental responses to this issue is developing and promoting programmes to support in-work progression for the working age labour market. The economic importance of adult reskilling, or to go by its consistently politically unfashionable name, adult education, cannot be underestimated any longer. Government has recently responded to this with gusto in a report we should welcome as a sector.