The saying goes, a week is a long time in politics. Well, seemingly, the events of last Friday tell us that one day in Westminster can result in a single event with long reverberations.

In the space of 24 hours or so, the Raynor resignation was followed by a reshuffle, followed by a resolution to move the skills brief from the Department for Education (DfE) to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and a newly created ‘growth department’ described by some as a new ‘super ministry’. Much of the detail is still to be announced but we know that Jacqui Smith will remain as Skills Minister but straddle two departments – which suggests the decisions affecting apprenticeship funding policy to date (at the very least) will go on uninterrupted as it has been largely ministerial positionality rather than ideology that led to level 7 rationing and likely consequences for higher and degree apprenticeships at level 6. See UVAC article HERE. Questions remaining include which department will have more sway over Skills England, or indeed, sponsor it ongoing. The timescale for the Skills White Paper, due to be published this autumn, may well be altered too.

Under the Labour Government and Skills England, a new more interventionist approach to apprenticeships and skills has become apparent. See UVAC paper HERE. References to meeting specific industry and sector needs more broadly has replaced the need to consider employers as ‘in the driving seat’ and there has been an explicit rolling-back of the definition of apprenticeships, risking a return to apprenticeships in England as the good choice for ‘other people’s children’ – the description often given to apprenticeships of the past, without ambition. By letting go of an ALL LEVEL and ALL AGE funded skills policy, Government has, so far in its term, let go of the policy objective that is focused on making England a high skill, high productivity and high-income economy.

So, do we now have new opportunity to reestablish the link between growth and skills rather than perpetuating the position that apprenticeships are for providing job opportunity but not career progression for young people leaving school or college and those already in work? Skills England, with DWP, now needs to pull in the Treasury to initiate a national debate on how to raise investment in skills, to increase productivity. DWP, the Treasury and Skills England should establish funding priorities, the size of the Levy required to fund both the apprenticeship and non-apprenticeship provision needed to address growth priorities and the financial contributions which the state and employers of all sizes should make. Perhaps now, after having used up a fifth of its parliamentary mandate, the Government can communicate a more coherent narrative on skills that once again establishes the importance of apprenticeship and skills to productivity and social mobility for not only the young but those in a job wishing to train on the job to access higher paid careers and the professions.