The highly anticipated Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy was published on Monday evening this week.
Although education and skills policy is devolved, and much of the detail is therefore England-specific, a number of the announcements covered research policy and therefore have UK-wide impact. It is a broad-ranging paper that has already generated much commentary. This blog outlines NCUB’s reading of those parts of strategy we feel will impact thinking around university-business collaboration.
A holistic cross-department strategy
The fact that the strategy was developed in collaboration between the Department for Education (DfE), Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is a positive indicator of their stated intent to take a “whole of government approach to supporting the Higher Education Sector”. The split portfolio has long been a challenge when it comes to developing a coherent national plan for education and skills.
The strategy places, as was expected, strong emphasis on foundational skills in response to high NEET (not in education, employment or training) figures and the UK’s sizable skills gap. However, it is, on balance, quite a holistic strategy. It makes some significant strides towards tertiary education models, demonstrated, for example, through its commitment to small modular courses. The strategy’s ambition to achieve better alignment between further and higher education was one of its strengths.
Employer engagement prioritised but lacking detail and open to risks
NCUB was pleased to see the need for employer engagement given significant weight, with a stated commitment to employer-focussed models. However, the strategy was not particularly detailed on how this might work – especially in relation to Higher Education. It mentions at a high level that Skills England will be responsible, and that it will work with Employer Representative Bodies, measure progress using employer skills surveys, and draw upon AI capability to make sense of a wide range of data sources. But until we see further detail on exactly how this will happen, concern will remain that the proposed data-rich methods will overlook some of the nuances concerning what employers need – especially when it comes to qualities, like flexibility, adaptability and learning to learn. These are attributes valued by industry, but their attainment are not so easily captured by metrics.
Simplifying skills policy vs. responding to complexity
NCUB welcomes steps toward simplifying skills policy by designating Skills England a singular voice on the topic. This is something that we have been calling for but we do remain cautious. Skills England will be required to coordinate a wide range of stated priorities – including regional-, sectoral-, and pipeline-focussed initiatives as well as the need to coordinate with devolved nations on skills. This will be a complex challenge but the combination of Skills England’s data-led approach with recent advances in data technologies may provide some cause for optimism.
Attention to university financial sustainability welcomed, but could be stronger
A significant announcement contained in the strategy was that tuitions fee will be raised in line with inflation for the next two years – with longer term plans to keep fees indexed to inflation. This will be subject to universities meeting quality thresholds.
NCUB strongly welcomes these interventions and recognises the difficult political landscape in which they were made. Concerns remain, however, that these interventions are not significant enough to resolve the financial challenges facing the sector. Indeed, the recently introduced international students levy could undo the positive steps from inflation-indexed increases in tuition fees. The paper was also silent on what the government will do in the case of universities going insolvent.
Downsizing the university sector
Rather than more significant changes to funding models, the Government stresses the need for efficiency savings, institutional collaboration and consolidation. It has provided some priorities to guide this including strengthening regional provision, specialisation, a focus on teaching excellence, and strategic alignment with government priorities.
Ultimately this all adds up to an unspoken, but likely plan to downsize the sector. This aligns with Augar-style messaging on the need to balance out higher and further education, and is facilitated by the announced shift in focus for student financing to the Lifelong Loan Entitlement model. It was announced that this will be launched in September 2026.
Domestic vs. international talent
The strategy placed a lot of emphasis on domestic talent which is welcomed, but continued to pursue policies that could prove problematic for access to talent more generally – such as the announcement of a 32% increase to the immigrations skills charge. It was stated that universities will be supported to recruit international students, but the details of that support were deferred to an upcoming international education strategy.
Surprising focus on research and innovation
The amount of focus that the white paper placed on research and innovation has taken many commentators by surprise – and also pulls the white paper in the direction of policies that will directly impact universities in the devolved nations.
The headline announcement was that the government has set out three priorities for publicly funded research. These are protecting and promoting curiosity-driven research; supporting the delivery of government priorities, missions and the Industrial Strategy; and providing targeted innovation, commercialisation and scale-up support to drive growth. NCUB welcomes these priorities.
Reducing the scale and diversity of UK research activity
There were also hints that the Government might be seeking to cut back on the scale and diversity of the research it funds. The argument the paper makes for specialisation, briefly introduced above as part of broader financial sustainability interventions, is the need to avoid homogeneity across the university sector. The white paper urges institutions to focus on their ‘unique strengths’. The language on this topic refers to the need for “a more strategic distribution of research activity across the sector” and spoke of a more focussed volume of research and higher levels of institutional collaboration. The clear subtext is that many universities will be required to scale back their research activities.
This raises some potential concerns. The institutional diversity of research performing organisations in the UK is one of our strengths and unlocks better collaboration opportunities with a wider range of businesses. NCUB will continue to watch how the government develops its thinking on this – including at the Autumn Budget.
Revising the REF
The paper stressed the independence and autonomy of the higher education system, and that the dual-funding approach will be maintained. However, while the amount of quality-related funding will be protected, the drive for specialisation will be pursued through planned changes to the way research will be assessed and funded – including through changes to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Broader changes related to the REF were good to see. Positively, the paper recognised the need to reduce administrative burdens. And it was positive to see the government commit to supporting better access to full economic costs – although the detail on how they will do that was light.
Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) celebrated
Of particular interest to NCUB was the announcement that HEIF will be reviewed to better enable universities to contribute to national and local economic growth. HEIF was praised for its contribution to the economy.
In summary, the post-16 education and skills strategy provides an exciting opportunity to shift the dial on many of the policy issues that NCUB and our stakeholders are concerned about – but many of the interventions need further scrutiny and contain significant risks. We look forward to working further with the Government on these challenges.
Senior Policy Manager
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