Transparency data

Accounting officer assessment: higher technical education

Updated 30 April 2024

Applies to England

Accounting officers scrutinise significant policy proposals, projects or programmes and make sure the actions of the public organisation they lead meet the 4 accounting officer standards (regularity, propriety, value for money, and feasibility) as set out in managing public money.

From April 2017, the government has committed to making a summary of the key points from these assessments available to Parliament when an accounting officer has assessed a project or programme within the government’s major projects portfolio.

Background

The higher technical education reform programme is an important part of skills reform. It is a priority of the Department for Education (DfE) and is part of a wider set of reforms announced in 2020 as part of Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth.

As part of the higher technical education reforms, we created approved higher technical qualifications (HTQs) at levels 4 and 5 as an alternative to apprenticeships or degrees.

The higher technical education reform programme is addressing the long-term decline in the take up of higher technical education, by addressing market failures and repositioning the levels 4 and 5 technical skills market so that it is an attractive, available option for more learners.

Our ambition is to grow and raise the uptake of high-quality levels 4 and 5 courses, with HTQs as flagship technical courses offering attractive, employer-focussed alternatives to traditional 3-year degrees or work-based learning. This ambition is a long-term endeavour, and its success depends on sustained and consistent government intervention and investment to change the behaviours of awarding bodies, providers, learners, and employers.  

There are 4 strands to our approach:

• We will drive up the quality, employer focus and understanding of the value of higher technical skills through the roll-out of approved higher technical qualifications.  We want HTQs to be the flagship product in an expanded level 4 and 5 market.

• We will prime the learner and employer markets by increasing demand for study of levels 4 and 5 skills. Through improved information, advice and guidance, careers advice, employer engagement and HTQs in communication campaigns, we may start to see a changes in learner and employer attitudes. However, we expect the more significant cultural shift and impact of communications and stakeholder engagement across the department to take place in later years following this SR period, strengthening once the lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) is introduced and we are further through the rollout of HTQs.

• We will improve the scale and quality of levels 4 and 5 provision through support for providers and better incentives for growth in high quality qualifications.

• We will build a system of qualifications aligned to the skills needs of the country, and able to adapt to meet future skills needs over time.

Overall, the programme will lead to increased access and uptake of learners studying higher technical education generally, and HTQs specifically (particularly amongst those learners who would benefit most from taking a level 4 and 5 instead of stopping at level 3 or taking a longer, more expensive level 6).

We have made good, early progress in delivering this agenda. The first 31 digital HTQs were available for teaching from September 2022 with over 70 providers able to deliver them (the majority being further education colleges). To date 172 qualifications have been approved as HTQs across digital, construction, and health and science routes, for teaching this academic year and next.

To encourage growth in provision, we are investing up to £44m through the Skills Injection Fund in academic year 2023 to 2024, the previous academic year this was £21 million. We have already delivered £14.5 million via its predecessor (the higher technical education growth fund), as well as the strategic priorities grant, £16 million for the financial year 2023 to 2024. We have also secured up to £10 million to fund the Open University to support further education providers to expand levels 4 and 5 courses in under-served areas, to meet local employer demand.

The roll out of HTQs has also been supported by communications activity and improvements to information advice and guidance. Additionally, we have put the student finance offer for HTQs on a par with degrees from academic year 2023 to 2024, with full-time and part-time tuition and maintenance loans available to HTQ learners as with level 6 learners.

We are now looking to scale up delivery, more firmly establish HTQs in the levels 4 and 5 market in the second year of their delivery and continue to lay the foundations for long-term growth. HTQs are the first qualifications whose modules can be funded through the LLE. From its introduction in 2025, we expect the LLE to drive up growth by expanding access to modular provision and student finance.

Despite the early successes, we also recognise that it will be challenging to embed HTQs in our qualification landscape, and to reverse the historical decline in level 4 and 5 provision. This is the most significant risk facing the programme, as set out the feasibility section.

Assessment against accounting officer standards

Regularity

There is clear parliamentary authority for the Institute to approve HTQs and the provision of loans and certain targeted grants to students and providers. The Institute approves HTQs under section A2HA of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children, and Learning Act 2009. The provision of loans and certain targeted grants to students is enabled by section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 (THEA). The Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 amended THEA  to allow the loan funding of modules of courses and periods of study lasting less than one or more full academic years. The Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits)  Act 2023 will establish a credit-based system of tuition fee limits. A substantial set of regulations needs to be made under that primary legislation and DfE aims to lay these in 2024, before or early in the student recruitment cycle for the 2025 to 2026 academic year. We give direct funding to providers, via the higher technical education growth fund and skills injection funds, under section 100 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. The Office for Students (OfS) also gives Strategic Priorities Grant to HTQ providers, under section 39 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. We used the Secretary of States powers under S.51(b) of Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to require the OfS to appoint the Open University (OU) as the validator for our OU Validation project.

Propriety

We judge the risk of impropriety through the governance and implementation of the programme to be minimal. The programme complies with departmental and governmental governance and assurance requirements and expectations. The overarching programme business case was approved by the department’s investment committee and HM Treasury.

There is continued oversight and scrutiny on effective delivery from ministers, senior officials across government and external experts, including the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA). The first IPA Gate 0 of higher technical education programme was in December 2023. The programme is led by an experienced senior responsible officer, who was previously responsible for effective running of higher education student finance.

Approval of the full business case has been provided via the department’s Investment Committee in July 2023. HM Treasury has been engaged in the approval of the Full Business Case in Summer 2023. Providers have received a grant offer letter with Terms and Conditions, including the allocated amount and what the money can be spent on. Once the fund is complete, providers must return an externally audited statement of expenditure, with the grant letter and our guidance stating funding will be clawed back if there has been any misuse of funds. We will sample audited returns to the value of 10% of the fund, in accordance with DfE assurance policy. This policy sets out the circumstances in which the grant would be repayable to DfE, with funding subject to clawback if the provider does not meet 80% of their projected learner numbers.

Value for money

The approved full business case showed that, after accounting of the risk and uncertainty associated with the costs and benefits, the programme was likely to deliver a net benefit.

There is a risk of poor value for money (VfM) if the programme does not lead to more learners completing HTQs and other high-quality higher technical education courses. If these behaviours of students, providers, and employers remain unchanged, it would restrict learner enrolment, increasing the likelihood that the programme delivers poor value for money.

To mitigate this risk, our programme is focusing on activities that will change attitudes and behaviours, raising demand for HTQs and high quality higher technical education. From January 2024, the new Skills for Life campaign will target audiences to raise awareness and a call to action. This is accompanied by improved careers guidance for young people and adults, that will include explanation for how changes to student finances can support them to study HTQs part and full-time on the same basis as degrees. From early delivery, the programme has kept this risk and mitigations under careful review and will continue to do so until programme maturity.

Feasibility

The programme’s main feasibility risk is failure to meet the delivery rollout of HTQs in all occupations where there are relevant standards by 2025. There is little leeway in the critical path to 2025, and the programme relies on awarding organisations, providers and students responding positively to the reforms.

The programme has so far successfully managed to meet key delivery milestones, but volume projections remain challenging. It is too early to determine whether the programme can achieve a step change in higher technical education.  

The programme board monitors delivery monthly. Each iteration of approval cycle has improved, with Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) opening new cycle windows and holding more support sessions to anticipate amendments so that qualifications are approved more efficiently. To date, IfATE has successfully delivered 3 cycles of HTQ approvals and approved 172 qualifications across 7 occupational routes. The programme has also agreed a targeted engagement plan and strategy which aims to broaden reach and bring more awarding organisations into the market to deliver HTQs. The focus for this strategy is to engage awarding organisations who have qualifications that appear to align strongly to an occupational standard but have not previously engaged with the HTQ approval process.

The design and delivery of the system is highly complex, with multiple interdependencies across the whole of the higher education and further education landscape, including with providers, awarding organisation.

In addition, the programme depends on a close partnership with IfATE to deliver a successful HTQ approval process. It also depends on the Student Loans Company and the Office for Students (OfS) and delivery of new systems and processes. Finally, wider programme theory of change depends on behavioural change in students, providers, and employers.

We therefore judge that there is feasibility risk, which will be monitored and managed closely by the programme, and should our delivery confidence change we will revisit this assessment.

Conclusion

As accounting officer for the Department for Education, I have considered this assessment against the 4 accounting officer standards. I am satisfied that the higher technical education reform programme relies on clear legal powers, meets the standards of managing public money, accords with the generally understood principles of public life, represents good value for money for the Exchequer as a whole, and is feasible to deliver.

If any of these factors change materially during the lifetime of this project, I undertake to prepare a revised summary, setting out my assessment of them.

This summary will be published on the government’s website (GOV.UK). Copies will be deposited in the Library of the House of Commons and sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General and Treasury Officer of Accounts.

Susan Acland-Hood

Permanent Secretary