Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Accepted
Develop understanding of college T Level funding pressures and a teacher recruitment strategy.
Conclusion
Various factors, such as teacher recruitment and awarding organisation fees, will influence colleges’ uptake of T Levels particularly given their wider financial challenges. The Department recognises the additional burden faced by colleges to recruit T Level teachers, especially given that T Levels themselves are addressing areas of skills shortages. It is working with industry to facilitate a teacher exchange programme and offering certain teachers’ financial incentives. However, colleges face wider pressures in recruiting and retaining teachers, particularly in specialist subjects, and other financial challenges. T Levels will be an additional burden for colleges. For the 2025/26 academic year, The Department has confirmed a 5% funding uplift for the additional costs to colleges moving from offering other level 3 programmes to T Levels, but this compares to 10% in the two years before. Colleges must also pay a set fee for each student to organisations that award T Levels. These fees increased by amounts ranging from 26% to 149% on six of its latest contracts and may increase further should student numbers remain low. recommendation The Department should: a. develop a better understanding of the T Level-related funding pressures on colleges, particularly the extent of changes in the costs (or fees) of awarding organisation contracts and recruiting and retaining teachers, and the potential impact of changes in these costs; and b. set out a workforce strategy for supporting colleges to recruit and retain teachers. 6 1 Raising awareness of T Levels Introduction
Government Response Summary
The government will publish a post-16 education and skills strategy in autumn 2025 that includes strengthening support for the FE workforce and will provide updates on teacher recruitment and retention, aiming for 6,500 additional teachers. It is also developing a new FE Teacher Industry Exchange scheme and investing over £1.2 billion annually in Skills, including continued Targeted Retention Incentives.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. to college teacher recruitment and retention in high-priority areas, alongside schools, including how the department will measure, track and record progress against the pledge. Additionally, the post-16 education and skills strategy will be published in autumn 2025 and will set out our system-wide approach to ensuring every learner has a clear route to further study or work, guided by the Curriculum and Assessment Review, and strengthening support for the FE workforce to boost teaching quality and sector prestige. The department is already taking steps to strengthen construction skills and support the recruitment and retention of industry-experienced teachers, through the development of a new Further Education (FE) Teacher Industry Exchange scheme. This initiative will foster partnerships between colleges and construction companies, enabling more professionals from industry to transition into teaching, while also offering current FE teachers' opportunities to refresh and update their industry knowledge and skills. The annual publication of the Further Education Workforce in England publication will serve as the most reliable source for tracking progress on recruitment and retention across the sector, as well as for understanding vacancy rates across the sector to enable the department to identify the areas of greatest challenge. Following the next publication of the Further Education Workforce data, the department will provide its first update on progress being made on teacher recruitment and retention, as well as the pledge to deliver 6,500 additional teachers. In between data collections, the biannual update will set out progress on programme delivery to address key skills shortages. The department has already taken substantial steps to support recruitment and retention of staff in FE. Despite challenging fiscal conditions, the department has prioritised funding for colleges as set out above. Additionally, to help meet the growing demand from an increasing number of young learners, the Department is also investing over £1.2 billion annually in Skills – supporting 1.3 million 16–19-year-olds each year – including 65,000 additional learners by 2028/29. The Targeted Retention Incentive (TRI) will also continue to offer financial support to retain teachers in the areas of greatest need in all FE colleges.