To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the (a) social and (b) economic effect of residential adult education colleges on local communities.
Answered on
18 May 2020
To help manage the pressures of COVID-19, we can confirm that the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) will continue to pay grant funded providers, including residential adult colleges, their scheduled monthly profiled payments for the remainder of the 2019/20 funding year. And for 2019/20 only, the ESFA will not carry out the final reconciliation for grant funded providers in receipt of ESFA funded adult education budget (AEB) and the advanced learner loans bursary (ALLB) fund, subject to them meeting certain conditions set out in the further education (FE) Operational Guidance on maintaining education and skills training provision, published on 23 March 2020.
The ESFA also confirmed in March 2020 the AEB provider allocations for 2020/21 for providers, including residential adult colleges. Advanced learner loans facilities and the associated bursary fund for the 2020/21 academic year will be issued later this month.
The government appreciates the importance of adult education to improving people’s life chances. We are currently reviewing funding for Residential Specialist Designated Institutions, focussing on the residential support for learners funded via the AEB and the ALLB. We will complete this review in autumn 2020.
We are also looking carefully at all elements of FE funding in preparation for the forthcoming Spending Review.