The Spring Budget was announced last week by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond. Released on the 8th March, the Spring Budget doesn’t appear to be very beneficial for the self-employed or for Small or Medium Enterprises.
Rob May, the Director for the international qualifications board YMCA Awards, has issued a statement noting a few oversights in the Chancellor’s budget. May suggests that half of the UK’s occupations have been left out in the cold when it comes to funding for training. In the budget it has been announced that £500-million has been pledged for “T-Levels”. These qualifications are an equivalent and alternative to A Levels, providing technical as opposed to more traditional qualifications. The result of the funding means that more than half of UK occupations that use a classroom-based vocational education route are not given a part of this funding.
The recipients have been decided by a five-member panel review of vocational education. The panel, led by Lord Sainsbury; the Labour peer and Cambridge University Chancellor, have chosen 15 technical educational routes for the investment. However, Rob May suggests that the definition of “technical” routes was never properly explained.
May has also pointed out that even though the budget has a number of pledges to improve the nation’s health, yet the fitness sector has missed out on this funding. The reason for this omission was apparently the physical education sector is not technical enough to warrant the funding. This undermining move is made to look more ridiculous when industries such as tailoring and hairdressing have been given the funding. Although those sectors are surely very deserving of the funding in their own way; a pledge to improve the health of the residence of the UK has been supported by not funding those sectors and instead providing money for sectors that focus on appearance.
This lack of funding could lead to fewer courses for the fitness and health sectors in favor of courses that will offer funding, which will lead to a deficit of trained professionals and even more problems for later generation.
