Colin Booth, Luminate CEO, responds to the 2025 Budget
The 2025 Budget delivered several announcements with implications for learners, families and the education sector. Colin Booth, Chief Executive of Luminate Education Group, has shared his reflections on some of the key measures impacting education.
“Reiteration of the Youth Guarantee is positive, but we are still waiting for the detail on how it can be delivered at scale. If the aim is to expand opportunity for young people, the Budget needed to go further on the essentials, particularly increased capital investment so colleges can grow their capacity to meet rising demand for technical qualifications. The continued inability of further education colleges to reclaim VAT, where secondary schools are able to, represents a missed opportunity to end a structural inequity and unlock funds that could be reinvested directly into facilities and growth. Colleges will play a central role in delivering on the Government’s skills and growth ambitions, but we need the resources and capital to be able to do so.”
“Raising the minimum wage for apprentices is welcome, especially at a time when living costs remain a real barrier to young people starting and completing their programmes. The decision to fully fund apprenticeships for SMEs hiring under-25s is another positive step that should help widen access and support smaller employers to take on new talent. But pay rises and funding changes alone won’t grow the pipeline. Continued investment into apprenticeships and sufficient resources for colleges to deliver them remain essential if we want more people to access high-quality training and progress into skilled work. We look forward to working with employers and government to ensure these reforms translate into greater opportunity for learners and local communities.”
“The removal of the two-child limit is a significant and positive change for many families across the communities we serve. We see first-hand how child poverty affects young people’s learning, participation and positive progression throughout the education system, in addition to the impact on young parents and adult learners attempting to gain qualifications or retrain. This change will ease the financial pressure on many households, but wider action is still needed to tackle the root causes of hardship and ensure that every learner can access and succeed in education.”