Professor Peter Urwin’s research has helped safeguard Further Education funding and reshape this area of government policy.
Since 2010 Professor Urwin’s big data studies have uncovered just how far Further Education’s (FE) power to drive social mobility had been underestimated.
Working alongside Professor Franz Buscha, Dr Augusto Cerqua and Dave Thomson at FFT Datalab, Urwin’s research significantly contributed to the Government’s decision to suspend a potentially devastating cut to the Adult Skills Budget – a major FE funding source.
His research has further helped to change the way interdepartmental government data is shared and used in Department for Education (DfE) policymaking.
Countering a fallacy
Previous research had undervalued FE’s impact on potential earnings, by failing to fully account for the disadvantaged backgrounds of many holders of Level 2 qualifications (such as NVQs). Older survey-based studies compared the employment and earnings of those obtaining NVQs with individuals who looked similar on paper but had better job prospects for other reasons, including their socio-economic background. Professor Urwin’s studies instead compared the earnings of Level 2 qualification holders with those of individuals who had registered, but not completed, an NVQ; and who were more likely to be from similar backgrounds. This was controversial at first, but over the next decade Urwin showed it is a more appropriate approach for assessing the impact of these qualifications.
From 2010 onwards, Urwin led a series of econometric investigations using datasets from four separate government departments: the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions), HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs), BIS (Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, now BEIS) and DfE. In various tests of this new approach, he disproved the accepted fallacy that Level 2 qualifications did little for social mobility. Urwin’s data-informed research was reinforced by subsequent studies, which confirmed the positive impact these qualifications have on earnings and employment.
Saving the Adult Skills Budget (2015)
In 2011, the Wolf Report claimed that at least 350,000 16 to 19-year-olds got little to no benefit from Further Education, each year. This paved the way for anticipated cuts to the 2015 Adult Skills Budget, with the Chancellor warning that all government departments should expect budget cuts of 25 to 40%, in line with his austerity plan.
From August to October 2015, Professor Urwin advocated for FE by engaging the Treasury in discussion of their data-informed research across a series of briefings and meetings. Directly challenging the Wolf Report’s survey-based estimates, Urwin argued FE was an important ladder of opportunity for disadvantaged young people and cutting its budget went directly against government policy priorities on social mobility.
Further pressure came when a September 2015 Times Educational Supplement (TES) article used Urwin’s research to directly challenge the Wolf Report. It included a comment from the author of the report, Baroness Wolf herself, who recognised Urwin’s research provided “concrete proof that shows low-level qualifications do bring some benefits”.
When it came to November’s Spending Review, the anticipated cuts of £375m from the £1.5 billion Adult Skills budget were not made.
Avoiding these expected cuts had significant social and economic impacts. It ensured that disadvantaged young people and the unemployed could maintain access to valuable vocational learning within FE at level 2 and below.
- Head of Further Education Data and Analysis at Department for Education
Changing the debate on FE within government
Professor Urwin’s research and advocacy, before and after the 2015 Spending Review, has also helped change the policy debate on FE within government.
As the DfE’s Head of FE Data and Analysis puts it: “This work continues to have significance in terms of changing the context and policy discourse around FE in government, with a greater recognition of its value to all learners, and especially disadvantaged young people”.
“It is leading to a reshaping of the agenda for FE,” the former Minister for Universities and Science confirms. “And showing its important role in providing opportunities for many disadvantaged young people.”
This is evident in the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s December 2015 State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Great Britain report. Acknowledging the role of Level 2 qualifications in helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds find work, the report emphasises the need to “protect” Level 1 and 2 course funding.
The May 2019 Augar Review also used Urwin’s research to make its case that “full Level 2 qualifications yield some of the highest increases in earnings” and boost employment prospects by 2%.
To address the drop in over-18s taking FE qualifications, Augar makes proposals “to reverse these trends and create a clear educational route for adults wishing to study and train at Levels 2 and 3.”
Augar’s proposals include simplifying current FE funding rules and removing tuition fees, at a cost of £500m.
The government’s December 2020 announcement of an investment of £375 million into the Lifetime Skills Guarantee (LSG) further demonstrates the marked policy shift towards significantly resourcing FE learning. This announcement included a move towards a more flexible loan system, directly referencing the Augar review’s highlighting of the barriers created by the current funding system.
Changing how governments use databases
In 2011, BIS commissioned Professor Urwin and Dave Thomson to design a new version of their cross-departmental database – building new analytical and reporting functions into an updatable database aimed at informing policymaking.
According to the Lead Data Scientist at the DfE, this was the first time a database of this kind “could easily integrate regular updates of HMRC-DWP data”.
The database linked HMRC, DWP, BIS and HESA data, which “optimised” its use, he explains, by paving the way for “secondary” data analysis by “government departments, academics and others”.
This database was an “important precursor” to the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset, which launched in 2016 and is now widely used in research and policymaking.
Urwin’s pioneering work is still used in statistical analyses, and regularly relied upon by inquiries and committees – such as the DfE’s submission to the December 2020 Adult Skills and Lifelong Learning inquiry, which featured a LEO-produced FE “returns table” as its centre-piece and further drew on Urwin’s research as evidence that “adult skills and lifelong learning” improve employment prospects.
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