No-one is surprised when a newly elected government decides to create new initiatives and new organisations to signify a change in direction and a break from the past.

Skills England, a new agency within the Department for Education, was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer just after last year’s General Election, along with his observation that “our skills system is in a mess”.

But since that announcement, Skills England has not had an easy ride, with some observers describing it as a power grab that lacks clarity and clout, while others have questioned whether we needed Skills England in the first place.

So, why has the government created Skills England? What challenges is Skills England likely to face inside and outside government? And will Skills England, as the Prime Minister promised, transform our approach to meeting skills needs over the coming decades, or will it end up causing more problems than it solves?

My guests are Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive at the City & Guilds Group, and Rob Nitsch, Chief Executive at the Federation of Awarding Bodies.

DOWNLOAD MY REPORT ON SKILLS ENGLAND HERE: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/03/31/skills-england-will-be-in-a-battle-for-relevance-from-day-one/

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The Curriculum and Assessment Review, which is being chaired by Professor Becky Francis, was commissioned by the Department for Education last summer and will not conclude its work until this autumn.

Even so, the Review has attracted so much interest from schools, colleges, teachers, leaders and parents that the interim report from the Review, published at the end of March, was an important and high-profile milestone.

So what problems in primary and secondary education has the Review identified in its interim report? Which aspects of our curriculum and assessment system does the Review think are worth protecting, and which aspects need to be reformed? And how easy will it be for the Review to come up with solutions that are widely supported and improve outcomes for children and young people?

My guests are Mary Myatt, an education adviser, writer and speaker, and Dale Bassett, the director of assessment at United Learning, a group of over 100 schools.

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Those who work in and around the Higher Education, or HE sector, have been having a rough time if recent media headlines are anything to go by.

Since the turn of the year, there has been what’s felt like a constant stream of stories about universities making redundancies, cutting costs and scaling back their operations in an attempt to make themselves more financially sustainable.

But despite all the gloom, one person is certainly not giving up on the HE sector. David Willetts was minister for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014 and is now President of the Resolution Foundation and a member of the House of Lords.

David recently published a report for the Kings College London Policy Institute called ‘Are universities worth it’.

So, to hear his case for why supporting universities is a good thing, and why he disagrees with many of the criticisms aimed at universities, I’m delighted to be joined by David in this episode to discuss his new report.

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