Decision details

The Combined Authority will be asked to approve the acceptance of a number of skills programme grants from the Department for Education relating to the financial year 2023/24 and the academic year 2023/24 along with the AEB Grant Funded provider allocations.

Delegations will be sought got subsequent provider allocations for the various funds.

The report will also contain AEB headline data relating to the 2021/22 academic year reported annually to the Department for Education as part of the devolution agreement.

RESOLVED – That:

(a)    the devolved Adult Education Budget (AEB) allocation for 2023/24 academic year of £53,698,692 from the Department for Education (DfE) be accepted and the maximum AEB funding allocations to Liverpool City Region grant funded providers, as summarised in Exempt Appendix 1 be approved;

(b)    the delegated grant funding of £2,960,686 from the DfE for the Level 3 Adult Offer for the academic year 2023/24 be accepted as outlined in the letter dated 09 February 2023 noting this was not the full annual budget available as outlined in section 3 of the report;

(c)    the funding of £2,921,579 from the DfE for the Multiply Grant (funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund) for the financial year 2023/24 (year 2) be accepted;

(d)    the funding of £8,200,000 from the DfE for the Skills Bootcamps for the Workplace Wave 4 Grant for the financial year 2023/24 be accepted;

(e)    the methodology that will be applied to calculate the AEB Contract for Service allocations and the Level 3 Lifetime Skills Guarantee allocations for the academic year 2023/24 as outlined in section 4 of the report be noted;

(f)     it be noted that the AEB Assurance Framework will be updated to include Multiply Funding to enable in year changes to reflect the process used for AEB and the Level 3 Adult Offer as described in section 4 of the report;

(g)    the continuation of a Facilitation Fund using AEB in 2023/24 academic year as set out in section 4 of the report be approved;

(h)    the Scheme of Delegation outlined in section 6 regarding the allocations for the Contract for Services AEB delivery for academic year 2023/24, the provider allocations for the Level 3 Adult Offer funding for academic year 2023/24, the provider allocations for the Multiply Grants for the financial year 2023/24 and noting the process already in place to award Skills Bootcamps for the Workplace grant funding to continue for Wave 4 (financial year 2023/24) be approved; and

(i)     the headline data referenced in section 7 of the report relating to the last AEB academic year for 2021/22 and reported in Appendix Two be noted.