From 1 August 2019, the Secretary of State for Education delegated responsibility for the commissioning, delivery, and management of London’s Adult Education Budget (AEB) to the Mayor of London. In early 2020, the AEB Mayoral Board agreed that AEB programme data should be published following the Department for Education’s Further Education and Skills data publication and in line with the UK Code of Practice for Official Statistics (which the Greater London Authority has signed up to on a voluntary basis). This GLA AEB data publication provides information on adult (aged 19+) GLA-funded Further Education, comprising Education and training and Community learning (excluding apprenticeships, traineeships, advanced learner loans, the offender learning and skills service, and education and training services funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency). The accompanying note assists in interpreting the statistics and highlights some key points and data limitations. The accompanying technical document provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality and explains the methodology used in producing the data. Wherever in-year data is used, it presents provisional, reported to date figures. These are updated in subsequent data returns, and should not be considered the final record of provision in that time period. The data in this release should be treated as Experimental Statistics as the methodologies used to produce them are still in their developmental phase.

From 1 August 2019, the Secretary of State for Education delegated responsibility for the commissioning, delivery, and management of London’s Adult Education Budget (AEB) to the Mayor of London. In early 2020, the AEB Mayoral Board agreed that AEB programme data should be published following the Department for Education’s Further Education and Skills data publication and in line with the UK Code of Practice for Official Statistics (which the Greater London Authority has signed up to on a voluntary basis). In August 2024, the AEB changed to the Adult Skills Fund (ASF). As a result, it is not possible to directly compare this year’s data with participation and enrolment to previous years under the AEB. Data for the AEB covering academic years 2019/20 – 2023/24 can be accessed here: GLA Adult Education Budget - London Datastore The GLA ASF data publication below provides information on adult (aged 19+) GLA-funded Further Education, comprising Adult Skills Core, Tailored Learning and Free Courses for Jobs (excluding apprenticeships, traineeships, advanced learner loans, the offender learning and skills service, and education and training services funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency). Wherever in-year data is used, it presents provisional, reported to date figures. These are updated in subsequent data returns, and should not be considered the final record of provision in that time period.

The GLA commissioned IFF Research to conduct an independent evaluation of the first year of AEB delivery after delegation of the AEB to the Mayor in 2019. The evaluation findings were “largely very positive”, with IFF concluding that “the delegation of the AEB has worked effectively in its first year, for the majority of providers who receive funding from it“.

In May 2022, IFF Research finalised their report covering the evaluation of the Adult Education Budget (AEB) in the 2020-21 Academic Year. The evaluation highlights the Mayor’s successful management of London’s AEB in the first two years of its delegation to London through a period heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.