Post-16 COVID-19 recovery funding evaluation: April 2022 to March 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruption to teaching and learning across Wales. This included strong negative impacts for learners, staff and institutions/providers across the post-16 sector. In order to enable learning to continue and to address these negative impacts the Welsh Government distributed approximately £295 million in COVID-19 Recovery Funding to the sector. This included approximately £233 million of COVID-19 related funding in the 2020/21 financial year, and £62 million in 2021/22.

In April 2022 the Welsh Government commissioned Ecorys UK and Learning & Work (L&W) to undertake a mixed method multi-strand evaluation of the COVID-19 Recovery Funding for the post-16 sector.

A key finding was that the post-16 sector valued the funding; institution leads valued the flexibility of the funding and the collaborative working required between institutions and the Welsh Government to ensure efficient decision making took place. 

The funding was used to support a number of priority areas including to support online and blended learning, digital inclusion, mental health and wellbeing, academic catch-up support and learner transitions within post-16 education. In addition, funding was initially used to fund PPE and health and safety measures related to Covid-19, before providing direct financial and practical support to learners later on in the pandemic.  

Mental health and wellbeing was unanimously regarded as a notable and ongoing challenge requiring continued support.  

Challenges specific to the funding process included the need for longer lead-in times and longer funding periods. Stakeholders felt a longer-term funding commitment would enable new ways of working to be embedded in the sector.

The report makes a series of recommendations based on the evaluation findings to support and improve the implementation of future funding in the post-16 sector.

These recommendations are set in out the following themes:

• Clarity of information
• Monitoring and management information
• Collaboration and information sharing
• Process and implementation
• Future/ongoing workforce and learner needs
• Future evaluation framework

A series of case studies conducting with post-16 sector institution leaders will follow the publication of this final report in due course.