The decision by Philip Hammond to offer a £600 Bribe to Schools that manage to persuade their students who have passed Maths at GCSE to then go onto Maths A Level is deeply worrying. Society is crying out for better trained young people in a range of disciplines. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) are at the heart of one element of this, but so too are subjects that will lead onto critical roles such as Social Work and health care along with many others. I work for an Engineering Company that uses maths skills every day of the working week and we are crying out for appropriate training for our staff as well as new recruits. We recognise the need for basic maths skills but often formal maths training at a higher level does not move us any closer to where we need to be. What is needed is a more flexible and coherent form of training that will demand a much more carefully planned approach than simply offering a bribe to Schools if they tick a particular box. Of course we are just one business but when it comes to recruiting staff qualifications form only a small part of the profile we look at. Meanwhile the Secondary Schools we work with that are struggling financially seem to need consistent funding that they can rely on, not piecemeal approaches that mean that they will need to persuade competent students to add Maths A Levels to their choice of subjects. By the same token every Maths A Level student will now know they are adding income to the School budget so they will no doubt expect to see a return to their ‘investment’ so the School may find this is a poisoned chalice in certain cases!