Post-16 SEND policy should sit with the skills minister, and the independent status of specialist colleges should be reformed, MPs were told today.
Natspec chief executive Clare Howard told members of the House of Commons education committee that specialist colleges routinely found themselves in a “policy vacuum”, particularly around capital funding, due to their independent status.
The committee heard from eight witnesses this morning in the penultimate oral evidence session of its inquiry into the future of further education and skills.
The wide-ranging evidence session also covered student attainment gaps, adult education devolution, mental health support and Skills England independence.
Here are the highlights…
Redesignate specialist colleges
Howard was asked specifically about how further education special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) policy and funding could stop “falling through the cracks of ministerial responsibility”.
All of SEND and high needs policy currently sits with the minister for schools, Catherine McKinnell, whereas skills minister Jacqui Smith is responsible for education and training for non-SEND learners aged over 16.
Specialist colleges share a similar status to independent training providers, despite being often the only viable option for students with complex needs. They legally tend to be constituted as charities or private companies. Howard said it was “illogical and inequitable” that they didn’t have a dedicated minister while learners were placed in “buildings falling apart”.
She said: “We’re very keen that the designation of specialist colleges is looked at. There is no alternative to mainstream FE other than specialist colleges so, in effect, they are the equivalent of maintained special colleges”.
MPs highlighted that specialist colleges are excluded from accessing funding through the Department for Education’s various FE capital budgets.
“I do think we need to bring specialist colleges into the FE sector and make them part of FE estates planning and the FE capital grant,” she said.
“We’ve got buildings falling apart and learners that are really missing out. [Specialist] colleges are looking at fundraising and private loans, and it’s very difficult for them.”
Better for everybody
Classifying specialist colleges as statutory further education bodies, with an integrated SEND and mainstream budget under one minister, could also help reverse the diminishing availability of local authority-funded transport for learners to get to college or work.
Local authorities’ statutory responsibilities for providing transport for education stop at age 16. As council finances have come under increasing pressure over the last decade, families have been asked to pay for transport services themselves, or services have been cut altogether.
Howard said: “Colleges would like to do more in terms of their own transport, but they’ve not got the capital funding to do it.
“Member of our student voice parliament are hugely frustrated that their disabled bus passed can’t be used before 9.30 in the morning; they can’t get to work, can’t go to college, can’t get to a work placement”.
Skills England tension
The government’s new skills body, Skills England, launched a series of reports yesterday analysing the skills needs in the government’s ten priority sectors.
Employer and adult education representatives were asked how Skills England should improve apprenticeships so they better meet the needs of local economies.
Skills Federation chief executive Fiona Aldridge, who is also a member of the Skills England board, said the key to growing apprenticeships was to grow jobs.
“If you want to increase apprenticeships, we have to think about the labour market and what would encourage employers to offer those employment opportunities,” Aldridge said.
“But I would also say that apprenticeships, while they are brilliant, are not the right solution for everyone in every circumstance. It might not need to be an apprenticeship. We need to think about other things, short courses, modules, other types of provision that could be funded too.”
Susan Pember, policy director at Holex, pointed to Skills England’s position as an in-house government agency while simultaneously being tasked with advocating for the needs of employers.
She said: “We’ve got Skills England. It’s supposed to be impartial. There is a bit of a tension and conflict because they’re also the owner and the deliverer of apprenticeships [policy]. So there will be a time where do they recommend government put spending into short courses that are not apprenticeships, or do they understand that they’re not meeting the apprenticeship target, and therefore they want to put more into apprenticeships.
“It’s a very difficult organisation.”
Devolution postcode lottery
Pember also criticised inconsistent adult education provision between devolved and non-devolved areas, particularly for ESOL and basic skills, citing cases where authorities had capped ESOL spending or removed community learning programmes altogether.
While supporting local control in principle, she warned that devolution has resulted in a “postcode lottery”.
“Wherever you look now, it’s a disparate mix. Now there could be a good reason for that, and that’s what localism is all about. But it doesn’t feel there’s a good rationale in all areas, and we are the ones working with people furthest away from the workplace, furthest away from the community. We can see funding for those being deprioritised and going to people who’ve always already been well funded by the state system.
“We would like to see some framework so it doesn’t go to the extreme.”
Student vs the system
Several panellists argued for improved student maintenance support in FE to reduce attainment gaps and mental health concerns.
Qasim Hussain, vice president (further education) of the National Union of Students, told the committee he is seeing “more and more students juggling work with caring responsibilities and struggling to keep up with their courses”.
“The cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on students’ education, especially those who are coming from lower income backgrounds. We’re seeing mental health decrease, there’s cases where learners are struggling to get to college, to get to their place of work, to keep up with meals,” he said.
“We’re starting to see learners feeling disengaged with college and feeling like it’s a system where its them verses college.”
Nuffield Foundation’s Emily Tanner said a targeted student premium, similar to the pupil premium, would “enable extra support and intervention” to help improve experiences for disadvantaged students.
There was some disagreement about whether reintroducing the Education Maintenance Allowance, which funded disadvantaged students directly, would be preferable to a student premium where the extra funding went to colleges.
Tanner seemed to land on the premium as a better option because it could be used on “wider issues around funding, around teacher pay as that has an enormous influence of disadvantaged students”.
Hussain however said the financial pressures on students were so broad, encompassing travel and living costs as well as study costs, there are always some that miss out on exiting bursary policies.
He said it was “more important to direct money to students rather than institutions … giving students the power and autonomy would go a long way”.
Your thoughts