The first permanent employee of the Institute for Apprenticeships has finally been appointed, after ongoing delays and an absence of information about who would run the important new body.
Anastasia (Ana) Osbourne, formerly employed in the Enterprise Directorate at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was introduced as the IfA’s new ‘deputy director of approvals’, to an audience of over 100 delegates at a private Trailblazer Conference on January 24.
The conference, which was run by the Department for Education, took place in Birmingham and was attended by employers who have been designing apprenticeship standards.
The lucky audience witnessed both a welcome to the event and a presentation from Ms Osbourne in her new post, which is just one of six deputy director positions that will help to ensure the Institute fulfils its role of ‘policing’ apprenticeships.
Individuals appointed to the other five jobs will cover assessment and quality; corporate effectiveness; data; funding; and standards, creation and review.
According to the Department for Education’s deputy director job pack, the deputy director of approvals will carry out four main functions.
Ms Osbourne will be expected to “coordinate and support the operation of the approvals process for apprenticeship standards and technical education standards”.
She will also “work with route committees and others to ensure excellent quality assurance practice governs the approvals process including induction, standardisation, monitoring, review, risk assessment and feedback mechanisms”.
Finally, her position awards her responsibility for building “effective relationships with stakeholders” and working with “analysts and others to develop occupational maps”.
Delegates at the DfE conference were also informed that operational plan for the IfA would be published and its board members announced “before the end of the month”.
However, FE Week now understands that both of these announcements are expected tomorrow (January 27).
Check back with FE Week then for further details.
Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden recently attacked the government’s creation of the IfA as “a complete shambles”, claiming in an exclusive FE Week expert piece that it was “in danger of becoming a huge scandal”.
He said: “Even though it will be charged with implementing a flagship policy, it has yet to advertise for a permanent chief and deputy chief executive, and we now have less than three months before it goes live.
“The muddle has been there from day one … What is paralysing the department?”
However, when challenged by FE Week on the reasons for delaying hires to the IfA, the DfE refused to admit that deadlines had been missed.
“The roles of permanent chief executive and deputy at the IfA will be publicly advertised in due course, following the appointment of the board members,” said a spokesperson.
“The current post-holders were appointed on an interim basis to drive forward the creation of the IfA ahead of its launch in April.”
The new Digital Apprenticeship Service is ploughing ahead, and all levy-paying employers will be able to register next month.
Having been given a thorough “private beta assessment” by the Government Digital Service, the online service, which lets levy-payers access their accounts and make payments online, has been cleared for use, the Department for Education has said.
The next step, a DfE spokesperson told FE Week, will be to invite “some employers” to register on the system “over coming weeks”.
She said: “We will work with these employers to continue testing and improving the service, before we invite all levy-paying employers to register in February 2017.”
It is understood that levy-payers will be able to set up accounts on the DAS, choose the types of apprenticeships they want to run, the number of apprentices they take on, and appropriate training providers.
The levy will only be paid by businesses with a payroll of more than £3 million, which represents less than two per cent of employers in the country. The money will be ring-fenced, so it can only be spent on training apprentices.
The next step will be to invite “some employers” to register on the system “over coming weeks”
Gary Tucker, DAS’ service manager, explained the rigorous process his team went through to make sure it would meet employers’ needs before handing it over to GDS in a blog in December.
“Over the past three months, the service has been thoroughly tested from end to end by 100 employers and their provider partners.”
This testing covered, for example, registration, the process of “adding an apprentice to reflect the agreement between the employer and the provider”, and “submitting provider data to evidence training and trigger payments”.
FE Week revealed last October that the government expected to spend at least £12.5 million on delivering the DAS.
This would cover the costs both to the Skills Funding Agency and to suppliers of services such as web development and user research.
Sector leaders will be hoping the new service is more successful than the SFA’s FE Choices website, which was shut down in October 2015 after just three and a half years in operation.
The website performed one of the DAS’ functions in allowing users to compare the performance of providers – though this was aimed towards the public, rather than as a service specifically for employers.
An FE Week exclusive six months after it launched in January 2012 revealed that only 6,230 people had accessed it. Our Freedom of Information inquiry also revealed that FE Choices had cost the taxpayer over £2.3 million.
The website itself had cost £630,000 to build, with the remaining £1.7 million spent on gathering and producing of data.
The high cost was picked up on by Private Eye, which asked whether FE Choices “may be one of the most expensively pointless government websites yet”.
Government’s ‘new industrial strategy’ is another grandiose vision that lacks funding and changes nothing in practice, says Sally Hunt.
When it comes to government policy on further education, things move at a fast and furious rate. Initiatives arrive like buses, a few at a time, and usually revolve around fixing the mess the last lot made. Unfortunately, we never come close to addressing the elephant in the room: what further education really needs is proper investment.
Theresa May’s new industrial strategy is a case in point. Another grandiose vision, with technical education at its centre, but once again the taste is of the same old wine in new bottles. Much was made of the £170m being invested in new institutes of technology when the plans were trailed over the weekend. Yet the ministers rolled out to give more details on the Sunday political programmes failed to do so.
A sum of £170m – the equivalent of 10 misfiring rockets or, to put it in Brexit terms, about three and a half days on Boris’s bus – is clearly not going to fund a range of buildings around the country. At less than £20m a region, the people most likely to be rubbing their hands are the brand consultants and sign writers.
The sad truth is that while politicians talk about parity of esteem between technical and academic education, their actions tell a different story. Last year, working with London Economics, UCU showed that the annual public investment for each apprentice aged 19 and over in England stands at just 18 per cent of what is spent on each higher education student annually, while the equivalent for other adult learners is even lower, at just 15 per cent.
It’s the same old wine in new bottles
This announcement does little if anything to genuinely address that fundamental problem. A real industrial policy would place investment in education and skills at its heart, and look to build human capital and capacity at every level so that our country is skills-ready, and everyone can play their part.
Indeed, when most experts agree that without the extensive retraining of adults, there will be a shortage of skilled workers, it becomes clear that government policy must address the fundamental funding crisis in adult education rather than tinker at the edges.
The great expansion of higher education in recent decades has contributed to successive increases in productivity as well as created significant benefits for society too. It is hard to imagine now that just 30 years ago only one in six young people went to university.
What we need to see now is a similar expansion of further education. How can we have a skills policy worthy of the name if we do not invest in the mum who wants to learn English so she can apply for a job; the bright school leaver who needs a bit of extra support to get into higher education or an advanced technical course; or the middle-aged man who needs a quick boost of digital skills to get another job?
Yet the truth is that we have lost over one million such people from further education since 2009. As UCU has argued, we would need an additional 15,000 teachers even to begin to restore the capacity that has been lost from the sector.
The industrial strategy contained all the banalities one would expect when politicians talk technical education: a proper alternative for people not going to university, praise for the German model, a cursory nod to improved careers advice and a mention of lifelong learning. Worryingly, the limited section on lifelong learning seemed to suggest that the answer was for people to finance their studies through loans.
However, my message to the Prime Minister is simple. Instead of another new initiative, give us something that will make a real difference: a clear mission to boost learning for all and, at last, the funding to match.
Sally Hunt is General secretary at the University and College Union
Qualifications achievement rates data for 2015/16 will not appear in tomorrow’s FE statistical first release because of “technical issues”, the Skills Funding Agency has revealed.
The SFA announced last month that it would “shortly publish provisional 2015 to 2016 qualification achievement rates and minimum standards” covering apprenticeships and education and training.
It added: “We aim to publish the final QAR data following publication of the next SFR at the end of January 2017.”
But it has now conceded in its online Update bulletin, published this evening, that this will not happen.
This followed major problems reported on by FE Week that were experienced by providers, trying to upload QAR information onto troublesome online data collection system, the Hub.
The SFA added today: ““Due to some technical issues with provider access to the provisional data, we have extended the QAR provisional data window to allow sufficient time to deal with feedback and to implement corrections where necessary.”
FE Week reported on January 9 that there had been a week of problems, provoking repeated complaints though online forum FE Connect.
The main issue accepted by SFA was that the QAR was incorrectly only including learners as timely, where they had an actual end date in the 2015/16 year.
It meant, for example, that a learner who had a planned end date for example of July 31 last year (before the end of 2015/16), but actually achieved this in 2016/17 with an end date of August 1 or beyond (but within the required 90 days), wasn’t being recognised.
Issues were acknowledged as far back as January 4, when the QAR team announced on SFA forum FE Connect: “After investigation we found that the automated procedure to write and load the QAR data extract files to the hub had failed to include additional fields that allow you to arrive at the results displayed on the QAR dashboards.
“It also omitted age-bands for E&T. An amended extract file will be loaded onto the Hub today that fixes both these points.”
The SFA previously came in for fierce criticism on FE Connect in early December over its management of a key provider submission of learner data, which was labelled a “total farce” and “very disturbing”.
The agency’s online data collection system, known as the ‘Hub’, was understood to have initially gone down on December 5, when providers had less than a day left to submit their fourth Individualised Learner Record returns of the academic year.
It added an extra day in light of this, but providers still complained they were experiencing problems up to the 6pm deadline.
Despite this, the SFA opted against a further extension, even though the return that month, named ILR R04, was particularly significant – as it is used to calculate not only the SFA 16 to 18 monthly apprenticeship payments, but also by the Education Funding Agency to support the setting of allocations for the next academic year.
The government’s new industrial strategy green paper has fleshed out what it expects from a “prestigious” new network of Institutes of Technology, set to be handed £170 million to improve higher-level technical education nationwide.
The government first announced plans for the institutes in July 2015, then again through its Post-16 Skills Plan in July.
The Prime Minister’s office confirmed in a press statement last night, as reported in FE Week and looking ahead to publication of the green paper called Building Our Industrial Strategy, that £170 million of capital funding would be spent on these.
Now the green paper itself has stressed that these “institutes will increase the provision of higher-level technical education”, to ensure that it is available “in all areas”.
It explained, for example, that a “person could study a level three (A-level equivalent) at a local college, before moving on to study a higher-level technical qualification at an institute [of technology] in a nearby city”.
Details on how they would be developed were still vague, but the green paper said the government would expect most “to grow out of high-quality provision”, and “harness the expertise of local employers”.
They would be expected to specialise in technical disciplines, such as science and technology, that are aligned to promised new technical routes.
The plan is to offer high quality provision at levels three, four and five (the equivalent of A-level to just below degree); and have “a local focus to deliver qualifications of value that meet the skills needs of local employers”.
The intended reforms to technical education, which the new institutes look set to play a key role in implementing, were first revealed exclusively by FE Week last May and then announced by the government two months later.
This followed a review led by former Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury, which was launched by the Department for Education in November 2015. It explained plans for a radical overhaul to replace 20,000 courses with “15 high-quality routes”.
The green paper was generally less than complementary about FE, indicating the government felt their underwhelming performance had created the opening for the new institutes.
It said that while there is good provision, too many of FE colleges “only offer a broad, generalist curriculum at lower qualification levels; the sector has too little provision of higher level technical qualifications”.
It added: “While our higher education system has its strengths, our poor performance in basic and technical skills is key to the UK’s persistently lower levels of productivity compared with other advanced economies.”
The green paper also acknowledged issues colleges are experiencing with maths and English and maths GCSE resits.
Since 2013 all 16 to 18-year-old students who do not already have a grade C in GCSE English and maths have had to continue studying these subjects – and in 2015, this was further tightened to require those with a grade D to only study GCSE rather than an alternative.
Last year’s annual Ofsted report, published in December, said that while the policy’s intention to improve literacy and numeracy levels was “well intentioned”, the implementation was “not having the desired impact”.
GCSE resit results were disappointing last summer, and new progress data unveiled by the Department for Education last week showed that on average, colleges scored minus 0.27 for English, and minus 0.29 for maths.
This indicated that, on average, learners at FE colleges are not progressing in these key subjects.
In apparent response to all of this this, the green paper said today: “We will explore how to support FE colleges to be centres of excellence in teaching maths and English.”
The green paper did, however, contain encouraging words for those, including Labour MP David Lammy, campaigning for more funding for adult education and a return to widespread “night schools”.
It acknowledged that there is a “growing challenge” with lifelong learning.
“People are living and working longer, but training across working life is going down,” it added.
It committed to exploring “ambitious new approaches to encouraging lifelong learning, which could include assessing changes to the costs people face to make them less daunting; improving outreach to people where industries are changing; and providing better information”.
Today’s announcement confirms that technical education should be at the heart of the UK’s modern industrial strategy. This is crucial, as only with an adequate skills strategy can we respond to the needs of industry at the same time as we help equip learners with the skills in demand from local employers.
Getting technical education right is critical for the economy of this country; it is the only way to address our growing productivity and skills gaps and offers a solution not only to the ever-changing needs of industry, but also for millions of people across the country for whom a qualification for in-demand skills will be a lifeline into work. It is now for the FE Sector to grasp the opportunity.
Over the last year, Collab Group and its member colleges have been working with government, bringing ideas and potential solutions to create successful Institutes of Technology that will deliver quality STEM education across the country. We are pleased that many of our ideas, such as placing these new Institutes within existing providers in a hub and spoke model, and overlaying the priorities and recommendations given by the Sainsbury Review with those of the Post-16 Skills Plan are being adopted by government.
We must now look at the structure of Institutes of Technology to ensure they deliver on their promise.
It is now for the FE Sector to grasp the opportunity
There is a need for local provision of strong level 4 and 5 STEM provision built around robust and credible technical education pathways aligned to wider macro-economic goals; this idea is a principle of the Sainsbury Review and is central to the industrial strategy announcements today. An Institute of Technology built on this basis could be made up of individual elements such as: a focus on technical STEM pathways and level 4 and 5 provision, a key role for industry and employers, utilising existing resources in FE Colleges, Universities and Training Providers rather than establishing new institutions, and effectively utilising technology. Combined, these would create a resilient, adaptable and commercially viable institution. The level of co-ordination and system-wide planning that an Institute of Technology would be able to leverage would make it uniquely responsive to local economic demands and priorities.
Applying this model to an Institute of Technology will offer provision aligned to local economic priorities and fill a gap in the market, rather than creating yet another supplier from the ground up; it can build on the existing asset bases and utilise local resources that are already operational. Existing providers should group together under the Institute of Technology banner, bringing their local knowledge and expertise to co-ordinate provision with employers around local needs.
Productive employer relationships must form a key part of Institutes of Technology. Employers should be involved in all aspects from design, implementation and delivery—through co-creation of curriculums, building pathways to employment and providing robust and credible careers advice to learners. The Institute of Technology will take on a vital role providing the primary interface between students and employers; as well being as uniquely placed to respond and adapt to market forces and changing skills demands, the Institute of Technology will act as a trusted broker, linking employers with students and ensuring that both sides have the information and resources they need.
The benefits of Institutes of Technology are clear: they will provide a way to deliver high-quality training within the sectors that are most vital to the long-term productivity and capacity needs of the UK economy. They will allow local resources to be utilised effectively through harnessing existing asset bases and local as well as national knowledge and expertise.
Today Theresa May said: “Our action will help ensure young people develop the skills they need to do the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future.” The productivity gap needs to be addressed in a systematic and co-ordinated way; the Sainsbury Review and Post-16 Skills Plan are a step in the right direction, the government announcements today are another step forward. Real government engagement and support, clear direction and a belief in the importance of this mission are further important steps, and could mean that we can finally make significant progress on the right path towards a skills system that works for learners as well as our economy.
The winners shared their thoughts on what the awards meant to them and what could be on the horizon as they continue to drive forward with their promising careers.
Here they are in their own words…
Charlotte Blowers, 19
I-Can Qualifications Award for Intermediate Apprentice of the Year
Hairdressing and nail services at Exceed Training Academy and Salon
Charlotte said:
“At first I was a little bit overwhelmed, but now I’m quite proud of myself. My friends and family congratulated me and my clients are very happy, so it’s nice to know that I’ve achieved something that everyone’s proud of.
“When I left school I came straight to the salon that I’m in now asking for a job. I started on Saturdays and then when September came I started training. I’d definitely advise others to go down the apprenticeship route, because you get rewarded for it and you’re able to be in the working environment so much of the time.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned so far is my people skills and customer service. You don’t really speak to people of all different ages when you go to school – I now speak to people who are everything from under 20 to over 60, all sorts of ages of men and women.
“It can get very busy sometimes working at Exceed, there’s a lot to do. But I do love it, I love working with the clients and we’ve got a great team.
“I’m planning to keep moving forward with my training in the future. I’d also like to teach other people how to do what I’ve done.”
Adam Sharp, 22
EAL Award for Advanced Apprentice of the Year
Mechanical design at Sellafield Ltd
Adam said:
“It was quite a surprise to be honest with you, a bit of something special. I didn’t really expect it.
“The ceremony was amazing. I went last year as a part of a team because we won the Brathay 2015 Challenge. I can remember saying then ‘I wish my Dad could be here’, because I knew he’d be blown away by the whole thing. Then there I was, 12 months later, sat there with my Dad as well. I think it was a big shock to him and I think he’s feeling quite proud, because he’s given me a lot of support.
“I think taking part in the Brathay Apprenticeship Challenge in 2015 will have played a big part for me in winning. I was team leader and over six months we raised the profile of apprenticeships to MPs, employers and the public through organising conferences, meetings and talks and visiting schools. We also worked to raise 1.25 tonnes of food for a local food bank and over £8,000.
“At Sellafield I was in the apprentice council for my first year and then I was chairperson for the second year. That was great because they have the council to get apprentices views back to the employer, so we had the chance to change the foundation of what next year’s apprentices would learn and work on.
“At school everyone seemed to be forced down this route where it’s university or nothing. But my Dad asked if I’d thought about an apprenticeship, and it was about the time when apprenticeships were starting to be pushed again, so I went onto the government website and I’ve ended up here.
“The art of self-reliance is the best thing I’ve learned so far, in my situation moving away from home it wasn’t just about coming and learning on a job it was also about being on my own for the first time and dealing with all those new things – council tax, bills, cooking, cleaning – running and managing my own house.
“Sellafield have pushed me every step of the way and given me opportunities which I don’t think any other employer really would do. I’ve completed my foundation degree now and I’m hoping to go onto my bachelor’s degree.”
Holly Broadhurst, 23
The Nuclear Decommissioning Site Licence Companies Award for the Higher or Degree Apprentice of the Year
Foundation degree in engineering, BEng hons mechanical engineering at JC Bamford Excavators Ltd
Holly said:
“It was great to celebrate apprentices’ achievements at the awards ceremony. It was really inspiring to hear everyone’s story and get the real point across about apprenticeships.
“I took my mum and my dad and a colleague from HR who was in charge of me when I was an apprentice. They were absolutely delighted with it all. They’ve seen my highs and lows in completing the apprenticeship, so it was rewarding for them to see what I’ve been working towards.
“I was so shocked when I won. I have tried to promote apprenticeships more by speaking to different publications and running events, and to speak out for women in engineering because I think it’s really important. I’m also really dedicated to my work at JCB.
“People are just not informed enough about apprenticeships, they don’t have the right information given to them at the age they should be given it. They aren’t told enough about engineering either, they don’t really know what it is. Like any industry, it has really changed over the years. Young people aren’t given enough guidance about which careers can lead of from which subjects, which is highly important.
“With an apprenticeship you are learning and earning at the same time, and the learning is clearly linked with the practical work. I was the first intake at the JCB academy, so when I finished my GCSEs I wanted to go straight down a career path, I was ready to move on. The JCB Academy was opening that year so I went and did engineering there. I got to work with lots of different companies doing different subjects too, but JCB really stood out for me and luckily by then they were starting their first year of hiring apprentices, so it all fell into place.
“I’ve learned a lot about working within a global industry. It’s vast, you’re taking in so much in a day and you don’t even realise. It is so diverse and fast-paced which is something I like being a part of.
“Hopefully in the future I’ll be looking to go on and do a Masters, once I’ve finished my chartership to become a chartered engineer. I want to get as much experience within the business as I can.”
The Industrial Strategy Green Paper will be published tomorrow, with post-16 technical education taking centre stage.
A statement by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy says the strategy will “include plans for a radical overhaul of technical education to address its historic undervaluation in the UK and provide a credible alternative to the academic route for young people who choose not to go to university.”
This followed a review led by former Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury, which was launched by the Department for Education in November 2015. At the time, the review was established to help the government create “up to 20 specific new professional and technical routes, leading up to employment or degree-level”.
The Government has said the Industrial Strategy Green Paper will put forward proposals including:
> “£170m of new capital funding to establish prestigious Institutes of Technology”
The government announced the plan for Institutes of Technology in July 2015, when they published a Productivity Plan. It was light on detail then, and there remains very little detail 18 months on. However, the link to the post-16 Skills Plan is now clearer, with BEIS saying “this is part of a new system of technical education which will replace thousands of qualifications, many of which are low quality, with just 15 core technical “routes”. The routes will be designed specifically to respond to the needs of industry and will help equip learners with the skills in demand from local employers.”
> “Testing ambitious new approaches to encourage lifelong learning”
The government says they will “consider the role of centres of community learning and will review the option to introduce maintenance loans for higher technical education, of the kind government already supports in Higher Education.” The mention of maintenance loans appears to be a reference to the very delayed response to the governments consultation. FE Week reported that last month the government’s failure to fulfill the promise of a decision in the autumn had left the sector “disappointed”, with the DfE simply saying an announcement would be in “due course”.
Prime Minister Theresa May (pictured) this weekend said: “Our modern Industrial Strategy is a critical part of our plan for post-Brexit Britain. As we leave the EU it will help us grasp the bigger prize: the chance to build that stronger, fairer Britain that stands tall in the world and is set up to succeed in the long-term. And it is a vital step towards building a country where prosperity is shared and there is genuine opportunity for all.
“Our action will help ensure young people develop the skills they need to do the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future. That means boosting technical education and ensuring we extend the same opportunity and respect we give university graduates to those people who pursue technical routes.”
The Industrial Green Paper, to be published tomorrow “will set out proposals for discussion and consideration and invite views from a wide range of individuals, businesses and institutions across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
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Reaction, as FE Week receives it:
From the UCU
Responding to government plans to invest £170m in technical education as part of an industrial strategy, University and College Union (UCU) general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘It is encouraging that the government has recognised the importance of vocational education and improving skills. However, this sounds like a relaunched skills strategy rather than any new thinking or proper funding. This is a drop in the ocean that will do nothing to solve the funding crisis in further education, which has seen 1 million adult places lost since 2010. If government wants to support technical education it should invest in our further education colleges who desperately need thousands more teachers rather than another set of gimmicks.’
From the Association of Employment and Learning Providers
AELP chief executive, Mark Dawe, said it was “very encouraging that the government sees technical education and skills as such a key component of its industrial strategy” but cautioned against using the £170m in capital funding to “waste time reinventing the wheel”. Mr Dawe said, “buildings are really important focal points, but we must not forget that some of the best training and development is in the workplace and not the workshop, and the Industrial Strategy must keep this at the forefront.”
Two of the three independent training provider full inspection reports published this week have resulted in a two grade crash to inadequate.
And two other providers have lost their outstanding rating in another less-than-positive week for the FE and skills sector.
Just one of the 11 full reports published between January 14 and 20, based on inspections carried out late 2016, resulted in a higher grade – while five stayed the same and five went down at least one grade.
But after last week’s bad start, general FE colleges have had a breather as no inspection reports have been published this week.
Ineffective safeguarding and poor achievement rates were among the issues that led to Bradford-based Bowling College plummeting from grade two to four in a report published today.
Meanwhile, poor teaching, learning and assessment were among the concerns leading to Sheffield-based SYTG’s two grade tumble to inadequate in a report published January 19.
City Lit, a community-based learning provider in central London, swapped its grade one – which it had held since 2011 – for a grade two overall in a report published January 19.
And employer provider British Telecommunications also lost the grade one it had held since 2012, as it was rated good in a report also published January 19.
This week saw the publication of three sixth form college reports – including the only inspection to result in a higher grade.
Leaders at Strode’s College in Surrey were found to have “pursued improvement with energy”, leading to a one grade rise from three to two in a report published January 17.
New College Telford retained its grade three rating, while East Norfolk Sixth Form college held on to its grade two.
Also maintaining the same grade this week were adult and community learning providers Adult College of Barking and Dagenham and North East Lincolnshire Council, with grade two and grade three respectively, and independent provider The Virtual College, with a grade three.
Meanwhile, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council slipped one grade from two to three.
And Chiltern Training Ltd was the only short inspection published this week – meaning it remains a grade two.
