Robert Halfon, the minister of state for apprenticeships and skills, has paid an official visit to London’s first ever hospitality career college.
The minister was taken on a tour of the Greater London-based Hospitality, Food and Enterprise Career college – part of London South East colleges – and unveiled a plaque to commemorate his visit.
Mr Halfon also had a tour of the college’s specialist facilities, including the site of a forthcoming learner-led restaurant, called BR6 Bakehouse, which is due to open later this year, and enjoyed afternoon tea prepared and served by students.
There are currently 60 14- to 16-year-olds studying at the college, and around 150 post-16 students – which will expand to 300 next year.
Mr Halfon said: “The outstanding work of this career college ensures that students get jobs or apprenticeships after their technical courses finish.
“It provides significant support for those from disadvantaged backgrounds to get onto the ladder of opportunity and gain the skills they need for future careers.”
Based at London South East Colleges’ Orpington site, the career college is part of the town’s regeneration programme, contributing to the local growing economy.
Main image: Food for thought: Robert Halfon takes a tour of the facilities
A job advert for more than 100 panel members to help develop new technical qualifications has been posted for the Department for Education, with payments expected to top half a million pounds.
It explained the DfE is seeking experienced industry professionals who would like to help shape the “future technical education system”, as set out by Lord Sainsbury last summer.
They will serve on “panels of professionals” that will “develop occupational standards for new technical qualifications, as part of flagship reforms to England’s post-16-skills system”.
The vacancies are for a one year term, with payments set to be £1,000 on a quarterly basis to employers of panellists, and £2,000, again quarterly, for chairs.
With 10 on a panel that would work out at £48,000 for each one.
And assuming there will be 11 panels, based on the various industries listed, the annual cost would be just under £530,000.
The sectors covered are digital; legal; finance and accounting; engineering and manufacturing; health and science; construction; childcare and education; agriculture; environmental and animal care; business and administrative; catering and hospitality; and creative and design.
Plans were set out by the government for a radical overhaul of the post-16 vocational qualification system, to replace 20,000 courses with “15 high-quality” technical qualifications, through its Skills Plan published in July, based on wide-reaching recommendations from Lord Sainsbury.
It is understood that four of these routes, which are set to be “primarily delivered through apprenticeships”, aren’t covered by the new panels of professionals.
The new job advert, posted through the Cabinet Office, added that panels “will be formed in phases”, with successful applicants added to an “approved register of industry professionals”.
Four of these routes, which are set to be “primarily delivered through apprenticeships”, aren’t covered by the new panels of professionals
The DfE, it stated, will aim to notify successful applicants “in the spring” of this year.
It explained the reasoning behind the planned payments, which will cover travel expenses that could be high with the location for the new roles only listed as “nationwide”.
“These are critical roles that will require successful applicants to spend time away from their day job,” the advert states. “In recognition of this, as a panel member, your employer will receive £1,000 on a quarterly basis.
“If you are a panel chair, your employer will receive £2,000 on a quarterly basis.
“These payments will also cover any travel expenses incurred in attending meetings.”
It added: “We welcome applications from those self-employed and will receive payment directly to your company bank account for your time commitment.”
The advert said the DfE would “broadly expect” each panel to meet between once a month and every six weeks for a year, and that “panel members will undertake some additional work outside of meetings – we would expect this to be up to one day per month”.
It added this applies for one-year fixed term appointments, from the point of being allocated to a panel, with “the possibility of an extension”.
“This is an exciting opportunity – both for practising industry professionals, or representatives of an industry, through a recognised professional body or trade association – to shape and improve technical education across England,” the advert stated.
Apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon has paid his first visit to a career college, attending London South East Colleges’ Hospitality, Food and Enterprise Career College in Orpington.
He was treated to afternoon tea by students and praised the college’s work in supporting “those from disadvantaged backgrounds to get onto the ladder of opportunity”.
In light of this, FE Week has decided to revisit the concept of career colleges, to find out how they are getting along since the first one opened at Hugh Baird College in Merseyside in September 2014.
The area reviews are the reason behind the slow uptake of career colleges, according to the leader of the trust tasked with overseeing their development.
In 2013 Lord Baker, who founded the Career Colleges Trust, laid out his plans for “a new concept in further education”.
FE colleges would, he said, launch a network of 40 career colleges over the following four years, which would be designed to focus on training from 14 years old, with each one specialising in a different sector and working directly with employers.
But FE Week has found that only 12 are up and running at present, and three more are set to launch by the end of 2017.
One of these is the Greater London-based Hospitality, Food and Enterprise Career College – part of London South East Colleges – which apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon visited this week.
Halfon’s visit to the Career College
In an exclusive interview with FE Week, the trust’s current chief executive Ruth Gilbert ascribed the underwhelming figures to the disruption that was caused when the post-16 area reviews were announced in September 2015.
She explained there was initially a healthy level of interest in the concept, which requires sponsorship from a lead FE college, at an average cost of around £30,000 to £40,000 for the first year – though there is no fixed annual fee as each college has different requirements.
However, providers apparently “retrenched” once their attention was diverted by major structural changes that were in many cases foisted upon them through area reviews.
“We had five [colleges] who paused any planning activity with us, pending the outcomes of their area review,” she said.
“Understandably, a lot of FE colleges stopped development activity and were very focused on immediate structure and the politics and administration of the review.”
Former education secretary Lord Baker agreed that since 2013 “the FE landscape has changed dramatically” during a “tough period”.
He said: “Funding cuts, reforms and area reviews have all put a huge amount of pressure on the sector – meaning that many colleges have not had the opportunity to innovate or invest.
“The trust has a very small team but its impact is far-reaching and I am confident that the movement will continue to flourish and grow.”
Coming out of the area reviews could be a positive development for the creation of further career colleges
However, Ms Gilbert was more optimistic that momentum might pick up again after the last of the area reviews are completed in the spring.
The trust plans to take stock of the landscape in July, before the three new career colleges open in September.
She said the college mergers coming out of the area reviews could be a positive development for the creation of further career colleges.
“The fact that you’ve got group infrastructures now, some of them are talking to us about how career colleges might help them to differentiate themselves, some of them are hoping it will be a catalyst for wider employer engagement,” she said.
She pointed to London as a region that had failed to engage with the career colleges initiative, saying: “I’m disappointed in London because, despite being such a hotbed of employment and growth, we’ve probably found that the hardest area.
“But we’re very mindful that London colleges have been going through their own revolution with multiple mergers and a number of quality challenges as well – and criticism nationally for having low levels of apprenticeships.”
David Hughes,the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said it was up to individual colleges to choose whether a career college would be right for them.
He said: “Colleges will make their own decisions about the best partnerships for them to support their learners, so interest and take-up will always vary.”
The story so far
Lord Baker launched the concept of career colleges in his 2013 book ‘14-18: A New Vision for Secondary Education’.
Drawing on ideas from the US, he described career colleges as a pathway providing “general education which is common to all post-14 colleges” alongside “vocational training” to “develop skills for specific occupations”.
Initial support for career colleges was provided by two charities, the Edge Foundation and the Helping Hands Trust.
The start of the programme was not problem-free, with one planned career college failing to open because the lead sponsor college was unable to commit to the full requirements for the project. However, no money was lost.
Since 2013, 12 career colleges have been set up across the country, and three more are planned for September this year.
What exactly is a career college?
Each one is effectively a “college within a college”, offering practical training and education for 14- to 19-year-olds, and designed for specific industries with direct input from employers.
Their specialisms are wide-ranging and respond directly to skills shortages in the area of the FE colleges that establish them.
Their work-led curriculums are developed by employers and the Career Colleges Trust charity, based on national and international best practice.
Although they were both invented by Lord Kenneth Baker, careers colleges differ from university technical colleges, which are a form of government-backed academy with a prescribed school constitution and a university sponsor.
Career colleges are not directly supported by the Department for Education, but because they are run by FE colleges, learners are funded through the usual public mechanisms available for 14- to 19-year-olds.
A team of catering students from Barking and Dagenham college have designed a new fizzy drink that will go on sale in local shops this year.
‘Rapple Fizz’, a blend of apples and rosehip, will be the latest beverage to hit the shelves in the London borough, following a competition run by Company Drinks, a community drinks enterprise, to find new flavours to add to their existing range.
The students, who study at the college’s Technical Skills Academy in Barking, split into two teams for the competition, and underwent a series of drinks-making workshops in preparation, using lab-based experiments to explore the science behind flavouring.
The final creations were tested on members of the public, before the Rapple Fizz team – headed up by 17-year-old Angel Smith – announced the winners. Team ‘Grape Licious’ were the runners up, with their mix of grapes and blackcurrant.
The winning team will help decide where the drinks will go on sale, and have already overseen their product be processed, bottled and packaged.
“We encouraged them to pick and mix their own ingredients, to extract flavour and to brand and market their creations to the public, ensuring that they’ve been involved at every stage of the process,” said Cam Jarvis of Company Drinks.
Main image: Barks fizz: Designers Angel Smith and Gemma Naidoo with their products
Ofqual will hold talks with an awarding organisation owned by the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink, over alleged conflict of interest “issues raised” through an FE Week investigation.
The qualifications watchdog announced its plans to intervene in the wake of our report that the NSAFD was misleading providers by trying to sell them costly “industry approved” status to run apprenticeships.
The conflict centres on a company called Occupational Awards Limited, which is wholly owned by the NSAFD, and which is the only awarding body to offer the qualifications necessary for two new apprenticeship standards – ‘food and drink process operator’ and ‘food and drink advanced process operator’.
When we checked last week, there was no mention of its relationship with the NSAFD on OAL’s website.
However, the site claimed that the two qualifications were the only ones “written by the food and drink employer Trailblazer group” and “endorsed by the NSA for Food and Drink”.
FE Week asked Ofqual whether there was any conflict of interest in OAL claiming its qualifications were endorsed by the same body that owned it, whether NSAFD’s ownership of OAL had been made clear enough in the first place.
“In light of FE Week’s articles, we will be contacting OAL and will discuss the issues raised with them,” a spokesperson confirmed.
NSAFD, which bought OAL from the now defunct sector skills council for furniture and wood manufacturing, Proskills in July 2016, declined to comment on this latest twist in the story.
It claimed at the time that the purchase would allow it to “further support the food and drink industry through the awarding of industry-approved qualifications and focused end-point assessment products”.
FE Week’s investigation into NSAFD also found that providers were at risk of being duped into paying thousands of pounds to become “industry approved” before they could deliver new apprenticeships for the industry.
The group claimed that only providers which were “industry approved” – at a cost of £5,000 – would be entitled to deliver its “industry approved apprenticeship programmes”.
The only apparent difference between these programmes and existing apprenticeship standards – which can be delivered by any organisation on the Skills Funding Agency’s register of apprenticeship training providers – is that IAAPs have more guidance on how they should be delivered.
The NSAFD had claimed on its website that if “industry approved” providers met “additional quality criteria” they would “be able to offer Trailblazer Apprenticeships and other kite-marked programme delivery”.
Now, though, this claim has vanished from the NSAFD’s website following our investigation.
FE Week asked NSAFD if removing this key line meant it acknowledged it was misleading providers; it declined to comment.
The NSAFD also claimed that the development of its IAAPs had been supported by the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
We asked the Department for Education, which took over responsibility for apprenticeships from BIS following changes to the machinery of government in July, if these claims were true.
“The employer ownership of skills schemes, such as those run by the NSAFD, were pilot projects, separate to the wider apprenticeship programme, that drew to a close in 2015 and are no longer funded by the department,” a spokesperson said.
“For apprenticeship training, we have been clear that as long as a provider has secured a place on the register, they will be able to deliver apprenticeships. Any activity that suggests otherwise would be misleading”.
One of the country’s leading female engineers has unveiled a portrait of herself at Bradford College in the hopes it will inspire girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.
Dr Phebe Mann is the first and only woman in the UK to hold six professional engineering qualifications, and was made an honorary fellow at the college three years ago.
The image was commissioned by the WISE campaign, a national organisation promoting women in STEM, which has also recognised Dr Mann as one of its ‘women of outstanding achievement’.
The photograph will go on display in the college’s David Hockney building, alongside a statue of Sir Edward Appleton, a Nobel Prize winner who pioneered in radio physics – and worked as lab technician at the college between 1909 and 1911.
“The perception that engineering is ‘not for girls’ has gradually been changed over the years,” said Dr Mann.
“We should do more to encourage young people, especially girls, to consider engineering as a very worthwhile and rewarding career.
“I sincerely hope that my portrait can encourage more young people to contemplate it as their career.”
Main image: One small step for Mann: Dr Phebe Mann, left, with Bradford College bigwigs
The Institute for Apprenticeships looks increasingly likely to launch without either a permanent chief or deputy chief executive, following yet more delays to board appointments.
With less than three months until the IfA is “fully operational”, the two top jobs haven’t even been advertised – and the Department for Education cannot say when that will happen.
The government is reluctant to say whether any board members have been appointed, despite first advertising the paid posts in June 2016, when it claimed that appointments would be announced in October.
Labour’s shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden has described the creation of the new Institute as “a complete shambles” and claims in an exclusive piece on page 16 that it is “in danger of becoming a huge scandal”.
He writes: “The department has repeatedly pressured stakeholders to ensure they are ready for the apprenticeship Levy and Institute in April.
They’ve stubbornly resisted suggestions from the sector about a more phased in approach yet now appear in a state of meltdown
“They’ve stubbornly resisted suggestions from the sector about a more phased in approach yet now appear in a state of meltdown.
“How can people have confidence in the Institute being effective from April when the Government have yet to even advertise for the key figures who will be running it?”
When FE Week asked the DfE why the hires had been delayed in light of the fact the Institute is scheduled to open in just 10 weeks – it refused to admit that the 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 IfA is currently overseen by three temporary heads: Peter Lauener, its shadow chief executive, Mike Keoghan, the shadow deputy chief executive, and Antony Jenkins, who is shadow chair.
Deputy director roles were also advertised in October, but again there have been no announcements on who will be chosen, or when.
The Institute has also lost two managers it had previously appointed last year: Rachel Sandby-Thomas and Nicola Bolton, who both acted as shadow chief operating officer.
Ms Sandby Thomas was appointed to the post in March, but left just six months later in September to join Warwick University as its registrar.
Nicola Bolton, the former managing director for trade at UK Trade and Investment, was named shadow chief operating officer in June, but only served five months in the role.
Read Gordon Marsden’s opinion piece here
The DfE had no comment on why either person left.
Mark Dawe, the boss of the AELP, told FE Week that delays in announcing the board and a permanent chair “will inevitably delay the recruitment of the CEO”, which would put “yet further pressure on the IfA” which already “faces an incredibly challenging agenda”.
From the public’s perspective, little has changed with the leadership situation since Mr Dawe raised concerns about it more than six months ago, when he spoke at a House of Commons subcommittee hearing on education skills and the economy in June.
“Every time there’s a difficult question,” he said, “we’re told the institute will resolve it – and they haven’t got a board, or a management team or staff yet, as far as I can tell.”
The government has confirmed that at least 2.3 per cent of the workforce in public sector bodies in England will have to be apprentices, in a move requiring that 200,000 more will have to be recruited by 2020.
The target was provisionally aired a year ago, as part of a consultation on how large a role public bodies should play in meeting the government’s overall target of creating 3 million new apprenticeship starts by 2020.
The Department for Education has now confirmed 2.3 per cent as the minimum requirement in their response to the consultation.
Skills minister Robert Halfon (pictured) announced that this would effectively mean setting the public sector a target of recruiting 200,000 more apprentices by 2020, although this won’t apply to FE colleges.
“We are committed to breaking down barriers and creating a ladder of opportunity for people everywhere,” he said.
“For our public sector to be the very best in the world, we need talented and ambitious people of all ages and from every background.
“Businesses across the country have well and truly got behind apprenticeships.
“Now it is time to ensure the public sector reaps the benefits of apprenticeships and young people get the opportunities they deserve.”
FE Week exclusively revealed last January that any public sector apprenticeship target won’t apply to colleges.
The DfE confirmed it remains the case that FE colleges are not included because they are not defined by the Office for National Statistics as exclusively public.
The target is being championed by the civil service, which has pledged an “unprecedented increase” in apprentices, to achieve 30,000 apprenticeship starts in England by 2020.
“Setting these expectations for larger employers in the public sector is essential to give people the skills they need to succeed and enable public sector employers to deliver the skilled workforce for the future,” the DfE has said.
Last year’s nine question consultation paper explained that “as a starting point for determining an appropriate target for public sector organisations”, the government had “taken the current proportion of public sector workers in the total workforce in England (16.2 per cent)”.
“We would, therefore, expect the public sector to deliver 16.2 per cent of 3 million apprenticeship starts,” it added.
It explained the plan was for all but around 30 of the 354 local authorities, all police and Armed Forces, and the vast majority of fire and rescue services would have to hit the target.
It was planned that other large bodies including Network Rail, London Underground, the BBC, Sellafield, Post Office, City of London, Bank of England, Financial Ombudsman Service, and the Financial Conduct Authority would also be covered.
UPDATE: The government response to their consultation has now been published, which describes a number of bodies that, despite being defined by the ONS as public sector, will be excluded from the target. These include:
> BBC and Channel 4
> Post Office
> ‘Financial institutions’ – FE Week is seeking further clarity here
> Houses of Parliament, because “they are not subject to control or direction of ministers”
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. It wasn’t even in the original Enterprise Bill, which started in the Lords in October 2015. The then-business secretary announced it almost as an afterthought at its second reading in the Commons in February 2016, when ministers failed to bring a new clause forward to set it up. So it was left to us to propose a structure to define its remit clearly and inclusively, even though the government replaced this work with a bland piece of boilerplate.
Ministers had boasted that the Institute would be business-led, but its initial shadow chief executive was a career civil servant who left after a few months. The shadow chief operating officer also left after a similarly short time. It fell to Peter Lauener, who already has two jobs corralling both the EFA and SFA, all on just two days a week.
Will it be a Valentine’s Day treat, or perhaps an April Fool’s surprise?
In November, as a witness for the Technical and Further Education Bill, I pressed Peter on the process for finalising the Institute’s structure and appointments. He said he expected these “before Christmas”. It’s now mid-January and we are still none the wiser. When will the sector know who’s taking this crucial new body forward? Will it be a Valentine’s Day treat, or perhaps an April Fool’s surprise?
The IfA is a source of deep concern that’s in danger of becoming a huge scandal. The department has repeatedly pressured stakeholders to ensure they are ready for the apprenticeship levy and the Institute in April. It has stubbornly resisted suggestions from the sector about a more phased-in approach yet now appears in a state of meltdown.
How can people have confidence that the IfA will be effective from April when the government has yet to even advertise for the key figures which will run it?
This appears to be an expanding pattern across the DfE. When Theresa May became PM, the apprenticeships tsar was stood down without word, and we don’t know when or if he will be replaced. The Skills Plan proposals, to remedy the government’s total neglect of adult learning, are becalmed, while the shadow education secretary Angela Rayner and I have just written to the Mr Halfon, along with the former skills minister David Lammy, and 59 other MPs.
What is paralysing the department? Is it the morass of Brexit, turf wars with the Cabinet Office, continuing problems over absorbing skills and apprenticeships into the DfE? Or is it the inadequate resources trickling into the Institute itself? Labour has repeatedly warned that the modest investments of personnel and money (60 people, £8 million) by the government will not nearly be enough to get the IfA going – especially as it will also take on the whole area of technical education within the next 12 months.
As someone once involved with setting up a major new arms-length body I find it incredible – as I am sure many in the sector do – that ministers don’t even have the key people in place now. In most cases, these people need to be in post for a run-in of nine to 12 months in order to guarantee success, even part-time.
Currently, the Institute resembles a jigsaw puzzle with most of the vital pieces missing.
You only get one shot at getting this sort of change right. And if the minister does not rattle cages immediately to sort it out, it won’t be just another Whitehall farce. It will be a tragedy for the stakeholders, the hundreds of large and thousands of small businesses who want to do the right thing by apprenticeships, and the hundreds of thousands of would-be apprentices, who desperately need for their life chances to see these initiatives work.
Gordon Marsden is shadow minister for higher education, further education and skills
