Allocation worth up to £440m for delivering apprenticeship training to non-levy employers have been delayed by the Skills Funding Agency, FE Week can reveal.

It is understood that everyone who applied for the non-levy funding has been sent a notification on the government’s Bravo e-tendering portal – seen by FE Week – confirming the delay.

It will cause huge sector frustration – as the delay, with no alternative date supplied, comes shortly before the apprenticeship levy is due to go live next month.

The SFA message stated: “We are notifying you that we have amended the timetable for communication of results to applicants that was published in the specification document for ITT 30190.

“As soon as we are able, we will advise you of the amended timetable through this e-tendering portal (Bravo). If you have any questions, please ask them through this message board. Thank you.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive at AELP said: “It is disappointing that the statement on Bravo doesn’t offer any timetable on when providers can now expect to be notified and the ‘early March’ deadline looks like it has been missed.

“Providers really need to know their allocations so they can properly plan their provision and confirm with their existing employers whether or not their partnerships can continue, many of which have been in place for many years.

“More uncertainty is not in the interests of apprentices either who want to be confident that they can complete their programmes without unnecessary disruption.”

FE Week reported on March 8 that a key meeting that the SFA was supposed to hold that day, to reach final decisions on which providers will be allocated a non-levy employer funding allocation, had been cancelled.

We also learned that no date had been set, for when this would be rescheduled.

The SFA had been due to hold the meeting, where amounts that providers would receive was supposed to be agreed.

FE Week has asked the Department for Education this evening for more information on what is happening with the delay, but they declined to comment.

It comes as the list of those who have made it onto the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers was published today.

Initial applications to join the RoATP, which providers have to be on if they want to deliver apprenticeship starts from May 1, closed on November 25.

FE Week analysis showed a week later that 1,753 providers applied to the register, to be able to deliver training directly or as a sub-contractor to large, levy-paying employers.

Of these, just 1,310 – or 75 per cent – also applied to deliver training to smaller, non-levy paying employers.

This meant that 25 per cent of providers turned down the opportunity to receive an allocation to deliver apprenticeships to companies that won’t be subject to the levy.

The SFA then announced on February 8 that it “will reopen the register for new applicants and/or those who were unsuccessful in their initial application.

“The re-opening will be soon after the first planned publication, probably in March,” a spokesperson added.

FE Week asked the department that evening if this was a panic measure to bring in more providers, and if the results of this second window would now be published before May 1.

The DfE took two weeks to respond, eventually saying on February 22 that this wasn’t a sign of panic.

The levy, first announced by the government in July, is set at 0.5 per cent of an employer’s paybill.

As outlined in the new guidance, all employers will receive a £15,000 allowance to offset against the levy. This means only businesses with a paybill of more than £3m will pay. 

That money raised will be ring-fenced, so it can only be spent on training apprentices and all levy-paying companies will receive a 10 per cent top up on monthly levy contributions. But the government will still allocate funding for apprenticeships with non-levy payers.

Spending priorities for 2017-18 have been set out by minister Robert Halfon in the annual Skills Funding letter.

The letter from the skills and apprenticeships minister to Skills Funding Agency boss Peter Lauener has just been uploaded onto gov.uk.

There are no surprises in terms of spending plan, with the £1.5bn commitment to support participation in adult FE through the adult education budget the same as last year.

But Mr Halfon signed-off with an intriguing final paragraph, looking ahead towards further change.

He said: “We are committed to investing in and strengthening the FE sector and are in the process of exploring opportunities to further build upon the important reforms already in train.

“I will write to update you of the government priorities for the sector once this work is complete.”

The minister stressed that the government remained committed to priorities set out in the 2016-17 skills funding letter.

He said: “We are retaining our commitment to maintaining funding for the adult education budget.”

“For 2017-18, we are investing £1.9 billion to fund participation in apprenticeship training for all ages; £1.5 billion to support participation in adult further education through the adult education budget, and £325 million available for provision at levels three to six through advanced learner loans,” he added.

Mr Halfon said he would leave it to Mr Lauener and his team to continue the implementation “of our high level priorities”.

“Please continue to work with the Department [for Education], in developing government funding policies and to make arrangements for monitoring progress and resolving any issues as they arise,” he said.

“I would like to thank you and your team for all that you have done over the past year and look forward to our continued progress going forward.”

This is likely to be the last skills funding letter to Mr Lauener.

FE Week reported on March 3 that the Education and Skills Funding Agencies are preparing for an imminent merger that will clear the way for him to retire. Mr Lauener held the role of EFA chief executive before he took on the top job at the SFA in November 2014.

Swindon’s university technical college will join the Activate Learning Education Trust, after being hit by an ‘inadequate’ grade in its first ever Ofsted inspection.

UTC Swindon, which specialises in engineering and business entrepreneurship for students aged 14-19, will be the fifth school to join the multi-academy trust.

Other members of the multi-academy trust include ‘outstanding’-rated UTC Reading, UTC Oxfordshire, The Bicester School and Bicester Technology Studio.

Activate Learning Education Trust was established by Oxford-based education and training group Activate Learning, which also includes Banbury and Bicester College, City of Oxford College, and Reading College.

As part of the trust, UTC Swindon will be led by Joanne Harper, who is also principal of UTC Reading, with the aim of improving its leadership.

Ms Harper took up the new role of executive principal after supporting the UTC in her capacity as a National Leader for Education since November.

Current principal, Angela Barker-Dench, has reportedly been unwell for some time.

In her absence, the deputy principal, Jon Oliver, will work alongside Ms Harper as acting principal.

UTC Swindon received a damning review in its first ever Ofsted report, published last Friday (March 10).

The government’s watchdog slapped the UTC with grade fours in almost every category, including effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, outcomes for pupils, and 16 to 19 study programmes.

It received a grade three, or ‘requires improvement’, for personal development, behaviour and welfare.

Criticisms included “inadequate achievement of pupils in Years 10 and 11 in mathematics”, leaders making “insufficient use of the wide range of engineering-based industrial partners”, and the failure of senior leaders and governors to deal with “significant weaknesses in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in order to raise pupils’ achievement”.

The UTC was also slammed for delivering an engineering-based curriculum that “does not meet pupils’ needs well”, and failing to monitor the development of students’ “wider employability skills” in 16 to 19 provision.

Some strengths were identified, such as pupils behaving “well in lessons and around the site” and being “well looked after, including the high proportion who have special educational needs and/or disabilities”.

Ms Harper said: “I have been working with the UTC Swindon team since the autumn term and together we have already made significant progress against the areas highlighted in the inspection report.

“I am pleased that this was noted by the inspection team, who recognised that leaders have a clear picture of what needs to be done to improve.”

She added: “We are clearly not there yet and more needs to be done to ensure that UTC Swindon is a good school which offers the very best learning experience and outcomes for its students.

“By working with our staff, students, parents and partners we can raise standards to ensure that the school delivers the first-class education it has been designed for.”

Lee Nicholls, executive director for the Activate Learning Education Trust, said: “We are pleased to welcome UTC Swindon to the trust.

“The UTC has all the ingredients required to develop young people for successful careers in leading local industries. I am confident that, with the right support, it will deliver the improvements required to become a good school.” 

It comes after former education secretary Michael Gove called on a general FE college in Bedfordshire to save the latest University Technical College (UTC) to suffer Ofsted grading disappointment, as reported in FE Week.

A spokesperson for Bedford College said it was stepping in at the request of Mr Gove at the inadequate-rated Central Bedfordshire UTC — the third UTC to have been inspected.

A former Ofsted ‘outstanding’ studio school has announced it will stop recruiting from age 14 and only offer provision for 16 to 19-year-olds from 2018/19.

Rye Studio School, in East Sussex, wrote to parents to inform them of the conversion to a sixth form centre last week.

It will become the 16th institution of its kind to either close or stop delivering provision from 14 since the model’s conception in 2010.

Studio schools are a vocational-based alternative to mainstream education for 14 to 19-year-olds, similar to university technical colleges but with smaller cohorts of up to just 300 pupils.

The news on Rye Studio School will be the latest blow to those who have been trying to push post-14, including Lord Baker for UTCs, as a better age for vocational-based learner recruitment to post-16 traditionally for FE colleges.

The school in east Sussex, which was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2015 but slumped to ‘requires improvement’ in January, will have a “period of consolidation” during 2017/18.

This means the school will continue to deliver teaching to pupils who have already started courses from age 14, but not be accepting new pupils for years 10 and 12 from the next academic year.

In 2018/19, the studio school will re-design as a 16-to-19 sixth form centre and will be called Studio 6.

Tim Hulme, chief executive of Rye Academy Trust which runs three schools, said the decision was down to financial pressures which are hitting the trust as a whole.

He said the trust is “now at breaking point” and the only way some schools are going to manage “this significant cut in real terms” is through a “re-organisation”.

“The trust is a relatively small one and cannot sustain the current level of operating costs against a backdrop of cuts to pupil funding,” Mr Hulme said.

“Our three Schools are struggling to function adequately on a day-to-day basis, and, in addition, we are severely hampered in our ability to recruit and retain staff.

“I am totally committed to all our learners – we are looking to have a year of consolidation for the studio with view to re-design it for 2018/19. Studio 6 will offer several vocational pathways alongside the popular creative courses.”

Mr Hulme added that for any pupils who have applied and been accepted to join the studio school from 2017/18, they will be “escorted to other local colleges who offer sixth form provision”.

Rye Studio School’s conversion decision makes it the 16th institution of its kind to either close or stop delivering provision at age 14.

It follows plans to close by the Future Tech Studio School in Warrington earlier this month, which cited low pupil numbers as the reason for the decision – a common problem for the studio school model.

The two recent announcements mean just 34 studio schools will be left open.

Analysis of Ofsted data by FE Week’s sister paper FE Week last March showed that of the 31 studio schools that had been visited, 21 were less than half full and only one reached the 300-pupil mark.

David Nicoll, the Studio Schools Trust’s chief executive, previously told FE Week that the schools have had difficulties recruiting because the model is not seen as “traditional”.

Recruitment at 14 has proved to be a tough ask, with Michael Gove, a key ministerial architect of the UTC model, recently admitting the experiment had failed.

The former education secretary wrote in his column in The Times in February that “the evidence has accumulated and the verdict is clear” on the 14-to-19 institutions.

He said: “Twice as many UTCs are inadequate as outstanding, according to Ofsted. UTC pupils have lower GCSE scores, make less progress academically and acquire fewer qualifications than their contemporaries in comprehensives.”