The 20% off-the-job rule will make apprenticeships economically unviable

If employers have to let apprentices out one day a week as the SFA wants, the whole system may grind to a halt, says Chris Taylor

The Skills Funding Agency has confirmed its definition of off-the-job requirements for apprenticeships. Apprentices must spend 20 per cent of their contracted work hours, the equivalent of one day per week, off the job to meet funding rules.

This has thrown apprenticeships in the UK into turmoil and raises questions about the viability of delivery and take-up by providers, colleges and employers.

This requirement will have three unhelpful results:

 

Providers and colleges will be unable to deliver apprenticeships which are now economically unviable.

 

Employers won’t engage in the levy due to its burden on staffing and resources, and will pay it as a tax.

 

The government will not reach its three million apprenticeship target.

 

Apprenticeship funding simply does not pay enough to train apprentices one day per week for at least a year, excluding maths and English. Perhaps the SFA should have applied functional skills in maths before it took this decision: customer service level two at £1,500, minus 20 per cent for end assessment, equals £1,300. Divide this by 46 weeks, and then again by five to represent one day in five means £28 per day. Divide this by seven hours comes out at £4 per hour. Which college or training provider can deliver training at £4 per hour per person? This excludes observations and everything else required to deliver an apprenticeship which funding must provide for – and forget about quality delivery.

This decision will have a real impact on employers and will reduce productivity and operations. There will be additional costs for travel and substance, and not many employers can lose employees for one fifth of their contracted hours for a year or more plus holidays.

In the worst case, some employers and providers may withdraw from apprenticeships altogether

Using the apprenticeship levy to upskill existing employees is not now an option for most employers and providers across the UK. The programme will now only suit traditional technical and trade apprenticeships, and employers in those sectors which use day/block release.

Many providers and colleges which did not make it onto the register of accredited training providers may now be glad they were unsuccessful, while employers may want to terminate programmes with providers. Self-delivery employers will now walk away and just pay the levy as an additional tax, a simpler option that’ll prove less costly to employers than training and employing apprentices.

Some employers and providers may withdraw from apprenticeships altogether, seeing them as simply too unworkable and risky.

This  requirement needs to be redefined as soon as possible by the SFA to avoid disaster. It needs to ensure apprenticeships are delivered using methods and funding rules which employers want in a technological, post-Brexit economy, especially as many will be directly paying for their apprenticeships sooner rather than later.

 

Chris Taylor is director of UK Levy Limited

Movers and Shakers: Edition 204

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

Malcolm Goodwin has been appointed the new principal of Capel Manor College in Enfield, London.

Mr Goodwin has worked at the college since 2013, first joining as an assistant principal before becoming vice-principal and deputy over the course of four years.

He will succeed current principal Dr Stephen Dowbiggin – who has worked at the college for 35 years – after his retirement in July this year. 

Mr Goodwin says he is most looking forward to “supporting London’s need for land based skills” in his new role at the college, which specialises in land-based courses such as countryside, garden design, leatherwork and floristry.

Speaking of his appointment, he said “Capel Manor is a unique and special college that provides opportunities for the young and not-so young alike to get into the land-based industries. The college plays a vital role in the green agenda for London.

“The college is in a very good position with an excellent staff team and strong support from the land-based sector. It’s a very exciting time to be taking the helm.”

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Jackie Grubb has been appointed principal of the new National College for High Speed Rail, which will open in September.

The college, which is spread across two campuses in Birmingham and Doncaster, will train learners in everything from rolling stock and track systems to civil engineering and communications, in preparation for the country’s future in high-speed rail.

In her role as principal, Ms Grubb – who has more than 30 years of experience working in further education – will oversee the technical training of around 1,300 learners annually.

She takes up the principalship from her position as deputy principal at Basingstoke college of technology, and before she this held a variety of senior roles, including being director of Swindon College.

She said she was most “looking forward to building a new, diverse workforce for the rail sector”, and hopes to continue to grow the network of employers working with the college in order to “produce the talented young people they need”.

She continued: “With the college gearing up to launch this September and produce a new generation of skilled professionals who will lead Britain’s rail industry, this is a great time to join the team”.

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Di Gowland has announced she will be retiring from her role as principal and chief executive officer of the Newham College Group.

She first joined the college in July 2014, and has since lead it through a successful Ofsted inspection, as well as improving the organisation’s financial situation.

She says it was a difficult decision to “retire from such a brilliant college”, and thanked staff for their help and support in contributing the success of the Newham college group throughout her tenure.

She will be replaced by Paul Stephen, who for the past six years has been responsible for dealing with the estate and finances of both City and Islington College and Westminster Kingsway College, alongside supporting curriculum expansion.

He will take over the role when Ms Gowland steps down at the end of the academic year.

 

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

The chaos of apprenticeship reform

Apprenticeships might be at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy, but delays in the register of approved providers raise questions about its vision for the future, says Stephen Evans

Having worked in government, I know that the announcement of a policy can seem like the end of the process. An announcement follows a long period of analysis, getting buy-in from ministers and approval from relevant committees and others.

In practice,  the announcement is only the start of the process – any policy is only as good as its implementation. That’s what we’re discovering with current apprenticeship reforms.

No-one doubts the government’s ambition: it will be stretching to deliver three million by 2020 and the minister is clearly committed to changing the culture. Yet that ambition will founder if implementation is not well thought through or delivered.

The register of apprenticeship training providers really has become the hokey-cokey of procurement processes – delays and condensed timescales have been compounded by worries over whether new entrants can deliver quality training. Now added to that are new processes that seem designed mainly to allow those that have missed out to have another go, because of the controversy the results have stirred up.

None of this fills me with confidence that we’re all systems go for what will be the biggest change to apprenticeships perhaps for a generation.

So here are four things that need to happen now to make this right.

None of this fills me with confidence that we’re all systems go

Have a clear vision. It’s difficult from the outside to discern what the government’s overall vision for the provider landscape is.

For example, does it think that all colleges should be apprenticeship providers? Does it want lots of new entrants, or does it think the current provider base is likely to match employer need? Does it want a smaller number of larger providers or a greater diversity of provision? This is about a shift from procurement to commissioning. And it links to other areas, like advanced learner loans, devolution in some areas, and area reviews. Too often these changes are fragmented and risk becoming less than the sum of their parts.

Set realistic timelines and stick to them. My experience is that commissioning processes always take longer than you think they will. The process is already delayed – we now need a clear timeline of next steps. That’s much easier with a clear vision of what the system should look like. We cannot get this close to reforms and still not be clear about who can deliver what – it takes time to build and maintain relationships.

Encourage new providers who can add value. It’s important that new providers are able to establish themselves and start delivering apprenticeships.

But on the face of it, it is difficult to see how some of the new providers on the register have got there. FE Week has highlighted a number of cases where new providers don’t seem to have a website or a track record in this or any other field. This looks like a massive risk. It should be clear what new (and existing) providers are going to bring to the party.

Be clear about potential exit of providers from the market. Just because a provider has had an allocation in the past, it does not necessarily mean they should have one in the future. Providers should be approved if they can deliver the training that employers and individuals want and that meets the ambitions of the apprenticeship programmes. But the absence of a clear vision and processes risks leading to pressure to create new opportunities for these displaced providers, which is exactly what seems to have happened. There should be a level playing field for all types of providers.

The process at the moment feels simultaneously rushed, delayed and chaotic. It is not a sign of success that, immediately after some surprising results, a second bite of the cherry has been offered. And that, at this stage in the year, we are still waiting for the non-levy allocation results.

I’m still excited and optimistic about apprenticeships. I still think we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a real change.

To grasp it, the Department for Education needs to get a grip and set out a compelling vision and a well thought through process with a clear and realistic timetable.

 

Stephen Evans is CEO of the Learning and Work Institute

Ofqual boss: lack of end point assessment organisations is ‘not irresponsible’

Ofqual’s chief regulator has said it’s “not irresponsible” for apprenticeships to be launched without an organisation in place to deliver the final exam.

Speaking at FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference this morning (March 24), Sally Collier (pictured above) also said she “didn’t know” if having just half of approved standards with end point assessment organisation in place was enough.

“No, I don’t think the DfE is irresponsible,” the exams watchdog boss said in response to a question from host Kirsty Wark.

“I think in an ideal world you’d have all the pieces in place before you launch the thing,” she conceded.

But she insisted that the lack of an assessor in place to carry out the final apprenticeship exams wasn’t an issue.

“The employer groups absolutely know what they want – the plans are out there, the specifications are out there,” she said.

When questioned about there being assessors in place for just 50 per cent of approved standards, Ms Collier said: “I don’t know if that’s enough or not.”

“All I know is that the ones that we’re looking at are coming through the system thick and fast now, and they will be regulated by us and they will be good quality,” she said.

Ms Collier compared the lack of an end point assessment organisation to a learner starting GCSEs without knowing which exam board would be assessing them.

“They need to know that at the end of that, that someone is going to be saying, is the Pearson standard the same as the OCR standard the same as the AQA standard,” she said.

She continued: “We haven’t got teachers saying, well I don’t know how to teach maths, because they do know how to teach maths, what they don’t know is the specifics of that particular board.”

Ms Collier, who was appointed chief regulator in April 2016, also said that apprenticeships did “not necessarily” need to include qualifications.

“What is important is what employers want,” she said.

“The Institute for Apprenticeships will have a role to say, are the apprentices getting what they want?” she continued.

“It’s my job to say, if there is a qualification, we can regulate it.”

By the end of January just over half – 81 out of 159 – standards approved for delivery had at least one assessment organisation in place.

But the proportion of learners on standards without an approved assessment organisation has been dropping rapidly, from 42 per cent in July to 18 per cent in October.

Former top civil servant Sue Pember said in October that it was “diabolical” to allow apprentices to start on a standard without details of the final exam in place.

Let’s be more positive about ITPs

The vast majority of independent training providers deliver great results for apprentices, writes Bob Watmore

The front page lead of last week’s FE Week was understandably sensational about some aspects of the recent register of apprenticeship training providers announcements – namely those experienced providers which didn’t make the list and the inexperienced ones that did.

While mistakes and anomalies should certainly be highlighted, focusing on these alone prevents balance. We should also be celebrating the experienced providers that have rightly achieved RoATP status and which will be critical to the three million apprenticeship starts targeted to be achieved by 2020.

There are many good providers across the country with long histories of delivering employers’ needs to a high standard. This is particularly true of the engineering and manufacturing sector in which I work. Although the sector faces a significant ongoing skill shortage, exacerbated by an ageing workforce and a reliance on the skills of EU nationals that may be under threat from Brexit, it provides a myriad of modern opportunities for technical STEM-based apprenticeships at advanced, higher and degree level. It also results in well paid jobs, whose visible contribution to the UK’s GDP is easily measured in manufactured and exported goods.

Focusing on mistakes alone prevents balance

But according to FE Week’s own statistics, the vast majority of colleges subcontract their apprenticeship delivery, often to independent training providers, and they have therefore been caught out by not taking their RoATP submissions seriously in their own right.

In the recent round of apprenticeship delivery procurement, colleges didn’t have to submit a financial status as part of the invitation to tender. As ITPs with charitable status we have to provide such financial information as surety to government procurement officers. Our ability to pass this financial test should give buyers confidence in our ability to successfully deliver high apprenticeship achievement rates.

Sadly I too regularly hear complaints from employers about some colleges’ poor apprenticeship delivery. Complaints include regular deference to full-time student courses, such that part-time apprentices suffer unreasonably large class sizes, doubling up on engineering equipment during skills training, unsuitably qualified training staff working outside their own vocational areas, and implications of qualifications achieved without the barest employer engagement on rigour, depth of skill and knowledge.

Of course, I know there is some outstanding college-based apprenticeship delivery, and these often tend to be those with very close ties to original equipment manufacturers. But the three million challenge requires massive penetration into the SME and micro-business supply chain market, as most OEMs are already doing all they can.

I concede that poor ITP provision, such as the cases FE Week has found, don’t do the sector any favours

Independent training providers in the GTA England network are at the forefront of this penetration and need (and deserve) the level of recognition that will assure employers of quality provision. This is the sentiment Robert Halfon was alluding to, when he spoke of employers being able to have confidence in quality providers, on unveiling the RoATP.

My experience in the sector is broad and varied: as a senior project manager at Jaguar Land Rover for over 20 years, I had some responsibility for young engineers’ development, and having worked at a large college in Leicester, and now at an ITP, I am a firm believer in the benefits of the ITP sector, especially related to achieving this growth in apprenticeships now.

Nevertheless, I concede that poor ITP provision, such as the cases FE Week has found, don’t do the sector any favours and I support the important work the paper does to shine a  light on these.

However, as an avid reader who regularly circulates its articles to my staff, I am keen that they – and the many other employees countrywide at successful sector skills groups, as well as employers, providers and learning institutions – should feel part of a major success story, not part of the problem.

Let’s all work together to keep our eyes on the most important focus: every apprentice’s journey is critical, as it will be the only one they will take.

 

Bob Watmore is training and assessment manager at Derwent Training Association

Breaking: College on ‘lock down’ due to security threat

A college has been closed for the day and all students sent home because of a security threat.

Bury College is understood to have been put on ‘lock down’, with teachers being told earlier not to move from their classrooms.

The emergency measures were introduced after a threat was made against the college, and Greater Manchester Police are in attendance.

The college has just put out an updated statement.

“Following a potential threat to our security earlier today, the college instigated its security procedures as a precaution,” a spokesperson said.

“Working closely with the police, we are in the process of safely evacuating the college. 

“All students are being advised to return home.  Those with additional needs are being supported in this respect.  

The college will be closed for the rest of today.”

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson also just told FE Week: “At 10.50am, on Friday, March 24, police were made aware of a threat made in relation to Bury College, Market Street, Bury.

“Officers are in attendance to establish the full circumstances.

“As a precaution the college have chosen to evacuate students.”

A college spokesperson added that working closely “with exceptional support from the police, the college quickly instigated its well-rehearsed lockdown procedures”, and a safe evacuation of the college was taken as a “precautionary measure”. 

Principal Charlie Deane said: “I would like to thank the staff for their professionalism and the students and other visitors for their patience and understanding. I apologise for any inconvenience that may have occurred, however, the safety of our students and staff is paramount.

“I would also like to thank the police for their speedy response, sound advice and expert help in ensuring the safe evacuation of our students”.

London council unhappy with plans for local college to merge with group 300 miles away

A London borough council is unhappy over a planned merger between a local college and a group whose headquarters is 300 miles away from the capital.

Lewisham Southwark College and Newcastle-based NCG have opened a consultation on a proposed merger, 18 months after a potential partnership was first mooted.

The link-up was the college’s preferred option, and it rejected a possible merger with a much closer college after the Central London area review.

But a spokesperson for the London borough of Lewisham told FE Week it was “disappointed” with the outcome.

The council “would have preferred to see Lewisham Southwark College find a more local London partner”, it said.

“Our interest is ensuring that Lewisham young people and adults get education and training to equip them for the highly competitive London labour market,” she added.

The council would have preferred to see Lewisham Southwark College find a more local London partner

Lewisham Southwark College, which was given a grade three rating in its most recent Ofsted inspection, and NCG insisted that a merger would “strengthen and further develop” provision to “better meet the needs of local communities in central south London”.

NCG’s group structure is organised so that each college has “significant autonomy”, a spokesperson for both said.

“The LSC college board will retain local accountability for key areas of operation, including the overall quality of provision, student experience, curriculum development and engagement with local stakeholders, while NCG provides the expertise and balance sheet strength to allow the local principalship to focus wholly on improving quality of education for their local communities,” she said.

News of the planned merger between the London college, which is led by former Newcastle College principal Carole Kitching, and NCG first emerged in March 2016 – although talks began in autumn 2015.

The current consultation runs until April 21, with the merger expected to go ahead in August.

According to the consultation document, the proposal would be “extremely beneficial to both organisations”.

Lewisham Southwark College would be able to “fulfil the next stage of its strategic objectives, while retaining its successful local identity” through the merger, it said.

Meanwhile, NCG would be able to “use LSC’s London-specific expertise and specialisms to benefit the wider group”.

The report from the central London area review, published in February, showed that Lewisham Southwark College had also mooted a merger with nearby Lambeth College – although the NCG proposal was LSC’s “preferred option”.

According the report, the NCG merger would allow LSC “to accelerate their plans to grow their delivery of apprenticeships for London employers, by leveraging the expertise and resources across the group”.

But a partnership with Lambeth “would maintain the college’s current specialisms”, which included “a focus to meet the needs of adults with low basic skills or an ESOL need”.

“This is recognised by both [Lambeth and LSC] as being a key part of meeting the needs of the communities they serve,” it said.

NCG, which was rated ‘good’ in its most recent Ofsted inspection report published in September, counts three FE colleges, one sixth form college and two independent training providers as its members.

These are Newcastle College, Newcastle Sixth Form College, West Lancashire, Kidderminster College, Rathbone and Intraining.

As reported by FE Week in February, Carlisle College is due to become the fifth college member of NCG in April, after it rejected a proposal from the Cumbria area review to pair up with nearby Lakes College.

Panel debates end-point assessment and RoATP

Concerns about quality and the impact of reforms on social mobility dominated the panel debate of FE and skills sector leaders at the Annual Apprenticeship Conference.

Dame Asha Khemka DBE, principal of West Nottinghamshire College and a member of the board of the Institute for Apprenticeship, called for the sector to “work together to find solutions”, admitting that “we all know implementation is going to be rocky”.

However, she said the fact that so many standards’ end-point assessments were not yet in place was “not acceptable”.

Her fellow panel member Dr Sue Pember, the director of policy at HOLEX, described the lack of EPAs for approved standards as “diabolical”. “In my mind”, she said, “you shouldn’t put a standard on the books unless it’s got an EPA”, a position that was met with warm applause from delegates.

Replying to a question about whether the levy would lead to an increase in deadweight provision, which would use levy funds to pay for training that would already have taken place, Dr Pember said “deadweight is a word I don’t like to hear very often; it reminds me of Train to Gain”.

We all know implementation is going to be rocky

John Hyde, the executive chairman of HIT Training, warned that an increase in the use of levy funds to pay for “existing management training and degree sandwich courses may skew it too far”.

He insisted that entry-level apprenticeships and those for 16- to 18-year-olds “are still needed” and urged the government to “keep a close eye on it”.

There were stark warnings from the chief executives of both the Association of Colleges and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

David Hughes, the chief executive of AoC, said “we should go into this open-eyed; sometimes there will be scams and scandals”, but was careful to insist this wouldn’t apply to the majority. He also warned that the levy might “amplify” the behaviour of “unscrupulous” employers, noting that “the labour market is just grossly unfair and unjust, and the levy won’t solve that”.

Mark Dawe, the boss of AELP, asked whether the system could truly be considered employer-led when employers weren’t free to select the provider that they wanted to work with, as not all providers were on the register of apprenticeship training providers.

“Don’t distort the market through a procurement process that doesn’t recognise quality,” he insisted.

MPs queue up to blast apprenticeships register omissions

Fierce criticism has flooded in from MPs concerned at the large number of colleges that have missed out on the new register of apprenticeship training providers.

The list of providers that will be eligible to deliver apprenticeships from May was published on March 14 by the Skills Funding Agency – however, a large number of major providers of apprenticeships somehow missed out, including at least 19 colleges with a combined current allocation of £44 million.

Britain’s second city was left without any colleges able to deliver apprenticeships from May at all, as all four Birmingham colleges failed to get on the register.

The shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden wrote to his ministerial counterpart Robert Halfon on Wednesday demanding answers about the process, which he said left providers with “excellent track records of delivering apprenticeships” off the list.

Gordon Marsden

“A number of decisions on exclusions and indeed inclusions have aroused great concern,” he said, adding that the colleges that missed out had been “left without the ability to deliver new apprenticeships from May with very few answers as to why”.

This situation “raises key questions which need urgent answers to restore confidence” in the register and the application process, he said. He demanded to know the number of people at the SFA who had been involved in compiling the register, and the process for reconsidering applications by providers that had been turned down.

Speaking exclusively to FE Week, Mr Marsden said he understood many of the colleges had been “knocked back because of technical errors” in the applications. “All of this points to a very rushed and inadequately policed production of the register,” he insisted.

Last week, Keith Smith, the director of funding and programmes at the SFA, wrote on behalf of Mr Halfon to all the MPs with colleges in their constituency that had applied unsuccessfully to get on the register.

His letter, which was sent by email the day after the colleges learned their fate, is likely to raise eyebrows given the subsequent outcry over the register.

The absence of the four Birmingham colleges prompted two of the city’s MPs – Gisela Stuart (pictured above) and Jack Dromey – to raise questions in parliament during education questions on Monday. Ms Stuart, the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said their absence from the register was “destroying technical education for 16-year-olds in the West Midlands”.

Jack Dromey

And Mr Dromey, the MP for Birmingham Erdington, asked the minister to meet with the 10 MPs representing Britain’s second city to discuss the issue. Mr Dromey told FE Week that the decision to exclude the colleges “on the basis of the answer to one question is inexplicable”.

“The process is fundamentally flawed and it is essential that the SFA thinks again,” he said. Roger Godsiff, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green, said the process for applying to the register “smacked of a box-ticking exercise”.

He told FE Week that the Birmingham colleges had been “given to understand that the SFA would engage with them if their application was deficient in some form” but “all of them say that the SFA didn’t”.

Meanwhile, Richard Burden, the MP for Birmingham Northfield, said the omission was “shocking and out of order” – but added that it “can be nothing other than a mistake”. Sion Simon, the Labour candidate for mayor of the West Midlands, has launched a campaign to overturn the decision, after just three of the county’s 16 colleges made it onto the register.

“This decision will all but end technical education for young people in the West Midlands as we know it,” he said.

And Wakefield MP Mary Creagh has tabled an early-day motion calling on ministers to reconsider the application process, after Wakefield College failed to get on the register despite having an apprenticeship allocation of £2 million and a ‘good’ Ofsted rating.

“It’s clear that the government’s attempt to improve quality of providers has been a complete shambles,” she said. Meanwhile, Mark Dawe, AELP’s chief executive, insisted that a lot of “good quality” independent providers had also been left off the register.

“Why doesn’t the government trust its own regulator and inspectorate to determine what good quality is?” he asked. Mr Dawe said that providers had been told what sections they had failed on, but not the reasons why they had failed – which meant some were “at a bit of a loss to see what they have to change to get on”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “All those that applied to be on the register of training providers were given a clear set of criteria in order to receive funds for apprenticeship training, ensuring they are high quality and capable of delivering the training that young people deserve.

“We have also now reopened the register to give new organisations, and those who were not successful the first time, the chance to reapply.

“By regularly giving new providers a chance to get on the register, we are supporting diversity, quality and employer choice.”