The delay in advance learner loans is not down to a lack of resources, but has come about because the Skills Funding Agency is trying to build funding for higher-level qualifications, according to a senior civil servant.
Janet Ryland, the SFA’s head of technical and professional education, said that growth requests had been halted by the government for the first time while the agency investigated “opportunity to build higher level qualifications and loans”.
The SFA reluctantly announced a month ago that it would pause growth requests until further notice, after FE Week exposed lengthy delays with processing.
Ms Ryland made her comments during a workshop at the Federation of Awarding Bodies conference last week, confirming that while the SFA doesn’t mind that it mainly receives loan requests for level three courses, “part of the challenge” that it faces was not having a “critical mass” of qualifications at levels five and six coming through.
Latest government figures show that numbers of learners aged 19 and over taking courses at level four and above appear to have been cut in half since loans were introduced in 2013 (see table).
Worryingly, just seven per cent of all learners accessing loans last year were taking level four and above qualifications (see pie chart).
“We are taking stock of growth requests, just making sure that if we are to respond to them we can respond to them in the right way in the interest of learners and those providers,” Ms Ryland told the workshop.
“It would be great if we had higher levels there. I’m not saying it is wrong that we got nearly all level three; I think part of the challenge is we haven’t got that critical mass of levels five and six qualifications coming through in the last few months.”
FE Week revealed on September 23 that multiple providers had been waiting as long as four months for a response from the SFA on loan growth requests – which they had made as far back as June and July.
The government was understood at the time to be struggling to cope with extra demand for new 19-to-23 loans.
However Ms Ryland insisted the delay was not – as has been suspected – due to a lack of resources at the agency.
“I don’t think it is lack of resource or anything like that; I just think it is taking stock and I think we can anticipate that there will be movement on that shortly,” she said.
However, she deflected questions from FE Week on whether the Treasury was delaying fulfilment because it expected to get a better return on investment from loan requests for higher-level courses, reiterating that she believed the loans system had negatively impacted on the higher levels.
“I think part of this is reclaiming what used to be a real strength in the FE sector, which was the delivery of what we used to call ‘non-prescribed high-level skills’,” she said.
“There used to be a lot of level four, five and six provision.
“We have the opportunity to build higher-level qualifications and loans, and it is a question of how we can do that.”
The government welcomed the Sainsbury Review recommendations, but will they deliver on implementation, asks Catherine Sezen?
From a college perspective, there is a lot to be positive about in the Sainsbury Review of Technical Education, and the government’s response to it in the Skills Plan.
These documents, published in early July, outline a new structure for technical education centred on 15 occupational routes leading to higher apprenticeships or higher technical education at levels four and five. There is a welcome focus on the crucial importance of skills to the economy, and college-based routes into employment. Schools will be required to allow other education providers access to young people as part of information, advice and guidance.
Could this be an opportunity to consider contextualisation and employment-related content?
There is also a glimmer of hope that the current arrangements for English and maths will be reviewed. Could this be an opportunity to consider contextualisation and employment-related content?
But there are questions. Perhaps the most fundamental is funding. In his introduction to the Skills Plan, the then-minister for skills, Nick Boles, outlined the unequivocal support for Lord Sainsbury’s recommendations “within current budget constraints”.
The panel recommended a review of funding for technical education in light of evidence from European and international models, where students study at least twice as many hours a week as they do in England.
Messaging about the technical option is important. The concept of 15 occupational routes provides much-needed clarity for parents, carers, students and employers. There must also be a cultural shift in the way technical education is perceived in the country; we must demonstrate that the combination of GCSE, A-level and university is not the only route available.
There will be more detail on the routes themselves in the government’s implementation plan, which is due to be published before the end of the year. What will the common core at the current levels two and three leading to a specialist option look like?
We still require information about what the transition year will consist of and at whom it’s aimed. We need to know how courses at levels four and five will work in practice and where the study will take place. Will it only be in career colleges or in FE colleges with specialisms?
Some of the 15 routes are apprenticeship-only, but few 16-year-olds get apprenticeships; there is a particular question over how this will work for protective service apprenticeships in the police and fire service.
Oversight of technical education will sit with the Institute for Apprenticeships, but how will that work in practice? Who will sit on the expert panels that will oversee the technical standards?
Perhaps the most fundamental question is funding
The Skills Plan refers to a review of applied general qualifications in art and design, business, and performing arts, among others. These applied ‘academic’ subjects sit alongside A-levels in the future plans, rather than within the technical route. They meet the needs of young people with a particular vocational passion, but who might wish to go onto higher education and/or work in these areas. These qualifications cater for over 140,000 young people a year and we await the outcome of the review with interest.
There is an emphasis on more substantial work placements rather than work experience, but some colleges are already struggling to meet the requirements for study programme placements in areas such as construction and health-related occupations for reasons of health and safety and confidentiality.
Finally, possibly the most contentious issue is the concept of a single awarding organisation or consortium for each technical qualification. This could lead to greater consistency and transferability and support understanding of the qualifications, but how and when will these crucial decisions be made? We should know by the end of the year when we see the implementation plan. For the next couple of months, however, it is a waiting game; after that it will be all hands on the college deck.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville, chair of the Independent Panel on Technical Education, will be speaking at the Association of Collegesí Annual Conference and Exhibition (15-17 November 2016)
Catherine Sezen is senior policy manager for 14-19 and curriculum at the Association of Colleges
The new mandatory post-16 resit policy for GCSE English and maths is setting young people up to fail, and government should allow other progression routes, says Graham Taylor.
Mandatory English and maths aren’t going away. They are vital and underpin most things we do. But any way you slice it, this year’s GCSE resit results were awful.
It’s shocking that 31,038 more people sat GCSE English this year, but only 382 more passed nationally. Crudely, for a grade-D school leaver, the probability of gaining a C for English was 27 per cent and for maths, 30 per cent. For those who left school with an E or below, it was just one per cent.
We’re setting young people up to fail. And ‘failing’ can demotivate learners in other subjects, too.
Frankly, we’re setting young people up to fail. And ‘failing’ can demotivate learners in other subjects, too.
Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has blamed FE colleges for these poor outcomes, saying the quality of English and mathematics provision in colleges was so poor, it would be preferable that all 16-to-19-year-olds be educated in schools. But unless the success rates for all providers are published, there is no way we can verify this.
Colleges can certainly do better, but how many retries do we attempt? Maths is particularly tough; in one survey only 44 per cent of MPs knew the probability of getting both heads from two coin tosses! And even if you argue that a 30 per cent pass-rate is a great achievement after missing out at school, Ofsted will no doubt lambast colleges for ‘failing’ so many.
The FE sector excels in giving learners a second chance and provision that is different to school. We must keep trying. However, perhaps it is also time for government to accept that some will never ‘get’ whatever it is we are trying to measure at GCSE.
For learners’ benefit – which surely is ultimately what this is all about – we need the government to agree to different progression routes.
Employers are pleading for this. Take early years, for example, where the English and maths requirement has blown recruitment to pieces: more jobs are available because of the 30-hour childcare entitlement rule but they can’t get the qualified staff. Yet these employers are happy with functional skills and have worked with them for years.
Fundamentally, what is wrong with offering learners different routes? The core maths syllabus is a good applied alternative to the standard maths A-level. Why not have an employer-approved, real-world alternative level two syllabus – keeping the same standard and rigour as the GCSE?
The nearest thing, functional skills level two, counts towards the new level two English and maths measure in post-16 performance tables, but should count as a full level two. A similar option could be found in English, combining communication and writing styles.
We need the government to agree to different progression routes
Colleges face significant challenges in trying to deliver the GCSE resit policy in England, and sector leaders are pleading with the government to scrap it.
Dame Sally Coates in her report, ‘Unlocking Potential: A Review of Education in Prison’, seems sympathetic, arguing for a “core basic skills curriculum” that includes new adult modular GCSEs in English and mathematics, “because the GCSE brand is more familiar to employers”.
The government accepted all of Coates’ recommendations but she said in July that schools minister Nick Gibb wouldn’t approve any new GCSE qualifications because he was “concerned that introducing an adult GCSE would lead to two tiers, with one not as prestigious as the other”. Likewise, Ofqual have said they have no plans to change the linear structure of GCSEs, with examinations taken at the end of the course.
One ray of hope in all this is Robert Halfon, the minister for FE and skills, who has previously said he remains “open-minded” about the idea of an adult GCSE, with the proviso he would “need to look at it and take advice”.
All in all, it doesn’t look likely we will win this battle any time soon, but for the benefit of learners, we need to keep trying.
Graham Taylor is principal and chief executive at New College Swindon
Sitting before me in smart suit and tie, Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association chief executive looks the epitome of respectability.
But that wasn’t always the case for this self-confessed former troublemaker, who rebelled at school during a largely unhappy stint as a boarder.
Watkin recalls one incident when, egged on by a friend, he set off a banger in his school’s cavernous dining room – which, thanks to “the widest unsupported dome of any building in the country at the time” tended to amplify noise.
“So I lit it and rolled it a few tables away from me, and it went off. The huge noise was followed by this deathly silence and a plume of smoke going up to the ceiling,” he says, smiling at the memory.
Watkin, born in 1958 in Middlesbrough, was just seven when he was packed off to boarding school, where his older brother John was already a pupil.
He describes being taken to Paddington Station by his parents, who “put me on the train and gave the trunk to the porter and waved goodbye – and that was it. I was sent off to a boarding school in Shropshire and didn’t see my parents for quite a long time after that.”
As head of MFL at St John Rigby School 1992
It was a strict school, where “corporal punishment was a regular thing” and by the sounds of things, neither boy enjoyed it.
“We used to have these dreadful end-of-holiday scenes where we knew it was about time to be packed off to school again and we’d be wailing about how awful it was and not wanting to go back,” he says.
Although he “got through it absolutely fine” in the end, the experience clearly had a lasting effect.
“As a concept it’s not a good one. It’s not something that I would ever, ever consider doing to myself or to anybody else,” he acknowledges.
Despite his mischief-making tendencies, Watkin managed to knuckle down and pass both his O-levels and A-levels. At the same time, his future career began to take shape.
Around the age of 15, he’d started doing some holiday work coaching people in French – a subject that came easily to him – and realised he really enjoyed it.
“So I decided at about the age of 16 that I was going to be a teacher, and I was going to be a teacher of French,” he says.
After a gap year working as a teaching assistant, Watkin headed off to study French at Bristol University. His time there included a year abroad in France, where he taught English to 14- to 18-year-olds in a small town near the Swiss and German borders.
It was during Watkin’s teacher training, which he began a year after finishing his studies, that his professional life “took a very definite course”, with a work experience placement in a school in a deprived area of Bristol, serving a “very disadvantaged community”.
“I found my metier, my niche, there,” he says.
I found my metier, my niche, there
Watkin says he was inspired by the school’s head of modern languages, Richard Eon, who taught him how to teach French to pupils “for whom the relevance wasn’t always immediately obvious”.
This stood him in good stead for his first job as a fully qualified teacher, at Rock Hills School in south London, which served a “difficult group of students”.
He describes an incident involving a girl coming into class with her arm covered in “badly put on bandages”. On closer inspection, it transpired there was a sharpened screwdriver tucked into the bandages, which she was planning to use later in the day.
The job was so challenging that he came close to quitting after less than a year, until a supportive colleague told him, “Bill, if you can cope with this, you can cope with anything.”
Despite these challenges, Watkin went to great lengths to engage the pupils in their education.
“Relationships with the young people were at the heart of everything,” he says.
He was involved in careers advice, sports clubs and a number of extra-curricular activities – which included writing, directing and appearing in a staff pantomime every Christmas, as well as dressing up as Michael Jackson.
“It was all about trying to make their experience of schooling very positive, a lot of fun, and I always believed that learning would happen best when young people were happy to be there,” he says.
After three years in this job, the school closed down and Watkin was redeployed to another school.
I always believed that learning would happen best when young people were happy to be there
There followed a series of roles teaching modern languages, including a stint at St John Rigby School in Bromley – at a time when the school’s headteacher, Colleen McCabe, was secretly embezzling huge sums of money.
She was convicted of theft and deception in July 2003 and the case was later turned into a BBC docu-drama starring Pauline Quirke, called The Thieving Headmistress.
When I ask Watkin if he knew what was going on, he recalls that he and the other staff accepted McCabe’s claims about lack of money – for example, that the school couldn’t afford to fix the broken boiler, or to pay for cleaners – because they had no way of knowing otherwise.
Bill was a keen tennis player
It was during Watkin’s next position, as vice-principal at Leigh City Technology College, that he made the move from teaching to management.
This led to 10 years at the education organisation SSAT (then the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, now relaunched as the Schools, Students and Teachers network) where he was heavily involved in the early days of the academy programme.
Watkin is evangelical about the transformative power of those early academies, which he says were “able to make a real difference to the lives of the young people they were teaching”.
“I met lots of young people who were disengaged from schooling. Persistent absenteeism was a problem, and on subsequent visits I would go back to an academy and see happy, healthy, productive environments,” he says.
This focus on academies was good preparation for his current role heading up the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association. He took over from former chief executive David Igoe in April this year, just as sixth form colleges were digesting government guidance on converting to academy status and says he’s “absolutely loving” his new job.
“It’s an extraordinary sector,” he says. Sixth form colleges “get better value for money, they get better grades with more needy young people, and they deserve a lot of recognition and should be celebrated.”
With the first sixth form colleges starting on the road to become academies, and many more considering it, Watkin is keen to stress that the SFCA will continue to support all its members – whether they become academies or not.
“I have no doubt at all in my mind that sixth form colleges will go on being a very important part of government thinking, of the educational landscape, and they will go on being an invaluable family supporting each other,” he says.
As if getting to grips with a new job and a new sector weren’t enough, Watkin tells me he’s recently taken up a new hobby – he and his partner Sally have started to learn the ukulele.
When I ask if he’ll be up on stage with his ukulele at the next SFCA conference in November, he says he’d need a bit more practice, but “it’s a possibility”.
If there’s an auditorium involved, however, it might be an idea to hide the bangers.
This is going to sound really cheesy, but life is a wonderful tapestry of adventures and it has elements of comedy and tragedy running through it. The important thing is to make sure that whatever comes your way you find the time for some stillness, for some humour and for some love, and that you value the here and now without investing too much in the past and the future.
Bill aged seven
Who do you most admire – living or dead – and why?
I was going to say Sir Dave Brailsford, who was the person who steered British cycling to where it is now, and Team Sky. And I’m really sad to read at the moment that there is some doubt about how Team Sky has achieved what it has achieved. The other person that I want to mention is Michelle Obama, just because the speech that she gave last week when she was talking about human decency and the place of women in society I thought was just a fantastic, impassioned and completely honourable.
Who do you turn to in times of crisis?
Even at my age I have to say my parents have always been there for me, and are still a wonderful source of support, advice, encouragement and wisdom.
What are your three most treasured possessions and why?
My first one is my bicycle – I cycle everywhere. It’s vital to me and I’m on it all the time. My second one is my passport. I really love travelling. My third thing is my Kindle. I love reading and I read all the time.
Do you prefer films or music?
I love both. I do very much like going to the cinema. I’ve seen a brilliant film recently which I made everyone who I know watch – Wild Tales. It’s an Almodovar film, and it’s six short stories about revenge and it’s just so funny – but darkly funny. And clever, incredibly clever.
1958 Born in Middlesbrough
1963 Starts primary school in Hertfordshire
1965 Sent to boarding school
1971-76 Attends Haileybury boarding school in Hertfordshire
1977-81 Studies French at University of Bristol
1983 Completes PGCE
1983-86 Teacher of modern languages at a number of different schools
1986-88 Modern languages teacher, Hayes School, Bromley
1988-90 Deputy head of modern languages, Beaverwood School, Bromley
1990-99 Head of modern languages, St John Rigby School, Bromley
1999-06 Vice principal, Leigh City Technology College
2006-16 Operational director, SSAT
2016 Chief executive, SFCA
Following its second monitoring visit since the education watchdog’s damning report, Mid-Cheshire College was deemed to have made ‘insufficient progress’ in improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and with ensuring learners make good progress and achieve their potential.
The report said that while improvements had been made by learners in a number of areas including GCSE English, public services, and information and communication technology, achievement rates had fallen further “in many other areas” in 2015/16.
The report said: “Too few learners achieved their qualifications on diploma courses and level two courses, and achievement rates were too low in many subject areas including health and social care, science and mathematics, construction, engineering, and hairdressing.”
This, Ofsted said, was down to “poor-quality” teaching, learning and assessment and some teachers’ low expectations of what learners can achieve.
It added: “As a result, a culture of low expectations persists in the college.”
Despite leaders and managers taking action to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment at the college, such as appointing mentors to support underperforming teachers, these actions were found to have had “insufficient impact on the quality of provision”.
Ofsted found that “too much teaching, learning and assessment is still weak” at Mid-Cheshire, “too many lessons lack purpose”, and “teachers too often use unchallenging and inappropriate activities”.
Some students were said to have, “poor attitudes to their learning”, while other lacked proper additional support.
Mid-Cheshire’s performance management process has been “delivered with increased rigour” since the last inspection, but this “resulted in a number of the weakest teachers leaving the college”.
Other teachers were not improving fast enough, and therefore were having a negative impact on their students.
Ofsted said the senior leadership team had “taken action to improve learners’ attitudes to their study and their readiness for work” and also “improved the learning environment in many areas”.
But while leaders and managers had worked to be more visible around the college and challenge learners to be punctual, the report said “these actions have not yet improved all aspects of behaviour sufficiently”.
Areas where the college was found to have made reasonable progress included: a re-written post-inspection action plan after the first monitoring visit, to include specific actions for improvement; “is well advanced” plans to ensure that all learners carry out a placement in 2016/17; and leaders and managers introducing an improved system for gathering and analysing data at the college.
Finally, leaders and managers were said to have improved safeguarding arrangements, meaning safeguarding is now effective.
The report into the FE commissioner’s intervention at the college, published last week but dated April, pulled no punches about its problems, describing the leadership at Mid-Cheshire as “dysfunctional”.
Mid-Cheshire College was part of the Cheshire and Warrington area review in wave two, which is now completed.
Credit should go to FE’s new minister Robert Halfon for taking on board the findings of our initial analysis showing how younger learners in deprived areas would have been worst hit, and by all accounts making it a personal crusade to pressure stubborn civil servants into taking action.
The resulting funding announcement of an extra 20 per cent on the band limit for 16-18 year-olds, and £60 million of “additional support in areas of disadvantage”, was a big step in the right direction.
But to use a well-worn cliché, our subsequent number crunching showed that while the campaign may have triumphed in the first battle, the war for truly fair funding still has to be won.
We all want reformed apprenticeships to break down class barriers.
They won’t do that if younger people, especially those in deprived areas, miss out on what should be life enhancing opportunities.
Jaguar Land Rover, the British car manufacturer regularly lauded by ministers for its apprenticeship scheme, has been hit with a shock grade three rating after an Ofsted inspection.
The Indian-owned firm received a ‘requires improvement’ score across the board for its dealership apprenticeship programme, for which it is an employer provider.
The report will raise eyebrows in Westminster, as the government has often praised the firm’s apprenticeship provision.
Prime Minister Theresa May, for example, spoke glowingly of a visit to its Coventry headquarters, during a parliamentary exchange on apprenticeships on September 14.
She said: “We’re committed as a government to ensuring more apprenticeships are being created – that’s giving young people opportunities, like the young people I met when I went to Jaguar Land Rover, to learn a skill, get into a job, get into the workplace, and get on where their talents take them.”
However, it was the apprentices’ performance, as well as poor oversight for subcontractors, that the Ofsted report published on October 17 said had brought Jaguar Land Rover down to earth from its previous rating of ‘good’ overall.
Inspectors found that “too many apprentices complete their portfolios too slowly”, even though “the large majority” completed their programmes successfully.
The report also warned that senior leaders “entrusted the subcontractors with delivering good-quality provision, with insufficient challenge and insufficiently clear specifications of the quality expected”.
Inspectors found that “too many apprentices complete their portfolios too slowly”
According to the SFA’s list, Jaguar Land Rover Holdings Ltd has two subcontractors – Calex UK Ltd, worth £1,048,961, and Babcock Training Ltd, worth £77,828, as of August 31.
Jaguar Land Rover’s disappointment follows another inadequate rating for an employer-provider car manufacturer in late May.
Ofsted inspectors blamed the flaws in Citroen’s apprenticeship provision on poor management of the same subcontractor, Calex.
Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for FE and skills, warned the government about declining standards at employer providers during a parliamentary committee hearing on October 19, and the issue is likely to arise again in the outgoing Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw’s final annual inspection, which is due in the coming weeks.
Nevertheless, the Skills Funding Agency has gone ahead with its new employer-provider register, to help encourage more employers to run their own training.
It hasn’t all been bad news for employer-providers though: Siemens was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in August.
The report said: “Through highly effective training, apprentices emerge as self-confident and able engineers who can lead teams, manage large projects and provide innovative solutions.”
In addition to its dealership apprenticeship programme, Jaguar Land Rover also runs apprenticeships in manufacturing, automotive, and engineering through a separate programme in its manufacturing division.
It does not operate as the employer-provider for this programme, however, so it is not therefore subject to Ofsted inspection.
“We are aware of the outcome of the recent inspection of Jaguar Land Rover Holdings and will be working with the company to ensure that robust plans for improvement are in place to ensure apprentices develop the skills they need to build successful careers,” said an SFA spokesperson.
A spokesperson for Jaguar Land Rover told FE Week that the firm was “clearly disappointed” with Ofsted’s findings.
“Our management team had undertaken a review of the programme just prior to Ofsted’s review that recognised improvements were required – as has been referenced in the Ofsted report,” he said.
“We are working hard with our team to ensure that our high success rates for the programme are supported by high-quality reporting and management of the programme metrics.”
Calex UK Ltd was unavailable to comment, despite repeated requests.
The government has announced new rules which will allow it to repeatedly bail out failing colleges that go bust, reneging on a previous commitment.
The new Technical and Further Education Bill announced on Thursday last week includes provisions to apply a ‘special administration regime’ to insolvent colleges and sixth forms in order to put the interests of learners ahead of the interests of creditors.
When it first announced the proposals in March, the Department for Education said it would not provide financial support to failing colleges once area review recommendations had been implemented – and that they would be allowed to go bust.
However, the DfE has now U-turned on that promise, and confirmed that extra cash would be made available if needed.
“The Secretary of State would of course want any special administration to be successful and will have wide powers to provide funding if necessary to achieve this,” it has now said, in a response to a consultation on the insolvency regime plans.
“Our intention is that these powers will allow funding to be provided by grant or loan as well as guarantee or indemnity”.
However, it did warn that colleges shouldn’t feel entitled to repeated bailouts, adding: “While the special administration regime will provide a necessary safety net for colleges and their learners, its use will be exceptional.”
The DfE’s volte-face was met with scorn by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, which represents non-college FE providers.
The DfE’s volte-face was met with scorn by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers
“Observers might be forgiven for thinking that no matter how incompetently an institution is managed, the government will always bail it out,” said its chief executive Mark Dawe.
He reiterated AELP’s long-standing call for a level playing-field between the different types of provider, and urged the SFA to allow other providers to bid for ownership of failing colleges.
David Hughes, meanwhile, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, welcomed the government’s focus on protecting the interests of learners – but didn’t comment directly on the U-turn.
A DfE spokesperson said: “Our insolvency proposals are about protecting students where a college has gone into special administration to ensure their studies are not disrupted. Under these proposals, the funding would be used to protect learner provision while the future of the college is determined.
“Following the area review process, colleges in financial difficulty will no longer be able to apply for Exceptional Financial Support.“
The outgoing FE commissioner, Sir David Collins, told the education select committee last week that the area review process could produce “benefits of £200 million plus per year going forward”, for an upfront cost of between £2 million and £3 million.
According to the DfE, these savings will be based on the sector as a whole meeting “an operating surplus of three to five per cent of turnover”.
This, it said, would enable colleges “to invest between £200 million and £360 million more per year in high-quality technical education”.
Additionally, the DfE finally published a number of key area review documents in October, three months later than expected.
The implementation guidance, due diligence framework, and guidance for local authorities and local enterprise partnerships were all originally expected in July.
However they were finally released on October 19, alongside updated guidance and application forms for the restructuring facility, and for sixth form colleges to convert to academy status, as well as full details of the areas and colleges involved in waves four and five of the area reviews.
As it turned out, my exclusive interview with the new apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon was conducted just hours after the Independent, Guardian and Mirror had all reported a major government U-turn on apprenticeship rates.
“People are saying this is a U-turn, but actually I would describe it as listening with elephant-sized ears,” he volunteered – before the questions had even begun.
“I made it clear to you when you had the big [FE Week] event in parliament. I made it clear at party conference. I made it publicly clear in articles that we have listened –and that’s what my job is to do. The whole purpose of it was that it was a survey and a consultation, and so we’ve responded,” he said.
“FE Week, given what you’ve been up to, has been an incredibly important part of that consultation.”
That morning the government had announced that massive proposed cuts to the 16-18 apprenticeship framework rates would be softened by two measures: by increasing the £1,000 provider incentive with cash worth 20 per cent of the relevant funding band, and by adding £60 million to funding for providers for apprentices who live in a deprived area, or up to £600 per apprentice.
The minister, who appears uncomfortable with formalities, insisting I call him Rob, argued that when he “kept going on about social justice”, it wasn’t just warm words, and that this rethink shows he “really meant it”.
“FE Week, given what you’ve been up to, has been an incredibly important part of that consultation.”
Could he provide any reassurances that these new measures won’t be scrapped after 12 months? Not quite:
“The framework 20 per cent is a transitional measure and the idea is to help the providers adapt,” he said.
“It will reduce over time as the new standards come through.”
As for the disadvantage funding, this £60 million is “for one year”, he said, adding: “I am doing, again as part of my agenda on social justice, a serious review which will report sometime next year on what is genuinely the best way to incentivise, encourage and help disadvantaged people to do apprenticeships.”
Moving on to the apprenticeship levy, I asked him whether he thought large employers would look to use their whole levy pot, as was suggested in DfE research published the same day – a situation which would leave precious little funding available for smaller employers.
He was quick to dismiss the DfE’s research, saying: “I completely utterly reject that proposition, because I meet employers when I go all over the country. Some large employers say they love it, and they’re going to have apprenticeship; others just say they won’t.
“The treasury and others did serious studies to make sure the money was available. You know about all the incentives there are for smaller businesses to take on apprentices, which are guaranteed by the government, so I don’t think there is any evidence to say that this money won’t be there for smaller employers.”
He continued: “Obviously we always keep everything under review, and we’d work out what to do if that occurred, but I completely reject that it is going to happen, because there are many employers who don’t want to take up apprentices and many who do – and that is the whole purpose of the levy.”
In next week’s Editor Asks…part two, we tackle whether employer ownership of apprenticeships is compatible with social justice, the lack of assessment organisations, subcontracting, and whether the CBI is right to be concerned about timescales.
