Latest news from FE Week

C&G Group buys apprenticeship agency in effort to corner nuclear industry

The nation’s largest training provider to the UK civil nuclear industry has been bought out by the City & Guilds Group – through a deal that will also involve it taking on board an apprenticeship training agency.

The purchase of Gen2, which works with more than 250 employers across six sites in Cumbria, was announced this afternoon.

The provider also operates Cumbria ATA, which recruits, employs and arranges training for apprentices on behalf of employers throughout the region, in return for a management fee.

Gen2, which counts Iggesund and British Steel among its employer-partners, is rated Ofsted ‘outstanding’ and has over 1,300 apprentices and 250 students on higher education programmes. Sellafield is its biggest employer, with a £4.6 million 2016/17 allocation for apprenticeships.

The City & Guilds Group says Gen2 will also look into becoming one of the first government-backed Institutes of Technology, following the acquisition.

Chris Jones, chief executive of the City & Guilds Group, said: “Technical skills delivery is a core part of our heritage, and we are excited to expand our offer by bringing Gen2 into the group.

“The engineering and nuclear industry is anticipated to grow extensively in the future, particularly in Cumbria, but it cannot grow unless it has a skilled workforce.

“Gen2, as a City & Guilds Group business – and potentially as a new Institute of Technology – will be at the heart of ensuring the industry can thrive in the future.”

Gen2 was established in 2000 by five partner companies: Sellafield, Amec Foster Wheeler Nuclear Holdings, Tata Steel UK, Iggesund Paperboard, and Innovia Films.

Plans for the new IoTs – which will focus on high-level provision in science, technology, engineering and maths at levels three four and five – were first outlined by the government in July 2015, then again in the post-16 skills plan last July and in the industrial strategy green paper in January.

Gen2 is currently the approved provider for two national skills academies and has developed higher level programmes such as a suite of nuclear related technology foundation degrees.

The provider had a £12.5 million turnover and 168 staff, according to its accounts for the financial year ended March 31, 2016.

The acquisition of Gen2 is not the first time the City and Guilds group has been involved with vocational training.

The former Skills Funding Agency allocated over £8 million in 2011-2012 to City and Guilds, to deliver 25,000 apprenticeships with Asda, but the group later pulled out of the arrangement.

It acquired The Oxford Group – which delivers management training – in 2015, but taking over Gen2 will be mark its proper return to delivering vocational training.

Mike Smith, CEO of Gen2, said: “Being part of a wider, larger group will enable Gen2 to continue its growth trajectory and, working with the other companies within the City & Guilds Group, we hope to be able to offer our customers and their learners the best training and education to meet their future needs.”

Ofsted watch: Three colleges slide to grade three

Three colleges dropped from Ofsted ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ this week, in a bad week for FE.

The only silver lining was for Abingdon and Witney College, which maintained its grade two rating.

Southampton City College lost its ‘good’ rating following an inspection report published May 9 and is now deemed to ‘require improvement’, after being hit with grade threes in all categories.

Leaders and managers at the college were criticised for not being “successful” in improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment to “ensure that it is at least good”.

Inspectors also found that too few employers are “adequately involved in planning the training of their apprentices”, while too many teachers have “insufficiently high” expectations of their students in lessons, and “do not ensure that students make the best possible progress”.

However college leaders and governors were praised for halting the “financial decline and stabilised the financial position of the college”.

In the north of England, Wakefield College also dropped to a grade three from its previous ‘good’ rating, in an inspection report published May 9.

The nearly 6,750-learner college was graded ‘requires improvement’ in all but one category – provision for learners with high needs, which was deemed ‘good’.

Its report said students’ attendance and achievements are “too low”.

“Too few students achieve the grades and develop the higher level skills of which they are capable,” inspectors added.

Governors and senior leaders were slammed for not using “management information well enough to evaluate the impact of managers’ actions during the year”. The report added they do not have a “clear view of the quality of provision and the progress that students make”.

Meanwhile, management of quality improvement at St Mary’s College in Lancashire was found to be “not rigorous enough to bring about the necessary improvements” as the sixth form college dropped to a grade three from ‘good’ in an Ofsted report published May 5.

Inspectors additionally said that performance management is “not sufficiently robust” and as a result managers and teachers are “not given specific enough targets to be able to hold them to account for the performance of their students”.

“In most subjects, too many students do not make the progress and achieve the grades of which they are capable,” the report added.

However, a newly formed senior leadership team has started to “refocus diligently on improving students’ outcomes” at the 1,000-learner college.

The “large majority” of students also pass their qualifications and successfully progress to higher education, further learning or apprenticeships.

Leaders at Abingdon and Witney College will be the only FE provider celebrating a full Ofsted inspection this week after it maintained its ‘good’ rating.

Inspectors gave the college ‘good’ in all categories except for apprenticeships, where an ‘outstanding’ judgement was achieved.

Ofsted said apprentices make “significant and sustained progress from their starting points”, and the “vast majority” of apprentices achieve their qualifications.

Teachers also receive “excellent support” to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and managers “ensure that learners with high needs follow highly individualised learning programmes that meet their needs and develop their independence”.

To get to ‘outstanding’ Ofsted said leaders and managers must ensure that all adult learners have a “good understanding of how to keep themselves safe from the risks posed by radicalisation and extremism”.

Adult and community learning provider The Learning Partnership – Bedfordshire and Luton Limited, employer provider Voyage Group Limited, and private provider The Bassetlaw Training Agency Limited all kept their ‘good’ ratings following short inspections.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Southampton City College	28/03/2017	09/05/2017	3	2
Wakefield College	27/03/2017	09/05/2017	3	2
Abingdon and Witney College	28/03/2017	08/05/2017	2	2

Sixth Form Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
St Mary’s College	15/03/2017	05/05/2017	3	2

Short inspections (remains grade 2)	Inspected	Published
The Learning Partnership – Bedfordshire and Luton Limited	22/02/2017	08/05/2017
The Bassetlaw Training Agency Limited	24/04/2017	08/05/2017
Voyage Group Limited	26/04/2017	12/05/2017

Costs in question after Labour apprentice pledge

The financial implications of Labour’s pledge to cover apprentices’ travel costs have been called into question, after the Conservatives labelled their costings a “total shambles”.

A leaked draft version of Labour’s manifesto committed to paying for apprentices’ travel costs, “which currently run to an average of £24 a week – a quarter of earnings if apprentices are on the minimum wage”.

FE Week asked the Labour press office to explain how much this would cost in total – as £24 per week works out at around £1,200 per apprentice every year, and the travel costs of all 899,400 apprentices who participated last academic year would therefore amount to just over £1 billion.

The party’s spokesperson refused to comment on a leaked draft. However, FE Week also spoke to shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden, who previously committed to funding apprentice travel at FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference in March.

This week, he told us that the “still-to-be-finalised” manifesto pledge would only actually cover transport for 16-to-19s, at a cost of around £99 million in the first year.

Nevertheless, a Conservative Party spokesman claimed this was demonstrated that “Labour’s manifesto is a total shambles”.

Mr Marsden told FE Week: “The precise figures are still to be worked out, but we would be looking to assist 16-to-19 apprentices, at least on 50 per cent of the average figure that is being quoted, for travel costs and hopefully moving forward”.

He explained that the figures “were based on the number of 16- to 19-year-old apprenticeship starts on last available data from March 2016”.

“The figures were down on the basis of the latest half-year number of starts, which was 82,600,” he added. “We doubled that to make 165,000. We then multiplied that by £1,200 to make £198,000,000, and halved it for 50 per cent – so £98 to £99 million.”

Asked why only starts had been factored in, when it’s natural to assume that all apprentices of that age-range would want to receive the payment, he replied: “The initial scheme will be based on new starts, and we would go from there.”

By our calculations, the total number of 16-to-19s reported as participating in apprenticeships between August last year and January was 156,800. Going by the shadow minister’s reckoning, if that were doubled and multiplied by £1,200, the final cost would work out at £376 million, or £188 million if halved.

This is the latest election commitment problem to hit Labour.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott came in for some stick last week for struggling, during an interview on national radio station LBC, to explain how much putting an extra 10,000 police officers on the streets would cost.

Later, the shadow education secretary Angela Rayner faced similar problems when asked, by the same radio station, for more detail on Labour’s plans to plough £5.6 billion into schools.

Presenter Nick Ferrari asked how many children would be affected and criticised Ms Rayner for her reply, that it was a “significant” number.

Mr Marsden previously told AAC delegates the £24-per-week costing came from research by the National Society of Apprentices.

“This equates to a quarter of the salary of an apprentice who is earning the apprentice national minimum wage,” he said.

NUS president-elect Shakira Martin told us this week: “I, and the [NUS-run] NSoA are delighted Labour included a commitment to supporting travel cost.

“It is especially exciting this commitment has come directly from NSoA’s research. When there are some apprentices paying over half their wages on travel to and from their apprenticeship, it is clear the current financial support apprentices receive is not fit for purpose.”

Long-distance merger cleared despite council concerns

A controversial long-distance merger has been signed off by college governors, despite grave concerns from a London borough council.

Lewisham Southwark College will now join forces with NCG, based in Newcastle, on August 1, after the governors from both agreed cleared the move.

This is despite the controversial nature of the plans, due to the distance between both, which provoked the London borough of Lewisham into questioning the sense of their local college joining with a group whose headquarters is 300 miles away from the capital.

But speaking about today’s announcement, Chris Bilsland OBE, chair of governors at Lewisham Southwark College, said he was “delighted” at the merger, which would ensure “that we can remain a local college but with national reach”.

“The college will have the benefit of access to a huge range of expertise in areas such as apprenticeships and higher education as well as further education,” he said.

“At the same time, joining a like-minded organisation with an Ofsted ‘good’ rating will support us in continuing to improve the quality of our provision.”

Jamie Martin, chair of governors at NCG said: “We are delighted that the governors of Lewisham Southwark College have taken the decision to join with NCG and look forward to welcoming the team in the coming months.”

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.

Lewisham Southwark, which was rated ‘requires improvement’ at its most recent Ofsted inspection in May 2016, explored a possible merger with nearby Lambeth College during the central London area review last year – but the link-up with NCG emerged as its preferred option.

A spokesperson for Lewisham Council told FE Week in March, when consultation opened on the proposal, that it was “disappointed” at the outcome.

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

Today’s announcement means that Lewisham Southwark will become the fifth FE college member of NCG, after Carlisle College joined in April.

NCG, which was rated ‘good’ in its most recent Ofsted inspection report published in September, also counts Newcastle College, West Lancashire College and Kidderminster College as members, alongside one sixth form college and two independent training providers.

Lewisham Southwark’s most recent Ofsted grade came after a troubled period for the college which saw it receive two grade fours in a row in 2014 and 2015.

Ms Kitching, who has overseen the college’s improvement since her appointment in 2015, said the merger would “provide a catalyst for growth in the range of programmes we can offer students, including vocational and technical Higher Education”.

She stressed that the college would “continue to determine our own curriculum in response to local need, with NCG’s full backing for growth and development” and that it would “maintain a high degree of autonomy”.

Are the party pledges for FE meaningless?

Both Labour and the Lib Dems have made some pre-manifesto pledges on further education, but these should all be taken with a pinch of salt, says Gemma Gathercole

The opening salvos of the election campaign have been fired and now we’re getting to the good stuff – well, at least for policy geeks like me.

The messages from Labour and the Liberal Democrats in their pre-manifesto – and leaked draft manifesto – pledges on education will, I’m sure, be welcomed by the sector.

FE features in the headline promises from both parties, although the pledges made by the Labour party go further to address the needs of the whole sector. Though the Conservatives are yet to release any commitments on education, it will be interesting to see their pledges.

One of my favourite quotes from the epic US political TV show ‘the West Wing’ is about campaigning: you preach to the choir, “because that’s how you get them to sing”. I wonder how much of these early indicators are designed to appeal to natural party voters and how much will actually cut through to the general public.

It’s good to see the ‘Save Our Adult Education’ campaign

Labour’s key pledges for education cover the full spectrum of the sector: there are promises affecting schools, colleges and universities – announcements that I’m sure will be welcomed broadly.

For the FE sector, there is a promise to restore the education maintenance allowance and an increase for the adult skills budget.

The increase to the adult skills budget is sizeable: an extra £1.5 billion over the course of the parliament, to create a system of free lifelong learning.

The announcement talks about providing courses for adults wanting to upskill and reskill. It’s good to see that the shadow skills minister’s contributions to the ‘Save Our Adult Education’ campaign have translated into election pledges.

In the announcement, the pledges were said to be funded by reversing the Conservative government’s cuts to corporation tax, a figure it places at £20 billion. However, totting up the announcements in Labour’s press release, I get a figure closer to £30 billion. It will be interesting to see the full breakdown in the manifesto when released.

The announcements from the Liberal Democrats focus on some familiar areas, including the protection of the pupil premium that they championed in the coalition government. However, their pledges focus much more on the schools sector rather than full breadth of education.

A single pledge is made for FE; a promise to protect FE funding per pupil in real terms. While a welcome promise for a sector that has seen the impact of significant cuts in very recent memory, it is essentially a focus on 16- to 19-year-olds.

It remains to be seen what the Lib Dems propose regarding adult education or apprenticeships, which is also missing from these pledges. It seems as though we’ll have to wait for the manifesto…

As with all pre-election pledges, they need to be taken with a pinch of salt; after all, the promises are made during a campaign, designed to win votes and more importantly, get people to the ballot box to allow them to take power.

But the hard part is that delivery needs to happen when in government and the fantastic thing about a forecast, as my accountant sister reminds me, is that it’s only accurate until it’s written down. It’s quickly out of date, either for positive or negative reasons, as the economy is that it doesn’t always perform as expected.

The actual policies that follow will be largely dependent on how the economy performs and/or how much a future government can or will borrow to meet their promises. After all, while “you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose”.

Of course, much of the detailed analysis of the affordability of any of these proposals can only come when we have the full manifestos so the full set of promises can be costed. I for one will be eagerly awaiting them, albeit from my sunbed on holiday.

Gemma Gathercole is head of funding and assessment at Lsect

I’ll give FE learners a louder voice nationally

Writing exclusively for FE Week, Shakira Martin, the new president-elect of the NUS discusses her ambitious plans to represent students of all stripes by leaning on her own background in further rather than higher education

I sat down for breakfast with my two daughters over the weekend, back to normality after the rollercoaster of NUS National Conference. Finally, I had the chance to reflect on my journey, how my FE college gave me what I needed to put food in front of my kids and how my student union gave me – a black woman and single mother – a voice.

It was a conference where students – FE, HE and apprentices from across the UK – put their faith in me to lead the NUS as president. As just the second president to be elected from FE, following Toni Pearce in 2013, I want to continue to fight for the voices of the often forgotten FE learners nationally.

Since taking office in July 2015, the theme of my vice-presidency has been another bout of fundamental reform: I am sceptical of the reviews, but have fought and lobbied government through the NUS’ #FEunplugged campaign to make sure the voices of learners are heard and our rights are protected.

As education was changing around us, we had to be at the table making the case for the future of FE we wanted to see. We needed to show what learner voices can do to those who have undermined them for years.

The general election gives us a great opportunity to put FE learners in the spotlight

Since then, there have been announcements on possible funding for merging colleges, using loans from the treasury to plug the gaps in the sector, the insolvency regime, the post-16 skills plan and T-levels, the apprentice levy and a new Institute for Apprenticeships, which will take on colleges as well from 2018.

Even the terms ‘further’ and ‘vocational’ education were forgotten about in favour of ‘technical education’. I’m surprised anyone is able to keep up!

So much reform in so little time carries huge risks. I speak to student governors who tell me that they have seen two or even three strategic plans for their colleges over the last two years, just to respond to the changing landscape. Providers are being given such little time to pause, plan and move forward.

We have to make sure that learners are not forgotten, but seen as equal partners to the needs business in an economy struggling through a chaotic Brexit.

Our FE Unplugged campaign has taught us that debt is not solely an undergraduate issue. Learners are feeling the pinch through 19+ loans. Crucial grants such as EMA, disabled students’ allowance and the adult dependants’ grant have been cut over the last few years, putting up barriers for tens of thousands of current and potential students to the education they deserve.

The general election gives us a great opportunity to put FE learners in the spotlight. In the wake of the Brexit vote, work is being done to enhance vocational education, but my student movement wants big answers from political parties in this general election about how they will remove the barriers faced by so many to getting a decent education.

Last week, the NUS conference promised to run the biggest voter registration drive we have ever held – and as the president-elect, I plan to make sure we do exactly that over the next four weeks. The voices of every student must be heard at the heart of every election manifesto, and the NUS is runnning a #GenerationVote campaign across both FE and HE.

Whoever forms the next government will find me at the front of the queue to number 10. Alongside Emily Chapman, my excellent successor as VP FE, and the rest of my officer team, we will put a coherent case for strong, active student unions in every provider.

We will hold the new government to account over a Brexit which the majority of students didn’t vote for, and we will amplify the voice of learners for a generation, both locally and nationally in a country that is forgetting to listen to them.

It was FE that gave me my voice. I want to work with the sector to make sure that it does the same for millions of others.

Shakira Martin is vice-president for FE and president-elect of the National Union of Students

What will replace the European Social Fund?

After Brexit, the government must replace the £500 million provided every year by the European Social Fund for people in disadvantaged circumstances, says Shane Chowen

It’s only been a month since that windy Tuesday morning when the prime minister announced that the country will face a general election on 8 June.

When parliament resumes on June 19, the new government will have to negotiate Britain’s exit deal with European leaders.

But among talk of negotiations, “divorce payments”, trade deals and “remoaning”, the next government also has to find ways to align its domestic policy agenda to a post-EU legislature. The Conservatives want a great repeal bill to cut many EU laws from the UK.

The new government must also provide some clarity about the future of projects and provision currently in receipt of EU funding, specifically the European Social Fund.

The Brexit white paper, published in February, confirmed that projects funded through European Structural Investment Funds, which includes the ESF, that were signed before the 2016 autumn statement and which have end dates after the UK leaves the EU in 2019, will still be fully funded.

But £400 million-worth of projects currently cofunded between the ESF and the ESFA have an end date of March 2018 – a year before we’re due to leave under Article 50 – and the 76-page white paper makes no specific reference to ESF at all.

Learners and providers have been offered no security or assurances on the future of their funding

Elsewhere, there are 19 open calls for proposals for projects funded through the current ESF programme through DWP: Enterprise M3 LEP is looking for projects to improve digital skills for unemployed people, Hertfordshire LEP has £1.5 million to invest in upskilling its health and social care workforce, and Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP have £5 million available for projects to develop higher-level skills in key sectors.

These calls for proposals specify varying end-dates; some stipulate that projects have to be done by October 2020, and others “after three years”, with the caveat that you could be told sooner at DWP’s discretion.

Providers have the right to know where they stand. Users of the ESF span the private, public and charity sectors. They employ specialist practitioners who work with often the most marginalised and disadvantaged across the UK.

At the Learning and Work Institute, the work we’ve seen done with ESF funding over the years through the Festival of Learning and the Adult Learners’ Week Awards has been extraordinary.

Take Bad Boys Bakery for example. With support from ESF, this programme based in Brixton prison provides skills and work experience to offenders which improves their chances of securing a good job on release. That investment has also led to a dramatic cut in reoffending rates. On average, 47 per cent of ex-offenders reoffend within 12 months of release from prison. For participants of Bad Boys Bakery, that figure is just 3 per cent.

Despite this, learners and providers have been offered no security or assurances at all on the future of their funding, which just isn’t good enough.

The breadth of organisations that have signed up to the campaign to protect the kind of learning opportunities that the ESF currently provides following Brexit demands action. The country cannot afford to lose the £500 million that is invested every year in the life chances and opportunities for people in deprived areas, people with disabilities, older people and ex-offenders.

Replacing the ESF with domestic social investment must be central to the next government’s economic and social justice strategies; whether that’s “a country that works for everyone” or “for the many not the few”.

Shane Chowen is head of policy and public affairs at the Learning and Work Institute

Budding plumber wins regional title with his watertight circuit

A plumbing student has been crowned the winner of a skills competition in the north-east.

Seventeen-year-old Josh Wilkinson, who studies a level two EAL diploma in plumbing and heating at East Durham College, took first place in the North East Inter-College Plumbing Competition Final, as the only competitor to successfully build a fully watertight pipe circuit.

Students had four hours to build a complex pipe circuit, with their work scored on dimensional accuracy, pipework joints, soldering, clip spacing, machine pipe bending accuracy and watertight performance.

The challenge was taken on both by Josh and his fellow EDC student, Kyle McCullough, also 17, who competed with students from the nearby Bishop Auckland College.

The competition was part of a series of inter-college challenges in the region taking place throughout the year, which challenge different vocational disciplines in an effort to build students’ practical skills and increase their confidence.

“It was a very close-fought contest with only two points separating them all, but Josh emerged as the winner, being the only competitor to achieve a fully watertight pipe circuit,” said Lecturer Tim Beasley.

“Congratulations to Josh, and everyone should be very proud of their performances. They are an absolute credit to their respective colleges.”

Main image: Josh, right, with East Durham’s Rob Hutchinson

Garden designed to represent the journey of a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis

Horticulture staff and students at Derby College have designed a garden representing multiple sclerosis as their entry to BBC Gardeners’ World Live.

More than 50 students have been involved in the design and building of the garden, which depicts the journey from diagnosis to life with the disease.

The garden will feature soft-flowering plants and spiky thistles to show the difference between good and bad days experienced by those living with MS, as well as a bridge and cave signifying the support available for sufferers of the condition.

The college teamed up with the Multiple Sclerosis Society to design the garden, entitled ‘Journey to Hope’ (pictured left), which will be submitted to the annual gardening event for consideration.

“Following our gold award at last year’s BBC Gardener’s World Live we were keen to do something even more ambitious this year,” explained the college’s horticulture lecturer Mike Baldwin.

“Our goal is to raise awareness of the work of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the challenges, anger, pain and frustration facing more than 100,000 people affected by the neurological condition in the UK.

“It is our biggest project for many years, but we are confident that the results will be striking.”

Main image: The college’s winning entry in last year’s event