Apprenticeship funding rule requiring 20 per cent off-the-job training ‘not going away’

Help is being offered to the government in an effort to define the minimum 20 per cent off-the-job training apprenticeship rule.

Chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Mark Dawe, announced this morning in a webinar to members that they would be sending out a survey later today to find out how they currently approach the rule, as his director of policy and strategy warned the issue had “been a bone of contention for some years now and it’s not going away”.

It comes as his director of policy and strategy Paul Warner warned the issue had “been a bone of contention for some years now and it’s not going away”.

Members have just 48 hours to share their views via an online survey, and all responses will be fed back to the Department for Education and Ofsted to inform any future guidance.

Mr Dawe said during the webinar that he had been “hearing concerns about the definition”.

“The 20 per cent off the job rule is a key but crude measure to ensure there are quality apprenticeships,” he said.

But such training is “not always about being away from the workplace,” he said, and could be “possible at the workstation”.

“Senior reps from DfE and Ofsted have been willing to talk it through. They want reassurance proper learning is taking place,” he continued.

Mr Dawe said the plan was to develop “formal guidance as to what is and what is not acceptable” with DfE and Ofsted as the departments were “getting lots and lots of questions”.

Government guidance stipulates that apprentices must “spend at least 20 per cent of their time on off the job training”.

And funding rules for employer providers that apply from May state that providers must outline details of “employment including: the agreed contracted hours of employment, including paid training, and 20 per cent off the job time, and the total planned length of the apprenticeship”.

They are also required to show  “how the 20 per cent off the job training will be quantified and delivered”.

But it is increasingly feared that many apprentices, on “low quality” programmes, are not spending this time learning away from the workplace, and are instead effectively working full-time on a lower apprentices’ wage.

This rule was most recently mentioned in the Institute for Apprenticeships strategic guidance document, as one of the ‘core principals’ for apprenticeships.

It said an apprenticeship “requires substantial and sustained training, lasting a minimum of 12 months and involving at least 20% off the job training (training which is outside of the normal day-to-day working environment).”

AELP’s survey was prompted by concerns from its members that if they were delivering learning or training at the workplace – for example, via online learning – it would not meet the government definition of 20 per cent off the job training.

The SFA currently provide no formal definition of “off-the-job”, in terms of what can and cannot be included in the 20 percent figure.

Their funding rules for training providers simply says they must “make sure the apprentice spends at least 20% of their time on off-the-job training” and the version for employers says they must “record details of how the 20% ‘off-the-job’ training will be quantified and delivered.”

Parent anger over Daventry UTC closure

An angry parent of a student “devastated” by the news that her university technical college would close in the summer has demanded to know why the school took on new learners even though it knew it was in trouble.

Daventry UTC, which opened in 2013, announced in early December that it would close its doors at the end of August 2017 due to low student numbers.

John Dove, whose 14-year-old daughter Maisie began at the 14-to-19 vocational institution in September, is now angrily questioning the decision to allow new students in 2016/17.

“I’d like to know why they even took the kids in this year,” he told FE Week.

“I believe they knew full well that if they didn’t get the roll up to a certain number it was going to close. It’s not something that happens overnight,” he said.

Mr Dove said the school’s closure had left Maisie in tears

Mr Dove said the school’s closure had left Maisie in tears.

She had been badly bullied at two other secondary schools in Daventry, and had been out of school for a year until she was old enough to attend the UTC – where she was having a much more positive experience.

“Maisie was devastated, absolutely devastated, as were we. Having finally found a school where she was settled and happy at, to have the rug pulled from under our feet like that was pretty disgusting really,” he said.

The school had just 151 students enrolled in 2015/16, down from 169 in 2014/15 – despite a capacity of 600.

It was hit with a financial notice to improve by the Education Funding Agency in April, due to concerns over its financial management.

When FE Week put Mr Dove’s complaint to Daventry UTC principal Russell Ball, he insisted the decision to close had been made by the Education Funding Agency” two days before parents and children were informed”.

But the DfE told FE Week that the decision to close, which it said had come at the request of the school, was the culmination of a process that began with the financial notice to improve eight months earlier – suggesting that its leadership team would have had a good idea it was going to close at the start of 2016/17.

The UTC has said it would work with local education providers to “bring about a smooth transition for existing students”, including the opportunity to transfer to Silverstone UTC.

This engineering specialist school is located about 20 miles away from Daventry, in the famous British motorsport racing ground.

FE Week’s sister paper FE Week reported in early January that the cost of transport services between Daventry and Silverstone, which would amount to £1,400 a year for each pupil, will be met by the DfE.

Mr Dove told FE Week that a transfer to Silverstone was Maisie’s “first, second and third” choice because of the bullying at her other schools.

He said he had believed the transfer was going to be “automatic” but was subsequently told he had to apply for a place for Maisie from September, with no guarantee she would get in.

Mr Ball insisted to FE Week that “all children who choose Silverstone will be given the opportunity to transfer – guaranteed”.

Daventry is the sixth UTC to announce closure, with 48 currently open.

Halfon: Careers advice at colleges ‘state of the art’ but schools not good enough

The skills and apprenticeships minster has hailed the “state of the art” careers advice that colleges deliver, but called on schools to “do more” as he looks ahead to unveiling the government’s ‘comprehensive careers strategy’.

Robert Halfon told an audience of education professionals at Westminster Academy today that careers guidance would play a “significant part” in the government’s industrial strategy as set out in its green paper last week.

Speaking about the government’s comprehensive careers strategy today – which was supposed to be released in the first few weeks of 2016, but has been delayed until later this year – Mr Halfon said “the facts are” that students “are not getting enough good careers advice on skills and apprenticeships” from schools and they need to “do more”.

But speaking exclusively to FE Week after the event, the minister said the work he has seen by colleges on careers guidance had been on the opposite end of the spectrum and labelled it as “excellent”.

“Whatever colleges I have visited the careers advice there has been state of the art,” Mr Halfon said.

“I cannot think of one college I have been to where the careers advice has not been excellent.

“Around 70 per cent of our colleges are good or outstanding and I’ve gone to see amazing apprenticeship schemes where they have progressed into employment and other forms of training and enterprise.”

The minister’s view will be a welcomed breath of fresh air for the FE sector after being continually lambasted by Ofsted over careers advice in recent years.

Former chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw labelled careers guidance in colleges as “uniformly weak” in July last year but was the exposed by FE Week for lacking any identifiable external source or inspection based evidence.

Mr Halfon said today that “on the whole”, the work he has seen in FE on careers advice has been “really good”.

Plans for a comprehensive careers strategy were first unveiled in 2015, and it was expected to be released in early 2016.

However, the government admitted in its green paper on its new industrial strategy last week that a review of careers advice was still ongoing, and that the strategy would now be published later in 2017.

The Department for Education has pledged to spend £90 million on careers in this parliament, most of which has gone to the Careers and Enterprise Company to fund its network of enterprise advisers, mentoring scheme and grant scheme.

The Careers and Enterprise Company, first announced by former education secretary Nicky Morgan in December 2014, was launched in the summer of 2015.

On December 2, FE Week reported that the colleges and local enterprise partnerships included in the Careers and Enterprise Company’s “enterprise adviser network” also revealed a postcode lottery for FE coverage, with 15 LEPs not covered – and London completely absent.

Claudia Harris, the company’s chief executive, confirmed that it did not work with any of the capital’s 44 FE and sixth form colleges.

She said the company was working with “nearly all” local enterprise partnerships across the country, but the list of colleges that FE Week saw listed just 24 of the 39 LEPs.

Institutes of technology £170m windfall going to existing providers

The extra £170 million the government has promised to set aside for a new wave of “prestigious” institutes of technology will go to existing providers, FE Week can reveal.

The title will in effect work as a badge of honour given to specially chosen FE providers that excel at higher-level technical education, like the old Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) status.

The government first announced plans for the institutes in July 2015, then again in its post-16 skills plan in July.

Now, a green paper unveiled on January 23 has confirmed that a new £170 million in capital funding is to be spent on creating IoTs to “increase the provision of higher-level technical education”, and ensure that it is available “in all areas”.

The paper explained, for example, that a person “could study a level three (A-level equivalent) at a local college, before moving on to study a higher-level technical qualification at an institute in a nearby city”.

But it also said the government would expect most of the IoTs “to grow out of high-quality provision”.

A spokesperson said that details would be announced in due course, leaving it unclear whether independent training providers could apply for the money

The Department for Education told FE Week that the new institutes are to be based at existing providers.

This means they will effectively amount to a quality mark, like the former CoVE status. In this case, colleges were told, by the former Learning and Skills Council in 2001, that they would receive “up to £300,000 in the first year they join the CoVE programme”.

The DfE also confirmed this week that the £170 million would come as capital funding across the next three years, and would therefore work out at around £57 million per year for each of 2017/18, 2018/19, and 2019/20.

A spokesperson said that details would be announced in due course, leaving it unclear whether independent training providers could apply for the money, or if it would be restricted to colleges.

Sally Hunt, the University and College Union’s general secretary, has written exclusively for FE Week about the new industrial strategy, and doesn’t believe the extra capital funding will make a significant difference.

“For all the soundbites about rebooting Britain as a high-skill economy, the total of £170 million is the equivalent of 10 misfiring rockets,” she wrote.

Mark Dawe (pictured), chief executive of the AELP, said: “Independent training providers, with their expertise and experience, are ready to take the lead or be active partners in the establishment of each of the new institutes of technology.

“Our training provider members work with 350,000 employers and so the links to make quick progress happen already exist.”

Wide-ranging reforms to technical education, in which the new institutes are likely to play a role in implementing, were first revealed exclusively by FE Week last May – and then announced by the government two months later.

They followed a review led by former Science and Innovation Minister Lord Sainsbury, which detailed plans for a radical overhaul to replace 20,000 courses with “15 high-quality routes”.

The green paper was generally less than complementary about FE, indicating that the government felt the sector’s underwhelming performance had created the opening for the new institutes.

The report said that too many of FE colleges “only offer a broad, generalist curriculum at lower qualification levels” and that “the sector has too little provision of higher-level technical qualifications”.

Having read the green paper, AoC boss David Hughes said: “I am pleased that the role of colleges from level three, through four and five, to degrees has been understood and that the institutes of technology will build on the specialisms that exist across the college sector.

“We want an investment approach which supports every college to provide excellence.”

‘Inadequate’ Gateway SFC pulls back from Leicestershire area review

A struggling sixth form college has pulled out of its ongoing area review, after a special intervention by sixth form commissioner Peter Mucklow.

The Leicester-based Gateway SFC received an ‘inadequate’ grade from Ofsted in October, and Mr Mucklow (pictured) made the recommendation based on a visit he made in November.

His report into the 1,600 learner SFC, published in late January, said: “The college should stand aside from implementing structural change within the context of the area review and focus exclusively on improving quality standards with the aim to achieve an improved inspection rating at the next full inspection (expected by February 2018).”

Suzanne Overton-Edwards, Gateway’s principal, told FE Week that it had withdrawn from the Leicester and Leicestershire area review, which began September 12, as a result of Mr Mucklow’s report – though not entirely.

“Whilst not being as fully involved in the area-based review process as we have been, we are still maintaining contact with the process and key personnel and look forward to returning to full discussions with colleagues about any structural changes in the future, once the improvements we are making are evident to Ofsted,” she said.

Mr Mucklow’s recommendation appears to fly in the face of the government’s intention for the area reviews to be a “one-off” restructuring of the sector “to achieve long-term sustainability”.

Mr Mucklow’s recommendation appears to fly in the face of the government’s intention for the area reviews to be a “one-off” restructuring of the sector

It may also limit the Gateway’s restructuring options in future.

Currently the option to convert to an academy is only open to SFCs through the area reviews, and financial support through the restructuring facility is only available as help towards the cost of implementing the area review recommendations.

Ms Overton-Edwards however declined to comment on the effect stepping back from the area review would have on Gateway’s future restructuring options.

The Department for Education also declined to comment on the recommendation and its impact.

Meanwhile, the first merger recommended through the area reviews is due to go ahead on February 1.

The link-up between Dearne Valley College and the RNN Group, made up of Rotherham and North Nottinghamshire Colleges, was suggested in the Sheffield review, which completed in June.

Martin Harrison, Dearne Valley College’s principal, said: “The merger offers the opportunity for us to combine the expertise of our staff, our facilities and our resources to allow greater capacity to offer a comprehensive and employer-responsive education and training offer to South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire and beyond.”

Ofsted watch: West Cheshire College no longer ‘inadequate’

A mostly encouraging week for FE, with regards to Ofsted reports, saw West Cheshire College shed its inadequate tag.

It went up to grade three from its previous inadequate rating, in a report published January 23 and based on a visit in December.

Leaders at the 6,300-learner college were praised for having “rigorously monitored the impact of their actions to rectify the weaknesses identified at the last inspection”, which was carried out in September 2015.

The report also recognised how “well-managed” apprenticeship programmes “result in a high proportion of apprentices achieving their qualifications and progressing into sustained employment”.

It added: “Learners gain the technical skills and knowledge they need for work. Rates of progression to further study or employment are good.”

But attendance and punctuality were found to be not good enough, while the report said: “Leaders and managers have not been successful in improving the quality of English and mathematics provision; consequently, learners’ progress is slow and too few learners improve their grade or achieve their qualification.”

Independent training provider LIGA (UK) Ltd had its grade boosted from three to two in a report also published January 23 but based on a December inspection.

Inspectors noted that leaders and managers had “successfully resolved all areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection”, and awarded the Oxfordshire-based provider grade two across the board.

Meanwhile, Essex-based People and Business Development Ltd saw its rating drop from two to three.

The report was only published January 25, almost three months after the inspection was carried out at the end of October.

Apprentices’ declining completion rates and lack of progress were among the issues contributing to the training provider’s lowered grade.

No inspection reports for sixth form colleges, adult and community learning providers, employer providers or other FE and skills providers were published this week.

 

General FE colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
West Cheshire College 12/12/2016 23/01/2017 3 4
         
Independent learning providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
People and Business Development Ltd 31/10/2016 25/01/2017 3 2
LIGA (UK) Ltd 13/12/2016 23/01/2017 2 3

 

Halfon puts lifelong learning back in the spotlight

Lifelong learning is firmly back on the government’s agenda, according to the skills and apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon, who says the government’s new industrial strategy includes provisions for adult education.

The green paper released on January 23 acknowledged a “growing challenge” with training for older people, and committed to exploring “ambitious new approaches to encouraging lifelong learning”. Proposed measures could include ways to make the training costs people face “less daunting”, and provide better information to ensure older people who are retraining learn the skills that are actually needed by employers.

“We wouldn’t have put this in the industrial strategy if we weren’t serious about it,” Mr Halfon told FE Week, just a week after more than 60 MPs wrote him a letter calling for more commitment to adult learning.

“At the moment government and I are looking at it in terms of how does it meet skills needs, how do we help the socially disadvantaged, how does it work for the modern age,” he said.

According to government figures, there are around 1.5 million fewer adults aged 19 or over participating in adult FE than there were during the Labour MP David Lammy’s stint as minister between 2007 and 2008, when the figure stood at 3.75 million.

There are around 1.5 million fewer adults aged 19 or over participating in adult FE than there were during the Labour MP David Lammy’s stint as minister

Asked whether it was fair to say that the government had neglected this important policy area while concentrating on 16 to 19 learning, Mr Halfon dodged the question, replying: “This has not just been an issue for this government. In terms of skills in general it has been the same story over 20 or 30 years.”

It is also so far unclear whether there will be an adult skills strategy, or a lifelong learning framework.

“It will fit in the framework of government priorities,” he said, “meeting our skills deficit, helping the disadvantaged, ensuring that people get jobs. Those are the priorities.”

In his first speech to colleges last November, Mr Halfon said that the wider sector “is essential for social justice – ensuring that individuals from the lowest-income backgrounds get on the ladder of opportunity and benefit from the best education and skills training”.

Former business secretary Sir Vince Cable, who is currently working on a research project for the National Union of Students into how FE reforms should be tailored for learners, welcomed the new commitment to adult education.

He said: “One of the things that I managed to save from the Treasury when I was in government was adult community learning. That kept quite a lot of the part-time, non-accredited learning that is the basis of proper adult education.”

He added that the work done for such learners was “wonderful”, and that any further support for providers was to be welcomed.

Earlier this month, more than 60 MPs led by Mr Lammy wrote to Mr Halfon, demanding more government commitment to lifelong learning. The signatories also included Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, and Gordon Marsden, the shadow skills minister.

Mr Lammy has told FE Week: “While I do welcome the commitment to exploring new approaches to lifelong learning, and I know the minister does share my concerns, this is an urgent issue that has been ignored by successive governments.”

Former top skills civil servant Sue Pember, who is now director at adult learning provider membership body Holex, said: “It is good news this is being given such prominence in the industrial strategy.

“We would like to see any lifelong learning framework addressing the poor basic skills of the workforce, support those with low skills into further training and start preparing those who are at the risk of losing their present jobs because of technological advances into learning new skills.”

Technical Education Panels: Why pay for advice that is already free?

For two years, employers have been working hard on the new technical education panels – the government’s offer to pay professionals to do the same undervalues their contribution, says Iain Mackinnon.

This is all very odd. The Department for Education wants to waste our money paying for expertise it could get free of charge. In doing so, it’s undermining and undervaluing the contribution of the many employers who currently work for free in Trailblazer groups. And it’s weakening the principle of employer leadership, which has rightly been a central plank of the apprenticeship reforms.

What’s got me annoyed is the department’s recent advert for Technical Education Panels of Professionals. It ought to be uncontroversial. This is the next step in implementing Lord Sainsbury’s report on technical education, moving on from high-level aspiration (which everyone applauds) to sector experts knuckling down to the nitty-gritty of defining standards, which is where it will get difficult.

Employers often get a lot of stick in the skills world, and of course there are some who evade their responsibilities, cut corners, and game any opportunity they can

But why offer to pay? What does the department think employers have been doing for the last few years in Trailblazer groups? In the six I’m involved with in the maritime sector, employers turn up again and again to slog through the detail of creating new standards for apprenticeships, then the supporting assessment plan, and none of them gets paid extra to do so. Yet still they come, because they’re committed to making apprenticeships work in their sector.

One of the groups I support is comprised entirely of small companies in the workboat sector (high-spec boats with a crew of two or three, which support the offshore energy industry or construction projects). They meet on Merseyside or in Southampton, and in both cases most of the members have to travel long distances. We typically meet for four hours, so each of them is giving up a day after you factor in the travel. Yet still they come.

Employers often get a lot of stick in the skills world, and of course there are some who evade their responsibilities, cut corners, and game any opportunity they can. But there are plenty more who give a lot of time to the pretty thankless task of defining standards, shaping apprenticeships, and improving training in their sectors.

The DfE doesn’t need to pay. It can, and does, get all this huge – and hugely valuable – work for free.

So why pay? The clue may lie in the shift of emphasis from “employers in the driving seat” to “panels of professionals”. The DfE has confirmed to me that it’s “not about watering down the commitment for an employer-led system”, but that it “felt it was important to have representatives from professionals and trade bodies who also have experience of working on industry standards”.

I agree, but why pay? They will and do turn up anyway for Trailblazer groups. It’s their job: influencing discussions like these is central to what they do.

And we need to keep the focus on employers. I agree with the government’s mantra that the these reforms should be employer-led, even if it doesn’t always feel like it; employers may be in the driving seat, but DfE’s in charge of the Highway Code. This latest twist does feel like it’s weakening that commitment.

In one of the Trailblazer groups I’m involved with, we have two colleges, two trade unions, a professional body, the sector regulator, the awarding body we use, and two sector skill bodies, plus a good range of employers and two employer co-chairs to share the load.

We all work together because we want to create a good set of apprenticeships that will appeal to employers, and which will get more of them to take on apprentices.

We’ve been going two years now, and still they come. Despite the time cost – which is far greater than any of us imagined – and despite the frustrations – ditto – still they come.

I doubt very much that the maritime sector is unusual. The DfE has misjudged this, and undervalued the voluntary commitment of so many. It doesn’t need to pay. And it’ll stay true to the principle of employer leadership if it doesn’t.

 

Iain Mackinnon is managing director at The Mackinnon Partnership

Training provision must adapt to demand

The skills sector needs an effective market strategy that drives employer investment and supports providers to deliver high quality at scale, says Pippa Morgan.

This week saw the launch of the government’s industrial strategy – and it was great to see skills feature so highly in it. For businesses, a stable, long-term strategy designed to support the fundamental drivers of our economic success must address the question of training.

There was a lot to like. From strong support for technical education, to looking at building more level four and five skills, to progressing with post-16 maths, many ideas in the paper chime with business priorities.

But our challenge in skills hasn’t been lack of policy, it’s been effective delivery. How the system works on the ground – how it influences the behaviours and meets the needs of learners and businesses – is what really matters. The government’s approach must be built on understanding what drives employer investment and supports providers to deliver high quality at scale; rather than an approach that begins with Whitehall and works its way out, we need a more effective market strategy.

Our challenge hasn’t been lack of policy

The urgent need for this kind of approach is evident with the apprenticeship levy – now little more than two months away – and three key related issues being raised by companies.

Firstly, unclear definitions of success. The pages of FE Week constantly detail gloomy predictions for the new system, with ‘Employers turn backs on young’ a recent example, and there are certainly some causes for concern. We need to be honest that the aim of the reform is that provision changes and adapts to demand.

We can be clear about what success looks like: it will be making sure provision grows in areas that give learners real returns, through good careers. That will involve challenges and must avoid defending existing provision, simply because it exists.

Secondly, preparedness. From transfers to the new agreements, we have been working with officials to improve key aspects of the system in recent months. But policy and system design has been taking place when companies needed to be planning, creating schemes and recruiting. Of the 21 months since the levy was announced in summer 2015, it’s taken 18 months and counting for government to design, build and prepare itself for the levy – giving firms and providers an incredibly short window of clarity before the system goes live. And large parts of the longer-term system – rules around transfers, the Digital Apprenticeship Service, and the role and influence of the Institute for Apprenticeships – are not yet ready.

What we now need is a proper strategy for the skills market

Employers and providers have tried to fill this gap as best they can, but contracts written last autumn are currently being revisited to ensure they remain compliant with the system as we understand it now.

For a system that requires the support of employers and providers to succeed, this timeline breeds growing frustration in many businesses. This is particularly true in the devolved nations, where progress on real system reform – and interoperability with the others – is especially slow.

The third key issue is how the levy will change business behaviour. The CBI has always been clear about the real risk that, if poorly designed, the levy could have perverse incentives, such as firms training fewer apprentices, or being forced to rebadge existing provision to reclaim levy money.

To encourage the growth of better provision, the system of 2017 will need to adapt and adjust as we go through the early years and transition into a whole new system. This must start with a proper transfer regime that allows firms to share more than a sliver of their levy money within their supply chain or sector.

An effective regime for allowable expenses – such as time developing much needed new standards – will also help turn those perverse incentives round. If we really care about delivering a skills base for our new industrial strategy, then this is essential.

What we now need is a proper strategy for the skills market that deals with these issues, giving employers confidence to invest, offering providers stability throughout the substantial changes they need to make, and challenging the system where change doesn’t happen. The partnership approach of industrial strategy is the right road, but it is very late in the day to get the levy on track.

 

Pippa Morgan is head of education and skills policy at the Confederation of British Industry