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8 August 2026

Latest news from FE Week

Investigation update: Confusion as government refuses to say if all provider’s funding pulled

The future of a provider caught offering banned inducements to an employer remains in limbo, after the government refused to confirm whether all its last funding will be cancelled.

Talent Training, a company based in South Tyneside, does not appear in the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s latest allocations list, and the company itself has told FE Week that its non-levy-paying apprenticeships contract was set to be terminated.

The ESFA itself, however, has refused to confirm the truth of the matter.

The agency first said it would end its “levy agreement” with Talent a month ago, after it was presented with the findings of an undercover FE Week investigation into the kickbacks it had been offering employers.

It confirmed at the time, though, that the provider’s non-levy apprenticeship contracts were not coming to an end.

Nevertheless, Talent, which had been allocated £954,877 from the adult education budget as of March, made no appearance on the ESFA’s June allocations list.

In a statement given to FE Week, a spokesperson for the provider said: “ESFA has given notice to terminate Talent’s main [non-levy paying apprenticeships] contract in October, although no final decision has yet been made.

“Talent is at a loss to understand ESFA’s position, not least its refusal to give reasons for its decisions coupled with its decision to now terminate Talent’s main contract.”

An ESFA spokesperson was much less forthcoming, however.

“We are not going to engage in a back-and-forth exchange with Talent while investigations are ongoing. That includes not making any comment on the status of their contracts.”

Barry Waller, who had been the provider’s national business development manager, was suspended as a result of our findings, after he was caught offering cash amounting to as much as 20 per cent of government funding per apprenticeship directly to a firm considering whether to engage Talent’s services for training.

This employer had contacted FE Week as a concerned whistleblower, showing us emails confirming Talent’s offer. Our reporter then secretly sat in on and recorded a phone call between the employer and the Talent employee, during which the offer of an inducement was made.

The money Talent claimed from the ESFA had been meant solely for the purposes of training and assessing apprentices, but the provider was alleged to be offering – through an intermediary – to hand as much as £200 in every £1,000 back the employer in question in kickbacks.

In March, the ESFA revised its funding rules specifically to ban inducements like this, which were becoming increasingly rife across the sector.

Talent, which said at the time of our initial story that it had launched an internal investigation into the matter, appeared to try to circumvent the rules.

Its spokesperson told FE Week yesterday that it has now “apologised unreservedly to ESFA for any confusion arising due to anything Mr Waller may have said. Mr Waller remains suspended pending the outcome of ESFA’s enquiries”.

“Talent has also implemented immediate changes to its internal processes designed to minimise the scope for any confusing language being used by the sales team.

“The fundamental point is that Talent never planned to make, agreed to make, or did make, any payments to employer-clients other than by way of proper payments for subcontracted services, authorised by the funding rules.”

They added that nothing said by Mr Waller “could ever have made its way into a finalised agreement giving rise to the type of payment alleged in the FE Week article”.

However, one claim made in the statement is potentially embarrassing for the ESFA, and indicative at best of poor internal communication.

“Talent is particularly puzzled in that the initial notice of termination was issued by ESFA on June 21, yet ESFA continued to send Talent 474 apprentice learners from another provider terminated by ESFA, asking Talent to accept this additional provision,” said the spokesperson.

“ESFA continued to send Talent transfer requests and authorisations up until July 11, asking Talent to deliver their apprenticeship programme with immediate effect.”

The statement closed by saying that Talent is preparing a court challenge to the ESFA’s decision.

After we sent our initial investigation findings to Keith Smith, the director of funding and programmes at the ESFA, back in June, a spokesperson for the agency said: “It is unacceptable for any training provider to abuse the system by offering employers cash incentives from the apprenticeship levy.”

“The ESFA has reviewed the information and taken action to protect the interests of learners and employers.”

Frontier Economics is right: the T-level tender approach is not viable

Important new research carried out for the DfE demonstrates that a single awarding body for T-levels would have disastrous consequences – let’s hope the Department for Education listens, writes Gemma Gathercole

It’s a rare moment, working in policy, when a government-published research report quite literally takes the words out of your mouth, but that was my experience when reading today’s Frontier Economics report Assessing the Vocational Qualifications Market in England.

Its analysis, on behalf of the DfE, of market weaknesses neatly summarises my experience as a former senior manager of a large awarding organisation. Successive government policies have served to drive market behaviour, sometimes for the better but often for the worse, and some of those policies have contributed to the market weaknesses that Frontier Economics has described.

It would be easy to jump into defence mode to describe why some of the high-quality provision is ignored by this sort of analysis, but we live in an age where perceptions are important and, speaking honestly, there is too much of our education system that is too opaque. We should be careful about what we wish for, though: greater transparency about the general qualifications awarding processes has seen a dramatic rise in appeals and falls in public confidence of the system. 

There is hardly any incentive to innovate or provide high-quality support

I have to admit I hate the notion of qualifications that are ‘easier to pass’ – I always remember my Dad telling me that there are no easy or hard questions, there are just those you know the answers to and those you don’t. Well the same can be applied to competence assessment: you’re either competent or not yet competent, pass or not yet ready to pass. But there’s something awkward that we must confront; the pressures on providers to demonstrate achievement, value for money, progress etc are so great that they produce an incentive to chase things that are easier to pass, even when that’s a perception that isn’t true. Frontier Economics’ report recognises this impact in what it describes as “misaligned incentives, potentially leading to a race to the bottom in terms of rigour”.

In particular, the consultancy’s analysis of the potential pitfalls of a single awarding body or consortia franchise model is particularly welcome. In analysing the current market for vocational awarding bodies, the report recognises that while in some sectors there is a proliferation of awarding bodies, there is little competition over individual qualifications, with hardly any incentive to innovate or provide high-quality support.

While this might surprise some in the market who think they compete only on the quality of their support services,  the qualifications are so similar that that it becomes an indictment of complexity of the system. Where provider choice is driven by the impact of other incentives, the service or lack of service offered by an awarding body is often not really a factor in decision-making. In research I’ve seen but which might not have been publicly published, providers frequently refer to cost as important in their decision about awarding organisation choice. However, when asked a later question about whether a lower or more competitive price would make them switch, the answer is always no.

Now let’s imagine a situation where there is no choice, there is only one board/consortium offering a route, and they have a market monopoly. They’ve had to tender to develop the route, which has a cost, and an expensive one at that. They have no competition, so no incentive to innovate, provide support beyond the basics, or if they do it has a development cost and no competition on price. They have a fixed-term license, so their offer always has a potential expiry date. That’s a risky business model; a short license is unattractive and a long license potentially removes the prospect of provider change, again challenging the need for innovation. 

Where in any of this is the consideration of cost-effectiveness, what’s the right provision for UK PLC and learner choice? Or, most importantly, quality? When the coalition government embarked on GCSE reform, the plan was to have a competitive tender for ‘English Baccalaureate Certificates’ (EBCs). This was eventually abandoned, with Michael Gove telling parliament that the reform was “a bridge too far”. The reality is that work was being done behind the scenes and there was a barrage of evidence that proved the approach would be a bad idea.

Echoing the evidence generated about EBCs, the Frontier Economics report describes both short-term and long-term risks, which include market failure and the structural impact on competition in the future. The issues of market failure should not be taken lightly: you don’t need to google too hard to find single-provision market failure in SATs, or even last year’s SATs papers that got published online.  There were issues with GCSE and A-level papers this summer, and these still enjoy a competitive market. If that had happened to high-stakes technical qualifications, they would never recover.

I hope the DfE learns a great deal from this report

The duration of the license, if it goes ahead, will be subject to much debate. Too short and no-one would perceive the investment to be worthwhile, but too long and it would effectively prevent competition for a subsequent tender as the expertise would reside with only the contract holder. While Frontier Economics does present some examples of mitigating actions, much more work is required to ascertain whether these are viable or sufficient.

I’ve often returned to the advice given to me by a former director, back when I was still relatively inexperienced in the vocational qualifications world; she told me that if I stuck around in education long enough I’d see policy initiatives repeating themselves. And, a decade later, I can confirm she was right. This doesn’t have to be the case: we have evidence and we can learn. I hope the DfE learns a great deal from this report.

Ten things we learned from the SFA and EFA annual reports

The Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency have both released their annual reports and accounts for 2016-17 today – their last before they merged to form a single agency on April 1.

Here are 10 interesting facts we learned through combing through both reports:

  1. The SFA underspent by £156.8 million (4.6 per cent) of its total budget

This is attributed to “a combination of the timing of area reviews and some underperformance in the sector”.

  1. Talking of the area reviews…

According to the SFA, the reviews – which ended in March – resulted in 56 recommendations for mergers involving FE colleges, and 22 recommendations for new apprenticeship delivery models.

These figures are for all 37 reviews, plus two previous pilot reviews – whereas the EFA has only reported on the recommendations from the 22 published review reports.

It says that those 22 reviews, which included 70 sixth form colleges, “recommended that 49 sixth-form colleges consider becoming an academy, eight to merge with a general FE college and 13 to remain as individual sixth-form colleges. One sixth-form college converted to academy status during the reporting year.”

In terms of cash to implement the recommendations, the SFA’s accounts show that £6 million in transition grants has been handed out to colleges, while £2,850,000 has already been allocated in loan funding from the restructuring facility.

  1. Financial health of FE providers is still a risk

The “declining financial health of the FE sector” is causing “greater demand for intervention and growing pressure for exceptional financial support”, which results in “an unfunded pressure on the adult education budget” – still a significant risk for the SFA.

A total of £4,151,000 was issued in EFS in 2016/17, with the total balance of EFS loans standing at £47,130,000.

  1. Provider funding error is also seen as a risk to the SFA

“The increased provider funding error rate may be indicative of weak financial controls within the sector. If unchecked, and an upward trend in the error rate continues, this could limit assurance over the proper use of public funds that colleges and other training organisations receive,” said the SFA.

Analysis of the errors found “no single common factor” behind them, but noted that a “number of colleges were undergoing significant organisational change” which “places stretch across all college resources”.

But these errors were “not indicative of fraud”.

  1. The number of providers currently under notice from the SFA has risen sharply

There are 89 providers with a current notice – up from 59 in 2015/16.

This is largely due to huge increase in the number of private providers being hit with a notice of serious breach, up from one in 2015/16 to 26 in 2016/17.

The number of FE colleges, local authority-maintained institutions, or specialist designated institutions being issued notices of concern has remained relatively stable – 58 in 2015/16 and 63 in 2016/17.

  1. Peter Lauener’s pay package has gone down this year

The chief executive of both agencies (now merged into the Education and Skills Funding Agency) received a salary of between £140-145,000 this year, as he did in 2015/16.

But because his pension benefits are lower this year, his total pay package stands at £145-150,000, which is £30,000 less than in 2015/16.

Nor is he the most highly paid director at the agencies.

The largest remuneration package across both agencies this year actually goes to Mike Green, the director of capital group at the EFA, who has a total package of £190-195,000.

  1. The number of SFCs has gone down this year

There were 93 in March 2016, according to the EFA report – but just 89 by March 2017.

This reduction is due to mergers, the report says, and also academisation, as the first SFC completed the process to become a 16 to 19 academy during 2016/17.

  1. A third of SFCs were in ‘early intervention’ this year

The EFA’s ‘early intervention and prevention’ approach, published July 2015, was designed to encourage early action where “it is evident that the sixth form college is close to triggering formal intervention thresholds”.

According to the EFA report, 30 SFCs were subject to the approach this year, while three financial notices to improve were also handed out along with one notice for an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted grade.

  1. EFA intervention time is going up – and down

The EFA is aiming to “reduce the average time spent in formal intervention for all colleges which have been in formal intervention for more than 24 months” as part of its objective to improve the financial health of the sector.

On average the amount of time that colleges and SFCs are spending in formal intervention has gone up this year and now stands at 95 weeks in 2016/17, compared with 82 in 2015/16.

But the average number of weeks by which interventions have gone over the 24 month targets has dropped significantly – from 89 in 2015/16 to 28 in 2016/17.

  1. On average, EFA employees are healthier than SFA staff

The EFA lost an average of 4.1 days to sickness absence per employee in 2016/17, while the SFA lost 4.6 per employee.

T-levels crisis: DfE report warns single awarding organisation ‘unviable’

The T-levels crisis has deepened after a new report claimed Lord Sainsbury’s recommendation to have one awarding organisation per qualification would not be viable.

Research on the strengths and weaknesses of the vocational qualifications market in England was released this morning by the Department for Education.

In his review of technical education, which paved the way for the post-16 skills plan, Lord Sainsbury recommended that any technical qualification at levels two and three should be “offered and awarded by a single body or consortium, under a licence covering a fixed period of time following an open competition”.

In the skills plan, the then-skills minister Nick Boles said the DfE would “accept and implement all of the Sainsbury panel’s proposals”.

But today’s DfE report, conducted by Frontier Economics, concludes that limiting access to a single AO may create a “risk of system failure” both in the short- and long-term.

It warns that if a single AO fails, it may be that no alternative AO can step in.

Moreover, limiting access to a single AO could “reduce the competition for that route in the future”.

“Those AOs that do not successfully win the contract may not be able to viably continue offering services in the market until the contract is next awarded, leaving few or no credible alternative to existing licensees,” says the report.

As a result, mitigating actions to manage these risks must be considered alongside the reforms.

To avoid system failure, it suggests AOs operating in routes for which they have not tendered could be required to build “capacity” so they can be “called upon to step in to deliver assessment services should an AO fail in another route”.

Read more: Frontier Economics is right: the T-level tender approach is not viable

Today’s finding is the latest in a string of blows to the government’s flagship T-level plans.

According to the skills plan, the first two pathfinder routes are meant to be ready for teaching from September 2019 – but only if a number of increasingly challenging milestones are reached on time.

FE Week revealed on Tuesday (July 18), via a Freedom of Information request, that no-one had yet been appointed to the T-level advisory development panels that should have met for the first time four months ago, even though they will be instrumental in the development of the new qualifications.

FE Week also understands that the DfE’s consultation on developing T-levels had been due over the summer, but has been pushed back until the autumn.

Earlier this month, Ms Greening urged businesses to get behind T-levels during a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce.

But several major awarding bodies including City & Guilds have recently begged the government to rethink its “impossible” timetable, amid the growing evidence that plans are already running behind schedule.

Other important stages include procurement for the new technical qualifications, which is due to begin in October 2018.

The first two pathfinder qualifications are scheduled to be approved by February 2019, and teaching will supposedly begin that September.

The remaining routes will be phased in from 2020 to 2022, or so it is hoped.

Minister announces T-levels delay

The first T-levels will be delayed until September 2020 – a year later than planned – the government has announced

The first two pathfinder qualifications were supposed to be approved by February 2019, with teaching to commence from that September, according to England’s post-16 skills plan, published July 2016 and based on the recommendations from the Sainsbury review of technical education.

The remaining routes were then intended to be phased in from 2020 to 2022, a timescale that had been branded “impossible” by several major awarding bodies including City & Guilds.

Now, apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton (pictured above) has announced that she will delay delivery of the first qualifications by 12 months.

In an answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Rebecca Pow today, Ms Milton said: “The post-16 skills plan set out our plan to reform technical education including the introduction of 15 new technical routes to skilled employment, new college-based training programmes based on employer-designed standards, and high quality T-level work placements.

“My officials have now carried out extensive testing of the current delivery plans, including in relation to work placement provision, in discussion with employers, providers and awarding organisations.

“Following that assessment, we have concluded that we will deliver a small number of T-levels from September 2020.”

The remaining T-level routes will still be available as planned in September 2022.

Ms Milton added that over the summer, the Department for Education would “continue to refine and develop our plans working with business and the providers, and we will provide an update on progress in the autumn”.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, welcomed today’s announcement: “This is a major reform programme that with deserves careful consideration to ensure that the curriculum and qualifications are world leading and stand the test of time. It’s a welcome development given the time concerns previously voiced.”

Pippa Morgan, head of education and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, said the delay was “welcome news” because the technical education reforms were “important and complicated”.

 

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, added that he welcomed the timetable change because T-levels will require a “massive effort because of the complexity of the change, but also because we also collectively need to challenge the snobbery and unfairness which goes well beyond the education system”.

Today’s announcement follows a host of FE Week stories that have revealed a crisis in T-level planning. The DfE’s consultation on new qualifications has been pushed back until later this autumn, prompting several major awarding bodies to beg it to rethink its “impossible” timetable.

On Tuesday (July 18), we revealed that no-one has yet been appointed to the T-level advisory development panels that should have met for the first time four months ago, even though they will be instrumental in the development of the new qualifications.

And earlier today (July 20), the crisis deepened even further after a new DfE report suggested Lord Sainsbury’s recommendation to have one awarding organisation per qualification was not viable.

Other important stages in the process include procurement for the new technical qualifications, which is still due to begin in October 2018.

Smith review calls for rethink on GCSE maths resit policy

The government’s controversial policy on post-16 GCSE resits should be rethought, according to the author of a new government-commissioned review out today.

However, Professor Sir Adrian Smith’s plea was quickly rejected by the Department for Education.

Prof Smith made the recommendation in his long-awaited review of post-16 mathematics, first announced in the March 2016 budget, which looks at how to improve the study of the subject.

But the leading academic stopped short of recommending that everyone should continue to study the subject until the age of 18 – one of the key issues he was tasked to investigate – amid concerns over the lack of resources across the education system.

“In view of the low GCSE success rates and new GCSE requirements, the Department for Education should review its 16-to-18 resit policy with the aim that a greater proportion of students without a grade C or equivalent attain appropriate mathematical understanding by age 18,” he said.

“Specifically, there should be fresh consideration of appropriate curricula and qualifications for these students and the extent to which current policy incentivises these to be offered.”

In his response on behalf of the DfE, the schools minister Nick Gibb said he understood Prof Smith’s “concern” about the “need for high-quality alternative curricula and qualifications for students aged 16-18 for whom GCSEs are not appropriate”.

He continued: “We recognise the need to improve the quality and recognition from employers of alternative qualifications such as functional skills. This is why we are reforming these qualifications.”

However, “the current policy will stay in place in 2017/18”, he said, though he committed to monitoring it “to assess whether it is having the desired impact”.

Since 2014, all 16- to 19-year-olds without at least a grade C in GCSE maths or English have had to enrol in courses in these subjects alongside their main programme of study.

This requirement was tightened in 2015 to require all of those with a grade D in those subjects to sit a GCSE course, rather than an equivalent stepping-stone course such as functional skills.

But after last year’s GCSE results showed huge numbers of learners aged 17 and older failed to up their grades in resits, many in the sector called on the government to scrap the policy.

And the 2016 Ofsted annual report, published in December, said the resit policy was not working as the government had hoped.

There had even been hints from both education secretary Justine Greening and former skills minister Robert Halfon late last year that the government was going to U-turn on the policy, which have so far come to nothing.

The Smith review was first announced by former chancellor George Osborne as part of the March 2016 budget.

According to the accompanying documents, the government asked Prof Smith “to review the case for how to improve the study of maths from 16 to 18, to ensure the future workforce is skilled and competitive, including looking at the case and feasibility for more or all students continuing to study maths to 18, in the longer term”.

In his foreword to today’s report, Prof Smith said his “clear conclusion is that we do not yet have the appropriate range of pathways available or the capacity to deliver the required volume and range of teaching” for “most or all students” to continue studying maths until 18.

Instead he said the “government should set an ambition for 16-to-18 mathematics to become universal in 10 years.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said of today’s report: “Maths is important for the whole population and it’s not being helped by a policy that leads to tens of thousands of young people retaking GCSEs.  

“Functional skills are a good alternative, but the government needs to fund them properly if it is genuine about the apprenticeship programme being a quality option for young people and adults.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he was “disappointed” by the DfE’s “snap judgement” on Prof Smith’s resit rethink call, and urged the department to “reconsider this issue” ahead of 2018/19.

“After four years of putting students through GCSE resits, colleges can confirm that the policy does not work and is an obstacle to the ambition that we all share,” he said.

Other recommendations in the report include a call for the Institute for Apprenticeships to work with maths experts “to ensure appropriate expert advice is available to the panels of professionals developing technical routes”.

Prof Smith also urged the DfE to “reconsider the institutional incentives and disincentives arising from the 16-to-19 funding model for schools and colleges, with a view to removing disincentives for mathematics provision”.

In order to address the challenges facing the FE sector in terms of recruiting enough maths teachers, he wants the DfE to “improve the evidence base on the FE workforce teaching mathematics and quantitative skills in order to assess supply, teaching quality and the effectiveness of current recruitment measures” and “expand its support to develop excellence in GCSE mathematics teaching across the FE sector”.

As part of its response to the Smith review, the DfE today announced a £16 million level three maths support programme, starting from April 2018.

The programme, worth £8 million a year for two years, aims to improve the quality and capacity of post-16 maths teaching and to increase the number of students studying level three maths.

Ofqual to investigate DCS qualifications fraud

The country’s exams regulator has begun an investigation into “direct claim status” in an attempt to tackle qualifications malpractice in FE.

Last year, Ofqual launched an inquiry into qualifications fraud in the private security sector after a sting by the BBC found staff at Ashley Commerce College, in Ilford, were prepared to sit exams for students training to work as security guards.

FE Week reported in February that following the regulator’s own wider investigation into the misconduct, which revealed some awarding organisations had inadequate arrangements with their training providers, one exam board, Industry Qualifications, was notified of an intention to be charged a £50,000 fine in relation to 13 breaches, the review of which is currently ongoing.

Now, the regulator says it is researching DCS – a reward system that allows providers to make claims for qualification achievements without external verification from their awarding organisation first.

In Ofqual’s annual report and accounts, published today, it said: “In spring 2017, we published a report covering the potential for malpractice and maladministration during 2015 and 2016 in qualifications required for working in the private security industry.

“We have begun to review whether there are other qualifications and sectors where there may be similar risks.

“We have already started a wider research programme to consider the risks associated with ‘Direct Claim Status’ across all sectors.”

Read more: Tough doorman quals assurance after fraud probe

DCS is awarded to those providers that meet quality criteria defined by their awarding organisation, usually on an individual qualification basis, after they meet certain criteria.

A source told FE Week that DCS is incredibly popular with providers because they are able to offer a quick turnaround from assessment to certification, but that it can be high-risk for a number of reasons.

There’s usually a long period of time between a qualification being awarded and a review of the awarding organisation – sometimes up to a year.

“Should an awarding organisation subsequently choose to remove DCS there may be learners that have been awarded qualifications that they did not fully achieve,” the source said. “Tracking those learners down and rescinding the qualification is a difficult proposition.”

DCS is also traditionally awarded where a provider’s staff demonstrate that procedures meet quality requirements. But when there is a change in personnel, if the awarding organisations aren’t notified, it can lead to the issue of incorrect certificates.

Ofqual said had nothing else to add other than it was in the evidence gathering stage of the investigation.

Why doesn’t FE Week have more diverse representation?

Apparently, 55% of senior leaders in FE are women. I don’t believe it.

A large part of my job is to find interesting voices in the sector who want to express an opinion, challenge the status quo, or simply join in the wider debate.

Yet I would estimate that 80-90% of the emails I receive offering me expert features written by heads of organisations to run in FE Week are written by women – women who are putting a man forward to write the piece.

That’s not these women’s fault – it’s usually their job, and the person they are representing is often legitimately the most senior person at their organisation who is an expert in that topic. My heart still sinks every time.

That’s not because I don’t think men can write; just as with women, some can, some can’t. And it’s not because I don’t appreciate their getting in touch with me – it’s because every time I see an unsolicited email from a woman, I have hope that she might be putting herself forward.

She rarely is.

READ MORE: How to get more women into FE leadership

I know what it’s like to suffer from a lack of confidence, and I do empathise. Not everyone wants to be part of the public debate. But what really brought it home to me was a recent comment from Robert Halfon, the former skills and apprenticeships minister, who told the FE Week team that in his time as minister, not a single day went by when our newspaper wasn’t discussed in some context in his office.

That’s huge.

To have the ear of those is power is a weighty responsibility on our shoulders. It means we need to be sure we are representing the full spectrum of informed views and groups across the sector, and I’m not convinced that we do.

Women leaders in FE exist – I know they do. Women with strong opinions have contacted me – occasionally – about writing for us. But not in anything like the volume that men do.

The stats also tell me they are out there. Fifty-five per cent of senior managers in FE are women, according to the latest Education and Training Foundation data.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) figures are a little more disheartening: while 14% of the population registered as non-white in the latest census (and this is an underestimate for England, as Wales is also included in this data), only around 11% of college staff in England are BAME, a figure which drops to 5% for independent training providers. The percentages for teaching staff in both types of provider are similar, but only 9% of college managers are BAME, while the ETF couldn’t even provide data for ITPs as the number of responses was too low to give a robust figure.

Most people hate to think they are being approached due to their skin colour or genitalia

Whenever I go to conferences, I try to meet women and people of diverse ethnic origin. That can be a little awkward. Firstly because everyone harbours some degree of mistrust towards journalists, and secondly because if I ever casually mention that I’m looking to improve the diversity of our publication, most people hate to think they are being approached not because of their innate merit, but due to their skin colour or genitalia.

That’s not the case, but the problem exists. We have far more white men’s opinions represented in our paper than is representative of the sector. And while they may be supremely qualified to write about their subject, there are also women and BAME people of all genders who know what they’re talking about.

In order to diversify our contributors, I need to throw the net out wide. And one or two of those people will turn out to have the right combination of talent, insight (and the freedom to speak out) that is required to attract the attention of the decision-makers.

I see the Features section of FE Week as something of a bulletin board – curated of course, but still a place where people from all over the sector can have their say (that’s the Opinion section), tell people about exciting projects their college or institution has been up to (that’s the Campus round-up) or where they’re moving next (Movers & Shakers).

I’d just love it to be a more representative one. So I’m reaching out. Now it’s up to you to do the same.

@cathmurray_news

cath.murray@feweek.co.uk

Breaking: Apprenticeship pay survey exposes rise in proportion paid illegal wages

Nearly a fifth of apprentices at level two and level three are illegally paid less than the minimum wage, according to the government’s long-delayed apprenticeship pay survey.

Eighteen per cent were found to be paid below the appropriate national minimum wage or national living wage (for workers aged 25 and above), up from 15 per cent in 2014.

The survey, which aims to find whether apprentices are receiving the correct remuneration, was first announced in May 2016, and finally found its way online today.

Hairdressing apprentices are “by far the most likely to have received non-compliant pay”, the survey said, rising to 47 per cent in 2016 from 42 per cent in 2014, while “those on the management framework were least likely” – up to seven per cent in 2016, from three per cent in 2014.

Other sectors with significant non-compliance included construction and related, which rose from 24 per cent in 2014 to 28 per cent in 2016. Health, social care and sport rose from 12 to 17 per cent, electrotechnical was up from 17 to 24 per cent, while hospitality and catering went from nine to 15 per cent.

The 2016 survey was carried out through telephone interviews with apprentices between June 9 and July 25 last year.

In total, “4,963 interviews were conducted with level two and three apprentices in England, and 184 with apprentices on the new apprenticeship standards developed by ‘Trailblazer’ employer groups.”

The figures painted a largely worrying picture at level two and three.

For those aged 16 to 18 or in their first year of an apprenticeship, 13 per cent were paid below the NMW – up three per cent from the 2014 survey. And for ages 19 to 20 and in second year of their apprenticeship, the figure was 32 per cent for 2014, up two per cent last year.

It was a different story for those aged 21 to 24 and in their second year of apprenticeships – with 32 per cent earning below the NMW, down five per cent from two years earlier.

But for the 25+ age group in their second year of apprenticeships, the proportion was up from 23 to 31 per cent.

Non-compliant pay was more common among level two apprentices (20 per cent) than those on level three provision (16 per cent).

The report stressed that “when comparing compliance levels between 2014 and 2016, it is important to note that the lowest NMW rate for apprentices underwent a considerable increase between October 2013 and October 2015 (the rate applicable for the 2016 survey)” – from £2.68 to £3.30. This went up again to £3.50 an hour in April this year.

The new NLW rate came into force from April 2016, creating a new minimum £7.20 rate for all those aged 25 and over or in the second year of their apprenticeship or later.

It was also noted that although levels of non-compliance had increased since 2014, so too had the proportion paid over £9 an hour: 18 per cent last year compared with 15 per cent in 2014.

Commenting on these findings, Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “The survey clearly shows that if there is a long-term relationship between the apprentice and the employer, the apprentice will on average earn a salary well over the minimum wage.”  

But he stressed: “At the other end of the scale, there is absolutely no excuse for paying less than the legal minimum.”

Interim “high-level” results of the survey were released in October, as part of a report for the Low Pay Commission, the independent body that advises the government on minimum wage levels.

These indicated that the proportion of apprentices earning below the NMW had gone up, but months subsequently passed without a full report.

FE Week learned in April that the researchers who carried out the work handed a final draft of their report to the government way back in January.

Mark Winterbotham, the director of the firm which carried out the survey, told FE Week at the time that he didn’t know why it hadn’t yet been published.

He insisted his organisation had handed the final drafts of the reports over to the government in January, but admitted he had “not had any communication since early March” with the research team at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships further recommended earlier this month, in its annual report, that pay for apprentices should be far more flexible, increasing in line with their experience and level of qualification.

It recommended that apprentices’ pay should be increased like this “to ensure that the apprentice route is attractive to as many people as possible”.