The Harlow MP Robert Halfon has this morning been appointed as a Minister of State at the Department for Education.
Individual briefs have not been confirmed, but it is highly likely Mr Halfon will be responsible for further education, skills and apprenticeships.
Mr Halfon moves from being Minister without Portfolio (attending Cabinet) to an expanded Department for Education which includes FE and HE, with Justine Greening as Secretary of State at the helm.
FE Week interviewed Mr Halfon for a profile in 2011 owing to his interest in apprenticeships, which you can read here.
Halfon set up a new parliamentary apprentice programme with the charity New Deal of The Mind Known as the “school of apprentices” which offers 16- to 19-year-olds the chance to spend up to three days a week working in Westminster, along with two days working towards a level 3 apprenticeship (equivalent to A-level) in business administration.
In 2013 he was presented with a Politician of the Year award from Avanta, a large employment and training provider, for his work promoting the apprenticeship scheme.
Halfon was born with Spastic Diplegia, a form of Cerebal Palsy, which affects the lower extremities – usually the legs, hips and pelvis.
His Wikipidia entry says he “was educated at Highgate School, an independent school in London. He attended the University of Exeter, where he read for a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics before a Master of Arts in Russian and East European politics.”
The Department for Education (DfE) will take over responsibility for FE, skills and higher education.
Until now, the further and higher education sectors have been under the remit of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).
But a spokesperson for Number 10 told FE Week: “The DfE has taken on responsibility for higher and further education policy as well as apprenticeship and wider skills policy from BIS.”
In a press statement, Number 10 also said that “bringing these responsibilities together will mean that the government can take a comprehensive, end-to-end view of skills and education, supporting people from early years through to postgraduate study and work”.
The DfE will continue to focus on its existing aims of “leading the government’s drive to give all children the chance to get the best possible education at school” and “improving childcare so that all working parents can have access to 30 hours of free childcare for three and four year old children from September 2017”.
However, is will now also tackle “reforming the higher education sector to boost competition and continue to improve the quality of education that students receive” and “delivering more apprenticeships through a fundamental change in the UK’s approach to skills in the workplace”.
The statement from Number 10 confirmed that staff from BIS who are working on higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and skills will transfer to the DfE.
It comes after the announcement this morning that Nicky Morgan has been replaced as education secretary by Justine Greening, who previously held the role of secretary of state for the Department for International Development.
The addition of FE, skills and higher education to the DfE’s responsibilities will mean an expanded role for Ms Greening.
It follows a long period of speculation about the future of education policy across government departments, with the division between between DfE and BIS seen as a hindrance to closer working between the schools and FE sectors.
The DfE’s responsibility for education and skills currently cuts off when pupils reach the age of 18, and the department previously shared skills minister Nick Boles with BIS.
Mr Boles yesterday announced his resignation from the role, ahead of Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle. His replacement has yet to be revealed, the sector gave FE Week its views on his choice to leave.
There has also been increasing collaboration between the Education Funding Agency (EFA), under DfE, and and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), under BIS.
He said: “At some point we may come back to question of whether there should be a merged agency, but that is actually a matter for the two parent departments.
“I’m quite happy to operate in the way they ask me to. If it comes to joining up the agencies completely, then that will be absolutely fine.”
Commenting on the Department for Education taking on responsibility for colleges and skills, Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “We look forward to working with Justine Greening as the new education secretary as her department takes on the responsibility for skills. Ms Greening has a good knowledge of the further education and skills sector and is a former college student herself.
“The move to incorporate skills into the DfE must not be allowed to preface any loss of focus on technical education as embodied in the recently releases Post-16 Skills Plan.
“Links with industry that were firmly established in BIS need to be preserved and built upon in the transfer of departments. The distinctive contribution of colleges as autonomous institutions needs also to be recognised and promoted – they are not the same as big schools.”
A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said: “Having apprenticeships and traineeships under one roof could be a very positive move. We might see finally see the creation of an all-age careers service in England too.
“We look forward to hearing Ms Greening set out her stall and welcome her to her new post.”
Phil Hatton calls for greater consistency with how Ofsted inspection teams report on the implementation of the anti-terrorism Prevent duty.
Ofsted’s eagerly awaited report into how the Prevent duty is being implemented across FE was published this week.
The intent come September is clear, that the inspectorate should “raise further its expectations of providers to implement all aspects of the Prevent duty, and evaluate the impact this has on keeping learners safe”.
So we can expect inspectors, many of whom will be new and largely trained online, to be checking the implementation of the duty with renewed vigour.
I am disappointed that the report has been published in that dead zone for FE where staff take their holidays.
Come September, a frenetic period, many will have completely missed it.
The report could have been a real game changer if the questions answered had included more focus on what would help the sector — identifying good practice that could be shared to improve what we do with our learners, rather than over focus on what was being done poorly.
I disagree with some of the conclusions.
Do the best providers block data on learners’ personal devices while on provider premises? Surely it’s better to educate them about radicalisation for when they are outside.
I have seen some fantastic good practice this year of how external speakers are vetted through partnerships and their input to learners is monitored.
I also know of a theatre production around Prevent that attracted thousands of people, while others have been using innovative presentations (one tailored to how youngsters had been radicalised in Devon), posters and speaker campaigns to publicise the dangers and help available from staff to support students and family members.
One college has a brilliant four-minute video on British values made by learners.
I also had first-hand experience of what some colleges encounter every day.
In one safeguarding office, three fairly serious issues were raised over one day that could have led to radicalisation of learners. That college had obviously promoted the duty very well to its students.
However, my biggest concern is over a lack of even-handedness with inspections.
Reports show a startling lack of consistency both in their judgements and editing quality.
Although Prevent came into force for FE in September 2015, Ofsted introduced checks into how it was being prepared for months before this.
My biggest concern is over a lack of even-handedness with inspections
As an example, a June 2015 report front page bullet point stated that “safeguarding of learners is not good enough; senior managers have not yet ensured that apprentices, staff and employers have been provided with appropriate guidance to enable them to identify the risks posed by extremism and radicalisation”.
Yet the important guidance section on what the provider needed to do to improve further did not contain a single mention of how that provider should address this.
The safeguarding section of the report also informed us that “safeguarding measures ensure that the statutory requirements for safeguarding are met”.
But it added “they are not yet good (!!!!) because managers have not developed suitable training for staff and apprentices in how to keep themselves and those around them safe from extremism and radicalisation”.
So statutory obligations, which Ofsted claim to base inspection on, were met — yet they were still hit firmly with the Prevent stick.
I also know of two examples, since the duty came into force, of inconsistency in reports where safeguarding was deemed to be effective.
One in November 2015 identified a main weakness that managers had not ensured staff understood their responsibilities under Prevent “to ensure that learners are kept safe”.
It added that staff had not been trained for the duty and had “mixed levels of awareness”.
The second is a February 2016 report containing the judgement that leaders had “recently introduced measures to ensure that the college complies with its Prevent duties, but have yet to include subcontractors (eight named in report) in these arrangements”. Are subcontracted learners less ‘equal’ than they should be?
Ofsted needs to ensure consistency through thorough training of inspectors, better monitoring of inspection practice and reporting, if it is to evaluate the duty fairly.
Justine Greening is the new secretary of state for education, replacing Nicky Morgan who has served in the role for two years.
Ms Greening (pictured) was tipped for the role by several news outlets after prime minister Theresa May was said to be seeking more women for top cabinet positions.
She moves to the role from the Department for International Development, where she has been secretary of state for nearly four years. Prior to that she was transport secretary for one year.
Ms Greening is the first education secretary to attend a comprehensive secondary school, Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham, currently rated as good by Ofsted. David Blunkett, education secretary from 1998 to 2001, attended an all-ability school for the blind, categorised as a special needs school.
She studied economics at the University of Southampton and has an MBA from London School of Economics, according to the biography on her personal website.
In 2014, during an interview with The Spectator, Ms Greening talked at length about the importance of social mobility, referring to her father’s unemployment and her experience of “not starting in the best place”.
Adding: “The experience I had growing up, going to my local comprehensive, my family going through difficult times … it’s about understanding what it’s like to start from scratch”.
Her first job was in supermarket Morrisons; after university she trained as an accountant and worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers, GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica.
The majority of her comments in parliaments regarding schools have been about international schools, where she supported the development of low-cost private schools, but she has also talked about the need to make opportunities available for all young people in the UK.
She told the The Spectator: “My biggest concern is that we are ending up with a country where you have not one ladder to climb up but people are on different ladders. You might start at the bottom of a short ladder that will only get you so high. What we need to recreate is one ladder that everyone can climb up”.
We were delighted to host the inaugural Festival of Skills at Capel Manor College over two sunny days in July.
This new event is a sister to The Telegraph Festival of Education which in its seventh year attracted over 5,000 festival-goers to Wellington College in June.
Our ambition over the coming years is to nurture the Festival of Skills to the magnitude of the Festival of Education and we think you will agree this souvenir supplement shows a fantastic launch to achieve that ambition.
The Festival of Skills was an inspiring CPD extravaganza bringing together the best of the sector’s most forward thinking advocates, practitioners of change, policy makers and educators.
Without the support of all of our sponsors and exhibitors, the festival would be a less rich and rewarding experience. The festival is a huge team effort and we couldn’t produce it without our fabulous team both at Summerhouse Events, City and Guilds, The Education and Training Foundation and Capel Manor College who’ve worked tirelessly throughout the year to make the event the very best it can be.
City and Guilds, The Education and Training Foundation and the Society for Education and Training, provided some of the very best-in-class workshop sessions and it is this rich diversity of content that will become the hallmark of the Festival of Skills.
Thank you to everyone that supported us during the festival’s first year. Tell us what you think; what we did well, what we could do better, what new topics you’d like to see on the agenda for 2017, and of course tell us if you want to speak next year. Please do engage with us via Twitter (@skillsfest) and email (festival@feweek.co.uk).
Nicky Morgan has expressed her disappointment after being sacked from the Department for Education after two years as its secretary of state.
She confirmed her departure on Twitter this morning.
Ms Morgan tweeted: “Disappointed not to be continuing as Education Secretary & Min for Women & Equalities – two wonderful roles it’s been a privilege to hold.”
The former lawyer was initially tipped as “Gove-light”, a bridge-builder, and someone to pacify the teaching profession following alienation by her predecessor.
Since then, Morgan, who has represented the Loughborough constituency since 2010, has presided over significant changes to curriculum, assessment and school structures, many of which were set in motion during Michael Gove’s time in office.
Morgan leaves her role with a slightly improved relationship with the teaching unions.
In April, she was the first Conservative education secretary to address the NASUWT’s annual conference since 1997, but used her platform to accuse critics of government policy of talking down the profession.
She was also heckled by school leaders at the NAHT headteachers’ conference in Birmingham in May, after telling teachers to “step up” and help the government with reforms otherwise young people would be left behind.
However, she has sometimes been praised by union leaders particularly for her attempts to tackle funding inequalities in schools and develop a national funding formula – a policy which now hangs in the balance.
In time, it is likely her biggest legacy will be the expansion of academies under tenure. Although its key architect was Gove, it continued increasing during her time at the department, and she oversaw the introduction of eight regional schools commissioners designed to further speed up the process.
As she leaves office, almost 65 per cent of secondary schools are academies, and the proportion of primaries with academy status has almost doubled since 2014 – from 10.7 per cent to just shy of 20 per cent.
But Morgan’s recent ill-judged proposal to force every school in England to become an academy by 2022 may be her enduring legacy.
The policy was so unpopular it risked mutiny among Conservative MPs after council after council registered their objection.
The move was swiftly shelved, and although new plans to target schools in “underperforming” or “financially unviable” council areas will probably bring about the same endgame, Morgan’s embarrassing and public u-turn – made the day after the local elections – is what much of the public will remember most vividly.
Beyond the schools community, Morgan has also felt the vitriol of parents after presiding over chaotic primary school tests, which were said to leave pupils in tears, and after continued enforcement of fines for families who remove their children form school in term time for holidays.
It is now unclear what Morgan’s next challenge will be, but for now she appears to be returning to the back benches with Gove and the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne.
FE Week understands that a long-awaited update to the apprenticeship levy guidance was due to be released tomorrow morning (July 14).
However, skills minister Nick Boles resigned this afternoon, which makes it likely the government will delay any policy announcement before appointing and briefing a replacement.
Mr Boles announced at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers annual conference in June that there would be a “little delay” to the anticipated additional detail about the reforms, which was expected within the month.
He put the extended wait down to the British public’s decision to leave the European Union – but told delegates that the information could be expected before the summer recess.
The government had said in April that the additional guidance would cover on a number of critical areas, including provisional funding bands, which will set the maximum amount of funding that is available for each apprenticeship, and the provisional level of government support available towards the cost of apprenticeship training if you aren’t a levy paying employer.
Other expected details include the provisional level of the extra payment you can get for hiring 16- to 18-year old apprentices, and the provisional amount that will be paid to deliver English and maths training for apprentices who need it.
The sector is also waiting for the specifics of the eligibility rules that set who you are able to spend apprenticeship funding on and where.
Finally, the latest announcement should bring more information on who can provide apprenticeship training and how to set up an organisation to deliver apprenticeship training.
Mr Boles said this afternoon in a post on his Facebook page: “As David Cameron prepares to visit HM the Queen and tender his resignation I want to add my voice to those praising his remarkable service as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.
“It was a huge privilege to be part of his Government.
“I want to thank him for offering me the opportunity to serve my country.
“I believe that this is the right time for me to return to the back benches.
“I have greatly enjoyed my time as minister for skills and minister for planning.”
When asked this afternoon about the overdue levy guidance, a spokesperson from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills told FE Week: “There has been no update on the timings for when it will go out.”
Nick Boles MP has resigned from his role as skills minister.
In a post on his Facebook page, posted at 3.40pm today, Mr Boles said that it was the “right time for me to return to the back benches”.
His resignation, which he confirmed on Twitter, comes almost exactly two years to the day that he was first appointed to the role.
His Facebook statement said: “As David Cameron prepares to visit HM the Queen and tender his resignation I want to add my voice to those praising his remarkable service as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.
“It was a huge privilege to be part of his government.
“I want to thank him for offering me the opportunity to serve my country.
“I believe that this is the right time for me to return to the backbenches.
“I have greatly enjoyed my time as minister for skills and minister for planning.”
Mr Boles said two skills-related achievements were among the things he was most proud of from his time in office.
One, he explained, was the “introduction of the apprenticeship levy which will encourage more employers to offer apprenticeships and increase spending on apprenticeship training by £1 billion a year by 2020”.
The other, he added, was the “development of the government’s Skills Plan which heralds a transformation in the status and quality of technical education in England”.
In the past six months Mr Boles has repeatedly refused interviews with FE Week (see table below). In fact, his lack of engagement with the media over FE and skills reforms, particularly apprenticeships, proved to be very frustrating for us and our readers.
Despite the lack of engagement in recent months, Mr Boles has featured regularly in FE Week during his time as skills minister, often in cartoons. Here’s a selection of our favourites:
Edition 132 – On taking over from Matthew Hancock as skills minister, Nick Boles relaxed the rules set by his predecessor that limited new apprenticeship guidelines to two sides of A4. The official government guidance for employers developing Trailblazer apprenticeship standards, published in October 2014, stated that they “should be short and clear, taking up no more than two sides of A4”.Edition 138 – In May last year, Nick Boles was praised by FE sector leaders for his first stint as Skills Minister. Association of Colleges (AoC) chief executive Martin Doel said at the time that Mr Boles had “quickly grasped the importance of FE and training, particularly apprenticeships”.Edition 158 – In December 2015, Government adviser Nigel Whitehead warned the Trailblazer apprenticeship process was “out of control” and national occupational standards (NOS) were in “danger” of being bypassed. Mr Whitehead said he had raised his concerns with Mr Boles, who acknowledged there was “some work to do”.Edition 162 – At the end of January, the National Union of Students launched its #FEunplugged campaign, to force the government to recognise the impact that post-16 area reviews are having on learners. Shakira Martin, NUS vice president for FE, told FE Week that “it’s not news to say area reviews are the product of funding cuts, but there’s definitely a story in the way the FE sector’s very own Dr Frankenstein, [Skills Minister] Nick Boles, is cutting up the sector [through the area reviews] and trying to sew it back together – badly”.Edition 166 – In March, FE Week reported that Lewisham Southwark College had approached Newcastle College Group (NCG) in the autumn of 2015 with a view to “closer working”, despite the providers being based almost 300 miles away from each other. The move came ahead of the first meeting of the London (central) area review, which LSC is part of, scheduled for March 17.Edition 169 – In March, the Treasury published a budget report, revealing government plans for a 10 per cent top-up to large businesses’’ monthly apprenticeship levy contributions. However, the Confederation of British Industry director for employment and skills, Neil Carberry, warned: “Extra investment for apprenticeships will only help the small minority for firms who will be able to spend their whole levy.”Edition 173 – An FE Week parliamentary debate in May heard speakers protest that the apprenticeship levy was drawn up in “a darkened room”, leading FE organisations to feel they were left “outside the tent” during the drafting process. At the event, which was hosted by shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden and sponsored by OCR, Gemma Gathercole, head of policy at OCR, insisted that examining bodies had been shut out of the reforms.Edition 176 – On June 4, FE Week reported that Citroën UK had become the second employer branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted under the common inspector framework. This raised questions about the government’s move to encourage more employers to run their own training, with the average Ofsted rating across all eight employer-providers inspected since September months being just three.Edition 180 – At the end of June, the skills minister, along with secretary of state for education Nicky Morgan, and schools minister Nick Gibb, all backed Michael Gove’s now-abandoned bid to become the next Prime Minister. The apparent decision by Nick Boles to support former education secretary Gove in the Conservative Party leadership race came after he defected from the campaign of Boris Johnson, who announced he was out of the running on June 30.
As broken by FE Week this afternoon — Nick Boles has quit as skills minister, so we’ve gathered immediate reaction from sector leaders.
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “Mr Boles has set an ambitious agenda and, though he did not redress the cuts in funding over the preceding five years, the spending settlement and the inception of an apprenticeship levy, offered the prospect of adequate resources to fulfil the ambitious agenda.
Martin Doel
“It’s a pity he has not been able to see the changes through; the last thing that colleges now need is yet another abrupt change of direction from a new minister or a renewed attack on their funding.”
He added: “Mr Boles recognised the importance of high-quality technical and professional education and training, particularly apprenticeships.
“During his time in office he has initiated a wide-ranging programme of change in colleges through the apprenticeship reform, area based reviews and the Sainsbury panel report.
“He also secured a more favourable spending settlement than most expected in the last Spending Review.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), told FE Week: “Nick Boles proved to be a real listener when it came to taking forward the apprenticeship funding reforms that he inherited.
“He understood that smaller businesses had to stay engaged in the programme and we hope that the next set of levy announcements will confirm this.
“Training providers also welcomed his strong backing for traineeships.
“As a reformer, AELP hopes that he will retain an interest in FE and skills from the backbenches.
“We appreciate everything he has done when government finances elsewhere have been so tight.”
Ann Limb
Dr Ann Limb OBE, chair of the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “I hope his replacement keeps the foot on the pedal on reform of FE, in particular with regard to the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and keeping the local devolution agenda for skills alive.
“We actually now need someone who is going to take Mr Boles’ work further and work closely with the Department for Education to ensure that all of post-16 education is reformed.”
Current Learning and Work Institute chief executive David Hughes, who will take charge of the Association of Colleges from September, said: “I am not surprised given who he was supporting in the leadership race [he backed Theresa May rival Michael Gove for Prime Minister], but I am a bit sad because whenever a minister you get on with leaves you feel like you have lost an ally.
“I think he always tried to make a fair judgement after considering the evidence, and made some good calls.
“The best of those for me was the decision to retain, back and invest in functional skills.”
David Hughes
Looking ahead to his as yet unconfirmed successor, Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said: “With sixth form colleges addressing area reviews and the implications of academisation, it’s very important that ministerial changes do not add to the difficulties with which colleges are wrestling, and it’s our hope that the incoming minister will recognise the vital contribution that SFCs make.”
Janet Clark, Association of Teachers and Lecturers post-16 policy specialist, told FE Week: “We would like Nick Boles’ successor to introduce adequate funding for the FE sector which has been cut severely over the last six years and concentrate on the quality of apprenticeships rather than the 3m target the government has set.
“A rethink on area reviews, which are causing chaos would also be appreciated.”
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “He was effectively campaign manager for Michael Gove, so it’s not surprising he has made this decision.
“It will be interesting to see the approach which is taken by an incoming minister, because it’s a difficult time for apprenticeships and the large target, and the levy, with following those policies through. Whoever comes in will have to be able to hit the ground running.”
Unison head of education Jon Richards commented: “Skills minister Nick Boles was working on issues like area reviews and apprentices, both of which were giving huge headaches to employers and staff in further education.
“In the interests of everyone in the sector, we hope that whoever replaces him takes a deep breath, pauses and then puts the brakes on several of the policies he was pursuing so enthusiastically. The new minister must look seriously at what is possible given the limited resources and time available.”
A spokesperson for the University and College Union said: “We are living through a turbulent time in politics at the moment and the FE sector will not be alone in hoping for some stability.
“With serious questions surrounding the implementation of the skills plan, apprenticeship levy and area reviews we hope a new minister will be appointed swiftly.
“We hope the new minister will listen to the sector and engage with us in developing a coherent workforce strategy.”
Please leave your comments below, expressing your views on Mr Boles’ time in office and who you think his successor will be.
