The government should delay the devolution of the adult education budge, because the Skills Funding Agency has still not decided how the system will work for providers that cross regional boundaries, the Association of Colleges has said.

Provider groups based in multiple regions have been lobbying the SFA for different treatment under the now-imminent devolution plans, FE Week understands.

An SFA spokesperson said the body would “consider how funding and commissioning arrangements will operate for colleges and other providers which deliver in multiple areas” in 2018/19, “as part of the programme of work being undertaken to support the devolution of the adult education budget”.

However, Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive at the Association of Colleges, admitted that he was still concerned that the problem remained unresolved, telling FE Week: “It would be better to delay the budget devolution rather than move ahead with half-completed plans.”

He said: “The chancellor of the exchequer has now agreed nine devolution deals that promise the local share of the adult education budget to new combined authorities in 2018.

“The National Audit Office recently described this as an experiment with the government drawing the map as it goes along. The nine deals all have six readiness conditions, which must be satisfied and important questions answered before devolution goes ahead.”

This comes after the SFA published geographic funding data for the first time, as reported in FE Week on April 13, in support of the devolution plans.

This was based on learners’ postcodes and related to non-apprenticeship adult skills budget (ASB) delivery in the 2014 to 2015 funding year — also setting out the proportion of provision each provider delivers within both their home local authority and region.

An SFA spokesperson said at the time that it was “publishing this data to support you [providers] in discussion with local government authorities in future adult education budget commissioning discussions”.

She added: “This will help establish a shared understanding of the current pattern of delivery.”

Concern has also been raised about how employers will operate if they run apprenticeships across several devolved countries within the UK.

A spokesperson for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said it wanted to see “greater clarity at the earliest opportunity” on the matter.

He said: “Firms of all sectors and sizes are still in the dark on some vital areas of the levy. We won’t find out until well after the elections how the system will work in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said it was aware some employers had “cross-border operations and training activity” and it was working with the devolved administrations to “make this work for employers”.

“We are developing rules on which employees and training providers can use funds in their digital account or government support to pay for,” she added. “We will publish more details about these rules in June 2016.”

A college is preparing to cut ties with two academies currently under its control — claiming that it is no longer “feasible” to sponsor them.

Oldham College will relinquish control of the nearby Waterhead and Stoneleigh academies at the start of the summer break, and has blamed the move away from vocational education in schools policy as one reason for its decision.

The college said that because the world of education had changed so rapidly, it no longer had the “capacity” to cope with school improvement, aside from worries about the curriculums.

A spokesperson said: “The school curriculum no longer embraces any of the vocational or technical subjects which the college teaches. Even more significant is that academy sponsorship is no longer feasible on a small scale.

“Sponsors need to be committed to growing large groups of schools with all the associated capacity which this brings to the challenge of school improvement.”

He added funding and policy changes to the college’s “core business” of post-16 education had been “dramatic and disruptive”.

“The future promises to bring even greater change [for FE], through devolution and the structural reorganisation of the college system, all of which have huge implications for employment and economic growth in the town,” he said. “This must, therefore, be the college’s sole priority.”

The decision was supported by Richard Atkins, former president of the Association of Colleges, who is currently the principal of Exeter College.

He said that, in order to be successful, multi-academy trusts (MATs) run by colleges would need around a dozen schools.

Mr Atkins added: “Colleges get into difficulty when senior management attempts to run one or two schools on a day-to-day basis. They start to take their eye off the ball and college standards start to drop.

“You need enough capacity to, for example, appoint a chief operating officer, a head of finance and an executive headteacher for the schools who report to the MAT.”

Sir David Carter, the national schools commissioner, said in March that academy trusts needed to expand, as those with fewer than six schools “will struggle to be sustainable”.

Atkins also warned colleges of the difficulties of taking over “one or two seriously failing schools”, because it would be tough to find the capacity to deal with them.

He said the best MATs would have a mix of both outstanding and failing schools. However building MATs could be a “win-win” for both schools and colleges.

“I think colleges have quite a bit to offer in terms of governance, leaderships and management of running autonomous education institutions, so we have quite a bit to bring,” he said.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is for colleges to decide whether to apply to become sponsors and for the regional school’s commissioner to decide on their suitability based on their capacity and their track record in supporting underperforming schools.

“Post-16 education plays a crucial role in supporting future economic growth, which is why we will be protecting the national base rate paid to all schools and colleges, of £4,000 per full-time student. This will bring stability to the sector.”

One of the UK’s largest legal firms has turned its back on new apprenticeships as a way of training lawyers.

Clifford Chance told FE Week that it had rejected the three Trailblazer apprenticeship standards for lawyers, which are now approved for delivery by the government, because they were “not the right model” for its training needs.

The decision will be seen as a blow to the reputation of the new qualifications — as the company, which employs more than 3,000 lawyers and 6,000 other legal workers, is the second largest law firm in this country.

Despite this setback, Law Society president Jonathan Smithers (pictured left) said he was still optimistic about the apprenticeship route to careers legal world.

He said: “The solicitor profession is an ideal environment for training through apprenticeships, where practical skills learned from more experienced members of the profession is key.

“The Law Society is supportive of alternative routes of entry into the solicitor profession as long as the quality achieved by new solicitors is maintained at the current high level.”

He added: “Legal apprenticeships which allow apprentices to go all the way to admission as a solicitor are new, and it is possible that more firms will look at including this route to train their staff in future.”

The Law Society is one of 23 different organisations, including other law firms, that helped design the new standards.

There are three standards, which cover training as a paralegal at level three, as a chartered legal executive at degree level six, and as a solicitor at level seven.

Dentons was one of the law firms involved in developing the standards.

Jo Wilson, HR manager at Dentons, said: “Dentons anticipates recruiting a cohort of apprentices each year, who will undertake a combination of classroom and work-based learning.  The apprenticeship scheme will work alongside Dentons’ existing recruitment and provide increased opportunity and access to a career in law. 

“Dentons was keen to be involved in the employer group that developed the apprenticeship standards from the start … We have enjoyed working with other firms to help shape the future of the legal sector and increase access to the profession.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive officer of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), also commented on the issue.

He said: “The law firms involved in the Trailblazers for the three approved standards for law make for a very impressive list of supporters, so we don’t think the opt-out [by Clifford Chance] will have a negative impact on overall delivery.

“In recent years, there has been arguably an oversupply of law graduates from higher education institutions, and as an alternative, firms have been increasingly attracted to the idea of training their recruits on the job.”

He added that AELP believed the new standards would “offer further opportunity for growth”.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to comment on the topic of legal apprenticeships.

Two more colleges have quit the troubled Gazelle Group, including one of its founder members, FE Week can reveal.

There are 11 colleges still listed on its website — but Gazelle has now indicated that two of them, Warwickshire College Group and City College Plymouth, have left.

Warwickshire was one of five colleges which helped found the group five years ago, of which only City College Norwich remains.

Gazelle’s executive director Carolyn Chapman-Lees told FE Week that the group had “undergone a restructure”.

She said the group’s other remaining members were Activate Learning, Amersham & Wycombe College, Barking & Dagenham College, Cambridge Regional College, Cardiff & Vale College, Glasgow Kelvin College, Highbury College Portsmouth, and South West College.

She added: “Our website is currently being updated and this information will be amended accordingly.”

Eight months ago, Gazelle published the results of a membership review, which was prompted when several other colleges left the group, and which led management to slash annual membership fees from £35k to £15k.

In June 2014 meanwhile, FE Week revealed that it had raked in around £3.5m from more than 20 member colleges, in membership subs and other fees.

The group was formed in around 2011 with a promise to “develop innovative new learning models and new partnerships with business to deliver an improved outcome for students, their communities and the economy”.

It came under fire, however, over a perceived lack of return-on-investment analysis, and its failure to justify such expenditure of public money amid shrinking FE budgets.

Companies House also confirmed that the Norfolk-based Gazelle Global Ltd and the Gazelle Foundation had missed their April 30 deadlines for filing accounts.

However, no accounts are due for Gazelle Colleges Group — which was only set up three months ago — until November 2017.

Asked to clarify the situation, Ms Chapman-Lees revealed that Gazelle Foundation and Gazelle Global had “now ceased trading” and were therefore “not required to file accounts”.

She said: “Gazelle Colleges Group is a new legal entity and will be required to submit accounts in the future.”

A Warwickshire College Group spokesperson told FE Week: “After careful consideration, we decided not to proceed with membership of the newly created Gazelle Colleges Group organisation.”

City College Plymouth was unable to comment before we went to press.

Fintan Donohue retired from his role as Gazelle’s chief executive at the turn of the year, after more than four years at the helm.

At the time, Stella Mbubaegbu, principal of Highbury College Portsmouth and an officer for Gazelle Colleges Group, said: “All of the members past and present pay tribute to the vision and groundbreaking thinking that Fintan has brought to the enterprise and entrepreneurship agenda in our sector.”

Funding is still the biggest source of worry, the latest FE Week and Policy Consortium survey of over 730 sector leaders has found.

It topped the list of concerns once again in the third annual FE Week sector survey — which was carried out by FE and skills experts from the Policy Consortium.

The latest results did, however, indicate that respondents might be feeling slightly more optimistic about finances than they were a year ago.

Compared with 2015 — when 72.8 per cent of survey respondents said they were “extremely concerned” about levels of institutional funding — just under two thirds (65.3 per cent) gave the same response this year, a fall of 7.5 per cent.

Those who classed themselves as “moderately concerned” about institutional funding, meanwhile, rose from 17.9 per cent to a quarter — showing that fears do remain, but have eased slightly over the year.

This change could have been influenced by Chancellor George Osborne’s decision not to deliver cuts in his autumn statement, in which protection of funding for the “core adult skills participation budgets in cash terms, at £1.5bn” was confirmed.

But analysis by Policy Consortium member and FE journalist Ian Nash (see his exclusive expert piece for FE Week), and comments left by participants, indicated that the issue is still causing sleepless nights.

One respondent wrote: “I have seen the word ‘good’ used to describe the funding settlement for FE in the November spending review.

“I don’t think the flatlining of funding through to 2020, which is very definitely a real-terms cut and comes on the back of 27 per cent real-terms cuts 2010-2015, can be described as ‘good’.”

Another felt more reassured: “I am much less anxious about finance and funding than 12 months ago. The multi-year funding framework put in place last November is very welcome, as is the higher funding rate for land-based colleges.”

The drop in respondents feeling “extremely concerned” from 2015 to 2016 was also reflected in the answers given on learner funding, as well as on the pace and volume of change.

A lack of clarity around change was the focus for some comments.

One participant said: “I suppose the changes at the moment make us all feel that we are treading water, with regards to the new curriculum delivery, and until it is embedded it will be a challenge to know how to plan for our own delivery.”

Another added: “Still a lot of unanswered questions with new funding structure and it is starting soon.”

The theme of uncertainty in responses from the survey echoed what FE Week heard in our parliamentary debate on the apprenticeship levy on May 3 (See page 8), where sector leaders admitted that they felt they had been “out of the tent” on decision-making.
One survey respondent, for example, commented: “Each new government and skills minister wants to bring in changes.

“My main concern over current changes, particularly for apprenticeships, is the lack of involvement that FE professionals have had, coupled with a huge lack of understanding of what apprenticeships are within the teams overseeing the changes.”

Two sixth form colleges have joined forces in what they claim is the first merger of its kind in 18 years.

The formal merger between Prior Pursglove College in North Yorkshire and Stockton Sixth Form College in Stockton-on-Tees went through on May 1.

The combined institution is now called Prior Pursglove and Stockton SFC (PPSSFC).

The former principal of Stockton SFC, Joanna Bailey, who was also interim principal of Prior Pursglove SFC following the retirement of former principal Judy Burton in December, will lead the newly-incorporated institution.

Paul Gavens, the new PPSSFC chair, said: “This will allow us to continue to fulfil our vision of providing high-quality education and life-changing experiences to young people and adults across the Tees Valley.

“We firmly believe in the benefits our merged college will produce for current and prospective students, staff, local employers and other stakeholders within our communities.”

A consultation on the merger was held between September and November last year.

The accompanying report said the SFCs had already been “working in partnership with great success” for two years, with joint staff managers introduced in finance, data and marketing.

The move has pre-empted any final recommendations from the Tees Valley area review, which both colleges are part of.

The merger is considered a “first step” and both colleges were “open to other proposals which may emerge” from the area review, PPSSFC said in a summary document published after the consultation closed.

This comes as two more SFCs confirm that they are also pursuing a potential merger.

East Norfolk SFC (ENSFC) and Lowestoft SFC (LSFC) announced on May 4 that they plan to work closely together with a view to merging, a plan that has arisen from the pilot area review in North East Norfolk and North Suffolk which took place in 2015.

LSFC has previously been involved in a planned merger with Great Yarmouth College (GYC) and Lowestoft College (LC), but pulled out to pursue joining-up with ENSFC.

Yolanda Botham, LSFC’s principal, told FE Week the decision to change merger partner had been prompted by “government policy which changes the landscape”, including the option for SFCs to convert to academy status.

“Our perfect partner to go forward in this changed landscape is ENSFC,” she said.

She added: “This is about working with someone who speaks our language. We’re two SFCs. We’ve both got strong provision.”

As previously reported by FE Week, ENSFC was recently in talks with Paston SFC and various local schools about forming a multi-academy trust (MAT).

Catherine Richards, ENSFC principal, said they were still “very interested in forming a MAT in the future”, and that this new partnership would be part of the same trust.

A two-way merger between GYC and LC will still go ahead. It had originally been planned for August 1, but a spokesperson for the colleges said the timescales were now under review.

A struggling college is in danger of becoming the third in London to be placed into administered status by the FE Commissioner, according to the latest intervention report.

Dr David Collins’ team visited Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College (EHWLC) in December, after the college had been rated inadequate by Ofsted following an inspection in October.

His report, which has now been published, recognised that progress was being made with turning around financial problems, but it warned there was “still much to do”. In addition to an inspection notice of concern, EHWLC has been subject to a Skills Funding Agency (SFA) financial notice of concern since March 2014.

The commissioner is now due to return to the college for a stocktake visit, at which point he reserves the option “to reconsider administered college status at this stage, if progress is insufficient”, his report warns.

If this were to happen, it would become the third London college the commissioner has placed into administered status — after Lewisham and Southwark College and Greenwich College.

“Clearly there has been significant and much-needed focus on the finances of the college over the last 15 months,” Dr Collins wrote in his report.

“The strategy has quite rightly been to remove costs (mainly staffing) and rationalise the sites to both reduce costs and provide much needed injections of cash,” he continued.

“As a result, the operating out-turns are beginning to turn around, but there is still much to do as income levels continue to fall steeply.”

Dr Collins recommended that the college should revisit its year-end forecast out-turn for 2015/16 “as a matter of urgency”.

He added: “From this reforecasting exercise the impact on 2016/17 needs to be modelled along with the impact of the fall in EFA funding, to ensure that sufficient action is taken in 2015/16 to reduce cost levels down to ensure a surplus and cash-generative position in 2016/17.”

However, the commissioner also warned that financial recovery should not dominate the college’s planning.

His report stressed that “the quality improvement agenda is [also] urgent”.

He said: “The corporation should ensure that priorities are not deflected towards new ventures until learner outcomes are significantly improved.”

Principal Garry Philips (pictured right) told FE Week that the college agreed with Dr Collins’ findings, and had made “real and significant progress” towards addressing his recommendations.

He said: “The actions and improvements made have resulted in the college now being a financially strong and resilient organisation, which has the learners at the heart of everything we do.”

In his follow-up letter to the college’s chair, Tony Alderman, skills minister Nick Boles urged him to “continue to pursue a college-led recovery process and in parallel, participate in the area review”.

The college is involved in the London (West) area review, part of wave two of the area reviews, which had its first steering group meeting on March 8.

A fourth university technical college (UTC) has announced it will be shutting its doors due to low student numbers.

UTC Lancashire said in a statement on May 3 it would close for good at the end of this term — just three years after it opened — due to difficulties in enrolling enough students “to secure future financial viability”.

Figures obtained by FE Week through Freedom of Information requests made earlier this year showed that the 14-to-19 vocational institution had just 113 students enrolled in 2015/16, down from 200 in 2014/15 — despite a capacity of 800.

This news comes not long after Central Bedfordshire UTC announced in March that it would close in August — after admitting it had not been able to attract “sufficient pupils”.

Hackney UTC closed in July 2014, also following problems attracting learners, and Black Country UTC shut last summer after a “disappointing” Ofsted inspection and, again, low student numbers.

Rod Dubrow-Marshall, a board member of Visions Learning Trust, which runs UTC Lancashire, said the decision to close was “hugely disappointing”.

“Unfortunately, although we have made every attempt to try to find an alternative solution, the board agreed that closure was the only available option due to low student numbers,” he said.

UTCs are the brainchild of former education secretary Lord Baker and promoted by the Baker Dearing Trust.

The trust said in a statement that it “regretfully supports” the decision to close UTC Lancashire.

Its chief executive Charles Parker acknowledged that UTCs “tend to find it hard” to recruit students at 14, as “this is not a normal age of transfer, and the UTC programme is still in its early stages”.

But he added: “Most UTCs in England are steadily building effective long-term relationships with schools, employers and local communities.”

An investigation by FE Week earlier this year found 40 per cent of the 15 remaining UTCs opened between 2010 and 2013 experience a drop in student numbers this academic year.

The largest fall was at Royal Greenwich UTC, which had 140 fewer students in 2015/16 compared to 2014/15.

Together, the 15 institutions were operating at a little over 50 per cent of their combined capacity.

Only one – the JCB Academy in Staffordshire – was at or above capacity.

UTC Lancashire was one of three to be running at less than 20 per cent capacity, along with UTC Central Bedfordshire and Wigan UTC.

Skills minister Nick Boles told the House of Commons in March that UTCs should function as part of multi-academy trusts to make them stronger.

Responding to a question from MP Gareth Johnson about Leigh UTC, Mr Boles said the institution was a “particularly good example”, not least because it was “part of a very successful multi-academy trust”.

He continued: “That is a situation we want to see replicated across the UTC movement, because UTCs are stronger inside multi-academy trusts.”

A spokesperson for the Baker Dearing Trust said that there are currently 39 UTCs open, with a further 20 in development.