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.
Thirty of West Nottinghamshire College’s top apprentices have been honoured in a special event at the House of Lords today.
The worthy winners, chosen from among the college’s 13,000 apprentices, each received an award in the fifth annual West Nottinghamshire College Celebration of Apprentices.
The event, held at Westminster overlooking the River Thames, was intended to recognise and celebrate the apprentices’ achievements.
For the first time, employers of apprentices were also included in the honours for their commitment to apprenticeships.
West Nottinghamshire College principal Dame Asha Khemka told FE Week that the celebration was intended to “showcase what people achieve”.
She said: “I felt that by bringing apprentices, their employers, their parents to the House of Lords it’s raising the status – it’s almost putting apprenticeships on the map.”
In doing so, it sent out the message “that you are important, your achievements are significant, and let’s celebrate in style in a place where we all want to be,” she added.
West Nottinghamshire College is one of the largest apprenticeship providers in the country, with a Skills Funding Agency allocation of more than £5m for 16 to 18 apprenticeships in 2015/16.
Dame Asha said the college had “embraced” the apprenticeship agenda in order to “give people the opportunity to achieve their best”.
Apprenticeships, she said, give people “that exposure, that opportunity, to ready for the world of work”.
Among those who received an award today was 61-year-old Carol Hall, who works for Bluesky Care and completed a Level three apprenticeship in health and social care.
She said doing her apprenticeship was “daunting when I first started” particularly as it involved English and maths – which she said it had been a “long time” since she’d studied.
But with support she was able to complete the “whole level 3 in 11 months not two years”.
She added: “It’s not only been something I’ve enjoyed to do, it’s given me the computer skills to do it all on the computer rather than doing it all by hand.”
Jonathon Miller, 28, who works for DB Cargo and completed a level two apprenticeship in rail services shunting, said it was a “great achievement” to be at today’s celebration.
“To beat 13,000 people is a good feeling,” he added.
Andrew Burbidge said he chose his level three apprenticeship in IT, software, web and telecoms, because “it offers everything”.
The 25-year-old, who works for PKF Cooper Parry, said: “For me, you choose an apprenticeship because of the career, it’s the industry you want to be in, and that’s pretty much what persuaded me.”
Other speakers at the event included the Confederation of British Industry director general Carolyn Fairbairn, who spoke about the importance of apprentices to business.
She said: “The businesses I speak to really get it. They know that hiring an apprentice is not a cost – it’s an investment in their company’s future that they can’t afford not to make.”
A college has been hit with an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating in a report that raised grave questions about leadership and management, just a few weeks after its chair and vice-chair resigned without explanation.
FE Week reported on June 18 that Amersham and Wycombe College’s chair and vice-chair of governors, Jenese Joseph and Andrew Walker, had stepped down – but no explanation of their reasons for leaving was given.
Jenese Joseph
Ofsted published its latest report on the college today — which returned an ‘inadequate’-overall result, down from the ‘requires improve’ grade it received in December 2014.
The latest report rated Amersham and Wycombe as ‘requires improvement’ for quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development behaviour and welfare; outcomes for learners; 16 to 19 study programmes; adult learning programmes; and apprenticeships.
But it was a grade four in effectiveness of leadership and management that dragged the result down to ‘inadequate’ overall.
The Ofsted report asserted that the college’s “governance is not fit for purpose”.
It said that in order to improve, it needs “a new governing body”, which can then “establish a stable senior leadership team that steers the college towards its next steps”.
It added “tensions between governors and college leaders” had “led to a long period of unstable leadership”.
In addition, leaders and managers were said to have been “slow to review the appropriateness of the curriculum for adult learners”, and Ofsted requested that the college “evaluate rigorously” the curriculum to “ensure provision meets local demand from employers and the community”.
On top of these failures, the college was said to be “in significant financial difficulties”, with frequent instances of “poor financial management and unwise spending of public funds”.
Ofsted recommended that Amersham and Wycombe improved the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by “ensuring all managers, staff and learners have consistently high expectations of learners’ attendance, punctuality and attitudes to learning”.
It also advised “reviewing quality assurance arrangements” so they are “less cumbersome and focused more on helping teachers to reflect on and improve their practice”.
The report proposed that teachers need to “use a variety of assessment techniques more purposefully” to ensure learners and apprentices “are clear about their current progress”.
In spite of this criticism, Amersham and Wycombe received a ‘good’ grade for its provision for learners with high needs.
Teachers and specialist staff were said to provide “very good personal support to learners, especially those at risk of not completing their courses and those with high needs”.
Other strengths were that the “current managers and staff have shown considerable resilience in the face of the turbulence that surrounds them”.
In sports, public services, and the creative industries there was also said to be “good practical skills development, high standards of work, and successful progression into higher education or employment”.
When invited to respond to the report, a college spokesperson said: “We have taken immediate action to appoint a new chair and vice chair of governors.
“We believe these appointments will be a positive step towards restoring the overall wellbeing and financial health of the college.
“We are working quickly towards solutions to answer the issues raised by Ofsted and our focus, as always, is on ensuring that we continue to provide education and training for current and future students.”
The government has agreed to implement all 14 recommendations from a taskforce commissioned to explore how access to apprenticeships can be improved for people with learning difficulties or disabilities (LDD).
The taskforce was jointly commissioned by skills minister Nick Boles and minister for the disabled Justin Tomlinson (both pictured above), and both of their departments are now working to put the suggestions into practice.
Chaired by Paul Maynard MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, the group included disability organisations, learning providers, employers, and senior officials from both the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
In response to their 14 recommendations, a BIS and DWP spokesperson said: “The Minister for Skills and the Minister for Disabled People have accepted all of the taskforce’s recommendations.
“Officials are now working to implement the recommendations, recognising that some will be more difficult to put into practice than others, and that all recommendations should be completed alongside existing priorities to ensure a cohesive result.”
The taskforce met three times to look at what barriers affect people with learning disabilities in accessing and completing an apprenticeship.
BIS and DWP confirmed that the first point to be implemented will be updating the Access to Work eligibility letter, which disabled people should take to their employer or a job interview if they think they can get help from the government’s Access to Work scheme.
The idea will be to better “sell the support available” for such apprentices.
This will be followed by work on a joint communications strategy to encourage employers and providers to take them on.
The next recommendations to receive attention will be using the existing Disability Confident campaign “to encourage employers to drive demand and increase supply”, and consider “the use of technology to support user-led strategies for apprentices with LDD”.
BIS and DWP will be expected to “lead by example” with their own apprenticeship programmes, and “encourage wider civil service and public sector commitment to [these] apprenticeships”.
They will also “investigate and raise awareness around non-traditional recruitment practices”, the report said, such as working interviews, where an applicant demonstrates their job skills, or electronic portfolios to display their achievements.
Three of the taskforce recommendations focused on English and maths, and these will be worked on over the summer.
They involve adjusting the minimum standards and methods of assessment for English and maths for LDD apprentices, and ensuring support available is “understood and consistently applied by providers”.
In the autumn, the government will turn to ensuring that the right information is gathered about severe, mild or moderate learning difficulties for Individualised Learner Records.
BIS will also revisit recommendations from the 2012 Little report on ‘Creating an Inclusive Apprenticeship Offer’.
Both departments will further consider “what good [performance of apprentices] looks like” for specific impairment groups and age brackets, and “set appropriate targets for increasing the number of apprentices with LDD”.
From April 2017, after a new funding model has been developed, a pilot will be conducted to explore how this could work most effectively alongside the apprenticeship levy to “incentivise employers to recruit apprentices with learning disabilities”.
Sue Pember, director of policy for adult and community learning provider membership body Holex, which supported the taskforce, told FE Week that she “welcomes these recommendations and hopes that they are fully implemented and feature in the apprenticeship plan”.
Independent training providers (ITPs) have come in for the worst criticism in Ofsted’s thematic review report into how the anti-terrorism Prevent duty is being implemented across FE.
The document, called ‘How well are FE and skills providers implementing the ‘Prevent’ duty?’, was unveiled by the inspectorate this morning.
It was based on survey visits to 37 FE providers, along with with findings from 46 full inspections or monitoring visits between November last year and this May.
It recognised that general FE and sixth form colleges had been “most successful”, through “working closely with partners to ensure that good progress had been made on all aspects of the Prevent duty”.
However an Ofsted spokesperson warned it had found “a worrying number of providers, particularly ITPs, small providers and those working in isolation, are struggling to implement the duty”.
The report said: “Two of the eight ITPs visited had not implemented any aspect of the ‘Prevent’ duty.
“The ITPs tended to operate in isolation and few had adequate systems in place to ensure the safety of learners.”
FE institutions were first made subject to the Prevent duty — which requires them to put policies in place to prevent potential radicalisation of learners and exposure to extremism — in September last year.
And Paul Joyce, Ofsted deputy director for FE and skills and independent schools, revealed the inspectorate would be launching the thematic review a month later, as reported in FE Week.
Paul Joyce
The resulting report has concluded that Ofsted 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” from the start of next academic year.
Recommendations for providers included that they should ensure appropriate procedures are in place, and implemented effectively, to protect learners from “risks posed by external speakers and events”.
It also called for better information sharing with other partner organisations such as local authorities, improved staff training, and for more effort to be put into ensuring learners understand British values radicalisation threats.
It also called for Prevent to be explicitly referred to in IT policies, and careful monitoring of learners’ “use of IT facilities to identify inappropriate usage”.
Oftsed added there needed to be more consistency “of advice and guidance provided by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Prevent co-ordinators, police Prevent teams and local authorities”.
The report noted that six of the providers visited had no arrangements in place to check the suitability of external speakers.
“Even in some of the 31 providers that had appropriate policies and procedures to check external speakers and events, these did not always work well in practice,” it added.
“Too often, learners were potentially at risk because leaders had not ensured that suitable checks had been completed.”
Ofsted stressed that “the majority” of providers had implemented the Prevent duty guidance well.
But the report added: “Some viewed the duty as a list of conditions just to comply with and have adopted a ‘tick-box’ approach.
“This goes against the spirit of the government’s guidance, which seeks to promote meaningful ways to reduce the specific risks of radicalisation.”
Risk assessments lacked sufficient detail in around a third of the providers visited.
And staff training was found to be “ineffective” in a third of the providers visited.
This comes after an Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) survey, reported on by FE Week in September, indicated that 45 per cent of FE staff had not trained to implement Prevent before it was applied to FE later that month.
Day two of FE Week’s Festival of Skills proved to be every bit as insightful, thought-provoking and fun as day one.
We have again put together a selection of photos to try and capture the atmosphere of the continuing professional development event of the year for FE and skills, held at the stunning Capel Manor College in North London. We hope you enjoyed it!
Ian Wright MP [pictured above left], co-chair of the ESE sub-committee and chair of Business, Innovation and Skills committee, said: “We want to challenge and scrutinise the process of area reviews to ensure they improve the provision of post-16 education in every area.”
Neil Carmichael MP [above right], fellow co-chair of the sub-committee and chair of the Education Committee, said: “Area reviews are taking place with relatively little public scrutiny.
“The sub-committee’s inquiry will shine a light on the process, which could have wide reaching implications for the way both young people and adults are educated.”
The area reviews, first unveiled in July 2015, are intended to create financially viable, resilient and efficient institutions that meet their local area’s education and economic needs.
Wave one of the reviews was announced in September and October.
So far all the FE and sixth form colleges involved in the first three waves have been revealed, with indicative areas given for the fourth and fifth waves which are due to start later this year.
The reviews have faced criticism from sector leaders, including the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, for not directly including other providers of post-16 education, such as school and academy sixth forms and independent training providers.
The process has also taken longer than was originally planned.
Guidance published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills at the start gave a typical timescale of three to four months for each review – but this was extended to four to six months when the guidance was updated in March.
Only one area from the first wave – Birmingham and Solihull – actually managed to complete in this timeframe, while another – Greater Manchester – took more than nine months.
FE Commissioner Sir David Collins told delegates at FE Week’s Area Review Summit at the Festival of Skills on Thursday (July 7) that all of the areas in wave one had completed as well as a number in wave two.
He acknowledged that the first wave had taken “a bit longer than we’d hoped” partly because it had included “the most complicated cases”.
These included Greater Manchester, which, as previously reported by FE Week, had been subject to deep tensions between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority leading the review and the colleges involved.
Nonetheless, Sir David told delegates: “We’re not behind, and we’ll complete very happily by March 2017”.
His remarks echoed comments last month by Skills Minister Nick Boles, who told the audience at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference that the reviews had gone “surprisingly well”.
