Former chief executive of awarding organisation OCR Mark Dawe has been appointed as the new boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP).

He will take over from the outgoing chief executive Stewart Segal, who is joining independent learning provider Aspire, Achieve, Advance as director of strategy, policy and funding.

Mr Dawe, who left OCR in September last year after leading the company for five years, will start with AELP on Monday (March 14) and shadow Mr Segal until after the Easter bank holiday, when he will take full control.

When asked what his priorities would be, he told FE Week: “It is pretty clear that the levy and [3m] apprenticeship target and traineeships are at the heart of what the government wants and AELP members are keen to deliver that so that has to be the focus.

“I would say one of the biggest jobs for me in the next 12 months for the members is engaging with those employers, explaining the situation and helping them with our members deliver the apprenticeships.”

AELP has a mix of 770 members from independent, private, not-for-profit and voluntary sector training and employment services organisations.

Membership is also open to FE colleges, 40 of which are already members.

As a former principal of Hertfordshire’s Oaklands College — one of the first college members at AELP — Mr Dawe said: “For me if you are looking to deliver apprenticeships and traineeships, it is worth being a member of AELP, including colleges. We’re there to promote that offer and support providers in doing it.”

Mr Dawe said he was joining at a “very exciting” time “because for a long time AELP wanted a demand-led system and that is what is going to be coming in. It is however really important that it is implemented properly”.

He said he would be looking to “touch base” with the FE sector’s “key players” in the coming weeks.

“For me, meeting the key people such as Keith Smith [director of funding and programmes at the Skills Funding Agency (SFA)] will be important, so it would be good to touch base with him, Peter Lauener [chief executive of the SFA and Education Funding Agency], all the key players,” he added.

Mr Dawe was previously deputy director of FE strategy at the former Department of Education and Skills, and deputy director of the adult basic skills strategy unit before that.

He is currently a governor of Sawston Village College and vice chair of Stapleford Community Primary School, both in in Cambridgeshire. He is a scout leader in his spare time.

Mr Dawe read economics at Cambridge University before qualifying as a chartered accountant at KPMG.

He then joined Canterbury College, becoming head of corporate services in 1994. In 2000, he helped set up eGS, an e-procurement provider to the public sector.

Mr Dawe told FE Week about his pioneering online procurement work for colleges with eGS, when he was profiled by FE Week back in June 2014.

“I was sitting there looking at all these businesses that were getting millions of pounds worth of funding, and as far as I could see they had no business model behind them, and it seemed crazy.

“So I wrote one, then the college allowed me a couple of days a week secondment to the Association of Colleges, and I basically went around with this model, which was around online procurement and a portal for the college sector, and went around touting it to venture capitalists to get funding.”

Commenting on his new appointment, AELP chairman Martin Dunford said: “I am delighted that Mark will be our new chief executive at this crucial time for our sector and for those employers and learners we serve.

“We were pleased by the response we had from a number of very high calibre candidates and the selection of Mark has been the result of a very competitive process.

“The AELP board and I look forward to working with him.”

It comes after FE Week exclusively revealed yesterday that the Association of Colleges would have to re-advertise for a replacement chief executive for Martin Doel, after it failed to find anyone suitable from the first round of shortlisted candidates.

City of Bristol College has slumped back to an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating, following an inspection in late January.

The report is a setback for the college, which was last rated inadequate in April 2013 but had pulled up its rating to ‘requires improvement’ in June the following year.

The education watchdog criticised City of Bristol for slow progress in tackling the weaknesses identified at its previous inspection.

These included a fall in the number of students completing their courses, with a “very low proportion” successfully achieving qualifications in English and maths in particular.

Students’ attendance and punctuality at lessons was also highlighted as a “long-standing weakness”, while monitoring of progress failed to “challenge or support learners”.

Apprenticeships stood out as a problem area, with a “very low proportion” of learners completing their apprenticeships within the expected timescale and standards of training not being improved quickly enough.

Leaders and managers were also said to have neglected monitoring of learners’ progression into FE and employment.

Assessment, teaching and training at the college was deemed to have been disrupted by a “high turnover of teachers and assessors”.

Ofsted also noted that “awarding bodies have been concerned about some of the college’s assessment practice and introduced restrictions on the college’s powers to award qualifications in a significant number of subjects”.

The report said that managers and staff have worked hard to support learners and fix this problem, however, it added: “This serious and avoidable position has taken a great deal of leaders’ time to resolve.”

One key area of strength identified by the report was provision for learners with high needs. Personal and in-class support for students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities was said to be effective, enabling them to make good progress from their starting points.

City of Bristol College was visited by FE Commissioner Dr David Collins in 2013, and in his 2014/15 annual report the college was named as one of the providers that had made significant changes.

In January this year, the college gained a new principal and chief executive in Lee Probert (pictured above), who also worked on restructuring the leadership team during the autumn term of 2015.

Commenting on the Ofsted report, Mr Probert said: “This report provides a very clear sense of focus on where we need to invest our energies in driving improvement, with strengths which we can build upon.

“The judgements are a reflection of where we have been and not of where we are going as a College.  It is pleasing that Ofsted have acknowledged the significant changes to leadership which will focus on improvement.”

The preferred candidate to take over as Ofqual’s chief regulator has been revealed.

Education secretary Nicky Morgan confirmed, in a letter published today to education select committee chair Neil Carmichael, that Sally Collier was first choice for the role.

Ms Collier, who has spent 20 years’ experience in the civil service, will replace Glenys Stacey who had the top job for five years and stepped down at the end of last month.

Ms Morgan said of Ms Collier: “She has held numerous senior positions, including her current role as CEO of the Crown Commercial Service, a Cabinet Office Executive Agency and Trading Fund.

“Sally has significant experience in the complex environment of public procurement and in leading and managing large teams through periods of significant change.

“She is experienced in building deep and productive relationships in the public and private sectors.”

Civil Service World also said she “was deeply involved in negotiating changes to the EU rules governing public procurement”.

The select committee will hold a “pre-appointment hearing” with Ms Collier next Wednesday morning, after which MPs will publish a report on their opinion of Ms Collier’s suitability for the role.

Amanda Spielman is currently acting as interim chief regulator.

You can read Ms Stacey’s last interview before she left Ofqual here.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) will have to re-advertise for a new chief executive after failing to find a suitable candidate through the first round  of interviews, FE Week can reveal.

It initially posted an advert for the role, which will pay around £135,000 a year with “attractive benefits”, on the AoC website on January 12 – with applications requested by February 21.

But although interviews with shortlisted candidates were planned early this week, FE Week learned this afternoon that no-one had been appointed to replace Martin Doel who will leave in September.

When asked to comment on this, chair of the AoC board Carole Stott said: “We can confirm that we will be re-advertising for the position of chief executive in due course.
“We were unable to recruit after the first round of advertising, which is not unusual when recruiting for posts of this nature with demanding skillsets.
“The board had agreed a long lead in period to allow us to find the right person to continue to take AoC forward as a successful organisation.”

FE Week reported in November last year that Mr Doel would be standing down from September 1, to move to a new professorship of FE and Skills at the Further Education Trust for Leadership (Fetl).

He will actually start part-time with Fetl from April 1, while continuing with AoC, before going full-time in the new post four months later.

The original AoC job advert said: “The association is looking for an exceptional leader to take the college sector’s agenda forward.

“You should have a passion for enriching lives through learning, a track record of success and the capability to influence at a national level.”

It added that the successful candidate “will be a strong negotiator, with well-developed political acumen and first rate communication skills”.

“This high profile, challenging role demands a national presence, ability to represent a wide range of colleges and an understanding of the mechanics of government,” it added. “It’s a tough and rewarding role, with a unique opportunity to shape our sector’s future.”

A Fetl spokesperson told FE Week that Mr Doel would “take up the prestigious [professorship] role on April 1 on a partial basis, moving to full time in September”.

“It is the very first professorial role for the sector and will help lead thinking to influence policy and help shape the future for FE and skills,” he added.

Rachel Sandby-Thomas (pictured above) has been appointed to the role of shadow chief executive of new Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA).

The announcement of the key appointment for the IfA, which will help police employers as apprenticeship reforms take effect, was announced today by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Ms Sandby-Thomas joined the Government Legal Service in 1993 from the City, where she worked as a solicitor with Linklaters, and has since advised at, HM Treasury, Cabinet Office, the Attorney General’s Office, and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

Her most recent role was as director general for skills, deregulation and local growth at BIS.

The department’s permanent secretary Martin Donnelly said: “I am delighted to announce that Rachel will be taking up a new position as shadow chief executive.

“Building on her in-depth knowledge of the apprenticeship programme as DG for skills, Rachel will play a major role in establishing the IfA, which is due to launch in April 2017 and be an essential part of ensuring the quality of apprenticeships in support of the Government’s target of delivering 3m apprentices by 2020.”

Ms Sandby-Thomas will take up the new role from April 4, and Jaee Samant will be temporarily promoted to the role of director general for skills, deregulation and local growth.

She said: “I’m very excited to be appointed. Over the next year we’ll be working to ensure the organisation is ready to launch in April 2017, ensuring quality apprenticeships that meet the needs of businesses.”

A row has broken out between the University and College Union (UCU) and providers that dispute the findings of its new report identifying where women were said to be paid “significantly less than men”.

The union publicly unveiled the document today, but FE Week was shown a copy in advance and asked for responses from five colleges that were “named and shamed” as having “the widest combined gender pay gap”.

Of those, Northampton College, Great Yarmouth College (GYC), and Kirklees College disputed the validity of the findings — which prompted the union’s general secretary Sally Hunt to complain they were “playing shoot the messenger”.

The UCU claimed the report had exposed “shameful levels of pay inequality”, as at “nearly two-thirds (132 out of 203) of the English FE colleges that provided data, male lecturers are paid on average £1,000 more than women”.

However, a Northampton College spokesperson told FE Week the data “only relates to a portion of the academic staff within the college (lecturers only)”.

“The college employs a high proportion of teaching staff on an hourly paid basis and these contracts tend to be more attractive to women, enabling them to work more flexibly,” she added.

“There has [also] been a failure to consider data associated with the remaining academic staff.

“For example, female staff form approximately 67 per cent of the cohort of academic staff with additional or management duties.”

A Great Yarmouth College (GYC) spokesperson said: “We do not recognise this report as a fair reflection of our college, nor endorse the methodology; which appears flawed.”

She raised concern about “the potential misuse of actual headcount and salaries vs their full time equivalents”.

“The report uses different pay scales to our own and fails to recognise we use a single scale with automatic, incremental progression,” she added.

“Also the data excludes the programme area leads — our highest paid academic staff — of whom eight out of 10 are women.”

Melanie Brooke, vice principal of Kirklees College, said: “We’ve got a range of concerns about the way the whole data is presented.

“We would need to understand more on who the comparatives are and how part-time staff, for example, doing different jobs, have been reported in our data.”

A spokesperson for Milton Keynes College, which also appeared in the top five, also said it would “be investigating the [report] findings thoroughly”.

However, she said: “The college operates a single pay scale for all staff in teaching roles, irrespective of gender, age, sexuality or ethnicity and it is disappointing to read the UCU analysis which is not a picture the college recognises.”

Meanwhile, City College Norwich said it should not have featured second on the list, but “an unfortunate administrative error meant we submitted the actual salaries of teachers, as opposed to the full time equivalent salaries, in response to the UCU’s original FOI request”.

The comments prompted an impassioned response from Ms Hunt, who said: “UCU is disappointed that colleges are playing ‘shoot the messenger’ when it comes to the gender pay gap.

“Our survey has been conducted to the highest standards and shows that a significant gap exists between the pay of men and women.

“The response to the survey by some of the worst offenders sadly shows the level of complacency within parts of the sector about this serious issue.”

UCU also responded directly to the Great Yarmouth College claims, stating: “The FOI asked specifically for a headcount of all lecturers, and for male and female lecturers at each point of the nationally recognised eight-point scale, and clearly asked that colleges responding use the FTE salary for part time staff.

“Under the FOI Act the responder must ensure that the data they provide is correct.

“Any issue or confusion between part-time and full-time salaries is the responsibility of the college”.

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) should function as part of multi-academy trusts (MATs) to make them “stronger”, the skills minister has said.

Nick Boles (pictured above) told the House of Commons this afternoon he wanted to replicate success stories where the 14 to 19 technical institutions functioned well as part of academy chains, and not as standalone institutions.

Responding to a question from Gareth Johnson MP 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 (MAT)”.

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

His comments come just weeks after FE Week exclusively revealed that 40 per cent of UTCs that opened between 2010 and 2013 saw student numbers fall this year.

Data obtained by FOI requests from the 15 UTCs, all of which are now going into their third year, showed that six of them saw their learner numbers decrease for 2015/16. Royal Greenwich UTC had the most dramatic drop, with 140 fewer students for 2015/16 – a fall of 35 per cent compared to figures for 2014/15.

The overall increase in student numbers at the UTCs that opened between 2010 and 2013 was just 5 per cent for 2015/16. Together, these 15 UTCs have reached just 50.4 per cent of their combined capacity (4,598 students for a total capacity of 9,126).

Mr Boles’s remarks echo those made by Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw to MPs at the Commons Education Select Committee last Wednesday (March 2).

Sir Michael said that schools moving together into a clusters provided a “really great opportunity” to ensure high quality vocational education.

“If I was running one of those I’d have primary schools, I’d have secondary schools and I’d have a couple of UTCs as well,” he said.

Joining a MAT is also the preferred option for sixth form colleges (SFCs) that choose to convert to academy status, according to Department for Education guidance published last month.

The key assessment criteria for conversion is the development of “stronger partnership and collaboration between the college and schools with which they will work”.

Colleges that propose to “establish or join a multi-academy trust (MATs) should be well-placed to meet the partnership criteria”, the guidance states.

Only SFCs that are “financially and educationally strong [assessed by the department and Ofsted as good or outstanding for both]” will have the option of converting to become a standalone academy.

The Department for Education (DfE) finally published its guidance on how SFCs can go about converting to academies on February 19.

And although providers involved with phase one of the post-16 area reviews were given draft guidance at the end of last month, it still left the 33 SFCs involved with little time to digest the information and potentially lodge applications before the process closes for many in March.

Principal of Hartlepool SFC Alex Fau-Goodwin complained to FE Week that the timescale was far too tight for his college, which is part of the Tees Valley area review, and for many others.

“As a college in wave one, this places significant pressure on effective strategic decision making in order to meet the timescales of the area review,” said Mr Fau-Goodwin.

Invitations to tender for the European Social Fund (ESF) Youth Programme in London have been launched by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

The new contracts for 2014-20 cover the youth talent and careers clusters strands of the ESF programme for young people in London.

Applications for the tendering process that launched yesterday (March 7) must be made via the SFA’s e-tendering portal, and the deadline is April 8.

The ESF Youth Programme is a “comprehensive package” designed by the London Enterprise Panel (LEP), according to a statement on the LEP website.

The programme’s key objective is to support young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk of being NEET, to find employment, education or training.

The youth talent strand of the programme “aims to promote a ‘gateway’ for businesses to work with a range of providers and offer traineeships, work placements, internships, employment and apprenticeship opportunities for young people”, according to a document outlining the different strands of the programme, published by the LEP.

The careers cluster strand is designed to “improve the labour market relevance of education”, the LEP document says.

Each cluster will be made up of around six schools and FE colleges, who will support young people into work placements created through the youth talent strand.

The latest invitation to tender comes after three rounds of ESF contracts for NEETs, across 15 LEP areas, were published by the SFA between December and January.

FE Week exclusively reported on November 10 that the SFA was planning to run a “sequence of procurement” for handing out £650m of delayed ESF cash, which must be finished by the end of September next year at the very latest to allow a minimum delivery period of 18 months.

It is still unclear what the impact on ESF cash would be if the UK voted to leave the European Union.

The number of Skills Funding Agency offices are to be radically reduced as they become ‘Further Education funding centres’ from 2018, FE Week understands.

The plan was set out in an internal document, ‘2020: Future and Beyond’, which has been circulated through the Department for Education (DfE) and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

It is understood that post-16 FE funding staff from SFA and EFA will be brought together in bases in Cheylesmore House, Coventry, where SFA is now and EFA staff are moving back in to, and current BIS offices in Birmingham and Swindon.

The move casts further doubt over the long-term future of the SFA and EFA as independent entities — and comes after Peter Lauener, the chief executive of both agencies denied that merger plans were in the pipeline during an exclusive interview with FE Week editor Nick Linford in our last issue.

A spokesperson for BIS, EFA and SFA told FE Week on February 25: “This document [2020 : Future and Beyond] is not referring to creating any new organisations, it’s talking about developing a location strategy that better meets the needs of BIS in 2020.”

When asked if the funding agencies would merge, Mr Lauener said during the interview that he was “trying to put to one side the question of whether there should be a merged agency”.

But the senior mandarin, who was already in charge of EFA when he was appointed chief executive of the SFA in November 2014, added: “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 [Dfe and BIS].”

He previously answered questions on the possible merger of both agencies, during a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee hearing on October 19.

Mr Lauener told MPs he was working on delivering “savings” for both, but “actually took the job on the basis that there was no planned merger”.

FE Week revealed three days later that SFA finance director Paul McGuire was stepping down —clearing the way for responsibilities falling under his remit to be shared with the EFA.

The government has since revealed it will launch a new Funding Agencies Shared Service Team (FAS2T), to run across the SFA and EFA, covering finance, IT and data from April 1.

The DfE is advertising for a data science director to work within the new unit. The advert on the Civil Service Jobs website stated that it “will be responsible for paying and assuring some £60bn of public funds annually”.

FEFC was the acronym for the agency before the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) was created in 2001, but then referred to ‘Further Education Funding Council’.