A new Funding Agencies Shared Service Team (FAS2T) covering finance, IT and data will be launched from April.

It is the latest development with SFA and EFA boss Peter Lauener’s drive to identify areas where they can work together more efficiently.

He spoke with me at length about why the Department for Education is in a hurry to recruit for the FAS2T role, and what further efficiency savings can be made across both agencies.

“We have significantly reduced the number of senior roles [across both agencies] by essentially merging two into one,” said Lauener.

I looked at a number of areas where I thought, actually, there is scope to join up here

“We weren’t able to fill all the roles, as we established the new shared service operation and we have brought in one or two senior colleagues to establish the senior team.

“One senior role that is really critical to the operation is for data [overseeing FAS2T], so that has gone out to advert and I am very interested to get some new ideas and expertise.

“Both the EFA and SFA have got vast quantities of data that we manage and I think we can do a lot better to analyse it, to use it and actually share it.”

He added: “With the EFA, you have the quite significant benefit, we have developed a lot of our data work around 5,500 academies, which as you know has grown enormously over the last four years.

“We are used to handling very large quantities of data and putting it into this matrix, and all that kind of stuff. There are lots of lessons to be learned.”

It comes as the number of permanent staff at the SFA fell from 1,241 in April 2014 to 899 by October 2015.

This was in contrast to the EFA, where permanent staff numbers increased over the same period from 753 to 837.

“When I was appointed chief executive of the SFA back in November 2014 [he already ran the EFA], I looked at a number of areas where I thought, actually, there is scope to join up here,” Lauener said.

“Of the areas that I have chosen to do that, first of all we have established a joint area review delivery unit. It’s the team of people that supports the area review steering group.

“People from the SFA and EFA are working on that to make sure we are working with local partners to deliver the programme of area reviews on time.”

Lauener added the second area falling under Mr Mucklow’s responsibility was the drive “to bring together intervention teams”.

“We obviously had an intervention team on FE colleges in the SFA and an intervention team on sixth form colleges in the EFA,” said Lauener.

“It doesn’t really take a stroke of genius to think that there might be sensible ways of bringing these together, so I brought all of these people together.”

Lauener added an obvious benefit of this would be removing the need for EFA and SFA representatives at the same meetings.

He explained: “If you take FE, it doesn’t really apply to sixth form colleges in the same way, and if you take FE colleges, then EFA has got a massive interest in any decisions about a particular college because maybe the EFA is the major funder of any particular college.”

Reflecting on the joining-up of finance and systems, he said: “Both the EFA and SFA have developed much better systems in recent years.

“In the EFA, we have just introduced a much more secure payment system, and I frankly expect to put the SFA on the same system because it is better and cheaper to operate.”

FE Week readers have been through a huge amount of turmoil with data returns as new SFA systems have been introduced in recent years — notably the Learning Aims Reference System, funding information system, and the Hub.

When pressed on whether his reforms would lead to a fresh round of upheaval, with the bringing together of EFA and SFA systems, Lauener said: “We are not rushing into anything. I don’t think people will suddenly see a change in the systems they use.

“We are doing some quite careful methodical work to say what is the best set of systems for the future — where are the legacy systems that we need to take out because they are just ineffective, and are there on either platform are there systems that are operating better?”

Lauener has also, he said, established a single chief executive’s office overseeing internal communications.

But the drive towards more shared services begged the obvious question of why both agencies don’t just merge completely.

The Government has so far steered clear of this option, even though it could potentially produce huge efficiency savings.

Yet it has no such reservations about forcing through college mergers to cut costs, an irony not lost on many people who care about FE, myself included.

When asked about this, Lauener said he was currently “trying to put to one side the question of whether there should be a merged agency — let’s get on with the sensible things to do to save resource”.

He did not completely write off the idea, adding: “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, but there are no plans currently to do that.”

At the moment, a college has an EFA and an SFA person they will liaise with.

When asked if this would change, Lauener said: “I would like to get to that. I think that would be a very sensible thing to do.”

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The University and College Union (UCU) general secretary, Sally Hunt (pictured), has accused college managers of “ripping their staff off” and failing to challenge the government on its treatment of the sector.

Ms Hunt spoke out at a rally in London this week, on a day of joint strike action between members of the UCU and Unison over the Association of Colleges’ (AoC) recommendation for a zero per cent pay rise in 2015/16.

The Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden also addressed the audience at Emmanuel Centre in Westminster, and said that the FE sector would be facing “a really difficult time over the next couple of years”.

He added: “If there was ever a better time to be able to say that much overused phase, ‘we’re all in it together’, this should be a time to do that. I regret greatly that your employers are not in it together and I hope that they will get their act together and begin to have some conversations and negotiations with you.”

But Ms Hunt challenged the idea that employers needed to “get their act together”’ to address the issue of pay.

“We need to know that what is taking place here wasn’t by accident,” she said.

“It isn’t just because of government policy. It is a strategy that the employers, through the AoC, actively adopted.”

She added: “I think the employers have got their act together, I think they are all in this boat together and the boat they are in is about ripping their staff off.

“They are using you to hide from their responsibilities to stand up for FE, and today is about us doing the job that our employers should be doing.”

The day of strike action marked the first time in 10 years since the UCU and Unison have joined together in protest and picket lines look place at a number of colleges across the country.

The UCU estimated that 198 colleges had been affected by the strike action, while Unison put the number at 170. The AoC was unable to provide information on numbers affected.

Support for the protest was shared through Twitter with the hashtag #FEstrike24feb, which trended in the UK throughout the day. Alongside events in London, a well-attended rally also took place at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, attended a picket line at City and Islington College in North London and said he felt current treatment of the sector was immoral.

He commented: “It’s very unusual that our members in FE take industrial action. It’s a final resort.

“When you look at what happened over the last five years, the pay of our members has gone down by something like a fifth in that time and when the employers have had the chance of at least giving a cost of living increase they have said no. For our members this is about putting food on the table.”

Marc Whitworth, director of employment policy and services at the Association of Colleges (AoC), responded to the day’s event, saying: “Strikes are very disruptive for colleges and more importantly for students. The pay recommendation of 0 per cent made by the Association of Colleges reflects the specific financial challenges faced by our members.

“Colleges are facing increases to pension and national insurance contributions during 2015/16 and this coupled with reductions in funding mean that we have been unable to recommend an unsustainable increase in costs to our college members.

“No further dialogue has been scheduled with our union colleagues regarding this cycle of negotiations.”

However, a Unison spokesperson told FE Week that the union’s FE committee will meet at the end of next week to gather feedback and discuss next steps.

A UCU spokesperson also confirmed that their FE committee would meet on March 4 to discuss next steps.

Andrew Harden, UCU head of FE, said: “The strong support on the picket lines yesterday shows the depth of anger at this insulting pay freeze after years of real terms cuts to wages. UCU’s FE committee will meet again next week to discuss next steps in the dispute; in the meantime we urge the employers to come back to the table with a sensible offer.”

 

Students join striking staff on picket lines

At colleges across the country teaching staff, support staff and even some students joined picket lines in support of the UCU and Unison joint strike action.

At City and Islington College, students Aby Murray and James Crawley (pictured) were handing out flyers alongside other protestors.

Murray, a student of politics, sociology, economics and philosophy, told FE Week: “I think the strike is important because it shows that they won’t take no for an answer. This isn’t fair on them because they deserve a pay rise so much. They keep our college running, they’re the people who are in the library 24/7, helping us study, providing us with what we need to actually get our grades.

“Colleges are such an important option to people who feel they can’t study at school or university. Here it is a chance for us to actually be ourselves and get the grades we deserve, that’s really important to me.”

 

Crawley, who studies graphics, photography and music technology at the college had had a class cancelled due to the strike.

“I think teachers

should be paid more because the people they work with are all going to be a part of society.

 

“My three hours graphics lesson has been cancelled. It’s not so annoying for me because I live quite close, but many people have to pay a lot of money to be travel here.”

At the rally, one Tower Hamlets College student also spoke out.

She said: “I really support this strike that is going on today. The teachers in Tower Hamlets have changed my life so much and opened doors for me that I didn’t have when I was in secondary school. I left and I just went into work.

“Now, going back into college, I’m worried about the cuts … To me as a mature adult student I see my doors are closing and I see my future not as bright as before. I hope the teachers get the pay rise they deserve.”

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A national training provider has ceased trading four months after being hit with an ‘inadequate’ rating from Ofsted, with the loss of 35 jobs.

Education and Youth Services (EYS), which had a head office in Stevenage as well as 16 training centres around the country, went into administration on February 4 after having its contracts with the Education Funding Agency (EFA) and Skills Funding Agency (SFA) terminated following the Ofsted verdict.

The closure comes after the provider, which had an allocation of £5.2m from the EFA and £2.8m from the SFA for 2015/16, was taken over by the Merseyside-based Progress to Excellence Group (PtoE) in August.

PtoE managing director Sandra Kirkham told FE Week that EYS’s EFA and SFA contracts “amounted to over 80 per cent of the company’s revenue”.

Ms Kirkham said they had worked with the EFA to find alternative providers for all of its EFA-funded learners, and were continuing to work with the SFA to find alternative provision for its SFA-funded learners.

EYS had around 2,000 learners at the time of the Ofsted inspection in October.

It had started to wind down its apprenticeship provision following takeover by PtoE, Ms Kirkham said, and they had stopped recruiting new apprentices before the Ofsted inspection.

Twelve of the EYS training centres had been acquired by other training providers, Ms Kirkham said, which meant they had safeguarded 72 jobs.

In the end 35 members of staff were made redundant, “a number of whom have already found new roles”, said Ms Kirkham.

Ms Kirkham said that they had “recognised that this was a turnaround situation” when they took EYS over, but had hoped for more time before being inspected by Ofsted.

“We thought, with Ofsted, you got at least a six month extension after a new ownership, and we thought that would give us enough time to turn it around. We knew it needed improving,” she said.

“I’m sad for the learners and the staff that we weren’t afforded the time to make an impact on that business. I knew we had the expertise in the group to turn that provision around, and had we been afforded that time with Ofsted, it would have been a totally different picture,” Ms Kirkham added.

A spokesperson for the SFA said: “We can confirm that Education and Youth Services Limited has now ceased to trade.

“We are working to transfer learners to other providers and are consulting with employers and staff to take individual circumstances into account wherever possible.

“This is to ensure continuity of training for both learners and employers and to minimise any disruptions”.

An EFA spokesperson said: “We have been working closely with relevant councils to transfer the students of Education and Youth Services Ltd to alternative provision.

“We are confident that all pupils funded by the EFA have now been given a new place.”