Colleges have again been warned to be vigilant after fraudsters posing as principals have been foiled in a string of attempted scams to hit the sector.

Harlow College first raised the alarm about bogus emails requesting money transfers, but FE Week understands that at least three more colleges — Walsall, Exeter, and Harrow — have received similar communications, with some reporting the incidents to local police.

Deanne Morgan, director of financial services at Harlow College, told FE Week that the scammers had sent several emails, purporting to be from principal Karen Spencer, requesting urgent payment.

But despite looking “very realistic”, staff identified them as fake and thwarted the fraudsters.

One email sent to Ms Morgan read: “Hi Deanne, hope your day is going on fine. I need you to make a same day UK payment for me.

“Kindly email me the required details you will need to send out the payment. I will appreciate a swift email response. Kind regards, Karen Spencer.”

Ms Morgan immediately queried the request with her principal through a different address, and it was quickly confirmed as a scam.

She has since sent an email to other colleagues in the FE sector warning them to be wary of this type of con.

She wrote: “Recently I have received several emails seeming to be from my principal which are scams.

“They obviously do their homework and know who the principal is and head of finance person is (and spell my name correctly — which is very rare), with very realistic imitation email addresses.

“One email was from the ‘principal’ requesting an urgent payment. So be aware that these kind of scams are circulating.”

FE Week reported on a similar incident last year when another fraudster, posing this time as the principal of Westminster Kingsway College, was stopped after requesting an urgent payment of their own.

Again, the request appeared to be genuine, but staff noticed the reply didn’t match the principal’s email address and checked with the boss himself.

And just last week FE Week reported of other “sophisticated” scams that have been targeted at colleges.

The Mary Ward Adult Education Centre nearly fell victim to a con involving fake faxes, before the college’s bank contacted them to question a suspicious payment.

A fraudster had sent a fax requesting a £4,437 clearing house automated payment system (CHAPS) payment after researching the college’s personal bank details, which are in the public domain.

Luckily the college stopped the payment after its bank queried the request with them.

The Education Funding Agency also sent out an alert on May 26, warning customers of an attempted scam impersonating Portakabin Ltd, which makes portable buildings often used by schools and colleges.

Portakabin said it had been able to flag up the attempt internally and report it to the bank being used by the fraudster.

Also last year, some colleges were targeted in a bailiff scam involving a series of phone calls with con artists.

Staff from at least eight colleges, including the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London and City of Southampton College, were subjected to the rip-off attempt.

The fraudsters employed the same tactics on each occasion, centring their bogus story on Northampton County Court, to which a non-existent debt running into thousands of pounds was meant to be owed.

At the time of going to press, it was understood no college had fallen for the scams. FE Week has passed details of the incidents to Action Fraud.

A decision to ban a Christian union from holding prayer and Bible study meetings at an unnamed FE college is “clearly ludicrous” – according to the prime minister himself.

A charity called Festive, which supports Christians in FE colleges, has complained that religious students at a college it declined to name were barred from celebrating their faith using the government’s anti-terrorist Prevent framework.

The issue was picked up in prime minister’s questions on Wednesday (June 8).

Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, stood up in the House of Commons and told David Cameron that “a Christian union being banned from holding prayer and bible study meetings, purportedly on the grounds of Prevent” was “never the purpose of a strategy intended to address terrorism and extremism”.

Mr Cameron agreed that the action taken by the anonymous college was “clearly ludicrous”.

He said: “People do need to exercise some common sense in making these judgments, because it is quite clear that that is not what was intended.”

Smita Jamdar, a partner at legal firm Shakespeare Martineau, told FE Week that the PM had been unwise to pass judgement.

She said: “Based on Prevent, you cannot draw a line in the sand and say ‘no Christian group is ever going to fall foul of this’.

“For him to say ‘it’s clearly ludicrous’ perhaps just says more about his subconscious biases than it does about a measured and thoughtful response to the guidance his government has issued.”

She added that though the Prevent strategy was widely interpreted as relating mostly to Islamic radicalisation, it also addressed other types of extremism.

The focus of Prevent, she said, was on promoting British values, with extremism defined as anything that might compromise factors such as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, or a mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.

However, she added, further and higher education institutions also had an inherent duty to ensure free speech.

She said: “They have to balance it. Just because a view is extreme, that shouldn’t automatically mean it’s banned. They must look at it closely and say ‘do we feel that this is going to lead to people being drawn into terrorism?’”

The government released Prevent guidance specifically aimed at FE a year ago, which stated: “There is an important role for FE institutions … in helping prevent people being drawn into terrorism, which includes not just violent extremism but also non-violent extremism.”

The actions of the college, originally reported on by The Times on June 5, allegedly followed a similar incident in which a Christian union at a sixth form college was recently told it could no longer use the premises and had to meet at a nearby coffee shop instead.

Selina Stewart, the lead Prevent associate for the Education and Training Foundation, told FE Week: “Neither the Prevent duty guidance document nor the Ofsted guidance stops colleges from having religious societies which serve any religious faith.

“As with any activity within a college, the institution must be satisfied that any society complies with all provider policies and procedures and participants in any society are safeguarded effectively.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to comment further.

The apprenticeship levy should not be limited to large employers, according to the senior government vocational education adviser who first proposed it.

Professor Alison Wolf (pictured), who made the case for an employer levy to fund apprenticeship training in a report published days before the government first unveiled the charge, told MPs that the change seemed to have been made “the night before”

She told the subcommittee on education, skills and the economy on Wednesday (June 8) that it was “very odd” that the levy, which is due to be introduced in April 2017, will only be paid by employers with a payroll of at least £3m.

Professor Wolf said: “One of the mysteries to me remains why – well, I can imagine why politically – we created another problem for ourselves by saying there is only going to be limited number of employers who are involved in this, and there’s going to have to be a completely separate system for small businesses.”

The professor, who is also part of Lord Sainsbury’s panel looking into technical and professional education reforms, continued: “Nobody in government has given me an explanation, and why would they?

“I suspect it was one of these things that was decided the night before.”

She said she had “asked people”, and nobody had “given me a good explanation of this or a coherent post-hoc rationalisation of how that will actually work”.

Professor Wolf stressed that she found this worrying.

“If you’re going to have a proper apprenticeship system, and one that’s attractive to young people, you’ve got to get small and medium employers involved,” she said.

In response, a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said: “The levy will put apprenticeship funding on a sustainable footing and improve the technical and professional skills of the workforce.

“Small employers who do not pay the levy will still have access to government funding to deliver apprenticeships.”

The spokesperson added that BIS was still consulting on the issue.

She said: “BIS has met with 400 employers to discuss the design of the digital apprenticeship service, and over 2,000 employers have responded to our surveys about the service design.”

Later in the same session, Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, accused the government of “very much making policy on the hoof”, rather than rolling the levy out “in a considered, properly pacey way”.

The inquiry, chaired by the MPs Neil Carmichael and Iain Wright, aimed to probe the merits of government reforms amid the drive to increase take-up.

Alison Fuller, professor of vocational education and work at the University College London Institute of Education, also told the panel that uncertainties over the Institute for Apprenticeship were causing concern for employers.

She said: “We’re not sure what the functions are going to be, and it’s all very uncertain.

“I know that employers are concerned about this.”

Professor Wolf was also asked about the delay to the publication of Lord Sainsbury’s report, on which FE Week has previously reported.

She said: “Help! What am I allowed to say? It seems to have been caught up in the grid at Number 10. It might be the referendum. It’s finished, it’s submitted. I don’t know how you guys get hold of it.”

Students who started courses at City of Bristol College as long as five years ago have still not been awarded their qualifications due to “misplaced” work.

Two former students from City of Bristol College have lodged formal complaints against the college over the last two years, which have still not been resolved, and still face having to redo lost coursework.

The pair claim to have submitted all the assignments required for the college’s animal management courses by 2013, up to two years after starting.

But they never got their qualifications because it transpired the college had lost some of their work.

A spokesperson admitted: “We acknowledge that a part of students’ original work was misplaced in 2011 and regret that the students have not yet been able to achieve the qualification despite additional support which the college has offered to the students.

“Unfortunately, tutors who delivered the course in 2011 are no longer employed by the college and therefore the college is unable to comment further on this matter.”

However, she admitted the former students would have to redo work on the lost assignments to gain a pass.

She also told FE Week that they had “been given an overview of the work left to submit, with a substantial amount already completed”, and that the college “will continue to work with students to ensure they successfully complete their programme”.

The spokesperson added: “It is the expectation of the awarding body that the accreditation to the qualification is through the individual completing their own assignment work.”

It is understood that the students started a seven-week animal management course in 2011, which was offered by the college for the first time.

It was extended to a full academic year, after course-planners realised extra time would be needed to complete the syllabus — and some of the students were then invited to carry on studying for a second year, FE Week understands.

The college said the eventual qualification from City & Guilds would have been NPTC level three animal management.

One of the students, Avril Horton, told FE Week: “They lost our completed assignments. It was more than one or two; I’ve basically been told to redo more than half the stuff.

“They told us after the seven weeks that they wouldn’t have time to complete it at first, so they invited us to carry on which
we did.

“In the end a few of us, me included, were invited back to do it over two years, and it later emerged that some of the work had been lost completely. It was really, really poor.”

A City & Guilds spokesperson said: “We sympathise with the students affected by this issue.

“We will be working closely with the City of Bristol College to undertake all external moderation and quality assurance activities as swiftly as possible to the highest standard so that there is minimal further delay to learners being awarded their much deserved certificates.”

Mark Dawe (pictured) may only be weeks into his new job, but he is already breaking the mould.

The former college principal and awarding organisation chief has become the first boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) to openly criticise the scale of subcontracting.

Mr Dawe spoke out after AELP claimed that 93 per cent (130,850 of 140,010) of the subcontracted starts made in 2014/15 were delivered by independent training providers (ITPs).

The association published the analysis using Skills Funding Agency (SFA) data, obtained through its freedom of information request.

Mr Dawe conceded that subcontracting was a “complex issue” and often takes place “for good reasons”.

But he was keen to highlight that “the sheer growth of it over the last 10 years has also happened for reasons that are harder to justify”.

“We know ministers are concerned and we think they know what needs to be done,” he added.

“The new levy system will still require funding allocations within a finite programme budget, and it is important much more of those allocations go to providers who can directly deliver apprenticeships.”

This is the first time AELP has come out firmly against the volume of subcontracting, and the move will be viewed as a major change in direction under Mr Dawe, who took over from Stewart Segal as chief executive in March.

His remarks follow a string of negative headlines generated recently by the controversial practice.

We reported last month that around 300 non-compliant colleges and training providers had been threatened with subcontracting bans after failing to follow disclosure rules.

The SFA also announced in April that it was reviewing the use of brokers in fixing short-term tactical subcontracting deals – after an FE Week investigation found they were raking in up to five per cent commission fees on seven figure contracts.

We know ministers are concerned and we think they know what needs to be done

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) demanded an end to ‘tactical’ subcontracting in their 2015/16 grant letter to the SFA.

And the National Audit Office confirmed in February it was investigating management fees – after it emerged that lead contractors were withholding up to 40 per cent of government funding allocations.

The SFA’s director Keith Smith, who is currently on secondment to the BIS, overseeing levy implementation before it goes live next April, warned delegates to plan for a future without subcontracting at the Association of Colleges conference last November.

This was because levy reforms will mean colleges no longer have a funding allocation for apprenticeships. Instead, employers will be able to approach subcontractors to work directly with them, potentially leaving colleges in the cold.

The AELP’s freedom of information response analysis also indicated that 40 per cent (62,240 of 157,290) of all apprenticeship starts contracted through FE colleges were actually delivered by ITPs as subcontractors.

And 76 per cent (378,170 of 499,900) of all apprenticeship starts in 2014/15 were shown to be delivered by ITPs.

Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager for the Association of Colleges, was shown the figures but still insisted that “subcontracting has benefits for both colleges and independent training providers because it minimises the amount of bureaucracy created by the funding system”.

FE Week asked the SFA why it was still allowing up to £1bn a year of subcontracting to take place per year, in view of AELP’s findings.

A spokesperson said: “Our funding rules state that lead providers should only use subcontractors who they determine are of a high quality and low risk.”

—————————————————————————————–

Editorial: I agree with Mark

The new chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), Mark Dawe, is keen to portray his members as the apprenticeship ‘experts’ that colleges go to for help.

The scale of college subcontracting should come as no surprise to the Skills Minister and readers of FE Week, which has regularly reported on the issue since our first edition
in 2011.

However, what is as welcome as it is surprising, is Mr Dawe’s decision to criticise the continued growth in subcontracting.

Readers of my previous editorials on subcontracting will be familiar with my concern over top-slicing arrangements.

But what’s surprising is that the membership body for so many of the subcontractors has criticised the growth in their use.

Many subcontractors I speak to are happiest out of the spotlight of a direct Skills Funding Agency (SFA) contract.

It’s an important intervention, although with increasingly diminished resources at the SFA it seems unlikely they will rush to issue new direct contracts.

It also leaves the Association of Colleges exposed and alone in failing to face up to the truth.

There continues to be too much subcontracting, and the SFA should step in to reverse the trend.

Will the apprenticeship levy be a subcontracting game-changer alone?

That, like so much of the levy plans, remains unclear, untested and uncertain.

Nick Linford

Two senior appointments have been announced for the Institute for Apprenticeships — a day after Association of Employment and Learning Providers boss Mark Dawe complained to MPs about lack of leadership at the new policing body.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) revealed this morning that former Barclays chief executive Anthony Jenkins had been appointed as shadow chair.

It was also announced that former managing director for Trade at UK Trade & Investment Nicola Bolton had been installed as shadow chief operating officer.

This comes after Mr Dawe spoke out yesterday, during a House of Commons sub-committee hearing on education skills and the economy, complaining: “Every time there’s a difficult question [about apprenticeships], we’re told the institute will resolve it – and they haven’t got a board, or a management team or staff yet, as far as I can tell.”

FE Week also reported on May 27 that Rachel Sandby-Thomas was leaving her role as shadow chief executive of the institute — just two months after it announced she had been appointed.

She had been the only appointment to date at the body — which is due to launch in April 2017 and will help police employers as apprenticeship reforms take effect.

A BIS spokesperson said Mr Jenkins would “take up his new role today (June 9) 2016. With the shadow chair in place, the remaining board members of the institute will be appointed through a public appointments process by the end of 2016”.

Skills Minister Nick Boles said he “brings more than three decades of experience from the heart of business to the role and will help shape the institute so it meets the needs of employers”.

He added: “We’re putting employers in control when it comes to apprenticeships because it’s employers who know the skills, training and experience their future workforce needs to succeed.”

Mr Jenkins said: “Apprenticeships are something I care passionately about. I am delighted to be taking on this role and working closely with different sectors which will be important in helping to create opportunities for millions of our citizens and providing great talent for business.”

Mr Jenkins began his banking career as a graduate trainee at Barclays in 1983.

He worked at the bank until 1989, when he joined Citigroup and after stints in the US and the UK at Citigroup, he returned to Barclays to fill a series of senior management roles in retail and corporate banking. He was chief executive from 2012 to 2015.

Ms Bolton, who was not available for comment ahead of publication but started in her new post earlier this month, was chief operating officer for IBM’s sales business for the media, energy, telecoms and utility sectors across Europe, Middle East and Africa before taking on her role of government industry executive director in 2003.

LATEST: Nescot accepts former £360k a year principal was unfairly dismissed

A row has broken out between the chair of the North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) FE Corporation and Sunaina Mann, who last week stood down as Nescot’s principal.

In May, FE Week reported that Ms Mann’s husband had been paid almost £200,000 through a contract with Nescot’s controversial Saudi Arabian partner, the Jeddah Female College, a state of affairs of which Nescot’s board of governors was reportedly unaware for 18 months.

Despite stepping down as principal of Nescot last week, Ms Mann remains principal of the Jeddah Female College.

A spokesperson for Nescot told FE Week that the college governors were not made aware of the arrangements with Ms Mann’s husband at the time, though Ms Mann has disputed this, claiming that it had been the “duty” of David Round, formerly clerk to the corporation at Nescot, to “ensure that the corporation was fully informed”.

However, Nescot’s chair Professor Mark Hunt has confirmed to FE Week that the college fully supports Mr Round.

Professor Hunt told FE Week: “We do not wish to get drawn into the details of what has been asserted save that we would take this opportunity to make it clear that David Round has our full support.”

He also commented on Ms Mann’s decision to respond to an email he had sent to all staff at the organisation on June 2, breaking the news of her resignation, in which she said she felt there had been “a serious failure by the college” to support her.

In the email, she said she would be continuing at the Jeddah College – a fact which was subsequently confirmed to FE Week by Highbury College and Burton and South Derbyshire College, which both have a 20 per cent stake in the Nescot Consortium.

Professor Hunt told FE Week: “We are disappointed that Sunaina sent a statement to staff in the terms she did last week. Nescot has chosen not to comment on the internal processes that preceded her decision and that remains our current position.

“NBS [Nescot Business Services] is the group entity through which we have an interest in NCL [Nescot Consortium Limited]. We can clarify that Sunaina has been removed as the representative of NBS in relation to the Jeddah College.

“We are, of course, also aware of the article in FE Week last Friday and the assertions made by Sunaina in relation to her husband, Jaswinder Mann’s, contract with NCL.”

Ms Mann expressed frustration at the college’s actions.

She said: “I am surprised and disappointed that Nescot should have issued a press statement.

“Their justification for previously saying nothing in the press, in the face of the untrue allegations concerning the appointment of my husband was that they did not wish to feed the media story.

“The fact that they reference ‘what has been asserted’ by me, but do not corroborate it, is astonishing bearing in mind that the chairman of Nescot was written to by the Chairman of NCL reiterating the situation fully in March 2016.

“That letter reconfirmed that the appointment was a decision of the board of NCL and that I had no involvement in it whatsoever. I note that they do not any longer contend lack of knowledge concerning the appointment.

“The fact that the board has gone out of its way to show support for David Round is in stark contrast with the way in which I have been treated and only confirms that I was right to treat myself as dismissed.

“Mr Round’s duty as clerk to the corporation of Nescot, company secretary to NBS and NCL is to ensure that the corporation was fully informed of all relevant matters and disclosures made known to him.

“I continue to work at the college in Jeddah. I have no desire to be, and nor have I ever suggested that I am, a representative of NBS.”

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has published guidance on how it will fund legacy GCSEs in English, English language and maths in 2016/17.

Existing GCSEs are now referred to as “legacy” courses by the government and are due to be replaced by supposedly tougher reformed GCSEs, after pupils have sat the last exams this academic year.

But it has now been confirmed that colleges will still be able to receive funding to teach resits for these GCSEs until the summer of 2017, if they take on students from September who have missed out on a C grade in English or maths this summer.

The SFA announced today how it will fund this in its weekly online Update bulletin.

Linked guidance explained: “For the 2016 to 2017 academic year only, we will fund those learners aged 16 and above who meet Ofqual’s criteria to study the legacy GCSEs in English, English language and mathematics.

“We will not fund learners who are only sitting the exams.

“From August 1, 2017, we will not fund learners to study or continue to study with the legacy maths and English GCSEs. After this date, all learners must undertake the reformed GCSEs graded 9-1.”

It comes after Ofqual announced in March that pupils who do not pass English or maths GCSE at the end of this academic year will have two resit chances — a decision which was implemented through formal rules published on the gov.uk website today.

They will be in November 2016 and summer 2017.

But concerns had been raised by assessment organisations, including OCR, over whether providers would be able to secure the funding to continue teaching the old GCSE syllabus, if these courses were being replaced by the new system.

It is understood that today’s announcement was intended to ally those fears.