You would think that having been contacted by FE Week, the board members would fall over themselves to demonstrate that they had a robust governance response.
But despite written and verbal communication with several governors, including the chairman, they were not forthcoming before we went to press.
I found that disappointing given the seriousness of the issues at stake here.
As I said in an email to the chair, I used to work for a college and attended board meetings, so have a good idea how it all works.
Putting aside the complex nature of the Saudi project, were the college’s internal related party transaction and procurement policy rules broken and if so what, if anything, did the board do about it?
The college spokesperson said the college was declining to answer, but hopefully the chair will in due course.
The government is privately worried about the ongoing delays with the Greater Manchester area review – despite skills minister Nick Boles publicly claiming in January that he was more concerned about the quality of area review outcomes than timing.
According to leaked documents seen exclusively by FE Week, the review – which involves 21 colleges and sixth forms and was one of the first to be announced – is still barely two thirds of the way through, likely due to an extended four-month gap between steering group meetings.
Minutes from the most recent steering group meeting, on April 21, reveal the government’s concern over the ongoing delays.
Mike Keoghan, director of vocational education at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), warned the group that “the pace of the review in Greater Manchester was a cause for concern within BIS and the Department for Education (DfE)”.
He said it was “critical” that the steering group agreed a final set of recommendations at the next meeting, due to be held on May 25.
Theresa Grant, the chief executive of Trafford Council, who chairs the steering group, warned in her concluding remarks of the risk that the process “would lead to a fragmentation of the colleges in Greater Manchester”.
FE Week has repeatedly highlighted ongoing delays to the review process.
Initial BIS guidance in September said a “typical timescale” for a review would be three to four months, but updated guidance from March extended this to four to six months.
Earlier this year, Mr Boles told the commons education and skills subcommittee that he was “more concerned about the quality of the outcome than whether it hits the month in the year that I initially signed off on as the plan”.
However, to date just two areas have completed – Birmingham and Solihull, in early March, and Tees Valley, on May 13.
Eight months have passed since the first Greater Manchester steering group meeting on September 21, and the April meeting was only the fourth of six planned sessions.
The previous meeting was held in December – a gap of four months.
What’s more, just two mergers have so far been proposed, according to the minutes.
One involves a link-up between Oldham, Stockport and Tameside Colleges, which could potentially also include Hopwood Hall College.
Bury College has already announced plans to merge with neighbouring University of Bolton, but the leaked minutes showed that Bolton College could also be joining them.
Ms Grant told FE Week that “we are very near the completion of the review and I and the colleges are hopeful of a positive outcome”.
Wigan and Leigh College principal Michael Sheehan announced he was stepping down for unknown reasons on April 22, the day after the meeting. The minutes now prove he was not present at the meeting.
A spokesperson for the college declined to comment on his departure.
Oldham, Stockport and Tameside Colleges have said in a joint statement that there were “immense advantages” to a merged organisation, but noted that “we are in the middle of a process” which “needs to be allowed to take its course”.
Bolton College principal Marie Gilluley said the college had “engaged fully” in the area review, and that governors were “unanimous” that the proposed merger was
“the best option to safeguard the college and its future”.
A BIS spokesperson said the timescales for the Greater Manchester area review had been “rightly adjusted” to allow the steering group to carry out all its work.
The final steering group meeting is now scheduled for June.
A sixth form college (SFC) in West Yorkshire has become the first of its kind to be rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted since the introduction of the common inspection framework (CIF) in September.
Huddersfield New College received grade ones across the board from the education watchdog, in a report published today which also found the 2,400-learner SFC had “no significant weaknesses”.
Inspectors found that Huddersfield New College’s principal, Angela Williams (pictured below), had an “unrelenting focus on a high-quality learning experience for young people” and “established a culture in which staff and learners flourish”.
It continued: “Consequently, the principal, college leaders and governors make a genuine investment in transforming the lives of the young people who attend.”
Success rates at the SFC were “well above those nationally and those for similar providers,” the report said.
Inspectors found that a “highly successful feature of the college ethos is that all learners, irrespective of background or barriers to learning, should have the very best opportunities to achieve and develop into confident young adults”.
As a result learners “make excellent progress from below average starting points” and “achieve better grades than might be expected from their prior achievements”.
It continued: “Improved outcomes are particularly notable for learners who are known to have been eligible for free school meals: a group who make up almost one fifth of the college cohort.”
The “rich and varied curriculum” meant that learners were well prepared for future study or employment, the report said.
Inspectors found that teachers at the SFC were “skilled and enthusiastic” and “consistently set high expectations” for students.
Teachers “take a forensic approach to the monitoring of learners’ progress and achievement” to “pinpoint priorities for future development”, the report said.
Learners in AS and A-level classes “work diligently and collaboratively” and were empowered by teachers to “take responsibility for their own learning”, it said.
Commenting on the Ofsted report, Ms Williams said: “It has taken years of hard work to remain highly inclusive and to become one of the best SFCs in the country and we fully intend to continue to work hard to stay top of the class and to transform even more lives.”
James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “This is a huge achievement and reflects the exceptionally high standard of education offered by the college, and the outstanding results achieved by students.”
Linda Summers, Huddersfield New College chair, said the Ofsted grade reflected “a team effort by students, staff and managers, and the governors are immensely proud of them all”.
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has pulled the delayed national achievement rate tables (NART) for providers from its website, after FE Week alerted it to a series of errors in the data.
The long-awaited tables were uploaded this morning, but a number of mistakes led the agency to take the information down again until they had been rectified.
A notice on the site said the 2014 to 2015 education and training NART overall institution spreadsheet was “temporarily removed for revision” and a spokesperson from the SFA subsequently thanked FE Week for highlighting the problems and confirmed they were the result of “human error”.
Mistakes in the data included the achievement rate percentage totalling over 100 per cent for the ’ethnicity’ column and the achievement rate and retention rate being the wrong way around in the ‘delivery LEP’ column.
It comes after the SFA twice delayed publication of the 2014/15 nationwide qualification achievement rates (QAR).
FE Week described in December 2015 how the publication of the QAR for 2014/15 had been pushed back, with promises it would be published “towards the end of March”.
The data would normally have been published in January and the rates were also missing from the Statistical First Release publication at the end of March, owing to “changes to the collection and storage of the data”.
The twice-delayed QARs were finally made available on April 5, via new interactive dashboards on the SFA’s online hub.
However, the dashboards did not include the facility to view national averages for individual qualifications – information that has been available in previous years, before the introduction of the interactive dashboards.
This led a number of providers to complain about the missing information through the SFA’s FE Connect forums in the days following the QAR publication.
In an answer to an FE Week Freedom of Information request over development costs, the SFA said that the new ‘Birst’ QAR data dashboard cost a one-off sum of £153,000 to develop in 2014/15, but would subsequently require only £58,000 per year to run.
It claimed that this should result in annual savings of 65 per cent, when compared with the £164,000 the old system cost in 2013/14, using multiple PDF annual reports that were sent out to providers.
However, sector representatives told FE Week that they were worried the new dashboard could shift the burdens of time and expense onto them.
Ofqual has announced Julie Swan as its new executive director for general qualifications.
She will take up the position permanently after a spell as the acting executive director when her predecessor, Ian Stockford, left the exams regulator to join AQA in December.
Ms Swan (pictured) has worked for Ofqual for seven years and was most recently associate director for regulatory policy.
She said that she appreciated “there are significant challenges ahead” as the organisation continues with reform of GCSEs and A-levels.
Major changes to the qualifications include the first awarding of new AS levels this summer, and the introduction of a new GCSE grading system from next year.
The late accreditation of new exam specifications is also causing concern among teachers who have been unable to plan lessons and could delay subject textbooks — leaving teachers without crucial resources when students return in September.
FE has drawn the spotlight of the national press, after the government refused to rule out a hike in the levy after its launch next April.
City A.M.’s front page today raised concern that the chancellor could look to raise extra income from businesses – through new revenue raising measures, including a potential increase of the levy.
It came after Greg Hands (pictured above), chief secretary to the Treasury, was asked in a parliamentary question from Labour what the rate and threshold of the levy would be in in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20.
Mr Hands declined to give a clear answer, saying: “The government has confirmed that the apprenticeship levy will be set at a rate of 0.5 per cent of company paybill and every employer will have a £15,000 allowance to offset against their levy liability.
“In practice, this means only employers with paybills greater than £3m will pay the levy.”
But he added: “As with all policies, the government will keep the apprenticeship levy under review.”
Calls have been made for greater clarity, following complaints that the prospect of the levy being hiked adds yet another concern about the scheme.
Skills minister, Gordon Marsden, said it seemed “inevitable” the government would end up raising the levy.
He commented: “Having tried to duck answering our parliamentary question first time round, the minister has had to admit that the Treasury could now increase the levy rate on a yearly basis.
“The more we hear from various sources about how the levy will now need to fund the top up, the devolved administrations, English and maths at level two and disadvantaged learners, incentive payments and non-levy payers, the more it seems inevitable that the government will end up raising the levy.”
He added: “This just adds further to the mounting chorus of concerns from employers and providers about the government’s handling of the levy’s implementation from 2017.”
The Confederation of British Industry, which suggested on April 28 that the start date for the levy should be delayed unless a “radical review” took place, said that it would be “unjustified to raise [levy] rates”.
Scott Corfe, director at the Centre for Economics and Business Research think tank, added: “As weaker economic growth is likely to leave the chancellor missing his deficit reduction targets by a wider margin, revenue-raising measures could take the form of new types of business taxes, such as the apprenticeship levy.”
The government has been criticised for largely ignoring the role of FE colleges play with delivering degree level provision in its new white paper on higher education.
There were only three mentions of FE colleges throughout the 83-page document, called Success as a knowledge economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice, which was unveiled by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills this morning.
This provoked criticism from Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden that it “consistently talks simply about universities and possible new universities — yet it ignores the role of FE colleges and providers which currently deliver at least 10 per cent of all HE participation”.
The white paper did acknowledge that “the growth in FE colleges and alternative providers offering higher education has significantly changed the marketplace and how students study”.
It added that the government would introduce a range of reforms to the way in which providers can award their own higher education qualifications through degree awarding powers (DAPs).
It said: “DAPs in the current system are all or nothing — designed around traditional large, established, multifaculty providers.
“This system is both outdated and insufficiently flexible, so we will create a suite of options for those wishing to award their own degrees in the future.
“We will allow providers who meet our demanding quality standards to secure full degree awarding powers more quickly, after three years of operation.
Martin Doel
“High quality providers will also be able to award foundation or taught degrees on a probationary basis when they first start operating, subject to some restrictions on scope.”
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) said: “This step change away from the country’s traditional university system will empower more people than ever before to access HE in their local area through a college.”
It comes after colleges were granted foundation degree awarding powers in 2011 — although there was limited uptake from the sector.
The document published today added: “In our green paper, we proposed that only providers with 50 per cent of their students on higher education courses would be eligible for teaching excellence framework (TEF).
“Many stakeholders made a compelling case against what they saw as an arbitrary ban on other providers operating in the higher education sector.
“FE colleges, for example, may individually only have a minority of their learners on higher education courses, but collectively deliver a significant amount of higher education provision.”
It added that having considered such responses, “we have decided to expand eligibility for TEF year one to all providers that deliver undergraduate provision, including at levels four”.
It also said that part-time courses would also be incorporated from year one as a result of the responses to the consultation.
The white paper also stated that a single market regulator, the Office for Students (OfS) would combine the existing regulatory functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Office for Fair Access (OFFA).
“It [OfS] will have clearer and consistent powers to regulate the sector, by attaching regulatory conditions to providers that enter the system,” it added.
“The conditions will be consistent between all types of providers – higher education institutions, alternative providers, FE colleges and new entrants.”
The BIS white paper comes two weeks after FE Week exclusively revealed details of the postponed skills white paper, which will be the first of its kind in a decade.
Now expected before the government goes into purdah on May 27, ahead of the EU referendum, the skills white paper is due to outline how16-year-olds will have to choose between academic courses leading to university or a new technical professional education (TPE) route into work.
The plans are expected to reflect findings of an independent panel, led by Lord Sainsbury, to look into technical and professional education (TPE) plans.
The FE Commissioner has endorsed a three-way merger plan between colleges in the Midlands, even though concern is rising in the sector that too many providers are being rushed into joining forces.
Dr David Collins’ new report on City College Coventry has concluded that there appeared “to be no insuperable barriers to progress” its plans to join-up with neighbouring institutions, based on a visit from his team in February.
The merger would involve nearby Henley College, and Hereward College — with all three part of the Coventry and Warwickshire area review, which only very recently had its first steering group meeting, on May 4.
However the University and College Union’s head of FE, Andrew Harden, told FE Week that “too many college mergers are being put forward” in haste, as poor solutions “to financial issues brought about by government funding cuts, or to pre-empt the outcomes of area reviews”.
He said: “Partnership working can bring benefits, but rushed or forced mergers based mainly on financial or sustainability concerns risk stripping away local learning opportunities and disenfranchising large groups of learners.”
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, also criticised the speed of the mergers, claiming that colleges joining forces before final area review recommendations were released made “a mockery out of the whole process”.
Dr Collins’ report on City College Coventry noted the board’s view that the FE offer in Coventry “is not organised such as to give maximum benefit to students and the local economy”.
Amongst the recommendations it made, it said: “The college should work with them [the other two colleges] to consider methodically a full range of options for creating a robust FE curriculum for Coventry, including relationships with higher education.”
The three colleges said in a statement that their dialogue, “though still at an early stage, is proceeding well and developing along productive lines”.
The statement added: “None of this activity means that the Coventry colleges have closed minds as far as the area review is concerned.
“However, we feel there should be a strong, distinctively Coventry component to any realignment of FE in the region.”
Dr Collins’ report also found that City College Coventry, which has been hit with two inadequate Ofsted ratings in three years, was “clearly failing too many of its students”, but that it had “a number of strengths which, if deployed vigorously and over time, can turn this institution around”.
A spokesperson for the college told FE Week that it had been “involved in a fundamental review” of its priorities since November, and had taken advice from a “wide range of stakeholders” including the FE Commissioner.
“We found that process extremely useful and constructive, and our improvement plan addresses all of the recommendations made in the report,” the spokesperson said.
Three mergers involving five FE colleges and one sixth form college (SFC) have been proposed as part of the Tees Valley area review, which has become the second area review to reach its conclusion.
The outcomes of the review, which was part of wave one of the area reviews, were published today in a statement by Tees Valley Combined Authority.
Six colleges and four SFCs were involved in the review, which had its first steering group on October 1.
The proposed mergers are between Middlesbrough College and Redcar and Cleveland College; Darlington College and Stockton Riverside College; and Hartlepool College and Hartlepool Sixth Form College.
Cleveland College of Art and Design will remain as an independent institution to build on its art and design specialism, the statement said.
As reported by FE Week, Prior Pursglove SFC and Stockton SFC have already merged to form Prior Pursglove and Stockton SFC. The newly-merged institution will now pursue academisation, and will either establish its own multi-academy trust (MAT) or join one with local schools, the statement said.
The remaining SFC, Queen Elizabeth SFC, will remain independent while also pursuing academisation as part of a MAT.
Gill Alexander, Hartlepool Council chief executive, said: “These proposals will create a system which delivers world-class further education in the Tees Valley and which fully meets the needs of local young people, adults and employers.”
She continued: “By collaborative, partnership working we can benefit from further education opportunities that will give young people and adults the skills and qualifications to get into work and have successful careers in Tees Valley or beyond.”
Tees Valley is just the second of the seven areas involved in wave one of the area reviews to have reached the end of the process – despite all seven areas having begun in September or October.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills initially advised in September that post-16 education and skills area reviews should take three to four months to complete — then extended this to four to six months in a second guidance document published in March.
Mr Hands declined to give a clear answer, saying: “