Further education colleges will avoid being made to hit the new public sector apprenticeship recruitment target, FE Week can reveal.

A government consultation document out today explains how the 2.3 per cent target figure for public sector bodies, previously explained in the government’s English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 Vision report published in December, would apply to those employing 250 or more people in England.

However, while it said some schools would be covered, it did not mention colleges.

FE Week understands this is because the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced in May 2012 that general FE colleges and sixth form colleges (SFCs) in this country had been reclassified from general government to the non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) sector.

Yet latest published college accounts (2013/14) showed 196 colleges and six SFCs had 250 or more staff, totalling 110,787 employees.

Were they included in the target, that would be around 2,500 apprenticeship starts, although many colleges already employ apprentices.

The nine question consultation paper explained that “as a starting point for determining an appropriate target for public sector organisations”, the government had “taken the current proportion of public sector workers in the total workforce in England (16.2 per cent)”.

“We would, therefore, expect the public sector to deliver 16.2 per cent of 3m apprenticeship starts, which is around 486,000 apprenticeship starts,” it said.

“These starts will be delivered by a public sector workforce, currently 4.264m in England.

“Therefore, to deliver 486,000 apprenticeship starts by 2020, the public sector will need to achieve approximately 97,000 apprenticeship starts annually, which is equivalent to 2.3 per cent of the total public sector workforce.”

However, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) was unable to comment ahead of publication on what the current annual apprenticeship starts figure was for the bodies involved — which would have provided a more accurate idea of the rate of increase required to hit the target.

The consultation document said the “majority of other NHS bodies have 250 or more headcount (e.g. NHS Blood and Transplant) and would therefore be covered by the duty”.

It comes after the Vision 2020 report said the NHS was “committed” to delivering over 17,000 apprenticeship starts during 2015/16, reaching more than 100,000 in 2020.

When asked how this would work, taking into account the consultation guidance, a Department of Health spokesperson said: “The 100,000 apprenticeships will be cumulative over the course of this parliament.

“We’ve got 15,000 in 2014/15 and we are aiming for 17,000 in 2015/16.

“The BIS Enterprise Bill will bring in the public sector target later this year and we are working with NHS Employers and Health Education England to provide support and guidance to NHS Trusts,” she added.

The consultation document added all but around 30 of the 354 local authorities, all police and Armed Forces, and the vast majority of fire and rescue services would have to hit the target.

Other large bodies including Network Rail, London Underground, the BBC, Sellafield, Post Office, City of London, Bank of England, Financial Ombudsman Service, and the Financial Conduct Authority would also be covered.

Commenting on the consultation, Skills Minister Nick Boles said:“Our apprenticeships revolution has already given 2.4m people the chance to learn the skills they need to get on in life, with businesses leading the way.

“Now it’s time for the public sector to step up and give those same opportunities as we turbo charge our drive to give youngsters the best start to working life.”

The consultation document added the government would “determine whether or not further support is needed for public bodies to ensure they are maximising apprenticeship growth and, where they are failing to meet the target, taking steps to redress this”.

But it did not say what these steps might be, or what sanctions could be imposed on bodies that fail to hit the target.

It comes after FE Week reported on January 22 that the government had missed its orginal December deadline for launching the consultation.

The government was unable to confirm ahead of publication if it definitely planned to exempt FE colleges from the target.

Chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) Martin Doel has welcomed government moves to end “outdated snobbery” against apprenticeships in schools by legally forcing them to let FE providers talk to students about their benefits.

Schools are already legally obliged to provide careers guidance and a rule change in 2012 saw local authorities stripped of this responsibility with schools taking over.

However, a report by Ofsted in 2013 found that three-quarters of schools failed to equally promote vocational options.

And a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said yesterday (Sunday) that “schools must give equal airtime to the non-academic routes pupils can take post-16, under government plans to end the ‘second class’ perception of technical and professional education (TPE).

“A new law would see apprenticeship providers and staff from colleges visit schools as part of careers advice from early secondary school, to talk to pupils about the opportunities open to them through apprenticeships or other routes,” the spokesperson added.

The move was welcomed by Mr Doel, who said: “To make informed choices for the future, young people need high quality, impartial careers information about all post-16 education and training options, including apprenticeships and technical and professional education.

“We have long been calling for an improvement to the system and welcome the changes outlined.

“Colleges recognise the critical nature of good careers education and will be very keen to continue to work together with their local schools, and this announcement will make that a reality.”

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said that the government wanted to “level the playing field — making sure they [young people] are aware of all the options open to them and are able to make the right choice for them.

“For many young people going to university will be the right choice, and we are committed to continuing to expand access to higher education, but for other young people the technical education provided by apprenticeships will suit them better.

“That’s why I’m determined to tackle the minority of schools that perpetuate an outdated snobbery towards apprenticeships by requiring those schools to give young people the chance to hear about the fantastic opportunities apprenticeships and technical education offer.”

Dr Deirdre Hughes OBE, principal research fellow, Warwick Institute for Employment Research, and former chair of the National Careers Council, said: “I welcome the government’s announcement to publish a new careers strategy.

“For more than 3 years, the government has received many evidence-based reports indicating the careers system in England is fragmented and incoherent.”

Confirmation that tough new strike rules will apply to FE workers will “add confusion” rather than clarity, unions have warned.

The government’s ballot threshold consultation response, published Thursday (January 21) lists teaching and leadership of “pupils aged 5 to 16 in state-funded schools” as “important public services” which would be subject to the new 40 per cent support threshold for strike action, as part of the new trade union bill.

And a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed that the tough new threshold would apply to “any teacher teaching a child under 17” whether in FE or a school.

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), called the policy “ill-thought through”.

She said: “The government has a poor understanding of how schools and colleges work.

“This will lead to a greater likelihood of legal challenges from employers which will prolong disputes, even when, like the wider public, union members want a resolution.”

“This legislation will do nothing to serve the interests of students or their parents,” she added.

“Today’s clarity is more likely to add confusion,” said University and College Union (UCU) head of bargaining Michael MacNeil.

 

— ‘I have no idea — or if I had an idea I’m not going to share it’ Skills Minister tells FE figures

— Former SFA director David Hughes tells of worries about employers policing employers

Skills Minister Nick Boles told key FE figures that he had “no idea — or if I had an idea I’m not going to share it” about how big the Institute for Apprenticeships should be to police employers once reforms took effect.

At a Policy Exchange round-table discussion, sponsored by the Learning and Work Institute (LWI), Mr Boles was tight-lipped as to how the employer-led body, that is due to be fully operational in just over a year, would oversee the new system.

He was asked by FE Week, which was granted exclusive reporting access to the event, how big he expected the institute to be in order to police the reformed apprenticeship system of thousands of new standards, 600,000 starts a-year to hit the government’s 3m starts target, 1,000 or more providers and half a million employers.

Mr Boles said: “I have no idea — or if I had an idea I’m not going to share it with you.”

Among those at the roundtable event, in London on Thursday (January 21), was LWI chief executive David Hughes, who told of his grave concerns that government would step back from a “policing” role for the institute to step in.

“The idea that employers will police themselves is nonsense. That really worries me,” he said.

Mr Hughes, who previously had responsibility for apprenticeship funding as a Skills Funding Agency national director, added: “It worries me because the employers that want to game play will ignore those that want to do it right. That’s what history shows us over the years.”

Plans for the new apprenticeships institute were announced as part of November’s spending review and autumn statement, which said the government would “establish a new employer-led body to set apprenticeship standards and ensure quality”.

It would be “independent of government and will also advise on the level of levy funding each apprenticeship should receive”.

The round-table discussion focused on apprenticeships quality and featured LWI plans for an apprenticeship charter, first mooted in the FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference last year, to act as an employers’ quality mark.

Mr Boles described the new apprenticeships institute as “a body that has quite a narrow remit but has very, very deep power within that remit”.

He added: “The way the institute is set up and the processes that it will be running will be ones that should ensure that collective policing of self-improvement.”

Mr Boles did reinforce the idea that the institute “is not a body that is constantly subject to directions by ministers and the latest whims of the latest politician”.

He said: “We will be bringing forward clauses in the Enterprise Bill that will set up the new Institute which will explain, and I hope clarify to everybody’s satisfaction, that that is exactly what it will be.”

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Editor’s comment

Boles bottles it

‘I don’t know, or if I did I wouldn’t tell you’ — it’s quite a statement for Skills Minister Nick Boles to make to FE Week readers.

And to be clear, our presence at this exclusive round-table had been cleared with him.

So it’s disappointing to hear his refusal to give straight answers to simple questions about apprenticeship quality.

As a holder of public office, he cannot simply bluster away such questioning and nor should he want to considering the question asked could well be key to paving the way for standards. Employers and providers are understandably anxious about the shift from frameworks — and on page 5 there’s just more evidence of this.

So if the Apprenticeship Delivery Board serves just one purpose then it would be most helpful if that purpose were to get Boles to be more forthcoming.

David Hughes is quite right to air concerns about giving employers the job of policing employers. We’ll just have to wait and see if it’s a view heard by Boles.

And while the minister may well not want to share his views with the public, the sector would like to share its views with him on this with a consultation — it might just be the only hope of slowing down the mad dash to launch the Institute for Apprenticeships.

Chris Henwood

chris.henwood@feweek.co.uk

John Laramy has been appointed as the new principal of Exeter College, replacing Richard Atkins who will retire in March.

Mr Laramy, who has been vice principal of Exeter college since 2009, will take up his new post at the start of April.

He was selected by the board of governors to lead the college, which was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2014, after a national recruitment and selection process.

Philip Bostock, chair of governors, said: “We had a strong field of candidates and a robust selection process and I am delighted that John Laramy emerged from that as the unanimous choice of governors.

“Working alongside our hugely respected retiring principal, Richard Atkins, John has been instrumental in driving our relentless progress towards outstanding teaching and learning for all our students and our position as one of the country’s foremost FE colleges.”

Mr Laramy said he was “delighted” to have been chosen.

“I am privileged to have the opportunity to lead one of the best colleges in the country. Exeter College is exceptional, and I look forward to working with students, staff, governors and stakeholders to build on its success in the future,” he added.

Current principal Richard Atkins, who joined Exeter College in 2002, said: “John has been an excellent vice principal at the college over the past seven years and has made a huge contribution to our many successes.

“I am not surprised that he came through a rigorous national selection process successfully. He is passionate about teaching, learning and the student experience and I am sure that he will lead Exeter College forward to achieve many future outstanding successes.”

Mr Atkins set his retirement for the end of March 2016 last October, after a consultation with the Exeter College’s governors. The recruitment process began after this and interviews for the role of Principal were held this week, with Mr Laramy being finally selected yesterday (January 20).

In the past, Mr Laramy has also worked part-time at North West Kent College and in a number of roles at North Devon College, including in the senior management team.

He sits on the Exeter Mathematics School Board, a partnership between Exeter University and Exeter College, and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Building.

Exeter College undertook a joint feasibility study last summer with Petroc College, to consider working more closely together. In September 2015, the boards of both agreed to remain independent corporations and colleges.

Senior figures from the Policy Consortium have challenged Sir Michael Wilshaw over his claim that the FE sector is “inadequate at best”, in a letter to Ofsted’s chief inspector seen by FE Week.

Sir Michael made the comments during a speech on Monday (January 19) for thinktank CentreForum, which also criticised the sector for offering “uniformly weak” careers advice, as reported in FE Week.

But 12 members of the Policy Consortium, which is described on its website as a group of “experienced people with strong and varied track records in FE and skills”, hit back in a letter sent to Sir Michael yesterday (January 22).

He will have received it on the same day that FE Week reported on how leaders of the Association of Colleges (AoC), Holex, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), and the University and College Union (UCU) had issued strongly worded statements defending the sector against Mr Wilshaw’s scathing claims.

The Policy Consortium letter raised concern about the extract from Sir Michael’s speech, where he said: “Educational provision, for the many children who do not succeed at 16 or who would prefer an alternative to higher education, is inadequate at best and non-existent at worst.”

They said in response that “your assertion is damning. But it is also very puzzling”.

“We have looked back at the most recent chief inspector’s report, published on December 1,” their letter added.

“There, we find that only 3 per cent of general FE colleges and 3 per cent of independent training providers were graded as ‘inadequate’ for overall effectiveness at their most recent inspection.

“On the other hand, more than three-quarters of both those categories were rated by Ofsted inspectors as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.

“We would be grateful if you could let us know how to reconcile your recent assertion with the evidence produced by your own organisation, and detailed so clearly in your own annual report.”

The letter concluded by asking: “Should we accept the evidence of that data, or your quite contradictory claim above?”

It was signed by regular FE Week columnist Mick Fletcher, founder member of the Policy Consortium and a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Education, along with senior figures including Judith Cohen, former Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA) regional director for Yorkshire & Humberside.

Also signed up were Sally Faraday, ex-research manager at the Learning and Skills Network, and journalist, author, media consultant and regular FE Week contributor Ian Nash.

It comes after FE Week reported yesterday that Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, had responded to Sir Michael’s speech by insisting that FE colleges “provide excellent pastoral support, work hard to ensure that all students are supported to help them succeed and advance their valuable employability skills and develop their career opportunities”.

Dr Sue Pember, director of policy and external relations at Holex and FE Week agony aunt, said the sector should not be held responsible when government changes to the education system fail.

“Colleges and providers have been the pawns in these policy changes and really can’t be blamed if the systems that governments have advocated don’t actually succeed,” she said.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the ASCL, said FE colleges should be “celebrated” for the “enormous contribution” they make to meeting the needs of learners and employers.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, agreed with Sir Michael’s call for better careers advice for college students, but warned that providing it “will require proper investment”.

Ofsted was unable to respond to the questions raised in the Policy Consortium letter ahead of publication.