A debt-laden college will close two campuses, including a former sixth form college (SFC), and stop providing A-levels.

Central Sussex College announced on April 15 it would be closing its Haywards Heath campus, formerly Haywards Heath SFC, in 2017 due to “too high” debt and falling student numbers.

It will also move a “small number” of adult education courses to its Crawley base from its East Grinstead campus, which it will be closing later this year.

The college is £25m in the red, according to a statement on the college’s website, of which £21.4m is a mortgage taken out to cover the campus redevelopment between 2008 and 2011.

College principal Sarah Wright said: “The brutal truth is that our debts are too high and in order to protect the majority of students and staff, and the wider community, we have to substantially reduce our costs.”

Central Sussex College was formed in August 2005 through the merger of Crawley College and Haywards Heath SFC.

Ms Wright, who took over at the college in 2013, told FE Week that the college received £6.8m in government funding to support the early phases of the Haywards Heath campus redevelopment.

When funding from this programme was withdrawn, the college took out £22.5m in mortgages between 2008 and 2012 to cover the remaining cost, Ms Wright said.

She told FE Week that the college had breached its loan covenants in 2013/14 and was forecast to do so again in 2015/16, but this had not led to an increase in the interest rate it was paying.

A statement on the college’s website said the number of A-level students at the college had fallen by 60 per cent over the past three years, which was due to an “over-supply” of A-level provision in the area.

There were about 1,000 current students at the Haywards Heath campus, and between 200 and 300 at the East Grinstead campus, it said.

The closure means that the college will end its A-level provision in 2017.

Students currently enrolled will complete their courses, while those who were due to start in September will be supported to find alternative places, the college said.

Sir Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid Sussex, which includes the college, said he was “appalled and deeply saddened” by the closure.

“I have today written to the Secretary of State for Education to ask her to examine what has happened and to see whether or not the Government can assist in dealing with this self-inflicted wound by an earlier and very reckless management,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “We are in discussions with other nearby sixth form colleges to ensure students have a place elsewhere.

“Additionally as part of the area review programme we are supporting colleges to put plans in place that will enable them to secure a strong and sustainable future.”

The closure comes at the same time as more than 15 college mergers are expected in 2016.

The Haywards Heath campus will close in 2017

The principal of Barnfield College has vowed it will be ‘outstanding’ within two years — after its Ofsted rating improved one grade from its previous ‘inadequate’ report.

Tim Eyton-Jones described the new report out this month as fair and accurate.

But he told FE Week the grade three across-the-board verdict would be treated as a springboard for further improvements.

“When Ofsted come again — if they come in two years’ time our target is for them to see an outstanding college,” he said.

It comes a little over two years after the college received a notice of concern from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) over its finances, and 17 months after Ofsted branded it inadequate across the board with no key strengths.

The latest Ofsted report praised the leadership team for “decisive action” taken to turn around its fortunes, but recognised there was still work to be done.

It said college leaders had “developed a detailed development plan that defines precisely the expectations for all staff to provide high-quality education provision and improve outcomes for all students and apprentices”.

“They have secured financial stability and placed the college on a firm footing from which to improve outcomes for all students and apprentices,” the report added.

It recognised that the college had invested “significantly in the recruitment of experienced managers and teachers”.

However, as many of these were recent appointments, inspectors found that “planned actions to improve teachers’ and assessors practice have yet to ensure that students and apprentices make the swift progress of which they are capable”.

While it was found that “the proportion of teaching, learning and assessment that is good or better has increased since the previous inspection”, these were among key areas identified as needing improvement, along with maths and English provision.

The Ofsted verdict comes six months after the FE Commissioner, Dr David Collins, ended his involvement at Barnfield, after his adviser concluded the college had addressed all Dr Collins’ recommendations.

Mr Eyton-Jones told FE Week that he’d had to make “some really tough decisions” following his appointment in February 2015, with a key focus on improving the college’s finances.

“It’s essential that colleges have a sound financial basis to work from, and I am so proud of colleagues that have worked tirelessly to ensure that,” he said.

“I expect our improvements to accelerate, because clearly we are not happy with requires improvement.

“What’s really good about this report is that it clearly picks up the areas that we have got to work on still further and that’s something we are all focused on.”

The college was rated outstanding by Ofsted in 2007, but fell to satisfactory (grade three overall) in 2012.

The SFA declined to comment on Barnfield’s latest Ofsted report.

A group of specialist colleges say there is a conflict of interest over devolving high needs funding to “compromised” local authorities and are calling on the government to step in.

Members of the Association of National Specialist Colleges (Natspec), at their annual conference in Birmingham this week, said the conflict of interest had arisen because the funding was transferred from a national level to local authorities around 18 months ago.

Dr Tina Pagett, principal of Fairfield Farm College said: “There is a conflict of interest as a result of the Children and Families Act 2014 and the devolution of high needs funding to local authorities.

“Local authorities across the country are compromised, they have a statutory duty to write Education Health Care Plans (EHCPs) for children and young people with special needs and then commission provision from a limited pot of funding which will inevitably influence and limit options presented to young people.”

Angela North, principal of Henshaws Specialist College, also expressed concern that local authority decisions now included deciding whether to pay themselves to deliver the provision.

She said: “I know of at least one local authority with their own training provision, including a contract for high needs learners.

“It is increasingly difficult for potential students and their families to see impartiality of advice and guidance when this provision is named by the local authority in EHCP plans; as a consequence there is a loss of trust.”

A spokesperson for Natspec also said most of the conference delegates stated that they had seen a significant increase in the number of learners going to tribunals to access the training and education of their choice.

Ofsted released a report into high needs learners on March 22, calling for more to be done to ensure young people with disabilities can access the most appropriate education.

The report recommended local authorities provide “consistently fair commissioning of FE places” and regularly review their offer to ensure it reflects the full range of support and opportunities available.

Between March 7 and April 17, the Department for Education (DfE) also held a consultation on improvements to the distribution of high needs funding.

In response, Natspec wrote to the DfE to call for high needs funding to be nationally managed.

“We are sympathetic to local authorities, who are in an incredibly difficult position and under huge pressure to make budgets work,” said Clare Howard, Natspec chief executive.

“As the Ofsted report highlights, there are many inconsistencies in the ways local authorities are allocating funding, leading to big variations in provision, and we believe the focus on short-term savings are leading to higher costs in the long-term.”

A DfE spokesperson told FE Week: “The [high needs funding] consultation has closed and we’re considering all responses carefully. We will be publishing the outcome and second stage of the consultation later in the year.”

Two providers have been forced to step in to support students after a training and education charity went into administration due to funding difficulties.

Learning South West, which worked with leaders and practitioners in both youth and education and training organisations, was based in Taunton, Somerset.

A spokesperson for accountancy firm Mazars said Tim Ball, partner at its Bristol office, had been appointed joint administrator for the charity on April 11.

He added the charity, which had an annual income of around £2.5m, had 10 employees of which “the majority have been made redundant”.

But there was hope for some of the learners, after Wiltshire-based charity The Learning Curve and National Star College, in Cheltenham, confirmed they were making alternative arrangements.

The Learning Curve, which provides training and development to the voluntary sector and wider community, secured Learning South West as a subcontractor for 2015/2016 to deliver level three apprenticeships in youth work.

But a spokesperson told FE Week on April 20: “We have two apprentices who were supported by Learning South West and we are making alternative arrangements which will allow them to finish their qualifications without being affected.

“Our contract with them [Learning South West] had only been in place for a couple of years”.

National Star College, a specialist FE college for people with physical disabilities and learning difficulties, also intervened to ensure more learners could complete their training.

The college had been involved in running level five specialist diplomas for nine existing teachers on behalf of Learning South West.

After learning of its demise, National Star announced it would continue teaching the diploma to the learners affected and had arranged an alternative venue at its own site for training.

“We received no advanced notice that this was going to happen,” said David Finch, National Star director.

“The course is on teaching learners with disabilities and we felt it was important for these teachers to complete the training.

“National Star took the decision that it would continue to run the diploma at our own cost.”

Learning South West had previously contacted the nine learners to tell them that the diploma would be stopped.

One of the students, Angela Braysher, who teaches at Kingston Maurward College in Dorset, spoke of her relief that National Star had stepped in.

“I was disappointed I was when I heard the news as I had just completed my first assignment and thought it was going to have been a waste of time,” she said.

Kate Howard, chair of trustees at Learning South West, made a statement on its closure.

She said: “Our unhappiness is compounded as young people and adult learners are the ultimate beneficiaries of our work.

“We are aware this is a major loss to the FE and skills sector and vital youth support services.”

Mr Ball, from Mazars, said: “The charity, which operated in partnership with various government and national agencies, has faced significant uncertainty with its future funding, leading to the board of trustees reaching this very difficult decision.”

The SFA declined to comment on the demise of Learning South West.

However, a spokesperson confirmed that it had not been a lead provider with an SFA contract since 2010/2011.

The fallout is continuing over Sir Michael Wilshaw’s much-criticised comments about FE — as FE Week has discovered that one of the Ofsted chief’s own inspectors is under investigation after calling for him to go.

The chief inspector provoked a huge backlash when he laid into the FE sector during an appearance before the Commons Education Select Committee on March 2 — claiming it was “in a mess” and 16 to 19-year-olds should be taught in schools, not colleges.

It provoked Ofsted inspector Tony Davis into delivering a passionate speech at a recent NewBubbles Leading Aspiration FE Conference, in Heathrow (pictured), criticising Mr Wilshaw’s comments and calling for him to be removed from the post before his planned retirement in December.

Ofsted has now told FE Week that it is investigating whether Mr Davis, who delivered a presentation with the title “elephant in the room”, had breached his contract as a result of his comments.

A spokesperson said: “Our contract with Ofsted inspectors (OIs) sets out clearly our policies and expectations on matters such as conduct, use of the OI title and conflicts of interest.

“We will always investigate when allegations are made to establish if any policy has been breached.”

When told about this, Mr Davis told FE Week: “I have in no way contravened my Ofsted contract or the ‘OI Engagement Guidance’, which says we ‘should not damage the reputation of Ofsted’.

“On the contrary, it is because I value Ofsted’s reputation so highly that I am asking for the Ofsted leadership to stand down the chief inspector.”
Tricia Hartley, the former chief executive of the Campaign for Learning, heard his speech at the conference.

Reflecting on this, she said: “Tony stole the show, with a vigorous, well-evidenced refutation of Wilshaw’s highly publicised recent comments on FE.

“He suggested that Sir Michael’s immediate departure on gardening leave for the remainder of his tenure could not come soon enough, in order to stem the damage done to the sector’s reputation by his hostile statements.”

The government distanced itself from Mr Wilshaw’s comments two days after he appeared before MPs.

“We are very supportive of the work done by colleges and distance ourselves from Sir Michael’s comments,” a source close to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan told FE Week.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, also challenged Sir Michael to justify his opinions — which he said had caused “a good deal of consternation and anger” — in a letter shared with the paper.

He wrote: “Quite apart from the conflict inherent in her Majesty’s chief inspector being called to give evidence in his official capacity and then providing a personal opinion, even personal opinions require justification if they are not to be regarded as mere prejudice or an unreliable anecdotal judgement.”