A Greater Manchester council has the honour of being FE’s first community learning and skills provider to be judged outstanding by Ofsted under its new common inspection framework (Cif).

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, currently allocated £2.8m by the Skills Funding Agency, was visited last month and, in a repeat of its last inspection in 2009, inspectors yesterday delivered grade one (outstanding) verdicts in every headline field.

The local authority’s Lifelong Learning Service provides part-time courses for adults aged 19+, across local venues such as schools, children’s centres, libraries and other community facilities. At the time of inspection, it had 2,689 learners at level one or below, 369 at level two, and 80 at level three.

Councillor Shoab Akhtar (pictured right), Oldham’s cabinet member for education and skills, said: “A key part of our success is that we regularly consult learners, communities and partners to ensure services respond to local demands while also continuously improving what is on offer.

“This outstanding result demonstrates our strong commitment to widening access to learning opportunities and reducing the barriers that can sometimes prevent adults from studying and enhancing their prospects.”

Oldham’s report comes with Ofsted yet to find an outstanding provider among general FE colleges, sixth form colleges or independent learning providers under the new Cif, introduced in September this year. The first FE and skills ‘outstanding’ result came from a dance and drama inspection report on Manchester provider the Northern Ballet School.

Hackney Community College was the first to be rated under new Ofsted framework in late October, gaining a ‘good’ result.

Ofsted’s three-day inspection at Oldham, which was carried out from November 17, resulted in special commendation to the service for working with disadvantaged communities, stating that it “delivers programmes to successfully engage those who are least likely to participate in learning”.

The delivery of English and maths was also deemed very successful, with learners developing “excellent literacy and numeracy skills”. The report found that “the vast majority of learners studying functional skills pass at their first attempt”, and success rates were consistently much higher than the respective national rates.

The provider’s leaders and managers were said to “set and achieve extremely ambitious objectives for the service”, and governance was also found to “promote a very good level of informed and intelligent challenge regarding the quality, success and continued financial viability of the provision”.

Use of data and collaboration with community partners was “highly effective” and contributed to “well-planned and priority-focused provision”, while attendance was “excellent”.

Suggestions made for improvement included stronger arrangements for monitoring and celebrating learners’ destinations, and more detailed target-setting and feedback for learners in a minority of community learning classes.

Coun Akhtar said: “This report is a great endorsement of our Lifelong Learning Service. To have Ofsted confirm that as a local authority we are delivering a hugely popular and effective service, in all areas, is great news and is a source of great pride for all involved.”

He added: “This achievement is even more remarkable when you consider that we are one of the largest providers of adult education in Greater Manchester.

“The service also works alongside our campaign to Get Oldham Working as we are committed to providing people of all ages with the skills so they can be a success in their chosen career.

“I’d like to congratulate our staff, and all our learners, for their part in achieving this amazing ‘outstanding’ result.”

 

Skills Minister Nick Boles has written to college leaders to reaffirm his message that they should be going from delivering a third of all apprenticeships to two thirds.

The letter, dated December 7, reiterates comments Mr Boles made while speaking at the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in Birmingham last month.

“Only around a third of all funding for apprenticeships training will go to FE colleges in 2015/16, with the remainder taken up by private training providers,” wrote Mr Boles.

“I would really like colleges to re-assert themselves here and commit to growing this to two-thirds of what will be a much larger pot by 2020.

“I am confident that you have the capability and entrepreneurial spirit to do it, working closely with employers and learning from those that are already successful.”

The letter comes less than a fortnight after the Treasury’s Spending Review and Autumn Statement, announced by Chancellor George Osborne on November 25, which saw the adult skills budget and the national base rate for 16 to 19-year olds protected in cash terms until 2020.

Mr Boles described the outcome of the spending review as “a good settlement for the sector”.

Nonetheless, the letter said that further savings still needed to be made.

“Like the rest of the public sector, 16 to 19 education will be expected to play its part in tackling the budget deficit, and will need to identify further savings,” wrote Mr Boles.

“We are aiming to set out the detail of savings in 2016/17 in December, and the detail of savings from 2017/18 as soon as possible.”

Mr Boles also urged colleges to “diversify” and to be less reliant on government funding.

“Colleges must do more in this respect if they are to remain sustainable into the future,” he wrote.

“Sustainability also means making the most of the opportunities provided by the spending review, as we put more control over funding into the hands of employers and learners.”

Mr Boles also said that the area reviews of post-16 education currently underway had identified “considerable difference in efficiency across the FE sector, and scope for FE to be delivered which is both higher quality and lower cost.”

Lead providers rated as requiring improvement and even inadequate by Ofsted will be able to deliver traineeships from next academic year, the government has announced.

Currently, only outstanding and good providers can deliver the programme, introduced in 2013, although they can subcontract to grade three (‘requires improvement’) and non-inspected providers.

But the government today said its grade one and two (outstanding and good, respectively) restriction was being removed in a move that has long been called for by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

It is hoped the move will see an improvement on last academic year’s 19,400 starts. The lifting of the restriction was revealed in two documents, both published today — English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 Vision and an attachment to Skills Minister Nick Boles’s letter to college governors this month, entitled Implementing the FE and skills reform programme BIS/DfE brief on progress for FE governors and leaders.

They have the same wording, which is: “In August 2013, we introduced traineeships for young people who wish to get an apprenticeship or other employment but lack the basic skills and experience that employers are looking for.

“They have made an excellent start — nearly 30,000 young people have participated in the programme in its first two years; around two-thirds of year-one trainees reached positive destinations following their traineeship, including apprenticeships; and 94% of employers consider traineeships an effective way of preparing young people for work.

“We want to see continued growth of traineeships in order to support as many young people as possible into apprenticeships and sustainable employment. The Skills and Education Funding Agencies are continuing to fund and prioritise traineeships and encourage more providers to deliver them; and as part of this, the agencies are making traineeships a priority when considering in-year growth bids from providers.

“When we introduced traineeships we required that providers are graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in order to ensure quality from the outset, but said we would keep this under review as the programme develops. Now that traineeships are fully
established and getting excellent results for young people, from 2016/17 we will place them on a par with other provision by removing this requirement. This will enable more providers to deliver traineeships and ultimately more young people to benefit from them.”

Traineeships are designed for 16 to 24-year-olds and for people with Learning Difficulty Assessments or Education, Health and Care Plans up to academic age 25.

An AELP spokesperson said: “We have been strong supporters of traineeships as a stepping stone for young people on to an apprenticeship and have lobbied for the eligibility of providers delivering the programme to be widened so that those providers can bring their employer customers on board.

“Today’s announcement that all providers can start delivering traineeships from August 2016 should make a major difference in expanding the number of places made available to young people who need credible work experience opportunities and to improve their English and maths before starting an apprenticeship or a job. We hope that the government might consider an even earlier implementation of this proposal.”

He added: “It’s very unlikely you’ll see inadequate providers offering traineeships because in the case of independent learning providers, a grade four [inadequate] inspection by default results in the Skills Funding Agency withdrawing the provider’s contract for everything.”

A government report has hailed the “substantial impact” of FE in getting unemployed people back into work — and called for greater investment into provision for people looking for a job.

The report published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), was based on the experiences of unemployed people and used individualised learner record data on, for example, enrolments on government initiatives such as such the Work Programme as well as “self-refer” learners out of work.

A government spokesperson said: “Analysis of over 2 million unemployed found that FE can make a substantial impact on the chances of unemployed people finding work.”

“This study show that FE learning provides good labour market returns for unemployed individuals,” the report says.

“Those who engage in FE experience a greater improvement in the likelihood of being in employment than those who don’t engage in FE.

“The evidence presented here implies that an expansion of FE learning for the unemployed (including at level two and below) would be beneficial, which should be taken into consideration in any decisions about changes in funding for this provision.”

The 71-page report follows last month’s spending review which appeared positive for FE with news of protection of the “core adult skills participation budgets in cash terms, at £1.5bn” but left lingering questions with no definition as to where “£360m of efficiencies and savings from the adult skills budget by 2019-20” would come from.

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) told FE Week: “These findings come as no surprise because our members have long delivered effective skills provision for the unemployed.

“It’s a major reason why we argued against significant cuts to the adult skills budget which funds this provision and why we have pushed for contract growth in this area.”

A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges said: “Colleges have always been successful in helping unemployed people gain the skills and qualifications to find a job. It is therefore pleasing that this is confirmed by the BIS research.”

The report analyses the experiences of new benefit job-seeking benefit claimants between April 2005 and April 2009, and between August 2010 and July 2012, with around 2.3 million people in each group.

Among its findings were that “individuals facing the highest barriers to employment are more likely to be observed in FE learning” and that “this group also see the biggest difference in outcomes relative to those who don’t engage in FE”.

Of those aged 18 to 24 who had “no prior employment experience according to HMRC records”, those who had some form of FE learning were between 4 and 7 per cent more likely to have found work one, two and three years after starting their benefit claim than those with no FE learning.

The report further highlighted the value of learning at level two and below for unemployed learners, which it says had previously been underestimated.

“The central role of FE in helping the most disadvantaged is also central to the methodological problems that led to previous underestimates of the value of learning at level two and below,” it said.

A BIS spokesperson said it was not commenting on the report.

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Editor’s comment

Seeing substantial sense

First came the ‘better-than-expected’ settlement in Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget last month and now this — a BIS report that is clearly, and rightly, complimentary of the FE sector.

They are two seemingly concrete indications that someone in the corridors of power is finally seeing sense.

However, the extent to which Mr Osborne’s Spending Review announcements were as positive as they seemed (ok so, positive in that they were bad, but not as bad as expected) will only emerge with the unpacking of the finer details.

And the extent to which BIS officials, or indeed Mr Osborne himself, will take heed of this report with its praise for the “substantial impact” FE has on unemployed people’s job hopes also remains to be seen.

Of course there’s always the get-out clause in the report, when budgets are being decided upon, that “the views expressed” within are those of the authors and not necessarily of BIS.

But there can surely not be many more clear-cut arguments for the good that FE can do and more clear-cut reasons for the government to finally give the sector the backing it deserves.

Because, as the report points out, it’s support that ultimately would help the government achieve its own aims of reducing levels of unemployment.

Chris Henwood

chris.henwood@feweek.co.uk

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Skills Minister Nick Boles will be witnesses in the final evidence session of the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility this week.

The Conservative duo are expected to field questions on topics such as funding for FE on Wednesday, December 9.

Their appearances will close the process of evidence-gathering from witnesses as part of the select committee’s inquiry into social mobility in the transition from school to work.

The committee, which was formally appointed on June 11, is required to report on its findings by March 23.

The key question of funding for FE will be addressed during the session, as will employability skills, work experience and careers education.

Other topics will be the policy focus on young people who do not do A-levels or attend university, pathways through the education system to employment, and incentives for employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to offer guidance.

The evidence session will start at 10.35am in Committee Room 4A of the House of Lords.

It comes a week after Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, spoke to the committee about the experience of disadvantaged students in the education system.

Mr Milburn described the pathway into employment via vocational education as “an absolute jungle” and discussed changes in the expectations of employers for young people.

Follow @FEWeek for live coverage of the hearing using the #HLSMC hashtag.

Invitations to tender for almost £15m of long-awaited European Social Fund (ESF) cash were published today.

Details of the first five areas involved in the first round were unveiled by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and ESF (and are available here) — more than four months after the previous 2007 to 2013 ESF contracts closed on July 31.

They provide confirmation of a series of exclusive FE Week articles that have outlined the timeline for the tendering process and also where in England the contracts would be heading (see main image above).

But today’s tender document shows that while invitations to tender close in 42 calendar days on January 18, that means just 27 working days excluding weekends and public holidays.

And then, after tenders totalling £14.86m have been awarded on March 30, winning bidders will have only 11 working days before delivery commences from April 14.

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Task	Deadline
Publication of invitations to tender (ITT)	December 7, 2015
ITTs close	January 18, 2016
Notification of tender results	March 30, 2016
Day 1 mandatory standstill period	March 31, 16
Day 10 mandatory standstill period	April 11, 2016
Contracts issued from…	April 12, 2016
Delivery commences from…	April 14, 2016

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However, the document indicated that the application process could still be subject to change when it said that the SFA “reserves the right to modify, amend or provide further clarification regarding the on-line tender documents at any time prior to the deadline for completion”.

“The SFA will notify you [providers] either by direct communication or as a broadcast message on the online message board,” it added. “Where such modifications constitute a significant change, the SFA may, at its discretion, extend the deadline for completion of the documents.”

It was exclusively revealed by FE Week on Friday (December 4) that the local enterprise partnership (Lep) areas that the invitations to tender would go to included Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, and Solent (covering the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton).

The other Leps involved, as confirmed today, were Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership, Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership, and Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership.

Today’s SFA document revealed that the biggest single contract is for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, at £6.5m.

There would, it stated, be six contracts for Leeds City Region sharing £4m funding, while two separate contracts for Leicester and Leicestershire will be worth £2.45m and £909k respectively.

The contract for Solent will also be worth £693k and for Northamptonshire £300,000.

It comes after an SFA spokesperson told FE Week on Thursday (December 3) that “the second set of invitations to tender are scheduled to be launched on [Monday] December 14”.

“The procurement programme is flexible and when we are in receipt of agreed specifications from local enterprise partnerships (Leps), we will process and launch them in appropriate sets, at regular time frames,” she added.

It follows another FE Week exclusively on November 10, which revealed how the SFA was planning to run a “sequence of procurement” for handing out £650m of delayed ESF cash, which must be finished by the end of September next year at the very latest to allow a minimum delivery period of 18 months.

The delivery period, up to March 2018, was determined with ministers unable to say that the SFA would oversee anything other than apprenticeships beyond then.

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Local enterprise partnership	Invitation to tender referemce	Number of contracts	Total amount of ESF	Link to tender documents
Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership	29916	Six (one for each area)	£4m	Click here
Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership	29919	One	£2.4m	Click here
Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (for ex-offenders)	29955	One	£900k	Click here
Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership	29918	One	£300k	Click here
Solent Local Enterprise Partnership	29917	One	£693k	Click here

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The government has laid out its timeline for implementing apprenticeship reforms over the next five years as it chases its target of 3m starts.

The 24-page English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 vision document, previewed by FE Week yesterday, was published this morning with key milestones for employers, providers and the government itself.

The document says a “consultation on public sector duty” due to be launched this month, and potentially in place from Autumn 2017, on forcing the employment of apprentices and public reporting of progress against apprenticeship targets.

Outcome-based success measures will also come into play from 2016/17, and from January 2018 performance tables will feature 16 to 18 apprenticeship results.

It also outlines how the new Digital Apprenticeship Service online portal will be rolled out from October, allowing employers to “select the most appropriate apprenticeships, choose a training provider and pay for apprenticeship training and assessment”.

An “integrated apprenticeships communication campaign” is expected from next month, while from next spring there will be a host of changes including, among others, protection for apprenticeship term from providers whose programmes do not meet statutory definition and the government will “set out plans for reform of technical and professional education”.

It further outlines the apprenticeship grant for employers as being extended to the end of 2016/17 and how expressions of interest, apprenticeships standards and assessment plans will be submitted to the new Institute of Apprenticeships body from April 2017.

And the end of National Insurance contributions for apprentices aged under 25 from April is listed, along with the publication of “top 100 apprenticeship employer lists” from next summer.

Meanwhile, updated guidance on the post-16 education area reviews is expected from February.