— ‘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.

A proposed new levy on foreign workers could net the FE sector millions a year — but businesses warned it would be “unfair and unnecessary”.

Details of the proposed new levy, called the Immigration Skills Charge (ISC), were published in a report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), a quango sponsored by the Home Office, on January 19.

It recommended that all employers should be charged £1,000 per year for every highly-skilled foreign worker they recruit from outside the European Union, in order to encourage businesses to upskill UK workers.

The government had already “signalled its intent” to introduce the charge, according to the report, and the committee had been asked by the government to look at which workers the charge should apply to, and how much it should be.

“We consider that the imposition of an ISC will serve to incentivise employers to reduce their reliance on employing migrant workers and to invest in training and upskilling UK workers,” it said in the report. “

Further, the ISC will provide a source of funding to help with this training and upskilling,” it added.

No detail is given about how the funds would be used, but, the report said, “we assume that the funds raised will be reinvested into the general provision of skills”.

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said that investing in apprenticeships would be the “most effective solution” as it would encourage employers to retrain existing and new staff.

“Many providers are working with employers to meet the skills gaps such as ITC so the focus should be on investing on these programmes,” he said. But the report’s proposal to reinvest funds generated has provoked strong criticism from industry leaders.

“We are concerned that the proposed ISC will prove to be an unfair and unnecessary barrier to growth for small employers desperately seeking to fill skilled vacancies,” said John Allan, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) national chairman.

He added: “While we support measures to encourage and improve investment in the training and development of UK workers, we do not think that making it even harder and more expensive to fill vacancies is a helpful solution.”

Neil Carberry (pictured), director of employment and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, said the proposal “could hold back firms’ ability to grow and create jobs, particularly for exporting, medium-sized businesses”.

“They would increase the cost of hiring skilled workers at a time when businesses are already having to manage government policies like the apprenticeship levy,” he added.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are grateful to the Migration Advisory Committee for its report. We are considering its findings and will respond in due course.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to comment.

The Association of Colleges declined to comment.