> Exclusive analysis finds potential for 15 mergers in 2016
> Union warns of time needed for meaningful consultation

Bury College is in talks over a potential merger with a nearby university, becoming one of up to 15 mergers involving 32 institutions across the country.

Bury is expected to launch a consultation into plans to merge with the University of Bolton in the next few days.

It comes as a spokesperson for Bolton College confirmed that it is also in discussions with the higher education body.

Both colleges are part of the Greater Manchester area review, in wave one of the area reviews, which launched last September.

Bury College’s principal, Charlie Deane said the college had “taken advantage of the area review process to further develop and strengthen” the college’s existing “excellent working relationship” with the university.

The proposed merger “provides a considered and innovative opportunity to offer a more comprehensive, flexible and responsive curriculum,” Mr Deane continued, “with the potential to improve access and increase choice for a broader range of learners at all levels”.

“More details will begin to take shape as our discussions, proposals and consultations with stakeholders evolve,” he said.

Bolton College is in early stage discussions with the university “regarding an educational solution that works for Bolton”, a spokesperson for the college said.

A spokesperson for the University of Bolton said it welcomed the current proposals by Bury College, and the commitment by Bolton College.

The Bury College proposal is the latest of 15 possible mergers, involving 28 FE colleges, three sixth form colleges and one university, all of which are proposed for August 1.

This compares to just nine mergers in the ten years from 2001 and 2010, under the previous funding agency, the Learning and Skills Council, according to figures published by the department for Business Innovation and Skills.

Consultations are currently open on mergers between South Worcestershire College and

Warwickshire College Group; City and Islington College and Westminster Kingsway College; Bexley College and Bromley College; Bournville College and South and City College.

Further mergers are planned for New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham; Barrow Sixth Form College and Furness College; and South Leicestershire College and North Warwickshire and Hinckley College.

Decisions have not yet been published following consultation earlier this year on mergers between Shrewsbury College and New College Telford, and Lowestoft College, Great Yarmouth College and Lowestoft Sixth Form College.

Hackney Community College and Tower Hamlets College confirmed in March that they will be merging.

Carlisle College is in discussions about merging with Newcastle College Group (NCG), while Lewisham Southwark College has been in talks with a view to ‘closer working’ with NCG.

Last month Northbrook College and neighbouring City College Brighton and Hove announced their intention to merge later in the year.

On seeing the FE Week analysis (pictured), Sally Hunt, General Secretary of University and College Union said: ‘It is not a surprise that so many colleges are rushing to merge given the massive budget cuts they have endured in recent years.

But any proposed changes should be subject to thorough and meaningful consultation with unions, students and the wider community.”

“Colleges are central to improving the life chances of their local communities, and UCU will work hard both to protect our members’ jobs and defend local educational opportunities where mergers put them at risk.”

Given the scale of proposed mergers, a spokesperson for the Association of Colleges said: “Whether colleges are already in the area review process or waiting for their wave to start, they are increasingly aware of how they can prepare for potential recommendations, how they can shape their own futures, and how they can engage with potential partners.

“Throughout this period, colleges will remain focused on what students want and need in order to go on to further or higher level study or join the workforce.”

A House of Lords report into social mobility has called for the national curriculum to stop at age 14 rather than 16.

The document by the Lords Social Mobility Committee, called ‘Overlooked and Left Behind: improving the transition from school to work for the majority of young people’, concluded that a new 14–19 transition stage would “enable a tailor-made route to work to be developed”.

It recommended this route should combine a “core element” with “either academic or vocational elements”.

The report, which ends a nine-month enquiry, said: “A 14-19 transition stage would move away from age 16 being the cut-off point at which many young people embark on the wrong path.

“It could reduce drop-out rates at age 16 and age 17 from both vocational and academic routes.”

The suggestion conjures the image of studio schools and University Technical Colleges (UTCs), which are designed to specifically target 14 to 19-year-olds.

In his speech at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2013, David Cameron supported UTCs, saying: “Let’s have one of those colleges in every single major town.”

But they have struggled since then, with a number closing due to problems with recruitment, while several studio schools have faced the same fate.

FE Week spoke to Lady Corston, chair of the committee, but when challenged on studio schools and UTCs she said the report did not endorse any particular type of provider.

“The 14-19 transition stage should be delivered by all local partners — and that includes schools, colleges, employers, UTCs and local authorities,” she said.

She added that the government should facilitate greater collaboration between different institution types.

“There are some effective programmes that work across local areas, but we lack a coherent national strategy.”

Lady Corston said the FE environment was currently “a bewildering landscape” that 18-year-olds could not be expected to navigate alone.

The report made eight recommendations, including a “gold standard in independent careers advice and guidance, which moves responsibility away from schools and colleges” and a Cabinet-level minister taking full responsibility for the transition from school to work.

The report also warned that the drive-through area reviews for groups of colleges to share facilities and specialisations could cause problems in rural areas “where distances between colleges are more substantial and travelling is more difficult and costly”.

It added more support was needed for young people who do not go to university or do an apprenticeship, making sure they were still successful.

Responding to the criticisms in the report, a spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “Latest figures show the number of young people not in education or training is at the lowest on record.

“We have introduced a more rigorous curriculum so every child learns the basic skills they need such as English and maths.

She added: “We will invest £70m in our careers strategy over the course of this parliament to transform the quality of careers education.”

Picture caption: Lady Corston, chair of the Lords Social Mobility Committee, speaking to FE Week reporter Alix Robertson

CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE The third annual FE Week and Policy Consortium FE and Skills Survey 2016.

Devolution and localism are the Government’s latest big ideas for education and skills — backed up with a rhetoric that speaks of power going to localities, institutions and professionals. The Policy Consortium wants to test the FE sector’s views about these ideas.

Ministers insist that the outcomes of Area Reviews, a greater role for Local Enterprise Partnerships and measures to cut red tape will enable the sector to focus on meeting local employer and community needs, expanding learning opportunities for all and, especially, promoting the development of apprenticeships as a route into skilled employment.

Will this come about? Or will greater local freedom be undermined by national obsessions such as the arbitrary target of 3 million apprenticeship starts, a misplaced enthusiasm for GCSEs in English and maths and a loans programme that has stalled?

The third annual FE and Skills survey by the Policy Consortium, published in association with FE Week, is launched today. The previous surveys gave unique insight into what practitioners are thinking, and this survey promises to do the same. Policy-makers would be well-advised to take note of the findings.

In the first survey, ‘Taking the pulse of education — the Great FE and Skills Survey of 2014’, concerns over funding took precedence over everything else. Now that we can see clearly how deeply the resources for FE have been cut, we can see how prescient that survey proved to be. We expected the second survey, ‘Checking the Pulse -— Going from bad to worse’, also to focus on funding. Although it was still a major concern, deeper fears were voiced about systemic failure — perceived threats to the viability of institutions, to adult learning as a whole or to the nature of FE as we have known it. Significantly these concerns were highlighted in the survey before the NAO made the financial fragility of colleges headline news and triggered the wave of area reviews now preoccupying the sector.

Taking a further check of the pulse should enable people to judge whether the concentration and specialisation expected to result from area reviews will make matters better or worse. The survey should give an insight into whether those at the sharp end think that the apprenticeship levy will energise business involvement or overwhelm employers with a new bureaucracy. It should also give an indication as to whether the decision of George Osborne, the Chancellor, not to proceed with even deeper cuts, following a 35% reduction in adult skills budgets has allayed fears.

As well as system collapse, the list of concerns in the second annual survey was topped by funding, change, workload and bureaucracy. Worries about English and maths teaching and the ‘broad direction of travel’ for FE followed close behind, as almost a thousand teachers, leaders, managers, support staff, advisers and other professionals took part in the survey in order to offer their thoughts and express their feelings on FE and skills with the general election then just days away.

The third survey will gather and analyse your views on a range of current relevant topics concerning FE, and of concern — from Government policy to teaching resources, curriculum change to staff morale, partnerships to inspection. You have chances to express your opinions on issues we have not considered. There are also two open-ended questions that ask for your views on the single most important issue affecting further education and skills and where there is room for optimism. Make sure you use this opportunity to get your views heard.

The results, analysis and reactions will be published in early May in FE Week. There will be a more detailed report on the research and what it indicates from the Policy Consortium shortly afterwards.

Mick Fletcher and Ian Nash are members of the Policy Consortium

I Watch Competition 

All survey respondents will be entered in to a prize draw to win the follow item: Apple Watch Sport 42mm Space Grey Aluminium Case with Black Woven Nylon, plus a 12-month subscription to FE Week. The winner will be contacted within five days of the survey completing. The survey closes on April 22, 2016 at noon

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) twice delayed publication of the 2014/15 nationwide qualification achievement rates (QAR) – but FE Week can reveal that the apprenticeship success rate has bounced back 2.8 percentage points to 71.7 per cent.

FE Week described in December 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”.

However, this morning colleges and training providers were given access to 2014/15 QAR figures via the SFA’s online “hub” system, and despite failing to indicate an update had been made, the SFA also added the figures to their March Statistical First Release publication (see image above).

Sue Husband, director of apprenticeships at the Skills Funding Agency, suggested at the FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference “that we are trending back in the right direction”, and this is now shown in the official figures.

The national apprenticeship all age and level QAR fell 3.4 percentage points from 72.3 per cent for 2012/13 to 68.9 per cent for 2013/14, but has since bounced back 2.8 percentage points to 71.7 per cent.

It is not however all good news, as the higher apprenticeship QAR figures in particular fell 7 percentage points to just 64.3 percent.

A new reporting system for the 2014/15 QARs is for the first time using interactive dashboards via the Hub.

An SFA spokesperson previously told FE Week this would give providers and stakeholders “more information than we were able to publish in the PDF reports that were distributed through the provider gateway”.

See more analysis in the next edition of FE Week

Skills Minister Nick Boles has confirmed that consultancy grants of £50k or £100k will be available to support colleges to implement area review recommendations, in a letter sent to all colleges and training providers ahead of the Easter break.

The letter is the first written confirmation from the government that the cash, which was first revealed by FE Week following a presentation by the Skills Minister at an Association of Colleges (Aoc) event on March 2, is on offer.

“We are putting in place a support package to assist you with implementing the reviews’ recommendations,” Mr Boles wrote in the letter.

“At the AoC event, I announced that we will provide £50K or £100k of transition grant funding for each substantive area review recommendation to support colleges in accessing the skills and capacity needed,” he continued.

The letter, sent to all chairs and principals of FE and sixth form colleges and chief executives of independent training providers on March 24, gives an update on the government’s FE reforms, including apprenticeships and the area reviews.

Mr Boles wrote that he was “pleased with the way in which you have responded to the challenge” of the area review process, and that he was “hugely encouraged that the first wave is starting to produce the kinds of outcomes we envisaged”.

The updated area review guidance, published on March 1, included “lessons from the early reviews”, Mr Boles wrote, the most “critical” of which was the need for colleges to “engage fully and honestly with each other and local stakeholders early on”.

In order to provide the support that colleges need “to deliver this new landscape”, the Skills Minister wrote, the government was “putting in place a support package to assist you with implementing the reviews’ recommendations”.

This package would include the consultancy grants and the £500m restructuring facility, which FE Week previously reported on.

“I should stress, however, that these funds are time-limited and colleges will need to make the most of this opportunity now to achieve the strength and stability required for the long term,” Mr Boles warned.

While not part of the area reviews, independent training providers will “need to be aware of the shifting landscapes in their local area and of wider developments”, he wrote.

These include the work, led by Lord Sainsbury and currently being finalised, on “reforming the technical education system”, which Mr Boles said he expected would be “making ground-breaking proposals”.

Mr Boles’s letter also referred to two announcements in the recent Budget – the 10 per cent levy top up for companies paying the apprenticeship levy, and four more devolution deals for West of England, East Anglia, Greater Lincolnshire and Greater Manchester.

Mr Boles also thanked colleges and providers for making National Apprenticeship Week a success. There were more than 30,000 new apprenticeship pledges during the week, which Mr Boles said was “the highest ever NAW total”.

Mr Boles’s letter and the accompanying policy briefing are available on the gov.uk website.

An advert has appeared on a government website for an apprenticeship vacancy with Tata Steel — even though the troubled firm wants to sell-off all its UK operations.

It was posted on the gov.uk ‘Find an apprenticeship’ site four days ago, inviting applications for a four-year advanced level course starting in May this year.

Yet the Indian-based company sparked widespread concern for around 15,000 jobs after announcing plans to sell-off its British operations, including the country’s largest steelworks at Port Talbot, at the end of March.

Tata declined to say today how many apprentices’ jobs were under threat when questioned by FE Week, or explain why the advert for the new post still went live when it wanted to sell-up.

But a spokesperson from NITAL, the training provider for the advertised apprentice engineer post, said: “Although there is a certain amount of uncertainty around Tata Steel, we have to carry on as usual —that’s really what we have got to do.

“If everything is resolved and nothing has been done about the apprenticeships that will be a problem.

“You will always see lots of applications for opportunities like this, it is still a large organisation and other large organisations have faced challenges in the past.”

The advanced level apprenticeship advert indicated that the post would improve applicants’ “employability”.

The weekly wage was listed as £294, and the scheme was also said to initially include “full time attendance at an offsite training facility supported by a Tata Steel bursary”.

It added: “Typically on completion of your apprenticeship, you will join an existing engineering team as an engineer team member.

“From there you could progress to team leader and later upwards to become a process engineer.

“The breadth of the organisation means that there are always opportunities to take advantage of.”

Although Tata, which is reportedly losing £1m a day on its UK operations, declined to comment directly on the advert or wider prospects for its UK apprentices, a spokesperson told FE Week: “From employees’ perspective, it’s very much business as usual.

“They will continue to contribute to their business’ performance and they will continue to be employed by Tata Steel.

She added that there was “an urgent need to show improvement in the UK business in order to make it as attractive as possible to a prospective buyer”.

“A process has now started for exploring opportunities for a strong future beyond Tata Steel, which has reluctantly concluded it has taken its UK operations as far as it can,” she said.

“It’s important we avoid any overreaction, either from employees or our customers and suppliers.”

The Department for Business, innovation and Skills was unable to comment ahead of publication on the apprenticeship advert, but said it was “doing everything it can to help the industry secure a long-term viable future”.

“Our absolute priority is to look after the workers and wider community as we work with Tata to find a viable long-term solution,” the spokesperson added.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has announced that it has delayed the launch of the new ‘recruit an apprentice/trainee’ service until “early summer”.

The SFA said in its online Update bulletin today that the reason for the delay was to “carry out more development work and user testing”.

The new service, which will replace the old ‘Apprenticeship Vacancies’ site, will be hosted on gov.uk and offer a “self-serve facility for colleges and other training organisations to advertise vacancies more quickly”.

The bulletin added the new service would include built-in validations for wages on the vacancy posting form, simpler vacancy management tools, with enhanced quality assurance features, and clearer and timely feedback from its advisers to providers on their vacancies.

“We will publish details about how to use the new service on gov.uk later this spring,” it added.

It did not however mention the inclusion of a feature to allow employers to post their own vacancies, as promised in the government’s 2020 Vision document released in December.

That report said at the time that “by February 2016, employers will be able to post their own vacancies on the system, working with education and training providers where they want to.”

When asked by FE Week what was happening with this, an SFA spokesperson said: “The first phase of the launch will enable providers to post their own vacancies. The second phase will allow employers to post their own vacancies.”