The planned new name for the merged National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) and the Centre for Social Inclusion (Inclusion) has been revealed to FE Week.

Niace chief executive David Hughes (pictured above) said this morning that the name his team had decided on was the Learning and Work Institute, although it still has to be approved by members.

He said: “We are a membership organisation, so our members are the ones who decide on constitutional matters such as a name change.

“Our annual general meeting will be at CityLit, in London, on November 4 and a vote will take place on the proposed new name, which is the Learning and Work Institute.”

It was confirmed in July, as reported in FE Week, that Niace, based in Leicester which employed 65 people at the time, and Inclusion, based in London which employed 20 people, would be progressing from their previous “strategic alliance” to a full merger.

When asked why the word ‘adult’ had been dropped from the new name, Mr Hughes said: “The issue with adult is that it has been associated, particularly in recent times, with education and training of people over 25.

“However, we do a lot of work with young people as well, for example 16 to 21 year-olds on trainineeships and apprenticeships. It was felt the new name would sit more comfortably with what we do.”

He also reflected on the inclusion of the word ‘work’ in the proposed new name, which could be viewed as a departure considering the traditional emphasis Niace has placed on education for older workers.

Mr Hughes, who is set to become chief executive of the joint organisation, said: “We have always been interested in skills and training, for example through apprenticeships, and the new name will make that clear.”

He added: “We spent the summer consulting with members and stakeholders over what direction the organisation should now be taking and want to stress that we won’t lose touch with the historic work of Niace in supporting adult education for everybody throughout their lives and for campaigning for the wider benefits of lifelong learning.

“We just feel that the new name will better reflect the range of work we do now.”

Dave Simmonds OBE (pictured right), chief executive of the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion, said: “We’ve been working positively with Niace to make the merger a reality.

“Our aim is to create an organisation that speaks for everyone who needs learning and employment opportunities. This is what our proposed new name says, simply and clearly.”

The Association for Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) chief executive Stewart Segal has hit back at Ofsted for criticising “floor mopping and coffee making apprenticeships” that he says don’t exist.

Ofsted’s long-anticipated report in apprenticeships, which FE Week was shown a sneak preview of over the weekend, will be highly critical of apprenticeships for not giving trainees the skills and knowledge needed by employers.

Speaking at the AELP Autumn Conference at the Ricoh Arena, in Coventry, today (October 20), Mr Segal said: “It was very frustrating to see the Ofsted report that talked about floor mopping and coffee making apprenticeships.

“There is no such thing, and it was wrong that they used those examples.”

The danger, Mr Segal (pictured above) went on to say, was that by “raising these issues you don’t address the real issues, which is a problem”.

The results of the inspectorate’s inquiry into apprenticeships are not due out until Thursday (October 22) — but an Ofsted spokesperson gave FE Week an advanced taste of its findings, as reported on Sunday (October 18).

She said it would warn that “the growth in the number of apprenticeships over the last eight years has diluted their quality”.

“These low-level apprenticeships are particularly common in service sectors, like retail and care, and do not provide sufficient training that stretches the apprentices and improves their capabilities.

“Instead, they frequently are being used as a means of accrediting existing low-level skills, like making coffee and cleaning floors,” she added.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) disagreed with Mr Segal’s comments at today’s conference.

“There are bad behaviours – there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

“There’s no point coming in and saying there isn’t. There is stuff going on that shouldn’t be going on and it does sully the whole brand,” he added.

Mr Hughes went on to say that the idea put forward by Skills Minister Nick Boles that employers themselves would drive out bad practice by other employers, was “balderdash”.

Instead, he said, the AELP had the opportunity to “highlight the good stuff, but also shine a spotlight on where it’s going wrong.”

Carl Creswell, deputy director for apprenticeships at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said that much had already been done to improve apprenticeship quality, but acknowledged there was still a lot to be done.

Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is preparing what Ofsted has described as “a hard-hitting speech” to launch the report at a CBI event in Solihull, in the West Midlands, on Thursday.

He is expected to warn against further undermining of the apprenticeships brand and say that, despite increasing numbers as the government aims to hit its 3m target by 2020, very few apprenticeships are delivering professional-level skills.

Ofsted declined to comment on Mr Segal’s comments.

Leeds City College expects a total net loss of 40 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs to result from a cost cutting programme that it is feared could affect nearly 300 people.

A college spokesperson told FE Week this afternoon that it had launched a 45 day consultation period yesterday (October 19) on its “funding challenge response programme” aimed at saving £2.83m.

“A total net loss of 40 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs is expected as a result of the programme,” she said.

However, the University and College Union (UCU) said it had been told that the college wanted to axe 218 posts, “which would affect 293 members of staff due to the part-time nature of some roles”.

“The college has told trade unions that it intends to create 179 new posts and expects the total net loss of jobs to be around 40 posts,” a union spokesperson explained.

The college declined to confirm or deny the 293 figure, which would represent around 23 per cent of its 1,300 FTE worksforce.

However, a spokesperson said: “The college is working hard to absorb as much of the reductions as possible from non-pay budgets but regrettably, it is envisaged that there will be some impact on staffing levels.

She added: “The college has also been analysing core business operations following September recruitment and as part of the programme, is refining a small number of curriculum posts where courses have under-recruited.

“To ensure that the college continues to play a significant role in the Leeds City Region and best meet the skills needed, we will continue to protect the quality of its student provision and maintain financial viability.”

She added that the latest round of savings represented phase two of cost-cutting at the college, which received a ‘good’ Ofsted rating in June 2012 and was allocated around £44.6m by the Skills Funding Agency as of May this year.

Phase one [of the savings programme] was completed over the last academic year, she added.

“It [phase one] achieved the expected savings of £8.7 million — staffing levels were reduced by 128 FTEs and 88 per cent of this was achieved by voluntary means,” she said.

The government’s planned apprenticeship levy has been described as a “massive game changer” by chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) David Hughes.

Mr Hughes (pictured above) was glowing in his praise for the levy, which was first announced by chancellor George Osborne in July and has come in for fierce criticism from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), at today’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) conference in Coventry.

He said that the charge on large employers would be “massive game changer” that presented a “massive opportunity” to improve vocational training as the government tries to hit its target of creating 3m apprenticeships by 2020.

“We’ve got probably £1.5m coming into the sector [through the levy],” Mr Hughes added.

“What other bit of the public sector is going to get additional funding as a result of the spending review?”

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, also told the conference that he was “amazed” that the government had opted for the levy.

He praised Ministers for being “brave enough to take the plunge to say we’re going to charge employers”.

His view was echoed by Martin Dunford, the AELP’s chairman, who said during his speech: “Who would’ve thought we’d have a Conservative majority government and one of the first things they do is introduce the socialist principle of a levy?”

Sarah Hodgetts, senior policy adviser at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), told delegates that the levy should improve the quality of apprenticeships.

She said that putting large employers in charge of how they spend cash generated from the charge “will be one of the big quality drivers, or at least I hope it will be”.

However, Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills at the CBI, said at the conference: “A levy is not what CBI or its members would have done, because it emphasises quantity over quality,” he said.

“But if this is the road we’re on,” he added, it is important the “levy is set at the appropriate level”.

Otherwise, the risk is that “everything you do that’s not an apprenticeship gets stopped,” he said.

The government’s consultation into the levy, which it is understood received 700 responses, closed on October 2, with the government’s response due next month.

Speakers at the conference are pictured below:

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The future of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has been thrown further into doubt after it emerged that chief executive Michael Davis will stand down early next year, FE Week can exclusively reveal.

Mr Davis (pictured) took up the top job in January 2011, following the departure of previous chief executive Chris Humphries.

News of his imminent departure comes after FE Week reported details earlier this month of a leaked Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) memo suggesting plans to more than halve the number of its partner organisations by 2020 — which could include UKCES.

Mr Davis was unable to comment ahead of publication, but a UKCES spokesperson confirmed that he plans to quit the post.

She said: “Mr Davis is standing down next March. We don’t know who will be replacing him at this time.”

The leaked memo included proposals to reduce the number of BIS partner organisations — of which the SFA is also one – to 20, cut operating costs by 30 to 40 per cent and consolidate the “BIS family” from around 80 sites into seven or eight “centres of excellence”.

Mr Davis has had a long association with the publicly funded, industry-led organisation that offers guidance on skills and employment across in the UK

He was previously UKCES Interim chief executive, from December 2010 to June 2011, and the commission’s director of strategy and performance, from March 2009 to November 2010, according to his LinkIn page.

His time in the more junior post partly coincided with him serving as chair of governors at Leicester College from April 2007 to March 2011.

The UKCES declined to comment on what Mr Davis plans to do after standing down.

It is likely that the FE sector will feature “significantly fewer” colleges in the future, the permanent secretary for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has told MPs.

Martin Donnelly looked ahead to how he expects the sector to look after post-16 education and training area reviews have been completed across the country, in a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee hearing this evening on ‘overseeing financial sustainability in the FE sector’.

He said: “I think it’s pretty clear that the number of colleges… is likely to continue to decrease.

“We don’t have a target. Our concern is that we end up with very resilient colleges able to provide a very high quality service — it’s likely, and it’s my personal view, that there will be significantly fewer of them.”

The committee’s chair and Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch Meg Hillier (pictured below right), who has written an FE Week expert piece on the sector’s financial problems, said during the hearing that the process of “rationalisation” of college provision could prove “haphazard”.

Mr Donnelly said in response that “it’s clear there is a lot of pressure on the FE college sector to adjust to changes in funding and also changes in local need.”

He added that the area reviews would play an important part in supporting colleges facing a “process of transition”.

The government announced on Friday (October 16), as reported in FE Week, that the seventh and final English region involved in the first wave of area reviews would be West Yorkshire, in a process involving seven general FE colleges and four sixth form colleges (SFCs).

It came after the government announced that 43 general FE colleges and 29 SFCs would be included in reviews for the Tees Valley, Sussex Coast, Solent, Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield city areas.

A number of MPs at this evening’s committee hearing raised concern that the area reviews would not be directly involving school sixth forms.

They included Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education John Pugh, who questioned whether applications to open or expand school or academy sixth forms would take into account findings of areas reviews that may, for example, decide that no more 16 to 18 FE provision is needed in a locality.

Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department for Education, said area reviews would not influence the decision to approve a new school sixth form “at this moment”.

Ian Ashman, principal of Hackney Community College, Stuart Laverick, principal of Heart of Worcestershire College, and Sarah Wright (pictured left), principal of Central Sussex College, raised similar concerns during the hearing.

For example, Ms Wright said: “My college is in the first wave of area reviews. I’m seeing that as a positive process.

“My main concern regarding the area reviews is that it only a partial review because it doesn’t include school sixth forms.

“That’s a real concern across the sector. I think colleges would feel a lot more reassured if we were looking at schools sixth forms.”

Peter Lauener (pictured below right), chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency and Education Funding Agency, also answered questions on whether both agencies could be merged by the government.

He said he was working on delivering “savings” for both.

However, Mr Lauener added: “I actually took the job on the basis that there was no planned merger. I’m perfectly happy to operate in any way that ministers ask me to.”

A hotly anticipated Ofsted report will warn of a slump in the quality of apprenticeships that often fail to give learners the skills and knowledge needed by employers, FE Week can reveal.

The results of the inspectorate’s inquiry into apprenticeships are not due out until Thursday (October 22), but an Ofsted spokesperson has given FE Week a sneak preview of its damning findings.

She said it will warn that “the growth in the number of apprenticeships over the last eight years has diluted their quality, with many low-skilled jobs being classed as apprenticeships and used to accredit the established skills of people who have been in a job for some time”.

She added: “These low-level apprenticeships are particularly common in service sectors, like retail and care, and do not provide sufficient training that stretches the apprentices and improves their capabilities. Instead they frequently are being used as a means of accrediting existing low-level skills, like making coffee and cleaning floors.

Some of the learners surveyed by inspectors for the report were not even aware that they were on an apprenticeship programme.”

Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is preparing what Ofsted describe as “a hard-hitting speech” to launch the report at a CBI event in Solihull, in the West Midlands, on Thursday.

He is expected to warn against further undermining of the apprenticeships brand and say that, despite increasing numbers as the government aims to hit its 3m target by 2020, very few apprenticeships are delivering professional-level skills in the sectors that need them most.

The report will make a number of recommendations aimed at raising the quality and status apprenticeships and call for providers to be held to account “far more rigorously”, the spokeswoman said.

It comes after FE Week reported on October 9 that Skills Minister Nick Boles had told the Conservative Party Conference he expected Ofsted’s review to lay bare “quite a lot of bad practice”.

Concern was raised about future standards when the consultation on the government’s planned apprenticeship levy, which closed on October 2, asked if providers that receive levy funding needed to “be registered and/or be subject to some form of approval or inspection.

But Mr Boles appeared to pre-empt any decisions over this, before BIS published its response to the consultation submissions, at the conference on Tuesday (October 6).

He said: “You will have to spend your apprenticeship levy money with a registered training provider who is on the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) register and Ofsted will have a continuing role in inspecting those registered training providers.”

When asked today about Ofsted’s report he added: “Putting an end to poor quality apprenticeship training lies at the heart of our reforms of apprenticeships. Ofsted’s report backs up the findings of our 2012 review and provides further evidence for our decision to put employers rather than training providers in the driving seat.

We are absolutely committed to creating 3 million high quality apprenticeships by 2020 including many more at degree level, because apprenticeships can change the lives of young people and open the door to a good job and a rewarding career.”

When shown Ofsted’s findings, Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), hit back at the use of cleaning apprenticeships as an example of accrediting existing low-level skills.

He told FE Week: “All apprenticeship programmes cover a wide range of skills and it is unfortunate that Ofsted give the impression that there are programmes that consist of ‘cleaning floors’.  Cleaning floors as part of an apprenticeship programme is not in our view ‘low level’ and the next time we all need the services of a hospital or care home, we will all be grateful that whoever did it had good training.  Some of the programmes for staff involved in delivering these services are the most challenging.

“We will continue to work with our members and all training providers to support higher quality delivery.  It is particularly disappointing that Ofsted did not talk to AELP about its conclusions before publishing this report but we would be happy to discuss how we can continue to improve the delivery of the apprenticeship programme.”

Neil Carberry, CBI director for employment and skills, responded to Ofsted’s report saying: “It’s right that the Government is ambitious in raising apprenticeship numbers but we must not allow this to come at the cost of quality. Business is committed to tackling the skills shortages many of our high-growth sectors face, and the UK must do better in producing more technicians which is at the very heart of our skills problems.

“Companies are worried that the introduction of the apprenticeship levy will lead to a focus only on quantity. High standards policed by an independent employer-led body is an essential part of avoiding this.”

Chief executive of the Association of Specialist Colleges (Natspec) Alison Boulton will be standing down in January, FE Week can reveal.

A Natspec spokesperson confirmed today that she will be replaced by Clare Howard (pictured below right), who is currently deputy managing director of Association of Colleges Sport.

Ms Boulton said: “It has been a privilege to lead Natspec through these changing, and challenging, times.

“My lifelong passion has been to improve the quality and experience in education for young people with disabilities and working alongside dedicated and expert staff in member colleges to enable young people to achieve their goals has been immensely rewarding.

She added that “Natspec has been a positive and strong partner in the ever changing policy landscape, working with partners to influence decision making across all levels of government.”

Ms Howard has led sport and health policy at AoC since September 2010, according to her LinkedIn page, and has more than 25 years’ experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

She said: “I’m excited by the opportunity to lead a strong national membership organisation in such an important sector.

“Although we are operating in times of scarce resources, it is vital that Natspec represents the voices of young people and their families to improve outcomes, quality of life and reduce long term costs to the public purse.

“I am motivated by change and challenge and look forward to working with members and partners to continue the development of the organisation.”

Further Education Commissioner Dr David Collins (pictured) has revealed his early findings from the first wave of post-16 area reviews.

Scores of people came to hear Dr Collins speak at this year’s Higher and Further Education Show, in London’s ExCel, on Wednesday, October 14.

He discussed the reviews in Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, Sheffield, Tees Valley, Sussex Coat and Solent, which the government has said were “designed to achieve a transition towards fewer, larger, more resilientand efficient providers, and more effective collaboration across institution types”.

Dr Collins said: “For the next 18 months, myself and a team of advisers supported the Skills Funding Agency and Education Funding Agency will be going around the country endeavouring and encouraging marriages, federations and divorces between colleges to try and set up a sustainable further education sector”.

He added: “What has been clear when we have gone around the colleges in trouble is that the majority speak about the historical situation of poor management and do not address the current issues on efficiency.”

His speech came with initial area review steering group meetings having taken place last month and earlier this month.

The first steering group meeting for the Sussex Coast review is due on October 22 and for Solent it’s on November 5.

Dr Collins said the second steering group meetings would look at the rationalisation of curriculum and the third ones would focus on shared services and estates. The fourth will look at the financial implications and changes that need to be made to the colleges.

Dr Collins also addressed some of the issues he had already identified.

“I have got some issues at the moment with the background knowledge of principals — some of whom may have come from a curriculum route and be weak on the finance side,” he said, adding that the next round of reviews would announced in December.

“Others may have come from the finance side and be weak on the curriculum side.

“It doesn’t matter if you have got a very strong team around you but if you happen to have a weakness in the area of knowledge around you, then you are, in technical terms, in deep do-do.”

Association of Colleges (AoC) chief executive Martin Doel also spoke at the show in the FE Theatre, along with National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) head of employment and skills Toni Pearce.