Latest news from FE Week

The mayor of Hackney has been appointed by London mayor Sadiq Khan as his deputy for planning, regeneration and skills.

Jules Pipe, who became the first directly elected mayor of Hackney in 2002, will focus on providing young people with skills for their future careers, alongside looking at housing and infrastructure development.

Mr Pipe became the first directly elected mayor of Hackney in 2002, and has served as chair of London Councils since June 2010.

He will stand down from both these roles next month to start his full-time role at City Hall.

Mr Pipe declared himself “delighted to be working with Sadiq” and “passionate about London”.

He added: “It is vital we use all the levers of City Hall to pursue a vision for the capital that delivers all its key needs.

“Young Londoners must be given the skills needed to access all the opportunities available to them in our great city.”

Commenting on the appointment, Mr Khan said that he “brings to City Hall extensive knowledge of the capital, and the key challenges it faces”.

“He and I share a determination to ensure London’s prosperity is shared by all Londoners, and that we plan ahead to equip the city for its future economic, infrastructure, skills and housing needs,” he added.

“Jules will be a fantastic addition to my top team at a time when London needs a stronger voice more than ever before in championing its unique interests, following the fallout from the EU referendum result.”

Mary Vine-Morris, London region director for the Association of Colleges, gave her support for Mr Pipe’s appointment.

She said: “Jules Pipe has a wealth of knowledge and understanding of London and we are pleased to see him appointed as deputy mayor for planning, regeneration and skills.

“Area reviews and the future devolution of skills funding are two of the issues most concerning colleges.

“We look forward to working with him collaboratively as we seek to meet the future skills needs of London.”

Mr Khan became the city’s first Muslim mayor, after beating conservative Zac Goldsmith by 1,310,143 votes to 994,614 on May 7.

He subsequently told FE Week what he hopes to achieve for the sector.

“I was lucky to get a good education and go on to university, but I want all Londoners to have the same opportunities to get on in life that this great city gave me – whether that’s through apprenticeships, FE or other routes to employment,” said Mr Khan.

“I am going to be a champion for London’s neglected FE sector so that it can work for both Londoners and businesses.”

 

Key sector figures have urged the government to continue with its apprenticeship reforms following Thursday’s Brexit vote – and warned of the consequences if it doesn’t.

The vote by the British public to leave the European Union came after a speech by skills minister Nick Boles on June 13 raised concerns that such a verdict could kill off the apprenticeship levy.

It has already led to the resignation of prime minister David Cameron, on Friday, and a mass exodus from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet on Sunday.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, was among those who argued it was now more important than ever to press ahead with its apprenticeship plans.

He said: “If anything, the referendum result means that a skilled British workforce will be needed more than ever, so the target of three million apprenticeship starts by 2020 takes on a new significance.”

Mr Dawe also stressed the need for “clarity” from the government on its levy plans.

He said: “I can understand they’ll pause for a moment and think, but if we don’t know what’s going to happen it’s going to by default not happen in April.”

Chris Jeffery, non-executive director for independent training provider Skills Group, reiterated Mr Dawe’s call for clarity.

While she said it could be a “long time before you see the impact” of the referendum vote, she warned that “any delay regarding the detail is only going to frustrate providers even more and employers as well”.

Their views were echoed by Professor Alison Wolf, who made the case for an employer levy to fund apprenticeship training in a report published days before the government first unveiled the charge last July.

She told FE Week that “skills policy has become more important than ever” in the light of the referendum result.

She said: “One argument for the apprenticeship levy was that firms had cut back their training expenditures over the years, in part because they found it cheaper and easier to use skilled migrant/immigrant labour.”

Professor Wolf said that if the UK decided to opt out of the free movement of labour within Europe “the need to increase our skilled, level three apprenticeship numbers will be more pressing than ever”.

But Gordon Marsden, shadow skills minister, warned that if companies’ “collaboration and cooperation with European companies in building things and winning contracts was being diminished, then obviously either their ability to or their need to recruit more highly skilled apprenticeships could become quite volatile.”

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, pressed the government to “make it clear as soon as possible how it will continue to fund education and training for the good of everyone.”

And Shakira Martin, National Union of Students vice president for FE, cautioned that if the levy were scrapped “we’re going to see the aspirations of so many young people wanting to get into training and work squashed”.

She urged: “The government should be assuring young people that they have a future in the UK’s skilled workforce, not removing our future chances.”

But Nadhim Zahawi, the prime minister’s apprenticeship adviser, said the “apprenticeship levy and the enhancement of our nation’s skills is a central government policy, and this will continue to be the case.”

Others have raised concerns over the impact of the Brexit vote on the ESF cash the UK receives from the EU for skills training.

Sue Pember, director of policy and external relationships at HOLEX, urged the government to “stabilise their policy” around ESF-funded activities.

She said: “These funds have provided vital support for our adult education students and they will need to be replaced.”

A spokesperson for the University and Colleges Union (UCU) said that colleges received “significant funding” from the ESF, and called on the government to “act quickly to quell uncertainty and set out its plans for sustainable further education funding now and in the future”.

Janet Clark, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said that it would be against any post-16 funding cuts but added that “future funding will depend on what happens to the economy”.

Brett vox pops from the AELP Conference.

Over half of the delegates at the 2016 Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) conference have voted to reject membership of the Chartered Institution for Further Education (CIFE).

A majority of 54 per cent said they were not interested in applying for membership, or it was not relevant to their organisation, in an poll taken after the chair, Lord Lingfield, delivered a speech about the CIFE.

Just six per cent said they would be ready to consider membership now, while the remaining 40 per cent of voters said it might be something for the future.

The poll results came after Lord Lingfield said in response to an audience question that membership of the CIFE would cost £5,000 per year, on top of the £,3000 entry fee.

Despite the conference survey results, a CIFE spokesperson told FE Week there have already been some applications for membership.

He commented that “there are organisations going through the review process” and the CIFE will “make announcements about membership as and when organisations go completely through the process and are accepted into membership”.

He also said that his speech at the AELP 2016 conference was Lord Lingfield’s first in this role.

Lord Lingfield himself was not phased by the poll results.

He told FE Week: “I was not in the least bit surprised. This is going to take a long time quite obviously.

“This will be for a small number of providers at first.”

He added that there was some interest at the event, saying: “I’m encouraged, I’ve just spoken with somebody who said, ‘this is perfectly the thing we have been looking for, for a long time’.

“I wouldn’t for one moment think the vast majority of the people here today are going to be flooding in.

“But I think that we shall see a trickle which is followed by a flow and that finally, when we’ve got some hundreds into memberships others will be considering it – it’s very early days.”

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe showed some reservations about CIFE membership.

He said: “We can see a Royal Charter is a valuable recognition, but it has to fit in to all the other quality systems.

“If some want to get involved great, but we also want to work with them  to understand how this might fit into a wider quality system if it is going to.”

He added: “There’s a lot of discussion to be had yet. I think that the vote showed that there was still uncertainty and people weren’t going to just jump into this.

“The cost feels high and I’m sure that’s what put a lot of people off voting from definite to maybe.”

Plans were originally drawn up, by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, for the Royal seal of approval to be granted to high-achieving FE institutions in July 2012.

It was almost another year before the appointment of Lord Lingfield as chair.

The Queen then approved the grant of a Royal Charter to the Institution for Further Education in June 2015, and the body announced in October that it had been given the “Great Seal of the Realm” – the legal stamp of approval that led to its change in name.

Then in November it was announced that colleges and independent learning providers could apply for membership.

In January this year, FE Week also reported that a student’s competition-winning logo for Chartered Status for FE providers had been abandoned.

Lisa Cassidy from The Manchester College was given the award in 2013 for her winning design, after a competition was launched by the Department for BIS.

The CIFE subsequently told FE Week that the logo would no longer be used.

 

The Chartered Institution for Further Education (CIFE) is an independent body run by its own professionals.

As chair, Lord Lingfield holds a “facilitator” role, but he confirmed at AELP 2016 that “as the organisation matures it will elect a leader from the sector and already it has an embryo council and a group of advisors all drawn from FE”.

He also commented that though fellowships will be granted to “distinguished leaders in the sector”, membership of the CIFE will be strictly corporate and “open in principle to all providers of FE in England on the condition that they reach and maintain the high standards of entry which the Chartered Institution is developing”.

Lord Lingfield added that prospective members must demonstrate to reviewers, the first group of which were appointed in April, “the highest quality of teaching and learning, of governance, of financial structures and probity, of initiative, of management, of leadership, of student satisfaction and that employers, both locally and further afield, are persuaded of the high quality of the students coming to them for jobs”.

Learning providers should “push their foot through the door” with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and not be “downhearted”, the chair of one LEP told conference delegates on Monday morning.

Ann Limb, chair of South East Midlands LEP also urged members of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) not to worry about LEP board representation and to focus their attention on chief executives and skills leads.

Her remarks came after a welcome address by AELP chair Martin Dunford, in which he revealed that almost half of AELP members felt LEPs weren’t involving them in strategic planning.

Honestly, the boards of the LEPs are the last places where you get any business done

Ms Limb told the audience: “Every LEP does have a skills lead.”

“I would like to encourage you not to be downhearted by any reaction you’ve had, and to find out who that skills person is, to push your foot through the door if you need to in terms of getting a meeting,” she continued.

LEPs’ focus on apprenticeships and willingness to engage with private sector business provided a justification “to go and have that conversation” she said, and find “a way in which you might be able to work with them”.

Responding to comments by Mark Dawe, AELP chief executive, that some LEPs had colleges on their boards, Ms Limb said independent training providers shouldn’t “worry about being there on the board”
of LEPs.

“Honestly, the boards of the LEPs are the last places where you get any business done,” she said.

“The important thing, in any real sense, in terms of the real what we understand as ‘business’ – because that’s at such a high level, a strategic level – you do need to get in with the chief exec and the skills lead. That is critical.”

She urged: “That’s the level to get in at, don’t worry too much about board representation.”

Earlier in her speech Ms Limb had acknowledged it was difficult for ITPs to get in to the “LEP space” at the moment, “because if LEPs are thinking about skills they are having, predominantly, to think of it in relation to the area based reviews”.

She added: “But I do think you can build on that, and this is an opportunity to try and position yourself as the area based reviews get implemented now.”

Ms Limb told ITPs not to think of colleges as “the bogey person”.

She said: “You’re equally as valid in the training space as they are. You just need to get in there and make your case.”

Ms Limb said the AELP “brand” was a good one, but it wasn’t as “well known as it should be” by LEPs.

She added: “But there’s an opportunity if you keep that brand in people’s minds, and keep it in mind because of what you deliver. Please don’t be too downcast. Please don’t get too swayed out of the zone that you know best, which is fantastic training delivered very effectively because more than ever those training programmes are needed, the skills are needed and valued by LEPs and you have a very significant part to play in helping us work with you to get people skilled up,” she concluded.

Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden has accused the government of wasting three years that should have been better spent promoting and targeting traineeships.

He told AELP conference delegates on Monday (June 27) that the original concept for traineeships when they were launched three years ago – that of improving job prospects for young people who have slipped through the education and training net – was a good one.

But he felt they should have been targeted more carefully at preparing learners for good quality apprenticeships.

Mr Marsden said: “I was a very strong supporter of traineeships when they were originally introduced by the government.

“It was the right concept, but ministers have frittered away three years failing to promote it, failing to explain it, and failing to target. Even now they are unsure of the direction they want to go with them.

“Are they entry points to the world of work – sometimes any sort of work handed down by Job Centre Plus – or are they stepping stones for achieving apprenticeships?”

The criticism follows calls for a review over the purpose of traineeships after FE Week revealed shockingly low progression levels to apprenticeships.

The government repeatedly refused to answer questions about how many young people had progressed from traineeships to apprenticeships — so FE Week obtained the figure through a Freedom of Information request to the Skills Funding Agency.

The figures showed that just 450 (nine per cent) of 5,200 completions for 19- to 24-year-olds in 2014/15 started an apprenticeship.

The figure was slightly higher for under 19s — with 2,280 (31 per cent) of 7,400 completions progressing — but it still meant that overall progression to apprenticeships stood at just 22 per cent. Publicly available statistics provide only overall “positive” progression numbers to a job, apprenticeship, further full-time education or other training.

Mr Marsden told conference delegates he understood providers’ wider concerns about traineeships.

“You want to be able to use the funding to do something useful for those young people,” he said.

“But it is true that the government utilises traineeships as a key point of entry to get far more young people competitive as a starting point for high quality apprenticeships.

“The lack of promotion or a clear strategy is in my view hindering that progress.

“They must be progressive. If they are not, we are in danger of having some of the issues seen in the 1980s, where a generation of young people felt like hamsters never quite getting to the top of the wheel.”

He called for a “joined up situation, which takes me onto careers advice in schools”.

“I regard the complete inadequacy of careers advice over the last three to six years in schools to be one of the government’s biggest failings,” he added.

When asked last month to respond to concerns about low progression to apprenticeships, a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said: “We will continue to expand traineeships to create opportunities up and down the country so we can help as many young people as possible to get on.”

Ofsted has been accused of favouring traineeships that concentrate on classroom-based maths and English provision rather than getting young people out into the work place.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) chair Martin Dunford (pictured right) spoke out on the issue during the conference’s opening question and answer session on Monday (June 27).

It came after the organisation’s chief executive Mark Dawe (pictured below) claimed in FE Week two weeks ago that providers were being given “required to improve” gradings by Ofsted “based solely on English and maths outcomes, as Ofsted is not willing to accept destination data as robust evidence”.

It provoked a strongly-worded letter to the paper from Paul Joyce, deputy director for FE and skills at Ofsted, denying that ratings of the subjects had an “overriding influence” on overall inspections.

Mr Dunford returned to this at the conference.

He said: “The extreme example [for traineeships inspections] would be, if you keep everyone in the classroom, everyone does maths and English, and never sees an employer.

“With the way Ofsted is judging at the moment, they would probably get a higher grade than somebody who has got a lot of young people in work for the first time, or re-entry to the labour market if they are in their early 20s.”

Mr Dawe, who took part in the same question and answer session, added AELP had been in encouraging talks with the government and Ofsted on this issue.

He said: “We have had some really positive meetings – getting understanding of why this is important.

“It [maths and English] is important, but if it is the only thing you are judged on that isn’t so good. I think we have that understanding now. If you get that right it [traineeships] will start to fly.”

Conference chair Jan Murray (pictured right) challenged the pair. She said, “playing devil’s advocate”, they could be accused of sidestepping the issue.

Ms Murray added: “Young people need English and maths to get on in life, so how would you suggest they develop those skills?”

Mr Dawe replied: “Every young person going on to that programme should be assessed up-front for English and maths, and assessment should be carried out at the end.

“But if a traineeship is, say a 10-week programme, it may not be long enough to get a qualification. If a job offer comes along, we can’t say ‘sorry you can’t take the job because you haven’t finished your English and maths’ – that is not what we want to say.”

He added functional skills were crucially important for helping the learners to develop their numeracy and literacy.

He said: “I get it that with some students with a marginal C or D at GCSE, it’s worth trying again to see if they can get that qualification.

“But for many who have really struggled with the subjects, you need to take a different approach and that is where functional skills are so successful.”

 

Membership boost to over 800

The AELP has passed 800 members for the first time, and picked up dozens of colleges in the process.
Mr Dunford told conference delegates in his opening speech that the organisation had never been more in demand.
It now has 804 members, including over 40 colleges.
The latest college to join was Burton and South Derbyshire College, which quit the Association of Colleges, as revealed by FE Week last September.
A spokesperson said: “We’re delighted that Mark Dawe has taken the helm at AELP at this critical time and look forward to engaging with the association on these and other important issues for the sector in the coming year.”
Former chief executive of awarding organisation OCR, Mr Dawe, was appointed as the new AELP boss in March.