A combined authority has made the “highly unusual” move of “rewinding” its adult education budget tender despite already revealing the winning training providers.
FE Week understands that West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) informed bidders of their procurement outcomes on May 14, with contracts set to start on August 1.
But, on May 31, bidders were told that officials had decided to “rewind the procurement” following complaints.
An email to providers, seen by FE Week, added: “No further information is required from bidders at this time and the combined authority will be in touch further in due course once the re-evaluation has been completed.”
The exact value of the tender, which is for adult education budget (AEB) contracts in 2024/25, is not known but the previous procurement round totalled £11 million and was shared between 19 private providers including Back 2 Work Complete Training, Learning Curve and Realise Learning and Employment.
FE Week understands that WYCA had reduced the overall number of private providers with a procured contract to just nine firms next year before the tender was rewound.
‘The move is highly unusual and controversial’
A source with knowledge of the bidding process called the move to rewind evaluations “highly unusual and controversial”.
They told FE Week they believe that the bidding process was “fundamentally flawed” due to the way competing bids were scored in terms of “social value” and “economic advantage”.
The source added that a lack of information about the procurement process and timeframe made it more difficult to challenge WYCA’s decisions.
When asked why the procurement process was being rewound, a WYCA spokesperson said: “We are confident in our decisions around our adult education budget allocations, but following substantial challenges we are reviewing them to ensure they’re fair.
“We are building a stronger, brighter region and providing world-class adult skills courses is a key part of that, as it will help people get good jobs and ensure businesses have the workforce they need to succeed.”
Due to its commercial nature, mayoral authorities usually manage the procurement of training from private providers behind closed doors until contracts have been finalised.
But WYCA’s published allocations from last year suggest it had already confirmed its provider funding allocations by March – well ahead of the August 1 contract start date.
AEB funded training delivered by private providers in West Yorkshire includes short courses in construction, customer services and hospitality. Digital skills courses include digital technologies and creative skills.
The combined authority, which has a population of 2.3 million, is run by Labour mayor Tracey Brabin and has had devolved control of its adult education budget of about £66 million since 2021.
While around £11 million is distributed to private providers through procurement, the rest is handed to grant-funded education institutions like colleges annually. Under Brabin, the authority’s priorities have included supporting people into employment, progressing those on low wages and insecure work into better roles and increasing the supply of skilled workers into key sectors. It funded courses for 47,000 residents in 2022/23.
The number of colleges requiring government intervention could “rise fast” in the coming years as margins continue to be squeezed, a finance expert has warned.
Cash rose 7 per cent from £1.5 billion at the beginning of the academic year to £1.6 billion by 31 July 2023. The proportion of colleges that met the FE Commissioner’s benchmark of 25 or more cash days in hand grew from 94 per cent in 2022 to 96 per cent in 2023.
Those meeting the FE Commissioner’s benchmark of education-specific EBITDA of 6 per cent or more of total income – the best measurement of a college’s financial performance – fell from 56 per cent in 2022 to 51 per cent in 2023.
Association of Colleges (AoC) deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said cash has been going up due to big pots of capital funding from government being handed to colleges in 2022/23 but not yet spent, including advance payments of grants following reclassification.
Julian Gravatt
At the same time margins have been getting tighter because of higher staff turnover, an upwards pressure on pay and the three main non-staff cost lines of energy prices, IT infrastructure and exam fees all rising, Gravatt added.
He said rising inflation, which peaked at 11 per cent in the year to October 2022, coupled with the energy price spike, made colleges “justifiably cautious about setting budgets”. Total energy costs soared almost 50 per cent from £123.6 million across colleges in 2022 to £183.3 million in 2023.
Andrew Thomas, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s chief operating officer, told a recent AoC finance directors conference that colleges have got more cash and so their financial health ratings overall were looking “better”, but he warned that their margins were getting tighter.
There are currently 10 colleges with a financial notice to improve from the government. Gravatt predicts that this number will shoot up over the next couple of years due to the tight margins and running down of the cash that colleges are currently sitting on.
He warned that colleges are also dealing with a decline in the real-term value of funding, recent falls in student numbers, costs of estate maintenance and upgrades and student cost-of-living issues.
FE Week’s analysis was based on the DfE’s college accounts spreadsheet for 2022/23 published last month. It includes accounts data for 202 colleges but is missing information for around 20 due to late filing.
While the database is therefore not a completely full picture of all college finances, it is the best available source for sector-wide financial analysis.
The next government should phase in a “flex and match” skills levy that allows employers to spend part of their money on non-apprenticeship training – but only if they invest as much in apprenticeships for young people, a new report proposes.
The Learning and Work Institute has put forward a detailed blueprint of how the current apprenticeship levy, which the research body claims has been “counterproductive” to increasing apprentice numbers, could be reformed.
It comes amid vague plans from Labour to introduce a “growth and skills” levy that allows up to 50 per cent of employer payments to be spent on non-apprenticeship training.
The Conservatives have meanwhile committed to retaining the apprenticeship levy in its current form if the party wins next month’s election.
L&W chief executive Stephen Evans (pictured), who wrote the report which has been shared exclusively with FE Week, claims his proposal would allow the next government to flex the levy gradually while protecting the apprenticeship budget in real terms and encouraging more investment in young people.
A flex, match and cap skills levy…
Under the plans, the apprenticeship levy would be broadened, with greater flex for employers to use their funds for training outside of apprenticeships matched to a maximum of the amount they spend on apprenticeships for 16 to 24-year-olds and capped at up to 50 per cent of the levy.
The changes would be introduced over time to identify and deal with unintended consequences as they arise, with up to 15 per cent of levy funds able to be spent on other qualifications in years one to three, 30 per cent in years four to six, and 50 per cent thereafter.
For example, a firm paying £2 million as a skills levy could in time spend up to £1 million on approved training outside apprenticeships, but only if it had spent £1 million on apprenticeships for young people.
This training outside of apprenticeships would include functional literacy, numeracy and digital skills and other training from an approved list up to level 5 that is reassessed each year, helping to support national priorities such as net zero, housing and productivity.
…at no extra cost
The apprenticeship levy is a 0.5 per cent payroll tax on businesses with annualised wage bills of £3 million or more. In England, levy-paying employers spend an average of 50 per cent of their payments on apprenticeships. The remainder is kept by the Treasury and helps to fund apprenticeships for smaller firms.
In 2023-24 the levy raised £3.9 billion, but only around £3.2 billion was spent on apprenticeships by the government, including distributions to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
L&W’s report said natural growth in the amount raised by the apprenticeship levy is likely to mean the headroom grows to allow its proposed skills levy to happen.
Based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecasts, and assuming the amount allocated to the Department for Education for apprenticeships rises in line with inflation from 2024-25 onwards, the government will be raising £1.1 billion more from the levy than it spends on apprenticeships and gives to devolved administrations by 2028-29, L&W said.
The report claimed that maintaining this margin at the estimated 2023-24 level (over £700 million) would mean a “spare” £412 million by 2028-29.
SMEs won’t be left out
Evans told FE Week that his proposed skills levy should continue the same trend of levy-payers spending around half of their funds in total, with the remainder going towards funding apprenticeships in small and medium-sized employers who do not pay the levy.
He said £200 million of the “spare” funding that would be generated each year could then be used by SMEs to invest in training outside apprenticeships. This would be in addition to current policy where the government covers 95 per cent of small firms’ apprenticeship training costs, and 100 per cent where the apprentice is aged 22 or less.
More apprenticeships for young people?
Apprenticeship numbers are down 34 per cent since 2015-16, before the apprenticeship levy and other reforms were introduced in 2017, and down 40 per cent for under 19s. Only one in two apprentices completes their apprenticeship.
L&W has also found that one in four apprentices at levy-paying firms is aged over 25 and studying at higher education level.
The report said it was “likely” that the proposed changes would lead to levy paying employers reducing some of their higher apprenticeships for existing employees and instead funding qualifications for them, while increasing funding on apprenticeships for young people.
Evans said:“We need a new skills levy that gives more flex for employers to invest in training that makes a difference, but demands they increase apprenticeships for young people to unlock that flexibility. We can do that while protecting the apprenticeship budget for England in real terms.
“Coupled with a laser-like focus on improving quality and increasing poor apprenticeship completion rates, the next government has the chance to revitalise apprenticeships and training opportunities.”
Cash-strapped local authorities are under pressure through safety valve deals to place high-needs young people in placements that may not be suitable for them.
Councils are under increasing pressure from the government to drive down soaring high-needs deficits, predicted to rise to more than £3.5 billion by March next year.
But attempts to save cash by not funding specialist provision for learners with complex needs are creating a new set of challenges.
These challenges are particularly evident in councils that have signed “safety valve” deals with the Department for Education. In return for short-term cash lifelines, councils sign up for longer-term savings plans that have stringent conditions.
Since 2021, 38 have signed deals worth more than £1 billion.
While most of these deals have conditions on making mainstream schools more inclusive and reducing reliance on costly independent special schools, their reach also extends to FE.
Of the 28 “safety valve” authorities that responded to a freedom of information request from FE Week, more than half (15) were reducing the use of post-16 independent specialist provision – thereby increasing pressure on general FE colleges to accept more young people with high needs. Five councils made pledges around reducing reliance on “out of borough” provision to slash transport costs.
Barnsley Council says there is “clear evidence” of “many young people accessing specialist provision who could have their needs met in local mainstream provision post-16”.
It set the “key objective” to “transition ALL our young people with high needs placed in out-of-borough specialist settings to in-borough settings from year 12, over a three to four-year period”.
Only two councils say they do not intend to reduce post-16 specialist provision, with the others vague as to their intentions.
Hounslow set a target of no more than 3.3 per cent of young people with a education, health and care plan (EHCP) to be educated in a special post-16 institution.
Devon is making a capital funding bid to the DfE as part of its safety valve plans to boost high-needs capacity in local FE colleges by more than 300 places. It has also targeted savings for 2023-24 of £1.97 million in post-16 placements.
Catriona Moore, policy manager at the Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA, says safety valve councils are aiming to “reduce the number” of young people attending specialist colleges, and “setting explicit targets for mainstream placements”.
“These actions not only undermine the rights of children and young people with SEND, but also risk local authorities exposing themselves to more legal challenges than ever before.”
Deal failure
The main aims of the deals – to plug high-needs deficits and make those councils more financially resilient – are not being achieved while demand for EHCPs soars. In 2019, 77,587 16 to 19-year-olds had EHCPs. This increased by more than a third to 105,900 in 2023.
A third of the safety valve councils say the risk of them not being able to deliver their statutory duties for children and young people with SEND have increased in the past 12 months – despite cash injections.
Richmond’s deal set a target to keep its spending on independent schools and colleges to 28.9 per cent of overall spend, but in the year up to March 2023 it had spent 30.4 per cent.
It also maintained a controversial £3,486 target for average costs per placement at its FE colleges, which it exceeded by £53. Its high-needs block spending continues to rise month on month.
Scott Gardner, senior SEND management accountant for Achieving for Children, the community interest company that runs its children’s services, says Richmond had been “highlighted by the DfE as a success of the [safety valve] programme. However, if the funding ceases there is a high risk that within five years the borough will be in the same financial position it was before [it] was introduced”.
Dorset, which signed a deal in 2021, says its “progress” has “not yet translated into financial savings or efficiencies”.
“Authorities that are in better financial positions may be in a more adversarial position with children and families,” a council report noted.
Councils with safety valve deals are also trying to cease as many EHCPs as they can, which means more young people with SEND entering college without support arrangements in place.
Merton made its intentions in this respect quite explicit: “Work on ceasing plans is continuing and dedicated staff in the post-16 team are concentrating on this.”
Tony McCardle, DfE’s safety valve deal negotiator
Bankruptcy threats
In 2020, the government issued a “statutory override” of standard accounting rules, letting councils across England keep their dedicated schools grant (DSG) – which includes college high-needs funding – deficits off their general revenue books. This meant they could still set balanced budgets, despite the overspends.
That override is set to end in March 2026, after which councils are expected to have eradicated their DSG deficits.
But this seems unlikely for many.
More than a third (38 per cent) of the safety valve respondents said they are at risk of issuing a section 114 notice – meaning they cannot balance their budgets – in the next three years, partly driven by the escalating cost of SEND provision.
These notices restrict council spending to the statutory minimum.
Stoke-on-Trent told FE Week it is facing “a risk of section 114 due to pressures and demands across all of children’s services”. It is “not on track” to balance its DSG deficits by 2025, as agreed in its safety valve deal, with its officers in “constant dialogue with the DfE”.
Similarly, North Tyneside’s risk of not being able to ensure financial sustainability without raiding reserves is currently flagged as an “A1 risk” with “very high likelihood”.
However, the authority said this did not mean that it expected to issue a section 114 notice between now and 2028.
Five councils have been forced to issue section 114s in the past two years.
They include Birmingham, which after issuing the notice last year indicated that it would cut back on placements at the specialist college The Hive. But the college’s executive principal, Kim Everton, subsequently, said council staff had u-turned and “acknowledged the needs of these young people for access to education”.
Birmingham is cutting back post-16 SEND transport – as are Kent and Cheshire East Councils.
Another 54 councils are part of the government’s “delivering better value in SEND” programme, in which cost-cutting experts are parachuted in to help them find ways of driving down costs.
Clare Howard, the chief executive of Natspec, the membership body for specialist colleges, says her members are “feeling the effects” of the safety valve.
Specialist colleges in safety valve areas are “being told that there’ll be across the board, no inflationary fee increases”, she says.
“Colleges have clearly had increased staffing and energy costs, and have experienced inflationary pressures. Yet the amount they’re getting for each learner is exactly the same.”
Clare Howard of NATSPEC
Duty to admit
School and post-16 education systems operate very differently.
While just under half of children with EHCPs attend special schools, only 11 per cent of college students – those who generally have the most acute needs – are in specialist provision, with the other 89 per cent registered at general and land-based FE colleges.
“This means that although local authorities sometimes think they might be sending too many young people to specialist colleges, there’s not many cutbacks they can make,” says David Holloway, senior SEND policy manager for the Association of Colleges.
And unlike independent special schools, relatively few (15 per cent) of the 130 post-16 specialist colleges are private equity owned companies with an eye on profit margins – although several private equity owned companies operate special schools offering provision up to age 19.
But some councils are cutting post-16 services wherever they can, and not just in safety valve areas.
Holloway believes there is growing evidence of local authorities becoming “more aggressive” in their use of the “duty to admit”.
Even in instances where a general FE college has indicated it would be unable to meet a particular young person’s needs, and where the young person’s family stipulate a preference for a specialist provider, councils are sometimes still obliging mainstream colleges to accept these placements.
“This is very problematic,” said Holloway. “It’s leading to young people being in the wrong place for them”.
David Holloway, senior SEND policy manager for AoC
Conflicting duties
Specialist college placements tend to be much more expensive because of higher staff to learner ratios and specialist facilities and equipment for students with more complex needs.
In Richmond-upon-Thames, for example, the average placement cost in 2023-24 of an independent specialist post-16 provider was £37,693, compared with £3,306 in FE colleges and £40,907 in independent special schools.
Last year Holloway held a webinar on “duty to admit”, expecting to get maybe 30 people on the call. About 180 people from “nearly every college in the country” signed up, indicating the growing scale of the problem.
He emphasises that college SEND managers “go into the job to be inclusive”, and “hate saying no” to potential students – only doing so where there is a “good reason for it”.
While he understands the need for a “duty to admit” to be applied to the school sector where some have been accused of not being inclusive, “the same medicine should not be applied to colleges because we don’t have that problem”.
Colleges are sometimes reluctant to accept a young person whose behaviour cannot be managed safely, or because they lack the appropriate staffing to meet medical needs. A young person may have learning needs too profound to suit their local college classes, or the college may lack the appropriate facilities.
Holloway believes that “deeply misguided” commissioning by councils is “placing colleges in a really difficult position from a safeguarding perspective”.
“Commissioning decisions are being made on financial grounds, sometimes in defiance of what the college has said it can do…you hear colleges saying, ‘we’ve got legal duties to admit the students under the Children and Families 2014 act – but The Health and Safety Act trumps those’.”
Howard says that some councils are also placing some young people in specialist colleges that are “entirely unsuitable” for their needs – often chosen because they are local – to limit transport costs.
Lynette Barrett of National Star College
Disorganised commissioning
Young people with high needs are also bearing the brunt of “disorganised commissioning” by overstretched councils, says Holloway.
Often decisions about which college to name in an EHCP are made by caseworkers “without real knowledge of the post-16 landscape”. And these are made long after the March statutory deadline when a provider should be named on a young person’s EHCP for the upcoming academic year.
Howard believes that missing the deadline is “so routine” that it is “unusual to find a council that has actually complied with the law”. Some placements are not confirmed until after the term has begun, leading to “money wasted” because colleges bring in more expensive supply staff to plug staffing shortages.
Lynette Barrett, the chief executive of National Star College, a SEND college in Gloucestershire, says delays to naming provision on EHCPs is “leaving families in limbo” and means her college ends up planning for placements that never materialise.
But Barrett believes that “as much as the system is broken, local authorities are victims in all of this too. They’re in an untenable position with so many demands, they don’t have the resources available to provide for it all.”
National Star College, which relies on fundraising donations for capital funding
Funding complexities
Schools get what’s called “notional SEN” funding for those with low special educational needs, but there is no equivalent for colleges. For them that money comes under the disadvantage fund, which is allocated based on other factors. AoC research in 2022 found large disparities between colleges in how much they received based on economic disadvantage levels, with some getting 12 times more than others. This makes the fund effective in predicting need based on economic disadvantage, but “it’s not working for students with SEND”, says Holloway.
There is also unfairness when it comes to the £2.6 billion high-needs provision capital allocations (HNPCAs) pot distributed by local authorities for building projects for learners with SEND.
With schools, colleges and early years providers all in scope, councils are meant to consult before it is allocated. But they often only consult school representatives.
Research by Special Needs Jungle, the parents’ network, shows that in previous rounds, 99 per cent of all HNPCA spending was on schools, with the remaining 1 per cent split between early years and FE.
“The obvious consequence of skewed investment is that accommodation in the college SEND sector is not improving to meet demand,” says Holloway.
Howard also says it is “ludicrous” that specialist colleges are exempt from the £1.5 billion FE capital transformation fund, leaving some “having to raid their reserves for maintenance, and reliant on fundraisers to carry out essential repairs”.
Kent Council acknowledges this challenge in a council report that explains how post 16 training providers “cannot draw down” capital funding, which “hinders the development of their offer across the county, as premises costs are high”.
The government’s SEND improvement plan contains reforms yet to be rolled out
Some positive progress
Much of the disorganised commissioning is laid bare in the 32 Ofsted area SEND inspections that have taken place since January last year. Overall, nine (28 per cent) were graded 3 (‘systemic failings’), the same percentage grade 1 (‘typically positive’), while 14 (44 per cent) were grade 2 ‘inconsistent’.
The reports are particularly critical of post-16 SEND arrangements. Only a quarter were generally positive, 16 per cent mixed and 59 per cent poor, our analysis revealed.
Ofsted found that in North Northamptonshire, “inaccurate” EHCPs do not support students to “access appropriate placements”.
In Bury (a safety valve council) inspectors reported “systemic failings” – with no provision in place for 18 to 25-year-olds to access an ADHD or autism assessment.
In Haringey, EHCPs “do not adequately address preparation for adulthood”.
However, Middlesbrough was praised for how “young people learn about pathways” to FE. In Oxfordshire planning for adult transition was found to be “coordinated” and avoided “delays”.
Some councils are keen to engage more with colleges around SEND provision. Hertfordshire Council was last year criticised by Ofsted for “systemic failings” and admitted that until recently, “increasing demand coupled with resource constraints, high sickness levels and high staff turnover has led to strain on existing systems”.
But after a meeting was arranged in April with representatives from four Hertfordshire colleges and then Watford MP Dean Russell, the council launched a “new regional partnership”, including colleges in strategic planning for specialist provision and high-needs funding discussions.
WorldSkills UK plans to roll out a new competition to address the “skills and gender diversity crisis” in the UK film and TV industry.
The skills charity has promised to introduce a special effects (SFX) make-up programme by 2025 and promote skills in its national events that can be applied to the screen industries.
The new competition, which will see young people use make-up and prosthetics to create special effects for film and television, is replacing the existing creative media make-up competition to focus more on the film and TV industries.
WorldSkills UK will meet with training providers and creative industry experts this month to develop the competition to “align with employer needs” and plans to launch in early 2025.
The pledge comes as a new report by WorldSkills UK and the BBC warns of growing skills shortages in the film and TV sector and the perceived high barriers to entry from young people wanting to get into the industry.
Screen industries, which encompass film and TV, visual effects and video games, contributed £23 billion to the UK economy in 2022 but recent studies show 87 per cent of employers in the industry have a skills shortage problem.
Through a poll of over 2,000 young people, the report found that appetite for a career in the screen industries is being hindered by patchy careers advice by employers and training providers and a limited awareness of job opportunities in their technical skill in film and TV.
Emma Roberts, WorldSkills UK’s external affairs director said: “We know there are fantastic careers to be had in the screen industries, one of the fastest growing and internationally renowned sectors of our economy, but at the moment too many young people don’t see a way in.”
The report also found that young people thought it more important to know someone who already works in the industry and 87 per cent were not aware that carpentry and joinery were desired skills.
WorldSkills UK has advised employers and training providers to improve its careers information and has pledged to promote “good practice” of local partnerships in FE colleges.
“As a college, you don’t need to have a film and TV department,” Roberts told FE Week. “You could have a hairdressing team, but you can still show people that they can get into the creative industries. Those are the best practice examples we want to show.”
The report comes shortly after the announcement of the 31 competitors who will represent Team UK at the global “skills Olympics” in Lyon, France, this September.
A college has scrapped its computing degrees after an investigation by the higher education regulator raised concerns over their “credibility” and level of “educational challenge”.
The Office for Students (OfS) has published a review into Bradford College’s BSc (Hons) computing degrees, the first assessment of its kind of higher education course quality at an FE college.
The quality assessment team questioned the “validity” of the college’s computing degrees after its four-month investigation in late 2022 found concerns around the marking criteria and the higher-level courses were not challenging enough.
Bradford College told FE Week it would discontinue its six computing degrees after this academic year but said it had already conducted an internal review before the OfS investigation.
The news follows the government’s vow to crackdown on low quality “rip-off” degrees with high drop-out rates that do not lead to high-paid jobs, announced by prime minister Rishi Sunak last July.
Bradford College currently offers 97 higher education courses, according to its website.
College governors discussed a drop in forecasted HE student numbers in March. Last year the college received just over £7.3 million in higher education tuition fees, 4 per cent less than the year before, out of its total £80 million budget.
Courses ‘lacked educational challenge’
The OfS began its quality assessment in December 2022 and concluded in April 2023, having conducted staff and student interviews and observed teaching sessions.
In the 2022/23 academic year, there were 72 full-time and two part-time students studying across six BSc (Hons) computing courses at the college.
The courses are validated by the University of Bolton. This means that the college is responsible for the design and delivery of each course and the university carries out approval, review and validation.
All students graduating from one of the college’s BSc (Hons) computing courses receive a University of Bolton qualification.
The review found some assessments were not “valid or reliable” and “lenient marking” meant students could have passed without demonstrating a level of skill and knowledge needed for a computer science graduate. The OfS said this questioned “the credibility of the relevant awards granted to students”.
The report found the completion rate for full-time, first-degree students in computing over four years was 72.1 per cent, below the OfS threshold of 75 per cent.
From interviews with students and comparing course materials with A-level computer science specifications, the OfS team found the degree modules were not challenging enough “beyond level 3” for a “credible” computer science degree.
The report said: “During discussions with a group of six level 6 students, where course delivery and assessments (including the final year project) were discussed, the students reported that, in their opinion, there was generally little difference in the level of challenge between the modules taught to them at level 3 and level 4.
“Bradford College has not ensured that students registered on the relevant courses received a high-quality academic experience because the courses lacked educational challenge, coherence in relation to depth of content and did not require students to develop relevant technical skills.”
The OfS was given a mandate to examine the quality of assessments at higher education institutions in the 2022/23 academic year. To date, it has commissioned reviews into business and management courses at seven universities, including the University of Bolton. It also opened an investigation into computing courses at Goldsmiths College in London.
On Bradford College’s report, Jean Arnold, deputy director of quality at the OfS, said: “The assessment team were concerned the marking criteria used for more technical assessments may not have been designed for the assessment of this type of work, leading to concerns around the credibility of the qualifications offered.
“The assessment team also found that students may achieve higher grades than their technical skills were able to demonstrate, raising concerns that the awards may not be credible.”
A Bradford College spokesperson said: “We are open to the findings of the recent OfS quality assessment report relating to our BSc (Hons) computing courses and addressing any identified areas of improvement.
“However, the college undertook an internal review of this area prior to the assessment and has already executed plans to target these concerns.
“As such, the BSc (Hons) computing programmes will discontinue after current students complete their studies this academic year. The college is also working with local employers to develop a range of relevant alternative higher technical qualifications that will boost in-demand regional skills and ensure we retain computing progression routes.”
Sandwell College has finally announced its new principal – eight months after final interviews took place.
Lisa Capper will join the West Midlands college this November, replacing Graham Pennington who has held the post since 2014.
Recruitment for a successor to Pennington began last summer with applications closing in September and final interviews scheduled in October.
The college did not explain the delay at the time of going to press, however FE Week understands the college was unable to announce Capper’s appointment until the government had approved her salary package.
This makes Sandwell the latest college to face lengthy delays in announcing new leaders following the government’s reclassification of colleges to the public sector.
The Sandwell “family of colleges” includes Cadbury Sixth Form and Central Saint Michael’s Sixth Form.
The Department for Education promised in February that it would “streamline” signing-off senior pay approval requests after FE Week revealed wait times of up to five months.
Reclassification rules stipulate that colleges must obtain DfE and Treasury approval for hiring senior staff on pay packages of £150,000 or more.
Sandwell College’s 2022/23 accounts show that incumbent principal Pennington was paid a basic salary of £196,000, plus £40,000 in pension contribution, taking his total pay package to £236,000.
The principal salary was “designed to attract the very best candidate to lead Sandwell College,” the advert said, but did not specify a salary in accordance with DfE rules.
The college will also offer an £8,000 allowance for relocation costs and 35 days of holiday.
Senior pay red tape is also causing chaos for colleges wanting to give severance payments of £50,000 or more, where they are equal to three months’ salary or more, an exit package of £100,000 or more, or where the employee earns over £150,000.
Pennington will stay on at Sandwell College until November to facilitate a handover.
Capper has been CEO and principal at Stoke on Trent College since January 2022. In January 2021, she was awarded the MBE for services to young people.
Before her principalship at Stoke on Trent, she led education and skills provision at the social justice charity Nacro, which involved transforming Totton College to receive a grade 2 Ofsted rating in 2019.
She has also been vice principal of North Warwickshire and Hinckley College group and executive director of the college’s Midlands Academies Trust.
Previously, she served in the senior civil service as a specialist in FE at the Department for Education and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills leading on initiatives such as Skills for Life and WorldSkills.
Capper said: “I am delighted to be joining the Sandwell family of colleges at such an exciting time. The college offers great opportunity for the young people and residents of Sandwell and Birmingham to achieve their education and skills ambitions and develop their careers. I am looking forward to working with the talented and dedicated teams across all sites and hope that I can bring my skills and experience to build on their tremendous achievements.”
Alan Taylor, chair of Sandwell’s board, said: “Lisa brings extensive experience of senior leadership and governance in further education, and through the roles she has held in colleges, charities and in government, a demonstrable commitment to the learners we serve. We are delighted to welcome Lisa to the Sandwell family of colleges and look forward to her joining us in the autumn.
“On behalf of the board, I should like to extend our thanks to Graham for all his work and contribution to the progress of the colleges over the past decade. Under Graham’s leadership and by working collaboratively, we have seen the colleges go from strength to strength.”
The principal of a college in Devon has resigned with immediate effect.
Staff at Petroc College were informed of Sean Mackney’s departure just before half term.
He has led the college since 2019 but said it was time for “another to take that next step forward” in the job which is “immensely rewarding and challenging in equal measure”.
No interim principal has yet been appointed but a spokesperson said deputy Jason Jones will lead the executive team and wider college until interim arrangements are made.
The college could not comment on the sudden nature of Mackney’s exit.
Mackney told staff: “I have tried to bring energy, ideas, and belief in the immense capacities of those who commit to learning, to create solutions to all the situations we face. However, as we approach the end of the Petroc 2025 strategy and begin looking to what comes next I believe that it is time for another to take that next step forward.
“I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing you all working together in partnership to deliver for our learners, county, and communities in the coming years.”
Petroc, which teaches around 6,000 learners each year and employs almost 500 staff, was rated as ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2019 and is preparing for another inspection in the coming months.
The college’s accounts show its financial health rating is ‘requires improvement’, with a low EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of 3.14 per cent and deficit of £2.1 million.
FE Week understands that Petroc has been making redundancies this year. The college’s spokesperson confirmed it was undergoing a “restructure process” owing to the “challenging financial context” the sector is currently operating in. They would not say how many posts are at risk as this was still being finalised.
Mackney’s departure came weeks after a council meeting about the future of Petroc’s campus in Tiverton, reported by Devon Live. The then principal told councillors the college greatly values the site amid concern there was an emphasis on the college’s Barnstaple campus.
A Petroc College spokesperson told FE Week there are no plans to close either college campus and said the college is currently up on student applications from this time last year.
On Mackney’s sudden exit, the spokesperson said: “The board of governors extended their gratitude to Sean for his unwavering dedication to Petroc, its students, staff, and the North Devon community over the past five years. They noted he has shown great commitment and creativity in working towards sustaining the college and its success.”
Prior to joining Petroc, Mackney was a pro vice chancellor at Bucks New University and was previously director of student education and engagement at the University of Exeter. He also held leadership roles at the Higher Education Academy, HEFCE and the HE Regional Development Association – South West.
Pre-apprenticeship traineeship courses could see a return under a Labour government, despite the Conservative government recently scrapping a similar scheme due to low take-up.
New training courses for young people would be funded by employers through Labour’s growth and skills levy, a replacement to the apprenticeship levy introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, the party has announced.
Labour announced it would replace the apprenticeship levy with a more flexible alternative in September 2022. Under Labour’s levy plans, employers would spend at least 50 per cent of their levy funds on apprenticeships but could spend the rest on other types of training.
This is in contrast to the current apprenticeship levy where funds can only be spent on apprenticeships.
Labour claims three per cent of funds from the skills and growth levy would fund 150,000 traineeships for young people in sectors such as digital, construction and electrical.
Today’s announcement doesn’t detail who would be eligible for new traineeships or how much of the programme would be delivered by employers or training providers.
Based on three per cent of the current levy bringing in around £100 million, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated each Labour traineeship would cost around £750, about the same as a functional skills qualification.
The Conservatives canned the traineeship programme in August after achieving just a third of its recruitment target, despite being funded at around three times the per-head rate Labour has proposed.
Business could also spend their levy on non-apprenticeship training for existing workers, including modular courses in “new industries and technologies” identified in local skills improvement plans, Labour re-announced today.
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said: “Businesses are crying out for help to tackle skills shortages, so Labour will give them the flexibility needed to create skills training opportunities and drive economic growth through a growth and skills levy.”
Labour claimed its more flexible levy would also reverse the decline in adults in training under the Conservatives.
Opposition ministers have been asking businesses to sign a letter of support for their new growth and skills levy, according to reports.
“The choice on July 4 is between a Conservative Party that has given up on upskilling the nation and Labour that will see in a golden age in lifelong learning so that everyone can get on and fire the growth our economy needs,” Phillipson said.
Labour has previously defended its growth and skills levy plans amid criticism from training leaders worried it would devalue and reduce apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships in small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are currently paid for from levy funds businesses pay in but don’t draw down for their own apprenticeships.
Business and sector leaders have raised concerns that by encouraging businesses to spend more of the levy on non-apprenticeship training, there wouldn’t be the unspent funds available to spend on apprenticeships in small businesses.
In June 2023, then shadow skills minister Toby Perkins said he’d won a commitment from Labour’s treasury team for a ringfenced budget to protect funding for SME apprenticeships.
However, shadow education ministers have dodged questions on this and there’s been no mention of such a dedicated budget since.
Conservative ministers claim Labour’s levy plans would half the number of apprenticeships available.
In a new report last week, Learning and Work Institute estimated low skills levels was costing the economy £20 billion a year amid declining investment in training from government and employers.
