Providers could be forced to slow down 16 to 18 apprenticeships delivery with their requests for growth going unanswered.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) had been expected to let providers know the outcomes of their requests by January 8 following a shake-up of the process after similar delays last year.

The shake-up, instigated by SFA chief executive Peter Lauener, has seen the number of growth request windows fall from three to two, although it is understood the current hold-up is at the Department for Education (DfE).

The delay in deciding growth requests and the effect it is having on delivery will cause concern for Prime Minister David Cameron in light of his target of creating 3m apprenticeship starts by 2020.

John Hyde, chair of HIT Training, a lead provider with a current SFA allocation of around £28m, said: “Those providers with tight cash flow might well think twice about delivering additional volume at their own risk [because of the delay].”

But he added: “We are willing to take a risk on over-delivery of 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeships, as in more than 20 years of apprenticeship provision we have never been refused growth on our 16 to 18 apprenticeship programmes.”

Mike Gore, director of Blue Apple Training, a provider with more than £467,000-worth of SFA subcontracting as of December 2015, said: “I’m sure this could have an adverse effect for smaller providers with little cash reserve.

“We work with various primes and usually we can figure it out between us, however it isn’t ideal but we adapt as necessary.”

Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager for the Association of Colleges, said: “The government considers apprenticeships to be vital to economic growth, so it should be more responsive when colleges achieve or exceed their apprenticeship delivery targets.

“The SFA should look at how it can make the process of funding in-year growth requests more efficient.”

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “Responses to all growth cases should be prompt because commitments have to be made to employers and learners.”

The SFA confirmed on Wednesday (January 13) in an Update message on its website that it was “not yet in a position to confirm support for your [16 to 18 apprenticeships and traineeships growth] request. We apologise for this delay and will confirm the position as soon as we can.”

An SFA spokesperson told FE Week said: “For further information, and as this is 16 to 18 apprenticeships, speak with the EFA [Education Funding Agency].”

The DfE declined to comment on behalf of the EFA.

The government has said that it will address recommendations made by a parliamentary committee that found evidence of “unacceptable” bullying of transgender adult learners.

The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee’s Transgender Equality report, published on Thursday (January 14), called on the government to take action in a number of areas, including post-school education, to ensure equality for transgender people.

Education Secretary and Women and Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan (pictured above) said: “Transgender people often face huge challenges, from appalling harassment and abuse to obstacles in accessing public services.

“We will now review the committee’s report, and work with other government departments to look at the recommendations.”

At the time of going to press, a spokesperson for BIS had not been able to confirm to FE Week what action the department would be taking.

During its inquiry into transgender issues, the committee, chaired by MP Maria Miller, found evidence of what it called “unacceptable levels” of bullying and harassment of transgender people in the FE sector.

Key findings in the area of post-school education, which covered both FE and higher education, included one third of trans-students having been bullied or harassed on campus, and trans-students being more likely to leave their courses as a result of this harassment.

“The levels of bullying and harassment experienced by trans-students in further and higher education are unacceptable,” the report said.

The inquiry had “heard evidence that in FE the learning environment for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] learners might be more hostile than that in higher education,” it said.

Evidence to the inquiry had been submitted by the National Union of Students (NUS), the Government Equalities Office and Skills Minister Nick Boles, among others.

The report’s authors said they “welcomed” Mr Boles’ offer, given during the inquiry’s evidence session on October 28, to raise the issue with universities.

“We recommend that the government hold similar conversations with FE providers,” they reported.

The report also called on the government “take steps” to ensure that all FE staff received training in gender identity awareness.

Charley Hasted, aged 29, who is studying for a BTec in applied science at Lambeth College, was assigned female at birth, but identifies as neither male nor female.

“I know who I am, but I still hear comments, homophobic, biphobic language, get thrown around,” they said.

“I’m in a position to challenge that when I hear it from other students but I think I’m very lucky. I’m also the LGBT officer at the college, so I know I’ve got staff members who’ll back me up if I do challenge it whereas I think a lot of students wouldn’t have the assurance that they know the staff are there to back them up if they do challenge.

“There are two trans people at Lambeth — me and one other — and neither of us are out to our classmates. We’ve both mature students, but neither of us feel comfortable being out to our classmates — which I think tells you a lot.”

Joyce Black, assistant director for research and development at the Learning and Work Institute, said: “We know from our work as a member of the Forum for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that transgender equality remains a stubborn taboo in the sector.

“We should all take the time to digest what the report has to say and recognise our responsibilities to end bullying and discrimination in our institutions.”

Leora Cruddas, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said the ASCL was “strongly committed” to promoting transgender equality, and would be considering “what further action we can take as a leadership association.”

Fran Cowling and Robbiie Young, NUS LGBT+ officers, said that the report showed there was “much more to do” to ensure that “trans students can equally participate” in FE.

Helen Carr, head of equality at the University and College Union (UCU), said she hoped the sector would “respond positively” to the recommendations.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “The government must now invest properly in services for transgender people for the report’s recommendations to mean anything.”

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‘Telling principal of change to full-time role as a female was daunting’

“It makes me feel very disappointed and quite saddened,” says Natalie Roberts (pictured below), who works for Bishop Auckland College and who transitioned from male to female in 2014, when asked how she feels about transgender people being bullied and harassed in FE.

“It is sad that these opinions and behaviours exist in general society, but in the education sector especially it is simply unacceptable,” added Natalie.

Unlike many of the people whose experiences fed into the Women and Equalities Committee’s Transgender Equality report, Natalie said her college had been “very supportive” of her change — although she described discussing the move to a “full-time role as a female” with the HR director and principal as “quite a daunting thing”.

After her transition, which happened over the summer break, Natalie said she had just “one or two initial problems around certain staff members who weren’t able to get used to me but that’s passed”.

Some of the students, Natalie says, “because of their ages they’re a little bit giggly at first but when you talk to them they’re fine.”

Since her transition Natalie has moved to a new role within the employment services team at the college, as trainer/assessor for management and social media marketing. The college has involved her in drafting a transgender workers’ policy, and she’s been supporting LGBT students at the college.

Kirsty Walker is achievement coach at City of Liverpool College and works with transgender people. She set up a trans mentoring service “to signpost students to external agencies and also to deal with the college’s systems and make sure they weren’t disadvantaged”.

She also trains staff and students in trans issues, and supports trans students if they choose to come out to their class.

“When I’ve spoken to people at other colleges they’ve been very impressed by what we do, but I find that worrying. I think we do a good job – it’s our responsibility to do that. Just making sure that there are no barriers to students is a very simple job.”

An ongoing dispute over a Hampshire college’s VAT rebate that has “a potentially wide impact” has gone all the way to the European courts, after a third visit to the courtroom failed to resolve the college’s battle with the taxman.

The European Court of Justice will now decide whether supplies for Brockenhurst College’s training restaurant, MJs, are exempt from VAT, after the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice agreed to refer the case following a hearing on November 4.

In his summary of the hearing, the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Terence Etherton, said: “The interpretation and application of the exemption in Article 132(1)(i) on the facts of the present case is not acte clair. The facts are not unusual and so the decision in the present case has a potentially wide impact.”

Many colleges in England run similar training facilities — including restaurants, hair salons, spas and theatres — that are staffed by students and open to the public. As previously reported by FE Week, successful payback campaigns in the vein of Brockenhurst’s could net the sector tens of millions of pounds.

The issue at stake is whether supplies to the restaurant are “closely related” to the education of learners at the college, and should therefore be exempt from VAT.

A hearing in February 2014 ruled that they were, and awarded Brockenhurst College £55,000 — representing four years’ worth of tax payments.

The college won a second hearing, in August 2014, after HMRC appealed the decision.

At the third hearing in November, the Court of Appeal agreed with the request from both HMRC and the college to refer the case to the European Court of Justice on the basis that the law was unclear.

A spokesperson for the European Court of Justice confirmed that the case between the college and HMRC arrived on December 24.

No date has yet been set for when a decision would be made, the spokesperson told FE Week, adding that the process “typically” takes around 18 months.

Brockenhurst College principal Di Roberts declined to comment on the case.

Picture by: Horst Galuschka / DPA/Press Association Images

The government was today still unable to say how small businesses who don’t pay into the apprenticeship levy would access funding for the programme — despite them delivering more than 90 per cent of all apprenticeships.

From April 2017, employers will have to pay 0.5 of their pay roll costs to the apprenticeship levy, the government announced in November.

But businesses with payrolls of less than £3m — over 98 per cent of all employers — will not pay the levy, the government said.

And, speaking in a government-funded webinar aimed at promoting the levy, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) official David Sampson conceded that a “new model” would need to be developed “that applies to non-levy payers, but that is being worked on at the moment”.

Mr Sampson, head of standards development in the apprenticeships directorate at BIS, made the comments during a webinar, entitled ‘Frameworks to standards: what you need to know’, hosted by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), and chaired by Mike Cox, AELP operations manager (pictured above), on January 13.

“Hopefully, by the time you have your levy webinar [being held by AELP on March 17], we will at least have a timescale in place the provision of that information, although I don’t know if any more information will be available at that stage,” said Mr Sampson.

As Mr Sampson’s comments revealed, many details of the levy remain unresolved.

In response to a question from Mr Cox about firms whose workforce includes people overseas, Mr Sampson said he was “aware of some work that is going on right now to work out the detail as to precisely how the payroll calculation will be made”.

Information should be available “in the next couple of months”, he said.

Concerns about the number of awarding organisations involved in the new system of Trailblazers and undetermined end-point exam costs will also not have been eased by Mr Sampson’s comment that there were “still some issues to work through in terms of bringing assessment bodies on board”.

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “The levy proposals for large companies should not be at the expense of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) funding, nor drive the shaping of an SME funding system.

“We are still concerned as to whether upfront cash contributions will compromise SME engagement.”

A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges said: “Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and the government must ensure that they, and their staff, can also benefit from the funding created by the levy.”

A government spokesperson said that employers who did not have to pay the levy would “continue to have access to government funding to support apprenticeships. Further details of how the levy will operate will be available in due course”.

Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted has told of her hopes that a consultation on reforming Functional Skills exams will boost their “credibility and value”.

The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) unveiled its timetable for a “multi-stage” consultation on Thursday (January 14).

A spokesperson told FE Week that it would be running “many different activities until late June” geared towards collecting views on how the qualifications should be reformed by 2018.

The first consultation set to launch shortly and close on April 7 would, he said, focus on “employers and technical experts”. A second consultation with providers and other sector experts is expected to run from mid-May until late June.

Dr Bousted (pictured above) said: “As a member of the Functional Skills Reform Programme Expert Advisory Group, ATL supports the review of maths and English Functional Skills qualifications.

“The review is timely as it is over five years since the qualifications were launched.”

She added: “Functional Skills are the most popular qualifications after GCSEs, with one million awarded every year. So it is clear their relevance is already acknowledged by industry, practitioners and learners, but their credibility and value needs to be recognised by government ministers.”

Visit www.etfoundation.co.uk/functionalskillsreform or www.pyetait.com/fsreform to find out more about the consultation.

Area reviews, apprenticeships and the large employers’ levy were all topics that were raised at a Westminster Education Forum on reforms to vocational qualifications in England.

The word “bewildering” was used more than once throughout the forum, highlighting a view that routes through vocational education lack clarity.

Warwick Sharp (pictured above), deputy director, vocational education and 16-19 strategy at the Department for Education (DfE), spoke on reforms so far and said that vocational education needed simplification to make it more accessible.

“I don’t think you could describe our system of vocational education as simple or streamlined,” he said.

“The majority are doing vocational education … we need to get it right,” he said.

On apprenticeships, he said they offered an advantage over other types of provision for particular industries because being in the workplace allows learners to focus more on practical skills.

Mr Sharp said the DfE wanted apprenticeships to be “part of the whole system”, with “flexible movement between classroom-based provision and apprenticeships”.

He also said he thought area reviews were a “really good opportunity” for vocational education.

“What is at the heart of area reviews is trying to match the needs of a local area and the provision that’s available … one of the things that could happen is more specialisation and it might be that some institutions are specialising more closely on things that local area needs,” he said.

Kate Shoesmith, head of policy and public affairs at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, raised the topic of the large employers’ apprenticeship levy.

She said: “The apprenticeship levy is coming our way and the one concern that I would have with that, and that employers across the board are saying, is if that’s a pure focus on the numbers of people doing those apprenticeships because we have a target to meet by 2020, that’s not going to do very much for us.

“The thing that we’re really interested in is the quality of the training and how that is helping people to find the right jobs and get into industry.”

During the forum speakers also flagged concerns that the introduction of a compulsory English Baccalaureate (EBacc) could negatively impact on the number of students taking vocational qualifications.

In June 2015, the DfE announced the intention for all pupils starting secondary education in September 2015 to take the EBacc subjects when they reached their GCSEs in 2020.

Jill Stokoe, education policy adviser for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: “We’re about to look at a 90 per cent target for the EBacc, this is currently Forum looks at vocational reforms in England being consulted on. What we’re saying in our response to the EBacc consultation is that we’ve got real concerns about all students having to do the five academic subjects, five academic GCSEs — with the tech awards besides them.

“Though it’s a good mixture of academic and vocational, forcing students to do those subjects could mess it up across the piece for them.

“We’re worried that the tech awards will suffer as a result of this compulsory EBacc requirement — we think this is a mistake,” she said.

David Harbourne, acting chief executive of the Edge Foundation, also commented on the issue.

He said: “This will have a big impact, including on technical awards.

“If the 90 per cent target had been in place in 2014 an additional 141,800 key stage four students would have had to take a humanities GCSE instead of something else.

“To hit the languages target an extra 220,000 students would have to take a languages GCSE instead of something else.

“In my view that’s a very difficult target to achieve, for all sorts of reasons, but I’m also very worried that we assume that a modern foreign languages GCSE is more important than a technical award.”

Sheffield academic looks at qualification values

The forum heard from University of Sheffield academic Dr Steven McIntosh about his latest research.

The economics researcher, as part of the Centre for Vocational Education Research (CVER), set up by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last year, is using data sets to estimate the value of different qualifications in the labour market.

CVER is using individualised learner records (ILRs), which represent the population of learners in FE, and matching them anonymously to tax and benefit records to reveal what people go on to do after receiving their vocational qualification.

The research aims to find out what jobs individuals do, how long they spend at work and how much they’re earning. The researchers will also be able to divide up the finding on factors such as type and level of qualification, the provider and the characteristics of the learner themselves.

“We have got the population of learners over the last ten years,” he said.

“This will allow us to provide a lot more detail than has previously been available from research … We’ll be able to make much more detailed statements to provide information to young people and their parents as they’re making decisions.”

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