Graham Taylor questions whether apprenticeships are really worth all the funding and special attention being lavished on them by the government.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against apprenticeships but I’ve nothing against the hundreds of other qualifications in the adult skills budget.

‘Other’ says it all, but it encompasses some great qualifications. The budget has been cut by 28 per cent this year.

We could overspend it three times over, such is the demand from learners and business, but the money has dried up.

Whisper ‘apprenticeships’ and politicians go weak at the knees, but what’s so special about them? And can we sell more to meet Cameron’s 3m 2020 target? The product content keeps changing and so does price (who pays and how much?) Standards are uncertain and quality is, at best, ‘variable’.

As Mrs Merton says ‘let’s have a heated debate’.

So what are they? In essence they ape occupational standards. NVQs had a rough ride under Train to Gain — deemed to be ‘deadweight’ qualifications.

Apprenticeships were only ‘NVQs with knobs on’, the useful knobs being functional skills or GCSEs English and maths GCSEs.

Trailblazer content is still a work in progress. Many frameworks are still to be released.

Most now combine a competence-based NVQ with a substantial knowledge qualification. For example, the level three business diploma is now a huge beast counting 58 credits.

Other key considerations are who pays and how much? Why wouldn’t apprentices take out loans? Uncle Vince [Cable] rapidly withdrew this option as a growth strategy. Why not treat them just like any other loanable qualification? Let the learner decide what’s best.

How will large companies react to the levy [that they will be forced to pay]? The government expects to raise £3bn. Businesses will want their money back through high quality training which demonstrably improves productivity.

Like all assessment-based qualifications, there aren’t really any national standards, but devil’s contracts between assessor and apprentice

One thing’s for sure, the levy and the Digital Apprenticeship Service will add complexity and additional costs to the process.

Then there are standards to consider. Like all assessment-based qualifications, there aren’t really any national standards, but devil’s contracts between assessor and apprentice.

It leads to variations in quality and output. Quality could vary wildly as the supply side expands (get yourself on ROTO) and companies and colleges chase the money.

Companies like Next and the Priory Group have been accused in the national press of taking on low paid trainees without giving them proper training to develop skills and complete qualifications.

Sir Michael Wilshaw condemned such schemes that wasted taxpayers’ money on accrediting low level skills “such as mopping floors and making coffee”.

It’s true that most apprenticeships are level two and many are in service occupations where it’s sometimes hard to see the added value (shades of Train to Gain).

It’s hard to tell whether an Institute for Apprenticeships or the assessment organisations can help to ensure quality across each standard, no matter where, how or by whom they’re being delivered. Good luck with that.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) aims to increase competition “to help employers make an informed decision….”

There’ll be no distinction between primary (who have direct SFA contracts) and sub-contractors. Anyone can submit information about their organisational viability and quality assurance. If they meet due diligence standards and get on the Registers of Training and Organisations and Apprenticeship Assessment they can become a lead provider and negotiate commercial terms directly with employers, to deliver apprenticeship training.

Employers can choose any registered organisation. A competitive price and quality bunfight will ensue.

So get the content right (some are much easier to pass than others) and bring on the competition.

Judge providers by the quality of their work and the outcomes they achieve. Stiffen the standards so that short cuts can’t be taken.

Will the planned changes shake up the market the way the government wants?

Let’s see, but favouring any group of qualifications distorts the market and leads to unnecessary waste, increased bureaucracy and expensive national marketing campaigns.

 

Phil Hatton rebuts claims by Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw that the FE sector was “inadequate at best” and questions the consistency of the education watchdog.

The chief inspector does not understand first-hand what it is like to work in a sector that is often a ‘second or third chance’ for those who have not achieved sufficiently.

From what was reported, these are personal opinions that appear not to be based on facts derived from the primary source that should be inspection evidence.

Those who conscientiously work for Ofsted must be embarrassed by these latest pearls of wisdom cast down to the sector by Sir Michael.

Of course, part of this is down to him not understanding that a real inspector should only make a public judgement if it is based on fact and as such can be proven by evidence.

So Ofsted, please show us where data on inspections supports the headline statement in the article that the FE sector is “inadequate at best”?

Strangely, this completely contradicts the statistics contained in the chief inspector’s report, published only a few months ago.

At this moment in time, I would seriously question the consistency of Ofsted in terms of being led and ‘managed’ as a champion of quality.

I can think of a number of examples of variable performance by Ofsted.

Firstly, with publishing reports on time. A college report was published in January, over seven weeks after completion, with the target of five weeks missed (there are many more examples of no contact made by Ofsted to acknowledge dates agreed for accuracy checking not being met).

Secondly, wasting taxpayers’ money and resources. For a report on a small private provider published in December, five inspectors took three days to inspect 22 apprentices. Is inspection resourcing really being well managed?

Thirdly, equity of resource allocation. A college was inspected under the new CIF, with 1,038 apprentices, by one inspector for four days. How can this hold water with the above case?

Fourthly, website information not being available, data dashboard questions for Learning and Skills governors, link not working.

Fifth, consistency and checking of judgements in the much simpler report structure. A ‘safeguarding effective’ judgement made for a training provider report contained the judgement that ‘staff are not trained in the Prevent strategy’.

Sixth, carrying out inspections on time. A Sixth Form College that required improvement, with a latest date to be inspected in the 18-month window up to early May, was actually inspected in the first week of December, with no apology

Seventh, judgements about apprenticeships nationally in a survey. Many ‘apprenticeship training agencies’ have gone uninspected, or judged as to their ‘fitness for purpose’, despite being around since 2009 and involving thousands of apprentices and millions of pounds in funding.

Although Sir Michael did well in the past as executive principal at Mossbourne Community Academy, in Hackney (although the best college principals that I meet, give the credit to their staff, students and the ethos created), what about the pupils it failed, who did not stay on in that sixth form?

Yes, they probably went onto FE to pick up the pieces, but with far less funding.

I thought the concept of a ‘level playing field’ was finally acknowledged in the recent chief Inspectors report, or does making a controversial soundbite statement reflect a new un-evidenced approach to Ofsted judgements?

Is there real equity in the implementation of the CIF?

Where are similar statements about schools? Looking at national first time pass rates for English and maths GCSEs in schools, too many young people do not achieve A-C grades and the gaps in success between males and females, and between regions are too wide.

Locally to me there are many outstanding schools. Are the same criteria equally applied as in FE?

 

Anjelica Finnegan looks at what needs to be considered to make the apprenticeship levy work for charities.

In April 2017, all employers with a pay bill of over £3m will be required to pay the new apprenticeship levy.

The government believes this will significantly increase the quantity (with an expected 3m apprenticeships by 2020) and quality of apprenticeships in England.

The exact details of how the levy will work in practice are still being thrashed out, but what we know so far is that the levy will be set at 0.5 per cent of employers’ pay bill.

Redistribution outside of the charity sector of apprenticeships levy funding could call into question whether money given for public benefit should be allowed to leave the sector

Every employer will receive a £15,000 allowance to offset against payment of the levy.

As an example, if Employer X’s pay bill is £3.2m, the cost of the levy will be £16,000. Employer X will receive £15,000 to offset this cost and so the total payable to the levy is £1,000.

Employers that pay the levy will receive a digital voucher to the value of the amount they have paid. This voucher can then be used to buy training, from an approved trainer, for apprentices. So, Employer X from the above example will receive a £1,000 digital voucher.

Employers will have a fixed amount of time to spend the voucher — this time limit is still to be decided but initial discussions suggest it will be two years.

After this time the money will be redistributed to other organisations, potentially outside of the charity sector.

Initial estimates suggest that around 1,200 charities will be affected by the apprenticeship levy and will cost £70m collectively.

So will the levy work for charities? In a meeting with 35 of CFG’s members last week, it became clear that the levy poses significant and unique challenges to the charity sector.

Perhaps the most significant challenge is that there has been a lack of strategic oversight and investment in apprenticeship programmes across the sector.

It is because the sector is still in recession and facing a £4.6bn funding gap by 2018, as such charities have scaled back on their investment in skills.

Moreover, the sector has not had a skills council in place since 2013, so there has therefore been no strategic oversight of development and quality of apprenticeships, both of which are critical to a successful apprenticeships programme.

The levy should therefore be made available to charities to develop new apprenticeships and recruitment as well as paying for training.

It will help to ensure that they can provide meaningful, high quality apprenticeships, thereby attracting people into the sector.

Secondly, there is the question of how this levy interacts with the principles which underpin the use of charitable resources.

For example, redistribution outside of the charity sector of apprenticeships levy funding could call into question whether money given for public benefit should be allowed to leave the sector in order to subsidise private sector employers and support private benefit.

Neither is it clear that funding given to one charity by a funder or donor should be allowed to leave it in order to subsidise another charity’s operations which was not the donor’s intention?

It is because of these unique challenges, and that the charity sector is a major contributor to the British economy, that we have urged Skills Minister Nick Boles to ensure a representative from the charity sector will sit on the board of the new Institute for Apprenticeships.

From our conversations with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, we are confident that this is being considered, but we have not yet been given confirmation that this will happen.

It is vital that someone who understands the charity sector is able to inform and shape the apprenticeship levy to ensure that charities are not just crowbarred into the policy, but actually benefit from it.