Former Whitehall FE and skills chief Dr Sue Pember has backed Chancellor George Osborne’s “brave” apprenticeships levy plan for large businesses.

Dr Pember (pictured above) outlined her views in an exclusive FE Week webinar yesterday on how Wednesday’s budget announcements would affect FE.

“The announcement on apprenticeship levies was very brave and something that should have happened years ago,” she said.

Chancellor George Osborne said in his budget speech that the levy will help fund the drive towards 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

But Dr Pember, who will head up adult learning provider membership network Holex from next month, added: “The area that concerns me most is there doesn’t seem to be an agenda for working with those not in work and the low skilled work force.

“If we are to become more productive as a nation then we need to work with and support those who need training the most.

“Apprenticeships are great and we have now won that battle [to secure more support for them from government].

“We now have to turn our minds to supporting those not yet ready for apprenticeship or higher level education.”

The webinar was hosted by Nick Linford (pictured right), director of Lsect, which publishes FE Week, and watched by 644 subscribers.

They heard Dr Pember’s attention turn to the sector’s longer-term future, taking on board the economic priorities set out in the budget.

Dr Pember, who worked with 10 FE and skills ministers and eight Secretaries of State over her 10 years up to 2013, thought that the government could well look again at expanding FE loans, including lowering the “age range”, by 2020.

The FE loans system introduced in April 2013 currently applies to learners aged at least 24 and studying at level three or four — but a government consultation last summer proposed that FE loans should also apply to younger learners and those that remain at level two or three.

“If we get really good national college provision for the over-19s, with really good accommodation, then I can see [FE] loans playing a key part in how they work,” said Dr Pember.

She added: “I don’t think that national colleges are just a line in a minister’s speech, I see a real future for them.

“They can become quite prestigious and centres of high quality specialist training.

“I think that we may have five or six national colleges with residential accommodation in new growth areas in place by 2020.”

The government has over the last 18 months announced plans for the development of specialist national colleges for manufacturing, nuclear, wind energy, creative and cultural industries, digital skills, HS2, and fracking, with at least £80m of public funding.

Dr Pember also said in the webinar that she supported increasing specialisation for FE colleges, saying that “something needs to be done to stop inefficient duplication”.

She said: “I think it’s on the cards [increased specialisation]. Colleges will increasingly have to look at what other local colleges, schools and academies are offering, and work in partnership so there are clear progression routes.”

She said that at the moment there are two types of area reviews — one type being triggered by an FE or sixth form college commissioner’s visit and the other by “core city agreements”.

Dr Pember could, she said, see more of latter happening, with local councils, local enterprise partnerships and colleges initiating reviews and recommending what education and training was most needed across their area.

They could, she said, make recommendations on what skills areas and different qualification levels colleges should focus on.

But Dr Pember added that “these reviews would not be useful if they didn’t consider sixth forms, academies and UTCs [university technical colleges]”.

She also said that “unless the formal status of colleges changes, the final decisions over the direction colleges would still remain with independent college boards”.

Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers will meet in Central London today for its annual FE conference.

FE Week will be joining them at the conference, entitled Vocationalism is Professionalism, will be providing live coverage on Twitter.

General secretary Mary Bousted (pictured above) will be speaking, as well as Professor Ann Hodgson, director of Learning for London at the Institute for Education, who will be talking about how localism affects the idea of professionalism in FE.

Professor Frank Coffield will also be speaking on rights for FE lecturers,  while Professor Bill Lucas, director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, will be exploring apprenticeship pedagogy.

There will also be an update from the Society for Education and Training, the new membership body from the Education and Training Foundation to replace the Institute for Learning, which was disbanded in November.

To keep up with all the latest news from the conference, follow @FEWeek on Twitter.

The country’s most outstanding BTec learners and providers were celebrated in the plush setting of London’s Royal Horticultural Halls.

Comedian Rob Beckett hosted Pearson’s national BTec Awards 2015 on Tuesday with an audience of around 150 guests.

Attendees included the winners and their nominees, family members, lecturers, college principals and other stakeholders including Lady Garden of Frognal, and Stewart Segal, chief executive of Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

They were treated to dance performances from Miskins — dance students from North West Kent College — before a keynote address from Zoe Jackson MBE, award-winning entrepreneur and founder of talent agency Living the Dream, got proceedings under way.

One of the stand-out winners was 20-year-old Stephanie Trembath from Penwith College.

She was awarded outstanding BTec student and outstanding BTec child and social care student for her role in many local voluntary projects to help individuals in her community who are isolated and alone.

The level three diploma in health and social care learner is on track to receive a triple-distinction and is described by her tutors as “dedicated, mature and completely committed” to her studies.

Stephanie said: “I am so very thrilled to win this award. My BTec has helped me understand so much about working within community care and health and social care related employment.

“It has also given me so much more self-confidence as well as the determination, motivation and the desire to accomplish my ambition of becoming an adult nurse in the future.”

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Now in its fifth year, the Pearson National BTec Awards 2015 received more than 800 nominations across the 20 award categories to celebrate vocational excellence among the nearly one million BTec learners across the UK.

The judging panel, which included FE Week publisher Lsect managing director Shane Mann, was said to be “blown away” by the quality of the individuals.

The nominees were longlisted and then the judging panel agreed the winners of each category. During the ceremony each winner was presented their award by the previous winner.

Father-of-five Nathan Headington, who returned to education at Leeds College as a mature student with no academic qualifications, won outstanding BTec adult learner of the year.

The 36-year-old began his journey back into education with a BTec subsidiary diploma in civil engineering at Leeds College of Building, gaining distinctions in all units before progressing onto an HND in civil engineering and a full time site management role.

Nathan said: “Having caught the education bug a bit later in life, I simply can’t get enough of it and I just love all the opportunities that studying at Leeds College of Building has given me.

“To be named Outstanding Adult Learner of the Year at these awards is very special and it makes all the hard work even more worthwhile.”

Pearson UK managing director Mark Anderson said the awards was an opportunity for “us to shout from the rooftops” not just about the winners, but also about the achievements of BTec students, apprentices, teachers, schools, colleges and training providers up and down the country.

“It is vital to support and celebrate the hard work and achievements of outstanding BTec students and their teachers. This year’s judges were impressed by the quality and number of nominations we received, but these 20 really stood out as a truly exceptional candidates,” he said.

The Skills Funding Agency was today unable to say when providers would learn if their quarter three growth requests had been approved — despite assurances there would be news after the Budget.

Providers had originally been told the deadline for them to find out from the SFA if they would be paid for apprenticeships, and other programmes, they had already started delivering was the week commencing June 1.

But, as FE Week revealed on June 8, the SFA wrote to providers warning that the announcement would instead take place following the government’s emergency budget, which was unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne yesterday (Wednesday).

And FE Week has learned that — even after the Budget — SFA officials were still in talks with colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

An SFA spokesperson said: “We are working with BIS on the outcomes of the Chancellor’s budget and will be communicating to the sector shortly on the outcome of growth requests for 2014/15 and 2015/16 financial position.”

When asked to define what “shortly” meant in this context, she added: “I can’t give you anything more specific than that at the moment.”

News last month that the delay would be taking place caused the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and Association of Colleges (AoC) to issue warnings that resulting uncertainty over funding would “make it more difficult” for providers affected to help the government deliver on its target of creating 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

A number of providers even put their recruitment of apprentices on hold in light of the uncertainty over whether they would be paid for provision they had already delivered.

An AELP spokesperson said that they “would certainly normally expect providers to have learned of quarter three growth requests by early June” and the ongoing delay was making it “very difficult” for them to plan provision.

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “We need to get answers quickly to growth requests so that providers can respond to employers and apprentices.

“To drive the growth, we need a contracting system that gives providers a long term commitment to increasing apprenticeship starts.

“We heard at the recent AELP conference that the freeze decision has already affected planned volumes for next year, so unless the agency moves fast, the 3m aspiration will become harder to achieve.”

David Corke, AoC director of education and skills policy, said: “The over-delivery of apprenticeships affects colleges and other providers and they must be paid for the work they’ve done in order to meet the needs of both employers and apprentices.

“We hope there is no further delay in communicating with colleges and other providers about the outcome of growth requests.

“If colleges and other providers cannot train apprentices because they have not got the funding, this will be frustrating for employers who want their staff up to speed and ready to work.

“It will also make it more difficult for the government to meet its target to provide 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.”

BIS declined to comment.

Careers advice, the government’s 3m apprenticeship target and impact of the FE funding cuts were at the top of list for the House of Lords social mobility committee in inaugural hearing.

The committee, chaired by Lady Corston (pictured above), was set up to investigate the transition between school and work, and what happens to young people who do not go on to university but are not included in the statistics for young people not in employment, education or training (Neet).

In its first evidence session on Wednesday (July 8) for a report due in March, the committee heard from Peter Clark, joint head of the Department for Education (DfE) participation and careers unit, and Juliet Chua, DfE director for post-16 and disadvantage.

It also heard from Oliver Newton, head of apprenticeship growth, strategy and legislation at DFE and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Andrew Battarbee, BIS deputy director, vocational education strategy.

The committee had dubbed the young people they were interested in as “the missing middle”, however, Ms Chua said the government did not recognise the term.

She outlined the options available to a 16-year-old, pointing to A-levels, apprenticeships and vocational courses.

She added: “We wouldn’t recognise that missing middle as a homogenous group, we would say there is different programme available depending on a young person’s employment and interests.”

When asked by committee member Lady Sharp what the government was doing to promote the apprenticeship option, to allow people to progress through to top level careers, Ms Chua replied: “Our strategy for meeting the 3m is to essentially grow provision across a number of strands — firstly, we want to continue the reforms we’ve started.

“We know that giving employers greater control over the development of apprenticeships and the standards means that they’ll be relevant to their needs, and we know that we want to encourage existing employers to keep offering apprenticeships and to draw new employers into the programme and we know that a having the right product is the core building block of that.

“Secondly, the public sector needs to pull its weight so we’re bringing forward new legislation that will place a duty on public bodies to create new targets and do more to offer apprenticeships.”

She added the third strand would be to expand higher level apprenticeships and continue to address quality.

There was a heated exchange between members of the panel and Lord Patel over the effect of the cuts to the adult skills budget.

Mr Battarbee said: “It is very much on colleges to respond to these funding changes.

“What we have done is reduced the funding in ways which reflect the priorities that government has set, so over the past years we’ve more than doubled the funding that we’ve put into apprenticeships.”

However, Lord Patel accused him of not answering the question, again asking what the impact would be on colleges, learners and potential learners — and whether it would limit their social mobility.

Ms Chua said: “In tackling the deficit the government has had to take some difficult decisions.

“This has clearly been very tough for colleges and we’ve seen some very good examples of colleges really grappling with some difficult financial decisions but that is because we’re prioritising apprenticeships in the way that the budget is being used and given what we know about the return from apprenticeships we want to see the programme grow.”

A key concern for committee members Lady Howells and Lady Sharp was careers advice.

Lady Howells asked whether information, detailing clearly and simply the progression and earning expectations for individual careers, was available to young people.

Mr Clark said: “There is that sort of information available from the National Careers Service and individual professions will often make that information available through national websites of professional bodies.”

Ms Chua said: “We know Ofsted has highlighted that for careers guidance in schools, the pattern of provision is variable across the country and there’s more to do to strengthen it and this is an area we have seen as a priority for us as a department.”

She also pointed to the careers and enterprise company launched by the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan in December.

Lady Sharp asked how the company would “fill the gaps” in careers advice provision.

She added: “Will it provide advice across the whole age group? — Because it is as important that a 12-year-old knows about careers education as that the 15 or 16-year-old does and sometimes it’s the 18-year-old who needs it.”

Ms Chua agreed. She said: “The company’s remit is to cover the age range from 13 to 18.”

Lady Sharp also asked whether those working for the careers company would be “appropriately qualified”, however, Mr Clark said that would not be relevant.

“It will be a championing and facilitating body involved in linking up schools and employers and good practice and so we don’t envisage a role in providing careers advice directly to young people so that question about the standards for providing guidance won’t apply directly.”

Afternoon session of the House of Lords social mobility committee on social mobility — #HLSMC

Evidence came from Dr Claire Crawford, research fellow at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, Dr Abigail McKnight, senior research fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Moira McKerracher, deputy director of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).

Lady Tyler asked what the three panel members thought were the key things the government should bear in mind when trying to improve social mobility in the transition from work to school.

Ms McKerracher said: “Streamlining and improving the vocational pathway for young people. We have about 50 per cent going through the traditional university route but for the other 50 per cent, the progression routes are not clear, they’re not easy to navigate and you can’t always guarantee this will lead to a really good outcome.

“Yes that means apprenticeships but … the others are going to college or school to do vocational qualifications so we must make sure these other qualifications count as much as apprenticeships do — they should be based on a similar occupational standard.”

Dr McKnight said: “I think we shouldn’t think that there’s a magic bullet to this, small incremental gains are going to be the way to go. There isn’t one policy change, otherwise we would know what it was and we could do it. As an economist, we need to improve numeracy — the UK is particularly bad in terms of the gap in numeracy skills between rich and poor children.

Dr Crawford said: “We need to watch out for what’s happening in the FE sector.

“FE has seen very big [funding] falls and that is the sector which is going to be the one catering to the people your committee is most interested in.

“And I’m sure the FE sector is doing its utmost to ensure the quality of provision doesn’t fall but when you’re seeing cuts of 30 per cent to date and expect to see more, it’s inevitable that that’s going to have some impact on education being offered.”

The committee is next expected to meet on Wednesday, July 15, when it will hear from former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who had responsibility for social mobility in the last government. Click here to view the first two evidence sessions.

The government is set to embark on its fifth review of apprenticeships in just four years after plans for a levy on large businesses to fund growth were announced in the summer Budget.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed it would run a consultation on its plans for the levy before announcing further details — such as how it will decide which businesses must pay and how much — in the Spending Review this autumn.

It follows four apprenticeship-related consultations in the last Parliament, with businesses and training providers consulted during a 2012 review by Holts Gems chief executive Jason Holt and a consultation sparked by Dragons’ Den investor Doug Richard’s review the same year, and then two further consultations on funding reform in 2013 and 2014.

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week it would be engaging with stakeholders about the levy plans, but said there was no more detail yet on the format or timings of the consultation.

An apprenticeship levy, but for all employers rather than just “large” firms, was put forward just a week ago by Professor Lady Alison Wolf, who authored a 2011 government review of vocational education.

Another proponent has been Association of Colleges president Richard Atkins, who said Chancellor George Osborne “deserves credit for introducing an employer’s contribution to the costs of apprenticeships which I and others have long argued for”.

“As someone who was trained and achieved vocational qualifications 40 years ago because my employer worked hard to ‘earn back’ the levy they paid, I know how effective a levy system can be in encouraging employers to train their staff,” said Mr Atkins.

“When implementing this new policy government needs to take care to minimise bureaucracy for employers, whilst doing all they can to persuade the 48 per cent of employers who say they do not train, to change their approach quickly.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “Our view is that the levy proposals will need time to develop and implement effectively.  In the short term, we should focus on growing the programme and work towards a new way of funding Apprenticeships once that growth is embedded over a period of the next three or four years.”

Professor Ewart Keep, director of the centre for skills, knowledge and organisational performance at the University of Oxford, said the levy was “unexpected” and a “radical” departure.

He said: “Many large employers, especially those in sectors like retailing will be very unhappy, but the government faces three problems, all of which it thinks might be solved by a levy.

“First, as Alison Wolf’s proposals suggested, there isn’t enough public money to fund an expanded and upgraded apprenticeship system. Second, employers were being expected to pay a third of the costs of new apprenticeships up front on a voluntary basis, and it was clear that many were not willing to do this.

“Finally, a levy provides a financial incentive (using employers’ own money) for firms to get the cash back by offering apprenticeship places and thereby allowing government to meet its target of 3 million new apprenticeship starts by 2020.

“The devil will be in the detail of designing the levy system, in a potential backlash by employers, and in the ‘gaming’ of any new funding system by consultants and training providers, who might try to help employers re-badge existing initial training as new apprenticeship places.”

The Social Market Foundation (SMF), which produced the Fixing a Broken Training System report in which Professor Wolf put the levy idea forward, has argued that under current funding arrangements, 3m new apprenticeships would leave funding of only £2,567 available per apprentice.

Only two apprenticeship frameworks, out of more than 200, receive government support below £3,000 at the moment, it said, meaning that, without a change to funding, increasing apprenticeship numbers would reduce the quality of what is on offer.

It has estimated that a levy set at 0.5 per cent of payroll for large companies would raise around £2bn per year.

Emran Mian, SMF director, said: “The funding available per apprenticeship was about to nosedive with the Government determined to grow the number of apprenticeships very significantly.

“By contrast, the new levy will mean that the funding available per apprenticeship can potentially be increased beyond current levels. This will support higher quality training and productivity improvements.

“There may however be winners and losers among employers with those in manufacturing and engineering sectors potentially standing to gain a lot more funding for training while those in service industries see less of the money from the levy coming back to them.”

Click here to read an expert piece by CITB on the apprenticeship levy system it has beeen operating for 50 years