The under-fire principal of a Midland college has told FE Week of her commitment to staying on in the role after being hit with five votes of no confidence by University and College Union (UCU) members.
Beverley Smith (pictured), who took over at Stafford College early last year, is facing down calls to quit amid allegations she is operating a regime of “crippling workloads, rising stress levels and a culture of fear”.
But governors locked in talks for four hours on Monday (June 29) night emerged, according to a college spokesperson, having seen “no evidence presented which would support any action to be taken against the principal”.
Ms Smith, a former deputy principal at Basingstoke College of Technology, told FE Week: “I am deeply saddened by the recent developments at the college, however I would like to make clear that I am committed to the organisation and will continue to remain so.
“My vision which is shared with the board of governors is for the college to be outstanding, and there is no doubt that with the practises we have in place this can be achieved.
“I am working closely with the board of governors to address any issues from staff and would not want recent developments to affect the reputation of the college.
“We are currently up on applications in comparison to this time last year and my focus remains on the students, and ensuring that they have the best experience of Stafford College.”
Just nine months ago Ms Smith came in for praise from Ofsted inspectors, who gave the college a ‘requires improvement’ rating and said: “The recently appointed principal and the new senior management team have worked energetically to develop a strategy with the aim of the college becoming outstanding in a short space of time.
“They have a well-developed strategy for the rapid improvement of teaching, learning and assessment and establishing the college as a provider of outstanding vocational education for local employers.”
However, it is understood staff relationships have soured with local press reporting 19 full-time workers, 11 part-time staff and 16 sessional employees as having handed their notice in over the nine months up to May, when a 30-day consultation on the college’s future was launched.
UCU regional support official Rebecca Stewart said: “It is incredibly disappointing that governors threw out staff concerns and their refusal to address them at an emergency meeting shows a worrying lack of leadership.
“Staff will now risk sending in signed statements to try and get something done about the crippling workloads, rising stress levels and culture of fear that exist at the college.”
A spokesperson for the 4,300-learner college, which had an April Skills Funding Agency allocation of £3.9m, said: “The board of governors have spoken with both union and non-union members of staff regarding the management style of the principal and we acknowledge the views which were presented to us.
“As a governing body, we have a responsibility to follow organisational procedures and will continue to seek the views of staff, external bodies and other stakeholders with a view to inform them of the progress and what we intend to do to take the college forward.”
Bosses of England’s new national fracking college were today waiting to find out if appeals would be launched after two applications to use shale gas extraction method on their doorstep were thrown out by local councillors.
Blackpool and The Fylde College, the hub for the new National College for Onshore Oil and Gas, has already said it won’t be affected by rejection — and Lancashire County Council development control committee has done just that.
Cuadrilla wanted to drill four wells and undertake exploratory fracking for shale gas at a site near Little Plumpton on the Fylde.
The decision, delayed since January, was thrown out and followed the rejection days earlier of a bid to frack at another site between Preston and Blackpool.
Daryl Platt (pictured), executive director for commercial development at Blackpool and The Fylde College, the hub for the new National College for Onshore Oil and Gas, said it was waiting to find out if Cuadrilla — the firm behind the applications — would be appealing.
“The college has been set up to identify the future job roles required by industry and train workers to the highest safety standards, if and when required,” he said.
“The national college will have impact across the UK and we continue to work with partner colleges, universities and organisations to ensure we are ready to meet industry demand.
“Along with many other organisations, we are currently waiting to hear whether there will be any appeal to the Lancashire County Council decision.”
United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas’s (UKoog), the firm behind the college, has called for a change in the way fracking bids are determined.
Spokesperson Ken Cronin said: “An important plank of the government’s energy policy and manifesto commitment has been reduced to a position that despite all the advice a rejection has been given.
“This after 15 months of a long drawn out process cannot be right and I urge the government to urgently review the process of decision making.”
A Cuadrilla spokesperson said the firm was “surprised and disappointed” by the decision and was considering appeal, adding: “We remain committed to the responsible exploration of the huge quantity of natural gas locked up in the shale rock deep underneath Lancashire.”
A second founder college has pulled out of Gazelle and will not be renewing the £35k membership fee.
New College Nottingham (NCN) opted out of the group, along with Bath College, which joined in 2014 and also said it wouldn’t be coughing up for next year’s membership.
NCN becomes the second college involved in founding the group in 2011 to leave the group, after FE Week revealed last month that North Hertfordshire College was “no longer an active member”. An NCN spokesperson said: “NCN can confirm that it has given notice to cease its membership of Gazelle following a review of all its memberships this year.
“The college is focussed on improving quality and delivering a sustainable FE proposition for Nottingham.”
Bath College principal Matt Atkinson said: “The college’s Gazelle membership ends on July 31, 2015.”
Since January Gazelle has been carrying out a membership review that takes into account its fee structure, with Middlesbrough College, The Sheffield College, Peterborough Regional College and Gloucestershire College having quit the group the end of last year. They were soon followed by Lewisham Southwark College in January.
Mr Atkinson said the college had “actively” participated in the review. He added: “The college has derived many benefits from membership of the group and by taking part in the review we were looking … to see how these offerings could be developed on an affordable basis, albeit through a non-membership route.”
Gazelle, which claims to boost colleges’ entrepreneurial focus, has faced criticism for failing to produce evidence of a return on members’ public financial investment, which has topped £3.5m in total. Its chief executive, Fintan Donohue, said the group was “disappointed” by the latest departures.
He said: “Both colleges have made significant contributions to the Gazelle Colleges Group.” He added the review would help the organisation “better reflect the pressures facing colleges”.
The departures of both college leaves just three of the five founding colleges — City College Norwich, Warwickshire College, Gateshead College — as well as 13 ordinary members. Of these, Glasgow Kelvin College, Cambridge Regional College, Activate Learning, City of Liverpool College and Carlisle College all said they were waiting for the outcome of the membership review before confirming whether or not they would remain in the group.
Amersham and Wycombe College, Preston’s College, Plymouth College and Barking and Dagenham College declined to council.
No-one from South West College, Highbury College or Cardiff and Vale College was available for comment.
The impact of cuts to adult skills funding on colleges across England is increasingly being raised by MPs concerned about providers in their constituencies, with even those represented by front-bench politicians reporting problems.
Neil Carberry, CBI director for employment and skills, said the “universal levy” put forward by the King’s College academic, who penned a 2011 government review of vocational education, might help in terms of quantity, but he questioned whether it would improve the quality of apprenticeships.
Neil Carberry
“We need a system that encourages more employers to get involved in apprenticeships if the government’s 3m target is to be met, but quality matters as well as quantity,” he told FE Week.
She said: “To rebuild apprenticeship as a robust and credible institution for the long-term needs a secure funding source. A small but hypothecated payroll levy on businesses is the only simple and robust way to do this.
“An apprenticeship fund is a practical way to kick-start the revival of apprenticeships now, forcing all employers to take note and take action.
“It will transform incentives, restore the employer-apprentice contract as the core of the system, and fund apprenticeship growth and improvement.”
Professor Lady Alison Wolf and, inset, the report in which she proposes a universal apprenticeship levy for employers
But Mr Carberry said: “Businesses already understand that they need to make a contribution to training apprentices, but the key to success is relevant qualifications that businesses and apprentices want.
“A tax might shore up funding — but it wouldn’t address quality and relevance, or help involve the many smaller employers whose help is needed to reach 3m.”
The universal levy proposal was also given short shrift by Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.
“We don’t believe that levies or taxes are the right way to encourage training unless a group of employers wish to adopt their own system,” he said.
“Nor do we think it’s possible to set up such a proposal in the short-term; therefore growth in apprenticeships has to be funded through additional employer and government investment.”
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “It’s right that employers make a contribution to the costs of training the national workforce.
“Levies are one way in which this could be achieved and they are in use in many other countries. It will be important, however, that any levy system is not unduly bureaucratic on the one hand or likely to induce ‘game playing’ similar to tax avoidance on the other.”
A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said: “This report is a valuable contribution to the debate which we’ll review with interest.”
A failed College of Food interview at the tender age of 16 had a defining effect on Paul Eeles, chief executive of Emfec (called, once-upon-a-time, the East Midlands FE Council).
Having left school “with just a clutch of CSEs”, he was at the specialist college — now a part of University College Birmingham — hoping to get in to study catering.
“I’d always wanted to go there and they asked me why they should give me a place on the course,” he recalls.
“I remember saying something — it probably made no sense whatsoever — and then walking out and going: ‘There’s no way I got in there.’ And I didn’t.”
But it wasn’t the doomed interview which made the visit memorable.
Eeles marrying wife Sharon in August 1995
Outside the interview room was an A4 sheet of paper pinned to the wall, with a career map sketched out on it.
“It had the qualifications you left school with and the course you would get on to, and then the job you could go to,” explains Eeles, now 48.
“I remember seeing that really vividly, looking at stuff at the top of the list and working my way down to the realisation that actually, I was right at the bottom.
“And at the top was becoming a member of the HCMA — the Hotel and Catering Institute of Management Association — and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Eeles was no stranger to the professional kitchen. Mum Joan ran a catering company that had the contract for four Midland racecourse and aged just nine, Eeles was operating the dishwasher at Stratford racecourse.
“I used to love that whole busy environment, we used to serve about 10,000 people over a two or three-day period. It was fantastic,” says Eeles, who grew up in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham.
Following his College of Food rejection, Eeles landed a spot on a course at Walsall College, where he says, “everything made sense”.
Despite this, Eeles did have a few teething problems.
“I didn’t have much success in first term,” he admits.
Eeles aged 18 with his mother Joan in 1985
“I used to be really good at making scones for race day at work — I used to make 300 scones at a time and they were brilliant, and the customers used to like them.
“But when I went to college and made them they were like rock cakes.
“And I’ll never forget making some custard. I had made it before, and the chef lecturer pulled the ladle up out of mine, and not only did the custard come with it, but the jug it was in came too.”
A key difference, Eeles came to realise, was the absence of customer interaction.
“I came alive because customers were there — you could interact with people, and there was a reaction to the food,” he says.
“When I was cooking in the restaurant, flambéing and stuff, that was really exciting and enjoyable, but in the kitchen it was just wasn’t me, so I actually lost my love of cooking while I was at college, although I qualified.”
But, without customers to interact with, Eeles turned his attention to fellow students, helping them out when they were stuck — and it didn’t escape his tutors’ notice.
A few months after he’d finished the course, his old lecturers rang, offering him a job teaching at the college three nights a-week.
He took it and spent two years splitting his time between the college and the racecourses, until his mum’s company lost the contract for Stratford, and he decided it was time to find other work.
He moved to Tamworth College, eventually becoming a part-time lecturer while studying for a degree in catering management, split between Birmingham Polytechnic and the College of Food.
Just as he finished his degree, a business studies lecturing role came up at Tamworth, and Eeles applied for it, but the next thing he heard, someone had been appointed.
Eeles aged 2
When he asked the head of faculty why he hadn’t even been shortlisted, he realised she hadn’t understood how relevant his degree was to the role.
“So through that quirk of fate, rather than going into a college which I had anticipated, I ended up with Kudos, a national training provider, as a training manager,” he says.
The transition from college to independent learning provider, he says, was “quite strange”.
“The way we delivered at Kudos was off-site — we used to hire rooms in pubs to deliver training to people and things like that, so it was fascinating,” he says.
It was during this time that he married Sharon, now head of a primary school, after the couple, who had grown up near each other and had mutual friends since childhood, finally met at a party.
The couple now have two sons, Josh, 17, and Sam, 15.
Three years later, an opportunity to deliver hospitality apprenticeships with a nightclub came up, and Eeles and two friends took the opportunity to form their own provider, Innterskill.
During the seven years Eeles ran Innterskill as managing director, he also began as an inspector with the Training Standards Council — a forerunner to Ofsted.
“The assessment centre selection process was the most rigorous thing I’d ever been through — I didn’t think I was going to get in,” he says.
I’ll never forget making some custard. The chef lecturer pulled the ladle up and not only did the custard come with it, but the jug it was in came too
“But the whole experience really helped the development of our business.”
And he says inspection was “an important step” for providers.
“Nobody had really been looking at providers and what they did before that and I think it reminded us why were doing what we were doing and why there needed to be quality — for the learners,” he says.
When the Training and Enterprise Councils were absorbed into the Learning and Skills Council, the sharp change in funding meant Innterskill was no longer financially viable.
Eeles moved on to a provider membership body, the Northamptonshire Training and Development Partnership, before two years later, becoming director of sector reforms at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP).
And representing providers and the sector to Ministers was a role Eeles clearly loved.
“I really enjoyed being able to influence policy — who would have thought that somebody who left school with nothing could influence government?” he says, beaming broadly.
“It was quite rewarding really.”
But after six years Eeles began to consider the possibility of a career change.
“It sounds arrogant, but I’d decided it was time to be in charge of the organisation I was in,” he says, and then adds with a knowing smile: “I wanted to run a membership body in the FE sector — it’s a narrow field I know.
Eeles training as chef at Walsall college aged 16 in 1983
“There were only two jobs in a year that came up, the first I didn’t get and the second was Emfec.
“It was a big wrench to leave AELP, and it took me a long time of thinking ‘was that the right choice?’ but ultimately I realised it was.”
What he loves about Emfec, which celebrated its centenary last year, is that “it’s always found ways to be fresh and radical, and represent its members”.
When you ask Eeles what he is proudest of over the course of his career, two things leap to mind.
The first, he says, was when Innterskill ran a learner of the year award, and one student submitted a video entry.
“He was really quite emotional,” says Eeles.
“He had been a chef at some pub somewhere and he had left school and his part-time job had become his full time job.
“We happened to come along and offer an apprenticeship and that had really driven him into having a career.
“That something I was responsible for had made such a difference to someone else’s life — I know what I’ve done over the last 10 years makes a difference too, but you don’t get the instant gratification of seeing it.”
The other moment, he says, was when he finished his degree.
“I turned and asked ‘so how do I get to be a member of HCMA?’,” he says.
“And they said ‘You already have — it comes with your degree’.
“So when I think about that line to the top of the career ladder on that bit of paper — I took a wobbly route up, but I got there.”
And he says, despite his regrets, if he had his chance again he’s not sure he’d work any harder at school.
“I wanted to be a chef and now what I do is probably as far from that as you could get,” he says.
“But that person I was, and who left school with nothing has had an impact on what I do, and to wanting to make a difference.”
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It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book?
The Hiding Place [autobiography] by Corrie ten Boom, and John and Elizabeth Sherrill. It’s about the Second World War and an ordinary family of watchmakers in Holland, who hid Jews in a secret room in their house and smuggled them out of the country. They got caught by the Nazis and ended up in a concentration camp. It’s probably the best book I have ever read, because it’s not only a true story but it’s also just ordinary people doing extraordinary things
From left: Eeles’s Auntie Pam, mother Joan, father Ken, Eeles, aged six and his nan Winifred
What do you do to switch off from work?
I’m not very good at switching off. My wife and kids will tell you that. I like doing things with family and having friends around for dinner. We like to go away to our cottage in Wales and we spend a lot of time taking my sons around the country to play ultimate Frisbee
What’s your pet hate?
People being late. I am never late. If I am, it’s because of traffic or trains and I hate it. I’m more likely to be early than late
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would it be?
I think it would have to be Nelson Mandela. South Africa could have been a very different place, but he made choices. People like that fascinate me, because he had every right to be angry, every right to want retribution — and he didn’t
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) handed out nearly £600k in exit packages to 13 staff who chose voluntary redundancy in 2014/15, the organisation’s annual report has revealed.
The report shows that exit packages for the year totalled up to £575k, with nine employees each handed between £25,000 and £50,000 upon leaving and four others paid between £50k and £100k each.
A UKCES spokesperson told FE Week the packages were arranged in line with civil service rules and included “compensation for loss of office” payments.
She said: “The commission ran a voluntary exit scheme which resulted in 13 staff leaving the organisation. The scheme was part of a wider programme of restructuring resources to enable the organisation to focus on future priorities.
“The exit payments were agreed and made in line with the standard civil service terms and were approved by the Cabinet Office and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.”
A principal accused of steering his former college into “unprofitable non-core activities” has clashed with FE Commissioner Dr David Collins.
Amarjit Basi, who served as principal of New College Nottingham (NCN) for less than two years from September 2011, labelled Dr Collins’ report and the inspection process “flawed”. His comment follows the release of documents relating to the commissioner’s visit in February of this year.
Mr Basi, now principal of Cornwall College, was singled out for criticism in Dr Collins’ report, mostly over what was described as his “expansionist policy” while at the helm of NCN.
The commissioner, who visited NCN in February, said: “During its recent history in each year since 2006/07, the college had delivered an underlying surplus until 2013/14 when it recorded a significant deficit, the magnitude of which was not anticipated by the senior management team and not communicated to governors.
Amarjit Basi. Pic courtesy of Nottingham Post
“There were a number of reasons for this deterioration in the college’s financial position but the key ones were the expansionist policy of the previous principal, which involved diversification into a number of unprofitable non-core activities.”
He added: “The board was too willing to accept the enthusiasm of the previous principal without undertaking an appropriate cost benefit or risk analysis of new projects, with the result that a number of loss making activities drove the college into deficit.”
Mr Basi declined to speak to FE Week about the report, but a spokesperson for Cornwall College confirmed he was “concerned that the report/process is flawed” and said a dialogue had begun with Dr Collins on the matter.
Dr David Collins
The commissioner’s visit was prompted by a Skills Funding Agency (SFA) notice of concern issued on December 15 last year following a judgment of inadequate financial health based on the college’s 2013/14 forecast and expected outturn.
The notice came after the college, which has a current SFA allocation of £16.3m, was warned by Ofsted it required improvement following inspections in both January 2013 and May last year.
According to Dr Collins’s report, the college has delivered a “significant operating deficit subsequent to the closure of the Nottingham Motor Company, withdrawal from overseas investment, increased partnership activity and additional staff costs”.
Although the report did not go into detail on finances, the Nottingham Post has reported that the college, which has “fully accepted” the commissioner’s findings, had run up a deficit of £2.4m, having also had to secure a rescue package from the government and Nottingham City Council to help it complete a £12m new campus.
Dawn Whitemore, NCN principal, said the college had made “significant progress” against Dr Collins’s recommendations and was “on track to meet our financial target, which will see us achieve a breakeven position by the end of this academic year as planned”.
She added: “One of his key recommendations was for the college to take part in an area review of FE provision in Nottingham, alongside Central College Nottingham, which is ongoing.”
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills declined to comment.
Troubled mergers led to financial meltdown at K College last year before Graham Razey emerged as one of two principals to make the brave decision to take on parts of the college. He outlines efforts to ensure his merger was successful.
To collaborate or not to collaborate? I guess that is the question on the minds of many principals and their governing bodies.
Following the FE Commissioner’s report a few weeks ago regarding models of collaboration between FE institutions post 2014, I thought I would share my experiences of creating a new FE college a year ago.
This was achieved through the transfer of the Folkestone and Dover campuses of K College to East Kent College in Broadstairs, where I had been the principal for four years.
The most important factor for me was to ensure there was a compelling case and clear vision as to what could be achieved.
While it was flattering to be offered such an opportunity we had to convince ourselves we could make a success of the venture.
We also needed to ensure everyone involved bought into the vision and appreciated our intentions were creditable. This included staff, governors, stakeholders, the funding agencies and most importantly local people.
It was not until this had been achieved that we started negotiating about the specifics of how and when it would happen.
As you can imagine, the amalgamation was not all plain sailing. The overall success rate at the Dover and Folkestone campuses in the year 2013-14 was a dismal 52 per cent so there was an enormous challenge to significantly improve the situation as quickly as possible.
We used our in house experts in areas such as finance, HR, ICT and MIS to undertake due diligence but didn’t appreciate how much their involvement would impact on the existing business.
Amalgamation was not all plain sailing
This resulted in a few unexpected one-off costs so, in hindsight, while we would still have used our own staff for the due-diligence work we might have provided additional capacity back-filling their day jobs.
Once the Folkestone and Dover campuses became part of East Kent College the first three months were all about creating cultural change.
We needed to ensure the culture was such that everyone understood that a positive student experience was paramount. Making sure students had higher expectations of their experience was critical in raising standards.
It meant senior leaders had to lead by example, listening and acting on the student voice and ensuring we delivered on our promises.
East Kent College now has a full complement of staff that is totally committed to delivering an outstanding student experience. More than that we also have considerably enhanced facilities now available at all the campuses and the curriculum offer has been significantly changed so that it now aligns to the local economies.
The results to date are very encouraging with success rates predicted to show a substantial improvement and the recent FE Choices student satisfaction survey reporting improved results for the merged college, over the original East Kent College.
My advice to anyone considering collaborating with another organisation is to find a partner with similar values as it is easier to work together if you don’t have conflicting ideology.
Whatever the reality, it is easier if you can appear to come together as ‘equals’ rather than one side feeling they have been ‘taken over’. At East Kent College we tried to ensure the three campuses had equal status from day one and Broadstairs was not perceived as the ‘senior’ college.
Each campus has its own senior leader and administrative services are based independently from all the campuses, while the senior management divide their time between all the campuses.
During the past year East Kent College has been well scrutinised by Ofsted and the FE Commissioner and this will happen to any college collaboration initially.
Because we concentrated specifically on what was right for students and the locality we found both Ofsted and the FE Commissioner very helpful (I make this comment in hindsight and not what we thought at the time).
I do feel collaboration is a way forward provided you can engender the right culture, be honest with your students, staff, governors and stakeholders and be prepared to make the difficult decisions for the greater good.
