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MPs pitch for chair posts on FE committees

Nominations have closed, and the race to chair two of Parliament’s most influential select committees is almost over.

Labour MPs Adrian Bailey, Iain Wright and Roberta Blackman-Woods have been officially nominated for election to the role of chair of the business, innovation and skills (BIS) committee.

West Bromwich West MP Mr Bailey chaired the BIS committee for the past five years and hopes to continue his tenure, but Mr Wright, MP for Hartlepool, and a former Apprenticeships Minister under Gordon Brown, has the backing of former education committee members Ian Mearns, Alex Cunningham and Bill Esterton.

Dr Blackman-Woods, the MP for the City of Durham, is backed by former Shadow Education Minister Rushanara Ali and former Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden.

Meanwhile Conservatives Neil Carmichael, Tim Loughton and Caroline Nokes are in the running for the chair of the education committee.

Graham Stuart, who chaired the education committee from 2010 to 2015, is not standing for re-election, leaving it to former members Mr Carmichael, the MP for Stroud, and Ms Nokes, who represents Romsey and Southampton North, to take on former Education Minister Tim Loughton, the MP for East Worthing and Shoreham.

An election will be held in the House of Commons on Wednesday (June 17) from 10am with an announcement expected the same day.

The political make-up of both committees is yet to be announced and will be decided through negotiations between the political parties.

The parties will then hold internal elections to decide who takes their shares of seats.

In the last Parliament, the two committees each had five Conservative members, five Labour members and one Liberal Democrat member.

Of the previous membership of the BIS committee, Scottish Labour MPs Ann McKechin, William Bain and Katy Clark lost their seats in the election, as did Liberal Democrat Mike Crockart, while Conservative Brian Binley stood down.

Labour MP Paul Blomfield and Conservatives Caroline Dinenage, Rebecca Harris, Robin Walker and Nadhim Zahawi remain in Parliament, but Ms Dinenage, Mr Walker and Ms Harris will not seek election to committees having received government jobs.

Of the last education committee’s membership, all but former Liberal Democrat Bradford East MP David Ward were re-elected to Parliament in May, including Labour MPs Pat Glass and Siobhan McDonagh and Conservatives Dominic Raab and Craig Whittaker, although Mr Raab has a government job.

Internal party elections of committee members are expected to take several weeks once the chairs have been elected.

Certainly at our first meeting with the minister if I were chair the in-year cuts is one of the areas of questioning we would look at.

The role of FE in the delivery of the apprenticeship programme is not fully understood and not given the priority of funding it should get.

Britain spends vast sums of education but we still have a skills gap and constant complaints from employers about the lack of work readiness. Business engagement is crucial to changing this.

I want to assess the effectiveness of the current apprenticeship programme. I would seek to work with the education select committee to identify what changes to our pre-16 education could reform this approach.

Select committees are increasingly recognised as having a vital role in good government and the BIS select committee in particular as providing the evidence to help government help business in reaching these goals.

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I think skills is a vital thing to address issues of Britain’s competitiveness and productivity. I don’t think there is sufficient co-ordination between education and business policy.

I’d like the select committees to undertake more joint working to discuss education and business policy. I can see more scope for the BIS and education select committees to work together on key issues.

The other thing I’d be keen to chat about is the financial squeeze on FE colleges in the current Parliament. BIS is not a protected department and I think the financial pressure on colleges will be appalling, especially when they are very often the great drivers of skills provision and linkages between education and business.

I’d want the BIS select committee to look at this and scrutinise and challenge government very closely over the next few years.

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I have previously been a member of the education select committee, the innovation and skills select committee, the science and technology select committee and the BIS select committee and so have a strong understanding of the select committee system.

I have previously been a shadow minister in the Cabinet Office and in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and am currently a shadow minister in the Communities and Local Government team.

I have a strong understanding of economic development at the local authority level and beyond, which I feel will also be valuable experience for serving as the select committee chair.

I have also built strong relationships with key stakeholders which I would hope to utilise to good effect as chair, including with the Federation of Small Businesses, and UK Trade and Investment, the Confederation of British Industry and the British Chambers of Commerce.

In 18 years in Parliament I have served on the environmental audit and home affairs select committees and as children’s minister appeared in front of education, home affairs, justice and lords committees on numerous occasions. I have experience from both sides of the committee desk.

The previous select committee covered a lot of ground keeping up scrutiny of the government’s extensive and fast moving school reforms. We must continue to shine that spotlight across all the new structures in particular to make sure all our children are benefitting and the taxpayer is getting value for money.

Are the changes to GCSEs and A-levels working for everyone and is the pupil premium really being focussed on those most in need to help them compete on a level playing field?

I believe I have the experience and commitment to give the strength of leadership the select committee needs in all these areas.

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One of the things I’m really keen on doing is some work on productivity and I think the education system is an important part of that issue. I think it might be worth considering a joint inquiry with the BIS committee on this.

I am certainly aware of the concerns over FE funding and would want to look at the direction of travel.

I would be interested in seeing how FE colleges can play a bigger role in delivering training by working with businesses. I think that would be a kind of alternative to simply relying on just public expenditure.

I wrote for Conservative Home a few years ago recommending that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills be scrapped.

We really need a more linear approach to education policy right from the start to university and beyond to those who go back into it.

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It has been a privilege to serve as an advisory governor at Eastleigh College, enabling me to work alongside an organisation delivering excellent vocational opportunities to so many young people from my constituency.

This experience has given me an insight into the challenges facing the sector, including funding, raising the prestige of vocational qualifications, and how best to make sure young people make the best choices for them. None of these are easy to tackle, but the Education Select Committee has a unique role scrutinising where government policy is succeeding, and where it is not.

My time on the committee has enabled me to explore wider issues in the sector, alongside the work I already did with organisations like the YMCA. I hope my experience and enthusiasm will stand me in good stead in the select committee elections and my commitment to the FE sector will not go away.

Let’s work together on 16 to 19s, FE leaders tell local councils

Sector leaders have said they are keen to work with local authorities on improving 16 to 19 participation and careers advice after a survey revealed councils were struggling with their duties in the face of government cuts.

The Association of Colleges (AoC), 157 Group and Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) called for partnership working after a Local Government Association (LGA) survey of 87 member councils revealed concerns over their ability to meet statutory duties to improve participation.

It comes after councils were criticised by Parliament’s public accounts committee last year after a National Audit Office report showed disparities between local authority areas in terms of the tracking of those considered not in education, employment or training (Neet).

The LGA survey showed that 91 per cent of councils had reduced their expenditure on services supporting 16 to 18 participation since 2010, with one-in-five of those able to quantify the reduction claiming expenditure in that area had decreased by between 50 and 69 per cent.

It also revealed that 75 per cent of councils rated overall government policy for 16 to 19-year-olds as requiring improvement, while 95 per cent said the government’s decision to modify its influence over schools and FE colleges had “restricted” councils’ capacity to deliver on their statutory duties.

David Corke, skills policy director at the AoC, said colleges could “identify with the impact of funding cuts” and said they worked closely with councils on ensuring there were places for all young people who needed them.

He added: “The LGA survey also reveals that councils believe that devolution of funding and powers would improve outcomes for young people, reducing the numbers not in education, employment or training (NEET), and we would be interested to discuss this with them.”

Dr Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, said it was “too early to say” what effect the reforms of the past few years would have on 16 to 19 participation, but said she “concerned that the academic school curriculum, incentivised competition rather than collaboration and a post-16 focus only on higher-level skills may have unintended consequences for many young people”.

She added: “The key to local success is to develop strong partnerships that involve schools, councils, employers and colleges, with everyone having the same clear goal — to enable all young people to develop the skills they will need for employment.”

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “The majority of apprenticeship opportunities are brokered by providers working with employer contacts and local authorities can support this process by tracking young people who are Neet.

“Our members and local provider networks work with local councils and it’s those connections that are really important for the skills system to be effective for young people. Many councils often forget that training provision is delivered by a large range of providers, including private providers, and improving on this situation would make a positive impact.”

David Simmonds (pictured), chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, warned cuts without reform risked “undoing all of our collective good work, putting thousands of promising futures at risk”.

He added: “It is important that we have the powers, levers and funding to fulfil our legal duties to young people.”

But the Department for Education defended its record on Neets, claiming there were 64,000 fewer 16 to 18-year-olds considered Neet than in 2010.

He said: “We are investing £7bn to fund a place for every 16 to 18-year-old in England who wants one.”

See page 12 for an expert
article from Amy Lalla

Dr Sue (edition 141)

How do you handle your new principal’s demands? Is the managing director refusing to budge? Dr Sue Pember, the former head of FE and skills investment at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), who was awarded an OBE for services to the sector in 2000, puts her extensive sector knowledge to good use for FE Week.

On the third Monday of every month she answers your questions, backed by the experience of almost a decade as principal of Canterbury College, in addition to time served in further senior civil service posts at the Department for Education and Employment, Department for Education and Skills, and Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Email DrSue@feweek.co.uk to ask her your question.

How can governors govern and set an annual budget when they don’t know their funding allocation and the goal posts keep moving?

I know that some governors are having doubts about continuing as governors when they feel it is virtually impossible to conduct their duty of setting a timely budget so that actions required to balance the books can be planned and implemented in a proficient manner — but I would urge them to reconsider.

We are in really difficult times. This is when senior teams really need their governors’ support internally and representation externally.

Although there may be more austerity cuts, I still have the conviction that the argument for investing in learning and developing basic and enhanced skills will come through. In these difficult times, colleges need to regroup and remodel their offer so they can meet futures challenges. They need strong governance to support and help steer them through this period of instability.

My college wants to change its name and as the clerk I have been asked to advise the board on what the criteria should be. What advice might I give?

This is a sensitive issue and the Secretary of State has to make the final decision and will turn down names if they are thought to be unsuitable.

Useful guidance which sets out the process to be followed has been published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The guidance states that a corporation name should not be confusing or misleading and as such should not wrongly suggest regional or national pre-eminence, or imply that a college serves a wider or different area than is the case.

Therefore it is very important for the board to consult widely and listen to people’s views. Do not underestimate the difficulty — there needs to be a real burning reason to change and it is very hard to get a new name established.

I know of several colleges who used to have ‘Technical’ in their name and even 30 years on from the name change they are still known locally as “the Tech”. Mind you, with the ways things are going they might want to revert and add ‘Higher’ while they are at it.

For me the real test is — would you want that name on your or child’s CV?

What is Prevent and what is a governor’s role?

Colleges have a duty to safeguard their students. Prevent is about safeguarding students to keep them secure from being exploited by extremists and it is now covered in the Home Office guidance. The Education Training Foundation (ETF) has some very timely and good information on this matter and they also set out the role of governors. The Prevent duty is not about suppressing students from having political and religious views but about keeping them safe.

As set out in the new Association of Colleges Good Governance Code, governors must enhance their safeguarding policy and adopt the Prevent duty and actively engage with other partners, including the police and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills regional Higher and Further Education Prevent co-ordinators to carry out the Prevent duty.

Edition 141: Terry Jones, Ioan Morgan, Ayub Khan & Simon Cook

Peterborough Regional College (PRC) is on cloud nine with the appointment of Royal Air Force director of flying training Terry Jones as its new principal.

Mr Jones, who oversees the famous Red Arrows, takes over from interim principal Ioan Morgan next month.

Mr Jones also oversees three UK bases responsible for education and training, including vocational training and distance learning in his current post and will be heading to a college rated as good by Ofsted its last inspection in December 2011.

“The college made great strides under the previous leadership and I intend to carry this journey forward to make it one of the very best colleges in the UK,” he said.

He added: “I’m passionate about high standards in education and training and committed to serving our learners, the wider community and businesses in Peterborough and beyond.”

College corporation board chair Andrew Stafford said: “Terry was the unanimous choice of the board to become the new principal and we’re delighted he accepted the role.”

And former Learning and Skills Improvement Service trustee Ayub Khan is taking over from Mark Ravenhall as chief executive of the Further Education Trust for Leadership (Fetl) on an interim basis from today (June 15).

Mr Khan, previously a Fetl trustee, said: “Fetl has a clear focus to help lead thinking in the FE and skills sector and has made good progress with its grants and fellowship programme.

“We know it’s a challenging time in the sector but there is opportunity. The body of knowledge we are building will help forge new ways of working.

“There is much to do to and I look forward to supporting Fetl in the next phase of its development.”

Jill Westerman, Fetl chair, said: “Ayub will oversee the strategic and operational elements of Fetl, strengthen resources and help ensure a smooth transition, building on the work that has already been achieved.”

Meanwhile, Midkent’s acting principal Simon Cook has been given the post on a permanent basis.

Mr Cook, a former apprentice, had stepped up from vice principal in July last year following the death of principal Sue Mcleod.

Mr Cook said: “I have such great hopes and ambitions for our students, I know from personal experience how much we can change people’s lives as I would not be here without a college like ours.

“I want to make sure all our students have the same life-changing opportunities I did.”

Governors’ chair Sheila Potipher told staff at the college, which slipped down a Ofsted grade last month from good to ‘requires improvement,’ that the board had unanimously confirmed Mr Cook’s appointment in May.

“Simon joined MidKent from Cornwall College in 2013 as the vice principal since which time he has worked tirelessly to steer us all through some of the most challenging times we have experienced to date,” she said.

“His skills, experience and enthusiasm for FE are evident to us all and I am thrilled that he is going to continue the positive work already underway.”

Productivity ‘in danger’ from government’s 3m apprenticeships aim

The government target to create 3m apprenticeship starts could pose “a real danger” to national productivity, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) boss David Hughes has warned.

Mr Hughes made the comments following the release of the Niace annual participation survey, which showed although the number of adults learning in the past three years rose slightly, from 38 per cent to 41 per cent, the lowest paid are still least likely to be learning.

Mr Hughes told FE Week the survey findings “reinforce the need to persuade more people back into learning because if we’re going to really hit [Chancellor George] Osborne’s ambition of being a productive nation we need to raise the overall skills level of the workforce or it just won’t happen”.

And, he said, government’s focus on protecting the apprenticeship budget while cutting the Adult Skills Budget “reinforces this rather than countering it”.

“The 5.2m people in low pay get very, very little support from government at all — the apprenticeship programme won’t do for much of them because often they will need literacy and numeracy training before they can get anywhere near an apprenticeship,” he said.

“There’s a real danger the 3m apprenticeship target gets in the way of doing the right things to address the issue.

“It’s great that we’ve got an ambitious target around apprenticeships because that will focus ideas and resources on skills, but if it’s the only target that matters, I think that’s really concerning.”

The Niace survey found 72 per cent of those in the lowest socioeconomic groups were not learning and nearly half (49 per cent) had not participated in the past three years.

The study of 5,000 adults also revealed twice as many of those who left education at 21 or later were learning, compared to those who left school at 16 (52 per cent versus 26 per cent).

“This reinforces and confirms my apprehension that the skills system just isn’t working for too many people,” said Mr Hughes.

“If you’re successful in learning up to the age of 21 you get into a higher level job with training, so people in high socio-economic groups do quite well out of the system.”

Conversely, he said, those who left school with few qualifications were likely to find themselves in low paying jobs without training.

The survey also found that the number of unemployed people taking part in learning had dropped from 41 per cent to 35 per cent.

Mr Hughes said: “As money gets tighter there is a risk, with the apprenticeship focus, other things get squeezed out, and what these figures show is you’ve got to do more to get to the people who haven’t done much or any learning for many years if you really want to get to the heart of the productivity issue — and the fairness issue.”

Click here for an expert piece by Mr Hughes exploring the survey findings.

Andy Forbes, principal, College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London

Sitting at a meeting table in his wood-panelled principal’s office, Andy Forbes strikes a comedy pose with lips pouted and eyebrows raised as he says to the FE Week photographer: “You can see where the being in the drama club comes in, can’t you?”

“Delete it!” begs Forbes through his chuckles — “you can’t print that”.

To my everlasting regret (and I suspect, Forbes’s relief) the photographer obliges before I can intervene and the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (Conel) principal escapes future photographic embarrassment.

“Believe it or not, I was quite shy, really introverted as a teenager,” he tells me.

“I didn’t enjoy school at all until I joined the drama society, in around about year nine.

“Why I joined the thing I don’t know, but something made me do it, and I started meeting a lot more people and coming out of myself, really enjoyed the final bit of school and sixth form.”

And Forbes, now aged 60, says, it’s stood him in good stead as a principal.

“There’s quite a lot of performance with this job,” he tells me.

“You spend so much time going to events and representing the college, being on stage with students — so the ability to say a few words, and look suitably dignified, friendly and important all at the same time, that’s a big part of it.”

And it wasn’t something he’d realised in a former role as vice principal for curriculum at Blackpool and the Fylde College.

“As a vice principal it’s much more hands on — as a principal, yes, you have the executive bit where you make decisions, but it’s a bit like being Prince Charles,” he explains.

“You’re wheeled out to events because you represent the college. It’s a semi-diplomatic role.”

Education was central in Forbes’s household growing up in Stourbridge, near Birmingham.

“As with many immigrant households, education was seen as the way forward,”
he says.

Forbes’s father, Oswald, was the first Jamaican GP in England having come over in 1943 to complete his medical training as part of the war effort. But Oswald met Dorothy, Forbes’s mother, and never went back.

As a principal, you have the executive bit where you make decisions, but it’s a bit like being Prince Charles — you’re wheeled out to events

“It’s interesting mixture, because in some ways my father was not part of the establishment,” Forbes reflects.

“We were outsiders but because of his success professionally we had the resources to get a relatively privileged experience — he paid for us to go to private prep school.

“I found the whole school photo recently, there were 700 boys, there was one Indian boy and me and 698 white boys and I didn’t feel any sense of not being part of it but I look back and just think how unusual that was.

“I look back and think it must have been quite something and you’re not aware of it as a child.”

The family life was turned upside down when Forbes was 10, when the “larger than life” Oswald left.

“He did the dirty on my mum and ran off with his practice nurse,” says Forbes.

As a single parent of four mixed-race children in the 1940s, Dorothy struggled to cope, but, Forbes says, with unabashed pride, she was “magnificent”.

“Honestly, I’ve asked her many times how she did it and she just says you had to get on with it,” he says.

“She was of that war generation where you were used to getting on with things, rationing and all sorts.

“She said there were times when she felt like giving up, but she couldn’t face the thought of us going into care, so she forced herself to keep going.

“We thought of her as mummy, but astonishingly, she turned out to have a degree in economics, and she started working as a social worker part time and then full time as we got older and had quite a substantial 20-year career in social work.”

And, he says, the experience was in some ways good for the family as it prompted the four boys to learn to look after themselves.

“It sounds dreadful now but when I went to university I was quite unusual in that I could iron my own shirts and cook a bit — it was seen as ‘really? Wow!’ as most the boys sent their laundry back to their mothers,” he says.

The family focus on education paid off and Forbes landed a place studying English literature at Cambridge, which was like “stepping off into another world”.

“Reading was my saviour as a child,” says the dad-of-seven.

“So academically I thought it was just brilliant.”

When he left university “the fantastic lack of careers advice” left Forbes without a plan and he spent two years as an untrained mental health nurse, before deciding to be teacher and heading for Manchester to do a PGCE.

He fell into FE teaching “by accident” in his first job at the Abraham Moss Centre, a combined adult and FE college, youth centre, theatre and secondary school in a deprived area of Manchester.

Forbes initially gained a job teaching in both the school and the college, but when legislation came in requiring the school to have its own governing body in 1988, the institution had to be split and Forbes stayed with the FE and adult side.

“I’ve always been interested in the social inclusion aspect of FE and as a teacher, I did enjoy teaching bright youngsters A-levels or whatever, but the thing that I really found interesting and challenging, totally different and very rewarding was teaching adults that had no background at all in academic study,” he says.

But as far as his own professional progression went, Forbes admits he “wasn’t exactly quick off the mark” and he had no real ambitions to move up the career ladder.

“But I reached the stage of thinking ‘how could such and such a person have been promoted? Well if they can do it, I can do it’, and at each step I thought ‘well I could have a go at that’,” he says.

At Manchester, he became head of multicultural education, leading adult education, equality and diversity and youth and community initiatives, before moving on to Oldham College as director of widening participation and marketing.

“I’ve progressed up the ladder through cross-college roles — I think by the time I got to Blackpool for the fairly straightforward vice-principal’s role, I think I was seen as a rather odd mix of things,” he says.

“But it gave me a really good understanding of both the academic and the support side of the college.

Forbes at Disneyland Paris in 2013 with from left, son Zinedine, aged eight, and daughters Aisha 11 and Miriam six

“When you’re trying to do one of those difficult cross-college jobs, you have to relate across departments, negotiate with empire building heads of departments, and you find ways of making it work better and better.”

With his children grown up and moving away, Forbes headed for pastures new, and Hertford Regional College’s principalship became available.

Despite his cross-college experience, Forbes found that “nothing prepares you for becoming a principal”.

“It’s extraordinary, completely different,” he says.

“What you come to realise is so much of it is getting the elements in place that enable teachers to teach and learners to learn, it’s so indirect and I don’t think you understand that until you’ve done it.”

Forbes took on his second principalship, at Conel, in late April and said the college presented its own “challenge”.

“It may be too early for me to say definitely how it’s different from Hertford, but the atmosphere here is very different and I think the key reason for that is the mixture of adult and young here,” he says.

“And the sheer range of ethnic diversity, of different backgrounds and experiences — obviously we do have learners who are unskilled, who never got the skills in the first place, but we also have learners who have come with previous skills and experiences and need to get restarted.

“This is an exciting college, a good challenge.

“The whole world is here in microcosm and it’s got so many aspects to it that are just what I enjoy — this is just right for me.”

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It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book?

Of the many, many books I could have mentioned, I’m going to go for The Case For Working With Your Hands: Or Why Office Work Is Bad For Us And Fixing Things Feels Good, by Matthew Crawford.

He was somebody who for various reasons spent years working automotive and construction sites and has gone on to do a PhD and so is obviously very articulate and competent, but he reflects on why it is that he thinks that actually working in offices and all those sorts of things is less satisfying than the work he used to do

From left: Forbes, aged 30, with brothers Martin, David and Peter, and their mother, Dorothy at the front — From left: Forbes, aged 30, with brothers Martin, David and Peter,
and their mother, Dorothy at the front

What do you do to switch off from work?

I read and write poetry. I have always loved poetry. There are many other things I do, there’s listening to music and films, the usual sorts of things, but my secret love is poetry

What’s your pet hate?

I think pomposity and arrogance — the sort of academic (not always, but often) person who somehow feels that entitles them to feel superior in some way and speak as if they are an oracle of all wisdom. Yes, they have expertise. Yes, they have knowledge but it’s that pompous thing that gets my goat

If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would it be?

Nelson Mandela — sorry, slam dunk. For all sorts of reasons I think he would be fascinating. I’d probably need several dinner parties with him

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I wanted to be a writer. I was quite shy as I grew up and I used to love reading books, and writing. I used to write endless things, stories about ants and so on. I wanted to be a writer and I am in an amateur sense

Neets — ‘it’s probably even worse than LGA says’

It’s unclear just how poor the tracking of young people’s education and employment status is, but having seen Local Government Association (LGA) findings, Amy Lalla argues it’s an issue for which those at the very top must ensure funding pressures do not mean inaction.

Another week and another set of depressing data on the state of FE funding and the outlook for some of our most vulnerable young people.

The headline finding from the Local Government Association (LGA) survey is that ‘teenage Neets are at risk of being left behind by growth if services are not reformed, councils warn’.

Just 7 per cent of councils say they have powers and funding to meet their legal duties to identify and reduce teenage disengagement and secure suitable education and training places for all 16 to 18-year-olds.

It’s almost impossible to resolve an already intractable problem if we don’t have enough information to work with

And, piling on the misery, the LGA tells us that nine out of 10 local authorities (LAs) have been forced to reduce spending on support for 16 to 18-year-olds.

There’s absolutely no doubt that these statistics make for horrific reading. And although the survey achieved a very creditable 58 per cent response rate, I’d be surprised if — even with the usual caveats on methodology — there wasn’t yet more grim news lurking at the LAs which chose not to participate.

One of my main worries is the lack of data around exactly who Neets are. If we don’t know who, or where they are, how can we get them back into education or training and give them the opportunity they so desperately need to get their lives back on track? It’s as basic as that.

In January LAs were taken to task by the powerful Public Accounts Committee, which reported that round 100,000 teenage Neets had simply disappeared off councils’ radars. They had ‘gone missing’.

In some LA areas, the activity of a massive 20 per cent of young people was unknown, compared with a national average of 7 per cent, the committee said.

And this regional variation in data provision is a big worry. We know that many councils are beacons of good practice on this — they share their data with us and involve us in planning provision.

But we also know of councils which are unable to tell us who and where their Neets are despite the fact that we have the solutions to engage them.

It’s almost impossible to resolve an already intractable problem if we don’t have enough information to work with.

Without some foresight the problem of dealing with Neets will continue to grow — and the danger is that we won’t be able to locate them.

These regional variations must go, and the only way to do that is to introduce a standardised, central system for data collection. It cannot be left to the discretion of individual councils, now under enormous pressure and forced to make such punishing cuts across all their services.

Of course, the grim irony is that young people who have strayed from a traditional life path — often as a result of destructive home lives and educational barriers — are the least likely to have the resources or networks to make their voices heard.

That is why those of us who work in the sector and know at first hand the fantastic potential of these young people must campaign to raise Neets provision to the top of the political and policy agenda.

The wasted potential and cost — in human and economic terms — of picking up the pieces is simply unacceptable.

But of course, once young people have been reduced to faceless numbers on the Neets statistics, we’ve already failed them. What we should be focusing on is early interventions in school — primary and secondary — to identify the children in danger of becoming the Neets of tomorrow.

I have no doubt that this is where we need to turn our attention as a matter of urgency.

Where the axe might fall, and where it should

In light of the Chancellor’s announcement he wanted to see £900m of in-year savings split evenly between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE), Mick Fletcher considers how FE might be affected — and how to lessen that effect.

What we know is that the two education departments, BIS and DfE, are each being asked to make an extra in-year cut of £450m — almost a third of the total sum being sought in the emergency budget planned for July.

What we don’t know is where the cuts will fall; but here’s a prediction. In this round and in the subsequent autumn spending review the Chancellor will find it easier to pick on provision for the weak and disadvantaged rather than tackle the big vested interests defending much larger sums.

We will probably see action on the manifesto pledge to reduce provision of full time FE at level two and below, hidden behind a fig leaf of increased apprenticeship opportunities.

It seems likely that we will see a further move from grant funding to loans, once again spun as ‘empowering the learner’.

Other soft targets could be learner support funds (less need as student numbers fall?) or adult and community learning (replaced by the big society in the form of the University of the Third Age). A further blow to the last remnants of social partnership represented by sector skills councils must be high on the hit list.

There are however a couple of sacred cows that could yield much larger savings but are far less likely to be touched. The biggest is the long running scandal of small school sixth forms, surviving only by robbing resources from the lower school.

If government has pledged to ring-fence funding for pupils up to the age of 16 it seems only fair for schools to be forced to do the same, leaving sixth form pupils to be taught efficiently and effectively in sixth form and tertiary colleges.

Since, shockingly, the average class size for the 16 to 18 phase in schools is less than half of that in primary schools, there are serious savings to be made from the £2bn or so in this bit of the schools budget.

Although it is both logical and feasible the chances of sensible reform of sixth form provision are vanishingly small. They are only marginally greater for tackling the second great vested interest; the unholy alliance of providers and employer bodies that argue strenuously against any attempt to make employers pay their share of training costs.

We will probably see action on the manifesto pledge to reduce provision of full time FE at level two and below, hidden behind a fig leaf of increased apprenticeship opportunities

It cannot be right however that FE colleges are more dependent on state funding than they were at the time of incorporation over 20 years ago, or that private providers are even less likely to secure co-funding.

It is true that demanding cash contributions towards the cost of providing apprenticeships and adult training risks lessening demand, but that risk is faced with equanimity elsewhere in the adult skills budget.

Under Matthew Hancock’s watch as Skills Minister the government developed a firm co-funding policy based around a generous two-for-one funding offer — far better than the deal for individuals.

If they can’t make it stick now, with an austerity budget and private sector growth they might as well abandon the whole idea forever.

The third big vested interest that the Chancellor faces is his own ministerial colleagues. At the very same time that they demand cuts in well-proven and valuable provision they indulge in an endless stream of pet projects for which there is little evidence of either need or efficacy.

Significant savings could be made if ministers held back from schemes such as the employer ownership pilots, national colleges, free schools in areas with no shortage of places or differing varieties of technical schools that duplicate what FE colleges can deliver. The chances, however, seem slim.

Finally, it is just possible that savings might be demanded from one quarter normally thought untouchable.

There is a growing body of opinion that sees the £200m or more spent on Ofsted annually as poor value for money. If he is bold the Chancellor could perhaps achieve the impossible — an education cut that is welcomed by schools and colleges.

Inadequate funding for 16-19 education is not good economics

With the issue of 16 to 19 funding dropping to critical levels, sector leaders have written to Chancellor George Osborne and Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, as reported on feweek.co.uk. Malcolm Trobe explains what why he wants government to reconsider its view on funding education for the age group.

Education for 16 to 19-year-olds is in danger of becoming a Cinderella service. It covers some of the most important years in the lives of young people, but it is the most poorly-funded part of the system.

The base rate of funding for each student is £4,000 per year. This is less than pre-16 education, where the average base rate is about £4,700, and higher education where students are generally charged £9,000.

FE colleges have been struggling along for years on around this £4,000 rate without any inflationary increases. School sixth forms and sixth form colleges were better funded, but no longer. Over the past five years their funding has been cut to the same level.

And over the next five years, the situation is set to become much worse.

Schools and colleges face significant rises in costs because of increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions, pensions, staff wages and general inflation. This is bad enough for pre-16 education, but for the 16 to 19 sector it is even more disastrous because funding is already so low.

Also worryingly, the 16 to 19 sector is unprotected in terms of government spending, raising the fear it may suffer further cuts.

This background explains why the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and six other organisations joined together to send letters to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Chancellor George Osborne [see feweek.co.uk for more]. Together, the signatories represent a huge range of schools and colleges, demonstrating the strength of feeling over this issue.

In addition to ASCL, they are the Association of Colleges, the Principals’ Professional Council, the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, the Independent Academies Association, the Grammar School Heads Association, and the Freedom and Autonomy for Schools National Association.

We recognise the financial situation is difficult, but we are asking that, at the very least, the government gives 16 to 19 institutions enough money to meet the additional costs they face. If this does not happen they will be hit with real-terms cuts of about 5 per cent over the next 12 to 18 months.

FE colleges have been struggling along for years on around this £4,000 rate without any inflationary increases

The consequences of inadequate funding are already being felt and will become more severe if not addressed. One of these is that it makes it difficult for schools and colleges to provide the full range of A-levels, AS-levels, and other courses, to meet the needs of students. This is particularly so in smaller sixth forms which cannot sustain an appropriate breadth of options on such low funding levels.

The result is that fewer students will apply, and the sixth form is trapped in a downward spiral, probably ending with its closure.

Another consequence is that it becomes increasingly difficult for schools and colleges to provide courses in subjects which attract relatively low numbers of students.

As these include modern foreign languages and further maths, this will undermine areas which are important to the wider economy.

The funding crisis also damages the ability of schools and colleges to offer students additional curriculum opportunities.

Everybody recognises the importance of equipping young people with life skills and a rounded educational experience through things like team-building activities, enterprise days, sports clubs, music and other creative arts-based opportunities.

However, the funding situation makes it is increasingly difficult for many schools and colleges to provide these opportunities. This places students in the state sector at a significant disadvantage to their peers in independent schools where these sort of activities are energetically promoted.

Indeed, if the funding crisis results in fewer of these activities and fewer course options for state students it will have a damaging effect on social mobility.

Austerity inevitably means making tough decisions. However, it is not good economics to fail to invest in the future, and this is precisely what is currently happening in 16 to 19 education. The country’s prosperity relies upon ensuring we have a workforce with the training and life skills for the 21st Century. And we have a responsibility to young people to give them that future.