Two further mergers have been proposed for the college sector.

Shrewsbury College, Shrewsbury Sixth Form College and New College in Telford have announced plans to discuss a proposal to merge, creating a single sixth form college group.

In a joint statement, the principals of all three — Steve Wain, Martin Ward and Fiona O’Brien, respectively — said: “If a merger goes ahead we are looking at a date from August 1, 2016, and internal and external consultations will commence in early 2016.”

Meanwhile Tower Hamlets College, in East London, is exploring mergers with Redbridge College and also Hackney Community College.

Gerry McDonald, principal of Tower Hamlets, said: “Government policy now clearly supports the creation of larger institutions that are both financially viable and able to adapt to address the country’s skills needs.”

A Tower Hamlets spokesperson said: “It is envisaged that any merger with Redbridge would take place in advance of organisational links between Hackney Community College and Tower Hamlets College.”

He added that the Redbridge merger, if agreed, would be formally completed by August.

It comes with the post-16 education area reviews expected to result in a number of mergers.

Such moves are already on the cards for New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham, and Greenwich Community College and Bromley College of Further and Higher Education to name but two.

Main image: Martin Ward, Fiona O’Brien and Steve Wain

These are some of the faces in Sixth Form College Commissioner Peter Mucklow’s new team as he shares the growing workload of post-16 area reviews.

They include an academy trust chief executive, a former sixth form college umbrella organisation executive director, an ex-Ofsted inspector and, of course, some old sixth form college principals.

The six new advisers were appointed by the Department for Education on two-year contracts paying up to £600 a-day.

An Education Funding Agency spokesperson said: “The team of six will support Mr Mucklow with both the early and formal intervention process to tackle poor performance, either in terms of financial management or quality. They will also support the series of area-based reviews of provision.”

The posts were advertised in September in a joint recruitment drive with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which was looking for deputies at £700 a-day, and advisers, at £600 a-day, for FE Commissioner Dr David Collins.

The application process for all posts ended on September 30, but a BIS spokesperson said it had not made any appointments to Dr Collins team of 11 advisers yet.

Both commissioners have chair roles in area reviews and so far seven have been announced for 83 general FE colleges and sixth form colleges across seven regions.

More reviews are expected to be announced soon and Mr Mucklow will be able to call on the help of Neil Hopkins (main image, left), Felicity Greeves (main image centre), Daphne King (main image right), Josephine Nowacki, along with John Boyle and Mike Southworth, whose appointments in August were previously reported by FE Week.

Mr Hopkins, a governor at Sparsholt College, was principal of Peter Symonds College for 20 years until 2013. He was then executive director of the Maple Group of sixth form colleges from 2013 to 2015.

Ms Greeves is chief executive of the Fylde Coast Academy Trust and the Fylde Coast Teaching School. She was previously principal of Blackpool Sixth Form College from 2004 to 2014.

Ms King is the former principal of East Norfolk Sixth Form College from 2012 to August 2015. She is a trustee for the Diocese of Norwich Education and Academies Trust.

And former Ofsted FE and skills inspector Ms Nowacki completes the new appointments. She worked for the education watchdog from 2003 until 2015.

She was a senior inspector for North East, Yorkshire and the Humber in her last two years at Ofsted.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “We welcome the appointment of the new sixth form college advisers. All are highly regarded individuals with significant experience in the sixth form college sector.

“Although we have major concerns about the rushed implementation of the ill-conceived area review policy, we hope these advisers will help to ensure the distinct identity and ethos of sixth form colleges is not lost through the process.”

Mark Bramwell, associate director of sixth form colleges at the Association of Colleges, said: “We welcome these additional commissioners as they all have recent and extensive experience of the work of sixth form colleges.

“We are pleased to see the distinctive interests of sixth form colleges being reflected in the make-up of the area review teams.”

More than 100 college governors’ board chairs put on a united front to Prime Minister David Cameron in a desperate bid to defend FE funding from Chancellor George Osborne and the impending Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).

They wrote to Mr Cameron outlining the sector’s “parlous financial state that has been caused by the impact of an accumulation of funding changes that have uniquely hit colleges”.

The letter outlined the effect of cuts this year of 24 per cent and then a further 3.9 per cent, along with the 17.5 per cent reduction in funding for full-time 18-year-olds, among other issues affecting colleges.

It was signed by 127 chairs of colleges across the country and comes ahead of the CSR, which is expected on November 25.

It said in the letter: “The National Audit Office study into the sector expressed concern about its financial health, and the Education Secretary has also said the sector is financially “fragile”. Professor Alison Wolf, in her most recent research paper, commented that the sector was heading for the precipice in financial terms.”

It added: “There is a real fear that further funding cuts in the next CSR round will indeed tip us “over the precipice”. Moreover, there is an even greater fear that this could happen by accident or a lack of detailed understanding of the impact of recent decisions.

“The CSR offers an opportunity to ensure colleges can help government deliver what it aims to achieve.”

The chairs went on to issue five requests of Mr Cameron. They said they wanted “no further reduction in the quantum of adult funding” and “consistent and equitable funding for all 16 to 18-year-olds at college”.

They also said they wanted “more certainty and predictability of funding over a reasonable period of time, ideally three years” and a “re-examination of the current thinking relating to post 16 provision” along with all current and proposed post 16 providers to be included in post-16 education area reviews.

The final request was for “recognition that effective delivery of the maths and English agenda requires new and adequate resources, sufficient funding and long-term support to help recruit qualified specialist staff”.

The letter, dated October 31, concluded: “Colleges have a vital role in helping your government achieve its ambitions with regard to social cohesion, social mobility and economic success.

We are unique and responsive institutions that share these same ambitions and care deeply about our communities.

“We hope this letter clearly explains our fears and frustrations that we cannot do this as effectively as we would like and hope you will consider our concerns and our proposals which we believe will better deliver your government’s agenda.”

The Association of Colleges said it supported the letter.

Number 10 declined to comment, but confirmed the letter had been received and said that a response would be given in due course.

Sector leaders have reacted with concern to a “tight” Skills Funding Agency (SFA) timetable for handing out £650m of delayed European Social Fund (ESF) cash — with delivery completed in just 18 months.

It was exclusively revealed on feweek. co.uk that the SFA was planning to run a “sequence of procurement” that must be finished by the end of September next year at the very latest to allow a minimum delivery period of 18 months (see timeline below right).

The delivery period, up to March 2018, was determined with ministers unable to say the SFA would oversee anything other than apprenticeships beyond then.

It follows a summer in which ESF-funded providers were forced to lay off staff amid delays in issuing 2014-202 contracts as the government sought to iron out regional devolution issues with local enterprise partnerships (Leps).

Stewart Segal, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive, said: “These further delays will mean that the gaps in provision for those people who need the most help continue.

“The shortening of the timescales also means that these complex and often expensive tendering processes need to be managed effectively.

“The SFA, DWP and the Leps need to work closely with the sector to make sure the tender process is clear, simple and transparent.”

He added: “We now need a clear timetable from the funding agencies to allow providers to put their bidding plans together.”

An Association of Colleges spokesperson said: “It took longer than expected to get EU sign-off for the UK ESF programme so there’s a good case for pushing ahead with procurement.

“Ideally, the government would consult on its devolution plans via a green paper so issues like this can be properly discussed in advance.”

Details of the timetable featured in a letter, leaked to FE Week, to Lep and European Structural and Investment Fund (ESIF) committees from Mike Bell, SFA deputy director for localism policy implementation.

“The attached timeline shows the tight deadlines we will have to meet so that all contracts are at least 18 months long,” he wrote.

He said the SFA would, however, introduce a “simplified procurement initiation document which will capture the required local input to be inserted into themed specification frameworks”.

“We will work … to ensure the local input fully reflects requirements as we draft the specifications so that they can be finalised and approved without any undue delay,” he wrote.

“We believe this approach enables us to ensure minimal disruption in the transition of skills budgets to localities.”

An SFA spokesperson said it had nothing to add to Mr Bell’s letter in response to timescale concerns.

But, said Ms Mann, ever-tightening public purse strings meant “organisations which we have previously worked with over the past two years have not renewed their contracts, either due to their own lack of finance or not seeing the importance of positive action work for race equality”.

“Despite numerous attempts to mitigate closure by cutting our staff and costs to the bone we can no longer sustain the organisation,” she wrote.

“Over the past year we have attempted to find a partner organisation which might ensure the sustainability of our work but this has been without success, as the core issue of funding remained.”

The Wolverhampton-based organisation was set up in 1998 to address under-representation of black staff in FE, particularly in teaching, management and senior positions.

Ms Mann listed a number of achievements since then, including winning the Queens Diamond Jubilee Volunteering award for the 13-year-old Black Leadership Initiative (BLI) mentoring programme and engaging “one third of the FE sector leaders as BLI mentors”.

Ms Mann, who took over as NBAP (previously called the Network for Black Professionals) chief executive in 2013, described the closure as “hugely regrettable”.

“The NBAP has punched above its weight since 1998 and it has made a profound difference to the lives of many individuals and stakeholders, not only in the FE sector, from where it emerged, but also across a range of public, private and third sectors, including schools, universities and the Civil Service,” she wrote.

“The work has significantly increased the number of black principals, head teachers and middle managers in FE and schools over the last decade, a figure that cannot be matched in other public sector bodies.

“Most importantly over the last eighteen years, we have provided support and guidance on race issues for both individuals and organisations.”

She said the NBAP had “won hearts and minds, engaged both black and white staff across education and beyond in order to ensure that the race equality agenda was being addressed”.

“Our vision of being the collective voice for black staff providing professional development activities to unlock their talent has been significantly achieved, enabling the FE and other sectors to make progress in diversifying their workforce at all levels,” wrote Ms Mann.

“Although the NBAP will be closing, the important work on race equality has not ended.  More than ever before, there will be a continuing need to increase race awareness, to combat prejudice and to develop role models for our staff and all our learners.”

The NBAP’s final annual meeting is expected to take place at the Association of Colleges annual conference on Tuesday (November 17) at the ICC Birmingham between 2pm and 3pm.

The future of the Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards (Fisss) was today uncertain with the government looking at a new system of issuing apprenticeship certificates.

More than 7,500 providers and 500,000 apprentices in England, Scotland and Wales work with Fisss as it verifies that programmes have been finished successfully before handing out final paperwork.

However, the position of Fisss, which has certificated nearly 320,000 apprenticeships in the last year, was put into question with the Deregulation Act 2015.

A Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson the Act meant it was “considering options for a system for the issue of apprenticeship certificates for new approved standards”.

The Act was designed to simplify existing statutory arrangements and allow employers to design Trailblazer apprenticeship standards, with the post of Business Secretary responsible for issuing certificates — a responsibility that can be delegated.

Mark Froud (pictured above), managing director of Fisss, said: “We remain committed to ensuring high quality standards and certification with minimal bureaucracy in both the current and the new system. “We have been discussing how to achieve this going forwards with BIS and a number of Trailblazer groups, the Association of Colleges (AoC), Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), Federation of Awarding Bodies and a number of large awarding organisations over the last year.

“In terms of the future we await decisions from the Minister.”

Teresa Frith (pictured left), senior skills policy manager for the AoC, said: “We are pleased with Fisss taking a collaborative approach to the development of a new issuing system for apprenticeship certificates that will fit with the reforms and will work for colleges and other providers.”

Stewart Segal, chief executive of AELP, said: “Certification of the apprenticeship programme is an important step as part of the overall assurance process.  AELP has worked with Fisss to ensure that this is an effective and simple process.  There are still a lot of details to be resolved around the assessment plans and the systems will need to be flexible but consistent.”

The work of Fisss is funded through charging providers for the issue of certificates and Mr Froud said Fisss had been working to achieve efficiencies.

“We charge £22 per apprenticeship certificate issued under the current framework system,” he said.

“This is a 25 per cent reduction on the previous fee and saved the system and training providers over £7m in the last two and a half years.”