Association for Learning Technology chief executive Dr Maren Deepwell (pictured above left) will be among a number of witnesses giving evidence to MPs investigating the digital economy tomorrow.

It will come the day before Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw (pictured above right) is due before the House of Lords Social Mobility Committee.

The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee inquiry was announced in September when committee chair Iain Wright told FE Week he wanted to look at government actions to ensure the availability of a workforce with the digital skills to support businesses.

And the committee’s first evidence session is due to kick off at 9.30am with Federation of Small Businesses policy director Mike Cherry, EMC Corporation cloud business director and chief technology officer Rod Lamb, and Humber LEP managing director of the Centre for Digital Innovation and John Connolly.

Dr Deepwell is expected to give evidence from an hour later along with Tech Partnership director of resources Dean Cassar and Creative Skillset chief executive officer Seetha Kumar.

Speaking to FE Week at the time the inquiry was announced, Mr Wright said: “I have a broad ambition to look at the FE and skills sector in detail in the upcoming evidence sessions.

“We will be looking into apprenticeships related to digital skills in the sessions and we will review the current apprenticeships provided, and how they could be improved.”

He added: “Apprenticeships are of key importance in the digital skills sector of FE and we want to know how traditional businesses are continuing and progressing in this new digital economy.

“Newly qualified plumbers, for instance, should be able to engage with their local FE provider and be able to expand their business on forms of social media in a flexible and fast changing way.”

Sir Michael is pencilled in to appear before Lords, whose most recent hearing came at the end of last month, on Wednesday from 10.35am and comes just weeks after his report on apprenticeships which was critical of government funding of the programme where learners were aged 25-plus and already employed.

And while apprenticeships will feature in his questioning, he is also expected to field questions covering whether he believes Ofsted should have a greater role in improving employment opportunities and social mobility for under-served groups and middle attainers, and who should have overall responsibility for guiding young people through the transition from education to employment.

A further area of investigation Sir Michael is expected to faces includes what he believes to be the features of good-quality work experience, and whether this should be assessed in inspections. The committee hearing Twitter hashtag is #HLSMC.

Hull College Group has become the fifth college in England to be granted Foundation Degree Awarding Powers (DAPs), after passing Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) scrutiny and receiving approval from the Privy Council.

It means the Group, which is comprised of Hull College, Harrogate College, Goole College and University Campus Scarborough, will now be able to award foundation degrees from January.

At present, only four other colleges have foundation degree awarding powers: Grimsby Institute, New College Durham, Newcastle College and Warwickshire College. The QAA says several others are applying for the powers.

Hull College Group gained the powers following the government’s announcement that it has lifted its ‘moratorium’ on applications for DAPs, in a Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) green paper published today.

The paper, entitled ‘Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice’, said the moratorium has been lifted “in order to allow those providers who are ready to apply to start the process” and to “remove barriers” that are slowing down the route to DAPs.

It also stated that the government will be reviewing the current four year track record requirement for DAPs “with a view to reducing it to three years”, and will consider introducing more flexibility on what constitutes track record.

Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson flagged plans to lift the moratorium in a speech at the University of Sussex on September 9.

A Hull College Group spokesperson said its DAPs approval will bring greater flexibility to tailor the curriculum to meet students’ needs.

Chief executive Gary Warke MBE (pictured above) said: “We are delighted that after almost two years, the Quality Assurance Agency has recognised the high quality staffing, resources and infrastructure at Hull College Group enabling an outstanding higher education offer to meet the needs of our students, employers and key stakeholders.”

Alastair Thomson, principal of University Campus Scarborough and group director for higher education, said: “With our own Foundation Degree awarding powers, Hull College Group will be able to make significant improvements in its Higher Education provision.

“We will be able to dramatically increase the speed of response to the needs of employers and thereby accelerate economic growth in our region, especially in the industries of tomorrow such as digital and wind power.”

A Midland college has incurred the wrath of local dog walkers with its response to Ofsted safeguarding advice to improve grounds security.

Warwickshire College Group (WCG) group was rated as good by Ofsted in April — but inspectors said “access to their sites needs to be more secure”.

They also said managers at the 14,500-learner college group had drawn up “substantive plans” to address the issue.

But those plans, to block access through most of the 750-acre grounds of its Moreton Morrell campus, provoked outrage from locals who walked their dogs through the site.

Nearly 200 residents protested by walking their favourite route through the grounds on November 1 — two days before the college’s new restrictions came into force.

One of the protestors, Lesley Maynard, aged 57, said walking around the grounds of the Moreton Morrell campus, where around 1,500 learners are taught, had been “a pleasure for local residents for many years”.

“I have two children and when they were young, we would walk, with other village families, through the college grounds, watching the lambs and wildlife,” she added.

Ms Maynard said walkers had caused the college “no problems” over the years — but “the small pleasure is now being taken away from the village”.

“As a small rural community we have to put up with quite a lot from the college — traffic being an issue which will increase when the Henley-in-Arden campus closes next year and the students are bussed to Moreton Morrell,” she added.

“We don’t make a fuss. A little give and take is all we ask.”

A WCG spokesperson told FE Week: “For many years now, village residents have used our grounds for walking and it is with regret that given our increased responsibilities under our Prevent Duty and safeguarding we have had to take this difficult decision.”

She added that the Ofsted comments had provided “further reinforcement of our decision”, but had not been “the only driver”.

She said the campus, which specialises in land-based subjects including agriculture, equine studies, and animal welfare, had “large and growing numbers of under 18s on site, including students in our on-site residential accommodation, and with this the need to conduct more comprehensive risk assessments”.

“We are of course sorry that the villagers are unhappy with this decision and in
order to provide an alternative facility, we have introduced a new permitted walk around a parcel of our farmland in agreement with the Parish Council,” she added.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “It is important that colleges provide a safe environment in which learners can develop their skills.

“The steps taken to ensure this safety are the college’s own responsibility.”

All FE institutions have been subject since September 21 to the Prevent Duty, as reported in FE Week, which requires them to put policies in place to prevent potential radicalisation of learners and exposure to extremism.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Home Office, which oversees the Prevent Duty, declined to comment.

Employer bodies have attacked Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) guidance that Trailblazer apprenticeship incentive payments are used where expensive assessments push costs over government funding limits.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) last month told of its concerns that end-point assessments were “driving up costs for Trailblazers”.

However, a BIS spokesperson has told FE Week that capped government funding levels, ranging from £2,000 to £18,000, were “only part of the funding available” — employers could “also use the incentive payments that are available under this model towards the costs they incur,” he said.

Neil Carberry, director for employment and skills policy at the CBI, said such use of incentive payments “called into question how deliverable this model is”.

“If employers are being told to use incentive payments to bridge the funding shortfall owing to high-cost end-point assessments, this indicates that the apprenticeship standard falls under the wrong cap,” he said.

Under funding rules for the new Trailblazer apprenticeships, each standard is allocated one of five government funding caps. The government will pay two thirds of the cost of delivering the standard up to the cap, with employers expected to contribute the remaining third.

But FE Week has found that, in some cases, employers would be expected to contribute more than a third — possibly using the incentive payments — with government funding not reaching its two thirds mark.

Ian Cass, managing director of the Forum of Private Business, said members had told him that being made to use incentive payments towards the cost of delivering an apprenticeship risked “employers being punished for training up young people”.

“The incentive payment is really there to cover some of the costs of compliance with regulations, insurance payments and the cost of supervision of the individual on site,” said Mr Cass.
There are three incentive payments on offer – a 16 to 18 apprentice payment, a small employer incentive and a completion incentive.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) Trailblazer funding guidance for 2014/15 stated the payments were intended to cover “additional costs that small employers can face when taking on an apprentice” and the “additional demands of recruiting a young apprentice”, and to “encourage employers to train apprentices across the full breadth of the apprenticeship standard”.

However, the SFA’s funding guidance for 2015/16 makes no mention of what the payments are intended to cover.

But, the guidance does state that employers were “free to use the incentives payments as you wish, including meeting the wider costs of employing an apprentice”.

Among those that employers may have to use the incentive payments for was the Gas Network Team Leader standard. It was allocated a maximum funding cap of £6,000, despite its Trailblazer group having estimated delivery costs to be around £14,600 (based on the end-point assessment, priced at £3,808, representing 26 per cent of the total cost as set out in the assessment plan).

A spokesperson for sector skills council Energy and Utility Skills, which worked with employers to develop the Gas Network Team Leader standard, insisted employers were “willing to invest beyond any funding cap allocation”.

The BIS spokesperson said “The funding cap represents the maximum ‘core’ contribution that government is prepared to make towards the off-the-job training and assessment costs associated with a standard.

“This maximum contribution is only part of the funding available, employers can also use the incentive payments that are available under this model towards the costs they incur.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) will investigate quality concerns over the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ (BIS) drive towards 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

The NAO announced today (November 6) that it will publish a report on apprenticeships in spring next year.

A spokesperson said: “They are a key element of the government’s plans for growth and productivity and 3m new apprenticeships have been promised over the course of this parliament. The study will examine the management of the apprenticeship programme by BIS.”

“In particular, it will assess whether the department is facilitating the delivery of high quality skills training that meets the needs of businesses, employees and the wider economy,” it added.

The NAO published a previous report on apprenticeships in February 2012 — which looked at whether BIS was “obtaining value for money from the programme”, as reported in FE Week.

It found that “adult apprenticeships offer good value for money, but the government needs to focus its resources on industries which offer the best economic returns”.

Stewart Segal (pictured right), chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, told FE Week today: “Given the NAO’s previous findings about the programme’s excellent return on the government’s investment, it’s important that the reforms both for funding and standards build on what has worked well.”

He added: “Our post-election submission included a number of recommendations on how significantly more apprenticeships can be delivered in this parliament without risking quality in the programme and we have shared these with the NAO as part of its welcome inquiry.

“We have always said that the apprenticeship programme needs an effective overall management structure that involves employers, providers and other stakeholders working with government.”

At the Association of Colleges, Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager, said: “Apprenticeships are an essential part of post-16 education and training as they provide a dual learning, both on and off the job.

“We hope the NAO will have a good look at the management of reform and the growth of the programme, as the Government aims for its target of 3m new apprenticeships by 2020.

“We have already spoken to the NAO and we will be watching this investigation as it develops.”

Concern was raised over the apprenticeship reform programme stalling after Skills Minister Nick Boles (pictured below left) told the House of Commons Education Select Committee in January that the government had “gone off half-cock” on planned changes, including proposals to fund them through PAYE, as reported in FE Week.

The government partly addressed this in July when it announced plans for an apprenticeship levy on large employers, to encourage more businesses to invest in the programme, with a BIS consultation on how this would work closing a month ago.

But FE Week also reported growing frustration among new Trailblazer apprenticeship designers in August over delays with the government clearing standards for delivery, almost a year after they were first published in a number of cases.

Just 22 standards had been cleared by BIS as ready for delivery at the time and that figure still only stands at 60 out of more than 350 under development.

An Ofsted report published on October 22 was also highly critical of apprenticeship standards and

chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw criticised widespread use of government cash to subsidise low wages training programmes for older learners in an exclusive interview with FE Week.

He said: “What we’re seeing is that a lot of apprenticeships are simply accrediting what they’re doing already and again employers are using funding from government to subsidise already low wages — that’s got to stop.”

BIS declined to comment.