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.
CBI rejects Professor Wolf’s proposal for apprenticeship levy
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has rejected Professor Lady Alison Wolf’s recommendation that all employers pay a levy to fund apprenticeships growth.
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.
“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.
“A universal levy wouldn’t deliver that.”
Professor Wolf outlined her levy proposal in a 26-page report for the Social Market Foundation, entitled Fixing a Broken Training System – The case for an apprenticeship levy, out on July 2.
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.”
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.”
Paul Eeles, chief executive, Emfec
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.
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.
“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.
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.
“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
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
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A chef
UKCES gives £575k in job pay-offs
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.”
Ex-NCN principal Basi in FE Commissioner showdown
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.
“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.
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.
Merger lessons from the K College meltdown
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.
Ofsted FE director outlines ‘biggest inspection change in 20 years’
Lorna Fitzjohn outlines key elements of the new unified common inspection framework that will be in effect from September.
Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw late last month outlined to attendees at Ofsted’s Future of Education Inspection conference in London details on how we will be changing the way we inspect early years, schools and FE providers.
These changes, beginning in September, will be some of the most significant since Ofsted’s inception more than 20 years ago.
While one of our goals is to simplify how we inspect and report across our remits, there are some notable specific changes for the FE sector.
Firstly, Ofsted has published its new common inspection framework, which will apply to all the remits mentioned above. Our aim here is to make it easier for parents, learners and employers to pick up an Ofsted report and understand it, regardless of the provision or remit it covers.
Seven out of every ten Ofsted inspectors will be a serving practitioner
One of the concerns I have heard from the sector over this approach is whether a common framework can account for the often complex and varied FE providers without over-generalising.
In particular, some have expressed concern over the new key judgement regarding the ‘personal development, behaviour and welfare’ of learners.
Through this judgement we will assess how well learners develop the skills they need for their next step — including things like strong careers guidance and work experience — and how well they are developing the attitudes and behaviours needed for future learning and employment.
This is not just an attempt to bring inspections in line with those in schools; it is highly relevant to the sector.
Secondly, Ofsted will be altering the way it inspects good schools and FE providers, moving to a process of shorter but more frequent inspections.
All providers currently rated as ‘good’ will receive a short inspection approximately every three years. These will be led by Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) and will last for one or two days. During the visit inspectors will focus on answering two key questions — is the provider still good? and is safeguarding effective?
All inspections will begin from the same starting point — that the provider remains good — and will work from there.
At the end of the inspection, the inspector will write to the provider to confirm they are still good. If inspectors see signs that the provider has either improved or declined, then it will be converted into a full inspection.
We are also bringing in some changes which are sector-specific, including the decision to no longer grade observed learning sessions. This approach will bring FE inspections in line with that of schools.
I acknowledge that, where the approach is popular with schools, reaction has been more mixed for those working in FE. We have stressed to schools that we don’t grade individual teachers or their lessons and we feel it only right that we make this clear to the FE sector as well.
We know that some providers, particularly large colleges, have used grading for individual sessions and they believe it to be valuable in evaluating the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. That they do this is the leaders’ decision — we do not condone or condemn this practice.
I would like to end by commending the work of the FE sector to date. Teachers, trainers and lecturers are constantly being asked to improve and Ofsted needs to do the same. This is why we are now bringing inspections in-house. This decision will mean that, from September, seven out of every ten Ofsted inspectors will be a serving practitioner.
Having this experience on our inspection teams will be a benefit to both Ofsted and the sector.
I hope some of the details I have set out here explain why we have taken these decisions and also help to alleviate any concerns some may have about the changes. We are confident the changes we are making, coupled with the commitment and drive of the FE sector, will help to raise standards across England.
What to do if the Budget doesn’t go well for you
Late last month, sector leaders handed a 42,5000-signature petition to Number 10 Downing Street calling on the Prime Minister to halt the implementation of further drastic cuts to FE.
The week before, hundreds of teachers, students and supporters packed the House of Commons to lobby MPs. Both of these events came in advance of a Summer Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review as the sector fears “the end of further education as we know it,” as Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna put it in the House of Commons recently.
Clearly, events and petitions as a national campaign can only be part of the strategy. It has been fantastic to see providers, unions and student groups work together to do what they can locally too.
In my experience, there are often occasions when you’re angry and passionate enough about something to call meetings with others who you think will also be angry and passionate about the same thing/s.
You then have a great meeting and feel even more inspired to take on the world. After a week or so though, it feels like your campaign partners start to drift away, taking longer to respond to emails, not fulfilling their commitments and so on. When the momentum goes like that it’s sometimes because people have had time to reflect on the likelihood of success against the resource required and then decide to step back/out.
There are a few things that high profile and successful campaigns have in common; one of them is time and the other is a little bit of bureaucracy — clear objectives and easy messages. If you think about campaigns which call for changes in the law, like equal marriage, or for a particular commitment, like the Global Poverty Project’s campaign for 0.7 per cent of GDP to be spent on international aid; those campaigns have been gathering public support and mobilising actions for several years.
One way to help keep your campaign on track is to agree which of your objectives are short terms and long term. In our case, I think this means pre-Spending Review and post-Spending Review. Comprehensive Spending Reviews (CSR) don’t happen often, but when they do they announce significant changes for the coming couple of years.
We have an awful habit in our sector of slipping in FE jargon. I do it all the time. It’s no wonder my parents have no idea what I do for a living
The last one, in 2010, cut government department budgets by 20 per cent, cut half a million public sector jobs, abolished the education maintenance allowance and cut more from the welfare budget. We’ve been told to expect such drastic measures again, so the CSR seems a sensible target against which to aim your short-term campaign.
If you’re planning a local campaign, here are some things to consider:
Cover the basics. Decide on precisely what it is you want to change. If you end up with a huge list of things, decide the issue you think you’ve got the best chance of winning and which you think you’ve got the best evidence for. Then decide on the people; who you need to help you and who can make the change happen.
Get some evidence. Go and see a management information system person.
Test your messages. We have an awful habit in our sector of slipping in FE jargon. I do it all the time. It’s no wonder my parents have no idea what I do for a living. Whether it’s wording for a public petition or a letter to employers or stakeholders calling for support, test your messages with someone who doesn’t work in education or training.
Stories. Graphs and charts are great, but so are learner stories. The good thing about story-telling is breadth of appeal. Those learners are also parents, grandparents, carers, workers, bosses and role models — learning also impacts on the people around them.
If the Budget this week stirs you in to wanting to take some action, big or small, public or behind the scenes, it will be a valuable use of your time. Let us know what you’re up to using #LoveFE on Twitter.
Students keep one step ahead for critically-ill children
Students and staff from Barnsley College took their studies to the streets and raised more than £800 for an NHS transport service for critically-ill children.
Donning their walking shoes were two groups of childcare learners who completed a 2.5-mile walk from the colleges Old Mill Lane campus to Worsbrough Mill.
The money raised will be given to Embrace, Yorkshire and Humber’s infant and children’s transport service.
Childcare course leader Karen Mason said: “Our link with Embrace has allowed the students to learn about the service region and the varied careers that exist within the NHS.
“This is the latest in a series of walks which students have undertaken to raise funds for the service and we are delighted to offer our support in this way.”
The two groups included level one diploma in health, social care and children and young people’s learners as well as level three childcare and education students.
Main pic: Barnsley College students head to the streets in aid of critically-ill children