Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden has called on the government to “get a grip” after new figures showed that providers missed out on almost £250m in FE loans cash last academic year.

Figures released by the government showed that the total amount awarded for 24+ advanced learning loans in 2014/15 was £149m, which was 62 per cent less than the £397m allocated for the FE loans budget.

Mr Marsden, who was critical of the government’s decision not to create a national marketing budget for FE loans when they were introduced, said the figures showed the “sluggish uptake” on FE loans.

“Ministers need to get a grip urgently before funding, that is crucial for skills and training to give older adults improved life chances and as a key mechanism for improving our productivity, is snaffled up permanently by the Treasury,” he added.

David Hughes, chief executive at National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “Not only has the number of learners making use of the loans decreased, it is also severely under-utilised. Imagine what that £250m of lost learning could have delivered for people if the loans system was functional?”

He called on the government to improve uptake by making loans “available for smaller qualifications, modules, units and professional qualifications”.

The system currently applies to learners aged at least 24 and studying at level three or four — but a government consultation last summer proposed that they should apply to level two and 19 to 23-year-olds.

No changes have been implemented yet, but Skills Minister Nick Boles said in the consultation response that the government would “look again at these proposals” through the spending review.

Independent education consultant Mike Farmer said the £250m of lost funding showed “these loans haven’t been as successful as the government hoped”.

“It’s a shame that more money available wasn’t taken up — it’s one of the few areas of public spending where there is spare cash lying about,” he added.

The latest figures showed that while the number of applications received for FE loans fell from 70,820 in 2013/14 to 67,280 last academic year, applications approved for payment rose from 56,220 to 56,870 over the same period.

But figures also showed that 72 per cent (48,670) of applications were by females and 15 per cent (10,210) by non-UK learners.

Meanwhile, 94 per cent (61,930) were for level three applications — with just 6 per cent (4,320) for level four.

Jonathan Simons, head of education at Policy Exchange which called in June for higher education funding to be diverted to FE, said the figures “illustrate the vicious circle that FE has got itself into”.

“Because loans are little understood, and demand from students is therefore low, colleges have little incentive to put on such higher level courses,” he added.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovations and Skills said: “The total funding allocation for 24+ advanced learning loans does not represent a target, but is demand–led and designed to ensure that any eligible learner seeking to support their studies will be able to do so.

“The take-up of advanced learning loans continues to increase year-on-year.”

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Editor’s comment

Overdue loan action

Back in April last year, Leicester College principal Verity Hancock wrote a very interesting and telling expert piece for FE Week.

The article was headlined “The ‘tantalising’ potential of FE loans”.

And in it, she concluded: “Our experience is that a different approach is going to be critical in enabling us to maximise the potential that loans offer.”

Her comment could not be more apposite nearly 19 months later as we learn that £250m of FE loans funding went unused in these straitened financial times.

While this is a potential funding stream that is being ignored, equally, as David Hughes points out, it’s learning that’s not taking place. It’s skills that are not being developed in the time of a skills gap.

Perhaps now, nearly three years after Gordon Marsden criticised the lack of marketing for FE loans, it’s time for ministers to consider a PR campaign at the very least to increase awareness and the attractiveness of FE loans — before the system is expanded further, only for greater potential to be lost.

Chris Henwood

chris.henwood@feweek.co.uk

A petition signed by more than 10,000 people that called on the government to “stop further funding cuts to adult education” has been delivered to 10 Downing Street.

Shadow Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy Chi Onwurah was joined yesterday (October 29) by five members of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) when presenting the petition at the home of Prime Minister David Cameron.

It was part of the Save Adult Education campaign launched by the WEA on September 28.

Mr Onwurah said that she was backing the campaign because “adult education is important — it helps individuals and their families break cycles of deprivation and forge better lives themselves”.

“For many people living in low-income communities, adult education is a lifeline which helps them get the skills they need to get on in life,” he added.

Chief executive of WEA Ruth Spellman, who was among the group that handed over the petition, said it was important to pile pressure on the government to limit FE spending cuts, ahead of next month’s spending review announcement, because “everyone deserves a second chance back into learning”.

“It is essential for our economy and society that we continue to provide high quality education for adults,” she added.

It comes after hundreds of staff and students from FE colleges descended on Parliament in June as part of another campaign against funding cuts to adult education.

The lobby event, organised by the University and College Union (UCU), gave FE staff the chance to explain directly to their MPs the impact the reduction in the adult skills budget (ASB) was having on their classrooms.

It has been estimated, as reported in FE Week, that the ASB has been reduced by 35 per cent since 2009, and funding for adults over the age of 19 on non-apprenticeship courses is set to be slashed by up to a further 24 per cent in 2015/16, as was announced in March.

 

Pic from left: James Drummond, WEA organiser, Chi Onwurah, Ruth Spellman, Mona Nashed, WEA tutor, Joanna Cain, WEA deputy CEO, and former level two helping in schools leaner, Lisa Birch, aged 45

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) have been criticised in front of a Lords committee for stepping in where “colleges could already do the work”.

In the tenth evidence session of the House of Lords committee on social mobility’s inquiry into the transition from school to work, witness Pat Brennan-Barrett, principal of Northampton College (pictured above), said provision for students from age 14 — including technical education and professional pathways — had been offered by colleges “for many years”.

UTCs are 14 to 19 institutions, often run by one or more academic or commercial sponsors. The first UTC, The JCB Academy in Staffordshire, was opened in 2010.

And speaking to committee last Wednesday (October 28), Ms Brennan-Barrett said: “This is the sort of work that FE colleges have done for many years. In my previous college we had 500 students from 14 who were on technical courses and did very well with achieving … colleges could already do the work of UTCs.”

Ms Brennan-Barrett said that “not all UTCs have been coherently thought of” and she “would add some caution” to the government’s plans to have a UTC in every city across the country.

“UTCs are being placed where there is a declining demographic of 14-year-olds,” she said at the hearing on Wednesday (October 28).

“It’s at a time when we are moving into austerity for colleges and area reviews, and it doesn’t make sense to be opening a UTC with small numbers of students … we’ve got colleges that have got that capacity to manage the technical qualifications.”

The committee also heard from Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of Schools and College Leaders (ASCL), who said that for some UTCs under-recruitment has been a problem, referring to the closure of Hackney UTC, reported in FE Week on July 11, 2014, and the Black Country UTC, reported in FE Week on April 14.

He added where UTCs were recruiting, the gender balance among students may have been a problem.

“Early indications are that recruitment of young women is proportionally significantly low,” said Mr Trobe.

“In one of the most successful UTCs, which is JCB, actually the number of girls in the college is extremely low.”

The issue of diversity was also raised by Ms Brennan-Barrett, who said that Black and Asian minority groups and students with learning difficulties or disabilities were also underrepresented in UTCs.

UTCs were represented in the meeting by Charles Parker, chief executive officer of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust (pictured left), part of the UTC network, who spoke in the second session of the day alongside David Nicholl, director of the Studio Schools Trust.

Mr Parker admitted that in his view UTCs had been received as “an unwelcome intruder” into the education system, but added that as they become better recognised, students whose needs were aligned with UTC provision were increasingly approaching the institutions for places.

He also said they had seen particular success with apprenticeships, with provisional data for the 700 students leaving UTCs in July 2015 showing that 24 per cent had gone on to become apprentices.

“The UTCs develop because the employers and the university in a given region have decided that they need this form of provision — what that automatically does is encourage them to be interested in it,” added Mr Parker.

The Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) is in hot water for expecting independent learning providers (ILPs) — but not colleges — to stump up matched funding for a share of a £5m pot of cash aimed at addressing careers guidance “cold spots”.

A spokesperson for the employer-led CEC announced on Tuesday (November 27) that the new fund would pay for between 15 and 25 projects in areas its research had shown were most in need of “careers and enterprise support”.

An accompanying report said that groups containing at least six providers, which could be comprised of all FE colleges, or a mixture of colleges and schools, could bid for contracts worth between £50,000 and £1m.

The report had not made it clear whether ILPs could apply, but interim head of the fund Ian Anderson told FE Week that they could either as part of a group of ILPs, or along with colleges or schools.

However, he added that while CEC would “expect all for-profit private sector organisations [including ILPs] to provide match-funding for any sum they receive”, there would be “no match-funding expected from public sector organisations such as colleges”.

Stewart Segal (pictured right), Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) chief executive, said this was unfair and told FE Week on Thursday (October 29) that he would raise the issue with the CEC.

“We strongly feel that the bidding rules should apply to all types of training provider,” he added.

CEC has identified more than 20 regions across England, Prioritisation Indicators, where young people were missing out most “on the support needed to help them prepare for, and take control of their futures”.

A spokesperson said that the research, which for example took into account the proportion of employers that consider 16-year-old school leavers “poorly or very poorly prepared for work”, would “form the basis” for where the £5m was allocated.

Mr Anderson said that it would be up to applicants to explain in their proposals how they would spend the money on improving careers and enterprise support for 12 to 18-year-olds.

It comes after the company unveiled plans earlier this year for its team of ‘enterprise advisers’ to provide careers advice in thousands of colleges and schools across the country.

Mr Anderson said that these advisers could “collaborate” with groups of FE providers handed a slice of the £5m fund to help them implement their schemes.

Catherine Sezen, 14-19 and curriculum policy manager at the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “Colleges have long recognised the critical nature of good careers education and will be keen to continue to work together with other education providers to support young people to make informed choices.”

David Igoe, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “The identification of ‘cold spots’ is welcome in targeting scarce resources to where support is most needed.”

Bids for a slice of the £5m fund must be submitted by December 4.

Visit www.careersandenterprise.co.uk for more.