Bob Harrison considers the role of technology in post-16 education area-based reviews.
Why is everyone so twitchy now Skills Minister Nick Boles has announced a process which some feel is not only hasty, but fundamentally flawed and is merely being used as a thin cloak for the cuts expected in the next comprehensive spending review?
The pace of the reviews in Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham has already begun to raise questions about ‘opportunity cost’ and a worry that all the effort will detract from the quality of teaching and learning. A particular concern repeatedly voiced by the National Union of Students is ‘What about students? Don’t they get a say in this?’
Technology-enhanced learning, blended learning and online learning feature prominently in the criteria the reviews should consider when making recommendations about future provision.
Others however feel the reviews are long overdue and the FE sector needs radical reform of the funding and assets with a much closer alignment of provision to the future needs of learners and employers. This also, coincidentally, fits neatly into the government’s plans for devolution to the regions.
Some groups such as the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association and others are dumbfounded that the process is going ahead when school sixth forms, University Technical Colleges and free schools are excluded from the process.
There is big money at stake with an FE and skills budget of over £7bn up for grabs which the devolved regions, and the local enterprise partnerships (Leps), would dearly like to get control of.
There is a tension between the needs and aspirations of learners and the needs of employers. They can, and often do, align but they may not.
The long history and evolution of further and adult education does not neatly fit into lines drawn on a map. Lep regions do not always map easily to areas of economic development and travel to work areas not to mention the hopes and dreams of individuals and communities?
It is a constantly shifting dynamic which extends beyond county and country borders and cannot easily be mapped and managed but the Minister and the FE and Sixth Form Commissioners are anxious to get the process underway and are cracking on.
The Area Based Review Advisory group (ABRAG) has issued guidance for the local steering groups. Technology-enhanced learning, blended learning and online learning feature prominently in the criteria the reviews should consider when making recommendations about future provision.
This will mean a realignment of the current assets of the FE sector from the predominantly analogue delivery model based on land and buildings to one fit for a digital future.
It will also mean a reinvestment of some of those realised capital assets into wireless and digital infrastructure and critically enhanced workforce skills to support learning and assessment in a digital age. It could mean we will need more teachers but with a different skillset?
This does not mean face to face learning will disappear but hopefully a more balanced ‘blend’ of learning will emerge which will be more flexible and responsive to learner and employer needs.
This time we really do need a ‘paradigm shift’ in thinking about how learning programmes are designed, delivered and assessed.
All of these area-based deliberations are set in a context of drastic cuts to the FE budget and if we have learned anything about technology enhanced, online and blended learning it is that it is not a cheap option. While the predominant view of the misinformed is that ‘online equals cheaper’ history teaches us that any realignment of learning vision, leadership, culture, design, methodology, pedagogy and assessment will need considerable upfront investment in infrastructure and human resources.
That is why the emergent lessons from the first reviews are essential for Leps, teachers, managers, principals, governors, work-based learning providers, assessors and policy makers.
Widespread use of government cash to subsidise low wages on apprenticeships for older learners has “got to stop”, Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has exclusively told FE Week.
He hit out at poor quality training programmes for people aged 25 and above and government failure to encourage more starts among 16 to 24-year-olds, ahead of publication this morning of Ofsted’s long-awaited apprenticeships report.
“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,” he said.
Sir Michael (pictured above being interviewed by FE Week reporter Alix Robertson), who will deliver a hard-hitting speech to officially launch the report at a CBI event in Solihull later this morning, added during the exclusive interview with FE Week: “The big challenge is 16 to 24, certainly 16 to 19.
“We’ve had a static trainee population/apprentice population for the last ten years.
“Years ago, many more youngsters left at 16 and went into apprenticeship programmes.
“The number has declined steadily over the years and now it’s just 6 per cent of 16-year-olds going into apprenticeships”.
The report called on the government to “prioritise young people aged 16 to 24 through better promotion of the benefits of apprenticeships”.
The most recent provisional government figures on apprenticeships, reported by FE Week on October 14, suggested a full-year growth in numbers across all age groups — but minimal increase for younger people.
In 2014/15, the number of starts was provisionally put at 492,700 — which was up by 13.9 per cent from 432,400 the previous academic year, according to the Statistical First Release.
Of these, 210,100 in 2014/15 were aged 25 or above — a rise of 33.2 per cent, or 52,400, from the same figures last year.
Meanwhile, 158,200 were aged 19 to 24 — an increase of just 1,300, or 0.8 per cent.
For the under-19 category, the same figures suggested there were 124,400 starts in 2014/15 — a rise of 5.6 per cent from last year’s provisional figure of 117,800.
A government briefing paper published in August, called Apprenticeships Policy, England 2010-15, said that the number under-19s starting an apprenticeship only increased by 3,000 (3 per cent) from 2009/10 to 2013/14.
It added that while 19 to 24-year-old apprenticeship starts increased by 45,300 (40 per cent) over the same period, the number aged 25 and over increased by 112,500 (229 per cent).
After reading the damning new Ofsted report on apprenticeships, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges Gill Clipson (pictured left) said that to attract more 16 to 18-year-olds, the government “must recognise that for some young people a pre-apprenticeship offer, comprised of a broad-based programme of education and training relating to industry, may be required first”.
A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said: “We want to see starts for 16 to 24 increase every year and strongly support initiatives such as better information and guidance to help make that happen.”
A spokesperson from the National Union of Students warned: “If the government doesn’t face up to the lack of young people taking up apprenticeships, we foresee a generation of young people having education and training opportunities cut away.”
Neil Carberry
Confederation of British Industry director for employment and skills Neil Carberry (pictured left) said greater employer control of apprenticeship would “give more young people the opportunity to get a genuine foothold on the career ladder”.
The report also raised concern about the government’s failure to encourage small and medium enterprises to take on apprentices and deliver training that matched up to national skills shortages.
It said the government should “make available information to providers about local and national skills priorities and hold them to account for the extent to which their provision meets these”.
Skills Minister Nick Boles said: “Putting an end to poor quality apprenticeship training lies at the heart of our reforms of apprenticeships.
“Ofsted’s welcome report backs up the findings of our 2012 review and provides further evidence for our decision to put employers rather than training providers in the driving seat.”
Here’s the full interview with Sir Michael Wilshaw:
Q: The AELP has criticised Ofsted this week for singling out apprenticeships involved with cleaning floors and coffee making in the new report. Do you accept that they are important parts of our economy and therefore need structured training programmes to support employers?
A: That’s not what we’re saying. Those jobs are valid and they have a certain level of skills.
Our issue is, should they be called apprenticeships, which carry a connotation which everyone recognises being a high-skill, high-level qualification — a training programme which lasts over time and develops people’s existing skills, not maintains them?
What we’re seeing is not that. We’re seeing low level skills being called apprenticeships.
Q: Can tasks like cleaning not be part of an apprenticeship in, for example, the care home industry?
A: If that is the view of that particular organisation, it certainly isn’t the view of the government, it’s certainly not the view of Ofsted and it’s certainly not my view.
We’re not against people getting jobs in those sorts of companies and that sort of work — but don’t call it an apprenticeship.
It debases the whole brand, and that something that we should guard against.
Q: So do we need to work on preserving a ‘brand’ for apprenticeships?
A: I’ve been to see apprenticeships in Rolls Royce for example, I went to Derby last year and saw very high level stuff, level three stuff, and we saw apprentices on three, four, five year programmes doing stuff that the public would see as being worthy of the name ‘apprenticeship’.
That sort of apprenticeship and that sort of brand would be quickly devalued if we called these sorts of practices [floor cleaning and coffee making] apprenticeships.
Q: Is Ofsted’s concern on this issue also related to how we package apprenticeships for parents and prospective students?
A: We want schools to do something about this.
As an ex-headteacher in a secondary school, I know how important careers education was, and if you looked at our report on careers education two years ago you’d see we were very critical of how it’s been done in a great many secondary schools.
It’s not getting the attention and focus it deserves and a lot of young people are leaving school not having the faintest idea of what an apprenticeship is, what it looks like, how to apply and where to go.
Q: Your report is quite critical of the government’s approach, which you say doesn’t prioritise small employers enough. How worried are you that in the reforms and chase for 3m apprenticeship starts they are being ignored?
A: There’s nothing wrong with the government’s ambition to create 3m apprenticeships over the next five years.
It’s good and it’s much needed. What we are saying is that if you are going to do this, make sure that you focus not just on quantity, but on quality. That’s why we’re so up front with our concerns about what’s happening in the system already.
They’ve got to change that and if most employers are small and medium-sized businesses they need help.
The local plumbing company, the local electricians, employing less than 20 people, often don’t know very much about apprenticeships, if they don’t have them already. They don’t know how to fill in the necessary paperwork to get the subsidies from government and so on.
It’s not the case with a big company, which often does its own training, but small and medium-sized companies need to be helped with the process.
Q: Ofsted focuses on the performance data especially timely success rates. What might be the benefits/challenges of developing a wider basket of measures, that includes employer and apprentice satisfaction?
A: Success in my eyes is whether these youngsters are able to get jobs. They’re only going to be able to get jobs if they go into apprenticeships and Trainee programmes which help to get those jobs.
Those training programme have got to be focused on the local employment needs of a particular area.
It’s no good designing a curriculum which doesn’t do that. If colleges of FE and other training agencies don’t focus their training on meeting local employment needs then we will criticise that.
Q: Once learners have completed their courses and left, perhaps they’ve haven’t got a job lined up from the moment they leave. Is there an onus on the provider to make sure that within a certain amount of time they are in gainfully employed, based on the courses they have done?
A: That’s exactly what I’m saying. The training provider has got to make sure that the programmes of study and the training programmes are geared towards getting these youngsters jobs.
They might not get a job at the end of the day, that’s up to them. However, if the training that they’ve received hasn’t been good enough then they’re not going to get those jobs, and by good enough I mean are they being trained in the right skills that the local employment requires?
Q: How long is a student still the provider’s or the college’s responsibility after they’ve completed their studies?
A: Well you would hope that they would do everything within their power to make sure that they have the right skills to progress towards the next stage of their career.
The government is very interested — as we are — in destination data and we’ll be looking very carefully at how colleges and training providers are using destination data to tailor their programmes of study.
Q: Apprenticeships for people aged 25-plus are highlighted as easier to get on to but perhaps lower quality than others. How can this issue be addressed?
A: The big challenge is 16 to 24, certainly 16 to 19, we’ve had a static trainee population/apprentice population for the last ten years, something like that.
Years ago many more youngster left at 16 and went into apprenticeship programmes.
The number has declined steadily over the years and now it’s just 6 per cent of 16-year-olds going into apprenticeships.
So that’s the big challenge for government: to ensure that youngsters from 16-19 get apprenticeships.
The 25-year-olds are often already in work. 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.
Q: Do apprenticeship programmes, particularly for the 25-plus age group, lack structure?
A: That’s absolutely right. If you read the report carefully, it’s saying very clearly that if the government’s ambition is going to be fulfilled, there needs to be an infrastructure around the apprenticeship programme and both training providers.
The FE sector and employers have got to get together to form that infrastructure, to develop that infrastructure.
The CBI have got a big part to play in ensuring that local chambers of commerce and local enterprise partnerships have a big part to play in doing this. If you look at best practice in Germany and in Switzerland, and I’ve been to both, that’s exactly what they do there.
Q: Do we need to do more to promote examples of best practice and provide clearer guidance on how to deliver high quality apprenticeships?
A: It is lacking, but even more lacking is a local infrastructure. If you go to Germany and Switzerland, there’s a well-established local infrastructure which has been going well and has been employed over many, many years. We haven’t had that, so there isn’t that history of a local infrastructure in this country and we’ve got to develop that very quickly if this big and bold ambitious programme from government is going to work.
It has to be it seems to me both CBI led and government led.
Q: You call for greater pre-apprenticeship routes, such as traineeships. Currently the government restricts traineeships to grade one and two providers only, so many apprenticeship providers can’t do traineeships. Should they allow grade three providers to deliver traineeships, or only allow grade one and two providers to do apprenticeships?
A: It’s a bit like a school situation — you’d only want good and outstanding schools to train teachers, because they know what good looks like. It’s the same, you’d only want good and outstanding trainers to develop their trainee programmes.
Q: Some of the points in your report have been raised by others over the last five years. Why has it taken Ofsted so long to produce this report?
A: Look at our previous FE annual reports. It has been a recurrent theme certainly since I’ve been here and before, that apprenticeship programmes have not been of sufficiently high quality.
Q: Some would say that Ofsted is only a specialist in inspecting classroom learning. Do you take any responsibility for not focusing enough on poor quality work place apprenticeship provision as part of wider FE & skills inspections?
A: Our reports consistently say and are very critical of classroom-based programmes of study.
Q: Is a lack of funding part of this problem of preparing properly to deliver apprenticeships effectively?
A: It’s an age of austerity and no-one’s going to get more money now. However, it’s a new era certainly in terms of the skills agenda, the government has made it absolutely clear that it wants more apprenticeships in the system.
If I was leading a training provider, I’d make sure that I got closely involved with that enterprise [as the government has increased funding available for apprenticeships].
Q: Some colleges have had to merge to remain financially viable. How do you feel mergers will impact on providers’ ability to work effectively with local businesses [on apprenticeships]?
A: That really is down to really good leadership to say ‘yes we’re going to get bigger, yes there has to be consolidation, that’s going to be the way of the world with less money about, but there are also opportunities and the opportunities are to get closely involved with the apprenticeship programme’.
Q: Do you think this need to better understand the local employment needs will have any impact on recruitment e.g. governors/senior staff?
A: I think they’ll be looking to employ people who can teach well, that’s the first thing.
They’ll be looking to people who can teach not only the particular vocational specialism, but also English and maths because that’s now a government requirement.
They’ll be looking to employers to help them, so to join the governing board and help shape their curriculum.
Q: You recommend that apprenticeships are focused on the industries that “contribute to economic growth”. Which industries do you believe fill this description?
A: What sells well I suppose is the issue. The country grew and developed and became great because it sold stuff to the world. We need to do the same again.
Our manufacturing base is low, the emphasis has been on service sector industries. That’s all well and good, particularly finance, but the West Midland was the heart of the industrial revolution, we need to expand our manufacturing base and sell stuff that we make overseas and sell services overseas and we need highly skilled people to do that.
That’s [what is behind] the government’s whole focus about apprenticeships.
Q: Is this programme a push back to ‘the way things used to be’, to some extent — so reversing the drive to get as many students as possible into Universities?
A: I think it’s a realisation that we got it wrong, yes, there has been an imbalance. There has been an emphasis on 50 per cent of youngsters going to university and following level three A-level programmes into universities.
However, we’ve got nearly 50 per of our youngsters at 16 not getting five A* – C grades and not getting to qualifications to go on into A-level programmes. What are they going to do? They’ll be looking to other success pathways, or pathways that lead to success, and one of those pathways is the apprenticeships programme.
Q: At school level, is there an adequate focus on commending a range of skills, not just those that lead down the path to university?
A: That’s chicken and egg, that’s what we’re saying, apprenticeships have got to be seen as being credible.
If they’re not seen as being credible, then youngsters won’t see it being of equal merit with an A-level programme leading on to university.
The issue is that they want to see youngsters who are up for it and who have received a good broad and balanced education and have got the basic skills for the next stage of their education and training.
Q: Alongside Ofsted, which other bodies do you see as responsible for holding apprenticeship providers to account?
A: Employers. At the end of the day, this is what the government wants and it’s something that we support.
They have got to accredit the quality of the training programmes that are sending them their potential workforce.
So if I’m doing a catering apprenticeship, it will be the local catering businesses in the area, organised hopefully by the local chambers of commerce, who will be the gatekeepers of quality.
Q: What are your views on how to make apprenticeships accessible to students with special educational needs or disabilities? Is this a challenge that has been effectively addressed so far?
A: One of the criticisms that we’ve made in the past, and I’m sure it will be an ongoing criticism, is that there is insufficient data transference between schools and FE for those youngsters who have statemented special educational needs.
There nothing wrong with a youngster on the special educational needs register doing an apprenticeship, as long as their needs are met and they can be well supported on any trainee programme, or apprenticeship programme they are enrolled on.
The issue is making sure that all the assessments that are taking place in school are passed over to FE, so they can make the right judgements about the level of support that is required.
Q: Is there an onus on colleges and training providers to effectively pass this information on to employers as well?
A: I think so yes. I think most employers want to take on youngsters with different backgrounds, and are very open to taking on youngsters with special educational needs as long as they feel that they can be well supported.
Q: So does that apply to challenges for students with autism just getting through an interview? Sometimes employers do not understand an individual student’s situation
A: That would be up to the institution and the training provider to say ‘this is a youngsters with special educational needs, who can do a job or work successfully, they will need a level of support, which we can provide as they enter the workplace’.
Q: How would that be provided, perhaps with teaching assistants?
A: Yes. That’s a funding issue for government. But I think if an employer wants to take on a youngster on an apprenticeship programme with special educational needs it would have to be made absolutely clear what those needs were and how that student could be supported.
Q: Overall, what do you hope the outcome of this report will be?
A: The headline will be ‘very good to government, brilliant that you’re embarking on this very ambitious programme to create 3m apprenticeships over the next five years.
‘That’s good and Ofsted is in full support of that and it will meet the needs of many youngsters’, but to ensure its success the apprenticeship programme has got to be seen as being of high quality and being credible and if that doesn’t happen then the whole programme will founder’.
That’s why we’re firing some warning shots over the bough of these proposals, to say it’s not just about numbers it’s also about quality as well.
Hartlepool Sixth Form College (SFC) has made “significant progress” in improving on its previous inadequate Ofsted rating, the education watchdog’s latest FE monitoring visit report has found.
The monitoring visit took place last month —10 months after it was rated as inadequate overall following its last full inspection, and seven months after the publication of a critical report on the college by SFC Commissioner Peter Mucklow.
The Hartlepool SFC monitoring report said that there had been “significant improvement” with outcomes for students on AS and A level courses, assessment and progress tracking, and advice and guidance for students.
It recognised the same level of improvement for governance and quality assurance, stating: “Governors have developed a sound understanding of the college’s key performance indicators.
“They have reviewed the results from 2015 examinations and clearly understand the areas in which the college has improved and those where further work remains.”
Principal Alex Fau-Goodwin said: “I am absolutely delighted that the latest Ofsted monitoring report recognises the outstanding achievements of our students.
“The summer results, and the progress the college has made in the last 12 months is remarkable and testament to the hard work, professionalism and dedication of all staff and students.
“We look forward to the full re-inspection to formally recognise the significant progress the college has made in offering our students a high quality educational experience.”
Areas that still needed to be worked on, according to the report on what was Ofsted’s fifth monitoring visit since the full inspection, included improving literacy skills; tackling occasional inappropriate behaviour; and teachers’ marking and monitoring of individual progress.
Hartlepool had been rated ‘good’ following its two previous full inspections, in 2010 and 2006.
On March 6, FE Week reported that Mr Mucklow had concluded after his inspection of the SFC that Hartlepool had focused too much on getting students through the doors and not enough on the quality of provision.
The planned new name for the merged National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) and the Centre for Social Inclusion (Inclusion) has been revealed to FE Week.
Niace chief executive David Hughes (pictured above) said this morning that the name his team had decided on was the Learning and Work Institute, although it still has to be approved by members.
He said: “We are a membership organisation, so our members are the ones who decide on constitutional matters such as a name change.
“Our annual general meeting will be at CityLit, in London, on November 4 and a vote will take place on the proposed new name, which is the Learning and Work Institute.”
It was confirmed in July, as reported in FE Week, that Niace, based in Leicester which employed 65 people at the time, and Inclusion, based in London which employed 20 people, would be progressing from their previous “strategic alliance” to a full merger.
When asked why the word ‘adult’ had been dropped from the new name, Mr Hughes said: “The issue with adult is that it has been associated, particularly in recent times, with education and training of people over 25.
“However, we do a lot of work with young people as well, for example 16 to 21 year-olds on trainineeships and apprenticeships. It was felt the new name would sit more comfortably with what we do.”
He also reflected on the inclusion of the word ‘work’ in the proposed new name, which could be viewed as a departure considering the traditional emphasis Niace has placed on education for older workers.
Mr Hughes, who is set to become chief executive of the joint organisation, said: “We have always been interested in skills and training, for example through apprenticeships, and the new name will make that clear.”
He added: “We spent the summer consulting with members and stakeholders over what direction the organisation should now be taking and want to stress that we won’t lose touch with the historic work of Niace in supporting adult education for everybody throughout their lives and for campaigning for the wider benefits of lifelong learning.
“We just feel that the new name will better reflect the range of work we do now.”
Dave Simmonds OBE (pictured right), chief executive of the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion, said: “We’ve been working positively with Niace to make the merger a reality.
“Our aim is to create an organisation that speaks for everyone who needs learning and employment opportunities. This is what our proposed new name says, simply and clearly.”
The Association for Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) chief executive Stewart Segal has hit back at Ofsted for criticising “floor mopping and coffee making apprenticeships” that he says don’t exist.
Speaking at the AELP Autumn Conference at the Ricoh Arena, in Coventry, today (October 20), Mr Segal said: “It was very frustrating to see the Ofsted report that talked about floor mopping and coffee making apprenticeships.
“There is no such thing, and it was wrong that they used those examples.”
The danger, Mr Segal (pictured above) went on to say, was that by “raising these issues you don’t address the real issues, which is a problem”.
The results of the inspectorate’s inquiry into apprenticeships are not due out until Thursday (October 22) — but an Ofsted spokesperson gave FE Week an advanced taste of its findings, as reported on Sunday (October 18).
She said it would warn that “the growth in the number of apprenticeships over the last eight years has diluted their quality”.
“These low-level apprenticeships are particularly common in service sectors, like retail and care, and do not provide sufficient training that stretches the apprentices and improves their capabilities.
“Instead, they frequently are being used as a means of accrediting existing low-level skills, like making coffee and cleaning floors,” she added.
David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) disagreed with Mr Segal’s comments at today’s conference.
“There are bad behaviours – there’s no doubt about it,” he said.
“There’s no point coming in and saying there isn’t. There is stuff going on that shouldn’t be going on and it does sully the whole brand,” he added.
Mr Hughes went on to say that the idea put forward by Skills Minister Nick Boles that employers themselves would drive out bad practice by other employers, was “balderdash”.
Instead, he said, the AELP had the opportunity to “highlight the good stuff, but also shine a spotlight on where it’s going wrong.”
Carl Creswell, deputy director for apprenticeships at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said that much had already been done to improve apprenticeship quality, but acknowledged there was still a lot to be done.
Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is preparing what Ofsted has described as “a hard-hitting speech” to launch the report at a CBI event in Solihull, in the West Midlands, on Thursday.
He is expected to warn against further undermining of the apprenticeships brand and say that, despite increasing numbers as the government aims to hit its 3m target by 2020, very few apprenticeships are delivering professional-level skills.
Ofsted declined to comment on Mr Segal’s comments.
Leeds City College expects a total net loss of 40 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs to result from a cost cutting programme that it is feared could affect nearly 300 people.
A college spokesperson told FE Week this afternoon that it had launched a 45 day consultation period yesterday (October 19) on its “funding challenge response programme” aimed at saving £2.83m.
“A total net loss of 40 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs is expected as a result of the programme,” she said.
However, the University and College Union (UCU) said it had been told that the college wanted to axe 218 posts, “which would affect 293 members of staff due to the part-time nature of some roles”.
“The college has told trade unions that it intends to create 179 new posts and expects the total net loss of jobs to be around 40 posts,” a union spokesperson explained.
The college declined to confirm or deny the 293 figure, which would represent around 23 per cent of its 1,300 FTE worksforce.
However, a spokesperson said: “The college is working hard to absorb as much of the reductions as possible from non-pay budgets but regrettably, it is envisaged that there will be some impact on staffing levels.
She added: “The college has also been analysing core business operations following September recruitment and as part of the programme, is refining a small number of curriculum posts where courses have under-recruited.
“To ensure that the college continues to play a significant role in the Leeds City Region and best meet the skills needed, we will continue to protect the quality of its student provision and maintain financial viability.”
She added that the latest round of savings represented phase two of cost-cutting at the college, which received a ‘good’ Ofsted rating in June 2012 and was allocated around £44.6m by the Skills Funding Agency as of May this year.
Phase one [of the savings programme] was completed over the last academic year, she added.
“It [phase one] achieved the expected savings of £8.7 million — staffing levels were reduced by 128 FTEs and 88 per cent of this was achieved by voluntary means,” she said.
The government’s planned apprenticeship levy has been described as a “massive game changer” by chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) David Hughes.
He said that the charge on large employers would be “massive game changer” that presented a “massive opportunity” to improve vocational training as the government tries to hit its target of creating 3m apprenticeships by 2020.
“We’ve got probably £1.5m coming into the sector [through the levy],” Mr Hughes added.
“What other bit of the public sector is going to get additional funding as a result of the spending review?”
Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, also told the conference that he was “amazed” that the government had opted for the levy.
He praised Ministers for being “brave enough to take the plunge to say we’re going to charge employers”.
His view was echoed by Martin Dunford, the AELP’s chairman, who said during his speech: “Who would’ve thought we’d have a Conservative majority government and one of the first things they do is introduce the socialist principle of a levy?”
Sarah Hodgetts, senior policy adviser at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), told delegates that the levy should improve the quality of apprenticeships.
She said that putting large employers in charge of how they spend cash generated from the charge “will be one of the big quality drivers, or at least I hope it will be”.
However, Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills at the CBI, said at the conference: “A levy is not what CBI or its members would have done, because it emphasises quantity over quality,” he said.
“But if this is the road we’re on,” he added, it is important the “levy is set at the appropriate level”.
Otherwise, the risk is that “everything you do that’s not an apprenticeship gets stopped,” he said.
The government’s consultation into the levy, which it is understood received 700 responses, closed on October 2, with the government’s response due next month.
The future of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has been thrown further into doubt after it emerged that chief executive Michael Davis will stand down early next year, FE Week can exclusively reveal.
Mr Davis (pictured) took up the top job in January 2011, following the departure of previous chief executive Chris Humphries.
News of his imminent departure comes after FE Week reported details earlier this month of a leaked Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) memo suggesting plans to more than halve the number of its partner organisations by 2020 — which could include UKCES.
Mr Davis was unable to comment ahead of publication, but a UKCES spokesperson confirmed that he plans to quit the post.
She said: “Mr Davis is standing down next March. We don’t know who will be replacing him at this time.”
The leaked memo included proposals to reduce the number of BIS partner organisations — of which the SFA is also one – to 20, cut operating costs by 30 to 40 per cent and consolidate the “BIS family” from around 80 sites into seven or eight “centres of excellence”.
Mr Davis has had a long association with the publicly funded, industry-led organisation that offers guidance on skills and employment across in the UK
He was previously UKCES Interim chief executive, from December 2010 to June 2011, and the commission’s director of strategy and performance, from March 2009 to November 2010, according to his LinkIn page.
His time in the more junior post partly coincided with him serving as chair of governors at Leicester College from April 2007 to March 2011.
The UKCES declined to comment on what Mr Davis plans to do after standing down.
It is likely that the FE sector will feature “significantly fewer” colleges in the future, the permanent secretary for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has told MPs.
Martin Donnelly looked ahead to how he expects the sector to look after post-16 education and training area reviews have been completed across the country, in a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee hearing this evening on ‘overseeing financial sustainability in the FE sector’.
He said: “I think it’s pretty clear that the number of colleges… is likely to continue to decrease.
“We don’t have a target. Our concern is that we end up with very resilient colleges able to provide a very high quality service — it’s likely, and it’s my personal view, that there will be significantly fewer of them.”
The committee’s chair and Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch Meg Hillier (pictured below right), who has written an FE Week expert piece on the sector’s financial problems, said during the hearing that the process of “rationalisation” of college provision could prove “haphazard”.
Mr Donnelly said in response that “it’s clear there is a lot of pressure on the FE college sector to adjust to changes in funding and also changes in local need.”
He added that the area reviews would play an important part in supporting colleges facing a “process of transition”.
The government announced on Friday (October 16), as reported in FE Week, that the seventh and final English region involved in the first wave of area reviews would be West Yorkshire, in a process involving seven general FE colleges and four sixth form colleges (SFCs).
It came after the government announced that 43 general FE colleges and 29 SFCs would be included in reviews for the Tees Valley, Sussex Coast, Solent, Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield city areas.
A number of MPs at this evening’s committee hearing raised concern that the area reviews would not be directly involving school sixth forms.
They included Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education John Pugh, who questioned whether applications to open or expand school or academy sixth forms would take into account findings of areas reviews that may, for example, decide that no more 16 to 18 FE provision is needed in a locality.
Chris Wormald, permanent secretary at the Department for Education, said area reviews would not influence the decision to approve a new school sixth form “at this moment”.
Ian Ashman, principal of Hackney Community College, Stuart Laverick, principal of Heart of Worcestershire College, and Sarah Wright (pictured left), principal of Central Sussex College, raised similar concerns during the hearing.
For example, Ms Wright said: “My college is in the first wave of area reviews. I’m seeing that as a positive process.
“My main concern regarding the area reviews is that it only a partial review because it doesn’t include school sixth forms.
“That’s a real concern across the sector. I think colleges would feel a lot more reassured if we were looking at schools sixth forms.”
Peter Lauener (pictured below right), chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency and Education Funding Agency, also answered questions on whether both agencies could be merged by the government.
He said he was working on delivering “savings” for both.
However, Mr Lauener added: “I actually took the job on the basis that there was no planned merger. I’m perfectly happy to operate in any way that ministers ask me to.”
Ian Ashman, principal of Hackney Community College, Stuart Laverick, principal of Heart of Worcestershire College, and Sarah Wright (pictured left), principal of Central Sussex College, raised similar concerns during the hearing.