More 200 colleges could be hit with strike action tomorrow (November 10), as members of the University and College Union (UCU) walk out in a dispute with the Association of Colleges (Aoc) over pay.

The union estimates that 20,000 members of staff at 207 colleges could take part in the strike, which was called after talks last month between the two parties over the AoC’s proposal for a pay freeze in 2015/16 failed to reach agreement.

And with the industrial action fast approaching neither side said it was planning last ditch talks to avert the strike.

“UCU members are sick of the employers’ refusal to deal with the real-terms pay cuts that have blighted the sector,” said UCU general secretary Sally Hunt.

“Members who voted gave a clear mandate for strike action and we will be taking action tomorrow. We hope the employers will now come back to the table,” she added.

The UCU announced on October 28 that it would strike after a ballot of members on the pay freeze proposal resulted in 74 per cent of those who voted (4,184) backing industrial action.

According to the UCU, the vote came after employers, represented by the AoC, rejected a request for £1 per hour extra for staff.

Marc Whitworth, the AoC’s director of employment policy and services said its pay proposal “reflects the stringent financial circumstances in the sector and the significant external pressures on college pay bills” and was based on feedback from AoC members.

“Strikes are very disruptive for colleges and more importantly for students. We would encourage UCU to consider how we might better work together to represent our respective members collectively,” he said.

“There is a willingness from the employers’ side to work together to protect the prospects of further education, its skilled workforce and the students it serves,” he added.

UCU will be holding a rally at the Emmanel Centre, Westminster, tomorrow from 1pm with speakers including Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden.

A rally will also be held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, Birmingham, from 11am, with speakers including UCU president Liz Lawrence.

The AoC said it did not have a figure for the number of colleges it expected to be affected by the strike.

Too few learners per classroom and marketing strategies that pit college against neighbouring college are among the issues preventing the sector from being “sustainable”, according to FE Commissioner Dr David Collins.

In a letter to all chairs and principals of FE institutions, dated October 30, Dr Collins said that, with the sector as a whole having posted an annual deficit “for the first time since incorporation”, there were still “major efficiencies” that institutions could make as the government’s area reviews of post-16 education and training get underway.

“More funding in the sector would of course be welcomed and the proposed new apprenticeship levy offers significant opportunities but there are still major efficiencies to be made in existing institutions as the intervention process over the last two years has clearly demonstrated,” wrote Dr Collins.

“Class sizes remain low in many colleges and well below the 16-20 average range necessary to ensure a college’s ongoing viability; there are considerable differences in the amount of time and money spent on management and support services and significant resources are used on competitive marketing – one college against another – rather than on marketing the real opportunities that colleges as a whole can offer to learners and employers.”

“The area review process is now under way with a view to addressing these issues and creating a more sustainable sector.”

The letter comes after the government announced money-saving plans for colleges to get 16-year-old vocational learners into apprenticeships after a year, as revealed by FE Week.

But while funding concerns were a “major driving factor” behind area reviews, they were “not only a way of encouraging colleges to tackle the problem of reduced funding collectively,” said Dr Collins, adding that he expected every area of the country to have undergone or be undergoing a review by March 2017.

They were also, he said, “an opportunity for the sector to take stock, refocusing colleges on the needs of the economy and ensuring they become the local and regional hubs of professional, technical and vocational education”.

To do this, said Dr Collins, more colleges should move into “higher level skills” and in some cases become “more specialised in what they offer, working closely with the LEPs and local authorities that will increasingly steer the skills system at the local level as devolution deals come into play”.

While there is “no blueprint for what might happen in a particular area”, Dr Collins outlined a number of ways in which colleges could develop a “new collaborative approach”.

These include creating larger colleges “through mergers or federations”, “greater curriculum specialisation” and “curriculum rationalisation”, more sharing of expertise, staff development and back office services across colleges, and better use of technology.

The government has so far announced seven areas involved in the first wave of its review of post-16 education and training.

The first group of area reviews to be announced on September 8 covered 22 FE colleges and 16 sixth form colleges (SFCs) in Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield. The second group, announced on September 25, involved 21 FE colleges and 13 SFCs in the Tees Valley, Sussex Coast and Solent regions. A review of seven general FE colleges and four SFCs in West Yorkshire was announced on October 16.

Dr Collins revealed some of his early findings from the area reviews last month at the Higher and Further Education Show at London’s Excel.

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.