More than a third of the workforce at NCG’s 1,200-worker Intraining division were today facing redundancy following one of the biggest job loss announcements to have hit the sector.

The loss of a major Department for Work and Pensions training contract and “uncertainty” over the renewal of European Social Fund (ESF) programmes, along with fewer than expected apprenticeships, combined to force a restructure of the Sheffield-based company.

Bosses at the independent learning provider, which last year posted a pre-tax loss of £1.39m and has a current Skills Funding Agency contract of just under £2m, have launched a consultation on the job losses, which are expected in the next few months.

Intraining managing director Linda Dean said: “Like many organisations in the current climate, we have had to make some difficult choices in response to the continued changes and challenges in the training sector.

“A major factor is the continued uncertainty over the renewal of several ESF contracts, which come to a natural end in July.

“We have also reviewed our structure to match the activity on some of our larger contracts which are running at a much lower level than previous years, and that looks likely to be the case in future.

“We have a sustainable business that is well-balanced and able to meet the needs of our customers, colleagues and stakeholders.”

A spokesperson for NCG, which operates from 142 locations nationally and also comprises Newcastle College, West Lancashire College and Kidderminster College, youth charity and training provider Rathbone and Newcastle Sixth Form College, said the wider group “continues to operate in a strong financial position”.

Ms Dean added: “The proposed actions we are discussing with colleagues in the business are to ensure that we are in the best position to be both successful and sustainable in the short, medium and long term.

“We regret that it is likely that this will result in an impact on some of our colleagues at Intraining and we have started a formal process of consultation.

“We understand that this will be a difficult period for colleagues, learners and their families and we will work hard to ensure that they have access to any support they need and we will keep them fully informed at every stage.

“We will also support colleagues to apply for any opportunities elsewhere in the organisation wherever that is possible.”

The jobs blow at the division of the grade two-rated NCG, which has around 4,000 staff in total, is one of the largest among a number to have hit the sector recently.

It comes just a week after Birmingham Metropolitan College announced plans to shed 250 jobs in a bid to reduce costs “significantly”.

Andrew Cleaves, principal of the 30,000 learner college, which employs 1,600 staff, blamed government funding cuts.

Editor’s Comment

Job losses are sadly all too common in the FE and skills sector and have been for a little while.

It’s almost the case that not a day goes by when an FE Week reporter is alerted to some ‘restructuring’ plans in which a workforce is scaled back.

One of the horrible jobs as editor of this newspaper is to decide which of these we report — or indeed do not report — these. It boils down to consideration of the sheer number and how much of the workforce that represents.

It’s as unpleasant as it is necessary, but it’s never forgotten that these ‘job losses’ refer ultimately to people — a distraught mum, a heartbroken brother, a despondent niece.

So the effect of cutting a workforce of more than 1,000 by around a third will clearly be devastating — to many families, communities and also, let’s not forget, the organisation itself.

But the Institute for Fiscal Studies said last week that further public funding cuts are guaranteed no matter who emerges victorious from the General Election.

Inevitably this will lead to more headlines about jobs losses.

Restructures will also abound and that’s a theme that our next government should think long and hard about — what FE and skills structure does it want and can afford, and how will it communicate and achieve that vision?

Greater collaboration between FE and business could help to encourage more women into digital industries, according to a report published by the Women in Technology project.

The findings of the report, produced by Coralesce with funding from the Education and Training Foundation, were revealed at the Women in Technology conference on Tuesday (April 21).

The Women in Technology Project Research Report 2015 called for a “two-way” street, “with industry and education working together” to level the playing field between women and men in the technology sector.

“The UK workforce is currently 46 per cent female but only 15 per cent of IT professional workforce is female,” report author and Coralesce curriculum director Bev Jones told delegates at the event in East London, just a stone’s throw away from Shoreditch, the heart of the UK’s tech industry.

The 33-page report’s co-author, Coralesce director Christina Conroy, said: “One of the challenges is clear when you look at where the new jobs are coming from.

“Of the 10 fastest growing jobs, eight of those were in technology… and if girls aren’t going into these areas, they’re missing out on all these new jobs, they’re missing out on the growth in the economy and they’re ending up marginalised, to lower paid jobs.”

She warned of a “cycle of non-engagement” that education and industry needed to act against.

“What tends to happen is that because there’s so few women in these organisations you get androcentric work environments — ones which are all very macho,” she said.

“And because there are so few women, this isn’t challenged and you get a lack of diversity of products and services aimed towards women.

“Then you get a poor perception of that industry among women, and they tend not to apply for those jobs.

“So the problem can’t be solved in just education or industry, it has to be working in partnership.”

The problem wasn’t just one of equality, she said — increasing the number of women working in technology could generate £2.6bn for the economy.

“Industry recognises this as a problem as well,” she said.

“But also we think by encouraging more women into tech will benefit FE by actually getting people to use learning technology — through, for example, designing lesson plans to get women into technology which actually use technology.”

Ms Jones said one crucial factor for the FE sector was staff capacity to use technology in order to help young women engage with it in lessons.

Careers advice was also important, she said, as many young women could not name female technology role models and were not aware of the roles available or the benefits attached.

However, she added: “Most the stakeholders we spoke to felt trying to do something now in the FE sector was too late because they’ve made their choices — that there needed to be interventions and nursery and primary level.”

However, Coralesce project manager Pauline Odulinski said focus groups with young women at Tower Hamlets College had pointed to a different conclusion.

She said: “Of course you’ve got to get the message over in schools at an early age but one of the interesting things with the Tower Hamlets girls was we asked them if they liked science and maths and the vast majority said they did.

“In actual fact you don’t have go to ten-year-olds, I think you could go in just before GCSE about their careers choices and once you raise their awareness, I think it would make a real difference.”

She also suggested colleges could have open days and invite women from the tech industry as mentors to raise young women’s awareness and interest. Ms Conroy agreed.

“At GCSE, IT courses are nearly half and half girls and boys,” she said.

“But when you look at A-level computer studies, it’s about 6.5 per cent, in vocational it’s 18 per cent, which is the same at undergraduate level — and that reflects the numbers that go into industry.”

The key, she said, was in partnerships which the project was looking to create between individual employment providers and an industry partner, to look at ways to break the cycle through mentoring, internships and careers advice.

Ultimately, she said: “You can’t solve it with big government schemes, you have to sweat the small stuff. You have to do a bit here, a bit there and gradually it does get better.”

Main pic: From left: Christina Conroy and Pauline Odulinski present the report findings

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has warned that a “funding gap” for schemes backed by European Social Fund (ESF) cash could force providers to lay-off staff and close training centres.

Stewart Segal (pictured), AELP chief executive, said “we are almost certainly looking at a funding gap” between when a number of ESF contracts with providers were set to end on July 31 and the agreement of new funding arrangements.

Current contracts, managed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and for example involving training schemes to improve skills of existing employees at small companies and the unemployed, have been in place since 2007 and new ones would run until 2020.

An AELP spokesperson said it was expecting a “major delay” with the granting of new ESF contracts that “will mean a real gap in provision for those most needing support, such as hard to help young people and the long-term unemployed.”

“It will also mean that training providers delivering these programmes will have a major issue and will have to reduce costs including specialist staff and premises,” he added.

It comes as Linda Dean, managing director of Sheffield-based Intraining (which is part of the NCG group), said on Thursday (April 23) that the work-based learning provider could be forced to shed 120 jobs because of “ESF-funded contracts including Skills Support for the Workforce and Skills Support for the Unemployed which are ending”.

A European Commission spokesperson said the new round of ESF contracts, which it is understood were originally supposed to be agreed for the UK by the end of last year, “needed to be carried over for adoption in 2015″. She said the” negotiation process is progressing”.

It comes after FE Week exclusively revealed in March that the European Commission had forced the government into a climbdown over plans to hand control of nearly £1bn of ESF cash to the 39 Leps.

It followed months of negotiations that AELP suspects held up the overall tendering process for ESF contracts.

The SFA and DWP both declined to comment on what may have caused delays with tendering for and agreeing the new ESF contracts.

But an SFA spokesperson said: “The SFA continues to work with Leps and the ESF managing authority on ESF programme delivery.”

A DWP spokesman said: “There will be no gap in funding. We have already started the 2014-20 programme, with 19 schemes worth more than £200m.”

However, he declined to comment when asked by FE Week to confirm whether new contracts would be granted to those 19 schemes, or any other ESF projects run by DWP, before
the end of July.

An employer provider’s status as an apprenticeship Trailblazer was today in the balance after Ofsted found it had “no significant strengths” and issued it with grade four ratings across the board.

Priory Central Services, which runs the national medical chain that includes London’s Priory rehabilitation centre famously attended by an array of celebrities, offers healthcare training and apprenticeships to 377 learners.

It is also part of the healthcare employers’ Trailblazer group designing new nursing apprenticeship standards.

But despite Ofsted’s damning verdict neither the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) nor the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) could say if it would be expelled from the group, while the future of its £600k SFA contract was also uncertain.

Priory itself was also unable to guarantee its continued involvement with the Trailblazer programme.

The Ofsted report, published on Friday, April 17, following the inspection last month, told how “the large majority of apprentices do not complete their framework successfully”.

Inspectors added: “Trainers are not sufficiently ambitious for apprentices; they plan to teach only to the minimum standard.” Priory was previously inspected in 2013, when it was deemed to require improvement. A Priory spokesperson said: “A robust and highly-focused action plan, in response to Ofsted’s report, is already in place. We are committed to — and are investing heavily in — the development of our staff.” She added the company’s learning and development arm was under new leadership. However, she declined to comment on whether the company would remain a Trailblazer.

A BIS spokesperson said it had “alerted” the health Trailblazer group’s chair to Priory’s Ofsted result. However, she said: “It is a matter for the healthcare Trailblazer and its chair to determine which organisations are invited to support the development of its standards and assessment plans.”

FE Week was unable to contact the chair of healthcare Trailblazer group, which includes Health Education England and Bupa UK.

An SFA spokesperson declined to comment on Priory’s Trailblazer involvement, and was also unable to say whether Priory’s training contract would be terminated. “The SFA is considering the Priory Central Services’ Ofsted report in line with its intervention strategy,” she said.

The news comes as the SFA confirmed Leicester-based Qdos Training was facing contract termination over a grade four rating this month.

Its Ofsted report noted the previously grade two-rated independent learning provider had “good success rates,” but it was awarded a grade four because criminal checks on staff with regular unsupervised access to learners under 18 had not been carried out. It also got a grade two for outcomes for learners, three for quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and four for effectiveness of leadership and management.

However, FE Week understands it is hoping to retain its SFA contract by proving, before the three-month notice of contract termination is up, that it meets the legal requirements against which it failed.

Qdos managing director Elena Ryabusha told FE Week: “Qdos has raised several issues with Ofsted regarding its concerns about our safeguarding arrangements…The concerns identified related to two unrelated incidents, which occurred as a result of individual oversights rather than systemic failures, where Qdos has taken remedial action as necessary.”

Former Lincoln College principal of 14 years John Allen (pictured above left) has taken over from under fire New College Stamford principal April Carrol (pictured above right).

Ms Carrol had been hit with two votes of no confidence from staff while trying to implement new contracts that included extending the college year from 33 to 36 weeks.

The college, which is awaiting publication of the result of its Ofsted inspection late last month, last week told FE Week she had since taken leave, but declined to deny speculation she had been suspended. However, college governors’ chair Alison Grant said Ms Carrol, who was appointed to the post in July, was being replaced while on leave by Mr Allen, who stood down as principal of grade one-rated Lincoln College at the end of 2013/14.

Ms Grant said Ms Carrol was on “extended leave”. She said: “Due to the anticipated length of the absence [of Ms Carrol], and the lack of a permanent senior leadership team (SLT), the corporation felt it would be prudent to appoint an external interim principal.

“To this end we looked for an individual with experience who would be able to step in and continue the work which April has started, to continue to work to appoint a permanent SLT, to draft a post Ofsted plan of action and to continue to assess progress. I am pleased to announce that John Allen has accepted the interim principal post.”

A college spokesperson subsequently declined to comment on how long Mr Allen, who it is understood started in the post on Tuesday (April 21), would be in the post or whether Ms Carrol would be returning.

It comes after staff, including University and College Union (UCU), Unison and non-union members, passed two votes of no confidence in Ms Carrol. A UCU spokesperson said that around 80 members of staff passed the first no confidence vote through a show of hands during a meeting on March 23. He added that 123 employees then backed a second motion of no confidence in an online vote organised by the UCU a fortnight ago.

He claimed that the votes were called because Ms Carrol would not negotiate with the unions over her new contract plans. But he told FE Week: “We are pleased there is leadership in place at the college for the sake of students and staff.”

The college spokesperson said that staff had been consulted over the proposed changes to their contracts that were needed to “ensure the college remains in a sustainable financial position”.

Concern is growing in the FE sector that plans for an FE Chartered Status quality mark have “stalled” with no mention of the scheme in party manifestos and little in the way of news on its progress.

Plans, originally drawn up by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), for the Royal seal of approval to be granted to high-achieving FE institutions were revealed in July 2012.

It was almost another year before the appointment of Tory peer Lord Lingfield (pictured) as chair of the Institution for Further Education (IFE), a not-for-profit company set up to launch the quality mark.

In March 2014 he told FE Week he expected “negotiations to be completed within months” that would allow for the quality mark to be launched. An FE Week survey on the mark was carried out in May last year unveiling concern it could simply “sink without trace,” while further meetings were set to take place the following month. But the launch is yet to take place, and it is understood that an IFE petition for Chartered Status is yet to be considered by a special Privy Council committee, while IFE chief executive Ed Quilty told FE Week he “would not expect to see any further movement on this until the other side of the general election”.

Matt Atkinson, principal of City of Bath College, who took part in the FE Week survey on the scheme last year, said: “To be honest I had completely forgotten about this and the fact that the sector has not been banging down the front door of BIS asking for its swift development and implementation should be taken as an indication of how it is viewed.

“The fact that the development of Chartered Status has stalled somewhat is a reflection of just how important it is to both government and the sector.”

Verity Hancock, principal of Leicester College, who also took part in the survey, said: “While we’ve been generally supportive of the idea of Chartered Status it seems as if this is being pushed further and further away.”

She warned that the “environment” now facing FE providers was much more “challenging” than when Chartered Status was first proposed. “We see little immediate prospect of that abating, so there is a real question as to how willing colleges would be
to engage in an application process if there
are additional costs or few obvious benefits,” she added.

The lack of progress comes despite a BIS competition in conjunction with FE Week to design a Chartered Status logo, with former Skills Minister Matthew Hancock meeting winner and then-24-year-old Manchester College graphic design student Lisa Cassidy in March 2013.

Dr Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said “a natural degree of scepticism has crept in” over the scheme. “It is telling that no political parties make reference to the idea in their manifestos, and I wonder whether time is not on its side,” she said.

A BIS spokesperson said: “We are satisfied with current progress in this matter.”

The newly-elected National Union of Students (NUS) vice president for FE Shakira Martin (pictured above left) has told of her hopes to boost the sector’s learner engagement and be an inspiration to minority groups during her tenure.

The 26-year-old Lewisham Southwark College students’ union president spoke exclusively to FE Week after she secured 141 votes — 86 more than her nearest rival Amy Smith, from Sheffield College — at the NUS national conference, in Liverpool, on Wednesday (April 22).

Ms Martin, who is training to be a teacher, said she wanted more learners from colleges and independent learning providers to become more involved with the NUS.

“Students from FE make up around 4.1m of the 7m NUS membership, but that it is not reflected on the national stage,” she said. “Only around 250 of the 895 delegates at our conference were from FE, which shows why we’re underrepresented.”

She added: “I’m proud to have been elected. The whole reason that I ran for this post was to help push down the barriers for other people from similar backgrounds.

“As a black, working class woman and single mother, I have seen so many talented people from my community who don’t get anywhere because they haven’t got the confidence. If seeing me achieve this inspires all sorts of different minority groups then that would be great.”

Her election came after Megan Dunn (pictured above right), aged 24, the current vice president for higher education, won an earlier election with 413 votes, which was 211 more than rival Beth Redmond, to become the new national president of the NUS. Both winners will take up their full-time, paid sabbatical posts in July. Ms Martin replaces Joe Vinson and Ms Dunn replaces Toni Pearce.

Ms Martin said she planned to work with other sector representative groups to fight FE funding cuts, including 24 per cent to the non-apprenticeship part of the adults skills budget, for 2015/16. “I want to form a broad coalition, with students joining with the Association of Colleges, 157 Group, the Education and Training Foundation and other powerful FE representative bodies to campaign against the cuts,” she said.

“At the moment everyone is just accepting it without a fight, but if we don’t have increased funding then there won’t be an FE sector apart from apprenticeships. I love apprenticeships, they are a great route to employment and I plan to campaign for an increase in the apprenticeship minimum wage, so it isn’t an excuse to some companies for cheap labour, but there is a lot more important training that FE does that is now under threat.”

Ms Dunn said she planned to “build a movement around a vision for apprentices not just with a rise in the minimum wage but with a living wage”. “The end of the false choice between FE and higher education — with the focus on how someone wants to learn and what they want to study rather than what they can afford or what they are told — is worthwhile,” she added.

Key conference motions

Of the 38 FE-related motions that went before NUS conference, vice president for FE-elect Shakira Martin said the most important focused on fighting FE funding cuts, restoring the education maintenance allowance (EMA) and restoring free education.

She said that she was pleased that all three were passed by delegates.

Motion 207 stated that “the government needs to reverse all cuts to FE and instead provide a well publicly-funded FE which is accessible for all”.

It also resolved that the NUS should “campaign nationally to restore all FE funding cut since 2009 and for yearly real terms increases”.

Motion 211 stated that “it doesn’t make sense to fight for free education in higher education but not FE”.

It called for NUS to “campaign for free education funded by taxing the rich for all students in FE and higher education.”

Motion 303a stated that “EMA was a lifeline to thousands of students that, in England, was cruelly scrapped by the government in 2010”.

Payments of up to £30 a-week used to be given through EMA to students from low-income households. The motion called on the NUS to “launch a major national campaign to bring back EMA”.