Alexandra Reid explains how the new CDM regulations will impact FE building projects.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) come into force on October 6 as the latest update of the CDM Regulations. They have the goal of ensuring that health and safety issues are properly considered during a project’s development so as to reduce the risk of harm to those building, using and maintaining the developments.

Compliance with CDM 2015 is vital and failure to do so can have serious and far-reaching consequences. These include criminal sanctions, fines and even imprisonment.

A “client” under CDM 2015 is an organisation “for whom a construction project is carried out”. In the vast majority of cases, therefore, FE colleges will be “clients” for the purposes of CDM 2015. CDM 2015, perhaps unfortunately, assumes a level of industry specific knowledge for clients which FE colleges and other educational institutions may understandably not have.

This position can be contrasted with that of a client undertaking a “domestic” project where a lesser level of knowledge is assumed.

Specifically, under CDM 2015 the duties of FE clients are enhanced compared to those under the previous CDM Regulations published in 2007.

The new regulations will require FE colleges in their role as “clients” undertaking construction work to appoint duty-holders — client FE colleges must ensure that other duty-holders are appointed, for example designers and contractors, including a principal designer and principal contractor on projects involving more than one contractor. If a college fails to do this it will have to carry out these roles itself.

Under the new regulations the duties of FE clients are enhanced

Colleges must also ensure that the parties they appoint have the relevant skill-set — the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to manage health and safety risks.

Clients, themselves, must further ensure they are fully equipped to carry out their duties. They must also ensure compliance by others — colleges must ensure that their principal designer and principal contractor carry out their duties.

They must also ensure clear roles of others — that the roles, functions and responsibilities of the project team are clear; that sufficient time and resources are allocated and effective mechanisms are in place to ensure good communication, cooperation and coordination between all parties.

Colleges must prepare a health and safety file — colleges must ensure that their chosen principal designer prepares a health and safety file for the project.

The various duties required of an FE client coupled with the obligation to ensure compliance by others is potentially daunting. This is particularly the case since these duties cannot be transferred back to the principal contractor in the same way that they can for domestic clients.

This burden can, however, be eased by ensuring adequate assistance from the project manager/ project team by, firstly, appointing an adviser — a college can choose to appoint a “CDM compliance adviser” to assist and advise in respect of their duties. The college would still carry out the role of ‘client’ but would have guidance and support along the way.

Secondly, appoint a project manager/employer’s agent — a college can also choose to appoint a project manager or similar party tasked with assisting with carrying out its duties, similar to the role of a CDM compliance adviser, or choose to delegate those responsibilities entirely to their project manager. In these circumstances, the appointment letter between the college and project manager would need to very clearly set out the extent to which this role is being delegated and any fee arrangements would need to reflect this. Importantly, the project manager would need to be comfortable and have the expertise to carry out this role.

Finally, managing project meetings to ensure compliance — FE clients are recommended to arrange frequent, for example fortnightly or monthly, project progress meetings as well as other reporting requirements in order to ensure that all parties are carrying out their roles as required.

Paul Grainger outlines the new University College London (UCL)/Institute of Education (IOE) Centre for Post-14 Education and Work, which was set up last month.

Each year I tell my students that this year has been a turbulent one for FE. And each year it’s true. Stability is never on the agenda. It’s the price that FE pays for being dynamic, responsive, and crucial to both economic prosperity and social mobility.

Globally there is increased interest in transitions from school to work, training and higher education. There are different patterns across the world, even across the nations of the UK. FE in Britain has unique features and strengths, and these continue in a state of flux as leaders respond to changes in technology, learning and the nature of work; policy pressure to downsize the state; and regional pressures for increased productivity and civic integration.ach year I tell my students that this year has been a turbulent one for FE. And each year it’s true. Stability is never on the agenda. It’s the price that FE pays for being dynamic, responsive, and crucial to both economic prosperity and social mobility.

It is vital that there is a strong academic centre dedicated to further and continuing education. For those of us of advanced years Coombe Lodge used to provide such a focus, with a rich stream of scholarship to inform policy decisions. Fortunately its library was saved in the nick of time, as reported by FE Week in May, and now resides at the University College London/Institute of Education.

Institutional and system leadership, governance, and professional identities, central to the future of FE, are evolving rapidly and should be aided by a strong narrative of support

The overarching aim of this new centre, building on the legacies of the Centre for Post-14 Research and Innovation and the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC), is to support improvement and stimulate debate around the relationship between education, working life and active citizenship.

Our research and consultancy is supported by a dialogue between practitioners, policy and research communities, and through collaboration with government agencies, local organisations, higher education and employers.

Over the next five to 10 years there will be a major international, national and regional policy focus on research concerning the
relationship between learning and work, including the development of literacy, language and numeracy across diverse communities.

There are fascinating and important topics to explore including relationships between employers and the education system, issues of educational participation, progression and life transitions for an inclusive and aspirational society. Disengagement continues to concern us; the high cost of frustrated lives, welfare and incarceration. It is vital that policy making is informed, and implementation and impact measured in an informed way.

Institutional and system leadership, governance, and professional identities, central to the future of FE, are evolving rapidly and should be aided by a strong narrative of support. Local learning systems are increasingly the focus of attention, and may prove the basis for pivotal College activity as state intervention reduces.

The team at UCL/IOE are developing ideas and models around local learning ecologies and systems. Professional, vocational, community and work-based learning are fundamental to local prosperity, and a better understanding on how they relate to employment and productivity levels something we are grappling with.

Are curriculum, qualifications and assessment to remain a national, statutory requirements, subject to the whim of volatile ministerial reflexes, or could they become devolved, local in nature and partnership driven?

The Centre will explore these ideas by keeping in touch with the sector and those within it. Any bone fide practitioner can join our network — http://tinyurl.com/poskw62 — and contribute their perspective.

Turbulence and uncertaintly may have been the norm for many years, but the present level of threat is high and potentially fatal. When aspirations for a literate, numerate, inclusive society and an efficient economy are banking on a strong FE sector, that very sector is at the sharp end of austerity.

Colleges serving our economy and the future of our learners need informed and influential friends. The new Centre is our contribution to both a sustainable scholarship and a durable sector.

Gazelle has responded to long-running criticism that its £35k membership fee, along with other costs, could not be justified in the absence of any return on investment analysis, including any proof that membership affected Ofsted grades. Fintan Donohue explains how such criticism has changed the organisation.

The Gazelle Colleges Group commissioned an analysis of its impact from an independent research organisation (whose members regularly write as expert commentators for FE Week) late last year.

It provided a significant amount of detail about the activity of the group and concluded that it had a positive impact on members and the wider sector.

However, in common with criticism levelled by FE Week, it also said the group needed to change — in particular to develop how we measure and demonstrate impact, to increase efficiency and improve the clarity of communications and structure.

We took those criticisms on board and launched a review, led by a working group of members, and a series of recommendations was put to the wider membership.

As a result the membership fee has been cut in half and the structure streamlined.

Going forward there will be specific impact measures built into all activity so that the group can measure value more rigorously and report on return on investment (ROI) specifically.

The focus of Gazelle colleges will stay the same, working to improve the chances of young people getting a job and to help colleges diversify their income through enterprise.

Individual colleges have a long history of investing in enterprise, albeit under different banners. Gazelle Colleges Group is a non-profit membership group that has sought to pool costs in this area in order to provide better value. Whatever has been achieved over the past four years has only been possible because member colleges worked together.

Over the past four years 5,000 students have gained new skills from the group’s three enterprise competitions, and another 1,000 have attended national enterprise conferences and networking events.

We took criticisms on board and launched a review, led by a working group of members, and a series of recommendations was put to the wider membership

Barking & Dagenham College lecturer Andy Duffy, trained in Design Thinking with the Gazelle Colleges Group, a methodology which provides a new approach to curriculum design and delivery.

Andy said the “advanced training in Design Thinking with other teachers from across the Gazelle Colleges network has enabled me to bring a new approach to curriculum design and delivery which is better preparing our students for employment/self-employment”.

Andy will be delivering a seminar in Finland in November to share this best practice.

He is not alone. Around 1,400 member college lecturers and 260 member college curriculum managers have engaged in professional training through Gazelle Colleges Group that has changed practice in many colleges.

The group continues to attract support in the form of sponsorship from other organisations passionate about student employability and enterprise — thus minimising cost to colleges and maximising potential. Entrepreneurs and employers of the highest calibre provide free conference input, mentoring and advice because they want to see students embrace enterprise alongside other skills in our colleges.

Autumn activities include new investigative research into commercial capacity and the commercial challenges facing our sector, sponsored by Wickland-Westcott, and a science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) teaching and learning workshop in November.

The fourth Gazelle Market Maker competition, sponsored by Hewlett Packard, will take place in December. We are also sharing the results of the 18 projects as part of the Learning Futures programme managed by Gazelle on behalf of the Education and Training Foundation.

The decline in membership is of course disappointing, but understandable given the significant pressures facing most colleges. By sharing resources and investing collectively there’s no reason why, even as a smaller group, the group can’t do useful work in this area for themselves and the wider sector.

With the apprenticeships title having undergone a government consultation aimed at protecting the brand, David Allison looks at what effect, if any, degree apprenticeships might also have on the brand.

Degree apprenticeships are the latest extension to the range of options open to young people and offer even more strength to the argument that apprenticeships are a genuine alternative to a full time university course.

Degree apprenticeships are different to the existing degree ‘equivalent’ higher apprenticeships as they include a full batchelor’s degree from a university rather than equivalence.

The question is this — are they a genuine step forward, or will they simply add more confusion to the ‘apprenticeship’ brand?

I have to admit to a strong personal bias on this. Although I set my first business up before leaving school, I gave that up to go to university to study engineering.

For too many years apprenticeship providers have adopted an apology approach to selling their products

The course I chose was slightly different. Rather than three terms with long holidays, I completed a ‘thin sandwich’ where I spent six months in university and six months in work each year with Ford Motor Company.

At the end I had real experience, a BEng from Brunel University, and I had been paid very well during the whole process. Ring any bells?

Roll forward a few years, and as managing director of GetMyFirstJob, the more time I spend with schools and youth groups, the more convinced I am that one key to creating more high quality apprentice programmes is ensuring that they attract the best potential talent.

Aligning the ‘apprentice’ brand to existing universities is without doubt one way to do this.

Piggy-backing on the word ‘degree’ is also a potential move in the right direction — it has the potential to add a range of ‘halo’ qualifications to the apprenticeship stable, but it is important that this is communicated in the correct way.

For too many years apprenticeship providers have adopted an apology approach to selling their products. The sell to employers is too often about cheap labour — if you don’t believe me, check out the number of vacancies advertised at minimum wage, or the stats on employer contribution.

On A-level results day, apprenticeships were positioned as the ‘free’ alternative to university. This approach does not build the value in apprenticeships. It undermines it.

We know that companies are prepared to spend many thousands of pounds on recruiting and training individuals — the success of many commercially-funded organisations that operate in this area is evidence enough. So why do we race to the bottom with the £2.73 (updated to £3.30 on October 1) sale and lack of employer contribution?

At the Skills & Employability Summit recently, I was dismayed to see so much of the messaging around degree apprenticeships as being ‘higher education with no fee’. If this is the approach that is adopted, we will have missed yet another opportunity to change the way in which apprenticeships are perceived.

While the fee structure may well be beneficial to students, this is surely not the most significant benefit that young people will derive from the programme.

If it is, there is a bigger problem. Secondly, the education system is already a myriad of badly aligned and competing funding streams from age 16 upwards. This crude message and approach will devalue degree apprenticeships before they have even taken off and provides yet more funding focused ‘competition’ in the educational system of this country.