The pressure is mounting on Labour to reveal whether it would introduce an FE and skills funding ringfence after the Conservatives made their positions clear to widespread sector criticism.

Ed Miliband’s party is yet to say if it would extend the existing ringfence for schools funding to include the 16 to 19 budget having seen Prime Minister David Cameron refuse to do so.

Mr Cameron said on Monday (February 2) that the ringfence in place from 2010 would continue for five to 16-year-olds if his party remained in office after May’s general election.

Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel, who described the decision not to include the older teenage budget within the ringfence as “desperately disappointing,” was among Mr Cameron’s subsequent critics.

However, Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt said he would “prioritise schools”, but would not comment on FE funding.

It comes after the Lib Dems last year pledged to protect education funding “from cradle to college”, but it remains unclear whether FE funding within the ringfence could be used on early years or schools.

And just two days later Labour suffered a House of Commons setback when its plans to scrap apprenticeships of less than two years’ duration and below level three lost an Opposition Day vote 294 to 218.

The motion was criticised by government ministers and MPs who accused the opposition front bench of “dismissing” level two apprenticeships.

But Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna said: “It is not to devalue them, it is frankly to bring them up to the same benchmarks as our competitors who are more productive than us.”

He said his proposals were not about doing away with lower level apprenticeships, but re-branding them. He also said he would give local councils more power over apprenticeships, including over enforcement of the minimum wage.

Responding on the minimum standards issue, Business Secretary Vince Cable said: “I think there is an important point about levels. I think the honourable gentleman dismissed too easily the value of level two apprenticeships.

“He seemed to imply that these were not quite apprenticeships, but actually there is quite a lot of statistical evidence that people who do a level two apprenticeship and no more have significantly higher earnings than people who don’t go through that channel.”

Mr Cable used the debate to defend the government’s record, and said he had acted to protect FE spending as much as possible in the early days of the Coalition.

 

The European Commission and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have vowed there will be no gap in funding for European Social Fund (ESF) projects for the unemployed following fears of a delay in renewing the programmes.

The two bodies defended themselves after the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) expressed concerns that a delay in introducing new funding could leave providers unable to continue offering the training.

The ESF programmes run on a seven-year cycle and were due to be renewed in December, when programmes for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were agreed.

A European Commission spokesperson said the programmes for England and Gibraltar were “still in the negotiation process, and are expected to be ready for approval in the coming weeks”.

An AELP spokesperson warned a gap in funding “could mean some providers would have to take decisions about reducing capacity”.

However, the European Commission insisted the delay would not cause a gap in funding.

“There is still a significant amount of funding from the current programme left to spend and programmes will continue to be funded throughout 2015,” said its spokesperson.

“Accordingly, the UK authorities’ plans are proceeding on the basis that the pending programmes are agreed in principle by February 2015 and project calls can start the following month in order to avoid a gap in funding between the 2007-13 and 2014-20 programmes.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “There will be no gap in funding. Any administrative delays from the European Commission are more than covered by our own financial planning for this scheme.”

The move was described as “very positive news” by AELP chief executive Stewart Segal.

“We hope the UK government agrees with this setting out of the current position and it will ensure that there is no gap in funding,” he said.

“We’re aware that a substantial proportion of ESF funding will be allocated via the Local Enterprise Partnerships and it’s important that their procurement process is effective, open and transparent.”

Julian Gravatt, Association of Colleges assistant chief executive, said he was aware of the delay.

“These programmes play a significant role in helping colleges re-train people who are unemployed,” he said. “We’re naturally concerned about the impact of
any delay.”

 

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has cleared a London college of any wrong-doing over a £4.1m budget black hole uncovered last year.

The SFA said there would be “no further investigation” of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, which hit the headlines in March after a draft audit report leaked to the Evening Standard raised concerns about possible “data falsification” in connection with the deficit.

But the college refused to release a subsequent report by Grant Thornton which was the basis of the SFA’s decision not to investigate further.

A college spokesperson said: “The college is satisfied the audit has come to a natural and expected conclusion.”

She added: “This is a confidential internal audit report and as such it cannot be shared.”

An SFA spokesperson said: “Following an independent financial audit by Grant Thornton, we reviewed the findings and concluded that no further investigation was required.”

The deficit was first identified in the college’s audited accounts for 2012/13, and prompted governors to commission the college’s internal auditors Grant Thornton to undertake a review.

 

A principal has defended her University Technical College (UTC) after it came in dramatically below other institutions in official league tables data.

Joanne Harper, principal of UTC Reading, said it had been caught out because the only students included in the data were 18-year-olds who had left other institutions and were only half way through courses at Reading.

The issue meant the UTC appeared to be the second worst institution in the country for vocational average points score per full-time student, as previously reported by FE Week.

“But on the average point score per vocational entry, we scored equivalent to a distinction plus, so in terms of the results a student has in their hand when they leave they are above the national average,” said Ms Harper.

“So the per-student measure doesn’t really support what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.”

In the same dataset, 14 of 17 studio schools and UTCs listed fell below the government targets for GCSEs.

However, a spokesperson for the Baker Dearing Trust, which oversees UTCs, said a government decision to discount thousands of vocational qualifications in league tables “had an impact” on results.

The Studio Schools Trust declined to comment.

 

Awarding organisation City & Guilds has announced its acquisition of privately-funded independent learning provider The Oxford Group.

It said it had bought The Oxford Group, which specialises in management training, leadership development and executive coaching, in a bid to expand its offer to employers.

Chris Jones, director general of the City & Guilds Group, said: “Across the world, business and political leaders are worried about building the skills of individuals to help businesses and economies grow.

“Leadership and management skills are essential to the success of any business; in today’s interconnected, complex world, developing the skills of your senior leadership team has never been more important to business growth.”

Nigel Purse, chair of The Oxford Group, said: “Our strong brands and our values are complementary and we already have a great track-record of working together.

“Most importantly, we will be able to offer even more services and support to our clients across the world.

“After several decades of building our business across the world, we are delighted to begin a new chapter by joining the City & Guilds Group.”

 

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has announced it will fund courses which do not fit with the qualifications and credit framework (QCF) as regulator Ofqual begins to dismantle the controversial system.

In guidance issued to awarding organisations, which have welcomed the move to change “bureaucratic” rules, the Agency said its new system would be “framework neutral”.

It comes after Ofqual decided to scrap the QCF following a consultation on its future. It will be removed from this summer.

In its guidance, the SFA said: “Business rules are now ‘framework neutral’.

“We have removed our rule that we will only consider QCF qualifications outside of automatic approvals. This means we will accept submissions for QCF and non-QCF qualifications.”

OCR head of FE policy Gemma Gathercole said: “We were very pleased to see that SFA had dropped the requirement for qualifications to be on the QCF in order to gain adult funding.

“It has been an anomaly for too long that GCSEs, A Levels and Functional Skills qualifications have been able to be funded outside the QCF, but other valuable qualifications have been excluded for a bureaucratic rule.

“We believe that all learners should have access to qualifications that would help them progress in learning or into work. The QCF is a well-meaning but ill-conceived project which has not always served learners well or delivered the skills and competences that businesses need.”

A spokesperson for NCFE said: “The changes have been in the pipeline for a while and it’s good to see some progress so we can move our qualification development in the right direction.

“We’re currently analysing the impact of these new rules on the future of public funding for adult learners, of which the ‘framework neutral’ business rules is just one part.

“Employability and getting learners into work is and always has been high on our agenda so the business rules of size, purpose and recognition will really help qualification development be steered in that direction across all Awarding Organisations which will hopefully, in the long term, be what’s best for the learner and getting more people into employment.”

Chris Kirk, director of products and services at City & Guilds, said: “We fully welcome the review of the QCF. For some time, we have spoken openly about how the current QCF rules do not always support the development of the highest-quality vocational qualifications.

“In too many areas it is too restrictive, making it difficult to design relevant and rigorous qualifications and assessment strategies that really meet the needs of employers – and of course the needs of individual learners and those delivering the training.

“At the same time, it’s vital that we maintain unitised flexibility where needed – but with a simple and consistent naming and branding that learners and employers can understand. Not being forced to adhere to one, single, strict framework is a step forward, but more needs to be done around qualification naming if vocational education is to get the appreciation it deserves.”