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Red tape reduction efforts need ‘democratic scrutiny’

The failure of a government plan to make any major dent in £300m of FE and skills sector red tape costs for providers has prompted a call for “democratic scrutiny” to ensure greater progress in cutting bureaucracy.

The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee should, it has been suggested, investigate in light of a National Audit Office (NAO) probe that found the Simplification Plan had shaved less than 2 per cent of the cost of complying with funding, qualifications and assurance requirements.

The plan was produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2012, but according to NAO head Amyas Morse, it had “not significantly cut the cost incurred by hard-pressed providers”.

“Despite some progress there is still too much red tape,” he said, adding: “BIS, working with the Department for Education [DfE], needs to consider more radical ways to simplify complex funding arrangements.”

Dr Lynne Sedgmore (pictured), 157 Group chief executive, told FE Week: “We are not surprised by these findings. Our members report that their administrative burdens have barely changed in recent years. As they rightly prioritise teaching and learning with less and less funding, dealing with an overly complex policy environment is extremely unhelpful.

“We would support calls for progress with the simplification agenda to be democratically scrutinised, perhaps by the select committee.”

Mikki Draggoo, director of corporate relations at City & Guilds, said: “The intention was to make the system clearer and reduce costs. The report shows this didn’t happen and FE providers were put to one side — despite it being designed for them in the first place.”

She added: “The BIS select committee should conduct its own inquiry into the skills and employment system.”

BIS select committee chair Adrian Bailey (pictured front) said: “It is astounding that something [Simplification Plan] which set out to achieve so much has achieved so little.

“My instinct is we wouldn’t launch a full inquiry into this, not least because we are running out of days before Parliament dissolves. But what I think we will do when we have the ministers in to talk about the annual report and accounts is raise questions about this.”

The NAO report, released on Thursday (December 4), said a “much more serious effort” was needed from BIS and pointed out the plan was “not a strategic stocktake of where simplification might have the greatest impact” and that providers themselves had “little voice” in its development.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “All unnecessary bureaucracy needs to be removed so the maximum resource can be focused on students rather than red tape.”

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “The NAO report is welcome because it highlights how providers are often delivering similar programmes, particularly for young people, for three different government departments, ie DfE, BIS and the Department for Work and Pensions, which require different procurement and contracting processes.

“This inevitably has significant cost implications. We continue to call for more alignment of cross government programmes and the need for an environment where more resources are focused on delivery.”

A BIS spokesperson said: “We have made good progress in removing and reducing bureaucracy for FE providers. Funding and inspection systems have been streamlined and providers tell us that this has had a positive impact.

“We will carry on working with the sector to reduce bureaucracy while driving up the quality of FE provision and making it more responsive to the needs of learners and employers.”

Click here for more coverage and a link to the NAO report.

Science museum hosts FE and skills technology talk

Google glasses, YouTube and digital reward badges were all hot topics at a learning technology discussion group for FE practitioners at London’s Science Museum on Monday (December 1).

Delegates at the Think Out Loud club, hosted by City & Guilds, heard from experts, tried out the latest technologies and explored the barriers to turning technology into learning tools.

The event was the second Think Out Loud club meeting, following the launch event in February. Among the speakers was Mark Riches, chief executive of learning website Makewaves, who talked about digital badges — small awards displayed on a website or CV, containing information about what the learner had to do to achieve them.

“Learning is no longer contained in any institutional place, learning happens all over the place,” he said.

“So why not let everybody play and be rewarded for the little bits of learning that they do?” Although it was still “early days” he added he thought most CVs would contain badges as standard in the future.

Mark Riches, chief executive of learning website Makewaves

“The value of badges is growing really quickly as more and more organisations — like O2, Amazon and Microsoft — seek to get connected with the learner,” he said.

Warwickshire College chief technology officer Yousef Fouda spoke about online video platform YouTube, which, with Google glasses, could be used to create demonstration videos. But, he added: “Eighty per cent of employers Google applicants to screen them before interview. So YouTube offers learners the chance to promote themselves and show off their skills to the world.”

The Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag) report, published in March, recommended all courses have a minimum of 10 per cent online delivery and in the discussion section of the event there was fierce debate over funding and whether it might lead to ‘box-ticking’.

For City & Guilds managing director Kirstie Donnelly, the discussion proved the highlight of the day.

“When you hear the energy, even at the end of the event, that’s when you know you’ve had an impact and created some energy,” she said.

Bryan Mathers, chief executive of Wapisasa, a not-for-profit digital innovation company, who, along with Ms Donnelly, hosted the event, said the aim of the day has been to “kick-start thinking”.

“It’s trying to drop people in the deep end and allow them to experience something and experiment in a safe way so they can say ‘How can I bring that back to my college?’”

Main Pic: Bryan Mathers, chief executive of digital innovation company Wapisasa, addresses Think Out Loud club members

‘How tech used is key’

Perhaps one of the best bits of the Think Out Loud Club was the chance to get hands-on with technology, including the Google Glass — an internet-connected pair of glasses with a camera and a tiny screen projected on to
the lens.

Popping a pair on feels a little bit clunky, as one side is bigger than the other, but at the same time it feels incredibly cool to simply press your glasses, give a command and see information appear in front of you.

Having tried them I can’t imagine sitting through an entire film without going cross-eyed, and they still feel like they’re in the early stages of development.

But like many technologies, I think the most exciting things will be in what people choose to do with them — in the classroom, for example, creating demonstration videos, showing learners everything the teacher can — or something no one, not even Google, has thought of yet.

Rebecca Cooney

(pictured)

Jeremy Benson, director for vocational qualifications, Ofqual

Formula One racing has Graham and Damon Hill and football has Harry and Jamie Redknapp, while high-flying father and son duos in the world of acting include Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, to name but one.

But the world of qualifications is no exception to familial footstep following — it has Mike and Jeremy Benson.

The latter is the man in charge of Ofqual’s vocational arm, while the former spent most of his career at City & Guilds.

“Although we didn’t talk about them a lot and of course I didn’t understand a lot of what he was talking about, vocational qualifications were always part of my childhood,” says Benson, junior (Jeremy).

He adds: “My father did a range of different jobs, administrative jobs, organising different types of assessments. He worked in their international division for a while; he was responsible at various points for their land-based qualifications.”

Benson on holiday in California this year with wife Sue and son Sam

The 40-year-old grew up in Bedford and now lives with wife Sue and their children — Naomi, aged 11, and Sam, nine — in Market Harborough where he is deputy chair of governors at Meadowdale Primary School.

And Benson says he enjoyed his own education in Bedfordshire’s three-tier school system, doing well at “everything but PE”.

He says: “From when I was in the lower sixth, I guess we were gently encouraged to set our sights high in terms of universities. I remember one of the teachers taking a mini-bus full of us to go to Oxford, so I was never sort of pushed or anything, but it was introduced to us as an opportunity that we ought to consider.”

Benson studied at Lady Margaret Hall, which had been Oxford’s first women’s college, and emerged in 1995 with a 2.1 in politics, philosophy and economics.

After seeing an advert for an executive officer entry scheme at the Department for Education (DfE), he joined the civil service, where he successfully applied for the graduate-entry fast stream. In 1999, after four years at the DfE, he became a team leader for finance.

Seconded to De Montford University as special projects manager from the end of 2002 to early 2004, Benson then returned to the DfE as a deputy director with responsibility for qualifications — a policy area which interests him to this day.

“There has clearly been quite a lot of change over time,” he says. “Under the last government there was the introduction [of] diplomas and the reform to GCSEs and A-levels, and then over the lifetime of this government we have had further reforms, and now there’s an increasing focus on apprenticeships.

Although we didn’t talk about them a lot and of course I didn’t understand a lot of what my father was talking about, vocational qualifications were always part of my childhood

“It’s also interesting for me because it’s not one of the most high-profile areas of education policy, which means there are opportunities to try and make some interesting things happen in an area that possibly hadn’t been thought about in the past.”

And so Benson today finds himself atop the Ofqual vocational division. It’s a post he’s held since September, having previously been its policy director for nearly three years and before that director, strategic management, for just over a year.

But the possibility that he might end up working at the regulator, an organisation he helped to set up during Ed Ball’s time as Education Secretary at the then-Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), did not initially occur to him.

He says: “My assumption had always been that once Ofqual had been set up that I would go and set up something else, go and find a different policy area to work on.

“It was set up in fairly challenging times, about a month before the 2010 general election, and obviously we had a completely new set of ministers who had some serious concerns about the way that education policy had been, and about standards and so on, so Ofqual was facing quite a challenging environment.

From left: Brothers Oliver and Tim, dad (Mike) and Benson. Building a wall outside their home in 1981

“So when the opportunity came up to apply for a director post here in the summer of 2010, I don’t think they had particularly expected me to apply for it, but they were very pleased when I did, and obviously I was delighted to get the job.”

He adds: “Most of the thinking about the set-up of Ofqual had been driven by the DCSF, which was obviously the pre-19 side.

“The starting point was about how we build confidence in the standards of GCSEs and A-levels and so on.

“It was always going to have a role in relation to vocational qualifications as well. My previous job here was as director of policy, and I’d spent an increasing amount of time on vocational qualifications in that context because of the interest that [former Skills Minister] Matthew Hancock had on apprenticeships.

“We have a general qualifications directorate and a vocational qualifications directorate, and I actually applied for both, but the job I really wanted was the vocational one.

“There’s so much really interesting and important work to do, and we’re perhaps a little way behind in terms of developing the regulatory strategy in the vocational space.”

Benson seems optimistic about yet more changes to the qualifications landscape, but has called for clarity when it comes to Functional Skills, and a focus on quality when looking at apprenticeships.

Benson on holiday in California this year with daughter Naomi

He says: “What we need in a sense from policy makers is clarity about where Functional Skills and other qualifications sit in the landscape, because that clarity of the policy context enables us to think about how we can then regulate the qualifications as effectively as possible.”

He adds: “Under the new apprenticeship model we will probably have an ongoing role regulating at least some of the end point assessments for the reformed apprenticeships, and it’s our job to make sure that the assessments of those apprenticeships, whatever types of assessments they are, where we regulate them, are as good as they can be.

“If the numbers of apprenticeships are going to be increased because the government thinks that’s a good thing, that’s fine — but from our point of view that shouldn’t lead to any compromise in terms of the quality of the assessments, or the standards that are set.”

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It’s a personal thing

What is your favourite book, and why?

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. It’s funny, tragic, moving and wonderfully well-written

What is your pet hate?

Bad driving

What do you do to switch off after work?

Going out with the family. Listening to Test Match Special. Football — Sam and I have season tickets for Leicester City this season. I am also mildly obsessive about classical music

If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party who would it be?

Clement Attlee, Kenneth Clarke MP, Leonard Bernstein and Aung San Suu Kyi

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

A journalist. It combined two interests — writing and current affairs. But I don’t think I’d have been very good at it

Edition 121

I had mixed emotions when I heard Skills Minister Nick Boles’s new apprentice set off the security alarms on his first day of work at Portcullis House. This also involved the evacuation of Westminster Underground station. I had a similar experience, too.

Many years ago when as a young 16-year-old trainee hotel manager working as a commis chef, I set fire to a chip pan which resulted in Birmingham New Street Station being evacuated. The Queens Hotel, now demolished, had its kitchens at platform level of New Street Station.

While I quickly extinguished the flames from my pan, the grease and dirt in the ventilation system caught fire and spread the length of the hotel and emerged in the British Railways buffet at the far end of the platform.

A major alert evacuated the station and at that time the Post Office sorting office below the station. To add to the chaos, all signals controlling the main line trains speeding to Birmingham were put to red.

Needless to say, the British Rail bosses no longer considered me suitable management material, but I was offered a job as a chef at three times my trainee salary.

HIT scooped another award last week getting into ‘The Times and Investec Mid-Market 100 fastest growing private companies’ in the UK, albeit at number 97.

Whatever fees an FE provider charges its sub-contractors, the services offered must be listed and the prices justified to avoid the colleges and independent providers involved giving our sector more bad publicity

At the awards ceremony, one of the speakers was Sherry Coutu CBE, who holds directorships in the London Stock Exchange, Zoopla, Cambridge University Press and LinkedIn among others. She outlined her research and forthcoming report into the importance of government ‘supporting high growth firms to scale-up their operations rather than concentrating on new start-ups’.

A statistic that amazed me was that while the mid-market private companies with a turnover of £10m-plus only account for 1 per cent of all listed companies at Companies House, they collectively employ 25 per cent of the working population in the private sector.

Indeed, this UK mid-market generates nearly £1tn annually and employs six million people.

So when colleges and providers are looking to engage with local employers, engaging with those in the mid-market sector would have the most beneficial growth to the local economy.

I am glad FE Week has tackled the thorny problem of sub-contracting fees [see edition 119]. When we started HIT eight years ago we obtained two small Learning and Skills Council Train to Gain contracts in the West of England and London and in the rest of the country relied on 42 sub-contracts from FE colleges. Their fees ranged from 10 per cent to 40 per cent and in those days they offered no support services at all.

I am glad FE Week has tackled the thorny problem of sub-contracting fees

Whatever fees an FE provider charges its sub-contractors, the services offered must be listed and the prices justified to avoid the colleges and independent providers involved giving our sector more bad publicity.

Sub-contracting to primes in the Department for Work and Pensions is well-regulated and transparent.

Ironically, the Education Funding Agency has no data on its sub-contractors, although this may change now it has a joint chief executive with the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

The SFA has a duty to make sub-contracting transparent and the fees levied explained to provide value for money otherwise we will have another plethora of Channel 4 or Panorama type programmes and angry national press articles rubbishing the sector.

Morgan rejects AoC manifesto call on A-levels

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has rejected an Association of College (AoC) manifesto call to keep AS-levels linked to A-levels.

Addressing MPs on the House of Commons Education Select Committee looking at exams for 15 to 19-year-olds in England on Wednesday (December 3), Ms Morgan (pictured front) defended plans to turn AS results into a separate qualification, making A-levels into a two-year course culminating in a single qualification.

Committee member Alex Cunningham asked Ms Morgan if she would reconsider the policy in light of the AoC manifesto, unveiled at its annual conference last month by president and Exeter College principal Richard Atkins (pictured).

The manifesto had called for the next government to “maintain AS-levels in their current form and should allow for rigorous modular assessment in vocational and academic qualifications, alongside final exams”.

However, Ms Morgan told the committee she would not consider reversing the decision to split the qualifications.

“We have retained AS-levels — they have just been de-coupled from A-levels,” she said.

“I’m a fan of linear assessment, in terms having the time to study something properly, without the stress of continuous assessment.”

She acknowledged that in more practical courses some modular courses might be “absolutely necessary” but that in other courses “it is right to be assessed at the end of the course”.

Committee chair Graham Stuart and Mr Cunningham said they had heard “near-unanimous” opposition to splitting AS and A-levels from across the education sector.

They also pointed to evidence from colleges that requiring AS-levels to run alongside A-levels risked excluding students in disadvantaged areas.

However, Ms Morgan said: “I’m not sure I buy this argument about people being socially less able to do A-levels, this is part of our drive to raise the standards in education for all pupils.”

Mr Cunningham said: “Colleges tell us in many cases they can’t afford to teach both of them at the same time.”

The Education Secretary said this did not match up with the Department for Education’s “evidence and research”.

“We obviously listen to colleges and what they’re saying, but we are now funding colleges on a per student basis, with enough funding for 600 hours of teaching which should be enough to teach three linear A-levels and an AS-level, as well as a 150 hours for tutorial time, so we don’t think that’s an issue,” she said.

A consultation on GCSE and A-level reform ran from September 25 to November 20, although a response has not yet been published.

There is also an open consultation on the reforms in relation to religious studies, which closes on December 29.

Ms Morgan also defended the decision not to specifically include employers in the design of the new A-levels and GCSEs in the same way they have been consulted over apprenticeship reform, saying apprenticeships were “particularly employer-focussed”.

The committee has previously heard evidence from Ofqual as well as calling for written submissions from the education sector.

Apprentice training clash after NI break for bosses

Unions and business leaders have clashed over the issue of investment in training after Chancellor George Osborne announced the end of employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NIC) for apprentices under 25.

Mr Osborne announced on Wednesday (December 3) that employers would no longer pay NICs for apprentices under 25 from 2016. It was already the case, after last year’s Autumn Statement, that from April they won’t have to pay NICs for apprentices under 21.

Neither concession extends to learners themselves though, prompting the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) to call for the employers’ savings to go towards training.

But the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) insisted the concession must be recognised as an incentive.

Dr Mary Bousted (pictured), general Secretary of the ATL, said: “The purpose of apprenticeships should be to educate and train young people, not just to provide cheap labour for employers.

“We hope the government asks employers to put the NICs saving towards training their apprentices or developing apprenticeship training with colleges.”

And Ingrid Waterfield, director in KPMG’s People Powered Performance team, said: “The onus is now on employers to invest the money they would have spent on NICs on skills development, and talent management.”

However, a CBI spokesperson responded: “Businesses already invest significant resources into apprenticeships through internal mentoring, wages and work foregone.”

And National Hairdressers’ Federation president Paul Curry said: “We applaud the Chancellor’s announcement that he will abolish the National Insurance ‘jobs tax’ on apprentices. This will potentially benefit the many, many hairdressers and barbers who already invest in youth training and employment.”

Chris Jones, chief executive of City & Guilds, said: “This will incentivise employers to invest in young people and reduce the financial and administrative burden of
doing so.”

Employers currently make NICs for employees earning more than £153 a-week, although apprentices on the relevant National Minimum Wage (NMW) of £2.73 an-hour would not breach that threshold.

Joe Vinson, National Union of Students vice president for FE, said: “As apprentices are on such a low wage anyway, they won’t reach the threshold to make NICs and receive things like sick pay or other benefits that employees on the NMW are entitled to.”

Meanwhile, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said he wanted the NIC exemption “applied in respect of all previously unemployed apprentices taken on by an employer”.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Encouraging more employers to offer apprenticeships is important, but the government must work with colleges to ensure that employers are ready to take on apprentices.”

But concerns have been raised that the autumn statement, which also included an announcement of £20m for careers advice, did not go far enough for adult learners.

David Hughes (pictured), chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “By making young people a priority there is a danger that the impending adult skills crisis will continue to threaten future economic prospects and limit social mobility.

“The focus on training for young people is vital, but is only one part of the solution. Over the next 10 years there are anticipated to be almost twice as many job vacancies as there will be new labour market entrants to fill them. The government must therefore support all ages if they are to achieve their central ambition of creating a ‘more highly-skilled labour market’.”

Click here for more coverage and a link to the Autumn Statement document.

Uncertainty over £20m for careers guidance

Plans to invest £20m in careers advice have been cautiously welcomed by the National Careers Council (NCC) amid uncertainty over where the money will be spent.

The Treasury said it could not go into detail on its plans for the funding — revealed in the Autumn Statement — but the NCC, which has highlighted a lack of consistency and availability in careers advice, said it was an “important step”.

Chair Deirdre Hughes said: “This is an important step in the right direction. The key will be how the funds will be used to have the greatest impact and I will be very interested to see how the plans unfold.

“It would always be good to have more money. One of our three options we gave to government to improve services was costed at £17.5m, so £20m is a good step.”

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC): “In announcing the investment of £20m to improve careers advice and support for young people the government must now ensure that careers education is part of the curriculum.”

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the £20m should be “spent on high quality face-to-face careers advice and guidance in every area of the country, training careers professionals, supporting partnerships with employer, rather than on IT-led solutions which don’t work for many young people, particularly those with the greatest need”.

The government will also pilot career-change work experience and training opportunities for older benefit claimants.

It wasn’t meant to be like this of course. When the Coalition took office in 2010, the idea was to have halved the deficit by 2015/16, not to have to borrow £200m more than forecast just eight months ago in the budget. At this point in the electoral cycle, the intention was that the Chancellor would point to a job well-done and deliver some judicious lollipops to ensure triumph next May.

While the government can, rightly, point to better economic growth than the rest of the EU, falling unemployment and low inflation, the stark fact is that the recovery is desperately fragile and that tax revenues are way, way, lower than predicted.

Given this background, George Osborne’s Autumn Statement deployed his undoubted political skills to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear and the fact that post-school education and training featured at all is testament to the slowly growing recognition that FE and skills has political salience, although many in the sector will be frustrated that politicians fail to grasp the sector’s potential to strengthen the economy and promote social mobility.

The decision to abolish employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices aged under 25 was evidence of the Chancellor’s acumen — it makes a nice headline, signalling the government’s goodwill and commitment but actually costing the Treasury peanuts in terms of income foregone.

The announcement of £20m to improve careers advice and support for young people is another example of showing concern and being seen to be doing something without acknowledging that many of the problems in careers education, information and guidance have been of the Coalition’s own making. The misguided decision of Michael Gove not to match Department for Business, Innovation and Skills funding for a National Careers Service with Department for Education cash was a massive error that £20m is not going to rectify although it does, at least, acknowledge that current policy has resulted in a total car-crash.

While the announcement of reforms to post-graduate funding will not affect most FE providers directly the fact is that, at a time of tightening budgets, every penny that goes to support the most educationally privileged is at the expense of others with more modest educational expectations.

As is often the case, some of the more interesting announcements are the single-sentence ones. An example of this is the three quarters of a million pounds allocated for a new National College for Onshore Oil and Gas. This is good news for Blackpool but also signals that the debate about fracking has moved from “whether” to “how?”.

I was also intrigued by the announcement that “government will also work towards enabling greater multi-year certainty in funding for schools and certainty for adult education providers where appropriate, in the context of area based strategies”. The whole localism agenda remains fluid and this is one announcement that needs unpacking.

Another ‘straw in the wind’ comes in the announcement that the Behavioural Research Centre for Adult Skills and Knowledge (ASK) will get £5m to conduct pilots using Children’s Centres to provide employment support and access to basic skills training. This suggests that, at last, the government is starting to join-up its thinking around family learning.

It is also suggested that programmes to promote mid-life career reviews, are now influencing policy — from April 2015 the government has agreed to pilot career change work experience and training opportunities for older benefit claimants.

Overall though, the outlook remains gloomy for FE. Whichever party or parties form the next administration, the climate will remain austere and sector organisations will need to work together to defend budgets.

Going global to benefit local

A new report looks at how UK general FE colleges are reaping the VET (vocational education and training) rewards of taking part in WorldSkills competitions, explains Dr Sally Messenger.

The 2014 Skills Show and Association of Colleges (AoC) conference gave a very important message: future VET success depends on global standards underpinning higher level skills development.

In Global standards: bridging the skills gap, published by North Warwickshire & Hinckley College, one of the case studies outlines how at government level, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and our Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, supported by British Council (China), are committed to sharing and aligning elements of technical and vocational education and training.

They have joint interest in using the global standards embedded within the WorldSkills competition as a mode of development. Since 2010 the collaboration has delivered skills roadshows, exchanges of WorldSkills experts and support for college-to-college partnerships.

More recently the partnership has encompassed the delivery of standards workshops in alignment with the direction signalled by Premier Li Keqiang.

WorldSkills competitions are increasingly gaining recognition as a beacon of aspiration for ‘skills excellence’ within the UK VET system. Within WorldSkills International (WSI), strategy also includes how the standards, within the competition, can add value through a wider and deeper reach into global vocational and education training systems.

Following the success of WorldSkills London 2011, the Skills Funding Agency recognised the opportunity to build on the momentum of the achievements of Team UK through investing in a suite of five Legacy Projects which have subsequently been transferred to Find a Future.

One of the projects, contracted through the AoC, was to use WSI standards to support the drive to increase high level technical skills.

We need fresh thinking on developing professional VET teachers as global skill leaders, a model well-illustrated by WorldSkills experts

A national team, based at North Warwickshire & Hinckley College, has been working on the project in collaboration with WSI for the past two years.

A key outcome of the Project is Global standards: bridging the skills gap which provides a set of case studies, designed to act as a catalyst for ‘skill standards ambition’ within the UK.

The focus of the publication is on providing examples of how the concept of aspirational standards and ‘stretch’ can be taken forward by governments, industry and business, further/higher education, private training providers, sector skills councils and awarding organisations, among others.

The concerns and opportunities that emerge include, not surprisingly, the increasing importance of relevant and current industry and business-led standards; the need to support an internationally competitive economy through clear links with global standards; and our collective dependency on ‘cutting edge’ programmes linked to appropriate systems for updating, quality and regulation.

New College Lanarkshire provides an example of the many practical ways in which WorldSkills standards can raise capacity to engage and meet modern industry needs in engineering design and in so doing adapt teaching, learning and assessment practice.

Similarly Middlesex University has, since 2007, been championing WorldSkills standards, project-based learning and assessments to drive innovative programmes in mechatronics, electronics and robotics within its degrees and in courses at Tottenham University Technical College, for which the university is a sponsor.

Focussed investment in the professionalism of our VET teachers is vital — the combination of their leading edge technical and pedagogy skills. With the many changes taking place in the sector we need fresh thinking on developing professional VET teachers as global skill leaders, a model well illustrated by WorldSkills experts.

Continuing technical upskilling, linked to programme development, is the prerequisite for a world class VET system. One case study outlines how the Vocational Training Charitable Trust (VTCT) has been undertaking research with representatives from the hairdressing and barbering sector with the aim of providing deep skills development for VET teachers.

As a report by McKinsey & Company, in 2007, stated: ‘The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.’

Email skills.projects@nwhc.ac.uk for more about the project and to get a copy of the report.

City solution to the skills shortage conundrum

Devolution of skills funding to city regions could be the key to solving local skills shortages, according to Mark Farrar

Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne, at last month’s Association of Colleges conference, floated the idea that skills funding should be devolved to city regions.

This proposal is similar to a key recommendation from an AAT-commissioned report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research entitled Apprenticeships for the Future.

It advises there should be a greater focus on the local ownership of skills education and funding. Taking such an approach locally could help ensure that local labour skills match the current and future demands of the local job market.

While apprenticeships are increasingly becoming a success story, geographical coverage is uneven and elements of funding — such as the standard rates for training providers — still operate on a one-size-fits-all basis. Despite innovative thinking on how to drive demand, a traditionalist centralised approach to funding remains.

Regional disparities in new apprenticeship starts highlight why this funding model needs improvement. The North East, which had 35,870 apprenticeship starts last year, has one of the highest levels of youth unemployment at 27 per cent.

While there may not be a direct correlation between the two, more apprenticeships could help improve the employment prospects of young people in the region.

At the same time, there are industries suffering from acute skills shortages, such as construction and ICT, which show no signs of abating. In fact they look set to get worse as apprenticeship numbers in both have dropped, with ICT apprenticeships falling by 28 per cent between 2010/11 and 2012/13, while construction new starts reached a ten-year low.

City regions could play a key role in addressing such issues by determining where funding for skills should go. They should be better placed to know what skills shortages there are in their region and could implement a more targeted approach to tackling them.

City regions should be better placed to know what skills shortages there are in their region and could implement a more targeted approach to tackling them

Government proposals to reform the funding model for apprenticeships offer an opportunity to deliver this devolved funding model. By targeting funding at priority sectors, emerging skills gaps, and addressing geographical imbalances, apprentices can provide the skills that the UK economy will need to continue to grow.

How can this funding approach be achieved? Better data is required below regional level to allow skills shortages and certain types of unemployment to be targeted. Government departments and agencies should examine how they currently record data and seek to use business surveys, and other techniques, to help map skills shortages at a local level.

Local Enterprise Partnerships (Leps) could also have a major role to play. There is currently much regional variation in their capacity and capability to ensure effective delivery. This is something that would need to be resolved so that all are empowered to deliver effectively for their city region.

To be successful, funding policy should also reflect the changing needs of the economy. As the system moves towards employer contributions, it should differentiate between types of apprenticeship, offering greater funding incentives for places that address identified skills shortages.

Conversely, higher employer contributions may be sustainable where needs are already being met.

But let’s not rush at this, to achieve the desired change the government should consult further with employers and providers about the details of its new funding mechanism before going ahead. A new system provides a crucial opportunity to target incentives at priority sectors and locations where additional places would provide the greatest economic benefit.

The impact of the changes should also be monitored closely after introduction to make sure that skill shortages, as they are identified, are addressed.

There has been a huge increase in the number of apprentices in recent years, which has helped businesses and transformed lives. Now we must look to ensure that all areas of the country benefit fully, with apprenticeships that deliver what the UK needs to drive economic growth.

Going back to ‘college’ with lessons from Lesoco

In January 2013, FE Week was first to report that the merged Lewisham and Southwark colleges, in South London, would be renaming to Lesoco. And just over two months ago, we exclusively revealed the cost — and unpopularity — of the £290k new brand. Ioan Morgan explains why the merged college is called Lesoco no more.

You can change the signs, the logos and the title on your website — but you have only succeeded in changing the name in practical terms if you have convinced the public to refer to you by your new title.

As interim principal, I found that Lesoco had many issues around identity. The name just wasn’t working for us. It was just too obscure.

That said, there was some logic to the name. It draws on the original merged college’s title. Some would argue it has a trendy feel — like Soho in London, or Tribeca in New York — and that this would inspire our potential customers by projecting an image which is non-stodgy, aspirational and even “cool”.

Cool, perhaps, but clearly not popular with learners, stakeholders and staff.

It was described variously as unintelligible, obscure, confusing, pretentious and as the manifestation of a corporate mid-life crisis. Apart from that, people really liked it.

Of course, if the college had a multi-million pound budget to educate potential customers — as Norwich Union did in the transition to Aviva, or Arthur Anderson to Accenture — it might, just possibly, have worked.

Even then, it would be hard to see that the novelty of the new title would compensate for losing the reference to the locations we serve.

It is now possible to mention the name of the college to a cab driver without being met by a blank face

Unlike Aviva and Accenture, we are not a national or international business. Our location is everything to us and, of course, it is everything to our communities. In addition, we enjoy enormous support from the local boroughs.

In any case, we weren’t going to spend that sort of money. If we did, and if we wanted to improve the college’s image, we’d have done better spending the money on paint.

So the decision was made to revert to Lewisham Southwark College, which we did in steps. First by extending the Lesoco logo so the old name was kept alive until we had formal permission for the change from the Secretary of State. Second by beginning a rebrand of all our materials once permission was forthcoming, and this we are now doing.

Quietly and confidently, we are reverting back to a title almost identical to the original Lewisham and Southwark College. In doing do, we recapture the credibility we previously enjoyed from being associated with two colleges with pedigree which preceded our merger.

On a practical level, it is now possible to mention the name of the college to a cab driver without being met by a blank face. You know a rebranding exercise has failed if you can’t get a cab to the college without resorting to its previous, original title before the driver knows what you’re talking about.

It would have been easy — although foolhardy — to keep up the pretence that we believed in our new “trendy” title. This would have enabled us to save face and to escape some criticism. It is a small price to pay for making the right decision.

The challenge now is to ensure the new name reflects a brand that is a promise of community relevance, employability and student-centred values.

FE Week saw the issue with the new title, sometimes that’s the push we need for change.

Of all of the announcements I’ve made to staff, none has been welcomed with more enthusiasm than when I told them that we were scrapping the Lesoco name.

You might argue there’s more to worry about than just the college’s name, but actually I think there’s something much deeper here.

The college is going through a period of change and improvement, and there are challenges ahead — but we still want to celebrate the best of our past.

We have staff who are proud to associate themselves with the college and we have many supporters and partners in the communities we serve who feel the same way.