Latest news from FE Week

George’s Osborne’s budget today included plans for an apprenticeship levy, a living wage which could reach £9 per hour by 2020, and further details on previously-announced policies such as the ‘youth obligation’. Here, we bring you reaction from FE sector leaders as it happens…

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Professor Alison Wolf, King’s College academic, life peer and author of SMF report which called for a levy last week

“I am very surprised, but I am also delighted. I punched the air when I saw it on the screen.

“Did I know it was something people at BIS had been considering? Yes, I did. Did I know it was going to be in this budget? I had no idea.

“I am absolutely delighted to get a hypothecated tax in there, something which is actually institutionalised as opposed to lots of little bits here and there.

“I have no idea why it’s only for large businesses, I don’t know how well it’s worked out or whether the numbers add up, and I will be watching it very closely.”

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David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace)

“The Chancellor made a great start to his speech today when he admitted that as a country, ‘we do not train enough’.

“However, despite all the emphasis and rhetoric on a low tax, higher wage and low welfare economy, he is clearly leaving the detail on skills and learning until the publication of his productivity plan on Friday.

“This will, we hope, recognise the invaluable contribution the FE sector must play in transforming our economy.

“Securing investment from employers through the apprenticeship levy is a great move if it leads to increased employer investment in skills and more employers taking on apprentices but quality of, and access to, apprenticeships have to improve at the same time.

“Apprenticeships are not enough though to fill skills gaps and drive productivity. People already at work need training and for those in low pay many need basic and digital skills.

“We need to address low-level productivity in retail and care as much as we do in engineering and manufacturing. For the 5m people in low pay the productivity plan will need to a new offer of training and support because an apprenticeship will not be available to them.”

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Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC)

“In today’s budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out plans for a national training levy to be paid by large employers which will be used to support apprenticeships. This is a brave decision and an important step in ensuring the quality of apprenticeships is maintained at the same time as the quantity is increased.

“It is right that employers make a contribution to the costs of training the national workforce as they benefit from apprenticeships in terms of increased productivity among their employees and from access to a more skilled labour market. Levies are one way in which this can be achieved and they are already in use in many other countries.

“It will be important however that any levy system is not unduly bureaucratic and we believe a universal payroll charge is the best approach.

“The key announcement for colleges in today’s budget is the plan to implement spending cuts over a longer period but a slower rate than indicated in the March budget. We will continue to emphasise the need for the government to invest in education and skills.”

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Chris Jones, chief executive of City & Guilds

“We welcome the Chancellor’s support for apprenticeships in today’s budget statement. Sustainable long-term funding solutions, such as the proposed apprenticeship levy for large firms, will be critical to not only meeting the 3m apprenticeship target, but making sure each and every apprenticeship is high quality.

“With the annual productivity gains from training an apprentice at £10,280 per year, the investment is well worth it. However, if this new levy is implemented, it must be done in a way that does not impose additional bureaucracy on businesses, and does not discourage employers from supporting on-the-job training in their companies.

“It is also important that support for would-be apprentices does not overshadow the need to help people up the ladder at every stage of their careers, including later in life.

“Today we are disappointed that the Chancellor was silent on the need to boost provision for over-19s in areas such as vocational qualifications and employability support. We also need alternatives to a purely academic curriculum at 14 or 15 – again, something that wasn’t covered.”

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Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)

“George Osborne is right in his assessment that skills need a radical overhaul, so an apprenticeship levy on large employers is a good first step. One third of employers offered their workers no training, of any sort, last year so radical measures are needed. However, the levy needs to ensure apprenticeships are of high quality, not just increase the quantity.

“We fear scrapping maintenance grants will stop some young people from going to university.

“The Chancellor cannot continue to hold teachers’ pay behind private sector pay and expect teaching to remain an attractive profession. It would be a recipe for disaster to have fewer teachers when it’s expected that there will be thousands more pupils in schools.”

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Jonathan Cridland, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

“Firms want to play their part in training up more apprentices but an apprentice levy is a blunt tool.

“A volunteer army is always better than conscription but the CBI will work with the government to make the best effect of this measure.

“The CBI supports a higher skilled, higher wage economy, but legislating for a living wage does not reflect businesses’ ability to pay.

“This is taking a big gamble that the labour market can absorb year-on-year increases of an average of 6 per cent.”

 

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John Allen, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)

“We agree with the focus on productivity but need to see the details to raise skills through the apprenticeship levy on large firms.

“Planning reforms are also critical to raising productivity and again we look forward to seeing the proposals on Friday.

“However, even though offset by a welcome increase in the employment allowance, some will find the new national living wage challenging.

“Changes to the treatment of dividends will also affect many of our members.”

 

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It’s less than 24 hours to go before what is possibly the FE and skills sector’s most feared Budget ever — but should we really be expecting the worst, or even much at all, asks FE Week reporter Paul Offord.

Chancellor George Osborne announces his Budget in the House of Commons from around 12.30pm tomorrow (follow the FE Week Twitter account for live updates) and there are numerous downcast predictions as to the outlook for FE and skills.

Chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education David Hughes (pictured right), for example, warned providers could be pushed “over the edge” if sector budgets were further hit with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE) already under orders to serve up in-year cuts of £450m each to The Treasury.

“Good news from this Budget for FE seems unlikely given the cuts which BIS and the DfE have been asked to implement,” he said.

“I am worried that the chancellor’s in-year funding cuts will reduce further the opportunities for people over the age of 19 to learn.

“The FE sector is in dire financial straits and more cuts will push many organisations over the edge.”

Another comes from Charlotte Bosworth (pictured left), director of skills and employment at OCR, who said: “Given the large cuts seen on non-apprenticeship programmes this year, we could be seeing [through tomorrow’s Budget] the start of an inevitable decline or disappearance of the adult skills budget.”

However, she added: “Considering the government’s focus on promoting higher level skills and the need to fill the skills gap particularly in technical occupations, there could be good news for [funding of] these types of programmes.”

Indeed, along with the potential for FE funding cuts coming tomorrow is the possibility that the Chancellor may give more of an outline of how government will fund the Conservative manifesto pledge of creating 3m apprenticeships by 2020.

Such an outline would come in addition to Conservative manifesto commitments to fund the extra starts by switching classroom-based FE funding and recycling savings from the welfare budget and more government plans have put forward paying for apprenticeships with revenue from visa charges and bank fines.

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said: “We’re told that a major theme of this Budget will be addressing Britain’s productivity challenge and the link between skills and productivity is now clear.

“Therefore, as signalled by [Skills Minister] Nick Boles at the recent AELP conference, we expect to see continued investment in apprenticeships.”

And Patrick Craven (pictured right), City & Guilds director of policy, research & compliance, agreed it was “realistic” to expect “further support for apprenticeships”.

However, he said: “As we have raised with the Chancellor, it’s all well and good having big targets to aim for, but it won’t have the long-lasting impact on skills gaps and productivity unless the quality is there. If we get the quality right, the numbers will come.”

Apprehension over the race for apprenticeship numbers was echoed by Shakira Martin (below left), National Union of Students vice president of FE.

She said: “Tomorrow’s Budget promises little hope for an FE sector already standing at the edge of a precipice.

“The government’s dubious promise to deliver 3m apprenticeship starts looks set to further decimate adult learning budgets and may signal the death knell for adult education as we know it.”

It was a concern further aired by Niace chief executive Mr Hughes.

“The focus on apprenticeships as the only solution is unhelpful even though we want to see more people launch their careers through that route,” he said.

“I would urge the Chancellor to prioritise actions which support better access to and higher quality apprenticeships.

“Access issues include black and minority ethnic and people with disabilities, as well as young adult carers and people over 25 who are moving into new roles.

“I would also urge him to accept that our ageing population, advances in technology, skills shortages and falling productivity all require a vibrant, innovative FE sector and for that we need more, targeted investment, rather than cuts.”

Meanwhile, Sally Hunt (pictured right), general secretary of the University and College Union, raised concern about the possibility of adult learning loans being rolled out further.

She said: “We’ve yet to hear the government’s decision on [extending advanced learning] loans to level two and those aged 19+.

“We’re deeply concerned about the impact this would have on student numbers, particularly among those who are hardest to reach, but it seems likely that we’ll see these extended in this Budget.”

However, the prospect of little news for FE and skills was raised by Julian Gravatt (pictured left), assistant chief executive of the Association of Colleges.

He told FE Week that he did not expect FE to loom large in tomorrow’s Budget.

He said: “The Conservative government’s first Budget is likely to focus on tax measures, both cuts and increases, as well as the benefit savings.

“However, it’s unlikely that there will be clarity on any future budgets until the 2015 spending review has been completed later in the year.

“We hope the FE sector will get quick confirmation of any last minute changes to funding allocations for 2015/16 and we wait to see what the government’s new productivity plan will bring in terms of a framework for improvements to education and skills.”

The government said it would not be commenting ahead of the Budget.

A levy on large businesses to help fund apprenticeship growth has been announced by Chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Osborne’s budget announcement comes after Professor Lady Alison Wolf called for such a levy, but on all employers, in a report released by the Social Market Foundation last week.

Employer and FE sector bodies are still digesting the announcement, along with others relating to FE in the Budget (listed below), but Professor Wolf’s universal levy proposal was rejected by the Confederation of British Industry, while the Association of Employment and Learning Providers was also sceptical.

Nevertheless, papers released by the Treasury following Mr Osborne’s speech to Parliament this afternoon reveal that revenue from the levy will help fund all post-16 apprenticeships in England.

According to the documents, the levy will “provide funding that each employer can use to meet their individual needs”.

The Treasury goes on to say: “The funding will be directly controlled by employers via the digital apprenticeships voucher, and firms that are committed to training will be able to get back more than they put in.

“There will be formal engagement with business on the implementation of the levy, which will also consider the interaction with existing sector levy boards, and further details will be set out at the spending review.”

Mr Osborne also used his budget speech to announce a new ‘living wage’, to replace the minimum wage for those aged 25 and over, starting at £7.20 next April and rising to £9 by 2020. This is despite the fact the rate currently recommended by the Living Wage Foundation is £7.85 outside London and £9.15 in the capital.

It is not yet known how this will affect the apprentice minimum wage, which is due to rise to £3.30 an hour from October.

The Chancellor also outlined in more detail his plans for a ‘youth obligation’, which will see benefits taken away from 18 to 21-year-olds who don’t ‘earn or learn’.

The Treasury has announced: “From April 2017, young people will participate in an intensive regime of support from day 1 of their benefit claim, and after six months they will be expected to apply for an apprenticeship or traineeship, gain work-based skills, or go on a mandatory work placement to give them the skills they need to move into sustainable employment.”

Other announcements which could potentially impact FE include a further devolution of powers to Greater Manchester, including employment services, and the introduction of employment adviser support for 14 to 17-year-olds in Birmingham through the Jobcentre Plus.

The clock is well and truly ticking with 880 hours to go before the UK’s top apprentices jet off to Brazil to take on the best of the rest at WorldSkills 2015 — and FE Week and City & Guilds want to wish them all the very best in the quest for golden glory.

Yes, in 37 days Team UK will be in São Paulo to find out whether all their hard work and training has paid off and if they’ve got what it takes to be crowned best young person in the world for their skill.

Our 41 young men and women (click here or on image below) will compete in 38 different skills, from hairdressing and stone masonry to confectionery and IT security from August 11 to 16 (that’s just 53,280 minutes away, by the way).

As the pressure mounts, the UK’s official delegate and chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency, Peter Lauener also wished the competitors good luck in their final preparations.

“Representing your country on the world stage is no easy feat. It takes hard work, determination and a high level of skill,” he said.

“As part of Team UK, you have displayed all of these attributes.

“As you now go on to take part in the WorldSkillsfinals in São Paulo, you will need to draw on every aspect of your training and experience to be the best you can.

“Best of luck to everyone in the UK team — I look forward to seeing a number of UK medal winners.”

Our competitors will be among 1,230 from more than 60 countries, taking part in 50 different vocational skills.

They will be looking to repeat, or even better, the successes of WorldSkills 2013, in Leipzig, Germany, where Team UK finished tenth in the medals table with two gold, one silver and three bronze, along with a whopping 17 medallions for excellence (handed out when competitors reach a set international standard).

And David Cragg, deputy chair of WorldSkills UK organisers Find a Future, also offered his best wishes to our 2015 crop.

He said: “I would like to offer my congratulations to every member of Team UK. They are ambassadors for our nation and I wish them the best of luck as they prepare to compete against the best in the world.”

The event will be staged five kilometres from the centre of Sao Paulo at Anhembi Parque, which at 400,000 square feet is one of the largest event centres in Latin America.

And it won’t just be the competitors and their trainers who are flocking to Anhembi Parque, as 800 volunteers are expected to help keep the show on the road, along with 200,000 visitors — the largest audience in WorldSkills history.

Mr Cragg said it was hoped the competition would inspire more young people to take a vocational route.

“Skills competitions showcase the high levels of performance that can be achieved by individuals and organisations through high quality further education, skills training and apprenticeships,” he said.

“Through skills competitions and the wider work of Find a Future we want to provide every young person with the chance to unlock their potential and get excited about the world of work.”

WorldSkills runs from August 11 to 16, with competitions taking place across four days from August 12. Keep up with all the action before and during the competition with FE Week – on feweek.co.uk or on Twitter with the handle @FEWeek and the #GoWSTeamUK hashtag.

 

 

 

A newly-established House of Lords committee on social mobility launches its first investigation tomorrow — and apprenticeships are set to be route of investigation.

The group of a dozen Lords, chaired by Labour peer and former Bristol East MP Lady Corston (pictured above), will look into the transition from school to work.

It will hear from officials from the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in its first evidence session, starting at 11.05am (follow @feweek for live updates).

The committee, which was appointed on June 11 and includes Innovation Code creator and Lib Dem education spokesperson in the House of Lords Lady Sharp (who was profiled by FE Week two years ago), is expected to look into the government’s 3m apprenticeship target, FE funding, employer engagement, careers advice and recent changes to child poverty measures.

Lady Corston told FE Week: “There’s been a great emphasis on what we call the royal route,  people who take A-levels and then university, and of course there are apprenticeships, although for young people there’s not nearly as many as there should be, and we know there are people who are Neet [not in education, employment or training].

“But there’s this missing middle — a very large cohort about which we know nothing and I’m very interested in finding out what’s happening to them, and what happening in FE, generally.

“There’s some evidence of some considerable downward social mobility and we’ve got to see if that’s the case.”

A committee spokesperson said an estimated 40 to 50 per cent of young people fall into the “missing middle” category referred to by Lady Corston, but that “it would seem that no investigation on any significant scale has been carried out”.

“The committee is looking to unpick the group known as the ‘missing middle’ and to assess if the provisions currently in place are supporting those most in need,” she added.

In the committee’s second evidence session tomorrow, from noon, representatives from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills are expected before the committee.

A committee spokesperson said potential future witnesses included Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission and former Labour MP Alan Milburn, Demos, the Centre for Social Justice and the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Joining Lady Corston on the committee in addition to Lady Sharp is Lady Berridge (Conservative), Lady Blood (Labour), Lord Farmer (Conservative), Lord Holmes (Conservative), Lady Howells (Labour), The Earl of Kinnoull (crossbencher), Lady Morris (Labour) Lord Patel (crossbencher), Lady Stedman-Scott (Conservative) and Lady Tyler.

“We’ll be taking evidence from people who can point out to us some of the anomalies in our present system and how we could make much better use of the human capital that we’ve got,” said Lady Corston.

The committee is due to report its findings by March 23.

 

 

Trade Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady told delegates at the Unionlearn conference that fighting the “false economy of FE cuts” was “our first priority”.

In her speech to today’s conference at Congress House, in central London, Ms O’Grady (pictured above) warned that the next five years will “test our mettle”.

“Our first priority must be to fight the false economy of cuts to FE,” she said.

“As we all know, the government is intent on shrinking the state back to the same level it was at in the 1930s.

“Nowhere is this more at risk from this ideological drive than FE. Thousands of FE staff face redundancy or more casualisation.

“This is no way to go about tackling Britain’s skills shortages, or provide the parity between vocational and academic education that everyone seems to be talking about.

“These cuts have disastrous implications for learners, for our skills base and for the economy. They will exasperate inequality, damage productivity and slow the economy.”

Her comments reflected widespread sector concern over loss of funding to FE, which has faced adult skills budget cuts of around 35 per cent since 2009 and is now gearing up to deal with the consequences of a further 24 per cent cut in 2015/16.

Ms O’Grady added there was no denying that the country was experiencing an economic recovery, with record numbers of people in work.

But she said: “The fact is that our economy remains far too dependent on too many people in low-paid, low-skilled, insecure jobs.

“We will never meet our productivity potential unless we start remembering who really creates the wealth in this country and the answer is simple, ‘it’s workers’.

“That’s why a case for a national drive to improve the skills of all working people should be common sense.”

The conference also featured talks on the economic benefits for workers and the wider economy of union-led learning, part-time education, and wider FE, by Peter Horrocks, vice chancellor of The Open University, and Ben Nield, assistant director at the Marchmont Observatory, University of Exeter.

Neil Darwin, chief executive of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership, also addressed delegates.

He said: “The challenge for me around skills is enormous. It is one of our top three priorities, the others being housing and infrastructure. It’s vitally important to consider how we train our people into valued work.”

After hearing of Ms O’Grady’s speech to the conference, a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “We will continue to focus investment in areas that have the most impact on increasing the skills of our workforce and help increase productivity across the country.”

This week learners from up and down the country are battling to be crowned apprentice team of the year in the fourth annual Brathay Apprenticeship Challenge final.

The eight teams of nine apprentices have been whittled down from more than 800 entrants to earn a place on the finale on Lake Windermere in the Lake District, where they have been taking part in teambuilding activities such as orienteering, high ropes and boat racing, since Monday.

And the eight teams will be hoping to make a splash in the last leg of the grand finale, the whaler boat race, and the prize giving ceremony, which takes place tomorrow.

To get there, the teams — made up of apprentices from the same employer, group of small businesses, industry, supply chain or provider — completed fundraising projects in their community with the top performers making it through.

This year the eight teams to have made it through to the final of the competition organised by youth charity Brathay and the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) are teams from Redrow Homes, Nottingham City Homes, Sellafield power plant, Pera Training, Dale Power Solutions, Plymouth City Council, HSBC and British Airways.

NAS director Sue Husband said: “The challenge gives apprentices a chance to show not just their employers but the wider community the high ambitions and achievements that apprentices have when they are given the chance.

“Enhanced apprenticeships experiences such as the Brathay Apprentice Challenge benefit both employers and apprentices, giving employers a workforce with transferable skills and apprentices the chance to develop skills and experiences that will move them forward in their career.”

In last year’s competition, when a team from PepsiCo emerged victorious, apprentices managed to raise more than £30,000 for charity, conduct more than 360 school visits to talk about the benefits of apprenticeships and recruit 50 new businesses to offer apprenticeships.

Godfrey Owen, chief executive of Brathay Trust said the community projects test learners’ “leadership, communication and team building skills and these skills are not something that are always tested purely in the workplace”.

He added: “While the teams build these skills they are also teaching other young people about apprenticeships and showing both employers and students that an apprenticeship is a valued career path.”

Main pic above, from left: Plymouth City Council apprentices Steven Bryant, aged 20, customer services (facilities management), Jacob Ellis, 20, marketing, team captain Lee Bond, 25, Nick Tomlinson, 27, both project management, Jake Holmes, 19, level three business administration, John Horler, 25, Lewis Walsh, 24, Joseph Gore, 24, all three project management, and (not pictured) Tommy Clift, 19, business administration