Awarding organisations (AO) have warned about the “significant impact” of a delay in finding out whether hundreds of qualifications will be publicly-funded next academic year.

The SFA has split the process of notifying the sector about which qualifications will be exempted from the public funding axe due to a “high volume of submissions” from AOs making the case for continued funding.

The SFA was originally supposed to confirm how many of all 779 submissions had been approved for funding on April 1, and while an announcement on the 360 qualifications at level two and above remains expected on that date, news about the 419  entry and level one, plus QCF English and maths, submissions is not due until just over three weeks later at  worst.

The delay is a cause for concern among AOs who may have to watch provider customers, keen to plan their 2015/16 curriculum as soon as possible, opt for alternative qualifications already earmarked for public funding.

Among them was Pearson, where a spokesperson told FE Week: “We know colleges and training providers will be keen to know which qualifications are eligible for planning purposes for this coming academic year.”

Policy leader for NCFE Andrew Gladstone-Heighton (pictured right) said the delay over funding confirmation for the level two and below qualifications was an “important issue”.

“While we understand the SFA are under a great deal of pressure due to their own resource constraints, we’re keen to hear as soon as possible which qualifications have been approved for funding as any delays have a significant impact on our customers who are planning their curriculums for next year,” he said.

“They need to know which qualifications are eligible for funding as a matter of urgency.”

A spokesperson for NOCN (previously the National Open College Network) said it was waiting for the SFA to rule on its submissions for eight level two and above qualifications and 17 below level two.

He said: “As a leading AO we are aware of the current situation with SFA-funded qualifications.

“We have been fortunate in that the majority of our adult qualifications will be funded for 2015/16 [as they have already been cleared for funding by the SFA]. We currently have 123 funded adult qualifications [approved for 2015/16].”

The submissions include applications for new qualifications and exemptions for existing qualifications which do not meet the SFA’s new business rules published in February but for which AOs still hope to secure funding.

The business rules set, for example, a minimum credit value for qualifications and state that they “must have a clear statement of purpose” explaining how passing them will lead to an apprenticeship, higher education course, improved literacy and numeracy, or employment.

The SFA told AOs in an email on March 26, which FE Week has seen, of the delay. The email said: “Where these qualifications [below level two] are approved they will be added to an additional update of the Simplified Funding Rates Catalogue which we intend to publish no later than April 22.”

But the email provoked an angry response from AO staff on Twitter.

Warren Cresswell, FE funding and stakeholder manager for the Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (Cache), tweeted that it was “poor resource planning again from the SFA.”

Chris Brown (picture left), chief executive of AptEd, also tweeted: “It’s not very helpful at all is it, [the SFA] can’t cope with their own rules but expect us to.”

An SFA spokesperson said: “Splitting the feedback into two stages allows us to deal with the high volume of submissions received in March and also ensure that the feedback we offer is of a more detailed nature.”

When asked by FE Week how many of the submissions would be approved for funding, he said: “Those figures won’t be available until we’ve told the AOs.”

College governors should be on the look out for warning signs of financial trouble or performance problems, FE Commissioner Dr David Collins has said.

Dr Collins (pictured below right) has written to all boards, principals and chief executives with a list of potential early warning signs within an FE institution, and said the signs had been present in the “20 or so” colleges he has visited since taking up the job in November 2013.

The document is aimed at getting colleges to be more aware of their weaknesses instead of waiting for a financial notice of concern from the Skills Funding Agency or an inadequate Ofsted rating.

He said: “Few people, if any, would argue against the fact that prevention is better than cure and in the twenty or so assessments undertaken to date warning signs have been apparent well before an intervention has been triggered.

“So what might boards be looking for in particular to suggest that a financial notice of concern or an Ofsted ‘inadequate’ report might be on the way?

“The following list is not exhaustive but highlights some of the areas discovered to date where an early questioning of the principal and/or senior team might prevent the situation from becoming worse.”

Dr Collins outlined 20 areas, under headlines including financial and organisational. He said boards should be wary if financial forecasts were repeatedly “significantly different” to outurn, if management accounts showed significant swings or variations or if borrowing as a percentage of college turnover exceeded 60 per cent.

Other warning signs flagged up in the letter included staff costs in excess of 65 per cent of turnover, a lack of “systematic” engagement with employers, attendance rates below 85 to 90 per cent or if student surveys or focus groups show levels of satisfaction below 90 per cent.

More generally, Dr Collins said board members should be wary if they were discouraged from formally meeting and discussing the college’s performance with students and staff or if minutes and ensuing actions from senior management team meetings were not published or did not cover the key issues faced by the college. He also said “annual rather than occasional” restructuring should set alarm bells ringing.

It comes after the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said principals would have to wait for more struggling colleges to emerge successfully from the FE Commissioner process before guidance on how his intervention ends would be published.

A report published on March 25 by BIS, entitled An Evaluation of the Further Education Commissioner-led intervention process summary report, made a number of recommendations as to how college underperformance and checks by commissioner Dr David Collins (pictured above) could be improved.

The report called for “more clarity” surrounding how intervention, which includes “stocktake” progress reports by the commissioner and a Case Review Group to consider ending the process, might be brought to a close.

It said that “to date, only one college [City of Liverpool College] has been removed from intervention. As the circumstances for each intervention differ from case to case it is agreed that more definition or clarity around ending intervention by the FE Commissioner would be welcomed”.

An extra £1.2bn could have been dished out to 16 to 18 providers since 2010 if the government’s education ringfence had extended beyond five to 15-year-olds, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) claimed today.

The IPPR’s Moving on up – Developing a strong, coherent upper secondary education system in England report said that the UK, unlike the “vast majority” of other countries across the world, spends significantly less on ‘upper secondary education’ (for 14 to 19-year-olds) than ‘lower secondary education’ (for five to 13-year-olds).

It claimed that this was because “in 2010 the coalition government decided to ringfence the schools budget, protecting it from the funding cuts that affected many other service areas and departments”.

It said: “However, crucially, this decision protected funding for 5 to 15-year-olds only; the budget for post-16 education was left unprotected. As a necessary consequence, the limited ringfencing of the 5–15 budget has resulted in severe cuts in education areas which fall outside of that age-range.”

The report shows that funding for 16-18 education fell from £7.7bn to £7bn over the course of this parliament. An IPPR spokesperson said that “funding for 16-18 education could have been £1.2bn higher over the course of this parliament by sharing the increase in the 5-15 budget across the whole 5-18”.

The report called on the next government to “reconsider upper-secondary funding and bring more equity to pre- and post-16 figures if they wish to ensure a meaningful, broad curriculum across the phase”.

It comes with the Association of Colleges (AoC) 2015 general election manifesto calling for there to be “no further cuts to spending on 16 to 18-year-olds and, immediately on taking office, the next government should bring this age group within the protective ringfence”.

It also comes with publication, also today, of an Institute for Fiscal Studies report that explains: “The area of Department for Education spending that has suffered the largest cuts has been 16–19 education, where spending has fallen by 14 per cent in real terms between 2010–11 and 2014–15.”

However, Prime Minister David Cameron has said  that the ringfence in place from 2010 would continue if his party remained in office after May’s general election

But Labour’s Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne pledged last month that a Labour Government would include 16 to 19 provision within an education budget ringfence, which currently ends at 16. He added it would not raid the 16 to 19 budget to pay for early years’ or schools provision.

The Liberal Democrats have also announced a plan to include 16 to 19 provision in the education budget ringfence but have stopped short of pledging specific protection within the ringfence, although in June a spokesperson said that to move large amounts of money from one end of the wider age group to the other was not “consistent with the policy”.

The IPPR report said: “The Conservative plan would see a decrease in the 16–18 budget of 6.7 per cent, compared with a 7.7 per cent increase under the Labour and Lib-Dem plan.

“In real terms, Labour and the Liberal Democrats would freeze the 16–18 budget. This is a significantly better outcome for institutions catering for this age-range, compared with a predicted real-terms cut of 13.4 per under Conservative plans.”

The report also called for the scope of 14 to 19 education to be broadened so that all courses include a mixture of classroom-based learning and work experience and elements of learning covering culture and democratic and social citizenship.

It said that UK policy makers should take note of the success of broader upper secondary education systems in Denmark, Finland, Canada, France and the Netherlands.

Martin Doel (pictured right), AoC chief executive, said: “Young people need a broad education through academic and vocational routes, to prepare them for life, not just their first job or further study.

“However, a rich and broad programme requires teaching time and proper resources and IPPR’s report makes a compelling case to compare the UK with other OECD countries.

“This publication attempts to address the purpose and process of education for 14 to 19-year-olds. Unless we tackle the issues around the curriculum, we are likely to have a ’broken pipeline’ in our state education system for 16 to 18-year-olds with consequences for a generation of young people.”

 

Principals will have to wait for more struggling colleges to emerge successfully from the FE Commissioner process before the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) publishes guidelines on how intervention ends.

A report published today (March 25) by BIS, entitled An Evaluation of the Further Education Commissioner-led intervention process summary report, made a number of recommendations as to how college underperformance and checks by commissioner Dr David Collins (pictured above) could be improved.

It was based on BIS research, including a survey sent to all colleges that had been inspected and interviews with officials involved with the process from BIS, including Dr Collins, the Skills Funding Agency, Education Funding Agency, the Department for Education and Ofsted.

The report called for “more clarity” surrounding how intervention, which includes “stocktake” progress reports by the commissioner and a Case Review Group to consider ending the process, might be brought to a close.

It said that “to date, only one college [City of Liverpool College] has been removed from intervention. As the circumstances for each intervention differ from case to case it is agreed that more definition or clarity around ending intervention by the FE Commissioner would be welcomed.”

A BIS spokesperson could not give a date for the publication of new guidelines on the issue, but said: “City of Liverpool College successfully addressed its issues and left the intervention process in November [following the initial inspection by Dr Collins a year earlier].

“As more colleges successfully address the issues for which they were put in intervention, we will be able to create a more comprehensive view of the success criteria for ending intervention.”

The report also noted that prior to triggering an inspection by Dr Collins, struggling providers could seek support from a number of organisations including the Education and Training Foundation, the and Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc), and the Association of Colleges (AoC).

But is said that “the evaluation did highlight that not all the institutions which could benefit from the report are utilising it. This may be because they are unaware of its existence or how to access it.”

It added: “While it is not BIS’s role to provide support to colleges, greater signposting to these resources should be considered and would be welcomed by the sector.”

The BIS spokesperson said: “As the report highlights, there is already support for FE providers through organisations such as the ETF, Jisc and the AoC and BIS is working closely with these organisations to ensure that providers are aware of this.”

Commissioner inspections are triggered if colleges are asses as inadequate by Ofsted, inadequate for financial health by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) or fail to meet “minimum standards of performance by the Department for Education and the SFA”.

Dr Collins has so far reported on inspections of 19 providers.

Gill Clipson (pictured right), deputy chief executive of the AoC, said: “The evaluation report provides a useful analysis of how colleges view the intervention process, led by the FE Commissioner, is operating.

“The clear and transparent reporting is valued by the small number of colleges visited and the FE Commissioner’s termly letters are appreciated by all.

“AoC welcomes the recommendation that there should be greater clarity and definition about how and when intervention comes to a close and would be happy to work with officials to agree this.”

General FE and sixth form colleges will receive £61m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) for courses next academic year.

The figure is 4 per cent down on the £64m given to FE providers for higher education this academic year and a 48 per cent decrease on the £118m funding dished out to the sector for 2012/13.

A Hefce spokesperson said: “Recurrent funding for teaching for 2015/16 shows a reduction compared to 2014/15 as a result of the continuing transition from the old fee and funding regime – when Hefce grant rates were higher because students paid lower tuition fees.

“The reduction is markedly less than for previous years, because the bulk of the transition, relating to students on three-year full-time undergraduate courses, is already complete.”

But Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “It is clear [from these figures] that public funding is only going in one direction. There is no doubt that reductions in many different funding streams are creating enormous pressure on colleges. It is also clear that priorities into the future will be around higher level technical skills. It is important that colleges are able to respond to these priorities and we will do all we can to help them to do so.”

Nick Davy (pictured right), higher education policy manager for the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “The decrease in funding to FE colleges from Hefce reflects the fact that higher education teaching is now [largely] funded by the Student Loans Company through tuition fees, rather than Hefce.

“We are pleased to see, however, that Hefce maintains its commitment to widening access to higher education by providing the student opportunity grant, which makes up about 10 per cent of all college higher education income.”

Hefce announced in January that £714,772 would be allocated to FE colleges with higher education provision between now and 2016 in a bid to improve collaboration with schools and other colleges. The FE sector share is less than 6.5 per cent of the £11.02m total allocated to individual universities and colleges.

In the annual grant letter to Hefce, which confirmed that overall funding for universities and FE colleges with higher education provision would rise from £11.1bn for 2014/15 to £12.1bn for 2015/16, Business Secretary Vince Cable (pictured above) and Universities Minister Greg Clark called on Hefce to support joint working between institutions.

They wrote: “The council should facilitate work with higher education institutions and FE colleges to develop innovative curricula and new modes of delivery that will meet employer needs for high levels of technical expertise, contributing to local enterprise partnerships’ growth plans, and to the government’s industrial strategy.”

It came after Hefce reported last year that the number of people starting undergraduate study at FE colleges in 2013/14 was 10,000 higher than in 2010/11, a 57 per cent rise, and former Universities Minister David Willetts expressed his desire to see more learners taking higher education courses at FE colleges.

An awarding organisation and training company are celebrating after being recognised among the best places to work according to prestigious lists compiled by The Sunday Times.

Newcastle-based NCFE was ranked 70^th on The Sunday Times top 100 charities to work for, while Basildon-based independent learning provider LifeSkills features at number 94 in the paper’s list of the top 100 small businesses to work for.

It comes after Hit Training and ACT Training both celebrated achieving places on the list of medium-sized companies, announced earlier this month.

NCFE chief executive David Grailey (top, left) said: “Gaining recognition as one of the Top 100 companies to work for, for the sixth time, is an achievement we’re extremely proud of.

“Our people, who we value very highly, have helped to make NCFE one of the top national qualification providers in the UK by demonstrating their commitment, innovation, and sheer hard work every day which helps to make NCFE such a success, even during a tough time for the education sector.

“Ultimately, we believe that the workplace can be an engaging and happy environment whilst also delivering an exceptional level of service to our customers.”

LifeSkills managing director Spencer Fearn (top, right) said: “We are delighted to be recognised in the Times Top 100 company awards for the fifth time, following on from [an Ofsted] grade two and Investors in People Gold award in 2014 we have yet again improved as a company and continued to raise the bar in terms of staff engagement and learner development.”