Government proposals to extend loans to level two and also include learners from the age of 19 were put on hold this week as part of the official response to a two-month consultation launched in June. David Hughes assesses the response and also the future for FE loans.
The Government’s response to its consultation on Advanced Level Learning Loans is, at one level, of hardly any consequence. This is partly because it came out a week before the effective end of the Coalition Government, but also because it results in only minor changes rather than the expansion it might have led to. So hardly worth commenting on, perhaps?
As ever with these things, it is important to read the words carefully, as well as between the lines to appreciate why it is an important response.
The introduction by Nick Boles, the current Skills Minister, sets out clearly that the consultation intelligence gathered will be used as evidence for the Spending Review which the next Government will carry out and which will impact in 2016-17. That’s worth thinking about, particularly in light of the recently announced cut to the Adult Skills Budget.
It’s also worth remembering that the loans were introduced as a means of avoiding even greater cuts. That was in 2010 during what felt like tough negotiations as part of the Spending Review which has led to more than a million learning opportunities lost for adults.
Nobody at that time really wanted loans to be introduced, it was a compromise in which officials and politicians deemed it better to hold onto as much funding for adults as they could, even though the loans were wholly un-tested.
The experience of loans has been mixed, but so far it has to be viewed as a failed policy. The drop in numbers is staggering. Apprenticeships were in, then out of loans: and around half of all loans taken out have been for Access to Higher Education courses (for which the loan is written off if the learner completes an HE course).
Unsurprisingly, the market for part-time, flexible level three and four course has not taken off, very much like the collapse of part-time higher education after loans were introduced.
If loans are not working now, then how will colleges and independent learning providers respond when they are extended? What evidence will be available of what works? Where is the investment in testing and innovation?
For an average college, the business is often not important enough to invest in at a time when cuts are biting all over.
For learners, though, the opportunities to learn have disappeared just at the time when employers are reporting more and more skills shortages and gaps at level three and four.
Our recent Policy Solutions paper, entitled No Limits: from getting by to getting on, also pointed to the almost complete lack of skills and support for the 5m people in low pay.
We proposed a new advancement service for people which would stimulate their demand for skills and help boost productivity. We believe that this would lead to more people progressing onto loan-funded intermediate learning, helping their careers and meeting employers’ needs.
But the reality is that we’ve seen too little action to understand how to stimulate demand and not enough work to find out what would be attractive to learners.
More flexibility, day-release supported by employers, promotion of ‘signature’ qualifications which employers recognise and use of technology could all make a difference. Sadly, this new and un-tested policy has not had the R and D innovation to support it and it is not working.
We need to find out how to make it work, and quickly. The next Spending Review will come at us very soon and the cuts heralded in the recent Budget look brutal.
It is almost inconceivable that loans will not be extended by age (to 21?) and by level (to include level 2?). If loans are not working now, then how will colleges and independent learning providers respond when they are extended? What evidence will be available of what works? Where is the investment in testing and innovation?
Like others, Niace has been shouting about the skills crisis we are already in. The extension of loans will only make that worse unless we find ways to make the loans work.
So, the Government response this week to its own consultation was inconsequential, but there is a storm on the horizon and I don’t believe that we are prepared for it. We need to act fast.
Ofqual is asking for views on its plans to replace the Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF), which is due to be scrapped.
The qualifications watchdog launched a three-month 19-question consultation today on the successor to the QCF, which it says it wants to be “simple and descriptive”.
It is proposing that all regulated qualifications should be described by a new Framework of Regulated Qualifications (FRQ). Under the proposed new approach, qualifications would no longer have to be unitised or credit-bearing, but could be if that was the best way for the qualification to meet its purpose.
Jeremy Benson (pictured right), Ofqual’s executive director for vocational qualifications, said: “The new descriptive framework we’re proposing should make qualifications easier to understand. It’s not like the QCF, which sought to impose a particular view of what qualifications should look like.”
He added: “Removing the QCF rules and introducing a new framework does not mean an end to all QCF qualifications – they can stay so long as they are sufficiently valid. What will matter in future will be whether qualifications can be shown to be good, not whether they are designed to tick particular boxes. We know frameworks can be used to support a range of other purposes too, and we would also welcome the views from others who might look to use the FRQ.”
Awarding organisations (AOs) have welcomed the end of the QCF, but many have expressed concern about proposals for a new way to measure the size of a qualification, included in the 19-question consultation.
Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) head of vocational policy Andy Walls told FE Week: “JCQ and its member awarding organisations welcomed last year Ofqual’s decision to remove the QCF. We look forward to life after the QCF.”
Patrick Craven (pictured left), head of learning, assessment and design practice at City & Guilds, said the QCF had been “rigid”, “confusing and restrictive”.
“This new framework will allow those with real expertise in design of assessment instruments to develop fit-for-purpose qualifications and assessment services,” he said.
“And importantly, they will be held accountable for their effectiveness. Although it may seem like even more change for a sector that needs stability, this change was needed and is a positive step forward.
“If it’s managed in the right way, providers, learners and employers will all see benefits as qualifications are rebuilt.”
Currently, specifications for qualifications should include their objective, any pre-requisites for those wishing to study it, the knowledge and skills assessed, how it was assessed and how attainment was measured.
In addition to these, the document said: “We are proposing that in the future, specifications must also include the level and the size of the qualification so that it can be aligned to the framework.”
To describe what level a course is at, a new range of descriptors for each level would be introduced, which the document said would “better reflect the full range of qualifications” than those under the QCF.
It also proposed ending guided learning hours as a way of measuring the size of a qualification, following a consultation, the results of which were also published today, which found that many uses was confused by whether online, work experience or passively supervised activities should count towards learning hours.
Confusion over the definition of guided learning hours presents a problem for providers who must work out whether a qualification is large enough to count towards a 16 to 18 year old’s hours in education under the raised participation age (RPA).
Instead, the latest consultation proposed introducing a Total Qualification Time (TQT) measure to express the size of a qualification.
The document said: “TQT would be made up of Guided Learning, Directed Study and Dedicated Assessment. This approach would provide a complete picture of the time it will typically take a learner to complete a qualification, of which guided learning hours will often only be a part.”
Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of NOCN warned the TQT proposals were “likely to be viewed by employers and training providers as too complicated”.
But he said: “The Ofqual consultation document appears to give awarding organisations the flexibility they would want.”
Gemma Gathercole, head of policy for FE and funding at OCR, said the QCF had been “flawed from its inception” and welcomed plans to withdraw it.
“However, we are concerned about the way that this consultation seeks to introduce new names and acronyms to the already complex world of qualifications,” she said.
She suggested the same terminology could be re-introduced to support the new framework, and said it was “unclear” what purpose the introduction of TQT would serve.
“It creates artificial barriers between elements of curriculum and assessment that could create the same challenges to developing fit for purpose qualifications that were a feature of the QCF,” she said.
“A robust and simple definition of guided learning hours would be sufficient to maintaining the duty required by the RPA legislation.”
The Ofqual consultation closes on June 17. Click here to take part.
The system of Functional Skills qualifications is “not broken, but could be improved,” according to the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) review of non-GCSE English and maths, out today.
And it painted a largely positive picture of Functional Skills.
Professor Ed Sallis, OBE
“The system of Functional Skills is not broken but could be improved,” according to the 19-page report, entitled Making maths and English work for all.
“If government continues with the policy of investing in the literacy and numeracy skills of young people the current arrangements for Functional Skills are a good basis on which to build.
“However, there are steps government and others can take to accelerate the rise in employer recognition and further improve the relevance, rigour and value of these qualifications.”
Professor Sallis said: “The review shows [employers] value practical maths and English skills. They value Functional Skills for their practical approach to problem solving and for their flexible assessment.
“The challenge will be to communicate this message and to ensure they are promoted so every learner has the chance to develop the maths and English skills employers require.”
The review heard from nearly 1,400 individuals and organisations — including 646 employers, 489 practitioners, 229 colleges, awarding organisations and independent learning providers, and 31 apprentices — through telephone and face-to-face interviews, online questionnaires, webinars and seminars.
It found 47 per cent of employers were aware of Functional Skills and of those, 87 per cent valued them.
The report said: “While it is vital that the whole education system, pre and post-16, improves success rates in GCSE, this review has found that many employers understand the contribution that non-GCSE qualifications, and especially Functional Skills, play in giving young people and adults the skills they need in the workplace.”
It added Functional Skills should not be seen as a “stepping stone” to help learners achieve GCSE but as “an alternative route … a qualification in its own right with the key purpose of satisfying employer requirements”.
However, the report added: “An alternative route will only have validity and currency if two criteria are met.
“Firstly, the standards have to be aligned to employability and the content has to be based on what employers need for their workforce. Secondly, Functional Skills have to have flexible but more standardised and rigorous assessment to give employers confidence in them.”
The report called for a further review of the standards on which Functional Skills are based and, to ensure maths and English qualifications remain relevant to employers, it also recommended curriculum content and assessment should be regularly reviewed “on the basis of regular, reliable and representative feedback from employers and providers, and student progress and attainment data”.
And the ETF report further said awareness of the purpose and value of non-GCSE English and maths qualifications “particularly Functional Skills” should be raised through a publicity campaign, and it warned the qualifications should not be presented as a “consolation prize” for GCSE failure.
However, the report said the number of non-GCSE qualifications was “confusing” for employers and said the government should consider culling some to give the remaining ones “greater public and employer recognition”.
Mr Boles welcomed the review’s findings and recommendations, which he said showed “the current Functional Skills system is generally serving its purpose, and reflects the Government’s commitment to ensure all adults have the opportunity to study English and maths”.
Jeremy Benson, executive director for vocational qualifications at Ofqual said: “We welcome… confirmation of the important role that Functional Skills qualifications have in recognising the skills that are important to learners and employers.
“The review complements the work that we are doing to secure higher quality assessments and more consistent standards for Functional Skills qualifications. We will continue to work closely with the ETF and Government so that these important qualifications continue to develop in line with both learners’ and employers’ needs.”
David Russell, ETF chief executive said: “Everyone knows — or thinks they know — what a GCSE in maths or English stands for. But other qualifications exist too, and are increasingly common post-16.
“We set out to discover whether employers recognised them, and, if they did, whether they rated them. We found, unsurprisingly, that it is something people really want to talk about. Employers care about the quality of maths and English skills people have, not just the qualification.”
Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said he was “pleased” by the “strong” employer support for functional skills the review highlighted.
“We look forward to working with the ETF and other partners on implementing the recommendations in Professor Sallis’s report to make Functional Skills an even more valued alternative,” he said.
Gill Clipson, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said the report’s conclusions “support our manifesto recommendation that young people should not routinely be asked to re-sit GCSE English and/or maths”.
She added: “We are looking forward to working with Ministers after May 7 in a joint effort to ensure everyone has suitable English and maths qualifications by the age of 19.”
The system currently applies to learners aged at least 24 and studying at level three or four — but the consultation proposed FE loans should apply to level two and also 19 to 23-year-olds.
Government pays half the course cost for 19 to 23-year-olds staying at levels two and three, but such learners — like those aged 24 and above — would end up having to repay the full cost under the loans system.
However, in the government response to the consultation, out today, Skills Minister Nick Boles (pictured above) wrote: “It makes sense to consider the implications of these changes alongside plans for the overall funding for skills provision in the future.
“For this reason, we will not be going ahead with our plans for expansion at the moment, but will look again at these proposals in the Spending Review.”
However, the government said it would, from 2016/17, remove the rule surrounding concurrent study, which prevents a learner from undertaking two loans-funded courses at the same time.
It would also, from the same academic year, remove the repeat study rule, which prevents a learner from undertaking loans-funded courses of the same type and level.
“There were many examples where the repeat study rule is seen to be hindering progression in some sectors such as health and beauty, and joinery,” it said in the response document.
“As Advanced Learning Loans become further embedded, this may become a more wide-spread problem.”
It added: “The only exception to this will be in the case of Access to HE courses and programmes of A-levels because they are focused on a particular outcome that is related to progression.”
Meanwhile, the rule limiting a learner to a maximum of four loans over their lifetime would remain, but the government would “continue to monitor this, and if necessary, consider amendments in the future”.
Mr Boles wrote: “We will… put more power in the hands of the learner by simplifying the rules on concurrent and repeat study.
“Ensuring that we have the right funding system in place for adult learners is absolutely critical to ensuring a strong economic future. The responses we have received to this consultation give the Government a very strong evidence-base on which to make important decisions about the future of Advanced Learning Loans, in the context of the next Spending Review.”
Julian Gravatt (pictured right), assistant chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “The Government has consulted on the extension of Advanced Learner Loans but its plans won’t become clear until after the 2015 spending review when details of funding are available.
“Removing the restriction to allow students to take out more than one loan at a time, will mean students can study more than one course, but we strongly support the idea of better advice and guidance to explain what it will mean to take out multiple loans.
“Given the current 24 per cent cut to the adult FE and the likelihood of more cuts in 2016, we’re concerned that the delay may mean that any loan extension could not now happen until 2017. The next government will need to take this into account.”
Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE (pictured left), executive director of the 157 Group, said: “We believe that the system in the future must ensure equality of access for adults to a wide range of educational possibilities and, in that respect, the decision not to extend the availability of loans at this stage is something of a missed opportunity.”
She added: “We must remember that the lack of availability of loans for significant numbers of adults at the same time as a reduction in government grant funding for adult learning will leave a large funding gap for the next two years.
“We will be working hard with the relevant government departments to ensure that we have an equitable, transparent and flexible approach to all adult education funding into the future – even in the context of reducing public funding.”
Continued cuts to the adult skills budget risk wiping out adult education and training in England within five years, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has warned after research showed 190,000 course places could be lost in 2015/16 alone.
The AoC has published research based on data from its 336 member colleges which points to a bleak future for the FE sector, 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.
According to the AoC, adult education and training provision could disappear completely by 2020 if cuts continue at the same rate as they have in recent years, with courses in the health, public services and care sectors expected to be hit hardest by next year’s cuts, with the loss of 40,000 course places expected in those areas alone.
AoC chief executive Martin Doel said: “Adult education and training is effectively being decimated. These cuts could mean an end to the vital courses that provide skilled employees for the workforce such as nurses and social care workers.
“The potential loss of provision threatens the future prospects of the millions of people who may need to retrain as they continue to work beyond retirement age as well as unemployed people who need support to train for a new role.
“Adult education and training in England is too important to be lost, to both individuals and the wider economy.”
Other sector leaders and academics have thrown their weight behind Mr Doel’s comments and welcomed the AoC research, which was based on data submissions from 219 colleges and the AoC’s own estimates of the impact of cuts on its 336 members.
David Hughes
David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), said: “This is a very useful analysis of the learning opportunities which are being lost to people and to the economy. Over one million opportunities have disappeared in funding cuts since 2010 and the AoC rightly sets out that more cuts means even fewer opportunities.
“Our businesses face two big challenges – low productivity and skills shortages, particularly at intermediate levels. And with people facing up to working until a later pension age, we need more re-training, not less.
“The funding cuts will hit people who want to work hard to get on, will hit businesses who want to grow and will hamper economic growth. The next government will need to find new ways to fund learning and skills for people aged 19 and over because the cuts have gone too deep now.
“I have been saying for the last year that we are facing a skills crisis. The cuts to come lead me to the same conclusion as AoC – namely that we should all be telling young people to get their state-funded learning in as quickly as they can, because once they hit 21 there won’t be any support left.”
Ewart Keep
Professor Ewart Keep, director of Oxford University’s centre on skills, knowledge and organisational performance, said: “The AoC has produced an alarming, but realistic analysis of the current and potential impact of spending trends on adult education.
“In the light of earlier cuts in public post-19 spending – of the order of 35 per cent over recent years – the latest reductions raise the prospect of provision reaching a tipping point, from which subsequent recovery could be very difficult.
“Cumulative cuts of this magnitude are extremely difficult to absorb, and mean that those colleges and other providers who have a strong focus on adult learners may either go out of business or be forced to re-focus their attention on younger pre-19 students.”
University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt said: “These cuts are a devastating blow to colleges and risk decimating further education. Slashing budgets this harshly could be the final nail in the coffin for many of the courses that help people get back to work.
Sally Hunt
“Not everyone needs or wants to study an apprenticeship, but colleges are being forced to prioritise them over other kinds of courses. This approach will shut the door to hundreds of thousands of people who want to use adult education as a springboard for improving their skills.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said: “We fully recognise the important role further education plays in getting people the skills they need to get on.
“That’s why we’ve committed more than £3.9bn in 2015-16 to adult learning and further education, including £770m of apprenticeship funding. We also expect to spend up to £80m on the National Colleges programme.
“While total funding has been reduced, priority has been given the areas where the most impact can be made – apprenticeships, traineeships and support with English and maths.
“Many colleges and training organisations have responded well to the need to find other income streams for skills provision and it is this approach that will help them succeed.”
Case study: Dudley College. Principal: Lowell Williams. Ofsted rating: Good (April 2013)
How will the funding cuts for 2015/16 affect your college?
“The problem we will have is that all of our adult provision has been aligned to the needs of the local community, so whatever provision we take out is going to hurt local people.
Lowell Williams
“For example, we run over 90 short-term employability courses for unemployed local adults who lack basic skills and qualifications, to help them get into a position where they can present themselves for work or further training.
“Those courses will have to be all-but cut out completely in 2015/16 to save around £500,000 of the overall amount that we need to save [more than £1.4m from the SFA budget].
“Up to £500,000 will also have to be saved by cutting the sort of part-time training opportunities that upskill people in existing low-level jobs who want to progress, perhaps by improving their computer or administrative skills, or in other technical areas such as engineering or motor vehicle.
“For example, you might get someone in a low level cleaning job at a care home who wants to become a domiciliary care worker, but they would have to progress through level one to get onto a level two or three apprenticeship.
“We also currently run around 30 skills training programmes for offenders at Featherstone Prison which help offenders progress into work after they are released. These programmes will have to go, which could save up to £400,000.
“We also estimate there will be some 30 posts at risk [through redundancies] comprising managers, lecturers, assessors and administrators.”
What do you expect the situation to be like in 2020?
“Non-apprenticeship adult funding allocations for us at Dudley College have gone from around £7.2m in 2013/14 to a projected £4.8m for 2015/16 and at this rate our adult allocation will have disappeared completely.
“By wiping out funding [for most adult skills courses], the government will be risking recreating an underclass of poorly educated adults. They will effectively be withdrawing the opportunity to train or retrain for the least able.
“It has become a matter of political expediency for all the parties to commit to ringfencing apprenticeship funding, but that won’t help the least able people, who may have left school without five GCSEs or are not able to speak English as their first language. They need help to get into work or to progress up to an apprenticeship.
“The idea that every adult is best served by an apprenticeship, if they don’t go to university, and won’t have any other training needs, is just too simplistic.”
Case study: Tower Hamlets College. Principal: Gerry McDonald. Ofsted rating: Good (December 2013)
How will the funding cuts for 2015/16 affect your college?
“We will be down by about £1m on our SFA funding, which represents a 14 per cent cut that’s obviously better than the 24 per cent across the sector.
Gerry McDonald
“It’s because we run a lot of protected English and maths provision, 1,041 learners so far this academic year, which cushioned us from worse cuts.
“We will wait and see what happens in the [May 7] general election before making final decisions on where to save money.
“If Labour win and they scrap apprenticeships below level three and rebadge traineeships as something covering all level two courses, then the whole funding landscape is going to change again, so it’s going to be quite interesting.
“It’s likely that we’ll be cutting some courses in 2015/16, but our meetings have only just started looking into that.
“We have already launched a voluntary redundancy round which could mean the loss of around 25 positions, but I can’t guarantee staff that there won’t be further compulsory redundancies.
“There is also likely to be slightly larger class sizes — at the moment we average 17 learners per class and it will be around 18— to help save money.”
What do you expect the situation to be like in 2020?
“I agree with the AoC view that the adult skills budget could be entirely gone aside from apprenticeships and English and maths funding. I expect that other courses will be entirely loan driven.
“If there is any funding on top of that, I wouldn’t expect it to be given out by the Skills Funding Agency, which is bound to become less and less relevant.
“It’s largely the lower level pre-apprenticeship training that colleges are going to be forced to cut back on [in the long-term].
“That’s bad news because a lot of people just don’t have the qualifications or skills as it is to get onto apprenticeships.
“It is going to mean less people going on to apprenticeships and an even bigger skills shortage, which is short-sighted in my view.
“English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) qualifications, which we run a lot of [1,184 learners so far this academic year], are also likely to face cutbacks.
“That could have all sorts of dangerous implications in terms of community cohesion.
“I think a [money saving] option for a lot of colleges will also be looking at economies of scale through more mergers. It’s not something we would rule in or out at the moment.”
Case study: Yeovil College. Principal: John Evans. Ofsted rating: Good (May 2012)
How will the funding cuts for 2015/16 affect your college?
“They will force us to stop running courses that would have been offered to 200 or more learners.
John Evans
“No decision have been made yet over which courses will have to go, but I know that many of the people who will be affected will either be unemployed or low paid because they are low skilled.
“Yeovil has a reasonably low unemployment rate but a high level of low skill and low paid employees.
“One of our aims as a college has been to support more low-skilled workers into higher skilled jobs.
“It’s going to become increasingly difficult for us to do that because of these cuts.
“We don’t have many 19+ traineeships at the moment, as it was previously focused on 16 to 18-year-olds, but we are going to grow the programme for 19 to 24-year-olds now. It’s certainly worth considering as funding for traineeships is currently protected.
“I wrote to the Education Minister David Laws [on March 2] to express my concern about FE funding cuts and the affect it will have on non-apprenticeship provision and he replied by saying he was concerned.
“I don’t know what difference that will make, but you have to keep beating the drum. I don’t think that most people, even the politicians, understand yet the devastating affect these funding cuts will have on skills training.”
What do you expect the situation to be like in 2020?
“There’s no doubt that we’re a sector under threat. A big part of our budget isn’t ring-fenced, so it’s there to be shot at. We need to protect our funding however we can in order to support the skills development and economical growth of our local areas.
“I have been saying for three or four years now that we are going to reach a point where the FE sector will just be for 16 to 18 provision, apprenticeships and anyone who can afford to pay for other training themselves, as the money won’t come from the government.
“The adult skills role of colleges should be much wider than just providing for apprenticeships.
“I understand that savings have to made, as we’re living in a time of austerity, but the government is sending out a mixed message over adult training.
“It’s pushing adult skills training and retraining on the one hand, but making these funding cuts on the other, but the two do not go hand in hand.”
So, the SFA has spoken, announcing adult funding cuts of up to 24 per cent that for some marks the death knell for adult FE as we know it in classrooms and workshops across the country.
Colleges can look forward to being dark, lonely places after 5pm, when each should really be at the front and centre of its local community serving as the focal point of people development. Whatever did happen to that wonderful Government concept of ‘Total Place?’
The debate rages as to whether the sector was fully informed about the level of cuts long before they were announced, and those organisations duly appointed such as the AoC have made strong and robust representations on the sector’s behalf.
Notwithstanding, the ‘horse has well and truly bolted’ coinciding with most colleges trying to pull together a first cut budget no doubt in time to consider the option of issuing notice of redundancy letters to those undeserving servants of the classroom to catch the financial year end. This must surely raise the question that has been asked so many times again — when will a government match the medium-to-longer term task of developing sustainable skills with a funding system that sees beyond 36 weeks?
This round of cuts will clearly affect the volume of delivery whereby previous rate cuts have soaked up what little organisational fat existed
Now, what can senior leaders do to lead their colleges through this most challenging period as the relentless financial pressure on an already creaking sector builds?
This round of cuts will clearly affect the volume of delivery whereby previous rate cuts have soaked up what little organisational fat existed, slowly nibbling away at the quality of the FE offer.
The correct solution will unlikely correlate directly with staff cuts and service reductions.
When the first goes expect others to quickly follow, and when they do, let’s hope that those conducting the financial post-mortem focus on all of the contributory factors rather than simply blaming the accountable officer. We must wait and see.
Moving forward, and to stand a chance of avoiding financial meltdown something more strategic, playing a ‘longer game’ is now required. My advice is to look around the sector, as I am fortunate to do every week.
Look hard enough and you will see that there are still colleges — the most ‘aspirational’ among us — that are coping, even growing, and some even generating a modest surplus.
Achieving student numbers (and retaining them) remains the key priority, but the essential capacity and ability to strategically plan the college’s future remains prime.
It has been some years since we were required to submit an annual 94-page strategic plan to the funding agency of the day. This has been replaced in many colleges by a ‘thin’, glossy ‘four-pager’ denoting a range of targets — but crucially omitting the pathway to their achievement.
Now, more than ever colleges require an HR strategy that talks to a carefully compiled financial strategy that both mutually align with the local skills (curriculum) strategy to be delivered.
Those colleges that are getting it right have (and there is an unfortunate human capital cost) long abandoned the notion that all staff can be retained on a wholly employed basis and designated (the precise balance will vary from college to college) that a relatively fixed percentage (usually between 20 per cent and 30 per cent) of teaching and teaching support staff will be drawn from a reliable, hi-quality FE-based staffing agency providing the essential responsive ‘tap’ to turn down in difficult, challenging times and back up to full pressure when opportunities arise.
In short, never has it been more important to be able to fix the most expensive cost in the college — academic staffing — to its most efficient point. The future of our sector demands this.
At a launch event at the London School of Economics (LSE) today Frank Bowley, deputy director of skills policy analysis at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, who was involved in developing CVER said the organisations would play “different roles”.
The CVER will be based at LSE and will conduct research into the benefits of FE and the effectiveness of policies to feed into future policy formulation.
Mr Bowley said its research would not cover the same as the national Vocational Education and Training (VET) Centre currently being developed by the ETF in response to recommendations from the Commission for Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL), published in March 2013.
“The centre has a very different ethos,” he said. “It is there to advance the research knowledge and make this area exciting for PhD students to come in, for people to do research and to get that information for policymaking for the minister.”
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) took to Twitter to echo Mr Bowley’s comments. “This isn’t duplication, it’s distinct and supportive,” the tweet said.
The VET centre on the other hand, said Mr Bowley, would use evidence produced by CVER as well as gathering examples of “best practice” from colleges and communicate them to the sector.
“Hopefully the CVER will aid the ETF, will aid the Vet centre, and they will help the CVER, but I do think they have very different roles and are very different things” he said.
BIS is giving £3m for three years — with an option to extend a further two years with more funding — for a centre to explore the role of vocational education.
Cavtl chair Frank McLoughlin (pictured right), principal of City and Islington College, sat on the panel assessing bids to run the research centre.
He agreed the new centre would not clash with the ETF, saying there were “two dimensions” in improving vocational learning policy.
“The first is the research dimensions, which is what you have here which the CVER and the best practice dimension which we talked about in Cavtl and which ETF are holding the centre of,” he said. “So they are distinct but it is critically important they talk to each other.”
Jenny Williams (pictured below left), ETF director of vocational education and training, said the organisation was looking forward to working with the new centre. “We have distinct but supportive roles,” she told FE Week.
“We have made research a priority. We are committed to working with researchers at the new ctre to supplement the government data sets in order to enrich the data available across the VET system.”
The CVER’s director, Dr Sandra McNally from the LSE, said the centre’s research would initially focus on three key themes.
“First is about what are the returns — the costs and benefits — to different routes in vocational education to individuals and to firms,” she said.
“The second big theme is how do we improve the quality of provision within vocational education and the third is how do we improve careers information and advice to facilitate people to make good choices for them and a good match for their skills.”
She added: “There are many good researchers in schools and higher education and schools, but we feel the FE sector has been overlooked in terms of research.”
Skills Minister Nick Boles, who attended the launch, agreed.
“It has been striking to me how little evidence we have for all the debates we have,” he said. “As a result of that absence we all grab hold of prejudices, to use the negative term, or instinct to use the positive term.”
He added he was “looking forward” to getting “real, factual answers” from the centre “so that future reforms can be more surely rooted in evidence than perhaps reforms over the last 20 years, which I suspect rely more on instincts or prejudice”.
The search for a successful bidder for the contract to run the centre was headed up by Professor Alison Wolf, recently created Baroness Wolf of Dulwich and King’s College academic, whose 2011 review of vocational education prompted large scale reforms the of FE sector.
Baroness Wolf said: “It is absolutely wonderful that there is now going to be serious research centre which can actually put findings and arguments from findings in the centre of discussion and counterbalance the way we’ve made education policy for far too long.”
Baroness Wolf said one area where she was keen to see further research was the area of independent training providers.
“Only 60 per cent of the adult skills budget goes to colleges, the rest of it goes elsewhere and actually that’s a particular function of this country — it makes it very distinctive but we don’t know if that’s distinctive in a good or bad way,” she said.
“Anything you can do to get more information for that part of the system has to be better than where we are at the moment.”
Tim Chewter, research manager of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said he echoed Baroness Wolf’s comments. “It’s one part of the sector we know very little about,” he said.
“We’ve started a conversation but I’m not sure even the SFA knows the number of providers, where the money goes — there’s certainly some work to do there.”
It poses 44 questions looking mainly at the first part of the dual mandate — providing vocational education for the workplace with a focus on higher level professional and technical skills.
“This is an area where England has had a historic weakness and where we continue to lag behind the performance of other developed countries,” he said, adding that “work to reverse these long-term issues” included support for National Colleges as specialist institutions and by introducing high level apprenticeships.
The second part of the mandate, the document says, is to provide second chances for those who have not succeeded in the school system.
The questions cover National Colleges, higher education, specialisation and government intervention FE among others.
Martin Doel (pictured right), chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS] is right to highlight the dual role colleges play in delivering both technical and professional education and also education and training for people who didn’t do well at school. But BIS must also remember the other significant role colleges play in preparing 16 to 18-year-olds for the move between school, university and work.
“The questions in this paper also provide a useful checklist of the issues the next Government needs to tackle but they cannot be separated from funding.
“That’s why we want a once in a generation review of education funding to ensure it’s being allocated fairly. In addition, Government should invest in order to allow colleges to restructure, consolidate and to develop new business models in the next few years.”
David Hughes (pictured left), chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “We’ve been lacking a unifying vision for learning, skills and employment for some time so I welcome this contribution from Vince Cable to the debate we need. The consultation covers a lot of ground and includes explicit analysis of the challenges we face which support our view that we are facing a skills crisis.
“The crisis is a combination of the need to support better skills achievement while state funding has plummeted. I also welcome some of the thinking and ideas for change, because it is clear that a lot has to change to ensure we have a strong economic recovery.
“We have been calling for an independent commission to be established in the first 100 days of the next Government to help establish a new vision. A commission would be able to set the vision and the ambition, agree the long-term skills needs and establish a new system for funding people to develop and update their skills throughout their careers.
“The commission could engage and involve national and local Government, employers, providers, unions, charities and learners working together to revitalise and revolutionise skills training.”
Dr Mary Bousted (pictured right), general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: “We welcome any move to strengthen higher level vocational education, however, given its recent announcement of a 24 per cent cut in funding for adult education, it looks more like this government is seeking to massively cut adult education than expand it.
“If Vince Cable believes FE provides a vital lifeline for the most disadvantaged young adults who lack the basic skills they need for work or modern life, then why is the government planning to dismantle it?”
Andrew Harden (pictured below left), head of FE at the University and College Union, said: “We will be responding to the consultation in full in the coming months and will be making the following key points.
“The consultation identifies a dual mandate for adult vocational educational of which one part is second-chance learners.
“The stark reality now is that thousands of these type of adult learners will face fewer opportunities to get back into education and training as of next year when there is a planned 24 per cent cut to adult education courses outside of apprenticeships, and maths and English.
“While we agree there needs to be a stronger emphasis on higher level vocational qualifications to achieve parity of esteem with academic routes, this will need to be underpinned by investment in professional development opportunities for the vocational workforce, for example, taking part in industrial exchanges and gaining professional qualifications.
“There is a contrast between the apparent ambition for adult vocational education and the reality of what is happening in colleges.”
Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE (pictured right), executive director of the 157 Group, said: “We have understood for some time now that the future landscape of the sector will be different, and, in many ways, it is good that this document now sets out the very important issues that need to be considered.
“We agree that the focus of the future must be on partnership and relationship building and that the increased engagement of employers in the system is vital to ensuring the future success of our job market.
“It is very positive that this consultation also floats some important ideas around the way in which higher level qualifications could be accredited by colleges themselves, how we might combine local needs with national solutions and how colleges might work together with new institutions to deliver the vision for the future.”
Norton Radstock College’s proposed merger with City of Bath College will be made official next month in a move that could mean nearly 100 job losses.
They will become Bath College on April 6 following the advice of FE Commissioner Dr David Collins, who visited Norton Radstock College last summer after Ofsted gave it a grade four rating.
He told bosses at the 4,700-learner college that it needed to operate “within a larger partnership” and its subsequent search for a merger partner, as reported in FE Week, resulted in talks with 5,129-learner City of Bath College, which was graded as good by Ofsted in 2013.
The colleges, which are ten miles apart and currently employ a total of 677 staff, are now consulting over staffing after the merger goes ahead, with a possible 91 jobs at risk.
City of Bath College principal Matt Atkinson (pictured above), who will become principal of Bath College, said: “We are thrilled to begin a new era of education under the Bath College name.
“The merger will allow the college, its staff and students to face the future from a position of strength.”
However, he said although no job losses had been finalised “difficult choices” would need to be made.
City of Bath College’s board has proposed a merger strategy that could leave 91 employees in academic and non-teaching support roles facing redundancy — however, according to the college, the merger will create 52 new posts, so fewer than 91 job losses are actually expected.
He said: “It’s important to be honest when merging two colleges and a restructure of staff is essential for the new college’s future growth.
“We have formally entered a period of consultation and we will do all with can to minimise job losses.
“Some redundancies will be unavoidable but we have a good track record of working with the trade unions and we are confident the impact of the merger on jobs will be minimal.
“Therefore although 91 individuals may be put at risk of redundancy we do not envisage 91 individuals losing their jobs.”
The 60-day consultation of staff and stakeholders is due to close by the April 6 merger date.
The restructuring will include closing one of Norton Radstock College’s current sites on St Francis Road, Keynsham, near Bristol, but the new college will continue to operate out of City of Bath’s current City Centre Campus in Avon Street, Bath, and Norton Radstock’s Somer Valley Campus in South Hill Park, Westfield.
The new college will provide vocational and academic training for more than 3,000 full-time students and around 10,000 part-time students.
