Conservatives Conference: No new cash behind citizen service pledge

Prime Minister David Cameron’s plan for guaranteed access to the National Citizen Service will not be backed up with extra funding, the Conservative Party has conceded.

In his speech to the Tory Party conference in Birmingham, he pledged to guarantee a place on the holiday learning scheme for every 16 and 17-year-old in England were he to win the General Election next year.

But Mr Cameron’s party later conceded that the money for the expansion of the project would have to be found from within existing budgets, and that it had only planned for attendance figures up to 150,000 in 2016, the same number budgeted-for in 2015.

During his speech, Mr Cameron said: “I want a country where young people aren’t endlessly thinking: ‘what can I say in 140 characters?’ but ‘what does my character say about me?’

“That’s why I’m so proud of National Citizen Service. Every summer, thousands of young people are coming together to volunteer and serve their community.

“We started this. People come up to me on the street and say all sorts of things — believe me all sorts of things — but one thing I hear a lot is parents saying ‘thank you for what this has done for my child’.

“I want this to become a rite of passage for all teenagers in our country, so I can tell you this: the next Conservative Government will guarantee a place on National Citizen Service for every teenager in our country.”

However, a Conservative spokesperson later told FE Week: “All 16 and 17-year-olds will be guaranteed a place on National Citizen Service.

“This commitment will be met from existing budgets — 40,000 people took part in National Citizen Service in 2013 and we have already made funding available for up to 150,000 places in 2016.”

PA-21071314 — Party members watch David Cameron’s speech

By FE Week calculations, based on an estimated cost of £1,000 per learner, put the cost of extending the service to 150,000 teenagers at £150m, but Conservative HQ would not confirm how much it was preparing to set aside, or which department’s budget the cash would come from. It is currently funded directly by the Treasury.

The National Citizen Service was piloted in 2011 and involves groups of teenagers going on trips from a few days up to three weeks, generally involving some kind of outdoor activities, team-building and community work.

Mr Cameron’s pledge was welcomed by Skills Minister Nick Boles, who said that the widening of participation in the scheme would be gradual over the course of the next Parliament.

He said: “I think [the Prime Minister] said by the end of the next Parliament, so it’s 2020 not 2016.

Nicky-Morgan — Education Secretary Nicky Morgan

“The biggest provider is an organisation called The Challenge, which I set up before the election to really test the concept, and it’s a fantastic programme.

“I actually think it’s going to end up being a fantastic source of careers advice and guidance, because one of the things it involves is young people taking on projects in their local community in teams, and that can be with local businesses or local charities so, it does create a great opportunity for people to get to young people at a key decision point in their lives.

“I think you won’t get more detail until the manifesto, and I suspect in the manifesto you will get a fairly broad idea that this is how it is and by 2020 all teenagers will be able to do it. Currently it is fully-funded by the Chancellor. There is a question mark over whether there are other sources of funding one could pull in to come alongside taxpayer funding.”

It comes after Education Secretary Nicky Morgan used her speech to the conference on Tuesday to call for businesses and schools to work more closely together to improve careers advice.

Despite earlier indications by Mr Boles that careers advice would feature prominently, Ms Morgan’s speech contained no policy announcement on the subject.

Instead, she said that careers, “for too long overlooked in schools”, were now essential.

She added: “Let’s make work experience something of value, something that opens people’s eyes to the possibilities of the world of work, something that helps them aspire to more.

“And let’s get businesses working closely with schools to help children make the right choices at the right time, choices that help them pursue the careers they want…careers that perhaps they had never thought of before.”

Mr Boles told FE Week: “Needless to say she’s a Secretary of State and I’m a humble minister so I didn’t actually know exactly what was going to be in her speech, but I know it’s an area she takes a very strong personal interest in and we have been in a number of meetings together about it.

“I suspect that there will be more to come, and presumably it was just a decision that conference wasn’t the right place to talk about it.

“I still don’t want to steal her thunder and go into much more detail, but I think the one thing it would be fair to say is that the thing we all recognise is that you need to have somebody in every school, whether they’re in there full-time or able to come and go quite often, who has a real understanding of all the choices in real life.”

David Cameron on FE and skills

* Selected quotes from the Conservative leader’s conference speech

With us, if you’re out of work, you will get unemployment benefit, but only if you go to the Job Centre, update your CV, attend interviews and accept the work you’re offered.

As I said: no more something-for-nothing.

And look at the results: 800,000 fewer people on the main out-of-work benefits.

In the next five years we’re going to go further.

You heard it this week – we won’t just aim to lower youth unemployment; we aim to abolish it.

We’ve made clear decisions.

We will reduce the benefits cap, and we will say to those 21 and under: no longer will you have the option of leaving school and going straight into a life on benefits.

You must earn or learn.

And we will help by funding three million apprenticeships.

Let’s say to our young people: a life on welfare is no life at all, instead, here’s some hope; here’s a chance to get on and make something of yourself.

What do our opponents have to say?

They have opposed every change to welfare we’ve made – and I expect they’ll oppose this too.

They sit there pontificating about poverty – yet they’re the ones who left a generation to rot on welfare.

‘More coherence on vocational education needed’

The government needs a more coherent strategy for vocational education, Education Select Committee chair Graham Stuart has said.

He joined a panel at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference organised by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, the Association of Colleges and 157 Group.

Speaking at the event, Mr Stuart said successive governments had failed to establish a clear policy on skills, adding that Professor Alison Wolf’s 2011 report on vocational education was the current government’s strongest point on the issue.

He also criticised Conservative peer Lord Baker, who has pioneered 14+ educational institutions such as University Technical Colleges (UTCs), for working at odds with former Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Education Select Committee chair Graham Stuart

Mr Stuart said: “What we don’t have is a particularly structured approach to vocational educational pathways. Countries with much lower youth unemployment than us not only have the status thing but they have very clear routes and they work at them for years, but we keep tearing it up.

“In the last Parliament Ed Balls had a huge opportunity with the diploma, but his pig-headed stupidity in pushing it through before he’d got it right. We told him not to.”

He added: “Wolf report apart, there hasn’t been much coherence to this government’s strategy in this area.

“One thing is the choice — is it at 14 or 16? And countries differ. We haven’t really made a choice. Michael Gove quite clearly thought it should be 16, and yet there were these strange cuckoos in the nest, Ken Baker chief among them.

“In the same government, at the same time as you had Gove saying the best countries have the choice at 16, old Ken is setting up UTCs and now studio schools and the careers academies from 14. It’s a very peculiar thing.”

Earning or learning… or yearning for one more student?

I introduced myself on the FE Week website as the new FE Insider last month as having a real passion for nurturing young talent and then I overheard David Cameron during Party Conference season speaking on the Marr Show toward the end of last month.

And he ironically marred all of my aspirations for all of those hopeless, direction-less prospective students out there. Mr Cameron outlined that, should the Conservative Party win the next general election, all 18 to 21-year-olds would receive a “youth allowance” instead of being able to claim housing benefit or jobseeker’s allowance.

In order to continue receiving this new allowance after sixth months looking for work, claimants would have to accept an apprenticeship or traineeship…and failing that they would have to accept mandatory “community work”.

As we all probably know this is a tactic for lowering the unemployment figures, and some of the policies have merit to them although you could argue this feels to me like having the hours of a worker with the spending power of an unemployed person.

But let’s go back to basics. We are all ‘doing more for less’ again and in a marketing director’s perspective it’s ‘doing more with less’.

It’s all well and good addressing Britain’s ‘skills gap’ of which we know there’s a void between how qualified people are and how qualified they would ideally be for the needs of the economy via a youth allowance offering, but let’s go back to basics. How do we market what FE and other training providers offer to potential students, of any age?

We know we’ve got to get smart with our offer. It’s got to be flexible. It’s got to be technologically-advanced. It can’t be 9 to 5 and most importantly it has to fulfil the student and lead to job readiness

Gone are the days of bulky prospectuses. We all know these are used as doorstops by our competitors, and for fear of alienating myself any further I won’t name just which category this is.

And let’s not forget the other important point — it’s not environmentally friendly and the kids on the block want digital.

Marketing to prospective students has become an art of epic proportions. I’ve been lucky enough to observe this year’s recruitment battle at Stratford-upon-Avon College and have come out the other side enlightened and empowered to know what we need to do for next year, now.

And I only wish we could apply the auto-enrolment rules around pension to all of those students we’re waiting to snap up.

Surveys suggest that word of mouth and face-to-face contact with prospective students is most important, with mobile technologies and traditional marking coming next. I’m not sure I really care which ones are most important as I know that when catering to such a wide base of prospective students you have to hit home hard with all techniques.

But I come back to the Prime Minister’s vision. Enticing young people into earning or learning is difficult when the very basics are not put into place.

A college can offer the world, but when it’s nigh on impossible to travel within a reasonable time to your place of learning because the councils have cut back massively on public transport, no amount of social media marketing or jazzy website is going to get those students enrolled.

We need to continue to put the pressures on with the powers that be, and fast, if we are to help Mr Cameron reach his vision of zero unemployment and our dream of over-recruitment.

So we know we’ve got to get smart with our offer. It’s got to be flexible. It’s got to be technologically-advanced. It can’t be 9 to 5 and most importantly it has to fulfil the student and lead to job readiness.

Only then can we be sure that there’s earning or learning taking place. Otherwise it’ll be more groaning from us, or maybe
just me.

Paul Warner, director of employment and skills, AELP

“I remain convinced that anyone’s career is based on luck,” says Paul Warner, director of employment and skills at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP).

“You don’t realise how momentous a decision can be at any point until years later you go, ‘What if I’d made another choice? What would have happened?’

“So none of this was planned.”

As a teenager, Warner’s ambition in life was to become a fighter pilot following in the footsteps of his father, Len, who had been conscripted in the Second World War.

“He’s not sure if he was unlucky or not,” Warner tells me.

We were going to blend being Ultravox with The Stranglers — you can imagine how wonderful that was

“He was in training to fly bombers, and then just before he was going to go on his first mission, the war ended, so he was a bit annoyed.”

Instead, Len went into business, running a timber company near the New Forest, where Warner grew up. But the flying experience left a mark on his son, born 20 years after the war ended.

“He just used to tell me about it and I just always thought I wanted to be in the air force,” says 50-year-old Warner.

“I absolutely loved planes, so I thought it would be great.”

His other major ambition, he says, was to be “mega rock star”. He currently has a fully functioning recording studio in his house.

paulkid4-too-small — Warner in his older brother’s school uniform, aged 4, in 1969

His musical inspiration is Gary Numan, who he’s seen perform more than 60 times and one of his proudest moments as a parent to 12-year-old Alex, he says, was when she asked to come with him to a Numan gig.

“I thought ‘my work here is done, I’ve brought her around to my way of thinking’,” he says.

Although he writes and records “whatever I can come out with,” Warner’s own musical career was scuppered by his flying ambitions.

“I was in a band as a teenager, during the big New Romantic phase in the early 1980s, so we decided we were going to blend being Ultravox with The Stranglers, you can imagine how wonderful that was,” he says.

“But I was going to be a fighter pilot. Rock star didn’t fit. You couldn’t be a fighter pilot part-time, it wasn’t part of the plan,” he says.

However, Warner “took a bit of a left-turn at the traffic lights” while studying international relations at Keele University.

“I met quite a lot of people who were in the forces there and it’s more than just flying planes, it’s a lifestyle, and I don’t think that lifestyle was for me,” he says.

He finished university with a first class degree, and “no-one was more surprised than me,” he says.

scan000 — Warner at Keele University in 1986 in a production of Trevor Griffith’s “Oi For England”

“Fortunately, on the day of my finals, there was a coup in Fiji. The finals were in the afternoon, so in the morning I spent the whole morning reading up on it so by the exam I knew all about it and it was very topical.”

After university, Warner admits he had “a big sort of gap, where I didn’t quite know what I was going to do”.

However, the pressure was on by that point, because while at university, Warner had started going out with a trainee teacher named Claire and, he says “it became blindingly obvious that I had met the love of my life”.

Having married, the couple moved in search of more teaching opportunities for Claire.

“I was doing alright in Birmingham. I was a top performer in Oxford, but I got to London and crashed and burned — I completely lost my mojo and couldn’t sell a thing,” he says.

Fortunately, he bumped into a former colleague who had moved to a company helping unemployed people into work.

“I thought, ‘That sounds interesting’, I didn’t even know companies like that existed. So, speculatively, I sent in a letter to TBG Learning and they took me on,” he says.

Warner (right) with brother Mike and sister Sue, Christmas 2012

For Warner, one of the best aspects of his new role, he says, was realising, “actually,
these people need me”.

He remained at the company for nine years, leaving as the business development director in 2002 and after a “brief stint” running work-based learning at Barking College, joined AELP, or Alp, as it was then known.

“I was lucky enough to be at the end of the sort of fluffy days when there was lots of money floating about and nobody seemed to take a great deal of notice of what’s going on,” he says.

“The whole sector has been getting tougher, more commercial, more… ruthless? More clinical, for years it’s been going in that direction.

“I think it’s really good that we’ve increasingly seen less emphasis given to the type of institution that is delivering, so independents have a far bigger portfolio of things they can deliver.

“The trade-off is, if you don’t deliver, you go out of business.”

Independents have a far bigger portfolio of things they can deliver. The trade-off is, if you don’t deliver, you go out
of business

And in the current climate of budget cuts and reforms, he says, the role of AELP becomes more valuable.

“Stakes are quite high, particularly for independents, because their livelihood depends on whether or not they get it right,” says Warner.

“And that’s very worrying for them, so it’s nice to be a part of an organisation that can give a bit of an umbrella.

“Our membership’s increasing quite a lot, quite steadily, at the moment, and I’m pretty certain that it’s because it’s getting tougher. They need information, they want reassurance, and they need to know they’re not on their own.”

However, while the future may not be completely “rosy” he says, “it’s not necessarily a disaster” either.

“It is a very difficult situation and it’s an increasingly small tightrope to walk along,” he says.

“But as long as we keep moving towards a level playing field of funding being available for quality delivery, it doesn’t matter what type of institution, just are you any good at it. Is what you’re doing worthwhile? Is it achieving some objectives?

“There’s still a bit of a way to go at the moment bit if we can really get to that, the skills system will be in a pretty good place.”

paulkid1 — Warner, aged 9, playing football in Southampton FC Kit, 1975, using his brother’s car as a goal

What’s your favourite book?

Usually whatever I’m reading at the moment. Right now it’s The Nazis: A Warning From History, by Laurence Rees

How do you switch off from work?

Music, both playing and listening. I listen to a lot of squawky electronic music I write whatever I can come out with and it’s only for my own benefit, though I do inflict it on my wife and daughter

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

Eddie Izzard, Graham Norton and Brian Cox. I think that would be really intelligent and very, very funny. I’ll get my wife to cook because she’s very good at that

What’s your pet hate?

I really hate lazy English. I hate people who say things like, “Do you know what I mean?” or, “And stuff.” No, I don’t know what you mean. That’s the whole point of you talking to me — you’re supposed to tell me. Lazy English just offends me because there’s no need for it

What did you want to be when you grew up?

A fighter pilot

Exclusive: Functional skills handed lifeline

Functional Skills could be set for a return to government favour with Skills Minister Nick Boles having revealed plans to make the qualifications “legitimate, valid, respected and admired”.

The qualifications, which aim to equip learners with basic skills in English, maths and ICT, have increasingly been seen as mere “stepping stones” toward GCSEs by some, including former Skills Minister Matthew Hancock.

They were even due to be removed as a requirement for apprentices in favour of GCSEs from 2017.

But Mr Boles described Functional Skills as “important” when he appeared at an FE Week fringe event at Conservative Party Conference, and pledged to work with Ofqual on improving elements of the qualification, including the branding.
The change in rhetoric has been welcomed by Functional Skills expert Roger Francis, who said his comments represented a “major policy change”.

When reminded of previous government attempts to get colleges to offer “GCSE or nothing,” Mr Boles said: “Well, now I am saying it’s both.”

He added: “We need to work on making Functional Skills a legitimate, valid, respected, admired currency for people who have a slightly different way their brain is wired. It’s probably as simple as that.

“The specific practical step is that I have asked Ofqual in my first meeting with them to do a formal review of Functional Skills, to look at what’s in them, what they think of them, but also to give us some advice on the branding of them.”

Mr Francis, business development director at Creative Learning Partners, said: “The government was previously very keen to have a single ‘gold-standard’ qualification and they sawGCSEs as that standard and simply saw Function Skills as a ‘stepping-stone’ towards GCSEs.

“Most of us in the vocational sector view them as being the equivalent gold standard for the work-based learning sector.

“If they are changing their minds that is a major policy change and is very welcome.”

Mr Boles re-emphasised government policy which dictates that those who get a D grade in GCSE English or maths must re-sit the qualification, but added: “If you’ve done worse than that, maybe what it’s telling us is that the whole way a GCSE is constructed is just never really going to sell it to this person.

“That’s why Functional Skills are so important.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), said the minister’s recognition of Functional Skills was “great news”.

He added: “Functional Skills play a vital role in helping people to get ready for, and progress in, work, much more so than a GCSE does.

“If we are going to break the intergenerational cycle of low literacy and numeracy and if we are going to equip adults with the essential digital skills for the future, then we must give learners the opportunity to improve their skills in ways that work best for them.

“We are keen to support the minister in making sure that Functional Skills qualifications are rigorous, well-taught and better respected.”

Charlotte Bosworth, director of skills and employment at OCR, said: “I am really pleased with Nick Boles’s announcement that Functional Skills is likely to continue to be recognised as a valuable maths and English qualification for post-16 learners.

“I feel this provides a more appropriate assessment approach for learners studying alongside a vocational or technical programme.”

Pictured: skills minister Nick Boles at the FE Week and OCR Conservative Party conference fringe. Credit: Ben Page

Exclusive: Skills Minister hints at scrapping cash contributions plan

Plans to introduce mandatory employer cash contributions for apprenticeships could be scrapped, Skills Minister Nick Boles has indicated.

In his first interview with FE Week since his appointment in July, Mr Boles said that while routing funding through employers was “non-negotiable,” he hinted that the cash contribution element of the proposals might not be introduced if it risked putting employers off hiring apprentices.

The government has already revealed it wanted employers to pay one third of training and assessment costs with taxpayers fronting the rest through a direct grant to employers. Currently providers are paid directly by the government.
Mr Boles said: “We are not going to be rushing into anything and we are not going to be introducing any reforms that are off-putting to employers who currently don’t provide apprenticeships, let alone people who already do.

“I am very aware that one of the things that could be off-putting is an onerous financial burden, and another thing which could be off-putting is a very complicated administrative process. We are studying the consultation responses very closely.

“My own view is that obsessing about a particular cash commitment is slightly missing the point. What matters is that the apprenticeship standard is a standard which is demanding and developed by employers and that the assessment at the end is very vigorous.

We’re not going to do anything which imposes either financial or administrative burdens which puts people
off providing apprenticeships.

“There is an absolute total commitment to transferring funding to employers, that’s non-negotiable, but the precise modalities of it we will take our time to think about and we’re not going to do anything which imposes either financial or administrative burdens which puts people off providing apprenticeships.”

It comes after Prime Minister David Cameron tasked Mr Boles with creating 1m more apprenticeships in the next Parliament, taking the total to 3m by 2020.

Among those to have warned that the introduction of cash contributions could hit apprenticeship uptake are the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP). And even the National Audit Office (NAO) has said the number of 16 to 18 apprenticeship starts could fall if employers were made to pay.

Mr Boles also warned the next cuts round could be “tough” for colleges, but said FE was valued by the Prime Minister and that he would fight for providers as long as they were offering good quality qualifications.

He said: “All I can tell them is that the Prime Minister would not have put the expansion of apprenticeships at the heart of his last party conference before the general election if he didn’t passionately believe in the importance of further education and the transfer of technical skills to young people so they can get jobs.

“I were running a college right now, I would be trying to think about the absolute maximum that I could expand my apprenticeships activity. The more colleges gear up to be able to do that, the more likely it is they will find they can secure a relatively consistent source of revenue.

“However, there will be a tough cuts round. I can’t guarantee I’ll be Skills Minister next May, let alone what deal I’ll negotiate on behalf of colleges.

“Of course I will fight for them, but I will fight for them to do things that are worthwhile.”

Mr Boles also defended the government’s traineeship programme as a “strong idea,” but accepted it needed to grow in its second year.

He said: “We now need to up the pace and also to start subjecting it to some of the same fairly stringent tests we would normally apply around whether it is actually delivering the starts in apprenticeships and the starts in jobs.

“I think in what will be the second full year of provision, I hope we can get numbers up and I hope we can expand the number of institutions able to offer it, and I hope we can start measuring the data.”

He indicated that he shared predecessor Matthew Hancock’s dim view of qualifications of seemingly low-value, and also his rhetoric when it comes to what Mr Hancock has previously derided as “Mickey Mouse qualifications”.

He said: “If you’re 16 or 18 and we’re trying to prepare you for that first step and maybe you don’t have a glittering array of GCSEs and A-levels, I think we have a serious moral responsibility of making sure you do something which has a demonstrated record of getting people into jobs.”

But Mr Boles didn’t seem as concerned as Mr Hancock about college mergers, saying he would not oppose mergers and federations in principle, but would intervene if concerns were raised by FE Commissioner David Collins.

He said: “I am enthusiastic about the principle of colleges exploring all different options to make themselves stronger in a tough financial environment.

“I don’t have a preference or concern about any route in theory, it just has to be sensible in practice in each individual instance.

“I don’t want to constrain college boards and leadership, but equally I will take advice from the FE Commissioner when he thinks there is a proposal coming forward which he doesn’t think has been thought through.”

Throughout the interview, Mr Boles demonstrated he was a quick learner and already knew a lot about FE, but he admitted to struggling with a certain sector penchant.

“What is it with the FE sector and all of these acronyms?” he said. “To an outsider it’s incredibly off-putting.”

New centre prompts hope of vocational catch-up

Professor Alison Wolf has told of her hopes that a new national vocational education centre to influence policy and develop best practice will address the country’s “woeful” FE research record.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (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.

It has invited bids to run the new research centre, and already counts Professor Wolf as board leader. The Kings College London academic, whose government-commissioned review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds was published in early 2011, told FE Week: “I am absolutely delighted that the government is funding this new research centre. We are woefully short of good, up-to-date research in this area and the new centre should be a major asset to future policy.”

She will be joined on the board and research bid assessment panel by City and Islington College principal Frank McLoughlin, whose Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL) last year issued a report calling for a national centre of excellence to be established.

Director of spatial economics research at the London School of Economics Henry Overmann and Nuffield Foundation education director Josh Hillman make up the rest of the board and panel, which is to be advised by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). An ETF spokesperson said: “It’s an exciting prospect and an important development to help us understand more fully how to realise the vision of a vocational education and training [VET] system with employers at the heart. We are looking forward to working with the new research centre on experimentation and evaluation, building on our work on implementing the CAVTL report.”

The assessment panel will be boosted by Frank Bowley, deputy director for Skills Policy Analysis at BIS, along with representatives from the Economics and Social Research Council and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

The BIS statement calling for bids to run the centre said there would be no restrictions on where the college could be based or the number of organisations that could enter together.

FE providers in HS2 college plans

At least 10 FE and skills sector providers could be involved with the new National College for High Speed Rail, FE Week can reveal.

The government announced on Wednesday (October 1) that the new college, set to open in 2017, would be located across two sites in Doncaster and Birmingham, with its HQ in the West Midlands.

It will provide specialist level four and above vocational training for engineers set to work on the £50bn High Speed 2 (HS2) link from Birmingham to London by 2026.

The winning bids were submitted by consortiums led by the local enterprise partnerships (Leps).

A spokesperson for Greater Birmingham and Solihull Lep said eight FE colleges in the Midlands, which all supported the bid to bring the HS2 college to the city, would be involved.

It is understood the lead provider will be the University of Birmingham, while the FE colleges involved in the bid to bring the HS2 college to Birmingham were Bournville College, Kidderminster College, Burton and South Derbyshire College, Birmingham Metropolitan College, Heart of Worcestershire College, Solihull College, South and City College Birmingham and South Staffordshire College. University College Birmingham was also involved in the bid.

Skills Funding Agency prime contractor Carillion also contributed to the bid and could provide training at the new campus.

South and City College Birmingham principal Mike Hopkins said: “South and City College Birmingham is part of the consortium of colleges [that helped bid for the HS2 college] and we will continue to provide our support.”

Shaun Hindle, senior director for employment and skills at Solihull College, said: “We are delighted to hear that an HS2 college will be based in Birmingham; with the City being the country’s second largest which supports vital industry, it makes Birmingham the ideal location.”

He added: “As a key provider of apprenticeships to young people across Solihull and Birmingham, we see this decision as an immense opportunity to bridge the skills gap in the Midlands and along with other colleges, to continue making a valued contribution to the local and wider economy.”

Andy Dobson, principal of Kidderminster College, said: “As a member of the consortium which bid for HS2, we are delighted it is coming to Birmingham. We have a rich history of engineering talent in the region and we need to equip future generations with the skills needed to build and run our new rail system. We look forward to helping the project now becoming a reality.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Sheffield City Region Lep identified Doncaster College as an FE and skills sector contributor to its HS2 college bid — but said it was too early to say which providers would operate at its site.

Doncaster College principal George Trow said: “Doncaster College has been involved from the outset of the proposal and presented as a member in the bid team.

“We work with the rail partnership companies in Doncaster delivering engineering training and apprenticeships and will continue to work in partnership with the new rail college.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said cost estimates for both campuses could not be provided as “the scope and scale of the college is still being developed”.

Miliband’s wage pledge could see apprentices win 23pc raise

The apprenticeship minimum wage could rise by 23 per cent if Labour wins next year’s general election.

The party has clarified its position on the rate for apprenticeships, which went up to £2.73 per hour on Wednesday (October 1).

A party spokesperson told FE Week that under its plans, he would “expect” the Low Pay Commission (LPC) to continue with the scale of the current gap between the apprenticeship rate and the adult rate.

It comes after Ed Miliband (pictured) announced at the Labour Party conference last month that the adult rate would rise to £8 an-hour in the next Parliament if he became Prime Minister in May.

The current rate, which increased from £2.68 an hour, is 42 per cent of the adult minimum wage — currently £6.50. Based on the same percentage, the rate for apprentices would rise to £3.36 an-hour under Labour’s plans.

The Labour spokesperson told FE Week “We will set an ambitious target to make work pay with an £8 minimum wage in the next Parliament, alongside our plans to boost quality apprenticeships.

“It is right that there is a separate youth and apprentice rate, which reflects young people’s interests in training and development from employers. We would expect the Low Pay Commission to take into account the gap with the adult rate, as they do now.

“The next Labour government will also ensure that apprentices are properly rewarded by increasing the penalties for non-payment of the minimum wage.”

It comes after Skills Minister Nick Boles told an FE Week fringe event at Conservative Party conference last week that he had met with Business Secretary Vince Cable to talk about the apprentice minimum wage.

Mr Boles said: “We are very aware of this issue. It is something on which I have had meetings with Vince Cable. We have asked for certain things to be worked up, we are getting submissions.

“We are very aware of the concern and have some sympathy with it. Obviously we have another concern, which is that the last thing we want to do is choke off the supply of apprenticeships because it becomes something employers no longer think is worth their while.

“It is in a sense related to the broader discussion on the minimum wage. We want to increase it, the other party wants to increase, but we don’t want to increase it so fast that we choke off the supply of jobs.”

It also comes after an LPC consultation on all levels of the minimum wage came to an end on September 26. An LPC spokesperson told FE Week a report outlining the consultation responses would be sent to the government in February.

Free school green light for Weston and Bedford

Two general further education colleges have been given the green light to open free schools in the latest round of government approvals.

Weston College and Bedford College were among the sponsors of 35 new free schools announced by the Department for Education (DfE) last week.

Weston’s free school, Bristol Futures Academy, will specialise in alternative provision for 14 to 18-year-olds with behavioural issues or who have found mainstream education challenging.

A college spokesperson said it, in partnership with Bristol City Council, had identified a shortage of such provision within the city.

The college plans to open the school with 25 pupils aged 14 and 16 from September next year, with space for 100 pupils at full capacity.

Assistant principal Jacqui Ford said: “The aim is to keep young people in school as far as possible, while providing discreet provision outside of this.

“We will be looking to empower those pupils who, for one reason or another, find being at school difficult, and making sure they see education as the key to making good decisions about their path in life.”

Although a site has not yet been chosen for the school, FE Week understands an existing site in Bristol is likely to be converted, rather that new accommodation being built.

Meanwhile, Bedford College plans to open a technical academy for 13 to 19-year-olds, specialising in science, service and creative technologies, alongside GCSEs in September 2016.

Principal Ian Pryce said: “We will be bringing in professionals from the advancing industries of science, technology, engineering and maths [Stem] to give extra special classes to make sure academy students can compete in the jobs market a decade from now.”

A college spokesperson said Bedford College research had shown there was enough local demand for the school to open in 2015.

However, after Bedford College was asked to step in and rescue the ailing Central Bedfordshire University Technical College in June, the college was given extra time to prepare its free school bid.

And Mr Pryce stressed his new free school would fill a gap in local provision.

“It isn’t about comparing what the local upper schools offer, it is about keeping up with how rest of the world is educating its young people,” he said.

“Otherwise we will be left behind, unskilled and with huge youth unemployment such as they have elsewhere in Europe already.”

The college hopes to offer places for around 624 young people. Negotiations on the location of the college are ongoing.

Two FE colleges and one sixth form college are understood to currently be bidding to open their own free schools.

Croydon College and New College Swindon want to open free schools with sixth form provision, while New College Pontefract — a sixth form college — is hoping to open a free school for 16 to 19-year-olds.

If the bids were successful, all three free schools would open in September 2016, adding to the FE sector’s existing free school offer with South Staffordshire College and Hadlow College already running one each. Richmond upon Thames College won permission earlier this year and plans to open a free school in 2017.

The latest DfE bidding window for free school application is due to close on Oct 10.

Main pic: left Jacqui Ford, right Ian Pryce