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‘Measure job outcomes as success — not just qualifications’ says UKCES

Success in the FE and skills sector should be measured by job outcomes and not just qualifications, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has recommended as part of a five-point plan to increase workforce skills.

In its report, Growth Through People (pictured right), published today, the UKCES laid out “action priorities” for the next two decades, which it said must be achieved to boost productivity, wages and social mobility.

The report warns the career ladder has become harder to climb as mid-level skilled jobs have been replaced by high-skill or low skill-jobs.

Part of the solution to this, it said, was to ensure that success was “measured by a wider set of outcomes not just educational attainment” — these wider measures would include the learner going on to employment or a pay rise.

It added: “To improve productivity and social mobility, measuring and rewarding educational attainment via qualifications alone is no longer good enough.

“A system constructed in this way provides centrally-driven incentives for education providers to produce high volumes of easy to deliver qualifications.

“It offers no incentive to collaborate with employers or other educational institutions to deliver the skills that people and businesses really need.

“Qualifications are important and give learners portable evidence of skills, but they must also lead to good labour market outcomes — a job, a better job, or for the business, the ‘job done better’.”

As well as measuring outcomes, the report’s actions included a call for employers to take the lead on improving skills, supported by government.

The report said: “Governments should commit to supporting employer leadership on skills, individually and in partnerships, as a central part of long-term growth plans and a way of aligning public and private resources.”

It also called for increased workplace productivity to be recognised as “the key route to increasing pay and productivity”, saying that “equipping people with the right skills and giving them the best opportunities to use them will lead to better paid job”.

Another priority, the report said, should be a greater focus on opportunities to “earn and learn,” with a “step change in attitude and uptake of quality vocational routes into good jobs”.

“High quality apprenticeships should be a normal career pathway for many more young people, and a normal way for businesses to recruit and develop their talent pipeline,” it says in the report, which is supported by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC)

“Employers, working collaboratively, should have the lead role in designing apprenticeships to ensure they have value in the labour market. The public contribution should be channelled via employers to stimulate greater employer uptake.”

The report’s final priority was closer links between work and education, to ensure people were prepared for the workplace and could continue learning.

Sir Charlie Mayfield, UKCES and John Lewis Partnership chair, said: “Up to 90 per cent of the current workforce will still be in work in the next decade. That’s where we will win or lose on productivity. And that’s why employers must lead, and be given the space and encouragement to do so.

“That needs to start early, with more integration between the worlds of work and education, and extend, via a new norm of earning and learning, into a lifetime of development, increasing productivity and pay.”

See FE Week edition 120, dated Monday, December 1, for sector reaction to the report.

Leps Network chair warns of closure after over-worked chief executive resigns amid lack of resources

The organisation that oversees the work of Local Enterprise Partnerships (Leps) is in crisis following the resignation of its chief executive, prompting a call for more funding.

The Lep Network chair Alex Pratt, above, has written to all 39 partnerships to warn the network could close without more government support, and to announce that boss Alison Porter is to leave the organisation on December 8 because of over-working.

In the letter, which has been circulated by Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna, left, after he raised concerns about the network in the House of Commons, Mr Pratt warns that growing interest in the network in the wake of pledges to devolve responsibilities, including skills, to local areas, means its workload can no longer be completed.

Mr Pratt also revealed that the network, currently funded with a £5,000 grant from each Lep as well as funding from central government, planned to go cap-in-hand to Cities Minister Greg Clark to seek more funding and support.

In a statement sent to FE Week, Mr Pratt said: “Inevitably the work loads of Leps themselves and the Lep Network have increased considerably.

“This means that the workload of the Leps and the Lep Network has increased substantially. The Lep Network chief executive was recruited in a part-time capacity which is now unsustainable given the demands on the role, the devolution discussions and the additional planning required in advance of an election.

“Our chief executive is not in a position to take on the necessary full time, full-on role and has decided to step down next month. We are in discussion with Government around the need for increased support in line with demands now being placed on the Lep Network.”

In the letter, he said: “We have concluded that the Lep support for the Lep Network of £5,000 per annum plus the proposed funding from Greg Clark is insufficient to pay for a team of three plus the minimum additional support needed to cover off the role (circa £500,000).

“As a result we have entered into discussions with Greg Clark to explain the situation and to suggest that without more support from the centre it would be our proposal to close the LEP Network and pass the roll to Civil Servants or AN Other, which could for example mean the LGA or DCLG taking it on (neither is ideal).”

Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Mr Umunna pressed Business Secretary Vince Cable, right, on the letter, but was told all was well.

He said: “Four years ago, the Secretary of State said that the regional policy was Maoist and chaotic. Does this not demonstrate that very little has changed?”

But Dr Cable said: “It demonstrates nothing of the kind. The Lep network is working exceedingly well. Leps are voluntary organisations; some are outstanding and innovative and others struggle, as this one has done.”

Delay with finding new London Olass provider

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) quest for a college to take on London’s £17m prison education contract is to continue past its December deadline, FE Week can reveal.

Welfare-to-work provider A4e gave three months’ notice to the SFA in August that it was terminating its Offender Learning and Skills Service (Olass) contract for a dozen prisons in the Capital.

An SFA spokesperson told FE Week at the time that it was looking to return the contract to a general FE college provider “in good time for handover of responsibility in December”.

But an SFA spokesperson said A4e would continue running London prison education until the end of January.

She said: “To ensure no disruption to the education provision in London prisons, while contractual discussions take place, the SFA is agreeing with A4e an extension on its contract until January 31.

“While contractual discussions continue, due to commercial sensitivities we are not able to disclose any further details until the procurement process is complete.”

The SFA told FE Week in the summer that the three other providers to have won Olass4 contracts — the Manchester College, Milton Keynes College and Weston College — had been invited to “express an interest” in taking on the A4E work in London.

But Dr Paul Phillips, principal at Weston College which provides prison education in the South West England, said at the time that he would not be pursuing the contract.

A spokesperson for Milton Keynes College, which holds the South Central and East Midlands Olass4 contracts, also said it would “not be pursuing the contract”.

The Manchester College, which holds the North East, North West, Kent and Sussex, and Yorkshire and Humberside Olass4 contracts, declined to comment three months ago and did so again on Wednesday (November 19).

An A4e spokesperson said: “I can confirm that we will be continuing as per the SFA has explained.”

She previously said, when A4e gave notice of its contract termination, that delivering the service in London had become “extremely challenging due to a number of constraints beyond our control and which could not have been anticipated when the contract was let”.

It comes just over a year after Newcastle College Group’s Intraining division took on the apprenticeship contract for supermarket giant Morrison from Elmfield, which later went into administration, and nearly two years after West Nottinghamshire College saved more than 100 jobs when it took on apprenticeship providers Pearson in Practice.

Newcastle College struck a similar deal in March 2008 when it acquired Carter and Carter.

Neet numbers down on-quarter and on-year

The number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) has fallen on-quarter and on-year.

Figures for the period from July to September, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that during the period, 954,000 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK were considered to be Neet.

The figure represents a 0.1 per cent fall on the previous quarter’s figure of 966,000, and a 1.9 per cent drop from the same period last year, when figure was 1,096,000.

The ONS released the figures, as well as data for previous quarters adjusted based on the latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) information and 2011 Census data, last week.

The government, which has previously refused to acknowledge the ONS figures, has put out its own release using different figures adjusted based on its own rules.

The government’s release shows the number of England’s Neets to have risen, from 811,000 between April and June to 932,000 between July to September.

It comes after FE Week reported concerns about the raising of the participation age becoming a “lost opportunity” due to a lack of investment in FE in August, despite a fall in England’s Neet numbers for the period from April to June.

The next set of statistics are due to be released on February 26.

Cable warns principals of bleak funding future

Money for FE “will be scarce”, no matter who wins the general election, Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned.

In a bleak speech which sounded at times like his farewell message to the sector ahead of what is expected to be a punishing election for his party, the senior Liberal Democrat told the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in Birmingham that further cuts to public spending will hit FE hard.

He said: “Whoever is in government next, any party, any combination of parties is going to grappling with this issue. Money will be scarce. I am not going to pretend otherwise, it is not going to be easy.

“Predominantly, the burden of deficit reduction has fallen on public spending. It’s something in the order of 20 per cent of the burden has fallen on tax and 80 per cent on public spending. I personally don’t think that’s sustainable. I have been making the case for high tax relative to public spending. That is not a fashionable view. It’s not a popular view. But I will continue to make it.”

Speaking to FE Week after his speech, he said his record in defending the sector was the only reassurance he could offer colleges worried about their futures.

He said: “The reassurance I can give them is my own record. I came into office faced with demands to cut FE by 40 per cent, and I totally rejected it.

“But I have warned principals that if the next government, whoever it is, presses ahead with deficit reduction based on spending cuts rather than tax or a sensible mixture it’s going to be very tough. The current system is already quite painful, we’re only just over halfway through it.”

But in a move which will be welcomed by colleges, Dr Cable indicated that a decision on whether or not to scrap proposed mandatory employer cash contributions for apprenticeships would be announced soon.

He said: “I can’t give an absolute commitment that it will [go ahead]. We are aware of the criticisms and we are trying to respond to them, and I would hope that certainly well before the election there is some clarity about this.”

Representatives of the Conservatives and Labour Party also offered no words of comfort to colleges at the conference, with both Skills Minister Nick Boles and his shadow Liam Byrne unwilling to make specific promises about funding post-2015 when asked by FE Week.

Mr Byrne said Labour saws skills funding as “one of those areas which should get devolved to city regions” and admitted he “just doesn’t know what the numbers are going to look like”.

“I will go into those spending review sessions with every skill I acquired as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the last Labour government and determined to deliver a growth agenda for FE,” he said.

Mr Boles said: “The idea that we as a government are going to cut FE off at the knees, having already demanded quite substantial economies, there is no basis for that. But I can’t make any further commitment because I’m not the chancellor and we haven’t had the election yet.”

Sector welcomes alignment plans for traineeships

Government moves to align traineeship rules for 16 to 18 and 19 to 24-year-olds have been welcomed by the FE and skills sector.

Older trainees with level two qualifications will, from January, be able to enrol on the programme — like 16 to 18-year-olds.

The change follows the government’s eight-week consultation on traineeships, which had also considered a new system in which progression into apprenticeships, jobs or further learning was a funding incentive.

But the programme will continue to be funded using the “existing funding systems,” it said in the government’s consultation response published on Tuesday (November 18), meaning 16 to 18-year-olds remain funded per learner by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) and 19 to 24-year-olds funded per enrolment by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

However, Mr Boles said sector responses to the traineeship consultation, which closed on August 14, meant the government favoured an “evolutionary approach”
to reform.

Progression into further learning for 19 to 24-year-olds is also to count as an acceptable outcome for workplace funding. With the SFA funding 80 per cent of older traineeships based on learners simply getting to the end of the programme, and the remaining 20 per cent based on outcome, it means that providers could get 100 per cent of funding for the pre-employment scheme despite no job outcome for the learner.

The move means the same funding result as that of 16 to 18-year-old traineeship providers, paid by the EFA, who get 100 per cent of funding based on whether learners get to the end of the programme.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) has previously made its feelings known to the government regarding learner workplace outcomes potentially affecting funding.

Joy Mercer, AoC director of education policy, responding to the government’s August consultation launch on FE outcome-based success measures, said: “The government must be careful not to confuse helpful data on which courses can lead to better employment prospects, with expecting colleges to have direct responsibility for job success.”

And, responding to the traineeship announcement, Teresa Frith (pictured), senior skills policy manager for the AoC, said: “Aligning funding and eligibility across the 16 to 24-year-old age range will make it easier for colleges to provide effective traineeships to help more young people into the workplace.

“We are pleased that the government has incorporated further learning in its response.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “Many of the additional flexibilities will enable more providers to respond to the needs of the young people on Traineeship programmes. We proposed more flexibility on eligibility especially older trainees with a level 2 and also support the simplification of the funding system for 19+ learners that will enable a more flexible approach to delivering vocational elements of the programme. We need to discuss the detail of the implementation of these changes but we hope this will encourage focus on traineeships as the main focus on getting young people work.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “Our research has consistently shown that providers were being forced to turn significant numbers of young people — aged 19 to 24 — away from a traineeship because they had previously achieved a full level two qualification.”

A presidential view of the AoC manifesto

The pre-general election AoC manifesto makes a number of requests to the next Government. Richard Atkins outlines the key points and underlying message.

With just six months to go to the General Election, this period of time is crucial for general FE and sixth form colleges.

The AoC has set out its stall of recommendations for the next Government in its manifesto for colleges.

We hope future ministers will take FE seriously, and make decisions that help, rather than hinder colleges and their students.

Our priorities are simple — supporting student choice; sustaining economic recovery through education and training; and creating a fair and effective education system.

Fairness is the name of the game. It is simply not right that the budget available for a student aged 16 to18 is so much lower than a school pupil. It’s the first step on the road to a future career or to university.

Education policy has moved on, young people must stay in education or training until they are 18, but the system hasn’t caught up. Therefore the post-2015 Government should carry out a once-in-a-generation review of the way education is funded to help make spending fair across all age groups.

Pupils at school are supported to travel to and from school, but once they leave school and attend college, a whole new set of less favourable rules apply. The rules need updating to ensure that local authorities carry out a full assessment of 16 to 18 students’ travel needs.

Young people should choose where they want to study based on the course they want to do, rather than the distance from home.

Poor careers advice means young people are often not aware of the best option to choose and are, instead, urged to stay in school to study A-levels when that isn’t necessarily appropriate.

A big chunk of what we’re asking for comes back to funding. We make no apology for this

We’re campaigning for a careers hub in every local area, managed by local enterprise partnerships (Leps) and supported by schools, colleges, universities, Jobcentre Plus and local authorities, to make sure the advice is impartial and young people (and adults) have access to all the options available.

Business leaders keep telling us that there aren’t enough skilled workers for the jobs available and colleges take this very seriously. They already provide support with apprenticeships, but we need to make sure the Government doesn’t focus on them as the magic pill.

In AoC’s recent member survey about their relationship with employers, 80 per cent said it was difficult to get employers to take young people on traineeships and 36 per cent said the same about apprenticeships. Some young people aren’t ready to take an apprenticeship. Instead, we need a pre-apprenticeship scheme which adequately prepares people for the workplace.

The Government’s requirement that all young people aged 16 to 18 continue studying maths and English is absolutely right, and colleges support this.

But we are clear that it is not in all students’ best interests to be required to re-take the same GCSEs that they took at school over and over again. For many students, Functional Skills are appropriate and successful. For others, colleges need to assess the ability and potential of each student before guiding them to a GCSE re-sit, or to an alternative post-16 English or maths qualification.

Therefore, the next Government should work with businesses, large public sector employers such as the NHS and local councils, and colleges to develop new maths and English qualifications, which are rigorous and related to the world of work.

A big chunk of what we’re asking for comes back to funding. We make no apology for this. We say to government — stop singling out 16 to 18 students for all your cuts to the education budget. The AoC Manifesto offers solutions.

If we want to prepare our young people to work in a global economy in which skills are at a premium, we must argue clearly and consistently that the next Government takes on board these recommendations so that England develops the best technical and professional education system among all of the countries within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

24 MPs back £10 wage motion

A bid to put the apprentice minimum wage on a par with that of ‘normal’ workers — and for it to be increased to£10 an-hour — has had the backing of more than 20 MPs.

John McDonnell (pictured) sponsored an Early Day Motion (EDM) demanding action to end the “scandal” of the £2.73 apprenticeship minimum wage, and rejected claims that any rise in the apprenticeship wage could put employers off.

The EDM said action was needed “to address the scandal that apprentices can be legally paid as little as £2.73 per hour”.

At the time of going to press, 22 Labour MPs plus Lib Dem Andrew George and Respect’s George Galloway, had signed the EDM which backed a Trades Union Congress motion demanding employers pay £10 an-hour national minimum wage (NMW) — or prove they cannot.

Mr McDonnell told FE Week: “I’m calling for a minimum wage of £10 per hour with no age differentiation. This about ensuring people have a wage they can live off.

“I do not believe this represents a disincentive to apprenticeships, but simply seeks to redistribute some of the profits of individual companies.”

Employer bodies also cautioned that raising the apprenticeship minimum wage could reduce opportunities.

The Confederation of British Industry deputy director general Katja Hall said: “The independent evidence-based Low Pay Commission [LPC] already successfully sets the NMW at the highest level possible for apprentices, without risking reducing the number on offer.

“To encourage more employers to offer quality apprenticeships it’s important that the cost of delivering them is affordable.

“Raising the cost of taking on young people would dissuade smaller firms from getting involved.”

The Federation of Small Businesses national chairman John Allan said: “While we think there is a case for increasing the minimum wage for apprentices, further rises should be gradual so employers aren’t disincentivised from taking on a new apprentice.

“We have always supported the minimum wage, but the decision of what level it should be set at should be informed by the independent advice of the LPC.”

The EDM comes after an LPC consultation on all rates of the UK minimum wage came to an end on September 26. It is considering simplifying the rate for apprentices, prompting fears the system could entail a new minimum rate for all apprentices with learners above the age of 18 no longer moving up after 12 months to the higher rates enjoyed by normal workers.

Its findings and recommendations are due in February.

Commissioner in FE funding support call

The government should look at shifting schools funding to colleges as they struggle to cope with more learners re-sitting GCSE maths and English, according to FE Commissioner Dr David Collins.

Dr Collins, who took up post in November last year, received a round of applause for his comments at the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in Birmingham on Tuesday (November 18).

He spoke out in response to changes introduced by the government from September that mean learners who didn’t reach C grade maths and English GCSEs at school must carry on studying the subjects in FE.

Dr Collins said: “If you want success at GCSEs from colleges, two things have to happen — you could actually move money from schools to colleges to support them.

“The second thing is you probably need a different sort of GCSE for people coming to college, something like GCSE business maths or business English is going to be much more useful to both the individual and the employer.”

His comments came just days after publication of his first annual report, in which he presented a worrying financial outlook for the sector, warning colleges struggling to make ends meet against abandoning expensive subjects such as science and engineering.

“It would be foolish to pretend that the FE sector does not have a difficult time ahead,” Dr Collins wrote in his report.

“Reductions in public spending will necessarily continue for the foreseeable future and the demands for highly skilled individuals to service a growing economy will increase.

“When resources are short it is all the more important that colleges and institutions work together to ensure that those resources are best used for the benefit of learners and employers.

“This will mean some consolidation and indeed some specialisation, as well as neighbouring colleges, institutions and providers considering joint plans for their respective communities.

“There is a danger that without such a consideration the more expensive areas of the curriculum (for example, science and engineering) will disappear from areas where they are needed in a college’s pursuit of financial stability.”

Martin Doel, AoC chief executive, said: “The commissioner is right to warn of the impact spending cuts are having in narrowing colleges’ curriculum and to raise a concern that more expensive courses, such as engineering, may not be sustainable in the future.”

He also spoke to FE Week after his speech at the conference and issued further warning to colleges in pursuit of alternative revenue streams in addition to teaching “local learners”.

“The focus of colleges should be for the local learners and local employers,” he said.

“That’s their job and they’ve got to get that bit right first, and that means getting the cost of the income right for that.

“Then if they want to go and make money somewhere, that’s fine, as it will support local learners and what happens in their community.

“But many of these ventures are not really undertaken on the basis of careful cost-benefit analysis.”