Department for Education (DfE) overtime payments rocketed by nearly 40 per cent between September and November, it has been revealed.
According to workforce management information published by the DfE, overtime payments for the period went from £37,437 £51,729. It comes after the DfE’s overall full-time equivalent (FTE) staff numbers fell to 2,187 in November, down from 2,298 in the same period in 2013.
It also follows a reduction in spending by the DfE on agency staff — from £341,739 in August to £254,945 in November — and consultants, which fell from more than £280,000 in September to £66,112 in November.
Kathy Prendiville, an industrial officer with the PCS union, said: “It is hardly surprising that, having cut the department by nearly 50 per cent over the last four years, we find overtime increasing.
“This, alongside consultancy and agency costs, which are still too high, merely masks what is essentially an under-resourced department, all in the name of austerity.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Since 2010, we have delivered huge savings for the taxpayer, reducing administration costs by £120m a year. Staff numbers have fallen by 40 per cent over the same period.”
Providers have been given assurances that logistics apprenticeships will continue to be certificated after the industry’s Sector Skills Council (SSC) announced it was closing.
More than 30 jobs are thought to be at risk after the board of directors at Skills for Logistics (SfL), one of 18 SSCs in the UK, announced on Tuesday (January 6) that it was closing, and was considering administration.
A spokesperson for the Milton Keynes-based charity said it had happened “due to pressure placed on the business by the trustees of the pension scheme, which SfL joined following its initial set-up in 2003”.
The Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards (FISSS) assured providers of apprenticeships certificated by SfL that they would not be affected.
Mark Froud, FISSs managing director, told FE Week: “In the short-term, FISSS will with immediate affect take responsibility for the certification service for apprenticeships in the logistics sector. SfL certificated around 7,000 apprenticeships in the last 12 months.”
He added: “In the long run, we are working with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills [UKCES] and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to find a replacement organisation to manage both the issuing authority duties and certification duties. Providers shouldn’t notice any decline in quality or speed of service.”
SfL’s annual accounts in March last year showed it had an income of £3.6m and 34 full-time-equivalent staff. They also showed that as of March 2010 there was a £1.5m black hole in the “defined benefit” pension scheme, established in 2003 with the ITB Pension Funds Open Fund. Three years later that had been reduced by £300,000. SfL had paid more than £200,000 annually towards the deficit in the two years leading up to publication of the accounts.
The SfL spokesperson said: “Like many similar organisations, the significant pension deficit and subsequent on-going recovery payments has placed extreme pressure on a smaller SfL business in a rapidly changing economic environment.
“We have worked hard to exist and be effective over the last two to three years in the ‘new world’ of substantially reduced public funding.
“However, given the reduced activity level in 2015 and obligations to the pension scheme, the board felt it would be better to seek alternative options for the continuing industry skills projects.”
The accounts also revealed SfL received £4m funding from UKCES for 2013-14 and beyond.
A UKCES spokesperson declined to comment on whether it hoped to retrieve any funding.
However, he said: “We are aware the board of SfL has taken the decision to close and is appointing an administrator.
“This is clearly worrying news for staff and their families, and our thoughts are with them. We will wish to work with the administrator and the industry to ensure continuity of work on standards and apprenticeship certification.”
The ITB Pension Funds Open Fund declined to comment.
In these cash-strapped times, many principals would like to shave a few pounds off the expenditure column of their college finances.
And it was no different during the time of incorporation, back in 1992, when a fortuitous boundary decision benefited Martin Ward, as principal of Hull’s Wyke Sixth Form College.
It resulted in bills going to a neighbouring school — an outcome he must look back on enviously today now that he keeps his eye on finances at Leicester College as its governors’ board chair.
“The college [Wyke] was on the same site as a secondary school, and there never had been a boundary between the two, so we had to decide on one,” he says.
“Years later we discovered the council was still paying our gas bill because there never had been a separate gas meter.”
From left: Ward’s mother Doris, brother Peter, father Cecil with Ward at the front 1962
The role at Leicester marks somewhat of a homecoming for 64-year-old Mr Ward, who is also Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) public affairs director, having been born in the upstairs room of the city’s George and Dragon pub. It was run by his mum, Doris, and dad Cecil, who was killed in a motorbike accident when Ward was just 13.
“I never knew him after I grew up, and I never appreciated him at the time — you don’t when you’re a teenager,” says Ward.
He adds it’s “hard to know” whether the tragedy impacted on his school progress.
“I barely know what that 13-year-old was like now, even though there are some things still in my head that are parts of him,” he says.
“So it’s possible that helped me to think I could do right by my dad.”
Ward adds: “I sort of woke up when I was about 13. People ‘wake up’ at different stages in their childhood, depending on who they are and what happens to them — in my case, I was pootling along, not doing very much, and when I got to what we now call Year 8, I found I was in the top maths set.
“And I thought, ‘oh, blimey — I must be quite clever really’ and I never looked back after that.”
His love of mathematics led him to study at Warwick University and on to teaching maths.
He chose teaching because “I liked talking, I liked the sound of my own voice” and found himself drawn to FE.
“I realised that for the people who don’t wake up when they’re 13, but when they’re 17 or 25, it gives them the opportunity to then do what they are really capable of,” he says.
“That’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?”
After working his way up to head of department at Queen Mary’s Sixth Form College, in Basingstoke, and a stint as deputy principal at New College Telford, in 1986 he landed the job as founding principal of Wyke College and oversaw its development from the very beginning.
“I was very young to be a principal at 35, and they made a brave choice,” he says.
Ward graduating from the University of Warwick in 1972
“We were given the luxury of two years’ preparation time to develop the college, oversee building work and appoint staff.
“It was a very daunting task. Certainly there were days when I thought if I overlook something really critical we’re going to need on day one it’s going to be very embarrassing — you know, what if there’s no chalk to write on the blackboards?”
Despite this, he says, the project was “really exciting”.
“It’s just such a privilege to be able to open something new, draw all the policies and procedures from the ground up,” he says.
“And it proved to be very successful.”
However, his time at Wyke came to a tragic end following the death in 1999 of Mary, his wife of 29 years, after complications from coeliac disease — a gluten intolerance that is not usually fatal.
“I was at work on Friday morning, I got a call from our cleaner saying I must go home as Mary had collapsed,” says Ward.
“I took her into hospital and thought, ‘they’ll sort this out’.
“They called me at five the following morning to say I must come in and just when I got there she had died.
“The worst thing I ever had to do was ring her father — because you don’t expect your children to die.”
The two years that followed, were, says Ward, “a very dark period”.
“My wonderful vice-principals had to run the college for quite a long period while my head was somewhere else. I was in a very deep depression, I now realise, looking back,” he explains.
He devoted himself to looking after his and Mary’s sons, Edmund, then aged 17, and Michael, then 15.
When he emerged from depression in 2001, he decided it was time for a change.
“Because with the best will in the world, you become a drag on the institution if you stay too long as principal and I felt I really needed to move,” he says.
“I didn’t see the point of running another college just like it, where I hadn’t had the opportunity to open and appoint the staff and so forth — where’s the joy in that?”
For the people who don’t wake up when they’re 13, but when they’re 17 or 25, FE gives them the opportunity to then do what they are really capable of
Ward was already on the council of what was then known as the Secondary Heads Association, and when the job of deputy general secretary came up.
One of the first changes Ward made to the organisation, along with then-general secretary John Dunford, was to change the name to ASCL.
“The name change opened it up a bit more,” he says.
“And I have always had that role in the organisation — saying, ‘and colleges, don’t forget them’.”
In 2002, Ward married old friend Jo, who had two sons of her own — Robert, a year younger than Edmund, and Jon, a year younger than Michael.
“I’ve had the very good fortune to have been married to two wonderful women,” he says.
“Jo’s had the better of me, there’s no doubt about it. I’m a better, more emotionally intelligent person now than I was before — which is not saying a lot, and Jo has really taught me how to enjoy myself, which I had never really got the hang of before. I never really understood that it was all right to really fully enjoy yourself.”
Ward certainly seems to have fully bounced back — he waxes lyrical about both Leicester College and ASCL — so much so that it would be fair to say he’s had some difficulty in retiring.
In 2011 he stepped into “semi-retirement”, moving over into the ASCL public affairs role.
“I was going to stop this summer, then it was going to be next summer, when I’ll be 65,” he says.
“And now I’m going on until 2016, but then I think I really, really have to stop, because there are so many other things I want to do — notably, a lot more travelling than one can fit in with having even half-time work.”
Ward and wife Jo with John Lennon’s statue in Havana 2012
Ward has spent much of his career in sixth form colleges – a type of college that is now seemingly being passed over by government policy in favour of free schools — but he’s optimistic about their future.
“It’s one of these policy drifts that happens,” he says.
“The minister says we’ve got this problem, so let’s open some free schools, but then that becomes an aim in itself — and never mind how you do it or whether it’s actually the right thing to do, because the minister has spoken.
“Will it make any difference whether it’s nominally a school or nominally a college? I think probably not.
“They’re all going to be free-standing institutions with their own governance arrangements and their own lack of funding.
“In 10 years’ time some of these free schools that have opened as sixth form schools will just be sixth form colleges and will be indistinguishable from the ones we’ve had for the last 20 or 30 years, others will have gone bust and disappeared or sort of taken over by the FE college next door.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco. It started the craze for historical whodunnits. It’s set in the 14th century in a monastery and the hero is both very clever and rational, and humane — and therefore someone I’d very much like to be
What do you do to switch off from work?
Cooking. It’s something I came to in later life as it were, and I spent a lot of time trying to do it right — and of course the beauty of cooking is that you get to eat the product and I very much like eating
What’s your pet hate?
Putting people down because they’re different from you. You get that in so many different contexts and forms and it’s often in the popular press. It’s something that certain political parties are pushing very hard at the moment and it’s something that affects the FE sector because it’s different from most of the backgrounds of people making the decisions in Whitehall that are affecting the sector
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
I was tempted to say Socrates, Jesus, Mohammad and Buddha, but thinking about it what I’d really like would be my mum and my dad and my two brothers and all my dear friends who have died all together and tell them I love them one
more time
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be grown up. That was it, I’m afraid. No great aspiration to do anything
I arrived back in Britain on Tuesday after three weeks’ magnificent customer service in the United States and the Caribbean.
Unfortunately, thanks to BA, my luggage remained in Philadelphia. And I soon knew I was back in the UK by the ‘jobsworth’ at Heathrow who handled my missing luggage claim.
She tried to persuade me that it was my fault my luggage had not made it back, and couldn’t bring herself to offer an explanation, apology or any idea when it might be returned.
In my experience, customer service is improving in this country generally given a huge boost by the ‘volunteers’ at the Olympics. It needs to be sustained and nurtured if we are to grow our tourism and hospitality business.
It is not surprising that customer service is the single largest apprenticeship qualification, demonstrating the importance employers put on these skills in a variety of public and private sectors to grow their businesses by delivering excellent customer relations.
VisitBritain estimates that inbound tourism will increase by 4.5 per cent this year to £22.2bn — that’s almost a million more than 2014.
Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said tourism was now a major driver of economic growth for Britain.
At the start of the New Year it’s time again for resolutions, not revolutions. My plea for this year is no changes to apprenticeship rules and regulations until the election is over and our new political masters impose their apprenticeship dreams — or from some of the parties’ proposals, their nightmares — upon us.
The sector needs to ensure the political parties understand the consequences of their manifesto proposals.
To let National Occupational Standards disappear seems a national scandal and enormous waste of resources and money to me
We do not need to repeat the apprenticeship loan debacle, which decimated level three and above apprenticeships until it was rescinded.
Currently, apprenticeship numbers are beginning to decline as employers vote with their feet against managing the funding and mandatory cash payments and potential apprentices and parents baulk at an apprenticeship without a recognised qualification.
I’ve been abroad for the past three weeks and had several informal discussions with employers and entrepreneurs from the United States, Caribbean and South America about their respective staff training and development.
It surprised me how complimentary and knowledgeable they were about our apprenticeship programmes in England.
This mirrors the international remarks made at November’s National Vocational Education and Training Conference at the Skills Show and the results of the latest Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) employer and learner satisfaction surveys of apprenticeships.
My main concern is the apprenticeship development we have pulled together over the years, culminating with the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (Sase) being thrown out with the bath water because a few disgruntled employers complained to Doug Richard and former Skills Minister Matthew Hancock wanted to make a name for himself.
If our current Skills Minister, Nick Bowles, is to be believed in saying he sees the Trailblazers as a pilot and not ‘early adopters’ then presumably there will be some analysis of the Trailblazer standards compared with the current National Occupational Standards (NOS).
From what I have seen, most of the Trailblazers have borrowed heavily from the NOS, so unless they show a significant improvement there seems little reason to change. Especially when the NOS are national, co-ordinated, cover all sectors with a single assessment strategy and are respected internationally, particularly by countries introducing work experience and work-place learning.
To let NOS disappear seems a national scandal and enormous waste of resources and money to me.
The final end test for the professional cookery Trailblazer will take two days and cost £2,000 to stage for each apprentice.
It will only test the apprentice’s ability to cook a variety of dishes in an examination environment, cooking one portion of each dish at a time and not their ability to perform in a commercial production environment. Should the apprentice fail their test, it will be for the employer to pay for the re-take. That’s bound to improve achievement rates. Don’t remember reading about that additional cost to the employer anywhere is BIS briefings.
Governors bring a wealth of disparate expertise to the board table, but can sometimes fall short when it comes to their college knowledge. Lawrence Vincent provides 10 key questions governors should be armed with at their next meeting with the principal.
College governing bodies have a responsibility to ensure that the core function of the college — teaching, learning and assessment — is of the highest standard.
How then can college governors discharge this responsibility effectively? With great difficulty, I would argue, without the help of the expert knowledge that sits within the college’s senior leadership team.
It is easy for a principal to build ‘pseudo trust’ with their board by providing carefully controlled data sets that look impressive but give only a surface level view of the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
My Bournemouth and Poole College senior leadership team has built enormous trust with our board thanks to a set of questions under the heading ‘The 10 difficult questions no principal wants to be asked.’
This is, I accept, a masochistic approach to building trust and although these questions cause us serious discomfort, they have enhanced my board’s understanding of teaching and learning no end.
Firstly, how many students dropped out before Day 43, from which areas and why?
This question moves the discussion away from a glib set of standard answers and opens up a more fruitful line of enquiry. For example, is there a correlation between late enrolments and drop-outs? Are some areas of the college more aberrant than others and does this suggest sloppy interview and induction practices? Is there a culture of pressure to achieve enrolment targets that is then corrupting the integrity of student recruitment?
Secondly, how many 16 to 18-year-olds enrolled without maths and/or English grade C and what percentage of these are currently in maths/English classes?
The speed in which students who need maths and English are identified and put in classes reveals crucial information about whole college understanding and support of the maths and English policy and the initial assessment process.
Thirdly, what are student attendance rates for maths and English classes?
Although these questions cause us serious discomfort, they have enhanced my board’s understanding of teaching and learning no end
Whole college attendance figures do not reveal that attendance at maths/English classes is nearly always lower. This question separates the data and gives way to establishing what is being done to drive up maths and English attendance.
Fourthly, what is the lesson observation profile for all maths and English classes?
Again, whole college analysis of lesson observation grades often disguises the weaker profile in maths and English classes.
Fifthly, what is the lesson observation profile for all new teachers in their first year?
Support for new teachers is often weak. By concentrating on them as a distinctive group, wider questions can be asked about the whole college approach to supporting new teachers. This includes ensuring poor performers do not drift through their probationary period.
Sixthly, and for the same reasons, how many new teachers are there and how are they supported?
Seven, how many teachers at any one time are being formally disciplined/performance managed? How long is each case taking and why?
This question demands hard evidence that poorly-performing teachers are being carefully managed and light thrown on the amount of time this is taking.
Eight, which 10 full-time courses have the weakest student progression statistics and what is being done about it?
This moves the scrutiny away from a sole focus on success rates and generates interest in progression rates as a measure of effectiveness. It throws up some very interesting and uncomfortable ‘why are we offering this course’ conversations.
Nine, what percentage of full time 16 to 18 students have undertaken a work placement?
This is rarely looked at but is key within the new study programmes. This creates a whole college view of work experience and often reveals highly inconsistent practice.
And finally, how does the internal lesson observation profile compare with externally-validated lesson observations?
Internal lesson observation profiles are often dangerously inflated. College boards need to know that leadership teams are not fooling themselves. Scrutiny here forces external validation of lesson observations and allows valuable comparison.
Construction students and staff from Havering College of Further and Higher Education have helped The Mayor of Havering raise £2,000 for local charities by building a vintage steam train float.
Learners Ben Leask, aged 17, and Jake Steadman, 16, joined Councillor Linda Trew on board the float for London’s New Year’s Day Parade.
The float had the theme ‘London On The Move’ and was created by more than 50 college students and staff.
Havering came sixth place and won £2,000. Its chosen charities were add+up (a support network for people with ADHD), The Alzheimer’s Society and mental health charity Mind.
Ms Trew said: “The float constructed by the students and staff of Havering College was amazing. Everyone was so impressed by it.
“There were a lot of compliments.”
Main Pic: Learners Ben Leask and Jake Steadman were among Mayor Linda Trew’s guests on Havering College’s vintage steam train float for London’s New Year’s Day Parade
Media students at Cornwall College won four out of five awards at Cornwall Film Festival 2014.
Learners from the extended diploma media group collected the awards for best factual, best fiction and best entertainment films while students from the HND media group scooped the Cornwall Film Festival Audience Award.
Naomi Rogers and Liam O’Hare study BTec level three extended diploma in media production.
Naomi said: “I’m really proud that our film is a multi-award winning production, it has been a really good year. The film festival awards are the icing on the cake.
“I am very proud of our whole group and I’m excited about what the future holds.”
Liam said: “I think it’s pretty impressive that at the age of the 18 we’ve been able to make a film that has won awards, beating other colleges in Cornwall.”
Main Pic: From left: Media lecturer Becky Smith, BTec extended diploma in media students Liam OÕHare, Naomi Rogers and Jamie Coupland, all aged 18, and media team leader Rory Mason
Students from Barnsley Sixth Form College visited the University of Hull for a master class in English literature and continued their studies by taking the Philip Larkin Trail.
The group of 25 English literature A-level students visited the university and attended a lecture before taking the tour of poet Larkin’s Hull, whose most famous work came in 1955 when he wrote ‘The Less Deceived’.
Learner Emma Shepherd, aged 18, said: “We have just started coursework on Larkin so it was really relevant to our studies to visit the university, take the Trail and get points and tips from the university Doctors in the master class.”
Harriet Grant, 17, said: “The Trail was really enjoyable and insightful. It was also great to see the university environment.”
Main Pic: From left: Barnsley Sixth Form College students Lucy Bar, aged 20, Daniel Fotheringham, Autumn Faye Sykes, both 18, and Matthew James Ibbotson, 17, with University of Hull academics and Barnsley Sixth Form College personal progress mentor Maria Sutton
Bury College learners have been undertaking specialist training as part of a new peer to peer mentoring project.
The new programme means learners will act as mentors to fellow learners to deliver information on a range of issues, including healthy lifestyle.
Deane Sergeant, aged 19, is studying a level three extended diploma in IT and is one of the new mentors.
“The training we have received for the mentoring project has been great,” he said.
“My confidence and listening skills have improved greatly. It will also be great to include on my CV.”
Student learning mentor Nasreen Ashraf said: “The aim of the project is to equip student volunteers with transferable skills, develop their confidence and gain knowledge in the belief young people are more likely to listen to their peers than adults or professionals.”
Main Pic: Bury College mentors with (right, centre) principal Charlie Deane
