The closure of the Skills Funding Agency’s (SFA) online data collection (OLDC) system as a back-up for its breakdown-plagued replacement Hub system has prompted concerns about the lack of a “plan C”.
The OLDC was phased out on Friday (October 31), meaning providers must route all future Individualised Learner Record (ILR) returns data through the Hub — a system which has been fraught with teething problems since its introduction in July.
As reported by FE Week, the Hub has broken down at a critical time at least three times since it started being used.
The SFA previously acknowledged problems in August for R12 returns and also in September, when the Hub broke down on the deadline day for R13. And ongoing issues were reported as recently as last month when providers trying to meet the R14 deadline were hit with crashes.
Providers had been using both systems to make submissions, which meant that returns made through the OLDC were still submitted, even where the Hub failed. But the SFA has confirmed the Hub is now the only system available.
The situation has sparked a wide-ranging debate on the SFA’s FE Connect online forums. Martin West, a freelance consultant and software supplier, said: “This all should be of concern to the sector and I fail to understand why these questions are not being raised at a higher level than this forum.
FE Week’s story on the Hub launch in June
“I expect that despite our requests that the OLDC should be retained for 14/15 due to the unresolved issues with the Hub, that the OLDC cannot be used as a plan B for 14/15 as it is not set up to do so. This begs the questions does the SFA have a plan C and have the objectives of the data collections and funding transformation project been achieved?”
An SFA spokesperson acknowledged the Hub had not had enjoyed a smooth introduction, and although she sought to reassure providers that technical issues had been resolved quickly, she could offer no information about what failsafe system would operate if problems persisted.
A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges said: “The plan to modernise data collection arrangements is right, but we’ve passed on college concerns about the operations of the Hub to the SFA and have encouraged it to tackle known problems.
“When we last discussed this a few days ago, the Hub seemed to be working more effectively than it had been the previous weekend.”
Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “Independent providers, mindful of their cashflow considerations, need to have confidence that the Hub is functioning properly, especially now that the old system has been phased out.
“Providers should be paid in a timely manner for delivery and if there are problems with the Hub, providers should not be penalised as a result. To date, the SFA has reassured AELP that no provider will be disadvantaged in the future with the backup system no longer in place.”
The SFA spokesperson said: “We acknowledge that data collections processes in the 2013 to 2014 funding year did not run smoothly. We acted quickly to resolve any technicalities, when they occurred, and communicated at the earliest opportunity to reassure our users.
“During the 2013 to 2014 data collection year, we have improved our systems and listened to users’ feedback. In the main the systems for the 2014 to 2015 funding year are working well.”
A Lancashire college has been fined £20,000 after an employee broke his back while changing the filter of an air extraction system.
Burnley College admitted it failed to protect the 63-year-old engineering technician — despite specialising in teaching health and safety courses — at Preston Crown Court On October 23.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Rose Leese-Weller said: “It’s astonishing Burnley College failed to ensure basic health and safety systems were in place when it employs lecturers who specialise in this area.”
She added that because the filter had been fitted quickly into a badly chosen location, the worker, who has not been named, “had no choice” but to stand with one foot on a step ladder and one foot on a cabinet to reach the filter.
When the stepladder toppled from under him, he fell and landed on a bench, breaking his spine in several places and fracturing his breast bone.
He can now only walk short distances and is likely to need pain killers for the rest of his life.
An investigation by the HSE found a supervisor was aware he was working in this way, but failed to make alterative, safer arrangements.
No one from Burnley College was available for comment.
Lambeth College staff who went on a five-week strike earlier this year will vote on whether to take further industrial action after rejecting “improved” offers over contract changes.
University and College Union (UCU) members walked out indefinitely on June 3 in a dispute over new staff contracts introduced on April 1, which the UCU said would leave staff with longer working hours, less sick pay and less annual leave, before returning to work on July 9.
The UCU shelved a ballot for further strike action mid-voting three weeks ago to allow members to consider whether to accept “improved” offers from college bosses.
But these were rejected by 92 per cent of branch members who voted — although it is understood less than 55 per cent of UCU members who work at the college took part in the ballot.
A UCU spokesperson said a ballot asking members whether they supported further industrial action “up to and including indefinite strike action” would be launched today (November 3) and close on November 17.
He said: “The latest proposals tabled by the college were roundly rejected by an overwhelming majority of UCU members.
“Our members are dedicated to their learners and would much prefer to be teaching than thinking about further industrial action but [college principal] Mark Silverman needs to address what are clearly widely held objections within the college to the introduction of inferior contracts that creates a two tier workforce.”
The college offered a guarantee that staff taken on before April 1 would have stayed on the original contract until at least September 2017.
Alternatively, existing staff could have accepted a £1,500 “cash incentive” to transfer to the new contract by September 2016.
Both options were dependent on staff agreeing to work an extra hour per week from September — increasing their overall annual working hours from 828 to 864.
Mr Silverman said: “It’s extremely disappointing that UCU has rejected what we offered.
“We should remember that this dispute is about a new contract for new staff. The new contract does not need to apply to staff employed by the college before April 1.
“It was UCU that said there needed to be a single contract [for old and new staff]. We made what I think was a very reasonable offer to move towards that, which was rejected.
“We are working on a plan to deal with any possible strike action, but haven’t got to the stage yet of knowing how many staff will be on strike or when it will take place, so it is too early to talk about specific measures.”
The college was slapped with an Ofsted grade four rating in 2012 but worked its way up to a grade three last year.
Professor Alison Wolf, the influential academic who authored the government’s 2011 report on vocational education, is one of just four people to have been given a coveted life peerage by the Prime Minister in this Parliament, and will soon join the ranks of Peers as a cross-bencher without party political affiliation.
As she prepares to fight the Garter King of Arms over her desire to be Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, a title she fears may be denied her due to the popularity of the South London suburb, the 63-year-old King’s College professor spoke to FE Week reporter Freddie Whittaker about study programmes, apprenticeships and careers guidance, and why she remains committed to the principle of House of Lords reform — even if it means giving up her seat in the future.
Tell us about the peerage. Was it something you expected? Do you think it will give you a bigger voice to speak up for FE?
I had no idea that the Prime Minister even appointed any. If I had been asked to do it as a party political peer I would have said no. That I am absolutely sure about.
But I do think somebody has got to do something about the Lords, even if that involves throwing me out again. We did a half-baked reform and we never finished. I am a believer in second chambers, and not just because I’ve been asked to join one, but it needs to be younger, it needs to have more people who are still in the world of work and therefore not losing touch with everything.
I haven’t the faintest idea what the government is going to look like after next May, or whether they will have the slightest interest in listening to me or not, but I do think will give me a platform.
I had a fantastic chance to write a report for the government, but what I have concentrated on are the things that the report covered. You can’t do everything, and there are some major issues in the sector which I didn’t get a chance to talk about, I mean particularly post-19, but also 16 to 19.
There have been some concerns raised about study programmes. They were your brainchild. What do you make it all?
I was a bit cross with the Ofsted report. If you actually read it carefully and you actually look at the sample size, it was very anecdotal. So I haven’t lost heart. I mean, obviously it was a bit disappointing, but it was very small-scale, it’s very early days. I still really, really believe in it.
[Responding to claims FE is picking up the responsibility — and bill — for learners when school sixth forms reject learners without Cs at English and maths GCSEs] The FE sector, for better or worse, has always had this dual role, it’s always had to balance itself between being full of centres of excellence and things, which are selective, demanding and all of that, and the fact that is basically is the sector that soaks up everything else that everybody else rejects. It always has been.
What I’m really concerned about is the funding for 16 to 19. I mean, the situation is just not tenable. They cannot go on and on and on cutting 16 to 19 funding. I don’t like ringfences because the trouble is, if you have ringfence here, ringfence there, ringfence there, that everything else gets squeezed out. I actually want more money for 16 to 19, not to ringfence what’s already there.
The funding cut for 18-year-olds worries me enormously. It just seems to me that these are the kids that we really, really need to try and help before it is too late. If they’re in their third year, it probably means they’ve had some false starts, but if they’re there in their third year, then they’re really giving it a go, and many kids really need that third year if something went wrong when they were 11, 12, 13 years old.
What do you think about apprenticeships, the proposed reforms and the party pledges around boosting them?
I am cheering falls in the total number of apprenticeships, and I am aghast at the fact that the two main parties are screaming about numbers, numbers, numbers.
There is no point doing an apprenticeship if it’s not decent. So if you set a numerical target, right there you have blown quality out of the water. End of story. I can’t imagine what got into their [Cameron and Miliband] heads. They should know about targets by now, shouldn’t they? I was aghast. I thought that was just stupid.
With the reforms, ideally, what you want is for people to put money in and get it back rather than be given money, for two reasons. First of all, from what we know about the psychology of human beings is that if they are actually putting even small amounts of money in, they really get involved in what it is being spent on. And the other thing that we know is that basically refunding people is much less bureaucratic than
giving them money.
When you get government funding, for all sorts of absolutely predictable and totally understandable reasons, you feel like a regulatory mountain has fallen on your head, because this is public money. What you want to avoid is giving employers money to spend, which they then have to account for in incredible detail, which is what happens whenever you get public funds.
You don’t want them to feel that it’s going to cost them huge amounts of money that they might never get back.
What can we do to end the age-old careers advice problem?
Schools are not going to promote apprenticeships, except to kids they want to get rid of. You can put it in every piece of legislation you pass from now to the year 3000, and they still won’t.
But I don’t think anybody else really ever does it. My sense is, you have to give responsibility to schools and you have to find some way of checking that they are making things available. But it’s also an area where I actually think the model has to change.
I just think it asks somebody to do what no human being can do. It asks them to know enough about every individual who comes in and enough about the whole labour market to be able to give really good, personalised advice to a totally random sample of hundreds of people. You can’t do that.
Nobody can do that.
A sector leader has called for “coherence” in government’s approach to improving participation of 16 to 18-year-olds in education and training after a key committee announced an inquiry into the issue.
Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, welcomed news the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would begin to examine participation today (Monday), but said more joined-up thinking was needed.
It will look at how the Department for Education (DfE) aims to pay for an increasing number of learners, while at the same time reducing spending and comes with the Education Select Committee currently looking at 16 to 19 apprenticeships and traineeships.
“The DfE is implementing its reforms at the same time as reducing spending on 16 to 18-year-olds. In 2013/14, the DfE’s core budget of £7bn for this age group was 8 per cent lower in real terms than in 2010/11,” said a PAC spokesperson
“This inquiry will look at the challenges the DfE faces, the progress it has made to date, and how it can get better information about the effectiveness of its reforms to increase participation and quality further in future.”
Mr Segal said: “We are pleased that the PAC is concerned about participation at age 16 to 18.
“However, the fact that other committees and inquiries have this on the agenda shows that it is a major issue for the UK but also that there is a danger that we will get a fragmented approach to the solutions.
“Several government departments such as the DfE, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Work and Pensions are involved in delivering services and funding to support this group. We need a more coherent response to the issue.”
Mr Segal also raised concerns about the wording of the inquiry announcement, which states that the raising of the participation age means “young people stay in full-time education or training” post-16.
He said: “The statement is technically right but gives the impression that a job is not a valid option. The terminology of young people staying in full time education or training is very misleading and many will assume that this will exclude getting a job or even taking a traineeship programme where work experience is a major part of the programme.”
Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel also welcomed the inquiry, adding: “The protective ringfence for the education of five to 16-year-olds has resulted in a reduction of funding for students aged 16 to 18.
“Education for this age group has already taken its fair share of cuts — it is time for this ringfence to be extended in line with the raising of the participation age.”
The announcement of the new inquiry comes with PAC chair Margaret Hodge (pictured) having already lamented figures in a report by the National Audit Office that showed fewer than half of eligible traineeship providers were running the scheme.
She said: “Participation in education and training for 16 to 18-year-olds is vital for ensuring young people get the best start in life as well as for our economy and for society as a whole.
“These young people have not been helped by the department’s failure to manage its providers — with only 200 out of 459 eligible training providers actually delivering the traineeships they promised.”
The first hearing will take place at 3.15pm today (Monday, November 3) at the committee rooms in Portcullis House. DfE permanent secretary Chris Wormald has been called to give evidence.
New minimum standards categories have been unveiled by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) for 2014/15 — but the sector has been left asking why they were not ready earlier.
Guidance for post-19 training, issued on Tuesday (October 28), revealed how qualification success rates (QSRs) will change. Previously, providers’ QSRs were divided into three categories — long, for courses of 24 weeks or more, short, for courses lasting two to 24 weeks, and very short, for less than two weeks.
However, these have been recategorised and further divided into 13 qualification types, including apprenticeship frameworks (which continue to have a 55 per cent success rate threshold), A-level (which continues at 75 per cent), AS-level (which continues at 63 per cent), awards, certificates and diplomas.
Association of Colleges senior policy manager Joy Mercer said: “It is disappointing these new methods and standards are implemented retrospectively — a pilot year would have been a better option.”
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “Providers need to manage their provision in line with the minimum standards guidelines and these should be published well before the end of the year to which they are applied.”
Providers face the SFA intervention process if they fail to hit the QSR thresholds.
Further education colleges have added their voices to a growing list of sector organisations warning apprenticeship funding reforms could put employers off the programme and result in falling numbers.
In written evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee (pictured right), which will hold the first hearing of its inquiry into 16 to 19 apprenticeships and traineeships on Wednesday (November 5), several prominent colleges and college groups aired concerns.
It comes after the government unveiled plans to route apprenticeship funding through employers — with use of the taxation system — rather than training providers and to demand that employers pay up to a third of the cost of training and assessment.
The proposals have prompted concerns about future employer engagement from bodies such as the Association of Employment and Learning Providers and the Confederation of British Industry, but colleges have now used their committee submissions to voice their similar concerns.
The Manchester College Group said: “The requirements being introduced for matched expenditure could have a much more negative effect for two reasons.
“First, because prescribing what money can be spent on and matched, will lead to an inevitable increase in bureaucracy in order to ensure that the money is spent on the approved things, and second, because employers cannot deliver their own work based training and receive funding support for it but rather can only receive funding support when they buy training from an external source.”
Central Bedfordshire College also contributed. It welcomed the introduction of “simplified” funding rates, but added: “It is identified that many employers do not welcome the greater involvement of HMRC in their financial concerns, and many view it as an increase in the bureaucracy involved in employing an apprentice.
“The idea that employers negotiate with training providers to agree the price and ensure it delivers the best value for their company, risks those employers choosing the cheapest provider and potentially compromising quality.
“For those employers where the cost of employing an apprentice is a very real concern, or where an employer sees an apprentice merely as a cheap source of labour, now with the possibility of increased financial incentives attached, there is a clear danger that those young people at the centre of these initiatives will be the ones to suffer.”
And Newham College of FE, in East London, said: “While it is too early to judge the changes as they are not all implemented, our conversations with small employers would seem to indicate a potential drastic reduction to them taking on apprentices.
“The amount of administration involved, their lack of understanding of it, their own capacity and the fixed contribution demanded are the reasons for this opinion.”
The inquiry, which was first announced by committee chair Graham Stuart (pictured) in May, will examine the range of courses available, current levels of employer engagement in apprenticeships and the expected impact of recently proposed government reforms, along with discussions about whether investment in apprenticeships represents value for money in terms of future wage returns.
It will also look at how the government can encourage better engagement in both traineeships and apprenticeships from both employers and learners, and will examine factors which prevent young people considering apprenticeships.
The first hearing is due to start at 9.30am. Witnesses include David Massey from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, City & Guilds managing director Kirstie Donnelly and Edge Foundation policy and research director David Harbourne.
Most teenagers spend their schooldays daydreaming about life outside the classroom, but that wasn’t the case for Andy Gannon.
The 157 Group director of policy admits it was his “nerdy side” which prompted him to crave a career in education from an early age, but not quite in the way you might expect.
“I have a slightly nerdy side to me”, he tells me as we sit down over coffee at his flat in a leafy South West London suburb.
“I was fascinated by the way in which a school operated — by really tedious things like timetables and the structure of the staffing and how you made sure that three classes weren’t all in the same room at the same time.
“I used to sit at home and think: ‘It’d be quite nice to run a school or an organisation that had logistical elements to it’ and, interestingly, when I became a teacher, one of the first bits of additional responsibility I had was as exams coordinator, which meant I got to sit on my own in a room for hours, organising timetables.”
Gannon, aged 43, was brought up in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where he tells me he was a “classic academic kid” who was “universally known as the square”.
Below: Gannon aged 3 on a beach in Dorset
“I did very well at school”, he explains. “There were very few things that challenged me except for PE. I always hated PE and I didn’t like anything where I had to use my hands because I’m just not a creative person.
“I was a classic academic kid, and I’m an only child so I had an awful lot of time at home to spend musing and thinking and doing homework and all that stuff without the distraction of brothers and sisters.”
Gannon studied languages at Jesus College, Cambridge, and spent a year in France from 1991 to 1992, graduating in 1993 with a first class degree.
But his higher education is something he admits to having “a very strange relationship with”.
“I never planned it,” he says. “I applied because my head of modern languages said I was good at French and German, and I should go to Cambridge. I didn’t think twice about it. It never occurred to me that Cambridge might not necessarily be somewhere where I would have a lot of fun, or that the course might not really be what I wanted.
“I guess I now look back at it, in the midst of all the conversations we now have about careers guidance and personal development, and although I don’t regret my time at Cambridge, I’m pretty sure that if the approach to careers education within my school had been different, I might have made a different choice.”
With education still at the front of his mind, Gannon moved to Bristol to take a PGCE at the city’s university. He started his teaching career at a secondary school, initially at Boswells School in Chelmsford then at Langley Grammar School in Slough.
Left: Gannon with partner Dan Watts in Corsica, Summer 2014
It was during his four years of teaching, between 1994 and 1998, that life changed for Gannon. His first proper relationship, and a decision to choose life over work for the first time saw him leave the profession, but not before he stood up and told an entire grammar school assembly that he was gay.
“By the mid-1990s, I had decided I was now a relationship person, and I was out and proud and gay,” he explains.
“Rather misguidedly, as a 26-year-old, I stood up and effectively told everybody.
“Unfortunately, I had perhaps overestimated the extent to which things had moved on by 1998. The kids were remarkably supportive, still to this day I’ve got a couple of cards saying: ‘Good on you, Sir.’ One of them said he had decided to come out because of what I’d done as well, which was quite touching.
I’m pretty sure that if the approach to careers education within my school had been different, I might have made a different choice
“But I had very mixed reactions from the teaching staff. The local paper got hold of the story and started trying to make it into more than it was.
“Unfortunately it wasn’t long before I was going to leave anyway, so the paper tried to make it look like that was the reason I was leaving.”
Gannon’s work in FE began at Southampton City College, where he joined as a press officer in 1998. He worked as a communications officer for Hampshire County Council from 2000 to 2002 when he re-joined the college as tutorial coordinator before becoming head of student support in 2004.
He described his move into the heady world of public relations as “a complete fluke”.
He says: “I had applied for something completely different within the marketing department. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just a job and I thought: ‘I know a bit about education, so that’s probably a reasonable institution to apply to’ — knowing very little about FE, as is often the case with people who have been down the sort of educational route that I had.
Gannon, centre, with, from left: his grandmother Edith Macnamara, mother Carol, father Patrick and aunt Janet Macnamara. At the Senate House in Cambridge, 1993
“I loved it. I got to meet lots of different people around the college, and I got to do
lots of writing, and lots of nerdy stuff about laying out prospectuses and working with graphic designers, which was a really interesting thing for me as a completely uncreative person.”
Gannon moved to London in 2010, where he joined the 157 Group, initially as a project officer, before becoming director of policy to years ago.
His rise through the ranks of the FE policy world could be described as fast, but Gannon is keen to play down the possibility that he may eventually succeed Dr Lynne Sedgmore as executive director of the group, or that he will climb the ladder further, whether in or out of Westminster.
“I’ve been doing this job for two years effectively, maybe two and a bit, and I think in terms of working environments, this again has been such a shift, both in terms of how 157 works and the whole working at home and all the practicality stuff, but also getting to grips with the Westminster village, and how the national press works, and the national education press, which is a very different animal from the local press.
“I think after two and a bit years I’m just about getting to understand it all, because we’re human beings, it takes a long time to adjust to working in a different environment of any sort. So if I’m honest, I think it’s probably a little bit early for me to really be thinking: ‘Okay, where does this go?’
Below: Gannon aged 3
“What I do know is that I think I’ve got some interesting ideas to offer for the world of education, how that world might develop, whether that is continuing to do this kind of role, ending up in a more senior role, ending up in the Department for Education [he winces]. I honestly don’t know.”
But you could forgive Gannon for having something other than his career at the front of his mind. As many of you read this, he and his partner Dan Watts, 36 will be entering into a civil partnership.
“We are very deliberately having a civil partnership, rather than a wedding,” says Gannon.
“I am very pleased that gay marriage is on the statute book and people can do it if they want to, but for me, the issue is that my relationship is valued and is not an issue, rather than I might now slip into the same centuries-old institution that everybody else always has.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
Anything by Bill Bryson or John O’Farrell, because I have never been good at fiction and I like a book that makes
me laugh
What is your pet hate?
People’s inconsideration of other people
What do you do to switch off after work?
I devour bits of trivia from Wikipedia and other corners of the internet — and am always planning for my next holiday
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party who would it be?
Victoria Wood (for her spot-on British wit), Agnetha Faltskog (because she was a childhood idol), Harry Beck (because the Tube map fascinates me) and Nick Clegg (because I suspect he has an interesting tale to tell about the last four years)
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A DJ or a newsreader — on the BBC, because I lived in a house where the TV didn’t get ITV
