A new report from a left-of-centre thinktank has warned the Coalition is “sleepwalking” into the raised participation age and called for it to “rethink what the offer for 14 to 19-year-olds should be all about”.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report Avoiding the Same Mistakes: Lessons for Reform of 14 to 19 Education in England, published today, goes on to urge the government to look at “particularly how all the 16 to 18-year-olds who will now be staying in education or training can really benefit from this extra participation”.

It says: “It does not seem that there has been much coherent thought about how to ensure that such a significant change in leaving age will result in better outcomes for young people and a better system overall.

“Rather than simply sleepwalking into the raised participation age, it is time to rethink what the offer for 14 to 19-year-olds should be all about, and particularly how all the 16 18-year-olds who will now be staying in education or training can really benefit from this extra participation.”

The 20-page report claims other countries with similar economies, such as the Netherlands, have shown it is possible to bridge the gap between employers and education with mechanisms for engaging both sides. Employers, it says, are engaged consistently in qualification design and in offering apprenticeships and work placements for young people, helping them to move more smoothly from education to work or further study.

It also looks at the vocational education and training (Vet) system of Australia to arrive at recommendations for England’s system.  It says that reforms in England have “tended to focus excessively on changing the structure and content of qualifications, rather than on the wider system – this should not be the future starting point”. It also says: “We need to ensure that our Vet system is supported by strong, simple and stable institutions that bring together employers, providers and the state.” And that “apprenticeships are important, but high-quality pathways for all young people will require stronger provision in schools and colleges as well.”

Louise Evans, IPPR senior research fellow, said: “As we enter 2015 – the year when 18-year-olds in England will be required to participate in education and training for the first time – it is important that we learn from other similar economies, such as the Netherlands and Australia, who have better rates of participation and youth unemployment. Our research shows that these countries have clearer transition systems from education to work, particularly supported by strong vocational education for young people.

“This means moving on from further, isolated qualification reform. We need strong college-based vocational route alongside further apprenticeships, all supported by simple, strong structures to involve employers in this phase of education.”

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Associaiton of Colleges, said: “FE colleges are uniquely well placed to take on the role of expanding higher technical, professional and vocational education but to do this there needs to be a two-way street with employers being fully engaged as partners in this work. We must work together continuously to co-create meaningful qualifications for today’s fast-changing global skills economy.”

He added: “For the UK economy to succeed there needs to be a strong vocational system in place. Despite the political parties’ obsession with apprenticeships, these are only a part of the answer. We need employers and the college community to work together to look at ways to give young people a good, robust skills-based education to start them on their choice of career path with business-ready skills.”

A “five-year rule” forcing early years apprentices to re-sit for qualifications they already had could be scrapped after a provider threatened to take the government to court.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has agreed “in principle” to scrap the rule in the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (Sase), which requires all level two and three apprentices to hold English and maths qualifications less than five years old.

The Sase is used to dictate the minimum standards for apprenticeship frameworks, and although the five-year rule applies to all frameworks, most allow learners to take more applied qualifications, such as Functional Skills.

But independent learning provider PBDevelopment launched judicial review proceedings after it was discovered that, coupled with the removal of Functional Skills as an option from the new early years educator (EYE) framework in August, the five-year rule made it “impossible for anyone over 21 to complete an early years apprenticeship”.

Ross Midgley, PBDevelopment director (pictured), welcomed Dr Cable’s announcement and has agreed to pause his legal action for six months.

But he demanded changes to the EYE framework, which was developed by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, to improve participation among older learners.

He said: “Amending Sase is just the first step. What the government now needs to do is amend the early years apprenticeship framework that was made under Sase, because this makes it impossible for anyone over 21 to complete an early years apprenticeship.

“In GCSE English, unlike maths, candidates must undertake a series of controlled assessments, which have to be sat under exam conditions in a school. For work based candidates, this is just not possible.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “The government is considering modifying the Sase so that the requirement that GCSEs in English and maths at grade B or C must have been achieved in the five years prior to the start of a level two or level three apprenticeship is removed.

“The chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency will be asked to prepare draft modifications to Sase. Once these have been received and approved, secondary legislation will be required to give effect to the changes.”

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) welcomed the news, but said the government should also reconsider proposed changes to the framework that will make English and maths GCSEs an entry requirement for early years apprenticeships from next August.

He said: “The five-year rule is not applied in other apprenticeship programmes and should be dropped for EYE programmes. Furthermore, it is not a requirement if learners do the stand-alone diploma outside of an apprenticeship framework.

“We remain though very concerned about the potential impact on apprenticeship recruitment by nurseries if the government maintains that from August 2015, GCSEs in English and maths, at grade C or above, will be required on entry to an early years apprenticeship.

“Again, in every other level three apprenticeship framework, the requirement for level two English and maths is an exit requirement rather than an entry one and Functional Skills are a valid and well respected alternative to GCSE.”

The principal of a college recovering from financial difficulties has backed FE Commissioner Dr David Collins in his view that Ofsted could “be more useful” in looking at bank balances.

Mark Robertson (pictured), from City of Wolverhampton College, which was visited by Dr Collins in May over Skills Funding Agency (SFA) concerns about finances, said he wanted inspectors to take a closer look at the books.

Mr Robertson’s 10,000-learner college, complimented by Dr Collins on its financial progress, was rated by Ofsted as good overall, with leadership good as well, late last month. The college’s previous Ofsted inspection, in May last year, resulted in a “requires improvement” rating.”I agree with Dr Collins that Ofsted should look in more detail at the financial position of colleges,” said Mr Robertson. “For example, if a new leadership team puts the mechanisms in place to improve the finances, which is what the FE Commissioner recognised that we have done, that should be considered fully by Ofsted, to make its reports even more helpful.”

Dr Collins’s comments about Ofsted last month came after it rated leadership at Birmingham’s Bournville College outstanding and good overall, despite a “critical cash position,” as later identified by the commissioner.

It also emerged that the SFA issued the college with a notice of concern a month before Ofsted went in, but inspectors avoided financial issues in their report and indeed praised the leadership.

Acting principal Mike Hill said: “Ofsted judged leadership and management outstanding because it felt our financial situation did not impact on teaching and learning.”Ofsted, under the previous common inspection framework, replaced from 2012/13, used to carry out inspections with the SFA’s provider financial assurance team and their findings were given to inspectors. Ofsted argues that it doesn’t now look “directly” at finances, although a number of reports have covered the issue — including Wolverhampton’s, which complimented financial progress at the college. Another one, on Central Sussex College last month, praised “governors’ thorough scrutiny and careful monitoring of the college’s financial position” but still handed out the college’s second consecutive grade three overall result.

Principal Sarah Wright said: “We welcome Ofsted’s recognition of the improved financial management of our new senior team and board of governors.”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We may on occasion and where it is appropriate refer to a provider’s financial position as a factor in its overall governance and its ability to ensure sustainable good quality provision for learners.”

Meanwhile, Merseyside-based King George V College, a sixth form college with around 1,000 learners, slumped from a 2012 grade two rating to inadequate last month. A college spokesperson said: “We’ve noted the report’s recommendations and are now moving to action them.”

Three colleges have revealed plans to leave the Gazelle College Group this month, taking the total number quitting before next year to four.

The departures will reduce the organisation to 19 members with its £35,000 annual membership fee understood to have proven difficult to justify for colleges unable to point to independent research highlighting any return on investment.

It has prompted a review of membership at Gazelle, with chief executive Fintan Donohue revealing to FE Week that he was looking at “new ways of continuing our association with colleges who share our agenda, but are not at the current time able to commit to a full membership”.

Middlesbrough College, The Sheffield College and Peterborough Regional College all confirmed they would not be renewing memberships, just weeks after Gloucestershire College announced its plans to withdraw, claiming it could better spend its money elsewhere.

And Carlisle College, Lewisham Southwark College and Glasgow Kelvin College said they were yet to make decisions on their future membership.

Middlesbrough College principal Zoe Lewis told FE Week: “We have reviewed our subscription and I have let Fintan know that we are not going to be renewing at the end of the year, for lots of reasons.

“We have got an awful lot out of being a member, but it’s about what we pay for it and we think we can now go it alone through more informal networks.”

Heather MacDonald, chief executive of The Sheffield College, said: “We are a member of the Gazelle Group due to a mutual interest and expertise in enterprise skills and education, and that will continue until the end of this calendar year.

“We value our membership of Gazelle and have derived considerable benefit from it. In a tougher financial climate we are exploring a different relationship with Gazelle short of full membership in the future.”

A spokesperson for Peterborough Regional College, said: “Our principal, Angela Joyce, has written to Fintan that we have terminated our membership for the Gazelle College Group. To confirm, the college continues as a member until the current membership period ends at the end of the calendar year.”

Gazelle members Cambridge Regional College, Activate Learning, Amersham and Wycombe College, Gateshead College and Preston’s College confirmed they would renew.

When asked if they planned to renew, Highbury College, Warwickshire College, North Hertfordshire College, City College Norwich, Cardiff and Vale College, Plymouth College, New College Nottingham and City of Bath College only confirmed they would be members for the “foreseeable future”.

City of Liverpool College, South West College and Barking and Dagenham College declined to comment.

It comes after Gazelle came under fire from the University and College Union as FE Week revealed earlier this year that colleges had spent £3.5m on membership of the group and its services between January 2012 and June of this year.

Mr Donohue, who at the time defended the large amounts pumped in by colleges, told FE Week Gazelle’s membership situation had always “evolved”.

He said: “Some colleges do not feel able to continue full membership of Gazelle next year. We have greatly valued their support in advancing a shared ambition to put entrepreneurship at the heart of college operations and the student experience.

“The vast majority of our members, in spite of competing priorities, have indicated an ongoing commitment to full membership.

“The difficult financial climate for our sector means that colleges are necessarily re-evaluating spending decisions. We are investigating new ways of continuing our association with colleges who share our agenda but are not at the current time able to commit to a full membership.”

The failure of a government plan to make any major dent in £300m of FE and skills sector red tape costs for providers has prompted a call for “democratic scrutiny” to ensure greater progress in cutting bureaucracy.

The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee should, it has been suggested, investigate in light of a National Audit Office (NAO) probe that found the Simplification Plan had shaved less than 2 per cent of the cost of complying with funding, qualifications and assurance requirements.

The plan was produced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2012, but according to NAO head Amyas Morse, it had “not significantly cut the cost incurred by hard-pressed providers”.

“Despite some progress there is still too much red tape,” he said, adding: “BIS, working with the Department for Education [DfE], needs to consider more radical ways to simplify complex funding arrangements.”

Dr Lynne Sedgmore (pictured), 157 Group chief executive, told FE Week: “We are not surprised by these findings. Our members report that their administrative burdens have barely changed in recent years. As they rightly prioritise teaching and learning with less and less funding, dealing with an overly complex policy environment is extremely unhelpful.

“We would support calls for progress with the simplification agenda to be democratically scrutinised, perhaps by the select committee.”

Mikki Draggoo, director of corporate relations at City & Guilds, said: “The intention was to make the system clearer and reduce costs. The report shows this didn’t happen and FE providers were put to one side — despite it being designed for them in the first place.”

She added: “The BIS select committee should conduct its own inquiry into the skills and employment system.”

BIS select committee chair Adrian Bailey (pictured front) said: “It is astounding that something [Simplification Plan] which set out to achieve so much has achieved so little.

“My instinct is we wouldn’t launch a full inquiry into this, not least because we are running out of days before Parliament dissolves. But what I think we will do when we have the ministers in to talk about the annual report and accounts is raise questions about this.”

The NAO report, released on Thursday (December 4), said a “much more serious effort” was needed from BIS and pointed out the plan was “not a strategic stocktake of where simplification might have the greatest impact” and that providers themselves had “little voice” in its development.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “All unnecessary bureaucracy needs to be removed so the maximum resource can be focused on students rather than red tape.”

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “The NAO report is welcome because it highlights how providers are often delivering similar programmes, particularly for young people, for three different government departments, ie DfE, BIS and the Department for Work and Pensions, which require different procurement and contracting processes.

“This inevitably has significant cost implications. We continue to call for more alignment of cross government programmes and the need for an environment where more resources are focused on delivery.”

A BIS spokesperson said: “We have made good progress in removing and reducing bureaucracy for FE providers. Funding and inspection systems have been streamlined and providers tell us that this has had a positive impact.

“We will carry on working with the sector to reduce bureaucracy while driving up the quality of FE provision and making it more responsive to the needs of learners and employers.”

Click here for more coverage and a link to the NAO report.