Colleges and schools will have to show key performance data on their website home pages under Department for Education (DfE) proposals that went out to consultation today.
The at-a-glance post-16 measures will include students’ progress in academic subjects or Tech Levels as well as students’ average grades in each category.
Colleges and school sixth forms would also be expected to show the progress made by students who joined them without a C in English and / or maths, what proportion of their students drop out, and what proportion of their students go on to further study, a job or training at the end of their courses (when data is robust enough).
The consultation ends on July 4 with the proposals expected to come into force from 2016.
Schools Minister David Laws said: “The information that will be published online by every school and college in future will support parents when choosing the best school or college for their child and help them challenge poor performance.”
Current guidelines already require schools to publish information on performance. However, where and how this information is presented varies between schools and colleges. A DfE spokesperson said this made it “difficult and time-consuming” for parents to find information. Up until now colleges have not been required to publish evidence of their performance online.
It comes after a similar Ofsted consultation ended last month that would allow its inspection reports to be used for comparison between school sixth forms and colleges. The education watchdog is looking at introducing a separate inspection grade for school sixth forms.
However, DfE’s proposals also affect primary schools, who will have to show pupils’ progress from age four to 11, among other things. And secondary schools will have to show pupils’ progress from age 11 to 16, including average grades across eight subjects.
A principal designate has been appointed at a University Technical College (UTC) in Devon that is set to open its doors in September next year.
Ian Crews, currently vice principal of Cornwall’s Bodmin College Academy, will take up the post at South Devon UTC, in Newton Abbot, which specialises in engineering, water and the environment, from September.
The 51-year-old said: “It will be a privilege to lead the exciting development and setting up of South Devon UTC. I am really looking forward to working with the young people of South Devon to encourage them along a science or engineering-based pathway into a rewarding career.”
Professor Janice Kay, deputy vice chancellor at the University of Exeter and chair of the South Devon UTC board of directors, said: “Throughout the application process, I was extremely impressed by Ian’s wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise, both as a technician and an educator.”
Meanwhile, Lantra — the sector skills council for land-based and environmental industries and an awarding organisation — has appointed Marcus Potter as its new chief executive.
He started on May 27 having previously been executive director of market development with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Mr Potter said: “I am delighted to be joining Lantra at this important time.
“While the funding environment has become more challenging, I’m convinced that the need is greater than ever for Lantra’s expertise and services.
“I believe the organisation’s future lies in strong collaboration with partners and in making sure that we understand our customers and stay relevant to their requirements.
“We are passionate about equipping land-based businesses with the skills they need to support innovation, reduce risk and raise productivity.
“It’s important that this sector sees investment in skills not as a cost of compliance but as having real bottom-line benefit.”
Chair Valerie Owen said: “We are extremely happy to welcome Marcus to the organisation.
“He brings extensive experience of developing collaborative partnerships with stakeholders and a track record of identifying market opportunities and launching new business initiatives which meet customer needs. We wish him all the best, and look forward to working with him over the coming years.”
Mr Potter replaced Peter Martin who stepped down last October after 12 years as chief executive before Robert Tabor acted as interim chief executive.
Mr Martin said: “It has been a pleasure to work with a highly committed team of people here at Lantra over the past 12 years.
“Together we have achieved much. Agriculture and the wider land-based industries have an exciting future, and I am sure that Lantra will share in their success.”
If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk
Main pic: From left: Ian Crews, Marcus Potter and Peter Martin
The publication by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) of the Professional Standards for Teachers and Trainers in Education and Training, and the supporting guidance, provides the sector with an inspirational yet realistic framework to build on.
Traditionally work-based learning and apprenticeship providers have far fewer graduate employees than other education sectors.
Most of our professional staff are skilled craftsmen and women direct from the industry shop floor rather than graduates via an academic route.
Solid vocational experience in the sector in which a work-based learning assessor/trainer operates is essential. It is the ‘dual role,’ so clearly expressed in the ETF’s standards, of vocational experience coupled with teaching and assessing skills that provides the professionalism required of staff to undertake this role.
These standards give employers in work-based learning an ideal opportunity under the new apprenticeship trailblazer pilots to implement a higher apprenticeship programme for our trainers and assessors at levels four and five.
What a marvellous example of practicing what we preach.
The ETF’s Professional Standards could form the standard for an apprenticeship in this sector for trainers and assessors
We advocate apprenticeships for the various sectors we operate in as the best route to train and develop their workforce so we should celebrate the fact that we develop our own staff through the apprenticeship route.
Again it will build empathy with the trainer-assessor’s learners to know their learner either has undertaken or is currently undertaking their own apprenticeship.
Promoting work-based learning (WBL) trainers and assessors into management roles presents its own problems for the sector, especially if they have no previous management experience.
I have learned to my cost over the years that a good trainer assessor does not necessarily make a good manager. The skillset required is completely different.
The management role in work-based learning is complex and demanding as with the rest of the sector. While the overriding skill has to be one of leadership, numerous other facets go to make up the job role. Again there is a case for employers in the sector to produce a trailblazer management apprenticeship framework for the WBL sector. While generalist management qualifications and apprenticeships are currently available, WBL training providers would need to devise specific modules for this sector.
The current skills minister’s approach to put employers in the forefront of apprenticeships and control of the content gives the WBL sector an ideal opportunity to take charge of the professional qualifications for WBL trainers, assessors and managers through our own advanced and higher level three, four and five apprenticeship programmes. The ETF’s Professional Standards for Teachers and Trainers in Education and Training could form the standard for an apprenticeship in this sector for trainers and assessors. The Institute of Leadership and Management’s management modules together with WBL specific modules form the basis for a WBL management apprenticeship.
Employers from the sector, possibly facilitated by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers could come together to initially persuade the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills of the need for our WBL apprenticeships to be included in the trailblazer pilots, and then to produce the standards and frameworks for the pilot.
Mick Fletcher casts his eye over the government’s introduction of a 33 per cent mandatory cash contribution from employers towards the cost of apprentice training.
The new guidance on trailblazer funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is a heroic attempt to achieve incompatible policy objectives.
Encouraging more employers to take on apprentices while also insisting they pay more for the privilege was always going to be difficult, but the recent proposals almost succeed.
They do so, however, by being be too generous to employers at the same time as deterring their involvement through administrative complexity.
The spin on the proposals is £2 for £1 — government will match employer funding 2 for 1 up to a set cap per standard.
Depending on the audience this can be sold as good value for employers or getting tough with them — insisting for the first time on a ‘mandatory cash contribution’.
In the great majority of cases — most apprenticeships will be in the lower bands — a small firm can get more than its cash back and large firms pay a lot less than you might think
Actually it’s a lot more generous than that because in addition to the misnamed ‘maximum government contribution’ (MGC) or cap, the taxpayer will hand over bonuses for successful completion, for recruiting 16 to 18s and to small firms.
The key sentence is the one that makes clear that employers can ‘use these incentive payments as you wish’ — in other words, it is open to any employer to net them off against their mandatory cash contribution.
In the great majority of cases — most apprenticeships will be in the lower bands — a small firm can get more than its cash back and large firms pay a lot less than you might think.
Set this against the 25-year-old single mum wanting to better herself through a BTec diploma who gets charged 100 per cent.
A lot depends of course on how the new standards are allocated to bands or caps. Assume a given apprenticeship currently costs £6,000 to deliver and its successor much the same.
Since current funding is assumed to reflect costs government now pays £6,000 for a 16 to 18-year-old starter and £3,000 for most adults.
Employers with adult apprentices are expected to pay £3,000, but in practice rarely do and therefore providers deliver for £3,000 (or usually an average depending on the mix of ages recruited).
If this programme were to be put in the £6,000 band government would pay from £6,900 for adults in large firms rising to £9,600 for 16 to 18-year-olds in small firms; generous indeed.
If it were put in the £3,000 band government would pay from £3,500 for adults in large firms to £4,900 for young people in small ones.
Employers would need to pay no more than now for adults but over £1,000 for young people to make up the gap. This is not consistent either with the policy intent for adults nor with the assertion that ‘many’ young people would still be fully funded.
Though technically clever these new proposals seem set to fail to deliver on three of the principal stated purposes of the reform.
Firstly, they won’t lever in more employer cash, certainly not for the 16 to 18 age group as they are still mainly fully funded. This raises the question ‘Why complicate matters at all for young people?’
Secondly, they won’t exert much downward pressure on prices. There’s no incentive to negotiate 16 to 18 prices and for adults employers lose £66 of every £100 they knock off the fee.
And thirdly, the complication of five caps, three sorts of bonuses, staggered payments and an untested apprenticeship credit mechanism represent just the sort of bureaucracy that SMEs run a mile from.
Moreover the cliff edges between, for example, £8,000 and £18,000 suggests that complexity is sure to grow.
It is fortunate that the timescale for the trailblazers gives ample time for the serious revisions to this approach that are surely needed.
With the government having announced it would expect employers to pay a third of the apprenticeship training costs, Charlie Mullins looks at the wider financial and social costs of the programme.
Transforming the potential of an enthusiastic young person into a highly qualified tradesperson by means of an apprenticeship shouldn’t be difficult, but for some reason we in the UK are still struggling with this most basic of concepts.
In essence an apprenticeship in the 21st Century is nothing more than a formalised version of an institution that has existed for millennia; socially and economically useful skills are passed from one generation to the next, from the master to the apprentice, and so it goes on. Or at least that’s the theory.
Our problem historically with apprenticeships stems from our undervaluation of their social and economic value, and our insistence in making their provision much too complicated.
Under this government much has been done in dealing with the first part of the problem. I have met many young people with a bucket full of good A-levels who want to be plumbers and electricians.
We still however haven’t managed to come up with a simple system to get the number of bodies in the field training to be this country’s next generation of skilled tradespeople, and the newly announced apprenticeship training system doesn’t help. It’s too complicated, and rather than making it less burdensome for small businesses to hire apprentices it creates more work and worry.
The real business of training apprentices happens in the workplace, and involves paying wages, supplying uniforms and other benefits
Training costs must be stumped up by employers and claimed back though the PAYE system; what small business owner is going to be motivated to employ an apprentice by a system that involves trying to claw money back from a government department designed to take it and keep it?
The new system is well intentioned; and with employers paying 33 per cent of training costs with the government picking up the rest, there is more money going in, but it’s difficult to get at it, and means small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to spend more money to retrieve what they are owed, and to be quite honest I believe many will not try.
Another issue for SMEs, especially those who are only ever likely to have one or two apprentices, is that they are hardly in a strong position to get a good price for their training, compared to corporates, buying by the dozen or even greater.
But let’s not beat around the bush here — the real business of training apprentices happens in the workplace, and involves paying wages, supplying uniforms and other benefits. Mine cost me about £50,000 over three years and most of that’s wages, and that is still the biggest reason why small businesses don’t and won’t employ more apprentices.
There is however a simple alternative, and it fits perfectly with the government’s stated goal of putting apprenticeships on a par with university degrees. Treat apprenticeships as part the education system, not a subset of industry. Significant public money goes into universities, into educating over 16s, who choose to stay at school or college, and then there’s the cash that’s wasted on Job Seekers’ Allowance.
The solution is to directly fund employers, which for starters might mean paying Job Seekers’ Allowance straight to an employer for each apprentice taken on. In reality however, I’m convinced that what we need is a fully funded, nationally organised apprenticeship scheme that provides an apprenticeship for any young person who wants one.
Yes there is a significant up front cost, but the economic and social benefits to the UK would be immense. The creation of a well-funded universal entitlement to an apprenticeship policy would provide the UK with a skilled work force, reduce our reliance on imported labour, improve our manufacturing base, reduce benefit reliance, improve public health and reduce crime. Surely that’s a future worth investing in?
Charlie Mullins is managing director of Pimlico Plumbers
A high-ranking government official has reinforced Skills Minister Matthew Hancock’s assertion that only cold, hard cash would count as employers’ mandatory contribution to apprentice training costs.
Jennifer Coupland, deputy director of the Joint Apprenticeships Unit at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE), told delegates at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) annual conference that “income” and “apprentice salaries” would not go towards employers’ one-third share of the costs.
She said: “In terms of the employer co-investment, or employer co-payment, whatever you want to call it, the thing we are looking for is cash contributions.
“We won’t be counting income, we won’t be counting apprenticeship salaries.”
Her comments came on day two of the conference, in Hammersmith’s Novotel on Tuesday, June 3, and offered backing for Mr Hancock who, having spoken at the conference just 24 hours earlier, appeared to be losing the support of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the funding reforms.
Its skills director, Neil Carberry, told delegates that businesses wanted “co-investment not co-payment”, and used Twitter to call for contributions other than cash to count towards the employer’s mandatory share of the cost.
He wrote on Twitter: “We need the totality of an employer’s contribution taken into account, not just the cash — especially for the smallest.”
But further disappointment came for the government after Ms Coupland’s speech when delegates were given the chance to vote on various issues of apprenticeship reform, which could see employers handed the task of sourcing provision.
Out of 184 people, just 17 (9 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed that apprenticeship reforms would lead to businesses offering more places.
In total, 95 people (52 per cent) strongly disagreed, 63 (34 per cent) disagreed, while nine (5 per cent) said the reforms would have no impact at all.
Jason Holt, chief executive of Holts Group and author of Making Apprenticeships More Accessible to SMEs, said: “The [apprenticeships reform] challenge and opportunity is to make this an opportunity to think about the fact we are only engaging with about 100,000 businesses of 4m in this country, so how can we increase the reach to those 4m?
“We need to try to see this as an opportunity to build rather than have this concern that it’s actually going to decrease.”
But other members of the panel were more sceptical about the reforms, including Prospect Training director Noel Johnson.
He said: “What they [employers] are not happy about is taking on that role of managing the apprenticeship programmes. I am speaking from the employers I have met, and 100 per cent of those wanted to look at how we as providers could continue delivering on their behalf and managing that bureaucracy.
“There has to be a clear choice, take it on or manage it through your provider.”
David Pollard, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses’ education, skills and business support policy group, said: “Any increase of the administrative burden on small businesses, any
problems with the implementation of the reforms and any increase in the overall cost of apprenticeships for small businesses are all things that we believe will risk reducing the volume of apprenticeships in the short term.”
Skills system ‘missing’ in Queen’s Speech
A new skills system to tackle a “major labour market imbalance” should have been in the Queen’s Speech, the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (Niace) has said.
In her annual speech, which sets out what the government’s priorities will be for the next term of parliament, apprenticeships featured just a week after the government revealed employers would be paying out a third of the training costs in future.
On Wednesday (June 4), The Queen said: “My government will continue to deliver the best schools and skills for young people. My government will increase the total number of apprenticeship places to 2m by the end of the Parliament.”
Tom Stannard, Niace deputy chief executive, said: “It is good to see further investment in apprenticeships, aspirations for delivering the best skills for young people and proposals to better prepare them for the workplace.
“But the strength of the economic recovery is going to rely on more than young people. There is a major labour-market imbalance ahead of us over the next ten years. It’s anticipated that there will be almost twice as many vacancies as there will be new labour force entrants to fill them.
“The government must take action to implement a new skills system that meets the needs of all people of all ages.”
And Chris Jones, chief executive of the City & Guilds Group, said: “If we really want apprenticeships to be seen as a credible and valuable route to a career, we desperately need to see stability in the system. Too much to-ing and fro-ing on the policy around apprenticeships only serves to confuse people.”
According to figures from the government’s FE Data Library, the current total of apprenticeship starts from the beginning of the academic year 2010/11, after the current government was elected, stands at just under 1.6m.
Main pic: From left: AELP chief executive Stewart Segal, Jennifer Coupland, Jason Holt, Noel Johnson and David Pollard
Walking the long way home after passing just two O-levels, it never occurred to Louise Morritt that she might spend decades working in the sector that was about to save her education.
The chief executive of One Awards, the new name for Open College Network North East Region (OCNNER), says she thrived in the FE setting after hating her time at school.
“I didn’t like my comprehensive education. I was desperate to leave and I didn’t do very well,” says 49-year-old Morritt.
I never had a career path that I wanted to achieve this or do that, but I have always just wanted to enjoy what I was doing and feel that there was some impact
She adds: “I remember walking home from school with the results in my hand, going the longest route I could because I was absolutely dreading telling my parents [Alan and Valerie Bennison].
Louise with her sons Joe, left, and Ben on a camping holiday in France in 2000
“I didn’t enjoy it. I found it very difficult. I liked sport, I liked swimming, but I never really got stuck in, it just sort of passed me buy, I just wanted to leave. I just didn’t enjoy it. I can’t really put my finger on one thing. But I left, got these dreadful results, went into FE college, had a completely different experience and came out passing the whole lot.”
Born in Huddersfield, Morritt’s father worked in FE and her mother was a nurse, a full-time mum and social worker at different stages in her life.
But she said it was her parents’ strong work ethic, rather than their links to education, which would be their biggest influence on her.
“They believed you only got out of life what you put into it, and that you had to work hard,” says Morritt, “and my two brothers and I have grown up with that, and that’s something I hope to pass on to my two sons.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, but just work really hard at it. But no, I never really wanted to go into education.”
Her stint at an FE college, now the site of a housing estate in Sunderland, enabled Morritt to go into nursing, initially working in a dental practice, then training at the Sunderland School of Nursing, qualifying in 1983.
Louise, aged 6, with younger brother James
“Those were the days when there were just no jobs and so got your registration number through from the Central Council for Nurses, but then you were faced with having to move away to get a job,” she says.
“So I ended up moving down to the Midlands to get a staff nurse’s post down there.
“I specialised in intensive care, I was a sister in intensive care for a long period at Leicester Royal Infirmary. I really enjoyed that, had my first son, and it was very difficult to manage shifts with a small child, so I thought I might go back into education.
“I went and moved back up to Sunderland and started a full-time degree in health sciences. And while I was doing that, I thought, ‘What shall I do with this at the end of it?’ And that’s when I went into FE.”
It had been 14 years since Morritt became a nurse, but immediately enjoyed the change as she worked as a health and social care teacher at Hartlepool College. It was, she says, very rewarding.
“I think education is a funny thing,” she says. “I don’t think I ever made an active choice, career-wise, I think I have just gone through my career and taken opportunities as they have arisen.
Louise, centre, canoeing in France with friends and family
“I never had a career path that I wanted to achieve this or do that, but I have always just wanted to enjoy what I was doing and feel that there was some impact.
“When I was nursing, the impact was quite obvious — you can see it in front of you — but education is slightly different.
“So it’s really nice now, because one of the things I do quite often is go to award ceremonies and give out awards for various different things, and it’s lovely to see the path of learning that people have had.”
Morritt ended up staying in FE for 13 years, working her way up into management at Hartlepool before being faced with the choice of becoming an assistant principal or moving out of colleges.
She says: “I saw a post advertised for director of OCN North East region, and it just looked a really interesting opportunity. And that’s really all I have done through my career, is see opportunities and just had a go.
When OCN first set out, they were based at Teesside University in a little portable cabin, with two members of staff
“I did that for a year, the previous chief executive left, and I was asked to do the chief executive’s post on an interim basis, which I did. I have really enjoyed it and I have been here ever since.
“There have been big changes. It started off with 32 organisations. When OCN first set out, they were based at Teesside University in a little portable cabin, with two members of staff. Now, when you look at us 20 years on, just about to award our millionth certificate, with 60 members of staff — it’s a lovely story.”
Morritt maintains a close relationship with FE colleges, but these days she’s more likely to be found there as a student than a teacher.
She says: “You know how you always have these thoughts over Christmas and New Year about what you’ll do in the coming year, and I thought, ‘I’m going to do something recreational – nothing to do with work.’
“So I looked at the local FE college, which is Sunderland for me, which is a thriving, vibrant college, just about to have a big
new build, and I looked to see what recreational courses there were, so there were four.
Louise in her pottery class at City of Sunderland College
“I chose a beginners’ pottery course, and I was interested to see who else was in the class. There were a couple of women in the class who had set up their own business, and who were thriving on the fact that they had been given an opportunity to do these things.”
She adds: “FE should be about nurturing all sorts of learning, it shouldn’t just be about your maths and English, it should be about all of the other opportunities.”
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It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book?
That was quite easy because my son is doing his GCSEs and he has read To Kill a Mockingbird, and that’s the one I did
What do you do to switch off from work?
I like to cook, and I’ve really enjoyed my beginners’ pottery course, although I can’t say I’ve been particularly fantastic at it. It’s just been a complete release
What is your pet hate?
Lateness. I don’t like being late. Not particularly because I’ve encountered it, I just think it’s a respectful thing. I just think that if you’ve said you are going to meet someone at a certain time, then you should be there really
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
This was one of the troubles I think, and this is maybe one of the reasons why I didn’t particularly work at school as well — I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I had no idea, and so I’ve drifted through things. I’m certainly not at the end of my career, but I have just meandered through. I’ve taken opportunities as they have arisen, and I have always worked hard at them, but I can’t say if I have ever had a career plan
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would it be?
Sandi Toksvig, because I think she’s very sharp, very funny and quite cutting. Graham Norton, for very similar reasons. Florence Nightingale to see what she thought of the NHS. Rod Liddle, the columnist, who always seems to ignite controversy. Evan Davies from the Today Programme, Boris Johnson and Nigella Lawson. And then I’d have my friend Kath, who I have been friends with for 30 years. But also my dad, who I lost a couple of years ago, and my Nanna, who brought a large family up when her husband died
Bright Assessing chief executive Krissy Charles-Jones (pictured) has said the firm was “no longer a training provider” after all its previous awarding organisations walked away.
An email allegedly sent by a Bright employee to a learner on June 3, which was posted on a Facebook forum called the Bright Training Problem, said the Warwickshire-based firm had pulled out of the training market and the plan was now to “develop the company into e-learning software”.
It added Bright had arranged for the learner to be transferred to an unidentified “alternative provider”, which would cause “minimum disruption” to training.
After being asked to comment on the email by FE Week, Ms Charles Jones said: “We are no longer a training provider, correct.”
She said: “All learners were asked if they wanted to be transferred before doing so”.
Ms Charles-Jones declined to comment on how many learners had been sent the email and, when asked if refunds would be issued, she said Bright was “in the process of sorting out learners”.
It is thought Bright no longer has a certificating organisation.
Awarding body OCR, which confirmed it had cut ties with Bright last month, announced on June 5 its malpractice committee had completed a “lengthy investigation” into the firm.
A spokesperson said the committee found “there had been a breakdown in Bright’s quality assurance arrangements” for lifelong learning courses run by Bright and certificated by OCR.
Ms Charles Jones was unavailable for comment on the OCR ruling.
It comes after NCFE stopped certificating Bright courses in February following its four-month investigation into alleged malpractice.
The awarding organisation released a statement summarising the findings three weeks ago after Bright’s appeal against the findings of the investigation was rejected by NCFE.
The Bright investigation claimed that 225 former Bright learners had been de-certificated because their portfolios were either sub-standard or could not be found.
Ms Charles Jones claimed NCFE was to blame for qualifications being revoked as it had not carried out sufficient “external moderation” of Bright courses.
A statement released on Bright’s website at the time the findings came out said: “We have issued a complaint to Ofqual about NCFE and hope that as an independent regulator of all awarding organisations they will act and be seen as completely independent, impartial and unbiased.”
An Ofqual spokesperson said: “There are ongoing legal issues between NCFE and Bright. Because of this we are unable to progress any appeal or comment any further at this time.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has revealed that he would “take steps” to stop any provider delivering traineeships in less than six week after a revision to official guidance left it technically possible to run a programme in just under half that time.
The revamp to the rules last month removed the minimum duration to the programme as a whole, which had been six weeks, but did specify that the work placement element of a traineeship was expected to take “between 100-240 hours”.
A learner who already had their English and maths GCSEs, and so would not require further tuition on this second element of a traineeship, would therefore only need to complete the work preparation part of the programme — and FE Week found at least one level two qualification for this element of the programme that could be completed in six hours.
The total number of hours, including 13 work experience days of eight hours plus the six-hour qualification, could therefore work out to 110 — or 14 days/three weeks — as a minimum.
Nevertheless, Mr Hancock told FE Week that he wanted the old six-week overall minimum duration to still be recognised despite its removal from the guidance, and that he would act where a traineeship was being delivered in less than that.
“I would fully expect the minimum to remain at six weeks as now,” he said.
He added: “We are very clear that one of the reasons we kept traineeship eligibility to outstanding and good providers is to ensure that the provision is high-quality, and that gaming of the rules in that way I am not expecting to happen and I will take steps if I see it.”
The revision to traineeship guidance came in a paper from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education.
It led to concerns that although the new rules might lead to greater take-up of the programme after just 3,300 starts in the six months following its launch in August last year, it could also lead to a drop in standards with, potentially, such a small timeframe.
Former Shadow Skills minister Gordon Marsden said: “The issue is about whether this relaxation is being driven by the disappointing numbers of people who have taken traineeships.
“There should be a discussion about the 100 to 240-hour requirement, but it should not be crammed artificially into a small period of time simply to try to boost the government’s figures.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “If we found that a provider was trying to deliver all three elements of a traineeship in three weeks, the Education Funding Agency and the Skills Funding Agency would use their contract management processes to investigate and take action where necessary.”
