Questions remain over the role of the FE Commissioner despite the government having published a detailed outline of the intervention process.

Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted (pictured) has accused the government of “re-inventing the wheel” when it comes to quality assurance in FE.

She said: “We have serious questions about the role of the FE Commissioner, including whether the role will clash with the remit and powers of Ofsted, and about the extent of the commissioner’s accountability to Parliament.

“Under the previous government stakeholders helped plan a quality assurance system to ensure that colleges which were in financial difficulties or failing to meet Ofsted measures would be supported via an action and development plan and get support and help from funding agencies.

“Now, having disestablished the Learning and Skills Improvement Service and reduced the remit of the Skills Funding Agency and other regional bodies, the government appears to be reinventing the wheel with this FE Commissioner role.”

Her comments come after the publication late last month of a document, Intervention in Further Education: The strengthened intervention process, which set out the process followed during interventions by the commissioner, Dr David Collins, and his team.

It also includes detail of plans to publish Dr Collins’s findings in the public domain, as exclusively revealed by FE Week on May 1. A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said the reports were due to start coming out this week (week commencing June 9).

The document further reveals that the Skills Minister’s letter to colleges, including a summary of findings and recommendations, will be published online, but only once the college or institution has responded with its action plan.

An annual report of lessons learned will also be published, including case studies.

Dr Collins and his team are believed to have so far visited LeSoCo, Barnfield College, Stockport College, City of Liverpool College, K College, City of Bristol College, Weymouth College, Bicton College, City of Wolverhampton College and Stratford-upon-Avon College.

Changes to direct recruitment of 14 to 16-year-olds will not make it easier for colleges to qualify, the Education Funding Agency (EFA) said.

In a bulletin issued for colleges considering taking on younger learners in September, the EFA said eligibility requirements would be “unchanged other than for those colleges with an Ofsted overall effectiveness grade of three “satisfactory”.

But a spokesperson clarified it was a technical change, and said it would not make it easier for colleges to become eligible to take younger learners.

He said: “This relates to a minor technical adjustment that will only affect a small number of colleges. It will not make it any easier for colleges to qualify for direct enrolment of 14 16-year-olds.

“Previously, schools with satisfactory Ofsted ratings were assessed by comparing performance table improvements over four years. Our performance tables have now changed — meaning there are separate academic and vocational point scores.

“This widening of criteria means there will be greater understanding of how each school is performing. However, this adjustment means that the performance of the small number of ‘satisfactory’ [grade three and now termed ‘requires improvement’] colleges yet to be inspected under the new Ofsted framework cannot be easily compared.”

Joy Mercer (pictured), policy director at the Association of Colleges, said: “Changes to performance tables means there has to be a change in eligibility criteria.

“However, most colleges who were graded satisfactory before 2012 have now been re-inspected and will either have improved and are thus eligible, or been graded ‘requires improvement’ and are so ineligible. So we think there will hardly be any colleges affected by this clarification.”

The DfE has said that, as of May 28, it had received expressions of interest in direct recruitment from two colleges. The deadline for expressions is the end of this month. Last year, seven colleges enrolled 14 to 16-year-olds.

“The AoC was instrumental in securing the right for colleges to recruit students at 14, but it’s a very serious decision which colleges do not take lightly,” added Ms Mercer.

“We think that Ofsted overall effectiveness grades are not the best information to decide eligibility.

“Provision for this age group could have been graded as outstanding in the same inspection. The required self-assessment is a much better guide to readiness to recruit.”

College leaders have been warned to “think carefully” about their outside-of-work consultancy posts after it emerged contracts from a Norfolk federation were dished out to a firm with links to the chief executive.

Dick Palmer, chief executive of the Ten (Transforming Education in Norfolk) Group, which includes City College Norwich, carried out advisory work for education IT services provider QuScient from September 2012 to July last year.

In early 2012 QuScient won a contract with the college for processing application forms and then it won another one last year for developing student monitoring software.

Ten denied that there had been any conflict of interest, with a spokesperson saying that Mr Palmer had not been involved in the process of deciding who should win the contracts.

However, Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Many FE colleges benefit from some ‘outside’ help, but they need to think carefully about how it’s deployed.

“Any consultancy work needs to be transparent and focused on helping colleges to help themselves.

“Many of ATL’s AMiE [ATL’s leadership section] members are keen for college principals to undertake consultancy work, but not necessarily on a paid-for basis.”

According to Ten Group accounts, it paid QuScient £52,000 last year to develop software to monitor student retention, due to be introduced in September, and to consult on mapping student experience to improve efficiency.

Application form processing was also outsourced to QuScient on a pilot basis between January and April 2012, but the contract was not extended.

“The projects were overseen by the then-deputy principal of City College Norwich as part of his responsibility for corporate services,” said a TEN Group spokesperson.

“Mr Palmer took no part in the decision-making process.”

He added: “No payments were made to Mr Palmer. In the interests of openness and transparency, he declared to the TEN Group trustees that he had given unpaid advice to QuScient.”

The spokesperson said QuScient had been chosen because it was a “reputable company” with “relevant expertise”.

A QuScient spokesperson said: “There was no conflict of interest as the contract for provision of services to City College Norwich was awarded to our company before Mr Palmer provided us with any advice.

“The advice was not in relation to the services provided to City College Norwich, but in relation to the development of our products more generally relating to the FE domain.”

Plans for a college name-change that a local MP branded “an aggressive act” towards nearby competitor colleges have been thrown out by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock’s officials.

Worcester College of Technology and New (North East Worcestershire) College are merging from August and wanted to become “Worcestershire College”.

But Conservative MP for Mid-Worcestershire Sir Peter Luff complained the move would have undermined rival institutions and confused potential learners.

He argued the name would have suggested the college was the leading FE provider in the county.

And it appears Mr Hancock’s officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) agreed. A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “The request to change the name of North East Worcestershire College to Worcestershire College following the merger with Worcester College of Technology has been declined. All parties have been informed and the decision was taken in line with the department’s name-change guidance.

“The guidance states that a corporation name should not be confusing or misleading and as such should not wrongly suggest regional or national pre-eminence, or imply that a college serves a wider or different area than is the case. We are more than happy to consider a new name-change application.”

Both colleges accepted the decision and said they were now “working with BIS to agree an alternative”.

A spokesperson for both colleges said: “As part of the consultation process, all stakeholders were invited to comment on the name of the merged college.

“We felt that the name ‘Worcestershire College’ reflected the catchment area of our learners as we provide training throughout the county. Unfortunately, the application was unsuccessful.”

Sir Peter had written a strongly-worded email to college bosses before the decision was made. “I strongly oppose the name ‘Worcestershire College’ and have made my position very clear to the government,” he said.

“Sorry to be negative, but it is a grossly insensitive name when you are not the only FE college in the county, but one of three. South Worcestershire and Pershore [which is situated in Worcestershire, but part of Warwickshire College]… are excellent institutions that would be marginalised by the name chosen.

“This county-wide name for a college that only serves part of the county would make their marketing much more difficult and be confusing to potential students. Indeed, it looks a very aggressive act to me — I urge the governors to think again.”

Nobody from South Worcestershire College was available for comment. Warwickshire College declined to comment.

The government has been warned about “to-ing and fro-ing” on apprenticeships policy after a Queen’s Speech today in which the programme was given a target of 2m starts in England.

The annual speech sets out what the government’s priorities will be for the next term of parliament and this year apprenticeships featured just a week after the government revealed employers would be paying out a third of the training costs in future.

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.”

The speech drew a swift response from Chris Jones, chief executive of the City & Guilds Group.

He 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.

“We know businesses can benefit from taking on apprentices, particularly with ever-increasing skills gaps but things keep changing around apprenticeship policy.

“For employers and young people alike this only causes confusion. We should be making the system easier to navigate, not harder. We need a strong, stable, consistent system that meets the needs of young people, employers, and our economy.”

Guidance notes issued following the Queen’s Speech confirmed that she had been referring to the government’s target to have had 2m apprenticeship starts over the course of the Parliament.

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.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock responded to the speech on Twitter saying: “I’ve got my marching orders from HM Queen ‘My Government will increase the number of apprentices to 2 million by the end of this Parliament’.”

The guidance notes also outlined the government’s plans to route apprenticeship funding through employers and require a 33 per cent cash contribution from them, as outlined in FE Week last week . The guidance added: “We are also planning to route funding for apprenticeship training through employers in the future, to give them greater control and purchasing power over apprenticeship training.

“Requiring genuine co-investment will ensure employers have a greater stake in guaranteeing that the training provision their apprentices receive is of high quality.”

The Queen further announced measures to crack down on employers who fail to pay their staff the minimum wage — this could have an impact on apprentices, as a report published in October found that in 2012, more than one-in-five apprentices were not being paid the legal minimum of £2.86 an hour.

The Queen said: “Legislation will impose higher penalties on employers who fail to pay their staff the minimum wage.”

The guidance notes expanded on this by saying that parliament intended to “strengthen UK employment law by tackling National Minimum Wage abuses” through the introduction of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, due to be put before parliament before the general election in May.