The future of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has been brought into question with Education Funding Agency (EFA) chief Peter Lauener taking on the running of both bodies in a move hailed by sector leaders as heralding a more “joined-up” approach.

Current EFA chief executive Mr Lauener replaces SFA interim boss Keith Smith from today, but the government has already denied the appointment indicates a merger of the two funding bodies. However, the move has nevertheless led to speculation about the potential for closer working, or even merger.

Former Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Graham Hoyle posted on Twitter: “Great move. Up to Peter to develop a case for merger after the General Election and argue from the inside.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, said: “This signals a more joined-up approach to learning and skills from the government, something we called for in our general election manifesto in June. Bringing together the leadership of the EFA and SFA is a significant step in the right direction.”

Peter Pendle, chief executive of AMiE (Association of Managers in Education) – the leadership arm of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Peter’s knowledge and openness to collaborative working could very well increase the chances of a more integrated sector.”

Dr Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “Having one chief executive for both agencies will surely help bring about the consistency of approach for which many in FE have long argued. While we recognise the announcement does not indicate a merging of the agencies, we welcome the signal it most certainly gives that funding for our whole education system must be looked at in the round and through the same lens.”

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We already have a very good working relationship with Peter through his current role at the EFA and we look forward to continuing working with him in this new additional role. The bringing together of these two roles is a very logical step by the Coalition and should help coordinate the work of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education.”

Mr Lauener has been chief executive of the EFA since it was formed in April 2012, having also been chief executive of predecessor organisation the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA).

“I am delighted to take on this [SFA] role and am looking forward to the challenge of making a difference in the skills sector,” he said. “I have a long-standing interest and commitment to apprenticeships and skills and I am keen to be involved in the next stage of reform.”

Skills Minister Nick Boles said: “Peter brings a wealth of experience in skills and in working with employers. In his new role leading both SFA and EFA, he will join up our programme of reform across the education and skills sector.”

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Editor’s Comment

One chief, one agency

 

Despite a denial to the contrary, the appointment of Education Funding Agency (EFA) chief executive Peter Lauener to the same role at the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) will lead to speculation about the two organisations’ independent existence.

A return to the days of a single body that funds under and over 18 education and training would certainly offer hope of the coherent approach to the FE and skills sector so longed-for by many.

And it looks all the more likely with the same chief executive heading the two bodies that separately fund the two age groups, from two different government departments.

A reduction in bureaucracy, with one agency rather than two, is an obvious benefit not only for government, but also providers, who would only need one conversation. Less confusion over who funds what would also be welcome.

Not to mention the fact it would end the absurd situation of different funding methodologies for learners on the same courses — possibly even sat next to each other in the same classroom.

So if this is, despite what government says, a move towards merger then we do, as Mr Hughes from Niace says, appear to be moving in the “right direction”.

Urgent government action is required after FE loans caused a “collapse” in the number of older people taking level three and four courses, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) has claimed.

Latest figures released this week by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) showed there were 15,330 applications in September for FE loans, which currently only apply to learners aged at least 24 and studying at level three or four.

The total number of applications for the current academic year up until September 30 was 43,830 — which was 12 per cent less than 49,651 applications up to the same date last year for 2013/14.

Niace chief executive David Hughes (pictured) said the latest figures indicated the number of level three and four learners aged 24 and over had crashed since FE loans were first introduced in April last year.

Figures previously released by the government in the Statistical First Release (SFR), showed that 401,300 people from that age group took level three and four courses, including apprenticeships, in 2012/13.

But only 57,100 people from the same age bracket paid for courses at those levels with a loan in 2013/14, with a further 53,500 people aged 25 and above taking level three and four apprenticeships.

Mr Hughes said the latest FE loans figures, which did not take account of apprenticeship starts so far for 2014/15 as they are are not funded by FE loans, “are a clear warning that last year was not a blip”.

He added: “We call to the government to do something about this urgently. Otherwise, the prospects of there being enough highly-skilled people to do the jobs – now and in the future — that employers are desperate to fill, look bleak.

“The real issue [with the latest FE loans figures] is the collapse in the number of people taking part in learning at levels three and four.

“Huge numbers of people are no longer participating in learning that will help them to get on in life and in careers which will help the economy to grow.”

It comes after the government launched a consultation in June on plans to extend FE loans to cover 19 to 23-year-olds and make them available for level two qualifications.

Government pays half the course cost for 19 to 23-year-olds staying at levels two and three.

But learners would end up having to repay the full cost under the loans system — which currently only applies to learners aged at least 24 and studying level three or four vocational courses, but not apprenticeships.

A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said: “The latest [FE loans] data underlines why securing the right outcome from the government’s recent consultation is so important.

“Most loans are taken out either to progress in a well-paid career or where the learner does not expect to have to pay back the loan.

“AELP believes that detailed research is needed on understanding those affected by the proposals to see how extending loans would affect take-up across a range of sectors so that the government can better assess the long-term financial impact of offering loans instead of co-funding.”

A BIS spokesperson said: “We will continue to monitor take-up and work with the sector to help them share best practice on how providers have made loans work for them.

“The consultation on expanding and simplifying advanced learning loans has now closed and the government will issue a response in late autumn.”

 

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.