It’s time for colleges to “acknowledge publicly that their primary purpose is their contribution to the economy,” believes Lynne Sedgmore.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock officially launched our paper, A New Conversation, written together with our partners at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the Gazelle Group, on Tuesday, May 13.
This timely paper, and initially published on Tuesday, April 29, sets out key challenges for ‘raising the game’ of college-employer relations.
We propose that to fulfil the massive potential colleges have for contributing to growth in the UK, these relationships must become far more strategic than transactional.
Our report reflects the array of excellent practice already out there — many colleges have excellent partnerships with high-profile employers which already go beyond the commissioning and supplying of individual training programmes and are having genuine impact on the economy in their own localities.
But these examples have not been harnessed into something we might recognise as a truly national approach until now, and we intend the report will contribute to doing just that.
We make no apology for presenting challenging questions and messages for both colleges and employers
What is clear from Ministers, and our own research, is that we cannot wait for the government to fund and shape the future for us.
Mr Hancock says repeatedly that he wants colleges to break free from the constraints of funding rules and to establish their own place as social enterprises and drivers of economic growth.
The prize is a big one — recognition by employers, and others, of what we in sector already know is true — that colleges are a vital part of both economic prosperity and personal wellbeing for a great many people.
Now is the time to demonstrate that we are willing, and well-equipped, to lead more strategic and effective employer engagement. We make no apology for presenting challenging questions and messages for both colleges and employers.
The time has come, we believe, for colleges to acknowledge publicly that their primary purpose is their contribution to the economy. This may require, for some, a re-examination of who we believe we are accountable to, a deeper understanding of local economic drivers and a soul-searching re-appraisal of the qualities needed by our leaders and our teachers. This does not need to negate the crucial social role we play in our communities.
As the report by the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning made plain, we need a ‘two-way street’, and our paper challenges employers to step up to the plate also.
They must not ignore their local college, and they must develop an understanding of the future workforce pipeline that will enable them to continue to grow by engaging with college leaders. If we believe Confederation of British Industry director-general John Cridland’s words at the recent national Gazelle conference, employers have never been more ready to do this. We know that they, too, must ‘put their money and commitment where their mouth is’.
So — what next? This cannot be a report which sits on shelves and gathers dust.
The future prosperity of our skills system is too critical for that. The Education and Training Foundation will build on our action points in designing their future programme, and colleges must create chances, both locally and nationally, for strategic relationships to grow and flourish.
We hope also that there will be a much more concerted approach to showcasing the excellent examples already in existence.
The 157 Group, in partnership, will continue to do all it can to help colleges to ‘up their game’ and be recognised for the important engines of economic growth that they truly are.
The new Skills Funding Agency director of apprenticeships and delivery service has taken up her post.
Former McDonalds UK education boss Sue Husband started in her new role on Tuesday (May 12), with FE Week having exclusively revealed the move three months ago.
Her agency duties include providing expert advice and support to Local Enterprise Partnerships, and other local partners, on the funding and skills elements of local growth plans; and encouraging colleges and providers to deliver more good quality apprenticeships and traineeships, and intervening in cases of failure or high risk.
She will also aim to help the delivery of high quality national careers and apprenticeship vacancy services.
She said: “I am thrilled to be joining the organisation and I’m looking forward to meeting the team and getting to work.
“I want to support the ambitious reform agenda and work with the sector to continue to raise the profile of apprenticeships and traineeships while also promoting the benefits of these training opportunities and the success it can bring to individuals.”
Ms Husband was in charge of training at McDonald’s when its apprenticeship scheme received a grade two rating from Ofsted, in November 2010, following the company’s only inspection to date.
Barbara Spicer, interim chief executive of the agency said: “I am absolutely delighted to be able to welcome Sue. Her wealth of private sector knowledge and experience will be a valuable asset to us, ensuring that quality and reform is driven forward in the sector.”
Meanwhile, Lincoln College Group has appointed a new chief executive. Gary Headland will take over from current principal and chief executive John Allen, who will retire in July after 14 years in the post. It is understood the principal’s post will be reviewed by Mr Headland.
Mr Allen said: “I’ve enjoyed many happy years at the college and have been lucky enough to oversee some major developments. I would like to thank the college staff and students for their support and hard work over the last 14 years and wish Gary every success in his future role.”
Mr Headland said: “I will build upon the excellent work that has already been started and combine my deep public service experience and motivation with the strong commercial acumen that I have gained during my time in the private sector to deliver innovative and highly collaborative ways of providing top-quality education and training.”
Main pic from left: Sue Husband, Gary Headland and John Allen
The challenge facing young people is the same as the one facing college principals — develop your skills and your offer if you want to survive, explains Signe Sutherland.
The entrepreneurial mindset has become a necessity for the next generation workforce, faced with an unprecedentedly challenging and volatile employment market.
It is no different for college leaders, who must lead this change from the front, setting the right example and creating new income sources.
That is the challenge we have sought to address at North Hertfordshire College, having decided three years ago to invest in a long term transformation with the aim of becoming a leading and recognisable entrepreneurial college.
It has meant fundamental changes to pedagogy: the need to provide our students with a more commercial and applied learning experience has been at the core of a curriculum change programme that has now been underway for two years.
We are creating new learning environments that allow students to develop an understanding of commercial realities alongside development of skills and progress towards qualifications.
Although in their infancy, we are already seeing how this model can prepare learners to succeed either within an existing business or by creating their own employment.
Our challenge now is to continue to develop with the scale and efficiency more typically associated with the corporate world.
At North Hertfordshire College, we cannot afford to make the level of investment in technology-supported delivery that is needed, if we simply try to secure that innovation from within our college budget.
Our challenge now is to continue to develop with the scale and efficiency more typically associated with the corporate world
Instead, by clustering together with a group of like-minded colleges in Gazelle, we can explore bigger solutions and begin to test our ability to make the sort of large investments that will be needed to deliver affordable learning to increasing numbers of employers, employees and students in our communities.
There is of course a financial as well as a curriculum imperative in the redesign and the re-engineering of our curriculum delivery processes.
Put simply, we don’t think the funding exists, in either the short or longer term, to deliver vocational programmes in the manner and style that we have delivered in the past.
The notion of a wholly tutor-supported vocational learning environment, timetabled for convenience in a constrained organisational structure is no longer acceptable either to students or staff.
The good news is that we can deliver better learning experiences by having the courage to embrace self-organised learning, and develop commercial learning opportunities, embedding students within college or local businesses.
Teaching must be paid for, but learning can occur in a wide variety of settings that do not always need to incur the cost of the teaching process.
Students can access the college resources and learning environments 24/7 and we need to enable them to do so.
Across our group, and indeed across the wider sector, we are seeing real innovations in the imaginative planning and creation of opportunities for students to engage in
college across the whole day while accessing tutoring for a reducing part of their programme.
Our ambition is to embed science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in our vocational curriculum and indeed to use Stem centres as experimental areas for learners where they can experience both self-organised learning and sustain project developments that meet with a different financial and learning vision than had hitherto been possible.
We need more initiatives and innovations and we are likely to achieve those by working collaboratively and by sharing the best practice that undoubtedly exists within almost all of our colleges across the UK.
North Hertfordshire College has put innovation and entrepreneurship at the very core of its investment and its mission to sustain a vibrant and successful college over the next five years.
With traditional funding and revenue sources set only to diminish in the years ahead, for colleges the only way is surely innovation.
Signe Sutherland, principal, North Hertfordshire College
The role of FE colleges is changing, explains Sharron Robbie. Viewing businesses as customers, stakeholders and strategic partners is key, she says.
Recently, we’ve seen a real change in the way FE colleges connect and engage with employers.
There has been a major shift from the traditional, transactional attitude to a more strategic, partnership-focused approach. This change has been borne out of a number of key drivers.
The economic downturn is an obvious place to start. Employers require training that’s relevant, responsive and affordable rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ offer focused on NVQs and apprenticeships.
Industry needs to be leaner and sharper, with a workforce that’s multi-skilled, adds value and delivers efficiency savings. In response, colleges have to place employer engagement at the very heart of what we do.
To keep abreast of changing industry demands colleges have had to evolve, developing stronger communication strategies, building robust and sustainable partnerships that provide mutual benefits to both parties, and ensuring that we are perceived as well-established and credible by our local economic community.
Add to this the constant changes in government funding, in particular recent cuts to the adult skills budget and changes to the funding of apprenticeships.
Colleges have to be far more creative and entrepreneurial in our approach to identifying new income streams in order to realise income targets.
The FE sector needs to be more entrepreneurial, not only in what it delivers to students, but also in how it ‘does business’. Employers demand work-ready students. Enterprise and entrepreneurial activity are integral to ensuring students leave with the depth of technical knowledge and also the breadth of employability skills required by employers.
The positive impact FE has on the economic community cannot be underestimated — whether it’s our alignment of the curriculum to local key priority employment sectors to develop a labour market skilled in the competencies required for growth and competitiveness, or the support for business start-ups through incubation activity to promote wealth and job creation. Yet to continue to have this impact FE colleges need to think big and develop multi-purpose relationships with employers.
Employers should be seen as customers — purchasing skills training, not necessarily accredited. They should also be seen as stakeholders — participating in college governance, curriculum development and skills development to benefit the wider community. Finally, employers are also strategic partners — collaborating on new developments, infrastructure and joint ventures.
By developing this three-pronged relationship between FE and employers we can drive the local, national and global community forward, and still remain student-focussed.
At City College Plymouth we believe in the need to fundamentally transform our educational offer for a changing world of work, one driven by new businesses, new technologies and a global economy. This impacts what we deliver and how we deliver, and we have defined this in collaboration with employers.
We have developed and implemented
a robust employer engagement strategy over the past five years, and this is
yielding positive and mutually beneficial results. We have not achieved this overnight. It has taken time and money to establish and manage the excellent relationships
the college now has with industry. However, this investment is paying real
dividends.
Our students and staff have access to a range of industry-focused activity enhancing the learning experience and supporting continual professional development. Our curriculum is designed and developed by industry. Our employer endorsement scheme ensures there is constant dialogue with the business community. We are seen by business and the wider communities as a valued strategic partner.
At City College Plymouth we have built a strong reputation with employers, ensuring our provision is employer-led and focused on growth areas identified as vital to the economic regeneration and success of our city and beyond. FE must embrace the opportunity to develop long term relationships with employers, providing as they do, strong partnership working, sustainable collaborations and community cohesion, helping to stimulate wealth and job creation.
Sharron Robbie, Head of corporate relations, employability and enterprise, City College Plymouth
While PAYE has figured heavily in coverage of the government’s apprenticeship funding proposals, the other option of an apprenticeship credit account has enjoyed less focus. Mark Corney looks at the latter option.
An interesting juncture has been reached on apprenticeship funding reform now the technical consultation has closed.
Employers are urging the Coalition to ‘get the mechanism right’ if it decides to route public grant funding for post-16 apprenticeships to each employer.
This is exactly the message to send to ministers and officials at this stage in the policy-making process, but a stronger proposal is needed.
Presumably the Coalition will finally announce its choice between the PAYE and the apprenticeship credit models in the Autumn Statement, due in early December.
But employers and their representative bodies should be calling on the government to publish a ‘technical specification’ consultation on the PAYE and apprenticeship credit models before parliamentary recess on July 22 with a closing date three months later.
The case is simple.
Employers and other stakeholders have had more than twelve months to become acquainted with the PAYE model and through the technical consultation appreciate the problems facing employers who require a reimbursement from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if the grant funding for apprenticeships exceeds their monthly PAYE/NI payment.
The reimbursement systems looks good on paper but there is scepticism about whether HMRC and the Treasury can make it work.
The fact is the Coalition issued an unfair and unbalanced ‘technical funding consultation’.
Unfair because more time has been available to assess the PAYE model than the apprenticeship aredit model, and unbalanced because there was insufficient explanation of how the Apprenticeship Credit model would work operationally.
Indeed, the key dimension of the apprenticeship credit model was only surfacing late in the consultation. The Coalition has asked for views on an apprenticeship credit ‘account’ model, with the key word being neither apprenticeship nor credit but account.
Each employer would have an account into which they pay their contribution in cash, which then triggers the government contribution.
From the employer perspective, if a cash contribution led to being overdrawn on their general account they could face bank charges.
Employers will want to know that they can retrieve their cash instantaneously if the apprentice fails to turn up after registration or leaves before completing because they find a job elsewhere, becomes injured or ill, or dies.
To limit their financial exposure employers will also want to release their cash contribution by instalments. After all, the government is expecting to release its contribution in relation to 80 per cent on programme and 20 per cent on achievement.
Indeed, the response to the proposition that employers need to ‘put some skin in the game’ could be ‘we will when you do’.
Critically, the government contribution will be a ‘credit’ released at the point of purchase, hence the title ‘apprenticeship credit’ model. There is no way the Treasury is going to put cash into the account for any length of time which might not be used for apprenticeship training.
Each employer will have a single apprenticeship account. Yet, employers with more than one apprentice will need a separate budget line for each because their own cash contribution will vary according to the sector standard — engineering is more expensive than business administration, and age of the apprentice. The cash balance on the account will be almost meaningless for employers with two or more apprentices.
Finally, there is the question of the agency that will manage the apprenticeship account system. An employer with more than one apprentice in two different sectors will only want to deal with one account managing agency. The Student Loans Company, HMRC or a single sector body or local enterprise partnership could fulfil this national agency role.
And yet, all these issues have a familiar ring to them. They applied to Individual Learning Accounts. Then the goal was to route public grant funding through to each individual via an account. Today, the goal is to route public grant funding through to each employer via an account. This has not been attempted before in post-16 education and skills policy.
Good careers guidance, financial support for learners progressing to FE and an end to colleges being run for profit are election issues for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).
The union has launched its general election manifesto in the run-up to May 2015.
Dr Mary Bousted
Launching the manifesto, general secretary Dr Mary Bousted called for “an end to education being run for profit” and said policy needed “to be based on solid evidence, rather than political whims”.
She said: “The government must stop making schools and colleges behave like rival businesses, with teachers and heads pitched against one another competing for pupils and resources. When schools and colleges work together they are better able to raise pupils’ attainment.
“Children are not products like tins of baked beans; they are individuals with different skills, abilities and interests. And taxpayers’ money intended for education should not be creamed off in profits by private companies or individuals involved in running schools or colleges.
“Young people need education policy to be based on sound evidence, and not on ministers’ whims or pet projects. This coalition government has already diverted at least £637m (between the 2010 general election and the end of December 2013) from the education budget to set up free schools which educate fewer than 22,000 pupils – just 0.3 per cent of pupils in schools in England.
“The best performing education systems have coherent education policies and long-term goals. They carry out proper consultations with a range of stakeholders including parents, employers and education professionals. They invest in high quality teacher training and effective continuing professional development.”
She added: “It is vital our schools and colleges offer the highest quality education, and are led by the best and most experienced professionals. But something urgently needs to change because currently nearly a million young people are not in education or employment, 40 per cent of newly qualified teachers leave in the first five years, and schools have increasing difficulty recruiting new heads.”
The manifesto sets out the ATL’s principles for a world-class education system, including financial support to enable young people to make the transition from school to further education, along with “excellent careers information and guidance”.
It also calls for a return to a “nationwide system of teacher training” where students gain a professional qualification and the broadest preparation for teaching.
Fancy a 10am start at work? Most would, and that’s what learners at North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) will be enjoying as it bows to “students’ circadian rhythms”.
Bosses at the 5,900-learner Epsom college are scrapping 9am starts from September in a trial that comes in response to research by the National Sleep Foundation and the University of Minnesota, which claims exam results improve if learners start later in the day.
A college spokesperson told FE Week: “The change will fit the timetable better to the students’ circadian rhythms, enable some students, [like] those who live close enough and use public transport, to take advantage of off-peak travel prices, allow students to have catch-up, high-grades and employability workshops and help staff continue to improve communication, staff development and teaching and learning.”
It is understood that the end of the college day will not be extended to cater for the later start, prompting concerns that break time is to be sacrificed instead.
The move follows that of Hampton Court House private school, in East Molesey, Surrey, which has moved to 1.30pm starts because teenagers have “a biological disposition to going to bed late and struggling to get up early”.
It also comes after Skills Minister Matthew Hancock spoke about the importance of punctuality after he was criticised for missing a radio interview last year after he allegedly overslept.
A lot of our learners live more than half an hour away but will wait for the fare to be cheaper. I think it’s daft
However, sources at Nescot, which was rated as good by Ofsted at its last inspection in 2010, have questioned the official rationale behind the later starts, with a worker who wanted to remain anonymous telling FE Week: “It’s not overly popular with the staff, particularly as it’s a vocational college and there’s the idea of being self-motivated.
“We have construction courses where learners have to be on site at 7am. We just don’t think it’s going to work.
“We have a lot of issues with lateness already, and the Oyster card doesn’t become cheaper until 9.30am. A lot of our learners live more than half an hour away but will wait for the fare to be cheaper. I think it’s daft.”
But the spokesperson for the college, which has a current Skills Funding Agency allocation of £5.98m, said: “Research articles were discussed at the Senior Management Team meeting and initiated the discussion with existing students and staff, resulting in the conclusion that this would be a beneficial way forward.”
She would not comment on staff reaction, but defended the college’s record on punctuality, and said a 10am start was not contrary to the idea of preparing learners for working life.
She said: “We have no more issues with punctuality and attendance than any other college in the sector. However, we are trialling a number of new initiatives to continue improving punctuality, and we hope the later starts will continue to improve this.
“All the staff at Nescot work extremely hard to prepare students for the world of work. This ranges from our work with the REED NCFE Centre, which helps students find and prepare for full and part-time work and apprenticeship opportunities to the work experience students on many courses do as part of their studies.
“We do not feel starting one hour later will in any way jeopardise all our hard work and success in this area. We are also conscious that not all businesses start at 9am — more and more businesses have working patterns such as flexible working, shifts and working from home.”
Graham Hasting-Evans’s career has revolved around building. “I wanted to do something practical, to build things,” he says.
“And then from building things, I started to build organisations and build people’s skills.”
It’s a career that has taken him from a small Welsh farm, to Libya, Thailand, the London 2012 Olympics and to his current role as chief executive of awarding organisation NOCN.
We liked living in Libya. It might sound strange, but we did
Graham speaking at the Continuous Improvement conference last year
The turning point, from building things to building up people, he says, was while he was working at Bristol City Council.
“I will always remember this one chap was brought in to be sacked because he and his whole team — there were four of them — were useless,” says Hasting-Evans.
“So they came in and I sat them down and it turned out that of the four of them, three couldn’t read or write — including the supervisor — and they had never been trained.
“So I got the three that couldn’t read or write into literacy studies at the local college and there was a bit of reluctance, but they did go.
“And about three months down the line, they were one of the better workforce groups, and they were quite productive.
“It taught me that if you can invest in people in the right way, you are giving them something worthwhile, and the employer is getting something worthwhile rather than sacking them and starting again.
“It just taught me the power of training — don’t give up on people, give them a chance and that was it, I just got more and more into it.”
Hasting-Evans, now aged 62, had always wanted to be an engineer and he learned his desire to move forward and meet deadlines from his parents, farmers Nora and John.
If you can invest in people in the right way you are giving them something worthwhile
Graham at home in Peak District
“My family were farmers and soldiers, and builders, so growing up there was always a sense of ‘that’s got to be done, it’s that time of year, this must be done’,” says the dad-of-two.
“And when I went to university in Cardiff, my engineering courses was like that — things have got to be done, make a decision now and get on with it, so I just got used to that way of thinking.”
Hasting-Evans jumped at the chance to do a degree with a year in the industry, spending six months at an engineering company in Cardiff and six months in Denmark, building a new town which, he says, “was fantastic — that experience was really enriching and opened your mind up”.
It was at university that Hasting-Evans met his future wife, Maggie.
He graduated and was offered a job at the company he had worked for during his course and the following year he and Maggie bought a house and got married.
However, the company had other plans.
“We hadn’t actually lived in the house at this stage, we’d gone on honeymoon, came back on the Monday morning to be told ‘You’re going to Halifax for a year — sell your house, off you go’,” he says.
“So we went to Halifax, then we went to Preston, then we went to Libya.
“I suppose I worked in an industry where people moved around, and moving around the world, I felt, was a great experience.
“Not everyone does — a lot of people were frightened of it… but I love those sorts of things.”
The couple moved to Libya in 1976, during the war between Libya and Egypt.
“That wasn’t necessarily the most pleasant of experiences, but we were safe,” he says.
Graham (right) on site in Benghazi, Libya, in the late 1970s
“We were in Benghazi, probably not that far from the front, but it only lasted about two weeks and petered out.”
He adds: “It was obviously very tense, and there were rumours, people saying ‘they’re going to bomb Benghazi tonight’ and of course it didn’t happen.
“The Libyan people were fabulous, a really welcoming, nice people.
“We liked living in Libya. It might sound strange, but we did.”
Their first son, Edward, was born in Libya, and second son, Geraint, was born in Malta, where Hasting-Evans was sent to work after he had completed his project in Libya.
The family also lived in Thailand, where once again, Hasting-Evans had a brush with political turmoil.
“I was working in Thailand and I had to visit somewhere and the only way to get to it was cutting through Malaysia and back into Thailand — it was the only road through.
“And there were bandits and a war on the border, so I had to have a Thai army platoon take me half way across no-man’s land, then a Malaysian army platoon take me around to the other side, then picked up the other side by another Thai platoon, with about 10 soldiers in an armoured vehicle, then all the way back, so I could spend about three or four hours there doing some work.
“I wondered afterwards, ‘Why am I doing this?’ It was a bit surreal at the time.”
As Edward, now in his 30s, got to eight years old, the family returned to England, and Hasting-Evans began to move towards “building organisations, and building people”.
In 2006, Hasting-Evans was brought onto the Olympic project as head of strategy, and in 2007 moved over to develop the employment and skills strategy for the London 2012 Olympics.
He laughs when I compare him to Hugh Bonneville’s character in the BBC sitcom 2012 about a fictional Olympics delivery team.
“It’s a bit like Yes, Minister, and like anything else there are strains of truth in it but it’s the exaggeration which makes it fascinating TV, and makes everyone laugh and enjoy it,” he says.
“But what struck all of us that worked on it — a really tough, professional team — was the feeling that this is going to get done, we are going to make whatever decisions we need to, whenever we need to make them.”
The £9bn contract involved employing around 100,000 people over the five year run-up to the games and the games themselves.
“We had joined up all the dots, so from Jobcentre Plus to being sifted out to whether you could go through the training, if you pass the training then on to a job,” he says.
“Some had been unemployed and written off, some with three generations of unemployment — but we got them into work, we gave people mentors.
“On that scale, you can do something, you can create a programme over a period, and actually use it to help skills development within the industry — and I enjoyed doing that, it was really fulfilling.”
He adds: “I remember getting told a few years ago, when I was told I was moving to Bristol not to think of it as a challenge — it’s an opportunity.”
Now at NOCN, Hasting-Evans can see plenty of opportunities for the organisation in the sector and finally has no plans to move on.
“I’ve enjoyed my time at NOCN — we’ve got a great board and great teams, so I am enjoying doing that very much indeed,” he says.
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It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book?
I recently enjoyed The White Queen. It was historical, which I like, but it was all political intrigue and family and fighting. Before that probably Catch 22, which had the same mixture of intrigue
What do you do to switch off from work?
I walk a lot. I live in the Peak District National Park so I go walking in the national park, rambling and scrambling up hillsides and things like that. It helps me to switch off. I’ve also got two Cavalier King Charles spaniels dogs, Betty and Alice
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
Alexander the Great and Barack Obama
What did you want to be when you grew up?
An engineer
What’s your pet hate?
Taking too long to do things. I like to do things quickly, which probably comes from my time in construction. I know people say builders take forever, but in major civil engineering contracting, things have to be done
Colleges are to be stopped from rolling unspent 16 to 19 bursary money of more than £500 over into new financial years, the Education Funding Agency (EFA) has announced.
In new guidance on how bursary money should be spent by providers, the EFA has stipulated for the first time that underspends totalling more than £500 must be reported and handed back.
But the EFA is yet to clarify whether the new rule will come into effect this academic year or in September, sparking concerns from sector leaders.
We’re clarifying the details and whether EFA will allow exceptional cases.”
Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “It is late in the day to introduce a new rule on carrying forward underspends, given that colleges and schools have been allowed to do this in the past.
“We’re clarifying the details and whether EFA will allow exceptional cases.”
Stephan Jungnitz, college expert for the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The EFA’s intention that bursary monies are received by students is of course entirely appropriate, but only allowing £500 roll-over from one year to the next could make life difficult for colleges with large numbers of needy students. Bursary allocations are based on out of date data.
“Colleges need greater flexibility in seeking to address the needs of students from one year to the next.”
And Sixth Form Colleges Association chief executive David Igoe (pictured) said: “My impression is that most of our members spend up their bursary allocations and most actually add to it in order to support all the students in need.
“I suspect they may be more concerned about the ‘beefing’ up of the audit requirement… — audit firms will be getting a guidance note to check proper compliance with the rules for allocating and distributing bursary funds. Up until now the audit regime has been quite relaxed but that is all about to change.”
The EFA guidance says: “Any underspend below £500 from the 2013 to 2014 academic year can be rolled forward into the 2014 to 2015 academic year and used with the discretionary allocation for the 2014 to 2015 academic year.
“If an institution does have an underspend they should check that they are being proactive enough in identifying the students that are in need, or if they are giving them enough money to cover the needs that they have.
“If institutions have underspends of more than £500 that they will not be able to spend within the academic year, they should report it to EFA.”
