Latest news from FE Week

Hartlepool Sixth Form College focused too much on getting students through the doors and not of the quality of provision, the sixth form college commissioner has said.

The college, which was slapped with an inadequate Ofsted grading in November, was visited by commissioner Peter Mucklow on February 28.

In his report, published today, Mr Mucklow said teaching, learning and assessment had not been “consistently good across the college” and that systems for observing teacher performance were “not sufficiently robust”.

He said: “The college had previously focused on attaining student numbers and financial viability to the detriment of quality.”

The Ofsted report found too few students complete AS courses or progress from AS to A level, leading success rates which have remained low for the past four years, and only a minority of students reaching the grades of which they were capable.

Mr Mucklow said this was connected to “a culture of low student expectations” and “insufficient monitoring and challenge of student performance”.

He said: “Students had not been receiving impartial information, advice and guidance and this contributed to a decline in success rates and retention.

“The decline was exacerbated by students being allowed to enrol onto courses in which they were unlikely to succeed and which did not lead to progression, typically from AS to A level.

“In addition there was an accepted practice of a significant minority of students returning to the college to repeat their courses.”

However, he said the new principal, Alex Fau-Goodwin, had identified steps to improve college performance and had drawn up a “comprehensive” postinspection action plan.

Mr Mucklow said: “These changes are being implemented with clear leadership and at pace and teaching staff are engaged with them.”

Mr Mucklow made 10 recommendations for improvement in the report, including recruiting “rapidly” a governor “with recent experience of managing a college delivering 16 to 19 education” to the board.

He added that the chair of governors and committee chairs should consider “twinning” with peers in a high performing college who could share experiences and advice.

He added: “The college should undertake scenario and contingency planning for the consequences of a further decline in student numbers in 2015 to 2016 academic year and beyond, given local demographic trends and local competition.”

The college is yet to comment.

A challenge to complete the “overhaul” of apprenticeships is being put to the next government, as National Apprenticeship Week launches today.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said the decision to reform the way apprenticeships were funded, a gradual increase in the apprentice minimum wage and reaching the two million apprentices target, were all significant changes made in the last year.

However, more work was needed, it said, to convince small businesses that apprenticeships were a wise investment, and young people that they offered long-term career prospects.

The FSB wants the government to “introduce reforms to the apprenticeships system to make it easier and more cost effective for employers to use” and said it should include ways to promote apprenticeships to small businesses.

The FSB alongside the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) is to hold a series of seminars around the country to highlight the benefits of employing apprentices.

FSB national chairman John Allan (right) said: “High quality apprenticeships are vital to the future of British business, and are a fantastic way to enable young people to gain the skills they need to succeed.

“These seminars are an exciting way of showing off the benefits an apprentice can bring, but the next government will need to maintain the momentum for high quality apprenticeships throughout the next parliament, and make it easier for small firms to participate.”

BCC director general John Longworth said: “Apprenticeships benefit businesses, individuals and the UK economy – while equipping people of all ages with skills beyond the classroom.

“As business confidence grows, we expect to see the number of apprenticeships rise. We are delighted to be working with the National Apprenticeship Service and the FSB to deliver a series of events that promote apprenticeships amongst the business community.”

The call has been supported by the City & Guilds Group, but it cautioned against basing success purely on numbers.

Its chief executive Chris Jones said: ‘In the run up to the general election, it’s been great to see so much cross-party support for apprenticeships.
“The FSB is right to call on the next government to maintain this good work.

“But it’s not just about the numbers. Over the past few decades, there has been so much change in our skills system. What we need to see now is more stability. A longer-term, non-partisan approach to policy will create a more sustainable and credible apprenticeship system.

“This will help get more young people into work and fill the skills gaps that are threatening our economic recovery.”

The seminars take place through March, May, June and September. Click here for details.

Welfare-to-work provider A4E, which in January saw several employees found guilty of fraud, has been put up for sale.

Company founder Emma Harrison, who is a former adviser to the Prime Minister, has appointed auditors Deloitte to advise on the sale or break-up of the business, according to the Financial Times.

The business has been dogged by scandal since 10 of its employees were found guilty or admitted ripping off a Department for Work and Pensions welfare to work scheme, submitting fake learner records to claim extra funding.

A4e chief executive Andrew Dutton has said none of the 10 convicted fraudsters was still working for A4E.

A4E employs more than 3,000 staff and reported a pre-tax loss of £11.5m in 2013-2014, but had climbed to a pre-tax profit of £2.2m last year.

Ms Harrison stepped down as David Cameron’s “families champion” when the fraud allegations emerged in 2012.

She had also been criticised for pocketing £8.6m in share dividends on top of her £385,000 salary.

A4E has pledged to pay back the money which was fraudulently claimed by the 10 recruiters, who submitted successful outcome records for learners who did not exist or who not found work.

On January 14 a jury at Reading Crown Court found Ines Cano-Uribe, aged 38, of Madrid, Matthew Hannigan-Train, 30, of Bristol, and Hayley Wilson, 27, of Milton Keynes, guilty of conspiring to make false instruments on the Inspire to Aspire contract to cover up fraudulent claims.

Cano-Uribe was also found guilty, with Zabar Khalil, 35, of Slough, of a separate count of forgery.

A further six defendants had already pleaded guilty before the 13-week trial to 48 counts of forgery and related conspiracy offences.

They were Dean Lloyd, 38, of Milton Keynes — 13 counts of forgery, Julie Grimes, 52, of Laleham, Surrey — nine counts of forgery; Aditi Singh, 31, of Slough — three counts of fraud and forgery, Bindiya Dholiwar, 28, of Slough — seven counts of forgery, Nikki Foster, 31, of Wokingham – eight counts of fraud and one conspiracy, and Charles McDonald, 44, of Egham — six counts of fraud and one of conspiracy.

An A4E spokesperson said: “All the charges related to a single contract which no longer exists, having ended in July 2011.

“This was the ‘Inspire to Aspire’ ESF Lone Parent Mentoring contract in the Thames Valley. (To put this into its true context, this was a relatively small contract, representing less than 1 per cent (in fact 0.24 per cent) of our annual business at the time).”

Mr Dutton said: “We are obviously very disappointed and sorry a number of people who worked on this contract behaved so dishonestly.” He added: “None of the people who were convicted remain in our organisation.”

Mr Dutton said A4e would pay back all the money that had been fraudulently claimed, adding that DWP and Skills Funding Agency audits found no evidence of fraud in current A4e contracts.

Both A4E and Deloitte declined to comment on the sale of the company.

All 14 to 16-year-olds should be able to study a vocational subject at school – and colleges could hold the key to providing that offer, an influential group of politicians and sector leaders recommended today.

The Demos thinktank’s Commission on Apprenticeships, launched last summer, has published its report, which also calls for an “apprentice guarantee” that could see learners liable for off-the-job training costs if they don’t complete their framework.

The 11-member commission includes co-chairs Conservative MP Robert Halfon and Labour peer Lord Maurice Glasman, Mike Cherry, national policy chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses, Kirstie Donnelly, UK managing director of City & Guilds, Steve Radley, Construction Industry Training Board director of policy, and Stewart Segal, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive.

The Commission has made its recommendations in the 116-page report alongside the results of a survey of 1,000 parents, which revealed a big difference in the proportion who thought apprenticeships were a good option for young people generally (92 per cent), and those who favoured them for their own children (32 per cent).

As well as calling for vocational options to be offered to school pupils, the report also welcomes the “direction” of apprenticeship funding reforms, but calls into question government plans to route funding through employers.

The report says: “All students aged 14 to 16 should be offered the chance to take a vocational subject alongside academic study. This would not be compulsory but the option should be available to all.

“This entitlement could be delivered through schools forming partnerships with institutions with a strong vocational focus, such as FE colleges and university technical colleges.”

On funding reform, the report calls on the government to “either revert to one of its earlier policy options, such as the provider payment model, or offer each business a choice as to whether they directly handle public money or not”.

It adds: “The government should trial a new ‘mutual guarantee’ arrangement at the start of an apprenticeship, as part of an apprenticeship agreement.

“Employers would clarify the level of their investment in off-the-job training and exactly what individuals should expect from an apprenticeship, while apprentices would commit to completing the apprenticeship or else covering the costs of off-the-job training.”

Other recommendations include face-to-face support from the National Careers Service and an apprenticeship charter for employers who demonstrate commitment to high quality training. The report also calls for better use of destination data.

Commission co-chair Lord Glasman said: “This report shows that we have a long way to go before the skill and character required to complete a quality apprenticeship are fully recognised in Britain.

“We have privileged the academic over the vocational for too long.”

Next academic year’s 24 per cent FE funding cut will “intensify” the challenges faced by college governors, the University and College Union (UCU) has warned after a government report conceded the effect of spending reductions so far had been “profound”.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) report assessing the impact of governance reform in FE colleges outlines how “reductions in public funding and the need for colleges to find new, innovative ways to deliver education and training to students has drawn strong colleges towards a culture of ‘institutional responsibility’.”

It said: “These changes have had a profound effect on governance, with clerks reporting the appointment of many governors new to their role and to the FE sector.”

It added: “Reductions in traditional funding streams have required governors to make difficult decisions about priorities.”

A UCU spokesperson said it was “encouraging that the report recognises the crucial role of staff and student governors within college leadership”.

She said: “The report acknowledges the challenges posed by the speed and scale of FE reform in recent years — the latest cuts of up to 24 per cent to adult skills budgets will only intensify these challenges.

“UCU would welcome a greater emphasis from BIS on the importance of gaining wider feedback from staff, as well as students, to inform decision making in the future.”

David Walker, director of governance for the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “This review of FE college governance recognises that colleges have used their independence to meet the challenges they face.

“College governors act as an oversight on the management of the college, including their finances, and this review gives a fair assessment of the progress they have made since 2011.”

Dr Sue Pember, the former head of FE and skills investment at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), who was awarded an OBE for services to the sector in 2000, puts her extensive sector knowledge to good use in answering your governance questions in edition 131 of FE Week, dated Monday, March 16.

Click here to read first section, which appeared in edition 124 of FE Week.

 

The abolition of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) within just over a year has been proposed by a local government thinktank as it recommended devolving “various streams straight to local enterprise partnerships (Leps).”

The 66-page Next Leps: Unlocking growth across our localities report from Localis calls for the SFA to lose its £3.5bn from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) by 2016/17 among other far-reaching FE and skills recommendations.

It suggests that, from the same period, Education Funding Agency (EFA) spending on University Technical Colleges (UTCs) should go through Leps “to treble the number of UTCs by 2020 – including a minimum of one per Lep”.

It goes on to recommend that “should Leps deliver cost effective spend in both these areas, devolution of all post-14 skills monies should be considered in 2020”.

However, it also points out how there are 18 (almost half) Leps without FE representation on their board and that “this appears a problem in need of urgent attention” — but it gives no firm recommendation to address the issue.

Report author Richard Carr, a history lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and a senior visiting fellow at Localis, describes the recommendations as a “Heseltine-plus approach to sub-regional growth”.

The term is a nod to the Tory peer’s October 2012 report entitled No Stone Unturned in pursuit of Growth, in which he said central government should “identify budgets”, including the skills budget worth around £17bn over four years, and “bring them together into a single pot of funding” for Leps.

And Mr Carr’s report acknowledged how, since Lord Heseltine’s recommendations, “some SFA money has already been devolved – about £500m of the SFA’s £4bn budget is in the form of European Social Fund money or capital grants which are already being packaged into the Local Growth Fund (LGF)”.

It said: “But, even ignoring the central strait-jacket around the LGF, this still leaves over £3.5bn in SFA hands.

“The most elegant solution would be to abolish the SFA and devolve its various streams straight to LEPs to meet the aims contained within their Strategic Economic Plans.

“In practice the biggest accounting adjustment here would be £2.9bn of funds ceasing to be transferred from BIS to the SFA, and expanding the LGF by that sum.”

A BIS spokesperson said it had “no plans to abolish the SFA” and Alex Pratt OBE, chair of the Bucks Lep and chair of Lep Network Management Board, told FE Week “it’s not for Leps to comment on the viability of the SFA”.

“There is however an open and legitimate debate about how we might properly devolve accountability, responsibility, capability and resources across a number of areas,” he said.

He described UTCs as “potentially valuable, but just one tactical component in a complex system which needs to both maximise the life chances of individuals and deliver the skills needs of our businesses”.

He said: “Devolving all post 14 skills funding to Leps might well prove to be the right way forward, as might devolving other centrally held budgets in other areas relevant to driving the growth we need to pay down our debts and keep our people employed.

“Personally, at this stage as one Lep chair I would not wish to have full responsibility for our colleges because not only are we not yet equipped to take this on, much of what colleges do is not about driving private sector growth, which is the dedicated focus of Leps.

“One real danger is that of mission creep where Leps could lose their focus on private sector growth.”

He added: “If every legitimate interest were to have a seat on all Lep boards we’d need to build 39 amphitheatres and nothing would get done.

“Colleges and independent learning providers would in my mind do better to align together and focus hard on making sure Lep boards are fully informed in so far as the advice and evidence they receive (most if not all have a skills board that makes recommendations).”

The BIS spokesperson said: “We welcome contributions to the debate about how we secure the right balance between support for national and local priorities, and how we deliver long term support for the UK’s key industries and economic growth.

“The reforms we have in train will ensure we have a high quality offer with much greater control in the hands of employers and learners.

“Through the successful City and Growth deals, we have increased the power and resources local leaders have to shape skills outcomes so they meet the needs of their local economies.”

Almost 50 FE colleges will take part in a £3.75m project to help ensure industry knowledge is passed on by the sector’s higher education staff.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) has been given £2.75m by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) Catalyst Fund for a project that will see higher education staff at 47 colleges working with employers to improve their knowledge of industry and jobs.

The funding, which will be boosted further by £1m of investment from the colleges themselves and businesses, will be used by the AoC to facilitate the project, which is part of Hefce’s enhancing professional and technical education programme.

The three-year project aims to encourage teachers to make regular visits to employers and bring real-life experience and work-based projects to the classroom and will result in a new framework to enhance teaching and learning. It will involve 15 lead colleges and 32 others, listed below.

Professor Madeleine Atkins, chief executive of Hefce, said: “FE colleges have a vital role to play in the development and delivery of high-level technical knowledge and skills, which are a priority for local and national economic growth.

“Hefce is delighted to be working with the AoC and other partners on this project, which aims to bring about a step change in higher technical education scholarship and teaching practice.

“It will benefit the wider sector by deepening employer engagement, enhancing higher technical education, and improving students’ learning experiences and outcomes.

It comes after Business Secretary Vince Cable used his annual grant letter to Hefce to call on the body to work with colleges to improve technical expertise.

It also comes after Hefce announced that 74 colleges would benefit from more than £700,000 of funding to encourage young people to progress into higher education.

The Catalyst Fund money was announced at the AoC’s higher education conference this morning.

Nick Davy, higher education policy manager at the AoC, said: “There is increasing demand for employees with practical skills at a higher level, such as a foundation degree or a higher national diploma, as the labour market changes and 3.6m skilled older people will leave the workforce in the next 10 years.

“We are looking forward to working closely with the participating colleges to see how we can improve learning to ensure more graduates have the skills employers need from their staff.”

 

College leaders have called for a government National Audit Office (NAO) probe into college financial sustainability to consider the effect of a national cut of 24 per cent next year.

The government spending watchdog has announced an investigation into oversight of financial sustainability in the FE sector, focusing specifically on colleges.

The NAO, which will report on the subject in the summer, will examine the performance of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and, specifically, whether sufficient monitoring of the financial health of the sector is in place to identify emerging risks.

It will also aim to identify if there is a clear framework for deciding whether and when to intervene if a college is in financial difficulty, and whether effective action is taken to manage financial health issues which arise.

The review has been welcomed by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and Association of Colleges (AoC), which both called for proposed cuts of up to 24 per cent from the non-apprenticeship part of the adult skills budget in 2015/16 to be taken into account.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the ASCL, said: “It is important that the NAO will be looking at key areas around the financial health of the FE sector, intervention and support for colleges with financial health issues.

“However, more important is the fact that the cuts announced last week mean that there needs to be a fundamental review of how adults can access learning and skills support. ASCL is supporting those within the FE sector who are calling for an independent, public review of how our country should develop a new system for supporting the skills needs we have as a nation.

“Given its importance, we hope that this proposal will have cross-party support to consider how to stimulate investment from individuals and employers as well as how to spend the diminished government funding.”

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive of the AoC, said: “We’ve discussed the study with the auditors and we’re looking forward to seeing the results. Colleges face a number of financial challenges at the moment and it would be useful to have an independent view on the manageability of the task ahead of them given the funding cuts in the pipeline.”

The University and College Union (UCU) has also called for a closer look at cuts. A spokesperson said: “The National Audit Office plays an important role in ensuring that funding bodies are operating effectively, and so this investigation is to be welcomed.

“However, in the wake of news that adult FE budgets are to be slashed by up to 24 per cent in 2015/16, it is clear that funding cuts pose the biggest risk of all to the sector.

“The NAO should focus its investigation on whether government’s prescriptive focus on apprenticeships is undermining colleges’ ability to respond to local need and sustainably fund other courses which cater for a wide range of learners.”

Other recent NAO reports on the FE sector include one released in December, which reported that a saving of just £4m from £250m to £300m of “red tape” identified in BIS’s simplification plan had been achieved, and another in September which lamented the low take-up of traineeships.

The NAO is expected to report back on its findings this summer. Its report will be followed up by a hearing of the House of Commons public accounts committee, which will also report on its own findings.