Ofsted proposals to merge the FE and skills inspection regime with schools and early years have drawn warnings from the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and the Association of Colleges (AoC).

The education watchdog is expected to put the idea out to consultation “very soon,” according to Sean Harford, Ofsted’s national director for schools policy and initial teacher education, and regional director for East of England.

All education inspections would be “harmonised” under a single framework from September next year, as revealed exclusively by FE Week on Friday (August 1) when Ofsted confirmed it was considering scrapping the current FE and skills common inspection framework (CIF), introduced just two years ago.

But any change in the way inspections were carried out must take into account the differences between schools and FE, Ofsted has been warned.

Stewart Segal (pictured), AELP chief executive, said he feared that any debate on the issue would focus on schools as he insisted that any consultation should be balanced.

He told FE Week: “All Ofsted inspections should be based on a common set of principles which would include fairness and transparency. However there are a number of differences between schools and FE and Skills and the current framework arrangements are beginning to work well within the sector.

“The current CIF has not been used for very long and providers and inspectors need time to develop a common understanding of the framework. It will be useful to have the discussion about the value of bringing the inspection regimes together but need to be very careful about further changes to inspection at a time when improvements are being made and there are other fundamental changes in the sector which will affect inspection such as the changes to apprenticeship funding.

“As always there is a danger that in any change it is the schools agenda which will drive the debate so we must ensure that the consultation is balanced across the sectors.”

Joy Mercer (pictured), director of policy at the AoC, said: “We would be very pleased to see school sixth form and college 16 to 18 education inspected in the same way, but have concerns about one inspection regime spanning all of Ofsted’s remit.

“Any inspection framework needs to recognise the 16 to 18 phase as very different from schools and early years where there is a national curriculum and where a focus on behaviour may be relevant.

“We would be interested to see differentiation in Ofsted’s inspection that recognises similarities and does not expect one size to fit all.”

An Ofsted spokesperson confirmed it was looking at the merger idea and said that the proposals formed part of its Future of Education Inspection programme.

However, he said it was too early to comment further on the proposals, but he could not rule out the prospect of school inspectors visiting FE and skills providers.

Mr Harford tweeted on Friday: “Mike [Cladingbowl, Ofsted’s national director of inspection reform] is leading the work to hamonise all out education (schools, colleges, EY [early years]) inspections under a single framework ready for Sept 2015. Consultation starts very soon.”

 

Concerns about proposed new apprenticeship funding models remain despite an update on reform plans from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

The interim statement from BIS comes three months after its consultation on the two new possible funding models closed having elicited more than 1,400 written responses.

The consultation looked at how employers might pay their share of apprentice training, which has been set at at one third of the cost. It put forward employers either paying providers and then deducting the government’s contribution from their next PAYE payment, or employers paying for training via an apprenticeship credit account, which automatically ‘tops up’ their payment with the government contribution.

The results of the consultation are due out in the autumn, but the BIS statement published yesterday (and pictured right) provided an update and also sought to address recurrent questions, such as how reforms might affect small businesses.

However, Stewart Segal (pictured), chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said questions remained, including whether providers could still be paid directly by the government rather than funding going first to employers.

He said: “It [interim statement] does not yet address the main issue of moving to a funding system that will really engage employers by allowing them the choice of direct funding as an employer/provider or working with a provider of their choice who would draw down the funding.

“It also does not address the concerns expressed by many employers and employer representative groups who do not support mandatory cash contributions, particularly for those aged 16 to 19 and at level two.”

He added: “Employers are not just worried about cashflow and bureaucracy, but the contractual commitment that they will have to make if they are required to make cash contributions and draw the funding down directly.”

In the document, BIS claimed any new system would be “accessible and user-friendly for employers of all sizes.” It also sought to re-assure employers that they wouldn’t have to pay the full bill up front, adding that employers and providers would be free to “agree a mutually convenient payment schedule”.

In the report, BIS further confirmed it was looking at ways to phase in and test the new system.

Mr Segal said: “We are encouraged that the government will consider a ‘phased approach to implementation’ and we hope this will reflect the evidence of the employer responses.”

John Allan (left), national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “It’s good that government has acknowledged the apprenticeship funding reform has to work for businesses of all sizes, including the very smallest firms, and we hope this is reflected in the final design of the reforms.

“We have said all along that businesses want a funding system that places employers in the driving seat and keeps administrative burdens to a minimum. Employers will welcome the fact that they won’t have to pay their entire contribution up-front, but crucially our members will need additional assurances that the payment mechanism chosen by government will not harm cash flow.”

A spokesperson for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) told FE Week: “We have always supported the principles that underpin the reforms and believe it is vital that the new system prioritises simplicity, works for businesses of all sizes and is properly trialled and phased in. We’ll be providing a response once the government publishes its final report on the consultation.”

However, the CBI has previously aired its own concerns about the proposals, and at the AELP conference in June, its director of employment and skills, Neil Carberry (right), told delegates that businesses wanted “co-investment not co-payment”. He used social media site Twitter to call for contributions other than cash to count towards the employer’s mandatory share of the cost.

He tweeted: “We need the totality of an employer’s contribution taken into account, not just the cash — especially for the smallest.”

With just over a fortnight gone since Grantham and Stamford MP Nick Boles became the new Skills Minister, the sector is still awaiting his first public interview on his brief. As anticipation grows, FE Week reporter Freddie Whittaker delves into his past to see if there might be any clues as to what the sector can expect.

 

Of almost 150 Tory MPs elected for the first time in 2010, few have managed to whip up as much controversy as Nick Boles.

It could be the tempestuous nature of the planning brief he held for almost two years at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), or the uncompromising way he handled the portfolio itself. Whatever it is, it has done a great job at dividing opinion about the 48-year-old.

Infamous for having once described green fields as “boring” and for championing the government’s ambitious housebuilding targets seen by some as imposed to the detriment of areas of countryside, Boles seems more concerned by getting the job done than by achieving consensus.

Born Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles on November 2, 1965, the new Skills Minister’s education has all the familiar hallmarks of privilege. He studied at Winchester College, then Magdalen College, Oxford, eventually winning a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard.

He ran a small business and was a Tory councillor representing the affluent areas of Mayfair and Soho. He chaired the housing committee and lived with another bright young Tory activist named Michael Gove. He founded the right-wing Policy Exchange thinktank, and ran it for five years and was elected to the safe seat of Grantham and Stamford in 2010 with a majority of almost 15,000.

“Posh, intolerant Nick Boles is a danger to the Conservative Party,” said Bruce Anderson in The Spectator in November last year, adding that Boles “gives the impression that everything has come easily to him”.

Others, including Association of Teachers and Lecturers deputy general secretary Peter Pendle, are equally cynical. Mr Pendle, a lifelong Labour supporter and former college vice-principal, said he was concerned when  Matthew Hancock was promoted to Business, Enterprise and Energy Minister with Boles taking his place.

Mr Pendle told FE Week: “I was more worried about Hancock leaving, particularly as we had got into a situation where he was beginning to get it — level playing field, 16-19, student-centred funding and such like — so the first thing I did was to go and look at Boles’s CV, and I have to say that that filled me with a degree of concern.

“He went to a private school, went to Magdalen College Oxford, he got a scholarship to Harvard… I just don’t believe he had been anywhere near a  general FE or sixth form college in his life.

“He was a Westminster councillor representing Soho and Mayfair — now I’m not sure if there are a lot of FE students living in Soho and Mayfair — and shared a flat with Michael Gove for four years. So a lot of warning signals.”

The surety with which Boles conducted himself and his approach to the government’s localism agenda while on the long leash of plain-speaking Eric Pickles at DCLG did not earn him friends in the rural lobby, and the “boring” comment did little to alter that.

But he has even been accused of costing his colleagues votes and criticised by members of his own party on more than one occasion.

During a particularly heated meeting in April about a 150-home scheme being fought by campaigners in Gloucestershire, Boles was told in no uncertain terms that his policies posed an electoral threat to Neil Carmichael, the Tory MP for Stroud, who has a majority of 1,299.

One campaigner accused him of creating “a monster where speculators are moving in”.

Boles also made an enemy in Lord True, the Tory peer and leader of Richmond Council, for his “interfering” in planning matters and his policy which makes it easier to convert offices into homes.

Lord True told the Evening Standard last year: “There are many people that believe a period of silence from Mr Boles would be welcome.”

But the experience of those who have dealt directly with him tell a somewhat different story — that of a sympathetic ear and a willingness to compromise that is perhaps under-represented in news stories about high-profile clashes.

The Campaign for National Parks (CNP) was one of 10 charities which wrote to the minister to plead with him to exempt national parks from rules which allow redundant barns to be converted into housing without planning permission.

Ruth Bradshaw, from the CNP, told FE Week: “In the end we were very pleased because we did get an exemption for national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty in the rules.

“We did feel that he did listen to us in the end. Before that we had been worried about some of the proposals which came forward which didn’t take into account our view, and it took quite a lot of lobbying on our part and we felt there could have been a bit more thinking in advance. On a face-to-face basis I found him to be very approachable.”

Whether Boles is seen just as a safe pair of hands to steer the skills portfolio towards the general election next year or a no-nonsense reformer sent to unapologetically hand down more cuts remains to be seen, but one thing is certain — all eyes in FE are on him.

A decision to keep an allegedly positive report about the under-fire Gazelle Colleges Group under-wraps has been questioned by the University and College Union.

Last week, FE Week revealed that the report by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) would remain private, despite Gazelle Colleges Group chair Stella Mbubaegbu (pictured) having alluded to its positive nature in an expert piece.

A UCU spokesperson said: “Considering the questions being asked publicly and the private mutterings about the Gazelle Group, you might expect them to be tripping over themselves to release any sort of report that paints them in a positive light.

“We are still puzzled why colleges have handed over so much money to Gazelle and how they have benefitted from these considerable investments. Gazelle’s corporate speak of ‘student outcome enrichment’ and ‘educational concepts’ makes it sound like the cash has been spent on transparent new clothes for an emperor.”

The existence of a report by the ETF on Gazelle’s leadership development programme came to light in an expert piece written for FE Week, in which Ms Mbubaegbu claimed the report was “supportive”.

The piece was written in response to an FE Week story in which the UCU questioned the amount of public money being spent on Gazelle with member colleges having dished out more than £3.5m to the organisation.

However, both the ETF, which recently awarded the Gazelle Foundation a £1m learning technology contract, and Gazelle refused to hand out the allegedly “supportive” report.

A Gazelle spokesperson said it was a “matter for the ETF,” while an ETF spokesperson said the report was written for “internal purposes,” and she also refused to comment on whether it was indeed supportive.

She said: “The ETF will publish reports from time to time. We also commission research and evaluations for a range of internal purposes, including informing our own procurement and programme design. Internal and external reports are different types of work. This was a report for internal purposes.”

The Gazelle spokesperson said: “The report has been seen by Gazelle. We are happy that it is very positive about the benefits of the programme to participants, as well as highlighting areas for improvement, and hopeful that it will help shape the conclusions of the wider ETF work around leadership in the sector.”

A crackdown on rejected claims for apprenticeship certificates has been launched in a bid reduce the number of rejections from its current rate of almost a third.

The Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards (FISSS), the organisation which awards certificates for apprenticeships and verifies that they have been completed, has revealed 104,130 (29 per cent) of the 354,487 certificate claims submitted in 2013 were rejected.

Providers submit claims to FISSS, which took over responsibility from the individual sector skills councils in January 2012, on behalf of their apprentices to certify that the apprentice has completed their framework.

The managing director of FISS, Mark Froud, said the organisation was issuing new guidelines and asking providers what else it could do to help reduce the number of rejected applications.

He also defended the decision to introduce new fees for resubmissions of applications.

Currently, the cost of submitting a claim is £22, a one-off fee that also covers re-submissions, but FISSS has now announced that from December it will be charging a further £22 for each time the application has to be re-submitted after being rejected.

If the current rejection rate of 24 per cent continues, based on the number of claims submitted in 2013, this would mean a bill of at least £1,871,691 for providers.

However, Mr Froud insisted that would not happen.

“I give providers my 100 per cent guarantee that we are doing this in order to save them money not to try and generate money for ourselves,” he said.

“We’re hoping that if they know there’ll be extra charges, people will take more care the first time round.

“At the moment it’s costing providers money — we’ve certified 35,000 apprentices in the last six months, and if you times that by the 20 minutes it take for them to go through and correct the errors they’ve made, and you think of that in terms of staff hours.”

Most rejections he said, were caused by problems with paperwork.

“What happens is the training providers apply for the final apprenticeship certificate, and as part of that the sector skills councils and ourselves then have to make sure that all the right evidence is in place,” he said.

“We also have rules from the Skills Funding Agency around when you can start, when you complete what you can count, what you’re not allowed to count.”

Around 50 per cent of rejections are to do with incomplete applications with missing evidence or poorly scanned PDF documents which couldn’t be read properly while another 15 per cent is caused by missing information on the application form.

“We’ve even had applications where they’ve missed off the candidate’s name,” said Mr Froud.

“It’s a really silly oversight but quite important.”

However, moves to reduce the number of rejections were already having an effect, he said.

“What we’ve been trying to do is sort out training with the training providers to make sure they understand what they’ve got to do.

“But we’re also looking at what we do and asking providers how we can make it easier.

“We simplified the system just after Christmas, and the rejection rate has now dropped to 24 per cent, but I want to get it down further, my target is to get it down to under 10 per cent.

“We’re going to get that rejection rate down because it’s going to save the training providers money and time.”

Providers will be able to use ACE-IT, an online database of example applications and evidence which will train users to spot acceptable applications, from the end of August.

A further 35 per cent of rejections are due to the wrong qualifications being completed for the relevant apprenticeship framework.

“When an apprentice starts the provider doesn’t speak to sector skills council to put them on the right pathway through the qualification,” said Mr Froud.

“And therefore somebody starts on the wrong qualification and when they come to certify they’re told that one of the qualifications doesn’t count and they’ve got to go and do another — which obviously is a pain for the learner.

“All we’d say is that sector skills councils are there it help — just pick up the phone and ring them, it’s free.”

A new appeals process will be introduced for providers who feel claims have been unfairly dismissed, which will be available for free from September 1, and will cost £22 from December 1, although this fee will be refunded if the appeal is successful.

To contribute suggestions to FISSS, find out more about ACE-IT and volunteer as an ACE-IT trial user, visit https://acecerts.co.uk/web/

Updated guidance will also be available on the site from September 1.

Picture: Mark Froud.