Key information designed to “hold the government to account over delivery of policy” has been corrupted by ongoing problems with new funding software.

The latest Statistical First Release (SFR), out on Thursday, January 30, included a host of important information based on providers’ data.

However, they’ve struggled to submit learner numbers, course details and other key information because of ongoing troubles with new Skills Funding Agency (SFA) software.

And now the problems are affecting the SFR, which acknowledged issues with a note: “There is evidence of increased data lag for the first three months of 2013/14 compared to the same period of the previous year.”

Among the statistics most affected by the software problem appears to have been provisional data on the number of apprenticeship starts for the first quarter (August to October) of the current academic year.

They showed an unexpected 19 per cent drop for intermediate level apprenticeships (which are not subject to FE loans). There were 90,800 starts during the first quarter of 2012/13 (according to provisional figures published in January last year), compared to just 73,500 during the same period in 2013/14.

Stephen Hewitt, Morley College’s strategic funding, enrolments and examinations manager, said: “The problems with the new funding software are clearly starting to distort the FE figures, as shown in the SFR.

“Providers will obviously do our best to get the figures right for the next round of figures, but this is likely to continue for the next few months.”

Lindsay McCurdy, from Apprenticeships4England, said: “The software is not fit for purpose at the present time and is obviously contorting the figures, which you can clearly see with intermediate level apprenticeship starts. Urgent action is need to rectify these problems.”

A spokesperson for the SFA and BIS admitted there had been “data collection issues” affecting the “validity” of the SFR. However, he declined to comment further on the cause of the SFR problem. Nor did he comment on what actions BIS or the SFA was taking to rectify the software situation.

A statement explaining the importance of the SFR on the Data Service website states: “Its aim is to present the performance of the FE system, and to hold the government to account over delivery of policy.”

Shadow skills minister Liam Byrne said: “The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS] is bringing the same shambolic approach we saw in student finance to collecting figures for apprentices — this can’t go on.

“Ministers must come clean and tell us the full extent of these ‘data collection issues’, what they estimate the genuine figures are and what they’re doing to ensure this never happens again.”

The SFA and Data Service’s new Funding Information System (Fis) software is behind providers’ data submission headache.

It should have been available in August last year, but was not released until November — and providers say it is still giving unreliable funding data reports.

The government’s Learning Aim Reference System (Lars) online search engine should also have been available by last August.

It is supposed to help providers’ management information system (MIS) officers check whether qualifications are eligible for funding, and how much per learner providers should receive.

However, it is still not available and providers are having to use Lars Lite instead — a temporary downloadable database from the SFA that providers claim is also producing unreliable data.

The Association of Colleges and 157 Group declined to comment.

More than a dozen former employees of welfare to work provider A4e are due to appear in court charged with fraud.

The eight women and five men are due at Reading Crown Court on Monday, February 3, for a plea and case management hearing.

They face allegations including conspiracy to defraud, making a false instrument and supplying articles for use in fraud, dating from February 2009.

It is alleged they forged documentation to support fraudulent claims for reward payments from the Department for Work and Pensions under the Aspire to Inspire programme, which ended in 2011.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “Under the terms of the contract, payments were made when the scheme successfully placed individuals in employment.

“It is alleged that many of the reward payments related either to people who never attended A4e or to clients whom A4e had not successfully placed in employment. The contract was to deliver motivation and training and to assist people to find employment.”

The case comes amid revelations that A4e, one of the UK’s largest welfare to work providers, suffered an £11.5m pre-tax loss last year.

Company accounts also show revenues fell by 14 per cent to £167.1m in the 12 months to last March.

And the company owes £17m to the Co-operative Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland, and has extended the loan until the end of 2015.

Company owner Emma Harrison resigned as chairwoman and also gave up her role as Prime Minister David Cameron’s back-to-work tsar following the fraud allegations.

Ms Harrison, who still owns 85 per cent of the company, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Account manager Ines Cano-Uribe, aged 37, of Madrid, Spain, and administrator Zahar Khalil, 34, of Dolphin Road, Slough, are charged with 55 counts of making false instruments, one count of conspiracy to cheat and defraud, two counts of making and supplying articles for use in fraud and two counts of possessing and controlling articles for use in fraud.

They are joined by recruiters Charles McDonald, 43, of Derwent Road, Egham, Nikki Foster, of High Tree Drive, Reading and Aditi Sigh, of Elmshott Lane, Slough, both 30, and Julie Grimes, 51, of Monks Way, Staines.

Bindiya Dholiwar, 27, of Reddington Drive, Slough, Dean Lloyd, 37, of Rochfords, Coffee Hall, Milton Keynes, and Yasmin Ahmed, 39, of Colchester Road, of Southend on Sea, are also charged.

They were charged in September, and a further charge against Cano-Uribe and four more defendants was announced in December.

Cano-Uribe was also charged with one count conspiracy to make false instruments. The same charge was put to quality co-ordinator Sarah Hawkins, 31, of Bagshot, Surrey, operations manager Serge Wyett, 39, of Richmond, team leader Matthew Hannigan-Train, 29, of Bristol and recruiter Hayley Wilson, 26, of Springfield in Milton Keynes.

They were also due to appear in court this week.

An A4e spokesperson said: “The alleged incidents all relate to old paper-based contracts which used systems that have since been replaced.

“We are fully co-operating with the police to ensure the investigation can be concluded quickly and are therefore unable to comment further on an ongoing enquiry.”

[Proceeding]

Two former education and skills secretaries joined the charge against a controversial funding cut for 18-year-old learners as Skills Minister Matthew Hancock was grilled by MPs in a special debate on the issue.

Former Education Secretary David Blunkett and former Skills Secretary John Denham joined the Westminster Hall debate over plans to cut the full-time education funding rate for 18-year-olds by 17.5 per cent on Tuesday.

The Department for Education has faced criticism over the proposed cut and an impact assessment behind it.

Mr Denham, who held the now-defunct Skills Secretary for two years post under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said: “It is not entirely clear, now that these students are going to be funded by about £700 a-year less than other students, whether the minister thinks that colleges should continue to support these students in their third year to the same quality of education despite not having the money — or whether the minister wants these colleges only to offer these students two years of education?

“The consequence of this decision is to concentrate the cuts on a sub-set of colleges, and in particular that is those colleges which are in areas with historically weaker school performance because those areas will throw out more able students who require a third year to get to level three or A-level. It has
the effect of concentrating the cut on areas with a higher than average level of deprivation.”

During the debate, several MPs questioned why the impact assessment had taken so long to be released. It showed that FE colleges will be among the worst-hit of all institutions — with an average reduction in funding of 3 per cent.

For land-based colleges it’s 2.5 per cent, for commercial and charitable providers it’s 1.5 per cent, and for sixth form colleges it’s 1.2 per cent.

But for school sixth forms it’s just 0.4 per cent. However, the report does not say how much cash the funding rate cut, due next academic year, is expected to save. The Association of Colleges is among those to have objected to the cut, estimating that it could save the government £150m.

And Mr Blunkett, who was Education and Employment Secretary for four years under Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the impact assessment had concerned colleges in his Sheffield constituency.

He said: “Sheffield College and Sheffield Longley Park Sixth Form College are somewhat bewildered as to who could possibly have undertaken an impact assessment that so grievously missed the point of what it is going to do to young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Labour MP Kate Green, who organised the debate, raised further concerns about the impact the funding rate cut would have before Mr Hancock defended the cut in response to Shadow Junior Education Minister Rushanara Ali.

She had described the way the decision had been made as “reckless and irresponsible”.

Mr Hancock said: “We are faced with a cut across the government to make savings to reach the goals we have to reduce budget deficit.

“It is difficult being a minister when there’s no money left, but we all know whose fault that is.”

He told MPs that the reduction would take funding for 18-year-olds back to 2012/13 levels, but he admitted the decision to target older learners “wasn’t easy”.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has raised concerns over the government’s proposals to direct funding for apprenticeships straight to employers.

Chancellor George Osborne, in the Autumn statement, said a new funding model would use Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) systems to route funding directly to employers.

And AELP’s position paper for an upcoming government technical review on the proposals was seen by FE Week.

Stewart Segal, AELP chief executive, said: “The government’s proposal on funding could potentially create a barrier for small and medium-sized enterprises.

“The majority of apprentices are in a workplace with only one or two other apprentices so to put in all that infrastructure is a lot for just two learners.”

The document also expresses concerns about whether the government would contribute to funding for 17 and 18-year-olds.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) consulted on apprenticeships funding last year following the Doug Richard Review which recommended greater employer ownership of the apprenticeship system.

A BIS spokesperson could not say when the technical consultation would be launched.

Nearly a quarter of vacancies in the UK have gone unfilled because of a shortage of much-needed skills, the chief executive of UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has revealed.

Michael Davis (pictured) gave the Skills Summit in Central London a preview of the Employer Skills Survey 2013 findings in which 22 per cent of the 655,000 vacancies in the UK remained untaken because employers could not find workers with the right skills.

And skills shortage vacancies nearly doubled from 2009, from 63,100 to 124,800.

He told delegates that the survey, officially published today, presented “a mixed picture [with] positive trends, but also significant challenges”.

“On the one hand, the number of job vacancies are up and in England have returned to pre-recession levels,” he said.

“On the other, skills-shortage vacancies are growing faster than vacancies.”

Jobs in skilled trades, management, professional roles, caring, leisure and machine operating were most affected.

The report said: “There appears to have been an increased difficulty finding appropriate oral and written communication, literacy and numeracy skills [compared to the findings of the last survey, in 2011].”

The UKCES Employer Skills Survey interviewed over 90,000 employers between March and July 2013. They reported a total of 559,600 job vacancies in England — up 45 per cent per cent from 2009.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: “Employers in some sectors report persistent skills shortages which is why I have been working hard to design a skills system that is rigorous in the training it provides and responsive to the needs of employers.

“With a record number of people in jobs as our economy continues to grow we must have a skilled workforce equipped to work in a modern economy and compete effectively in the global race.”

The survey found that the number of job vacancies in England had returned to pre-recession levels. However, so-called “skills shortage vacancies” — where businesses cannot find recruits with the skills required — were growing twice as fast.

The survey interviewed more 90,000 employers between March and July last year. They reported a total of 559,600 job vacancies in England – up 45 per cent per cent from 2009. However, skills shortage vacancies nearly doubled over the same period, increasing from 63,100 to 124,800.

Overall, skills shortage vacancies now account for more than one in five of all vacancies (22 per cent) up from one in six (16 per cent) in 2009.

A further finding of the survey was that the number of establishments providing training for staff was back to pre-recession levels, although the amount spent on training had decreased from £1,680 per employee in 2011 to £1,590 in 2013.

Douglas McCormick, a UKCES Commissioner and managing director of the UK rail business at Atkins, a design, engineering and project management consultancy, said: “While the rise in the number of vacancies is a good sign that the economy is recovering, there’s a real possibility that businesses might not be able to make the most of the upturn because they don’t have the right people.

“This shows that businesses need to start thinking about planning their talent pipeline now – not waiting until they are unable to fulfil contracts because of a lack of skilled staff.

“Worryingly, these figures show that the percentage of staff in the UK receiving training from their employer hasn’t changed significantly for a decade.

“There are also signs that some employers might be trying to solve their skills problems by choosing to recruit highly-skilled and qualified staff to do very basic jobs.

“Under-using people’s skills like this risks a bored and demotivated workforce. By providing high-quality and job-specific training, businesses can make sure they have the skilled workforce they need, as well as inspiring loyalty and keeping their staff motivated.”

Read edition 91 of FE Week for more of Mr Davis’s comments from the Skills Summit and his views on the results of the Employer Skills Survey.

Last week, ex-NCG (Newcastle College Group) chief executive Jackie Fisher spoke exclusively to FE Week about her notorious 2012 Ofsted inspection.

She explained why she booted the education watchdog out of the college mid-inspection before calling for the Ofsted complaints-handling procedure to become more transparent.

Here, Policy Consortium trio Colin Forrest, Mike Cooper and Carolyn Medlin look deeper into the Ofsted complaints issue.

 

Over the past six months, we’ve written about how well or otherwise Ofsted supports improvement in the FE sector, as it claims — and how it might improve its own approaches.

And last week’s FE Week article, although centred on NCG and its former chief, was underpinned by revealing insights into Ofsted’s published inspection complaints system.

In short, there were 35 formal (‘Steps 2 and 3’) complaints from September 2012 to mid-November 2013 — 29 ‘Step 2’ complaints. That’s around 12 per cent of approximately 250 inspections undertaken over that time — 13 of those (around 5 per cent) were upheld. At least one produced a significant uplift of grades from ‘requires improvement’.

It’s not clear what the full spectrum of ‘successful outcomes’ to complaints has been, but that may include other grade changes, or significant changes to report narratives (without change to grades or judgements).

There is no indication of the scale of informal ‘Step 1’ concerns about processes. This proportion of complaints upheld might be seen as relatively minor, and thus acceptable.

Nevertheless, the context of an inspectorate making more and more stringent demands on providers suggests improvement is required here from Ofsted. And it’s so important to get this right.

Apart from damage to reputations, funding may be at stake, since grade three and four providers may be excluded from some provision and growth.

Inspections, of course, can cover only part of a provider’s activity — but findings can be seen as applying across the organisation.

It was good to read that Ofsted has reviewed its complaints process

One particularly contentious aspect is that reports are published to fixed timescales, even if the process is subject to an appeal or complaint.

The stated procedure suggests this is non-negotiable, apart from in (unspecified) ‘exceptional circumstances’. Anecdotally, this is characterised as “Learners and employers have a right to know the truth!”

Ofsted does allow up to 48 hours for an accuracy check, but that is not a test of the findings’ validity. It allows no debate on judgements or grades, since it focuses on spellings, learner numbers, and so on. There may also be other factors, including the implications of short-notice inspections.

The compressed window for dialogue between lead inspector and provider limits potential for sharing information and adjustments to the expertise available within the inspection team. It also compromises opportunities for the provider’s input into the pre-inspection briefing. This may increase the potential for more complaints.

It was good to read that Ofsted has reviewed its complaints process. However, the role of providers (and other ‘consumers’ of inspectorate outputs) isn’t clear in that review. That is crucial, to reduce dissonance between improvement approaches which the inspectorate looks for in providers and their treatment of complaints.

Consultancy for Free was the title of an excellent short publication setting out simply and clearly the case for FE providers to make serious, thoughtful use of open, well-constructed, responsive complaints systems — and to generate real improvement from that.

Perhaps Ofsted ought to take those strategic messages about transparency and accountability very seriously in implementing its review?