The National Skills Academy Logistics (NSAL) has been put into liquidation after its financial support was pulled by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
The NSAL’s National Employer Board was critical of the SFA’s role in the demise of the organisation, which helped employers meet legislative requirements and develop training courses.
A statement released on behalf of the board claimed the SFA did not like how NSAL’s executive team ran the academy.
However, it alleged the SFA still invited the board to resubmit a business plan in March this year, in the hope that funding could be continued.
The board said it subsequently attempted to reform NSAL to deal with the SFA’s concerns.
However, it added: “While knowing that time was of the essence, the SFA has continually missed deadlines in terms of decisions and response, which has elongated the process, despite continued expressions of support and substantial new business prospects.
“When they finally turned down the resubmission, the SFA did say that it would support the development work that had taken place during the re-submission period.
“The SFA then changed its mind, twice, before finally confirming this week [beginning November 25, 2013], that there were no further funds available.
“There is no other alternative but to put the academy into liquidation.
“The board, as a group of unpaid volunteers, has been let down by the SFA.
“We strongly believe that the NSAL experience should be taken as a lesson to other employers who give their time to government-based initiatives on a free and voluntary basis.”
It is understood the SFA funded NSAL between August 2011 and August 2013, but not for the last three months it was in operation. It was unclear how much money was paid to NSAL.
An SFA spokesperson said: “We have been working with NSAL over the past two years, to ensure delivery against their their year start-up plan remained on target.
“As a result, we asked NSAL to review and submit a revised delivery plan, to address concerns we had raised against them achieving their their year delivery plan targets.
“Following assessment of the revised plan, the agency’s decision was to not support and we understand NSAL will now cease operations.
“The agency’s priority is to work with NSAL and the Sector Skills Council over the next few months, to ensure that any learners and apprentices are supported by their current providers and employers so that they can continue their learning and apprenticeships.”
The government is to allow job seeker’s allowance (JSA) claimants to do more than 16 hours’ study a-week as part of traineeships and keep their benefits.
The ‘16-hour rule’ is being dropped as part of today’s Autumn Statement.
“The government will ensure that the benefit rules do not impede the take-up and effectiveness of traineeships by exempting those undertaking a traineeship from the rule which prevents JSA claimants from doing more than 16 hours of study per week,” it said.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) called on ministers in August to review how the government’s flagship youth unemployment scheme would affect JSA claimants.
It was concerned that working around the Department for Work and Pensions’ 16-hour rule — which limits the number of hours’ skills provision claimants can do in a week — would be more important than considerations surrounding the needs of learners when courses were designed.
“The rule has long been a source of contention for skills providers and in this instance means that skills elements, including maths and English provision within traineeships, will adversely impact on JSA payments if they exceed this amount per week,” said an AELP spokesperson at the time.
Read more about the Autumn Statement in the next edition of FE Week.
A host of policy announcements figured in Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. Mick Fletcher looks at those affecting FE.
The announcements in the Autumn Statement that affect FE seem primarily driven by concerns about youth unemployment.
There were few surprises and most of the changes proposed deserve a cautious welcome as steps in the right direction.
There are, however, some significant gaps and some detail that require careful reading.
The headline announcement — a move to fund employers directly through HMRC — is probably the least welcome element.
Although vigorously championed by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, it has attracted little support elsewhere and the hints that alternative arrangements may be available for small and medium-sized enterprises seems to recognise that it is a high-risk strategy.
The fact that further technical work is needed and another consultation promised for the Spring strongly suggests the policy has not been well thought through.
The statement confirms that a cash contribution will be required from all employers, though we are no clearer about how this will be enforced; and it nowhere explains why having to pay for something 90 per cent of employers have not paid for to date will encourage uptake.
Intriguingly, it talks of ‘an additional contribution’ to the costs of training 16 and 17-year-olds — pointedly missing an opportunity to confirm that they will remain 100 per cent funded like other options for the same age group and, equally pointedly, excluding 18-year-olds (presumably because they don’t contribute to the participation age target).
Instead of a seamless policy for a 16 to 24 phase of youth transition that once seemed on the cards, a much more segmented approach appears to be emerging.
For 16 and 17-year-olds there is the promise of an additional state contribution; 18, 19 and 20-year-olds will have the 16-hour rule partially suspended; and both groups will benefit from the removal of employer National Insurance Contributions.
Those aged 21 to 24 seem to be in a bit of policy limbo, perhaps until the Cabinet Office review finally emerges.
Under these new proposals, the 18 to 20 age group will be able to claim Job Seeker’s Allowance while undertaking a traineeship; or while studying English and maths (under compulsion if they lack a level two qualification).
In this latter case however, they will only be able to spend up to 16 hours per week in class.
There will still be no support for those undertaking a significant vocational qualification — the ‘work first’ principle of the Department for Work and Pensions seems to have trumped arguments that higher skills are needed for sustained employability.
There seem to be no new arrangements for supporting graduates make the difficult transition to employment.
The decision to fund an additional 20,000 higher apprenticeship places is similarly welcome, but may prove a cheap gesture since progress in this area has been slow, and the introduction of loans for those over the age of 24 is clearly having a damaging impact on take-up.
The government seems constantly to believe it can create apprenticeship places even when its policy recognises that all apprentices must be employees.
It also ignores the fact that alongside the rhetoric of growing numbers, its other policies — sensible in the case of minimum durations, less so in the case of direct funding — seem designed to reduce them.
The announcement of an extra 30,000 places in higher education with the prospect of removing a cap on recruitment altogether by 2015-16 is another proposal that, while welcome in principle needs to be considered carefully.
If it is to be funded by selling off the student loan book there are question marks over its sustainability. Against the backdrop of the recent rapid expansion in a few private higher education providers it could prove destabilising.
At the Association of Colleges conference, Business Secretary Vince Cable spoke about the ‘blurring’ of FE and higher education provision.
It is possible therefore that FE colleges might benefit from a large proportion of the extra numbers.There has to be the suspicion, however, that the expansion will be accompanied by competition aimed at lowering the unit price which could spell danger both for standards and the sector’s reputation.
UPDATE: Due to our website being down for over 48 hours, towards the end of this auction, we have decided to relist these items until Wednesday 12th December 2013.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our 2013 online charity auction in aid of the Helena Kennedy Foundation.
BID NOW for one of these items (click on item): Champagne signed by the prime minister, champagne signed by Ed Miliband, Ipad Air, Polaroid mobile printer, Sony Video Camera and a Pebble watch.
Since 2011, FE Week has raised almost £20,000 for the foundation and we’re hoping to raise further £10,000 this year.
Bidding closes on Wednesday 12th December at 18:00.
A bottle of House of Commons champagne signed by Prime Minister David Cameron and Skills Minister Matthew Hancock, who kindly donated the item, will be among the goodies to go under the hammer, electronically.
There will also be a bottle of House of Commons champagne signed by the Opposition leader Ed Miliband, donated by the foundation, an Ipad Air (16GB + Wi Fi), donated by EMPRA, a Sony action camera, donated by Tribal and a Pebble E-paper watch, donated by NCFE.
Our charity auction dinner, now in its third year and in partnership with Tribal and NCFE, has become the premier event to attend on the first evening of the Association of Colleges Conference.
More than 120 guests enjoyed a sumptuous four-course dinner, followed by exclusive performances from some of FE’s most talented students, including youngsters from colleges in West Nottinghamshire, Rotherham and Middlesbrough College.
Email shane.mann@lsect.com for further information on the online or dinner auction.
Problems with new Skills Funding Agency (SFA) software continue to trouble FE staff as they prepare to attempt submitting key recruitment information by 6pm tomorrow (Thursday, December 5). Known as the R04 submission, the data could be used by the Education and Funding Agency and SFA for both funding and performance management purposes. Ian Pryce explains the headaches the Learning Aim Reference Service (Lars) and the Funding Information System (Fis) are causing in preparing to submit the data.
If at the end of your supermarket run the barcode scanner didn’t recognise half your items and overcharged you for the rest, you’d be forgiven for doing your Christmas shop elsewhere in future.
This summer and autumn, colleges have unfortunately found an unexpected item in their bagging area — financial uncertainty. And this is causing new and troubling operational problems for many.
FE is complex and, unlike supermarkets, the same product generates different income depending on the age and nature of the purchaser (the student).
But the current problems with funding software are outside our control and can have serious ramifications.
We should however put it in perspective. We know the students we have enrolled. We know their programmes of study and qualifications. We even know where they live.
We can track attendance and performance and we can use that data to inform marketing, staffing and rooming decisions.
What we can’t do is get an accurate handle on the income they generate.
To an outsider this may not seem too serious. After all, government is paying to profile so our staff get paid, but it causes two important problems.
First, we are an ultra-low-margin service. Typically, colleges generate surpluses of only 1 per cent of income.
We lose funding if we fall short of target, and rarely gain if we overshoot.
Forecasting income from your own records is a very inexact science, made harder by funding and tariff changes. If we get our forecasts wrong by even 5 per cent (and the current picture looks much less accurate than this) it could mean a financial crisis. We operate in a “just-in-time” funding system with almost no room for error.
Things are complicated further by subcontracting. Do we guess what we owe them? Err on the cautious side? Play hardball and wait until the problems are fixed?
All three options are problematic. You may need to claw back later, or might tip your partners into insolvency and damage your success rates.
The second issue is operational rather than financial.
The funding system errors inevitably mean rework, revisiting enrolment data, re-inputting, re-validating.
This significant duplication of effort has a real cost, and a human cost as no one likes wasting their time.
In addition, it has an impact on the next set of priorities.
At a time when data staff should be focusing on setting up next year’s curriculum, focusing on attendance and retention processes, and concentrating on enquiries and applications, their capacity is reduced by these problems.
At a time when finance staff should be planning adjustments to the cost base (up or down) for next year they are fretting about whether the governors will forgive an inaccurate income forecast.
These are subtle in their impact, but they have an effect on the quality of outcomes and our medium term resilience.
We know the culprits are Lars and Fis — our 2013 pantomime villains.
We know the Skills Funding Agency is sympathetic and will seek to help anyone who makes the wrong calls.
We know that under the excellent Kim Thorneywork, the agency has been received more and more favourably by the sector, and their financial management, in very difficult circumstances, has been exemplary. We know everyone is focused on resolving the problem.
And maybe it is these things that will be a blessing in hindsight?
Colleges live in a very unforgiving world — Ofsted, data validity error reports, allocations that must always be achieved, success rates that must never go down.
We should resist the urge to lash out in our frustration. Instead, let’s learn from mistakes that could have been foreseen and managed, let’s resolve to change data requirements slowly (especially in the wake of the closure of the gatekeeping Information Authority), and let’s resolve always to have a Plan B.
A sincere apology to our management information systems teams wouldn’t go amiss either.
The chief executive of the Association of Colleges has warned Business Secretary Vince Cable against raiding the FE budget to fund higher education.
Martin Doel wrote to Dr Cable following reports that a failure to place controls on the number of students enrolling on higher learning qualifications at private colleges had left a massive shortfall in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spending plans.
It provoked fear among sector leaders that funding could be transferred from the FE budget to higher education when the Autumn Budget statement is announced on Thursday (December 5).
Mr Doel, writing on November 27, warned Dr Cable about the “risks” associated with cutting spending on 19+ FE and skills.
He said: “I recognise that there are pressures in the higher education budget, but if these are caused by a higher than expected tuition fee level and greater than expected growth in private higher education numbers, then the sensible thing to do would be to introduce a greater degree of budgetary control to higher education and not to visit further spending restrictions on 19+ FE and skills.”
Mr Doel said colleges recognised the need to make public money go further and were waiting “with interest” for their funding levels to be confirmed, so they could plan for the next academic year and beyond.
“Over the next two years total universities’ income is expected to rise by 10 per cent according to forecasts published by the Higher Education Funding Council for England,” he said.
“Our forecast is that college income will fall by three per cent over the same period.”
A BIS spokesperson said: “Our reply to this ministerial correspondence will be issued in due course.”
Four staff at an Eastbourne-based firm that prints qualification certificates have been given their trial date on corruption charges.
The men, from Smith & Ouzman, appeared at Southwark Crown Court last month where they spoke only to confirm their details.
Christopher Smith, aged 70, the former chairman of Smith & Ouzman, and sales and marketing director Nick Smith, 42, both East Sussex, allegedly paid £413,552.12 in bribes to win overseas business contracts.
International sales manager Tim Forrester, 46, of East Sussex, and company agent Abdirahman Omar, 37, of Stanmore, North West London, were also accused of parts in the alleged plot.
They have been charged by the Serious Fraud Office with offences of corruptly agreeing to make payments.
The alleged offences are said to have taken place between November 2006 and December 2010 and relate to transactions in Mauritania, Ghana, Somaliland and Kenya,
The firm’s website says it is, “trusted worldwide to design, print and distribute certificates for universities, schools and colleges, awarding bodies, governments, financial and commercial institutions”.
The trial date was set for November 10 next year, but the men are due back at court on January 27 for pleas and case management.
Colleges across the country have been hit with industrial action as staff took part in strikes over pay.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) manned picket lines after eleventh-hour talks with the Association of Colleges (AoC) failed to result in an agreement.
It is understood that among the colleges affected this morning were Lesoco (formerly Lewisham College and Southwark College), Blackburn College, Hull College, Redcar and Cleveland College and City of Liverpool College.
The strike was called, the union claims, after “a series of below-inflation pay offers from the association since 2009 mean FE lecturers have seen their pay cut by more than 15 per cent in real terms”.
And, following a pay offer of 0.7 per cent this year, the union balloted its members in FE colleges in England. More than two thirds of those who voted (71 per cent) backed strike action. The union had been seeking a 5 per cent deal.
Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary, said: “The strength of support for this action by staff has meant it has not been business as usual.
“Staff have reached rock bottom with massive pay cuts over a long period yet they see their institutions ploughing money into new buildings and giving those at the top six-figure salaries.
“What we are asking for is a modest and affordable pay rise to reward those who are the backbone of our post-16 education system and who have made it the success story it is today.”
The UCU strike vote came despite the AoC having reached agreement with Unison, AMiE, ATL, UNITE and GMB through the National Joint Forum.
Emma Mason, director of employment policy and services at the AoC, said: “Since 2010 government funding to colleges has reduced by 25 per cent. “UCU’s industrial action risks damaging the education and training of students, undermines the reputation of colleges both locally and nationally and places an undue burden on non-teaching staff and non-union members to take measures to minimise disruption to the student experience.”
She added: “The pay recommendation for 2013/14 is for a 0.7 per cent increase and £282 for staff earning £14,052 or less and increases the recommended minimum hourly rate to £7.45 in line with the UK Living Wage.”
College staff were joined in strikes by university colleagues, who were in their own national pay dispute. Staff from higher education institutions were, according to the UCU, offered a 1 per cent pay rise this year, despite their pay falling by 13 per cent in real terms in the last four years.
A spokesperson for the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, which represents and negotiates on behalf of universities as employers, said: “Our 150 participating HE employers confirmed that the pay increase offered is sustainable, fair and final.”
Main photo: Lesoco (formerly Lewisham College and Southwark College) staff take part in national demonstrations over pay. Photo by Nick Linford
After an exhausting few days, Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel shared his thoughts with FE Week editor Nick Linford.
The pair talked all things conference in a 45-minute webinar, sponsored by Tribal. Here are some of the key moments.
Nick Linford: So, we heard from the president of the Association of Colleges, Michele Sutton, who was shortly followed by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock.
There were two main things that came out of that. Let’s start with careers advice, and the Careers Guidance: Guaranteed campaign. How’s that going, and what vibes did you get about this from Mr Hancock?
Martin Doel: There are students who start courses inappropriately in schools, and then have to transfer to a college. So we are paying for longer training/education than young people need and affecting their futures, because that advice is leading them to the wrong choices for them. That’s the personal, social and human impact.
I think we’re getting movement. This is sometimes, I think, how things get changed. At that one stage, we get back from the Department for Education [DfE]: “There isn’t a problem with careers education.” So, no problem … or the DfE doesn’t think there is. Then suddenly you get this select committee saying: “There’s a problem.”
Then you get Ofsted saying “there’s a problem”. There’s an acceptance there is a problem.
Ofsted-reported colleges need to be judged on the effectiveness of the careers education they are providing.
Ofsted ought to be asking “have you invited partners into your school to actually give young people the widest range of choices?”
From left: The webinar attendee view of Nick Linford interviewing Martin Doel from the FE Week hotel room on the top floor of the Hyatt Hotel
NL: We need to see Ofsted reports that are very critical where that doesn’t happen.
MD: That would be the turning point — clear accountability.
As far as I’m concerned, Ofsted has put careers advice and guidance in special measures — declared it inadequate. When they declare a college to be inadequate, they go and re-inspect in a year’s time.
NL: Let’s switch a little bit —Mr Hancock … did say the apprenticeship funding will go to employers. What’s your view on this reform, and do you think it’s going to happen?
MD: The consultation is still out, so clearly the minister may have made his mind up.
Mr Hancock could do these things theoretically, but practically it’s a whole other world. You can make proposals in Whitehall — most people think Universal Credit, in a sense, is a good idea. It’s one allowance. Doing it? It’s hugely different.
What we’d do, is we would approach it in a very careful, considered way. If it were with PAYE, I would struggle to see how you can do a pilot.
NL: We potentially have a minister here who wants a very significant change on his watch, it relates to the treasury, which is his background, and the chance is fantastic — if it’s successful. But they are not around forever, and what sort of mess may we be left in if we do get wholesale change?
MD: I am very concerned about that. I mean, we have corresponded about it … I am concerned about not only the idea, but how you implement an idea. If the employers are getting the money directly, they’ve got all the same accountabilities, the same audit requirements, the same quality requirements for them to actually do it.
NL: We had Business Secretary Vince Cable make an announcement on capital. It sounded to me like it’s not new money but there’s an opportunity to get colleges to get their hands on it sooner.
MD: I am assuming people know that there is a problem with cash flow between this year and next year. I imagine that was achieved in the face of a lot of opposition.
NL: Tristram Hunt, our new Shadow Education Secretary, has announced that, in office, the Labour Party would introduce something called Institutes of Technical Education. In a sense it would be a badge, wouldn’t it?
MD:The word ‘technical’ connected to a college has a long history, and you still go to some towns and they still talk about ‘the tech’ — the technical college. It’s got a ring, it’s something you might recognise from the sector, so… it’s interesting.
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills is meant to be a social partnership, I think it is, but it needs to involve all its partners in deriving whatever criteria they might come up with in the proposals. I think they could probably go to no better source than Frank McLoughlin’s review from the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning.
He came up with four criteria for good vocational teaching and learning, which are: dual professional staff, industry-standard facilities, a clear line of sight to work and a two-way street of continuing conversation with industry
NL: The core point here is: is the system broken? These are very radical proposals … it’s a very big system and we are not starting from a blank piece of paper. So if it’s not broken, the question is, how radical does it need to be? And some of these things look quite concerning, unless you think we need a huge shake-up. Do we?
MD: No. I would argue that any college doing its job right, which is the very, great majority of all colleges, should be able to represent themselves, should they wish, as an institute of technical education.
NL: So, onto this closing speech. You had this metaphor of the ‘burning platform’.
MD: Yes … creating a burning platform. There is a tendency, if you want to get change, to create an emergency. A crisis. Children being failed! Young people being failed! We’ve got to do something — NOW! [The conference] was refreshingly absent of that. There wasn’t a lot of criticism about what colleges were doing.
NL: Let’s look at one of these — we’ve just had these new numbers from the DfE, saying colleges are failing young people who nearly get their English and maths GCSEs.
MD: Many colleges tell me, even if the student has got GCSE grade C, their functional numeracy isn’t good enough to start their vocational programme.
Employers recognise GCSEs, only GCSEs are testing the wrong things. So what do you do? Do you call it functional skills, key skills, which doesn’t get the bite with employers, or do you actually go back to the qualification and use that?
I actually think there is a lot of room for, say, breaking the GCSE down into two and calling it pure and applied maths. If a young person doesn’t achieve the applied part of the maths GCSE by 16, then it’s the college’s job to get them through applied maths. That’s what the OECD report was actually reporting — that functional numeracy and literacy was not of the required standard. Getting kids to bang their heads against the wall for 11 years, and then giving us the job to keep banging their head against the wall for another two years, thinking something different is going to happen seems a bit nonsensical to me.
Employers tell us contradictory things. They want GCSE maths and English. But they want numerate students in order to do a job and apply their skills. Let’s go back and think about what we’re producing, and actually use their time best at 16 to 18 to meet the needs of employers.
NL:What’s the highlight for you?
MD: The ‘do we have too many hairdressers?’ debate — I was really pleased that it wasn’t about ‘do we have too many hairdressers?’ It was about vocational education, and its core.
There were two elements. One, student demand doesn’t equal employer need. If someone turns up at college… at Bridgwater College, who are doing really great work with the nuclear industry … and says, “I want to do performing arts,” it’s no good telling them that we’re doing nuclear engineering, that’s what we’re open for today, because they would either become disengaged or they would just go somewhere else. So, you know… it’s that breadth of opportunity that we do need. Every college wants every young person to have the most prosperous and most stretching career that they can have. Colleges, I think, work as hard as they can to reconcile student demand with employer need. You don’t do it on your own. It’s a co-operative enterprise. And it’s actually something you achieve over time. So just saying, “There are too many hairdressers, do me more engineers,” it doesn’t work that way.
The other thing that came out very strongly … is what I call ‘education through the vocational’ — developing transferrable skills so the student may progress into other areas. I was interested in the audience. Emily Maitlis, the presenter, asked how many people in the audience are doing the career for which they trained, and if what they started is where they ended, and just about no-one put their hand up. Everyone put their hand up and said, “I ended up somewhere else,” which I didn’t expect.
You know, universities over-train huge numbers of archaeologists against what the museum sector requires — and they don’t seem to be questioned about that. This is not just so simple as to say, “too few engineers, too many hairdressers.” Let’s work together to match the needs of the employer, and get student demands shaped to where the nation needs it.
This is a whole system change. Taking one part of the system, which is colleges, and holding them to account solely for this isn’t the answer.
It’s about funding mechanisms, it’s about accountability mechanisms, advice and guidance, about employers articulating better what their offer is, it’s about social media.
It’s about the media portraying certain activities as attractive to women… we’ve got a deficit of women engineers in this country.
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