Securing education for young offenders — learning first, detention second

The education of young offenders looks set to improve drastically with the government’s announcement of Secure Colleges, where the current average of 12 hours a-week learning will double. Toni Fazaeli explains how it might affect FE staff and providers.

We welcome the government’s recent proposals to refocus the culture of youth custody from detention to learning.

Secure colleges provide an opportunity for a revolution in the rehabilitation of young offenders, but, as the Prisoner Learning Alliance’s latest report, Smart Rehabilitation, clearly highlights, learning provision must be outcome-focused, joined up and value-driven.

Of the very small minority of young people who commit crimes, around 1,300 are currently serving a custodial sentence, almost three-quarters of them in one of Her Majesty’s young offender institutions.

Proposals announced by the Ministry of Justice in Transforming Youth Custody seek to gradually replace the current secure youth estate with new secure colleges, while taking measures to improve the quality of education and training and resettlement arrangements for those young people currently in custody.

Young offender institutions deliver, on average, only 12 hours of learning a-week, despite being contracted to deliver 15 hours, and this is set to be nearly doubled to 24 hours under the new proposals.

Young offender institutions deliver, on average, only 12 hours of learning a-week

We have more than 1,500 members who teach in prisons, and our response to the ministry’s consultation last year on introducing secure colleges was informed by the views of teachers and trainers directly involved in offender learning.

Despite public expenditure of between £65,000 and £212,000 a-year for each place in young offender institutions, secure training centres and secure children’s homes, nearly 75 per cent of young people leaving custody reoffend within one year.

The main difference between secure colleges and existing forms of youth custody will lie in their culture.

Secure colleges are to be places of learning first and detention second. So the decision about who will run secure colleges is an extremely important one — there should be one lead provider overseeing education and custodial functions, as opposed to the current arrangement whereby separate contractors manage these processes.

The winning provider must demonstrate a high-level understanding of effective teaching and learning strategies for the most hard-to-engage young people. We believe that local FE providers should be in the lead.

Teachers and trainers told us that those seeking to run secure colleges, and those preparing to bid for new and renewing Olass (Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service) contracts later this year, should major on offering excellent quality teaching and learning.

Significant barriers to improving education and training in youth secure estates currently include lack of access to up-to-date equipment, facilities and resources (even something as basic as internet access), according to almost all (98 per cent) of the respondents.

The key message from our research is that working with young offenders in a teaching and training capacity is a highly specialised role and always involves working with young people who have highly complex emotional, social and learning needs.

This was recognised in the ministry’s commitment to a professional qualifications framework for custodial staff who work with young offenders. It is frankly unbelievable, however, that the same commitment was not made to ensuring that there will be qualified, highly skilled and specialist teachers and trainers, given that theirs is such an important role in securing successful outcomes and improved life chances for young offenders.

There are some real practical and systemic issues for policymakers to consider. How accessible is the local college or provider offer for a young person leaving custody? How strong is the relationship with local youth offending teams? On average, most young offenders spend 110 days in custody, so they need provision that is local, tailored to their needs and available outside the traditional academic calendar.

Thankfully, the number of young people committing crimes and receiving the last resort of a custodial sentence is falling.

Our job now is to work out how, together, we can cultivate a passion for the power of learning in the hearts and minds of every young offender.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive, Institute for Learning, member of the Prisoner Learning Alliance

Keeping the pressure on homophobia in a time of funding constraints

Pressure group Stonewall’s annual list of the top 100 lesbian, gay and bisexual-friendly employers included just three FE and skills-related institutions. Wanda Wyporska looks at what the sector can do, and is doing, to stamp out homophobia.

When austerity bites, equalities work is often seen as a luxury, and certainly cuts to the FE sector are biting, as colleges struggle to do ever more work with ever fewer resources.

However, promoting equality and diversity is at the very core of what colleges do, since they are at the heart of their varied communities.

Colleges are likely to have staff and students from the local communities and in turn, they provide a safe environment for often vulnerable students to not only reach their potential but also explore all sorts of issues.

We know from our members that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia all raise their ugly heads from time to time in various situations and locations.

The trade unions in the sector have equalities and legal experts who are happy to help and advise members as well as colleges, in working together to draft policies, agreements and develop good working practices.

Swift and effective action reassures lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people that homophobia is taken seriously

The Association of Colleges and sector unions negotiated the Joint Agreement on Guidance on Equality in Employment in FE Colleges, which is an excellent model policy.

However, despite lots of good practice in a variety of areas, problems remain both in the classroom and the staffroom, which is why we support the Stonewall campaign highlighting homophobia in the workplace.

Yet the solution to tackling homophobia is relatively easy. Swift and effective action reassures lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people that homophobia is taken seriously by the college.

Celebrating LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) History Month each February, establishing an LGBT support group or network, and of course, good policies, regular training and effective monitoring, all play a part in creating an LGBT-friendly environment.

The ‘nothing about us, without us’ mantra is key here; there must be discussion with LGBT staff and students.

Luckily, in this digital age, there are many organisations and resources available.

The Forum for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Post-16 Education (www.sgforum.org.uk) has a variety of excellent resources on gender variance, the intersection between faith/religion and belief and sexual orientation, a gender identity equality e-resource and of course, the 12 steps to advancing sexual orientation and gender identity equality.

There is also help available from the Skills Funding Agency’s (SFA) Equality and Diversity Innovation Fund (EDI), managed by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace).

Project Empower, a free one-hour e-learning tool developed by Doncaster Group Training Association and Pinnacle Training Solutions, has been used by more than 3,000 FE staff since its launch in 2011.

Huntingdonshire Regional College’s project, To Monitor Or Not, created an inclusive and tolerant environment in which lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender learners felt comfortable to share their personal experiences.

Monitoring is always a sensitive issue, and again there is advice on this from members of the forum on its website, both from the perspective of students and staff.

Monitoring for its own sake is a mere tick box exercise, what is important, is what adjustments are made as a result.

More challenging, perhaps, is work around transgender adults and the EDI is supporting Blackpool Council Adult and Community Learning, to develop a research project led by transgender adults. They aim to make the voice of transgender people heard in the development of adult and community learning and develop trans-friendly teaching and learning practices.

Undoubtedly there are areas of bad practice, there are people with prejudices in colleges, as there are in society at large.

However, most colleges are keen to support learners and staff, to maximise attainment, ensure equality of opportunity and to support and promote good relationships between those with protected characteristics and those without. As the Stonewall campaign says ‘Lots to do’.

 

Dr Wanda Wyporska, equalities officer, Association of Teachers and Lecturers

No letting up on England’s poor adult literacy and numeracy

Adult literacy and numeracy levels in England came out badly under the scrutiny of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A parliamentary inquiry was therefore a must, says David Hughes.

I am very pleased that the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee is to hold an inquiry into adult literacy and numeracy.

This recognises how pressing the issue is and is a positive and welcome response to the recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on adult literacy and numeracy.

The OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) suggested that England’s performance lagged behind that of many of its economic competitors.

It is heartening that there is continued cross-party consensus about the importance of adult basic skills; it is less heartening that we are still needing to discuss it and struggling to actually address the scale of the challenge.

There have been many inquiries over the last decade, from the Moser report in 2001 to our own independent inquiries in 2009, chaired by Dame Mary Marsh and Lord Boswell.

The real challenge for us to debate is how we persuade government that investing more money will address the enormous scale of this challenge

These and more have helped move things forward, but the scale of the challenge has swamped the recommendations.

What is clear is that improving adult literacy and numeracy will take a generation; in fact, the problem is made tougher every year when young people leave school with low levels of literacy and numeracy.

So, we can probably all agree that quick fixes are not enough, even though they may be welcome.

The real challenge for us to debate is how we persuade government that investing more money will address the enormous scale of this challenge.

I say this because all of the evidence shows that the large numbers of adults with the most to gain from learning the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy are the very ones who have missed out from government investment over the last decade.

Providers have been successful in supporting people to achieve the formal qualifications which earn the funding. The result of this, though, is that too many people at pre-entry or entry level have been overlooked.

My reading of the situation is that there is a good understanding of this and of the social and economic rationale for investment but there is little confidence that more investment will help those most in need.

The Select Committee inquiry gives us an opportunity to discuss this again and provide ideas and evidence of how increased investment could be used differently to make an impact.

I am hoping to hear about innovative practice, outreach examples and ways to motivate people into learning.

I am also keen to hear about the problems in the funding and regulatory systems which hinder reaching people with the lowest levels of literacy and numeracy.

We have recently started on a pertinent piece of work with the Esmee Fairburn Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills looking at the development of a broader life skills curriculum, including family learning, delivered as part of a programme of study.

The intention is that, with colleges and providers, we can develop a more flexible programme of study which is attractive to adults with low basic skills.

We want to explore how a more flexible offer can attract adults who are not interested in maths or English as a starting point, but who may be attracted to other things such as financial literacy, health, using technology and how to support children in learning.

If we can show that this reaches different people we can make the case for more investment with more flexibility; both would be great, even one of those would be nice.

Our life skills curriculum is just one of the many creative ideas and approaches I am hoping that the Select Committee will hear about, consider and support.

Let’s flood them with evidence, passion and ideas and use this as a forum to shift the funding rules and regulations so that we can support people who can gain so much from learning the basic skills.

David Hughes, chief executive, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education

Jane Overbury, principal, Christ the King Sixth Form College

Dr Jane Overbury says it is “genuinely a surprise” to find herself principal of Inner London’s Christ the King Sixth Form College.

“My ambition has always been around being the best I can at whatever I’m doing, and I have always had just very short-term goals,” says the 55-year-old, who was awarded an OBE for services to education in 2009.

“I didn’t enter the teaching profession to one day see myself as a head.”

The setting of her Roman Catholic college, in bustling, multicultural Lewisham,
is a far cry from Kingskerswell — the small Devonshire village where Overbury grew up.

“It was a nice place to grow up, in that we could all play outside on the estate, but as I got older, one of the disadvantages about living in a village is that everybody knows your business,” she says.

“That’s not to say people weren’t lovely, but the older generation all knew who you were and whose family you belonged to, and what your lineage was and so on.”

Their sense of contribution to society, their care and concern, their manners — it’s counter to everything we hear about young people, and young people in South East London

The turning point for Overbury was passing the 11-plus exam, although once again, it came as a surprise.

“I grew up on a council estate, we weren’t wealthy, and we certainly weren’t prepped for the 11-plus… but anyway, I passed and went to grammar school,” she says.

Even as a child, explains Overbury, she loved learning, but one particular teacher, Sue Pike, “opened [my] eyes to a completely different world”.

“She was absolutely key to making me believe in myself,” says Overbury, the fifth child of seven.

“An absolutely fantastic teacher — she was my English teacher and my drama teacher, but she developed my thinking beyond just the subject knowledge.”

It was through a drama club run by her inspirational teacher that Overbury met best friend Rachel Crane, who attended the local secondary modern school.

“Our two teachers lived together, so we both went to this combined drama club and got to know each other, and then we got to know them very well and throughout sixth form,” she explains.

“It was a time when teachers could take you out to all sorts of places — they
were instrumental in opening our eyes to theatre and dance and drama in ways
we would never have been able to do otherwise.”

In September 1979, aged 18 and inspired by Ms Pike, Overbury set off for Philippa Fawcett teacher training college in London to qualify as an English and drama teacher, while Rachel went to study catering at Torquay Technical College.

However, shortly after, Rachel came to stay with Overbury in London for the week, got a job as a babysitter and never went back to Devon.

Overbury smiles warmly as she remembers that period sharing a flat with Rachel.

“It was a house with lots of creatives, and for us two girls from Devon it was a real eye-opener,” says Overbury.

“It was time of the punk scene, so we were living with people who were in punk bands — it was a completely different world.

“We sat on the edge [of the punk scene], Rachel and I — we never did our hair and stuff.”

Sadly, Rachel died of cancer four years ago having become a youth and social worker, but Overbury says she is still in contact with Ms Pike.

It was while at Philippa Fawcett that Overbury met husband Steve when he came to eat at the restaurant she was working in while taking her studies.

Steve is now a layout designer for a magazine, as well as writing books and articles.

The couple live in Dulwich and have
two daughters, Lucy, aged 27, who works in corporate law and Jess, 25, a doctor.

Overbury went on to teach at William Penn boys’ comprehensive school, and briefly flirted with financial journalism at a
trade publication in London’s financial district.

“I did that for less than a year, and that confirmed to me teaching was absolutely what I wanted to do,” she says.

She returned to William Penn, moving into careers advice in the school’s sixth form and through a series of mergers and collaborations found herself in FE at Southwark College.

“Everything in my career has happened by chance— I never planned it out,” she says.

“Then, one day out of the blue, I saw a job advert for the vice principal of Christ the King.

“I thought if I get the job it’s meant to be, and if I don’t then it’s not — and I got the job.”

Overbury’s Catholicism has had an impact on her life, she says.

“What it does for me personally, it gives me a compass and a guide… that sense of having a commitment to something greater and more powerful than me as an individual has been really important in shaping that sense of who I am.”

When the college’s previous principal stepped aside, 12 years ago, Overbury took over.

She says she’s proud to be where she is and of her PhD in education, for which she studied while one daughter did her A-levels and the other her GCSEs.

“Pride is a very difficult thing for us Catholics,” she jokes.

“Proud suggests it’s my intervention that’s done it in some way — pleased with might be a better word — or happy with. I’m privileged to be principal of this college.”

Her affection for the three-site college, graded as good by Ofsted in 2010, is clear.

“I absolutely love what I do. I think it’s a privilege to work with the staff here,” she says.

“When you work with young people here, they’re amazing — the ambition, and what they will do to achieve what they want to achieve.

“Their sense of contribution to society, their care and concern, their manners — it’s counter to everything we hear about young people, and young people in South East London.”

Unsurprisingly, Overbury says she has no plans for the immediate future, except “getting things right” with the college’s development and expansion.

She has no plans to return to Devon either.

“I’m a city girl, my girls are both city girls, and I absolutely love London,” she says.

“People talk about retiring to the country but I’d like to retire closer to town — a little flat up in town would do me very nicely.”

 

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It’s a personal thing

What is your favourite book?
Lost Empires by J B Priestley. It’s about the decline of music halls. I liked the Hilary Mantel books and Samuel Pepys’s diaries — they were very dense reading but I loved them after I got through them

If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
Samuel Pepys and Nelson Mandela

What do you do to switch off from work?
I read, I socialise, friends and family, I’ll walk around London sometimes,
museums and art galleries, and sometimes I’ll watch trashy TV

What’s your pet hate?
I don’t really like the idea of hate, but

What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted to do something where you had qualifications, and you were working in a sort of professional role, and where I grew up the only women I saw doing professional jobs were teachers

Apprentice minimum wage ‘crackdown’ questioned

A government “crackdown” on apprentice minimum wage offenders has been queried with more than one-in-five apprentices not getting paid the legal amount.

Labour MP Julie Hilling put the statistic to Employment Relations Minister Jenny Willott in the House of Commons, pushing the Lib Dem MP about what action the government was taking to enforce the £2.68 an-hour minimum wage for apprentices.

“It is worrying that the proportion of apprentices not receiving the minimum wage has increased to more than one-in-five,” said Ms Hilling during a Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) questions session on Thursday (January 23).

The apprenticeships pay survey in 2012, published in October, found that 29 per cent of learners had not received the then legal minimum of £2.65 an-hour, a jump of 45 per cent on the year before.

Ms Willott said the government was “concerned” by the number of employers breaking the law, and that it had “zero tolerance” for offenders.

She said: “We have introduced a range of enforcement measures to crackdown on rogue employers. Since June 1, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [HMRC] has been prioritising complaints about non-payment on the national minimum wage.

“We also started an awareness campaign in November targeting schools and college so most young people starting apprenticeships are aware of what they’re entitled to.”

She further pointed to a letter from Skills Minister Matthew Hancock, sent out from October, to all learners at the beginning of their apprenticeship, informing them of the minimum wage.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has also pledged it will soon start naming and shaming employers who do not pay the national minimum wage, either for apprentices or for non-apprentice employees.

In his evidence to the Low Pay Commission, published last week, Business Secretary Vince Cable said it was hoped such negative publicity would deter employers from underpaying employees.

He said: “We are expecting to start naming employers early this year.”

Such employers would be the first named since a new scheme came in at the beginning of October.

Dr Cable said: “Under the original scheme, employers had to meet one of seven criteria plus a financial threshold before an employer could be referred to BIS from HMRC for naming.

“The revised scheme has removed these restrictions.”

The government had been criticised for failing to ensure all job adverts on the National Apprenticeship Service vacancy matching website showed the new minimum wage.

It was only last month — three months after the increase had come into force — that the system was amended to stop jobs adverts below the minimum wage.

Ambitious independent provider plans raise prospect of new college

Ambitious plans to become an incorporated FE college and develop new sites across the country have been revealed by Essex-based charity Prospects Learning Foundation.

The independent learning provider (ILP), which has a current Skills Funding Agency allocation of £2.6m and already brands itself as Prospects College, has launched a consultation on plans to get FE college status.

Chief executive Neil Bates told FE Week he hoped the move would unlock government money and allow it set up new bases — potentially competing with existing colleges.

He said: “We are looking for FE college status to support very specialist, sector-focused provision, primarily apprenticeships and workforce development, where employers play a central part in the running of the facility and influence both the curriculum and the quality of what is delivered to make sure it meets the needs of their industry.”

Mr Bates added: “Our ambitions beyond Essex and beyond what we have done here is to try to replicate this model across the country because in many locations there are big gaps where there is not this kind of technical vocational provision.

“Our belief as a company is that as the government tries to rebalance the economy there is going to be a problem in terms of there not being the infrastructure through facilities like this to meet the demand.”

It could be the first new FE college in more than 20 years, but comes just weeks after the government separately unveiled proposals for a new FE college to train engineers for HS2.

And it appears the government has amended its position on who could run the HS2 college, having previously said it was expected to be a wholly new institution — not an existing ILP.

Mr Bates said it was “too early” to speculate about who would run the new HS2 college, as unveiled by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), but said it would make sense for Prospects, which has an Education Funding Agency contract worth £715k, to be involved.

He said he would be “very keen” to talk to Ministers about running the college with his charity, which has around 250 staff, 2,000 students and a turnover of £11m last year, specialising in training engineers for the rail and aviation industry across some of its five bases. And his proposals already include plans for a rail academy.

“As I understand it, what the government announced in terms of HS2 is that there is going to be a specialist FE college in order to support the skills needs for the development,” said Mr Bates.

He added: “We believe that what we are proposing in terms of the new FE college is compatible with the new college for HS2.”

Prospects’ announcement, predicted by FE Week last year, also comes after it was rated good in its first Ofsted inspection.

The education watchdog praised growing numbers of successful apprentices and “outstanding visionary leadership”.

Colleges were incorporated in April 1993 primarily to remove funding from local government and keep down council tax bills while refocusing public-funded education on employer needs.

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson said Prospects could not be ruled out as the HS2 college provider.

He added: “We support the establishment of new colleges to allow new entrants who offer greater choice and diversity, and drive up quality, customer focus and responsiveness.”

Visit www.prospectsconsultation.com to take part in the consultation, which ends on February 17.

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Q&A with Neil Bates

Q: Who benefits from your approach of tailoring training to the needs of a geographic area?

A: Our plan has been to develop technical vocational centres in key sectors which are linked to the needs of the economy. So, this centre is based in Basildon, in the heart of the Thames gateway, 16 per cent of the workforce locally work in engineering and this is about Prospects being responsive to the needs of local businesses.

Meeting the needs of local business creates sustainable employment for young people as well, so it’s a win-win-win. It is a win for businesses because they get the people they need, it is a win for young people because they get sustainable employment and it is a win for us because we are meeting the demands of the sector.

That is how we have been able to grow our provision significantly in such a short period of time, because we have targeted sectors where there is a very specialist need. Rail is a very good example of that, as is aviation.

Q: Were you expecting the HS2 college announcement at this time?

A: No, but we are perfectly content that, having had discussions with BIS about us becoming the first newly-incorporated FE college since 1992 that quite clearly others will follow.

We are not too worried about the fact that we are not the first to be announced, because we envisage that over time there will be a number of these new specialist FE colleges. We think that is essential in order for the UK to compete on skills internationally.

Q: What do you say in response to concerns that the capacity of existing FE colleges to train people for HS2 has not been explored?

A: I have a mixed view of this. I think that FE colleges will certainly be given the opportunity to become involved in the new college, but equally I think there is opportunity for new types of organisation to be involved in the delivery of skills.

The point about there already being provision out there is not really supported by facts, because the facts are that the UK languishes at the bottom of the OECD league tables for skills, particularly in the engineering and construction sectors, and there is quite clearly not enough high level provision to support the needs of businesses and the community.

Something has to be done and that might well involve investment in existing FE infrastructure but our belief is that there is also a need to produce new players in the market and to get employers much more closely involved in the development of skills.

Q: Is the potential for capital funding the main benefit of incorporation for Prospects?

A: The potential access to capital funding is one of the benefits. One of the other benefits is we can gain access to the full value of the funding for delivery rather than having to go through a third party. They are not benefits because we are a private organisation, we are a registered charity. What they will enable us to do is to create much better facilities for learners, and more opportunities for learners because we will have the resources to do that. That is attracting us to incorporation.

The discussion about incorporation started with senior colleagues in BIS and when they approached us regarding this , our first reaction was ‘if you are asking if we would be interested in being a general FE college, then the answer would be no’.

What we are interested in is Government recognising new models of delivery within apprenticeships and skills and I think there is a real place and need for specialist, technical, small colleges that are heavily responsive to the needs of employers.

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Editorial : Brave new College

It’s hard to comprehend how there’s been no new college in more than 20 years — no incorporation since 1993.

We’ve seen new colleges born of mergers, for sure, but behind them there will have been market forces at play somehow, whether we like it or not.

It’s therefore almost unbelievable that such market forces — in the space of two decades — would not have been best served on at least one occasion by a wholly new college.

So if a revisit to incorporation will benefit learners then it is to be welcomed and Neil Bates’ ambitious plans deserve a fair hearing.

And ambitious they certainly do sound.

New Prospect sites could be on the horizon and, apparently coincidentally, there’s also the possibility of the HS2 college contract.

The confidence underpinning the plans is uplifting, but fortune does not always favour the brave — and neither, arguably, do market forces.

So while Mr Bates’ incorporation hopes sound positive, he should also be careful what, or how much, he wishes for.

Chris Henwood

Elmfield investigation ‘frustrates’ MP

An ongoing official investigation into defunct provider Elmfield Training has “frustrated” Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee chair Adrian Bailey, who said he was waiting to probe the firm’s dealings.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) had been looking into the provider’s business even before it went into administration in November owing £11m.

It went under amid allegations of apprenticeship malpractice, with Mr Bailey having already revealed plans to call former Elmfield director Ged Syddall and SFA finance director Paul McGuire for a “no-holds-barred” grilling by the committee.

However, he told FE Week his inquiry was being delayed by the wait for the conclusion of the SFA investigation — but he warned he may yet push ahead regardless.

“I am quite irritated and frustrated by the lack of progress by the SFA with this and if necessary the committee will now consider going ahead before publication of the report,” he said.

It would be the second time Mr Syddall has appeared before Mr Bailey’s committee. He gave evidence in April 2012, when he said Elmfield’s entire income of £30m in 2011/12 came from public funds. He also defended his own £3m company dividend. But a BBC Newsnight probe screened in October last year, supported with information uncovered by FE Week, put Elmfield back in the spotlight, over its dealings with workers at supermarket giant Morrisons.

It was alleged Elmfield signed Morrisons staff up to apprenticeship programmes they had declined, enabling the provider to claim public funding for training. A separate probe into the allegations was launched around three months ago by the SFA, but it was still unable to confirm a date for when its findings would be published.

An SFA spokesperson said: “Our investigation into Elmfield is due to be finalised imminently and the results can be shared shortly, once we have formally considered the final report.”

Following administration, the majority of Elmfield’s business and assets were sold to EQL Solutions Ltd, which is 100 per cent owned by CareTech Holdings plc. The deal is understood to have saved 300 jobs. A CareTech spokesperson said the acquisition was completed as part of a “pre-pack insolvency” of Elmfield for a total “cash consideration” of £1.5m. The Morrisons contract was sold to NCG (formerly Newcastle College Group), which saved the remaining 50 jobs at the company.

A statement of the company’s affairs later submitted to the High Court of Justice revealed it owed £11m. It was in debt to more than 180 firms, including provider Skillsfirst Awards which was set up by Mr Syddall and owed £863,550.

A spokesperson for the company said Mr Syddall no longer had any involvement in either the running or day-to-day finances of Skillsfirst and hadn’t for some time.

Alan Clay, from provider A14 Training which was owed £8,720, said: “We have been working well with EQL since they took over the contract and they have been extremely co-operative, but the original Elmfield debt is still outstanding.”

The SFA spokesperson said: “We took action to respond to the situation as soon as it was notified that Elmfield Training was in administration. It would not have been appropriate for the agency to take action prior to the provider’s declaration of insolvency.

“A provider that contracts directly with the agency retains ultimate responsibility for all aspects of provision it is contracted to deliver, including elements that it chooses to sub-contract.”

Ofsted issues warning over ‘misleading’ tweet

Ofsted is set to warn the boss of a London-based subcontractor to remove a Twitter post that wrongly suggested her firm had received a “successful” visit from the education watchdog.

Krissy Charles-Jones (pictured), chief executive of Bright Assessing, tweeted on December 12 last year to thank her team for “such a successful Ofsted”.

And the homepage of the provider’s website, at the time of going to press, also stated: “Graded ‘good with outstanding features’ — inspected December 2013” (pictured).

There was a further message that read: “Assessor training graded as ‘outstanding’ under Ofsted standards — December 2013”.

But the firm has not been inspected by Ofsted and, as a subcontractor, would not be fully inspected.

It had, in fact, hired Portsmouth-based private contractor Prospect Consultants to carry out an inspection based on Ofsted guidance.

A spokesperson for Bright said it had “no intention whatsoever to mislead anyone” with the postings. “Hence we have published the full report on our website — including the logo and the company letterhead of the consultants concerned,” he said.

However, Ofsted told FE Week that a letter would be sent to Bright asking for the tweet and any misleading messages on the firm’s website to be taken down.

“As with every other occasion when there is a potential misrepresentation of our name, or misuse of the Ofsted logo, we write to the organisation of individual concerned to clarify our position,” she said.

Ms Charles-Jones has amended her account since the offending tweet — which stated: “BIG thank you to Bright team for such a successful Ofsted this wk” — so that only confirmed followers can read her postings.

The Bright spokesperson said: “We are not subject to any mandatory or regulatory inspection by a government body or otherwise, so the only option open to us was to commission an inspection at our own initiative and expense.

“We specifically sought someone who was very familiar with the Ofsted framework, as they are a set of standards with which many of our learners are familiar, and they were instructed to use those terms of reference throughout.”

He added: “We tried to make the inspection as ‘real’ as possible for our staff and, with that in-mind, the team at Bright was informed at very short notice that an Ofsted inspection was being conducted — the day before the inspector arrived.

“This is why, on a Twitter account, a message of thanks to our staff was circulated thanking them for their cooperation with the ‘Ofsted inspection’ and it was only after the process had been completed that we made everyone aware that this had been an inspection conducted by consultants using the Ofsted framework rather than by Ofsted themselves.”

It comes after FE Week reported in November that Bright, which provides qualifications for unemployed people who want to re-enter the workplace, was being investigated by NCFE (formerly the Northern Council for Further Education) for a second time.

The provider had boasted a pass rate of between 95 per cent and 100 per cent.

The claim no longer appears on its website, but the firm is still being investigated over learners’ claims that courses were substandard.

The Skills Funding Agency and Ofqual are being kept informed about the investigation, which is expected to conclude shortly.

Vocational quals in a league of their own

For the first time FE league tables have been released separately, listing institutions’ performance in academic and vocational qualifications.

The tables, published by the Department for Education on Thursday (January 23), have met with a mixed response from the sector.

While some have welcomed the distinction between the two qualification types at level three, others have expressed concerns that it could “create a hierarchy of qualifications”.

Of the colleges listed, Hills Road Sixth Form College, in Cambridge, and Middlesbrough’s Cleveland College of Art and Design were among the top performers for A-levels, with the highest average points score per entry each getting an average of a B and B- respectively).

Doncaster College was bottom of the list for A-levels, with an average points score equivalent to an E.

In vocational qualifications, Runshaw College, Cardinal Newman College, Esher College, Stockton Sixth Form College, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Reigate College and Havant College were top of the list, all boasting an average point score per entry of a distinction*-.

The lowest scoring college for vocational qualifications was South Thames College, although it still averaged a merit -.

Association of Colleges policy director Joy Mercer said: “This data is new and needs careful analysis.

“There is a strong performance among small selective sixth forms but we’re also delighted to see a number of larger colleges achieving high average grades despite a larger number of students.”

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said she was not in favour of publishing the performance table as separate lists.

She said: “It sends the wrong message to pupils, parents and schools about what is important.

“Academic and vocational qualifications are of equal value, should be held in equally high esteem and treated as equal in a unified reporting system.

“All 16 to 19-year-olds need vocational skills irrespective of what subjects they are studying, and they all need the option of studying both academic and vocational subjects.

“We are also unhappy about some vocational qualifications being labelled ‘applied general’ and some ‘tech level’ as we fear this will create a hierarchy of qualifications.

“There should be a single set of characteristics and expectations that define high quality vocational education, whether the qualification is designed to provide work skills or enable students to study further.”

However, Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the separate tables would create “parity of esteem” and that vocational qualifications “need to be recognised” as “different”.

“Separate tables are helpful because trying to create equivalences between vocational and academic qualifications does not work,” he said.

“What is important is that vocational qualifications are accepted as equally important and the most appropriate route for many young people.”

However, he was critical of the lack of explanatory information provided with the data.

“Raw data does not tell the full story, it can only help to identify the questions that might be asked,” he said.

Mrs Mercer agreed, saying: “It is disappointing the DfE has once again published the tables without any commentary to put them in context.

“Their complexity makes them difficult for parents and students to understand and doesn’t allow them to use the tables to answer the simple questions, such as ‘which local school or college should I go to if I want to do a particular job.”