BREAKING NEWS: Matthew Hancock MP has today been promoted to Minister of State for Skills & Enterprise.
UPDATE: Sector reaction and comment on Mr Hancock’s promotion can be found here.
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It’s been just over a year since Matthew Hancock took up the post of Skills Minister, replacing popular predecessor John Hayes.
So, amid rumours of a looming reshuffle, FE Week caught up with the MP for West Suffolk to find out what he thought about the job he’s done the last 12 months.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” said Mr Hancock, who had his third child in June.
“I think we’ve made some real progress. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed myself — there have been moments that will live with me always.”
He added one of the most memorable experiences had been witnessing the “great cacophony of skills” at November’s Skills Show, in Birmingham.
Another experience that left its mark on the regularly pink-sweatered 34-year-old was his job-swap with champion BAE Systems apprentice Jenny Westworth a fortnight ago.
Jenny Westworth, an apprentice at BAE Systems, joined Mr Hancock in March on a ministerial visit to Billingsgate Market, in London. The Skills Minister visits Jenny Westworth at her workplace last month
“Walking into the hangar with a couple of dozen Typhoon aircraft in various stages of construction and sitting in the cockpit was quite an extraordinary experience,” he said.
The Minister thought key areas of reform he had dealt with included Tech-levels, the Richard Review and traineeships.
“They [traineeships] started out as an idea in October, when the work started in earnest, and the high point of the year was meeting a pilot group of trainees at the House of Commons,” he said.
But there were also lowpoints, including an interview with Spectator not long after his appointment in which it is claimed he likened his rise to the House of Commons with that of Winston Churchill.
A smiling Matthew Hancock meets dental nursing apprentices at Sandwell College, near Birmingham, in May
“Undoubtedly the low of my year was arriving one minute late for a broadcast about the importance of turning up on time,” said Mr Hancock, referring to an incident when, despite being known for working long hours, he allegedly overslept before an interview with ITV’s Daybreak (see the FE Week reconstruction, above).
He added: “Policy development is hard graft. It involves effort, work, attention to detail and persuasion.
Mr Hancock with graduates from an employability programme at the House of Commons
“There is brilliant work being done across the country to help young people to get the skills they need to get a job.
“What I hope I’ve managed to do with traineeships is give it a structure so the government support is more coherent. I’m proud of it..”
But Mr Hancock was staying tight-lipped on his own hopes for any potential reshuffle.
“As others in my party say about other parts of our government, we’ve made progress but there’s a lot more to do,” he said.
Matthew Hancock and (right) FE Week reporter Rebecca Cooney
When we saw the latest photo of Mr Hancock spinning a pizza in the air to mark the launch of the PizzaExpress apprenticeship, we knew we had to have a go, too, writes Rebecca Cooney.
Pizzaiolo [or for us Brits, pizza maker] trainer Bepi Uliano guided me through the process at a London branch. First, a round ball of dough about the size of a shotput is teased outwards into a thick circle with the fingertips — then comes the fun part.
The circle of dough is thrown into the air with a twisting motion, known as ‘flaring’.
After a couple of attempts I think I’m doing rather well, until I notice Bepi flaring his dough disc high above his head, around his shoulders and spinning it on the tips of his fingers like a basketball, in one fluid motion. Apparently, it takes a bit more practice.
The whole pizza-making process is surprisingly quick, but it’s definitely one of those things the experts make look easier than it is.
So what’s the secret?
“The dough — if it’s the right dough at the right temperature, and you stress it right, then you have a perfect pizza,” said Bepi, who wanted to be a pizzaiolo since he was just seven.
“And passion, that’s important too,” he added.
Over the next three years PizzaExpress hopes to take on 200 apprentices with its one-year course with City & Guilds and Lifetime Training.
A plant sale run by learners raised precious funds for Children in Need.
The South Cheshire College skills for independence and work students sold cyclamens and lavenders, which they had potted themselves, to staff and students to raise around £70 for the charity.
Harriet McConaghy, of Whitchurch, said: “We wanted to raise money for a good cause and we’ve had fun at the same time.”
The main Children in Need television event will take place on November 15, but lecturer John Leese said he was delighted South Cheshire College made a headstart in collecting for the good cause.
He said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for them to showcase their skills and put some early cash in the kitty towards the fantastic Children in Need campaign.”
David Phillips explains why reform is needed to ensure trainees learn a broader set of skills to suit businesses’ needs.
Presented with the top line figures, most people would assume the apprenticeship programme is in fair shape and they would be right.
In the last academic year, there were around 520,000 apprenticeship starts, more than double the number two years ago.
The programme is also achieving a healthy gender balance among those signing up and the government has now committed to increase its budget from £715m to £764m over the next year.
But on closer inspection, while it is difficult to conclude the programme is broken, it still might need some fixing if it is to deliver the expectations heaped on it.
If the programme is divided into its constituent parts of learners, employers, training providers and government, it is clear it is not yet delivering for business in some major areas.
In the recent Pearson/CBI skills survey, businesses told us they felt marginalised and wanted a greater ownership over the programme. Indeed, 39 per cent of employers thought having the apprenticeship grant paid directly to them would increase participation in the programme.
This was the second most popular response — after ensuring the qualifications design was more relevant to business need.
So there is certainly merit in pursuing this idea, but we need to make sure any new funding mechanism, announced as a result of the current consultation on apprenticeship funding, is easy to administer and appealing to every size of business.
A pilot could help test how well new mechanisms deliver these desired outcomes.
The Pearson/CBI survey also found the programme was not delivering what is wanted by all sizes of employers.
Only 23 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that responded are currently taking on apprentices.
This compares to nine in 10 companies with 5,000 or more employees. On a more positive note, the survey found training providers are becoming more responsive to business needs and on almost every point researched, employers are becoming more satisfied with the training delivered by external providers.
We need to make sure any change embraces and builds on the relationship between provider and employer.
In relation to the government, the programme is not doing as much as it could be in addressing the stubbornly high levels of youth unemployment. Some people could be alarmed to learn that despite the overall rise in participation in the programme, the number of under-19 starters fell in the last academic year, while those starting who were aged 25 or over went up by around 50,000.
This has resulted in only 25 per cent of all starters being 19 years old or under.
In addition, the government has publicly set itself the goal of wanting to play a more strategic role in supporting the growth industries of the economy and ensuring it has the right skilled labour force to drive growth.
More than half (52 per cent) of all apprenticeships that started in the last academic year were in the business administration or retail sector.
While these sectors are crucial to the economy, more could be done to encourage a greater number of starts in other areas key to future growth, including life sciences and information technology, as highlighted in the government’s Industrial Strategy.
At present, information technology has only a fifth of the starters of the retail sector, with numbers actually declining last year.
Lastly, we need to ensure the programme is delivering for learners.
This means the skills and experiences they accrue during their apprenticeship must lead to rewarding and valuable careers.
To do this we need to create better mechanisms that capture an apprentice’s experiences and the value gained from doing an apprenticeship.
This data could help determine the effectiveness of different programmes, which would in turn encourage others to consider an apprenticeship.
Whatever system is put in place, as a result of the current consultation on apprenticeship funding, it must incentivise some behaviours and discourage others.
It must address the imbalances which currently exist, without devaluing the brand which has been painstakingly built up so far.
It must not slow the momentum of a programme which is delivering valuable skills to over half a million new starters each year.
It also needs to protect the providers and courses so many businesses value.
In short, it should not try to remake a programme which in many respects is not broken, but at the same time put in place the mechanisms to fix it. While this will not be an easy task, the importance of getting it right could not be greater.
David Phillips, managing director of Pearson Work Based Learning
and Colleges
Traineeships are the government’s latest weapon in the fight against youth unemployment, but, asks Mike Hopkins, what hope do trainees really have of a job in the end and is the free labour offer, that is inherent to the programme, open to abuse?
There appears to have been some frustration at a slow uptake on traineeships in colleges and a belief the sector is therefore missing an opportunity.
But Middlesbrough College is delivering traineeships as part of the Employer Ownership Pilot.
Trainees are benefitting and the relationship with the employer is excellent.
But I recognise the sector does have some well-founded concerns. So what are these?
I’m worried some employers may use and abuse traineeships.
It’s true traineeships provide another entry point into work.
However, how many trainees will enter into a traineeship with high expectations, when in reality there may be little scope for employment at the end of it?
When does it become more about the provider hoovering additional funds, than a genuine route to prosperous and sustainable employment?
How much more disillusioned might trainees be if they arrive at the end a traineeship with nowhere to go?
Traineeships allow employers to work trainees without paying them and this may provide a mechanism employers implement as an alternative to apprenticeships or paid employment, or as a substitute for employment.
So, how do we protect our young people from exploitation?
While any initiative to develop opportunities for work experience is to be applauded and is doubtless well-intentioned, I would sound a note of caution.
Many providers, including colleges, have invested heavily in securing, for example, work experience for learners.
However, to use an old metaphor, there are ‘only so many times we can go back to the same well’.
There is a presumption that employers are ready and able to be the agents of social change that government wills them to be.
But I am concerned about the weight of expectation and the capacity of employers in the current economic climate to engage with traineeships.
We know there is a fine line between unpaid work experience, that offers skill development, and exploitation”
Employers are being urged to invest more in apprentices, but there is a danger of traineeships becoming an ‘instead of’ rather than an ‘as well as’ option.
That said, there are progressive employers engaging providers in the development of schemes.
They should be commended and perhaps better recognised or rewarded for this.
Many employers lay claim to corporate social responsibility, but how many are actively rewarded? How does and should government incentivise employers around this?
For example, some would argue the motivation to pursue and secure Investors in People, ISO 9001 is as much about the ‘badge’ and having it as part of the corporate uniform, so you can tick a box in a pre-qualification questionnaire. as part of a competitive tendering exercise.
Would it be a bad thing if employers perceived that being able to tick another box around their commitment to work experience, traineeships, apprenticeships was a pre-requisite in competitive tender situations?
Traineeships have the potential to add to boost post-16 skills development, if they are well-funded and credible.
But the macro-economic ambition of government to rebalance the economy and return to somewhere near full, prosperous and sustainable employment, is just as important.
It’s not the fault of young people that the economy is flat and faltering.
For colleges, we know there is a fine line between unpaid work experience, that offers skill development, and exploitation.
Many young people now find themselves in a state of economic duress and may feel compelled to accept such hours and working conditions.
It’s important then that the sector uses the key principles of high quality and inclusion when judging the merits of different initiatives.
Mike Hopkins, chief executive of Middlesbrough/Gateshead College Federation.
David Harbourne agrees with much of what has been recommended in the Labour skills taskforce review, but recommends a more flexible approach to policy.
There’s something vaguely familiar about the apprenticeship reforms proposed by Labour’s skills taskforce — also known as the Husbands Review.
As it happens, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Take the idea that the word apprenticeship should be reserved for programmes at level three and above, with level two programmes renamed as traineeships.
Modern apprenticeships were launched in the early 1990s as level three programmes, when they were expected to compete with A-levels.
Meanwhile, the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) gave unemployed young people work experience — and not much else.
Sir Ron Dearing said YTS should be reformed, using modern apprenticeships as the template. He came up with a level two framework, which he called National Traineeships.
The name didn’t last. The government said it was confusing to have two names for apparently similar programmes.
Modern apprenticeships became advanced apprenticeships, and national traineeships became apprenticeships.
What goes around, comes around.
The Husbands Review says level two programmes should be called traineeships. This may actually be a good idea — it’s just not new.
Next, the review says apprenticeships should last at least two years.
One of the big innovations introduced with modern apprenticeships was the abolition of time serving, which had been a key feature of apprenticeships for centuries.
The reason was simple — people learn at different speeds.
If someone has a real aptitude for a job and becomes fully competent in 18 months, why make them wait another six months before giving them a certificate?
I’m not convinced we need rigid rules like this.
Then there’s compulsory off-the-job training.
The Husbands Review says apprenticeships should include a day of off-the-job training every week. Allowing for five weeks of holiday each year, this means 94 days of compulsory off-the-job training in two years.
That’s another rigid requirement — more than some sectors need and more than some employers could offer.
The review also states: “Training standards should be set at sector level by institutions that genuinely represent the interests of employers and young people.”
It recommends doing this through strengthening sector skills councils, although there could be a role for other sector bodies.
The central criticism of sector skills councils is that while some are very good, others are not seen as sufficiently representative of employers, particularly small employers.
The same criticism was levelled at industry training organisations, which led to the creation of national training organisations, which were replaced by … sector skills councils.
The problem here is reach. When I was working for the Hospitality Training Foundation, we aimed to involve around 300 businesses in qualification and apprenticeship design, taking account of sub-sectors, small, medium and large business, the public sector and regional differences.
However, there are more than a quarter of a million hotels, cafes, restaurants, pubs and fast-food outlets in the hospitality industry.
Three hundred might be a good cross-section, but it excludes 249,700 businesses, any one of which might tell the Husbands Review — or Doug Richard, for that matter — “I wasn’t consulted”.
Today, the task falls to People 1st (an excellent sector skills council, by the way).
It can’t reach every hospitality business, but if it’s given more resources it’ll be able to reach more than it does today.
So I support the Husbands Review on this. Invest in sector skills councils and help them do an even better job than they do today.
But don’t expect critics to be silenced. There will always be employers who complain that they weren’t consulted. It’s human nature and nothing’s going to change that.
David Harbourne, director of policy and research, the Edge Foundation
Ruth Mathias raises concern about the government decision, which was implemented earlier this month, to remove the requirement for FE lecturers to have teaching qualifications.
The decision to remove the requirement for teaching qualifications for FE lecturers mean candidates with no prior teacher training, or professional teaching qualifications, could now secure lecturing roles in FE colleges.
Widespread concern over the negative impact this could have on the quality of teaching and professionalism in FE colleges — which will in turn affect students, representatives from the Institute for Learning, the University and College Union and the National Union of Students — has put pressure on the government to reverse the decision.
The fall in top grades for the second year running, following the recent A-level results, marks a new trend of falling top level grades.
This trend surely highlights the need for measures to be taken to improve the standard of teaching, rather than legislation that could lower standards.
Many senior figures agree with this viewpoint across FE.
We believe very strongly in maintaining a high standard of teaching across FE“
Theresa Ann Drowley OBE, chief executive of Redbridge College, said: “The removal of teacher qualifications will be detrimental to the profession and to learners in colleges.
“Teachers who go through the process of gaining teaching qualifications provide reassurance regarding their ability to write and research. This college will continue to require teaching qualifications in our efforts to move the college forward and deliver a quality process.”
Jayne Stigger, head of maths and science at Nescot College [North East Surrey College of Technology], said: “Qualified teaching staff actively enable the development of the whole student, motivating and applying specialist techniques to differentiate learning to suit the student. The removal of the need for qualified staff will actively work towards lowering the standards that FE professionals have worked tirelessly to improve”
It’s feared the removal of the requirement for FE lecturers to have teaching qualifications could negate the positive impact of the 2012 Ofsted changes within the FE sector.
Coming into effect on September 1, last year, these changes were implemented to provide greater focus on the quality of teaching and learning in colleges.
More time is now spent observing lessons and a more robust inspection criteria was supposed to support head teachers and principals in their work to provide the best possible education for pupils and learners.
Morgan Hunt is proud to be one of the top recruitment agencies in the UK, offering specialist recruitment services to a wide range of clients.
We will not be changing our criteria in regards to recruiting FE lecturers, as we think this would undermine our efforts to supply high calibre candidates to FE clients, as Sue Cooper, director of education at Morgan Hunt, explained.
She said: “There is a considerable amount of government investment in initiatives to reduce the number of Neet (not in employment, education or training) young people and increase their employability.
“This latest decision by the government to remove the teacher qualifications requirement for lecturers in the FE sector seems contradictory to that mission. We believe very strongly in maintaining a high standard of teaching across FE.”
We will therefore still require a teaching qualification from all candidates.
Ruth Mathias, web editor of Morgan Hunt Education recruitment agency
The tale of Lynsi Hayward-Smith’s journey into FE management, she says, “is an ongoing story of being excited by what I do”.
“Any challenge, any opportunity, I’m always interested,” she says.
“I’ve never been in the same job for very long. I’ve been in the same organisation, but I’m always thinking what can we do here, what changes can we make, how can we make things better.”
But change has not always been her friend.
Now aged 60, Hayward-Smith harboured dreams of becoming a ballerina in her youth, but then she grew too tall.
“The maximum height was 5ft 6 and I’m 5ft 7, which was slightly devastating at the time,” she says, ruefully.
Her second career choice — a primary school teacher — was influenced by her childhood, when her family moved frequently due to her father, Henry’s job as a public sector architect.
“I was born in Worcester and then moved around the country — a bit of time in Hertfordshire, a bit of time in Yorkshire, a bit of time in Essex, where I live now,” explains Hayward-Smith, who has two grown up children — Lucy, aged 32, and Lily, 27.
She now lives in a converted 17th century barn, “with roots and beams— it’s a home that feels like a home,” she says.
And having roots is important to Hayward-Smith, “particularly when I was bringing my children up, I didn’t really want them to have the kind of experience I did of having to be the new girl eight times,” she says.
She adds: “I went to, I think, a total of eight different schools.
“I was aware of teachers and how important they were, as they were the people I first knew in those schools… and they had different skills and qualities.
“I was doing a bit of an evaluation and thinking ‘I could do that’, although I didn’t have that in my ambitions then — I was still being a ballerina at the time. I could see there were some teachers who just got it right and made you feel like you’d got potential.”
Lynsi Hayward-Smith and (inset) aged 11 with four year old brother Rick in 1964
Hayward-Smith credits one of those many teachers, a “Mrs Stewart,” with inspiring her love of poetry, particularly, she says, WB Yeats and Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
“Mrs Stewart loved poetry and she really switched me on to it,” she says.
“But she brought alive for me the idea of how prose and poetry can communicate ideas in this very beautiful way.”
So could writing have been another career path for Hayward-Smith?
“I wrote reams of dreadful poetry,” she admits, laughing, but says she hasn’t attempted a novel, “yet — but there’s always hope”.
With so many possible directions, it’s no wonder that Hayward-Smith’s working life has been somewhat varied.
She completed her teacher training at Hockerill Teacher Training College in 1974 and took up a job in a Lancashire primary school that she “absolutely loved”.
From there she moved into the role of community liaison teacher, working across three different schools with children who found school challenging, and it was during this job that “things really took off”.
“I really enjoyed that, being able to help them make connections, help them resolve their problems, see them move on, change and develop,” says Hayward-Smith.
She continued in this role until the birth of her children.
“I didn’t take very much of a gap,” says Hayward-Smith.
“I was asked to work in the voluntary sector running the East Herts Community play bus which went out to rural villages where they had absolutely no early years provision, offering activities for families, somewhere for mothers to connect and for young children to learn through play.
“It was a bit of a departure, but something I could really see the value of.
“It gave a whole raft experience of working in a sector where money is tight and we make it go a really long way, learning how to offer something which is of enormous value to people that doesn’t actually involve huge resource but is in the right place at the right time, which was really fulfilling.”
And so her move into FE happened “slightly by accident”.
“I was asked to go and speak to a group of young students about the work of the play bus and the lecturer that invited me eventually said ‘why don’t you come and work for us?’,” she explains.
“At the same time I started teaching some adult literacy, again, something which was specifically aimed at people who needed to re-engage with education and come back into it. It was a very fulfilling and interesting time.”
Although she is now in management, she says her time teaching has made her keenly aware of the importance of frontline teaching staff in FE.
I am actually a waste of space without the frontline“
“I am actually a waste of space without the frontline,” she says.
“We can talk about how we envision [the sector] but if it’s not happening in the classrooms… if learners’ outcomes are not what they need them to be, then we’ve wasted our time.”
She adds: “That’s why the Education and Training Foundation is so important in terms of the professionalisation of the front line.
“I think change is challenging for everyone, but it depends where you are in that change and how much autonomy you have over it.
“I think when you’re making changes you have to go to the person with the least ability
to affect the change and find out if it’s alright with them.”
And this equally applies to the foundation, she says.
“I do think it’s really important that we bring the sector with us.”
But Hayward-Smith has not quite given up teaching. She plans to put a recently-acquired coaching and mentoring qualification to good use, helping her junior county council colleagues.
“I still love it when I get to do some staff development or where I get to go into a class and work with people,” she says.
“It’s about passing on my skills, if you like, but also being able to see a vision of an organisation going in a particular direction.
“It’s taking all of the ingredients that I gathered around me, working on a playbus, working in classroom, working in adult literacy, all those bits of experience and using them to help me shape the future.”
And Hayward-Smith’s plans for her own development include improving her coaching and learning Italian.
“I’ve been in education for 39 years and it’s still fresh and exciting and there are still things I need to do,” she explains.
“I think having aspirations for yourself rubs off on the people around you, if you appear to be satisfied with where you are, that’s not very exciting for the people you’re with.
“If you ever stop developing yourself then the time has come to hang up your whatevers.”
Business leaders have attacked Labour leader Ed Miliband’s plans to make firms train a “local” apprentice for every foreign worker they employ.
John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, labelled the proposal an “apprentice tax” on employers.
He said: “Businesses need to be able to choose the talents and resource they need and sometimes cannot find in the UK. This immigration benefits Britain. This is an apprentice tax on employers.”
We will require every large firm hiring a migrant worker from outside the EU to offer an apprenticeship in return.”
Meanwhile, the Confederation of British Industry said the plan — which Labour claim would produce up to 125,000 new apprentices — was unnecessary, as firms wanted to take on more apprentices regardless of immigration.
Neil Carberry, director of employment and skills, said: “These proposals could add to red tape. If we want to get more businesses offering apprentices, it will be crucial to keep bureaucracy to a minimum.”
It comes just days after the Hays’ Global Skills Index 2013 report called for a review of immigration policies to attract more skilled overseas workers.
It warned expanding industries, such as energy, IT and construction, had been unable to find enough skilled workers in the last year to fill their vacancies.
The report has cast further doubt on Labour’s proposal, which, it is argued, could deter firms from employing skilled immigrants.
Even Labour’s own House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee chair Adrian Bailey conceded the policy needed “a lot more work”.
“This has the potential to allow overseas workers to fill short-term skills gaps, but it could also encourage more domestic apprentices to be taken on to meet long-term skills needs,” he said.
“Concerns have been expressed about the policy. The Labour shadow team obviously needs to do a lot more work with industry to ensure this can be done in a way that will benefit all sides.”
Mr Miliband announced the proposal two weeks ago before Labour’s Brighton conference.
But Tory Skills Minister Matthew Hancock swiftly dismissed the idea, claiming it would be illegal under EU law to force firms to take on British-only apprentices.
Labour retaliated by insisting Mr Miliband meant firms would have to hire apprentices from EU countries — which would not be illegal.
And Shadow Immigration Minister Chris Bryant appeared to further soften the party’s position in a blog for the Huffington Post on Wednesday.
He said: “We will ensure companies have to invest in training local people, by requiring firms that wish to bring in workers from outside the EU offer apprenticeships in return.”
A spokesman for Labour’s leadership team insisted the party was standing by the original policy.
He said: “We will require every large firm hiring a migrant worker from outside the EU to offer an apprenticeship in return.”
