The government is to launch a consultation on “outcome-based measures of performance for all post-19 FE and skills” as it looks to tie funding with destination data.

The recently-released Skills Funding Statement (SFS) made several references to linking learner outcomes — such as progression into a job — and funding, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed it was exploring the issue.

The SFS said the government had been working on three “core” measures that could determine funding — destination (into further learning or “into/within” employment), progression (through learning) and earnings changes (following completion of learning).

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “We will be looking at the extent to which linking funding to outcomes may have a stronger role to play in ensuring the quality of provision within the pre-employment offer.

“We are also developing and will consult on outcome-based measures of performance for all post-19 FE and skills, including qualifications using matched administrative data.”
The only funding linked to learner destination at the moment is the Skills Funding Agency’s ‘job outcome payment’, offering a compensation payment that can only be paid to providers when learners either fail their qualifications or walk away early — providing they’ve won employment.

The job outcome payment is half the value of the achievement payment, so in effect it can be seen as operating as a reduced fine.

Nevertheless, the move towards destination data has been welcomed by the Association of Colleges (AoC) whose policy director, Joy Mercer (pictured), said: “The SFS shows there is strong interest from government in using destination data to measure outcomes and in distributing funding.

“We have always supported the use of several measures to judge performance and warned against an excessive focus on success rates.

“Better destination data could be a useful corrective and BIS has done some experimental work in matching student, tax and benefit data, which is yet to be published

“In using destination data to set funding, it is also worth building on the existing arrangements for unemployed adults, but care needs to be taken to ensure the government understands that economic conditions and student choice play an enormous part in employment outcomes.”

The SFS was the strongest indication yet of the government’s willingness to move towards the use of destination data, which the Information Authority has said is to be renamed “life outcomes”.
It said in the SFS: “Qualifications are an important recognition of achievement. However, we recognise that they do not reflect the full range of policy outcomes we are looking for.

“We have put in place measures to capture learner destinations on the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) as we consider how funding can be more strongly linked to outcomes in future.”
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers welcomed the mention of destination data measures in the SFS. A spokesperson said: “Although some of these measures may be complex to track we believe we do need a broad measure of success for some of the programmes.”

It was not clear when the BIS consultation would be launched, but the spokesperson added: “Government funding for the sector is linked to performance. Part of the payment to providers already depends on successful completion of qualifications.

“Over the past year we have been talking with the sector about the pre-employment offer and how to ensure high quality delivery.

“Part of this has focussed on identifying and defining what positive outcomes are, including employment and progression.”

The boss of a leading independent training provider has hit out at the government’s apprenticeship funding reform proposals warning they could lead to large scale “corruption”.

John Hyde (pictured), executive chair of HIT Training, laid out his opposition at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers-organised Apprenticeship Debate with a scathing attack in which he also described Skills Minister Matthew Hancock as “weak” for changing the system.

I think there’s a serious danger of corruption,”

The system of apprenticeship funding looks likely to be restructured following recommendations in the Richard Review of Apprenticeships in England, published in 2012 and led by former BBC Dragon’s Den investor Doug Richard.

In a speech that drew spontaneous applause and laughter from the crowd, Mr Hyde described the reforms, which would see funding given directly to employers rather than training providers, as “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.

Referring to Mr Richard, My Hyde said: “We’re putting something untried, untested into place and for no reason other than the whim of an American entrepreneur and a weak minister.”
He added the changes would “decimate” apprenticeship numbers.

He warned that the reforms, which would fund apprenticeships through the tax system by offering employers a reduction in their PAYE liabilities, would be exploited to help multinational companies avoid tax.

“I think there’s a serious danger of corruption,” he said at the event in Central London on Thursday (February 20).

“Under this system, any employer can take on a learner and in 6 months’ time, remove them from the programme, but take a break from their PAYE — it’s open to enormous fraud.”
Mr Hyde also objected to the move towards assessment at the end of a course, rather than continuous assessment.

The deputy director of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ (BIS) Apprenticeship Unit, Jennifer Coupland, defended the government’s reform plans.

She insisted that end point assessment “does not preclude assessment along the way” and rejected My Hyde’s description of the new system as “untried and untested”, pointing to the trailblazer development groups set up to model and pilot the new system.

She said: “We want an open policy-making process which is collaborative with you, so that where things look like they’re going to be particularly problematic, we can adapt and grow and change the policy.”

She also conceded that including apprenticeships in the 24+ loan system was “the wrong policy for this type of programme”.

Loans were introduced for all learners aged 24 and over studying level three courses in June 2013, but it was announced in December that apprenticeships would be removed from the scheme after the number of applications plummeted.

The date for the removal of apprenticeships from loans has been announced as March 7.

A government consultation on the PAYE reforms, which proposed funding apprenticeships through the tax system alongside other options, closed in October.

The results have not yet been published, but Mr Hancock announced in November that apprenticeships would be funded through PAYE, and a technical consultation is due to be launched in the next few weeks, according to Ms Coupland.

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “The technical consultation will also include a summary of responses to the initial consultation which closed in October.”

The sale of troubled K College looks to be over with the announcement of two “preferred providers”.

Land-based Hadlow College and East Kent College, in Thanet, are expected to take on campuses in Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Ashford; and Dover and Folkestone, respectively.

We now have six months’ work before the new and enlarged Hadlow Group is launched on August 1.

It brings an end to the year-long saga over the break-up and sale of the 15,000-learner K College, which was slapped with an inadequate grading by Ofsted in December. It said continuing uncertainty over the college’s future was damaging learners’ progress.

Paul Hannan, principal at the outstanding-rated Hadlow College, said: “Our ambition is to include the sites as part of the Hadlow College Group while building on the individual brand and status of each campus.”

He added: “We now have six months’ work before the new and enlarged Hadlow Group is launched on August 1.

“Intensive work will now start — in cooperation with the Skills Funding Agency [SFA] and the Education Funding Agency — to arrive at a financial solution that will help us to deliver outstanding teaching and learning across the new Hadlow College Group in entirety.”

Graham Razey, principal at East Kent College, which was rated as good by Ofsted, said: “We are very pleased as this announcement removes the uncertainty over the provision of FE for thousands of students in Dover and Shepway, and across East Kent as a whole.

“We will ensure high-quality, vocational and technical education programmes for students in this economically improving part of Kent through well-funded and well-managed centres of learning.”
The 800-worker K College, which was formed of a merger between West Kent College and South Kent College in 2010, is being dismantled after it ran up at least £15m in debt to the SFA.

It is unclear whether any of K College’s debts to the agency will be transferred, although interim K College principal Phil Frier told FE Week last month that commercial debt would move over.

He said: “We made a commitment to students from the outset that no matter what name was given to their college, their education would continue, and we are proud to have delivered that.”

The transfers are expected to be complete by the start of the next academic year and a public consultation on the dissolution of the K College corporation, in line with the transfer of its provision to new providers, is expected to launch soon.

The SFA declined to comment on whether it had offered financial incentives to take on the debt-ridden college.

An SFA spokesperson said: “All parties will be carrying out due diligence and working together to ensure the smooth transfer of provision ready for August 1, 2014.”