Ofsted plan post-16 grade for schools

An extra grade focussing solely on post-16 provision in schools and academies could be introduced to inspection reports, Ofsted has told FE Week.

It is hoped the move may give a more accurate reflection of the quality of a school’s sixth form provision and make it easier for prospective students to make comparisons between their local sixths forms and general FE colleges. 

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Ofsted is now planning whether to provide a separate grading for a school’s sixth form within its inspection reports.”

She added that the effectiveness of post-16 provision did already inform wider inspection judgements on a school and that Ofsted recognised the importance of the importance of sixth forms in helping students to progress to employment or higher education.

The extra grade would reverse a decision made two years ago to produce a single overall grade for schools.  

Plans for the extra grade were welcomed by the Association of Colleges (AoC).

Joy Mercer, AoC’s director of policy, said separating sixth forms was “the right decision”.

“AoC has been campaigning for a separate grading for schools sixth forms for some time so we are very pleased that Ofsted have listened,” she said.

She added there was “an obvious injustice” in cases the AoC was aware of, where school and academy sixth forms did not retain their students after the age of 17, failed to achieve success rates comparable to a local college, but were part of a school rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted.

The Sixth Form Colleges’ Association has also campaigned for this measure.

The Sixth Form Colleges’ Association Chief executive David Igoe said: “We are very pleased Ofsted have taken this step.”

Mr Igoe recently wrote to Her Majesty’s chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, highlighting that parent and students were currently unable to make “meaningful comparisons” between school sixth forms and colleges.

His letter continued: “We understand the reason for this and the concern the Secretary of State has to reduce bureaucracy.

“However, we think it is important that parents and students can make an informed choice about where to study.

He added that the time was right to rethink the policy.

Today he said: “We are naturally delighted Sir Michael has responded to this request and we hope that further work will continue on developing a single benchmark for all 16-19 institutions.

“It would, after all, defeat the point if a school sixth form grade meant something different to a Sixth Form College grade and to a FE College grade.

“Frustratingly that is the case at present but we remain hopeful that Ofsted remain committed to developing national all institution benchmarks.”

Malcolm Trobe, policy director of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said the organisation had “no issues” with the introduction of a new grade but agreed that colleges and sixth forms were judged on the same criteria.

“There’s a logic to the way we’re doing it at the moment but there’s an equal logic in what they’re talking about,” he said.

“The key thing is they have got to use exactly the same criteria — there has to be a level playing field in terms of the use of data.”

He added: “Inspectors also have to make sure they are spending a significant amount time in the sixth form during a two day visit to the school, to ensure they are taking a good fair look at it.”

 Ms Mercer also called for Ofsted to use the same inspection framework for college and school sixth forms, pointing out that at key stage five, both were monitored and funded in the same way.

 

Governance reform is at risk of looking to the past

Colleges have been told to think critically about the diversity of their governing boards, but what might that mean when set against the backdrop of an encroaching private sector dominated by rich, old, white, able-bodied men, asks Mick Fletcher.

The recently-published report from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) on college governance is in many ways a model of how to develop policy.

Unlike many announcements, which appear out of the blue and seem only to reflect the uninformed opinions of a handful of policy wonks, this report shows signs of having involved serious and sustained collaboration, both with the sector and with the Charitiy Commission.

Moreover, at a time when the phrase ‘evidence-based policy’ is falling into disrepute, this publication draws extensively on independent evidence from bodies like Learning and Skills Improvement Service and the Women’s Leadership Network. The BIS team that led the review are to be congratulated.

In practice, employer ownership of skills means rich, old, white, male, able-bodied ownership of skills.”

It may seem churlish therefore to draw attention to a flaw within their work, but it is one that seems substantial.

The review seeks to deal with college governance in isolation from all the other changes occurring in the skills system and to the role of colleges.

The assumption seems to be that the place of colleges is fundamentally unchanged by the turbulence in the external policy environment and the transformation that government, and particularly BIS, is trying to bring about.

A couple of examples will illustrate the problem.

The first concerns the important question of whether college boards reflect the diversity of the actual and potential populations they serve.

Evidence is produced which makes clear they fall short and there are sensible recommendations as to what they might do about it.

However, at the same time as BIS is discussing the composition of college governing bodies it is also seeking to transfer funding from colleges to employers under the guise of ‘employer ownership of skills’.

One thing we can be certain about is that, in practice, employer ownership of skills means rich, old, white, male, able-bodied ownership of skills.

It is possible to see the potential impact of such a transfer in the figures for apprenticeships.

That part of the skills system where employers are most clearly in the driving seat is (and not by co-incidence) that part that least reflects the diversity of the UK population.

This is not to say colleges shouldn’t try to do more to make their boards more representative. They should.

It is, however, to argue that to the extent funding is transferred to employers, the composition of college boards has less and less significance.

The second example arises from the discussion of whether board members should be paid.

The review seems to assume that colleges should maintain their status as exempt charities, and concludes that, as with other charities, payment should be the exception.

This seems to ignore the drift of government policy which is slowly, but surely towards the privatisation of FE.

Exempt charity status seems quite appropriate for a public body that receives grant in aid to support its programmes.

As part of civil society it is right to expect individuals to help lead a college without reward, and for the representativeness of its board to be part of democratic accountability.

However, colleges are now officially part of the private sector and the thrust of BIS policy in particular is towards an open and free market where colleges are simply one set of providers among many who compete with other private bodies to win contracts.

If this really is to be the nature of the sector, then it makes more sense for colleges to be regulated by company law than charity law, and to pay their non-execs as well as companies do.

It also means they need worry less about accountability and select their board members simply with regard to efficiency.

There will still be pragmatic arguments for diversity, but it seems likely that over time the boards of privatised colleges would come to resemble those of private companies.

None of this is to say that within its own terms, the review of governance is a poor piece of work.

It is, as argued at the outset, well-researched, well-argued and thoughtful.

The danger is, however, that unless BIS looks at the overall impact of the changes it is driving through, rather than a narrow focus on colleges, the recommendations may prove to be better-suited to yesterday than tomorrow.

Mick Fletcher is an FE Consultant

Elmfield boss quits over Ofsted’s inadequate grading

The boss of Elmfield Training has quit after Ofsted inspectors gave the firm an inadequate rating having come across “unacceptably low” results.

Ged Syddall resigned after ten years as chief executive, and founder, of the Cheshire-based independent training provider taking “full responsibility” for the results.

He said: “Despite many positive findings the business has received low grades and ultimately as chief executive I take full responsibility for that.

“I have therefore resigned as chief executive with immediate effect.”

However, it is understood Mr Syddall will remain majority shareholder of Elmfield, which currently has a £27.6m contract with the Skills Funding Agency.

Meanwhile, the agency has issued the firm with a Notice of Serious Breach and prohibited it from contracting any new employers while under the notice.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: “We are taking tough and urgent action on failing colleges and training providers such as Elmfield that are not up to scratch to protect learners.

“I want to root out poor performance wherever I find it.”

The Ofsted inspection of Elmfield last month today resulted in a downgrading on 2011’s ‘requires improvement’ (grade three, and formerly termed ‘satisfactory’) rating to inadequate (grade four).

“The report says our staff are committed and enthusiastic, and inspectors told me at the end of the inspection they had nothing but admiration for the passion staff have for their work. I cannot thank them enough for that,” said Mr Syddall.

But Ofsted was critical on several areas of service provided by Elmfield, which previously counted supermarket giant Morrisons as its biggest customer. Barclays is among its current client base.

“Success rates in the apprenticeship programmes experienced a considerable decline last year and a high proportion of learners within the Morrisons’ contract did not complete the full framework,” said the report.

“Furthermore, the number of learners who completed their apprenticeship in the planned time fell to an unacceptably low level of 33 per cent.”

It added: “The number of learners who complete their qualification in the expected time continues to decline and has reached an unacceptably low 23 per cent of the retail apprenticeships, which make up the majority of Elmfield’s provision.”

And attendance at key skills sessions fell to a “very low 26 per cent,” said the report, which added: “Elmfield has been slow in implementing the delivery of functional skills and does not have sufficient numbers of staff with the appropriate qualifications in the teaching of functional skills.”

However, the report also said the 11,371-learner provider had experienced “changes at the board level within Morrisons, tough trading conditions in the retail sector, long periods of lockdown preventing activity other than trading taking place, intense media scrutiny and breakdown of relationships, combined with lack of commitment from some stores.” The report claimed these “all contributed to this unsatisfactory position”.

A spokesperson for Elmfield, which has 413 staff, said: “We are obviously disappointed by the grades in the report, but we think the inspection process itself was fair.

“We accept that in the current Ofsted framework it is almost inevitable for a provider with inadequate outcomes for learners to be given inadequate grades for leadership and management and overall effectiveness as well.”

She added: “Although the report is critical of the overall success rates achieved by learners in 2011/12, inspectors recognised that a high proportion of learners — 83 per cent — succeeded in the vocational element of their training and that achievement rates improved markedly this year, to 86 per cent.

“As far as teaching and learning are concerned, the report says that most teaching and assessment sessions are good, learners develop good vocational skills and the programmes we have started in the last two years are well planned and managed.

“We accept the recommendations for improvement in the report and will focus on tackling the success factors identified initially in our self-assessment report and by Ofsted.

“We continue to work closely with the Skills Funding Agency, our employer partners and most importantly our learners to build on the strong partnerships built up in the last two years.”

Ofsted inspectors will return to Elmfield in the autumn to see if it has improved.

Mr Hancock said: “A more rigorous and responsive skills system is crucial to our future economic success and our drive to tackle youth unemployment.

“Poor training undermines social mobility and holds back people who want to get on in life.”

New apprenticeship application figures reveal just one in ten under 19-year-olds are successful

Junior Shadow Education Minister Tristram Hunt has called on the government to boost 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeship hopefuls after government figures published for the first time revealed that in the first nine months of 2012/13 there were 788,640  applications and just 86,700 starts (11%).

The figures are based on usage of the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) website, where providers must advertise vacancies, and further show that of the total 1.2m total number of applications, 63 per cent came from under 19s.

However, despite the majority of apprenticeship applications being made by those under 19, the age group claimed just 26 per cent of apprenticeship starts in 2012/13.

The figures prompted Labour’s Mr Hunt to urge Education Secretary Michael Gove to pour money into improving young people’s job hopes.

It comes weeks after FE Week reported how Mr Gove’s Department for Education (DfE) had cut its projected budget for 16 to 18 apprenticeships by £165.5m.

The cut came, in part, because of “competition” from older applicants — who are funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), rather than DfE.

“The demand for young apprenticeships is enormous and yet the number of starts is falling off a cliff,” Mr Hunt told FE Week.

“With almost one million young people unemployed, Mr Gove needs to do far more to help businesses and colleges provide the high-quality vocational route we need to rebalance our economy and boost our competitiveness,”

“Instead, he has £165.5m knocking around in his department specifically earmarked for young apprenticeships.

“Why isn’t that money being used to turn applications into starts?”

Last month FE Week reported how the latest Statistical First Release showed 4,000 fewer 16 to 18-year-olds started apprenticeships from February to April (Q3) this year compared to the same period last year — a 19 per cent drop.

Over the nine months leading up to April (up to and including the end of Q3), there was also a 13 per cent drop in starts overall compared with the same period in 2011/12. It followed a 10 per cent drop in Q1 and a 16 per cent drop in Q2.

Stewart Segal, chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We are working with a number of providers who are developing programmes to support those young people who have had unsuccessful applications.

“We have always said that we need a preparation programme to provide a supported route to jobs and apprenticeships.

He added: “We hope that a successful launch of traineeships will provide an effective route to increase the numbers of apprenticeships.”

A joint statement from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and DfE said the Data Service figures gave an “inaccurate picture” of apprenticeship applications because they were only based on employers registered on the NAS website system.

But in order to receive government funding for apprenticeships, providers must register new vacancies on the website (with the exception of apprenticeships taken up by staff already employed by a company), according to Skills Funding Agency rules.

Nevertheless, the statement continued: “Our priority is to make apprenticeships the very best quality, rooting out any poor provision and ensuring that all apprenticeships last a minimum of a year.

“That is why we increased apprenticeship funding in the spending review and are consulting on a major reform of apprenticeship funding this Summer to ensure purchasing power is in the hands of employers.”

The DfE declined to comment further on efforts to promote 16 to 18 apprenticeship applicants.

FE foundation considers priorities at first board meeting

The new Education and Training Foundation laid out key priorities in its first board meeting on Monday.

The organisation, formerly known as the FE Guild, also agreed to begin the search for key figures including an independent chair, permanent chief executive, and independent chair of the audit committee.

David Hughes, who chaired the foundation’s steering group and who has been asked by the board to serve as interim independent chair, described the meeting as “a really, really good start”.

“There was quite a lot of discussion, quite helpfully I think, about how we wanted to make this organisation work,” he said.

Mr Hughes, who is also chief executive of National Institute of Continuing Adult Education (Niace), added: “We want it to be very embedded in the sector, using expert panels, bringing in people who are delivering very high quality learning and helping them spread their expertise and people learning from that rather than putting out invitations to tender for things and getting consultants.”

The seven men and women on the board also discussed the foundation’s learner and workforce representation. Mr Hughes said the foundation would work with Niace and the National Union of Students to look at the issue.

“We agreed the principle that we want to give that kind of learner perspective but it’s difficult to think of a sensible way of doing that, thinking about the support that someone might need to participate,” he said.

“Then there’s the workforce where we all talk to the unions and Institute for Learning and others to ask ‘what is the best way to have somebody from the workforce who has something to offer for the board?’.”

He added: “We also decided to search for an independent person who would chair the audit committee — a body that’s dispersing £18m in fund needs to have proper probity.”

Mr Hughes also confirmed he would not be seeking to take on the role of independent chair permanently.

“Having an independent person steering it from the business who’s got contacts in that world could be quite powerful, because part of the foundation’s remit is about reach and reputation,” he said.

One of the key priorities for the foundation will be to take forward elements of the recommendations made the by Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL).

Mr Hughes said the board had spoken to the commission’s chair, Frank McLoughlin, to find out which were the “most important and appropriate areas for the foundation to take forward”.

He said there had been “really positive discussions” over the foundation’s role in developing the commission’s recommendations on higher quality maths and English provision in vocational training, Teach Too, where professionals in vocational fields would be encouraged to teach for a few hours a week a ‘two-way street’ collaboration between training providers and employers and the idea of a Vocational and Education Training centre.

“Many of the recommendations were core business for the foundation and will be embedded into the business plan that the foundation develops,” said Mr Hughes.

“We are very keen to get moving on some of those things very quickly.”

Other priorities identified for the foundation’s immediate future would include establishing stronger communication with the sector.

Mr Hughes said: “We have to engage with people in the sector, which is thousands of people, to explain what it is the foundation is trying to achieve and how it’s trying to achieve it … because the expectations on it are probably enormous in some ways and I think there’s a lot of scepticism, which is understandable of new body that doesn’t exist yet.”

The foundation will officially begin to be funded from August 1, when funding for the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) ends.

Mr Hughes confirmed the foundation would be taking over support for LSIS’ clerks’ training and the current cohort on the senior leadership development programme, as well as the excellence gateway, which he said the foundation would “continue and try to review and develop going forward”.

He added discussions over the fate of other LSIS materials were ongoing.

Further priorities for the foundation were outlined in April in a letter from Skills Minister Matthew Hancock to Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by FE Week.

These include supporting the FE sector to achieve:

  • More rigorous and challenging apprenticeship programmes, particularly at level three and above
  • Improved responsiveness employer, community and learner needs
  • The delivery of high quality traineeships
  • Strong governance with a relentless focus on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment
  • More effective and innovative teaching in priority areas including English and maths
  • Measurable progress in implementing the key recommendations from CAVTL, including Teach Too
  • More teachers and assessors with higher levels of current occupational and subject knowledge
  • Better focussed research which has a greater impact on improving teaching, learning and assessment
  • Increased employer engagement and active involvement in all stages of the learning process from design to delivery
  • Easily accessible, high quality learning materials and resources in key areas, sourced through an effective on-line knowledge system, and widely adopted by practitioners to enhance learning
  • Skills competitions having greater impact in improving overall standards of vocational learning
  • Promote best practice for local partnership working with other government agencies as well as employers

Report on college governance calls for diversity assessments

A review of college governance by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has called for yearly diversity assessments.

The Review of Further Education and Sixth Form College Governance recommends that assessments of governing board composition, size and diversity feature in colleges’ annual reports.

It calls for such assessments to also look at the development of governing boards; and further, suggests annual reports should contain information on board recruitment and succession planning.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) has been tasked with providing good practice examples of such reports for the country’s 8,000 further education and sixth form college governors.

“College chairs and clerks are encouraged by BIS to discuss the findings and recommendations with their boards,” said an AoC spokesperson.

They added: “The review is expected to feed into the one being conducted by Dr Susan Pember on behalf of the AoC governors’ council.”

The BIS review looks at recruitment and succession planning, including the make-up of governing bodies; recognising the status and importance of governors, including through non-financial incentives; and, remuneration for governors, taking account of current practice in other sectors and the Charity Commission’s views.

The review also provides guidance, co-authored by the Charity Commission, on paying college governors.

It said: “Governors have strategic oversight of their college; they lead the drive for improved standards in teaching and learning, holding principals to account.

“Governors are also the guardians of public money, with responsibility for ensuring effective and efficient use of college resources.

“This report recognises the commitment, energy and dedication governors bring to their role. It also recognises the special responsibilities and demands that come with assuming the role of chair of governors.

“The report accordingly sets out a series of recommendations which challenge the status quo, and which seek to support stronger governance and improved standards.”

Christine Doubleday, deputy executive director of the 157 Group, said: “We certainly support the drive for ever greater diversity on governing bodies together with ensuring the board has an appropriate mix of the necessary skills and experience to fulfil its role effectively.

“Our colleges thrive in the mixed communities they serve and will always support clear approaches to promoting diversity and to recruitment and succession planning.”

She added: “Our colleges tell us governors do not take on the role for reward and remuneration, rather from a sense of civic duty and pride in their communities.

“However, the recommendation on this matter in the report is more about providing clear guidance to colleges. We welcome clarity on technical issues that will free colleges to make the best decisions for their boards and their communities.”

A spokesperson for the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association said: “[Skills Minister] Matthew Hancock should be applauded for commissioning this review and we are pleased that sixth form colleges were included in the scope of the project.

“Good governance has been key to the success of our sector, but it is important to explore how governance could and should evolve as we enter an era of greater autonomy.

“We look forward to working with the AoC and government to help implement the recommendations in the report.”

Union votes in favour of strike action at Lesoco

A London college has been added to the ranks of those facing industrial action as staff up and down the country react to the threat of hundreds of job losses.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Lesoco — a merger of Lewisham College and Southwark College with campuses in Lewisham, Deptford (pictured), Waterloo, Bermondsey and Camberwell — have voted in favour of strike action in a row over cuts to courses and, FE Week understands, the threat of 35 job losses.

The union has ongoing disputes at colleges in Sheffield, Chesterfield, Kirklees, Grimsby Institute, Croydon and Lambeth.

And the first protest at Lesoco is due to take place Wednesday, July 17, from 1pm-2.45pm.

More than four out of five (86 per cent) UCU members who took part in the ballot voted in favour of strike action, with 96 per cent voting in favour of other forms of industrial action that would not include wholesale walk-outs.

The union said staff were angry at proposals to close the college’s award-winning floristry department.

Staff and students from the floristry department have won gold and bronze medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, created floral displays for Gordon Ramsay’s London restaurants and taught floristry to teams on the BBC’s Young Apprentice programme.

The science department is also at risk, according to the union, as is the college’s Access to Higher Education department, which runs courses aimed at people considering education or training later in life face cuts and job losses.

Meanwhile, the college has shut down two nurseries used by students with young children, and sacked staff, according to the union.

UCU London regional official Chris Powell said: “The ballot result reflects the deep anger and disillusionment among staff at Lesoco.

“Just twelve months ago, it was a very different picture when staff were full of optimism that the newly merged college was going to be an exciting place to work that helped and supported our local communities.

“Instead the college is ignoring the voices of staff and students and closing down educational opportunities for the very people who need them most.”

UCU accused the college of having failed to carry out a proper consultation on the proposals and, following Wednesday’s protest, the union will consider the possibility of further industrial action.

Principal Maxine Room CBE said: “We are committed to providing education to enable local people to get into work, employment and further education.

“The courses we provide are based on demand from the local community, the skills employers want and need, and the quality of what we do.

“We continually review our provision on this basis to ensure that our offer remains fit for purpose which can lead, as in this case, to changes to provision.”

FE mergers and acquisitions are logical steps towards increasing educational sophistication

Forget egos and government indecision: mergers and acquisitions are logical steps towards increasing educational sophistication, says David Sherlock.

I’ve come at merger from all ends. As a college principal I fought off an inappropriate merger and ended chairing a subject-based consortium.

As head of Central Saint Martin’s I was part of a federation that seemed to have pulled off the unenviable trick of creating a whole that was less than the sum of the parts.

In 10 years as chief inspector of the Adult Learning Inspectorate I saw more than my share of thriving and busted mergers, and absorbed the sobering lesson in  the University of Warwick’s classic study: most mergers fail to satisfy the hopes of those who promote them.

And I have spent a rewarding day during the Lingfield review of staff professionalism listening to Jackie Fisher and her staff talking about the scope for learning from the good practice found in every new organisation acquired by a £200m turnover outfit such as the Newcastle College Group.

That doesn’t make me an expert but it does mean that my views are seasoned by personal experience.

The motives for combining organisations range from an inability to compete with a more powerful neighbour in breadth of curricula, to inherited financial or academic weakness, to inability to build capital from the diminishing margins available from government funding to keep buildings and plant up-to-date, to the kind of vanity projects sponsored by vainglorious chief executives or funding body managers that Phil Frier, interim principal of K College, mentioned in his FE Week Expert piece of Monday, June 24 [edition 71].

The structures that might save the business are just as various. They include developing vertically integrated services from nursery school through University Technical College to university on a single campus; formal or informal consortia that give the members access to anything from a limited number of shared, efficiently procured, services, to a common contract with Education Funding Agency and the Skills Funding Agency; to retained operational independence within a local plan developed with other providers, a local enterprise partnership, local employers and the local authority, as Richard and Heseltine might recommend; to corporate merger.

The mistake is to wait until market forces propel one organisation so close to collapse that a rescue has to be cobbled together in haste.”

The varied reputation of merger in FE rests on a piece of public-sector doublespeak. The distinction between Type A and Type B ‘mergers’ is not, as Mr Frier suggests, meaningless bureaucracy associated with the Treasury’s evaluation model.

It is the difference between acquisition of one organisation by another, resulting in total absorption, and the willing combination of equals to form something new and better.

If we talked openly about mergers and acquisitions in FE, instead of just mergers, we would gain a clearer understanding of both the process and its social dynamics.

Most of the ‘mergers’ in FE are, in fact, the acquisition of an organisation teetering on the brink of failure by another that is healthier, usually prompted by a government agency anxious to avoid embarrassment.

There are good reasons for sensible merger. The mistake is to wait until market forces propel one organisation so close to collapse that a rescue has to be cobbled together in haste.

Make no mistake, the ‘terms of trade’ change when you create fewer, bigger, providers. If you admire the example of Australian TAFE (technical and further education), rationalise English FE so that each college serves a similar proportion of the national population as does a TAFE institute and you would end up with around 120 to 150 FE colleges, each with sufficient turnover to sustain its own needs for capital formation.

In the past 40 years, mergers and acquisitions have taken universities from an average of 5,000 students to more than 20,000. They are controversial in FE only because of their entanglement with individual ego and governmental indecision.

David Sherlock, director of Beyond Standards Ltd

Apprenticeship funding should be rerouted through the tax system

Highly-skilled jobs needn’t be the reserve of graduates, says Michael Davis. For him, a change in apprenticeships funding might allow them to solve the country’s youth unemployment problem.

For the past 18 months, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has been working on proposals to change the way public and private investment in skills align to produce better jobs and growth outcomes.

It’s a big challenge, and there’s no magic solution, but one way of helping is to change the way public funding flows around the apprenticeship system.

By routing the government’s contribution to apprenticeships directly through employers we can make them the system’s true customers; carrying the responsibility and reward for ensuring they invest wisely in the skills needed for business success.

The background is this — youth unemployment is serious, but the challenging economic circumstances of the last six years are not the sole cause. The labour market has seen a long-term decline in the number of entry level jobs, and, critically, there are too few good jobs for young people.

It’s not that the jobs aren’t there. Employment in highly-skilled, technical, managerial and professional roles has grown by more than 900,000 over the course of the recession and recovery and this growth is set to continue.

In the decade from 2010, growth in these jobs will stand at 1.9m — more than 13 times greater than the 140,000 growth forecast for the sales and elementary occupations that young people rely on for their first jobs.

But the employers who specialise in highly-skill roles are the least likely to recruit young people and, where they do, they tend to rely on graduates.

Employers should be able to claim tax relief via Pay As You Earn (PAYE) when they commit to employing an apprentice.”

Creating more non-graduate routes into technical, professional and managerial jobs would offer opportunity and feed employers young talent. Apprenticeships are a proven way of delivering highly productive, well trained and loyal staff, access to a successful career for young people and strong benefits for the exchequer and the economy as a whole.

Yet only 15 per cent of UK employers offer them.

The commission’s perspective is that we must return apprenticeships to their founding principle — a contract between the apprentice and the employer.

They should be funded accordingly — paid for, and valued by, the employer.

Our simple proposal is that employers should be able to claim tax relief via Pay As You Earn (PAYE) when they commit to employing an apprentice, provided the apprenticeship meets quality standards, including decent pay and conditions, high quality training and the opportunity to progress.

This is a fundamental difference that positions employers as purchasers of services from colleges and training providers, while also placing the responsibility for the success of that investment with them.

Our proposal is completely consistent with Doug Richard’s recommendations in his review of apprenticeships, which the commission supported.

Led by Scott Johnson, a successful small business entrepreneur, and one of our commissioners, UKCES has had constructive discussions with employers, employer groups, college and trade union leaders on thinking through how such a model could work.

Clearly there is more detail to be considered as changes to the tax system are not made lightly.

But it is encouraging that the Chancellor’s, in the recent Spending Review, announced there would be a consultation on options for major reform of apprenticeship funding, including use of HMRC’s PAYE system.

The current system has delivered results — apprenticeships are now available in more sectors of the economy and to more people than ever before.

However, they are yet to be embedded as the new norm.

To achieve this, we need to continue to raise standards and engage more employers, especially small businesses, in providing high quality apprenticeships.

Michael Davis, chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills