A business that tried to charge young people £25 each to register for apprenticeships has apparently closed following pressure from FE leaders who feared it was a “scam”.

Matthew Peck launched the Apprenticeships Portal website this month, emailing 200 secondary schools and asking them to forward a message to Year 11 pupils that advised them to sign up with his firm.

His website asked students to pay £25 per person to register and displayed an 0906 premium rate contact number, which costs £1.53p per minute.

It also claimed to have “thousands of posts open”, however there appeared to be no employers listed on the website.

It led to a number of worried readers contacting FE Week with concerns that the National Apprenticeship Service did the same job for free.

However, Mr Peck said he closed the business and website on Tuesday — earlier the same day he was contacted by FE Week.

He said: “This was not a scam. I shut the business because I kept getting abuse from vested interests who emailed me.

“We had to charge £25 per person to cover business costs, like paying the girl who answered the phone. If a young person walked into a hairdressers and paid for a haircut, you wouldn’t question that.

“I wasn’t really expecting the young people to pay — I thought their parents would cover the cost.”

He also claimed it was not unusual to use a premium rate phone line.

Mr Peck said: “Lots of government agencies use the same rate. The idea was to reduce call volume. “Otherwise, I would have had thousands of students calling me from all over the country, which I could not have coped with.

“Basically, I put an idea out there, but it never really took off. Nobody registered with me, or even called the number, so no-one lost any money. The only person who lost out was me, as I paid to set up the business and develop the website.”

Lindsay McCurdy, from Apprenticeships4England, warned her members about the Apprenticeships Portal before it closed.

She said: “I was worried this might be a scam and put a warning up on LinkedIn.

“It was morally wrong of them to try to charge young people for the service. If anyone should be asked to pay it should be the employers.

“I’m proud that it looks like collective pressure from the sector forced this man to close down his business. It showed how FE can work together for the good of learners.”

A Skills Funding Agency spokesperson said they were aware of the Apprenticeships Portal.

He said: “Through our business development team, we have been contacting schools and partners to advise them to avoid unwittingly using this website for apprenticeship opportunities.

“The National Apprenticeship Service is the official website, at www.apprenticeships.org.uk, which is a free site for learners, providers and employers to access apprenticeship opportunities.”

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Colleges offer 72,000 apprenticeships for 16 to 19-year-olds per year. Young people don’t have to register and don’t have to pay to access them.

“They just have to pop down to their local college to see what’s on offer.”

———————————————————————————————————————–

Editorial: Protecting the learners

It may not have been illegal for the Apprenticeships Portal to try to charge young people £25 to register for apprenticeships, but it certainly left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

So the FE sector can feel proud to have come together to say no to this offer – whether legitimate or not.

It is hard enough already for the sector to present itself in a positive light to pupils, and this ‘service’ could have seriously undermined efforts to not only recruit more apprentices but, more importantly, make apprenticeships appear a safe and credible career path.

This should be seen as a shot across the bows for the National Careers Service, as the whole episode would indicate there may well be a gap in the market for providing easy-to-understand information about apprenticeships.

Every effort must be made to promote how apprenticeships offer an attractive progression route from school.

Nick Linford, editor

 

The demise of access to apprenticeship (AtA) has led to a call for colleges to be allowed to use cash for the programme on 16 to 18 traineeships instead.

Funding rules currently stop colleges using money for AtA, which the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) is closing to new starts from next year, to pay for traineeships.

The traineeship programme is seen as the replacement for AtAs, which close to new starts at the end of the year, with both designed to act as pre-apprenticeship courses.

However, the Education Funding Agency (EFA), through its study programmes budget, pays for 16 to 18 traineeships at college, while AtAs for the same age group are funded through the SFA’s adult skills budget.

But a number of colleges have already turned down the opportunity to run 16 to 18 traineeships, warning that their budgets were already stretched.

It has resulted in the suggestion that colleges be allowed to shift money from their 16 to 18 AtA budget because the end of the programme means the cash is unlikely to be spent — and could even be clawed back by government.

Graham Howe (pictured), West Nottinghamshire College vice principal for business development, warned that learners could be affected if AtA money couldn’t be spent on traineeships.

He said: “If the traineeship programme is to be truly successful, and see the positive work that we do in our college with young people and employers continue to thrive and grow, the system must allow colleges to utilise the 16 to 18 AtA budget to deliver traineeship programmes.

“If this does not happen, we will see a reduction in the opportunities available to young people to engage with the apprenticeship programme.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE), which oversees the EFA, said: “If a college on an EFA contract wants to recruit more traineeship students than they are funded for, they are free to do so and will receive an increased allocation in the next year to make up for this.”

More than 7,000 learners did an AtA in 2011/12, followed by a provisional 4,200 for the first three quarters of last year.

An SFA spokeperson said: “Following the successful introduction of traineeships in August, AtA will close to new starts from January.

“We will continue to fund any learners on AtA programmes at that time to complete their programme.

“As AtA programmes are intended to last no longer than six months, we expect that these learners will have progressed onto a full apprenticeship by July.”

But while the DfE said it had not set a target for traineeships, the AtA figures have left cash-strapped college leaders uneasy at the thought of forking out to run similar numbers of 16 to 18 traineeships this year, but having to wait until next year to be paid.

“Our volumes of 16 to 18 traineeships will be restricted as financially the college has already surpassed its 16 to 18 EFA target and any additional activity has to be resourced from within the college as the EFA lag model prevents any in-year increases in funding allocations,” said Mr Howe.

“Therefore any 16 to 18 traineeship activity delivered in-year would mean no income in-year, but potential growth of EFA numbers in 2014/15, depending upon the consistent application of past EFA funding policy.”

The DfE spokesperson said: “We have always been clear that the size of the traineeships programme, which is still in its first year, will be determined by demand from employers and young people.”

Youth guarantees and youth levies figure among new proposals from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) aimed at ensuring more than a million young people do not fall into the Neet (not in education, employment or training) trap.

The think-tank, in the last of its three reports this month, recommends a ‘youth allowance’ to replace existing out of work benefits for 18 to 24-year-olds. It would provide financial support for young people who need it, conditional on participation in purposeful training or intensive job search.

No More Neets also calls for a ‘youth guarantee’ to be established, offering access to FE or vocational training plus intensive support to find work. For those not learning or earning after six months, mandatory paid work experience and traineeships should be provided.

Large firms should also either offer apprenticeships to young people, in proportion to their size, or pay a ‘youth levy’ towards the costs of training young people.

Meanwhile, London and eight ‘core cities’ should take on resources and responsibility for young people, with Westminster setting national objectives.

Graeme Cooke (pictured above), IPPR research director, said: “In contrast to previous initiatives and attempts at reform in this area – Connexions, the New Deals, the Work Programme and the Youth Contract – this strategy aims to solve the fundamental failures of the school-to-work transition system, rather than making up for them.”

The second of the IPPR’s reports, The Condition of Britain: Growing up and becoming an adult, argued that up to 50,000 16 to 18-year-olds were studying low-level courses that offered little or no job preparation or incentive toward further study. Almost 250,000 teenagers who left school without good qualifications were studying these courses but IPPR said that up to a fifth would be better off on an apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship training.

Kayte Lawton, senior research fellow at the IPPR, said: “Young people who don’t do well enough at school often end up taking colleges courses that don’t prepare them for work or further study. Many of these courses don’t include decent work experience and often fail to lead to a recognised qualification.”

She added: “We need to see big changes to the way that post-16 education works and we need employers to step up and offer more work experience to young people to help them learn the skills they need to get on in the workplace. We can’t expect schools to do this by themselves.”

But the claims were attacked by Association of Colleges president Michelle Sutton.

She said: “In two years, colleges turn the majority of these students around, helping them find employment or continue to further study. Therefore it’s not true to describe such courses as dead-end because they are often important stepping stones.”

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “The finding that those who take level two courses are more likely to become Neet than those on A-levels is unsurprising, and to imply the reason is mainly to do with the design of level two programmes is simplistic and potentially misleading.”

Tens of thousands of 16 to 18-year-olds are taking dead-end courses that will end with no job and will turn them off education and training, a policy think-tank has warned.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) claimed huge numbers of late teens were facing the Neet (not in education, employment or training) scrapheap by studying low-level courses that offer little or no job preparation or incentive toward further study.

Almost 250,000 teenagers who left school without good qualifications are studying these courses but IPPR says that up to a fifth would be better off on an apprenticeship or in stronger forms of pre-apprenticeship training.

The IPPR’s new report, which is part of its flagship Condition of Britain project, is the second in a series of three on young people, work and benefits that it is publishing this month.

It shows that more than half a million young people who left education with just a low level qualification are not in work.

Kayte Lawton, senior research fellow at the IPPR, said: “Most young people don’t choose to walk away from work or education, but most employers won’t hire teenagers any more.

“Young people who don’t do well enough at school often end up taking colleges courses that don’t prepare them for work or further study. Many of these courses don’t include enough decent work experience and often fail to lead to a recognised qualification.

“School-leavers used to be able to get good jobs in manufacturing and office work that didn’t need lots of qualifications but were a source of self-respect as well as a decent pay packet. Now, low-skilled jobs in service industries are often badly paid and lacking in status, but also require skills like relating to customers that many young jobseekers have yet to learn.

“We need to see big changes to the way that post-16 education works and we need employers to step up and offer more work experience to young people to help them learn the skills they need to get on in the workplace. We can’t expect schools to do this by themselves.”

The new IPPR analysis shows that, between 2006 and 2010, more than one-in-five of those studying for a level two qualification at age 16/17 and 17/18 ends up Neet by the time they are 19/20, and nearly in one in four doing level one courses ends up Neet. The group is more than three times as likely to be Neet at age 19/20, than those studying for A/AS-levels at the same ages.

IPPR’s new report shows that more than half a million (560,000) young people who left education with just a low level qualification are not in work. It also shows that the lower the level of your qualifications, the less likely you are to find a job.

It comes ahead of the publication of the latest statistics on the number of young Neets. Labour Force Survey research showed in August that the proportion of England’s 16 to 24-year-olds who were Neet between April and June was down on the same period last year by 51,000 (0.8 percentage points) to 935,000 (15.5 per cent).

The IPPR report, The Condition of Britain: Growing up and becoming an adult, is out today. It used data from the Youth Cohort Study between 2006 and 2010 to track what happens to 17 and 18-year-olds in education.

Further education colleges in England are set to be hit by staff strikes over pay early next month.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) are expected to take industrial action on Tuesday, December 3.

More than two-thirds (71 per cent) of UCU members who voted backed strike action after employers offered a pay rise of 0.7 per cent, which, the union says, would leave staff with a 15 per cent pay cut in real terms over the past four years.

Michael MacNeil, the union’s head of bargaining, said: “This result is a reflection of our members’ anger at the employers’ refusal to do anything to address falling pay at a time when the cost of living continues to rise.

“College lecturers have seen their pay fall by 15 per cent in the past four years and fail to make up any ground against school teachers’ pay, despite increasing workloads.”

The UCU strike vote comes despite the Association of Colleges (AoC) having reached agreement on pay with Unison, AMiE, ATL, UNITE and GMB through the National Joint Forum (NJF).

Emma Mason, director of employment policy and services at the AoC, said: “We are disappointed that UCU members have voted to take strike action following their ballot on the union’s decision to reject the national pay recommendation.

“Their decision stands in stark contrast to the response of the other five nationally-recognised unions who have accepted the recommendation and reached agreement with us in the NJF.

“The pay recommendation for 2013/14 is for a 0.7 per cent increase and £282 for staff earning £14,052 or less and increases the recommended minimum hourly rate to £7.45 in line with the UK Living Wage.

“This offer reflects the very real financial constraints our member colleges are facing.

“Since 2010, government funding to colleges has reduced by 25 per cent with a cut of £250m in this year alone.

“The forum agreement explicitly acknowledges the financial pressures on colleges and recognises that it is subject to affordability at the local college level.

“UCU’s pursuit of an and unrealistic 5 per cent pay claim and its threat of industrial action risks damaging the education and training of students, undermines the reputation of colleges both locally and nationally and places an undue burden on non-teaching staff and non-union members to take measures to minimise disruption to the student experience.”