Keeping apprentice assessment and commercial interests apart

How do you judge whether apprentices are truly prepared to qualify, and who decides? Iain Macdonald puts the case for an independent body.

Much has been said about apprenticeships over the last year and the debate came to a head last month with publication of the government’s Future of Apprenticeships in England: Implementation Plan.

What has been particularly heartening is the recognition that employers are central to the process and require more certainty that the apprenticeships they are offered are fit for purpose.

Building on the recommendations of the Richard Review, the government’s plan calls for apprentices to undertake an independent assessment of competence at the end of their training, where the industry determines appropriateness.

Coming from an industry where health and safety procedures are vitally important and operatives often work alone and unsupervised with hazardous equipment and procedures, this is something I fully endorse.

By placing the delivery of assessments in the hands of an impartial, industry-led body, employers eliminate the risk of commercial and other interests diluting the rigour of the assessment process

The assessment process that has applied to the electrotechnical industry since 1985 provides proof that the candidate is ready, willing and capable of applying what they have learned during their training in a set of structured assessment exercises intended to provide as near to a real-world scenario as possible before they finally qualify.

Such final assessments should be determined by industry and our experience has shown should preferably be delivered by an independent, non-profit organisation to ensure employers have access to an effective, neutral advocate in the development and maintenance of assessment standards.

The apprentice’s chosen industry should take the lead in determining the content, length and nature of the assessment exercises.

And employers should be demanding that the candidates demonstrate skills at qualification which they can deploy to the advantage of those that are sponsoring their training.

There would be three benefits to adopting this approach.

First, it would allow the companies from within an industry to agree the core competencies they need from their employees at qualification.

In turn, this would ensure the apprenticeship and the final assessment are broadly centred on developing and testing those competencies.

And finally, it would provide employers with a structure for developing their apprentice’s skills on site and a fair degree of certainty that once they have passed the final assessment, their trainee is truly work-ready.

But what about administering the assessment? I mentioned the need for an independent, not-for-profit custodian, created to represent the industry, and this is something I believe is crucial.

By placing the delivery of assessments in the hands of an impartial, industry-led body, employers eliminate the risk of commercial and other interests diluting the rigour of the assessment process.

Putting control of final assessments in the hands of training providers and FE colleges and others with a commercial interest in the outcome would not work as they will always be vulnerable to assertions that they have a conflict of interest.

If final assessments are conducted independently of training delivery then all parties to the apprenticeship can focus on developing and delivering a high quality apprenticeship experience capable of meeting the industry’s benchmarks and providing a steady supply of trained professionals performing to industry standards.

This approach would ensure the apprenticeship system across all industries continues to deliver high quality candidates to industries which are in need of skills.

Apprenticeships would move a step nearer to closing the quality gap perceived by many employers and others, such as universities; employers would be confident that they have an apprenticeship system in place which delivers the skills they will need in the future; and training providers could be confident they are delivering quality training that meets the needs of employers and industry.

And, by making independent assessment a part of the process, we can help protect and develop confidence in the apprenticeship brand, which will have the additional benefit of enhancing credibility and encouraging more participation.

Iain Macdonald, chief executive, National Electrotechnical Training, the independent training charity for the UK electrical installation industry

 

Stockport goes from grade one to four

A 9,000-learner college in Greater Manchester has plummeted from an outstanding Ofsted rating to inadequate.

Stockport College achieved the highest possible rating six years ago, but fell to grade four this month following a visit by the education watchdog last month.

The college, which has a current Skills Funding Agency allocation of £8.1m, was hit with inadequate ratings across each of the headline fields and told it needed to “rapidly improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment”.

The report said “too many” learners leave without achieving their qualifications and attendance was low with many students arriving late to lessons.

The new Stockport College building

“Leaders have not acted quickly to reverse the significant decline in student achievement,” it further said in the report, adding that quality assurance arrangements and self-assessment were “weak” and that the “quality of much of the accommodation and many resources is poor”.

Stephen Carlisle became principal at Stockport last November after a five-year spell in charge at Accrington & Rossendale College, where he had already been deputy principal for five years, achieving an outstanding grade in mid-2009.

He said: “We won’t regress from this report and as many of the weaknesses had already been identified through our self-assessment process, we are well under way at making the changes needed”.

Nevertheless, Stockport’s fall from grace has angered local MP Ann Coffey.

She told FE Week: “I will be seeking an urgent meeting with the principal to understand what has gone wrong and more importantly how this college is going to return to an outstanding grade.”

It was the third college to fall dramatically from outstanding under Ofsted’s current common inspection framework, introduced last academic year.

City of Liverpool College got grade fours in every headline inspection field in March — four years after it achieved an overall grade one.

Its principal, Elaine Bowker, took up post in mid-2011 having moved from a strategic director role at Manchester City Council.

And City of Bristol College fell from good to inadequate the following month.

Its principal, Lynn Merilion, had been in post for around six months having left her three-year principal role at Stockport College.

She had been at Stockport since 2001, initially as director of planning and quality, and since 2006 as deputy principal for curriculum and quality.

Both colleges were issued with notices of concern by the agency and Liverpool is yet to be the subject of an Ofsted monitoring report.

However, Stockport College had already been issued with a financial notice of concern — still in place — by the agency before Ofsted’s report.

Its financial problems include the 2011 axing of the second phase of a £100m rebuild after the Learning and Skills Council programme collapsed, despite the college already having invested £4m.

An agency spokesperson said the college would be getting another notice of concern in relation to the Ofsted result, adding: “We are considering the action to take in line with government policy as set out in Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills.”

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

Facing up to an Ofsted grade four result

Keeping its outstanding grade from Ofsted was always going to be tough, but being branded inadequate was still hard to take for Stockport College,

FE Week deputy editor Chris Henwood learns in an exclusive Q&A with principal Stephen Carlisle and his deputy, Karen Moss.

Chris Henwood:

How do you account for the fall from outstanding to inadequate?

Stephen Carlisle:

In the years since the last inspection, the college success rates, particularly on long courses, have declined and that’s at a time when the average for the sector has improved.

We always therefore felt that we would be in some difficulty maintaining our outstanding status. Our judgement was that we would require improvement as a college.

There were a number of issues within the college. I don’t want to make an excuse out of finances, but we had serious problems with our failed building programme that was part of the legacy of the Learning and Skills Council property fiasco.

Stephen Carlisle

We had problems in terms of restructuring the college on at least two occasions and having to make significant redundancies. I arrived last November and before I got here there was serious upheaval and that was reflected in stability of staff — maintaining the good staff — and things like there had been no pay award in the college for a number of years and clearly occasionally that leads to staff leaving or failing to recruit good staff because of pay rates.

CH:

What’s happening with regards the Skills Funding Agency’s financial notice of concern, issued before the inadequate grading?

SC:

We’ve been judged to be satisfactory with regards financial health, which is an improvement, however we still require another year of improving our financial position to get to good, and at that stage we expect to have the financial notice of concern lifted.

We’ve made savings in the college through fewer posts, we have sold a building and we have some money coming in from that. That improves our position in the sense that we can pay off some of our loans which are causing severe problems in terms of our ability to finance those year on year.

CH:

How many posts have been cut at the college as part of the efforts to improve your financial situation?

SC:

At the end of the last academic year we lost around 72 posts at the college — that’s about 10 per cent of our workforce.

CH:

Apart from the overall grade, what was the most disappointing element of the report?

Karen Moss:

We were inspected the last week of September, so obviously very early on — which we can do nothing about and we accept that — but Ofsted looked at a self-assessment report and data that went back to 2011/12, when our long course success rates at 16 to 18 were 78.6 per cent which we know was not good enough.

But at the close of 2012/13 our success rate for 16 to 18 long was 80.1 per cent. None of that was taken into consideration when they came in because they said our data was not yet complete. The overall long course success rate in 11/12 was 78.8 per cent. In 12/13 it was 80.3, so again an upward trend that came out two weeks after the inspection.

CH:

What is the post-inspection plan?

KM:

We’ve used the report as the basis for the post inspection action planning. We’re sharing this with all staff and they have had an input into the actions. All the management team have been action planning with the senior team. We’ve planned it out with deadlines, what we’re going to do about every aspect and we’ve already started taking actions against each of the categories, under leadership and management, outcomes for learners, etc.

‘Good quality’ college projects rejected by SFA

The Skills Funding Agency was forced to reject several “good quality” college projects to avoid an overspend in its 2014-15 capital budget, it has been claimed.

Chief executive of the Association of Colleges Martin Doel complained about the agency decisions in a letter to Skills Minister Matthew Hancock (pictured right).

Mr Doel claimed the projects could have been funded if the government allowed an underspend on its 2013-14 budget to be rolled over into next year.

He said: “The colleges concerned submitted expressions of interest in September 2013
and the agency’s staff have assessed them as projects worthy of funding on the basis of skills need, property improvement, and value for money.

“The agency had to turn these projects down to avoid an overspend in its 2014-15 capital budget, despite the possibility that an equivalent underspend is likely in 2013-2014.

“In addition, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS] is holding £100m in a national capital budget for 2015-2016.”

Mr Doel claimed restrictions stopping capital underspend from being rolled over to the following year were forcing the agency to reject larger projects that offered better value for money.

He alleged the agency was instead inviting bids from smaller projects simply because they could be completed faster.

Mr Doel suggested the agency should be allowed to transfer between £50m and £100m left over from its 2013-14 capital budget to the following year.

Otherwise, a “modest sum” should be released from its 2015-16 budget.

A spokesperson for the agency said it would “bear in mind” Mr Doel’s suggestion.

He added: “We continue to work closely with BIS, the association and sector representatives as we manage this significant allocation to ensure it obtains assurance that a robust, fair and transparent approach has been applied.

“Public funds will only be made available where there is a strong case for doing so.”

Mr Hancock failed to address the suggestion that the agency’s 2013-2014 underspend be allowed to roll over.

Nevertheless, he told FE Week: “We successfully secured a strong FE capital budget to support projects between now and 2015.

“We operate robust financial management arrangements to spend tax payers’ money wisely and avoid overspend and the consequences it can bring to the sector, something they know about from mistakes in the past.

“All projects approved meet value for money and financial management criteria and we will continue to work hard to improve college estates and provide a strong framework for capital.”

A Freedom of Information request has been lodged by FE Week to identify the colleges whose funding applications were rejected.

Apprenticeship award winners

Top apprentices were celebrated during the 10th annual National Apprenticeship Awards at the Skills Show last Thursday.

From left: Tim Campbell, Chris Jones from City & Guilds, Chloe Gailes and Skills Minister Matthew Hancock

Apprentices from across the country received awards recognising their achievements at intermed

iate, advanced and higher levels, and for championing apprenticeships.

The ceremony, held at the LG Arena in Birmingham, was hosted by Tim Campbell, winner of the first series of BBC TV show The Apprentice.

Mr Campbell said: “We’re here celebrating those apprentices who have taken those different paths and who have persevered and been successful.”

Intermediate Apprentice of the Year was won by Lydia Webster, aged 20, apprentice at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro, while IBM apprentice Sadie Hawkins, 20, took advanced Apprentice of the year.

Nick Clegg congratulates the Brathay Challenge winners

Jessica Kirby, 20, apprentice at Cirkle Communications was named Higher Apprentice of the Ye

ar and apprenticeship champion went to Chloe Gailes, 28, who trained with Barclays.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also spoke. He said: “You are all part of a very significant transformation indeed… in the way in which we celebrate skills, in which we celebrate learning whilst doing.”

A team of apprentices from Innovia Films were also crowned winners of the Brathay Challenge.

Gill Alton, principal, Rotherham College of Arts and Technology

Rotherham College of Arts and Technology had never been graded higher than a level three by Ofsted inspectors before Gillian Alton arrived.

But the institution achieved its first good inspection result this summer, three years after she was appointed principal.

“It’s just fantastic news that it’s now good,” says Doncaster-born Alton.

Given that the college had only ever been deemed “satisfactory” in the 20 years since its incorporation, three years was a comparatively rapid change of direction. But Alton, it seems, is no stranger to quick turnarounds.

She was in her 20s and working for a hotel company in Edinburgh, after completing a degree in hotel management, when she realised it was the training aspect of her job which appealed to her the most.

“The training bit really motivated me, to see people develop those skills and put them into practice and see that they got a lot from it,” she says.

She decided to apply for a hospitality management lecturing job in Leicester.

Gill Alton on a one-day flying experience with FE Week and Tribal

“I was surprised when I was shortlisted and I went along just to get the job interview experience really,” she says.

“I guess because I was not expecting to the get job, I was more relaxed and when they offered me it I was a bit shocked.

“They desperately needed somebody, so I started a few weeks later.

“One of the interview panel had a spare room and because I had no opportunity to look for anywhere to stay, I ended up staying there for a whole month.”

Then after two years at Leicester College, Alton made another decision that would radically change her life.

“I was on a trip to London and walked past one of the travel shops. I walked in and started asking what sort of round-the-world trips there were and by the time they’d told me, I’d booked one,” she says.

“So I went back in on the Monday and went ‘oh no, I’ve got to go and tell the principal’.

“I felt I owed it to him — because he appointed me — to explain that although I really loved the college, I wanted to do this with my life as well.

“He actually said to me, ‘If you want to have an unpaid leave of absence, we’d like you back. Just drop me a postcard from wherever you are, whenever you’re ready to come back’.”

Alton credits her mother, Margaret, for her love of travelling.

But she always said how important it was for us all to do well in education

Alton’s father John died of cancer, leaving Margaret with Alton and her three brothers all under the age of five.

“Then, when we were all under the age of ten, she upped sticks and took us all away to Africa for a year,” she says.

“We were schooled in Africa, but we also travelled, so we went to Victoria Falls and on safari and we travelled through South Africa and lived in Botswana. I just think her love of travel made it really exciting for me.”

Margaret, now 80, is still a keen traveller.

“She still spends 70 to 80 days a year travelling the world. Every time I ring her she says ‘I’m just about to book another holiday’,” explains Alton.

“There is nowhere my mother hasn’t been, she’s a fantastic traveller. She goes on her own, she’s had to, as she never remarried. She just lives as a single person, but loves it and embraces life.”

John and Margaret were teachers from Doncaster’s mining community and, Alton thinks, were both the first in their families to go to university. They instilled in Alton an understanding of the value of education, she says, although Margaret eventually became disenchanted with her profession.

“She always said ‘never be a teacher’. She’d lost the love of it by the time she retired, although she decided to give Women’s Institute talks and things like that. She still enjoyed the sort of storytelling bit of it, she just lost interest in being in the classroom,” says Alton.

“That’s why she retired early — because she realised how important it was to be motivated by what you do and she stopped being motivated.

“But she always said how important it was for us all to do well in education. She’s got four kids who’ve got a good work ethic and who have all been in employment all their lives.”

It was Margaret’s influence that led to Alton’s degree in hotel management.

“Mum always encouraged us to have part-time jobs, so I washed up in a restaurant kitchen,” says Alton.

“It was dreadful, but then I spotted that waitressing looked like a nicer, cleaner job, so I wangled my way into it.

“I absolutely loved waitressing because you met different people. I always made good tips. It was fun because it used your brain a bit more, it was social.

“I waitressed right through my A-levels and thought, ‘You know what, I might do hotel management’.”

Her waitressing skills served her well in Australia on her round-the-world trip. After returning to her job in Leicester, Alton decided she wanted to emigrate to Australia, but took a job at Doncaster College to be near her family before she left. Once again, however, life went off at an unexpected tangent.

“I didn’t think it was going to be a long-term job in Doncaster. I thought I’d do a couple of years there and then emigrate,” she says.

“But when I arrived, the head of department had been ill for some time and after six months he retired on health grounds and nobody else particularly wanted to do the job.

“In the interim of him being ill, somebody had to pick up some of those aspects of the job, so I’d started to do a bit of that work. I applied and got the job and then the rest just swept along really.

“I managed three departments. They weren’t huge departments, but they took up a lot of my time and I never got round to filling all the forms in.”

After a few years, she moved to The Grimsby Institute, where she stayed for 13 years, and met her husband and “soul-mate” Colin.

“Then I got a call from the Association of Colleges — they called 100 other people as well — to ask ‘was I was interested in the Rotherham job?’” she says.

“I applied and got it, which I’m delighted with. It’s best the job I’ve ever had. I absolutely love having the opportunity to shape the way colleges develop and watch the influence that has on colleagues and students.”

Alton and Colin married in Antigua two years ago after 13 years together. They now live in an old coachhouse near Grimsby, with two golden labradors, Digger and Bauer.

“I fell in love with the house when I saw it and I haven’t moved. When I worked in Grimsby, I bought the house and now I’ve moved to Rotherham I just travel,” she says.

For all her wanderlust, Alton says, “it’s nice to come home to something I really love. Home’s home isn’t it?”

She also says she has no plans to move on from Rotherham College and is optimistic about the chances of transforming that good grade into an elusive outstanding.

“We’re already on our way, we’ve got it planned,” she says.

“We hope we’re only two years away from saying to Ofsted ‘would you like to come back and tell us why we’re not outstanding?’”

It’s a personal thing

Favourite book?

The books I’ve read recently that I’ve really, really enjoyed would be the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) by Stieg Larsson

 

If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?

I like people who make me laugh, so I think I would go with Lee Mack, Peter Kay and my husband, Colin — he’s very funny. That’s what attracted me to him in the first place

 

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Anything to do with travel. I could have carried Alan Wicker’s bags or Judith Chalmers’s bags

 

What’s your pet hate?

Prejudice

 

What do you do to switch off from work?

I catch up with friends, walk the dogs and watch films

Last piece of Elmfield sold off to NCG

The last piece of troubled provider Elmfield has been sold off after the company went into administration last month.

Fifty staff who had delivered the provider’s apprenticeships for supermarket giant Morrisons have been taken on by NCG (formerly Newcastle College Group) to see out the contract.

Joe Docherty

It had already taken on the contract for new Morrisons apprentices in May with its Intraining arm.

But the latest deal means apprentices who had started with Elmfield before May’s agreement — and who would therefore have stayed with Elmfield — will now move over to NCG, which paid £20,000 for the transfer of learners and other costs.

An NCG spokesperson said it had also agreed to pay its new staff backdated wages and expenses left outstanding from Elmfield’s demise.

Joe Docherty (pictured right), NCG chief executive, said: “As we were recently successful at winning delivery of new apprenticeship work for Morrisons it makes sense that we also take on existing provision now Elmfield’s business has been sold on.

Joe Docherty

“We can ensure that the same high standards of training which so impressed Morrisons in our bid can now be applied to all current staff on their programmes as well.”

Mickey Greenhalgh, Morrisons head of craft and functional skills, said: “We are pleased to extend our relationship with Newcastle College Group as it makes sense for our learners to be accredited by one organisation.”

The rest of the Elmfied business had already been sold to EQL Solutions Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary CareTech Holdings plc, as part of a pre-pack insolvency for a cash payment of £1.5m. Elmfield staff working on non-Morrisons contracts transferred to EQL.

Elmfield had been deemed inadequate by Osfted in May and was issued with a notice of concern by the Skills Funding Agency. The notice prevented it from taking on new learners. It then faced allegations of malpractice and finally went into administration.

The Morrisons contract was at the centre of the malpractice accusations, when it was alleged the company signed up staff to do apprenticeships — thereby allowing it to claim government funding — despite their having turned the programme down.

Elmfield founder Ged Sydall still faces a grilling from the Business, Innovation and Skills House of Commons Select Committee over the malpractice accusations.

Morrisons, CareTech and NCG are not accused of any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Lancashire-based training provider Training for Travel has gone into administration after being stripped of its £2.5m Skills Funding Agency contract following a damning Ofsted grade four inspection result and monitoring visit report.

Challenges and opportunities for colleges

Martin Doel

Association of Colleges chief executive Martin Doel takes time out of his busy conference preparation schedule to tell FE Week what he thinks are the five main challenges and the five main opportunities for colleges in the coming year.

 

CHALLENGES

 

1. Overlapping change programmes

“It’s overlapping simultaneous change programmes conducted at high pace, and that’s impacting on colleges.

“The issue is of course that colleges provide all of those things. Schools are looking at GCSE changes and maybe A-levels.

“Colleges have got both of those, then they’ve got changes to the vocational education system, introducing traineeships, changes to the apprenticeship framework and then they’re looking at some changes around HE is funded.”

2. Funding

“In schools, students are funded at least 20 per cent higher than for a 16 to 18-year-old, but now we’re picking up all those young people who have not succeeded in maths and English at schools and have two years to sort it out.

“So poor old colleges are being saddled with school failure and then paid 20 per cent less to try and sort it out — there doesn’t seem to be any accountability on schools.

“And you might say schools ought to be fined for every young person that doesn’t get grade A-C in English and maths, with the money that generates going to colleges to finish schools’ job.

“There’s something about investment there, I think there’s a real threat to funding levels for adult provision.”

3. Maths and English

“This challenge is huge and it’s not a big
philosophical one, colleges accept the task but you then have to re-align your workforce.

“The OECD report said our functional numeracy and literacy were poor, or have not improved at the same degree as other countries.

“And it’s not that GCSE maths and English have not improved in terms of pass rates, they have — but functional literacy and numeracy have not improved.

“That doesn’t tell me that GCSE maths and English are easy to pass, it’s actually that they’re not good proxies for functional maths and English — the types of maths and English people use throughout their lives. Requiring colleges to continue to teach GCSE to young people who have failed consistently to achieve academic maths and English is just continuing to bang their heads against the same wall for another two years, which just seems false on any number of levels.

“Addressing this issue is a core FE mission, but to do that we need to have the tools to do it, the resources but also the curriculum— it really is a very substantial task.”

4. Landscape

“There are challenges around landscape with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), city deals, employer ownership pilot. So we’ve got LEPs, CDs (City Deals), and EOP (Employer Ownership Pilots), and whatever other set of acronyms to describe the people that colleges deal with, and the challenge is how they cope with all of those people.”

5. Deficit agenda

“It’s always seductive to create a crisis in order to get something done, but creating the crisis can create issues with college reputation as well.

“College reputation goes from ‘we’re the unheralded triumph of British education’, down to ‘there’s not enough colleges’, to ‘the tale of underperforming colleges is too long’, to come up saying ‘colleges are getting better’.

“There are great big waves, whereas with university reputation, change programmes become like speed humps rather than great big mountains you have to go through.

“The real challenge is to keep things on an even keel — colleges are around a hundred years ago, they’ll be here in another hundred years, they’ll still be doing a good job in spite of all the change.

“The AoC needs to be doing its job well with other college organisations, to actually push back on the deficit agenda.

“We need to stay true to what we do… listening to what’s been said, what the relevant criticism is and responding to it but not letting that take hold.”

 

OPPORTUNITIES

1. Freedom related to accountability

“I think there’s a real opportunity for colleges now that school sixth forms will be measured on the same basis as colleges, and we’ve been asking for this for a long time.

“Yes, some colleges won’t look as good as some schools, but as a group I think they will find a longer tale of underperformance in school sixth forms — and the only way that’s been masked is when students leave not having completed their studies, schools are not held to account.

“So often they go onto a college and then succeed, but the school isn’t penalised.

“But if at college the student leaves before completing the course, that’s marked down against the college.”

“And there’s the whole issue of non-completions of A-levels, where students either take three years to get an A-level because they go to somewhere that helps them to succeed, or they move to a vocational programme until they’re 19 or to 20, where often they should have completed a year earlier.

“That all links back to getting careers advice and guidance right so they start the right course.”

2. Governance

“The accountability framework, if it’s handled properly, should drive the opportunities for colleges. I think you can see it as a challenge to governance, but I think the whole greater freedom agenda in Susan Pember’s report this is week about stepping up to the mark to take advantage of opportunities even though that brings greater responsibility in terms of accountability. Governance is going to be a bigger thing in the future.”

3. Working with employers

“Working with employers is a challenge, but also a real opportunity. If you look at Frank McLoughlin’s report, Nigel Whitehead’s report, and Doug Richard’s report, the common theme is they see more room for colleges and providers to work directly with employers and give employers what they want… rather than having to go through 15 intermediaries before we get to our customers.”

4. Social enterprises

“I think the other thing being talked about recently is colleges becoming social enterprises. I think they’re enterprising and entrepreneurial, my concern is whether or not they’ve got the available capital — there’s a reason why people go on Dragons’ Den, to get the money to actually get on and do it.

“Doug Richard wants us to be social enterprises, and I think colleges need a bit of
head room to be able to get up and do that. But I think growing social enterprises is an opportunity to really be in the centre of things.”

5. Change

“I may have said overlapping simultaneous change programmes were a challenge, but although it’s hard to see, in that lives an opportunity for the most agile business-aware organisations that can manage change most effectively and in my experience … I’ve never seen a sector that’s more up for continuous change, and has just got used to it, like this one, so out of that change and real challenge, there’s an opportunity… which allows us some space to say, ‘yes we’re up for change’, we don’t need to be beaten over the head to do things and get continually better… just give us a chance to do it…

The Association of Colleges’ three-day Annual Conference and Exhibition takes place November 19 to 21 in Birmingham’sInternational Convention Centre.

Stepping stone qualifications not ruled out by government

The government has declined to rule out a new GCSE “stepping stone” qualification for struggling apprentices.

The Department for Education (DfE) last month said new English and maths GCSEs would be incorporated into apprenticeships from 2017.

They are set to replace functional skills, which will be scrapped.

But FE leaders warned that vocational learners who couldn’t get GCSE grades C or above might struggle if they faced resitting the same exams to pass apprenticeships.

They have called for an interim qualification which, it was claimed, would boost confidence and knowledge, and improve the chances of passing full GCSEs.

A DfE spokesperson told FE Week: “No decision has been taken on this.”

She added: “It is our ambition that once the reformed GCSEs are implemented, all apprentices will use GCSEs rather than functional skills to meet the English and maths requirements in apprenticeships.”

The Association of Colleges called for stepping stone qualifications in a consultation published last month on the new GCSEs.

Senior policy manager Teresa Frith told FE Week she was pleased to hear the association’s suggestion had not been ruled out.

She said: “There is an opportunity here we will be pursuing to make sure new-look GCSEs meet the needs of apprentices and other students.

“We would certainly not support any system that prevented a young person from accessing an apprenticeship based solely on their ability in maths and English.”

Carol Snape, chief executive of awarding body OCN Eastern Region, said: “If the Prime Minister’s aim that everyone should either go to university or an apprenticeship is to be achieved, it is vital the design of the new apprenticeships includes stepping stone qualifications.

“With good use of bite-sized qualifications, learners can gain formal recognition as they

Stewart Segal

 progress towards, ultimately, taking their GCSE.”

Stewart Segal (pictured), chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “Although our submission to the consultation [on the new GCSEs] did not specifically call for ‘stepping stone’ qualifications, we called for flexibility and expressed concerns about single exam and terminal assessment not suiting all candidates.

“We would also want to keep functional skills until the content, assessment strategy and flexibility of exam structure is appropriate for the work place.”

Information Authority board scrapped by BIS

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has scrapped the Information Authority (IA) board.

It was announced on November 11 that decision making on what FE and skills data should be collected would shift to senior figures at BIS and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), rendering the IA board redundant.

But sector leaders have told of their concerns that they were not consulted about the move.

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “It would have been helpful to have consulted the sector before this decision was made, but simplification to the decision-making structure is welcome.

“It is vital that all the stakeholders in the sector have a significant input to the decision-making process, so we can be reasonably confident the sector as a whole will benefit.”

A BIS statement on the IA website said Mike Keoghan, director of vocational education at BIS, and Kim Thorneywork, interim chief executive of the SFA, would instead decide on sector data collection.

Support is to be provided by a new Technical Group of government statisticians.

“To further the general simplification in vocational education policy, it has been decided that data collection decisions should be brought within the department and the IA board should be abolished,” read the statement.

The new governance structure aims to ensure that decision-making continues to be informed by the sector.”

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive for the Association of Colleges (AoC), praised the IA for helping to ensure there is “robust, comprehensive and accurate” data on English colleges.

He said: “Our priority now is to ensure colleges have a strong voice in the data they are required to collect about their students, the work of the new Technical Group is carried out fairly and openly and that we focus now on how to improve our good data collection arrangements to make them outstanding.”

Ian Pryce, principal of Bedford College a board member since 2007 said he was “sad” the Information Authority board had been abolished, as it was one of the most impressive groups of people he had ever worked with and careful management of college data was needed “more than ever”.

He added: “I’m disappointed. I understand it in terms of the landscape of simplification, but there is a potential that we are going to lose something with really strong expertise that was able to take things at a strategic level and make sure it was done properly and practically.”

During its final meeting on September 13, the IA board considered 24 requests for changes to data collections in 2014/15 — and rejected four.

The rejected requests came from the Education Funding Agency, as well as a software supplier, the Information Authorities own Secretariat and the SFA.