The taxing issue of future funding in a world of cuts

With government spending on adult skills set to fall over the coming years, Mark Corney tries to find a way through the narrowing funding options.

The very existence of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) sharpens up the competition for resources between adult skills and higher education.

The highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) projects that BIS funding of ‘non-investment’ spending on adult skills will fall by 61 per cent in 2017/18 compared to 2014/15. This is equivalent to a 55 per cent cash cut.

Importantly, loan expenditure for fees and maintenance do not count as BIS resource spending. It is treated as non-cash expenditure. Consequently, the focus of the 55 per cent cash cut is on grant funding.

In 2014/15, grant spending by the Skills Funding Agency – excluding European Social Fund money – will be about £3bn. By 2017/18, it could be cut by £1.6bn.

The estimate is based on five assumptions.

First, the next government, whatever its complexion, will not raise taxes or cut welfare above current plans to 2017/18.

Second, NHS, overseas aid and pre-16 schools funding is assumed to be protected by inflation.

Fee loans of up to £9,000 have not deterred our brightest 18 to 24-year-olds from entering full-time higher education

Third, BIS will face a real terms cut in spending of 2 per cent in 2016/17 and 2017/18 in line with every other department or area of public spending including 16 to 19 education and training.

Fourth, the £4bn science and research budget will be protected in cash terms given its contribution to growth.

And fifth, the number of full-time entrants into undergraduate higher education will be maintained at around 350,000 — with fee loans of £9,000 and maintenance loans and grants of up to £7,000 available per student — on the grounds that full-time education is preferable to youth unemployment.

Clearly, projected cuts of £1.6bn to the adult skills budget contextualise the exam question for the Richard Review: find a mechanism that puts downward pressure on prices so that more apprentices can be funded for less.

But just as there are priorities in higher education, such as science and research, there are priorities in adult skills, such as apprenticeships.

The problem is protecting adult apprenticeship grant spending of £0.65bn only adds pressure to find the entire £1.6bn from the remaining grant budgets, namely adult FE (£1.6bn), employer ownership (£0.1bn), community learning (£0.2bn), adult learner support (£0.2bn), the national careers service (£0.1bn) and skills and infrastructure budgets (£0.2bn) although the last in the list has taken a hit to protect front-line provision in 2015/16.

Importantly, however, there is little room left for turning grant funding into loan funding in the world of adult FE fees.

A key rule is that expected loan repayments to the Treasury must be more than 30 per cent.

Estimated repayments for fee-loans for 24+ Level 3/4 qualifications are 60 per cent.

A possible option would be to turn the £300m of grant funding for 19 to 24 Level 3/4 qualifications into fee loans (although there is no maintenance support for this group of FE students unlike their higher education counterparts).

But the remaining £1.3bn adult FE budget which is used to support basic skills and Level 1/2 provision could not be turned into loans. This is because expected repayments to the Treasury are bound to be much less than 30 per cent. By comparison, significant room remains for turning grant funding into loan funding in the higher education sector.

Every full-time undergraduate student is entitled to a maintenance loan. In addition, maintenance grants are paid to students from families with gross income of less £42,620. This will cost the Treasury £1.55bn in 2014/15.

The IFS mentions the option of turning maintenance grants into loans. To do so, would prevent the cuts of £1.6bn to adult FE at a stroke.

Fee loans of up to £9,000 have not deterred our brightest 18 to 24-year-olds from entering full-time higher education. Turning maintenance grants into loans would still leave the same level of cash in the hands of the poorest students and the loans would remain income contingent.

Such a move also opens-up the possibility of turning grant funding for 19 to 24 Level 3/4 courses into fee loans, with BIS redirecting the £300m saved to provide maintenance loans. The result would at least be a degree of equity between full-time university and FE college students.

Mark Corney, independent policy consultant

 

 

Employers prepare to take wheel of new Career Colleges

Career Colleges will set their 14-year-old learners off on the path of a career with the aim of getting them into a job anywhere from the ages of 16 to 19, explains Ruth Gilbert.

 

As a previous college principal who has spent the last ten years working on quality improvement and business turnaround in FE, I know that there is no single approach or solution to the provision of appropriate and inspirational vocational education.

We are operating in an education system with many different options for parents and learners to navigate.

Grades and league tables play a huge part in decisions on which institution is chosen by parents of young people.

However, I believe FE could and should more strongly emphasise outcomes for learners in terms of work and progression to higher education. We know that success on a course is not a ticket to success in work and life.

In the UK, employers in a variety of industries tell us that graduates and job applicants completing FE are ill-prepared for the world of work.

Employers will be the driving force behind this unique and highly innovative model
of education

We have one million young people unemployed and yet we have vacancies across a wide range of industries and employers, with some significant growth and work opportunities.

This is a situation that needs to be addressed and is the inspiration behind Lord Baker’s vision for a new type of education for 14 to 19-year-olds.

Starting on a career path at the age of 14, just as they do in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, gives learners a headstart in preparing for the world of work. In these countries, youth unemployment is much lower and vocational education is far more respected.

This vision formed the basis for a new charity, the Career Colleges Trust which is supported by trustees from the Edge Foundation, Helping Hands, City & Guilds, OCR and Pearson.

The chairman is Luke Johnson, the serial entrepreneur, best known for putting Pizza Express on the map, previous chairman of Channel 4, and a range of businesses past and present in hospitality and catering, including Patisserie Valerie, Gail’s and Giraffe.

Specialist industry involvement is intrinsic to the Career College vision.

While FE colleges will establish their own Career Colleges, employers will be the driving force behind this unique and highly innovative model of education, ensuring that learners are prepared for the world of work, with skills to match the needs of the labour market.

Industry partners will play a major part in the design and delivery of the curriculum. FE colleges are the ideal partner and sponsor for these new institutions as they already have strong vocational expertise and can provide access to specialist facilities, strong infrastructure, enrichment and support services. The Career Colleges Trust will support FE colleges with best practice in curriculum planning and delivery, IT infrastructure, student tracking and support systems.

Career College specialisms will cover a range of sectors, including catering, hospitality, tourism, finance and insurance, health and care, cultural and creative arts, and construction.

Students will still study traditional academic subjects, including maths, English and science, alongside these vocational and industry specialisms.

Integral to the curriculum will be practical opportunities to develop the social skills and commercial acumen to prepare the young people for employment and self-employment.

The first Career College is expected to open in September, in Oldham. It will be a digital and creative Career College.

That will soon be followed by the Bromley Food & Enterprise Career College, because hospitality is the third largest sector for jobs in South East London.

There are many more proposals for a variety of Career Colleges around the country.

We hope that within four years, we will have 40 Career Colleges open, supporting at least 25,000 young people; to broaden their horizons and prepare them for work.

The over-arching goal for a Career College is that every young person when they leave at either 16 or 19 will be in work, training or education. I am confident that this will happen and that Career Colleges will help to raise esteem of vocational education in general.

 

Ruth Gilbert, chief executive,
Career Colleges Trust

 

College has seen many changes…just like these ‘old boys’

Leyton Sixth Form College hosted a 50-year reunion for former grammar school students.

The building now used for the sixth form college used to be home to Leyton County High School for Boys, a grammar school for 11 to 18-year-olds.

Former grammar school students outside the college(above). Inset: Some of them in their school uniform in the 1960s

It became Leyton Senior High School for Boys in 1968, catering for 14 to 18-year-old boys, and a sixth form college in 1993.

Former students who started at the grammar school in 1963 attended the reunion.

Dawn Hamilton-Barrett, vice principal at the sixth form college, said: “For most of the group, it was the first time they had seen the result of the recent £40m site redevelopment and many commented on how well the best of the original college buildings blended with our new facilities.”

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.