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Hawk swoops for a grade one

The 14-month wait for an outstanding independent learning provider (ILP) under Ofsted’s current common inspection framework is over.

The education watchdog visited Twickenham-based Hawk Training (pictured below) late in September and on November 1 issued it with a glowing, grade one inspection result.

It was the first ILP to achieve the feat under Ofsted’s latest inspection regime after 134 visits.

Hawk-Training,-Regal-House,-Twickenham — Hawk Training, Regal-House

Hawk, a 1,300-apprenticeship provider, was rated as good in 2008, but this time won outstanding ratings overall and also for its leadership and management, and — key to its overall grade one result — teaching, learning and assessment. It was also rated as good for its learner outcomes.

“Highly-skilled and enthusiastic staff serve as outstanding role models for learners,” it said in the report, which added: “Leadership and management are outstanding, leading to significant improvements in the quality of provision.”

Its managing director, Terry Barnett, said: “We’ve worked very, very hard other the last two years to get up the teaching and learning and assessment. We work very hard for all our people to get a certificate in teaching and learning and assessment.”

He added: “At the end of the day, it’s all about hard graft. It’s about getting your head down, making sure your organisation is a quality organisation, working with quality people.

“I think one of the good things that always stood me in good stead, is always try and do business with nice people. You can’t always do it, but if you can it helps a lot.

“I think we’re fiercely proud of what we’ve done and what we’ve developed.”

Hawk, established in 1988, delivers training in early years and playwork, business and administration, and team leading and management to a range of employers, including the government and Xerox.

Among its areas of praise from Ofsted were “considerable investment…in improvements to accommodation, information technology and resources for learning”.

The report continued: “Tutors use their modern ICT equipment, a broad range of software and additional learning resources well to enhance the learning experience for apprentices in the workplace.”

Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, visited the firm on the day its Ofsted report was released. He said: “Meeting the Hawk team, it is easy to see why the provision has been graded as outstanding.

“The facilities, the attitude and commitment of the staff are second to none and it is good to see that this has been recognised by Ofsted.

“Hawk Training is a real example of how work-based learning can deliver high quality, flexible programmes across a wide range of employers.

“We are delighted that Hawk Training has agreed to share some of their experiences at an AELP conference on December 10, when we will hear the feedback from the Chief Inspector’s annual report.”

Of Ofsted’s 135 ILP inspections under its current inspection regime, in which providers must achieve outstanding for teaching and learning to stand a chance of getting the same grade overall, a dozen inadequate ratings have been dished out.

There have also been 55 grade three, or requires improvement, judgments along with 67 at grade two, or good, plus Hawk’s grade one.

“We hope that more providers will achieve outstanding and good ratings from Ofsted, but the new inspection framework is only a year old and we will continue to work with Ofsted to ensure that the key elements of work-based delivery are fully recognised within the framework,” said Mr Segal.

“Examples like Hawk Training can only help improve the understanding of what a work-based learning provider can deliver for employers and learners.”

From the control room to swivel chairs, FE Week on tour

With the ink on Hawk’s outstanding inspection report barely dry, FE Week editor Nick Linford and deputy editor Chris Henwood paid the Twickenham provider a visit.

Set on the fourth floor of a grey, 10-floor office block next to Twickenham train station, one thing that Hawk Training seems to do well — apart from delivering work-based learning, of course — is understatement.

The relatively non-descript home of this very special outfit is bookended by a Travelodge at one end and a sports bar at the other.

From left: Nick Linford, FE Week editor, and Kathryn Osborn, Hawk Training operations manager

There’s no suggestion to the passer-by that within these walls is the first independent learning provider to have been graded outstanding in more than a year.

And, having enjoyed a one-hour tour of the firm’s premises, where I got to sample first-hand the warm hospitality of Terry Barnett’s close-knit team of directors and managers, I am the first to broach the ‘grade one’ issue.

Clearly proud of their achievement, they were equally humbled by it and, in all honesty, seemed a little unprepared for the resultant attention it was always going to bring.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing — this is a provider, education and training is their business and that’s what they’re good at. Very good, in fact.

From the moment I set foot in the slick Hawk offices and typed my details into a touchscreen pad that then took my photo, before I was presented with a name badge sticker (complete with my mugshot), it was clear that there had been serious investment here — as mentioned in the Ofsted inspection report.

Looking beyond the ultra-clean and modern facilities, it was attention to detail and investment in IT hardware that Terry was keen to show off.

One room was full of ‘Node’ classroom chairs from America (pictured above right) that swivelled relentlessly to accommodate left or right-handed learners, and also offered their own little storage space under the seat.

Chris Henwood, FE Week deputy editor, tries out a ‘Node’ chair

In another room, the latest high-definition cameras were remotely turning and zooming in and out to record a lesson, for the benefit of absent learners, from the ‘control room’ (pictured above left).

And the use of technology extended beyond the classroom, as the Skills Funding Agency has given Hawk permission to use electronic signatures, which means the few bits of paperwork on show are simply learner certificates ready to send out.

In fact, visually everything was almost too perfect. For example, it was hard not to giggle at the carefully spaced bottles of juice in the boardroom fridge — but that’s no grounds for criticism.

Ultimately, it’s not possible from my visit to comment on the quality of teaching, Ofsted (the experts) have done that, but if training providers and colleges want to see what can be achieved with a serious amount of investment in facilities and IT, then certainly head down to Twickenham.

Funding proposals put apprenticeship growth at risk

Plans to put businesses at the heart of future funding arrangements for apprenticeships risk driving away all but the most committed employers, warns Christine Doubleday.

In June 2012, Doug Richard was commissioned by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock to conduct a major review of the apprenticeship system.

The government received his report enthusiastically and, in the summer of 2013, opened a consultation on proposals for reforming apprenticeship funding.

A full apprenticeship reform implementation plan is set to be announced by the end of the year.

The 157 Group responded to the funding consultation, which closed on October 1, and in common with many other key stakeholders — including Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Association of Colleges and Edge — voiced serious concerns about the proposals on the table.

While group members are passionate about apprenticeships as a means of increasing productivity and the future skills base, they urged the government to pause and consider a wider range of proposals to avoid putting at risk the progress that has already been made. Fortunately, there were signs during consultation meetings that the Department for Business Innovation and Skills is still open to other suggestions.

To improve the current system, we need to add to the options under discussion

Like the government, we are keen for employers to take greater ownership of the skills agenda and be more proactively involved in apprenticeships.

However, the current proposal rests largely on the creation of a new funding mechanism, which gives the employer much more responsibility for accessing and using government money to deliver or buy apprenticeships.

The proposed funding model is based on a core model with three options, two of which put the employer completely centre-stage and a third which involves funding being claimed by providers from the government, only after they have been paid by the employer.

We see major risks in these proposals for the national apprenticeship programme as a whole and urge caution.

In our view, the proposals are based on unrealistic expectations.

Do the great majority of employers, especially small businesses, really have the capacity, desire or skilled people to tackle the bureaucracy and audit requirements associated with apprenticeship funding?

Aren’t many smaller college and training providers likely to abandon their involvement in apprenticeships, in favour of less problematic and more economically viable provision for young people, if they risk delays in payment or reduced fees?

Is it realistic to expect a major new IT-based system to work effectively from day one?

In relation to apprenticeships, employers can be divided into three broad categories — those that are fully committed, those that do not get involved at all and employers that are only weakly committed.

The funding proposals could well lead to the disengagement of all but the most committed group, when we all want more employers to commit.

They represent a needlessly high-risk approach.

Our colleges have long-standing experience of working with small businesses, and this tells us they are looking for simplification and single points of contact rather than more control.

We believe that so fundamental a change should start with a realistic pilot phase, which would allow both mechanisms and their impact to be tested.

Also, there is time to learn from the pilots of Employer Ownership of Skills.

We are still awaiting the full results of these, and we need to learn from this experience before changing apprenticeship funding in a similar way.

Finally, more thought needs to be given to incremental reform of the current system of funding, seeking to improve for example the policing of unscrupulous providers.

We would urge everyone to get involved in the debate about a funding structure that can give apprenticeships fresh impetus.

To improve the current system, we need to add to the options under discussion.

Only in that way we can all go forward with a more robust system, which can fully achieve the potential of apprenticeships as a foundation of economic growth.

Christine Doubleday, deputy executive director of the 157 group

Don Hayes, board member, Education and Training Foundation

It is somewhat ironic that Don Hayes was not a fan of education as a teenager and left school at the first opportunity to start work.

Straight after finishing his O-levels, he got a job as a trainee manager at a concrete and clay manufacturing company, before leaving to help with his father, Gordon’s knitwear and hosiery wholesale business.

“It’s funny how I’m in FE now, because I don’t think education was something I took too much,” he says.

“I wanted to get out, I wanted to work. So I left and my father said, ‘Well you’ve got to get a job’, and I had three interviews in a week.

“One was with the civil service at the local tax office, one was with an insurance company and then there was this one with the concrete and clay company.

“Actually, getting a job in those days wasn’t so hard, so I got three interviews and three jobs and had to choose.

“I don’t know whether my dislike of school came from bad teaching or whether it was just me.

It’s funny how I’m in FE now, because I don’t think education was something I took too much

“Everyone else seemed to get on ok. It was a good school I went to. I think it was probably just that I wasn’t ready to buckle down and be receptive to what was being taught — I only engaged with sports really.”

The world of work, however, was an entirely different ball game for the dad-of-three, who declines to give his age.

“I seemed to have employability skills. I seemed to take to it straight away. The drive for me was there, but I don’t know why that was, it wasn’t anything I’d been taught in school,” he says.

“Possibly, it was a personality thing — it must have come from my parents, I guess. They were very supportive, but they were hard workers and they were entrepreneurial.”

Hayes explained his mother, Doris, may have been from a generation where women were expected to concentrate on bringing up their children, but she still went on to launch a costume jewellery wholesale company.

When his father needed help with his business, he went to work for him before moving on to a similar fashion and textile company.

Hayes was born in Birmingham, but the family moved with his father’s job, first to Leicester and then to Nottingham.

“I think I can say I’m from Nottingham, as I’ve been in Nottingham since my teens,” he says.

“But I still go back to Leicester for the football, so I’ve left something behind there too.”

Youth clubs, it seems, have played a significant role in Hayes life, as it was during his own time attending one as a teenager that he met his future wife Christine.

“She was 17 and I was about 19 when we started dating. Then she left to go to London for three-and-a-half years because she wanted to become a nurse and she was training at the Nightingale School, at St Thomas’ Hospital. It’s surprising it lasted with me stuck in Nottingham,” he says with a grin.

The couple were married shortly after Christine returned from London.

The second time a youth club altered the fabric of Hayes’ life was when he took on some voluntary youth work in his late twenties.

“I was running a predominately afro-Caribbean youth club on a deprived estate just outside the city and that opened my eyes a bit really, in terms of some of the difficulties facing young people there,” says Hayes.

“It was a bit of an epiphany — I stopped wanting to work for profit and started to work more towards the good of the community and that’s how I still feel.”

So Hayes took on a job on a community project, helping unemployed people back in to work and has never looked back.

He was, he says, hoping to take a break, but so far, that hasn’t materialised, and instead he found himself in his current role at Enable, an organisation that represents smaller voluntary FE organisations.

“Enable was formed just after the start of the Learning and Skills Council [LSC] and it was a sort of a response to it — local voluntary organisations were concerned about the formation of this massive government body and they wanted to be able to have a dialogue with this organisation,” he says.

“The Nottingham Council Voluntary Service got all these organisations together as a forum, which the LSC could come and talk to, and organisations managed to persuade the LSC to give them £40,000 to make this forum more effective, so they could have a newsletter and so on and what they actually decided to do was to employ someone.

“This happened at a time when I was leaving my previous employer and I’d kept in touch with what was going on with this forum.

“I was going to have some time off after that job and see the places maybe I’d always wanted to go to and think about what I was going to do next.

“But then I thought ‘maybe I quite fancy getting involved with this — I’ll spend a year trying to see if I can develop the idea, and then I’ll go off and do something else’. That was 10 years ago.”

He and Christine visit Italy most years, “where there’s always something to see”, but if he were to take-off on his travels tomorrow, he says, Japan would be his ideal destination.

But it looks like Tokyo may have to wait, as he’s also now a board member for the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), and plans to use the opportunity to promote the voluntary sector.

“I still believe absolutely that voluntary organisations have a vital role to play,” he explains.

“My particular interest is in deprived communities — people who are not accessing the opportunities that are available and always seem to be left behind.

“Where there’s the creation of employment opportunities in cities, it’s about making sure they’ll actually get the jobs, and I see voluntary organisations as being key to that.

“We have to keep fighting because the voluntary sector kind of gets discounted or forgotten about.”

The reason the sector gets “discounted” he says, is a lack of awareness of what voluntary organisations do, and a perception that the voluntary sector might be good at engagement but cannot deliver “hard outcomes” such as qualifications and jobs.

“What I find really, really frustrating is to still have to be saying the same things after 10 years about the sector, because people still haven’t got it or people have moved on, so we do tend to get left behind,” he says.

But he is hopeful the foundation will “very much have an impact” on this situation.

“I’m on it because I want to see the quality of FE driven up, and teaching in particular,” says Hayes.

“But I also want to see the ETF not forget the voluntary sector and remembering there’s actually a massive number of people out there delivering FE learning.

“We must make sure the sector’s not forgotten.”

The impossibility of remaining silent in the face of injustice

Further education increases justice through its combined economic, social and moral purpose and, says Toni Fazaeli, to do this it needs qualified teachers.

In England, the FE sector aims to tackle social and educational injustices through offering around four million young people and adults a year excellent learning opportunities that give clear routes to good employment and higher levels of study, transforming a very large number of people’s lives for the good.

A soul-searching and proper question to ask is whether we can do even better for our learners, and whether the exercise of any policies or freedoms might lead to increasing any injustices.

A cardinal principle in medicine, credited to Florence Nightingale, is that the first duty of any hospital is to stop the spread of disease.

In FE it is surely to stop any increase in injustices for our learners?

Amartya Sen’s seminal thinking in his book The Idea of Justice helps us think about the tensions between freedom and justice, and identify possible boundaries in further education that should not be crossed because they are likely to increase injustices for learners. Sen argues that the critical assessment in diagnosing injustices involves considerations of freedoms, fairness, capabilities, duty, goodness, resources, happiness, wellbeing and, especially in our sector, learning.

A vital and topical question to consider is whether not having a national policy requiring initial teacher education leading to being professionally qualified constitutes an injustice for those starting to teach, and their learners. A reasoned moral choice has to be made.

Sen argues that reasoned discussion can accommodate conflicting positions, and that bad or weak reasoning needs to be confronted by better reasoning. To draw on weaker arguments that do not increase justice for learners — for example, that leaders in FE should be treated the same as vice-chancellors — is to sidestep what is important.

One person’s freedom can be another’s bond.

The freedom in today’s national policy for a FE employer to decide whether those they employ to teach are trained and become qualified as teachers curtails the freedom of individuals to be trained and become professionally qualified to be the best they can in their practice.

Second, the employer’s current freedom curtails any entitlement for young and adult learners, wherever they are in England, to be taught by individuals who are professionally trained and qualified for their role.

The third very significant impact of this freedom is a reduction in the likelihood of young and adult learners across the nation receiving the strongest chance of high-quality learning and success in their studies and training.

The clear case for the positive difference that initial teacher education makes to the quality of teaching is articulated in the Institute for Learning’s recently published collection of voices and evidence from the sector, “Should teaching qualifications be left to chance?”

These three major considerations show that the freedom currently given to employers will inevitably lead to an increased injustice for learners nationally, and also for teachers.

To test this thinking further, let us look at a parallel context. Which chief executives of hospitals are baying for the freedom to recruit unqualified surgeons, unqualified doctors or unqualified nurses?

Such freedom for individual hospitals as employers would surely lead to injustice for patients nationally, as well as undermining the credibility and public trust in our country’s hospital system.

In a House of Lords discussion recently about the employment of unqualified teachers in state schools, Baroness McIntosh pointed out “knowledge, enthusiasm and, indeed, natural gifts may be necessary but they are not sufficient in developing professional competence”.

We would not disagree if we were talking about train drivers or brain surgeons, she suggested, so why are teachers an exception?

Just as members of the public have certain expectations of health service professionals, I believe that parents, learners, businesses and communities have the right to expect consistent, high-quality teaching and learning, delivered by qualified teachers, as an unassailable contribution to economic, moral and social justice in our society.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive of the Institute for Learning

Two big employers hit Ofsted low

Two big name employers have been hit with damning grade four Ofsted inspection results.

InterContinental Hotels Group Services Company (IHG) and G4S Care & Justice Services (UK) Ltd and were both branded inadequate across the board by the education watchdog in inspection reports published this month.

IHG, which incorporates Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn among others and offers intermediate apprenticeships in more than 23 of its hotels in England, came under Ofsted fire with not a single apprentice having qualified since its training began in 2012.

And G4S, which hit the headlines during last summer’s Olympics when it failed to fulfil its contract to provide security for the London Games, was criticised in the report over low success rates, “insufficient” learning support and inadequate leadership and management.

The damning Ofsted gradings for the two employer providers come amid a number of high-profile reports — such as those by former Dragons’ Den investor Doug Richards, jeweller Jason Holt and BAE Systems UK group managing director Nigel Whitehead — that have called for increased employer ownership of apprenticeship design and vocational qualifications.

Nevertheless, the Ofsted report on IHG, which had never been inspected before, said: “IHG has not provided sufficient staff or resources to equip heads of department and operations managers with the skills and confidence to carry out their roles as assessors and verifiers on the apprenticeship programme.

“It has provided too few staff to manage, support and improve the delivery of the programme.”

Hazel Hogben, IHG head of human resources, said the company was “disappointed” by the report.

She said: “Despite noting our staff’s effectiveness in developing employees’ skills and observing that IHG’s approach to corporate and social responsibility is well understood and supported by its employees, they made a series of criticisms of our programmes which we have very much taken to heart.

“Last week we met with the Skills Funding Agency/National Apprenticeship Service to discuss in detail our response to the Ofsted report.

“As a result we have developed an in-depth action plan to address each of the concerns raised including speed of progress, quality assurance, monitoring and data capture.

“IHG remains committed to its goal of offering 400 apprenticeships between this year and 2015 and to ensuring that we receive a better judgement grade from Ofsted next time we are inspected.”

Meanwhile, the G4S grade four result followed the firm’s second ever inspection visit from Ofsted. The first visit, in September 2005, had also resulted in an inadequate grading.

However, commenting on the latest grade four result, a spokesperson for G4S, which employs more than 5,300 people and offers apprenticeships for employees working in the prisons and secure care and training centres it administers, said: “As a large UK employer, we continue to be committed to a range of qualifications including apprenticeships and place great emphasis on creating long-term and sustainable programmes which support employees’ individual development and future career paths.

“While the findings of the report are disappointing we do believe that, by working closely with Ofsted and our partners, we will be able to make significant improvements to the programme.

“Since the inspection was carried out, we have already implemented a number of the suggestions identified and are carrying out extensive reviews that will address other areas which have been mentioned in this report.

“This includes the introduction of lead assessors, and an enhanced governance arrangement which includes multi-disciplinary business support.

“We recognise that there is clearly more to do, however we have worked over the last three years to develop in-house programmes of learning that are mapped and assessed against National Occupational Standards.

“These have been endorsed by both Edexcel and Skills for Justice as meeting qualification requirements and have been identified as an area of strength in the report.”

Hancock, Whitehead and the £40bn employer spend claim

Is the claim, most recently made in the Whitehead Review, that employers in England spend £40bn on training true, asks Mick Fletcher.

Ministers and government officials increasingly quote a figure of ‘more than £40bn’ as the amount spent by ‘employers’ on training. The implicit and sometimes explicit comparator is the £2.7bn spent by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) — a much smaller total.

The figures are often used, as in the Whitehead Review, to lend weight to the argument that employers should have greater power to direct public spending.

This article is not concerned with the policy implications of the data; that is for others to debate.

It simply seeks to answer three linked questions: are these figures accurate, do they tell the whole story and is the comparison fair?

The figure quoted comes from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills National Employers Skills Survey (NESS) which reports findings from over 87,000 employer interviews scaled up to reflect the total number of enterprises across the UK (see table below).

The total, £49bn, is a UK-wide figure; the total for England on this basis would indeed be nearer £40bn.

Only £4bn, less than a tenth of the total, is spent by employers on external training providers.”

It is important however to look to how the total is made up.

Just under half (£24.3bn) consists of the wages paid to those undergoing training, whether on or off the job, routine induction or advanced skills. Any comparison with spending by the SFA or other bodies needs to be on the same basis.

Only £4bn, less than a tenth of the total, is spent by employers on external training providers.

This would be a fairer figure to use for any comparison with SFA spending.

The implication in many ministerial statements is that this is all expenditure by private employers.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock for example, recently stated in an Edge lecture: “Of the £40bn market for adult training in England, less than 10 per cent is funded by the taxpayer.”

This is simply not true.

Many of the employers that spend the largest amounts on training are public bodies funded by the taxpayer.

The armed forces, for example, spend about £5bn per year; the National Health Service the same.

Local government and the civil service have considerable training budgets.

A full picture of who pays for training would need to include expenditure by individuals as well as employers and the state.

A true comparison would have to include (or exclude) the cost of trainee, or students’ time, and a fair comparison would need to compare all the education and training of adults funded by the taxpayer with that funded by private employers and by individuals.

The £40bn headline figure glosses over this complexity.

Fortunately the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning, hosted by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education commissioned work on this very topic. It sought to separate out spending by public employers from private expenditure, and added to the NESS estimates of private spending the considerable sum invested by self-employed people in themselves.

It estimated the amount spent by individuals through fees and loan repayments and it looked at taxpayer support for private training through tax relief. It also added to the estimate of public funding the amount spent on higher education teaching (but not research) and the contribution of other government departments.

It did not however include the huge investment by the Department for Education in the education of those under the age of 19.

The research also estimated the opportunity cost of the time spent by individuals on education and training on the same basis as the NESS estimates of trainee wage costs.

The analysis can be summarised as follows:

On a UK wide basis, total expenditure on adult learning provision amounts to approximately £55bn, or 3.9 per cent of gross domestic product.
Roughly £26bn of the total is spent from the public purse, £20bn on training by private and non-profit organisations and £9bn by individuals (including the self-employed).
The scale of public subsidy on vocational training is large; our estimate is that the various forms of tax relief amount to £3.7bn.

In conclusion the figure of £40bn comes from a reputable source. It is, however, wrong to represent it as expenditure by private employers and very misleading to compare it with the £2.7bn spent by the SFA.

Mick Fletcher, education consultant and visiting research fellow at Institute of Education

Whitehead’s bonfire of the quals

Around 95 per cent of the adult vocational market’s 19,000-plus qualifications could be axed under radical proposals to “de-clutter the system,” FE Week can reveal.

The move, put forward by BAE Systems group managing director Nigel Whitehead in a review requested by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock, would leave just “hundreds” of qualifications.

Mr Whitehead’s report, published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills — in which he is a commissioner, said there were a number of problems with the current “complex, over-prescribed” system.

It was failing to “generate vocational qualifications that are valued widely or seen as a signal of marketable skills,” according to his report.

Mr Whitehead recommended that Ofqual, the Skills Funding Agency and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills should use commission-set “design principles” as eligibility criteria for public funding of qualifications.

The design principles are aimed, among other things, at promoting greater collaboration between employers, awarding organisations and training providers to make qualifications more relevant to the workplace.

In conjunction with counting identical qualifications from different awarding organisations as one, the report includes examples of how the design principles, which would be used over Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) rules, might hit the market for certain regulated qualifications.

It suggests a 50 per cent fall in engineering qualifications (to 166), an 81 per cent fall in adult social care (to 58) and a 72 per cent fall in retail (to 66).

Speaking to FE Week ahead of today’s launch of his report, Mr Whitehead said his proposals would therefore mean the overall number of publicly-funded adult vocational qualifications should fall drastically from the current figure of more than 19,000.

“It’ll come down to hundreds of recognisable qualifications across the entire landscape as opposed to thousands,” said Mr Whitehead.

He added: “I think awarding organisations should actually look at we are proffering here and recognise that what we are saying is that where there is the opportunity for innovation and where awarding bodies are really putting their thought into it, then that should be recognised.”

The report also called for more information about the impact of qualifications, and said: “Our vision is of a de-cluttered skills landscape, making it easier for industrial partnerships to use the regulated qualifications system to align skills with vocational qualifications in their sectors.”

The potential cull of 95 per cent of qualifications would be the second such move in recent months.

Nearly 1,900 adult qualifications, that had little or no uptake, have already seen their public funding cease, as Mr Hancock pointed out.

He said: “We are already using elements of his approach to streamline and simplify the publicly-funded adult vocational qualifications offer, and will use it to inform our work as we drive to make our skills system more rigorous and responsive to the needs of employers and learners.”

Glenys Stacey, Ofqual chief regulator, said: “We recognise and accept the challenge the report… sets for us as regulator, working with others. We will reflect carefully on the report’s recommendations as we review the QCF, and more generally as we develop strengthened arrangements for regulating vocational qualifications. We will be saying more in the coming months about our plans.”

Chris Jones, director-general at leading vocational awarding organisation City & Guilds, said: “Cutting the number of adult vocational qualifications from almost 20,000 to a few hundred seems drastic at first glance, but we are in this position because of QCF accreditation rules and the role of the Sector Skills Councils.

“We fully support de-cluttering of qualifications. The ability to localise each qualification to meet the needs of both employers and individuals, without having it reaccredited, will certainly achieve this.

“What it really comes down to is ensuring employers own the requirements for their industry. The number of qualifications should be an outcome of their needs, rather than a centralised quota. Our recent research showed that over half of employers want to be involved in qualification design. That’s why it’s so important that the Whitehead Review focuses on employer ownership of occupational standards. Awarding organisations should not be guided by the whims of the SSCs.”

A Pearson UK spokesperson said the awarding organisation would welcome a sensible streamlining of qualifications,” and Rod Bristow, its president, said: “We look forward to working closely with UKCES, employers and other partners to consider the implementation of each recommendation in detail and ensure the proposals impact positively on the employer and the learner.”

Charlotte Bosworth, director of skills and employment at awarding organisation OCR, said: “The qualification mountain and the inhibiting infrastructure of the current system has to go. Under the QCF, we’ve seen a vast inflation in the number of qualifications, driven by funding incentives not by genuine demand.”

Jill Lanning, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, declined to comment.

Adult vocational qualifications Q&A

The London HQ of BAE Systems played host to a Q&A session with Nigel Whitehead on Tuesday evening. The UKCES commissioner was interviewed on his review of adult vocational qualifications by FE Week deputy editor Chris Henwood.

Whitehead-interview — Nigel Whitehead (right) is interviewed by FE Week deputy editor Chris Henwood

Why was the review needed?

There are two markets for skills in the UK — that which is funded and progressed by employers and the regulated government-funded market, and the two don’t mesh.

There’s a lot of government money spent on the creation of skills and capability in the UK and largely speaking employers, and particularly small employers, look at it and think, ‘what’s that all about?’ and potentially therefore that is an inappropriate use of public funds.

What do you mean by “inappropriate use of public funds”?

We see evidence that training providers are being paid to provide qualifications for individuals, but those individuals have sets of qualifications which aren’t necessarily matched to the needs of the market.

There is a sense in the existing system that courses are being selected on the basis of ease of passing them, as opposed to whether they actually qualify you to work in a particular industry and sector and then become a passport for mobility within that sector.

Successive governments have attempted to reform the adult qualifications market, so what’s different about your review?

I thought that what I was going to be talking about was something that was really quite radical and unpopular and throughout the process of consultation I’ve gone out of way to try and get all the potentially angry people in one room and get it thrashed out.

What reactions were you expecting?

Currently there are 176 awarding bodies that we’ve found and I’m making some recommendations about how they interact with employers; the implication being that they’re not doing that or they’re not doing it well enough.

I thought they would see that a gross criticism and that in some way I was taking away from the very nature of what they do.

What I actually found is that those organisations or the people in them come to work wanting to do a good job and if you can say to them this is what better looks like they actually respond very well.

When you said that learners are taking the wrong qualifications, is there a criticism there of awarding organisations?

I have a personal view that some organisations have pandered to the government rules on what it takes to actually get funding as opposed to focusing on what the employers need first and foremost, and to some extent that lets down the learner because they go through the process in good faith believing that there’s something at the end of it.

You refer to decluttering the system — does that include reducing the 19,000-plus regulated vocational qualifications?

I think it does. Having been through the arithmetic of it, there are some simplifications you can make where you acknowledge a qualification once rather than having 140 versions of it, which actually takes the numbers down significantly.

But one of the fundamental problems is that the system is impenetrable for either the learner or the employer.

As an engineering employer I know my way around the principal engineering vocational qualifications.

I can count on one hand the qualifications I could name and my counterparts across industry will talk in those terms, but if you actually expose them to the many qualifications that are on offer they would scratch their heads and say ‘I don’t really know where to start with this’. So there does need to be a decluttering of it.

Part of it is the titling and naming, but also the system has allowed I think, a plethora of potential solutions which has led to confusion, so I think with what we are recommending, in particular the issue about recognisable qualifications, we should get a coalescence around some major recognisable qualifications.

What feels like the right amount of qualifications?

My personal view is that it’ll come down to hundreds of recognisable qualifications across the entire landscape as opposed to thousands.

So from more than 19,000 to potentially under 1,000?

Yes. One of the examples drawn to my attention was retail and the difference between Scotland and England were 140 recognisable qualifications in a particular branch of retail in England, but in Scotland the same area was covered by just five qualifications.

Who decides on the qualifications to stop publicly funding?

I’ve made no attempt to do that at this stage.

As we go through the process of putting principles in place and we test the qualifications against the new design principles in the report, and Ofqual looks at whether the awarding bodies have lived up to those new design principles, that will naturally end up with a selection and deselection of particular qualifications.

So there’ll be a natural filtering of it as opposed to something that happens on day one and so from that perspective I would see it as a natural washing out of the old and an arrival of the new as people embrace the new design principles.

If there’s government money going into this then the throttle on that money would be whether qualifications and training providers are actually meeting the new expectations set out in this report.

So in terms of the flow of government money there’ll be a point which you say it either does or it doesn’t satisfy, so in that sense there will be an ability to switch on and off the money and at the moment that falls through the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

The adoption of the principles I would expect to see happen through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the SFA.

The adoption of the principles and the regulation of the awarding bodies and ultimately a training provider is through Ofqual.

And if we’re getting two ‘no’s at that stage than I be very surprised if government money was sanctioned and I would be surprised, in particular, if [Skills Minister] Matthew Hancock would allow that situation.

Why introduce grading for competency-based qualifications?

It’s a personal hang-up that simply passing a course is not enough.

I’ve yet to meet an employer who doesn’t want to employ anybody other than the best people that come through, so in the greater scheme of things, a simple pass/fail works for some qualifications, but for the majority it will be grading will result in learners wanting to do better because they can.

Was your conclusion that there needs to be fewer qualifications, one that you were instructed by the Skills Minister to reach?

No, he didn’t give any instructions. He asked for my view of the vocational skills landscape. The government gave me free rein to say my opinion and it cuts both ways because they can say ‘that’s just his opinion’.

But equally they can say ‘we value his opinion’. So it stands alone in that regard, and no, I have not responded to any instruction from government.

Training provider under investigation

A London-based training provider is under its second investigation from the same awarding body following complaints from learners.

Bright Assessing, which provides qualifications for unemployed people who want to re-enter the workplace, is under the spotlight of NCFE (formerly the Northern Council for Further Education) once again.

The provider boasts a pass rate of between 95 per cent and 100 per cent, but it is being investigating over claims learners claims that courses are substandard.

A spokesperson for NCFE said: “Following complaints from a number of learners earlier this year, we conducted an investigation into Bright International to ensure that the training provider met our quality standards.

“We concluded this investigation on August 16, putting in place a detailed action plan, working closely with Bright International to help learners have the best learning experience that they can.

“On October 14, on the basis of fresh information shared with us by learners, we launched a new investigation into the organisation.

“We are currently at the initial fact finding stage, clarifying the nature of the claims that have been made.”

She added that the Skills Funding Agency and Ofqual were both being kept informed about the latest investigation.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “We are monitoring NCFE’s investigation into Bright to make sure we can be satisfied it is taking necessary steps to protect the quality and integrity of its qualifications.”

An SFA spokesperson also confirmed it would also monitor the investigation.

Krissy Charles-Jones, Bright’s chief executive, welcomed the new investigation and claimed the previous one had given her firm a “clean bill of health”.

She said: “We welcome this opportunity to have our practices and procedures re-examined, even though we have already been given a clean bill of health by NCFE. It is only right that when people have concerns they are dealt with appropriately, and we have re-examined our own procedures in the light of comments we have received as part of our commitment to continual improvement in all aspects of our work.

“We utterly refute the principal complainant’s allegations concerning the management of their training. Bright has supplied NCFE with proof that this accusation is unfounded.”

She claimed her firm trained 2,710 unemployed people in the last year, resulting in 81 per cent getting a job, 11 per cent going on to complete further training and 8 per cent remaining unemployed.

The SFA spokesperson said that Bright was a subcontractor and so did not receive public money directly. She added that this meant the SFA was unable to confirm how much government funding Bright received.

As a subcontractor, Bright would not be subject to an Ofsted inspection of its own.

Hawk swoops for a grade one

The 14-month wait for an outstanding independent learning provider (ILP) under Ofsted’s current common inspection framework is over.

The education watchdog visited Twickenham-based Hawk Training late in September and on November 1 issued it with a glowing, grade one inspection result.