Minister writes to new apprentices on pay

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has written a letter for every apprentice telling them what they should be earning — despite hundreds of adverts for underpaying apprenticeships remaining on a government-funded website.

The letter, which will be distributed to apprentices starting from October 1 by providers, outlines the minimum wage for 16 to 18-year-olds as £2.68 an-hour.

Mr Hancock’s message says: “Your employer will support your training and pay you at least the hourly National Minimum Wage.”

It comes with the government’s Apprenticeship Pay Survey having recently been released, showing 29 per cent of the 5,635 apprentices were underpaid in 2012, a jump of 9 percentage points on the year before.

Meanwhile, underpaying apprenticeships are still being advertised on the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) website, even after FE Week highlighted the problem to the Skills Funding Agency, which runs NAS.

More than 600 jobs were being advertised on the website earlier this month paying £2.65 an hour— the minimum rate before October 1 increase. And many were still on the website almost a week later.

However, an agency spokesperson said: “We have put measures in place to ensure all new vacancies being posted adhere to the increased apprenticeship national minimum wage rate, of at least £2.68 per hour.

“We have written to all training organisations and employers reminding them of the new rate.

“We are currently in the process of contacting any training organisations and employers where we have identified adverts, posted before October 1, that are still displaying the old rate.

“To date we have experienced good co-operation on this matter from our training organisations and employers, and they are in the process of changing the rates online.”

The government’s Apprenticeship Pay Survey echoed the findings of the Low Pay Commission’s 2013 report published in April, which found that a similar number — just over 27 per cent — of all apprentices were underpaid.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “These findings are shocking and show how many apprentices are currently seen as little more than cheap labour.”

Some industries had even higher percentages of apprentices not getting their full entitlement.

In childcare, underpayment was up 65 per cent on the previous year, while 69 per cent of hairdressing apprentices were underpaid.

An agency update to providers sent out on Wednesday said Mr Hancock’s letter was in response to the April report, and told providers to ensure the letter was issued “to all new apprentices starting on or after 1 October 2013” — excluding higher apprentices, who are covered by separate regulations.

The letter explains what wage entitlements are for apprentices in each age category, and gives the number of the pay and work rights helpline.

An agency spokesperson told FE Week it would be monitoring whether providers were giving out the letter through its relationship teams.

She added: “We would expect training organisations and employers to want to do this so they can ensure that the apprentices they have just taken on have the information they need on their pay and benefits.”

And Mr Hancock himself is setting a good example, paying his apprentice well above the minimum wage at £6.31 an-hour.

His current apprentice is coming to the end of his 12-month job and so the minister is looking for a new parliamentary apprentice in Westminster.

The programme combines on-the-job training working for Mr Hancock with a formal level three qualification in business and administration.

Foundation announces first round of tenders

The Education and Training Foundation has released its first invitations to tender under a new competitive bidding process.

A total of four contracts are up for grabs — three concerning professional standards for teachers and trainers in England and the fourth about a workforce survey.

It comes a week after a letter from the foundation’s interim chief executive Peter Davies and interim chair David Hughes was posted on its website saying contract bids made under its old non-competitive process had been binned.

A foundation spokesperson said: “As part of our commitment to open and transparent ways of working, we have released four invitations to tender.

“Three of these will enable us to progress the review of the professional standards for teachers and trainers in England, as outlined in our delivery plan including to lead the consultation to inform the review of professional standards; establish the set of professional standards, following the review; and, develop guidance for teachers and trainers on the use of the professional standards.

“The fourth invitation to tender focuses on the workforce survey.”

She added: “Specifically the [fourth] invitation is for suppliers to design and deliver a consultation regarding the workforce survey, so we can ensure that this meets the data and reporting needs of the sector.”

Sue Dutton, foundation interim lead for professional standards, teaching, learning and assessment, said: “These are significant pieces of work. One of the priorities identified in our delivery plan is the review of the professional standards for teachers, trainers and tutors.

“The standards play a key role in supporting the professionalisation of the FE and skills workforce, underpinning both initial teacher training and continuing professional development.”

Other contracts that could be offered to bidders in the coming months involve traineeship and apprenticeship support programmes.

The changes to the tendering process followed news that £75,000-worth of contracts had been awarded to organisations, such as the Association of Colleges and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, through the foundation’s non-competitive process. It is understood these contracts will remain in place.

Bids for the workforce survey are due by October 18 and for professional standards for teachers and trainers by October 23 — the same date bids for specification for the development of professional standards for teachers and trainers in England are due.

Bids for work on guidance for the use of professional standards for teachers and trainers are due by October 28.

Email tenderqueries@etfoundation.co.uk for more details.

Colleges achieving from ‘burning platform’

The Organisation for Economic Development caught everybody’s eye with a report uncovering “poor” levels of adult numeracy while also questioning literacy skills. But, explains Martin Doel, there was another report earlier this month that was equally deserving of attention.

The Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) recently published a review of vocational education and training, covering core areas of colleges’ work. It was called A Skills Beyond School Review of England.

The report was notable for the positive way in which it characterised FE colleges as “entrepreneurial and flexible,” and the near total lack of interest it generated with the media and the government.

Perhaps this is because journalists and the government are more interested in negative stories than in positive endorsement of the achievements of colleges and training providers.

Indeed, the difficult messages in the report are more for the government and awarding organisations.

In the case of the government, the OECD report identified a relative lack of investment in tertiary education and a regulatory model that neither underpins true autonomy, nor provides a more directed and regulated model as seen in Germany and elsewhere on the continent.

In relation to awarding organisations, it identified an overly complex and expensive model of testing and assessment that confuses employers and means they stick with inappropriate academic qualifications when recruiting staff.

Based on these criticisms, a reasonable reader might conclude that the problem, if there is one, is not with colleges and providers, but with the system they are obliged to operate.

They achieve great things despite this system, rather than because of it. This, funnily enough, is the same conclusion that Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw reached in his annual report last year — perhaps this is a case for more ‘rigour’ in policy-making and implementation, as well as within colleges and training providers?

But does all this really constitute a ‘burning platform’ from which we are being forced to jump?

I don’t think the OECD report identifies any such inferno, nor is one suggested by an apprenticeships completion rate of more than 70 per cent, which is a world-beating figure.

There is, of course, room and a need for continuous improvement, refinement and adjustment, but not for abrupt, disruptive, systemic change.

The much-lauded German dual system has changed significantly only twice in the last 50 years.

At my last count, our skills system has seen radical change at least 40 times within the same period.

It is hardly surprising students, parents and businesses say they are confused about how the system operates.

The only justification for a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary change is a clear and pressing imperative.

In my view there is no such urgent need in relation to the skills system.

This OECD report, the recent Confederation of British Industry report on rising satisfaction levels among employers and college performance against a range of benchmarks seem to confirm this view.

We need a considered and progressive programme of incremental, yet challenging, change, building upon past and current success, together with a need to adapt to meet new and emerging requirements.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges

Byrne replaces Marsden as Shadow Skills Minister

Liam Byrne has succeeded Gordon Marsden in the Labour Shadow Education team, taking on the role as Shadow Universities and Skills Minister in this week’s reshuffle.

Mr Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, had been Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since January 2011.

Before that, he was Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, shadowing the role he had played in government prior to the 2010 general election.

Mr Bryne was born in Warrington, near Manchester, and completed his A levels at the at The Hertfordshire and Essex High School, in Bishop’s Stortford, before studying politics and modern history at the University of Manchester.

He also studied for an MBA at the Harvard Business School.

Before his election as an MP in 2004, he worked for Accenture, a multi-national consulting firm and merchant bankers NM Rothschild & Sons. He also co-founded a technology company called e-Government Solutions Group.

Under the last Labour Government, he served as Minister for the Cabinet office and Minister of State for Borders and Immigration.

He hit the headlines following the 2010 election, when it emerged he had left a note to his successor on his desk reading “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam.”

From college classroom to Shadow FE Minister

Bethnal Green and Bow MP Rushanara Ali has replaced Tristram Hunt as the FE and skills Labour Shadow Education Minister.

Ms Ali had previously been on the Labour team for international development since 2011.

Following the announcement of her promotion, Ms Ali took to Twitter to say working on the international development brief had been a “pleasure and a privilege”, but she was “delighted to be joining the shadow education team”.

Ms Ali’s family emigrated from Bangladesh when she was seven years old and she grew up in Tower Hamlets, in London’s East End, and attended Tower Hamlets College.

She credited much of her success to her time at college, saying her achievements were “the achievements of teachers and youth workers at Mulberry School and Tower Hamlets College.

“It was their support and belief that led me to a place at Oxford University and jobs in Parliament.”

The 38-year-old was the first person of Bangladeshi origin to have been elected to the House of Commons when she won the Bethnal Green and Bow seat from Respect MP George Galloway in the 2010 general election.

Along with Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi, she was also one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs.

She has previously worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research and on human rights issues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office during Tony Blair’s government.

Mr Hunt has taken over the role as Shadow Secretary of State from Stephen Twigg MP, who has returned to the Labour back benches.

 

Skills report warns of numeracy and literacy failings in England and Northern Ireland

Numeracy and literacy levels among young people in England and Northern Ireland are falling way behind the rest of the world, a new report on adult skills has warned.

The figures appeared this morning in a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It warned England and Northern Ireland had some of the highest proportions of adults scoring at or below level one — the lowest possible level — in numeracy, where adults can only perform basic mathematical processes.

It stated: “In fact, 24.1 per cent of adults, around 8.5 million people, scored at that level, compared to the average [among participating countries from across the world] of 19 per cent.”

Around 16.4 per cent of adults, or around 5.8 million people, in England and Northern Ireland scored at level one or below in literacy, which is closer to the average of 15.5 per cent of adults among all participating countries.

At level one in literacy, adults can only read brief information on familiar topics.

The report warned: “Individuals with lower proficiency in literacy are more likely than those with better literacy skills to report poor health, to believe that they have little impact on political processes, and not to participate in associative or volunteer activities.”

It is a damning indictment on level of basic education levels in England and Northern Ireland.

However, it could bolster support for government vocational traineeship schemes, launched in August, which aim to boost trainees’ maths and English as well as on-the-job skills.

In terms of ability to solve technology-orientated problems — for example using computers — just 42.4 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland were proficient at level two or three, compared to the average among 23 participating countries of 50.7 per cent.

England is also the only country surveyed where the oldest age group (55 to 65) has higher proficiency in literacy and numeracy than the youngest group (16 to 24).

This was 21 per cent lower than in Korea, the best performing country in this area.

The OECD report stated: “The implication for England and Northern Ireland is that the stock of skills available to them is bound to decline over the next decades unless significant action is taken to improve skills proficiency among young people.”

It warned about high levels of social and pay inequality among skilled and unskilled workers.

“The median of hourly wage of workers who score at level four or five in literacy is 94 per cent higher than that of workers who score at below level one,” stated the report.

“In England and Northern Ireland 83.4 per cent of highly skilled adults are employed, compared to an average of 79.1 per cent of adults in all participating countries.

“Only 13.4 per cent of adults scoring at level four or five [compared to 17.1 per cent on average across participating countries] are out of the labour force.”

Tristram Hunt takes over as Shadow Education Secretary

Tristram Hunt has been promoted to Shadow Secretary of State for Education following the departure of Stephen Twigg in today’s cabinet reshuffle.

Mr Hunt, who is MP for Stoke-on-Trent, had served as Shadow Education Minister since April this year.

We recently caught up with Mr Hunt on a tour of Walsall College (pictured, above), where he told FE Week editor Nick Linford that plans for Labour’s FE policies were still in the pipeline, but did say that one of the party’s aims was to “upgrade the status of the teaching profession.”

The full interview with Nick and Tristram can be found here.

Tristram Hunt MP and Walsall College principal Jatinder Sharma
Picture (including those on front page) by Emma Trimble for FE Week

He also hinted at the idea of a UCAS-style admissions system for FE.

“One of the things we’re really interested in is how we make things simpler for progression through the education systems in terms of technical and vocational route,” said Mr Hunt.

“We know the academic pathway through GCSE, A level, and university is very clear to navigate and teachers are very good at telling pupils about that, but it’s very unclear for technical and vocational education, so creating a streamlined UCAS-style system is something we’re going to be pushing for as a policy route.”

He also attended our Labour Party conference Fringe event last month.

Tristram Hunt at the FE Week Labour fringe event

Speaking of his role as shadow minister at the time, he said: “It is a great pleasure to be here. My job as junior shadow education spokesman focuses on careers education, on technical vocational education for 16 to 18-year-old and youth services.

“I like to think of it as everything Michael Gove is not interested in, so it’s a free rein.”

The 39-year-old is also a historian, broadcaster and lectures on Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London in Mile End, East London. He has written several books and is a regular writer for The Guardian and The Observer.

The full FE Week profile interview with him can be found here.

You can also catch up with all the action at the FE Week Labour Conference Fringe event in our supplement here.

Apprentices paid below £2.65 an hour legal minimum jumps 45%

Nearly a third of apprentices were not paid the legal minimum wage in 2012, according to information published by the department for Business, Innovation and Skills this afternoon.

The findings in the Apprenticeships pay survey 2012, dubbed “shocking” by unions, show 29 per cent of learners did not receive the then legal minimum of £2.65 an-hour last year, up 45 per cent from 20 per cent the year before.

In October this year, the legal minimum wage was increased to £2.68 an-hour.

The survey also found that the amount of time apprentices spent training had fallen — those doing off-the-job-training said they spent five hours training on average, compared to 6.3 hours in 2011.

Time spent on- the-job training fell from 12.4 hours in 2011 to 11.6 in 2012.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “These findings are shocking and show how many apprentices are currently seen as little more than cheap labour.”

Some industries had even higher percentages of apprentices not getting their full entitlement.

In childcare, underpayment was up 65 per cent on the previous year, while 69 per cent of hairdressing apprentices were underpaid.

Ms O’Grady said: “Apprentice exploitation is getting worse across the board. In some industries, such as hairdressing, abuse has become endemic. Ministers must launch investigations now into this abuse.”

“This survey also reveals a number of systematic failures in the way apprenticeship pay is being monitored. There are plenty of bad bosses who have deliberately cheated young workers. And it appears many businesses do not understand how minimum wage rates work.

“Unless the government does more to make companies aware of their responsibilities, as well as naming, shaming and persecuting rogue employers, many apprentices will continue to be exploited.”

Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden also called on the government to act.

He told FE Week: “The toplines on this seems really quite disturbing. I will want to look at all the details of it and then ask some sharp questions of the government on what their response is and what they are going to do about it.”

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said that creating the right pay and working conditions for apprentices was crucial to the continued success of the programme.

“I am very clear about the importance of the National Minimum Wage,” he said.

“Paying less than the minimum wage is illegal and if employers break this law they need to know that we will take action.

“We have revised the National Minimum Wage Naming scheme so it is easier to name and shame employers who break minimum wage law, alongside increasing awareness of the minimum wage rules and ensuring all training providers inform employers and apprentices of the requirements.”

He added: “I now write to each and every new Apprentice setting out what they can expect. In the medium term we are reforming Apprenticeships more broadly, including insisting on off the job training as part of the Apprenticeship.”

He urged apprentices who believed they were being underpaid to contact the Pay and Work Rights Helpline on 0800 917 2368 for free confidential advice.

The FE sector congratulates Minister on expanded brief

Matthew Hancock MP, now Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise has been congratulated on his expanded portfolio by bodies from across the FE sector.

Mr Hancock, formerly Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Skills, was promoted during today’s ministerial reshuffle.

The chief executive of the Association of Colleges, Martin Doel, joined representatives from the NUS, the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), the 157 Group and the Education and Training Foundation in offering the minister “warm congratulations”.

Mr Doel added that he was pleased Mr Hancock had not been moved to a different department.

He said: “Continuity is very important and so we’re pleased to know that we will be working with the same Minister in future.”

AELP chief executive Stewart Segal agreed there were benefits to Mr Hancock keeping both his BIS and Education briefs, describing it as “very encouraging news” that would support “cohesive policy making”.

He said: “Matthew Hancock has done a fantastic job in championing apprenticeships and traineeships and it is important that he is staying on to oversee the apprenticeship reform process.”

Others felt that Mr Hanock’s promotion could help to give extra prominence to FE.

Joe Vinson, NUS vice president for Further Education, said:“It is positive to see the link between further education and skills on the one hand, and enterprise and growth on the other, properly recognised by the resurrection of this cross-departmental minister of state role.

“We hope that the work that was started on supporting apprenticeships and traineeships will now be followed up with an improvement in opportunities, terms and conditions, as well as seeing more done on getting chartered status for colleges and on keeping professional teachers and trainers at the heart of further education.”

157 Group chief executive Lynne Sedgmore, described the new post of Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise as “an acknowledgement of the vital role that the Further Education and skills sector plays in economic growth and in strengthening Britain’s position in the global race.”

A spokesperson for The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said:  “We hope the promotion of Matthew Hancock to Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise will give a higher profile to his work on skills and mean this is given a greater priority by the government.

“The near million unemployed 16- to 24-year-olds desperately need a champion to help them gain the skills they need to find work.”

Niace director of communications and public affairs Tom Stannard agreed, saying the organisation was “pleased to see skills given prominence in Mr Hancock’s title”.

“Now is a crucial time for enterprise and this provides a good opportunity to make sure that learning and skills strategies are central to the Local Enterprise Partnerships growth plans and not to be seen as secondary to infrastructure, transport and housing,” he said.

“There is a major challenge ahead with ensuring that all adults are equipped with the high-level skills that our economy needs and which will help them adapt to the changing global market. We wish the Minister every success and look forward to our continued working relationship.”

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, wished Mr Hancock well with his extended brief.

She said: “After the Prime Minister’s assessment of the problems young people face last week, we desperately need a champion of young people in Government.

“We hope Mr Hancock will encourage a more thoughtful debate around why so many youngsters are inactive. Young people are desperate to work or train, but there are simply not the opportunities available.”

A spokesperson from the Education and Training Foundation said: “We look forward to continuing to play our part in the vital aspects of workforce development, including priority areas associated with improving vocational education and training.”