Coming back from a grade four blow

No one wants to be labelled inadequate by Ofsted, says Lynn Merilion, who describes the journey to improvement after it happened to her college earlier this year

The days when Ofsted gave colleges three weeks to prepare for an inspection are long gone.

This time round, we got a phone call on the Thursday of February half term — and the inspectors arrived the next Monday. This posed several challenges, including getting in touch with staff on leave.

When I joined the college (a few months before the inspection) I took time to talk to staff, learners, parents and other stakeholders, discussing with them the college’s strengths and areas for improvement.

The trends were not positive and, although there had been improvements, the major success data was below national rates. This was always going to make the college vulnerable, but as the inspectors say in their report, we were on our way to addressing issues arising from the data.

Before Ofsted, for instance, we were evaluating the management structure and its effectiveness in driving up the quality of teaching, learning and achievement. Now we are implementing a structure focused on student achievements.

While there are no quick fixes, some of the issues are straightforward, such as how we develop learners’ English and maths skills, an area found weak by the inspectors.

We have now set up a ‘buddy system’ for teachers with strong English skills to offer support to others who need it.

Of course, for teachers to become outstanding they need to know what outstanding looks like. That’s why our grade one teachers are now sharing best practice with colleagues, using new technology.

We have been very clear that we take ownership of the grade and about the further improvements that we need to make”

We found that we had overcomplicated the delivery of equality and diversity in the classroom, and that some teaching staff didn’t feel confident in this area, so we are offering training and development and, again, sharing best practice from areas where we get this right.

Notwithstanding the overall rating, there were areas where we achieved grade twos, including our work with students with learning difficulties that Ofsted said had outstanding features. It also praised our “calm and welcoming environment, culture of mutual respect and tolerance, and learners (who) behave in an appropriate fashion”.

Our students, staff and partners have been very supportive, some students have even written to Ofsted to tell them of the good experiences they have had at the college.

I was concerned about the inspection’s impact on staff morale and how we would communicate the result.

During inspection week I made sure that I was available to support the inspection team and to provide essential ongoing communication with the staff and governors. Staff were debriefed face-to-face at the end of the week and, shortly before the Ofsted result was publicly announced, we communicated with all our key partners including employers, sub-contractors and the media.

Our stakeholders have been overwhelmingly supportive and are keen to continue to work with us as we make improvements.

Of course the result was very disappointing — no one wants to be labelled inadequate.

But we have been very clear that we take ownership of the grade, that we had already begun to make changes before Ofsted visited and that we are very clear about the further improvements that we need to make.

We have another 10 to 13 months before the inspectors return. Our overriding commitment is to ensure that we achieve an outstanding experience for our learners. With our staff completely behind us, I know we can do this. We won’t rest until we’re the best college in the country.

Lynn Merilion, principal  of City of Bristol College

Tutors are more than an ‘expensive luxury’

New national occupational standards for personal tutoring  will help to raise standards across the sector, writes Sally Wootton

The learning and skills sector has long supported the idea that personal tutoring contributes to improved retention and achievement, with a great deal of research suggesting that it lies at the heart of every learner’s experience and is central to his or her achievement and progression.

So why is the role of the personal tutor still often under-resourced and undervalued?

Many see tutors as an expensive luxury; they are often the first to go when savings need to be made. But reducing the level of tutoring is a false economy considering the role it plays in identifying learners at risk, implementing early interventions and supporting learners to keep on track.

And lost learners mean lost income. That aside, remember that when we recruit learners we are making a commitment to serve them well —  good tutoring is part of that service.

Being a tutor is a complex role but it is one that contributes to retention, achievement and progression. Tutors monitor progress; identify barriers to learning and enable learners to become motivated, autonomous self-starters; to develop essential wider skills so that they are well equipped to succeed.

The difficulty is finding evidence to show the impact of this complex role. It has been said that where learners succeed, it is down to good teaching; where they fail, it is down to poor tutoring.

Many case studies have found that poor tutoring can have a negative impact on  a learner’s mental wellbeing”

More work needs to explore and develop methods to assess the impact of tutoring, not simply to validate the contribution that it makes but also to provide a tool for self evaluation and quality improvement.

There’s the assumption too that ‘anyone can do it’. Tutoring is a learning relationship that requires specific skills and attributes. A negative tutoring relationship — that is, one that does not engage fully with the learner — hinders an individual’s potential.

Plus, many case studies have found that poor tutoring can have a negative impact on  a learner’s mental wellbeing. The right people must be in place to encourage, support and challenge learners.

Sadly, many organisations still allocate tutoring on the basis of timetables and availability, rather than an ability to do the job effectively.

Historically, little guidance has been available to support the effective recruitment and development of skilled personal tutors. This has led to a disparate quality of provision  across the sector and, in many cases, across individual organisations.

The Further Education Tutorial Network (FETN) is addressing these issues through research, training and resource development, and has recently worked with the Learning and Skills Improvement Service to develop national occupational standards for personal tutoring.

These standards identify the requisite skills, knowledge and understanding, and are applicable to FE and sixth-form colleges, higher education and work-based learning. The new standards clarify the tutoring role, bringing it in line with other professional occupations such as mentoring, coaching and counselling.

The standards can be used as a benchmark for effective tutoring practice and as a tool to review policy and procedures for recruiting, training and supporting personal tutors. They are available on the free resources page of the FETN website.

Dr Sally Wootton, founding director of the Further Education Tutorial Network

We need to talk about the Tech Bacc

The government’s plans for vocational education move the debate forward but more detailed discussions with employers, and  FE and school sector representatives are vital, says Brian Lightman

After what has felt like an incredibly long wait, there is some sense of relief that the government has finally given an indication of its plans for vocational education with its announcement of a Technical Baccalaureate (Tech Bacc).

At a time when there has been so much emphasis on traditional academic study in policy circles and accountability measures, there is an urgent need for equal status to be given to high-quality vocational education. Employers are crying out for candidates with real potential to go into higher level apprenticeships or employment-based training that then lead into a range of careers in industry and commerce. In many cases the best preparation for these is highly valued and high status vocational courses.

However, the Tech Bacc does not address two major issues.

The first is the continuing misuse of the term ‘baccalaureate’. The simple fact is that Tech Bacc, like the Ebacc before it, is not a baccalaureate. It is a performance indicator based on courses that in large part have not yet been approved. And we all know too well what happens when the curriculum is driven by the accountability system as opposed to a coherent educational vision: it places the accountability cart before the educational horse.

Curriculum design focuses on ticking the box on the performance indicator as opposed to looking at the learning outcomes. We should be starting this process with a planned approach to the curriculum that integrates vocational and academic qualifications into a coherent educational vision.

The second issue is even more challenging, and at its heart is a cultural issue that our country has been deeply unsuccessful in addressing. The regrettable fact is that a separate performance indicator for vocational courses perpetuates the idea that these routes are in some way inferior to academic ones, that the ‘brightest’ students should opt for a traditional academic route and that this alternative will be for ‘the other 50 per cent’.

A planned approach to the curriculum should integrate vocational and academic qualifications ”

We have to break that mindset.

Recent research by the Education and Employers Task Force highlighted the immense mismatch between the career aspirations of young people and employment opportunities. There is no doubt that there are many highly skilled career routes in areas such as construction, technology and engineering that struggle to recruit appropriately skilled  and qualified employees.

Part of the solution therefore must be to turn this performance indicator, together with other level three routes such as A-level, into a proper baccalaureate — an overarching certificate that carries the credibility of UCAS points and can be achieved through a range of routes including ones that build on level two qualifications.

So, for example, a student could achieve this baccalaureate by studying three A-levels, with a core such as the one that has been proposed.

Another student could achieve it through high-quality vocational qualifications in place of the A-levels and others could achieve it through a combination. This way we would not be forcing young people down a route that continues to be separate.

But there is a further element to this. Employers continuously and quite understandably argue for young people to possess a more rounded range of employability skills. The CBI report, First Steps, defines these clearly. Whatever route young people are following, these skills need to be embedded into the curriculum and other learning experiences throughout their education.

My assessment of the Tech Bacc proposal is therefore to welcome that it has taken the debate a little way forward but to call urgently on the government to engage in much more detailed discussion with those of us who represent the FE and school sectors, along with employers. We must ensure that the approved, yet to be announced, qualifications have genuine currency and channel and motivate our best students towards high status careers.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders 

Provider’s ‘appalling’ pass rate

Just 6,375 out of 13,420 adult retail apprentices succeeded

England’s biggest apprenticeship provider has come under fire from the chair of a government watchdog after “appalling” figures revealed less than half of its retail and wholesale leavers qualified last year.

Just 47.5 per cent of Elmfield Training’s 13,420 leavers in the sector aged 25 or more walked away with an apprenticeship certificate in 2011/12.

The official minimum level of performance (MLP) is 53 per cent and Elmfield was the only provider in this bracket (25 and over in the retail and wholesale learners, and with at least 100 leavers) to miss the quality threshold, according to National Success Rate Tables published by the Data Service.

A spokesperson for Elmfield, which delivered the majority of its apprenticeships for supermarket giant Morrisons, said that “tough trading conditions” in the retail sector made it difficult to access and support learners last year.

However, Adrian Bailey, chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Select Committee, who has previously questioned Elmfield’s profit levels, called for official action on the firm’s performance.

“Elmfield is a major training provider in receipt of substantial funds from government,” he said.

“With such a low level of success it seems that a large amount of public money was wasted.

“In light of the BIS Select Committee criticism of this company and its profits, demands were made upon the government to be more rigorous in its monitoring of Elmfield and value for money.

“These figures are appalling and I will be putting it to the committee that we write to the government pointing this out, and demanding action from both Ofsted and the Skills Funding Agency.”

Elmfield, whose agency contract last academic year was £37,906,346 and currently stands at £27,649,434, was last inspected by Ofsted in July 2011 and got a satisfactory — grade three — rating. The education watchdog is due to visit again by September next year.

A spokesperson for the agency said it took “robust and proportionate action” where providers failed to reach performance targets.

“We are unable to provide specific details until we have discussed next steps with individual providers,” she said.

Elmfield had 22,290 apprenticeship leavers across all ages and sectors, including business administration, last year and achieved an overall success rate of 58.5 per cent. The next biggest, with 13,830 leavers, was Babcock, which achieved 71.4 per cent.

The Elmfield spokesperson said it was moving away from retail.

She said: “Fewer than 40 per cent of new learners joining our programmes are in retail this year and the proportion will continue to fall, partly as a result of Elmfield’s decision not to tender for a new contract with Morrisons.”

She added: “Further analysis of 2011/12 shows that, without retail 25+ learners, the success rate would be over 75 per cent.

“In retail, success rates for 16 to 18-year-olds was 79.4 per cent, comparing favourably to a sector national average of 75.1 per cent.

“For learners aged 19 to 24, the success rate was 75.1 per cent against the sector national average of 75.2 per cent. Of those learners who left without completing the framework the great majority (84 per cent) passed both the Qualifications and Credit Framework and technical certificates.

“For MLP purposes our performance against the new retail framework in 2011/12 was 67.9 per cent for all ages, and the 25+ success rate was 63 per cent.

“The strain put on our retail partners by the economic conditions in 2011/12 had a significant but shortlived effect on our performance.

“In previous years, Elmfield’s performance has been significantly above the national average.

“We have now turned the corner and are pleased to see our success rate back where it belongs.”

————————————————————————————-

Editorial: Rewarding failure

It has been 21 months since the first Elmfield adult retail apprentice leaver in the 2011/12 academic year, and we now know less than half achieved their framework.

Let’s look at the scale of this failure for all its apprentices.

In total, Elmfield had 22,290 leavers with an average success rate of 58.5 per cent, representing six percent of the England’s total 360,930 leavers (who had an average rate of 73.8 per cent).

Statistically, this means Elmfield alone dragged England’s overall apprenticeship national success rate down by a full percentage point.

For a provider which has said it receives all of its money from the government, you would think failure on this scale would not be rewarded.

But in the 2010/11 financial year the directors of Elmfield drew pre-tax dividends of £6.5m on a £34m turnover, and Ged Syddall, chief executive and majority shareholder, saw his salary more than quadruple to £408,000 for 2011/12.

Unsurprisingly, Adrian Bailey MP, like the rest of us, would like to know how the Skills Funding Agency and Ofsted allowed this to happen — and what they intend to do about it.

It’s time for the agency to get tough and limit the public money it allows provider shareholders to receive.

Nick Linford, editor of FE Week

Governor backs defiant Taylor

‘It’s a comfort to be asked to stay on,’ says Coventry principal

The chair of City College Coventry’s board of governors has refused to sack his principal after a disastrous inspection result.

The college was branded inadequate — a grade four result — across each of the education watchdog’s headline fields.

The 8,000-learner college was also given grade fours throughout the main findings board, including apprenticeships and 19+ learning programmes.

It was the college’s third poor inspection result under the 16-year leadership of Paul Taylor

And the result has prompted  a number of comments on websites, including FE Week, questioning college leadership.

Jayne Stigger wrote on Twitter: “Investigation into how this has been allowed to continue needed? How many more?”

But Warwick Hall (pictured), chair of the governors at City College Coventry since 2001, said he wanted to turn the college around “rather than debate individuals”.

“The Ofsted report was extremely disappointing and it is important for our students, local businesses and the city that the provision of the college is radically improved,” he said.

“Rather than debating individuals, the energies of the leadership team and board of governors are focused on delivering a considerable step change that is focused on the achievement of our current students and the new intake in September.

“The college leadership team aims to achieve this through a thorough review of systems, processes and standards, and improving the performance of all staff.”

Coventry’s Ofsted report, published on April 23 following inspection in March, was critical of below average achievement, low course completion, poor attendance and punctuality.

Its highest mark was a single grade two for teaching, learning and assessment on independent living and life skills.

The report said: “Quality assurance systems are ineffective. They have failed to prevent the decline in success rates and have not brought about the necessary improvements across the college, particularly in teaching, learning and assessment.”

The energies of the leadership team and board of governors are focused on delivering a considerable step change that is focused on the achievement of our current students and the new intake in September”

It added: “Leadership and management throughout the college are not effective in bringing about sustained improvement in all areas.”

The college has automatically been issued with a notice of concern, which a Skills Funding Agency spokesperson said required it “to take swift, robust and effective action to remedy the inadequacies identified by Ofsted”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said: “The government published the enhanced intervention approach in April’s Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills.

“This new process will be in place by August 2013 once the appointment of the new FE Commissioner is completed.

“Before these arrangements are in place the Skills Funding Agency is leading the intervention with City College Coventry and all options have been considered.”

Mr Taylor himself has responded on the FE Week website (right), where he said he expected the new FE Commissioner to step
in somehow. However, he has already said he wanted to stay in post to “put
things right”.

Mr Taylor has already said he was implementing changes to improve the college, which, according to agency figures, had a turnover of £19.8m last year.

One of Mr Taylor’s changes — a new system to monitor attendance and trigger action to deal with students who did not turn up — was not in place in time for the inspection, he said.

Staff training would also be assessed and addressed, “before the end of June with a view to a clean start in September”, he added.

“Generally, we need to tidy up on all our systems and become more consistent and focused.

“But we don’t just want to implement an action plan — we want to put in place a significant culture change.”

Comments and tweets

Paul Taylor on feweek.co.uk:

The article [in the last edition of FE Week] portrays me as being ‘defiant’.

I am not being stubborn in staying on, rather, the corporation decided to assume a corporate responsibility for the poor outcome and has taken the pragmatic view that things need sorting out very quickly and that in order to do this, I and the rest of executive should stay in place to develop and to have implemented an action plan by the beginning of July to set the place up for September.

This is what we are doing and we have made very good progress.

Indeed, some key issues were already being resolved prior to inspection in relation to personnel, structures and systems.

The governance and management team recognises the immediate challenges and is confident of significant improvement.

My future is not in my hands. We have the first formal post inspection action plan monitoring meeting scheduled with the agency in mid-May.

Otherwise, we expect intervention from the new commissioner with whatever consequences that might bring.

To repeat, I am not being stubborn or unrealistic about my future prospects of remaining principal.

I am doing what the corporation has asked. I am doing it and will continue to do so as professionally as I possibly can and for as long as I am required.

This will be of comfort to me when my career as principal is over.”

Paul Taylor, principal of City College Coventry

David Frost, chair, Local Enterprise Partnership Network

David Frost has waged war in two major financial battles — and come out fighting.

The economist watched the recession of the early 1980s “decimate” UK manufacturing and the 2008 economic downturn spawn banking breakdown, two crises that arguably defined his career.

Through 1981 and 82, Newcastle-born Frost became known as a troubleshooter as he merged chambers of commerce up and down the country. He built up training programmes to help scupper youth unemployment and by 2007, and then director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), signposted the Bank of England to the next recession.

“The recession in the early Eighties made today look like a kid’s tea-party,” the 59-year-old recalls.

“Manufacturing was decimated and for a year there were major closures — 3,000 redundancies, 5,000 redundancies — every week. The atmosphere was very difficult and youth unemployment soared.”

But a training operation was born during the economic turmoil, planting a strong resolve in the father-of-two to help to prepare young people for the world of work and bridge the skills gap.

“Training boards were set up and I used one in the West Midlands as the nucleus to build a big training company called PTP — Performance Through People — which is still there,” he says.

“It was one of the first times these kind of companies and training opportunities had happened. Young people were learning textiles, engineering, business administration, enabling them to get their first job.”

“It gave me knowledge for life — that we need to deal with youth unemployment.”

Even after a successful  career in which he travelled the globe as a member of government delegations representing the interests of 100,000 British businesses, it is youth unemployment that has resonated with him most.

“From the day I started my working life to the day I finished, the big cry from employers was that schools were not equipping young people with the skills they needed for the modern world,” says Frost, who now lives in Sutton Coldfield.

“The message is still out there now.

“Having young people without skills just stores up big problems for the future — my interest was to give them skills.”

Frost now acts as chair for vInspired, a charity dedicated to volunteering opportunities for young people, the Studio Schools Trust, which helps to develop skills, and the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education.

The keen motorcyclist, who’s travelled much of Europe “in the comfort of his leathers”, says that attending a technical school in Northumberland had a “huge impact” on him.

“People were boxed as either vocational or academic, but I feel many — including me — were both,” he says.

“I can strip an engine blind, I can weld and I can use a lathe. But I’m not unusual, many of my friends are the same. The practical experience of hands-on work has served me well throughout life — that’s why I’m a huge fan of university technical colleges.”

Frost, who met his wife Mari while studying political economy at Thames Polytechnic in the 1970s, started out as an economist in London.

After moving to Walsall Chamber of Commerce, he quickly rose through the ranks to become, at 33, the organisation’s youngest chief executive.

He took the lead in merging the chamber with others in the area to form East Mercia Chamber of Commerce, before moving on in 2000 to another chamber, in Coventry and Warwickshire.

After seeing the organisation through much change — such as the coming and going of local employer networks, training and enterprise councils and the Learning and Skills Council — Frost was invited to London to help to restructure the BCC.

He was soon asked to “put his hat in the ring” and apply to become the organisation’s next general director. He then spent the next nine years building up the BCC as a “powerful brand”, visiting countries, from Malaysia to Mexico and the United States to South Africa. But he says that his “highlight” was a trip to China with Peter Mandelson.

“We were in the Great Hall of the People with the Chinese premier. Just seeing how effective Mandelson was at promoting the interests of British producers was staggering,” he remembers.

“He was confident, at ease, not overawed — just very, very good.”

Frost also travelled the UK, talking to businesses to find out what issues they were facing.

“Essentially we were able to call the recession in 2007,” he says.

“Going round the country it was quite clear that the whole of bank lending had ground to a halt.

“It was having a great impact — long established family businesses were having issues with lending as credit was glued up.

“I was a lone voice saying ‘this economy is going into meltdown’ and others were saying ‘no, it’s not as bad as it looks’,” he says.

“I remember being called into the Bank of England and to talk to members of the Monetary Policy Committee and going through statistics — the scale of the work we were doing became clear.”

He says the chamber’s main role was then to make businesses aware of the looming troubles and to help them to prepare, giving advice, for example, on cash flow.

“People were more prepared and not so many businesses failed as in previous recessions,” he says.

When he stepped down in 2011, he took on the role of chairing the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEPs) Network.

The 39 partnerships have changed dramatically in the past 19 months since they started, he says.

“The government is determined to get growth and realises it can’t do everything from Whitehall. It wants to see more devolution,” says Frost.

“The link with FE will vary from one part of the country to the other but at the end of the day, LEPs must have a clear understanding of what’s happening with the labour market in their area, and ensure provisions will be there for young people.

“Companies are looking to expand but people haven’t got the skills to do it, so they should act as the body that has an understanding of what’s happening in the labour market.

“They will be important in transferring how companies are thinking in the next three to five years and working with providers to ensure provisions are there.”

Are their increased powers a good thing?

“Absolutely,” he says.

“I don’t think it’ll be easy — the centre will have to let go and provide a single pot of money and give freedoms, but at the same time LEPs will have to step up to the plate and really show how they can make a difference.

“Some will succeed. But just because some don’t perform well doesn’t mean that LEPs are a failure — that’s just localism. You’ve got to let things flourish. If it’s evident some are failing we should be looking at the quality of the leadership on the boards and act upon it.”

What has driven the engineer’s son who was awarded the CBE in 2011 for services to business?

“I have always believed in hard work and a can-do attitude,” he admits.

“Perhaps it’s the Geordie in me, but I live to work. I have never had a day where I thought I didn’t want to go to work, ever.

“You’re only on the planet once, so don’t waste it.”

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book? 

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A fighter pilot

What do you do to switch off from work?

Cycling and motorcycling are the best therapy — however, I’m not sure you ever switch off completely. I always think life is like riding a bicycle — stop pedalling and you fall off

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

Sir Bradley Wiggins, Dame Ellen MacArthur, Robert Stephenson [19th century railway engineer] and Lord Dearing [author of a government review into higher education]

What would your super power be? 

Changing my birth date, ideally to 1815 — when Britain was becoming a huge manufacturing superpower, and place of innovations and new technology like the railways. It must have been incredibly exciting.

Harlow tops the tables, again

Harlow College has celebrated the highest general FE college qualification success rate in England for the second year running.

The Essex college achieved an all-age and all-duration success rate of 94 per cent for the year ending July 2012, meaning 10,171 qualifications were achieved out of 10,820 starts.

Principal Colin Hindmarch, who retires this week, said: “We have attained this through the dedication, hard work and unremitting resolve of our staff to ensure the outstanding success of all our students.

“We are well on track to achieve an even higher success rate for 2012/13 though there is, of course, much hard work to be done to ensure our students are successful.”

The college’s success rate was down 0.1 per cent from last year, but the number of starts had grown by just over half from 7,190, according to National Success Rate Tables published by the Data Service.

In second place was Highbury College, Portsmouth, with 93.6 per cent, followed by Runshaw College Lancashire, with 92.9
per cent.

However, for the 16 to 18 age group taking long courses, Harlow lost its 2010/11 top spot to Runshaw, which had 93.6 per cent success rate out of 10,890 starts in this group.

Runshaw spokesperson Tim Kayhill said that students would always be the college’s priority. “If you make students happy and dream big then the Ofsted results and table results will follow on from that,” he said.

Highbury College with 92.1 per cent and Farnborough with 91.8 per cent had the second and third slots, while Harlow came in at number four.

At the other end of the scale. Southwark College in London has the lowest success rates for 16 to 18 long courses, at just 66.9 per cent with 960 starters.

Southwark has since merged with Lewisham College to form LeSoCo, where a spokesperson declined to comment.

However, across all types and length of course, Southwark went up one place from its position at the bottom of the table in 2010/11, lifting its success rate of 65.8 per cent to 75.4 per cent last year.

Bottom place was taken by Hartlepool College, which had a success rate of 73.7 per cent.

A Hartlepool spokesperson said the result was a “blip” that it was “determined to reverse”.

“We are confident that outcome levels this year will return to the previously good performance evident up to 2012,” he said.

The spokesperson added that 2011/12 had been demanding with many changes for the college, as had been acknowledged by Ofsted and the college’s self-assessment report.

In its most recent Ofsted inspection in February the college was awarded an overall grade three — requires improvement — with inadequate for learner outcomes.

Minister okays college merger

The troubled merger of two colleges in the Midlands has been given the nod of approval by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock, who had told them to take the plans back to the drawing board.

Proposals by Stourbridge and Birmingham Metropolitan to form “one of the largest and most significant further education providers in the country” were approved by governors last week.

They are now set to become one institution with the 12,500-student Stourbridge College dissolving and its property, rights and liabilities transferring to Birmingham Met, which had more than 26,000 learners two years ago.

But the proposals had been investigated by Mr Hancock’s officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to “establish if appropriate processes have been followed”.

He wrote to David Beasley, clerk at Stourbridge College, saying: “I would request that the corporation review its processes and rectify any shortfall.”

However, a BIS spokesperson said there had been a constructive response to the letter and that the merger now had the minister’s blessing.

“Stourbridge Corporation has responded constructively to our concerns by demonstrating why it considers the merger to be the best option for learners, local employers and the community,” said the spokesperson.

“The corporation has now gone through the proper process and undertaken a college structure and prospects appraisal as set out in New Challenges, New Chances.

“We will continue to work with colleges in meeting expectations on the necessary steps when considering major changes like this to their delivery model.”

A spokesperson for the colleges said: “Both corporations have worked closely with BIS outlining the rationale for the merger and the many benefits it will bring to local learners, employers and the wider community.

“All the requirements have been met and we are now looking forward to delivering education and training to serve the needs of our communities.”

The merger plan was put out to a six-week formal consultation that ended on February 27.

It has been backed by the Birmingham Local Enterprise Partnership and, following the governors’ green light, is now set to be complete by June.

David Nolan, chair of Stourbridge College Corporation, said that the college’s governors unanimously supported the merger after considering the benefits it would create for learners, including greater choice of courses, improved facilities and enhanced connections to employers and the jobs market.

Vij Randeniya, chair of Birmingham Met, said that it was “delighted” to be merging with Stourbridge College which had a reputation for success and innovation.

“Working together will help both colleges respond to government’s priorities, particularly in light of the current economic climate and the need to develop the skills of our regional workforce.

“Our partnership will offer us the exciting prospect of developing our curriculum across our network of campuses, as well as delivering a host of new opportunities for both organisations to build on the quality and innovation they are already known for.”

New audit reviews cause ‘major concern’

A new audit system from the Skills Funding Agency has caused “major concern” within the FE sector.

Accountability reviews — described as “a key element of the agency’s intervention strategy” — will consider not just financial management, but also governance and strategic oversight arrangements.

The announcement, which sources have told FE Week came as a surprise to many in the sector, was accompanied by a 58-page guidance document on the agency website.

It is understood the reviews could be used to assess the progress of providers issued with notices of concern relating to finances.

But Paul Warner, Association of Employment and Learning Providers director of employment and skills, called for clarity on what action was needed from providers and whether audit would result in a straight pass or fail.

“We are unsure how these new guidelines fit with the existing Financial Health Guidelines which are applied to providers on the Register of Training Organisations [RTO],” he told FE Week.

“Does this new review override the existing guidelines and in particular the ratios submitted in an RTO application?”

He added: “The way that the audits are conducted will be crucial. While the guidelines themselves are generally acceptable, they cover a wide area and different auditors may reach different judgements on each aspect.

“If we have understood them correctly, they seem to suggest that if a provider is judged inadequate or ‘needs improvement’ in any part of the inspection, a straight fail will result and for us, this is a major concern.”

Agency guidance on the reviews says they will not be triggered by an Ofsted inspection, but will instead follow a risk-based schedule.

Key risks that would lead to a provider being flagged up on the schedule include “under-performance against allocations, key senior personnel changes or concerns and trends in success rates”.

Providers would be notified that an accountability review was coming three to four weeks in advance.

Julian Gravatt, assistant chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said the audit plan would be looked at soon.

“We discussed the agency’s plan to have targeted reviews to replace FMCE (Financial Management Control Evaluation) and we’re currently discussing the new BIS intervention arrangements and the College Finance Directors Group will be reviewing the detail of this document,” he said.

Each accountability review will examine management, including governance and strategic oversight, financial management and internal control arrangements.

The audit guidance added that reviews would not be undertaken at non-college providers with aggregate contracts under £10m.

An agency spokesperson said: “We would welcome comments from colleges and training organisations on how they could be further developed and refined in the future, particularly in respect of their scope, usefulness and content.”