Latest news from FE Week

A former Welsh international footballer is one of four men to have been disqualified from being company directors after their sports apprenticeship firm submitted invalid funding claims.

Mark Aizlewood (pictured), aged 54, who played for Wales 39 times between 1986 and 1994, was barred from directorships for six years for failing to comply with apprenticeship rules with his training provider, Luis Michael Training Limited (LMT).

The Newport-based firm enrolled, assessed and verified apprenticeships for young people at football clubs such as Leeds, Millwall and Nottingham Forest. It worked as a subcontractor for eight FE colleges including Sparsholt College and South Thames College.

Aizlewood’s co-directors Paul Sugrue, 53, also a former professional footballer, 41-year-old Keith Anthony Williams and 49-year-old Christopher Paul Martin were also disqualified from directorships — for six, six-and-a-half and eight years, respectively.

The disqualifications follow an investigation by the Insolvency Service that established the men failed to ensure the company — which is currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office —complied with funding guidance and failed to ensure that adequate documentation was maintained and/or supplied to colleges to support the funding claims they made, placing the company at risk of being held liable to repay funding totalling at least £3,442,809.

Ken Beasley, Insolvency Service official receiver of Public Interest Unit (Manchester), said: “This company received millions of pounds in government funding, but failed to provide sufficient evidence to support claims for funding or to demonstrate that the company had complied with funding guidance which was readily available to them.

“The various failures of the four directors constitute behaviour that falls far below that expected of responsible directors of a limited company.”

The Insolvency Service found that in late 2010, one of the colleges LMT dealt with cancelled its contract citing funding anomalies at the subcontractor. An audit by the college’s external auditors identified ineligible claims made by LMT.

The audit, plus telephone audits undertaken by colleges to whom LMT provided services, found, among other things, that LMT had submitted ineligible claims for Welsh learners, who have their own funding body; and failed to ensure that all learners were in employment.

It also submitted claims for learners who did not participate in or had withdrawn from the programme; submitted claims for learners who had undertaken prior learning or who were otherwise undertaking additional learning; and submitted claims for learners outside of the stipulated geographical area specified in contracts.

In light of the problems, the agency required the college to repay funding and the college subsequently sought to reclaim the funds paid to LMT. As LMT was not able to repay the amount, a winding up petition for £2,573,994 was presented by the college and the company was wound up by the court on September 26, 2011.

“The Insolvency Service has strong enforcement powers and will not hesitate to use them to remove directors who have failed to honour their obligations from the business environment,” said Mr Beasley.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), in conjunction with Gwent Police, is currently investigating the dealings of LMT. The case was accepted in September 2011 following a referral by Gwent Police.

An SFO spokesperson said: “It is suspected that LMT produced false documentation, including registration papers, progress reviews and coaching examination certificates to falsely show to FE colleges and examining boards that training and apprenticeship placements had been successfully achieved and completed.”

He added: “The period being investigated spans 2009 to 2011. It is provisionally estimated that the total suspected fraudulent claims made by LMT to a number of colleges is in excess of £1.6m.”

Picture: Mark Aizlewood in footballing action for Wales in December 1994. Copyright:PA

The Education and Training Foundation will be celebrating its first Christmas in the coming weeks. Rebecca Cooney looks back at an event five months since its “official launch” — and even further back to the early discussions about a new sector organisation.

The concept of the Education and Training Foundation, the sector self-improvement body, was first given life in August 2012.

The group has been through consultations, a name change, a shock resignation and is now up and running, so FE Week took a look back over the foundation’s eventful first 18 months.

In October 2012, Skills Minister Matthew Hancock announced the Association of Colleges (AoC) and Association for Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), along with HOLEX, would be steering the proposed group, then known as the FE Guild.

The guild, said Mr Hancock, would “support and enhance the professional standing of those who teach in further education”.

The group was renamed the Education and Training Foundation after a consultation deemed the name guild “old-fashioned”.

In April, an implementation plan was released detailing £18.8m funding to be provided by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) for the first two years of the foundation, which would then move towards being self-funded.

It also revealed the foundation would operate by commissioning other bodies to carry out its research and development work.

Many questioned the need for a new sector body, suggesting the Learning and Skills Improvement Service, which was no longer funded after the foundation began, could have been modified to suit the same purpose.

But AELP chief executive Stewart Segal told delegates at the AELP conference in June “the Education and Training Foundation has not replaced LSIS — it is a new and different organisation”.

Peter Davies, then leading the guild steering group, said: “The fundamental premise is that we are about having a professional, relevant, highly, dually skilled and motivated work force.”

The Education and Training Foundation was officially launched on August 1.

But just two weeks in, the foundation attracted criticism for failing to properly advertise senior roles and just a fortnight after that, the interim chief executive Sir Geoff Hall resigned.

September saw the appointments of the permanent chief executive, David Russell (pictured centre left), who is yet to take up post, and permanent chair Peter Mullins (pictured centre right), as well as a commitment from BIS to provide an extra £10m funding in 2015-16.

The government has tasked the foundation with research and development around fulfilling the recommendations of Frank McLoughlin’s Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (CAVTL) which published its report It’s About Work in March.

The foundation’s panel at the conference on the report, held at the Skills Show in November, raised as many questions around how CAVTL’s aims could be achieved as it answered.

Confederation of British Industry director for employment and skills Neil Carberry said: “The challenge is to build confidence in young people, their parents and the education system that vocational education choices have validity.”

Mr Davies reminded delegates that the foundation’s core aim is to be responsive to the sector’s needs.

“We want to hear what you think… Make sure you tell us what we need to do to support you,” he said.

And questions were a big theme for new chair Mr Mullins at the AoC conference the following week.

“We’re up, we’re now running, we’re underway,” he said.

“But the big question everyone wants to get a much clearer view on from us is, what does that really look like in practice?

“We’ve got a big programme of tenders out, of work underway, but more importantly we’re starting to engage with the sector much more about what they think comes next for us.”

He re-affirmed the importance of the foundation being sector-led.

“Over the next 12 months that’s what we’ve got to get everybody in the sector convinced that we are really doing, that we are helping them synthesise their views and articulate them in a useful way for a wider audience,” said Mr Mullins.

After a shaky start, with tenders submitted in a non-competitive process binned in October for the introduction of a competitive system, the foundation now has a range of invitations to tender out. They include a set of consultations on English, maths and STEM, graduate recruitment, leadership and governance and vocational education and training.

There is also a tender to be the foundation’s delivery partner for Teach Too, a key part of the CAVTL report which said all lecturers should also be practising professionals in their field.

At the AoC conference, Mr Mullins summed up the foundation’s own hopes for its future.

“Absolutely key for us is ‘is it going to result in a specific, measurable difference?’” he said.

“That’s what we’re aiming to achieve and I’m pretty confident we’re going to be successful.”

From left: Lynsi Hayward-Smith, head of adult learning and skills Cambridgeshire County Council, Don Hayes MBE, chief executive of ENABLE, Asha Khemka OBE, principal and chief executive of West Nottinghamshire College Group, David Hughes, chief executive of Niace and former interim chair of foundation board, Stewart Segal, chief executive of AELP, Peter McCann, principal and chief executive of Kirklees College, Martin Doel, chief executive of AoC, John Hyde, executive chair of HIT Training Ltd, Christine Jeffry, strategy and policy adviser for General Physics (UK) Ltd, Skills Training Academy, and Mark White, head of the vice-chancellor’s office at Teesside University. Picture by Nick Linford

 

Learners’ part-time paid jobs could be publicly-funded as part of the new study programmes for 16 to 19-year-olds, FE Week can reveal.

It had appeared the Department for Education (DfE) would only allow unpaid work experience organised through colleges or independent learning providers to form part of the programmes.

College principals had warned this would have been unfair on students who, for example, attended a course four days a-week and did a part-time job on their day off to help pay their way through education.

Such youngsters would have been forced to give up their paid employment to leave enough time to complete the required amount of unpaid work experience.

But DfE has told FE Week of new guidance.

A spokesperson said: “Work experience and supported internships will be funded where the provider has planned, organised and supervised the placement and it forms a part of the student’s study programme.

“Work experience or part time work organised by a student independently to their course would not be funded.

“However, teaching time spent helping students ensure that the part-time work they are undertaking directly benefits their study goals could be.”

And Marina Gaze, Ofsted’s deputy director for FE and skills, told FE Week: “We are fully aware that some learners develop good employability skills while on paid employment they have arranged privately.

“Having discussed this with the DfE, we can confirm that this activity can be included as part of the 16 to 19 study programmes, but only if the provider is involved in the learner’s development.”

Andrew Patience, principal of new College Stamford, was one of those to previously raise the issue. He said: “I am delighted that reason has prevailed and DfE and Ofsted have obviously changed their views. It’s a good thing that valuable, paid work can now be taken into account.”

George Trow, principal of Doncaster College, agreed the concession was “entirely sensible”. He said: “Paid work experience already set up by our students is an important introduction for them to the world of employment. Many students need to work part-time and during their holidays to pay their way through college.”

Donald Taylor, chairman of the Learning and Performance Institute, which represents independent learning providers, said: “Learning at work is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Whether you are fully-employed, work part-time or a student, what you learn is valuable and should be recognised as such.”

Vanessa Potter, from West Sussex-based independent learning provider Asphaleia, said: “The move will further reduce barriers to increased participation, thus supporting learners, education providers and employers to embrace statutory requirements.

“Study programmes are now a more viable and attractive option for many learners.”

The DfE spokesperson said: “Work experience or part-time work can be of real benefit to students in developing employability skills — particularly if this work is relevant to the course they are undertaking.

“This is something that the DfE and Ofsted would encourage.”

The Education Funding Agency also confirmed that, “only work experience with external employers should be counted towards and recorded as a work experience learning aim from 2014/15.

“Simulated work environments should be separately recorded as non-qualification activity.”