A former skills adviser to the prime minister has called on the next government to reduce the rate that employers pay into the apprenticeship levy but extend the tax to more businesses.
Baroness Alison Wolf also suggests cutting support for older apprentices while culling expensive apprenticeships in oversupplied occupations.
She described these “straightforward changes” as policy “slam dunks” in an opinion piece for the Financial Times yesterday in which she warned Labour against its plans to expand the levy to fund other forms of training.
Wolf, author of the 2011 review of vocational education, served as a part-time adviser on skills to the prime minister from February 2020 to February 2023 and is currently a non-executive director at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
She is also a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and professor of public sector management at King’s College London.
Wolf made the case for an employer levy to fund apprenticeship training in a report published in 2015 days before the government first unveiled the charge but has voiced her concerns with the design of the system since before it was launched in 2017.
She has long questioned why the government made it so that only large businesses with a payroll in excess of £3 million pay into the levy at a rate of 0.5 per cent of salary costs.
Under the system, levy-paying employers use what they pay into the levy to cover the costs of apprenticeship training. But the funds expire within 24 months if not used and go towards funding apprenticeships in small and medium-sized enterprises.
During a select committee hearing in 2016, Wolf described the system as “very odd” and suspected the design was “decided the night before” it was announced.
Wolf’s Financial Times article said the apprenticeship programme is “heading in the wrong direction on multiple fronts” because of this “flawed” unique funding system.
She wrote: “More and more apprenticeships are lengthy, high-level and expensive. Apprentices are increasingly older people who are often already employed and then get reclassified as apprentices, while openings for young people, especially the most deprived, have fallen fast.”
Government statistics back up Wolf’s claims. Starts have dropped 10 per cent overall since 2017/18 compared to 2022/23, but while under-19 starts have dropped by 27 per cent, starts for those aged 25 or older have grown 3 per cent.
Over that same period starts at levels 2 and 3 have dropped by 53 per cent and 11 per cent respectively, while starts between levels 4 and 7, which are the most expensive to deliver, have shot up by 135 per cent.
On top of this around half of apprentices drop out before completing their programme each year.
Wolf said the current apprenticeship offer “completely fails to tackle the yawning skills gaps in the economy”, citing current government estimates that just one in five apprenticeships are in a shortage occupation.
Wolf then ripped into the “strange” funding system that has led to these developments, including the mismatch, as previously reported by FE Week, between how much the levy raises compared to how much is actually distributed to fund apprenticeship training.
She explained: “Most apprenticeships are paid for by a flawed ‘levy’ on large employers. Small and medium firms are exempt. Those large employers can pay less of the tax if they take on apprentices themselves. Unsurprisingly, they have become better at this over time — hence the growth in apprenticeships for older people already working for the company, as well as in higher-level training that soaks up large levy sums.
“The result is that less money is left over for young people and SMEs. Because the Treasury treats the levy as a hypothecated tax, it refuses to top up the budget significantly for everyone else. The result? Terrible apprenticeship numbers in the occupations that the country most needs, and for the people who most want to do them.”
Wolf warned that Labour, as part of its pro-business drives, risks “making things worse” after it committed to allowing half of the apprenticeship levy to be spent on non-apprenticeship training.
“This would surely result in large companies keeping and spending even more of the levy money internally with even less going towards technical apprenticeships for young people,” she said.
Wolf said Labour should look instead to “sensible reforms” which could “spark an apprenticeship renaissance”.
“It should consider the following: a smaller levy but one paid by more companies; less support for older adult apprentices; and a cull of expensive apprenticeships in oversupplied occupations,” according to Wolf.
“These straightforward changes would transform the system at no additional cost to the Treasury. Voters would like it and the economy would benefit. Policy slam dunks like this rarely present themselves. The next government would be mad not to take advantage of it.”
Apprenticeships are crucial in marrying academic learning with practical skills. This synergy is vital to address workforce shortages, notably in the education and early years sectors.
My dedication to this cause is personal, not just as a parent, but also in my role leading a university with a rich legacy in teacher training and early childhood education.
As chair of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s (IfATE) education and early years route panel, I witness the growing impact of apprenticeships on meeting employer demands and workforce needs.
Research highlights a concerning trend in the early years and school sectors, with significant workforce shortages already here, or looming.
There is a real urgency in developing additional robust pathways, such as apprenticeships, to attract and retain talent in this amazing and crucial sector.
I am enthusiastic about apprenticeships as a recognised pathway into advanced careers.
This stems from the fact that apprenticeship standards are crafted in direct response to employer needs, guaranteeing the skills and knowledge acquired are pertinent and instantly valuable in the workplace.
The employer-driven method adapts education to the changing demands of practice, turning apprenticeships into a direct route to excellent employment opportunities and a competent workforce.
Teachers who excel combine practical experience with intellectual insight, making apprenticeships a logical alternative route for entering the profession.
At my university – a provider of high-level and degree apprenticeships – I am continually inspired by the dedication and resilience of apprentices who balance the rigours of academic study with the practical demands of on-the-job learning.
We are in the midst of an educational evolution
This blend of learning styles is indeed challenging, yet it embodies the best of both worlds, preparing apprentices for a dynamic work environment. Their success stories are a testament to the effectiveness of apprenticeships in nurturing skilled professionals.
I recently asked some of our apprenticeship students what they value most about this route of study. They highlighted that they are working alongside experts and are given enhanced opportunities and responsibilities which are allowing them to grow professionally and to develop their careers. They benefit from learning through a very hands-on experience, and they very much feel a part of the communities in which they are working and learning.
Additionally, earning a salary whilst studying is particularly important in the current financial environment and means that apprenticeship pathways are not limited by the ability to take time off work whilst studying.
The route also allows our students to balance family and caring responsibilities.
Our education and early years route panel, together with collaborating employers, continues to contribute to the dynamic offerings of the apprenticeship landscape.
It’s been encouraging to witness the media attention on the emerging undergraduate teacher degree apprenticeship.
Awaiting approval this coming autumn, it holds promise for helping teacher recruitment in schools and early years settings.
It will improve access to the profession to those who might find traditional full-time study challenging, such as teaching assistants or existing educational staff.
This initiative is anticipated to be a catalyst for social mobility and a substantial support to schools in engaging and maintaining the skilled teachers they necessitate.
We are in the midst of an educational evolution, with apprenticeships broadening access to numerous professions for a diverse array of individuals. This is instrumental in bridging skills shortages and is of immense benefit to the country.
Apprenticeships – as they have evolved – have rapidly become a foundational element within our educational framework, essential for bridging the skills gap and mitigating workforce shortages and I am pleased to see them growing in importance within education and early years settings.
As we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, I’m delighted to recognise and endorse the significant contribution of apprenticeships to cultivating a robust, well-skilled, and flexible workforce for the future.
Depending on who wins the next election, the apprenticeship levy may be one of its major casualties – at least in its current form.
Faced with the government’s rigid efforts to double down on the levy, ideas to overhaul it have been advancing apace.
These include a flexible skills levy, proposed by the Lifelong Education Institute, designed to cover a wider range of training including short and modular courses, and a plan by Onward for 16–19 apprenticeships to be fully funded by the DfE, at an estimated cost of £1.6bn.
Labour’s plan is to turn the apprenticeship into a “growth and skills levy”, allowing businesses to use 50 per cent of their contributions on non-apprenticeship training.
Judging by recent interventions by Tesco and Marks & Spencer, employers are firmly in the mood for change.
So, if we are plausibly months away from a massive transformation in how we fund a quarter of our vocational learning and training in the UK, we should use this moment to take stock of what the apprenticeship levy – or its successor – is trying to achieve.
Fundamentally, the levy works as a redistribution mechanism within the relatively closed system of the UK business community.
It redistributes a small share of the profits of the 2 per cent of businesses eligible to pay it – those with over £3m in payroll – to make more money available for smaller businesses to invest in human capital. It is, in effect, a hypothecated corporation tax with a payroll-based eligibility threshold. We should bear this in mind when we think about how to make the levy more effective.
One way is to lower the eligibility threshold to bring more businesses into the levy system, and introduce a progressive step system to levy rates.
Employers are firmly in the mood for change
For instance, the current 0.5 per cent rate could apply to businesses with over £1m in payroll, rise to 1.25 per cent for those over £2m, and 2.5 per cent for those over £3m.
This would significantly raise the revenue available to fund upskilling. This revenue should be divided according to the Labour 50–50 model: 50 per cent to fund higher and degree apprenticeships for mid-career workers over 25, 50 per cent for short course provision for all employees, which would apply above all to larger businesses.
Apprenticeships at level 3 and below should be taken out of the levy system and fully funded through the DfE, to put apprentices on a par with their school and college peers.
All training for 16–21-year-olds should be subject to a minimum pay mandate, set at the national living wage. This would ensure that younger workers, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, benefit not only from upskilling but also from an additional income buffer when they commit to an apprenticeship.
The revised levy should introduce a 20 per cent funding uplift for SMEs taking on all types of apprentices, and an equivalent uplift for all levy-payers taking on new employees as apprentices – since an estimated 60 per cent or more are currently existing employees. This should be covered by the levy income left unspent at the end of each fiscal year, which ran to £550m in 2022/23 alone. To aid with this, the levy budget should be updated quarterly to reduce the lag on “underspend” discrepancy.
The reformed levy should raise the share that businesses can allocate to others in their supply chain from 25 per cent to 100 per cent.
This capability should also be extended so that businesses with surplus levy funds can act as sectoral or regional “anchor institutions”, in effect sponsoring and supporting SMEs in their orbit that would otherwise struggle with the administrative burden of participating in the apprenticeship framework.
The aim should ultimately be to create an adult skills account that empowers individual learners to take charge of their own upskilling journey.
That is what kickstarting a skills revolution looks like.
As we pause for reflection and celebration this National Apprenticeship Week, we need to make sure we include the voices of young people in the conversation.
We often hear about what business needs or what training should look like. Skills gaps, industrial strategies, funding. All crucial. But this all begins with a young person having access to an extraordinary experience. A job with training now, and a pathway to continued learning later.
And what are young people saying?
They increasingly know about apprenticeships…and like them. UCAS’s Project Next Generation report reveals that 59 per cent of young people in Years 9-12 are now considering an apprenticeship. Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) data finds that understanding of apprenticeships doubles from 39 per cent in year 7 to 79 per cent by year 11.
Young people see – as we do – that apprenticeships can be life-changing routes. An opportunity for hands-on learning, a chance to find their way to rewarding careers.
However, awareness and ambition are not the same as uptake.
And there remains friction at points of transition. Part of this relates to the dynamics (and geography) of supply and demand. Previous UCAS research has revealed one in three students were prevented from pursuing an apprenticeship due to a lack of roles in their desired industry.
There are other factors at play too, though, which UCAS and the CEC are committed to tackling.
First, we need to make sure young people are inspired by apprenticeships from an early age. Deciding to take a work-based route rather than the well-trodden academic pathway can be daunting and there is a long lead-in time.
Awareness and ambition are not the same as uptake
High-quality, employer-focused and integrated careers programmes are important here. The enhanced provider access legislation which CEC is supporting schools to implement can make a difference too. It entitles learners to six encounters with providers of apprenticeships or other technical pathways.
Second, we need to ensure there is parity in the way that students explore and connect to apprenticeship opportunities and more established academic routes.
Last year, more than 40 per cent of students applying through UCAS expressed an interest in apprenticeships. UCAS’s expansion of its apprenticeship services last year means young people can see more personalised options, including apprenticeships within the UCAS Hub, alongside undergraduate choices.
Students can search for an apprenticeship at any time throughout the year, as and when employers are hiring, with vacancies updated in real-time. These enhancements are transforming the experience of students taking that next step towards an apprenticeship – and connecting employers to apprentice talent that best fits their business needs and skills shortages.
Third, we need to help young people have meaningful and ongoing experiences with employers. UCAS found that 85 per cent of young people consider this important for getting their apprenticeship. This work is good for young people and businesses alike.
A CEC survey of more than 300 firms, who together employ more than one million people found, as a result of their work in schools and colleges, they are boosting apprenticeship and job applicants (75 per cent and 78 per cent respectively). Seven in 10 say it is helping close skills gaps. In practice, this has seen employers gaining a better understanding of young people, with a number of firms adapting their outreach and application approaches as a result.
So, as we marvel at the superb achievements of many apprentices for National Apprenticeship Week, we know there is more to do to make the system inspiring, accessible and as easy as possible to navigate. Our collective ambition is to help everyone find their best next step – so they can be set up for a life of opportunity and success.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) has seemingly backtracked on an agreement by its board to lobby for T Level placement targets in the public sector.
Minutes from the institute’s recently published July 2023 board meeting said the board had “agreed to write to the Cabinet Office to lobby for setting targets for public sector contracts to include apprenticeships and T Level industry placement opportunities”.
However, after FE Week asked what progress had been made with this effort, an IfATE spokesperson said officials later agreed with the board not to send the letter – and refused to confirm that it was still pushing for the targets.
Exract from IfATE board minutes (July 2023)
The July meeting took place days after an FE Week investigation found the majority of government departments and education agencies had not provided any T Level industry placements.
Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests found that while the Department for Education had provided six placements, it was an outlier in Whitehall.
The Treasury, Foreign Office, Department for Levelling Up and Communities, and Department for Culture, Media and Sport were all yet to offer a single T Level industry placement. The same was true for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Justice.
IfATE itself had provided four industry placements for T Levels students, but none of the other DfE-linked agencies, like the Education and Skills Funding Agency, Ofsted and the Office for Students, provided any.
Skills minister Robert Halfon joined IfATE’s July board meeting to discuss government initiatives like the lifelong learning entitlement.
The minister “noted” a “feeling government departments could do more to provide industry placements for T Level students,” according to the minutes.
While the board agreed to “lobby for setting targets”, an IfATE spokesperson said it was instead “having regular conversations with both central government and employers to promote the use of apprenticeships and T Level placements”.
Conservative Party constituencies are bearing the brunt of the decline in apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.
FE Week analysis shows that 57 per cent of the reduction in apprenticeship starts since the levy was introduced in 2017 was in constituencies with a Conservative MP. Forty per cent of the decline was in Labour constituencies.
Headline apprenticeship starts in England took a hit when the government introduced the apprenticeship levy in April 2017. Around 500,000 apprentices enrolled each year between 2014 and 2017, but after the first full year of the levy, that number had reduced to 376,000.
The pandemic further reduced annual starts and overall numbers are still below pre-pandemic levels.
There were 155,790 fewer apprenticeship starts in 2022/23 compared to 2016/17, the year before the levy was introduced. Nearly 90,000 of those were in Conservative constituencies.
Of England’s 533 parliamentary constituencies, just 23 have seen apprenticeship starts increase since the levy was introduced. The Conservative Party’s pledge of three million apprenticeship starts by 2020 featured in its 2015 and 2017 manifestos – but was dropped in 2018.
Reforms under the tenure of the Tories include introducing a 12-month minimum duration, co-funding training costs for small businesses, introducing digital accounts for employers, and replacing apprenticeship frameworks with standards.
Ministers have defended their apprenticeship reforms since 2017 amid falling numbers. In November, skills minister Robert Halfon said the government was focused on “quality, not quantity”.
Down since levy
Annual apprenticeship starts have dropped by over 1,000 in three parliamentary constituencies, all of them held by Conservative MPs and one of them by the prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Rishi Sunak
Apprenticeship starts in the prime minister’s constituency of Richmond in Yorkshire were showing signs of recovering following a drop when the levy was introduced. There were 4,060 starts in Rishi Sunak’s constituency in 2016/17, reducing to 3,610 and then 3,400 in the following two years.
In 2019/20 apprenticeship starts shot up to 4,110 but then reduced again over the pandemic years and continue to decline. There were 3,020 starts in 2022/23, 26 per cent below pre-levy levels but 421 per cent higher than the year before the 2010 general election when the Conservatives entered office.
Labour-held Liverpool Walton has seen a 60 per cent decline in annual apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the levy, the largest fall in the country. The constituency recorded 1,350 in 2016/17, the year before the levy was introduced. Numbers declined year on year after that to 540 in 2022/23.
Following Liverpool Walton is Easington (Labour) and Beverley and Holderness (Conservative), both with 57 per cent fewer apprenticeship starts compared to the pre-levy year.
Apprenticeship starts in Beverley and Holderness, held by energy minister Graham Stuart, dropped from 3,160 pre-levy to 1,360 last year.
FE Week’s analysis shows apprenticeship starts have increased in 23 of the 533 English parliamentary constituencies since the apprenticeship levy was introduced. Compared to the last full year of data, 2022/23, apprenticeship starts are the same in seven constituencies but have declined in 503.
Of the 503, 315 constituencies have a Conservative MP and 166 have a Labour MP. The remaining are held by 11 independents, such as former skills minister Matthew Hancock and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, nine Liberal Democrats, one Green party and one Reclaim Party.
Levy architects also lose out
In the Grantham and Stamford constituency, once held by levy-architect Nick Boles, apprenticeship starts have declined by 39 per cent from 1,080 pre-levy to 660 last year.
Nick Boles
Starts in education secretary Gillian Keegan’s constituency of Chichester have declined by 22 per cent since the levy was introduced, down from 640 to 500, but still 52 per cent up on 2010.
And in skills minister Robert Halfon’s Harlow constituency, apprenticeship starts have reduced by 19 per cent from 700 pre-levy to 570 last year.
Other former skills ministers have also seen apprenticeship starts decline on their patch.
Starts have declined by 35 per cent in the constituencies of Hancock (West Suffolk) and John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings).
London constituencies have done the best since the levy was introduced, though from a low base.
When the levy appeared, the constituency of Putney was held by then education secretary, Justine Greening. Apprenticeship starts in Putney have increased by 48 per cent from 270 in 2016/17 to 400 in 2022/23, the most of any English constituency.
The top seven constituencies that have grown their annual apprenticeship starts since the levy was introduced are in Greater London; three are currently held by the Conservatives (Chelsea and Fulham, Wimbledon and Cities of London and Westminster), three by Labour (Putney, Tooting and Battersea) and one by the Liberal Democrats (Richmond Park).
A local authority in Yorkshire has been judged ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted after inspectors found no governance and a lack of “rigorous quality assurances” of its adult education and apprenticeships provision.
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council was handed the lowest possible Ofsted grade in a report published this morning, a downgrade from a ‘good’ rating five years ago.
It joins Bedford Borough Council as the only local authority in England with an Ofsted grade to hold an ‘inadequate’ judgment.
Inspectors investigated the council’s education provision in a full inspection in December 2023 and found leaders did not have clear oversight of the quality of education, neither the quality assurance agreements in place, nor any governance arrangements.
At the time of inspection, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council had 158 learners on adult and community learning courses studying ESOL, ICT and functional skills English and mathematics. They also had 33 apprentices, the majority of which enrolled on a level 3 business administration programme. The council operates from Redcar and Cleveland College’s campus.
The watchdog slammed council leaders as “they cannot assure themselves that the programmes they offer are of a high standard”.
The inspection also revealed that the council does not have in place any governance arrangements and urged them to establish a structure so leaders are “supported, challenged and held to account”.
Inspectors criticised the provider for not identifying poor teaching practice when it occurred.
“Leaders have recently implemented a more rigorous process for reviewing the quality of teaching. However, they do not monitor the actions they set for tutors following reviews, so they do not know if tutors are improving their teaching practice,” the report said.
Tutors did not plan programmes according to learners’ and apprentices’ starting points, in some cases such as the level 3 business administration apprenticeship, tutors didn’t identify and plan relevant learning for apprentices who had higher-level qualifications.
Tutors also did not check the progression and understanding of those same apprentices on what they learn in their on- and off-the-job training.
The report highlighted that the provider was not ambitious enough for learners with special educational needs and high needs and did not train staff to support those learners.
Inspectors pointed out that the training provided to tutors is “often not based on current research”.
“As a result, tutors do not improve their practice, and a few feel unprepared for their teaching roles,” the report said.
Meanwhile, Ofsted praised learners’ and apprentices’ behaviour and their attitude to work.
“Tutors create calm and respectful learning environments that help learners to study productively. Learners and apprentices demonstrate positive attitudes to their learning and take pride in their work,” they added.
A spokesperson for Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council, said: “We are disappointed by the outcome of the Ofsted inspection but fully appreciate that the issues raised do need to be addressed and we are determined to implement the required changes to get back to a good outcome for all learners. The new administration is committed to taking action on inherited historical issues.
“Action was already being taken in relation to the issues identified by the Ofsted inspection and remedial action has been taken, including drafting in additional support for current learners, as well as dealing with staff issues in the team prior to the Ofsted inspection.
“Whilst Ofsted noted this intervention and that progress had been made, it was judged to be not timely enough and therefore at the time of inspection inadequate progress was made. We are confident that we can continue to implement the required changes and improvements to get the service back to good and make sure that all learners have a good experience and achieve positive outcomes.”
Vice Principal – People and Culture, Nottingham College
Start date: January 2024
Previous Job: Head of People, Capital Letters
Interesting fact: While working in France as a student in a legal firm, I was shot at by the owner of a hotel we were there to repossess, (he missed). He had also sunk his boat by putting rocks through the hull to stop us taking it!
Paul Kelly
Chair, Prisoners’ Education Trust
Start date: February 2024
Previous Job: Project Lead, Engaging People on Probation, The Wise Group
Interesting fact: While working for Compass Group, Paul was successful in persuading the then Labour government to change the law to allow retail outlets at motorway service areas, with the first M&S Simply Foods opening at Toddington Services on the M1.
William Pickford has had an “eclectic” 25-year career in FE which has seen him opening a college on a faraway tropical island, overseeing another as it was evicted due to local authority financial mismanagement, and now, leading London’s only ‘outstanding’ council-run adult education service.
Since 2021, he has been the principal of Redbridge Institute of Adult Education. He was described 20 years ago by a fellow educator as a “maverick” and admits “it is a moniker I’ve tried to live up to ever since.”
Pickford’s time at Redbridge has been one of rapid change for the adult education sector, and some of that has been “painful”. Half of its curriculum has changed since Covid to reflect shifting national funding priorities.
The institute traces its history back to 1903 when East London’s first adult education courses included French, shorthand, dressmaking, cookery, bookkeeping and drawing.
Redbridge Institute of Adult Education
But the purpose of publicly funded adult education drastically altered with the 2021 skills white paper and ensuing local skills improvement plans, which align adult education budget funding to skills gaps.
He sees adult education as now split between “two completely different cohorts” – one for “basic skills” and the other, which has shrunk considerably, for “more traditional” informal learning. “But adult education should be for everyone.”
The sector’s marketing materials haven’t caught up with the pace of change. Pickford says that “every picture you see of adult learning” tends to be of “the photogenic bits – the creative arts courses, the pottery being made”. But this “doesn’t represent the reality”.
“We need to be careful. The reality [of adult education] is ESOL, maths, and digital skills, but we still love putting pictures of art shows on our publicity.”
And while Redbridge is “still funded as though it were a leafy London suburb”, the borough now hosts the highest number of asylum seekers and refugees in London. As a result, 62 per cent of its adult skills provision is now ESOL, and there is a waiting list of 350 people waiting to access it.
Many of the institute’s learners are newly arrived migrants placed in Redbridge by the Home Office with only two weeks’ notice, and they are often moved on “at a moment’s notice” too. It makes planning tricky.
Pickford shows me around the former pilates, yoga and dance studios that have been transformed into learning and employability hubs and ESOL classrooms, and the hair and nail studio that’s now a skills and enterprise hub. It has been a “painful journey”.
The pilates classmates in particular would not surrender without a fight. “Oh crumbs, they were very vocal – writing to everyone they could, the Mayor of London, the local councillors, Ofsted, and GLA funders.
“People just don’t understand that that’s no longer what our funders tell us our priorities are. They say, ‘we’ve been doing those sessions for years and years. Why can’t we continue?’”
William Pickford as a child
The city boy
Although his childhood home on a farm (“mostly sheep”) on the outskirts of a “tiny village” in Somerset might sound idyllic, he “hated it” as he “had to be ferried everywhere, and there wasn’t much to do”.
Pickford had been a “lifelong” Manchester United fan since his Mancunian grandfather took him to see them play in the city as a boy. It was part of the reason why he chose Manchester University to study. He was the first in his family to go to university but ignored their advice to study “a proper subject” like law or business, instead opting for hotel and catering management.
He trained with Stakis Hotels in the Scottish Cairngorms, but “hated it for the same reasons” he left Somerset: it was “miles away from anywhere”. He “couldn’t wait to get out”, and moved to the bright lights of London where he turned his attention to hotel events management.
He applied for a PGCE course “on a whim” because he “quite fancied that teaching lark”. His intention was to teach hospitality, but he never got the chance as his first job in 1998 was at Orpington College (now part of LSEC), which lacked a hospitality department. Instead, he taught business, accounting and economics among other things, because “you don’t say no to anything”.
As a gay man, Pickford said the FE sector “provided me with the first safe space where I felt comfortable enough talking about who I really was. 25 years ago, that was a really big thing.”
Pickford then spent seven years promoting digital learning for two big government organisations – as head of innovation at Jisc, and head of provider capacity for Becta, based at the University of London.
It was an “exciting” time for the sector in the early 2000’s with “lots of money sloshing around” for digital projects, with the dawn of e-learning and smart boards. Pickford recalls Becta having a budget of £21 million one year to give away to colleges.
William Pickford in his younger years
Digital collaboration
Some “really exciting ideas” were born from the mentality of “not being afraid of failing, because there were no consequences”. The funding was simply conditional on recipients sharing their successes and failures with others in the sector.
One notable success was the open-source software Moodle, one of the first virtual learning environments which became a “pooled shared service” for universities and colleges. Becta was axed in David Cameron’s bonfire of the quangos, but Moodle outlasted it.
He believes there is not enough of that type of sector-wide collaboration now, because “you need that brokerage”.
These days East London providers work together when it comes to ESOL, with Redbridge and New City College referring potential students to each other because “there’s so much work to go around”. And the GLA is planning a London-wide ESOL strategy.
But Pickford believes there is scope for much greater collaboration.
“Our residents don’t know where to start [to improve their careers], and we don’t make it any easier for them. We’re all selling the same thing in slightly different ways, and actually that’s no good for them. They need that very clear roadmap, otherwise how do they navigate their way through?”
William Pickford
Turning around colleges
Pickford spent the next few years in interim roles. His first involved turning around what was then the only specialist women’s residential college in the country, Hillcroft (now part of Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College), after an inadequate Ofsted in 2013.
The college used to be for “tweedy middle aged white women”. But the area’s demographics had shifted, and the college “hadn’t moved fast enough for the times”. Pickford was told to make the curriculum more relevant to local needs.
He also interim-ed for Stanmore College and Westminster Kingsway College.
These short-term roles did not give him a complete “sense of achievement” because “you never get to see the outcomes” of the measures put in place.
William Pickford
Bali bureaucracy
Pickford’s next career move took him to Bali, where he and his long-term partner, who is Indonesian, opened a private training college to prepare locals for joining Australian universities.
The experience gave him an appreciation for the English public sector.
Pickford found they were “at the whim of our investors deciding to change course” and “everything was so bureaucratic”. Each year the college had to be accredited by both the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Education, with “the strangest Ofsted type regime you could imagine”.
Despite Bali being a “very pleasant place to live”, Pickford would spend every other weekend “jetting off to New Zealand, Singapore and Bangkok … just to experience crowds again”.
He returned after four years because he “missed England, and the public sector”.
William Pickford
Essex blues
But Pickford’s next role in 2018, as vice principal at Thurrock Adult Community College, did not exactly exemplify public sector excellence.
Thurrock Council had embarked on an infamous spending spree in the solar power market which led to its bankruptcy four years later. Seeking extra cash, the council made a “shock” announcement they were demolishing the college’s building to sell the land.
The college staff and learners were given just two months’ notice to leave the site in Greys, where the college had been based for the previous 30 to 40 years.
“The writing was on the wall” at that point for the council, which Pickford said “didn’t care” where the learners went. Pickford put moving plans in motion, then moved on to Redbridge.
Redbridge Institute in numbers
‘Outstanding’ pressure
Redbridge’s last [outstanding] inspection took place in 2018 under the old common inspection framework, before Pickford arrived there in 2021, and he is now faced with a “totally different set of goalposts”.
However, life is easier in some ways for Pickford than his FE college counterparts.
Pickford’s adult learners “genuinely want to be here”, they are “committed to finishing their courses”, and there are “very few” behaviour issues. The pass rate last year for English and maths GCSEs was 100 per cent.
When Pickford first arrived, he announced “probably prematurely” he would create an ESOL hub within a 30-minute walk from every home in the borough. It took two years to map where the gaps in provision were.
But his “aspiration” is to provide “local services for local people”.
If the institute has “one weakness”, it is personal development. The ability to roll out enrichment programmes is limited by rules that restrict funding to each learning aim. For example, Redbridge receives £811 for a student doing a year-long GCSE course. “Unless they do other fundable learning aims, I have to work five times as hard as FE colleges to get the same amount of funding they do”.
Despite local authority funding constraints, Pickford would rather see the service kept in council hands because “big FE colleges have not got that neighbourhood knowledge”.
“From street to street, we know what residents’ skills needs are because we empty their bins, they come to us for housing advice.”
And AI data advances mean adult learning services like his are getting “smarter at identifying the people that need the most help”.
“It’s always those people furthest away from education and employment that you need to put the bulk of your resources in engaging. It might take many attempts to get them onto an adult skills funded course – they’re disengaged for a reason. But they’re our bread and butter.”
Redbridge Institute
Ode to Redbridge
It takes a lot for Pickford to show emotion: the last time he cried was during the 1991-2 football season, when it looked as though he would “never see United win the league”. But he does show a depth of emotion when discussing his love of FE.
“What I do now is where I feel the closest connection to my passion for social justice. The power of adult education to transform the lives of those who need it most is what inspires me every day.”
Four months ago, at Redbridge’s 120th anniversary gala dinner celebrations, Pickford’s contribution, “apart from some mad Bhangra dancing”, was a poem:
