Latest apprenticeship funding review uprates 35 standards

Funding bands for a further 35 apprenticeships have been increased following the government’s review of the 100 supposedly “most-used” apprenticeship standards.

However, some apprenticeships that received the largest increase had low, or even no starts in 2022/23.

The Department for Education tasked the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education with reviewing and updating 100 apprenticeship standards as part of its “crackdown on rip-off university degrees” media push over the summer.

IfATE then told the sector it would “review the content of 100 of the most-used standards so they reflect the latest technological advancements and work better for employers and apprentices”.

FE Week revealed in September that just 59 apprenticeships had so far been reviewed. IfATE confirmed this week that the process has now been completed, and 127 apprenticeships have now been reviewed, exceeding its target.

The biggest winner from this week’s update was the level 6 church minister degree apprenticeship which received a £9,000 funding increase and now attracts £22,000. Government data on apprenticeships starts though show that 10 apprentices took that standard in 2020/21, with none since.

Click here to see the full list of reviewed apprenticeship standards

Analysis by FE Week shows 21 of the 127 reviewed standards, which excludes new apprenticeships, had no starts in 2022/23. However, of those, 14 have been either retired or replaced as a result of the review.

Forty-one standards chosen for the review had fewer than 20 starts in 2022/23.

The most popular apprenticeship deemed worthy of a funding increase as part of this review was the level 3 early years educator, as reported by FE Week last week, moving up from £6,000 to £7,000.

Level 3 plumbing and heating technicians can now attract £22,000, up from £21,000, and funding for the level 2 supply chain warehouse operative apprenticeship has been increased from £3,000 to £5,000.

Three standards have seen their funding reduced. The level 2 arborist, now £12,000; the level 3 battery manufacturing technician, now £24,000; and the level 3 process industry manufacturing technician, now £24,000. They were each reduced by £3,000.

IfATE said the 127 reviewed apprenticeships were taken by over 60,000 apprentices each year.

Ben Rowland, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “Employers and providers need to see this momentum continue as regularly reviewed standards are central to a high quality and sustainable provider market which helps meet the needs of employers.”

“There are also aspects of the funding model which still need attention – including the list of eligible costs and the data which feeds into the model on fixed inputs (such as initial assessment, formative assessment and administration). We also need to fairly fund providers for every aspects that they’re expected to deliver such as Prevent and British values,” Rowland said. 

Robert Halfon, minister for skills and apprenticeships, said it was “fantastic news” that IfATE exceeded its target.

“It’s vital that we ensure all apprenticeships remain up to date and offer high-quality training so more people and businesses can benefit, and we can grow the economy.”

Halfon also hailed “almost 80 per cent of the standards revised received a funding boost, including those in key sectors such as social care, transport and logistics and engineering”.

However, FE Week analysis of previous and current funding bands shows that only 45, or 60 per cent, of the 76 apprenticeships that were not new, retired or replaced received a funding increase.

As previously announced, the apprenticeship which received the largest funding increase in IfATE’s review was the level 6 chartered legal executive, which increased in September from £12,000 to £27,000. Forty apprentices started that standard in 2022/23.

The review resulted in 26 apprenticeship standards being retired, most of which had low or no starts recorded.

Alongside church ministers, level 4 healthcare science associate apprentices now also attract more funding, with their funding band increasing from £9,000 to £16,000. The level 3 spectacle maker standard, which was taken by 60 apprentices in 2022/23, had seen its funding doubled to £8,000.

Others, like the level 7 solicitor and level 6 civil engineering degree apprenticeships were reviewed but did not receive a funding increase.

Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of IfATE, said: “This has put us in a fantastic position starting the new year with apprenticeships bang up to date with the latest industry requirements. I’m absolutely delighted to have exceeded this target. 

“Achieving it required everyone at IfATE to maintain laser focus and I would like to say a huge thanks to all the large and small businesses across the country who advised on what was needed.”

Almost 50 jobs at risk as college seeks £1m savings

A north east college has put around 50 jobs at risk in a bid to make savings of £1 million, citing under-recruitment of students in several areas.

Tyne Coast College expects to make 22 posts – or 17 full-time equivalent posts – redundant in addition to placing a hiring freeze on non-critical staff. It will also not fill the nine currently vacant posts “to mitigate redundancy” and offer voluntary redundancy elsewhere.

The move has angered the University and College Union, who labelled the proposal as a “kick in the teeth for hard-working staff”.

Tyne Coast College’s proposal follows a series of strikes from staff, who took to the picket lines last June and September over low pay, and the controversial closure of its sixth form. 

Tyne Coast College chief executive Lindsey Whiterod told FE Week: “Efficiencies need to be made due to under-recruitment in certain curriculum areas for 16 to 18 learners, as well as apprenticeships and higher education.”

The college recruited 2,200 16 to 18-year-old students in 2022/23, a drop from 2,400 in the previous academic year. 

However, the college saw 100 more apprentices and the same number of higher education students – 1,100 – in 2023 compared to the year before. It did report a drop in adult learners from 4,600 to 4,000 in 2022/23.

The college’s enrolment figures for 2023/24 are not yet publicly available.

According to its 2023 financial accounts, the college generated a deficit of £3.3 million, down from a £3.5 million deficit the year prior.

Whiterod said the college needed to make necessary savings worth £1 million.

But, this is not the first time the college has made headlines this year. 

Bosses had proposed to close its sixth form – Queen Alexandra Sixth Form College in Wallsend — abruptly last summer due to a decline in numbers. The decision was delayed by one year after community backlash. It will now close at the end of this academic year.

Staff had agreed to strikes in October over a three per cent pay award but were called off at the last minute after a better deal was reached.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Coming so soon after strike action over low pay and the closure of an entire sixth form campus, this is a real kick in the teeth for hard-working staff at Tyne Coast College. 

“Management has yet to provide any information to substantiate claims it has to sack staff and unless it starts engaging meaningfully in the consultation process the college is at risk of acting unlawfully.

“North and south of the Tyne, our members have continued to give everything to their jobs and the education of our local communities. Being told they are no longer wanted less than halfway through the academic year will not be a welcome message.”

College leaders must join the fight for an EHCP system that delivers

My daughter Ornella is 18 and “educated one year below her chronological year group”. She has been in desperate need of support despite having been assessed for an education, health and care plan (EHCP) at the age of 9 and being granted one two years later.

When Ornella was 4, chickenpox left her with complex chronic health issues. Ever since, because she has had over twenty operations, long hospital stays, a life-threatening septic shock, multiple heart attacks and a prolonged coma, her health needs have had an increasingly detrimental impact on her learning.

I am her full-time carer. I have put my career on hold to look after her for the past 14 years, spent all my savings on private tutoring to make up for the lack of EHCP implementation, and had to become her teacher too for years at a time. I am exhausted. I suffer from PTSD from fighting constantly for the support she is entitled to.

Despite regular requests for annual reviews, we have been consistently ignored by school and local authority alike, year in and year out. This means that for six years Ornella was vaguely educated at home by tutors with variable academic abilities and no training or experience in learning needs.

We once received a letter of apology from a SEN team manager, promising new behaviours. For the first time, the LA provided intensive and costly tutoring to make up for missed learning opportunities leading up to her GCSEs. It lasted two months. Nothing else has been offered since.

Ornella is now at college, not only bearing the brunt of years of inadequate provision but also of unfathomable backlogs in specialist assessments. Cruelly, even when she finally managed to get assessed by CAHMS neuropsychiatrists as requested by the LA to document the aftermath of her coma seven years ago, the LA then employed more delaying tactics by refusing to incorporate her brain injury diagnosis into her EHCP, making for a mockery of it altogether.

The EHCP had become an obstacle to my daughter’s learning

Her educational needs have been heavily documented over 15 years, yet repeatedly ignored. The LA has consistently failed in its legal duties under the Children and Families Act, SEND Code of Practice and the Equality Act. We have just had an emergency annual review, but we are fast approaching A Level exams season and Ornella is still nowhere near accessing specialist support.

As a result, she has now disengaged from attending college and I find myself teaching her all over again. Her EHCP has actually compromised my ability to be her full-time carer because my precious time has been wasted on jumping through administrative hoops instead. I often wonder whether we wouldn’t have been better off not having one at all.

This is echoed by her college leaders who find themselves also wasting their time on the LA’s administrative blunders instead of spending it teaching. It is as if the EHCP had become an obstacle to her learning, and the whole sorry process is surely more expensive than delivering the support Ornella needed in the first place.

What it has done is made me a fighter. That and the PTSD might mean I and parents in my position present as challenging when we meet a new educational provider and have to start again from square one. Please bear that in mind.

But also, please join the fight. We are long past the point of needing urgent national and local policy changes. Parents like me need leaders like you to go beyond the battle for each individual learner like Ornella and demand systemic change.

We need simplified EHCPs, consistent over time and across the country, a digitised system that notifies all stakeholders when EHCPs are due for review, and proper accountability for spending and implementation. We need EHCP case officers who are qualified, trained, regulated and paid as professionals. And we need much more thought given to transitions.

I am now taking our case to tribunal, but I am not hopeful. In fact, the backlog plays in the LA’s favour because by the time a judgment is reached, many young people are likely to have left education anyway.

That might be the case for Ornella, but I am determined that it shouldn’t be the case for anyone else. If the LA think I’m going away, they are badly mistaken. Will you help?

First winners of OfS degree apprenticeships cash revealed

Fifty-one colleges and universities have won a share of a £12 million funding pot designed to expand degree apprenticeships. 

The Office for Students (OfS) has today released the names of ten colleges and 41 universities that have been awarded funding from wave one of its £40 million degree apprenticeships fund launched in September.

Bidders for this wave had to be able to demonstrate they could deliver projects that could increase starts and improve the diversity of their degree apprentice recruits. Funding must be spent by the end of July 2024.

Of the £16 million that was made available for this round, just under £12 million was awarded in total and 51 of 69 bids submitted were successful. 

Liverpool John Moores University scored the most cash, winning £1 million to boost its intake across 10 apprenticeships including police constable, chartered manager, transport planner and registered nurse. 

Further education colleges that won the most funding were Weston College (£272,000), DN Colleges Group (£211,600) and Gloucestershire College (£203,000).

Click here to view the full list of successful providers

The University of the West of England was awarded £175,624 for role model and employer outreach projects aiming to enrol more women on its aerospace, civil engineering, building services design and manufacturing engineering degree apprenticeships.

Funding awarded to Bournemouth University has been committed to creating a new route for under-represented students to its nursing and operating department practitioner degree apprenticeships. 

Weston College will spend its funding on expanding four degree apprenticeships including digital user experience professional, project manager, registered nurse and digital and technology solutions professional. 

Exeter College has been awarded £68,227 for its data scientist degree apprenticeships while Abingdon and Witney College bagged £93,771 for its chartered manager apprenticeships.

John Blake, director for fair access and participation at the OfS, said: “We set universities and colleges a challenge to deliver an extensive range of degree apprenticeships that students from all backgrounds could access. They responded with a wide range of innovative and ambitious bids.”

The OfS launched the fund in September to increase the number of providers delivering degree apprenticeships as well as increasing overall numbers and improving diversity. 

It said at the time that the “relatively small proportion” of registered higher education providers offering degree apprenticeships, as well as “uneven and slow” concentrated in a small number of providers, were “market failures.”

Robert Halfon

The fund seeks to support projects that target students who are least likely to access higher education. 

This comes as evidence from organisations such as the Sutton Trust found that degree apprenticeships were more socially exclusive than traditional university university courses. 

Skills minister Robert Halfon said he is “delighted that the institutions awarded a portion of this £40 million will not only be expanding the number of degree apprenticeships offered but have also demonstrated their commitment to boosting access and participation and prioritising equality of opportunity.”

Future waves

The remaining OfS funding will be awarded across two further waves. 

Bids for wave two closed in December but the winners have not yet been announced. 

Providers funded under waves two and three will have more time to deliver results. Activities funded under these waves must conclude by the end of July 2025. 

Providers new to the degree apprenticeship market were ineligible to bid for wave one funding but were eligible for wave two and will be eligible for wave three.

Applications for wave three will open this spring and are expected to close in June. 

Staff at London’s biggest college stage 8 day walkout

Teachers at London’s largest college group have launched an eight-day strike amid a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Capital City College Group (CCCG) walked out yesterday across London’s biggest college group’s four sites across the city.

Negotiations have broken down over the college’s offer of a pay award between 4 per cent and 6.5 per cent, beginning from January 1 this year.

The union says the offer goes against the Association of Colleges recommendation last September of a 6.5 per cent pay award from the start of the 2023/24 academic year.

Staff are also disputing the working conditions such as workload as well as a maximum class size of 20 to 22 students as opposed to classes of up to 30 students, as some workers report.

They are also demanding an agreement of 36 teaching weeks per year.

College workers will walk out from January 16 to 18, and the entire week beginning January 22 – during a busy period for exams and during the first few weeks of new CEO Angela Joyce’s tenure.

The strike will impact the group’s sites in Enfield, Camden, Finsbury Park and Westminster.

The staged walkout is not new for the large college group. In 2021, staff walked out for 10 days and settled on a one-off payment and notified monitoring of teaching.

Before the end of the 2021/22 academic year, staff then agreed to a 9 per cent pay rise for those earning under £30k, and 6 per cent for those earning between £30k and £45k, beginning August 2022.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Our members are being forced to take sustained strike action because CCCG would rather see its staff use foodbanks than make an acceptable offer.

“We have reached deals at 60 colleges, but CCCG is shamefully holding out and refusing to negotiate. It urgently needs to get back to the table, recognise that staff need decent pay, and settle this dispute.”

A Capital City College Group spokesperson said: “The 2023/24 pay award for all CCCG staff ranged from 4 per cent to 9 per cent, with part of the award unconsolidated and the larger part consolidated. This action is primarily linked to workload, namely class sizes and the number of teaching weeks. We hope UCU will work more constructively with us to resolve these matters.”

‘Inadequate’ college for vulnerable adults returns to ‘good’ Ofsted rating

A college for disadvantaged adults has returned to a ‘good’ Ofsted rating just a year after it was downgraded to ‘inadequate’.

Ruskin College was last year accused of safeguarding failures after inspectors claimed leaders were unaware of the “significant personal challenges that some vulnerable adults faced while in their care” and were “unable to help staff keep these learners safe”.

But since then, leaders have “monitored improvements to ensure that safeguarding is effective and ensure that learners’ well-being is also supported effectively”, a follow-up full inspection report for the college published today said.

Inspectors found that staff are provided with “essential training” in safeguarding and found that learners feel safe at college and “know how to protect themselves from radicalisation and extremist views”.

Learners “appreciate the welcoming and supportive environment that staff create”.

The college, which was teaching 326 adults at the time of the latest inspection in November, is now deemed ‘good’ in every category judged by Ofsted.

The result is the latest improvement success for Oxford-based Ruskin College, founded in 1899, which designs its courses for local residents furthest from the labour market, those who are socially isolated and those seeking a second chance at education.

Ruskin had its financial notice to improve lifted by the government in March 2023 almost 10 years after the notice was first served.

The college’s former principal was fired in 2021 following a significant funding clawback, and the college was forced into a last-minute merger with the University of West London (UWL) later that year.

Last year FE Commissioner Shelagh Legrave praised “important progress” in improving the college’s financial performance after years of decline and contraction – mainly caused by falling student numbers.

While “challenges remain to grow FE provision to make best use of the funding available for the benefit of students and to secure sustainability”, there is now a “clear educational vision for the college”, Legrave’s report said.

Today’s Ofsted report said most learners “value the inclusive culture that staff create” and all students “develop new knowledge and skills that are essential to their personal and professional lives”.

Staff were praised for being “highly qualified, experienced and passionate about their subjects”, while leaders and trustees are “increasingly well informed about the quality of provision, which enables them to evaluate and drive improvement”.

A UWL spokesperson said: “UWL is delighted with the continuing and considerable progress since UWL acquired Ruskin College to secure its future in 2021. We are committed to ensuring the highest standards in all aspects of the college’s performance, and we are very pleased to have had this recognised by Ofsted and the FE Commissioner alike.”

DfE to pilot funding simplifications for colleges

The government is seeking a “small” number of colleges to pilot simplifications to funding, audit and reporting in the next academic year.

A one-year trial set to run in 2024/25 will aim to reduce complexities by removing “several” funding rules and “some” ringfences within adult and 16 to 19 funding streams, the Department for Education said today without providing exact detail.

Colleges involved in the pilot will also be allowed to deliver skills bootcamps without the need to bid for funding through procurements and those with existing skills bootcamps contracts may be able to access additional funding.

The pilot is part of the DfE’s wider reforms to simplify FE funding and accountability, which involves merging several adult skills budgets into a single skills fund in 2024/25.

The DfE said the pilot will help to improve how the department “deliver adult skills funding to improve predictability”.

It will also “capitalise on the reduced funding rules and ringfences to simplify how we audit and assure FE funding as well as simplify back-end data processing”.

The DfE added that it will develop options with a view to test several simplifications for apprenticeships, which could “include simplifying onboarding, testing new funding approaches and streamlining end point assessment processes”.

There is a separate apprenticeship “expert” provider project currently ongoing to test ways to reduce time and resource spent aiding small employers through the apprenticeship system, learning from which will be shared “where appropriate” with the college simplification pilot.

The DfE said it will work with colleges selected for the pilot to finalise the proposals that will be tested from August 2024.

The pilot is only for general further education colleges because they “deliver the widest range of provision types and therefore are subjected to the most complexity”.

Proposals in the pilot will not impact funding that colleges receive from authorities with devolution deals for adult skills funding, the DfE said, adding that colleges in regions with devolved responsibilities for adult skills are still eligible to apply.

Those selected must be willing to increase their delivery of government “priority” schemes – such as apprenticeships and bootcamps, make a “reasonable” commitment to working with the DfE both before, during and after the pilot through regular workshops and meetings, and be “willing to complete relevant evaluation processes and requirements for the pilot”.

An expression of interest window will close on January 31, with decisions communicated to bidders in February.

From this point the colleges will work with DfE officials to finalise the exact funding rule changes and other simplification proposals ahead of the rollout in August 2024.

DfE agrees to publish ‘urgent’ sustainability plan

The Department for Education will publish detailed plans on meeting its sustainability targets following pressure from a committee of MPs.

In a letter to the House of Commons’ environmental audit committee (EAC) in December, published today, Baroness Barran, the DfE’s minister for the school system and student finance, defended the department’s record on safeguarding the education estate from the effects of climate change such as flooding, overheating and water scarcity.

This comes in response to criticism from the committee late last year, which said the department’s school rebuilding programme was behind schedule and that the risks facing schools and colleges were “not adequately understood” by education leaders.

The EAC has been conducting an inquiry into the environmental sustainability of the DfE.

Barran said the DfE is expecting its sustainability leadership hub to go live by May this year, which it says will “meet the strategic commitment for all settings to have a climate action plan in place by 2025.”

She added that the government was also funding a climate ambassador network, to be announced by the end of December 2023. The network has not yet been announced, however.

The committee revealed concerns that just 20 per cent of the school estate in England would be net zero compliant by 2050 under the department’s current plans.

“This is a significant worry when education is currently the largest emitter of carbon from buildings in the public sector,” said EAC chair Philip Dunne. “For the whole of the UK to meet net zero, the education sector in England must make swifter progress on decarbonisation.”

In Barran’s response, she said: “We agree in principle with the Committee’s recommendation that the department should publish a detailed roadmap to achieving our sustainability targets – we aim to do so by Autumn 2024.”

Dunne welcomed the DfE’s response that it will publish a roadmap this Autumn.

Focus feature: Decarbonising college estates

“This will be an invaluable resource, allowing the Department to set out in detail the challenge ahead and giving ministers sufficient visibility of the urgent case for significant additional funding for this large element of the public buildings estate,” he added.

The department was urged to commit “adequate funding” to its climate action plans or “the education estate will remain at significant risk of flooding, overheating and water scarcity.”

The EAC urged DfE to publish a realistic and fully costed plan for its sustainability strategy targets as “a matter of urgency”.

“The plan must set out how issues such as student safety, the remediation of buildings containing RAAC and the mitigation of flood risk can be addressed alongside sustainability improvements,” the committee said.

Barran added that it is testing retrofitting across the education estate and has launched pilots to “put us in the best place to understand the funding required”.

She also re-committed to launch a risk framework for colleges, schools and nurseries this month and use the data to publish a full climate risk assessment of the education estate in January 2025.

Ban for ‘rogue’ apprenticeship boss who owes ESFA £2.5m

A “rogue” apprenticeship provider boss has received a six-year director’s ban for failing to explain £3.5 million worth of spending, most of which was public funding.

Shakar Habib, 28, from Newham, London, was the sole director of Vista Training Solutions Limited, which since 2011 worked as a subcontractor to deliver apprenticeship training before landing its own direct contract in 2018.

The provider was found making ‘reasonable progress’ by Ofsted in an early monitoring visit later that year when Vista was training 129 apprentices, mainly in ICT.

But the firm went bust in 2020 following an Education and Skills Funding Agency investigation into its use of taxpayer funding for apprenticeships.

The ESFA last year made a claim of £2.5 million against Vista during the liquidation, and the government’s Insolvency Service has now said Habib could not account for nearly £3.5 million from the company’s accounts. 

Investigators discovered that Habib had failed to keep adequate company accounts – a legal obligation for company directors – and that records from April 2019 onwards were missing.

They were therefore unable to verify whether £3.5 million of payments from the company’s bank accounts during its final year of trading were legitimate company expenses. 

The company’s liquidator – FRP Advisory Trading Limited – was also unable to account for £525,000 in assets due to lack of financial records. 

A statement from the Insolvency Service said the ESFA continues to work with the Insolvency Practitioner to support their investigations for potential recovery of money – but the latest statement of receipts and payments from the liquidator admits it is “unlikely” that there will be sufficient funds available to pay unsecured creditors.

Habib has now been banned from being a director of a company until November 20, 2029. It prevents him from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.

Marc Symons, deputy head of investigations at the Insolvency Service, said: “Shakar Habib disregarded his legal duty to keep accounting records. But thanks to the joint working between ESFA and the Insolvency Service, he has been removed from the corporate arena for a substantial period.

“His ban should be a stark warning to other rogue directors that we will act to protect the public from those who abuse taxpayers’ money.”

Andrew Thomas, director of finance and provider market oversight in the ESFA, said: “This successful outcome demonstrates that ESFA will take robust action and work with regulatory partners across government to hold individuals and organisations to account.”