Priestley College cricket star to play for England

A young cricketer from Cheshire will be stepping up to the crease to play for England this month in a series of matches in South Africa.

Rob Jones, 17 and from Stockton Heath, is studying BTec sports performance and excellence at Priestley College and is one of 18 boys chosen from the England Development U17s to compete against eight South African teams.

Rob said: “I always played just because I love the game, but I never thought I’d be where I am today, playing for England.”

This will be Rob’s second foreign tour having played in India last year.

“India was a fantastic experience and I would go back again tomorrow,” he said.

“We worked with 50 kids from the slums giving them a cricket day with a packed lunch and t-shirts.

“They absolutely loved it and it was one of the most rewarding days of my life.”

Rob hopes to repeat this experience and has enlisted more than a dozen classmates to help raise money to buy pencils and notebooks for South African children to help with their schooling.

Getting up to date with exams modernisation

The cost of exams is a major entry in the expenditure column of a college’s balance sheet, but, as Rob Elliott explains, moves to simplify the current FE exams process could lessen their financial impact.

Different awarding bodies in the FE world currently require candidate data to be sent in a multitude of different formats from good old-fashioned paper, to spread sheets or via online portals and independently-developed electronic data interchange (EDI) systems.

Add to the mix that a general FE college can deal with up to 50 of the 100-plus existing awarding bodies and it is little wonder we have an exams system that many find confusing and ultimately costly to operate.

But, after a number of attempts to rationalise the existing exams system, change is finally on the horizon.

A big sector push was crystallised by a non-partisan paper, written by Capita, that gained support from more than 100 colleges as well as other MIS suppliers.

It called for a new industry standard of electronic data transfer, open to all awarding bodies to adopt, and emphasised the desire to see full and transparent fee information in the transactions.

Concurrently, there was a meeting between the major awarding bodies who form the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) — AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, CCEA and City & Guilds — where they realised that their existing EDI systems needed to be replaced with new electronic formats to cope with future exams and assessments.

They decided to work co-operatively to design a new system, available for all awarding organisations to adopt.

Led by JCQ, the A2C Data Exchange Project (Awarding Organisations-to-Centres), a full-scale restructuring initiative, is now underway.

Although the new system will be initially for these key awarding bodies, the hope is that others will follow suit — indeed many are already showing an interest.

Better quality data will reduce late entry fees”

Overall, the new system will lead to greater clarity during planning and accountability in the reconciliation process.

Certainly a reduction in interfaces will make the process more streamlined, requiring less effort to run a more efficient system.

Each awarding body will provide their own product catalogue, containing all the normal, late and very late fees. In effect, colleges will have a cash register of entries, allowing them to manage invoices from different examining bodies more efficiently.

An increased transparency in the cost of exams might lead to a more competitive market, and may well see colleges making different choices as to which exam board they use.

Having integrated student records and exams systems that share common data also improves the quality of exam entry data, helping colleges keep a tighter rein on expenditure.

For example, Edinburgh’s Telford College recently adopted a fully integrated student and exams system and dropped their error rate from 20 per cent of data entries being rejected by the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) to 0.1 per cent. Non-certification of students also dropped significantly from 15per cent to less than 0.1 per cent, giving a saving of around £60,000 in the first year.

Better quality data will reduce late entry fees — an avoidable expense — and ensure no student who has changed or withdrawn from the course is entered for an exam.

When you consider that the second largest expenditure for colleges after staffing costs are exams fees — which can be more than £1m — this could add up to substantial savings.

Michael Turner, director of JCQ, sums it up when he says that the A2C is an excellent example of how awarding organisations, in cooperation with MIS providers, are working together to improve data sharing.

“Although the programme won’t be finished completely until 2014, the benefits are already being realised,” he said.

“We will see improvements in what data is shared so that there is a harmonised system across general and vocational qualifications, and a reduction in the bureaucracy of administrating examinations. It really is a system for the 21st century.”

Rob Elliott, product manager at Capita Further and Higher Education

Work hard, play harder

The Industry Apprentice Council with FE Minister Matthew Hancock.  From left: Louis Chinea, 24, Jonathan Sixsmith, 22, Drew Reidy, 20, Sam Dutton, 19, Matthew Hancock MP, David Ferguson, 21, Jordan Philips, 18, Sam Ball, 20, Jack Stearn, 19, Natalie Harris, 18, Elizabeth Moffatt, 19, James Turner, 24, John O’Driscoll and Hal Willis, both 20

Thirteen apprentices have come together with a mission to raise the profile of apprenticeships throughout the country.

The group, selected from companies such as BAE systems and Vauxhall and with ages ranging from 18 to 24, has formed to become the first Industry Apprenticeship Council (IAC) and met with FE Minister Matthew Hancock at the House of Commons to canvas him for support.

The IAC joined an All Parliamentary Party Apprentices Group meeting to discuss the government’s apprenticeship strategy following the publication of the Richard Review and raised issues such as schools not pushing apprenticeships and encouraging a perception that vocational routes were secondary to the academic pathway.

The group aired solutions they had come up with such as starting a national advertising campaign to promote the more affluent lifestyle apprentices, they said, could lead compared to their peers and asked Mr Hancock if he would meet with them to take on the proposal.

“How could I say no?” he replied.

Electronic engineer at MBDA Sam Ball said: “We want to start a campaign to show the great experiences we have had like owning a house, speaking in the House of Commons and going on TV. Some of my apprentice friends have driven £120,000 cars.”

The 20-year-old from Bolton added: “We want to encourage the strapline ‘work hard, play harder’.”

Business administration apprentice at Vauxhall Lizzie Moffatt, 19 and from Luton, said: “We want to tell the stories of people from the inside, such as managing directors who started out as apprentices, looking at where they are now.

“We want to show that higher education can be achieved through apprenticeships too.”

Drew Reiddy, an engineering manufacture apprentice at BAE, said the profile of apprenticeships needed to be raised throughout companies themselves with more of a chance for children to go into work places to show them where they could be in a few years’ time.

Sam Dutton, a 19-year-old manufacturing engineering apprentice for KMF, said the value of apprenticeships needed to be promoted to parents as “they were the ones helping to make the important decisions”.

“This could be achieved by going down a commercial route having adverts on websites such as car manufacturers so when a parent was looking at buying a new car they could see a banner pop up promoting apprenticeships,” he said.

Miss Ball added: “It’s important teachers understand the benefits. When I was at school I was told I would waste my abilities doing an apprenticeship.”

From left: Sam Ball, electronic engineering apprentice at MBDA and Drew Reidy, engineering manufacture apprentice at BAE | Photos by Nick Linford

Of the 13 group members just one said they were encouraged to take their chosen career path by their school.

Miss Ball said she only became aware of her chosen vocational route because of research she did herself.

“I went to a good college but they were only interested in the university route,” she said. “I didn’t really enjoy the classroom experience anymore so I started looking on websites like NotGoingtoUni.co.uk and found out about it myself.”

She said she liked knowing she made a “contribution” to her organisation and getting involved in groups such as IAC as well as having the chance to do charity work. She was also able to complete a first aid course.

I was told I would waste my abilities doing an apprenticeship”

Jordon Phillips, an 18-year-old mechanical and electrical engineering apprentice at Nestle, said: “I came across Nestle when looking for a two-week work experience placement. They told me about the apprenticeship scheme and I went straight from school to college for a year but through the scheme. It was really good knowing I had the security of a job at the end of it.”

Hal Willis, a 20-year-old aeronautical engineering apprentice for Airbus, told Mr Hancock he felt there was a “lack of information at schools about careers”.

Mr Hancock said: “The best experience people can have is by having information available to them but information is not enough. It is about the quality of that information and being able to navigate your way through the system.”

He spoke of the advantages of destination data, introduced by the government last year to track young people’s chosen paths, and the importance of apprenticeship graduation ceremonies to add value to the achievement and getting young people out into the workplace.

“Research shows that if you have had four interactions with employers, whether that is work or an interview, you are then half as likely to be unemployed as before,” he said.

He said in the future the duty would be on schools to provide careers advice and guidance.

“We will find out from Ofsted how much they are doing with their new duty,” he said.

Mr Hancock added that big companies such as Cadburys should “step up to the plate” and design apprenticeships and pass on the templates throughout the industry.

The IAC has been convened in partnership between EAL, the specialist awarding organisation for industry qualifications, and IMI, the leading awarding body for the retail motor industry.

Ann Watson, managing director of EAL, said: “The members of the council will also become ambassadors for apprenticeships in their sectors, raising their profile and promoting the opportunities to young people at school.

“The IAC members are enthusiastic,
highly skilled, determined and intelligent individuals – superb examples of the standard of industry apprentices.”

ADVERTORIAL: New app helps students to learn smarter

Learning Smarter is a revolutionary new web application using the latest mobile technology to improve learners’ experience in colleges, schools and training providers. Learners use technology already in their possession – their smartphone or tablet (or any device that can access the web) – to ask and answer questions, and also to evaluate and reflect on learning. This improves the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

It has been developed as a joint venture between Smartphone Media and Protocol’s College Leadership Services (CLS), who work closely with colleges and other providers to help them improve their provision, particularly related to teaching, learning and assessment.

Deborah McVey, Head of Observe and Improve at Protocol, came up with the idea for the Learning Smarter app as a solution to the lack of evaluation and reflection on lessons and learning.

An ex-teacher and experienced inspector for Ofsted, Deborah has worked with Smartphone Media taking Learning Smarter from initial idea to finished product. Deborah states, “We wanted to create something simple to excite and engage learners and improve communication.

As a teacher with little ICT skills, I also understood the importance of making something that all teachers could have the confidence to use.

We know that one of the key ways to create enthusiastic, motivated and independent learners is by helping learners to assess and reflect on their learning. It is the immediacy of responses that encourages group discussion, allowing teachers to respond and change lessons instantly, according to the feedback they are getting.”

A three month pilot at City of Westminster College found that students using the app communicated better and more frequently. The app helped teachers get to know their students and better understand their needs. A high value was placed on the instant responses of every single learner in the room and knowing exactly who each response came from.

The app has five features, each offering different functions:

1. Open questions – teachers input their own questions, which learners respond to with text answers.

2. Closed questions – teachers input their own questions, which learners respond to with a set of fixed, closed answers.

3. Set question checkpoints – designed to encourage reflection, helping learners to consider not just what they are learning, but how they will use it.

4. Set evaluation questions – to check understanding at the beginning, middle and end of learning and gauge the extent to which the lesson was successful.

5. Ask a question – learners ask the teacher a question. The teacher can then put this question back out to the group for all learners to answer themselves.

A robust reporting system allows teachers and college management to analyse the results and identify trends, so teachers can reflect.

Colleges will be able to purchase an annual license for the Learning Smarter app with costs dependent on the size of the organisation.

For further information visit
www.learningsmarter.co.uk or contact Lakeisha Dawson, Learning Smarter Administrator on 0115 911 1111. 

Getting our priorities right

After a lukewarm reception, the guild project seems to be picking up steam. As the consultation period begins and the guild’s future hangs in the balance, Peter Davies reflects on how far they’ve come and how far they still have to go.

It has been a hectic 11 weeks since the launch of the guild project and my start on November 21.

At that stage there was a general idea of the possible role, covering teaching and learning, leadership and governance and related professional skills.

But exactly what this meant, how it could be achieved and how it could add value was still pretty vague.

We were not even sure if the sector really supported the concept. That was partly why we immediately set up an online survey, which was really well supported with 404 responses, but more importantly showed 50 per cent of respondents supported the concept and only 8 per cent did not, with the rest being neutral pending more understanding.

Even more encouragingly, 69 per cent felt that if set up well, the guild could add value to the sector — a better level of support than many expected.

There were also some good indicators about specific roles with 87 per cent support for including qualifications and standards, even if that is a bit obvious.

Equally, together with feedback from focus groups, it became evident that we needed, with the sector, to identify much more clearly what the guild’s potential role and value might be.

If the stats are anything to go by, I think we certainly generated wide interest, with 2,700 blog views and 2,000 website visits, viewing over 6,600 pages.

Based on project papers, we had very positive steering group discussions, settling on some top level aims around ensuring the best possible learner experience and outcomes; enhancing the reputation of the sector; articulating provider best practice for the workforce; and making the sector an attractive place to work.

We then postulated that “the most important enabler for the achievement of these high level aims is to have a professional, motivated, respected and highly effective workforce… underpinned by effective governance and accountability.”

Defining the key aims allowed us to focus on the main areas of relevance supporting professionalism, which I hope people will identify with when they read the consultation document.

I hope I am not deluding myself in thinking that there has been an increasing level of enthusiasm for the guild”

It suggests that the guild might be responsible for qualifications and standards, continuous professional development and networks of professionals, underpinned by research and sharing best practice, definition of the wider personal qualities and characteristics associated with professionalism, definition of the attributes required for a world class workforce, and understanding of how a professional workforce contributes to overall sector reputation.

We also proposed options for governance, accountability and operational structures, which align with being ‘sector owned’, a premise supported by 86 per cent in the survey.

This is not just about legal niceties, but also finding mechanisms to ensure that the sector really can decide what the priorities are for the guild, both strategically and operationally.

In recognition of the resource pressures being felt across the sector, we have also suggested adopting a lean operational model, which relies much more on working with and through other bodies, as well as sector supported, committee structures to ‘run’ the show.

With the pressure on people’s time, I don’t underestimate the challenge, but equally I hope the proposed structure really does empower the sector to take charge of this very important part of our business and engender a real commitment to be involved.

Personally, I hope I am not deluding myself in thinking that there has been an increasing level of enthusiasm for the guild as people understand more about its potential.

We know that we have a shorter consultation period than is ideal, but our commitment to full consultation remains and I am really looking forward to hearing people’s views on the proposals in the consultation document, which we need to help define the implementation plan due at the end of March.

Interested parties have until February 22 to return views on the document, which is available for download at www.feguild.info together with the response form.

Peter Davies CBE, FE Guild Development Project lead

Paul Phillips, principal, Weston College

Wrestling fan, booker of TV celebrities and former disco promoter — it’s a picture of North Somerset principal Paul Phillips that not many will recognise.

Mention instead the honorary doctorate of letters from Bath Spa University for promoting higher education in FE, an Ofsted additional inspector’s post, or the 13 years he’s spent at the helm of Weston College and the 55-year-old is more likely to come into focus.

If not, then talk of his 2011 OBE should mean the name springs to mind. Phillips got the honour for services to FE and the voluntary sector, but almost missed out.

“I had a letter from Her Majesty’s office before saying I was being considered for an award but I hadn’t actually opened the letter straight away — it looked to me as though it might be a tax demand,” explains the father-of-two.

“It certainly looked like it could be a bill, so I put it to one side and didn’t open it for a few days, not that I don’t open bills.

“I was in shock when I opened it. I showed it to my partner, Julie, and she said ‘wow’.”

The revelation is one of the rare moments that Phillips slows in interview.

Forthright and forthcoming on, for instance, how his college has just won a £10m prison learning contract for 13 institutions across the South West, he becomes more reflective, but no less informative, when covering matters closer to home.

Having appeared in the press positively over stories such as the prison learning deal and the college’s new autism centre, he’s also made it into newsprint as the man behind college job losses and so could reasonably be expected to be cautious.

But the slowing down has more to do with pride at the award of the OBE and the keeping in check of emotion over his grandfather, Bert Lasseter, and father, Kenneth Phillips.

“My grandfather would have said that OBE stood for ‘other bugger’s efforts’,” he jokes.

“But I was pleased and very touched by it. I’m not touched by very much to be honest, but I was touched by that.”

He continues: “I wish my dad had been alive to see it really, because he was definitely an inspiration for me.

“He was trained as a carpenter and decided he wanted a career in dentistry so went to night school and did his A-levels and became a dental technologist at the University Hospital of Wales.

“He would have enjoyed my OBE because, really, he should have had that. It was a very poignant moment in my life.”

The underlying modesty is likely a family trait.

I appeared on the front page of the local newspaper week after week with people questioning what I was doing”

It was Phillips’ “down-to-earth” grandfather — the man behind Phillips’ ongoing love of all things English wrestling and the superstars-of-their-day such as Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy — who said of his PhD in cost benefit analysis: “What’s that? Paperhanging and decorating?”

The qualification — preceded by a Cardiff University degree in maths, statistics and economics, and a masters in economics and law of education — was followed by a job at the Ministry of Defence where he worked on computer-aided command systems.

But while there he was asked to “help out” teaching maths in a local technical college.

“I was pretty committed that I wasn’t going to go into education and that I was going to be in the world of industry, but I did it for a couple of weeks and I got absolutely hooked — line and sinker,” says Phillips, who lives in Penhow, between Chepstow and Newport.

It was a turning point and soon he applied for — and got — a maths lecturer post at Coleg Gwent’s campus in Pontypool, just north of Newport.

Eight years later, in 1990, and having risen to the post of senior lecturer, Phillips became vice principal at the college’s Ebbw Vale campus.

“If I ever lost sleep it was over that job,” he says.

“There was significant unemployment in the valley and the college was dilapidated to say the least.”

He adds: “One of my first jobs was getting the community in, but I remember thinking ‘how do I do that?

“At the time we had Gladiators on the TV so I managed to get in touch with the TV programme and they agreed they’d send one along, and I got hold of Timmy Mallett from TV. We also got one of the cast of Eastenders in, all for an open day celebrating what the college was doing.

“In addition, I brought wrestlers in, but unbeknown to me the company who organised it decided to bring female wrestlers, so the local paper ran a story along the lines ‘scantily-clad women encouraged into learning environment’.

“But it served the purpose and even more people flocked down.”

The college “turned around,” before Phillips moved onto become overall vice principal of Coleg Gwent in 1994.

“It was probably the job I enjoyed least because I was vice principal of a college that had five campuses with at least 30 miles between some of them – it brought the message home to me that big isn’t always beautiful,” he says.

“Sadly, my marriage was breaking down at the time and probably the job had a lot to do with it. I was having to put phenomenal hours in.”

But in 2000, Weston beckoned the rugby-loving Welshman.

“I wasn’t that keen at first as I was happy with my lot, but as vice principal I could never really set an individual journey for an institution,” says Phillips.

“But the challenge was there — Weston wasn’t doing particularly well financially and it didn’t have a good reputation in the community and the curriculum construct was very poor.

“I decided the only way to deal with the problems was a complete restructure. I removed seven of the eight heads and started from scratch.

“There was significant publicity and I appeared on the front page of the local newspaper week after week with people questioning what I was doing.

“I’m sure there are still some people out there who would rather I had never come to Weston because there were very difficult decisions that had to take place.

“But we’ve grown significantly ever since — from an £8m turnover to about £32m this year and next year we’ll be £43m to £45m.”

The success sees Phillips now head a 7,500-learner college looking at opening a fourth campus in the near future, that Ofsted rated as good in 2008.

But achieving outstanding isn’t necessarily next on his radar.

“I could make Weston very easily a tertiary college and very easily achieve outstanding, but that wouldn’t be what the community wants,” he says.

“The community wants everything. It wants that outstanding provision for academic, but it also wants the same for vocational and it also wants the bespoke learning for those who haven’t had the same chances that I, and others have had. That’s what the outstanding college is to me.”

He adds: “In my younger days I thought I’d seen all aspects of life and nothing was going to shock or change me.

“I ran a disco in Cardiff and had loads of other jobs and thought I’d seen the world, but when you go into some of the deprived areas with massive learning difficulties and you go into the prisons, you see how privileged your upbringing was and you see what these people do and you see them succeed, it’s just fantastic.”

 

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book? 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A steam train driver

What do you do to switch off from work?

I enjoy going to watch the rugby and professional wrestling

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

Cheryl Cole, Alex Ferguson, The Queen, Norman Wisdom, Morecambe and Wise and my dad

What would your super power be? 

I would like the ability to look at somebody and immediately assess their potential — in fact, I might already have this super power

The AELP calls for funding change

Independent learning providers are calling for an end to a dual funding system that sees them denied overpayments while colleges get to keep cash despite underdelivering on education.

Graham Hoyle (pictured), chief executive at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said he wanted to see the system changed so that either his members could also keep overpayment or that both colleges and his members couldn’t keep overpayment.

“The big problem is not with colleges getting overpayments, it’s with there being two different systems — one for colleges and one independent learning providers,” he said.

An AELP spokesperson said the issue had come to the fore with recent funding changes meaning AELP members were getting paid more — but thereby reaching their Skills Funding Agency allocation sooner than expected.

The clash of two incompatible funding systems has come to the fore.”

He said a number of AELP members were “having to turn demand away, and even reduce capacity — including making front-line staff redundant — as the otherwise welcome retrospective funding for functional skills, etc, has placed them in an overspend position”.

Mr Hoyle said he wanted college funding, where excess is identified, to also be considered for redistribution among his members.

“The clash of two incompatible funding systems has come to the fore, with employers and the unemployed losing out as the providers have to turn them away, and even contemplate closing their delivery doors for good,” he said.

“Despite their support and goodwill, I do not believe the agency has the tools to get the money quickly to where it is needed. We will be writing to the FE Minister to engage his help.”

It comes just weeks after the agency revealed it had allowed underdelivering colleges to keep around £85m of taxpayers’ money for which no education had been delivered.

Mr Hoyle added: “The agency is totally sympathetic and anxious to do whatever it can to move money around from providers with unused cash.

“This is routinely done between independent providers who have always argued for in-year reconciliations as the only way to make a reality of demand-led responsiveness.

“Sadly the annual grant system used for colleges denies independent learning providers this flexibility — until the next funding year.”

A spokesperson for the agency said: “We published figures for the end-of-year performance position for colleges and training organisations for the academic year 2011/12 in December.

“Where the published data shows that a college or training organisation has funds against which it has not delivered, the agency is in discussions with each provider about the use or return of any funding not delivered.

“The agency continues to ensure funding is used for the direct benefit of learners and employers.”

The agency has said it could be asking for some of the overall overpayment last year to be handed back.

Warning over Heseltine’s single funding pot for LEPs

Lord Heseltine’s proposal to hand-over the entire skills budget to Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) could become a reality with the government having launched informal discussions.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) and Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) have both been in talks with the government about LEPs, and both expressed opposition.

A BIS spokesperson declined to comment on government plans for LEPs, but said a statement on the issue would be made in next month’s Budget.

It follows Lord Heseltine’s report last October, No Stone Unturned in pursuit of Growth, in which he said central government should “identify budgets”, including the skills budget worth around £17bn over four years, and “bring them together into a single pot of funding” for LEPs.

Lord Heseltine said the single pot would “be without internal ring-fence” and LEPs would bid for money from the government on a competitive basis, depending on local needs, removing bureaucracy and going along with the government’s “commitment to devolution”.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the AoC, told FE Week that “breaking up college funding” would be a “real mistake” and colleges should be “left to get on with what they were doing already to generate local growth”, working with LEPs and a range of partners.

I’m still naïve enough to believe that sound argument and logic will win the day here”

He said the AoC had been in “constant discussions” with the government, ministers and LEPs themselves about how colleges may be funded by LEPs.

“I think it’s a real mistake to introduce that level of uncertainty rather than sticking with a good plan and letting colleges get on with doing what they’re doing,” said Mr Doel.

“We want to work with LEPs but I don’t think breaking up college funding and giving it to LEPs is a helpful way to do that because it makes it uncoordinated, lacking coherence and won’t be responsive when money is tight.”

The government first responded to Lord Heseltine’s recommendations in December, when it announced LEPs would have responsibility for the Employer Ownership and European Social Fund budget.

Writing at the time for FE Week, LEP Network chair David Frost said: “This country has had a dysfunctional skills system for too long. Despite the billions that have been spent over the past decade, too many employers say that the current structures are not delivering the skills that they need.”

Lord Heseltine proposed bids would be for a minimum of five years from 2015/16 and included in this “single pot” would be the Adult Skills Budget — worth around £10bn over four years — plus offender learning and the Department for Education’s (DfE) £3bn apprenticeships budget alongside local transport, rail industry and flood defences funding.

Mr Doel said if these funds were not “ring-fenced” the system would “lack transparency”.

“You’ll get very uneven outcomes across the country and I also think you’ll get a lack of clear accountability about how the money’s been spent and what’s been achieved with it,” he said.

“I’m still naïve enough to believe that sound argument and logic will win the day here against what is most often anecdotal and partial argument by those who are arguing for the alternative approach.”

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the AELP, said: “We know the government is trying to work out how LEPs can be worked out, but we think they’re fraught with all kinds of problems. It doesn’t sound right at all.

“We are looking to put in some very, very firm arguments within the next fortnight.”

A spokesperson on behalf of DfE and BIS said: “We’ll be responding to the Heseltine Review at the time of the budget, but we can’t give any indication before that.”

————————————————————————————

Editorial : Single pot or potty?

This year’s Budget could well include deep cuts to FE.

Nothing new about the risk of public funding cuts, but the consequence of a central funding pot for local employment partnerships (LEPs) to competitively bid for is a particularly high-risk strategy

What if a LEP prioritises an infrastructure project, such as housing, ahead of skills training?

If LEPs do prioritise skills training, would they be any more sensitive to local demand and economic need for particular skills and courses than colleges and training providers?

And with high youth unemployment and declining 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeship starts, is now the time for big structural change to the way provision is funded?

The former Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) were scrapped for being costly, bureaucratic and lacking transparency.

Their replacement, the Learning and Skills Council, was heavily criticised for the way it planned skills provision locally, before the Skills Funding Agency took over.

Ultimately, will Lord Heseltine’s proposal — to essentially reinvent nearly 40 TECs in the form of LEPs and each with five-year plans — make for a better FE and skills system?

Are there other equally radical, but better funding reforms, such as Doug Richard’s idea of skills tax credits?

So many questions, and I’ll need a lot of convincing the upheaval will be judged any more kindly than previous structural shake-ups.

Nick Linford, editor

Apprenticeships 16-18 fall hits finances

Providers underdelivered on 16 to 18 apprenticeships by more than £61m last year, newly-released Skills Funding Agency figures have revealed.

The agency’s final allocation for under 19 apprentices stood at £783m in June — but providers missed the target by almost 8 per cent.

The numbers come just a week after the latest Statistical First Release showed the number of 16 to 18 apprenticeships fell for the first time in three years — and figures indicated the slide could get worse.

There were 1,800 fewer 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeship starts last year than in 2010/11 — a 1.4 per cent fall to 129,900.

And provisional figures for the first quarter of the current year showed a 7.4 per cent decline on last year already.

FE Minister Matthew Hancock told FE Week he was looking at the fall “closely” and said a number of factors could be behind the issue, including the government’s attempt to tackle “poor provision”.

But, with the latest agency figures now showing the financial scale of underdelivery, Jaine Bolton (pictured), chief operating officer at the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), conceded that raising the number 16 to 18 apprenticeships was proving “a major challenge — particularly when employers are experiencing a difficult economic climate.”

We continue to work hard to raise demand for 16 to 18 apprenticeships.”

She said: “The necessary introduction of more rigorous quality standards — with a 12-month minimum duration for 16-18 apprentices from August 2012 — has also impacted on the number of young apprentices.”

She added: “We have rightly focused on raising standards and improving the quality of apprenticeships as this is crucial to securing success and growth in the longer term.

“We remain absolutely committed to getting more young people into Apprenticeship employment and on the path to a good career.”

The largest underdelivery figure, at more than £10.2m, was from Pearson, which had been allocated £36.2m.

Last month it announced the closure of Pearson in Practice UK — one of a number of its UK adult education interests.

A spokesperson for the firm said: “In light of funding policy changes for apprenticeships, Pearson made adjustments to its programme during the funding year that resulted in lower levels of recruitment, so while the training was of the highest quality, Pearson did not take up its maximum allocation.”

The college with the greatest underdelivery was Newcastle College. It was allocated nearly £5.5m, but delivered almost £1.3m less.

With all under 19 apprenticeship funding paid ‘on-delivery,’ this means the college received nearly £4.2m. It declined to comment.

However, Mrs Bolton said NAS was employing a host of measures to arrest the decline in under 19 apprenticeship uptake.

“We continue to work hard to raise demand for 16 to 18 apprenticeships and we have introduced measures to support employers to recruit younger apprentices, including the £1,500 Apprenticeship Grants for Smaller Employers,” she said.

She also referred to the Apprenticeship Application Support Fund, or ‘Bootcamps’ project, as providing “17,000 places to support 16 to 20-year-olds who want an apprenticeship to improve their application skills and develop the skills and attitudes expected by employers”.

She added: “We are enhancing the support provided by the Apprenticeship Vacancy service. There is a dedicated marketing campaign targeting employers who want to recruit 16, 17 and 18-year-olds, and we are also strengthening our information, advice and guidance to schools, parents and teachers.”

The agency declined to comment.