Warwickshire plans for a rosy future in China

A shared bottle of wine can lead to many things – including the first UK-backed FE college in China. Mariane Cavalli, principal and chief executive of Warwickshire College, explains.

It’s an interesting time to be in China, less than a month from the 18th National Party Conference that will elect the new leadership and then select the men (some things in China and the UK are remarkably similar) who will govern the country for the next ten years.

The leaders-in-waiting claim that they want to curb economic overheating by focusing on quality not quantity, improving the standards of service industries, and increasing manufacturing industry sustainability. They see the reform of the education system, with a new focus on advanced vocational skills, as the way forward.

The timing is doubly interesting for us as Warwickshire College has established a partnership which led to this week’s opening of the first China-UK National Skills College, in Qingzhou City, Shandong Province.

The idea for the college was conceived (and ‘was ever thus) four years ago or so after a bottle of wine in a bar. In this case it was a Great Wall Merlot, French methode, delicious, in downtown Beijing.

With me was mr Luo Xiaoming, chairman of the Beijing Guozheng International Education Investment, a philanthropic, educational reformer and entrepreneur. Together we mused about establishing a network of skills colleges throughout China based on everything that is great in the UK FE system. I was gazing into a crystal ball, seeing a complete U-turn in UK visa restrictions and the need for us to become a capacity-building partner with our overseas markets while we tempted their students to study here.

By the end of the evening we reckoned that we had all we needed to make it happen: the expertise and knowledge of British FE, the ability to lever in resources and investors, political contacts in both countries to support us, a passion and shared excitement for the venture, and Charles Cao Quin, my vice principal international, who was also with us that night and who is the most networked Sino-UK champion you could meet. Most importantly, we realised that we had a deep and fundamental respect and trust for each other and, vitally, shared values. That night we shook hands on an agreement to work together exclusively — and we have become close friends since.

Nothing much happened to our plans for a couple of years. I moved to Warwickshire College, Charles followed and became “my man in China”, based full-time in Beijing, and Xiaoming busied away laying foundations for our joint venture, with highs intermingling with heart-stopping financial losses along the way. But we never doubted that one day the stars would align.

A joint venture between our partnership and Weifang Engineering Vocational College in Qingzhou provided the start that we needed. With its acres of unused land and masses of under-utilised buildings, combined with a genuine commitment to partnership, innovation and shared risk, it seemed the perfect nursery for us to learn how to do things China-UK style.

The biggest disappointment has been the lack of interest amongst FE and HE partners we approached to help us with this work”

The support of local, provincial and national government has been overwhelming and now we are on target to deliver the best we can offer in purpose-built facilities for up to 20,000 students. With a local population of 900,000 – and 98 million more in the province — there is no fear of under-recruitment. All costs are covered by the partnership and the college receives a healthy proportion of tuition fee income.

Towards the end of this week we will conclude discussions in Shanghai with another partner and so our network of China-UK skills colleges will extend. The biggest disappointment, on the UK side, has been the lack of interest among the FE and HE partners that we approached to help us with this work. The Chinese education and skills market is almost impenetrable and I was offering a route in. Our mistake was to think it might be of value to local partners.

Fortunately we are proud members of the Gazelle Colleges Group and we look forward to inviting them, and their HE networks, to collaborate with us. This project is limitless and there is much to be gained, on both sides, for all of us.

It’s hard to disagree with the Association of Colleges when it says that “colleges are businesses and they need to be business-like”. As a founder member of Gazelle I go much further: our principles are that colleges create wealth, form and grow businesses, and focus on employment outcomes. We know that if we want our students to acquire an entrepreneurial mindset, than we too have to live entrepreneurially and we have to lead entrepreneurial colleges. Warwickshire College is walking the talk.

At the opening ceremony at Weifang, I spoke about my own college’s entrepreneurial mindset: about my entrepreneurial board that has really only backed a vision, and has had to wait a long time for me to provide the detail, and about managers and staff at Warwickshire College who know that we have to combine skills and an entirely new set of qualities and characteristics in our students to help them to succeed. I spoke about the need for us to prepare our students for a networked world, with international businesses and global employment opportunities. Most of the rather mature audience sat unmoved, but the students — probably 500 or so – stood; and I watched them applaud their futures.

While we college leaders are balancing ever-mounting funding pressures and policy upheavals, we have to be as innovative and ambitious as possible, just to provide a roof over the heads of our own country’s students. FE is business focused, entrepreneurial and innovative.

Enterprises such as overseas partnerships don’t necessarily detract from our core business. Far from it. In these challenging times they subsidise it.

Stop, start, sideways; that’s how adults learn

The jobs market of the future will be unrecognisable to most of today’s workers — education needs to grasp that to do best by its learners, says David Hughes, chief executive at NIACE.

I’ve just returned from a fascinating week in Australia where I took part in a major conference on the future of work. I was a guest of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency — formerly known as Skills Australia — which has three important ambitions that resonate with the challenges we face here.

They are to increase the number of people in work, improve productivity and support employers to utilise the skills of their workforces.

These are familiar ambitions, and the remedies and policies being adopted in Australia are strikingly similar to ours in England; although, interestingly, not necessarily that similar to those in Wales, Scotland or other EU countries.

What was also striking was the expectation of many people that policies in vogue here in the UK will soon become fashionable in Australia — an interesting view born of centuries of colonialism perhaps?

many people that policies in vogue here in the UK will soon become fashionable in Australia.”

The policy agenda is dominated by discussions on employability, vocational qualifications, funding cuts — which potentially will marginalise those with lower educational achievement — more employer-directed government funding, marketisation of the supply of learning and concerns about the so-called mismatch between what people choose to study and labour market needs.

The conference took place over two days at the Sydney Conference Centre in Darling Harbour. The really stimulating speakers speculated about how work will be organised and what skills people will need over the next 10 to 20 years.

Three issues will stay with me, as well as lots of new contacts and ideas.

The first was that predicting the future is not easy. Many speakers tried, and they provided very thought-provoking presentations, but the overriding impression was that there will be lots of sometimes rapid changes, and that there will be jobs, unimaginable to us today, that will be the norm in 10 years.

Some of the presentations reminded me of a great quote from US economist Dr Barry Asmus, who said: “Economists are pessimists — they’ve predicted eight of the last three depressions.”

The second issue follows on from the first: if the future is so hard to predict then we need to challenge learning policy which is narrowly-focused around technical competencies that are right for today’s jobs.

It seems clear to me people need a broader education to be able to adapt to changes in the labour market.

As part of my presentation I suggested that we should be helping people to learn so they can understand the changes happening around them, adapt to those changes and be able to cope with them.

Beyond that we should aspire to support people to manage and lead change rather than simply be subject to the changes. I would question whether this resilience to change comes from some of the more narrow vocational qualifications that are often on offer.

The third issue is the one I was asked to present on — the role of informal learning in workforce development and skills.

Very simply, I suggested that most successful people have learned more through informal learning than formal learning, and that we need to recognise how to support good informal learning for all, both in the workplace and in the community.

I went on to suggest that many negative experiences from schooldays meant that the only way to encourage people into learning was through informal learning, which tapped into their motivation and which usually would not lead directly and immediately into a clear vocational pathway.

I reinforced this with a description of the non-linear way in which many adults return to learning — it is often stop-start, upwards, downwards, sideways and it might take time to find what they want to learn and to translate that into skills for work.

It is a way of learning that we will all need to develop to help us embrace the unpredictability of the future.

We face challenges, but it’s not all gloom

Speakers at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) autumn conference in Leeds addressed a number of issues, including rising apprenticeship numbers and FE loans. Association chief executive Graham Hoyle explains.

The autumn conference of AELP traditionally addresses the immediate challenges facing training organisations in the employment and skills sectors and the event in Leeds was no exception.

We face major challenges, but we are hardly in a position of doom and gloom.

Our concern has been that loans might seriously affect the take-up of adult apprenticeships and, in particular, higher apprenticeships”

The government announced this month that we had hit the 500,000 landmark in apprenticeship places in England, and it would be churlish not to acknowledge that providers, as well as employers and learners, have benefited from this growth while the economy and other sectors have been in recession.

Providers who are good at employer engagement, and who offer high quality provision, are the ones who should rightly benefit most from increased public investment.

Since Lord Leitch advocated a demand-led skills system in 2006, there has been movement towards a more employer-responsive framework and AELP would not be happy if poor performers who cannot show adequate employer demand were still protected by the funding system.

As institutions of varying levels of performance seek to protect their volumes by contracting out provision, this brings us on to the issue of sub-contracting and the need for good standards in supply chain management.

Training providers of all sizes want subcontracting to continue for bona fide reasons, such as enabling them to spread their provision into a new region, but it has to be on fair and reasonable terms.

In recent weeks, AELP’s Paul Warner has been locked in a room with officials from the Association of Colleges to make this happen; a common accord should be published for consultation by the end of November.

Doug Richard is now putting the finishing touches to his review of apprenticeships and we are hopeful that he will share our view that two million apprenticeships is a perfectly reasonable goal.

Our recent position paper (How to develop, strengthen, improve and increase the number of apprenticeships — downloadable from the AELP website) sets out the steps needed to achieve it.

The conference heard a presentation from the Skills Funding Agency on 24-plus advanced learning loans. Our concern has been that loans might seriously affect the take-up of adult apprenticeships and, in particular, higher apprenticeships, which the government is especially keen to promote.

The situation will be made worse if ministers don’t act quickly to resolve the issue of VAT being added to the fees of independent provider provision, which the loans have to cover.
A completely unjust 20 per cent mark-up will result in many of my members walking away, leaving gaps that will not be filled.

We also covered progress towards greater links between skills and employability programmes, which have grown with the arrival of the youth contract.

The Education Funding Agency explained how its funding was becoming more flexible to enable providers to secure more sustainable job opportunities for young people not in work or training.

And the Department for Work and Pensions presentation addressed the role of Jobcentre Plus (JCP) in relation to the work programme – AELP members need assurances that more JCP districts are becoming better at making referrals to providers.

On supporting the unemployed back into work, providers are accessing the adult skills budget (ASB) to offer learners pre-employment training.

Smart providers are linking up with work programme contractors to ensure individuals receive joined-up support and increase their chances of sustainable employment.

As the Chancellor’s autumn statement approaches, AELP is calling for the ASB to remain a solid source of funding for skills provision for the unemployed as well as for apprenticeships.

Elmfield Training dishes out cash to Morrisons

The provider behind the UK’s biggest apprenticeship programme has defended handing over taxpayers’ cash to the firm whose staff it trains.

Elmfield Training, which was allocated £41m by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) for the current academic year, said it was “only right to share costs” of its programme with Morrisons.

The payments — understood to be £60 for every learner — began after the provider started one-day development sessions on key skills with apprentice staff at the giant supermarket chain, which last financial year had a turnover of £17bn.

“We’ve always supported Morrisons learners one-to-one with key skills, and last year we decided to add a one-day development day with groups of learners,” said a spokesperson for Elmfield, which claims to have delivered around 100,000 apprenticeships for Morrisons since October 2009.

Where additional costs are incurred to improve the quality of the programme, it is only right they are shared fairly, with ourselves as the provider.”

“The extra tuition means that we’ve been able to maintain high pass rates on both literacy and numeracy.

“For many of our learners in Morrisons, it’s the first time anyone has supported them with these skills — and obviously it’s had a very positive effect on people’s confidence, as well as their ability to perform well at work.

“Morrisons makes a huge financial contribution to the apprenticeship through all the training and support they provide learners. Where additional costs are incurred to improve the quality of the programme, it is only right they are shared fairly, with ourselves as the provider.”

Funding rules state providers “must not use apprenticeship funding provided by the SFA to pay apprenticeship wage”.

However, a Morrisons spokesperson said the company was happy that the payments from Elmfield were above board.

News of the payments system comes just a week after FE Week reported claims that Elmfield was proposing to shed a third of its 600-strong workforce.

Two out of every three of Elmfield staff were warned on October 4 that they could face redundancy, according to a worker who wanted to remain anonymous.

The Elmfield spokesperson described the redundancy figures supplied to FE Week as “inaccurate, selective and misleading”.

The proposed job losses follow a national media report that provider Pearson in Practice had also opened consultation with 300 employees in its IT apprenticeship arm.

The firm’s accounts indicate it had more than 3,000 students a year studying in its IT programme and had a turnover of £30.7m.

A Pearson spokesperson told FE Week: “No business can honestly rule out job losses 100 per cent, but there are no timescales or detailed plans and none were set in the recent business review meetings.

“Nothing has been discussed, announced or decided on redundancies, or the closure of our training centres.”

He added: “Pearson in Practice holds regular business review meetings with all its staff.

“We endeavour to hold these on a quarterly basis — neither redundancies nor centre closures were discussed.”

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Editors comment

It takes a minute to get your head around a provider paying an employer to train their staff.

Obviously, the government has introduced wage incentives to help persuade small employers to take on apprentices.

However, while providers are paid by the government to deliver training, they are banned from using SFA money to pay apprentice wages.

Former funding agency LSC even felt the need to publish a seperate document in 2009, warning of providers making ‘employer inducements’.

Costs may well be shared “fairly” with Elmfield and Morrisons, but just how much SFA money has ended up with the supermarket giant?

It is unclear what costs would need sharing, and it is a shame that this arrangement did not come out when both firms were before the BIS Select Committee in March.

It would be interesting to hear what committee members think of this arrangement.

We already knew Morrisons paid nothing for Elmfield’s services, but to learn that in fact they get paid raises serious questions about the use of public money.

Nick Linford, Editor

Dozens of providers exempt from rule

Forty providers are exempt from funding rules that ban introductory apprenticeships where more than 10 per cent of learners are out of work, FE Week can reveal.

The 40 were over the limit before its introduction this year and so were told to carry on — although they have been ordered to try to hit the target.

It has also emerged that the The De Vere Academy of Hospitality is the only provider given “formal approval” to keep running its access courses with more than 10 per cent unemployed.

The permission, from the Skills Funding Agency and the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), allows the academy to bypass funding rules, which state: “Providers must not recruit more than 10 per cent of their apprenticeship starts on to the access to apprenticeship pathway without the prior agreement of their agency relationship manager.”

The agency is working with these providers to support transition and ensure new apprentices do not exceed 10 per cent,”

A spokesperson for NAS said: “The 10 per cent rule on access was introduced with the 2012/13 funding rules, published at the end of May 2012.

“Providers delivering access before the changes did not require approval to deliver above 10 per cent, as no rule applied at that time.

“We can confirm that 40 providers are legitimately exceeding 10 per cent having done so before the introduction of the new rule.

“No further providers have been given formal approval by the agency to deliver above 10 per cent.”

She said providers who exceeded the limit before May needed time to change.

“The agency is working with these providers to support transition and ensure new apprentices do not exceed 10 per cent,” she added.

De Vere was the only provider that could continue to exceed 10 per cent as it used a new model that attempted “to address a specific need identified by the sector and using a sector-led solution. As with any new developed initiative it is being closely monitored and assessed.”

The full list of the 40 providers is subject to an FE Week Freedom of Information request.

The De Vere Academy advertised two access courses on its website earlier this year. Both were to last seven weeks and included two or three “work trials”.

However, funding rules say that learners on these courses should spend most of their time “in a substantive work placement” with the same number of hours “as expected for those on a full apprenticeship”.

The De Vere Group has defended its programme saying that it had achieved “outstanding” success rates and was helping to address youth unemployment.

The SFA allocated £9.6m to the De Vere Group, known as the Alternative Hotel Group, for the 2011/12 academic year, according to government figures. It included more than £8m for apprentices aged 16 to 18.

Job losses as Skillsfinder UK Training goes in to administration

A national training provider with nearly £2.5m of contracts last year has gone into administration with the loss of 40 jobs.

The move has affected the education of 450 learners handled by Birmingham-based Skillsfinder UK Training.

The firm, set up last year, had contracts with lead providers Total People and Remit. It also dealt with Tribal Education.

Craig Povey and Richard Toone, from national accountancy firm Chantrey Vellacott DFK, have been appointed joint administrators.

Mr Povey said: “Skillsfinder had a number of contracts to deliver training to young people between the ages of 16 and 24 that it subcontracted out to other providers.

“It appears the company’s business model failed which has, in turn, had a knock-on effect to other providers all over the country.”

He said the administrators were reviewing the company’s assets and were talking to providers to try to support the affected trainees.

According to the Skillsfinder website, the original company was created in 2007 as a “learner finder” organisation. It went on to subcontract apprenticeship training services to around 75 organisations across the UK.

It appears the company’s business model failed which has, in turn, had a knock-on effect to other providers all over the country.”

A spokesperson for Tribal Education said: “Tribal subcontracted tutor and assessor support for a cohort of learners to Skillsfinder in a number of qualification areas.
“We are now finding alternative support arrangements.

“We have contacted all our learners and their employers to explain the situation, and have reassured them we are working towards finding replacement support.

“We will be regularly updating our learners on our progress. We aim to ensure that the change won’t delay the completion of their apprenticeships.”

Remit chief operating officer Steve Yardley said: “As a national training provider we have worked with Skillsfinder to assist them in securing government funding to support their learners.

“Over the coming days and weeks we will be doing everything we can to transfer as many of their learners and appropriate staff to Remit. Our team is now making contact with all learners and is in the process of obtaining all relevant documentation to try to ensure there is minimal disruption to their apprenticeships and employment.”

Total People associate director Janice Woolley said: “We had a service level agreement with Skillsfinder for a small cohort of 16 learners linked to one employer.

“The learners still linked to Total People have achieved their level two apprenticeships and are just waiting for their full framework certificate.

“We were informed by Skillsfinder that learners had already progressed on to a level three programme through a different subcontract arrangement.”

A Skills Funding Agency spokesperson said: “We have a duty to ensure learner interests are being protected and are working with Remit and Tribal Education to ensure all learners affected by the closure are being supported in every way possible and are able continue their learning.

“Remit and Tribal have written to employers and learners to outline the support available and a dedicated helpline number and email address have been set up.

“Both Remit and Tribal are also working with learners that have been made redundant as a result of Skillsfinder going into administration to try to secure alternative employment opportunities, to ensure that apprenticeships can be completed.”

Skillsfinder’s former director, Neil Harrup, was not available for comment.

Chris Martin, Skillsfinder’s quality and development manager, was a director in Luis Michael Training, which delivered apprenticeships in sport. The provider is currently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, as previously reported in FE Week.

Review of FE teacher qualifications launched

Further education leaders have told of their concerns about new proposals for industry teacher training.

A review of teacher qualifications for the FE and skills sector by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) includes 19 proposals aimed at creating a simpler system. It is due in place in September next year.

Among the proposals are three generic and three specialist qualifications, along with qualifications at level seven, including one for continuing professional development.

The review has been welcomed by Jill Stokoe, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

It is particularly helpful that LSIS has recognised the role of FE teachers as both subject specialists and teachers.”

“We are pleased LSIS has reviewed teacher training qualifications for the FE and skills sector, including evaluating and responding to stakeholders’ views,” she said.

“It is particularly helpful that LSIS has recognised the role of FE teachers as both subject specialists and teachers.

“But we are concerned LSIS’s work will be wasted if FE is deregulated and the government revokes the requirement for FE staff to have teaching qualifications.

“We firmly believe that they should have these qualifications so will vigorously argue the case for them to be retained.”

The University and College Union (UCU) is planning to canvass opinion on the proposals with its own three-hour consultation at its head office in London’s Carlow Street from 11.30am on October 31.

Its general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “We agree there is a need to review the training qualifications . . . as our members have complained of unnecessary duplication of material within the three existing qualifications.

“We have some concerns about potential changes to the balance of the three elements of the course — content, teaching practice and observation of teaching.”

The proposals within the review, carried out on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), were drawn up between July and September when LSIS met with stakeholders and teacher educators.

LSIS chief executive Rob Wye said: “The importance of this review goes beyond the FE and skills sector.

“The teachers and trainers of tomorrow will help to shape the workforce of tomorrow, so it is vital we hear from everyone who is involved with these qualifications.”

The proposals will be the focus of a host of open events across the country, the first of which took place in Birmingham on October 18. London hosts the second event on  November 8, before another one in Taunton on November 13, then Leeds on November 15 and London again five days later.

The deadline for feedback is Friday, November 26.  Visit www.lsis.org.uk to give feedback on the proposals.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive at the Institute for Learning, goes into detail on the
proposals in an expert piece here.

Our future depends on how we teach FE learners

New FE proposals on teacher training have been formulated by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) and are up for consultation. Toni Fazaeli, chief executive at the Institute for Learning (IFL), looks at what a newly-qualified teacher or trainer needs to know.

We welcome the LSIS consultation on qualifications for new teachers and trainers. We especially welcome the consultation period, as there is important work still to do.

We are passionate about high-quality teaching — our object is to promote this through individual professional body membership, and our members firmly believe in teaching and training being at least a level five profession, as evidenced in our recent survey, to which more than 5,000 practitioners responded.

Teaching in FE and skills, like other professions, has clear expectations of standards, and qualifications for entry and early years of practice.

It is a second or parallel career for most practitioners, and their young and adult learners deserve to be taught by dual professionals, proven experts who have recent work experience in their field.

The average age of entry to teaching in FE and skills is around 37 — that’s 10 years older than for entrants to school teaching.

Teaching is a profession. To continue attracting high-calibre new entrants it must be, and be seen to be, a step up professionally. Initial training must enjoy public confidence and recognition.

Learners expect and deserve expert teaching that makes the best use of their talents, and does not waste their time or commitment. Do the proposals put forwards by LSIS, in line with the Lingfield review, offer the right suite of qualifications? Is the central focus on what is right and best for young and adult learners?

On the plus side, the LSIS proposals convey that it is a given that initial qualifications matter. The new specialist qualification for teaching disabled learners is long overdue – recognition of this is a positive development. Retaining specialist qualifications for teachers of English, maths and ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) is right.

The average age of entry to teaching in FE and skills is around 37 — that’s 10 years older than for entrants to school teaching.

The big question for us all during the consultation period is what do good newly-qualified teachers or trainers need to understand, know and offer their learners? We will be exploring this – and whether the standards need reviewing – with our members, as well as the next level and more technical questions about qualification design.

It is good that the consultation spans late November when Sir Michael Wilshaw’s annual report will be published, as Ofsted’s views on the quality of teaching and learning across FE and skills need to inform teacher qualifications. Will the quality of teaching staying the same be acceptable, and might it be essential to consider ramping initial teacher qualifications up rather than down?

When considering developments in our sector, it often helps to look at parallel worlds. A proposal to halve the size and breadth of initial qualifications for doctors, engineers, nurses or schoolteachers would spark a public debate.

The proposal to halve the diploma qualification from 120 to 60 credits – this will include specialist teachers of English, maths, Esol and disabled learners – lacks rationale.

Presumably somebody thinks newly qualified teachers are over-skilled and so need half the amount of training? If so, where is the evidence?

FE routinely supports young and adult learners who did not fare well in their initial education, so newly qualified teachers need to be adept at enabling learners to overcome problems and make rapid progress.

There is a danger that reducing initial teacher education for FE and skills will prove a false economy.

Most individuals moving into teaching in FE will have earned more in their original field. While not a focus of the consultation, IfL believes that trainee teachers must be supported through bursaries and grants, as those entering the routes to school teaching are. We agree with LSIS that the economy and society depend on learners in FE being well taught and trained — they are our country’s future.

Sharp criticism of ‘limited flexibility’ in the Innovation Code

Government measures to help colleges respond to local employment and skills needs have lost the “spirit” of the report that called for their introduction, it has been claimed.

The Innovation Code, available for use from April this year, was a key element of recommendations that emerged from the Colleges in their Communities Inquiry last year.

It was chaired by Lady Sharp, the Liberal Democrats’ education spokesperson in the House of Lords.

She described the code as “a funding formula that, subject to proper audit procedures, would allow up to 25 per cent of the adult skills budget to be used to meet local priorities”.
However, Lady Sharp has spoken of her “disappointment” at the way the code has been interpreted by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

“We should have read the small print more carefully . . . what is being proposed, which has now been further developed in the guidance recently issued by the SFA, provides only limited flexibility,” she said in a Lords grand committee debate this month.

The SFA has said it plans to issue fresh guidance on the code.

But frustration over its use in practice is shared at the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and Association of Colleges (AoC), whose director of education policy, Joy Mercer said: “We endorse Lady Sharp’s comments.

“The purpose of her report was to support colleges in responding to the specific requirements of communities — for example, in meeting the needs of tenants’ associations.

We should have read the small print more carefully . . . what is being proposed, which has now been further developed in the guidance recently issued by the SFA, provides only limited flexibility,”

“Its implementation as an instrument to help colleges develop qualifications with employers runs against this grain. There is such a plethora of qualifications already available that it is rare not to find one that can be of use.
“That is why take-up has been slow. We would urge BIS and the SFA to return to the original spirit of the Sharp report.”

She added: “We have flagged this as an issue with SFA and are seeking to discuss how the code might be re-balanced in its promotion to ensure Lady Sharp’s vision can be better recognised — as much as is possible within SFA’s remit.”

NIACE director of policy and impact Mark Ravenhall, said: “The code as written in the final report was much more expansive and inclusive than what has been developed since.

“Our challenge to colleges and to government was to create a system where providers were more accountable to local communities than to government, and had the flexibility to meet community needs.

“The way the code has been developed doesn’t quite achieve that, but it’s still early days.”

The SFA and BIS issued a joint statement on the code. “The development of innovative provision is in the hands of the sector,” it said. “There is no process of approval; it is for FE professionals, working with employers to design and develop the provision that will become the qualifications of tomorrow.

“In the coming weeks, as planned, the agency will issue updated information on how the use of the code can be maximised, which will help share best practice across the sector.”