David Cameron and John Hayes MP visit apprentices from Havering College

A group of Havering College apprentices employed by leading companies met Prime Minister David Cameron last month.

Fourteen apprentices from energy giants EDF, technology company e2v and the Cycle Systems Academy – all taking Level 2 courses through the college – were on hand as the Prime Minister announced a new round of government funding to support thousands of apprenticeships up to degree equivalent.

The event was held at Crossrail’s £13million Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy (TUCA) in East London.

The Havering College students were accompanied by interim director of technology Stuart Woosnam who is responsible for the delivery of apprenticeships and bespoke training to some of the most successful technology companies in the region.

He said: “It was good to be invited to this event and it was a positive experience for the apprentices.

“They were eager at the prospect of meeting the Prime Minister and were very interested in what he had to say.”

Finding an alternative to shared services

In a time of increasing pressure on resources, every college is exploring ways to improve its cost effectiveness. National policy advice continues to nudge colleges towards investing in Shared Service solutions, and yet most colleges are reluctant to give up sovereignty of their support service functions.

But to quote the strap line of a major high street bank: there is another way! Some recent data analysis work has been undertaken to support colleges who wish to improve their cost effectiveness through business process reengineering.

The work stemmed from an analysis of sector benchmarking cost data and recasting the data on a transactional cost basis. This approach seeks to identify how much it costs each college to run its support services, for example its finance function; or HR service; or MIS based on the key driver of that cost area. One such “cost-driver” might be MIS cost per student.

The research results show that some colleges spend three times as much as others on running their MIS function. And some spend three times as much on their finance function, and others three times as much on their HR function.

Even more surprising is that the lowest cost functions are to be found in ‘Outstanding’ colleges as measured by Ofsted. One of the highlights of the research is shown in the chart below.

The chart below shows the wide range of expenditure levels per learner, when assessing the ‘transactional’ cost of the MIS function by establishing the cost per learner. The wide range of costs is similar if you were to consider the transactional cost ‘per enrolment’ rather than ‘per learner’; though most colleges believe that the key driver of MIS costs is the learner.

And to confirm the earlier comment about quality of service, this is what the Inspection Report of College 2 in the above chart said about the quality of data and MIS at College 2 which is an ‘outstanding’ college as judged by Ofsted:

“Data are accurate and accessible. Staff at all levels are able to access very detailed and useful information with which to judge the progress and outcomes of their courses. The performance management of staff is equally effective.”

The wide range of costs in the chart means that there is potential for average savings of some 60 per cent in MIS costs if all the other colleges were to structure their MIS function in line with College 2.

In cash terms the research shows an average cost benefit per college of circa £500,000. And at the lowest quartile there would still be potential savings opportunities of some 33 per cent representing £250k per college. This suggests that there are significant opportunities for colleges to reduce some of their back office costs without moving to a shared service solution.

Do you know what the transactional cost of your MIS function is (or any other support function) or how it compares to those of other colleges? Maybe a transactional cost analysis of your support functions would be a good place to start when considering the challenges of next year’s allocation.

Gary Williams
Director of FE & HE Services, Tribal

Warrington Collegiate team shortlisted

Warrington Collegiate is proving it can stand the heat after being selected as one of the contenders in the catering competition, the Nestle Toque D’Or.

The competition, which boasts James Martin and Jamie Oliver among past competitors, sets teams of three students the MasterChef-style challenge of cooking a healthy lunch for six courses, two for judging and four for invited diners in two hours.

Students will be judged on everything from the food they serve, to the design of the menu, presentation and service on the day.

Warrington Collegiate’s talented trio are the youngest team in the competition.

Head Chef of the team, 18 year old Sam Shawcross, from Woolston, said: “It is a lot of hard work, but a massive opportunity as we will be judged by top chefs in the industry. I’m really enjoying it; the rewards are fantastic if you win.

Commis Chef, 17 year old Siobhan Lindsay, from Dallam and the youngest in the competition, added: “You’ve got to make sure your food is just right and meets the strict criteria of the competition. It’s really, really fun and exciting.”

Front of House for the team, 17 year old Toni Commerford, from Birchwood said: “It’s amazing, but scary.”

IT management needs to change

The FE sector is starting to see the impact of the budget cuts that were imposed for the year 2011 – 2012, while according to statistics from UCAS, the number of applications from English students to attend university has declined by around nine per cent compared to the previous year.

For FE establishments, this is a double-edged sword – the drop in school leavers going to university should represent more potential students that wish to take part in FE courses and vocational work. However, it also puts more strain on IT systems and resources for supporting these students.

The adage over the past few years across public sector IT has been to “do more with less” and this continues to be the mantra for the foreseeable future. The main consideration therefore has to be around how colleges can use IT to support service delivery more effectively, as well as how these IT networks can be managed at lower cost to the organisation. Systems management is therefore a key point for the future.

Keeping IT up to date is a challenge. All FE students will require at least some access to IT assets, from occasional use of desktops and laptops for students on vocational courses to those that require full suites of digital resources for creative projects or coursework. Behind all these devices is an IT team that has to manage the network, keeping these endpoints updated and secure.

Around 80 per cent of IT budgets are dedicated to [the] bread and butter work”

This ability to ‘keep the lights on’ involves day-to-day administration work such as patching applications, installing updates and checking that machines are all secure. According to IT analyst firm Gartner, around 80 per cent of IT budgets are dedicated to this bread and butter work, covering license fees, staff time and general maintenance. Any activity that can reduce the time spent on managing systems is therefore a good candidate for consideration when it comes to cutting costs.

Looking at how you manage desktops from a power perspective is a good idea. For many colleges, they will have at least one ICT suite as well as desktops available for students to use outside formal lessons and in communal areas like libraries.

Depending on the college, these desktops could be on all the time in preparation for students. If this is the case, the likelihood is that they are then idle overnight while still consuming power, which represents a significant cost in just power consumption.

There are two potential routes to take here. The first is to prepare a general policy for users to adhere to around turning off machines when they are not in use.

The second alternative is to implement a power management solution that automatically powers down machines when they are not in use. While it would cost money to implement this, the cost savings that can be achieved can be assured.

Further education organisations will undoubtedly come under more pressure this year, as student numbers are expected to rise while budgets remain either static or get cut. However, there are opportunities to continue developing how IT assets are delivered and managed so that teaching services – and ultimately, student support – does not suffer because of these changes.

Seann Gardiner
EMEA Sales Leader, Dell

Increased efficiency, collaboration and reduction of costs are the key

It’s no secret that today’s higher and further education institutions are being forced into a position where they place improved efficiency and cost reduction at the top of their agendas, so it should come as little surprise that the enabler for achieving both of these goals is increasingly technology.

Student recruitment and retention is also a vital part of any FE or HE strategy, driven by the necessity to recruit the full complement of students, improve student experience to achieve better learning outcomes, deliver an improved and more efficient service whilst preparing students for their working lives ahead.

Much has been written about ‘cloud computing’ – essentially it’s the ability to access software, data, storage and other computing resources without owning the hardware infrastructure to run it, instead receiving those services across the internet from a cloud provider.

The key advantages of a cloud based approach for colleges is that they no longer have to install or maintain hardware and software on campus which as a result means they experience a reduction in the costs associated with licensing, operation and hardware maintenance.

 Leeds City College calculates that it has saved around £150,000 over those six months”

In addition to these financial savings there is a reduced impact on the environment as there are no power and environmental costs which would be standard in commissioning hardware in a data centre.

This is also true of access to data storage. Each student can have access to around 25GB of storage – far in excess of the usual college storage provision – where they can create, save and share documents and files without the need to provide hardware for storage or to manage it themselves.

Leeds City College calculates that it has saved around £150,000 over those six months”

Leeds City College, the third largest FE college in the country has adopted this approach having implemented Microsoft Live@Edu six months ago. The college calculates that it has saved around £150,000 over those six months via the roll out which allows students to access email, data storage capacity and collaboration tools at home, on campus or anywhere else whenever they wish from laptops, tablets and even smart phones.

It allows the students to be provisioned with the information and resources that they need based upon their identity within the college and the courses they are on. Students are even able to reset forgotten passwords themselves, greatly reducing the time required by college IT staff to do password resets.

It was a strategic move by the college to help prepare students for their future work environment since the Office online and email available with Live@Edu are familiar to the students and consistent with the commercial workspace.

Taking the decision to move to the cloud has allowed the college to deliver a cutting edge solution promoting productivity, and collaboration whilst reducing costs, providing a safe, secure, flexible and affordable solution.

The cost of delivering a similar system in house would have required an initial outlay of more than £150k and that figure doesn’t include the running costs, training requirements, energy or replacement hardware costs.

There is increasing demand for technology solutions like Live@Edu and Office 365 across academia regardless of the size of institution – it can even be deployed in small schools, preparing secondary school children for life in higher or further education.

Cloud based solutions are affording the colleges and universities the ability to provide each student with an enhanced learning experience regardless of their equipment, what time it is or where they are whilst cutting costs and improving efficiencies; a tick in every box.

Paul Beaumont,
Chief Executive of Salford Software

UKCES tender update

The publication of the tender documents for the Employer Ownership of Skills pilot has been delayed.

The full application form and guidance was due to be published “towards the end of February 2012”, according to a prospectus published by the UKCES.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) said: “BIS and DfE, working with UKCES, will shortly issue the application form and guidance for bidders interested in the Employer Ownership pilot. We are expecting to issue these documents next week.”

Maxine Room, principal, Lewisham College

Maxine Room says she was never an “archetypal academic”. A mischievous child, who liked to chat, her school reports typically read: “could do better if she concentrated.”

Neverthless she left the Skinners Company School for Girls – a selective grammar school in north London – with a good clutch of qualifications and went to Bath College of Higher Education (now Bath Spa University) to study home economics with teacher training.

Thirty years on, she is in her third principal’s post at Lewisham College and facing one of the biggest challenges of her career to date – a proposed merger with Southwark College.

Room, who started her career as a home economics teacher at Bridgwater College in Somerset, says she never set out to become a principal.

Her ambition was to “be the best I could be in the job I was doing” and despite being promoted to middle and senior management posts at both Bridgwater and Filton Colleges (where she became vice principal for curriculum) it was only after prompting from Robin Landman, the chief executive of the Network of Black Professionals, that she started to give the idea some serious thought.

She got the second post she applied for, becoming principal of Swansea College in 2003 – and only the second black female college head in the country.

Four years later, Room moved to Leeds, where she oversaw a large scale merger –bringing three colleges into one – but, to her disappointment, was not appointed principal of the newly merged Leeds City College.

It’s about making it all work in a way that is going to make our learners successful, and keeping the ship going in the right direction”

While she admits that missing out on the job was hard at the time, she is philosophical about the experience. If it hadn’t happened, she may not have ended up in back in London – where her family is still based – as principal of Lewisham College.”I think things happen for a reason,” she says. “I never thought I’d work in London again and I felt like a tourist when I first came back … but I’m glad things have come full circle.”

When she joined the college, two years ago, she was the only black female principal of a general FE college in London.

Does she think it is still more difficult for black professionals – and particularly women – to get to the top in education? Her answer is careful. “I mentor people, and whether they be men, women, black or white, there’s something about confidence and attitude and building your armoury and being credible no matter what colour or gender you are…but patently, some people don’t get over the threshold, so there are some issues about, you know, what is it that makes the difference.

“Perhaps it is something about the makeup of governing bodies – their ethnicity, gender, disability profile…it’s those stereotypes isn’t it and you’ve got to break those down.”
Stepping into the shoes of the outgoing principal Dame Ruth Silver – a respected figure across the FE sector – was a daunting task, but Room, who describes herself as “practical” leader, says she hopes she has put her own stamp on the college.

But being a principal is not without its challenges, she says, not least having to be a “jack of all trades.”

One day, she might be talking to an MP about education policy, the next a student with a complaint they have about a course.

Just keeping up to date with policy changes, “crystal ball gazing” about where both the organisation – and the sector – is heading, can be exhausting. “It’s about making it all work in a way that is going to make our learners successful, and keeping the ship going in the right direction,” she says. “We [the college leadership team] are constantly analysing, interpreting, identifying and strategising…”

Maintaining a healthy work life balance can also be tough. While Room works out at the gym most mornings, and is mindful to take time out for herself, she admits the edge between work and home life are often “blurred” and there are times when she is sending emails at midnight or working during her holidays.

And with the merger with Southwark College due to take place at the end of June, there are even more meetings and networking events than usual to attend at the moment.

But she is keen to stress that she wouldn’t have it any other way: “I don’t want that to sound as though it’s in any way a heavy burden, because I think it’s given me incredible opportunities and I’ve met some amazing people.”

And she is passionate about the coaching and mentoring work she does for Network of Black Professionals.“When my mentees come back and said I wouldn’t have got that job without you, you’ve really helped…that’s really rewarding.”

If you’ve got qualifications or had experiences through training and development, it changes you and it gives you more choices”

Room attributes her strong work ethic to her mother, a single parent who worked three or four jobs at a time to support the family.

A tailoress by trade, Room recalls her mother sitting up sewing late into the night while holding down administrative and retail jobs during the day. “I learnt a lot from just observing her and the way that she worked and the way she filled time,” says Room. “People say ‘how do you fit everything in?’ and I think, well, it is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle but I plan and think and sometimes you do get in a mess, but you get out of it again and I’ve got incredible support mechanisms in college.”

Her mother’s belief in the transformative power of education (she was “adamant” her daughter went to grammar school and benefitted from many of the opportunities she herself has missed out on) has also rubbed off on her.

“It [education] is like having a magic wand,” says Room. “It can open so many doors…it’s like abracadabra, you know?

“If you’ve got qualifications or you’ve had experiences through training and development, it changes you and it gives you more choices.”

She admits that she is often close to tears at college awards ceremonies listening to stories of learners’ achievements – some of whom have overcome huge barriers to get to where they are.

And if there is one thing she hopes she has achieved during her time in the FE sector, it is helping to make that happen. “If I have given more people more choices and opportunities than they would have had, had I not been around, then that’s a wonderful legacy to leave.”

Fraudster warning

Professional fraudsters are targeting the FE sector, the Skills Funding Agency has warned.

In the Agency’s latest Update, a statement reads: “Recently, we have been made aware that the further education sector may be subject to approaches by professional fraudsters, who are writing to providers requesting a change of bank account details for outstanding payments for the supply of goods and services.

“The requests have all the hallmarks of being genuine and suggest a targeted operation.”

They remind staff to remain vigilant, particularly at the end of the financial year in April.

Apprenticeships in the spotlight

Left to right – Select Committee witnesses: Alex Jackman, Forum of Private Business Denis Hird, JTL Training and Graham Hoyle, AELP

Employer contributions and the ‘rebadging’ of former Train to Gain provision were both heavily debated at the first evidence session of the BIS Select Committee inquiry into apprenticeships.

The two hour session, held at Portcullis House in Westminster last Thursday, covered a wide range of issues about the funding, delivery and quality of the apprenticeship programme.

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), Alex Jackman, senior policy adviser at the Forum of Private Business (FPB) and Denis Hird, chief executive of JTL Training, were called on by the committee to explain some of the growing issues in the sector.

Mr Hoyle said on the panel the issue of who paid for an apprenticeship was “a nettle yet to be fully grasped” and any changes in the funding system would need to consider the returns of all three beneficiaries; the learner, the employer and central government.

Mr Hoyle said: “The one we haven’t tackled yet is – what is it therefore the employers are paying if they’re getting a return?

“My own view is that they should be paying for the basic skill competencies.”

Mr Hird agreed that employer contributions were an issue that needed to be addressed both by the further education sector and central government.

“We need to understand what apprenticeships are, what is company training, what is company induction, what should be funded, what shouldn’t be funded and what employers contribute to,” Mr Hird said.

Earlier in the session Mr Hoyle said the apprenticeship programme should be owned by employers because it was in fact businesses, not government, who were paying for the majority of the delivery.

“We need to revisit who is paying for what within apprenticeships,”  Mr Hoyle said.

“The prime contributors and payers at present time are employers – although we don’t put it in that way – with a contribution from the government.”

However, the AELP chief executive maintained that it should be the government’s responsibility to fund the educational elements of the apprenticeship framework to learners of all ages.

Mr Hoyle said: “My own view is that the government should be making sure that individuals are continued to be funded to get them up to a basic level of English, maths, literacy, numeracy and functional skills, so they can play a part in the labour market and get the transferable skills they need to move to the next employer.

“I believe the state have a reasonable responsibility to complete the education of those people.”

Members of the BIS Select Committee, led by Adrian Bailey MP, said they were worried government funding was being used to deliver training which would have otherwise been paid for by the employer.

David Ward, MP for Bradford East and a member of the BIS Select Committee, said: “I am a little bit worried about some of these apprentices, these older apprentices.

“The criticism that is there, which we referred to earlier, is that it’s just ongoing personal development and it’s not professional development.

We need to revisit who is paying for what within apprenticeships”

“If it’s personal development, it should just be happening anyway and why badge that with this apprenticeship title? That’s the thing I’m unsure about.”

Mr Ward then asked the panel to respond to the accusation that the record growth in apprenticeships could be attributed mostly to the conversion of Train to Gain delivery.

Mr Hird admitted that the ‘rebadging’ of Train to Gain courses, especially in the retail sector, had damaged the apprenticeship brand.

“I think what has been unfortunate is large volumes in the supermarket chain where they’ve badged up some of their induction programmes as apprenticeships to rack up the statistics,” Mr Hird said.

“Whilst I think that is good and I think the chap from Asda, who is actually an ex-work colleague of mine, he said whilst they had put 25,000 through he hadn’t created one extra job.”

Mr Jackman told FE Week it was unfair to blame large employers for taking advantage of government schemes which would help support their daily operations.

Speaking after the evidence session, the senior policy adviser highlighted the work of Barclays, a high street bank set to launch a new apprenticeship scheme in April for 1,000 people not in employment, education or training (NEET).

Perhaps most importantly, Mr Jackman said Barclays would be running the scheme without any government contributions.

Mr Jackman said: “At the end of the process the view being taken by Barclays is – if they move onto other banks, that is something they have contributed to the industry, but if they stay within Barclays themselves, then that’s something they’ve contributed towards their own business.”

Earlier in the session Mr Hoyle was quick to defend the negative remarks about Train to Gain, describing the scheme as being “rubbished too easily” during its existence.

The AELP chief executive said: “Train to Gain, despite much of what was written, was a very successful scheme at actually upskilling the adult workforce.

“That’s the view of myself, my members and the employers that worked with it.”

Mr Jackman also defended short duration apprenticeships during the evidence session, suggesting they be rebranded as “basic” or “entry” level apprenticeships.

After the session Mr Jackman told FE Week: “I think there is a mismatch at present between what a lot of employers consider to be an apprenticeship and what the government might consider to be an apprenticeship.

“But that is not to say that either of them are wrong.

“I think as long as you can ensure quality within courses which match up to what an apprenticeship is considered to be.

“As long as you ensure money isn’t being sucked away from SMEs, then I see no reason why some shorter apprenticeships should not be counted as such.”

Q&A with Denis Hird, CEO of JTL Training

You mentioned to the committee that you were disappointed with the 25,000 apprenticeship places created at Asda. Can you expand upon that?

First of all, I’m not being critical of Asda. There was huge pressure on the National Apprenticeship Service to raise the number of apprenticeships and so therefore if you look at how Asda is introducing young people into their business – they have a training programme, which I’m pretty sure is a good one knowing Asda – and that it’s been branded as an apprenticeship. And that’s to save money. I can’t blame Asda for doing that because it has met the targets. And that’s all good! Good for young people, good for Asda.

But what I think David Smith, the HR director of Asda was saying on national TV was that they would have spent the money and they were going to employ that 25,000. So in actual fact they haven’t created any extra jobs through that process.

Is there a concern that employers would have provided the training even if the apprenticeship funding hadn’t been available?

Absolutely. But you can’t blame Asda for taking the money and you can’t blame the National Apprenticeship Service because it lifted the statistics by 25,000. From our point of view, what it does is, it says that that short programme of training – and it’ll be very good and we need people to do those very good jobs that they do – is that it potentially erodes at the brand of our four year and two month programme at the top end of our electrotechnical and building services frameworks.

I’m not saying it is wrong, I’m saying it needs to be looked at in a different way about what is an apprenticeship and what isn’t, what are the various levels and what is the best use of government funding.

Would asking large employers to make a financial contribution to training help ensure there were new jobs and additional training?

I think that large employers can play a major role in giving opportunities for apprenticeships in work for young people. I think that the funding bodies, in particular the Skills Funding Agency, with advice as well from the National Apprenticeship Service, can work with those employers at what the best and most appropriate way is to use government funding in part of the strategic funding and plans for those large employers.

That’s a discussion that they should have. I don’t have a view other than it’s good news if it’s going to bring more people into apprenticeships and into jobs.