Ofsted have today published their delayed inspection report for NCG (formerly Newcastle College Group), reducing their overall grade from Outstanding to Good.

FE Week reported in July that NCG had controversially cut the inspection short following what Dame Jackie Fisher, chief executive of NCG, referred in an internal email to staff as “some troubling incidents.”

Since then Ofsted have met with NCG to conclude the inspection, and Ms Fisher today said: “I was astounded to see the final grading of NCG, but not surprised when I saw the flaws in the way the grade was arrived at.”

Ms Fisher was keen to point out that she felt NCG were given a Good grade despite an outstanding report.

She said: “The inspectors ran out of superlatives to describe us, there are more than a hundred mentions of words such as outstanding, exceptional, excellent, superb and successful – more than four on every page.”

FE Week took up the challenge of counting the use of these five words, and found they were used 89 times, including 34 references to ‘outstanding’.

However, this was outweighed by the use of the word ‘good’ 101 times.

The Ofsted report praised many aspects of NCG, but did criticise college-based long course success rates, which saw a slight decline in 2010/11 and “were close to the national average, and have not improved over the last three years.”

The report goes on to say that in some cases success rates were “below average, for example, in science and mathematics and construction” and that at a “minority of less effective lessons observed by inspectors attendance was sometimes low, teachers did not use their time well or check the progress of all learners adequately, and they did not challenge learners sufficiently.”

“NCG provides good quality education and training both in its colleges and through Intraining.”

The quality of academic support experienced by learners, in the form of tutorials, progress reviews and the use of electronic individual learning plans was also described as “too variable.”

However, in terms of overall effectiveness the report said “NCG provides good quality education and training both in its colleges and through Intraining. The organisation makes a significant contribution to improving the life chances of a large number of young people and adult learners, both in the communities served by the colleges and nationally. The proportion of learners who complete their courses successfully is consistently at or above national averages.”

The report also adds that “NCG provision is outstanding in meeting the needs and interests of learners.”

19 (63%) of FE colleges that have been inspected in 2012 have seen their overall Ofsted inspection grade fall. Just 4 (13%) saw a grade increase.”

Ofsted also acknowledged that NCG is a “large and complex organisation.”, employing around 3,600 people and comprising four divisions (Newcastle Collegein the North East, West Lancashire College in Skelmersdale, Intraining, a national training organisation based in Sheffield and the youth charity Rathbone based in Manchester [not included in the inspection]).

To add to the complexity, in addition to acting as a subcontractor to 15 providers, the report lists all 89 subcontractors, which “provide training on behalf of NCG.”

NCG joins a growing number of unhappy FE colleges, with 19 (63%) of those inspected in 2012 seeing their overall Ofsted inspection grade fall. Just 4 (13%) saw a grade increase.

The table of all General Further Education inspection results in 2012 below, produced by FE Week, also shows that all eight Outstanding colleges going into an inspection in 2012 have been demoted to at best Good, and in one case was graded as Unsatisfactory.

Eastleigh College in Hampshire is the only general FE college to have been awarding an overall Outstanding grade so far in 2012.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) have announced that they will be publish on their website providers that they reject, in order to “aid the sector”.

In a document published yesterday the SFA repeated criteria for the rejection of providers and subcontractors, but added in the final sentence (point 17) that: “The Chief Executive will publish on the Skills Funding Agency website a list of organisations to whom the criteria apply and in respect of which the Chief Executive has taken action.”

A spokesman from the SFA told FE Week: “The document is a revamp of previous policy guidance.   Following our commitment to the sector and in line with the intentions of the government’s transparency agenda, point 17 is an addition to the former policy, the intelligence the Agency intends on sharing will aid the sector particularly when they consider entering commercial and legally binding relationships.”

Reasons for organisations to be rejected, and published in the new online list, include: significant irregularities in the award of qualifications, having to make a repayment of £100,000 or 5 per cent of contract value, and on-going investigation relating to suspicion of fraud.

Providers that meet the criteria to be rejected may also be removed from the register of training, be excluded from bidding and prevented from sub-contracting provision.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) told FE Week that they support the SFA publishing a list of rejected providers.

Julian Gravatt, the assistant chief executive of the AoC said: “AoC supports the decision by the SFA to have a procedure in place that will help to identify high-risk providers. We also see the move to publish a list of names as a positive step, which will help inform our members.

“However, as this is the first year it will happen in this way we do expect that SFA will review the way it works and whether it is the best approach.”

Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) agrees.

Mr Hoyle told FE Week: “As a long-standing champion of good quality provision, AELP has no issues with the SFA’s proposals for transparency on this matter.”

Lesley Davies, the deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC), is leaving the AoC to become Director of Quality and Standards at Pearson.

The announcement follows an unsettled time for the AoC, which has been making voluntary and compulsory redundancies as part of a cost saving and restructuring process, as reported in FE Week in May.

Martin Doel, AoC chief executive, told FE Week: “I am pleased for Lesley, but not at all surprised, that she has been asked to fill such a prestigious post with Pearson, and at the same time very sorry that she will be leaving us.

“Her experience includes work within colleges, the Adult Learning Inspectorate, Government agencies and a major education membership body. She is an outstanding professional with great integrity and deep knowledge of education and the College sector – qualities that no doubt led to Pearson being so keen to recruit her.”

The AoC employs over 100 members of staff, as well more than 30 staff at three sister organisations located in separate regions.

The De Vere Academy of Hospitality has been given permission by the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) to start all of their learners on an access to apprenticeship.

“As agreed with NAS and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), De Vere’s work trial programme allows all starts to be on a six week access pathway with the intention for learners to begin a full apprenticeship at week seven,” a spokesperson for NAS told FE Week.

The decision overrules version three of the Funding Rules for 2012/13, published by the SFA earlier this week.

Under paragraph 70, It says:  “Providers must not recruit more than ten per cent of their apprenticeship starts onto the access to apprenticeship pathway without the prior agreement of their Agency Relationship Manager.”

The De Vere Academy of Hospitality is advertising two access to apprenticeship schemes on its website, which both last seven weeks and include two or three “work trials”.

Learners are paid a training subsidy of £30 per week for the first fortnight, which is as an induction period spread out over three days for 20 hours. The learner’s hours are then extended over the next month to a maximum of 30 hours per week, when The De Vere Academy will decide whether or not to move them onto a full apprenticeship framework.

However, the Funding Rules for 2012/13 say that on an access to apprenticeship framework, the learner should spent the majority of their time “in a substantive work placement” with the same number of hours “as expected for those on a full apprenticeship”.

Kellie Rixon MBE, group brand development director at the De Vere Group told FE Week the model was useful for both the learner and employer to see if hospitality was the right career choice.

“As we deal with a large proportion of particularly challenging young people, it has been helpful in understanding and evaluating if an apprenticeship is really the right route for them,” she said.

The SFA allocated £9,679,626 to the De Vere Group, known as the Alternative Hotel Group, for the 2011/12 academic year, according to government data published earlier this week.

It includes more than £8 million for apprentices aged 16 to 18.

NAS said they have worked “extensively” with the De Vere Academy and People 1st, the sector skills council for the hospitality industry, to develop the access to apprenticeship model so it meets their “required quality standards”.

Sarah Benioff, national apprenticeship director for quality, programme and the apprenticeship vacancy service at NAS told FE Week:  “These are work experience programmes designed to provide young, unemployed people aged 16 to 24 with extra support and the opportunity to trial job roles in a certain sector before moving into employment as an apprentice.

“Access programmes provide progression into apprenticeships and are an important pathway to help more young people into employment and skills training.”

FE Week revealed last June how The De Vere Academy of Hospitality was delivering apprenticeships in 12 to 16 weeks.

The hotelier was then one of the providers the SFA and NAS looked into as part of their review into short apprenticeships.

A statement issued to FE Week by NAS last October confirmed they would be working with The De Vere Group and People 1st to develop ‘a tailored access to apprenticeship pathway’.

The De Vere Group later defended the programme, saying they had achieved “outstanding” success rates and were helping to address youth unemployment.

However, in December the company announced its current apprenticeship scheme, which lasts at least 12 months and follows on from the seven week access to apprenticeship framework.

Simon Waugh, then chief executive of NAS said: “We are confident that the new delivery model proposed by De Vere meets the comprehensive quality standards…as well as continuing to meet the specific needs of employers in the sector and young people wanting to work in hospitality.”

The Government is to fund a new professional body for further education and put on hold plans to scrap the requirement for lecturers to be qualified teachers, official documents revealed this week.

Ministers yesterday invited bids from outside organisations to run the Further Education Guild which could be up and running by next spring, following up on proposals which were exclusively revealed two weeks ago by FE Week.

Simultaneously, the further education minister John Hayes said that “existing requirements for minimum qualifications [for further education lecturers] are being retained for the time being”, following concerns about the effect scrapping them would have on the “reputation of the sector”. The Institute for Learning said that 80 per cent of its members who responded to consultation on the issue thought scrapping the requirement would deprofessionalise the sector.

I’m immensely excited by the prospect of the creation of this guild”.

The new guild’s functions are likely to include, says the Government, setting professional standards and codes of behaviour for members; developing qualifications for those working in the sector; supporting training; and strategic planning.

The guild, which ministers say will be an “employer-led partnership”, is being designed to act as a focal point for Government efforts to promote professionalism in the sector. Bidders for start-up costs to run the guild could include sectoral bodies and unions.

The move is set out in a prospectus, called “Developing a Guild for Further Education”, which has been sent to leading sector stakeholder bodies by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

It begins with a foreword by John Hayes, the FE minister, in which he says he is “immensely excited by the prospect of the creation of this guild”.

The prospectus then sets out proposals which, in relation to the guild, are identical to that in a leaked document presented to the Government’s Further Education and Skills Ministerial Advisory Panel (FESMAP) last month and revealed by FE Week on July 18^th.

The Guild would offer institutional and individual membership, the latest paper confirms, both of which would be on a voluntary basis.

FE providers would be encouraged to take out corporate membership of the guild, which would signal a commitment to professional development, says the paper, while for the individual lecturer, training courses provided by the guild would be linked to higher level qualifications.

The guild would also seek “to enhance the reputation and status of the sector as a whole through providing a single, collective focus for raising standards of professionalism and being a custodian of excellence”.

It is understood that organisations who would be eligible to bid to run the guild include the Association of Colleges, the 157 Group, the Association of Learning Providers and unions, although BIS is keen not to be prescriptive in its approach as to who should apply, with any employer led body who has a commitment to professional development in the sector encouraged to come forward.

Ministers are offering funding for unspecified start-up costs, similar from to that offered to other sectors through the Government’s £34 million Growth and Innovation Fund, with some further Government funding after this a possibility.

The Hospitality Guild, which was set up last year for the hotel and catering sector, is being seen as a model for the FE version. It is run by People 1^st, the sector skills council for the hospitality sector, in collaboration with 15 organisations.

The FE Guild is being set up quickly, with organisations expected to put in outline bids by September 14^th, with a “preferred bidder” then working up detailed proposals by the end of October. The organisation itself could be up and running by next April, though BIS says it wants to be guided by bidding organisations as to a final timescale.

This is a sector-led initiative. If the sector is not enthusiastic about it, we probably won’t be doing it.”

In his foreword, Mr Hayes appears to acknowledge that the move has come following concerns about Government proposals, published earlier this year, for FE staff no longer to be required to be qualified teachers.

He writes: “I have noted in particular the concerns for the reputation of the sector if government regulations requiring minimum qualifications are removed at this time, without first establishing a firmer basis on which the sector can regulate itself and promote ever-higher aspirations. I share those concerns and take them very seriously.”

The establishment of the guild would be, then, one of two responses to this concern. The other, set out in the document, is that the sector’s current requirements for “minimum qualifications” are “retained for the time being”.

The length of this stay-of-execution for the qualified teacher requirement is not being specified. But the stance would appear to put Mr Hayes at odds with that controversially adopted last week by Michael Gove, the education secretary, who is now allowing academies in the schools sector to take on unqualified teachers.

Dr Susan Pember, director of further education and skills investment and performance at BIS, told FE Week that the guild proposals would only be taken forward with support from the sector.

She said: “This is a sector-led initiative. If the sector is not enthusiastic about it, we probably won’t be doing it.”

There was little dissent from stakeholders when the plans were put forward at the FESMAP meeting last month, and Ms Pember said she expected it to be welcomed.

She said: “This is a really exciting endeavour. It’s a chance to bring together FE in a way that’s not happened before. We want to make sure that this is employer-led, working with the employee voice in a really intelligent way.”

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said:  “The government’s proposal for a sector-led guild builds on the freedoms and flexibilities that have been created over the past two years, and the 157 Group is keen to work in partnership with other sector bodies as the sector takes charge of its own future.

“This offers an excellent opportunity for us to help reshape the FE landscape and raise the profile of vocational education. John Hayes’s vision of a vocational craft guild that meets the needs of the economy and society in the 21st century recognises that vocational education should be held in the highest esteem.”

However, not all within the sector are keen. One source who was at the FESMAP meeting said the plans raised many questions, including how a guild would co-exist with existing organisations.

The move to put on hold the scrapping of the requirement for qualified teacher status in FE was welcomed by the Institute for Learning.

Dr Jean Kelly, director of professional development at IfL, said: “IfL has made a strong case for initial teacher education and for a qualified teaching and training workforce, and it is right that the government has taken note of our members’ views.

“More than 5,300 IfL members responded to IfL’s consultation earlier this year, and 87 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that teaching qualifications should be mandatory on a national basis.

“Around 80 per cent thought that removing the national requirement for teaching qualifications would deprofessionalise the sector.”

The move to put on hold the scrapping of the requirement for qualified teacher status in FE was welcomed by the Institute for Learning.”