A college has been plunged into financial difficulty after an investigation found “historic” non-compliant subcontracted delivery in traineeships.
Strode College was today handed a financial notice to improve by the Department for Education due to an undisclosed clawback risk that threatens to drop the college’s financial health from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’.
The department dished out the warning notice because through the three academic years 2019/20 to 2021/22, Strode College “failed to ensure sufficient oversight of subcontracted delivery of traineeship provision”.
“This has led to funding being ‘at risk of recovery’ due to non-compliance which is likely to result in inadequate financial health”, the notice said, adding that the college is now “in intervention”.
The notice may explain why Strode College is one of a handful of colleges that still hasn’t published its accounts for 2021/22.
Strode College recorded 1,264 students undertaking traineeships in 2020/21, a big increase from 467 the year prior.
According to its most recent accounts, dated for the end of July 2021, the college had ‘outstanding’ financial health after it returned a cash operating surplus of £1.58 million.
Strode College was one of the largest providers of traineeships, having secured a £3 million contract that it subcontracted out to “specialist partners” until July 31, 2023.
The government scrapped traineeships as a stand-alone skills training programme earlier this year amid years of low starts, despite pumping hundreds of millions of pounds into the scheme during the pandemic. Traineeships can still be offered, but they’ve been integrated into adult education budget delivery.
It is not yet clear what specific subcontracting oversight issues have been identified at Strode College by the DfE.
The financial notice means that Strode College can be referred to the FE commissioner for an independent assessment.
It has also placed a requirement on the college to request permission from the DfE before entering into any new subcontracting arrangements.
Strode College principal John Revill, who joined the college in June 2022, told FE Week: “The financial notice to improve relates to historical oversight of the college’s traineeship provision for the three years 2019/20 to 2021/22. It in no way reflects on the current leadership of the college.
“The college is working closely with all agencies involved to resolve the financial notice to improve as quickly as possible.”
The names of the 13 training organisations chosen by the Department for Education to be “expert” apprenticeship providers for a 12-month pilot have been published.
But it appears the DfE had to bend some of its strict criteria to get enough universities on board. Officials have also opted to enlist one independent provider that was briefly rated ‘inadequate’ a year ago.
Plans to award a “mark of excellence” to a select few providers were unveiled last month. Under the trial, those chosen would “act as ambassadors for the apprenticeship programme” and be given “more access” to DfE systems in a bid to reduce the time, resource and cost that providers commit to coaching non-levy paying employers through the digital apprenticeship system.
The entry application involved strict criteria that wiped out most providers from applying. These included a requirement for a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, an apprenticeship achievement rate of at least 51 per cent in 2021/22, as well as a four-star “excellent” employer feedback rating.
Budding apprenticeship ambassadors also had to be in “good” financial health and have been delivering apprenticeships for at least five years for FE colleges and ITPs.
Providers also must deliver at least 30 per cent, and a minimum of 50 annual starts, of its overall apprenticeships provision to non-levy paying employers, according to the criteria.
The list, published today, comprises six independent training providers, five FE colleges and two higher education providers. DfE was searching for a maximum of 15 providers, made up of seven ITPs, three HE institutions and five colleges.
The stringent rules appear to have been relaxed slightly to allow the two universities onto the pilot.
The University of Sheffield and Manchester Metropolitan University both deliver less than 30 per cent of their overall apprenticeships provision to non-levy paying employers, according to latest full-year published government data for 2021/22. Both providers do, however, have at least 50 starts annually with SMEs.
Elsewhere, one independent training provider – Avant Partnerships – made the list despite being rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in November 2022 after inspectors found the provider had “limited oversight” of safeguarding at a subcontractor after female construction apprentices reported experiencing harassment whilst studying.
Avant had a follow up full inspection in the summer of 2023 which returned the provider to its previous ‘good’ rating.
The expert provider scheme will begin from October 31 and providers will participate in a virtual introductory meeting on 8 November.
Minimum service levels for schools and colleges are an “attack on the rights of working people” and would be scrapped under a Labour government, the party has confirmed.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, invited union leaders to discuss proposals on a voluntary basis.
But she said government was “committed to using powers” to force through measures if a deal is not reached.
No details have been released yet as to how the measures could work in practice. It is understood unions will meet with the DfE again next week.
Legislation for the measures was passed last year in the form of the admission of the controversial Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act.
At the time, the government only announced plans to consult on minimum service levels for fire, ambulance and rail services, but warned that education could be included in future.
Labour had previously pledged to scrap the legislation during its first 100 days in office, and confirmed today this would include any minimum service levels put in place in education.
‘An admission of failure’
“Conservative chaos kept our children learning at home as ministers failed to resolve strike action earlier this year,” said Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary.
“This is an admission of that failure. Labour has been clear we will repeal this law which is an attack on the rights of working people.”
Labour has also said it will scrap the 2016 trade union act if it wins power. The legislation introduced tough new thresholds for strike ballots in several sectors, including education.
Ballots must reach a turnout threshold of 50 per cent, and have at least 40 per cent of eligible members voting in favour of action for it to legally go ahead.
Almost 90 colleges were balloted for strike action by the University and College Union this term, but 43 colleges failed to hit the 50 per cent turnout threshold. Strikes are however set for 32 colleges that met the threshold and voted to for the action.
Last year’s pay dispute saw the National Education Union win two ballots for strikes and take ten days of action in schools.
‘A spiteful and bitter attack’
Speaking to the Trades Union Congress annual conference earlier this year, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner accused the Conservatives of “preventing fair bargaining and holding back living standards” through the 2016 act.
“And this year they gave us the minimum service levels bill, a spiteful and bitter attack that threatens nurses with the sack.
“We know going on strike is always a last resort, but it’s a fundamental freedom that must be respected. So let me tell you loud and clear, the next Labour government will ask parliament to repeal these anti-trade union laws within our first 100 days.”
Keegan said last week the government “cannot afford a repeat” of disruption caused by strikes, “particularly as schools and teachers continue to work so hard to help children recover from the pandemic.
“I am asking the teaching unions to engage with us and agree to put children and young people’s education first – and above and beyond any dispute.”
But unions reacted with fury after being summoned to a last-minute briefing on the plans on Friday.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was “nothing more than an attempt to distract from her department’s own shortcomings”.
He added it was “unimaginable that there will any agreement over legislation that involves removing the basic rights of employees. Industrial action is only ever taken as a last resort, when all other options have been explored.”
”What’s Going On?”Please tell us, because independent training providers (ITPs) are running out of road, and quickly now.
Marvin Gaye wasn’t asking this question in the context of education, but it’s a question that ITPs need answering urgently.
Our sector has lost many providers in recent months, most recently Skills Training UK and Key Training.
Whatever the plan is or was, it is not working, and there appears to be no clear, long-term skills plan which allows for both ITPs and colleges to be funded appropriately and operate with parity of esteem. With no long-term plan, the sector defaults to short-termism, which is in nobody’s best interests.
Parity of esteem means equal priority, the context here being ITPs and colleges, not vocational versus academic qualifications.
“The government just seems to be more comfortable with colleges”
It seems the government does not treat ITPs with equal priority to colleges, despite the huge contribution ITPs make to the skills system by training two-thirds of all apprentices.
The government just seems to be more comfortable with colleges. They are in the public sector so the government can exercise more influence and control over them.
Despite having Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) oversight and the Ofsted inspection regime for ITPs, is it this perceived lack of control over ITPs which is at the heart of the problem? Is it a lack of trust and respect for ITPs, or is it as simple as civil servants not wanting the private sector to profit at the expense of the public purse?
We know our education secretary loves apprenticeships, but when did you last hear her publicly praising ITPs? Colleges are lauded constantly, and rightly, but those ITPs doing an outstanding job for their learners should be too.
Let’s be clear. Just because there have been a few high-profile ITP failures in the past, those with good Ofsted grades, clean audits and strong delivery should not necessarily be tarnished as a result. The individual circumstances of each provider are different as are their reasons for success or failure.
Haven’t there also been high-profile college failures, despite the control the government has had over them? Colleges struggle too and insufficient funding is a constant lament, but they at least enjoy the government’s respect.
I chair my local college group, South Thames Colleges Group, which adds huge value to its local communities. I love my colleges, but their provision is local by design. The reality is that most colleges simply cannot do what national ITPs can do. Structurally, they do not have the operating models to run national programmes at scale for those large employers who need them, which is why ITPs account for such a large percentage of all apprenticeships (65.2 per cent in 2021/22 versus colleges with 18.7 per cent).
“The IfATE funding model is broken, nothing is being done to fix it”
So parity of providers would help, but so would appropriate funding for all programmes, especially apprenticeships.
The IfATE funding model is broken, and nothing is being done to fix it. Essential funding bands have been set at levels which are unsustainably low, in most cases at least 10 per cent too low, putting immense pressure on the system.
As funding for apprenticeships does not cover capital costs, funding levels for capital-intensive programmes like the heavy vehicle service and maintenance technician apprenticeship don’t come close to covering the real delivery costs.
Of course, when ITPs (and colleges) fail, learners do not get to complete their programmes. When this is due to DfE not funding apprenticeships with the real cost of delivery and a provider, or college, goes under, why should apprentices pay the price? If the figures in the public domain are true and the Treasury really did divert over £500m of levy funding away from apprenticeships last year alone, how is this justifiable when there are apprentices unable to complete?
So, what is the government’s skills plan? What’s the funding plan? What’s the strategy? Tell us please, “so we can see, what’s going on”.
If the government wants to continue with a model which includes ITPs, it must ensure they are funded properly and they feel they are wanted. ITPs know they’re needed, but allowing one after another to hit the wall, with little or no support, sends both them and their apprentices a very worrying message.
Finally, as an owner of an ITP, Remit Training, which is a national, ‘outstanding’ provider, I need to know where ITPs stand in the medium to long-term skills plan.
If the government want ITPs, like Remit, to still be here in a few years’ time, then support us by ensuring the funding bands applicable to our programmes cover our costs.
I call on the secretary of state to hold a high-level round table with AELP, the major ITPs, and IfATE to help resolve the current threats to the sustainability of ITPs, the apprenticeship brand, all our apprentices and the skills system.
“Don’t punish us with brutality” as Marvin’s song goes, but at least fund us properly, please.
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In a letter to the education committee, published this week, Gillian Keegan said she intended to appoint an interim chief regulator on an “exceptional basis” for 12 months from January.
Keegan said this “takes account of the challenge of recruiting an experienced suitable candidate to such a high profile and a challenging role on a short-term basis”.
She intends to carry out a full, public appointments process for a permanent successor as soon as possible.
Ofqual will have had five chief regulators in four years, including two other interims.
Sally Collier resigned in August 2020 over that year’s grading fiasco. She was replaced on an interim basis by Dame Glenys Stacey, who was also her predecessor.
Simon Lebus replaced Stacey, again on an interim basis, in January 2021, and then Saxton took over in September of that year.
Keegan also asked the committee of cross-party MPs how it “would like to engage” with appointing the interim official.
Permanent appointees are quizzed by the MPs in pre-appointment hearings.
Keegan said Saxton’s leadership has been “invaluable in stabilising Ofqual following a challenging few years”, but the next 12 months “will be a challenging period … which will require continuity and stability of leadership”.
The principal of York College, Lee Probert, has stepped down with immediate effect.
The 40-year-old’s decision follows a “series of health investigations”, the college said in a statement.
“We send Lee every good wish in respect of his health and thank him for his work over the last four years in strengthening the college’s external relationships and guiding the college through the difficult Covid period,” the college added.
He has been replaced on a temporary basis by deputy principal Ken Merry, with a process to appoint a permanent successor to begin shortly.
Probert has also stepped down from the board of the Skills and Education Group.
He joined York College as chief executive in June 2019 from City of Bristol College, where he was principal from January 2016.
Prior to that he was deputy chief executive at Hull College, where he spent nearly seven years in total.
Probert also chairs the board of governors at Millthorpe School in York and is a trustee of the York Centre for Voluntary Services.
Liverpool City Region metro mayor Steve Rotheram is donning a hi-vis vest, trowel in hand, and reminiscing to local college students about the hard graft of his first job as a bricklayer and how he’d be incapable of it today.
His attempts at bricklaying in front of young learners (and cameras) at the City of Liverpool College during Colleges Week are a PR stunt. But the image is an apt one because Rotheram is the only serving metro mayor to have had first-hand experience of life as an apprentice.
He is a champion of the apprenticeship system because it put him on the first rung of a very successful career ladder, including a spell at the Learning and Skills Council, after leaving school at 16 without English or maths GCSEs.
But he admits his construction attempts today “brought back memories that made me think I took the right decision not to be a bricklayer anymore. It’s a fantastic trade but…when you get to a ripe old age, you’re thankful you don’t have to do it every single day.”
This party conference season he has been bending the ears of Gillian Keegan and her Opposition counterpart, Bridget Phillipson, with his ideas on what’s needed to lift more young people out of poverty and into good quality jobs.
Keegan is from similar working-class roots in Huyton, a mile or two from Kirkby and Rotheram’s home turf. She was also once an apprentice. But that is where their similarities end. She has overseen a 3 per cent fall in apprenticeship starts in 2022-23 since becoming education secretary, whereas Rotheram has pushed his bold manifesto commitment of a “guarantee” of a job, training or apprenticeship to any young person out of work, education or training.
He claims to have done this through the 2019 launch of the UK’s first UCAS-style online apprenticeships portal which uses AI to help users write CVs and offer personalised recommendations. It was expanded last year into an all-in-one training and careers portal and there are early plans to build in progression pathways for users, for example by explaining the skills required for a career in offshore wind and where in the region you could get those skills.
The region also gives apprentices aged 19-24 access to half-price public transport, and Rotheram claims his recent plans to take the bus system under public control will also mean cheaper fares to “help people starting in the world of work”.
Steve Rotheram giving bricklaying another go at City of Liverpool College
The Tory ‘wake’
Rotheram can’t resist the opportunity for a snipe at his Tory Scouse nemesis. “She ended up in the Tory party and obviously, I ended up in the proper party.
“She espouses things that are hard to disagree with, about working-class people getting chances and all that. But then as the secretary of state she hasn’t implemented some of the easy reforms and funding that are in her gift.”
But although he describes the atmosphere at the recent Conservative party conference as “a wake”, he was also spotted smiling with Keegan at a fringe event.
He explains that their conversation was around his claims that although higher apprenticeships at level 4 and above have grown (up 7 per cent from last year), most are in the City and in corporate courses that “the company would have paid for anyway”.
“It’s [courses] for multi trillion-pound companies…being paid for from the apprenticeship levy. That’s not what it was raised to do. More people with MBAs, that’s not going to tackle skills shortages.”
Keegan’s response to this was “very defensive” – but she did agree to “come up [to Liverpool] and have a chat about it”.
“Let’s see if she’s as good as her word.”
Keegan is not the first education secretary to say they’ll listen to Rotheram when it comes to his ideas for apprenticeships.
Eight education secretaries have been in post since he became mayor. Justine Greening was the first. On the eve that he became mayor in 2017, the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack locked down the Commons for several hours. Rotheram, then an MP, thought “sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m not just sitting here”, and used the opportunity to let Greening, about to introduce the apprenticeships levy, know his ideas around its implementation. She showed interest, but after being made mayor never responded to his letters on the issue.
He recently saw her in London and reminded her of their conversation.
He says she claimed that civil servants at the time had “sat on it”. “Apparently, she was up for doing some of the things that I proposed, and the machinery had got in the way.” Greening never responded to FE Week’s request for comment about this, but she was a signatory to a letter earlier this year urging the chancellor to review the apprenticeships levy due to the “billions” going “unspent by employers”.
Gillian Keegan at the Conservative Party Conference
Building up a career
Rotheram, who has seven siblings and whose father Harry was a forklift driver, says his upbringing “coloured” his approach to politics – his dad was a long-serving Labour councillor.
He came very close came to remaining a bricklayer, with his life path changing “literally by accident”. While taking down ceilings during a property conversion, Rotheram was “covered in black soot” when a man wearing a suit walked in.
When Rotheram asked him “how have you ended up with a suit on and I’m like this?” The man explained how he used to have a similar construction job, but returned to college to get qualifications.
“I just thought, yeah, OK. I’ll do that.”
After doing O Levels and an apprenticeship in bricklaying at Kirkby College, then an Ordinary National Certificate at a college in Bootle, he worked for a civil engineering firm in the Falkland Islands for eight months just after the war ended. It was “very desolate” – “no TV, one radio station…and you couldn’t even telephone home. You had to book a call”.
Upon returning home and a short stint as a house husband, he bagged a business manager position for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which gave him the opportunity to do a master’s in contemporary urban renaissance at Liverpool Hope University.
The LSC area director at the time was Elaine Bowker – now chief executive of the City of Liverpool College. “I still call her boss.”
Elaine Bowker, chief executive of City of Liverpool College
Technical excellence colleges
It was during this time (2000) under the last Labour government that the LSC introduced the Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) programme, pitched at the time as helping colleges specialise in the “skills needed to prosper in the new economy”.
Seven years later, the scheme was replaced by a new standard costing £8,000 to apply for.
But Labour leader Keir Starmer is now proposing a similar scheme to CoVE, this time branded “technical excellence colleges”.
Rotheram is backing the plans as “where we need to go”, and believes the new status could help create more “parity of esteem” between colleges and universities.
“The problem for us to tackle is that how [college courses] are perceived by some employers. A degree still seems to be of a higher status qualification than an NVQ level 5, 6 or even 7. I don’t get why there’s not yet that understanding.”
The biggest challenges facing his region’s colleges are in getting provision in place for courses around “emerging technologies” such as heat pumps, hydrogen boilers and electrical charging points, which they have been trying to solve by dividing up different types of provision between them.
Before devolution, Rotheram claims every college was “trying to do all of that individually and competing with each other when there wasn’t the scale. We can plan things much more strategically when we work together.”
He would like much more devolution of skills funding, but his own party as well as the current government have brushed aside his repeated calls for the apprenticeship levy to be devolved to local areas.
He is eyeing the trailblazer deals recently signed by the Greater Manchester and West Midland mayors Andy Burnham and Andy Street, hoping to be next in line for a similar settlement.
Those areas will get to spend up to half their free courses for jobs budget on any adult level 3 qualification to meet local skills needs, although the ring-fencing will be removed after the next election. They will also get more freedom over bootcamp spending.
More than anything, Rotheram wants an end to the “piecemeal approach” of local skills funding.
“Over three years, you can start to plan things….But all too often at the moment you’ll get little pots here and there, and you can’t really plan like that.”
Sir Keir Starmers keynote speech Credit: Karl Black/Alamy Live News
Cradle to career
Rotheram used the opportunity of hosting the Labour party conference in his home city to pitch ideas to the shadow cabinet. At a meeting with Phillipson, he claims she was “really interested” in exploring an initiative his region is investing £5.25 million in, Cradle to Career.
It’s a place-based programme initiated and part-funded by a philanthropic foundation founded by the former chairman of housebuilding firm Redrow plc, Liverpudlian Steve Morgan.
The programme, which includes initiatives to support vulnerable learners, reduce the number of post-16 NEETs and create family hubs, was launched in 2021 in North Birkenhead in partnership with Wirral Council.
Since then, it claims to have boosted the reading age for more than 1,600 children, and significantly reduced the number at risk of being taken into care.
“We’re starting to see results filter through,” says Rotheram. He believes that giving children a “good start” in this way will save colleges money later down the line. At City of Liverpool College around 75 to 80 per cent of its 16 year old cohort leave school without the required GCSE maths and English, and Rotheram says the college is using “too much of their funding, as much as they can possibly pull in, to get kids to those standards”.
“That really should have been things that they gained in secondary school.”
The 61-year-old seems despondent about his ability to inspire the City College youngsters he spoke to today, however.
“It’s difficult to say ‘I was your age once’ because all they see is a grey-haired bloke,” he says.
“I still see myself as a 16-year-old standing, watching somebody telling us about how wonderful things are. But I want them to fully appreciate that [bricklaying] is not just a short-term qualification, it can lead them on to all sorts of weird and wonderful things – as it did for me.”
Steve Rotheram with City of Liverpool College learners
A coffee shop owner and a Ukrainian refugee who retrained as an ESOL tutor are among the shortlisted finalists for the second Mayor of London adult learning awards.
Nearly 300 nominations from the capital’s adult education providers, businesses, tutors and students have been carefully assessed by officials at the Greater London Authority and then a panel of expert judges.
From these, 21 hopefuls have been selected as finalists vying for the awards, sponsored by Ascentis and FE Week, across ten categories.
Among the finalists for the inspiring adult learner of the year award is Abdulkadir Mohamed, who was nominated by his employer, Central and Northwest London NHS Trust.
Mohamed came to the UK in 1998 as a refugee from Somalia. After teaching himself English while working as a kitchen porter, the trust took him on as a healthcare support worker, where he helped refugees and asylum seekers with PTSD. This April, he qualified as a mental health nurse through a degree apprenticeship.
The small business SEND Coffee has been selected as a finalist for the learning for good work employer of the year award. The company is the brainchild of Harry George who, having seen the struggles faced by young people with special education needs and disabilities trying to get well-paid jobs, set up a small coffee shop in Camden to employ and train SEND young people.
Harry George, founder, and Hashim, barista, SEND Coffee
The company has since expanded to three coffee shops and employs mentors to guide and train employees in skills such as travelling safely on public transport, handling money as well as barista training.
SEND Coffee’s nominator said: “When people come into the shops…they do not see a disabled person, but a barista doing their job. By the end of a year with SEND Coffee, learners have their own bank account and are able to travel independently, which is life changing.”
Waltham Forest College is also up for the learning for good work employer of the year award. It was the first FE college to become accredited under the Mayor of London’s new Good Work Standard and was nominated for this award for its work tackling career progression barriers for its ethnic minority and disabled staff.
“The college is actively working with specialist organisations to support improved recruitment, identification and progression opportunities within its workforce for people with disabilities, including those identifying as neurodiverse,” the college’s nomination said.
Anastasiia Trubkina
A finalist for this year’s inspirational tutor in adult education award is Anastasiia Trubkina. When war broke out in Ukraine last year, Trubkina, an English teacher and shop owner, managed to escape to the UK.
She joined MI ComputSolutions, a south-London based social enterprise, two months after arriving which reignited her passion for teaching. With the support of MI’s tutors, she expanded her teaching skills to include ESOL and now supports other Ukrainian refugees.
Her nominators said Trubkina “quickly expanded her ability to teach at all levels, learning to deliver on accredited and non-accredited ESOL. Anastasiia’s lived experience has helped MI staff to understand the plight of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war.
“Along with offering vital translation services, she provides additional guidance and support to learners, helping them adjust to living in the UK. Learners see her as someone that they can turn to for support.”
Winners will be revealed on November 2 at an awards ceremony in City Hall.
