Young people who take part in work experience or vocational study at school are more likely to succeed in an apprenticeship than those who have no exposure to the workplace, a report by Ofsted has revealed.

The education watchdog is calling on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to develop “a national set of expectations” for the outcomes of work experience placements, ensuring all young people are prepared for an apprenticeship.

“When preparing post-16s for apprenticeships schools need to provide meaningful work experience,” Matthew Coffey, national director for learning and skills at Ofsted said.

“While the majority of learners are completing their apprenticeships around a quarter are dropping out.

“It is clear that more work experience, vocational study and course tasters are needed to ensure learners are on the right apprenticeship for them and that they understand the demands of work.”

The report asked 15 providers and employers, including Barnsley College, Cornwall College and McDonald’s, how they had successfully recruited young people as apprentices.

Respondents said they needed the transferable skills, such as a professional attitude and a “commitment to employment”, which are picked up and shown by potential apprentices during work experience placements.

“Employers welcomed work experience as a way of evaluating young people’s work ethic,” the report states.

“Young people who had undertaken well-organised work experience, or some form of vocational taster courses while still at school, were more successful in making good progress with their apprenticeship framework than those starting straight from school without such experience.”

Chris Jones, chief executive and director general of City & Guilds, says work experience is a “crucial transition” for young people into the job market.

“Whilst City & Guilds supports work experience to help young people into employment, more needs to be done to create better links between education and employment, so young people are exposed to the world of work while they are still at school and making important choices about their futures,” Mr Jones said.

” Meaningful work experience must be developed with employers and must become be a mandatory part of the school curriculum.”

The Ofsted report says BIS should be improving the availability of careers guidance on post-16 options for young people and also gathering data on those who are unsuccessful when applying for an apprenticeship vacancy.

It also says training providers should be developing more pre-apprenticeship programmes for young people at risk of becoming disengaged with education or employment.

“There has been much concern lately about the quality of apprenticeships,” Mr Coffey added.

“When looking at the national picture we can see that around 70 per cent of apprenticeships are good or outstanding but more needs to be done to improve provision further.

“The apprenticeships for young people best practice report will provide a vast pool of knowledge and examples on how to deliver apprenticeships successfully and will act as a useful guide for trainers, assessors and educational leaders wishing to improve.”

The report later recommends improving the promotion of apprenticeship training to under-represented groups by creating aspirational role models within each provider.

(The “Apprenticeships for young people: A good practice report” can be downloaded here.)

ABC Awards has become a formal part of the EMFEC group.

Paul Eeles, chief executive of  EMFEC, has taken control of the company and will soon become chief executive of ABC awards.

“ABC Awards is a well-respected Awarding Body which I believe has a sound future in a competitive market,” Mr Eeles said.

“It is our intention to build on the success of Nigel Florence and his team and to cement ABC Awards as a national sector owned and sector responsive awarding organisation.”

Nigel Florence, executive director of ABC Awards, will remain in an advisory capacity until he retires at the end of August.

A review of EMFEC and ABC Awards will be led by John McNamara, former CEO of the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils and Chair of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, to ensure both companies are “truly responsive to their customers and members.”

ABC Awards was setup in 1998 as a joint venture between EMFEC, CENTRA and Learning South West.

CENTRA transferred its interest in the company on March 1, followed by Learning South West on April 2.

The Skills Funding Agency have published version one of Funding Rules 2012/13, replacing the various Funding Requirements documents that currently exist.

The forward states there will be an “updated document in May 2012 which will include the supporting audit evidence requirements. For the first time we will consolidate the Funding Rules and associated evidence requirements for all of our funded provision into one document. The document published in May will also give us the opportunity to make adjustments where areas of clarification are needed, particularly those where the sector thinks any specific rules could be made clearer.”

Paragraph 12 is likely to cause colleges some difficulties, as it states that “Where the Agency has made a full contribution to the costs of a Learner’s programme, Providers must not make compulsory charges to employers or Learners for any delivery of the learning activity funded by the Agency. This includes: administration, registration, assessment, materials or examination costs whether incurred directly by the Provider or charged by other organisations such as awarding organisations. This includes charges for identification passes, uniforms, tools and material where without them, a learner cannot complete and achieve their learning aim.”

The Agency will base future years’ funding allocations on the performance of each Provider in getting unemployed people into work.”

New for the 2012/13 are rules concerning minimum durations for apprenticeships aged 19+, which was announced on Sunday.

Providers are likely to want clarification on paragraph 88, which states: “Providers should not claim the full amount of funding available for an Apprenticeship completing in fewer than 12 months and will not ever be able to claim the achievement element of an Apprenticeship not withstanding proven and documented prior learning with a duration of fewer than six months in any circumstances.”

The Agency have also confirmed that they have scrapped plans for an Outcome Incentive Payment and will instead pilot Job Outcome Payments. The document states that “ten per cent of the rate will be paid where an eligible Learner leaves without achieving the learning aim but enters work.” In effect the 10% Job Outcome Payment will opporate as a reduced fine, as it only applies when the provider is not paid the 20% achievement funding. However, paragraph 37 will need some further explanation as it simply states:  “The Agency will base future years’ funding allocations on the performance of each Provider in getting unemployed people into work.”

To download the Funding Rules 2012/13 document click here.

Further education (FE) and sixth form colleges could be funded for 14 to 16 year-olds on a similar basis to schools from 2013.

The Department for Education (DfE) is proposing to fund FE colleges using a “simplified local funding formulae” managed by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) from the 2013/14 academic year.

The new proposals are detailed in the ‘School funding reform: Next steps towards a fairer system’ consultation document, published by the DfE on March 26.

“With effect from 2013 and following Professor Alison Wolf’s review of vocational education, FE and Sixth Form Colleges will be able to make full time provision for 14-16 year olds,” the consultation document reads.

“We need to ensure that there is a fair and effective means of funding this.”

It later adds: “FE colleges making provision for 14-16 year olds should be funded so far as possible in the same way as schools in the local area.

“From 2013-14, we think this will mean using the simplified local funding formulae arrangements.”

The DfE plan to use four of the existing 37 formula factors, currently applied to schools through the “simplified local funding formulae”, for FE colleges in 2013:

a) the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU) for the relevant age group;
b) deprivation;
c) looked after children; and,
d) SEN.

The consultation document states: “The remaining factors relate to premises and the lump sum.

“These are needed for schools as the funding is for the whole institution.

“It would not be appropriate to include these factors for colleges because the funding is for small numbers of pupils at the margin of the institution’s activities.”

However, it is currently unclear how FE and sixth form colleges will apply for an allocation for this type of provision.

The consultation documents says the EFA will be responsible for calculating the funding for each institution, with payments being made “through the normal channels.”

Responses to the consultation document need to be submitted to the DfE by May 21.

(Read the consultation document, ‘School funding reform: Next steps towards a fairer system’  here.)

The Skills Funding Agency has published a new version of the College Accounts 2010/11 spreadsheet detailing the salaries of every FE college principal.

The top ten salaries, shown above, contain some inaccuracies however.

Loughborough College has told FE Week the salary for their principal in 2010/11 was in fact £124,000.

A statement from the college reads: “The salary for the Principal of Loughborough College for 2010/11 reported as £242k in FE Week, 3rd April 2012, is incorrect.

“This figure (242k) represents the total salary for 2010/11 for the three senior postholders of the college.”

A spokesperson for Loughborough College told FE Week the reason for the inaccuracy was because of a mistake in their data submission.

The salary published by the SFA for the principal of Barnfield College is also said to be inaccurate.

“Pete Birkett is chief executive and principal of the Barnfield Federation, which is made up of more than Barnfield College alone,” a spokesperson for Barnfield College told FE Week.

“The Federation consists of an existing four academies, three subsidiary companies, the College and five new academies who will be joining the Federation before September.”

The spokesperson added: “The turnover for the Federation is circa £60 million.

“There is a shared contribution towards the salary shown, so the figures quoted should be viewed from a Federal perspective.

“Within the accounts there is a qualifying statement explaining this.”

Barnfield College says the correct salary for Mr Birkett should be £193,000, with an additional £15,000 in benefits.

Dr Lis Smith, principal of Preston College, has contacted FE Week and said the figure used for her salary is also inaccurate.

“The figure that has been quoted, is a figure which has been taken from the accounts which also includes the previous principal’s salary as well,” she said.

“So my salary is £120,000.”

Dr Lis Smith says the amount published by the SFA is in fact a consolidated amount due to an overlap with the previous principal last year.

Warwickshire College and Sussex Downs College have also contacted FE Week and said that their 2010/11 figures are inaccurate because of a handover period with former principals.

Sussex Downs College has clarified that their salary figure should be  “around £160,000.”

Warwickshire College, meanwhile, say their figure should be changed to £170,000.

Derby College has clarified that while the figures published for 2010/11 are correct, the 2009/10  figures have since been restated due to the college’s merger with South East Derbyshire College.

A spokesperson for Derby College told FE Week that the principal’s salary for 2009/10 was actually £185,000, with benefits in kind of £1,000 and pension contributions of £26,000.

The Newcastle College Group (NCG) has confirmed the salary published by the SFA is correct for Jackie Fisher, chief executive of NCG and not Bev Robinson, principal of Newcastle College.

A spokesperson for NCG said: “Her basic salary was £192,000 and the rest is bonus.

“The reason for the reduction of £29,000 was that Jackie Fisher was given a one off retention payment last year relating to the period August 2007 to July 2010.

“This payment was agreed by Governors to provide continuity and stability within NCG during a period of significant growth and development, NCG’s merger with Skelmersdale & Ormskirk College and the acquisition of Intraining.”

West Nottinghamshire College has also confirmed for FE Week the £205,000 figure is correct for 2010/11.

FE Week is continuing to contact colleges for confirmation of the published figures.

The College Accounts 2010/11 spreadsheet can be downloaded from the Skills Funding Agency website here.

The previous spreadsheet, detailing the College Accounts for 2009/10, can be downloaded here.

(Note: The table above has been created using government data and may include anomalies. FE Week will amend any data which is confirmed as inaccurate in the SFA spreadsheet.)