What happened to college business centres?

College business centres featured as a key policy pledge in the 2021 skills for jobs white paper, as ministers bid to improve local skills systems by forging stronger links with employers. But, the concept disappeared from government communication following a short trial in a handful of colleges. FE Week investigates what happened…

The Department for Education’s desire to replicate the “world-class” employer-led German skills system in England has been a common theme among the revolving door of skills ministers and education secretaries in recent years.

It led to the decision to hand chambers of commerce greater control over local skills provision, including the creation of local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) which were the headline reform in the 2021 skills for jobs white paper.

Another innovative idea to enhance employer influence over skills training offers was to establish college business centres (CBCs) across the country, to act as a physical space where colleges and employers communicate, collaborate and ultimately “respond to locally agreed priorities”.

A quick-turnaround £65 million pilot through the strategic development fund got underway and handed funding to 18 colleges, seven of which were handed ring-fenced capital and revenue funding to create a CBC.

Timing was tight and they needed to spend all the funding by the end of March 2022 – just eight months after the pilot started.

Colleges opted to use the capital funding to refurbish a part of their existing campus in most cases, and within a short timeframe created a space which would act as a “single point of entry” to the local skills system for employers, who could themselves access industry-standard facilities and equipment. Revenue funding was spent by colleges on hiring business development, engagement and events staff.

Lead colleges collaborated with other colleges and local education providers, as well as their chamber of commerce, to fully utilise the facility.

They’re proving a great way of getting more businesses into colleges

Several colleges and businesses that were involved in the CBC pilot told FE Week the centres indeed had a significant and positive impact.

In Milton Keynes, a CBC called The Chaffron Centre was launched to “bring together companies and educators in collaboration, offering business workspace and meeting facilities to both students and the businesses community”, Milton Keynes College told FE Week.

Over two floors the on-campus centre includes meeting rooms, VR suites, individual classrooms, catering, refreshment areas, and break-out rooms.

“Its purpose was very much about bringing employers into the heart of the college,” said Anna Clarke, MK College’s group director for employer engagement and partnerships.

“There are multiple benefits. Employers come in and see what an FE college looks like in the current state, and we also get that continual narrative from employers about how we need to morph, how do we get the outside world in our curriculum in a way that actually does make our students work ready. They’re also an opportunity for our students to engage with employers in a way they couldn’t before.”

In some areas, CBCs also ended up being a place where entrepreneurs could work, network, and receive advice as they build their businesses. Some colleges also established ways of creating further revenue streams by renting out the space for meetings and events.

Cumbria Chamber of Commerce worked with, and still uses, CBCs spearheaded by Lakes College. The chamber’s managing director Suzanne Caldwell said: “They’re proving a great way of getting more businesses into colleges, seeing their wider facilities and engaging with staff and students. They’re being used for meetings, events, hot desking and more.

“In setting them up, colleges engaged actively with us. I think that’s part of why they’ve proved successful as they’ve been genuinely focussed around business need.”

On the south coast, Fareham College – now part of the South Hampshire College Group – used its funding to create a “co-location” space to strategically co-work with the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce.

“It enabled a really interesting and innovative intersection within the college estate between the chamber’s staff, business members, and the college teams and apprentices,” said South Hampshire College Group chief executive Andrew Kaye.

His college also collaborated with the Isle of Wight College to open its own CBC. “We’ve got a really strong legacy from the CBCs as they allowed us to better develop relationships with businesses to improve participation in further education and skills,” Kaye added. “We did pretty well in terms of bang for buck.”

However, despite the positive feedback the DfE was receiving from the colleges and businesses involved in the pilot, the term CBCs was dropped when the DfE rolled out the national strategic development fund in the 2022/23 academic year.

Andrew Kaye

DfE guidance said the national rollout would adopt an approach “which will give providers more flexibility to offer innovation activities without needing to create a CBC”.

“This includes funding staff time and associated administrative costs to engage employers more fully on skills needs and to channel that intelligence back to the local FE provider base,” the guidance added.

While pilot CBCs were positive in supporting employer and college collaboration, those involved warned of risks to their long-term sustainability as the revenue funding was time-limited. One hired a CBC director, for example, but could only employ them on a fixed-term contract.

The DfE was keen to made it clear to FE Week that the CBC concept has itself not been dropped, but rather that the branding has.

“Providers were permitted to continue CBC-type activity using strategic development fund funding, but this did not have to be branded as a CBC,” the DfE said.

The term CBCs has also not been featured in the local skills improvement fund, which replaced the strategic development fund this year.

Despite the government’s claim that CBCs have not been dropped as a concept, college leaders aren’t expecting them to feature as they did in the pilot, mainly because of the one-year funding settlements being offered.

Marguerite Hogg, senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, said: “The DfE asked pathfinders to experiment with the CBC model in 2021, but three rounds of short-term funding means that there hasn’t really been a chance to try this out in full.

“Colleges have, and will, use the money from strategic development fund and local skills improvement fund to deploy people to work with employers on innovation. Once we get to a point where there’s longer-term funding in place, it’s likely that we will see something like business centres develop.”

Kaye said he understands that colleges would be perfectly entitled to use as their SDF or LSIF funding to set up something similar in concept to the piloted CBCs, albeit they might not be branded in the same way.

He added that by removing the ring-fenced proportion of the funding it could allow colleges to be “a bit more flexible and innovative in what they want to do”.

And Caldwell said that while CBCs as a specific concept may have worked in areas such as Cumbria, they “may not be suited to circumstances more widely”.

“It is, and should be, a case of horses for courses,” she added.

DfE takes control of FE teacher training scheme mid-round

The Department for Education has taken control of its flagship FE teacher training scheme from its charity partner mid-contract, amid dwindling recruitment numbers, FE Week can reveal.

Taking Teaching Further (TTF) was seized from the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) in March by the DfE after just one year into what was supposed to be a two-year programme.

Delivery of the TTF was taken in-house by the DfE to “enable any possible future changes to be made more easily,” the department claimed. An ETF spokesperson added that necessary changes the DfE wanted to make would have required a retendering exercise.

Soon after the DfE took over the scheme, which retrains industry professionals as FE teachers, it revamped the offer with, for example, £6,000 financial incentives to entice more recruits to the hardest-to-fill subjects.

Figures obtained by FE Week show that from the five funding rounds of TTF managed by the ETF since 2018, just over half of the 1,960 places available were filled.

After the fifth funding wave – which runs from April 2022 to July 2024 – closed for bids in November, only 39 per cent of the 710 places available were filled, the lowest success rate of the scheme. 

Across the first four rounds, the ETF supported 780 recruits, but only 508 completed both years of the two-year programme, meaning over one-third dropped out.

The low numbers highlight the recruitment and retention challenges FE providers are facing in England, both organisations told FE Week.

“The programme has had a proven record of success, providing support and training, but it cannot address wider issues affecting the sector such as salaries, the flexibility of FE roles offered compared to other sectors, where working from home is now more prominent, as well as competition from other sectors for people with the skills the FE sector is looking for,” the ETF added.

This could explain the DfE’s introduction of a financial incentive pilot as part of its sixth funding round launch, which awards an extra £6,000 to eligible recruits in hard-to-fill subjects: digital, construction and the built environment, engineering and manufacturing, and maths.

Wave six of the TTF has 710 places available, with up to half of these attracting the new piloted financial incentive, a DfE spokesperson told FE Week.

“We know some subject areas are facing larger recruitment challenges, so introduced the financial incentive pilot for TTF 2023 to further support recruitment in some of the most hard-to-fill subject areas,” they added.

TTF 2023 registrations are open and close on November 30, 2023.

How TTF works

TTF is a two-year programme that aims to recruit people with industry experience to retrain as FE teachers across 15 technical subjects, plus a new core skills route, which targets experts to teach English and maths to technical subject students.

DfE will hand out £18,200 per eligible recruit to colleges and private training providers per funding wave as part of their contract.

The grant funding is used to cover the cost of a teaching qualification – a minimum of a level 5 diploma in education and training – the costs of extra teacher time to mentor the recruit, and the costs to the recruit to have a reduced teaching timetable by covering the cost of backfilling.

The programme follows two routes, one for FE colleges and the other for private providers.

In route one, colleges register their interest, giving an estimate of the number of people they could potentially recruit. After issuing grants, the colleges would then go through the recruitment process.

Route two involved ITPs being issued grants for each person that they recruited.

ETF restructuring

The contract seizure comes at a critical time for the ETF. The foundation is exploring redundancy options amid an “organisational restructure”. 

One senior director at the charity posted on LinkedIn this week that he had taken voluntary redundancy due to a “significant organisational restructure with a smaller senior leadership team”.

The ETF would not specify how many staff are at risk of redundancy as it is going through the “process of organisation design” over the next few months and is “not in a position to discuss numbers affected”.

A spokesperson said the charity will launch its new strategy later in the year.

The ETF announced in March 2022 that the DfE was slashing its grant funding, and earlier this year the charity had to repay £6.2 million to the government following a legal dispute over T Levels professional development contract.

The latest restructuring, the ETF claimed, was not driven by the TTF programme returning to DfE nor due to the repayment of funds from the T Levels contract.

“ETF remains in a financially stable position. We have identified opportunities to work more efficiently, remove duplication and continue to deliver outstanding support to the sector,” a spokesperson said.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 436

Susanna Lawson

Non-Executive Chair, Ecctis

Start date: October 2023

Previous Job: Co-founder, OneFile and Circle of Trust

Interesting fact: Before founding OneFile, Susanna did a three year shiatsu therapy diploma and was going to start a complimentary therapy business

Dave Trounce

Deputy Principal, The Sheffield College

Start date: October 2023

Previous Job: Deputy Principal, Weston College

Interesting fact: For the last seven years, Dave has been heavily involved in coaching and managing junior girls and women’s football teams

Daniel Braithwaite

Principal & Chief Executive, Lancaster & Morecambe College

Start date: September 2023

Previous Job: Assistant Principal, Lakes College

Interesting fact: Outside of education, Daniel is a keen sportsman playing cricket, football and darts. He is also an aspiring musician, with drums being his instrument of choice

‘Shocking’ teacher training proposals could force provider closures

A private training provider has warned it will be forced to close down if “shocking” government proposals to alter the FE teacher training market go ahead.

The Department of Education launched a consultation this week over plans to remove access to student finance for pre-service further education initial teacher training (ITT) courses from 2024/25.

From this point, the DfE proposes to only allow student loan funding where courses are delivered by, or in partnership with, universities and providers with degree awarding powers.

It launched the consultation due to “quality and value for money” concerns around some pre-service courses provided by private training companies.

Latest government data shows there were 11 private providers delivering FE ITT in 2021/22. But the current figure is likely to be higher because the provider market “fluctuates rapidly”, the DfE said.

Sheila Singh, director of the London School of Academics, said she was “really, really shocked” by the proposals. Her firm, which currently has 150 FE teacher trainees, would lose access to student funding if the consultation got approved and be forced to close.

“That’s not fair at all. We solely teach for FE staff and so would need to close down [if it got approved],” she told FE Week.

Singh also disputed the DfE’s concerns around quality, citing previous accolades including being awarded highly commended by City & Guilds in the Lion Award for high-quality teaching in 2018.

“We thrive on quality, 110 per cent,” she said. The provider has not been inspected by Ofsted but is registered with the Office for Students.

Impact on the number of FE teachers

Teachers on pre-service ITT courses complete their teaching qualification before they take up a teaching job. The DfE said teacher training for the FE sector that is delivered in-service, or “on-the-job” will continue to have access to public money through grant-funded programmes, such as Taking Teaching Further.

The DfE claimed there is “emerging evidence”, including Ofsted reports, that gives “cause for concern about the quality” of some pre-service courses provided by private training companies.

It added that colleges have warned that pre-service students who have come to them from private training providers have “sometimes been unprepared to teach effectively in the sector and have required significant re-training”.

Minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education Robert Halfon said his proposals “should give people and providers the confidence that the quality of FE initial teacher training is top-tier and allow the FE sector to contribute towards its improvement”.

The department’s consultation said there was “no evidence” to suggest its proposed reforms would have a “significant negative impact” on the supply and availability of “appropriately trained” teachers ready to enter the FE sector.

But Singh said it would “definitely” have an impact on the number of FE teachers.

Recently published FE workforce data collection showed that, by the end of 2021/22, 5.4 teaching posts per 100 were vacant. Vacancy rates were as high as 12.9 posts per 100 in construction, planning and the built environment, and over 10 posts per 100 in subjects as diverse as electronics, agriculture and horticulture, design, engineering and manufacturing, and accounting and finance.

A DfE spokesperson said the department welcomes evidence to its consultation on “how the provision of ITT might impact on students intending to enter FE teaching and how pre-service ITT students are successfully progressing into teaching roles”.

The department also plans to use legislation to force FE teacher training organisations to be accredited by the DfE to establish a “clearly defined quality bar” that providers must meet before accessing public funding.

Currently, providers of FE ITT do not need to be accredited which means there is a “lack of stability and sustainability in the FE ITT sector”, according to the DfE.

Accredited providers would need to submit more robust and prescribed data relating to their students and ITT courses to DfE to better manage the market.

Halfon said securing well-trained teachers in high-priority FE subjects is “crucial”.

“Industry professionals know better than most the skills that employers need, and we recognise we need more teachers with specific expertise to share their knowledge and extend the ladder of opportunity to people from all walks of life,” he added.

The consultation closes on November 6.

Prison education: Treasury drags heels on pension guarantee

Unions and MPs have slammed the Treasury’s delay in confirming whether prison educators’ pension schemes will be protected under the Ministry of Justice’s new £1.5 billion prison education contract.

Sector leaders have flagged that prison educators, who now work in the public sector after last November’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) reclassification of colleges, could lose access to the teachers’ pension scheme if the new contract is awarded to a private provider under TUPE terms. 

They also warned that private providers could “undercut” colleges currently providing the provision for over 80 prisons by paying “considerably less” in pension contributions.

The concerns come after the Ministry of Justice released a tender for the procurement of new prison education contracts last week, which determines that providers bid for the new core education services across 11 regional lots. The four-year contract for the new service will launch on April 1, 2025.

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) tender documents, seen by FE Week, outline a possible implementation of the “new fair deal” (NFD) policy, which maintains access to public sector pensions for prison education staff even if the contract is transferred to a private provider.

The application of the NFD policy is under review and is “not likely to be confirmed by HM Treasury (HMT) until latest summer 2024,” the documents state. “The authority hopes that a decision on whether NFD will apply will be made by HMT before contract award,” it added.

The deadline for bids is November 13, 2023.

To mitigate this “uncertainty of the timing”, the MoJ has requested that bidders instead carry out extra administrative work to submit two cost budgets depending on the Treasury’s decision.

“This uncertainty has been identified and accordingly bidders are required to submit two pricing mechanisms, one assuming that NFD will apply to the transfer of FE college staff and the other assuming that NFD will not apply.”

An MoJ spokesperson said: “The Ministry of Justice has always complied with the applicable HMT policy on NFD in our procurements and will continue to do so going forwards.”

University and College Union head of further education, Paul Bridge told FE Week: “Without confirmation from the Treasury that further education staff working in prison education will be subject to the NFD, staff pensions will not be protected under the new prison education service bids which cover most prisons in England.

“This could see staff moved to private providers who can undercut colleges currently providing education for over 80 prisons, by paying considerably less in pension contributions.”

Grahame Morris, a Labour MP who has previously questioned the government on its prison provision, told FE Week that the continued uncertainty around new prison education contracts was “unacceptable” and will continue to damage morale among prison educators and deteriorate industrial relations.

“The Treasury must stop delaying the announcement on NFD, create a level playing field for providers bidding for millions of pounds of public money and reverse the trend of devaluing of the work and professionalism of prison educators,” he said.

Morale in the sector has been steadily diminishing over the years from “intolerable” working conditions and pay, Morris said. Last September, 500 prison education members of the UCU were balloted to strike over pay.

MPs and peers call for prison education to be brought into public ownership

Under the current prison education contract terms, education providers were due a payment uplift of 10.4 per cent, and prison education staff and providers expected this to be automatically applied from April 1, 2023.

Justice minister Damian Hinds confirmed the indexation would be applied from April 1, but FE Week understands negotiations between unions, the current contract providers and the MoJ are still in progress.

There are four providers under the current prison education framework, expiring March 31, 2025: Weston College, PeoplePlus Group, Novus (LTE Group), and Milton Keynes College.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “Following the ONS reclassification of FE colleges as public sector bodies, HM Treasury is reviewing the NFD policy in relation to further education colleges, including those involved in the prison education service.

“We are discussing the implications of this reclassification of further education to the public sector with relevant stakeholders and will set out more details in due course.”

Marples vs DfE trial set for 2025

The High Court trial between 3aaa co-founder Peter Marples and the Department for Education is set to take place in 2025 – and the loser will have to foot a near-£3 million legal bill.

A costs and case management conference for the high-value case was held this week, in which the DfE was ordered to disclose “key” evidence relating to the sales of other training providers ahead of the 15-day trial.

Ten witnesses are expected from Marples’ side, while the DfE will have five witnesses of its own.

Costs were not discussed during this week’s hearing, but FE Week understands the total legal bill for Marples will be just over £1 million, while the DfE is expected to rack up £1.9 million in costs.

Whichever side loses the case will have to pay the other side’s legal fees.

Marples and three members of his family are attempting to sue the DfE for the then-Skills Funding Agency’s alleged refusal to sign off on the change of ownership of former apprenticeship giant 3aaa in 2016 to TLP (Trilantic Capital Partners LLP), two years before the company went bust amid an investigation and police referral.

Peter Marples

The family is seeking at least £37 million in damages.

The DfE’s legal bill is higher than Marples’ due to the disclosure of evidence costs involved, which hit nearly £1 million on their own.

Master Clark this week ordered the DfE to release documentation that related to the “change of control” of 11 other provider sales that the SFA allegedly consented to between 2015 and 2019, despite resistance from DfE lawyer Michael Walsh.

Walsh argued that this was an attempt by Marples’ team to “cast the widest possible net in what is a fishing expedition”.

“What the disclosure issues ought to relate to is the actual decision under challenge where the allegations are made about the TLP acquisition and not some early decision or indeed a decision about companies which bear no relation to the claimants,” he said.

Marples’ lawyer, Mark Harper KC, argued the DfE’s decision to not consent to the 3aaa change of control was “negligent” because the department has never taken this approach in relation to any other change of control request.

“We will say when it comes to considering those documents, there’ll be a clear difference in approach as to how the defendant approached the request by other companies to how it then approached the TLP request,” Harper said.

Master Clark ruled that the documents are relevant, but their release must be “proportionate”. Discussions between the two legal teams are now ongoing about what specific documentation relating to other provider changes of control should be released.

The DfE was also ordered to release “narrative” evidence related to how the SFA made the decision not to approve the claimant’s change of control request in respect to the TLP acquisition, including what matters it considered in doing so and what process and procedure was adopted.

DfE is now required to search for and disclose, for example, emails between then-Skills Funding Agency chief executive Peter Lauener and his colleagues where they discussed the decision.

Master Clark also ruled that the DfE must disclose communication between the SFA and former FE Week editor Nick Linford which related to 3aaa and Peter Marples during a specific time period.

Disclosure of all documents must be completed by the end of June 2024.

The exact date of the trial is yet to be decided, but the window for it will be between January and October 2025.

You can download all of the published legal files related to the case at the end of this article

Apprenticeship levy turns into Treasury ‘cash cow’

The Treasury has been accused of short-changing employers after FE Week analysis revealed HMRC pocketed around £415 million generated from apprenticeship levy receipts last year.

Experts have now called on ministers to rapidly address the emerging mismatch between the cash the apprenticeship levy raises compared to what is being allocated for public spending before it becomes a government “cash cow” amid the fiscal crisis.

Treasury figures show that £3.580 billion was raised by the levy in the 2022-23 financial year but just £2.554 billion was handed to the Department for Education to spend in England, while FE Week estimates that £608 million was handed to the devolved nations.

It means that £418 million of apprenticeship funding went unallocated. On top of this, the DfE underspent its budget by £96 million, meaning the total savings to the Treasury hit £514 million in 2022-23.

And in 2021-22 the Treasury boosted their coffers by over £200 million in unallocated apprenticeship funding.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said the figures show “just how much employers are being short-changed”.

He added: “The purpose of the levy is to fund high-quality apprenticeship training and assessment so the overall programme budget must reflect the amount raised much more closely. We cannot allow the levy to become a cash cow for the Treasury.”

‘Employers are being short-changed’

Since 2017, UK businesses with a payroll of £3 million or more pay each month into a levy pot which is used to fund apprenticeships for both large and small businesses.

The Treasury then distributes a portion of those receipts annually to the Department for Education which is ring-fenced to be spent on apprenticeships in England.

The devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also receive a slice of the receipts. But while the first three years – from 2017-18 to 2019-20 – had allocated budgets, the Treasury has kept exactly how much the devolved nations receive from the levy since 2020-21 a secret. It did however commit that beyond this point the “normal operation of the Barnett Formula should provide a similar outcome”.

FE Week analysed the early budgets for the devolved nations and found they were, on average, handed 17 per cent of the total levy receipts, so we used 17 per cent as an estimation for their share of the levy from 2020 onwards. The devolved nations also do not have their share of the levy ring-fenced for apprenticeships, so it can be spent on any area they choose.

In the early years of the levy, the Treasury appeared to over-commit to the devolved administrations, as figures show HMRC distributed more than what levy receipts generated. But underspends from the DfE’s budget prevented it from an overall overspend.

By using 17 per cent as the best estimate for devolved nations’ levy allocations, FE Week can reveal that the Treasury has retained around £316 million of levy receipts since 2017.

When we take into account DfE underspends, and assuming the devolved nationals spent all of their allocations, it shows that almost £2.5 billion of apprenticeship funding has been kept by, or returned to, the Treasury.

Experts told FE Week the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) believes the levy will raise £3.7 billion this financial year and that levy receipts have already raised £120 million more this year compared to the same period last year.

The government has only committed to increasing England’s apprenticeships budget to £2.7 billion by 2024-25.

Mark Corney, senior policy adviser at the Campaign for Learning, said the levy is raising more and more for the government because of “higher nominal wages and relatively stable number of employees, as the fall in employment is driven by fewer self-employed people”.

He told FE Week: “The bulk of the savings seem to be coming from the underspend in DfE rather than what the levy is yielding above allocation. What’s really interesting is the last two years, when we have got a fiscal crisis, the Treasury has got an extra £200 million in 2021-22 and £418 million in 2022-23.

“The levy is raising far more than is being allocated if we assume the devolved nations have spent all their funding.

“The decision clearly is that the country needs to keep reducing its deficit rather than investing in apprenticeships.”

He added that while these are the best estimations, it would be “better if the Treasury gave us an indicative devolved nation budget for full transparency”.

It comes at a time when big and long-running apprenticeship providers are either closing down or pulling out of the apprenticeship market due to unviable funding rates for apprenticeship standards and functional skills teaching.

Ashworth said: “Against the backdrop of a skills sector crisis this could then pay for a vital new minimum funding threshold and an across-the-board uplift in all apprenticeship funding bands to tackle the rising costs of inflation. It would also help to address the long-standing issue of inadequately funded English and maths qualifications.”

A government spokesperson said: “The apprenticeship levy is designed so that money not used by levy-paying employers is re-allocated to fund apprenticeships from smaller employers. In the last financial year, we were encouraged to see employers utilised over 99 per cent of the apprenticeship budget, benefitting big and small businesses alike.

“The government sets out its plan for departmental public expenditure at spending reviews. This was done most recently in 2021, where plans were set to 2024-25.”

1 in 3 colleges challenge TEF rating

Nearly a third of colleges seeking a teaching excellence framework (TEF) rating this year have challenged their judgment.

The Office for Students today announced the results of the 2023 TEF, the first time the quality ratings have been release since 2019. Gold, silver, bronze or ‘requires improvement’ ratings are handed out based on an assessment of the quality of a provider’s higher education teaching.

Six of the 56 colleges who were part of this TEF round secured gold, while 22 achieved silver and 11 were given bronze.

But 17, almost a third, of colleges entering TEF have appealed their results, giving them a ‘pending’ outcome.

For the first time this year, HE providers received subsidiary judgements for student experience and student outcomes alongside their overall rating.

The revamped TEF led to nearly a quarter (53 of 228) of all universities, colleges and other HE providers challenging their rating.

Some have complained that the TEF grading process penalised those with higher numbers of disadvantaged students.

In a letter to skills minister Robert Halfon, Frances Corner, warden at Goldsmiths University of London, said not including the number of students eligible for free school meals in the benchmarking for the TEF process was a “significant oversight”.

She said that could have affected performances, after research by London South Bank University showed universities with a smaller proportion of students with free school meal eligibility were more likely to receive a TEF gold rating.

TEF outcomes are determined by an OfS panel using provider performance data alongside evidence submissions from the provider and their students.

No college received the ‘requires improvement’ judgement for their overall rating, but this could change once appeals have been finalised. South Essex did receive ‘requires improvement’ for the subsidiary judgment of student experience, while City of Sunderland College and Barnsley College got ‘requires improvement’ for student outcomes.

South Devon College, Blackpool and the Fylde College and City College Plymouth each secured straight golds, with Weston College, Morley College London and The Northern School of Art achieving gold for student experience and silver for student outcomes.

Dr Andrew Gower, principal and chief executive of Morley College London, said: “As the only specialist adult education institute in the country offering higher education as an integral part of its strategic mission, we are delighted to receive the overall rating of gold with the teaching excellence framework.

“Whatever their age and background, our TEF gold rating means that students can have confidence in a high-quality higher education.”

Blackpool and the Fylde College principal Alun Francis said: “This gold rating is evidence that our extensive efforts for every student and apprentice, and our personalised approaches with wraparound support, are working.”  

Three colleges saw their TEF rating improve on their previous score. City College Norwich, Bradford College and South Essex College of Further and Higher Education each moved up from bronze to silver, with the latter also scooping a gold for student experience.

Jerry White, principal of City College Norwich, said the silver rating shows the “quality of our vocational, career-focused higher education stands in comparison with the learning experience and student outcomes available at many prestigious universities”.

“I hope that this will encourage more students to consider the employment-focused Higher Education opportunities that are available to them locally,” he added.

Ten colleges in this TEF round saw their overall ratings decline.

Leicester College dropped from gold to bronze, while Loughborough College, RNN Group, Truro and Penwith College, Middlesbrough College and Myerscough College are now silver.

Susan Lapworth, chief executive at the OfS, said the TEF ratings “clearly demonstrate the excellence on display in universities and colleges”.

Four things we learned from the Employer Skills Survey 2022

The amount of money spent on training in England has flatlined as UK-wide spending sinks to its lowest ever recorded level, according to the government’s latest employer skills survey.

The report, published today by the Department for Education, sought out data on labour market and skills challenges faced by employers across the four nations.

Nearly 73,000 employers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland took part in the biennial survey for 2022. Data collection took place between June 2022 and March 2023.

Here are the key findings…

Investment in training flatlines

Employers in the UK spent less on training and development than in the previous 12 months. 

Total employer expenditure was £53.6 billion in 2022, a 7.7 per cent real terms decrease from the last reported figure in 2017, which was £58.1 billion. In 2011, when data collection began, employers spent £59.1 billion on training.

Training expenditure in England increased slightly since 2019 from £44.9 billion to £45.8 billion.

Employers with five to 24 employees spent the most as a cohort on training – £16.65 billion in 2022 which is a decrease from 2017, when they spent £18.1 billion on staff training.

Large employers (with 100 plus employees) spent £14.7 billion on training in 2022, a decline from the £16 billion spent in 2017.

According to the latest figures, the average investment in training per employee in England was £2,971, plummeting 27 per cent since 2011 when £4,095 was spent per employee (adjusted for inflation).

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said today’s figures show the amount employers in England invest in training “continued to flatline.”

Fewer employers are providing training

The survey also found that 60 per cent of companies funded or arranged any training for staff over the past 12 months in England, a drop from 66 per cent in 2017, and 61 per cent in 2019.

Figures show there was a decrease in UK employers providing training in all sectors, apart from the public administration sector. The largest decreases were seen among manufacturing employers (decreasing six percentage points in 2017 to 54 per cent in 2022), and arts and other services sectors (falling eight percentage points in 2017 to 60 per cent in 2022).

Larger employers were more likely to provide training over SMEs – 94 per cent among companies with 250 or more employees compared to 45 per cent in firms with two to four employees.

In 2022, around half (49 per cent) of UK employers provided on-the-job training to their staff over the past 12 months; down from 53 per cent in 2017. 

Furthermore, the proportion of employers providing off-the-job training fell nine percentage points from 2017 to 39 per cent in 2022. 

Around one in five (21 per cent) UK employers offered on-the-job training only, rising from 18 per cent in 2017.

Skills-shortage vacancies growing

More employers are reporting having a skill-shortage vacancy – defined as a hard-to-fill vacancy due to a lack of skills, qualifications or experience among applicants.

In 2022, 10 per cent said they have a skill-shortage vacancy, higher than in 2017, when 6 per cent of employers reported so.

Additionally, more of the UK workforce was not fully proficient in their jobs, i.e. a skills gap.

The proportion of employers that had at least one member of staff with a skills gap was 15 per cent, slightly higher than 13 per cent of employers in 2017.

The percentage of skill-shortage vacancies as a proportion to vacancies in England was 36 per cent, a 14-percentage point increase from the 22 per cent skill-shortage vacancy density reported in 2017.

Education sector among the hardest to fill vacancies

Employers also reported difficulties filling roles, for reasons such as low numbers of applicants with the required skills, a lack of interest in the job, competition from other employers and poor terms and conditions offered for the post. 

These so-called hard-to-fill vacancies were most prevalent among employers in the health and social work (26 per cent had at least one hard-to-fill vacancy), 26 per cent of education employers and 21 per cent of hotels and restaurants sector firms.

“We need a clear plan for economic growth and better incentives for employers to invest in skills, such as a skills tax credit and improved apprenticeship levy,” Evans said. “Our analysis suggests improving skills could boost the economy by £20 billion per year.”