Latest news from FE Week

College campus safety starts long before an incident occurs

When people think about campus safety, they often think about security guards, CCTV cameras or access controls.

Those measures have an important role to play. But in my experience, the most effective way to keep young people safe is not responding to incidents when they occur – it is preventing them from happening in the first place.

That is why the conversation about safety in further education needs to move beyond physical security alone.

Today’s colleges are supporting young people through a far more complex landscape than existed even a decade ago.

According to figures, around 20 per cent of young people have a probable mental health disorder, with 65 per cent feeling unsafe online. The UK’s annual crime survey shows that young people aged 16 to 24 are consistently among the age groups most likely to be victims of violence, while national safeguarding data continues to show concerns around criminal exploitation and county lines activity.

Many of these issues do not begin when a student arrives at college, but they often become visible there.

As a result, safeguarding and security have become inseparable.

FE colleges have always been places of opportunity, environments where young people develop skills, confidence and independence as they prepare for adulthood. But over the past decade, the role colleges play within their communities has evolved significantly.

Today, colleges are not simply education providers. They are large, open, public-facing institutions supporting thousands of young people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances, often with increasingly complex needs. As that landscape changes, so too does our responsibility to safeguard and support the students in our care.

At West Herts College Group, we see first-hand how the challenges affecting young people have become broader and more interconnected. We must think differently about safety and wellbeing from the way we may have done in the past.

Effective safeguarding cannot be limited to responding when concerns reach a crisis point. The most effective approach is one that identifies issues early, provides appropriate support and builds resilience before problems escalate into more serious safeguarding or security concerns.

The rollout of mental health support teams in schools has been a welcome step forward, but while 79 per cent of secondary school pupils are in settings now covered by a mental health support team, only 42 per cent of 16 to 18 year olds are. We would always welcome greater access to specialist mental health support across the FE sector.

It is important to recognise that schools are intervening further upstream, helping children develop resilience and coping strategies from an earlier age. Ultimately, effective safeguarding is a shared endeavour across the entire education system.

Keeping young people safe today requires a much more holistic approach, one built around prevention, partnership working, staff training, student education and early intervention. This means maintaining strong relationships with police, local authorities, safeguarding agencies, youth services and community organisations so that concerns can be identified and addressed before they escalate.

In many cases, the most effective intervention is not a physical security measure at all. It is a timely conversation, an appropriate referral, information shared between partner organisations or support put in place before a situation reaches crisis point.

Recent national discussions around Martyn’s Law have helped highlight the importance of robust emergency planning and security awareness across publicly accessible spaces. In many ways, however, the direction of travel reflected in the legislation aligns with work already taking place across the education sector. Colleges have long understood that creating safe environments requires ongoing review, investment and adaptation.

Young people thrive in environments built on trust, belonging and support. While colleges must be realistic about the challenges facing society today, we must also avoid creating cultures driven by fear or alarmism. Safety should provide reassurance, not anxiety.

The safest campuses are not those with the most visible security measures. They are the ones where students feel supported, connected and able to access help before problems escalate.

A huge amount of work in this area happens quietly behind the scenes, often without public visibility. Yet it has become one of the most important responsibilities colleges carry.

The real exam crisis happened after the papers were sat

Every summer, hundreds of thousands of students leave examination rooms and halls believing that the hardest part is over. After months – often years – of preparation, revision and anxiety, they trust that the next stage of the process will be fair and carefully managed. They assume that their work will be marked by experienced professionals working under conditions that allow them to make accurate judgements.

This summer, that confidence in exams has been severely tested.

The issue has not been the quality of examiners. Across the examining community there remains an extraordinary level of professionalism and commitment. The problem has been the system surrounding them.

Weeks after a number of Pearson’s GCSE examinations had been sat, only a tiny proportion of scripts had been scanned and made available for marking. But I don’t think anyone fully understood the extent of the impact these delays had in numerous ways.

While the official marking period continued to tick away, examiners found themselves with little or nothing to mark, despite being contracted and prepared to begin work immediately. Many of the most experienced examiners balance marking alongside full-time teaching jobs, making evenings and weekends their primary opportunity to complete allocations. Instead of being able to plan their workload sensibly, they spent days repeatedly refreshing online systems in the hope that another handful of scripts might appear.

The consequences of this issue extend far beyond inconvenience and the exam board’s staggering lack of concern left many of us baffled. Regular pleas from the senior examining teams to the powers that be seemed to fall on deaf ears.

When scripts arrive sporadically and in very small batches, examiners inevitably feel pressure to complete them quickly before work disappears again. Team leaders, responsible for monitoring marking quality are simultaneously trying to support anxious examiners, answer constant queries and maintain rigorous quality assurance processes under increasingly difficult circumstances. Senior examining teams become consumed by firefighting rather than leading the marking operation with precision.

The cost for examiners is significant. Frustration builds quickly when contracted work simply isn’t available. Some examiners inevitably question whether they can continue committing their evenings and weekends to a process that appears so unpredictable. Others withdraw altogether, reducing capacity precisely when it is needed most.

But the greatest concern isn’t the experience of examiners. It should be the experience of candidates.

Every delayed script represents a young person – or adult learner – who has invested years of effort into achieving a qualification that could shape their future education or employment. Candidates deserve confidence that their work is being marked carefully, consistently and without unnecessary pressure. They deserve to know that the systems supporting examiners are functioning effectively.

Instead, the risk becomes one of compression. If only a small percentage of scripts have been released during the early weeks of marking, what happens when tens of thousands eventually become available? Can the same level of scrutiny and consistency realistically be maintained if the remaining workload has to be completed in a fraction of the planned time?

Experienced examiners take enormous pride in marking accurately rather than quickly. Quality marking requires time to settle into a paper, become familiar with responses, discuss difficult cases with team leaders and continually calibrate judgements against standardisation. Those processes safeguard fairness for every candidate. Compressing weeks of work into days inevitably places those safeguards under real strain.

Communication also becomes critical during periods like this. Examiners understand that technical issues occur. Large-scale assessment systems are complex, and unforeseen problems can arise. What becomes far more difficult is working in an information vacuum. Senior examiners need clear updates, realistic timelines and honest communication about recovery plans. Without this, uncertainty spreads rapidly throughout marking teams, increasing anxiety and reducing confidence in the process.

It is important to recognise that support staff and operational colleagues are rarely the cause of these difficulties. Throughout periods of disruption, they often find themselves handling escalating concerns from hundreds of examiners while possessing little additional information themselves. Their professionalism frequently prevents situations from deteriorating further, even while they are managing unprecedented workloads.

Public discussion around examinations understandably focuses on the papers themselves – the questions, the grade boundaries and the results. Much less attention is paid to the behind-the-scenes infrastructure, which is every bit as important as the assessment itself. A well-designed examination can only deliver fair outcomes if the systems responsible for processing and marking it function reliably.

Here is the rub – exam boards, including Pearson, outsource much of the actual ‘examining’ work to conscientious educators. But the systems and infrastructures that keep things moving are usually operated by the exam boards internally and rarely come under any scrutiny.

Candidates place enormous trust in awarding organisations. They trust that once they hand over their paper, every stage that follows will be managed with the same care they invested in preparing for it. Examiners share that commitment. They want nothing more than to ensure every script receives the careful, consistent marking it deserves.

When systems supporting that work fail, everyone feels the consequences . But ultimately, the candidates face the greatest risk. Investment in robust processes, realistic contingency planning and transparent communication should never be viewed as operational details. It is fundamental to maintaining confidence in the integrity of the examination system itself. In the current landscape, it is hard not to feel that the drive for profit is the central priority of exam boards, at the expense of the very people paying them for this crucial, life changing service.

A spokesperson for Pearson said: ”Scanning and marking for the 2026 summer series were completed on schedule and as planned. Every paper was marked through Pearson’s established quality assurance processes, ensuring careful, consistent and accurate marking.

In a large-scale operation involving hundreds of thousands of exam papers, scripts are released to markers on a rolling basis as they are scanned, processed and quality checked. As a result, the volume of scripts available to individual markers can vary at different points during the marking period.

We know that markers in some subjects experienced periods when fewer scripts were available than they expected. We understand the challenges this created for those planning their marking around other commitments, including concerns about having enough time to complete their allocations.

As part of every series, we closely monitor script availability and marking progress, so we can support markers and make additional volumes available where they are most needed. While individual markers may have experienced periods of lower availability, this did not reflect the overall position across the series.

It was not the case that only a small proportion of scripts had been scanned and made available for marking in the weeks following the GCSE examinations. All scanning was completed in early July, as planned and in line with the equivalent point in 2025.

We always welcome feedback from markers and will listen carefully to their experiences from this series, including concerns about communication during the marking period. We will use that feedback to improve how we support and communicate with examiners in future series.

Our markers play a vital role in delivering our assessments, and we would like to thank them for the professionalism, expertise and commitment they have shown throughout the series.”

If you have information and insights to share about your experiences of awarding bodies, related to the issues raised in this piece, please get in touch at news@feweek.co.uk

Movers & Shakers: Edition 549

DfE to publish overall T Level scores for each college

Colleges are set to receive an overall attainment score for their T Level provision for the first time, the Department for Education has confirmed.

The new measure will be published from February 2027, covering results from the 2025-26 academic year.

Officials have been working on an overall T Level attainment measure since before the technical courses were introduced in 2020, with publication originally planned for 2023-24 once the third cohort completed.

But the Department for Education (DfE) announced in January 2025 that this timeline would not be met “given the changes made to how overall grades are derived since the original plans were announced”.

Updated technical guidance for 16 to 19 accountability measures, published today, stated that the overall attainment measure has now been developed and will first be published alongside the next release of existing performance measures.

The department said shadow data for 2024-25 would not be shared because of the continued expansion of T Levels and the increasing number of providers delivering the qualifications.

Instead, providers will receive their 2025-26 data during the October 2026 “checking exercise”, which the DfE said would ensure “maximum provider coverage”.

Calculating the T Level attainment measure

T Level grades will be converted into points and contribute to an average point score. A distinction* will be worth 180 points, a distinction 150, a merit 120 and a pass 90.

The points will then be divided by three because T Levels are equivalent in size to three A Levels.

This means a T Level pass will be worth 30 points per entry, equivalent to a C grade at A Level.

The measure will also take account of partial achievement. The T Level core component and occupational specialism will each contribute points, as will completing the industry placement.

No points will be awarded for an incomplete industry placement.

The department previously said the overall attainment measure will include provider breakdowns by learner disadvantage status.

College group reporting

The DfE is also changing how performance is reported for large college groups.

For the first time, the department will publish average point score (APS) data for individual colleges within college groups, rather than just group-level figures.

It will publish campus-level APS data for colleges with campus identifier codes in place as of January 2026.

Students will be allocated to campuses using June 2026 individualised learner record returns.

The DfE said the changes were intended to improve transparency for students and strengthen local accountability, reflecting the growth of large college groups and mergers across the sector.

It will “provide prospective learners with more detailed information to support informed decision making”, the department added.

Only the APS will be disaggregated initially, with the department saying further 16 to 19 measures will be broken down in future years.

Ofsted scraps overall grades for prison education

Ofsted is set to remove overall effectiveness grades for prisons in favour of a new five-point rating system.

The renewed framework, which takes effect from September 21, will evaluate prison educators and leaders on inclusion for the first time and involve a stronger focus on the reading abilities of prisoners.

The move introduces five evaluation areas: inclusion; leadership and governance; curriculum, teaching and training; achievement; and participation and development.

Each area will be graded as either ‘exceptional’, ‘strong standard’, ‘expected standard’, ‘needs attention’ or ‘urgent improvement’.

The system mirrors the five-point scale system rolled out to further education and skills providers in November 2025. That framework also abolished overall effectiveness grades.

Under the current and outgoing prison inspection framework, Ofsted awards an overall effectiveness grade alongside four judgments covering quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management.

Guidance published today revealed the new inclusion evaluation will assess how prison and education leaders overcome barriers that prevent prisoners from engaging with education, training and work, such as being a care leaver, having mental health difficulties or having SEND.

Inspectors will also pay attention to how provision helps prisoners who are at risk because of the nature of their offence and younger prisoners who have moved into the adult estate.

The guidance also promises a “strengthened focus” on teaching reading and improving literacy among prisoners who need it. Inspectors will assess whether prison leaders have an “ambitious” strategy to improve literacy and implement effective reading interventions.

Use of space

The new framework will also evaluate prison leaders on how well they engage with local employers and authorities to support prisoners’ education and whether they are equipping prisoners with skills that match labour market demands.

Under leadership and governance, inspectors will check that prisons have “sufficient and substantial activity spaces” for every sentenced, working-age prisoner and that available spaces are filled.

Leaders can be graded ‘urgent improvement’ where they make poor decisions with a negative impact on prisoners, which the toolkit says may include “inappropriate use of contracting or poor use of available resources”.

Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said high-quality education helps prisoners become “productive and engaged members of society” on release.

“Improving literacy for prisoners will allow them to access a much wider curriculum and help them prepare for life after prison,” he said.

“Our renewed framework for inspections of prison education will drive a stronger focus on ensuring all prisoners, no matter what barriers to learning they face, benefit from excellent education, skills and work.”

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor warned in his annual report last month that education and training was poor in too many prisons, with prisoners spending up to 22 hours a day locked in their cells with nothing to do.

“The number of education, work and training places was often far too low, and even when they were available, attendance, punctuality and the quality of teaching were frequently poor,” the report said.

Quality of contracted provision

Inspectors will also evaluate the leadership of contracted provision under the prison education service (PES) as well as the quality of education provided by suppliers.

The PES contract, worth up to £1.5 billion, began last October and is divided among three education providers: Milton Keynes College, PeoplePlus and Novus, which is part of Manchester-based college group LTE Group.

Since then, regulators and MPs have sounded the alarm over real-terms cuts to the new contracts and redundancies of prison teachers.

The Ministry of Justice has consistently maintained there have been no cuts to the total budget in cash terms, but earlier this year admitted that the volume of core education has been slashed by up to 25 per cent.

Taylor warned in his report that substantial real-term cuts to education provision and a loss of specialist teaching staff threaten to undermine efforts to improve literacy, skills and employability.

“Without adequate resourcing, these changes are likely to leave prisoners without the essential skills needed for successful resettlement and will do little to affect their likelihood of reoffending on release,” he said in his report.

Ofsted report cards: What have nine months taught us?

We’re days away from the new academic year, and a return to work means fresh Ofsted inspections. So what have nine months of the inspectorate’s new report card regime revealed?

From November to July, 279 full inspections of FE and skills providers were published, with the five-point grading system applied across up to 16 individual evaluation areas.

Independent training providers (ITPs) accounted for 209 (75 per cent) of inspections, while general FE colleges made up just 5 per cent with 14 inspected. The rest was split between employer providers, independent specialist colleges, local authority providers and higher education institutions.

Ofsted’s post-16 director Jonathan Childs told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ national conference in July that we were “still some way from having a representative view of how different provider groups, and different types of provision, are faring under the renewed framework”.

However, trends are emerging. Our analysis, which excludes monitoring visit reports and 16-to-19 academies, points to four areas.

‘Exceptional’ no longer an exception

From the 279 full inspections, just two providers received the coveted ‘exceptional’ grade for an evaluation area.

They were Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association for ‘inclusion’, and System People Limited for ‘adult learning programmes’.

Challenged by FE Week on the low number of top grades for the sector last month, Childs said the grade was “definitely not out of reach for any provider type”, adding it was “about you doing the very best job you could be doing with your learners, that is having a transformational impact on their outcomes and is sustained over time”.

Childs said he was “sure and confident” that “plenty more providers” would secure the highest judgment as more inspections were completed.

Since his comments, and the period for this analysis, BAE Systems and the University of Exeter have both been rated ‘exceptional’ for apprenticeship delivery.

Colleges’ leadership woes

Leadership and governance emerged as an area of weakness among the first general FE colleges to be inspected.

Six of the 14 colleges (43 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’ in this area.

Of the 209 ITPs inspected, 28 (13 per cent) received the same grade. Two ITPs suffered the lowest ‘urgent improvement’ rating.

Across all 279 FE and skills providers, 41 (15 per cent) received either ‘urgent improvement’ or ‘needs attention’ for leadership and governance.

No general FE college received an ‘urgent improvement’ judgment, while seven were rated ‘expected standard’ and one achieved ‘strong standard’.

Ofsted flagged issues with student attendance, achievement and retention among colleges receiving ‘needs attention’ grades.

At St Helens College, inspectors found that managers did not identify “quickly enough” why students were dropping out of courses or failing to achieve their qualification.

South and City College Birmingham also received a ‘needs attention’ judgment for leadership and governance after inspectors found that leaders’ actions to improve attendance had “not had the desired outcomes”, adding that the numbers of adults and young people who attend their lessons “remain too low”.

Similar criticism was made to Macclesfield College, Furness College, Wirral Metropolitan College and Bolton College.

The two ITPs that received the lowest possible rating of ‘urgent improvement’ for leadership and governance – Eden College and Averee Ltd – were both criticised for poor oversight of learners’ progress, attendance and achievement.

Achievement struggles

The ‘achievement’ evaluation area has been a focus of criticism for many providers.

Of the 30 full inspections of providers offering 16-to-19 programmes, 11 (37 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’ for achievement.

Eight providers (27 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’ for both curriculum, teaching and training, and participation and development.

Of the 14 general FE colleges inspected, six (43 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’ for 16-to-19 achievement. None received a ‘strong standard’ or ‘exceptional’ judgment.

Achievement rates for education programmes for young people at colleges with low judgments ranged between 76 and 87 per cent, against the national average of 84 per cent.

But Ofsted has stressed that achievement is about more than just qualification outcomes.

Inspectors also consider the progress that learners make from their starting points, the development of their knowledge and skills, and the standards of their work. The watchdog is especially interested in learners’ next steps and whether they go on to positive destinations that match their ambitions and potential.

There have been 199 full inspections covering apprenticeship provision. Of those, 149 were ITPs.

For achievement, 21 providers (11 per cent) received one of the two weakest judgments, with four rated ‘urgent improvement’ and 17 ‘needs attention’.

Three of the four providers to receive ‘urgent improvement’ for achievement – JS Consult, Averee, and Cherith Simmons Learning & Development LLP – had achievement rates ranging between 20 and 36 per cent in 2023-24, against a national average of 61 per cent.

The fourth provider – Oasis Care and Training Agency – had its achievement rate suppressed in that year due to low numbers, but its Ofsted report stated that achievement rates were “extremely low and have been for too long” and there was “no sign that achievements will improve”.

All four training providers operate in the adult care apprenticeship market.

Among the 113 providers to be assessed in the adult learning programme space, 11 (10 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’, and one – Knights Training Academy – received an ‘urgent improvement’ grade. Knights had 25 adult learners, with most studying the level 3 diploma in gym instructor qualification. Ofsted said “too many” of its adult learners “take too long to achieve their qualifications, which significantly slows their ability to move on to further learning or work”.

Strong start for inclusion

Ofsted introduced ‘inclusion’ as a new inspection area under its revamped framework to assess what providers were doing to understand the diversity of their students, and to identify and dismantle barriers to learning and achievement.

Across the 279 providers analysed, 38 (14 per cent) were rated ‘needs attention’, while no provider was dealt an ‘urgent improvement’ judgment.

‘Expected standard’ was achieved by 177 providers (63 per cent), 63 (23 per cent) received ‘strong standard’, and one provider was deemed ‘exceptional’.

Childs told AELP’s conference that for most providers with good inclusion grades, learners’ and apprentices’ needs were “identified early and support is provided swiftly, and – mostly – we have seen staff working effectively with external agencies such as local authorities and health and social care teams to ensure learners get the appropriate support”.

Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association, which received the top ‘exceptional’ grade for inclusion, offers short courses from entry level to level 2 for adults in East London.

Ofsted said the provider was “intrinsically” embedded in its communities and commended leaders for “improving the life chances of people”. The provider “commits to widening participation for those who face significant barriers, particularly those who are unemployed and from poverty”, the report added.

The weakest judgments for inclusion were concentrated among ITPs, with 33 (16 per cent) of the 209 inspected receiving a ‘needs attention’ rating.

Only one general FE college, Furness College, suffered a ‘needs attention’ judgment for inclusion. Two independent specialist colleges also received the judgment.

Childs said that where providers do not achieve ‘expected standard’, the watchdog had found there was “often a lack of useful professional development for staff to enable them to support learners and apprentices facing barriers, such as those with SEND”.

There were also cases where leaders’ monitoring of planned support needed to be “sharper to enable them to understand the effectiveness of interventions and make the appropriate adjustments over time”.

Bell quits Skills England role amid work pressure

David Bell has resigned as vice chair of Skills England, citing the demands of his other commitments in higher education.

Bell had juggled his national role at the government agency for the last 18 months alongside his day job as vice chancellor and chief executive of the University of Sunderland.

He was appointed in February last year to lead the newly established Skills England, alongside chair Phil Smith and joint chief executives Tessa Griffiths and Sarah Maclean.

The Department for Work and Pensions said it had no plans to recruit a replacement vice chair and an existing board member would deputise for Smith as needed.

Bell, a former Department for Education permanent secretary and Ofsted chief inspector, said he maintained a “keen interest” in the skills system but took the decision to stand down “due to the demands of my other commitments”.

Earlier this year, he was also tasked with leading an independent review on antisemitism in colleges. His report detailing recommendations is due to be published this autumn.

“It has been a great pleasure to be part of Skills England’s informed, energetic and enthusiastic board,” Bell said.

“I’m proud that Skills England has already made an important contribution to bringing about the kind of coherence and responsiveness necessary if we’re to make sure our country has the skilled workforce it needs, both now and in the future.”

Smith said: “I want to thank David for his outstanding contribution to the board and wish him all the very best for the future. We appreciate the time and considerable effort he has dedicated to the role of vice chair, alongside his many other commitments.

“His insight and considered judgment have been invaluable in guiding Skills England, as we launched and have worked towards bringing more cohesion, momentum and pace to a system that had become too complex.”

Skills England was set up as an executive agency of the Department for Education, tasked with coordinating cross-government strategies on the country’s skills needs.

Bell, who received between £20,000 and £25,000 a year from the agency, had stressed its role was to provide an “evidence base” for England’s skills requirements but it was up to ministers to decide on spending and resources.

Following the machinery of government change last September, Skills England became part of the Department for Work and Pensions.

DfE ditched provider before Ofsted revealed improvement

A training provider hit by Ofsted’s lowest grade had its government contract torn up a month before inspectors returned and upgraded its apprenticeship achievement judgment by two ratings.

JS Consult Limited, which was the country’s first ITP to get the ‘urgent improvement’ grade when inspected in January, had an 20 per cent official apprenticeship achievement rate for 2023-24.

But inspectors returning for a monitoring visit in July used up-to-date R10 learner data and concluded that “since the previous inspection, leaders’ actions have resulted in a substantial increase in apprentices who complete their course and achieve their qualification”.

The Department for Education had terminated the London provider’s contract in June.

JS Consult received the ‘expected standard’ rating for apprenticeship achievement in a report published on Monday.

The ITP said it had been left “disappointed” by the DfE and called on the department to give providers time to demonstrate progress before terminating contracts.

Four years of failings

During Ofsted’s January inspection, JS Consult had 47 apprentices, with 22 studying the level 3 lead adult care worker apprenticeship.

Inspectors reported that “achievement rates are too low and have been for the previous four years”, adding that too many apprentices have “not been prepared well” for their final assessments and leave their apprenticeship after they achieve their adult care diploma qualification.

Qualification figures for 2024-25, published in March, revealed JS Consult’s overall apprenticeship achievement rate had fallen further to 16.1 per cent.

But JS Consult told FE Week that the Ofsted monitoring team who returned in July used up-to-date R10 learner data provided to the DfE alongside additional evidence of achievement, including end-point assessment certificates for apprentices who had subsequently completed their apprenticeship.

Ofsted confirmed to FE Week that inspectors can use other verified in-year data sources alongside published qualification achievement rates to evaluate achievement, including validated DfE data returns and certificates for learners who have passed their end-point assessment.

Under Ofsted’s new approach, providers receiving the lowest judgment are subject to a monitoring visit within six months of the original inspection.

DfE guidance for ITPs states that where a provider receives an ‘urgent improvement’ judgment for any provider-level or provision-type evaluation area, the department will “consider the provision to be at risk and will assess whether contractual action is required”.

JS Consult had been subject to a suspension on starts from June 2025.

‘Wider questions for sector’

A spokesperson for the firm told FE Week: “We are disappointed the DfE did not wait for the outcome of the monitoring inspection before making the decision to terminate our contract.

“We fully understand the need for intervention where providers are not delivering the required outcomes, but we believe there is an important wider question for the sector about what opportunity providers should have to demonstrate that significant and measurable improvement has been achieved.”

Ofsted’s monitoring report found that leaders had introduced a “comprehensive range of quality improvement activities” over the previous six months, including “suitable” training for tutors and closer working with employers.

The report said more than three quarters of JS Consult’s apprentices who started the level 3 lead adult care apprenticeship were achieving their qualification, with around half getting a merit or distinction.

JS Consult had 21 apprentices in July, including 12 studying the level 3 lead adult care worker apprenticeship. It said it would support all remaining apprentices until completion.

The ITP continues to hold a contract to deliver publicly funded skills bootcamp courses in adult social care.

JS Consult’s spokesperson added: “Our concern is not about avoiding accountability. It is about ensuring that where a provider responds positively to inspection findings, makes substantial improvements and can demonstrate that those improvements are having a real impact on learners and apprentices, there is an opportunity for that progress to be recognised and considered in decisions about the provider’s future.

“We hope that our experience contributes constructively to that wider discussion.”

Training providers ‘optional’ under Reform apprenticeship plan

Training providers would be sidelined under Reform UK plans to let more employers deliver apprenticeships in-house, the party has revealed.

In an apprenticeship policy paper unveiled by education spokesperson Suella Braverman on GCSE results day, Reform pledged to “reverse the collapse” in starts from 353,000 in 2024-25 to a target of 600,000.

By making third-party training providers “optional” for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), Reform said it would reduce “red tape”.

Other proposals include a headline 30 per cent tax credit on wages for SMEs hiring 16 to 18-year-old apprentices, and a £2,000 tax-free retention bonus for young workers who stay with their employer for two years after completing their apprenticeship.

It also suggested softening rules around off-the-job training, English and maths exit requirements and apprentice assessment.

Baroness Alison Wolf, who served as an adviser on skills to the prime minister’s office from 2020 to 2023, called the wage credit policy “in principle a good idea” but said weakening formal training would be “very, very bad”.

“It would effectively abolish apprenticeships in a very large proportion of cases, and just replace it with a wage subsidy,” she said.

‘Suboptimal’ apprenticeship model

Currently, the only employers that can run apprenticeship training in-house are those with a wage bill of at least £3 million that pay the apprenticeship levy.

But of the 37,000 large employers that pay the levy, just 122 have taken this option by becoming a so-called ‘employer provider’.

Reform UK argued the apprenticeship model was “suboptimal” because apprentices must spend six hours a week away from their regular duties for off-the-job training, sometimes in a classroom.

It said this created a cost and bureaucratic burden for employers, particularly small businesses, which must find and choose a training provider.

The party said its proposal would remove this “psychological and practical barrier” by allowing a greater number of employers to conduct apprenticeship training in-house, according to their “professional judgment and industry standards”.

Employers could focus on practical on-the-job training or set aside time for book-based learning where necessary, while external providers would remain available but “optional”.

Young people choose apprenticeships for “proper work experience”, the party argued, adding that classroom environments are “not conducive to many people’s learning needs”.

Reform’s policy paper states that for trades where there are implications for public safety, “qualifications will be required, but again it will be for qualified employers to map out the route”.

It added: “Where outside approval may be necessary, it should be trade associations that carry out assessments in the first instance.”

Reform also promised to scrap the exit requirement for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices to achieve a level 2 qualification in English and maths to complete an apprenticeship. This rule was removed by Labour last year, but only for adults.

The party said it would consult on the proposals if it wins the next general election.

‘Not a bureaucratic burden’

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Ben Rowland welcomed plans to remove English and maths exit requirements for under-19s and measures to make it easier for smaller employers to access incentives and bursaries.

But he questioned whether extending the scope of employers to become in-house training providers would be popular.

He pointed out that only around 0.3 per cent of eligible employers choose to become employer providers, which demonstrates the expertise, capacity and commitment required to deliver apprenticeship training in-house.

Rowland said: “The magic of an apprenticeship is its unique blend of learning on and off the job.

“For most SMEs, dedicated off-the-job training is not a bureaucratic burden but a valuable part of developing a skilled and productive employee.

“Training providers also provide vital support to SMEs throughout the entire apprenticeship journey, from taking on a young person through to successful completion.

“Greater flexibility for employers is welcome, but it must not come at the expense of the high-quality, structured training that makes an apprenticeship an apprenticeship.”

Learning and Work Institute chief executive Stephen Evans said financial incentives like wage subsidies and retention bonuses “can help” increase the number of apprenticeships for young people, but apprenticeship growth “ultimately depends on a strong economy and employer demand”.

He added that apprenticeships should prepare people for a career, not just the job they’re doing today.

“That’s why off-the-job training and English and maths matter,” Evans warned. “Removing these requirements would be a mistake and would take England further out of line with leading apprenticeship systems like Germany.”

Jamie Cater, employment policy manager at manufacturing sector body Make UK, said businesses would welcome simplification of the apprenticeship system, but removal of off-the-job training and basic literacy and numeracy skills would “risk undermining the readiness of apprentices to move straight into work”.

600,000 starts a year

Reform’s overall goal is to reach 600,000 apprenticeship starts a year, almost double the 353,000 starts recorded in 2024-25.

The party’s 30 per cent wage credit for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices would provide up to £4,742 per worker per year.

Reform’s calculations for the wage credit and retention bonus estimate a cost of between £1.4 and £2 billion between 2027-28 and 2031-31.

The current government apprenticeship budget is £3.3 billion a year and has been fully spent in recent years, forcing ministers to find savings by cutting public funding for some apprenticeships.

Reform did not pledge to increase the overall apprenticeship budget, instead pointing to savings elsewhere including a proposal to ban foreign students from accessing taxpayer-funded loans for university study.

The party would also “come down like a tonne of bricks on taxpayer-funded Mickey Mouse degrees from third-rate universities”, with no more public subsidies for “woke nonsense like gender studies or critical race theory”.

Other proposals include creating a “one-stop shop” for apprenticeship contracts, employer handbooks and paperwork, and using “automation” to speed up the apprenticeship service.

The party would also scrap the current intermediate, advanced and higher apprenticeship classifications and instead classify apprenticeships by occupation, with ranked standards within each occupation.