Robert Halfon resigns as skills minister

Robert Halfon has resigned as minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education and plans to stand down as an MP at the next election.

Posting on X this afternoon, he said he “feels it is time for me to step down” after more than two decades in parliament.

Halfon became skills minister for the first time in 2016 but was sacked a year later by then-prime minister Theresa May. 

He moved on to become the chair of the education select committee, serving for five years, before returning to the skills brief, with the additional job of higher education, in the Department for Education in October 2022.

It is not clear at this stage who will replace Halfon as skills minister.

He becomes the 63rd Conservative MP to announce they are resigning at the next election.

In a letter to the Harlow MP, prime minister Rishi Sunk said: “I wanted to pay tribute to your greatest legacy in parliament, which is of course your passion for promoting apprenticeships.

“You have been a stalwart champion for this remarkable and life changing programme, which is underpinned by our conservative principles to empower people to climb the ladder of opportunity.”

‘Political life has its ups and downs’

Halfon, who has commonly said in ministerial speeches that he is a huge admirer of author JRR Tolkien, signed off his resignation post with a quote from the Lord of the Rings.

He said: “Political life, while fulfilling, has its ups and downs. At these times, I read J.R.R. Tolkien both as a great source of comfort, but also for some good advice.

“As I move towards stepping down at the general election, I am reminded of what Gandalf said to Frodo Baggins after the defeat of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings: ‘I am with you at present…but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire…My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help…among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.’

“Although I often feel more like the character Bilbo Baggins than Gandalf, I believe these words have great resonance, and perfectly capture my feelings as I move onto my next journey in life.”

The frontbencher has become well-known for his “ladder of opportunity” catchphrase and has been influential over policies including the apprenticeship levy, T Levels, adult education budget devolution, the lifelong learning entitlement and level 3 qualification reforms.

The staunch champion of further education and skills also frequently states that he was the first MP to employ an apprentice when he was elected in 2010.

Halfon used his maiden speech to call for “root-and-branch cultural change” so apprenticeships are “held in the same regard as higher education by secondary school teachers”.

Speaking at the Annual Apprenticeships Conference last month, Halfon said he was “most proud of evangelising about apprenticeships” in his time as minister. He added that even with reforms like the Baker clause, “I want even more done in schools, even now”.

‘His drive to back FE will be missed’

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said Halfon’s “drive to promote inclusion and to back further education will be missed”.

He added: “He has been a passionate champion for further education, skills and apprenticeships throughout his tenure as chair of the education select committee, and as minister, bringing to the roles a commitment to colleges and to understand from students and apprentices as much he can about what works for them.

“I am confident that he will continue to be a passionate supporter of our sector and a fervent advocate of students and their needs when his time as an MP comes to an end.”

Sue Pember, director of policy at adult education network HOLEX, said Halfon “will leave a void that will be keenly felt”.

“He has been a great advocate of the role of adult community education and has been unwavering champion of innovation and raising standards,” she added. “The policies he has introduced in the last three years will have a beneficial impact on lifelong learning for a generation.”

Ben Rowland, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive, described Halfon as “somebody that has spent his political career fighting for the skills sector”.

He said: “AELP has seen first-hand how Robert Halfon has understood the important role independent training providers play in delivering high-quality skills provision right across the country.

“We need champions for the skills sector on all sides in Parliament, so it is a shame that Robert Halfon won’t be able to continue that work after the next election. However, it is clear that without his work over the last 15 years, the apprenticeship system would not be as strong as it currently is and everyone at AELP would like to wish him all the best for the future.”

SEND colleges slam ‘unwieldy’ English and maths resit reforms

Specialist colleges have warned the government that its controversial English and maths resit reforms are an “unwieldy demand” for SEND learners and could increase dropout rates.

An overwhelming majority of SEND colleges (91 per cent) in a new survey published today by the National Association of Specialist Colleges (Natspec) have condemned the “dictated hours” announced last month.

Under the new rules from 2025, post-16 providers must teach students a minimum of three hours a week of English and four hours of maths if they failed to achieve a pass in the subjects at GCSE, or risk losing funding. Teaching must be “whole class” and “in person”.

Students with special educational needs and/or disabilities and an EHC plan, who are assessed as unable to study towards either GCSE, functional skills or stepping stone qualifications, can be made exempt from the condition. 

However, these students must be individually assessed, there should be no blanket exemptions and colleges “must make every effort to enable students to study approved qualifications” before assessing them as exempt.

SEND leaders have added their voice to furore from general FE college bosses, saying that the move will be “counterproductive”, increase dropouts, reduce learner attendance, lead to additional stress and take time away to develop vocational and vital social skills for vulnerable learners.

Natspec’s survey involved 46 of its members who currently teach 1,536 students English and maths, the majority of whom study functional skills (68 per cent) or stepping stone qualifications (20 per cent).

The results show that for 63 per cent of English students and 65 per cent of maths students currently study fewer guided learning hours than the new increased minimum.

For many, current guided learning hours for the subjects are around 1.5 hours per week, according to the report.

One respondent said that “the new guidelines will cause a huge amount of behavioural and staffing issues”, while another highlighted that they would “impact on other areas of the curriculum, such as learning skills for employment and independent living, which are the primary aims of the courses the learners have enrolled for”.

Another surveyed college said: “Good functional skills development and enhanced communication skills are absolutely essential, but if learners have not achieved after 15 years of classroom provision through school and FE it seems unhelpful for both learning and motivation to bring in such an unwieldy demand.”

‘Unmanageable’ for the most vulnerable learners

Meanwhile, 81 per cent of respondents said that the requirement for “stand-alone, whole-class, in-person teaching” would have a negative impact on some or all students, citing the importance of a “person-centred approach and flexible teaching methods”.

One respondent said learners would not be able to cope with being in larger groups, as they find it distracting and overwhelming, “which has an impact on everyone’s learning and safety”.

One small SEND college said the change would ultimately impact their funding from the ESFA “due to learners likely needing one-to-one or very small group sessions which costs more”.

Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, said: “The findings from our survey highlight the negative consequences of the Department for Education’s recent condition of funding rule changes on students with SEND. These are made all the more frustrating given the lack of consultation with Natspec and other key stakeholders in the education sector.

“I am pleased that the department is now consulting with the sector and I hope that listening to the collective expertise of FE organisations and colleges will lead to more inclusive policies which acknowledge the nuanced needs of students with SEND.

“Moving forward, it is imperative that any policy affecting such vulnerable learners is shaped by thorough engagement with those who understand their needs best.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Our Maths and English Condition of Funding changes, backed by significant new funding for colleges, will help make sure all young people get the English and maths skills they need to progress in work and life.

“We are continuing to work with the sector on implementation including how to maximise the benefits for students with SEND.”

Manchester provider’s AEB contracts terminated early

A private training provider has lost contracts worth over half a million pounds with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) after Ofsted branded its adult skills training ‘inadequate’.

In 2023-24, GMCA paid Blackburn-based Get SET Academy (GSA) £521,690 for adult education services, but an update on the authority’s spending this week says this has been cut to zero as the provider “failed Ofsted minimum requirements”.

Following an inspection in August last year, Ofsted rated GSA ‘requires improvement’ overall but its adult learning programmes as ‘inadequate’, describing the standard of training that adult learners receive as “poor”.

Ofsted also slammed GSA’s 12-week digital skills bootcamp as “too complex” and taught at an “extremely rapid pace”.

Inspectors reported that few bootcamp learners developed “substantial new knowledge” and raised concerns that learners were unclear about whether or when they would have a job interview lined up with a local employer – despite this being a key part of the course.

According to GMCA’s adult education contract specifications, providers are expected to have a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating.

No uniform approach to poor Ofsted grades

Last year, FE Week reported that most mayoral combined authorities with control over their adult education budget take a discretionary approach to whether providers with ‘inadequate’ Ofsted grades see their contracts terminated.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s contract guidance states that it has discretionary powers over poor-performing providers, which can include options such as suspending new starts, reducing payments, or terminating the contract entirely following an Ofsted grade four report.

GSA told FE Week it lost three contracts with GMCA, including free courses for jobs training, adult education, and skills bootcamps, which has “curtailed” the company’s growth plans.

However, the company continues to provide digital marketing skills bootcamps with Lancashire County Council extending its contract into 2024.

It also continues to provide Multiply maths training and apprenticeships in early years and pharmacy.

A spokesperson said: “Although we had a poor grade for adult learning, specifically the digital skills bootcamp, that was due to having an over-ambitious curriculum as we tried to cover the majority of what the employers were looking for.

“Since then, we have condensed the curriculum, which is relevant to the learner to progress and gain the right level of knowledge and skills to enable them to progress towards an apprenticeship or employment.”

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: “Following the Get Set Academy Ofsted report in October, a visit has taken place to meet the quality team, review the quality improvement plan and conduct an observation.

“During this meeting learners were interviewed and presented a positive attitude towards their course.

“Retention on the course is excellent and job outcomes are very positive.

“Lancashire will continue to monitor performance of leaners and seek their feedback.”

A spokesperson for GMCA said: “Since Greater Manchester took responsibility for the devolved adult education budget we have worked hard to ensure that adult skills provision is of a good standard for learners in our city-region.

“These standards are set out clearly in our procurement process and in contracts with providers.

“Where providers are found not to meet these standards we reserve the right to take action, including terminating contracts.”

Keith Smith, Harrow, Richmond & Uxbridge Colleges

Keith Smith has a unique perspective on the FE sector’s challenges, having viewed them at bird’s eye level as one of the Department for Education’s top policy masterminds, and now on the campus frontline as chief executive of Harrow, Richmond & Uxbridge Colleges (HRUC).

Smith’s fingerprints are all over many of the policies that have shaped the FE sector as we know it. At the Education and Skills Funding Agency, he led on apprenticeship funding reforms and the introduction of the levy, before becoming the architect of the 2021 skills white paper as DfE’s director of strategy.

After receiving a college education, Smith skilled himself up further during his 25-year civil service career by taking short courses at night school. He later helped come up with the government’s lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) policy, which aims to ease the way for others to bypass the traditional degree route to success too.

Nowadays, Smith sees himself as “living the skills white paper” he helped design. The strategic vision he’s drawn up for HRUC is the embodiment of it.

He sees the purpose of his colleges as being to drive local economic prosperity and social mobility, which he is aspiring to do by consolidating links with local employers, embarking on new relationships with schools, and expanding apprenticeships provision.

While Smith is no longer a civil servant, he is still unflinchingly loyal to his old bosses and is clearly wary of being drawn into any criticism of them. His deeply engrained Whitehall mindset and his wish not to discuss his life outside of his current role makes him a tough, but fascinating, interviewee.

Keith Smith

The college route

Smith does not fit the stereotype of a senior civil servant in that he did not go to university, never mind the traditional Oxbridge route.

A 2019 report by the Sutton Trust found that 100 per cent of permanent secretaries across government had attended university, reflecting how rare Smith’s education journey was for a senior civil servant.

Smith is from and still lives in the Midlands, these days commuting from there to the three colleges he oversees across five London campuses. He studied business and finance at a college and skilled himself up later in life through night school “lifelong learning” courses.

“I only started to do university-type training later on in my career as professional development,” he said.

He went on to propose through the skills white paper a Lifelong Loan Entitlement, enabling any adult to access loans for higher technical courses as they would for a university degree.

Ministers pin their hopes of reversing the decimation of adult education on the LLE, and you can to a point see Smith’s own education journey in the policy’s design.

“I talk about the progressive nature of education and skills creating a future for everyone, because I was a product of that myself,” he says.

“My hope is that if we do our job well now, there’ll be more people in boardrooms who haven’t been to university and have acquired skills in many different routes.”

Keith Smith speaking at a conference in 2015

Civil service ladder

Smith’s career began with eight years at an employment benefit office. Seeing people “at their most vulnerable, when they’ve just been made redundant”, made a deep impression on him.

“It’s a really terrible thing to go through, and you see how much people need support. That duty to help stayed with me.”

He then worked for what is now the Department for Work and Pensions (then called the Employment Service), before moving onto the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, working mainly for non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) on the “operational side of policy”.

He has “always loved being at the frontline where policy touches delivery,” and continued doing that when he moved to the Education and Skills Funding Agency. He worked his way up to director of funding and programmes and later director of apprenticeships, and was heavily involved in the rollout of the apprenticeship levy in 2017.

He points out how for a decade before that, the “big policy” of government had been “getting more young people to go to university”.

Therefore, his “overwhelming feeling” at the time was, “isn’t it wonderful that we’re now putting apprentices back on the map”.

He sees this period as the “start of the renaissance of apprenticeships”, which Smith believes are part of the skills systems of all the “really innovative” countries.

His aim now at HRUC is to be able to “offer an apprenticeship to anybody that wants one”.

But Smith is not blind to the challenges facing the apprenticeships market. Last year, he endorsed a report from Policy Exchange claiming that the levy system suffers from both a “lack of transparency and poor understanding about its purposes”.

Smith admits, when asked about criticism of the levy, that “systems always have to improve”.

Keith Smith in his ESFA role

White paper architect

When Smith became DfE’s director of strategy in 2020, it was the first time he had been focused solely on policy rather than “running a major programme” and “actually delivering things”.

Some of the policies in the Skills for Jobs white paper that he drafted have since been enacted – local skills employment plans, for example, which aim to align college and training provider courses to local skills needs, are now being turned into actionable goals.

Ministers insist the LLE is on track to be introduced from 2025, even though in a recent higher education short course trial of the entitlement, only 125 students from an expected 2,400 enrolled onto the courses.

“Who knows what” the upcoming general election will bring, Smith says. “You just hope enough of that [policy work] sticks for long enough that we will see really meaningful change.”

After finishing the white paper, Smith felt it would “not be easy” to “keep being in that space” at DfE. “How do you match that?” he questions.

But his decision to leave in 2022 was not easy, given that his entire career had been in the civil service. Smith reflects on his time there, he says, without regrets. He feels “very lucky” to have worked on “big system issues”. But he also admits that he “never felt fully complete in doing that”.

“I loved that job, and I’d be doing it today … except that I wanted to take all of the things I thought we could do as a system and do it within an organisation.

“There’s no better way in my mind of doing that than with a college.”

These days, he misses the “really fantastic people” he worked with in government. He has “huge respect” for ministers, “because they’ve got constituency jobs too and many of them are parents”.

“When you work really closely with them, you see just how committed they have to be just to even turn up every day, let alone deal with all of the weight of the problems they have to deal with. You see their human side, whereas many people just see the person on TV or the letter that they’ve sent.”

As a civil servant Smith could, to some extent, hide behind the ministers fronting policy decisions. As a college leader though, he sees his role as “time to be held accountable personally for doing things within an organisation”.

Keith Smith at HCUC

Merger beginnings

Smith joined the then HCUC (Harrow College and Uxbridge College) at a turbulent time. A merger with Richmond-upon-Thames College (RuTC) was looming after the college had been put at “significant risk” by financial management failures two years previously.

RuTC already had plans in motion to rationalise its college estate, with some college buildings being bulldozed to make way for new homes.

Meanwhile, HCUC was leading the West London Institute of Technology, one of 12 IoTs rolled out nationwide.

As part of the merger plans, it was decided that the West London Institute of Technology would expand into a new £10 million STEM facility as part of RuTC’s estate redevelopment, which is set for completion this summer.

The merger was finally sealed in January 2023 after a 17-month delay due to “ongoing risks” around the Richmond redevelopment, a finance report said.

The merger involved a “huge amount of work” from Smith, but he is proud of having gone through it without making anyone redundant as a result.

“If anything, we want to grow what we do between the colleges.”

Although he admits that “financial constraints” were a consideration, Smith does not see the merger as having been driven by finance. He believes that viewing it “through the lens of money” would mean that “things would fail over time”.

“You’ve got to have a clear purpose for why you want to be coming together. Ours was all about how we enhance the offer in Richmond and play to the strengths we have in Harrow and Uxbridge.”

Keith Smith

Sixth form provision

Smith believes his Whitehall experience has made him more “visionary” and prepared to “take risks” as a college leader. “No relationship is too big” to consider.

This helps explain why he is currently linking West London IoT with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, through an industry liaison programme. He is hoping the partnership will enable his staff to learn from the American experts what makes for a successful IoT.

Another initiative Smith is excited about is a unique “sixth form plus” offer that RuTC is partnering with its local Richmond upon Thames School on, at its redeveloped RuTC campus.

The partnership, which will provide a hybrid teaching model of A-level and vocational courses, will be operate under a co-ownership model overseen by an executive management board.

Smith sees the provision as bringing “the best of schools and colleges together through collaboration”.

He is concerned that the “big system challenge that policymakers in the future have” is the “challenge of competition”, with colleges, school sixth forms and sixth form colleges “for too long being often pitted against each other”.

Smith sees opportunities on the horizon if the advanced British standard (ABS) qualification goes ahead as planned – as long as educators can “collaborate differently”.

Keith Smith

‘Messages do get heard’ by DfE

He welcomes that the ABS qualification would spell “more contact hours” for college students, but concedes that the sector is already facing “constraints” in the contact time it can currently offer.

As a college CEO, his biggest challenge is teacher recruitment, and although he knows “there’s no single easy fix”, it is still “important that we tell our DfE colleagues that this is a real problem for us”.

He urges the college sector “not always to get frustrated when it feels like we’re not being listened to [by DfE], because there are fiscal, political and practical constraints” in the echelons of power that “we are not part of.”

“One thing I know for sure, having done the job for a long time is that the messages do get heard. It doesn’t always feel like that. But we should never give up trying to improve and advocating, because it matters so much.”

We must embrace new modes of delivery for our under-pressure learners

There has been a significant shift in learner attitudes in recent years with short-term priorities, including the shadow of rising living costs, increasingly taking precedence over long-term career and educational goals.

However, forward-thinking colleges and training providers are remedying this by implementing innovative technology which allows learners to continue their studies and progress their careers, despite challenging circumstances. The impact of this has the potential to reach far beyond the individual student, once again putting further education and workplace learning at the forefront of social change.

A recent report by the All-Party Parliamentary Groups of Students and Further Education and Lifelong Learning shows that many further education students are responding to financial pressures by taking on more paid work in order to support themselves and their families which can have a significant impact on their studies.

Research by the Association of Colleges has found that many students now consider bursaries and hardship funds to be an essential household income stream, but this money is being diverted to cover domestic costs such as food and energy bills, rather than costs associated with their education. This means that they remain unable to afford the necessary travel, childcare or equipment needed in order to succeed on their course.

And financial challenges are only the start of the story. Time deprivation due to extra shifts, multiple jobs or ‘side hustles’ necessary to make ends meet means that learners are missing classes, falling behind and ultimately dropping out when they feel unable to catch up.

There are also social factors driven by increasing prices. For example, the high cost of formal childcare in the UK (which is among the highest in the world) remains a particular barrier to work and education, and one that disproportionately affects women, who are statistically more likely to be primary child carers.

Learners are feeling the pinch from all angles

Workplace learning is also suffering. Business investment in areas such as employee training is lower in the UK than any other country in the G7. Where staff can access workplace training, they too are coming up against the same challenges as other learners – the need to fit their studies into increasingly busy lives.

With learners feeling the pinch from all angles, there’s a real risk that the current economic climate will have a long-term negative impact on productivity, equality and social mobility.

However, there is hope shining through from the world of adult education and skills. The flourishing UK edtech sector offers an array of opportunities for colleges and employers to offer more flexible, accessible training.

Colleges and employers who have already embraced this technology have found it to be transformational, allowing learners to continue their training despite challenging economic and social factors.

At the forefront of this is the integration of technology into traditional delivery. If learning can be done at a time and place convenient for the student, with online resources designed specifically for this purpose, they will have the freedom to study on their terms. Suddenly, a last minute shift change at work no longer means falling behind at college – it simply means swapping study days. It also reduces transport, childcare and equipment costs, lessening the financial barriers to education.

It is here that the benefits of apprenticeships can also be seen – both as a cost-effective option for the employer looking to upskill their team, and a financially attractive choice for the learner who can study and work at the same time. As well as flexible or blended online delivery, technology also allows employers to deliver and manage the apprenticeship process by reducing administrative burdens, automating progress tracking and reporting, and enabling flexibility around work patterns.

During difficult times, it can often be hard to see beyond looming challenges, but this is where the ‘Cinderella sector’ is so essential. Colleges and training providers enjoy the unique privilege of witnessing key turning points in learners’ lives and careers, and more than ever are compelled to forge ahead with new methods of delivery.

The potential of technology in education has been touted for many years, and with a pressing need to meet learners’ needs in a challenging new normal, now is the time to turn that potential into power.

Using immersive technologies in training for specialist roles

We all know the value of providing learners with industry contact. Workplace visits and work placements add genuine value to their studies and can often help them connect with career pathways they knew little about or thought out of their reach.

But employers have a limited capacity to provide these high-value, high-quality experiences that are an increasingly integral part of so many courses. How then do we plug that gap?

It’s important we do. Our role as educators goes beyond delivering course content, and some industry skills can only really be gained in the role. The more specialist the role, the truer this is.

A pioneering project at Calderdale College shows that incorporating innovative, digitally-led learning environments into our curriculum can give further education settings a big boost in supporting students into such specialist roles.

Our pilot project tested the use of simulation-based education and immersive technologies including virtual reality (VR) for formative assessment. Its aim was specifically to gauge how well this would help prepare students for gaining qualified status in the social care sector.

The pilot, funded by the NCFE Assessment Innovation Fund, highlights the diverse responses of FE students to virtual and immersive experiences of teaching, learning and assessment.

It was our T Level Digital students who actually developed the proof of concept for social care VR scenarios, which were then developed into prototype scenarios by our tech partner, Taran3D. In doing so, they incorporated elements of the T Level Health curriculum and Care Certificate Standard 15.  Our health students then undertook the scenarios both within the VR environment and also by attending practical sessions at an NHS simulation centre.

This will only be successful with adequate training and orientation

The feedback was positive. The students were particularly impressed with the simulation centre and working in a professional hospital environment. They found using VR within the classroom setting relatively realistic considering the scenarios were not final products, and they recognised the value of colleges using VR for teaching and learning.

The project ran for an academic year and delivery of the assessments was timetabled to coincide with the usual assessment points. However, as this was a bolt-on project some students felt disorientated when the new style of assessment was introduced. This raised the issues of digital disadvantage as none of our students had prior use of VR headsets. A lack of timetable flexibility to test out new approaches compounded the problem.

It also demonstrated the need to include simulation as a standard mode of assessment. This will only be successful if it is thoroughly implemented into a student’s timetable with adequate training and orientation to avoid it impacting negatively on the learner’s assessment.

The use of VR and simulation suites for learning is already offered at university level and within clinical environments for continued professional development. However, this project has showcased that with the right digital infrastructure colleges can also deliver this type of learning to a high quality. Doing so can only help to create innovative curriculums to ready students to enter industry.

Colleges can only do this if the funding is available to prioritise ongoing faculty development for effective use of immersive technologies.

The technical element of immersive technologies and simulated practice needs to be thoroughly implemented prior to using simulation for learning and assessment and fully embedded into college processes, systems and management. Training and orientation for students and staff needs to be timetabled at the beginning of the academic year to avoid the potential of student anxiety.

Project-based learning is integrated into every aspect of college life at Calderdale College. It is a critical part of the way we deliver our courses. However, the current skills required in industry go beyond what qualifications specify, and this gap is only likely to grow as technology transforms the workplace.

Closing that gap requires collaboration with employers, but it doesn’t all have to rely on physical placements. Our project shows that embedding immersive technologies into provision not only gives students the opportunities they need to prepare for the workplace but eases the strain on colleges and employers when it comes to the kind of high-quality training that helps fill job vacancies.

For more information about the pilot and to read the final report, visit the NCFE website

The specialist FE sector should have its own clear ministerial brief

Whenever the election takes place, it is essential that the next government take a more coordinated approach to specialist FE. Clear lines of responsibility are needed to truly support young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Specialist FE colleges play a vital role within the wider FE and Skills sector for 16-25 year-olds with complex needs. But they are often overlooked because of a disconnect between responsibility for SEND, which lies with the minister for children, families and wellbeing, and responsibility for FE, overseen by the minister for skills, further and higher education.

The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan pledged better integration of specialist colleges with FE and SEND policies. But meaningful steps have not yet been taken.

As a result, there is poor coordination and policy fragmentation for SEND in FE. The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Schools dominate SEND policy and FE is often overlooked. Local authority schools forums make decisions on high needs budgets, and according to research by Special Needs Jungle high needs provision capital allocations will create just 160 places in FE – less than on per cent of the 20,000 new specialist places being created.

Meanwhile, there is a similar lack of consideration of SEND within FE policy. The recent change to the condition of funding rules demonstrate this with a one-size-fits-all approach that overlooks diverse and complex learning needs.

In a survey of 46 Natspec colleges, 91 per cent said that the new minimum teaching hours would have a negative impact on some or all of their students who are studying qualifications. Nearly 81 per cent said that the requirement for “stand-alone, whole-class, in-person teaching” would have a negative impact due to the importance of a person-centred approach, small groups and 1:1 interventions.

Overcoming neglect requires a unified strategy

Such neglect of SEND within FE policy has also resulted in underfunding. Despite being entirely state-funded, specialist colleges are not in scope for FE capital funds at all, and receive an average of just £40,000 annually for all their capital needs – a drop in the ocean. They depend on donations, fundraising and reserves to maintain and repair aging buildings.

Failing to co-ordinate across briefs leads to inefficiencies, limited accountability and policy fragmentation. Specialist colleges are under-valued and fall between two stools, with each Department for Education (DfE) minister wrongly presuming the other is primarily responsible for SEND in FE.

Neither the two ministers nor their officials offer any clear leadership, and they do not appear to be working actively together to ensure a joined-up policy for the sector. We often find ourselves signposted to different teams, each with a limited understanding of either FE and Skills, or SEND.

Recent discussions with Robert Halfon indicate ministers are beginning to recognise the issue. The Labour Party has also shown a promising commitment to a ‘joined up’ approach to specialist FE. Seema Malhotra MP, the shadow minister for skills spoke at Natspec’s 2024 manifesto launch, also attended by Helen Hayes MP, the shadow minister for children and early years.

However, we need more than talk. Overcoming the neglect of specialist FE requires a unified strategy.

Specialist FE providers should be formally, firmly and overtly placed within the minister for skills and FE’s brief. That minister should be the main point of contact for specialist FE and also be responsible for ensuring that the minister for children, families and wellbeing considers the needs of FE providers within 0-25 SEND policy. No more being passed from pillar to post. 

In addition, there should be regular joint meetings between the specialist FE sector and both ministers. They should mandate their two DfE teams to collaborate, ensuring that no FE policy is introduced without consideration of learners with SEND, and no SEND policy is introduced without consideration of FE, including specialist provision.

An inclusive, bold strategy is overdue. Allocating responsibility, with methods of collaboration across ministerial briefs baked in, is essential – not only to support the sector but to support the government’s own goals of reducing the disability employment gap and encouraging economic growth.

The next government must actively champion specialist FE with clear, dedicated leadership and accountability so that specialist FE no longer falls through the cracks.

City and Guilds fined £200k for regulatory breaches

An awarding giant has been fined £200,000 for repeated “errors” in its exam materials and failing in its duty to notify regulators of problems in good time.

In a notice published this morning, exam regulator Ofqual said an investigation into City and Guilds last year uncovered a series of errors with its assessments.

The regulator looked at 75 incidents between April 2022 and May 2023 and found that the awarding body had failed to quickly report some issues, with delays of six months or more in some cases.

Awarding organisations are required to tell Ofqual about incidents which may have an adverse effect on the delivery of qualifications or assessments under their conditions of registration with the regulator. Failure to do so is considered a breach.

Overall, Ofqual found 28 errors with exam papers and online examination materials, 16 issues with delivering the exams and 13 issues with results or certificates issued to learners.

A “significant aggravating factor” for Ofqual was that many of the errors related to issues City and Guilds promised to fix three years ago after admitting “delivery failures” in its animal management qualifications in 2018/19.

Ofqual said an action plan agreed after those failures was “not successful” in preventing the more recent errors, which were “similar in nature”.

The regulator said: “There are indications that City & Guilds did not effectively review its approach to the development, delivery, and award of qualifications when producing the action plan in 2019 and since.”

Third fine for the awarding giant

The £200,000 fine is the third and largest City and Guilds has received from the exam regulator.

It has also agreed to cover Ofqual’s “reasonable” legal costs, which are yet to be confirmed.

Following City and Guilds’ 2018/19 delivery failures, Ofqual issued a £50,000 fine and asked it to pay £8,558 in legal costs.

Ofqual issued its first-ever financial penalty – a £38,000 fine plus £9,000 in legal costs – to the awarding body in 2016 over the late issuing of 22,000 results.

An additional aggravating factor was that each of the previous fines for regulatory failures included a “failure to promptly notify Ofqual of relevant events”, the notice said.

Over 20 conditions of recognition, rules exam boards must follow, were found to have been breached by City and Guilds.

Mitigation accepted by enforcement committee

In mitigation, the regulator accepted that City and Guilds developed its 2019 action plan in “good faith”, even if it was not based on a “sufficiently deep root cause analysis”.

The notice said: “In each incident, City and Guilds has acted with integrity and with the interests of the learners at the forefront ensuring that thorough incident management has been implemented to minimise the effect on learners.”

Ofqual’s enforcement committee agreed that the length of time the issues have occurred is “in part due to the impact of the pandemic”, which diverted most of the awarding body’s resources towards “alternative assessment and certification models”.

City and Guilds has since put in place a £1 million “awarding organisation transformation programme” as well as “short-term improvement actions” in the last 18 months.

Key changes to its operations reportedly include a new responsible officer, strengthened governance, new heads of assessment and development, investment in specialist software and a new quality management strategy.

Ofqual also recognised that in the last two years of spring and summer exams there have been “very limited issues” with its results.

Ian Bauckham, chief regulator at Ofqual, said: “City and Guilds have co-operated from the beginning and their latest improvement plan promises to be strong. An improved approach, along with the fine, should allow everyone to draw a line under these issues and go forward with a renewed sense of confidence.”

A spokesperson for City and Guilds said it is pleased to successfully issue around 650,000 qualification results every year in England.

They added: “Whilst the vast majority of our qualifications are taken and awarded each year without issue, we are sorry that in the past some of our assessment materials and operational processes have fallen short.

“We accept Ofqual’s finding that there were errors in some cases dating back to 2018.

“Although we sought to mitigate these, we recognise that the steps we took – though undertaken in good faith and accepted by Ofqual – were not sufficiently effective in addressing the issues which had arisen.

“The adjustments needed to our operations were affected by the later COVID-19 pandemic which slowed progress in our ability to implement actions as fully as we would have hoped.”

Neurodiversity in the workplace will stall without support from FE

Young learners are contending with a range of challenges and one area that is often overlooked is how neurodiversity can be better supported as people train and enter the workplace. Diversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords; they are essential components of success.

However, the City & Guilds Foundation’s Neurodiversity Index 2024 shows that neurodiversity is still not given the attention it deserves. Whether learners and younger workers have been diagnosed with ADHD, are on the autism spectrum or have a learning disability, neurodivergent people face significant challenges entering the workforce and thriving in the workplace when they do.

According to this new piece of research, half of neurodivergent employees in the workplace have missed work due to a lack of support for the challenges they face with their condition. This is the workplace that young people across training providers and colleges when they leave their educational settings.

The report also shows that 36 per cent of neurodivergent employees have received no guidance or support in their work environment while 20 per cent are waiting for adjustments to be put into place. Understandably, this exacerbates feelings of isolation and hinders productivity.

Most concerning of all, the survey shows that only 49 per cent of employers say that disability and inclusion policies are important to them, down from 53 per cent in the Neurodiversity Index 2023. These statistics are a sobering reminder of the obstacles faced by those who aren’t neurotypical, and quite often these obstacles don’t start when someone enters work but much earlier in their lives.

The rise in diagnoses of neurodivergence, especially among young people, in recent years further emphasises the urgency of creating inclusive workplaces for the future. For instance, between 1998 and 2018, the UK saw a staggering 787 per cent increase in diagnoses of autism, while another study shows a 20-fold increase in diagnoses of ADHD between 2000 and 2018.

Embracing neurodiversity is a moral and strategic imperative

With such a substantial rise, we must adapt to support cohorts of young people who will be entering the workplace. Their greater representation is inevitable, and they need to be supported to offer their full potential. This means tackling practices that perpetuate the exclusion of neurodivergent individuals, but also empowering them to make the transition from education to the world of work and to advocate for themselves with their future employers.

While our report focuses on actionable steps that businesses can take to foster neuroinclusive environments, there are learnings too for those that are nurturing our young people as they prepare for work. This includes:

  • Rolling out mandatory neuro-inclusion training to support tutors, trainers and staff not only to increase their knowledge and awareness but also to make necessary adaptations where required
  • Adopting ‘Neurodiversity Champions’ who can model best practice and provide a first port of call for young people who are seeking advice
  • Encouraging young people to look for organisations that adopt inclusive practices during the hiring process, for example those that make job descriptions accessible or provide questions before an interview to allow for preparation
  • Ensuring that physical, technological, and communication accommodations are in place to support all learners to succeed.

Embracing neurodiversity isn’t just a moral imperative, it’s also a strategic one. By tapping into the unique strengths and perspectives of neurodivergent individuals, businesses stand to gain a competitive edge.

Many neurodivergent individuals possess highly valued attributes such as enhanced creativity and ‘thinking outside of the box’ as well as heightened analytical and problem-solving skills—qualities that are particularly sought after in future-facing growth industries like tech.

As has been written in these pages before, further education is ideally placed not only to empower neurodivergent learners but also to work with partners in the business community to advocate for and support the development of more inclusive workplaces. And of course, colleges and training providers are employers too, who can model this important work.

As we strive to build more inclusive societies, let us remember that diversity extends beyond what meets the eye. By embracing neurodiversity, we create environments where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Read the full City & Guilds Neurodiversity Index Report 2024 here