A training provider previously slammed for failing to oversee a subcontractor after reports of sexual harassment has avoided contract termination despite an ‘inadequate’ inspection.
In what is a rare exception to the rules, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has also elected not to suspend the firm from starting new apprenticeships at the time inspectors found “ineffective” safeguarding.
Ofsted handed Avant Partnership Limited an ‘inadequate’ rating in October after it found the provider had “limited oversight” of safeguarding at a subcontractor after female construction apprentices reported experiencing harassment whilst studying.
Staff at the subcontractor, Orchard Training and Education Limited, had also “not received training on protecting learners and apprentices from sexual abuse and harassment”, inspectors said.
Under the ESFA’s funding rules, an ‘inadequate’ judgement from Ofsted usually results in a suspension from the register of apprenticeship training providers and contract termination.
Suspension exemption
But Steve Roe, Avant Partnership Limited’s chief executive, told FE Week that his training provider had “retained our contract and were able to continue recruiting apprentices” following the report in October.
Avant remains on the government’s register of apprenticeship training providers.
Ofsted inspection data shows that there are 11 independent training providers, including Avant Partnership Limited, with ‘inadequate’ overall judgements and ‘ineffective’ safeguarding.
Each of those providers has received some form of sanction, either a suspension in new apprenticeship starts or removal from the register, except for Avant.
Why Avant has received this special treatment is unclear.
‘Reasonable progress’
In a new monitoring visit report published yesterday, inspectors found Avant and its subcontractor, Orchard, had “successfully implemented a wide range of improvements to ensure that the arrangements for safeguarding are now effective”.
Avant has appointed a safeguarding team to work across both sites, which uses “consistent processes” for reporting and dealing with safeguarding concerns, Ofsted’s report adds.
“Leaders have established a culture of safeguarding, which is woven through all parts of the two organisations. They have introduced a mantra of “if in doubt, speak out”, and tutors and staff are more willing to report concerns, which are then dealt with appropriately by the safeguarding team.”
Roe pointed out that, in October, Avant was rated good in every area apart from leadership and management, which got an ‘inadequate’ rating due to the safeguarding concerns and caused the training provider to get ‘inadequate’ for overall effectiveness.
“Ofsted were able to focus their monitoring visit in April 2023 on the improvements we had made to our safeguarding arrangements, which resulted in the positive report published this week.”
He said Avant had “reviewed our safeguarding arrangements and invested in further resources” following the earlier report, which involved recruiting a full-time member of staff as a designated safeguarding lead, which oversees safeguarding across both Avant and Orchard’s work and reports directly to him.
Avant has also employed a new head of compliance and quality who, along with other staff, visits the subcontractor “frequently”, the Ofsted report said.
“They carry out lesson visits and quality reviews [at the subcontractor], providing helpful feedback which leads to targeted professional development. They work with subcontractor staff to provide support and challenge, which subcontractor staff welcome in their aim to continue to improve the quality of their provision.”
Recently, staff at Avant trained employees at Orchard in behaviour management and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder awareness. Ofsted concluded that Avant has made “reasonable progress”.
Orchard, which does not appear to have subcontracts with any other providers, had contracts with Avant worth £859,115 by the end of August 2022, according to the latest government data.
The DfE declined to comment, saying it does not comment on individual provider cases. FE Week approached Orchard for comment.
Provisional figures for the number of entries for GCSE, AS and A-level qualifications in England this summer have been published.
The Ofqual data, submitted by schools and colleges, shows entries up to April 20, meaning final entries could vary.
Small rises in overall entries at GCSE and A-level reflect increases in secondary school-age pupils nationally, while AS-level entries continue to fall following their decoupling from A-levels.
However, movement in entries at subject level offer greater insight into their popularity among pupils.
Here’s what we learned
1. EBacc entries continue to rise slowly
The proportion of GCSE entries that were for subjects in the English baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure continues to slowly increase – from 81.8 per cent last year to 82.2 per cent in summer 2023.
This has risen every year since 2010, when the performance measure was introduced.
As part of the suite of core academic subjects, pupils are expected to study English language and literature, maths, the sciences, geography or history and a language up to 16.
The EBacc subjects that have seen the biggest uptick in entries are computing (11.9 per cent), other modern languages (8.1 per cent), history (7 per cent) and Spanish (4.6 per cent).
But the figures don’t show what proportion of pupils have been entered for the full suite of five subject groups. That data will be published later this year.
The government’s aim is for 90 per cent of year pupils to enter the EBacc by 2025. Last year the proportion entering was 38.7 per cent.
2. Boost for maths and computing
Good news for Rishi Sunak. Though his pledge to make maths education compulsory to age 18 is yet to be rolled out, entries to maths subjects are already on the rise.
At GCSE, entries for statistics – introduced in 2017 – have grown by 18.4 per cent since last summer, from 22,615 to 26,785, while maths entries rose 5 per cent.
Meanwhile, despite falling AS-level entries overall, further maths entries rocketed almost 25 per cent this year, from 3,730 to 4,655.
As at GCSE, computing A-level entries are also on the rise – up 14.5 per cent from 15,210 last year to 17,420 this year.
3. Languages in trouble
German, Spanish and French are the subjects with the biggest drop in A-level entries this year.
Entries to German fell by 17 per cent from 2,675 to 2,210. Spanish entries are down 12.7 per cent from 8,640 to 7,545. And French entries fell 12.5 per cent, from 7,440 to 6,510.
At GCSE, French entries rose by just 0.3 per cent year-on-year, while Spanish entries are up 4.6 per cent.
But German GCSE entries fell by almost 6 per cent, from 36,000 last summer to 33,945 this year.
House of Commons library research last year highlighted that falling entries in German and Spanish were behind declining entries to modern foreign language qualifications overall.
4. Boost for classics, but creative subjects decline
It’s not just maths and tech subjects enjoying a burst in popularity.
At GCSE, entries to classical subjects rose by 24.7 per cent, from 3,595 to 4.480, while at A-level entries increased by 20 per cent, from 4,875 to 5,855.
However, arts subjects have taken a hit. At GCSE, art and design entries are down 3.3 per cent, music fell 11.8 per cent, drama 7.4 per cent and performing arts 16.4 per cent.
The picture is similar at A-level. Entries to art and design are down 2.8 per cent. Drama entries fell 6.7 per cent. Music entries dropped 6.8 per cent.
Country-wide strikes could hit colleges this autumn after University and College Union members voted to ballot for national action.
Union members will vote at the start of the next academic year on whether to go on strike over pay and workloads. It comes weeks after the Association of Colleges (AoC) doubled down on its refusal to make a pay proposal for next year.
The ballot will be launched in September and if successful, strikes could begin from October.
“Low pay, high workloads and a bargaining framework that does not deliver for staff have created a crisis in further education,” said UCU general secretary Jo Grady.
Union congress members voted yes to a ballot after a recent e-ballot of around 18,000 UCU members at 190 college branches found 87 per cent said yes to strike action. Turnout was over 50 per cent.
The UCU, along with four other education unions, are asking for a pay increase of 15.4 per cent, a national workload agreement and binding national pay negotiations.
“We refuse to allow employers to push our members into poverty, neither will we accept workloads that leave our members working every hour under the sun,” Grady said. “Unless they come to the table with a decent offer we will begin balloting at colleges across England from September.”
AoC chief executive David Hughes said in April that his association could not offer a pay recommendation to its members for 2023/24 because “colleges simply can’t afford to make a meaningful offer” that would not be “an insult to the hard-working staff”.
Sixteen college estates across England that are “nearing the end of their life” are sharing £600 million to undergo major rebuilds, FE Week can reveal.
The Department of Education has set aside the money pot to revamp college buildings which have “some of the worst condition need in England”, according to an answer to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
Some of the buildings identified have been empty for long periods of time due to unsustainable running costs and safety concerns, while others cannot be used for teaching owing to extremely out of date facilities.
Of the hundreds of college buildings up and down the country, the Department of Education selected the 16 sites as the most in need. Assessors deemed the best way to get them up to scratch would be demolition and a full rebuild in most cases.
The fund itself forms stage two of the £1.5 billion FE capital transformation fund, which was launched by the Department of Education to refurbish and upgrade colleges in the UK.
Stages one and four of the total fund involved England’s 180-odd colleges receiving individual allocations from pots of £200 million and £280 million respectively. Stage three of the total fund involves 75 colleges sharing £410 million.
But more than a year after stage two was announced, only one of the 16 colleges to get a slice of the £600 million, Newcastle & Stafford College Group, has managed to get a contract signed with a building contractor and started work, FE Week’s FOI response shows.
Last February, the college appointed Bowmer & Kirkland to develop a three-storey skills and innovation centre at its Stafford campus, for £23.5 million.
Work at Stafford is scheduled for completion and handover at the end of June, while the college expects the buildings to be occupied from September with its new cohorts, a spokesperson for the college said.
But work is far from starting at most of the other 15 colleges, which in the meantime are having to fork out money to maintain buildings, and in some situations, have had to leave buildings empty.
The £600 million fund is split between the different colleges depending on need. Around £40 million is going to Cornwall College, where the vast majority of its St Austell Campus (pictured top) will be demolished and then rebuilt into a new and improved campus.
St Austell campus is no longer fit for purpose. Originally, the main building was the headquarters for the local clay industry, which the college “remodelled”.
“It’s sadly a large office block, and it’s not fit for modern day teaching,” John Evans, chief executive and principal of the Cornwall College Group told FE Week.
The main six-storey building is not in a fit state, and the college has already moved out of the two top floors “because it leaks so badly”, Evans added.
The longer that goes on for, the more money needs to be spent on maintenance – which drains money from frontline provision. That, coupled with an annual £750,000 spend on energy, means Cornwall College would have had to close the whole site for post-16 students and apprentices – leaving it with the task of trying to relocate around 1,200 students – without the injection from the FE capital transformation fund.
Cornwall’s other campuses are more than an hour away and, with no sixth forms in St Austell the area would really have suffered, Evans said, and added that St Austell “deserves a high-quality post-16 facility”.
BAM construct has been contracted for the Cornwall project, which will go to planning in June with an aim to start work in September and complete by the middle of 2025.
Elsewhere, most of the Isle of Wight College’s pre-1970s campus, where too much funding is sapped up on energy and maintenance, will be demolished.
“It’s really basic now,” Ros Parker, principal and chief executive of the college said. “The buildings require an awful lot of investment to keep them going.
“Hopefully the new building will result in energy savings, and a more efficient and more effective build that will be more sympathetic to the environment.”
Isle of Wight College is in a unique position in that it provides the only further education provision on the island, so it needs to offer “the broadest range of skills possible” to prepare islanders for work, Parker added.
The college expects the new build to offer courses in electrical installation, a restaurant that will be open to the public where catering students can practice their new skills in a professional setting, and new sports and fitness facilities.
Stanmore College’s project will involve demolishing five buildings and a boiler house which are “beyond their economic life […] and cannot be retrofitted”, according to Bob Pattni, the college’s deputy principal for finance and planning.
Stanmore College
He said the capital funding secured by Stanmore, the value of which could not be shared due to DfE commercial sensitivity rules, would be used to help provide “an excellent standard of educational facilities” for students.
“Any efficiencies made through being more sustainable and reducing utility bills will be reinvested into the classroom and staff,” Pattni added.
For instance, it could fund additional staffing, enhance continuing professional development, or go towards high tech teaching materials such as VR goggles.
Stanmore College has submitted an outline planning application for the project, which it expects to take three years from planning approval to completion.
Part of the £600 million funding is heading Yeovil College’s way, as it undergoes a major repair worth more than £43 million, according to its most recent financial statement.
“[That] is a value the college would not be able to consider on its own,” the accounts added. Three existing buildings will all be demolished and replaced, while a new construction centre will also be built.
There is no doubt the new funding is “very welcome” at all the colleges. “I can’t state it enough, it’s a massive game changer for post-16 education in St Austell,” Cornwall’s John Evans said. “On completion, it will become a draw for St Austell and have a positive impact on the local economy.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “We want to build a world class further education system which delivers for all learners, and a key part of this is ensuring colleges are fit for the future.
“As part of this investment, the Department is working closely with 16 colleges in the second phase of the FE capital transformation programme, an initiative that spans multiple financial years, to improve some of the worst condition sites in the college estate in the most efficient way.”
England’s largest exam board is investigating whether a new “Duolingo-like” on-screen, on-demand test could help young people who repeatedly fail GCSE maths and English.
AQA is exploring whether a numeracy and literacy assessment would support more pupils who don’t get the grade 4 in both subjects needed to complete an apprenticeship or get a job.
It follows calls from the Association of School and College Leaders for a “passport” in the two subjects – a test taken between 15 and 19 when the pupil is ready.
The recommendation was part of its “forgotten third” inquiry to “end the wasteful GCSE resit industry”.
In pre-pandemic 2019, just 30 per cent of pupils aged 17 or more achieved a grade 4 or above in English; 21 per cent in maths.
AQA is in the early stages of consulting school and college leaders and employers.
Ed Reza Schwitzer, the board’s head of external affairs, compared the potential assessment to the Duolingo app for learning languages, which also has an English proficiency assessment accepted by 4,000 universities worldwide.
“Most people will accept now that Duolingo is a pretty good measure that someone can speak a language.
“So there’s a world in which you say – actually this young person hasn’t necessarily got a good grade on their maths GCSE, they want to do this apprenticeship, would it be enough to have a high-quality assessment from some sort of on-demand, on-screen provider?
“But it would be enough to say actually yes I can do statistics, I can do proportions and the kind of numeracy you need me to do to do this apprenticeship.”
Tom Middlehurst, ASCL’s assessment specialist, said the union was “encouraged” by the research, but would prefer to see a new qualification.
Dr Michelle Meadows, the former deputy Ofqual regulator, said AQA’s plan could help. “But we need to invest in creating programmes of teaching and learning that really engage and support pupils who find maths and literacy very challenging.
“Without this foundation, even the cleverest approach to assessment won’t get us very far in solving this enduring problem.”
Kate Shoesmith, from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said many people had the skill sets in literacy and numeracy for work or vocational qualifications, but struggled to sit “really pressurised” exams. “Anything that unlocks potential has to be positive.”
As a coalition government seems increasingly likely, FE looks to the Lib Dems’ Munira Wilson to see if the party really is “the party of education” as its education spokesperson claims it to be.
The central command of Munira Wilson’s party has avoided speaking on education issues lately. The “latest news” section of the Lib Dems’ website features 97 stories and not one relates to education. The focus instead is on health, the environment and the cost of living.
Wilson blames this on education being a “low public priority”. In an Ipsos Mori poll last year, only 6 per cent of respondents cited “education/schools” as the most important issues facing Britain, the lowest score since 1984.
“When my team go out to journalists with education stories, there’s such little interest,” Wilson says. “It’s polling as such a low priority amongst the public. That makes me weep because…we need to see education as a future investment like infrastructure. It should be one of the biggest priorities for any government.”
Wilson is currently drawing up what she describes as a “strong education offer” in the Lib Dem manifesto.
Will Lib Dems be a voice for FE?
She highlights how FE funding has “fallen through the floor, and was totally overlooked in the autumn budget when schools were given a bit of an uplift”.
But so far, apart from at the time of the autumn statement, Wilson has rarely spoken up on FE, with her campaigns – children’s mental health, free school meal eligibility, pollution and crumbling buildings – focused around schools.
Her party “recognises the importance of lifelong learning and adult education. If we’re serious about meeting the challenges of all the new emerging technologies and growth industries, we have to invest in FE.”
But Lib Dems who fought the corner for FE historically, like Sir Vince Cable and Baroness Margaret Sharp, are no longer active in the party. Wilson took over the Twickenham seat from Sir Vince in 2019 and knows he and Baroness Sharp “well”.
She is candid that she does not know as much about the skills agenda as Sir Vince, but adds that it “doesn’t mean I think it’s any less important”.
Given the Lib Dems are champions of local devolution, I ask what she thinks of the employer-led Local Skills Improvement Plans that set out what skills provisions are needed in different areas.
Wilson has not looked at the issue in detail so does not have a “new policy to offer”, but will be “interested to see whether they’re fit for purpose and meeting the needs of local areas”.
Sir Vince Cable
Skills working group
She claims one reason she has not “focused” on FE and skills as much as “some other areas” is because Sir Vince, with Wilson’s education predecessor Layla Moran, had already put in place a “brilliant policy” around the skills wallet – £10,000 to be released to adults over a 30-year period to support lifelong learning. “With the grant, you could get match funding from your employer or from a local authority where there’s a skills gap in that particular area.”
While the Lib Dems “still stand by” that policy, the party has now formed a “live working group” looking at skills that “with some fresh thinking”.
“Fear not, we haven’t forgotten about FE and skills. It’s just we’re a slightly smaller party so, there’s not as much division of labour as there used to be.”
She believes that take-up of the government’s lifelong loan entitlement due to be rolled out in 2025 will be low. “All the surveys show that if you’ve got a mortgage and kids you’re not really wanting to take on that debt to be able to study more.”
A recent pilot for higher education short courses, intended to be a step towards the lifelong loan entitlement plans, met with limited interest.
The infamous U-turn
But it is hard to listen to her talk with brevity on the need for student grants rather than loans after her party’s much-derided U-turn over increasing tuition fees when it was in coalition with the Conservatives.
She justifies it on the grounds that the Lib Dems had been trying to “put university funding on a sustainable and secure footing”, and how Sir Vince “fought very hard behind the scenes to make sure that the threshold at which you have to start paying back fees is kept at a higher level”.
She also points the finger of blame at the Tories for scrapping maintenance grants, while funding for grants and bursaries has “not kept up with inflation”.
“There’s much more that can be done around making the threshold for loans more progressive, but also boosting maintenance grants,” she says.
Wilson claims the reason she is a Liberal Democrat is because her party has “always been the party of education”, and recalls their policy under Paddy Ashdown of adding a penny on income tax for education.
“Our biggest spending areas have always been about education. But sadly, we will always be punished for this one thing we made a big pledge on.”
Red lines and alignments with Labour
So would Wilson have any red lines when it comes to FE policy if her party was to form a coalition with Labour this time round? Wilson claims she’s “not thinking about what happens the day after the next election”.
But the two parties share a perspective on Ofsted, with both seeking to reform rather than replace the watchdog.
This represents a shift for the Lib Dems: before the last election the party campaigned to scrap Ofsted and replace it with a new inspectorate.
The Lib Dems are also aligned with Labour on their opposition to the defunding of BTECs, which Wilson describes as “totally regressive and not thought through”. But she does not take issue with the concept of the T Levels designed to replace them.
She wants to ensure there remains an “adequate mix of vocational qualifications”. “Critically until the T Levels are bedded in, well understood both by students and employers and shown to be successful, rolling back BTECs in this way is really concerning.”
One point of difference could be the thorny issue of VAT.
The Treasury recently confirmed that despite colleges being reclassified by the Office for National Statistics as public bodies, there are no plans to change the law and exempt them from VAT, which would cost around £200 million a year.
Labour has failed to commit to exempting colleges from VAT. But Wilson appears more forthcoming; she believes the “VAT anomaly needs to be addressed”.
Maths musings
The Lib Dems do not have a set policy or “firm settled view” on the requirement to pass maths and English GCSEs. But Wilson indicates she would like to see change.
She believes the current process is “really demoralising” for those students who fail a second time around. She wants to “look at a more supportive practical maths offer for those who just really struggle academically to be able to pass a maths GCSE, which involves trigonometry and Pythagoras and all sorts of other things that even I can’t remember what they mean – and I’ve never used them since I passed my maths GCSE”.
Not cut out for teaching
Wilson’s passion for education runs deep as she wanted to be a teacher when she was a child. But she “quickly realised” after volunteering as a school teaching assistant that she was not “cut out” for that.
“I just realised I didn’t have the right skills to be a teacher, which requires the patience of a saint, and the ability to explain complex things in simple ways, which actually ought to be a gift for a politician. So maybe I’m not very gifted politician either!”
She was previously a lobbyist for Save the Children and the pharmaceutical company Novartis, and puts her success down to her parents’ influence. They emigrated from Zanzibar and “drummed into” her and her older sisters “from a very young age the importance of education”, prepping Wilson for north London’s Henrietta Barnett School where she was “pushed really hard in a very competitive environment”.
New department
Wilson “very deliberately” describes herself as the spokesperson for education, children and young people” rather than just “education”.
She believes children and young people’s policy is currently “fragmented across several different departments” with “no joined-up thinking” – for example, with youth services “hived off and sitting in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport” and young offender institutions coming under the Ministry of Justice.
“They’re working with some of the most disengaged young people who were probably excluded from school years ago and have all sorts of special educational needs. And they’re not even recognised as an educational establishment, which is just bonkers.”
Wilson would re-create the Department for Children, Schools and Families, ironically abolished in 2010 when the Lib Dems were in the coalition. Or “at the very least” she would create a cabinet minister for children with a “roving brief across departments”.
“We need to look at everything that sits around and outside of schools and colleges, and not just what’s going on inside them.”
The former principal of New College Nottingham, who led a city-wide merger of colleges in the late 1990s, has died after a short illness.
Dame Patricia Morgan-Webb dedicated her career to education in Nottingham. She became head of Clarendon College in 1991, then spearheaded its merger in 1998 with Basford Hall College, Arnold and Carlton College and High Pavement Sixth Form College.
What became New College Nottingham (NCN), one of the largest FE colleges in the UK, is now known as Nottingham College following its merger with Central College Nottingham in 2017.
Morgan-Webb was made a dame for services to further education in 2000, becoming the first FE college principal to receive the honour. She died on May 16, two days before her 80th birthday.
Sir Geoff Hall, who served as her vice principal at NCN, led the tributes. He remembered Morgan-Webb as a “brilliant mentor, a stimulating colleague and a great friend”.
He added: “Her commitment to equal opportunities was uncompromising. Many who served under her went on to leadership roles at other colleges or in the wider sector.”
Dame Sally Dicketts, the former CEO of Activate Learning, said Morgan-Webb was “very generous” when she mentored her as a young principal.
“She was astute, future-focused, gave great advice, was very generous with her time particularly for me, as a mentor,” Dicketts added. “She was always available and helpful, never overbearing with her advice.
“She had stature. She was well respected.”
The daughter of a coal miner and a homemaker, Morgan-Webb was raised in south Wales. She graduated with a degree in history from the University of Swansea in 1964 and entered the FE sector after getting a post-graduate diploma in education.
After taking some time away to raise her son, Morgan-Webb returned to full-time work in 1979, rising to become principal of Clarendon College in 1991.
She was principal of NCN until her retirement in 2003. While at the helm, the college achieved the Queen’s Anniversary Award for Further and Higher Education in 2002.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he got to know Morgan-Webb during the merger when he worked in the voluntary sector in Nottingham. She encouraged him to work in FE.
“She was a smart operator, passionate about learning, students, skills, fairness and worked tirelessly in Nottingham and beyond to improve things,” he said. “She got things done, got results and made a big impact.
“She inspired and encouraged me enormously to get into FE and I will forever be grateful to her for that. She will be missed, but her legacy continues in Nottingham.”
Morgan-Webb also led some building renovations in Nottingham, including the regeneration of the Lace Market area of the city. “She had quite an innovative design for what she wanted for that building,” said Dicketts.
After retiring from NCN, Morgan-Webb established The Morgan Webb Education Ltd, an educational consulting firm. She also chaired the AoC Beacon Awards.
The funeral service is will be held at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium, Birmingham at 11.30am June 23, 2023. Family flowers only. Donations in Pat’s name to the NSPCC.
Interesting fact: Nicola is an ardent Plymouth Argyle fan and likes to follow the mighty Green Army to away matches when they are playing in the North West.
Haroon Bashir
Deputy Director, Learner Services, Halesowen College
Start date: May 2023
Previous Job: Head of Equality and Diversity and Deputy DSL, Halesowen College
Interesting fact: Haroon shares a birthday with David Beckham and shares the same wedding anniversary with him and Victoria Beckham.
Ian Browne
Interim Vice Principal: Curriculum, Telford College
Start date: May 2023
Previous Job: Vice Principal – Student Success, City of Wolverhampton College
Interesting fact: As a leaving present from Wiltshire College, Ian fulfilled one of his life goals which was to skydive. He jokes that maybe his PA arranged it because she didn’t like him.
Senior officials joined FE Week editor Shane Chowen on the main stage at the Skills and Education Group’s annual conference this week to debate ‘levelling up the sector’. Here are the highlights:
Double cash bump for care apprenticeships?
Officials are considering boosting adult care apprenticeship funding by more than one band, FE Week understands.
The government launched an exceptional funding band review for 20 apprenticeships under the most pressure from rising costs last year. But the outcome of the process, which has since been stripped down to just 10 standards and was supposed to be wrapped up by May 1, has been beset with delays and is yet to surface.
The hold-up is down to the Treasury, FE Week understands, but sources indicate there could be good news on the horizon for the two adult care apprenticeships that are part of the review and funded at a current rate of £3,000 per apprentice.
Officials have raised the possibility of bumping them up by more than the stated maximum uplift of one funding band and, during this week’s Skills and Education Group conference, Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) delivery director Rob Nitsch indicated that this could happen.
Asked by FE Week editor Shane Chowen whether care apprenticeships will move up by more than one funding band, he simply replied “maybe”.
Nitsch added: “Some of the [challenges] are ingrained. There is the issue of pay, completion rates in that sector are woefully low. It’s certainly not at the back of the queue.”
He said the institute was “absolutely supportive” of the funding band review and acutely aware of challenges in the care sector, following a recent FE Week investigation which highlighted the viability of the funding model in care training.
When asked when IfATE would announce the review’s results, Nitsch shirked responsibility for their publication. He said the institute’s role was to make a recommendation on funding bands to the Department for Education, who then report to Treasury.
Colleges can’t staff priority courses
FE commissioner Shelagh Legrave speaking at the Skills and Education Group’s annual conference this week
Earlier in the panel session, Shelagh Legrave, the FE commissioner, was pressed on why just three intervention reports were published last year, plus one so far in 2023. Her predecessor Richard Atkins released 20 reports in 2020.
“Legally, if colleges ended up in inadequate financial health, we would have to publish an intervention report,” she said. “So that does suggest that there were fewer colleges in inadequate financial health.”
She added: “The danger of that is that we look as if we’re OK as a sector, when in fact financially we’re not.”
Legrave explained that, in her tour of the country’s colleges, she is seeing the impact of years of financial pressures.
“There is a real danger that the sector will not be able to deliver the reforms that the government is looking for in further education because you can’t find the staff to teach the qualifications. Every college I’ve been to has not been able to honour some qualifications because they can’t find the expertise to teach it.”
Ofsted prepares for new inspection framework
Ofsted’s Paul Joyce, deputy director of FE and skills, revealed that the inspectorate has embarked on a review of the implementation of the education inspection framework (EIF).
“Given the EIF was introduced in 2019, we are embarking on a review in terms of how it has been implemented,” he said. “Is it working in the way it was intended to work? Is there anything we need to do differently? It’s the right debate.”
One area under the spotlight is how Ofsted inspects “large and complex” providers in FE and skills. Joyce reassured delegates that the regulator was not looking at expanding inspection teams for large providers. “There is no more money for inspections,” he said.
“If anything, I’m looking at notice periods and whether some of our larger providers need more notice to be able to get the stakeholders together that you want us to meet with,” he added.
Joyce also said that Ofsted was reviewing its reports as some providers complain they are “quite short, not detailed enough and aren’t unique enough to the provider”.
Elsewhere at the conference, senior Ofsted inspector Julie Ashton said the organisation’s internal data tool – the further education and skill intelligence tool (FESIT) – is finally set to be shared with providers in the autumn despite plans to put it into the public domain two years ago.
“They said that two years ago, but there have been various things happening in the last two years,” she quipped, adding that the regulator was having some technical issues with its release.
