Home to arguably two of the leading football clubs in the world, we are no strangers to sporting competitions here in Manchester. What is less known is that we also have a strong track record in winning medals in skills competitions.
Alongside eight other colleges in the region, Trafford College Group takes part every year in the Greater Manchester Skills Competitions. Run by a dedicated group of ‘champions’ from each college, these competitions also serve as a feeder for the WorldSkills UK Competition programmes. In 2021, the Greater Manchester Colleges Group dominated the leader board at the WorldSkills UK national finals in skill areas ranging from graphic design to mechanical engineering CAD, with Trafford College Group winning two bronze medals, for IT support technician and confectionary and patisserie.
Participation at a national level with WorldSkills UK has helped develop the professional and technical skills of our learners and has had a positive effect on their ambition and aspirations for their future careers. In addition, I have found that working with WorldSkills UK also delivers tangible benefits to teaching staff in three key areas, and I would encourage everyone to get involved.
Enhancing curriculum
There is sometimes a misconception that putting learners forward to take part in skills competition programmes will result in a lot of extra work. In truth, while there is some additional preparation in the initial set-up of the assignment or activity, this allows greater scope for creativity in teaching and learning.
For example, my department has introduced projects that involve cross-departmental working. The Art Department have been using clay to create 3D model characters and the games design department have been using photogrammetry to capture 360 images that they can load into games engine software to animate. What better way to prepare learners for the commercial settings that await them? And for me, the variety in teaching is a great motivator.
An ear to the ground
The Greater Manchester and the WorldSkills UK competition programmes are designed by industry professionals. As a result, you receive exposure to the latest trends in industry. This provides an excellent form of engaging CPD for our teachers, ensuring we are providing our learners with up-to-date information and skills that will help them gain employment.
It’s also meant that we have built stronger relationships with industry partners, creating more opportunities for our learners. This level of commitment shows our learners that these competitions aren’t simply a nice thing to be involved in but are a crucial part of them finding employment. Indeed, many employers who judge the competitions use the process as a talent-spotting exercise.
A global outlook
As part of the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence programme run in partnership with NCFE, we are working with coaches who have captured valuable lessons from their involvement in the international WorldSkills competition. We are learning to embed these global best practices in our classrooms, helping our students and apprentices perform to higher standards of excellence.
But the focus isn’t just on technical skills; mindset training is also a key part of this CPD programme. I’ve learned new techniques to support my learners develop positive mental and behavioural skills, including teamwork, communication, time management and working under pressure. This is not only helping them excel, but me too. The reflective practice element of the training offered by WorldSkills UK is crucial in that.
Ofsted recognises the role of skills competitions in stretching learners, but I think the best way to understand how competition activity can drive forward a college is from the learners themselves. One of our students, Daisy Wheeler recently told me she feels involvement is preparing her for industry, “where I will compete for jobs and contracts”. She also particularly valued “having industry professionals as teachers and guest lecturers”.
It’s sometimes hard when you’re watching your football club to remember that it’s not always the winning or losing that matters most. But with skills competitions, it really is about the taking part – and everyone gains from that.
The challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers at all levels is becoming increasingly acute, exacerbated in FE due to the sector’s substantially lower pay scales. That is the troubling backdrop for the country’s colleges as they strive to return to pre-Covid staffing levels, and it is no surprise that the services that were worse affected by the pandemic are now struggling.
Rising to a double challenge
FE providers are feeling the bite harder than most since they face an extra, double challenge: namely, the lower levels of pay they can offer due to underfunding and the fact that many of the technical and vocational lecturers they need can earn more within their chosen industry.
A report published by The Lifelong Education Commission and Chartered Institution for Further Education in February showed that average FE teacher wages were around £10,000 lower than those of school teachers – and even further behind universities.
The same document suggested that staffing in FE may have fallen by one-third in the past 10 years, and that the vacancy rate at colleges averaged about eight or nine per cent – double the pre-pandemic level.
In the several decades that I have been working in FE, I’ve never seen teacher recruitment problems as bad as this. Part of the difficulty for institutions like ours, which provides higher education (HE) provision for Luminate Education Group’s FE colleges, is that we’re the ‘poor relation’ in terms of our pay scales.
A homegrown approach
But colleges are finding innovative ways around this problem, including by adopting a ‘grow your own’ approach through their initial teacher education (ITE) provision. Introduced in 2018, ITE offers a non-traditional, apprenticeship-based route into the profession.
Here, ITE has provided a way for us to home-grow our FE teachers for our campuses in Leeds, Harrogate and Keighley to address the problem. We are basically talent-spotting as we train, and have had success stories in a number of fields including computer games and business doing so.
For those aiming to teach in FE in skill shortage areas such as maths and STEM, we also offer ITE bursaries to make the option more financially viable. And, as a widening participation (WP) institution, our teacher training is designed to fit around students’ commitments. That means we attract many people from industry who want to retrain and whose experience is so valuable for teaching.
Of course the ‘home-grown’ route can only do so much, and it is only a valid choice when your ITE provision is of a high enough quality.
Leading the way
University Centre Leeds has just been given a ‘Good’ rating by Ofsted for its offering; the first provider in the North East, Yorkshire and Humber to achieve this under the new inspection framework. Most of our trainees undertake their placements with Luminate Education Group and go on to gain employment at one of the group’s colleges, which is a sure sign we’re doing something right.
The Ofsted report highlighted how our trainees are fully embedded as members of staff within their teams; they’re not ‘visitors’ but valued colleagues. The inspectors also commented on the strength of our mentoring, and we make sure that the support network is there for trainees to link what’s happening in the education classroom with actual practice in the workplace.
Much more has to be done if we’re to successfully tackle this national crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. Targeted government funding is definitely needed to close the gap between the pay the FE sector (and its HE providers) can offer and what schools and universities can. An awareness-raising campaign is also needed to educate people about how much we need people with real-world industry experience to enter teaching.
Both of those matters, sadly, are out of our control. What we and our fellow post-16 education providers can do, for now, is ensure that we continue delivering quality ITE to provide a crucial pipeline of high-calibre new teachers to help us weather this storm.
Staffing in further education has reached crisis point and now workers are fighting back.
Employers’ own data shows 96 per cent of colleges have difficulty recruiting, with an average 25 posts per college remaining unfilled at the start of the academic year.
Staff know why there is a recruitment crisis: Pay is too low, workloads are too high and far too often college employers fail to treat them as the skilled and experienced professionals that they are.
The University and College Union (UCU) estimates that the salaries of college teachers have fallen behind inflation by 35 per cent since 2009, while the pay gap between school and college teachers stands at £9,000. Employer body, the Association of Colleges (AoC) also admits 98 per cent of English colleges use ‘flexible employment contracts’. This is code for precarious employment practices such as term-time only, hourly-paid or even zero-hours contracts.
When UCU negotiate nationally with the AoC over things like pay, employment conditions and workloads, employers can choose to just ignore the outcome of those negotiations. For example, the AoC makes pay recommendations every year, yet in the main, colleges do not award any pay increase at all.
Low pay is having a devastating impact on the lives of our members. Last summer, we surveyed over 2,700 workers from more than 200 colleges across England. We found that the vast majority of college staff in England are financially insecure. Eight in ten said their financial situation is harming their mental health, and a shocking amount reported being forced to skip meals and restrict hot water use to save money. Seven in 10 said they will leave further education unless pay and working conditions improve.
Workloads are also through the roof. On average, college staff do two extra days of work unpaid per week and more than nine in ten staff (93 per cent) say their workload has increased over the past three years.
We know the money is there to pay staff fairly
A situation like this doesn’t just harm staff, but students too. A college workforce which is exhausted, precariously employed, struggling on low pay and crushed under brutal workloads cannot be expected to deliver the best for students. We can do better, and we must.
Last November, further education was reclassified as part of the public sector. UCU welcomes this step but it should not be seen as an end itself. It’s now time to negotiate a new settlement that respects our professionalism, rewards staff in line with other teachers and strategically invests in the future.
We know the money is there to pay staff fairly. National funding for 16- to 19-year-olds has increased by 8.4 per cent this year, and UCU members are refusing to sit by and let the situation deteriorate.
Already this academic year, over 4,000 UCU members across England have downed tools – the biggest strike wave ever to hit the further education sector. Together, they won improved pay deals at over 20 colleges. And just last week, in an indicative ballot, 87 per cent of voting members said they are prepared to take strike action to secure an above-inflation pay rise, the introduction of binding national bargaining structures and an agreement on fair workloads. This could pave the way for coordinated strike action across over 200 colleges in England.
Our special sector conference is meeting imminently to decide the union’s next steps, but it is clear that employers are risking unprecedented industrial unrest unless they address pay and workloads, and agree to enter into binding national bargaining agreements.
It won’t do for college leaders to keep saying their hands are tied when what increases in funding there have been have not been shared with staff. The recruitment and retention crisis will not be solved by looking the other way to in-work poverty across the sector and hoping for an ever-willing supply of new lecturers to fill the gaps.
We know why this crisis is happening, and it’s time to fix it.
Interesting fact: Rachel is also a ceremony officer – essentially a celebrant registrar – which means she spends her weekends conducting weddings, civil partnerships, citizenship and civil baby naming ceremonies.
Charlotte Bonner
CEO, EUAC – The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education
Start date: February 2023
Previous job: National Head of Education for Sustainable Development, Education and Training Foundation
Interesting fact: Charlotte is a self-professed train geek and enjoys long distance overland travel. The furthest she’s got without flying (so far) is Tokyo, Japan.
There have been a lot of talking shops and ideas swapping sessions about skills over the past 4 years. My friend and sister-‘grande dame of FE’, Ruth Silver refers to them as a ‘constellation of commissions’. But where’s the action? Where is the sector’s rightful and angry cry? Who is listening? Who is taking notice of the clear and impartial evidence? Who is doing something about it?
The nation’s skills crisis is as critical as the climate emergency. This is no grandiose fantasy. I was a climate change campaigner in the 70’s when, as a member of Greenpeace, I turned vegetarian and went on demos to cave the whales. That’s also when I began my career in FE. If my 70-year-old elderly knees weren’t beginning to creak with arthritis, I’d do a Greta Thunberg – sit down in silent solo vigil outside parliament with my placard bearing my slogan: SAVE OUR SKILLS NOW
Instead of the pavement, I’ve taken to the podium by agreeing to become inaugural independent chair of the Lifelong Education Institute, the sector-wide, apolitical body set up by Res Publica to take forward into action the work of its lifelong education commission, chaired by former universities minister, Chris Skidmore MP.
The Lifelong Education Institute’s vision is to use the its influence to turn ideas and insights into implementation. With backing from so many members and partners from adult, further and higher education, the LEI is a powerful ‘coalition of the willing’ to amplify workable policy ideas on which there is common accord.
We need momentum to make sure that what we know works (as all the commissions have shown) is made to work. With a shared vison of where the country and the sector need to be in ten years’ time, with policy co-created with the ‘teachers and the taught’, and with a properly funded and championed sector, we can SAVE OUR SKILLS NOW.
The LEI is a powerful ‘coalition of the willing’
The current skills crisis is one whose causes are a long time in the making, and for which the solutions have to take an equally patient and far-sighted view. What we are really dealing with is an interlocking trio of crises: social fragmentation as large tranches of our population fall victim to marginalisation and inequality, decline in our prosperity as our productivity puzzle continues to go unsolved, and neglect of our cardinal virtues as opportunities to flourish and develop are closed to many.
Lifelong education can help address all these crises. It can strengthen the bonds of inclusion by supporting those who have fallen behind. It can overturn a decade of stagnation and restore the UK to growth. And it can give everyone the chance to find new avenues of discovery and meaning.
To achieve all of this, we need to develop new models of teaching and learning that help all of us cultivate the knowledge, skills, experience, and character we need throughout our lives.
We find ourselves on the cusp of a new era of remarkable transformation in further and higher education. The centre of gravity is shifting towards helping learners move seamlessly between education and work, and towards upskilling and retraining as required by a new world of work with more flexible demands.
This raises new expectations on colleges and universities, businesses, and government to work together to provide the funding and frameworks for a new generation of training approaches and qualifications.
To meet these expectations, we have to craft new forms of radical thinking around skills and education. That is the mission of the Lifelong Education Institute, providing a forum to bridge the barriers and boundaries that have shaped the skills and learning landscape up to now.
The LEI will place the needs and experiences of lifelong learners at the heart of the policy agenda and leverage our sectors’ collective potential to put all forms of learning from technical training to academic study within the reach of all. We will help bring together all those with a stake in upskilling the British workforce in a new portfolio of education partnerships and we want to channel the best insights from home and abroad to build the world-leading education system the UK deserves.
Through advocacy and action, the LEI stands ready to SAVE OUR SKILLS NOW.
Those who work in FE often hold a special place in their heart for the sector. None more so than Claire Heywood, who has spent her entire 30-year learning and professional career at the Heart of Worcestershire College (HoW). For her, it is far more than just a workplace.
The deputy principal believes the FE sector saved her life when she was experiencing “dark, dark times” and is gravely concerned that funding cuts and qualification reforms threaten her college’s ability to provide for the more vulnerable in society.
When she was just 19 and working in the college’s SEND department, Heywood’s father died suddenly and she took on caring responsibilities for her mother, who would also pass away five years later.
She survived because a “family of colleagues” rallied around her.
“I got adopted by quite a few people,” Heywood says. The “debt of gratitude” she feels toward the college and “the sector beyond it” explains her long commitment.
She compares the worsening pay conditions for FE staff to a bad relationship.
“You probably know in your head you should leave, but your heart can’t quite come to terms with that idea.
“You just think ‘I need to hang in here because I do still love you. But you’re making it really hard for me to keep loving you’,” she says.
A young Heywood with her brother
Resisting introvert leanings
I meet Heywood at an education conference after she delivered a presentation on how colleges work with employers, apparently with an easy confidence.
But she was “painfully shy” child and in class she was the one “who knew the answer but never put my hand up”. She admits that teaching “doesn’t sit any better in my stomach now than when I was at school”.
The youngest of four children, Heywood grew up on a Worcester council estate. She explains with a smile that her father was “a milkman – not ‘the milkman”, and recalls “suddenly feeling very posh” when her family were able to afford central heating.
At 16, Heywood’s “typically crap” school careers advisor pointed her in the direction of a job at a new Tesco store. Instead she became the first person in her family to carry on with education post-schooling, “following friends”. She enrolled on a BTEC national diploma in health and social care at Worcester College of Technology, which merged with North East Worcestershire College in 2014 to become HoW. The course had a wider public service focus, and Heywood “had a vague idea” about joining the military or police.
She recalls “feeling low” after the first week, and her parents reassuring her of their support if she wanted to drop out – “the opposite” of what she advises parents to say now.
But Heywood “instinctively knew” she needed to stick at it, and soon discovered she “had this brain” she wanted to use.
One course work placement was with the college’s SEND students, which Heywood was nervous about because it involved “’out there’ stuff in drama classes”. It took her as far from her comfort zone as possible.
In her early days as a support assistant on a residential for SEN learners
Drawn to naughty boys
After the course, Heywood worked in a factory and became “quite depressed”, so she readily accepted an off from the college to work in the SEND department. She quickly moved up the ranks to lecturer, while completing a degree and later a master’s in education leadership.
She was “drawn to the naughty kids who talk back, boys in particular” because “it’s where I came from”.
She describes her older siblings as “very roguish” and some school friends “ended up in prison or on heroin”.
Heywood recalls persuading her boss not to kick out naughty students and to “blame me if this goes wrong”. She could still see the good in students when others had given up.
“While some see bad behaviour, I see creativity and entrepreneurialism and I think there’s something you can do with that because its energy. It’s on us to turn that into something positive that doesn’t get them into trouble with society.”
She “very much pushed” her college bosses to develop NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) provision, and took on a succession of roles building that up.
This work brought her into contact with some “particularly high profile” young offenders “put in the area to hide away”.
She admits that occasionally she encountered students with “something dark there”. “That’s just one or two exceptions where the good was perhaps a bit manipulated,” she adds.
When teaching at a homeless hostel during a three-year project she led for the college to encourage education reengagement, Heywood recalls one lad who was “really going down a dark path” with crime and drugs.
Now he has his own family and carpentry business, and recently reached out to show Heywood how far he had come.
“He said – quite often they do – ‘I was really naughty wasn’t I? And asked me why I put up with him. I said, ‘because your behaviour isn’t who you are, it’s just your behaviour. So who am I to judge?”
Defending college to employers
Heywood believes that college dropout statistics mask how many students “make their way back a year or two down the line, because there’s a bit of growing up that happens”.
She finds herself looking to the college’s data to defend it and its young people when she is working with employers on meeting their needs.
“The regulation and some of the beating up of colleges that goes on is really tough,” she says. “You can have an employer saying, ‘the colleges aren’t doing enough on this topic, and I’ve got vacancies to fill’.”
But Heywood reminds them HoW is “not a job centre – it’s not my job to fill your vacancies. And here’s some data that suggests if you pay a little bit more, you might fill [them].”
Heywood hits back at employers who criticise the young. When they complained at a recent LSIP (Local Skills Improvement Plan) event about young people lacking soft skills and “not showing initiative”, Heywood put the ball back in their court: “Well, did you when you walked into your first job? To be fair, they acknowledged they didn’t. It’s about reminding people that it is too quick and easy to demonise young people.”
Heywood was “shocked” to discover that last year, 78 per cent of all local vacancies did not require a minimum level of education. She is concerned colleges are being tasked with providing skills, while “the employer in the driving seat isn’t asking for any”. This presents “a challenge” for education and training providers.
Heywood believes colleges are not without blame though. They can be “slow to turn things around and make a decision”, and she agrees with former skills minister Nick Boles when he warned colleges that “training providers will nick our lunch if we don’t get on things quick”.
Claire Heywood, HoW College
SEND losers in qualification reform
HoW has been providing supported internships for its SEND students since they were first piloted in 2013, and has so far placed 100 into sustained employment.
Heywood says it’s a “fantastic programme”, but “requires some additional support to businesses because there’s a lot of fear and hesitancy about whether they can cope with someone with additional needs”. “But actually, the support you have to provide is much less than you anticipated,” she adds.
Heywood is particularly concerned about the impact of the rise of T Levels and defunding of other courses on SEND students, who already face limited opportunities as it is.
“There are some good kids practically who even the [apprenticeship] standards are too much for. It just feels like we’re cutting them off too soon.”
Heywood is also worried about the impact of the sector’s financial stability on students. Her college has “pulled in the FE commissioner”, who advised streamlining its current portfolio of 16 buildings across four campuses. This would save costs but Heywood is concerned “the disadvantage gap is being wedged even further”.
It “boils” her “blood” that “FE is right the way down the [government’s] priority list”. “If your intent is to wipe out this sector, this is how to go about it. You can’t even begin to finance the replacement for what that would lose,” she says
Nurturing others into leadership
Heywood, who became vice principal in 2018 and deputy in 2021, never imagined herself as a leader. She now spends much of her time delivering on aspirational leadership programmes and encourages other introverts like her to believe in their own potential. “While there are a lot of it exuberant extrovert leaders around…you actually don’t have to fit that particular mould to make it as a leader,” she says.
Heywood is also “passionate” about “taking the right person” for the job and then “giving them the skills”. When it comes to NEET teaching, “it doesn’t really matter” if an applicant has never taught. “What we want to know is what they’re motivated by. If that’s all the right things, we take them on and train them. I’m proud of people in the college now, and who’ve moved on to other colleges, who we took with no teaching background and turned into great teachers. They then go pay it forward.”
Heywood believes working in FE is “endlessly fascinating” and is clearly in no hurry to end her relationship with it just yet.
“Yes, the relationship might not all be rosy, but you can’t help but love it,” she admits.
The government is set to drop a ban that stopped Restart programme participants from joining skills bootcamps, FE Week can reveal.
Currently, participants in the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Restart programme, which gives out-of-work Universal Credit claimants extra support to find employment, cannot enrol on skills bootcamps. Those enrolled on bootcamps cannot take part in the Restart scheme.
But the DWP and Department for Education have confirmed that from April 1 that restriction – which was intended as a temporary constraint – will be removed.
The DWP said the decision recognises the differences in provision between the two programmes, and will allow participants to take advantage of the different opportunities to best gain new skills and employment.
Pat Jackson, skills director at Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership said it was a change that her organisation had been lobbying for.
Natasha Waller, policy manager at the LEP Network which represents all 38 LEPs, said: “The benefit is that the participants on Restart can get the hand-holding/wraparound support to get them job-ready while skills bootcamps will give them the knowledge of a particular sector or job role and some preparation for job hunting and interview practice, but it is not as intense as what they would receive through Restart.”
Jane Hickie (pictured), chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “Currently Jobcentre Plus work coaches typically prioritise referrals to their flagship Restart programme over skills bootcamps, which has certainly impacted referrals.
“For this collaborative approach to work, we will need to give work coaches more support to understand the benefits of skills bootcamps so they can ensure potential learners take the pathway which benefits them the most.”
The Restart programme, which first began referrals in July 2021, gives Universal Credit claimants who have been out of work for nine months or more access to enhanced support to find work.
Around 340,000 people started on the programme between its launch and September last year, while 92,000 have achieved their first earnings since starting the scheme, although most have not yet had 12 months of support.
Government guidance said job coaches develop a package of support for participants having assessed their work history, current skills and aspirations.
That could include bespoke training, obtaining the correct certificates for specific industries or bolstered IT skills.
Skills bootcamps are courses up to 16 weeks in length for adults to train quickly in areas of skills shortage, such as digital, construction and HGV driving. They also guarantee a job interview for learners at the end of their course.
Data published at the end of last year reported that 16,120 people started a bootcamp between April 2021 and March 2022 against a target of 16,000, although numbers of completers and outcomes were not published.
Students face a “period of great uncertainty” after ministers rejected calls to withdraw applied general qualifications like BTECs from their defunding plans, or even delay the “damaging” reforms by a year.
The Department for Education will publish a list of new qualifications that will replace the current suite of applied generals in July 2024, for schools and colleges to start delivering in September 2025.
The expectation is that most level 3 alternatives to T Levels and A-levels, which must now go through a new strict approvals process, will be refused funding from this point forward.
Ministers have already made the “conscious choice” to exclude “certain” large academic qualifications, including in health and social care, applied science, and law, from this process.
The Sixth Form Colleges Association, which leads the Protect Student Choice campaign, mapped the list of qualifications that will be eligible for funding against the 134 recently reformed applied general qualifications currently available to young people and found an “astonishing” 75 will be ineligible.
In a letter to education secretary Gillian Keegan, 360 school and college leaders described the timescale as “simply not credible,” and urged her to push back the plans by at least a year. They also called on her to exclude the 134 AGQs from the reforms.
Schools and colleges that signed the letter pointed out that prospectuses and marketing materials for courses starting in September 2025 will already have been finalised by July 2024, and engagement work with students will be well underway.
They went on to write that “it will be very difficult to provide effective information, advice and guidance to young people if we do not know what qualifications we can deliver until the end of July 2024”.
Six peers, including two former education secretaries and two ex-universities minister, sent a similar letter to the DfE at the same time warning that scrapping “popular” alternatives to A-levels and T Levels would have a damaging impact on social mobility, economic growth and public services.
He simply said: “We understand that this is significant change, but we believe that the long-term benefits are what is needed”.
Halfon goes on to rule out removing the 134 AGQs from the scope of the review but offers no explanation as to why.
He believes that young people will not be left without a pathway once the reforms are complete. He said: “Our reforms will provide high-quality opportunities for all, and I do not agree that young people will fall out of the system”.
College leaders disagree
Altaf Hussein, principal of Luton Sixth Form College, said: “The proposed changes to defund most BTECS are short-sighted and likely to have a massive impact on the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who go on to HE and good jobs in key sectors like the NHS.”
Scott McKeown, head of New Bridge College and Future Finders Employability College, added that the removal of “these reputable qualifications” will present “further barriers for SEND students aiming to progress onto skilled employment or continue their learning journey through higher education, ultimately, disempowering them from reaching their academic potential or restricting them from entering their career of choice”.
Meanwhile, Alex Pett principal of Logic Studio School, pointed out that his technical school for 14-to-19-year-olds have “always found securing even one week work placements challenging”, let alone 45-day placements that T Levels require.
He told FE Week: “If all of our students were to move to T Levels, not only would they be narrowing their breadth of study, we would simply not be able to find sufficient, meaningful work placements for all of them. BTECs allow students to gain skills and recognition against specific and segmented assignments, more closely replicating their future experience in the workplace.”
Laranya Caslin, principal of St. George’s Academy in Lincolnshire, said the T Level model “seems to be suited to large cities and simply does not translate to the countryside”.
She explained that large employers across a range of industry sectors are “few and far between in our locality, and many of our students live in outlying villages with next to no public transport”.
Caslin added: “Surely every 16-yearold, no matter where they live, should be able to access a level 3 qualification in an area of genuine interest to them. If the availability of AGQs is substantially reduced, that chance will be under threat for well over 50 per cent of my ‘secondary modern’ sixth form intake.”
James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the SFCA, criticised Halfon’s letter.
“This response does not address any of the practical concerns raised by the 360 school and college leaders that signed the letter to the secretary of state. A one-year delay would have minimised the disruption to young people’s education caused by the implementation of the government’s flawed plan to scrap most BTECs,” he said.
“Instead, we will now move into a period of great uncertainty for students, staff and institutions.”
A cap on apprentice numbers for small businesses that had caused employers to turn away new starts has finally been scrapped by the skills minister.
Robert Halfon confirmed in a letter to the sector on Thursday that small businesses which don’t pay the apprenticeship levy will no longer be limited to a maximum of 10 apprenticeship starts from April 3, 2023.
In the letter, the minister said businesses will be able to recruit “as many high-quality apprentices as their business needs”, and added: “We want to give smaller employers certainty over funding, and ensure they have access to the apprenticeships they need to meet their ambitions, fill their skills gaps, and grow their businesses.”
Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said she was “absolutely delighted” the cap is being abolished.
“Each year this causes big issues for smaller employers who wish to take on more apprentices and there is always a lack of transparency over whether the cap will reset or not,” Hickie said.
“This then leads to employers being unable to plan for the future effectively. Last year it took a huge amount of lobbying from AELP and its members to ensure the minister intervened to reset the cap.”
The cap was originally introduced in January 2020 with a limit of three new apprenticeship starts, before it was lifted to ten in summer 2020.
Small businesses that do not pay the apprenticeship levy receive 95 per cent of training costs from the apprenticeship budget, funded by levy paying businesses.
The rationale of the cap had been that it would prevent the overall apprenticeships budget from being overspent.
In April 2021 the DfE reset the cap so that non-levy paying businesses could start up to 10 new apprentices regardless of however many they already had.
Mounting pressure from the sector again last year resulted in the cap being reset once again in June 2022. The DfE at the time confirmed it would keep the cap under review.
To date, small employers who hit the cap had been forced to go down the avenue of requesting levy transfers from larger employers which weren’t using some of their levy funds, as levy transfer funded apprentices did not count towards the cap.
Since taking on the skills, apprenticeships and further education brief for a second time in October, Halfon has made growing apprenticeship starts one of his priorities, in particular pushing for more degree apprenticeship learners.
He told this week’s Apprenticeship Ambassador Network conference that “rules will be removed where we don’t need them” to help SMEs recruit apprentices.
He told the conference that a redesigned registration process will make it “simpler and quicker” for SMEs to take on their first apprentices, with employers able to ask training providers to assist with more of the account administration.
In addition, he voiced ambitions for an easier levy transfer system and plans to double the number of starts on the pathway to accelerated apprenticeship skills bootcamps, so that SMEs could recruit directly off those bootcamps at no cost.
