College enrolment: Influx of resitters and 16-19s as HE and adults drop

Colleges are taking on trainee teachers from universities, expanding class sizes and hiring additional invigilators to manage an influx of GCSE resit students this year, which are set to dent their finances.

But other areas of recruitment, such as higher education and adult courses, have taken a hit.

FE Week looks at the latest data on college enrolment, after 95 – nearly half of all FE colleges in England – responded to a survey run by the Association of Colleges (AoC).

English and maths resit boom costs colleges £24m

FE Week reported in August that there would be around 60,000 more students needing to retake English and/or maths compared to last year, after they failed to achieve a grade 4 or above.

The AoC estimates this flood of resitters will cost the sector around £24 million, including £21 million for additional teaching time and an additional £3 million in exam registration fees.

Colleges speaking to FE Week cited instances of 50 per cent increases in the number of resit students, but with little in the way of financial support to meet those demands.

Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group is expecting to spend north of £500,000 this year due to an extra 770 resitters – to be spent on hiring five extra teachers, holding extra online tuition, exam registration fees and more invigilators for the November and May resits.

For Craig Hodgson, principal of NSCG, teacher recruitment poses the biggest challenge.

“Everything is a challenge, but the recruitment and retention of good English and maths staff is the biggest,” he said.

To cope with that, NSCG partnered with Keele University so that trainee teachers from the university could work part time at the college. They will not be running their own courses, but will work alongside teachers in larger classes.

At City College Norwich, which has an extra 1,000 resitters, class sizes have risen from around 16 to 28, while they are expecting to fork out £100,000 on extra exam entry fees alone. The college also expects up to half of its exam entrants to have special educational needs.

That means more of them will be spread across different rooms, and that more staff will be needed to invigilate all the exams and to assess the students for their exam needs.

16-18s on the rise

Most colleges saw an increase in 16- to- 18-year-old enrolments, compared to 2022/23.

But while there was a similar trend last year, the level of growth was much greater in 2023/24, with 38 per cent of leaders who responded to the survey saying their college had seen a growth of 10 per cent or more. Last year, just seven per cent reported the same.

In total, 85 per cent of colleges said they recruited more than they had targeted for, compared to 58 per cent in 2022/23.

The proportion of colleges which took fewer 16 to 18 enrolments than they had targeted did drop as a result, at six per cent in 2023/24. Last year, 24 per cent recruited fewer 16-18 learners than they had targeted.

ESOL recruitment booms, waiting lists creep up

Colleges have also been coping with an uptick in ESOL learners, or English for Speakers of Other Languages.

Nearly half of all the colleges recruited more than their target, with 18 per cent of that amount taking on a fifth more than they had planned.

The AoC said “by far the biggest reason” for the increase was an increase in demand due to “displacement, refugee status, and asylum seeking”.

Many colleges also increased their waiting lists after they realised they could not meet the high demand.

The number of adult Ukrainians enrolling for ESOL courses also stayed high, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year. More than a fifth recruited between 51 and 200 Ukrainians this year, up from four per cent last year.

Around four in ten colleges took on up to 50 Ukrainians for ESOL courses, which was similar to last year. But the data also shows a quarter of colleges did not take on any Ukrainians, up from 16 per cent last year.

HE numbers slip

Fewer colleges are meeting their targets when it comes to higher education enrolments. The survey data shows that just 31 per cent successfully met their targets in 2023/34, in comparison to 42 per cent the year before.

Nearly a fifth missed their targets by between 10 and 19.9 per cent.

Those who are managing to grow their higher education enrolments also remain few and far between. Just nine per cent grew their enrolment numbers compared to 2022/23 – the same proportion as last year.

Adult education numbers improve, but continue to miss the mark

Two in five colleges recruited their target number of adult learners this year – more than the third that did so in 2022/23. Over a third had more adults enrol on courses than their target number – with the remaining portion seeing a small decrease, in all but one cases, of below 14.9 per cent.

AoC’s survey showed that six per cent of colleges saw increased recruitment of over 20 per cent beyond their target recruitment number.

Keegan to get her own camera person (on £50k a year)

The Department for Education is recruiting a videographer to film regular content of the education secretary for her social media channels. 

An advert for a senior digital videographer on an annual salary of nearly £50,000 went live earlier this week. The “social media native” would “primarily work” with Gillian Keegan to capture “high-profile engagements across the country”, as well as in the department’s own studio. 

They will “lead” on videography for Keegan’s social media channels and capture “high-quality and engaging” content. This will help develop “a regular drumbeat” of videos for channels such as X – formerly known as Twitter. 

Pay is advertised at £48,701 a year, although the role is for six months. 

The education secretary is a keen user of social media, regularly posting face-to-camera videos. One of her special advisers is also a social media expert who previously produced content for Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign.  

The recruit would join the department’s social media team and work with ministers and special advisers, the advert states. 

Other departments have advertised for similar roles, although they were not specifically for a secretary of state. 

Last November, The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities advertised a senior videographer role in London on £40,390 a year. 

A Ministry of Justice social media videographer job, which closed in February, was advertised with a London salary range of between £35,405 to £39,000.  

A DfE spokesperson said: “This is an existing post in the department’s social media team, with responsibility to deliver communications in line with the department’s priorities, helping us communicate and inform people about key policies that impact their daily lives.” 

FE faces ‘double edged sword’ as Procurement Act hikes risk of litigation

Private providers and colleges could be further driven away from subcontracting by the government’s new Procurement Act as it risks more litigation, experts have warned.

The act, which got royal assent last month and will come into force from next October, will also “create additional bureaucracy” across the board in further education, lawyers and sector leaders have told FE Week.

It covers procurement across all industries, but FE bigwigs say it could have far-reaching consequences for the sector. The Department for Education has itself been on a mission to significantly reduce the amount of subcontracting in FE, in a crackdown prompted by concerns about poor oversight and fraud.

The Procurement Act means that anyone tendering across the public sector, and failing to win a tender, will receive a breakdown of the individual scores awarded to the winning bid and their own, which they can then compare.

Chris Murray, legal director at Eversheds Sutherland, said the risk is some colleges do not know they are implicated in the Procurement Act.

“A lot of them do, but there are quite complicated definitions as to which contracting authorities are implicated here for the purposes of procurement law,” he added. For instance, independent training providers are subject to these rules too if they are competing for public money.

“One of the government’s key objectives with the change in rules is to ensure greater transparency in public procurement,” he said.

Currently, when any public organisation finishes its procurement process, it must send letters to each losing bidder with some detail on why it has lost a procurement procedure. But this change will mean they receive “assessment summaries” for their own bid and the winning bid. That will include the individual scores for each criteria, and feedback on each score.

“They will just give you both assessments and you can look at it you can say: ‘Wait a minute, I’ve been given a one out of 10 for question one and the winner has been given an eight out of 10 for the same question, and yet the feedback is quite similar’,” Murray said.

That means an “increased likelihood of [legal] challenge”, he said. However, he stressed any challenges will need to be made within 30 days of the receipt of the “assessment summaries”.

There are also concerns around an “administrative burden” for contracting authorities and ITPs. More notices around procurement will be legal requirements – such as “pipeline notices” which will give all bidders extra time to prepare for tenders, and abandonment notices, which show when a contracting organisation has decided to cancel its procurement procedure.

That will add, Murray said, to the already high amount of paperwork needs around procurement.

But there is more positivity around the Act’s new “debarment list” – a Cabinet Office list of firms that are disqualified from procurement, such as those who have committed corporate manslaughter or fraud.

Businesses which are bankrupt or have been flagged for their “poor performance” on other contracts will also be on the list. Those, however, will be “discretionary” disqualification grounds, meaning the procuring body will need to decide if they should be allowed to tender.

It will include any example when a minister has determined any supplier is “an excluded or excludable supplier”, or if an investigation has taken place into them, according to the Procurement Act itself. Businesses will need to apply to the cabinet office to be struck off the list.

That will mean procuring organisations such as colleges will not need to approach individual subcontractors to check if they are allowed to procure for work.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, welcomed the move to “improve procurement rules” including the requirement to include a “provider’s track record”.

But, he said the act could be a “double edged sword” for providers.

“There is a real concern that new procedures will create additional bureaucracy that may end up discouraging subcontracting opportunities due to the risk of new litigation. AELP is calling for a minimum value exemption threshold to be introduced into procurement rounds below which additional bureaucracies wouldn’t apply.”

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the AoC said the reforms “may provide some benefits in terms of transparency but there are risk and costs at a time when college capacity is already really stretched”.

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said the new act “slashes red tape and introduces one single set of simple, flexible rules, removing more than 350 complicated and bureaucratic rules as a result of Britain leaving the EU, opening up competition for new suppliers, especially SMEs”.

“It will also create a more open and transparent system, stimulating competition and ensuring procurement teams have the flexibility to design a tendering process to their needs.”

Ofsted grades changed for 5 FE providers last year after challenges

Five FE providers managed to secure an Ofsted grade increase last year after initially being handed the wrong judgement, FE Week can reveal.

Complaints from the further education sector about inspections conducted by the watchdog have also almost doubled since 2018 – although they remain well below the level in schools.

It comes against a backdrop of increasing legal challenges against Ofsted ratings from FE providers, while the inspectorate also rolls out changes to its complaints procedure – after admitting it is “not fit for purpose”.

Data obtained by FE Week through a Freedom of Information request revealed there have been eight changes to FE providers’ Ofsted grade since 2018. Two were in 2019/20, one was in 2021/22, and five were in 2022/23 (see table

Ofsted refused to specify the names of providers, or provide a breakdown of provider types nor did it specify what the grades were changed from and to.

FE Week did however reveal one case last year. In December 2022, the watchdog took the unprecedented step of unpublishing an ‘inadequate’ report for UK Training & Development Limited (UKTD) and carried out a reinspection following an appeal which resulted in a ‘good’ judgement.

Several other independent training providers have tried and failed to challenge Ofsted grades since the pandemic, with most alleging the inspectorate is not taking into consideration the impact of Covid on their delivery.

FE representatives said judgement changes entail a lot of stress, anxiety and workload on staff and leaders.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We’re pleased that Ofsted has been responsive in these instances, and has been prepared to review and change judgements, but we are obviously concerned that these providers were not given the correct rating in the first place.

“The current system is so blunt and reductive that negative grades act as a cliff-edge and are very likely to feel unrepresentative of what a provider actually does across all its provision and services.”

FE Week’s FOI data also shows the number of complaints Ofsted received from FE providers has grown in recent years, albeit with an expected drop during the Covid years when inspections were suspended.

There were 22 in 2018/19, 13 in 2019/20, nine in 2020/21, 31 in 2021/22 and 40 in 2022/23.

Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for further education and skills, at last week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference

Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for further education and skills, told last week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference that the figures are low.

“Let me assure you for the FE and skills, we get very few complaints,” he told delegates.

The inspectorate said in its latest annual report that “unsurprisingly” most of the complaints were from providers that have received the lowest grades. In 2022/23, over half of which were judged as ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’.

“Many of these also include concerns about inspectors’ conduct or how the inspection was carried out, for example about the opportunity for a provider to present evidence, meetings as part of the inspection visit, or inspectors giving on-site feedback,” the report said.

“Some also feel that we did not fully consider the comments they gave on their draft inspection report.”

Compared to the school’s sector, complaints from FE providers are small. In 2022/23, Ofsted received 40 complaints from FE and 247 from schools.

However, Ofsted does not provide schools complaint data prior to 2022/23.

It’s important to note the number of inspections in FE has shot up post-pandemic. There were 237 FE inspections in 2018/19, compared to 486 in 2022/23.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Even considering the disruption to our inspections between 2019/20- 2020/21 due to Covid, you’ll be able to see that the number of changes to overall effectiveness grades are very small when considering the number of inspections. The number of complaints is still also very low when set in context.”

However, Ofsted is making several changes to its complaints procedure after admitting it was not up to scratch earlier this year.

From January 2024 there will be enhanced on-site professional dialogue during inspections to help resolve any matters, and there will be a new opportunity for providers to contact Ofsted the day after an inspection visit if they have any unresolved concerns. 

FE Week’s FOI data comes weeks after former chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw told MPs that the watchdog’s remit was “far too big” and should have just stuck to inspecting schools.

Ofsted’s capacity also may be stretching further than it can handle. According to Ofsted’s annual reports, the average number of staff employed has only grown just five per cent since 2018/19 to 1,893 in 2022/23, despite a huge increase in inspections.

College’s traineeship learners worked illegal hours, DfE audit finds

Hundreds of young adults on security and rail traineeships were made to work illegal hours, a government investigation into a college subcontracting debacle has found.

Strode College is currently negotiating a “substantial” clawback with the Department for Education after an extended audit identified breaches of two funding rules. The issue threatens to drop the college’s financial health from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’.

The investigation spans the three academic years between 2019/20 to 2021/22 when the college received around £7.5 million and subcontracted it out to other training providers to deliver traineeships.

Principal John Revill, who discovered the blunder on the first day of the job when he joined in June 2022, described it as a “technical breach” which occurred due to weak subcontracting oversight processes in place under the former leadership.

He is clear that this wasn’t intentional fraud, all learners were real, and the majority had good outcomes that led to employment.

Katy Quinn was principal of Strode College between 2017 and 2022, before she left to lead the newly merged City of Portsmouth College. Quinn and Portsmouth College did not respond to requests for comment from FE Week.

Revill said he is currently weighing up whether to take action against the training providers the college subcontracted to, including by demanding they repay the funding they received. The providers remain unnamed at this stage.

Traineeships were introduced in 2013 as a flagship pre-employability programme but were scrapped this year as a standalone qualification amid years of low starts. The course involves pre-employment training and unpaid work placements from six weeks to one year for eligible 16 to 24-year-olds.

Under government rules, all elements of the programme, including work placement, are subject to a maximum of 35 hours activity each week to “meet the requirements of state benefit rules”.

Revill told FE Week a “good chunk” of the college’s traineeship learners were working up to 50 hours a week in the security and rail industries.

“They were doing consecutive days without a break and working over Christmas,” he said.

Revill said the government’s investigation also found rail traineeship learners working on unofficial railway lines, which is against funding rules. The learners were working on steam and recreational lines, for example, but because they were not official British Rail (Network Rail) lines they were deemed ineligible, the principal explained.

In his first week in the job Revill put a stop to subcontracting at the college, and five senior leaders who were involved in traineeship provision at a decision-making level have now left the organisation. A new chair is also in place, as well as a vice chair.

He said: “This was a technical breach of the rules, which should have been spotted. But I’m struggling to see where that would have been picked up with the processes that were in place at the time.

“Within traineeships, it’s a binary funding system, so if you breach any elements of it, you lose the entire funding, which is where it can rack up to be quite significant clawback.”

Revill said the learners the college works with are mostly “extremely disadvantaged young people in London”, some of whom are ex-offenders, ex-gang members and rehabilitating drug users. He claimed that 75 per cent of the traineeship learners moved into permanent employment in 2021/22, which is a “fantastic thing”.

“This is why it’s a technical breach, my mitigation is that we’ve met policy intent.”

The government published a financial notice to improve for Strode College last month after discovering the misuse of funding, which also explains why the college is yet to publish accounts for 2021/22.

Its financial statements for 2020/21 show the college recorded 1,264 students undertaking traineeships, a big increase from 467 the year prior.

According to those accounts, the college had ‘outstanding’ financial health after it returned a cash operating surplus of £1.58 million.

Strode College is now due a visit from the FE Commissioner’s team.

Revill said it is “too early to say” just how badly the clawback will impact the college. “We’re financially robust, we have money in the bank, but if the debt is a significant debt, then that would be a different conversation,” he warned.

He added that the fiasco “is a distraction and it really is business as usual for the college”.

Ex-college principal banned from education

The principal of the first college to be put in administration has agreed to never work in the education sector again, FE Week can reveal.

In what is thought to be a sector first, Paul Hannan (pictured right) will be fined £250,000 if he breaches the ban which has been imposed following a three-year investigation by BDO, the liquidators for both Hadlow and West Kent and Ashford Colleges.

However, a secret deal has been struck between his deputy Mark Lumsdon-Taylor (pictured left) and BDO that keeps the details of his “undertaking” under wraps. Lumsdon-Taylor, who appears to have already agreed to pay £5,000, will be forced to pay further compensation if he breaches this confidential agreement, and on that basis the liquidators have withdrawn all claims against him in full.

Both leaders of the Hadlow Group resigned in 2019 after applying for emergency funding from the government to keep the colleges open, as Hadlow had run up £40 million in debts, while WKAC owed over £100 million.

The college entered the new education administration process later that year and were moved into liquidation in August 2022. Top Department for Education civil servants previously revealed how the process has cost the taxpayer around £60 million, with a “gut-wrenching” £6 million spent on administrators’ fees alone.

Hundreds of staff lost their jobs and thousands of students had to be moved to other colleges.

The government’s Insolvency Service has been investigating the conduct of the former leaders of the Hadlow Group since the catastrophe unfolded, but it concluded last year that “no further action” should be taken.

However, liquidators BDO have also been investigating the former directors and came to a different outcome.

A recently published creditors’ report states that the joint liquidators “undertook detailed investigations for over three years and intimated claims against Mr Paul Hannan in a letter before action”.

Hannan “disputed liability regarding the claims” and a “full and final settlement was reached on commercially acceptable grounds without any admission of specific liability”.

The settlement required an undisclosed “nominal initial payment”, which was received by the liquidators.

A “further payment of £250,000 in the event of breach of Mr Hannan’s personal undertaking not to take a position in the education sector as a trustee, director, governor, principal, manager, consultant and/or employee,” the report added.

It means that while Hannan has not received an outright directors’ ban from the Insolvency Service, he has been barred from working for another college.

FE Week could not reach Hannan for comment.

‘It’s right that those responsible are held to account’

Lumsdon-Taylor “strenuously disputed all liability”, according to the same BDO report, which revealed his settlement required an initial nominal payment of £5,000.

Lumsdon-Taylor has also “given an undertaking to the joint liquidators” but this is “subject to confidentiality provisions between the parties”.

In the event of a breach, Lumsdon-Taylor will “pay compensation and on that basis the joint liquidators have withdrawn all the claims in full”, the report said.

Responding to the report, a representative for Lumsdon-Taylor told FE Week: “The Hadlow College compulsory liquidation notice confirms that the joint liquidators have withdrawn all claims against Mark J Lumsdon-Taylor unequivocally and in full. This reconfirms our position that there was no case to answer for any ‘claims’ reported or otherwise stated. This matter is concluded.”

Lumsdon-Taylor refused to share any details about the undertaking he has agreed with the liquidators.

The Hadlow and West Kent insolvencies were the first carried out under the laws passed in 2017 which created a special administration regime for colleges.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he is “fairly sure” that this is the first case in which liquidators have “agreed restrictions with former college employees”.

Gravatt said the insolvencies were “exceptional cases in a sector where leaders have an impressive track record of professionalism and skills at leading and managing complex organisations with great probity and integrity”.

“Where things go seriously wrong, it’s right that there are investigations and that those with responsibility are held to account for their actions,” he added.

The liquidators’ fees are different to the £6 million charges paid during the education administration process. BDO’s report reveals the joint liquidators have also racked up remuneration costs of more than £200,000 between August 2022 and August 2023, at an average rate of £175 per hour.

Significantly reduced hourly rates have however been agreed for this work between BDO and DfE. For example, standard charge out rates for a BDO partner ranges between £869 to £994 per hour, discounted to £320 for DfE, and for the £1,304 per hour rate for the BDO tax department has been discounted to £221 per hour.

The process and costs could drag on for years, with the creditors’ report revealing they may need to wait until 2026 for the college’s land at Court Lane to be sold. This is due to a “pre-emption agreement” which currently requires the land to be offered to a third party before it can be sold on the open market.

BDO said it could not provide any further detail than what is already included in its report.

‘Risk averse’ colleges avoid skills bootcamps

Complex funding models, administrative burdens, and a risk averse attitude have kept most colleges away from skills bootcamps, an FE Week investigation has found.

Data shared exclusively with this publication shows that 68 per cent of England’s FE colleges have not dipped into the flagship government programme, despite their close links with local employers arguably making them an ideal fit.

Of that 68 per cent, just 17 per cent plan to launch skills bootcamps by 2025.

The government is dishing out around £600 million to fund the programmes, designed to quickly get people into employment in skills shortage areas, both nationally and in mayoral combined authorities between 2020 and 2025. There were over 16,000 bootcamps starts in 2021-22, which rose to over 40,000 in 2022-23.

Most bootcamps are run by independent training providers. It mirrors the situation in apprenticeships where colleges deliver less than a fifth of starts annually despite repeated ministers urging them to stop letting private providers “nick your lunch” in this space since 2015.

Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager at the Association of Colleges, which conducted the survey of members on their bootcamps involvement, told FE Week the Department for Education has showed “an eagerness for an expansion of the programme across all provider types”.

However, a different financial model, high administrative burden and scheduling uncertainties all make the policy less inviting to colleges, with many calling on the government to shake up the system.

Frith said colleges are “not risk takers” and “don’t tend to jump in with both feet” when new government programmes are rolled out.

“They’re closer to the public purse, in comparison to commercially minded organisations, and are reticent to take the same level of risk as other organisations,” she told FE Week.

“They’re looking at risk versus need for community rather than risk versus profit. If you’re looking at it from that perspective, then it’s quite a risky programme to bring it in as its brand new.”

The courses run for up to 16 weeks and are free to unemployed people, or where employed, their employer would pay a 30 per cent cash contribution.  

They are designed to offer flexible training for adults in careers in areas of national skills shortage, such as construction, manufacturing and digital. The bootcamps, based around levels 3 to 5, are also supposed to guarantee an interview with an employer.

College bosses said that while the flexibility of bootcamps can be an advantage, their design is very different to the traditional courses colleges run – many of which last for years and have a strict funding schedule.

Though Coventry College does deliver bootcamps and is set to increase its range, Gemma Knott, its vice principal for business growth, engagement and partnerships, said they are “very difficult to plan” around standard college courses.

“Traditionally, colleges’ curriculum planning process can be quite protracted and they run on a 12-month curriculum planning process,” she said – while staff are often hired to teach all year round.

When different programmes come around, finding in-demand teachers for short programmes can be trickier. On top of that, the funding is much more “reactive”, meaning that it also does not fit the general funding approach of colleges.

For Knott, that whole process is made much easier if colleges set up a standalone commercial company to deal with bootcamps.

Providers can bid for bootcamps funding through central government, or through mayoral combined authorities. The trouble is that the different contracting authorities have different contracting processes.

Emma Taylor, director of business development and major projects at Suffolk New College, argued tendering skills bootcamps to colleges via combined authorities or local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) is a better way to go – rather than tendering directly from the government.

But she also pointed to the funding model of skills bootcamps as a barrier to colleges.

Bootcamp funding is paid in three instalments: after learners have completed the first week or two of their training, after they have completed their skills bootcamp and have been offered an interview, and after they have got an outcome from their bootcamp and got a job.

That third payment can be paid up to six months after the end of the bootcamp, and is 30 per cent of the whole package.

A college leader who did not wish to be named argued that proves it is “a risk”.

“You have to put all that resource in, but what happens if there is a change with the employer, and suddenly they no longer need that staff and you invested all this money. You could be left quite exposed.”

Knott, from Coventry College, also pointed to a lack of funding to cover travel costs and DBS checks, for instance. The lack of support for those costs means that colleges often need to dip into their own pockets. Funds to cover that, she argued, could also boost uptake among colleges.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We encourage colleges to engage with local areas to prepare for skills bootcamps delivery, and we’re engaging with colleges to learn from and enhance their involvement in skills bootcamps delivery.”

Half of colleges set to strike abandon action

At least half of all the colleges braced for a three-day strike next week have reached pay deals with their staff to stop the action.

Of the 30 colleges which had strikes scheduled for three days,15 called off the strikes by the end of play today (see list below).

Staff at the remaining 15 colleges will strike from Tuesday November 14 to Thursday November 16 – which comes just after the GCSE resit series but during the Association of Colleges annual conference.

The University and College Union would not disclose the agreed paid packages at the colleges, but said that they had agreed packages of at least 6.5 per cent – which is equal to the pay uplift recommendation made by the AoC in September.

When it first announced the national strike, the UCU said it had already settled disputes at 15 additional colleges after staff got offered pay rises of up to 8.5 per cent.

The UCU initially balloted 89 colleges for strike action this term, and 14 voted at the time to settle their disputes. Ballots at 43 colleges meanwhile failed to hit the 50 per cent turnout threshold required by law.

Meanwhile, responding to the strikes, Virginia Barrett, principal at Farnborough College of Technology, said she was “befuddled by this national slur on the college’s reputation”.

In an open letter to college staff, she said Farnborough College had made “significant efforts to reward staff above annual inflationary rates and above national recommendations from AoC’s negotiations with UCU”. In 2022/23, she claimed that the college had increased pay by 10 per cent, above the national inflation rate of 9.07 per cent.

She also said it had paid an “exceptional bonus” after it retained its outstanding Ofsted rating, and to support staff through the cost-of-living crisis. On top of that she said it was “amongst few colleges” to introduce the real living wage in 2021/22. Staff at the college are set to strike next week.

Last month, Jo Grady, general secretary at the UCU – who is running for reelection – called on all other colleges to “make staff a meaningful offer”.

“Any that refuse will be hit with strike action,” she said.

‘Non-evaluators’ downgraded AEB tender score, LCG claim

An adult education budget procurement bid from a major group of training providers was “unlawfully” downgraded by mysterious “non-evaluators”, it has been alleged.

New court documents filed by Learning Curve Group (LCG) and seven of its subsidiary training companies bring new allegations to light in their battle for damages and a re-run of the government’s latest £75 million AEB tender.

This latest twist comes as LCG this week refiled its claims against the Education and Skills Funding Agency following sight of voluntary disclosure material from the agency.

Learning Curve Group launched its High Court legal challenge in August. They were one of several high-profile providers not to secure a contract in the ESFA’s latest national adult education budget procurement. 

The case rests on a row over Learning Curve’s Q1B1 submission – a template for bidders’ mobilisation and delivery plan which the DfE said should have included forecasts for training courses and learner numbers. A strict two-page limit was in place on the template, and bidders needed to score of at least 75 (good) to be considered.

Learner volume forecasts were also required in a separate volumes template. 

Under the procurement guidance, technical questions like Q1B1 are marked by two individual evaluators. Their scores are then reviewed by a moderator who brings the two evaluators together to agree on “consensus scores” for each question. 

Department for Education lawyers argued that Learning Curve’s providers did not list the number of forecasted learners for each course, so they received a score of 50 for Q1B1, the DfE said.

Learning Curve claimed its response satisfied the criteria for a higher score and now say voluntary disclosure documents show the Agency’s procurement evaluators scored their Q1B1 submission as ‘very good’ – a score of 100.

LCG’s new claim suggests that not only did they score above the required threshold to be considered for a contract, but the final score they were awarded was actually determined by “non-evaluators,” therefore not following the consensus process, published criteria or evaluator guidance.

“The voluntary disclosure shows that the scores awarded to the claimants’ [LCG et al] responses to Q1B1 were not determined by the evaluators … The non-evaluators did not apply the published award criteria or the Defendant’s [ESFA’s] evaluator guidance,” an amended particulars of claim reads.

The voluntary disclosure documents also allege that the ESFA evaluated Q1B1 responses from different bidders “on an inconsistent and unequal basis.”

Defence documents filed by DfE lawyers last month denied LCG’s claim that a “reasonably well-informed and normally diligent tenderer” would evaluate Q1B1 alongside the volumes template, indicating that evaluators would not cross-reference between the two.

Following voluntary disclosure, LCG now alleges they’ve seen some cases where agency evaluators did factor in the volumes template.

“The voluntary disclosure shows that the defendant [ESFA] evaluate different bidders’ responses to Q1B1 on an inconsistent and unequal basis … the voluntary disclosure shows in evaluating some bidders’ responses the defendant did have regard to the volumes template,” LCG’s revised claim states.

LCG was not the only training provider to challenge their unsuccessful procurement outcome. 

Last month FE Week reported that Portland Training was awarded a £2.5 million AEB contract following an appeal.

A further defence from the DfE is expected next month.