The FE sector has a key role to play to support gender equality in the workplace. Here’s how

In the wake of International Women’s Day, it’s important to remember the debates, conversations and celebrations of this one day should inspire us to continue striving to resolve the societal inequalities faced by women. Bringing about positive change is year-round work. In the further education sector, we work with many young women during crucial, formative years as they develop skills and forge careers. This means we have a great potential and opportunity to influence their lives for the better and promote a more equal society.

Certainly, there’s still plenty of progress still to be made. Our recent research, Youth Misspent, surveyed 5,000 18- to 24-year-olds and found that despite having high ambitions, young women are often left trailing behind men when it comes to achieving them. And this only entrenches as time progresses. Structural barriers embedded into our current careers, employment and childcare systems limit the earning potential of women and their ability to achieve their ambitions.

Our research found that amongst 18- to 24-year-olds, inequalities are already emerging. While young women (23 per cent) are more likely to already be working than young men (20 per cent), men are more likely than women to have already purchased their own home (11 per cent vs 6 per cent), and are more likely to already be earning above the average salary of £28,000 (17 per cent vs 8 per cent).

There are many reasons why these inequalities start to appear so early on in young women’s lives and careers. One area the FE sector should pay close attention to is the tendency for women to choose lower-paid industries compared with young men pursue careers in higher-paid sectors such as financial services and construction. This has a huge impact on future careers and salaries and exacerbates the gender pay gap.

In fact, recent research published by the Living Wage Foundation found that jobs held by women account for almost 60 per cent of all roles paid below the real living wage. Women are also more likely to be on zero-hours contracts, trapped in low-paying, insecure and precarious jobs.

Equal opportunity to education isn’t enough; we need to go further

Providing equal opportunities to education isn’t enough; we need to go further than that. We can and should play an important role to support women into higher-paid careers and industries where they are currently under-represented and unlock their full economic potential. There are several ways we can do this.

First, we should ensure colleges are equipped to provide supportive careers advice and skills mapping to help women understand all the opportunities in front of them and encourage them to defy stereotypes and expectations – considering jobs in better paid but often male-dominated sectors. Providing this early on in their education journeys – and even working with local schools to reach younger students – will ensure they are equipped with the skills and confidence needed to progress and flourish in their later lives.

Second, it’s important to recognise the power of strong mentorship. In colleges, consider reaching out to networks of previous alumni to set up mentorships with current students. These mentors can be male or female – what’s important is that they can be a valuable role model and help aspiring young women by providing advice, counsel and a support network for their development.

Third, we should work with employers to make industries less gendered and support those in typically ‘male-dominated’ industries to make their roles more appealing to female candidates. That could be through careers education events, changing recruitment processes, improving flexibility, offering paid internship programmes for young female talent, or bespoke training opportunities. We can also support employers to put in place specific support for women as they begin new careers in these sectors.

Ultimately, to support women in their careers and tackle these inequalities, we need to think about equity rather than equality. That means recognising the structural barriers women face and ensuring they have access to tailored support to help them to enter high-earning careers, embrace their full potential and balance the gender success scales for a fairer future.

The Staffroom: Making friends and allies to crack the challenge of work experience

“To be a good journalist, make friends.” So were the words of my Sheffield College journalism tutor back in 2005. An old-school lecturer and press hack, the truth is my work experience opportunities relied more on his network than any friends that I could make. A contacts book bulged by years in industry and a course with a strong regional reputation mattered. But, as work experience has now become a major focus in the post-16 education agenda, how can we repeat the trick at a T level scale? I work in education now, but I find thinking like a journalist is a useful skill in this regard.

Immortalised by The Inbetweeners and etched in our own memories, work experience is the rite of passage of the post-16 student. But as the T level requirement for 315 placement hours ups the ante for colleges and students alike, delivering both quantity and quality has become one of the key challenges facing skills education.

General further education might not often claim an alumni society, but its reach stretches into every industry, office and business. If you know where to look and are bold enough to ask, it’s amazing what can be found. Much like the no-nonsense advice of that wizened newshound-turned-teacher, the strategies for success have budged little: committed phone calls, worn shoe leather and a social media presence are the routes to lighting up that network with opportunities.

And it turns out people like helping our students. In our department of business, IT and social sciences, the dedicated work of teaching staff has put together a network of policing, legal and court contacts as well as a plethora of businesses across accounting, marketing and IT services.

That’s a great first step, but the key is to establish a strong range of ‘repeat business’ work experience placements. This comes down to three factors.

Promote your courses

Businesses don’t know your latest offering; why would they? But one LinkedIn post might be all it takes. Broadcasting the talent of our students led us to having a law firm on board, keen to involve our Applied Law group in their work.

They offer advice on the range of careers and routes the profession offers, and they ensure our students make connections alongside their work experience placements, giving them the ‘inside scoop’ on the reality of law with the firm. It helps them too; their assessment speaks for itself: “I don’t why we haven’t started working with you sooner.”

Keep tabs on job opportunities

Firms face a tough jobs market and connecting them to the groundswell of talent at the college produces lightning-quick email responses. Work such as apprenticeships and trainee posts are often cyclical in big companies, so their HR department are the first people to contact.

For example, a chance search brought up 10 trainee posts in one local accountancy company. It took one email to create a connection to real work in a local business our students may never have considered or heard of. On top of that, they came in to talk to our business students about what accountancy is really like, and even gave our Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) group a chance to hone the applications.

Get out of college

This might be the information age, but face-to-face contact at local business events, conferences and recruitment fairs can’t be beaten for growing your network. The job of good management is to grow those opportunities and crucially find out what skill shortages there are in the local economy.

Chance conversations are a rich avenue of research and development, whether they lead to work experience, job posts or introductions into industries. One of our ex-students now runs a cybersecurity company. Your alumni will be doing amazing things on your doorstep too, and feed right back into this virtuous cycle.

Our work has always been more than delivering qualifications alone. If a student is qualified with skills an industry needs but doesn’t know where to start, then the job is only half-done. Growing our students’ work experience and their contacts book means they can write their own story once they leave.

Stop relying on more funding. Providers need to solve their own recruitment problems

The recent announcement to raise the FE teacher training bursary level is headline-worthy, but it won’t dent the recruitment and retention problems faced by the sector. Providers should aim to solve their own problems rather than wait for more funding from DfE.

Bursaries are finite in number and locked to subject areas. They’re also laced with qualifying criteria. With the FE sector vacancy rate more than double pre-pandemic levels, the bursary improvement is welcome but it will have a negligible impact.

The FE sector has the evergreen challenge of hiring experienced people from industry. Salaries in FE rarely outpace what is obtainable in industry occupations. The knee-jerk response from lobbyists is to appeal for more funding so that providers can pay higher salaries.

This isn’t achievable across all industries and provision. The toughest vacancies to fill in FE are the same as those in industry; areas of economic demand where there is a lack of experienced candidates.

For example, the median salary for a software developer in the UK is £65,000. According to our platform, however, the average salary for a software development coach or lecturer is £38,039. The average salary for a bricklayer is £53,528, but our website shows the average for a bricklaying lecturer £30,883. The list goes on.

The struggles do not end there; in comparative sectors FE is the poor relation. Secondary teachers earn more than FE lecturers. Those working in learning and development earn 33 per cent more than their FE counterparts in FE. Then, there is intra-sector competition between ITPs, employer providers, colleges and universities.

Now for the good news: The FE sector has bags to offer professionals moving from industry. It just requires a thoughtful and creative approach to unlock this value.

Post-pandemic, there is a huge shift in what job-seekers prioritise. Much of the workforce is unwilling to compromise on work/life balance as they did before.

The bursary improvement will have a negligible impact

With this in mind, increasing the flexibility of working conditions is very attractive. Worth considering are remote or hybrid working, 4-day work weeks and flexi hours. Extended holidays, buy-back schemes and sabbaticals are common in the private sector.

Colleges could utilise existing infrastructure to mitigate living costs by supporting employees with subsidies for things like food or childcare.

Providers could leverage their proximity to industry to forge recruitment partnerships. I loved the recent example in the LEC Report of South Burton & Derbyshire college’s recruitment partnership. Providers could find further inspiration on what is important to job seekers by examining what top employers use to enhance their employer value propositions (EVP).

Social conscientiousness is at an all-time high. Working in FE is a fantastic way to contribute to ‘something bigger’, but I’m often shocked to see how few providers talk about this in their recruitment literature. Few providers invest in EVP enhancers like B-Corp status, despite qualifying.

Finally, lightening the load on lecturers would benefit the sector too. Agile approaches and more efficient organisational structures would make the job more enjoyable. Enabling educators to focus on imparting their knowledge rather than weighing them down in bureaucracy is key to avoiding attrition.

Ideas like these are rarely cost-neutral, so where does the investment needed come from? One option is to stop relying on staffing agencies when direct sourcing is a viable alternative. It’s easier than ever before with advancements in recruitment technology.

There are stark comparisons to draw with the NHS with regards to over-reliance on contract staffing agencies. Like the NHS, diverting agency spending would allow reinvestment into HR resources. We could also improve compensation packages (salary levels or benefits) in problem areas.

This won’t happen overnight and will need an introspective approach. There has to be an appetite to change the status quo rather than waiting for more funding, or outsourcing recruitment by default.

Senior leaders should invest more in their HR and talent acquisition strategy. In doing so, they’d find that their recruitment challenges would dissipate. Over time, both FE job-seeker sentiment and the level of new entrants to the sector would improve.

Nottinghamshire SEND college celebrates top Ofsted marks

A Nottinghamshire independent specialist college providing vocational courses for high needs students has been hailed for its “highly inclusive and supportive” education in an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted report.

The education watchdog visited Portland College near Sherwood Forest in January, giving the top rating in all areas in a report published on Thursday and improving on the college’s ‘good’ rating from 2017.

The college had 216 learners aged 16 to 25 at the time of the visit, all of whom have high needs or education health and care plans (EHCPs), as well as four learners on supported internship programmes.

Inspectors said learners are greeted by “kind and caring staff”, praising the close working of teaching, support and therapy staff to create a “calm, nurturing and exciting place to learn”.

The report found staff developed an “excellent rapport” with learners with a “compassionate approach” which taught students to manage their behaviour and feelings positively, highlighting their “unwavering commitment” to students’ personal development.

It found the college taught students well about the risks they may experience in the world, including from extremist groups praying on vulnerable learners and on social media, as well as other wider topics such as sexual health, law, cultural diversity and self-esteem.

Staff were given specialist training in areas such as sign language, mental health and neurodiversity, and by getting to know students well teaching staff were able to identify areas for learners to develop.

Elsewhere, Ofsted said the college’s strategy “links strongly to the preparation for adulthood agenda” with health and wellbeing “at the heart of the strategic plan”.

The report continued that targets were closely linked to learners’ EHCPs, and “as a result, learners benefit from a highly personalised and ambitious curriculum and make excellent progress to achieve their learning goals.”

Ofsted found that the majority of students moved on to positive post-college destinations, such as adult day services, supported living, employment or further study.

Governor oversight of the college was found to be “highly effective”, the report added.

College principal and chief executive Dr Mark Dale said he was “delighted” with the findings, adding: “We work really hard every day to ensure our learners have access to the best specialist education and facilities, supported by an excellent multi-disciplinary team to meet their individual needs.”

Our skills system is a long way from meeting the economy’s needs

Going back before all the skills reforms which started 10 years ago, we had around half a million apprenticeship starts. Many of these were young people commencing their careers in SMEs at level 2, and some at level 3.

One of the principle aims of the government’s apprenticeship reforms was to increase the number of starts to 600,000 per year and offer all young people the opportunity of a higher-quality apprenticeship.

Ten years on, it is great to see the increase in level 4-and-above apprenticeships; this should help towards increasing productivity. Policy improvements such as flexi-apprenticeships, accelerated apprenticeships and occupational traineeships, now integrated into study programmes, are also welcome developments.

However, the number of apprenticeship starts in the past 12 months was just 349,200, of which only 77,520 were by young people aged 19 years and under. This is a long way from the ambition set out for these reforms. Just as worrying is the decline in level 2 starts, when there are still 9 million jobs (28 per cent of the total) in the economy at level 2 or below. Many of these are crucial sectors in the context of the challenges we face as a country on net zero and social care.

Then there is the non-completion rate, which is just as concerning as the reduction in starts. This drop-out rate at level 2 is high across all sectors; over just a few years, construction level 2 achievements have declined by nearly 50 per cent and in health and care to one-third of where they were when the levy came in.

Red lights for green skills

To achieve net zero, every job will change and 60 or more new occupations will be developed, among them construction for new assets such as non-fossil fuel power stations and retrofit of domestic and commercial property. Yet a recent NAO report, Decarbonising the Power Sector says the government has not yet established a delivery plan, and therefore we cannot be confident that net zero is achievable.

Our skills system is just not suitable for our dynamic and ever-changing situation

Key to the implementation is green skills, and some international comparisons indicate that we are falling behind on these. While we have access to good, high-level technical skills and are starting to see the innovation come through in design and manufacturing, the problem is that the construction workforce that will build and install net zero assets and retrofit our 29 million properties is the level 2 workforce.

In construction in 2021/22, only 4,680 completed level 2 apprenticeships against an average demand of some 30,000 annually. Meanwhile, the alternative qualification route could be at risk from the DfE’s funding reform of level 2-and-below qualifications. Alarm bells should be ringing!

Our skills system, which is designed for larger programmes such as apprenticeships and T levels, is just not suitable for the dynamic and ever-changing situation of greens skills and digital innovation. We need a skills system that can flex, like the more agile systems based upon modularisation and micro-credentials happening in Europe, USA and the Far-East.

An aging system

We face similar problems in our response to an aging population. Most informed views describe our social care system as ‘broken’.

In a sector with 1.65 million jobs, over half of employees have no relevant qualification, and 21 per cent are qualified at level 2 or below. These are arguably poorly-paid jobs, and on any given day there are over 165,000 vacancies, which is only forecast to get worse. Turnover rates are 29 per cent on average and as high as 50 per cent for younger workers. Despite this high demand, only 9,430 level 2 achievements were recorded in 2021/22.

It’s the same problem with social care as with net zero: a failure to properly invest in skills for a level 2 workforce. Worryingly, policy is only heading further away from facing up to this.

We do not need to start again with the skills system, but we must urgently consider properly funded modularisation so it can support dynamic developments in new sectors and upskill some 30 million employees in the existing workforce.

The levy and our qualifications are simply not designed to meet the biggest challenges we face.

Trailblazer devolution deals focus on careers, bootcamps and free courses for jobs

Greater further education and skills powers have been devolved to two mayoral regions in England – but flexibilities appear to be limited.

Eagerly sought deals for Greater Manchester and West Midlands combined authorities were unveiled today following the chancellor’s Spring Budget address, with the regions offered “deeper” devolved powers.

Currently the two have ownership of their regions’ adult education budgets (AEB) and involvement in local skills improvement plans, but the pair had been pushing for further skills and education powers such as co-commissioning powers for courses like T Levels and overseeing careers provision.

But the plans published today have only added a small number of developments, with the main flexibilities around skills bootcamps and the free courses for jobs scheme – free full level 3 courses for those without a level 3 qualification or who earn below the national living wage.

Under the trailblazer deals, the two regions will be able to spend up to half of their free courses for jobs budget on any adult level 3 qualification they feel is necessary to meet local skills need.

The government said it plans to remove the ringfencing of cash on the programme in the next spending review period (the current spending review period runs from 2022/23 to 2024/25).

On skills bootcamps, the deals say that from 2023/24 the authorities can use up to 30 per cent of their bootcamp budget on developing new bootcamps needed to meet local need, rising to 100 per cent from 2024/25.

The government plans single capital and revenue funding settlements for the trailblazers in the next spending review period, with a memorandum of understanding set to be published in January 2024 outlining more details of that. However, it is expected adult skills – including free courses for jobs and bootcamps – will be in that settlement.

Those are expected to be multi-year funding settlements.

Elsewhere, Greater Manchester and West Midlands will become the “central convenor” of careers provision in their regions, with the aim of better joining up existing careers provision such as the National Careers Service and local careers hubs by tailoring provision to local needs.

The documents say that will be carried out by the authorities with government to shape the design of those, while a new strategic fund pilot is also planned for responding to careers priorities for young people in the two areas.

Details of how much those pilots will be worth or what they will entail have not yet been made clear.

Another pilot scheme, called the Further Education Innovation Fund, will provide funding to colleges to “pursue innovation activities,” although no further details have been released on that other than the work will happen with the regions, government and Innovate UK.

Under the devolution deal, the two regions will also form their own joint governance boards bringing together commissioners, providers, and designated employer representative bodies to “provide oversight of post-16 technical education and skills”.

The report said these boards will “utilise all available levers and resources to secure a post-16 technical and vocational offer that is aligned to local skills needs”.

Only a few details of what the boards will be involved in have been published as the government says it envisages those boards will evolve over time, but details so far include involvement in linking education to real-time labour market data, developing the all-age careers strategy, signing off the local skills improvement plan from the lead college, and improved data sharing responsibilities.

According to the deals, the two regions will be subject to additional accountability that could include mayor’s question times and appearances at parliamentary select committees.

Details on what the two authorities had been pushing for had been scant as negotiations were held behind closed doors, but today’s announcement appears to fall short of some of the asks, such as requests for a partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions to influence job centre operations and co-commissioning of T Levels which Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham had been seeking.

Despite that, the Labour mayor said: “We’ve worked hard to secure this deal and have achieved a significant breakthrough by gaining greater control over post-16 technical education, setting us firmly on the path to become the UK’s first technical education city-region.”

Greater Manchester Combined Authority said that the deal was not just about powers surrounding existing programmes or funding streams, but establishes a principle that any new functions are integrated into the region’s adult skills landscape in a more responsive manner.

It added that the oversight functions will be determined as part of the interpretation and implementation of the deal and laid out in the terms of reference the authority and government will draw up together.

Andy Street, mayor of West Midlands (pictured main), added that it was a “major step forward for the West Midlands with significant new powers and funding secured”.

But skills consultant Aidan Relf on social media said that it was “a bit of a damp squib” saying that the Department for Education has “fought hard”.

Anne Dawe, chair of GM Colleges and principal at Wigan and Leigh College said the deal will build on the “excellent partnerships” already at work in Greater Manchester, adding that it would “create a highly skilled workforce with a curriculum that meets the need for the rapidly changing world of work.”

Greater Manchester elected its first directly-elected metro mayor in 2014 and has an annual AEB allocation of around £96 million. West Midlands secured its first devolution deal in November 2015, with an AEB around £130 million, according to its trailblazer document.

AAC 2023: We’re at a pivotal moment to reshape apprenticeships

So, the ninth Annual Apprenticeship Conference has drawn to a close. And what a conference it was! As the co-chair, it was great to see the energy and the right topics being discussed.

All of us were clear: it’s our time to act now to reshape the system for the future. At best, the apprenticeship system needs some tweaks and at worst a complete overhaul. We know that’s not what this government want to hear but it’s plain and simple fact.

There is a rising chorus of employer voices demanding change. With a general election looming and pencils being sharpened for manifestos that will shape our future, many are waiting with bated breath to ask, what next? 

During the conference, IFATE CEO Jennifer Coupland talked to the need for us to all be confident and positive about the apprenticeships brand, and there were no arguments with that. We all believe in their transformative power and want them to succeed. 

It’s precisely because we care so deeply that we are calling for change. None of us want to see the apprenticeship system fail, but we can’t ignore the facts. Employers are telling us that the system doesn’t work properly for them.  They are voting with their feet, as evidenced by the significant drop in apprenticeship starts since the levy was introduced. It is a dereliction of duty to ignore this.  

Another case for change was in the excellent debate with leaders from the hospitality sector. They detailed the enormous challenges they are facing in filling job vacancies and the significant impact this is having on their sector. They called out, as employers from across many sectors have also done, for a broader skills levy that allows them to spend their money on shorter courses, alongside much valued apprenticeships. The message was clear, we need other skills interventions alongside apprenticeships now to cope with damaging labour and skills shortages.  

In the months and years ahead, we need to address this so we can create a skills system that totally lives up to its potential and that allows employers to get the skilled people they need and supports people to get the skills to thrive and contribute throughout their lifelong careers.

Our hospitality speakers also expressed significant concern about the fact that level 2 apprenticeships were at risk, as they form a critical pathway into careers in their sector leading to careers as chefs, baristas, brewers and hotel managers – to name just a few. As we all know, level 2 apprenticeships support social mobility, allowing people who might not have achieved in school to access opportunities that can allow them to succeed in the future. Let’s hope that the employer voices are listened to, and these important apprenticeships are retained in the future. 

Another common theme linked to social mobility this year were the many calls to amend the requirement to pass functional skills maths and English. Training providers were clear about what a huge barrier this is to many people completing apprenticeships and puts large numbers of people off taking them in the first place. I also heard employers’ express doubts about the validity of these requirements for older workers retraining and ask whether the skills requirements of the apprenticeship could be better matched to the job at hand.

These themes were also some of the hot topics discussed at an employer roundtable lunch I co-hosted with Anthony Impey, chair of DfE’s apprenticeship stakeholder board, during the conference to allow us to really get under the skin of employer thinking. One more radical idea was a skills minister with responsibility across the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education, and Department for Business and Trade to provide a much more cohesive approach to skills development going forward. We also talked about how beneficial it would be to have a UK wide skills system in the future.

And finally, the awards gala dinner was a real celebration of all that is good and great about our apprenticeship employers and providers.  Well done again to all the winners! 

One thing is for certain, in the current climate we are at a pivotal moment to shape policy that could have an impact on millions of lives and secure the long-term future of great apprenticeships.  

Budget 2023: What the chancellor announced for FE and skills

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his spring budget today and confirmed the government’s intention to introduce a shorter “kind of” apprenticeship for the over-50s called “returnerships”.

There were little other major announcements for the FE and skills sector, but some important policy areas, including a universal credit training flexibility, have been extended.

Here’s what the budget announced for further education:

‘Returnerships’ for over-50s – but when and how?

Over the weekend, Hunt trailed the idea of a new training programme for out-of-work older people. Today during his speech at the dispatch box, he confirmed the education secretary Gillian Keegan “will introduce a new kind of apprenticeship targeted at the over 50s who want to return to work.

“They will be called returnerships, an offering alongside skills boot camps and sector-based work academies.”

Hunt said returnerships will “bring together our existing skills programmes to make them more appealing for older workers focusing on flexibility and previous experience to reduce training length”.

This programme of work will be backed with £63 million of additional funding.

But there is no timeline for when returnerships are expected to roll out.

Apprenticeships also have a legal 12-month minimum duration requirement. It is unclear whether new legislation will be required for returnerships.

While Hunt suggested in his speech that returnerships will be a new course, the Treasury’s budget documents cast doubt over this.

The documents state: “Returnerships are a new offer targeted at the over 50s, which bring together the government’s existing skills programmes, focusing on flexibility and previous experience to reduce training length. Returnerships will promote accelerated apprenticeships, sector-based work academy programme placements and skills bootcamps to the over 50s.”

The documents add that this will be “supported by £63 million for an additional 8,000 skills bootcamps places in 2024-25 in England, and 40,000 new sector-based work academy programme placements across 2023-24 and 2024-25 in England and Scotland”.

FE Week is seeking further information from the government.

Universal credit training flexibility extended again

The government’s “train and progress” policy, originally announced as a six-month pilot in March 2021, increases the amount of time universal credit claimants can study full-time, work-focused courses while still receiving benefits from eight weeks to 12 weeks.

This is extended to 16 weeks in certain subject areas which have skills bootcamps.

This flexibility has been extended again to April 2025.

Additional £3m for supported internships

Supported internships, introduced a decade ago, are structured programmes for SEND students aged 16 to 24 who have an education health and care plan (EHCP) to get into sustained employment, with placements lasting for six months to a year.

Hunt announced today that the Department for Education will now invest an additional £3 million over the next two years to pilot an expansion of the supported internships programme to young people entitled to SEND support who do not have an EHCP.

Intensive English language courses for Ukrainians

In an extension of the support for Ukrainians fleeing the war who have arrived in the UK under the Ukraine visa schemes, the government is providing £11.5 million to offer “intensive English language courses and employment support” to up to 10,000 individuals.

This new funding is expected to “boost the number of Ukrainians entering the labour market for the first time, as well as helping those already employed into higher-skilled roles”.

Further details, including additional groups who may be eligible for this support, will be published “in due course”.

Investment zones cash can be spent on skills

Hunt announced the launch of 12 new “investment zones” in England, dubbed “potential Canary Wharf’s”, which will have access to interventions worth £80 million over five years.

The zones will have access to “flexible grant funding” to “support skills and incentivise apprenticeships, provide specialist business support and improve local infrastructure, dependent on local requirements”.

The 12 zones are: the proposed East Midlands Mayoral Combined County Authority; Greater Manchester Mayoral Combined Authority; Liverpool City Region Mayoral Combined Authority; the proposed North East Mayoral Combined Authority; South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority; Tees Valley Mayoral Combined Authority; West Midlands Mayoral Combined Authority; West Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.

Deeper devolution deals signed

In the levelling up white paper, the government committed to negotiate trailblazer deeper devolution deals with the Greater Manchester and West Midlands Combined Authorities to “set the blueprint for deeper devolution across the rest of England”.

Those deals have been signed today and include “a greater role in simplifying and integrating ticketing in local transport systems; devolution of the majority of 19+ adult skills funding to mayors; a long-term commitment to local authorities retaining 100 per cent of their business rates; and, for the first time outside of London, local leaders will now be able to set the strategic direction over the Affordable Housing Programme in their areas,” according to Treasury documents.

The new deals also pave the way for multi-year funding settlements for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands from the next spending review. The chancellor said he hopes to roll this out to other areas in the future, though didn’t specify a timescale.

The documents for the deals themselves show no major change for skills funding in those areas, which already control the adult education budget. But there is more flexibility on how they can use free courses for jobs funding, skills bootcamps and introduces a “central convenor of careers provision in the city region”.

Ofsted wants experienced school leader to take over from Spielman

Ofsted is looking for a leader with “significant experience” at a senior level in schools or trusts and a “high degree of personal integrity” to become its next chief inspector.

Amanda Spielman will leave the role at the end of this year after seven years in the hot seat.

A job advert to find her £165,000 successor is now live.

A foreword for the role written by education secretary Gillian Keegan states government wants a chief inspector “with significant experience in the school and trust sector, but who can command respect across all the sectors” within Ofsted’s remit.

Experience in at least one of the other areas within Ofsted’s inspection and regulatory remit, such as further education, early years and children’s social care, is labelled as “desirable criteria”.

Keegan said it was an “important time” to lead the watchdog, with hopefuls able to demonstrate the ability to “embed” and “take forward, build on and improve” the “relatively new” inspection framework.

They must do so while “maintaining and enhancing a strong organisational reputation for valid, reliable, objective and fair judgements”.

They must also be able to “adapt to the changing education” landscape with the “increasing importance” of academy trusts and social care reform marking a “considering period of organisational change” for the watchdog, Keegan added.

Candidates must also show “excellent judgement under pressure and a high degree of personal integrity, including experience of taking difficult, independent, calls in a senior position with high profile”.

Trust body boss on adviser panel

An advisory assessment panel will carry out interviews and recommend candidates to the education secretary, who makes the final decision.

The panel is made up of Ofsted chair Dame Christine Ryan, Ofqual chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton, a senior Department for Education official and Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the academy trust body CST.

One issue could be a potential change of government should Labour win the next election, scheduled to take place by January 2025 at the latest.

Last week, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson set out the party’s intention to reform the watchdog.

Proposals include scrapping its current grading system and replacing it with a new “report card” for schools and FE and skills.

‘Respond proactively to policy direction’

The advert states the chief inspector will need to “respond proactively to the direction of government policy and strategy”.

Chief inspectors are appointed for a term of up to five years by the King.

Spielman was given a two-year extension due to Covid disrupting the roll-out of her inspection framework. It means she will be the longest-serving chief inspector.

The deadline for applications is April 6, with the successful candidate taking office on 1 January 2024.

Once the government has chosen its preferred candidate, they will appear before the education select committee who decide whether to back the decision.

However government can ignore this, as then education secretary Nicky Morgan did when appointing Spielman in 2016.

The committee was concerned Spielman, who had worked in the finance sector before holding a senior position at Ark Schools and later chairing Ofqual, had not been a teacher.