Just 20 apprenticeships in scope for ‘exceptional’ funding review

The government’s “exceptional” apprenticeships funding uplifts review has finally been launched – but it is being limited to 20 apprenticeships.

And officials have confirmed that any uplift will only apply to new starters and not existing apprentices.

In November the Education and Skills Funding Agency announced plans to quickly increase funding bands in the hardest hit sectors to recognise the impact of soaring inflation on training delivery, with ambitions of unveiling details of the process at the end of that month.

At the time, top skills civil servants said there would not be a blanket rise across the board, but suggested employers and trailblazers would be able to apply for a temporary increase for all apprenticeships where they could demonstrate that costs had significantly increased.

Today, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has announced this “exceptional funding band review” will only apply to 20 “high-volume apprenticeships in skills shortage occupations and priority sectors”. Evidence will be needed by “early” March the new funding bands will be implemented by May 1.

The ESFA confirmed that any funding uplift applied will only be for new learners, and will be funded from the existing apprenticeships budget.

The agency would not say what the maximum allocation is for the uplift.

IfATE said the 20 apprenticeships (see full list below) – which include lorry drivers, production chefs, adult care workers and painters and decorators – had been chosen by the DfE in consultation with provider representative bodies.

Factors which resulted in those 20 being chosen included available evidence on the impacts of costs rising, skills shortages, number of starts in 2021/22 and priority sectors.

Jill Whittaker, managing director at HIT Training which delivers some of the chef and adult care apprenticeships, said that increasing costs including staff pay, cost of living increases, end point assessment expenses and other costs meant some programmes such as its chef training were running at a loss.

“We have already made strong cases to IfATE around costs, so this [exceptional funding review] is very, very welcome,” she said.

“But we are disappointed to hear they are only looking at new starters, that is a big challenge – if we are already running at a loss on these programmes it’s going to be very challenging to find a way of recovering that.”

She has called on department chiefs to reconsider including existing learners because “those costs don’t start at that point in time they start their review, they are already being absorbed by training providers”.

Sue Pittock, chief executive of Remit Training, said: “We all have significant enrolment costs, energy costs, staff costs and building costs but haven’t had a pound increase in funding to cover inflationary increases in all of these costs in five years.

“I know 20 standards will be reviewed, which equates to 3 per cent of all standards, but that means a huge compromise for the rest of the sector. How can they possibly manage five years’ worth of inflation without some sort of financial assistance? Margins are very thin in apprenticeship delivery done properly and this will render quality delivery impossible for many providers without some sort of support.”

Pittock also raised concern about the four-month time frame for the introduction of the any uplifts, especially as some standards may only see a small increase. “Why would you wait four months to do an uplift of £500? You are not going to sit there and compile a huge amount of evidence for £500,” she added.

She continued that 16-18 college provision gets around 2 per cent increase each year over the last five years, while apprenticeships have had zero.

She added: “They need to be held in the same parity because apprenticeships are a vital part of our education ecosystem, so it would be great if the money could be found as it is for 16-18 college-based provision.”

IfATE said the exceptional review will not include a full apprenticeship content review that the ordinary revisions process includes, to help speed up the process.

The institute said that by limiting the number to 20 priority standards, funding recommendations could be made more quickly and provision for key standards protected.

IfATE is anticipating that funding increases for those 20 will be by one funding band only, and subject to affordability.

IfATE chief executive Jennifer Coupland said employers and training providers had clearly set out the difficulties they were facing, and added: “We have had to target support at these 20 priority apprenticeships, to ensure affordability and a rapid turnaround on funding decisions.”

Jennifer Coupland

The organisation confirmed that those which hadn’t been selected for the exceptional funding band review will be able to apply for a full funding band review as normal, although that process takes longer, and not all reviews lead to a boost in funding.

Additional guidance for those not in scope for the exceptional review, also published this morning, said that it normally works to eight-week approval cycles but IfATE will do all it can to speed that up if it can do so without compromising quality.

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said that despite only 20 standards being in scope for funding band uplift reviews, these standards represent around 20 per cent of all apprenticeships starts “so it’s certainly a good start”.

She added: “It is absolutely right that adult care should be in the front rank of these uplifts given the existing poor funding levels and labour shortages there. Indeed, most of the sectors covered by today’s announcement were those highlighted as having the most pressing need for intervention in our recent rising costs survey.”

But Hickie stressed that high inflation rates are affecting the whole sector, so other standards “must not be left behind”.

Robert Halfon, minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, said: “This will support more businesses to take on apprentices, boost skills in key sectors, and drive economic growth.”

The 20 standards are as follows:

New T Levels in energy and sustainability on the cards

Potential new T Levels in energy and sustainability are being explored by education chiefs as part of efforts to boost green skills.

A climate change and environmental skills action plan was published by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) today which sets out its ambitions to bolster green skills in post-16 education.

Among its commitments for 2023/24 is to assess T Level provision, with its report confirming that it is currently researching potential new T Levels with employers to “understand their needs and support pathways into energy and sustainability careers”.

FE Week has asked for more details from IfATE on when this research is set to end and when it may plan any potential new T Levels planned.

In addition, it has also not ruled out more occupational specialisms in existing T Levels to “future proof” the bellwether new qualifications, designed to be technical equivalents of A-levels.

The report said: “For existing T Levels, we will increase the climate change and environmental content in line with changes to the occupational standards on which they are based, expanding the content to cover some aspects of energy and sustainability.

“For those T Levels in the engineering and manufacturing, and construction and built environment routes there may be a need to create additional knowledge content or add further occupational specialisms to accomplish this.”

The action plan said that any changes would expect to be made as part of the annual review process for T Levels.

Elsewhere, the organisation has identified 228 priority apprenticeship standards to be reviewed across 11 themes including engineering, logistics, forestry, energy and electric vehicles, which could result in brand new apprenticeships being introduced or existing standards being revised.

So far, IfATE has reported that 100 of those already have the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for climate change and the environment, with a commitment to have half of the 228 “greened” by June.

It pledged to complete that list by March 2024.

Among standards already looked at include the building services engineering senior technician to include green considerations in planning and resourcing, and adding more sectors to the sustainability business specialist occupational standard.

It has also approved new apprenticeships in domestic electrician (to include electric vehicle charging points, solar panels and heat pumps) and forest craftsperson to feature commitments to increasing tree canopy and woodland cover.

Over the next year, the institute plans revisions to installation and maintenance electrician apprenticeships to add skills around EV charging points, a new apprenticeship expected to launch in the summer around battery manufacture and a low carbon heating technician standard.

IfATE said it plans to publish a future innovation strategy this spring which will outline how future skills will be met.

Judy Ling Wong, chair of IfATE’s green apprenticeship and technical education advisory panel, said it wanted to ensure employers could secure the skills they needed to meet the country’s net zero carbon emissions goals.

She added: “Surveys have shown over 60 per cent of young people want to work in a role committed to tackling climate change and we will make it easier for employers and individuals to find the right apprenticeship or technical qualification for them.”

IfATE announced it was forming a green apprenticeships advisory panel back in December 2020 to advise on how apprenticeships could consider the environment more and fill gaps in provision.

Last summer, it continued that it was working with the Department for Education’s Unit for Future Skills to identify emerging skills needs, and said it planned to publish a refreshed green strategy at the end of last year.

‘Ofsted came 12 months too soon’, says principal as third consecutive grade three is confirmed

A college on a turnaround journey has had its third consecutive ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted report published, following a visit that came 12 months “too soon” in the view of its principal.

Coventry College received another grade three overall judgement today but saw its grade for apprenticeships drop to a four – meaning the college will now be banned from delivering apprenticeships as FE Week revealed earlier this month.

The college has faced significant financial challenges since it formed through a merger of Henley College Coventry and City College Coventry in 2017, which were so severe the college’s solvency was threatened.

Ofsted’s latest report on the college, which teaches over 5,000 students, said senior leaders have “rightly focused their efforts on securing financial stability for the college” and recognised that they have also “invested considerable time and effort in improving the quality of education”.

However, these efforts have “not yet yielded sufficient improvements,” the report said.

“Quality assurance activities focus too much on compliance and do not improve the experience of the learner or apprentice. They do not place enough emphasis on developing the craft of teaching. As a result, there is too much inconsistency in the quality of teaching across the college.”

The college was also criticised for making a “limited contribution” to meeting skills needs, including failing to sufficiently involve employers in the design of the curriculum.

For apprenticeships specifically, Ofsted said there is a lack of “high-quality teaching”, caused in part by staff recruitment issues, and poor co-ordination of on- and off-the-job training. Many of the college’s 250 apprentices do not receive the training they need to “be successful”, according to the report.

Ofsted did however highlight many positives at Coventry College. Inspectors found that learners “enjoy being part of the college community”, they feel “respected and embrace everyone’s individuality”.

Learners are also “enthusiastic about their learning and are keen to do well” and the majority of those on study programmes are “well prepared for their next stage in education”.

Coventry College’s 2022 accounts show an improved financial position. The college achieved an overall surplus of £1 million compared to a deficit of £4.7 million in 2021, cash balances of £5.8 million, and an ESFA financial health rating of ‘good’. Its financial notice to improve was closed last year.

The turnaround includes the closure and future sale of the college’s Henley campus.

Reacting to today’s report, Coventry College principal Carol Thomas, who was appointed in August 2020, said: “Unfortunately Ofsted came about 12 months too soon for us. Anyone who has been involved in turnaround of this magnitude would know that it takes three to five years to really see the impact of decisions and actions taken and that’s when you have a full leadership team in post.

Carol Thomas

“If you add in the closing of a college site, the bringing together of two very different college cultures, plus a pandemic enforcing a series of lockdowns, remote learning, centre assessed and teacher assessed grades, followed by learners with no examination experience suddenly thrust into the world of RQF examinations – then it’s safe to say it has been nothing if not a challenge.”

Thomas continued: “The Ofsted report noted progress made from the 2019 inspection, particularly in relation to learner behaviour and attitudes, something that has been a challenge for the whole sector post pandemic, and most noticeably the whole learner experience and culture of the college, but the team are clearly disappointed to have received an inadequate grade for apprenticeships which is only 4 per cent of the college provision but dominates the Ofsted report.

“We have been battling to remove all of the apprenticeship legacy issues, which has been challenging due to the impact of the pandemic, and  unfortunately an over reliance on agency staff in STEM areas, which Ofsted quite rightly noted had an impact on the learner experience.

“The college is, however, ambitious for its future and with a stable foundation and a strong team now in place, it can continue to move forward through the next phase of its improvement journey.”

Thomas said her college will ensure apprentices complete their programme successfully.

She told FE Week the FE Commissioner and Education and Skills Funding Agency have praised Coventry College’s turnaround as “one of the best they have ever seen in FE”, while Barclays bank also moved the college out of a formal “exit strategy” – something that “rarely happens in the business world”.

She also pointed out that it has taken two years for the college to establish a new senior leadership team.

Three ‘requires improvement’ grades in a row would automatically have qualified the college for an ‘inadequate’ judgement in the past.

Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman changed this rule when she took over the top job at the inspectorate in January 2017 because she thought it was “flawed conception”.

‘Serious’ sexual abuse concerns found at armed forces subcontractor

An armed forces training centre for young people has been suspended from delivering in-person teaching by its subcontracting partner after “serious” sexual abuse concerns were found.

Ofsted has reported that too many female learners at QPD Forces Preparation College Doncaster “do not feel safe” and have “little confidence” that staff take seriously or address their complaints about harassment from their male peers.

Learners feel that the issues leading to their complaints are “too easily excused or dismissed” while cases of bullying are seen by some students as “banter”.

Ofsted published the findings today in a safeguarding monitoring visit report for prime training provider Aspire-Igen Group Ltd, which subcontracts with QPD Doncaster to train almost 40 learners aged 16 to 18 on government-funded study programmes.

The courses on offer at QPD Doncaster prepare young people for a career in the military.

Ofsted criticised Aspire-Igen for failing to ensure effective oversight of QPD Doncaster. Inspectors found that despite holding frequent meetings to discuss safeguarding, Apire’s leaders are “not aware of the serious safeguarding concerns that a number of learners have raised”.

A spokesperson for Aspire-Igen said the provider has taken the decision to immediately suspend direct delivery at QDP Doncaster, with learners working remotely.

“An investigation has been carried out and liaison with Doncaster Council has been undertaken,” the spokesperson told FE Week, adding that safeguarding of all learners is “our paramount concern”.

Ofsted has placed a bigger focus on investigating sexual misconduct at schools, colleges and training providers following the Everyone’s Invited revelations of widespread sexual abuse in education settings, which came to prominence in spring 2020.

Since full inspections resumed in September 2021, inspectors have been reviewing providers’ sexual abuse records and looking at how providers handle related incidents. Learners are also now spoken with in single-sex groups during inspections.

Ofsted said that staff at QPD Doncaster “do not take concerns seriously and do not deal with them swiftly or appropriately”, and nor do they “record allegations or incidents clearly enough and do not indicate well enough how issues have been resolved”.

Leaders and managers also do not ensure that learners are safe from bullying at QPD Doncaster. Inspectors found that “too many learners do not have a good understanding of what constitutes bullying” and the attempts of staff to educate learners are “in reaction to incidents, rather than proactive”.

“As a result, learners do not take bullying seriously enough, seeing it as ‘banter’ rather than as inappropriate or harmful behaviour,” today’s report said.

Ofsted also criticised QPD’s leaders and managers for not doing enough to protect learners from the “dangers of radicalisation and extremism”, adding that “too many” students have “very little understanding of the risks that they face”.

The watchdog said that while leaders at QPD have appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures in place, with a clear reporting process, staff “do not follow these procedures well enough and, too often, do not pass on important information to the designated safeguarding lead”.

Inspectors also found that leaders do not have effective oversight of whether appropriate safe recruitment practices are implemented, such as whether staff have the right to work in the United Kingdom or whether the children’s barred list has been checked.

A QPD spokesperson said: “We at QPD, have worked hard with Aspire-igen to investigate the safeguarding concerns raised at QPD Doncaster.

“As a result of this staff have received further safeguarding and de-escalation training to ensure no learner would feel unsafe at QPD. We will continue to support our learners by providing remote delivery for them to stay safe and achieve their goals.”

Janet Smith, chief executive and principal of Nottingham College

Janet Smith leads one of the UK’s largest colleges, which after decades of storms is now moving into calmer waters. Jessica Hill meets the new chief executive and principal of Nottingham College

Janet Smith admits she has a “very low boredom threshold”. But rather than being a curse, it has propelled her to teach courses through her 35-year career in education at almost every level, from entry to Masters, as well as taking on tricky leadership roles including steering through the merger of New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College. 

What makes this remarkable is that when the chief executive and principal of Nottingham College left school at 16, a careers adviser pointed her towards a career as a secretary.

Nottingham College, one of the UK’s largest, has gone through challenging times in recent years. But Smith, who joined in July, is adamant “we have well and truly put the past behind us”.

The college has just moved from its ‘requires improvement’ Ofsted rating it has held since 2020 up to ‘good’, Smith tells FE Week.

Age 15

Nottingham’s tumultuous past

The current college emerged from two decades of mergers and restructurings, whittling down from “at least seven big colleges and some smaller ones” to the 2017 merger of New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham to form the current mega-college with more than 18,000 students.

Smith acknowledges that the turbulence has been “very hard for staff”.

During 15 days of strikes in 2019, union members passed a vote of no-confidence in the the college’s leadership. A few months later, Ofsted downgraded it from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.

‘The college didn’t grow to keep pace with the debt’

Then the FE Commissioner intervened when it hit cashflow difficulties after completing work on its £58.5 million new city hub campus. Smith describes the swish building, where we meet for our interview, as being a “beautiful tribute to FE”. But this and other ventures has left the college facing £34 million of debt.

“The college was borrowing to buy various buildings within the city at a time when lots of colleges were doing the same, but then it didn’t grow sufficiently to keep pace with the debt,” Smith says. “It had to cut its cloth accordingly. That was very hard for staff.”

Nottingham’s position has since stabilised somewhat. Its latest staff survey is “very positive”, showing the college is “in a very different place from the difficult days post-merger in 2017”. 

Smith also points to the “helpful” exiting of a PFI contract a year earlier than planned in July 2022, with the college’s debt to income ratio dropping from 52.5 per cent in 2021-22 to around 47 per cent this year.

She does not expect the recent reclassification of colleges into the public sector to have much impact on Nottingham, at least in the short term. The college currently has £7 million of commercial debt that Smith says will have to be renegotiated at the end of 2024, and “we will need to enter dialogue with the DfE about this”.

The ‘audacious’ merger bid

Before moving to Nottingham, Smith was principal of New College Stamford where she led the 2020 merger of her college – which she felt had “lost its sense of place” – with Peterborough Regional College to create Inspire Education Group.

Smith had spent a short time as vice-principal at Peterborough, but had felt she “couldn’t thrive there” as it was “not a positive environment”.

At the time of the merger, she saw it as “a bit of a sad college” that had struggled with successive grade threes. Nonetheless, she admits her merger proposal – which she made after being approached for the principalship at Peterborough – was “a bit audacious”, Stamford being the smaller college.

She told them: “’You’re financially sound and well managed in some respects, but your quality is all over the place’.” Stamford was a “really strong grade two, heading up to outstanding”, which Smith claimed was thanks to measures she brought in learned from her time as deputy principal at then-outstanding Selby College.

But Smith’s motivations for the merger were not financial, about “career climbing” or “being the grandest” , but simply about “protecting” her college. 

“I always felt a danger that if austerity continued, Stamford could get taken over. I knew Peterborough could be a much better college and that its deficit was our strength.”

The resulting merger “really was collaborative”, she stresses, with “top notch stuff” Stamford was doing around quality “pushed into Peterborough”.

“It’s about making the good stuff even better”

But Smith admits it was “tough”; “Peterborough was an unhappy college and when staff are unhappy, a bit like here [in Nottingham] after all of the years of merger and disruption, you have to work hard to win people over.

“You’ve got to get your messaging right, to show people it’s not threatening but it’s about lifting the whole organisation up and celebrating and making the good stuff even better. That’s what we did.”

Christening photo 1963, with Mam and very proud Dad

In-built resilience

Smith came from “real working-class roots” in Darlington. Her dad was a workshop foreman building railway wagons, and she “absolutely loved” her time at the local comprehensive.

But her childhood was beset by tragedy when Smith was 12 and her sister 11, and their 44-year-old mother, who had type one diabetes, died following a heart attack.

The day of our interview is the 47th anniversary of her death, which Smith recalls as “character forming”. “I see both my sister and I as real fighters and survivors. We helped each other, because my dad had to keep working. I didn’t have the sort of childhood some kids around here might have – Nottingham is a very deprived city. But I certainly got resilience.”

Despite getting an impressive ten O Levels and telling a school careers adviser she wanted to teach, Smith was “talked into” applying for a secretarial course at Darlington College after mentioning her mum had been a secretary.

She hadn’t thought about going further in education until a college lecturer pointed out she could do a degree. 

She got her first taste of teaching while she was studying office systems management at the University of Hull. She was interviewing lecturing staff at North Lindsay College as part of her dissertation on how IT was coming into the FE business curriculum.  “There was a strike on and staff were working to rule – the college was struggling to get cover for classes,” she recalls. “So I fell into my first experience of teaching and loved it.”

After lecturing at Hull College, and then the University of Hull University where she did a part-time masters in computing, Smith spent nine years at Grantham College, moving up from head of faculty to vice-principal.

She was involved in community learning there, with the college taking education out into deprived communities through Sure Start.

While funding cuts have seen much of that community work ebb away, Nottingham College is still “out there working in community venues – we don’t ask people to come into a college in a central location”. Smith says that element of the college was “highly praised” in its recent inspection, set to be published imminently.

Student Union Card, age 23

The Ofsted mandate

Smith’s “first transformation project” and the “most daunting challenge” of her career was at Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale.

When she arrived as VP curriculum and quality in 2009, it was struggling after a succession of grade threes. The principal gave her a sole mandate: to get the college up to grade two within 18 months.

There was a “huge amount” to do, and “working out where to start and how to prioritise actions was the greatest challenge, alongside getting buy-in from a very demoralised body of managers and staff”.

“I can gee people up, get them on the same page“

But Smith was full of enthusiasm. “The bit I can do is gee people up with passion and messaging and get everybody onto the same page.”

The approach worked, and Hopwood Hall moved to grade two as Smith moved on to Selby College as deputy principal two years later.

The future for Nottingham

Smith is optimistic about Nottingham’s future. She believesthe “mental health and socialisation” issues brought on by the pandemic are now “gradually petering out’. And while Nottingham, like most colleges, experienced more “low-level disruption and behavioural issues” last year, “it’s a lot calmer this year – as if we’ve recovered some of it”.

But she is concerned about the rollout of T Levels and believes it is “regrettable” the government has “not listened” to sector feedback not to de-fund BTECs.

She has heard significant criticism from the principals of colleges involved in the pilots on how the courses are “very narrow in focus”.

“They won’t suit all level three students, nor will there be enough placements for them all. That worries me.”

Smith is also critical that colleges with grade three status are unable to be involved in such pilots, which she sees as “punitive and retrograde”. “You’re blocked out of doing things and you stand still as an organisation – the things that could rescue you and help you turn a college around, you’re blocked from doing.”

She admits people in Nottingham are “a bit suspicious” of the newly signed East Midlands devolution deal, but believes it provides “real opportunities” for the city “so long as the protections are still there”.

She too was initially a “cynic” about devolution because “you’ve got to replicate the ESFA in each area to deliver the skills budget, which takes money away from the frontline”.

But she saw the benefits Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority brought to that region in her previous roles.

“It took a while for them to really flex the way they ran the budget but when they did, they started to support genuine innovation.”

Janet Smith

 “I want my colleagues to be part of the answer”

Devolution also allows colleges to be “very fleet of foot”; Peterborough got off the blocks responding to the lack of HGV drivers in less than two months with 80 people on a road haulage training programme, which “couldn’t have happened under the ESFA”.

“I want my colleagues to be part of the answer, to flex with the funding and really deliver for the people of Nottingham, because that’s what FE is about. We’re here in and of our communities.”

DfE seeks candidates for ‘pivotal’ roles in Sunak’s skills agenda

The Department for Education is looking for three new high-level directors to lead on funding, technical qualifications and skills strategy.

Job adverts for the posts went out this week, stating that the roles are “pivotal” in delivering the government’s skills agenda which is a “top priority” for the prime minister.

A permanent director of funding is sought to lead a team of 300 in the DfE’s Education and Skills Funding Agency.

The successful applicant, who will earn £95,000 a year, will take over from interim director of funding Owen Jenkins who has held the post since August 2021 after John Edwards stepped up to be the ESFA’s interim chief executive.

The funding director leads a “multi-disciplinary directorate made up of teams of experts within their field”, according to the job advert.

It states that the director will approve around 500,000 funding payments totalling £67 billion to training providers in all areas of the education sector, ensuring payments are “timely and accurate”.

They will have an important part to play in the ESFA’s drive to simplify the funding system and to oversee the implementation and management of the agency’s Digital Funding Service to drive improvement across a “complex landscape”.

Applications for the director of funding close on February 6, 2023. The DfE is also hiring a director for technical qualifications who will be responsible for three “critical” pieces of work: the policy and delivery of T Levels; completion of the post-16 qualifications review; and higher technical education at levels 4 and 5.

The director will lead about 120 staff based across six sites and earn a salary of £95,000.

They will be tasked with ensuring “strategic links with other key parts of the skills strategy and other departmental policy such as the reforms to higher education, the lifelong loan entitlement, exams and awarding, and digitisation and acting a leader across the skills group”.

Applications for the director of technical qualifications close January 30.

The DfE is also seeking to appoint a new deputy director for skills strategy who will be responsible for setting “direction, objectives and workplans for the division as a whole” as well as “managing relationships with No.10, the Treasury, and across the Department for Education on the skills portfolio”.

The successful applicant, who will earn £73,000 a year, will manage a “flexible resource unit” of 10 staff who are “deployed on shortterm, high priority projects across skills group and support capability building across the group”.

Applications for the deputy director for skills strategy close on January 30.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 411

Rebecca Durber

Area Director North West, Association of Colleges AELP

Start date: January 2023

Previous Job: Director of Public Affairs,

Interesting fact: Rebecca spent 8 years as a councillor on Manchester City
Council, representing a ward in the south of the city

Ed Reza Schwitzer

Head of External Affairs, AQA

Start date: January 2023


Previous Job: Associate Director – Education Practice, Public First

Interesting fact: While hailing from Slovak Jewish ancestry on his dad’s side and
Iranian on his mum’s side, Reza is also fluent in Italian

Richard Caulfield

Senior Policy Manager, Greater Manchester Colleges Group

Start date: January 2023


Previous Job: Area Director, AoC

Interesting fact: Richard is a ‘serial volunteer’: current roles include being
a trustee of an anti-poverty charity, a parkrun marshall (when not running it),
security at a synagogue, chair of GP practice patients group and marshall at a
Covid vaccine centre

Post-16 maths cash ‘lopsided’ towards schools

Colleges are missing out on government cash aimed at bolstering the number of students studying maths after 16, analysis shared exclusively with FE Week has found.

Beneficiaries of the advanced maths premium scheme say the cash boost has been instrumental in driving up participation, particularly on core maths courses.

But those providers have hit back at changes to the baseline funding planned for August 2023 which will see their premium grant slashed.

The advanced maths premium is paid to providers for numbers of students studying level 3 maths courses – AS levels, A-levels or core maths – above a baseline figure.

To date, the baseline has been calculated as an average of level 3 maths learners in 2015/16 and 2017/18 academic years, with the payment made to institutions at £600 per student above that figure.

But analysis by the Association of Colleges has warned that the funding has not necessarily had the desired impact.

It has found that of the £56.7 million paid out in the last four years, 86 per cent has gone to schools and just 14 per cent paid to colleges, despite around 25 per cent of level 3 maths entries being in colleges.

The analysis, carried out by the AoC’s senior policy manager Eddie Playfair, found that the biggest beneficiaries of the scheme were Brampton Manor Academy with £280,800 allocated for 2023/23 and Hereford Sixth Form College with just over £250,000.

However some FE colleges and sixth form colleges with high numbers of maths students in excess of 350 failed to get a penny. They included Peter Symonds College, with more than 600 maths entries, as well as Runshaw College and Exeter College which both had about 500.

FE Week approached all three for comment, as well as the top three beneficiaries – Brampton Manor Academy, Hereford Sixth Form College and Worcester Sixth Form College.

The premium rules mean funding rewarded those which had escalated their maths students numbers on the baseline, rather than those with consistently high numbers of level 3 maths learners.

Playfair said: “The AMP has played out in a very lopsided way and probably hasn’t done what it set out to do, which was to incentivise growth. It’s a bit of a paradox to be incentivising something that is already very popular – A-level maths is the most popular A-level.

“Colleges have told us it hasn’t changed their behaviours, so the fact there is an advanced maths premium hasn’t made them promote maths any more than they already do.”

But those which have benefited from the scheme disagreed, explaining that it had been vital in boosting numbers.

Ed Senior, principal at Worcester Sixth Form College which received more than £178,000 for 2022/23, said its growth would not have happened without the premium.

“It’s been instrumental getting lots more students into level 3 maths,” he said. “The growth in A-level maths and further maths is not very big but the reason there are 300 students is it led us to introduce core maths.”

Peter Cooper, chief executive of the Heart of Mercia Trust which runs Hereford and Worcester sixth form colleges, said they deliberately encouraged the take-up of core maths because the funding incentive could facilitate it, believing it had also helped achievement in other subjects.

But from 2023/24, the baseline funding will be calculated on an average of the 2019/20 and 2020/21 data, which means the pay-outs will likely be smaller.

Cooper added: “The adjustment to a new baseline means we will get no money at all for doing the course in the future.

This now perversely forces us to do less of it as we would have to take the money from other areas. A prime example of central bureaucratic incompetence in implementing a worthy aim.”

The DfE’s advanced maths premium guidance says that its processes will ensure “only genuine increases in level 3 maths participation attract the premium,” saying it will “monitor behaviour at institution level to indicate adverse behaviour and may follow up where data gives us cause for concern”.

According to DfE data for summer 2022 exams, there were more than 89,000 A-level maths entries.

Core maths qualifications were announced in December 2014 as a means of aiding progression in maths post-16 for those not wishing to study maths at A-level. In 2022 there were 12,311 entries – the highest number since the first exams in 2016 when just under 3,000 entries were reported.

When the DfE and Treasury announced the premium in February 2018, schools minister Nick Gibb said that “this premium will open up the opportunity for even more young people to study advanced maths qualifications”.

Playfair said that “at the very least it would have been better to spend this money on volumes,” as it would reward providers for consistently delivering A-level maths. He has called for the DfE to review the allocations.

The DfE has been approached for comment.

Minimum service law would include all FE workers, union warns

New laws mandating minimum service levels for striking public sector organisations will cover further education, according to union bosses.

Business secretary Grant Shapps unveiled controversial plans in parliament on Tuesday which will include health, education, fire and rescue, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning services.

The University and Colleges Union (UCU) said that the legislation as currently worded would cover every college and university regardless of whether they were in the public or private sector. The legislation will not affect the process of negotiating pay, the UCU said.

The bill, if passed into law, will mean minimum service levels must be provided by organisations in those sectors which are on strike to limit disruption for the public.

Guidance issued by the government on the bill did not specify what a minimum service level will be, but the Department for Education said that if regulations are taken forward in due course there will be consultation with unions, employers and other relevant parties.

Shapps told the Commons: “We hope to reach minimum service levels that mean we don’t have to use that power in the bill,” adding that it will “ensure vital public services will have to maintain a basic function”.

According to the DfE, the legislation will allow secretaries of state to bring forward regulations for their sectors, but the education secretary did not intend to do so in the short term because her preference was to proceed through agreement and guidance.

If the legislation proceeds and gains royal assent, striking workers could be sacked if regulations are not followed.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said that the right to strike was a “fundamental freedom”, adding: “Rather than help address over a decade of falling wages, this government wants to instead make withdrawing your labour a sackable offence, and force people to work even if they have a right to refuse.”

About 4,000 UCU members across 29 different colleges took part in strike action during September and October last year over pay, the union said.

The Association of Colleges had proposed a 2.5 per cent pay increase, with chief executive David Hughes explaining that “the money is simply not there” for a bigger rise.

But union bosses called the offer “totally unacceptable”, demanding a 10 per cent rise with a minimum uplift of £2,000.