Councils have attacked the inflexible funding rules of the prime minister’s “short-termist” flagship maths programme after new figures revealed that a third of the money allocated in its first year went unspent.
Multiply, Rishi Sunak’s adult maths education programme, committed to provide £559 million across three financial years to the end of 2024-25 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
The scheme offers free courses for adults who did not achieve a grade C or above in GCSE maths or an equivalent level 2 qualification.
But, in its first year of delivery, £30.3 million of the £81 million awarded was clawed back by the Department for Education and returned to the Treasury, according to data obtained by local government expert Jack Shaw through a Freedom of Information request.
Councils that returned the largest proportion of their funding told FE Week that this was down to the terms and conditions of the funding: money was handed out over halfway through the 2022-23 financial year and councils were not allowed to roll over any that was unused.
“It’s clearly problematic,” Shaw told FE Week. “Multiply is described as part of the Shared Prosperity Fund, but the non-Multiply element of the SPF was allowed to be rolled over, and this wasn’t.
“The government was meant to allocate this for the financial year of 2022-23, but authorities received it well into the financial year – leaving them somewhere in the region of six months to plan, stand up, deliver and wind down programmes.”
He said the scheme was not unique in having a large amount of underspending in the first year, adding that this reflects a “systemic challenge that Whitehall is too short-termist and doesn’t have an adequate appreciation of what implementation involves”.
Sunak, who launched the Multiply scheme when he was chancellor, used his speech at this week’s Conservative party conference to criticise the political system being heavily focused on “short-term advantage, not long-term success”.
Sue Pember, director for policy and external relations at adult education provider network Holex, said it was “disheartening” to hear about local and combined authorities returning funds but insisted the scheme had been “embraced as a valuable source of funding for numeracy, igniting innovation and reaching thousands of learners”.
She added that over 45,000 people participated in the scheme in its introductory year, which is a “remarkable achievement, especially considering the programme’s rapid launch without development funding or established infrastructures”.
DfE approval delayed Multiply roll-out
Councils complained that the roll-out of the scheme was delayed as their investment plans could not be implemented without approval from the DfE.
A Greater Manchester Combined Authority spokesperson said the department only approved their investment plan in the second half of 2022, “meaning that recruitment, procurement and delivery of the programme was not finalised and implemented until the fourth quarter of the financial year”.
In Greater Manchester, 331 residents were recruited onto the scheme. The combined authority received £4.3 million for the first year and returned £3 million (69 per cent) of it to the Treasury.
Hampshire Country Council said waiting for the DfE to approve its plan, plus procurement time, meant it did not start delivery until January 2023.
A spokesperson said the county council supported 1,607 individuals on Multiply from January to March 2023, of which 998 were parents of children in Hampshire schools.
“We have a number of target groups on Multiply, including local businesses, parents, refugees and those with a lived experience of the criminal justice system,” the spokesperson said, adding that it has supported 1,225 people so far in year two, for which it has received £2 million in funding.
Oxfordshire County Council handed back the largest proportion of its year-one funding, returning £717,555 (92 per cent) of the £778,200 allocated. Its first year consisted of “research and planning” so the money was not required, a spokesperson told FE Week.
Warwickshire Country Council gave back £503,650 (66 per cent) of its £768,922 allocation. A council spokesperson said the funding was used to enrol 400 learners.
Pember said: “Challenges arose from not funding through established adult education budget routes, necessitating some councils and combined authorities having to instigate tender processes. This slowed down the process of student recruitment.”
Rishi Sunak’s pledge to abolish T Levels in the week that his government chose to celebrate the flagship qualification has left colleges “demoralised”.
The prime minister announced during his Conservative party conference speech that he would create a “new single qualification for our school leavers” by replacing A-levels and T Levels with the Advanced British Standard.
The reform comes only three years after T Levels were launched with over £1 billion investment and during “T Levels Week” – created and led by the Department for Education to applaud the “gold-standard” qualifications.
Under the plan, A-levels and T Levels would be merged into the new Advanced British Standard, which would see 16 to 19-year-olds “typically” study five subjects including “some form” of English and maths.
Sunak said technical education is “not given the respect it deserves” but he is “changing all of that, pulling one of the biggest levers we have to change the direction of our country” with the creation of the Advanced British Standard.
The policy appears to be a fleshing out of the “British baccalaureate” proposed by Sunak in his first leadership run last year.
The government has said it will launch a consultation next month, with a proposed white paper next year.
But the reforms are dependent on the Conservatives winning the next election and, if implemented, would take 10 years to deliver in full.
This week’s announcement comes despite ministers’ plans to scrap other level 3 vocational qualifications, such as BTECs, and replace them with T Levels.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association that leads the Protect Student Choice Campaign, said it was “surprising” that the government “appears to have brought the T Level journey to an end at such an early stage and after making such an eye-watering financial investment in the project”.
He added: “As the chaos caused by the plan to scrap most BTECs is now being followed by a plan to scrap A-levels and T Levels (until now described by the government as ‘gold standard’ qualifications), there could be turbulent times ahead for the sixth-form sector.”
Successive DfE ministers have beaten the drum for T Levels in the face of much opposition since they were born out of the Lord Sainsbury review of technical education in 2015.
They got off the ground in 2020 despite a plea from then DfE permanent secretary Jonathan Slater to delay the roll-out. The qualifications, designed to be the technical equivalent of A-levels, have since suffered from annual recruitment challenges for colleges as the DfE struggles to raise awareness among students, parents, employers and school staff.
The announcement of the Conservatives’ intention now to scrap T Levels, which will not be fully rolled out until 2025, will make recruitment for colleges even harder, according to FE marketing expert Ben Verinder.
One college leader sarcastically tweeted: “Good job colleges up and down the country haven’t been grafting their spuds off to get T Levels up and running then…”
Another said: “Some vocational areas have not even got T Levels off the ground! All that time, energy and money put in to their development, the promotion of T Levels by college staff from lecturers to marketing!”
IfATE pleads for T Levels delivery in the intervening years
Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which is responsible for procurement and management of T Levels, urged colleges and awarding bodies to continue “high-quality” delivery in the intervening years until the Advanced British Standard is launched.
She said: “IfATE has worked tirelessly to improve the quality of technical education, applying employer-set standards to T Levels and helping grow the programme. It is great to hear that employers’ occupational standards will underpin the technical options within the ABS and that the technical route to achieving ABS will build on the T Level design.
“As this is a long-term reform programme, we must ensure that students have access to high-quality T Levels in the intervening years.”
Coupland added: “We will continue to work closely with employers, education providers, awarding bodies and the DfE to grow and extend the T Level offer – including launching our procurement for the next generation of T Levels very shortly.”
Jennifer Coupland
Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said Sunak’s plan to “end the denigration of technical education, while welcome in principle, is concerning, as T Levels were only launched as the new ‘flagship’ alternative to A-levels three years ago”.
He added: “Time is needed to allow these new qualifications to bed in and be evaluated in terms of their fitness for purpose.
“This announcement, during T Levels Week, must be demoralising not only for providers but for the young people who have already completed or are completing their T Levels.”
Worth added: “With the looming defunding of BTECs and other applied generals from 2024 onwards, this hardly presents a period of stability for post-16 education over the next 10 years.”
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he was delighted with Sunak’s plan.
“I am delighted to see technical education and colleges form a focal point of Rishi Sunak’s plans for a more prosperous future,” he said.
“The announcement on the Advanced British Standard could have a significant impact on colleges, and I am particularly pleased that our push for young people to have more teaching time has been heeded.”
University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady took a different view.
“The prime minister’s announcement of reforms to post-16 education are a further example of a government out of touch that is tinkering around the edges rather than offering genuine support to students or staff,” she said.
“Ministers should be listening to teachers, not pulling ideas out of the hat as a desperate way to shore up support for a failing government.”
More security guards could have their work licences revoked after a new undercover investigation found fraudulent training.
A BBC exposé this week revealed how two London-based training providers offered shortened courses for a higher fee, forged timesheets and, at one, taught ways to “kill and be killed”.
The awarding organisations for the training providers have now suspended their recognition while a full investigation is carried out with qualifications regulator Ofqual and the Security Industry Authority.
The SIA, which holds the power to revoke licences from qualified security guards, said parts of the undercover footage recorded by the BBC indicate criminality and it has been passed to the Metropolitan Police.
The news comes eight years after a BBC investigation revealed how another London-based training provider was fraudulently handing out security guard qualifications, with staff offering to sit exams for learners. It led to more than 100 security guard licences being revoked.
The awarding bodies involved in the latest investigation, which have the power to revoke qualifications awarded but not licences, defended their quality assurance processes for providers that they approve. These include frequent, unannounced inspection visits.
‘We must stamp out the minority of unscrupulous providers’
The BBC approached 12 companies offering level 2 SIA door supervisor courses for between £200 and £300. Its report said four offered shortened courses ranging from a day and a half to three days. The course has a mandatory length of six days.
Two training providers were named in the investigation: Ilford-based Caetop College and Steps Institution, which is based in east London.
An undercover reporter attending Steps Institution was told he could begin his training on day five of the six-day course if he paid an extra £310 – missing compulsory modules in first aid, conflict management and door supervision.
The provider allegedly told him to forge timesheets for the full course. He also joined a “physical intervention” session, which was not a mandatory part of the course, where a trainer was recorded teaching attendees ways to “kill and be killed”, including by using “one punch”.
Awarding body BIIAB Qualifications, which is part of the Skills and Education Group, has suspended Steps Institution from using its qualifications “pending investigation”. Steps Institution has registered 49 learners with the awarding body.
Scott Forbes, chief operating officer for development and delivery at the Skills and Education Group, said it was “important that we strengthen the collaboration between awarding organisations and share greater intelligence in order to stamp out the minority of unscrupulous providers”.
Laser Awards, another awarding body that has Steps Institution as an approved provider, said it “takes all allegations of malpractice and maladministration seriously” and is carrying out a “full investigation”.
A spokesperson added: “Through ongoing quality assurance activity, we carry out regular unannounced inspection visits and scheduled quality visits to all centres delivering our qualifications in this sector and we carry out investigations where concerns are raised, which lead to the withdrawal of our approval to deliver qualifications where we are not satisfied that the training centre and/or individual trainer is upholding the standards we require.”
Steps Institution declined to comment.
At Caetop College, the undercover reporter was only offered a three-day training course rather than the full six days. He was allegedly coached on a test that he should have completed after a day of first-aid training, before being told his “first aid is finished now”.
On the third day, the BBC said the reporter sat a final exam without questions. Instead, the trainees were given answer sheets and told what option to circle. They were also told to vary their answers sometimes so that their test papers were not identical.
Awarding body Pearson has suspended Caetop College from using its certificates and signing up new students while it is under investigation.
A spokesperson for Pearson said it takes all allegations of malpractice “extremely seriously” and sanctions could include “debarring individuals from involvement in the delivery of our qualifications and withdrawing approval for a training provider to deliver Pearson qualifications”.
Caetop College claimed it does not offer any security guard courses when approached for comment by FE Week. The firm’s website was taken down at the time of going to press.
The SIA said: “Where qualifications that have been awarded by the awarding organisations are shown to be unsound and are withdrawn, it will result in the suspension of a licence.”
Asked by FE Week what action had been taken to root out fraud in security guard training over the past eight years, the SIA said it conducts its own unannounced visits to training providers – 200 of them since 2022. This has led to three providers being shut down.
A spokesperson added that, in the last financial year, over 170,000 qualifications were awarded. Of those, 70 cases concerning training were raised, 44 were against training companies and 26 were regarding allegations of individual malpractice.
Ofqual said it introduced additional controls following the 2015 exposé that order awarding organisations to suspend or terminate their relationships with providers accused of, or found to be committing, malpractice.
The regulator has also “improved the way it gathers and shares information about suspected fraud or malpractice across the sector”.
Government lawyers have dismissed claims made by a major group of training providers that the Department for Education acted unlawfully in the recent national adult education budget tender.
Learning Curve Group and its seven subsidiary training companies filed a lawsuit against the DfE in August following its unsuccessful bids for a new national AEB contract.
They claimed that the department breached its duties under procurement regulations in its evaluation of their bid, specifically in relation to the group’s responses to tender questions about future learner numbers (question 1B1).
Learning Curve Group claimed it was “deprived of a real chance of winning a contract” and the DfE’s Education and Skills Funding Agency, which ran the procurement, provided “brief” and “vague” reasons for low scores in the tender.
The providers demanded a re-run of the procurement, as well as damages.
Defence lawyers acting for the DfE denied Learning Curve’s allegations that it had not provided appropriate feedback in its response to the tender, claiming that its response complied with the relevant regulations.
The case rests on a row over Learning Curve’s Q1B1 submissions – 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.
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 the DfE’s response to its tender did not justify the score of 50.
Defence documents filed by the DfE this week and seen by FE Week confirmed that “…there is a gap in the response which means an element of the question has not been addressed at all. The response fails to provide the forecast of the number of learners per course which is an entire deliverable asked for in the question and on the template to be used for responses.”
This paragraph was taken from Learning Curve’s tender award letters from the department.
The DfE denied that it was under any obligation to clarify its justification for Learning Curve’s score any further than stated in the paragraph above, countering Learning Curve’s claim that it was entitled to further clarification.
Later in the defence, DfE lawyers stated that, if the providers had not “chosen to submit materially similar responses (on occasion identical)” to Q1B1, “there would have been sufficient space to address the number of learners per course”.
They point to “other bidders” that “were able to provide all the information requested by the question within two pages and receive a score of ‘very good’”.
Learning Curve’s claim that a “reasonably well-informed and normally diligent tenderer” would evaluate Q1B1 alongside a separate “volumes template”, which also required information about forecasted learner numbers, was also denied.
The DfE’s defence explained that the AEB tender guidance issued by the ESFA “expressly required” bidders to provide learner numbers in both the Q1B1 and the volumes templates. They also claimed that Learning Curve’s volumes template only recorded forecasted learners by sector subject area, not by course as required.
Learning Curve’s claim that each of their Q1B1 submissions “satisfied the scoring criterion for the award of a score of at least 75” and “the reasons stated in the award letter do not provide any lawful justification for the award of a lower score” was written off by DfE lawyers. This part of the claim, they said, was “embarrassing for want of particulars”.
National AEB contracts were finally awarded in late August after Learning Curve Group agreed to remove an injunction that prevented the ESFA from entering in to contracts with winning providers while there was a live legal challenge.
But delays to the procurement outcomes, and the awarding of two further contracts after 54 winning bidders were announced, drew fierce criticism from training leaders.
Learning Curve Group declined to comment. The case continues.
Yesterday’s announcement regarding the Advanced British Standard presented a bold vision for the future of post-16 education.
In light of the ever-shifting political landscape, it is clear that these proposals may undergo modifications or even bear a different name when transformed into official policy. Therefore uncertainty remains, notwithstanding potential consultations and the publication of a white paper.
Nonetheless, these proposals challenge the existing status quo in post-16 education and open the door to substantial discussions on reforming the educational landscape for this age group.
Over the past five years, there has been a noticeable policy shift towards emphasising technical education reform including the T Level consultation in 2018 and the skills for jobs white paper in 2021.
However, these initiatives still retained the concept of separate paths for technical and academic education.
The current announcement seeks to eliminate these distinctions by merging both streams under the umbrella of the Advanced British Standard, allowing students to blend technical and academic routes. From the perspective of further education colleges, this reimagining is a welcome development, and it’s heartening to see the sector integrated into these proposals.
Nevertheless, the success of these proposals will hinge on their funding and practicality.
The proposal to increase students’ study time to align with international standards (1,475 hours over two years) comes with a substantial cost.
For further education colleges, this means a 315-hour increase in the standard full-time curriculum, far surpassing the 195 hours mentioned in yesterday’s policy document.
This adjustment would require the equivalent of at least 25 new teachers per college for a medium-sized general further education college with 2,500 full-time 16-18-year-old students. The recruitment challenge alone poses a significant hurdle.
The proposed £30,000 tax-free incentive over five years to address new teacher attrition is indeed a positive step and will aid in retaining newer staff.
However, retaining experienced staff remains just as crucial for colleges and is not addressed by this incentive. A broader increase in the base funding rates is the only viable long-term solution to this issue, enabling colleges to offer competitive salaries that encourage the long-term retention of staff.
The recommendation to mandate the continuation of maths and English education until age 18 is also complex.
While there is no doubt about the value of these subjects to learners and their future career prospects, it must be acknowledged that there is already a high demand for maths teachers. This could pose a significant challenge for colleges that are already coping with a surge in students requiring these subjects post-pandemic and a shortage of teachers.
Furthermore, increasing teaching time by 15-20 per cent necessitates equivalent space.
Current avenues for capital investment in colleges are insufficient to bring about the necessary changes, particularly given re-classification limiting alternative options. Addressing this investment gap is imperative; otherwise, many of these efforts will be stymied by a simple lack of physical capacity.
Putting aside these funding challenges momentarily, these proposals demonstrate a readiness to reshape the educational landscape.
They offer any incoming government the opportunity to boldly address the country’s skills needs through more comprehensive reform, with further education colleges at its core, than might have been possible previously.
As a sector, we should cautiously embrace this potential.
For the past decade I have run the Media Learning Company at City College Norwich, an educational programme which emulates setting up and running a media production company. Post-level three students join us for an academic year and gain real-life experience across the media sector.
Riding high from the ‘anything’s possible’ spirit of London Olympics and Paralympics, entrepreneurial learning was an educational buzz-term in 2012. Of the many schemes and courses that launched into the further education sector at that time, ours has been an ongoing success.
Local production company, Eye Film had been looking at ways to give young people proper production training. They had started conversations with the college and I was lucky enough to land the job of taking it forward. The job description was rather open and I soon realised that there was no route map for what the Media Learning Company was to be.
I was a little terrified; the students were due to start just a couple of days after me. But very soon I embraced the freedom to try radical new approaches to learning. Coming from a traditional university teaching background, this felt exhilarating.
We began by developing a model in which students were in five days per week, 9 to 5, plus additional production hours, creating real media content for real organisations while fulfilling the requirements of their qualifications. I watched a lot of Ted talks and tried out all sorts of structures and ideas based on research and practitioners who I found inspiring. Some worked, lots did not.
With support from the college and mentorship from Eye Film, we outlived the educational trend from which we were born and have since solidified our position as a course with very high educational and employment impact. The Media Learning Company offers real experiences of genuine value.
Having worked with hundreds of organisations big and small, there are two constants across every brief we engage in: high pedagogic value, and ethical grounding. Each project has to provide excellent learning opportunities – the chance to develop new skills such as scriptwriting, casting or using new equipment or techniques, and Media Learning Company is not here to mop-up projects companies don’t want to pay a professional to do. Collaborations have to be meaningful and of value to the students up to and beyond completion.
Their impressive work ranges from blockbuster movies to household TV programmes
Students start the year by establishing their own production company. They decide their company values, name, logo, promotional film and website design. This not only shows them the basics of setting up their own businesses but serves a deeper purpose of creating a collective identity they can draw on under pressure.
Over the years, students have pitched and produced cross-media campaigns about weighty subjects such as county lines and domestic abuse. They have run live events, fashion shows, scripted dramas, cast, crewed, animated, designed and were entrusted with telling real people’s stories from our own communities within documentaries.
Though the educational model was the key to our unique learning environment, the qualification remained a rigorous backbone. We initially delivered a Foundation Diploma, but have recently moved to the UAL Level 4 Professional Diploma in Technical & Production for the Creative Industries.
The sector has changed immeasurably over the past decade with the rise of online content creators, streaming platforms and now AI. Yet our graduates are finding ways to adapt and excel in this quickly changing landscape. They have gone on to set up their own award-winning businesses, worked in the production of TV, film, radio, animation, live events, marketing and video as well as going to university. Their impressive work ranges from blockbuster movies like Disney’s The Little Mermaid to household TV programmes like Grand Designs and Love Island.
The key to this resilience rests entirely on the real-life nature of the course. Meeting clients, working and reworking projects until they are signed off. Project by project, building endurance, skills and guts. Taking risks and surpassing what they thought themselves capable of, often without safety nets.
Even when things went wrong, which of course they do, learning happens. They have stepped up and taken the leap, and now there are only more possibilities before them.
Young people are finding that it’s never too late to start a new career in science, even if they lack the formal STEM qualifications that employers might normally expect. Others have fallen into a science-related job by accident, but now require certain qualifications and training to progress to the next level in their career.
Identifying these ‘accidental’ scientists and giving them access to flexible, higher-level training, which doesn’t require them to attend university could help employers to attract and retain the talent they need to grow their businesses. Crucially, it could also help to close the STEM skills gap which, if left unaddressed, could undermine the UK’s economic prosperity.
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that demand for STEM skills is growing. In April to June 2023, just over three million people were employed in science and technology roles, which represents about 9 per cent of the UK’s total workforce.
During the pandemic, the world of scientific research and development was thrown into the spotlight as pharmaceutical and biotech companies were forced to recruit teams of unskilled people to support them in the race to find an effective Covid vaccine. Some retail and office workers took up opportunities to work in laboratories or help with the delivery of vaccination programmes. Many of these people have since chosen to continue their career in science but have got stuck in low-level roles doing data entry or sample preparation, unable to take things further.
What these individuals might lack in terms of formal qualifications, they make up for in a willingness to learn and attain new skills. Some already have several years of work experience under their belts. As a provider of higher-level science apprenticeships, The S&A Science Academy can spot people with the right characteristics and aptitude to complete a three-year course leading to Higher National Diploma and a recognised apprenticeship qualification, accredited by the Institute of Apprenticeships.
Accidental scientists are spread across our workforce now
Initially, some learners are unaware that doing a science apprenticeship could lead to a degree-level qualification, and that they can choose to specialise by opting onto an adjacent course in chemical science or life science. These career-minded learners are not only well-motivated to complete their training, but they are also committed to their employer and often have a positive impact on workplace culture and productivity long after their training has finished.
While places on Level 5 technician scientist apprenticeship programmes are currently in high demand, there are a variety of entry points available for those with relevant experience and those without.
For example, a learner can train to become a skilled technician scientist by attending training on a day-release basis in agreement with their employer, or through a period of block study. As well as enriching their company’s talent base, employers that choose to place the training and development of their employees in the hands of an Ofsted-regulated apprenticeship provider are able to do so free of charge. They also aren’t liable for employer national insurance contributions while the training is underway.
By far the most popular choice for employers and learners is to complete training on a day-release basis. This means that the learner spends 80 per cent of their time at work and 20 per cent with the training provider. This option is popular with employers because they start to see the value of the training in the workplace immediately. It’s also popular with learners as they gain a sense of progression as they work, and they can clearly see where their study is taking them.
Accidental scientists are spread across our workforce now, with large and small employers alike. They are in jobs that are easy to replace and just waiting for the opportunity for a more fulfilling career. Many more are in our colleges, unaware of the opportunities available to them to jump across from adjacent courses.
With STEM skills in growing demand, all in the education sector could be doing more to look-out for this under-realised talent pool and persuading businesses that upskilling these employees could become a key differentiator for them in the future.
An immediate impact of the reclassification of FE colleges as public sector institutions has been that the Department for Education now requires colleges to follow the overall financial control framework for all central government bodies. This is set out in HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money guidance, which aims to achieve value for money across the public sector and touches on many areas, including staffing costs.
While a level of financial decision making remains delegated to individual institutions, certain classes of transactions require prior approval from the treasury. This includes controls over senior pay and some severance arrangements.
Senior Pay Controls
Colleges face a constant battle to attract and retain talent. This is exacerbated by the fact that they often have to compete with other areas of the education sector as well as the private sector.
Prior to reclassification, colleges were generally free to set levels of senior pay, subject to applying a value-for-money test and affordability within their own budgets.
Now, treasury approval is required where a remuneration package for a new starter is valued at or above £150,000 per annum or where any bonus arrangements could exceed £17,500 per annum.
Approval is also required if adjustments to an existing employee’s pay will take them over these thresholds and for pay awards above 9 per cent for those already above them.
For these purposes, remuneration includes pay, fees, pension “in excess of normal levels” and allowances. Private medical insurance and salary sacrifice schemes should not be provided unless the treasury has given prior approval.
The limits on a college’s delegated authority have been made relatively clear. However, the criteria that the treasury will apply in deciding whether to approve any request to exceed the limits remain less transparent.
Settlement agreements
Like other employers, colleges often want to enter into settlement agreements. These avoid costly and protracted HR disputes and provide protection from future litigation.
Prior to reclassification, colleges were generally free to decide to make payments to settle employment disputes as long as they could demonstrate that any sums paid were affordable and value-for-money.
Since reclassification, colleges continue to have delegated authority to pay an employee’s statutory and contractual entitlements on termination. They can also make “special staff severance payments” that do not exceed the equivalent of three months’ pay or £50,000, whichever is lower.
Any proposed payments exceeding these limits will generally require treasury approval.
The three-month limit on severance payments is not consistent with other parts of the education sector. By way of example, academies only need to seek approval for severance payments that exceed £50,000.
It should also be noted that unless the right to pay in lieu of notice is specified in an employee’s contract, any such proposed payment may be regarded as non-contractual and therefore count towards the limits on special staff severance payments.
Colleges should now consider including an express right to pay in lieu of notice in their contracts of employment.
As with controls on senior pay, the treasury’s criteria for granting approval in any particular case are somewhat opaque.
What it means in practice
Institutions are being required to comply with guidance that was written with central government in mind rather than a college sector that has until recently had a much greater level of autonomy over financial matters.
The handbook due to be published in the next year may provide more clarity for colleges on their obligations. In the meantime, colleges may wish to think about three immediate practical effects:
Forward thinking is key. Treasury approval takes time. Factor in a number of weeks, if not months for decisions.
Approval is not guaranteed. Factor this possibility into your risk management plan. Applications to exceed the delegated authority limit will need to be supported by a detailed business case, and DfE will often ask to see legal advice in support of that business case.
Keep an audit trail. Even when treasury approval is not required it will remain important to show how decisions were arrived at, and in particular how each represents value for public money.
In all cases, colleges should be willing to defend decisions on pay or an exit in the face of regulatory or public scrutiny.
