From data policies to wellbeing, don’t let the enthusiasm for diversity die, writes Haroon Bashir
After the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, many colleges made a commitment to positive changes about race.
But over two years later, does that commitment hold or has the concept of equality and diversity (E&D) become the proverbial elephant in the room?
The death of Chris Kaba at the hands of the Met police reinforces that we can’t afford the latter.
So whether you’re refining or renewing your commitment, so here are five ideas to ensure E&D is impactful in your setting.
1. Be brave
First, changing an organisation’s culture is difficult and E&D leads will face resistance from individuals who may be afraid of change, or worse, apathetic.
But if we continue doing what we have always done, then how can we hope to promote E&D?
We need to be brave, to have honest conversations, to raise awareness and challenge existing practices.
Through professional development sessions, we can effectively address this with all staff. And our aim must be to increase their confidence for discussing uncomfortable topics and seeing things through a different lens.
It may cause discomfort at times – but this is also a sign of development.
2. Invest
Promoting E&D is crucial to the success of any organisation. It should therefore have a designated person who can lead, advise, challenge and question existing practices.
For profound change to be made, the designated person will need sufficient time to undertake the role; E&D is important and should not be an ‘add-on’ to existing roles.
3. Consider wellbeing
Leading E&D can sometimes be very challenging, especially if the designated person is dealing with issues they have experienced themselves. This can be mentally taxing, so it is essential to consider what support is available to maintain the E&D lead’s wellbeing.
In this role, I have benefited a great deal from developing a network of people who I trust – people who have been there to support me during difficult times.
If we make mistakes, we must learn from them and continue to ask those questions which haven’t been asked before. It’s about making progress and addressing that elephant in the room.
4. Policies
Only seven per cent of principals in FE nationwide are from a BAME background. This is a sobering statistic.
Greater diversity and representation in governance and senior leadership is crucial to promoting E&D as this will give the organisation a variety of experiences and perspectives that will mirror their student profile.
Crucially, senior leaders and governors must make a firm commitment to E&D. One of the best ways to demonstrate this is in the college’s strategic aims. This will ensure that E&D is embedded in all policy decisions, becoming part of the new culture of the college.
Ask yourself: What does your E&D policy look like? Is it personal to your organisation or generic? What E&D data is collected to inform this policy and your decisions? Who has access to it and, more importantly, what actions result from it?
All colleges have data about students who have left, been excluded or have failed their course. But is this analysed through the lens of equality? And what action is taken to reduce those numbers? Data will help you identify a starting point and therefore allow you to measure the impact of your policy.
5. Don’t pass the buck
E&D cannot be one person’s responsibility. All too often, we waive our own responsibility by passing it onto designated people. But E&D is everyone’s responsibility and needs to be shared from the top of the organisation right through to the learner.
This means training everyone in E&D so they have the confidence to identify and challenge unfair ideas or practices. Again, CPD sessions are an excellent way to address this with all staff, and this development should filter into tutorial sessions for learners too.
We can’t change the world, and we won’t have all the answers. Equality and diversity are bigger than one college, but with these ideas in mind we can make effective change in our communities – and that’s a start worth making.
A manifestation of the lack of trust is that colleges are one of the most regulated parts of the education system, writes David Hughes
Dear education secretary,
Congratulations on your appointment to the best job in the cabinet, and welcome to the further education sector.
As a supporter of your local college, you’ll already know about the fantastic things colleges do for millions of students every year and the impact they have on local communities and businesses.
Through your visits, references to colleges in speeches and the attention you give to post-16 education and skills, you will make a big difference to how colleges are perceived and ultimately to the funding that supports their work.
Building on that, though, there is a tougher challenge I want to engage you in.
The fundamental issue for colleges is that they are not respected and trusted enough in Whitehall and among politicians. This holds back colleges from the even bigger impact they could make.
Respect and trust take time to build, so I am not expecting any overnight changes, but it would be good to hear that you want the same shift in attitudes to prevail.
It would be good to hear that you want a shift in attitudes to prevail
One manifestation of this lack of trust is that colleges are one of the most regulated parts of the education system, subject to rules and regulations designed for schools, universities and for-profit providers; and yet they are none of those.
People often tell me that colleges are too complex and do too many things and that’s why it is difficult to understand them.
An odd critique, don’t you think?
Turn that on its head and you can see colleges as truly comprehensive, community-based, charitable institutions wholly focussed on helping people to get on in life; offering everyone and anyone support, learning, training, skills, education at all levels and across most subjects.
That’s a strength, not a problem. Isn’t it?
You’ll have experience of this yourself, like all visitors to a college who hear from students about their ambitions, talents and dedication and from staff with expertise, passion and hope for their students.
Kit Malthouse, new education secretary
For me it’s as simple and compelling as that. Colleges are vital to every thriving community – for economic growth and for inclusion (whether we call it levelling up, social mobility, or social justice).
Yet a major part of your challenge will be to overcome poor understanding, low respect and low trust as well as 12 years of underfunding.
You’ll encounter this in your negotiations with the treasury and probably around the cabinet table.
We would love to work on it with you.
When it comes to the department for education, I am pleased to say there has been enormous progress in recent years.
Every week I work with officials who understand, respect and trust colleges and who, dare I say it, have become college champions.
Hundreds have seen that colleges are full of people who care about their work and about their students, and once you see that it is difficult not to love it.
Like every caring partner, the best way to show love is to celebrate, support and encourage them so that they have the confidence to use their talents to the utmost.
Wouldn’t that be a great way to work with colleges? Set them free and let them deliver.
Currently though, colleges have too many separate funding lines and programmes, all individually accounted for.
Too many instructions on what they can and cannot do, who they can and can’t help.
Too many funds they need to compete for and too many rules and regulations which get in the way.
So, as you consider where to invest your time and efforts, I hope that you will prioritise working with us to ensure colleges can deliver the economic growth that the new prime minister has promised.
I genuinely wish you well in this new role and I look forward to working with you closely.
The new deal means working closely with education providers to create new career pathways, writes Ben Bradley
On the 30 August, a historic devolution deal worth an initial £1.14 billion in extra investment was signed by Nottinghamshire, Nottingham, Derby, Derbyshire and the government.
This historic deal is a golden opportunity for our region.
For the first time, we’ve brought local leaders together with a shared vision and a united voice, and the work we’ve put in is being rewarded.
The initial investment figures will, in reality, multiply many times over as we seek to attract private sector cash to match our ambitions.
The deal gives us new powers over transport, skills, and the economy. This is crucial for levelling up – it’s the key to bringing in new jobs, and to giving people in our area the skills and connectivity so they can access those jobs.
It will give us the tools we need to keep pace with our neighbours in the West Midlands, which is devolved.
The devolution deal also means we’d have a fully devolved adult skills budget.
For the first time, we could tailor this to the needs of people in our communities and local businesses, helping residents achieve their ambitions and helping employers recruit people with the knowledge and abilities they are looking for.
We can steer further education in our area, to help people train or retrain, get the qualifications they need, and fill current and future skills gaps.
This means working closely with education providers to create career pathways.
West Nottinghamshire College and Nottingham Trent University are good examples of how this works in practice, with collaboration building routes into key jobs – health, in their case – and that’s a model I want to build on.
When the public and private sector work together, they can drive investment and massively impact positive change.
Both sectors need people with the right skills.
Local councils are short-staffed and under skilled in some areas. By working with local providers, we can ensure residents have the skills to access vacancies across public services.
So devolution is great news for public services and for residents in our region.
But perhaps the biggest opportunity is how we can combine private sector investment.
Our devolution deal was launched at Rolls Royce, which provides 20 per cent of our region’s exports, and employs around 9,000 people at its Derby headquarters alone.
Imagine attracting even just one more business like Roll Royce to our area.
Imagine attracting just one more business like Rolls Royce here
With improved public transport links and targeted training around a business like that, we can give our communities life-changing opportunities.
There are other promising things on the horizon. Derby is in the running to be the headquarters for Great British Rail.
We also hope to get confirmation on the STEP Fusion reactor in Nottinghamshire, a ground-breaking multi-billion investment in nuclear research to provide clean energy.
Both need the right skills and qualifications available locally.
This means that further and higher education providers will need to be agile and respond to changing local needs.
We want to ensure education providers have a big voice in shaping new devolved powers.
Skills is at the heart of our plans to improve people’s life chances in our region, from things like basic numeracy, to nuclear science and the most advanced forms of manufacturing.
For further and higher education, it means more say and more control over what courses are provided, where, and why.
It means being open with each other and working together rather than competing.
I want to personally thank the former levelling up minister Greg Clarke for his drive and commitment to getting the devolution deal signed for the East Midlands – his focus and determination were key to last week’s launch.
I now very much look forward to working with Simon Clarke, the new minister at the levelling up department, who I know is also a huge advocate for these plans.
I’ve already booked time in his diary for a chat to move things forward.
There is still a long way to go, but if we build this new structure and get it right, the rewards could be enormous.
Martin Sim, deputy FE commissioner and now emergency principal at City College Southampton, has done some of the toughest troubleshooting gigs in the sector. He tells Jess Staufenberg why a ‘skull and crossbones’ approach keeps him buoyed up
When the FE commissioner’s team does an “intervention assessment” at a college, I can’t help imagining a lot of efficient suits frowning at the accounts.
But Martin Sim turns that image upside down. The cheerful deputy FE commissioner – currently on sabbatical from the £700-a-day role for his new post – has been parachuted in as the emergency principal for one of FE’s most concerning stories in recent years: City College Southampton.
The college has been “three times the bridesmaid, never the bride”, as Sim puts it, in a series of failed mergers, first with Southampton Solent University, then Eastleigh College, then Itchen Sixth Form and Richard Taunton Sixth Form.
In July, former principal Sarah Stannard headed off to the Falkland Islands (having boldly criticised the ESFA’s handling of the situation) after a nine-year stint.
As the man on the FE commissioner’s intervention team for the college, he knows (because his report in February this year shows it) that the college is surviving on £8 million of emergency ESFA money, which runs out next February.
But, despite being a former maths teacher, a hard-nosed numbers man Sim is not. Instead, he catches me off guard throughout our chat with a giant grin and penchant for a fabulous turn of phrase.
“I got Shank’s pony here and got wet,” he chuckles (leaving me like a true millennial to Google the phrase – turns out it means you’re walking). Today is his 41st enrolment day, he continues proudly – a seriously impressive stint in FE.
During that period, he has overseen the merger of Pendleton, Eccles and Salford colleges to form Salford City College, become interim principal at Gateway College in Leicester, then at Barnfield College in Bedfordshire, then Vision West Nottinghamshire College and then Nottingham College.
The FE commissioner’s office was obviously impressed, and bagged him for the deputy FEC role three years ago.
An ability to see the lighter side of life has probably helped. Phrases inspired by the Wizard of Oz, the Jolly Roger, Les Misérables and Isaac Newton roll out with a twinkle in his eye as he non-pompously explains his thinking.
Here are two sporting stories (he’s something of a fanatic) that give you a pretty good introduction to the two sides of Sim.
On the one hand, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. “Once in a pre-football match warm up, I took a chair onto the pitch, stuck it onto the penalty spot and sat on it.” When someone asked what on earth he was doing, he retorted: “‘I’ve got no intention of leaving the penalty area, and I don’t run about much these days!’”
On the other hand, he likes serious analysis. “Cricket is fascinating. It’s the power of the team. You learn the analysis, the plan, the strategy. You learn the idea of risk.”
Alongside this positive yet analytical nature, Sim also learned resilience young. He jokes that he got it from his father, a fan of Bolton Wanderers FC (“if you can deal with watching my football team, you can deal with FE”).
A young Martin Sim
But Sim also lost his dad to a heart attack one Saturday morning when he was just nine – and was brought up an only child by his mother.
Like the witty Lancashire man he is, he eschews any pity. “She brought me up fantastically. I don’t want to paint the picture of a poor disadvantaged person. You learn to take responsibility.”
It’s a characteristic he shares with further education. “FE should be called The Resilience Society,” he announces, with another fabulous turn of phrase. “The resilience, the creativity, the dedication that you see within all levels of FE.”
FE should be called The Resilience Society
One day, another sport-mad figure noticed Sim’s aptitudes and encouraged him into teaching. He had “drifted” into an electrical engineering degree at Bolton Institute of Technology (he quit after four weeks) and was working at a working men’s club.
One day the cricketing chair had “a long conversation about life and ambition” with Sim and suggested teaching. “At the end of the day, you can’t drift through life, you’ve got to sort of use it,” he says.
So, Sim trained as a maths teacher at the City of Manchester College of Higher Education, staying in Salford 33 years and rising to deputy principal at Pendleton College by 2010. This period formed his philosophy on FE, phrased in his own excellent way.
“You know in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy enters Munchkinland and it goes from black and white into colour?” he grins again. “That’s FE. At it’s best, it colourises people’s lives!
“You still get the odd Wicked Witch of the West. But it’s about kids who experience failure, and suddenly the light shines and there’s colour because they’re successful.”
Similarly, “Pendleton [College] went in one colour and came out another” during the merger. He learned a lot about change tactics from his then-principal, Michael Sheehan.
“You have to manage with a heart. There is a mantra, which I’m now using here at Southampton: ‘Learners come first, staff a close second.’ You must create a positive culture.”
Two more thought-provoking analogies follow.
“Is it Newton’s first law which says energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another?” Sim muses. “The risk of any change process is to use the positive energy without changing it into negative energy.”
Then: “You do have your Susan Boyle moments [the singer famous for her rendition of Les Misérables’I Dreamed a Dream, which includes the lyrics ‘the tigers come at night’].”
You have your Susan Boyle moments, when the tigers come at night
“The sleepless nights,” continues Sim. “The hardest job any principal can do is sit someone down and say ‘we’re having to let you go’ and see the blood drain from their face. No one does it for sport.”
After Salford City College, he moved to Ofsted grade four Gateway College in Leicester in 2017, where he spent a year demonstrating “that growth is not essential, quality is essential. You can’t just try to get bums on seats.”
Ofsted found “reasonable progress” the same year when Sim handed it over (it’s now a grade 2). After this Sim tackled grade three Barnfield College in Luton in April 2018, with inspectors finding two areas of reasonable progress and two of insufficient progress in September the same year.
In October 2018, he arrived at the crisis unfolding at West Nottinghamshire College. This, he tells me, was a very tough gig.
“One of the hardest jobs I ever had to do was at West Notts,” he says (for anyone who hasn’t read FE Week, the former principal resigned in 2018 amid significant financial troubles, and Sim faced a £22.5 million debt, and about 220 people were made redundant).
“One of the most humbling experiences is when you talk to staff and go through the evidence, and staff thank you for telling them their jobs are at risk.”
But, he adds, “the quality was excellent, and it continued to be so through that difficult period.”
He then joined the FE commissioner’s team in September 2019, before a final stint as interim principal at Nottingham College from May 2021, which had faced strikes and a £47.2 million debt. Four months later Ofsted inspectors found reasonable progress in most areas. After leaving in June this year, it was off to City College Southampton.
It seems to be Sim’s capacity to spot brilliance amid chaos that makes him an effective trouble-shooter.
“I call it the skull and crossbones approach,” he grins wickedly. “I’m flying the Jolly Roger, I’m pirating, I’m nicking someone’s great idea.”
He refuses to be drawn on exactly what has gone wrong at City College Southampton, promising me he’s “not being evasive” but that it’s complex.
Why, for instance, did the ESFA reject three proposed mergers – even withdrawing its support for the first one with Eastleigh College?
“There are many reasons mergers fail. If we had about three hours, I could probably have a go at explaining why,” Sim says, admitting a triple failure is an “extreme situation” which has badly impacted staff.
But one thing the college must do is “mythbusting”, he says. He doesn’t want to give the rumours “lip service” but an image overhaul is clearly needed.
This includes recognising the college’s strengths: its high proportion of ESOL learners and the fact GCSE passes have increased 10 per cent since before the pandemic. “I’m looking at a lot of good things.”
This positive attitude reflects a shift in approach at the FE commissioner’s office, according to Sim (whose contract at the office continues until the end of 2023).
“The proactive approach under the current commissioner [Shelagh Legrave] of active support is going the right way,” he says, pointing out interventions now dropping.
It’s true – only four colleges entered formal intervention in 2020-21, down from 13 in the previous year. But Legrave has also warned “the challenge is going to come in 2022-23”, when lower recruitment due to the pandemic could mean “income will be down”.
But for now, Sim “remains optimistic” about the new three-way merger proposal for City College Southampton. He adds the DfE, FEC and ESFA are “onboard and working proactively with us”.
It would be good if more principals could remain in post because the margins for running a college weren’t so tight. But given the circumstances, it seems we’re lucky to have pirating, Wizard-of-Oz admiring, Newtonian enthusiasts such as Sim to step in if needed.
As a member of staff with Asperger’s Syndrome, I have first-hand experience of the kind of support that can really help, writes Harry Empsall
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in 1999 at the age of four. My journey hasn’t been an easy one because along the way I have encountered ignorance and bullying.
But I was also lucky. I had the best support behind me in the way of family, friends and staff. They encouraged me to be the best I can be even when I didn’t always find it easy. That alongside my own determination meant I achieved good GCSE and A-level grades.
I now work as a personal skills assistant at my local college for young people with a wide range of difficulties that can be both physical and cognitive.
Nothing comes without its challenges however, and the hardest thing I have had to learn is not overthink the day’s events.
What does it mean when someone gets a diagnosis?
An autism spectrum disorder diagnosis has a positive and a negative side to it. Some see it as a barrier to life which it can be because it can increase anxiety.
To others the diagnosis means that you can start asking questions and accessing support through school, college and external services.
Remember, there are no two autistic people that are the same. Even if you have a set of identical twins there is only a 76 per cent chance of the second twin being autistic, and they can still have different hobbies and interests.
What support can be accessed?
For a student with ASD a GP can recommend occupational therapy (which aims to improve your ability to do daily tasks or develop skills), speech therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. The reason for my CBT was that I struggle with anxiety and depression.
Colleges can also provide learning support in the classroom. Having learning support really helped me during education. But it also made me feel uneasy to have support as other students began to single me out for being “special”. Remember that as a member of staff.
What can you do?
It’s important to remember that a recent diagnosis of ASD can mean the young person’s specific needs are still being assessed and identified.
This means that the student and in some cases the parents can struggle to understand the condition.
With this in mind it would be good to start researching the condition so you can provide support and answers to questions the student may have.
I would also speak to the young person which would hopefully make them more comfortable and means that they would eventually begin to trust me.
I would endeavour to learn about the young person’s likes and dislikes, their hobbies and interests.
Also read carefully through the young person’s EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan) – but you should respect how they would like to be supported because it will help them to trust you.
I would also find out what had worked for the young person and the family in the past in education. I would ask what previous schools had done, what external services had been accessed and where I could improve things.
So in my role I may give students extra time to process information and most importantly reassure them when they become anxious or stressed about any impending changes.
To avoid unnecessary stress, I always try and make myself aware of upcoming routine changes so I can warn the young person well in advance. I can tell them where they need to go, at what time, on what days.
Since I’ve been working I’ve learnt so much from my colleagues on how to deal with things and sometimes how to react to things.
A great example of this is not letting things bother me so much when it isn’t anything I have control over – sudden change for instance.
Supporting young people with difficulties in the way I was supported years before is the most rewarding feeling in the world. It’s about knowing I’ve made a difference to someone’s life no matter how big or small that is.
Government officials are seeking sector views as they design the next national adult education budget (AEB) tender – which one specialist is predicting will face a further funding squeeze.
Several Education and Skills Funding Agency market engagement events are scheduled for later this month, September, ahead of the launch of the invitation to tender, which is expected to get underway before the end of 2022.
It will be a rerun of the controversial 2021 AEB procurement for providers in non-devolved areas of England, which was hit with multiple delays and significantly reduced the private provider base.
But there are likely to be several differences this time around amid the government’s funding and accountability reforms, which are currently in the public domain for consultation. These include proposals for new and increased funding rates.
This, alongside increased devolution and growing investment in other provision (such as skills bootcamps and the roll-out of the new Multiply programme) could lead to a smaller funding pot.
The last AEB tender totalled £74 million, down by one-fifth on the £92 million in the previous AEB tender from 2017. FE Week analysis found the number of private providers with a direct ESFA AEB contract shrunk by almost 60 per cent, from 208 to 88.
Jim Carley, a procurement specialist in the FE sector who runs Carley Consult, said: “With the increase of alternative provision such as skills bootcamps alongside new devolution deals, such as D2N2, on the horizon, the national AEB pot may face a further squeeze.”
At the same time, he added, AEB remains “highly desirable for providers, so we can expect an increasingly high level of competition, with only those bidders achieving the highest scores winning a slice of the funding”.
A prior information notice published by the ESFA last week about the upcoming tender states that the agency will discuss how potential procurement will “interact with the proposed FE reforms and potential further devolution of skills provision”, which includes the “possible introduction of new funding rates, accountability arrangements, and the implication of further devolution deals for contracts”.
The ESFA also wants to “understand learner needs in non-devolved areas and what kind of provision needs to be prioritised” and hear “reflections on previous procurements and use this to explore potential delivery models and performance standards”.
The agency also wants to test market capacity to deliver ESFA AEB among other procurements occurring across the skills landscape, including Multiply, skills bootcamps, free courses for jobs, traineeships and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
It is not clear how much funding in total will be up for grabs through the procurement, or even the exact timeline, but contracts are expected to start August 2023.
Jack Flynn, assistant director of bid services at Carley Consult, said given increased devolution and greater focus on skills bootcamps, providers will have a challenging time growing their ESFA allocation, as the scope will be narrower.
The best route to doing this, he said, is by “committing to deliver more of what the ESFA needs, rather than asking for more funding for what the provider is currently doing – evolution of the offer will be crucial to maximise the funding awarded to providers”.
Online market engagement events for the upcoming tender are scheduled for September 27, 11am to 12pm, and September 29, 10am to 11am. Click here for more information.
College strikes over below-inflation pay offers will take place across 10 days in four weeks this autumn, the University and College Union has confirmed.
Picketing line dates have been announced for 26 colleges, 24 of which will begin with three days of industrial action from Monday September 26.
That will then continue the following week on October 6 and 7, October 10 and 11 the week after and a further three days on October 18, 19 and 20.
Chichester College Group had been announced for the 10 days earlier this week at both its Chichester and Crawley sites, but on Thursday the UCU confirmed notifications for those had been pulled to give management more time to make an offer.
Those two colleges will strike from October 6 unless an acceptable offer is received, it said.
The UCU said that there were live mandates to strike over pay at a further nine colleges, meaning more industrial action could happen unless suitable pay offers were made for those.
Staff at Oldham, Burnley and Manchester colleges, which were balloted separately, went on strike on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said staff “cannot go on being paid so little”.
“College staff deliver excellent education but over the last twelve years their pay has fallen behind inflation by 35 per cent [since 2009] and now thousands are skipping meals, restricting energy use and considering leaving the sector altogether,” Grady said.
“College leaders need to wake up to this crisis, stop dining off the goodwill of their workforce and make a serious pay offer. Failure to do so will lead to the largest strike action that English further education has ever seen.”
The full strike dates are as follows:
Monday 26 September
Tuesday 27 September
Wednesday 28 September
Thursday 6 October
Friday 7 October
Monday 10 October
Tuesday 11 October
Tuesday 18 October
Wednesday 19 October
Thursday 20 October
In June, the Association of Colleges put forward a 2.5 per cent pay offer to the UCU – up from its 2.25 per cent offer in May.
But union bosses said it was “totally unacceptable”, citing the cost of living crisis and the pay gap with teachers in schools, which is estimated to be up to £9,000.
It called for a 10 per cent rise with a minimum uplift of £2,000.
David Hughes, AoC chief executive, said college leaders want to increase staff pay, but “the money is simply not there”.
“The modest increase in funding rates last year contributed to our increased pay recommendation this year, the largest in over a decade, but this funding has largely been eaten up by soaring inflation and spiralling energy costs,” he said.
“This pay increase is both inadequate compared with inflation but also on the cusp of what is affordable for most colleges.”
It warned that it could result in more skills gaps and could hamper the rollout of T Levels and higher technical qualifications. It called for increased funding for skilled shortage subjects.
In a further letter about the cost of energy to the new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, last week, the AoC requested a new key sector workforce fund to recruit and retain teachers, a VAT exemption for colleges and a review of funding for 16-19 learners, apprenticeships and adult education.
The AoC said: “The college workforce crisis is already limiting training and education opportunities for young people and adults alike.”
UK inflation was recorded at 10.1 per cent by the Office for National Statistics in July.
Once you add in the recent political turmoil and the fact there’s now a new prime minister, it might be hard for the department to meet its timetable to bring in all the new funding changes in 2023.
Our take on the latest consultation is that the funding proposals are modest.
The sector lives with the burden of multiple funding lines and need some simplification. One principal told me they have over 50 funding likes – and they won’t be on their own!
The DfE hopes to combine the adult education budget and “Free Courses for Jobs” into a “single skills fund” in 2023-4 but this will sit alongside apprenticeships, Multiply, bootcamps and the strategic development fund for a few more years.
The consultation promises a longer-term simplification in 2025 but would still leave apprenticeships as a parallel system.
The background for these plans is last autumn’s spending review.
The Treasury increased spending via the national skills fund but worked on an assumption that inflation wouldn’t exist between 2022 and 2025.
This is putting severe pressure on the skills system and has severely limited the choices available to the DfE in this consultation.
They’d planned to bring in a formula in 2023 to distribute money to the combined authorities but the timetable is being pushed back until the next spending review.
Instead the changes are concentrated on the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s non-devolved budget and on the money that goes between funder and provider.
Many of these changes are sensible but some could be disruptive.
There are a new set of programme uplifts, some of which reflect skills priorities.
There are adjustments to the funding matrix to remove some complexity. There are reforms to non-qualification funding and a planned innovation allowance.
Meanwhile the accountability reforms bring new accountability agreements and a performance dashboard. But, without a fresh approach on audit, form-filling and checking will remain predominant.
Without a fresh approach on audit, form-filling will remain dominant
So lots of detail and plenty of issues to work through. The consultation doesn’t address the biggest challenges faced by college staff and students but there are steps in the right direction.
It is clear that the DfE has listened to responses made back in 2021.
They are delaying the devolved formula because they have insufficient funds to smooth implementation.
They propose a three per cent allowance for innovation.
The performance dashboard has excluded financial health ratings and Ofsted will not be using these in their new inspections.
There are areas of concern that still persist (for example a possibly narrow definition of community learning) but there’s a chance to query and hopefully amend certain details.
Given the challenges that the cost-of-living crisis presents to colleges – not least the negative impact on many of our learners and staff – this consultation is possibly not top of the list for college leaders.
While we are encouraging AoC members to get involved in our response or to respond on behalf of their own colleges, there may be other more pressing matters to attend to.
The DfE has a consultation response webinar for all stakeholders planned for early September.
We will also be holding our own roundtable discussion on the consultation with DfE and one of our national policy groups in order to unpick certain elements of the consultation.
All in all, the summer break is starting to feel like a long time ago.
Changes in government policy and funding in the last decade have reversed previous positive trends, writes Robert Glick
We should acknowledge the chronic low levels of adult literacy, which ranks the UK below average in the OECD – especially since Friday was international literacy day.
Resolving this challenge offers the new prime minister a way to address one of the UK’s deep rooted problems – its chronically low productivity.
In our increasingly complex and challenging world, a skilled and well-educated workforce is a precondition for success.
For that we really need every adult to be able to read, write and understand maths at a level that allows them to participate effectively in the workforce and in the community.
But the fact is, as many as nine million working-age adults in Britain have low basic skills in literacy or numeracy.
That figure includes some five million who are already in work.
In other words, up to 25 percent of the workforce is underprepared for the challenges of the modern economy.
And more than 20 per cent of adults lack the “life” skills needed to participate in a digital world.
Basic public services, shopping, managing personal finances, news services and entertainment are increasingly moving online.
It means that the more than a fifth of Britons who lack the skills and confidence to use an app or fill in a web form will become increasingly marginalised.
Not only are non-readers less likely to be able to contribute fully at work, they are effectively made to feel like second-class citizens by their inability to access services or relevant state support.
Their health can suffer too, from anxiety and stress at being excluded, and from the stigma of not being a full participant in society.
We have long known what the solutions are, but they need investment in the right places. And they need it now.
Changes in government policy and falling funding in the last decade have reversed previous positive trends.
Adult participation in English, maths, and ESOL (English as a Second Language) learning has fallen 60 per cent over the last decade.
And where there are adult education courses available, fewer than two in five adults know that they exist, and that figure is likely lower for those who might benefit most from free English and maths provision.
How can we turn the tide?
The Adult Literacy Trust is a new volunteer-led initiative to support adult learners, helping them find the confidence and determination to learn.
But this and the work of other charities is a drop in the ocean compared to the need.
What is required is a properly funded adult education programme.
We need a properly funded adult literacy programme like Multiply
Some of that support should flow through formal further education services.
But more imaginative approaches are also required.
Partnerships with employers and employer’s associations should provide work-based learning.
More community-based programmes are needed, including family learning and partnerships with schools, providing opportunities for accessible learning locally and supporting parents to help with their children’s education.
Literacy learning support should be integrated into the work JobCentre Plus does to prepare candidates for interviews and work placements.
There are roles for volunteers to help, but they require a clear framework and plan to operate within. That is currently lacking.
Improving adult literacy education needs is the far-sighted intervention that can help solve the UK’s long-standing productivity problem, and put the country back on the pathway to growth and prosperity.
Even with relatively low levels of investment in adult skills, the government can make great progress in achieving the skilled workforce required to improve national productivity.
This will help us to get out of the trap of perennially low growth that has seen the UK fall down the economic league tables.
And while quick, emergency fixes are needed for the country’s immediate challenges, longer-term action is needed to restore international competitiveness.
Addressing deep-seated problems is something only governments can do.
