The government is on the hunt for brokers to boost the number of young and disadvantaged apprentices in small and medium employers in the north.
A tender worth £2.25 million in total has been launched by the Department for Education to find intermediaries who can come up with “new and innovative ways” of engaging the SME market which is “beyond normal contractor activity”.
Once developed, the approaches will be tested in a two-year “pathfinder” in the north west, north east and Yorkshire and the Humber focused on digital, manufacturing, adult social care and construction sectors.
The regions selected were identified in the government’s recent levelling up white paper as having a high prevalence of deprived and low skilled areas.
Apprenticeship starts in SMEs in these regions have fallen in recent years. Government data shows the number of people starting an apprenticeship between 2018/19 and 2020/21 fell by 58,000 across England, a drop of 19 per cent. The impact has been worst in the north of England, where the number dropped by 23,000 – a 22 per cent decrease.
The Northern Powerhouse Partnership, which is chaired by former chancellor George Osborne and represents businesses and politicians from across the north, welcomed the DfE’s efforts to boost apprenticeships in SMEs in the north.
Sarah Mulholland, the NPP’s head of policy, told FE Week: “We’re supportive of any effort to engage with northern businesses to create a stronger skills base — a critical part of levelling up.
“It is vital the government takes time to speak to SMEs about what practical measures could make a difference.”
DfE tender documents state that officials want winning contractors to focus on providing apprenticeships for young people in SMEs, particularly those aged 18 and 19 leaving full-time education. Disadvantaged or underrepresented groups are also being targeted, such as those with learning difficulties, from minority ethnic backgrounds, and who have been in care.
Skills minister Alex Burghart has made increasing the number of young people taking apprenticeships one of his missions since coming into office in September.
He told FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference in March that he “does not want to forget the young” in the face of falling numbers since the introduction of the levy. Burghart later ordered the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to help boost the figures.
In 2018/19, under 19s made up 24.8 per cent of all starts. This dropped to 23.6 per cent in 2019/20 and in 2020/21 it fell to 20.3 per cent.
Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said SMEs have “traditionally been strong drivers of apprenticeship starts for young people, as well as at entry level”.
“If this scheme proves to be successful in the test delivery areas, we hope to see it rolled out nationwide in the future,” she added.
Bidders have been told they must outline the type of activity and actions they will take to achieve apprentice starts in SMEs that have either never engaged with the apprenticeship service or have not done so in the preceding 24 months.
“The potential contractor must ensure SMEs gain a better understanding of apprenticeships, including but not limited to the business benefits, the funding, availability of transferred funds, and support available to them and their apprentices,” tender documents state.
Contractors must then support the SME to identify an appropriate training provider and provide an end-to-end service from registering on the digital apprenticeship service, reserving funding and registering onto Recruit an Apprentice (RAA) to using a levy transfer.
Winning bidders must also be satisfied that the employers would be confident in engaging with the apprenticeship service in the future without the assistance of the brokerage service.
Government-approved apprenticeship providers can bid for the work, but they must clearly demonstrate how they will “operate independently of the role as a training provider, offer impartial and independent advice and support, and operate in the best interests of the employers that they are supporting”.
Funding will be at risk of clawback from August where an apprentice drops out without making enough progress towards their planned training, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has revealed.
But providers are up in arms about the bureaucracy required to be compliant with the rule, which they say is “impractical” and flies in the face of government efforts to simplify the system.
The new requirement, published in the ESFA’s draft apprenticeship funding rules for 2022/23 (pictured above), states that where an apprentice withdraws from their programme and they have made “insufficient progress towards their training plan”, then funds will be at risk of recovery.
By insufficient progress the ESFA said it means the apprentice is “more than four weeks behind on the planned delivery of training, but the training has not been replanned or the apprentice has not been put on a break in learning”.
Around half of all apprentices on the government’s new-style apprenticeship standards have dropped out in each of the past two years.
FE Week understands the ESFA wants to introduce the rule in an effort to tackle cases where providers have received monthly payments for apprentices up to the point they dropped out but had not delivered the amount of training claimed for.
The ESFA pointed out that the requirement for an apprentice to be “actively learning”, or to be put on a break in learning after four weeks, has been in the funding rules since 2018/19.
A spokesperson said the agency is now strengthening this area to “ensure learners are getting the level of training they rightly expect”.
But providers have complained that replanning the delivery of training, which must be agreed with and signed off by the employer, every four weeks is impractical. Those that spoke to FE Week but did not wish to be named said it is not uncommon for some apprentices to go six to 12 weeks without training, particularly in hospitality and care sectors where there are busy spikes throughout the year.
Providers claim that the four-week rule is also inflexible to account for holidays, illness and when apprentices learn at different speeds.
“Active learning” can include off-the-job training or English and maths. Sector leaders question how auditors will measure progress and quantify how effective that learning is.
The providers said they understand the intent behind the ESFA’s rule, but warned that agency officials are failing to take into consideration the practicality of complying with it for every apprentice.
One senior leader from a large apprenticeship provider said compliance with the rule will depend on how well ordered each provider is in terms of keeping on top of learner progress, including what systems they have in place and how they can evidence it.
“Big providers who have invested heavily in rigorous evidential methods should have this covered, but I can imagine across the wider sector, especially with smaller providers, I can understand how they would be very concerned about this.
“The ESFA is asking for learners to be on track and for providers to not claim funding whilst apprentices are not making progress. So I get it on paper but it is harder practically, and some providers will get caught out which means money clawed back.”
The ESFA published the draft apprenticeship funding rules for 2022/23 on May 27 and included a number of other changes that have been well received by the providers, such as removing the 20 per cent requirement for off-the-job training and replacing it with a baseline. The agency has also watered down English and maths requirements.
Skills minister Alex Burghart said the changes had been made in an effort to make the apprenticeship system “simpler to use” for employers, training providers and apprentices themselves.
But providers said the introduction of the clawback rule for apprentice drop-outs who make slow progress seems more like “complification” than simplification.
The funding rules are only in draft version and could change before they come into effect from August 2022. Providers have until June 24 to submit their feedback.
The next permanent chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency has been named.
David Withey (pictured), currently the chief operating officer and deputy secretary at the New South Wales Department of Education in Australia who also has experience in the UK’s civil service, will take up the position from mid-August.
He replaces Eileen Milner who resigned last summer to become chief executive of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. Her decision came just before an independent review was launched to ensure the ESFA “remains effective into the future”.
John Edwards has been interim chief executive of the agency since Autumn 2021 but tweeted today that Warwick Sharp, the ESFA’s director of academies and maintained schools, will take over the role from Monday until Withey joins.
Been a privilege to be interim CEO of the ESFA – huge thanks to all the brilliant colleagues I’ve worked with. Best wishes to @WarwickSharp as interim CEO from Monday and to David Withey joining as permanent CEO in August
Responsibility for those areas have now been absorbed by the Department for Education. The ESFA has been told to focus solely on funding and has essentially become a contracts manager.
Withey began his civil service career in the Northern Ireland Office, and he has experience working on public spending in the Treasury departments in the UK and Australia, where he also led the New South Wales’ Covid economic taskforce during the first stage of the pandemic.
A Tripadvisor-style review tool that allows apprentices to give feedback on their training provider has finally been launched.
Apprentices can now give anonymous feedback from their ‘My Apprenticeship’ account. The results will appear on each training provider’s Find Apprenticeship Training webpage for employers and prospective learners to view once 10 responses have been submitted.
The apprentice will be asked to agree or disagree with 12 questions in the feedback survey before being asked to rate their training from ‘excellent’ to ‘very poor’.
Apprentices can start giving feedback three months into their training and can update it every three weeks.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s digital service has been developing the feature for a number of years. Its launch was originally set for September 2018, with then-skills minister Anne Milton speaking in strong favour of its value over Ofsted inspections.
Around the same time a similar feedback tool for employers got underway and the reviews have featured prominently on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training site since.
But “low engagement” in a number of trials for the tool for apprentices forced the ESFA to go back to the drawing board last year.
In an update published today, the ESFA said: “We have launched a new feature where apprentices can give feedback about their training. Allowing you to gather insights to help further develop your training programme.
“This new feedback feature will be invaluable in helping you provide the best training possible.”
Ofsted uses the employer reviews to inform inspections. The watchdog confirmed to FE Week that it plans to use the new apprentice feedback in the same way.
Staff at Richmond upon Thames College have warned they will strike during open days as a bitter dispute over plans to “fire and rehire” 127 teachers escalates.
University and College Union members at the London-based college said they will use the opportunity to warn prospective students and parents about the “behaviour of college management”.
The open days, which are described by the college as an opportunity to “meet our teachers” and “speak to our teaching staff”, being targeted are June 21 and 28.
The dispute has seen over 70 staff take five consecutive days of strike action last month as they try to stop plans by management to sack all 127 teachers at the college and force them to reapply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions, the UCU said.
Richmond upon Thames College (RuTC) has condemned the UCU’s action, which has been launched during the busy exam period.
The dispute has arisen over the college’s proposal to reduce the current 64 days per year of annual leave, including bank holidays and efficiency days, to what the college calls “a level in line with other FE colleges”.
UCU has claimed staff would lose 10 days of holiday – but the college said they are proposing a “net loss” of eight days of annual leave with full financial compensation.
“This is not a cost cutting exercise but one which in fact will compensate staff fully for the reduction in annual leave and thereby increase their salary during a time of cost-of-living rises,” a spokesperson for the college said.
RuTC added that the option to “dismiss and re-engage” staff and place them on the new contracts would only be used in the “worst case scenario”.
The college’s constituency MP, Munira Wilson has called on the college to withdraw the threat.
“The fact that the college has issued a section 188 notice (which begins the consultation process to fire staff), whilst still in the process of negotiating with those affected, undermines their ability to negotiate in good faith,” she said. “I have urged the college to withdraw the section 188 notice, as I believe this could help bring the strike to an early end and allow for an amicable settlement to be reached.”
But RuTC said it is not possible to remove the section 188 as the consultation process is now over.
A spokesperson for the college said management did agree on May 27 to remove the fire and rehire option if assurances could be given to improve the quality of the student experience by ensuring that there is more time for teachers to have inset days to develop their practice.
But “rather than entering meaningful negotiation”, UCU representatives presented the college management team with an “unreasonable ultimatum and ceased further negotiation,” the spokesperson added.
‘The management and staff will not be intimidated’
The college said it recognises and regrets that the application of so-called “fire and rehire tactics” has caused a “significant degree of upset” among some staff, but added it is “important to reiterate that the application of the option for dismissal and re-engagement is not a coercive tactic but is a recognised part of the procedure for changing terms and conditions, if an agreement cannot be reached”.
“It is known and accepted practice in colleges and all other sectors for old terms and conditions to be removed and for staff to be re-engaged on new terms and conditions,” the college continued.
“The management and staff at Richmond upon Thames College, who have continued to support students throughout this critical exam period while this industrial action has taken place, will not be intimidated by tactics that seek to coerce by means of threat of further disruption to our students’ learning and assessment experience.”
MP Barry Gardiner, author of last year’s proposed fire and rehire bill which was ultimately blocked by ministers, has pledged to visit picket lines in support of staff.
“The management at Richmond upon Thames College are not only treating their staff disgracefully but dragging the reputation of the whole organisation through the mud,” he said. “Fire and rehire is a practice repeatedly used by some of the worst employers in the country and it should be of great alarm to the local community in Richmond and the surrounding areas that it is being used to strip back the terms and conditions of their hard-working teachers.”
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “The last thing management at Richmond upon Thames College should want to see is prospective students and their parents visiting the college only to walk past a picket line of teachers protesting at the how they are being treated. But this is exactly what they will see if the college continues with its deplorable plan to fire and rehire all 127 teachers.
“We are urging the college to listen to its staff and its MP and lift the fire and rehire threat so open days aren’t disrupted.”
UCU said staff are also continuing to take action short of a strike by working strictly to contract and not performing additional voluntary duties.
OCN London, a nationally recognised awarding organisation and Access Validation Agency (AVA), has developed a new Access to HE Diploma (Policing) in collaboration with the Met Police’s Department for Learning & Development.
This QAA-approved Diploma is of particular significance because it meets the College of Policing’s programme specification for widening access into higher education. The Met Police and OCN London are keen to remove any barriers to entering the service and believe this Access to HE Diploma will provide applicants from diverse backgrounds across London with a new pathway into Policing entry programmes such as the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship.
This positive change will also help contribute towards the Government’s Police Uplift Programme, which aims to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers by the end of March 2023.
Alex Walsh, Director of Learning at the Met Police, said “We’re delighted that, working collaboratively with OCN London, we’re able to offer this new Met-inspired diploma designed to give people the skills and confidence they need to apply to become police constables.
“We value the wealth of life experience and skills in our London community and recognise that many have the desired attitude and aptitude to become a police officer but feel that they’re unable to join the Met because they don’t have the necessary qualifications.
“This is why we are passionate about creating and offering this diploma so that education providers will help bridge the gap, enabling a more diverse and experienced range of people to pursue a career in policing with one of the most globally-renowned police forces.”
Carlos Cubillo-Barsi, CEO of OCN London, added “It has been an honour working with the Metropolitan Police to develop this exciting, new Access to HE Diploma. The introduction of this qualification provides a viable option for all Londoners to access a great career with the UK’s largest police service and will ensure that the Met has increased access to a diverse pool of talented individuals who may otherwise have not had the opportunity to meet the academic requirements.”
This qualification will not only enable progression to higher education, but it will also be a major stepping stone for adult learners (19+) who wish to begin a career in the police service. Learners will gain the core knowledge required to succeed in a policing role through the completion of specialist policing units that focus on communication, ethics, values, and evidence-based policing. In addition, there is a unit in local policing that examines the importance of community policing. Key topics in criminology and law are also covered.
The Met Police is keen to work in collaboration with providers in London who wish to deliver this Diploma.
The Diploma will be available for delivery from September 2022. For further information, please contact Michelle Wood, Access to HE Development Coordinator, OCN London at m.wood@ocnlondon.org.uk or 020 7689 5640.
Strike action at Hopwood Hall College has been called off after staff accepted a pay rise worth up to 7.5 per cent.
University and College Union members at the college in Rochdale were due to be on the picket line from 8am today and Friday along with four other colleges in the north west.
The colleges already saw a round of strike action last month in this dispute over low pay, with UCU demanding increases of at least 8.5 per cent to meet the cost-of-living crisis.
Hopwood Hall staff called off their walk out today after voting to accept a pay offer that for 2021/22 amounts to 6.49 per cent for all lecturers and 7.52 per cent for lecturers on the lowest salaries.
It comes weeks after the Association of Colleges recommended that college staff should be given a 2.25 per cent pay rise next year – an offer that the join trade unions called “insulting”.
UCU regional official Martyn Moss said: “We welcome Hopwood Hall College’s pay offer to our members in recognition of their dedication to the college and its students.
“Staff shouldn’t be forced to bear the brunt of soaring inflation and rising prices. Colleges need to work with us to get staff the pay rise they deserve so we can avoid any further disruption.”
The four colleges still facing strike action in the north west are: Burnley College, City of Liverpool College, Manchester College, and Oldham College.
Staff at another college in the north west, Bury College, called off their strike last month after accepting a pay offer worth up to 6.2 per cent.
The UCU said that since 2009 pay in further education has fallen at least 25 per cent behind inflation and the pay gap between school and college teachers stands at around £9,000.
Colleges have been given weeks to submit information on their borrowing and financing arrangements following the launch of a review which could see them brought back into the public sector.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency today asked colleges for “immediate assistance” to provide a debt return – including a consent letter that will allow the ESFA to contact their primary lenders to discuss college debt. This is required in just over a week’s time, by June 14.
They must also send details of all college borrowing and financing arrangements as of May 31, 2022 and also details of future financing needs. This is required by June 24.
The request follows a recent announcement by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that classification of colleges in England will be reviewed and potentially changed from private to public sector.
The Association of Colleges said that while the request is not part of the ONS review itself, it is likely to be part of the ESFA’s preparation for discussions with the Treasury which would need to happen if there is a reclassification.
“College leaders are pretty busy at the moment and will be providing 95 per cent of this information in the College Financial Forecast Returns which everyone has to send back on or before July 31, 2022,” Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of AoC told FE Week.
“We are asking officials to co-ordinate their information requests better and to honour the promise in last week’s ministerial letter to minimise bureaucracy.”
Documents requested by the EFSA
Colleges have been told by the EFSA that they must send consent letters for each of their primary lenders, which will allow the agency to contact the lender and discuss the college debt if needed.
This letter is only for primary lenders i.e. commercial lenders and local authorities (not finance lease lenders).
These consent letters have to be signed and submitted by June 14.
Colleges are also being asked to complete an excel template providing details of all college borrowing and financing arrangements as at May 31, 2022 and also details of future financing needs that are currently known.
Colleges have to go into granular detail on their borrowing – with the EFSA requesting information on institutions’ debts, working capital and other financing arrangements.
These excel templates must be submitted by June 24.
The EFSA said that if a college has any concerns about meeting the submission deadline, they should contact their region and providers team as soon as possible and prior to the submission deadline.
ONS review of the classification of colleges
The ONS announced on May 31 that further education colleges, sixth form college corporations and designated institutions are to be assessed and possibly reclassified.
Currently, colleges are classified as part of the private sector, a decision the OfS took in 2012.
The review is expected to conclude by September.
[UPDATE: Two days after this article was published the ESFA extended the deadline for colleges to sign and submit their consent letter. The new deadline date is June 24.]
Sharon Blyfield, head of early careers at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, finished her BTEC at college and rose to the top at one of the world’s biggest brands. She talks to Jess Staufenberg about the ‘employer-led system’ and the scandal of apprentice pay
Employers occupy a curious space in FE. They are the raison d’être for so much of the sector’s work – great links with employers are a key boast for any self-respecting FE provider – but they aren’t strictly in the FE sector itself.
They may work closely with training providers and colleges, but very few are training providers themselves. And yet, ministers often defer and refer to employers in speeches on skills more than to FE providers themselves.
Employers have some claim to call themselves partners, or owners, or funders, or commissioners, or customers of the FE system.
It’s not a new rhetoric. Since the 1960s, just about every government white paper has pledged to give employers a greater role in addressing the country’s deficits in technical education and work-based learning.
As Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, has pointed out before, when David Cameron announced employer ownership pilots (EOP) in 2011, an independent evaluation of the £350 million pilots over five years concluded “there is no evidence to suggest” they’d had an impact.
So we have a mixed track record on an employer-led skills system. And yet the government has doubled down, introducing ‘employer-led’ local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) overseen by ‘employer representative bodies’, while local authorities, mayoral combined authorities and FE providers have filled column inches reminding ministers to remember them too.
Surely one of the most recognisable employers in the world is Coca-Cola. Today I am sitting opposite the ball of energy that is Sharon Blyfield, head of early careers at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, who works closely with training providers delivering apprenticeships at the company.
Blyfield with her professional awards
She’s a west London girl made good, and is disarmingly frank about the ‘employer-led’ agenda.
“From the Department [for Education], it’s all about employers and how they’re driving the agenda. And as an employer, of course we want to have a seat at the table,” she begins. “But we don’t want to be the only voice.
“We want to work collaboratively. Employers don’t want to own the agenda. They want to be a part of it.”
It’s a clear message to the government from Blyfield: don’t over-egg the employer role.
Her company is also an interesting case study in this debate, since it has a relatively small footprint as an employer in the UK: just 3,000 employees, with about 25 to 30 apprentices each year (Blyfield says they are expected to be made permanent employees, hence the small number).
But Blyfield is frank once more about the issues.
“The interesting question I always have is, who are the employers being spoken to? I say, well, no one has come to speak to me.
“Is it the employers who have thousands of apprentices? Are they the ones being spoken to? As opposed to the smaller, but big, brands like us.”
It’s a very interesting point. Coca-Cola is probably one of the only brands almost every teenager in the world would recognise, just as withdrawal rates on apprenticeships in the UK hover horrifyingly around the 40-50 per cent mark, and apprenticeship starts have plummeted in recent years.
My question is, who are the employers being spoken to?
“So it’s also about, how do they use the power of the brand?” continues Blyfield. It would make an impression with the general public if Coca-Cola were engaged more strongly, she explains.
“Although we have a small number of apprentices, if someone says ‘Coca-Cola are doing x’, they don’t necessarily need to know the numbers behind that. It’s just the fact we have the influence.”
Perhaps it reveals the problem with the ‘local’ in ‘local skills improvement plans’. If an employer has only a small local footprint – but a massive global one – then they might be overlooked in LSIP engagement.
Are certain employers, including those with vast global influence, being under-utilised?
Another reason to listen closely to Blyfield is on apprentice pay. She says all apprentices aged 16 and over at the company are paid above the national living wage that is set for adults over 23 years old at £9.50 an hour.
It’s significantly higher than the current national minimum wage for apprentices of just £4.81 an hour. Her apprentices can also expect an annual pay review and typically a pay rise.
Again, Blyfield is upfront on her thoughts on this. “If you think to yourself about social mobility, how on earth can you expect anyone to live on an apprentice wage? My one ask would be to get rid of that apprentice hourly rate. Morally it doesn’t feel right.”
How on earth can anyone expect to live on an apprentice wage?
Blyfield has fed back her thoughts to the Low Pay Commission, the independent body that advises the government on the national living and minimum wages. In April, both rates rose, as well as the apprentice rate (albeit only by only 51p).
Financial instability is a reality Blyfield understands well from her own childhood. She and her two brothers were brought up single-handedly by her mum in Shepherd’s Bush in London.
Blyfield at primary school in west London
Her mum worked hard to pay a small fee so she could attend what was regarded as the best school in the area ̶ a voluntary-aided grammar school.
“You had kids from very affluent backgrounds and me on free school meals. I always knew I wasn’t strong academically, so I always wanted to make it up by being the best I could possibly be.”
Blyfield also wanted to make sure as she grew up that her mum “never had to worry about money.”
Her entry route into her career was a BTEC in business and finance while studying at Hammersmith and West London College.
The course included several weeks’ work experience at a billboard advertising company and when she completed her BTEC, she was offered a job as a finance administrator.
(Meanwhile, this also explains Blyfield’s strong criticism of the government’s one-time threat to scrap BTECs. She points out T Levels are still only available in the “very niche areas” of digital, health and social care and construction, and says they are “very technical, as opposed to vocational” like BTECs.)
Blyfield and her mum
But it wasn’t all good news at the advertising company. During the 1991-1992 recession, Blyfield and the only two other black employees were hauled into the office together and told to pack their things.
“They said, ‘You three are going to be made redundant.’ That was one of those moments. They handled that so badly.” It looked like a targeted firing.
To Blyfield’s satisfaction, she was quickly offered an impressive sales role at Cadbury Schweppes. At the time, Cadbury owned 49 per cent of Coca-Cola and Schweppes beverages, and Coca-Cola and Schweppes owned 51 per cent of Cadbury.
In 1998, the Coca-Cola side split from the Cadbury group in the UK, and merged with Coca-Cola in the US, forming Coca-Cola Enterprises, as it is today.
“With that came lots of investment,” explains Blyfield.
Whereas previously Coca-Cola drinks had only been in licensed venues, such as pubs and clubs, and in vending machines in leisure parks and schools, now the company developed branded coolers for corner shops – enabling a big rise in distribution.
As a sales manager, Blyfield was at the front of the action. Her team told her she set “really high standards”, although she reflects she may have been “quite abrasive” as she honed her management style.
After two years she wanted a different challenge, and got an internal job as project manager for the early career journey in the company. It was the start of two decades in human resources with Coca-Cola.
In that time, she says she’s seen a shift from apprenticeships mainly for men with an engineering focus, to expanding apprenticeship programmes into sales, administration and degree apprenticeships with more women and those from minority ethnicity backgrounds enrolling.
Blyfield with former Coca Cola apprentices
To improve access further, Blyfield says the company removed entry requirements for five GCSEs for apprenticeships, apart from degree apprenticeships, in 2018 (FE Week has previously reported on well-known employers who set GCSE entry requirements for apprenticeships, even though this is not a government requirement).
Meanwhile, Blyfield and her team also “don’t request CVs for early career programmes. How can I compare someone who has a network and can get work experience, to someone who doesn’t? That’s just not a level playing field.” This approach is applied to all job hopefuls aged 16 to 25, so apprentices, graduates and those on the Kickstart scheme.
Additionally, checking in regularly with training providers is crucial for reducing drop-out, which Blyfield says is usually about two or three apprentices per year.
This year, mental health struggles have seen four apprentices step back. “We’ve said we’ll take you back tomorrow when you’re ready to come back.”
Blyfield picks out three training providers – Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Lincoln and Remit Training – as examples of FE providers she works closely with across all these issues.
As she wraps up, she reiterates once more that the government should not forget where expertise lies – that is, across the whole FE system, not just with employers.
“We have our core business, while educators are the ones who are skilled in terms of delivery of skills.
“Let us be part of that conversation, but don’t put the onus on us to own it.”
