Five ways to create a prison education system for the 21st century

The education select committee is making the right noises around prison education, but these recommendations are important, writes Peter Cox

Since Robert Halfon became skills minister back in 2016, “ladder of opportunity” has become his catchphrase.

It even makes an appearance in the title of the committee’s report on prison education published on Tuesday. The phrase represents the importance of offering individuals a means of improving their lives through education.

Nowhere is this more important than in prisons. All too often, prisoners find themselves at the bottom of the ladder, with many having endured a poor or limited prior experience of education.

According to the most recent Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data, 57 per cent of adult prisoners had literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old when they were assessed at the start of their sentences.

Without qualifications or work experience, prisoners are less likely to find employment – and are more likely to reoffend.

Finding a job can reduce the chance of reoffending by up to nine percentage points. At Novus, we are already active in engaging with employers such as Greene King, Kier and the Pret Foundation to offer routes through to sustainable employment.

In the past 12 months we have supported more than 1,400 prisoners into employment, education or training upon their release.

But there is more we could be doing. The report exposes a host of structural, financial and cultural obstacles that currently prevent prison education from achieving the biggest possible impact.

Here are five recommendations which we believe are key to creating a prison education service fit for the 21st century.

1. Raise the profile and status of education

Ensuring that the pay prisoners receive for taking part in education is equal to the pay they receive for prison work would ensure that no one loses out by choosing education.

Also worth noting is the recommendation that each prison should hire a deputy governor of learning who is directly responsible for education audits and outcomes – an effective means of ensuring all prisons take education seriously.

2. Better data – better sharing

Enabling prisoner data to be shared more easily would allow for better coordination between education, health and offender management teams, as well as allowing prisons to access prior educational attainment.

A “digital education passport” would follow prisoners through their sentence and across the prison estate – and even be shown to potential employers.

Just as important is the recommendation for a longitudinal study of prisoner destination data, comparing the outcomes of those who have received prison education with those who have not.

3. Clearer accountability

At present, reports by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons feature a single grade for all aspects of a prison’s performance, with no separate grade for the education provider. This means that there is no clear line of accountability in the same way as a school or a college.

The committee is right to call for this change: it is only right that providers should be publicly accountable for their performance.

4. Better digital access

Much of the prison estate consists of Victorian buildings which are not set up for high-speed broadband access.

Novus has already invested £12.8 million in upgrading IT infrastructure across 43 prisons, but more needs to be done.

A clear timescale for installing broadband across the prison estate is long overdue. And offering in-cell access for education has the potential to be a game changer.

5. Providing adequate funding

“Prison education is in a perilous state due to a continual decline in funding”, the report baldly states.

Novus’s own analysis suggests that the hourly, per-prisoner funding rate for education equates to just 17 per cent of that for adult education in the community.

Expecting providers to deliver more with less is not sustainable.

The report’s call for a ten-year budget for prison education would give providers the data and confidence they need to deliver the quality of education provision that prisoners deserve – and finally allow us to help more people start to climb the ladder of opportunity.

Now’s the time to support students with revision and exam stress

Here are five ways to talk to your learners about coping with high-stakes assessment, writes Lesley French

As many students in further education settings prepare for their GCSE re-sits, BTECs, T Levels or A-levels, they may be going through a heightened period of anxiety.

There has been unprecedented disruption to their community, and the whole education system, from the pandemic. There has been a huge toll on teaching staff along with parents and young people.

Many young people have been through periods of worry and uncertainty because of these experiences and have not had the continuity and support in the run-up to exams they would have had prior to the pandemic.

We hope that the following advice and suggestions will help college staff in supporting their students during this time:

Normalise anxiety

It is common for most students to experience anxiety in relation to a stressful event, like exams. Students can feel they are the only ones not managing, when the reality is most will be feeling anxiety.

Anxiety is a normal human response experienced through thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. Anxiety can affect a student’s ability to concentrate, impair their attention span, and therefore affect revision and learning abilities.

Make sure students understand what anxiety is – that it alerts us to danger and helps our body prepare to deal with it – and how to get support should they need it.

Remind students that thoughts are not facts

It can be common to have negative thoughts such as: “I am going to fail – I am the worst student in this subject”. This thinking needs to be addressed with real evidence, for example, reminding them of their positive strengths and their previous experiences of academic and learning achievement.

Adolescence is a time of rapid developmental change, and emotions feel intense and permanent. Avoid minimising or dismissing a student’s concerns, even if they feel disproportionate to you.

Address their phone, screen and social media use

This is one of the biggest distractions for periods of revision and exams. Acknowledge this is a difficult challenge, but also that it can be really helpful to take a break by putting their phone in another room.

Factor in the use of devices as a positive reward for a period of study, when students can connect with friends.

Provide advice and support to create a routine

Stay calm, supportive and offer practical help. Assist students with drawing up a realistic schedule, which includes taking breaks and relaxation time.

Encourage them to have a tidy workspace where they can follow their revision plan.

Make sure they take time for self-care

Relaxation strategies work with practice – this can include controlled or calm breathing, progressive muscle relaxation or grounding techniques. For example, five things they can see, four things they can touch around them, three things they can hear, two things they can smell, one thing they can taste.

Exercise and fresh air matter – there is lots of evidence that this improves mental health, wellbeing and our ability to cope with stress.

Making sure students eat well and get enough sleep are all important things they need to do over the exam period.

According to the Association of Colleges 2021 report, 90 per cent of colleges reported an increase in students diagnosed with mental health conditions in the past year.

The Anna Freud Centre has developed resources specifically to support college staff with the most common mental health issues they see in their students, including exam stress and anxiety.

The Anna Freud Centre’s schools and colleges early-support service is also running free webinars for parents and carers prior to exam results being released.

The same workshop is being run on August 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 and 12, twice a day at 9:30am and 1pm.  

This is how evaluation practices lead to better governance

Assessment of the board improves the performance and engagement of its members, writes Fiona Chalk

I had the pleasure recently of listening to Ralph Schubert talking about creating a high-performing culture in the boardroom. Ralph previously worked in winning Formula One teams and now applies his insights and learning in boardrooms across Europe. 

Like many working in the governance space, his insights show that a fundamental part of the success of boards (and Formula One teams) comes down to how well they review and reflect on their performance, and revise accordingly.

Such a continual feedback loop makes the difference between an OK board (or team) and one that is high performing.

Such a system is a sign of mature governance and sits alongside the need for the board to have a clear vision, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, a passionate commitment to purpose and an attitude of emotional unity.

Whenever a group of persons come together, be that a choir, orchestra, a sports team etc, they regularly review, reflect on and improve how they are working together. Boards are no different.

Some would argue that the board is not a team. But if we use The Wisdom of Teams definition, “a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach, for which they hold themselves mutually accountable”, then we can say the board, working with management, is such a team.

Codes of governance have in common the requirement for such reviews. Meanwhile the ESFA’s accounts direction states that each college’s annual statement of governance and internal control must include a section on the corporation’s performance, including an assessment of its own effectiveness.

Regulators and the public need to be confident that further education institutions are delivering high-quality provision and value for money.

The primary responsibility for ensuring that the organisation has an effective system of internal control and delivers on its functions; other statutory responsibilities; and the priorities, commitments, objectives and targets it sets; alongside other requirements as communicated to it by its funders, rests with the organisation’s board.

The board is the most senior group in the organisation and provides important oversight of how public money is spent.

It is widely acknowledged that good and effective governance leads to good management, good performance, good stewardship of public money, good stakeholder engagement and, ultimately, good outcomes.

Good governance is not judged by “nothing going wrong”. Even in the best boards and organisations, bad things happen. Board effectiveness is demonstrated by the appropriateness of the response when difficulties arise.

Board self-assessments take place annually and are usually led by the chair, or chair of a governance committee, supported by the governance professional. Typical areas for such a self-assessment to cover include:

  • Board composition and commitment
  • Board induction, development and succession
  • Board oversight of performance (student, environmental and financial)
  • Board engagement and involvement
  • Board compliance
  • Boardroom dynamics
  • Board processes
  • Board impact

With the introduction of intent, implementation and impact by Ofsted in the latest inspection framework, there is a growing focus too on the impact of the board within the organisation.

There is a growing focus too on the impact of the board on the organisation

We know that boards are resource heavy and board members are volunteers.

Therefore, identifying through evaluation where boards have impact is not only necessary to justify the resource, but also to support continuing engagement by those volunteering their own time, knowledge and expertise. 

Areas to identify impact include:

  • The contribution that the board is making to the management team’s performance (particularly, effective decision-making).
  • The board’s impact, through its engagement, on stakeholders, including other organisations, students, staff and the communities in which it operates.
  • The board’s role in bringing about a change of culture within the organisation.
  • How the board has positively shaped the vision and strategy of the organisation.

The key focus of the review should be on the support and development of the governing body and will include a clear action plan to take forward recommendations coming out of the review, with the review feeding into the overall college self-assessment report.

That’s how to create a high-performing culture in your team – Formula One or otherwise.

Apprentice pay: ‘£4.81 an hour isn’t enough to live on. It’s crippling.’

“It’s better than it looks on paper.” That’s what skills minister Alex Burghart told FE Week when we asked him if the £4.81 an hour apprentice minimum wage was enough in the face of rising prices. 

That was back in March, the day before the chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his spring statement in the House of Commons, which pledged to ease cost of living pressures.

With universal concern about the declining numbers of young people taking up apprenticeships, and as the sector tries to understand the reasons behind eye-watering dropout rates, coming back to pay was, and still is, a fair issue to press.

The minister let slip at the time that he believed the median income for apprentices was around the £8.24 mark and reminded FE Week that apprentices over age 19 who have completed the first year of their apprenticeship are entitled to the minimum wage.

There hasn’t been any research on apprentice pay since the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s apprenticeship pay survey for 2018/19. 

So to better understand today’s marketplace for aspiring apprentices, FE Week crunched the numbers from over 10,000 apprenticeship vacancies that were live on the government’s Find an Apprenticeship website at the end of April.

What we found was a much bleaker picture than the skills minister would have us believe.

Apprenticeships with good wages are ‘like gold dust’

Half of all intermediate level apprenticeship opportunities were advertised at the legal minimum of just £4.81 an hour. This proportion only slightly reduces – to 46 per cent – when apprenticeships at all levels are factored in. 

The apprentice minimum wage is applicable to under-19s for the duration of their apprenticeship. For apprentices aged 19 and over, the reduced hourly rate only applies in their first year.

With crystal clarity, Tony Scannell told FE Week, “£4.81 an hour isn’t enough to live on. It’s crippling.” Scannell is a member of the National Society of Apprentices’ leadership team, which is made up of apprentices. 

“Everyone at work deserves the living wage,” he said. “There’s no apprentice rate for our bills, there’s no apprentice rate for our weekly shop and there’s no apprentice rate for our bus fares.” 

Then, he added, there are “the tools, the boots, the workwear…it’s not cheap. Apprenticeships with good wages are like gold dust.”

On that last point, he’s not wrong. FE Week’s analysis of apprenticeship vacancies found that 91 per cent of vacancies were advertised below the national minimum wage for 21-year-olds (£9.18 an hour) and 93 per cent advertised below what the government describes as the ‘national living wage’, set currently at £9.50 an hour.

We even found that one in five degree apprenticeships were advertised at the £4.81 minimum. 

With the cost of living continuing to rise, Scannell believes that apprenticeships will be simply unaffordable for young people, especially those with, as he put it, “any kind of responsibility – being a parent, paying rent or even just expected to make a contribution to household bills.

Tony Scannell

“The cost of living crisis pushes us from just getting by with a second job, or some manageable debt… It’s sad to see so many apprenticeships slip out of being affordable. Do they really think a 50 per cent dropout rate is because we’re all winning the lottery?”

With rising bills, it can’t be a surprise if aspiring apprentices glance twice at £11 an hour vacancies at Amazon, or literally any other job offering a wage you can live on. 

But depressingly little is known or discussed about apprenticeship pay and access, especially at the lower end. When it is discussed, it’s often the case that the employers’ needs come first. 

Lower pay reflects employer investment in training

FE Week shared our findings with the Low Pay Commission (LPC), the body responsible for recommending the various minimum wage rates for the government to accept. 

The LPC explained that the last rise in the apprentice minimum wage rate, from £4.30 an hour to £4.81 an hour, this April, was the largest percentage increase of all the minimum wage rates.

“Our role is to raise apprentices’ wage floor as high as possible without harming their employment prospects. Apprentices’ pay reflects the investment employers make in their training,” the LPC’s chair, Bryan Sanderson, told FE Week.

The LPC will make its recommendations for next year’s minimum wage rates in October, to apply from next April. 

“We’re keen to hear evidence on the impact of the cost of living crisis on apprentices and other young workers, and encourage responses to our consultation, which is currently open.”

The LPC points out that the Find an Apprenticeship site doesn’t necessarily reflect the apprenticeship vacancy marketplace. Research it published in December 2021 found that higher level, and therefore higher paid, apprenticeships were less likely to be found on Find an Apprenticeship.

It didn’t explain why, but the gap between starts and advertised vacancies at higher levels can probably be explained by a larger proportion of those apprenticeships going to existing employees. 

The last time the government looked at apprentice pay was in its 2018/19 apprenticeship pay survey. The survey, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), included just over 4,000 telephone interviews with level 2 and 3 apprentices. From those interviews it calculated employers were on average paying £5.90 and £7.65 an hour wages for level 2 and 3 apprentices respectively. 

The BEIS methodology means that researchers could identify employers that were illegally paying below the minimum wage when hours actually worked were worked out against hours paid.

FE Week asked BEIS if it would be updating its research on apprentice pay but the department did not respond at the time of going to press.

FE Week’s analysis of April 2022 vacancy data shows average wages on offer for level 2 apprenticeships were 18 per cent lower than were being paid in 2018/19. For level 3 apprentices, we found a 34 per cent drop (see table).

Training providers say low pay is holding back apprentice starts and is contributing towards dropouts.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) told FE Week that “filling vacancies and keeping people on programme” are among their members’ greatest concerns. 

Its chief executive, Jane Hickie, said, “Providers just can’t keep the learners on programme, as many who would benefit from apprenticeships can’t afford to take a salary lower than the living wage, particularly with inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

“We know from speaking to providers that low wages are also a cause for dropout, impacting in turn on completion rates.”

Hickie calls for a reinstatement of the enhanced cash incentive scheme for employers, specifically for young apprentices. “We would also strongly encourage employers to offer higher wages to attract and retain good candidates,” she said.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Apprentices are at the forefront of our skills revolution and that is why we’ve increased their national minimum wage by 11.9%, aligning it with the under 18 national minimum wage, so that even more young people have the confidence to take up opportunities to learn and grow through an apprenticeship – earning and learning at the same time.”

Principal under investigation given £75k for loss of office

A college principal who was suspended after an audit revealed £5 million worth of overclaimed funding received a £75,000 pay-out last year.   

Paul Di Felice’s compensation for loss of office was revealed in Ruskin College’s recently published 2021 accounts.   

De Felice spent nine years at the residential college until he was suspended pending an investigation in May 2021.   

The Education and Skills Funding Agency is clawing back £5.35 million from the college after overclaims for adult education budget and residential bursary funding were found.   

Graham Morley was parachuted in to lead Ruskin in the interim until it merged with the University of West London in August to secure its financial sustainability.   

Ruskin College said Di Felice’s settlement, made after he officially left the college in June 2021, was “made in accordance with contractual obligations that were in place prior to the University of West London’s involvement”.   

But the college and its university partner refused to comment on the outcome of the investigation into De Felice.   

Ruskin College has been subject to a financial notice to improve since 2014.   

The notice was reissued in November 2020 and the Department for Education placed the college in supervised status following a report by then-FE Commissioner Richard Atkins, published in October, which said the provider faced an “uncertain future”.   

The Oxford-based college, originally founded in 1899, focuses on adult learners and its offer includes Access to HE diplomas, English for speakers of other languages courses, and trade union courses accredited by the TUC.   

It has historic links to Oxford University and is renowned for educating working-class people, especially those in the trade union movement.   

Ruskin College generated £1.4 million of income in 2021. It recorded an operating deficit of £944,000, after allowing for “restructuring costs” of £159,000 and profit on disposal of one of its bases of operations, the listed Stoke House, of £1.7 million.   

The college’s latest accounts state that Ruskin has “not been able to recover from some significant solvency and financial problems during 2018/19 and 2019/20”, with the key issues being a “lack of available liquidity, the impact of Covid on student recruitment and retention, staff turnover, ongoing ESFA clawbacks and an increase in pension liability”.   

But due to the merger with UWL, the college “will have adequate funding to continue in operational existence as a going concern”.   

A UWL spokesperson said the university is “focused on reinvigorating Ruskin College so that we can provide opportunities for adults to learn and grow, regardless of background and circumstance”.   

De Felice did not respond to requests for comment. 

Not enough desks for DfE staff sent back to the office

Staff at the Department for Education have had to work in corridors and canteens after the government’s return-to-the-office edict because the DfE has almost twice as many workers as desks.

Whole teams have been turned away from some offices because of over-crowding. And rural staff and those with caring responsibilities are considering their futures as even pre-pandemic flexibility is “deemed unacceptable”.

Staff outnumber desks by almost two-to-one across the DfE’s 12 offices, figures seen by FE Week show. In Leeds, there are just 24 desks for 110 staff. Bristol has 95 desks for 299 staff.

But bosses have decreed that staff should work at least 80 per cent of their week in the office.

The PCS civil service union has written to the education secretary Nadhim Zahawi after accusing ministers of an “unprofessional and unfair political attack on our members”. The FDA union, representing senior officials, said it had been “inundated with concerns”.

Efficiency minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has called for offices to return to “full capacity”. He even visited some departments to leave Post-It notes for absent employees.

Zahawi announced in April that he had instructed his team to “go back immediately to pre-covid working and offices”. Leaked figures had shown that just 25 per cent of DfE staff were going in, the lowest level in Whitehall.

Following the intervention, DfE staff were summoned to a virtual meeting. Permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood, flanked by ministers, told staff to work 80 per cent of their week in the office, FE Week understands.

However, even before the pandemic, the DfE only had an occupancy rate of 60 to 70 per cent. This was in part down to the department’s support for flexible working. The DfE’s occupancy rate is now “similar” to those levels, ministers confirmed this week.

But changes to the department’s estate, including giving up space in the DfE’s London headquarters for other government bodies, mean there are fewer desks to go around.

Data released this week in response to a Parliamentary written question shows the DfE now has 4,200 desks across its 12 offices, but 8,009 full-time-equivalent staff. In London and Manchester, there are more than double the number of staff than desks.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said Rees-Mogg’s “Post-It note stunt has been exposed for what it is – an unprofessional and unfair political attack on our members”.

“To try to shame them back into the office when they have been working hard and successfully at home throughout the pandemic is bad enough. But, when there aren’t enough desks – when it’s not physically possible – looks like the action of a bully.”

He urged ministers to think about how their actions will “affect the recruitment and retention of civil servants” and added: “Our members have worked flexibly for many years and deserve to be treated with respect, not like naughty schoolchildren.”

FE Week understands that staff were sent home from the DfE’s Sheffield office after a mass return earlier this month, despite some already using communal spaces like the canteen.

Zoom meetings were also run with staff perched on the end of shared seating because meeting rooms were full.

The government is in the process of moving thousands of civil service jobs out of London.

The FDA said it had been “inundated with concerns from members over the impact of the edict to return to offices”.

National officer Helen Kenny told FE Week the move was “unwarranted and shows no awareness of the impact on individuals”.

“We are also aware of members whose pre-pandemic flexible working arrangements are now deemed unacceptable, which is impacting working parents and those with caring responsibilities in particular.”

The DfE said hybrid working was “not new and does not stop offices being used at full capacity”. Such arrangements were in place before the pandemic.

Full occupancy also “does not mean every civil servant working from their desk”, the DfE said. It said it was “common for organisations in the private and public sector not to have space for all their employees”.

Clawback disputes and ‘frustratingly slow’ ESFA reviews delay accounts for 4 colleges 

Four colleges are yet to publish their annual accounts for 2021 – one of which has now failed to publish financial statements for the previous three years.   

Clawback disputes, last-minute and “frustratingly slow” funding assurance reviews, audits and bank loan negotiations have all contributed to the delays, according to the colleges involved.   

FE Week spotted the issue after analysing the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s annual college accounts spreadsheet for the year ending July 31, 2021, which was published this week.   

The data file contains 227 of 231 expected returns. Those missing include Brooklands College, Fareham College, Stoke on Trent College and Kingston Maurward College. 

Government rules state that colleges must publish their audited accounts in an easily accessible location on their website no later than January 31 each year to “maximise transparency and to support accountability”.   

This is the third year in a row that Brooklands College has failed to file financial statements. The college, based in Surrey, was stung by a £20 million apprenticeship subcontracting scandal back in 2018.   

Brooklands College has been negotiating repayment demands from the ESFA ever since.

Principal Christine Ricketts said the college is “well advanced in discussions to resolve outstanding issues and we are expecting to publish the accounts before the end of this financial year”. She added that the college “continues as a going concern”.

Fareham College in Hampshire was a surprising inclusion on the list of colleges to not yet publish accounts. The college is judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted and has no financial notices to improve from the government.   

A spokesperson told FE Week the college received a “random sampled ESFA funding assurance review” very late in the normal cycle, the pace of which to conclude has been “frustratingly slow despite best endeavours by the college to work proactively with the ESFA”.   

“The delay to the publication of the college financial statements for 2020/21 is simply down to ensuring correct procedures are followed for sign-off of the accounts and is not a reflection of the financial health of the college,” the spokesperson added.   

Kingston Maurward College, a land-based college in Dorset, has faced financial challenges over the past couple of years due to a big hit on its commercial income during the pandemic and associated lockdowns. 

The college received a financial notice to improve as well as an FE Commissioner visit earlier this year and is currently undergoing a structure and prospects appraisal.   

Principal Luke Rake told FE Week his college breached loan covenants due to the income impacts of Covid-19, and as a result “our banks and ourselves have been in conversations for some time as to how these breaches should be treated”.   

This is taking place alongside a “very amicable discussion about refinancing to consolidate loans and give the college an even better financial position in conjunction with our strong post-Covid recovery,” he said.   

Rake added that both banks have been “exceptionally supportive” but until these discussions are complete the college “is not in a position to fully sign off the accounts”. 

Lastly, Stoke on Trent College said the delay to its accounts is due to the “finalisation of an ESFA funding audit”.  

A spokesperson told FE Week this has now been “successfully completed” with a “very small clawback of just over £250”. The accounts are expected to finally be signed at the end of this week. 

Stoke on Trent College had spent six years in government intervention, partly because of a £20 million bailout in 2018, but the ESFA lifted its financial notice to improve in May 2021. 

The college has been on the mend and recorded an underlying operating surplus of £165,000 in its 2020 accounts.   

The college’s self-assessed financial health grade for 2019/20 was ‘outstanding’, and the FE Commissioner’s team praised the college that year for being on a “strong trajectory of improvement”. 

Winners of inaugural apprenticeship assessment awards revealed

End-point assessment organisations were honoured today during the first-ever EPA Awards – with judges recognising winners’ efforts to overcome challenges posed by the pandemic and Brexit.

The inaugural EPA Awards, run by the Federation of Awarding Bodies, recognised the contributions made by end-point assessment organisations to apprentices, employers and to education and skills in England over the past year.

“We’re delighted that for these inaugural awards we received so many entries dedicated to celebrating the achievements of end point assessment organisations,” said Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick.   

Bewick said the awards marked a “crucial point” when the majority of EPAOs in the marketplace are now being “properly regulated” by a statutory body in Ofqual. 

“We’re moving to a new system where only the very best organisations will be able to continue to offer end-point assessment services in future,” he said. 

“There was tough competition for the best-in-class winners of each of the four EPAO categories, which is why the independent judges decided to announce four highly commended EPAOs as well. And we congratulate all the finalists this year.”

Association of Apprentices chief executive Emily Austin and Association of Colleges director of diversity Jeff Greenidge judged the awards.

Professional Assessment Ltd, which does EPA for over 20 standards for sectors including healthcare and retail, won the ‘multi standards EPAO of the year (SME)’ award – with judges saying the organisation “conveyed their passion and focus on service”.  

The judging panel was impressed with their approach to communication with all parties, and in particular their helpline for apprentices during the pandemic regardless of whether they were a PAL apprentice or not.  

Picking up the ‘multi standards EPAO of the year (50 + on payroll)’ award was Innovate Awarding. The organisation does EPA for over 50 apprenticeships.

Judges said Innovate Awarding’s work to support other EPAOs with responses to the pandemic and for Ofqual approval “is excellent and will have a significant and long-lasting impact on the entire sector”.

FDQ, which does EPA for 11 standards in the food sector, won the ‘specialist sector based EPAO of the year’ award. 

“This was such a hard category for our judges. All of the entrants have demonstrated how they have overcome the challenges of the pandemic, Brexit and the regulatory environment,” a spokesperson for the Federation of Awarding Bodies said. 

“The submissions convey deep knowledge and passion for their sector and how they contribute to the UK’s economic success.  

“FDQ have won this award because their entry demonstrated that they focussed on building a sustainable business while responding to external changes and pressures.”

And the ‘best collaboration to deliver EPA services’ award went to NCFE – the EPA for over 30 standards.

Judges said NCFE’s relationship with Fika – an app that supports apprentices’ mental fitness – is a “brilliant example of leading-edge excellence” that will have a “significant impact on apprentices and will contribute at scale, to apprenticeships as a whole”.

Bewick said he hoped the awards would help to inspire other EPAOs who didn’t enter this year, to submit an application next year. 

The full list of winners are: 

·         Multi standards EPAO of the year (SME) – sponsored by Skilltech Solutions:  Professional Assessment Ltd.

·         Multi standards EPAO of the year (50 + on payroll) – sponsored by GradeMaker: Innovate Awarding

·         Specialist sector based EPAO of the year – sponsored by PSI: FDQ

·         Best collaboration to deliver EPA Services – sponsored by Advanced Secure Technologies: NCFE

Deputy FE Commissioner to take the reins at college surviving on bailout money

A college surviving on emergency bailout funding has appointed a deputy FE Commissioner as its next principal.

Martin Sim (pictured) is set to take on the job at City College Southampton in July.

He’ll take over from Sarah Stannard who is leaving after almost nine years at the helm to work as the new director of education in the Falkland Islands.

Stannard has been highly critical of the Department for Education and FE Commissioner’s handling of a city-wide review of Southampton’s FE provision, which was launched almost two years ago.

City College Southampton hopes the review will result in a much-needed merger to ensure its survival after seeing multiple attempts fall through due to its perilous financial position.

Sim has been parachuted in to turn-around five other colleges since 2017. Most recently as interim chief executive at Nottingham College.

He said City College Southampton has experienced “challenging financial times over recent years, but it has talented students supported by committed staff and governors”.

“This provides the foundation on which to demonstrate that the college is a strong and vital partner in any future solution,” he added.

Geraint Davies, chair of City College Southampton, said the college is “very fortunate to have secured such an outstanding candidate, who brings with him a successful track record of working with colleges facing significant challenges, and delivering quality outcomes for students, staff and the wider community”. 

He added that the college is “eagerly awaiting the outcome of the education minister’s review of the provision for FE in the Southampton area” and he is “confident that City College will have an integral and purposeful part to play in the implementation of the preferred solution”.

The FE Commissioner’s team, including Sim, visited Southampton in December 2021 and reported that City College is surviving on emergency money, which has reached £8 million, from the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The funding is due to run out by February 2023.

The college’s first proposed merger was with Southampton Solent University, as recommended in the FE Commissioner’s 2016 area review. However, this was rejected by the DfE in February 2018, because of “concerns about the suggested governance model and value for money”, Stannard said previously.

Following a “rapid” structure and prospects appraisal, supported by the ESFA and the FE Commissioner and concluding in June 2018, City College selected Ofsted grade two Eastleigh College as a merger partner.

The ESFA pulled funding for this move days before it was due to be completed, just as Stannard was preparing to step down in favour of Eastleigh’s then principal, Jan Edrich.

Without the government’s support, Eastleigh withdrew from the merger.

college
Sarah Stannard

A later proposal to merge with neighbouring Ofsted grade three Itchen Sixth Form was also rejected by the ESFA in September 2020, owing to what it called “too much uncertainty” around the merged college’s financial viability.

Ofsted rated City College Southampton as ‘requires improvement’ last month, in a report which said “external decision-makers” have failed to resolve questions on the college’s financial position and this has slowed leaders’ progress in improving its quality of education.

Stannard will take up her new role in the Falkland Islands in September 2022.

She said City College Southampton will be a “wrench to leave”.

“However, working and living in the Falklands has been a long-held ambition of mine since I visited the islands in 2008 and 2012,” she added.

“When the opportunity arose to become director of education in the Falkland Islands I felt that this was the right time to move after nine fulfilling years leading City College.”