Make no mistake, this week’s decision to close the national traineeships programme for new starts from August 2023 is an absolute disaster.
A scheme which does so much to promote opportunity for the most disadvantaged should not be in line for the axe – and diverting its funding instead to the 16-19 study programme and adult education is a hammer blow to thousands of 16 to 18 learners.
The government’s own research shows that traineeships are extremely effective. Around three-quarters of all trainees have successful outcomes – either taking on work, starting an apprenticeship or further study – within 12 months. This compares to fewer than half of all non-trainees. The scheme’s flexible nature means it can be tailored to meet local needs- something employers really value.
Government have cited poor take up as the reason for axing traineeships. That is true, but there is a context! Unlike other programmes, such as Kickstart, there are no learner incentives attached to the scheme. So no surprise there.
The cost-of-living crisis is driving behaviour too, so it’s hardly a shock there hasn’t been a huge rush for a programme with no immediate financial benefit for the learner. AELP has long called for government to focus on increasing participation through better promotion of traineeships and introducing incentives for learners – instead of removing choice. Sadly, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Disappearing traineeships = disappearing opportunities at entry level
Lots of things about this decision worry me, but I am particularly worried about the impact this it will have on social mobility. The biggest beneficiaries of the traineeships programme have been school leavers with low previous rates of achievement.
The programme offered this group meaningful work experience alongside relevant on-the-job training – as well as support to improve their English, maths and digital skills.
The government are yet to publish an equality impact assessment on scrapping traineeships, but given 33 per cent of participants come from ethnic minority backgrounds, and 23 per cent have learning difficulties or disabilities, this is such a short-sighted move.
I am also very concerned that this announcement is made against a backdrop of reforms at level 2 and below where funding could be removed from up to 90 per cent of qualifications for young people.
Given traineeships were previously heralded as the alternative to a level 2 business admin apprenticeship pathway, the impact of scrapping traineeships at the same time level 2 and below qualifications are being significantly scaled back will severely limit skills provision at entry level. This could have a catastrophic effect on the people that need skills training the most.
Lack of engagement with employers or the skills sector
It is disappointing that ministers and officials did not consider it necessary to engage with the skills sector or employers on the future of traineeships. A meaningful consultation could have led to a solution which would not have caused such a backlash. One large employer I spoke to yesterday was horrified by the decision – and the lack of any consultation or communication – as they had traineeships firmly embedded in their workforce planning which they would now have to revisit.
As part of the plans, the government is also proposing to end contracts for independent training providers who have a 16-18 traineeship contract – there are 136 of them – but not a wider 16-19 study programme contract. Inevitably strips out specialist expertise and capacity for supporting both young people and the government’s social mobility agenda. We must not lose that expertise – these are providers already approved and trusted to offer provision to young people by the government.
To land this on the sector, out of the blue, would be a bad one to land at any time of year but I have to say, this is a truly terrible time to make such an announcement.
We’re about to head into a Christmas break after a really challenging year. Coupled with rising costs, the additional financial strain caused by such an abrupt end to contracts may well be too much to manage for some providers – especially if they have fixed costs such as leases for premises.
These plans will provoke many, many questions about what happens next, and send a lot of staff working for providers home for Christmas worried about their livelihoods. Rushing this announcement out less than a fortnight before Christmas will make it nigh on impossible to get the prompt answers providers, employers and learners deserve.
Creating more opportunities for young people should be a priority of any government, especially one who have talked so much about the ladder of opportunity. Scrapping traineeships is a big mistake – and AELP will fight for this decision to be reversed.
Skills minister Robert Halfon has addressed questions from education select committee members today on the future of post-16 qualifications.
The minister, a former chair of the committee himself, spoke on a range of subjects, including T Levels, apprenticeships, careers advice, a British Baccalaureate and traineeships.
Here are a handful of things we learned:
Are traineeships dead?
Following yesterday’s news that traineeships had been scrapped amid low take-up numbers, Halfon told the committee that in fact “they are not being stopped” but only being “integrated into existing programmes”.
He referenced existing work such as skills bootcamps, the T Level transition programme, free courses for jobs and other skills programmes as viable alternatives.
“Traineeships can be carried on, but through the providers, through the further education colleges, because each student gets a study programme and can be offered a traineeship through that,” Halfon continued.
“But the crucial point was the take-up was low, too low, for a national programme, which is why we made the decision it would be better to integrate it with other skills programmes but also offer it if independent providers want to carry on doing so with the study programme.”
“Hybrid” T Level work placements
Halfon confirmed the Department for Education is “looking at allowing hybrid placements” for T Level students’ mandatory 45-day or 315-hour work placements.
That would allow students do some placement in person and some online. In addition, he said the department is also assessing whether to let T Level students go to a training facility of the employer rather than on the floor of the business itself.
Halfon also floated the potential in future for AI-based elements to work placements too.
He added: “I would like work experience across all qualifications – one day I hope that will be the case”.
Sue Lovelock, the DfE’s director of professional and technical education added more meat to the bone on the next steps for the review of level 2 and 3 qualifications.
In October the government confirmed that 3,240 qualifications from entry level to level 2 were in scope for review, with more than 2,000 of those under threat of being defunded, while level 3s that overlap with T Levels are also facing the chop.
Lovelock said the next step will feature employer input.
She said: “The next phase of the reforms will be undertaken by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and Ofqual, who will use their specialist expertise in using input from employers, in particular, on whether a qualification meets the needs of employers in those areas, and Ofqual’s regulation of qualification specialism in order to make sure of qualification by qualification judgements on whether something is good quality, necessary, and leading onto good progression opportunities for young people.”
That process will be completed by 2025 for level 3s and 2027 for level 2s, she confirmed.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan last week told the committee in her first grilling in post that discussions so far had mostly been around the study of maths up to the age of 18, but was “pragmatic” on whether a British Baccalaureate would happen in the remaining two years of parliament.
Halfon told the committee today that he has an “open mind” on it – including on whether it should be called a British or English baccalaureate, but said that the most important factor in the debate will be on whether such a baccalaureate would deliver outcomes for students.
When asked about timescales and whether the department is actively looking at it, he added: “There are discussions going on in the department about these issues, but I cannot give you a timescale at this time.”
Apprenticeship levy reform ruled out again
The question of whether the apprenticeship levy should be reformed to offer more flexibility has been raised countless times, and this morning was no exception.
Halfon said: “We are not planning to make reforms of the levy. I am looking at it in terms of how is it ensuring that disadvantaged students are doing apprenticeships, and also of how it is meeting our skills needs, but we are doing everything possible to increase apprenticeship quality.”
Ofsted has published its annual report on the state of education and social care for the last academic year – the first full year of inspections since the pandemic.
Amanda Spielman, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, has warned that recruitment and staffing problems are rife across the whole education and care system, from early years to colleges and independent training providers. “Fewer college staff can result in larger class sizes of mixed abilities, making it difficult to pitch training at the right level,” the report states.
Low salaries and “staff reconsidering their careers after the pandemic” are to blame to staffing shortages in providers, according to the report.
The report analyses the performance of colleges, training providers, adult and community education providers and some higher education institutions for the 2021/22 academic year. FE Week analysed the results of those inspections prior to the annual report.
The FE and skills sector’s overall performance has stayed the same as a headline level – 82 per cent good or ‘outstanding’ – as last year. However this hides some improvements in performance in some areas and declines in performance in others.
The proportion of all colleges now at ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ has increased 11 percentage points to 91 per cent.
Here are the key findings for FE and skills from today’s report…
Improving first inspections
The number of new providers achieving ‘good’ inspection outcome at their first inspection has improved by 14 percentage points compared to pre-Covid 2018/19.
According to Ofsted 65 per cent of the 330 providers that received their first full inspection this year scored a ‘good’ or better for overall effectiveness.
Inspectors put the improvement in performance of new providers to the introduction of new provider monitoring visits in 2018, the ESFA’s register of apprenticeship training providers and “the efforts of providers themselves.”
Inspecting exempt providers
Ofsted say a focus of theirs this year has been inspecting providers that have not been inspected for a long time because of a previous ‘outstanding’ grade.
In 2021/22, 31 formerly exempt providers were inspected. Of those 14 retained their ‘outstanding’ grade, 14 were judged ‘good’ and three fell two grades to ‘requires improvement’.
Ofsted says apprenticeship inspection grades have fallen slightly
Seventy-seven per cent of providers inspected this year achieved either a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ grade or at least ‘reasonable progress’ at a new provider monitoring visit. This is down four percentage points on last year.
Ofsted cited poorly co-ordinated on- and off-the-job training, poor preparation for end-point assessments and narrow curricula as common reasons for ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ apprenticeship inspections.
Some apprentices are still making slow progress due to the pandemic, Ofsted has said. The report highlights that some are still having to continue beyond their planned end dates in sectors that were hardest hit, such as hospitality, travel and health and social care.
Prison education slammed
The dire state of the quality of education in prisons is perhaps the most damning section in today’s report.
Of the 22 prison education services inspected in 2021/22, half were judged ‘inadequate’, 10 were judged ‘requires improvement’ and one scored ‘good’.
Ofsted has said that high levels of staff absence among prison staff and contractors is having a damaging effect on the quality of education. As a result, too few prisoners are able to access education and training and there are backlogs in assessing additional learning needs.
Inspecting T Levels
Too many teachers didn’t feel prepared to teach T Levels, Ofsted has said today, repeating its concerns from its T Levels research earlier this year.
Shortages in specialist staff to deliver T Levels and the impact of the pandemic in some sectors also meant had an impact on the quality of industry placements, Ofsted have reiterated today.
Today’s report echoes Ofsted’s education recovery research which found that there were cases where online learning was being used without clear benefits to apprentices and learners.
“We are concerned that a small number of providers continue to teach programmes substantially to entirely online, with no clear benefit for learners” today’s report states.
Specialist colleges perform poorly overall
As previously reported by FE Week, a large proportion of independent specialist colleges received poor inspection judgements this year. Only 47 per cent independent specialist colleges were judged good or outstanding, 31 per cent require improvement and 22 per cent were found to be inadequate.
High needs provision across other providers fared much better in inspections this year. In total, 84 per cent scored ‘good’ or better for high needs, 15 per cent ‘require improvement’ and one was judged ‘inadequate’.
The FE Commissioner has repeated her warning over colleges’ use of subcontracting in her latest annual report.
Now in her second year as FE Commissioner, Shelagh Legrave also said colleges’ vulnerability to cyber-attacks and the number of “too comfortable” governors that have served more than ten years are what she sees as “persistent problems”.
The report repeats Legrave’s concerns over the quality of oversight of subcontracting first revealed by FE Week at the AoC’s annual conference in November. The Commissioner claims that economic climate is making learner recruitment harder for colleges and therefore more likely to turn to subcontracting to fulfil their contracts:
“The economic climate is causing more adults to work rather than taking training opportunities, so the temptation for colleges is to use subcontracting as a way of fulfilling contracts. There is a place for local subcontracting, but it is vital that this is overseen appropriately, both from a quality and a funding perspective” the report states.
On governance, Legrave said she is concerned by “the number of boards where governors have served for more than ten years.” Adding: “Whilst the time given by these governors as volunteers is hugely appreciated, it is often too comfortable a relationship with the senior team.”
Legrave first warned that some colleges were withdrawing from “priority courses” in her interview with FE Week last month, highlighting that the colleges “can’t find the staff to deliver them.”
She goes slightly further in her annual report this year, saying: “Some colleges are having to withdraw some T Level courses due to lack of staff to deliver them, with shortages extending to support services too.”
The Department for Education have been approached to clarify which colleges have had to withdraw from T Level delivery due to staff shortages.
Two full intervention assessments took place, both due to financial triggers, the annual report states.
Just one college received a new diagnostic assessment this year, but 25 follow-up visits took place in 22 colleges. One of those was escalated to intervention.
Nine colleges formally exited intervention this year, a similar number to the ten that exited the year before.
However six of those are still under monitoring through the Commissioner’s new post-intervention monitoring and support (PIMS) category.
Diagnostic assessments will now be known as health checks and will be offered as part of the FEC’s active support offer and will be available colleges on request, as previously announced. Twenty six diagnostic assessments took place in 21/22, up one from 20/21.
Two structure and prospects appraisals (SPAs) took place, which resulted in the merger of Selby College with Wakefield College, forming the Heart of Yorkshire Education Group, in March, and Berkshire College of Agriculture’s merger with The Windsor Forest Colleges Group in July.
This is down from five SPAs in 20/21.
And the national leaders have been busier this year than last having visited 54 principals, CEOs and boards in this reporting year, up from 40 the year before. There are currently 12 national leaders of further education and 8 national leaders of governance.
One national leader of governance, Andrew Baird, resigned earlier this year after being found to have shared a racist meme on WhatsApp following the appointment of Rishi Sunak as prime minister.
Dozens of college campuses have closed their doors today due to adverse weather conditions, with lessons suddenly moving online for thousands of students.
Colleges across the country have been affected, with some of those remaining open warning students and staff not to travel unless it’s safe to do so.
The Department for Education has written to college and school leaders this afternoon reminding them to review their emergency contingency plans.
Estates teams have been praised for doing their best to make walkways, car parks and college building safe after heavy snowfall overnight.
Classes, student interviews and a parents evening have been affected. Many hope to be able to re-open for face to face learning tomorrow. Bexhill College has already said it will also be closed tomorrow.
In London, Barnet and Southgate has also closed its doors today along with all 8 campuses of London South East Colleges. Capel Manor College has closed its sites in Enfield, north London.
Oaklands College has moved it classes online today having closed its sites in Welwyn Garden City and St Albans.
East Surrey College has cancelled today’s classes and student interviews, according to its website.
Students at South Devon College’s Vantage Point campus in Paignton were sent home this morning due to a loss of heating. This has affected gas supplies and hot water at the campus. All students, except those with on-site exams today, have been told their lessons will resume online from midday.
Cornwall College’s Stoke Climsland campus has been closed and a planned parents evening event has been moved online. Students at its other campuses have been warned only to travel to college if it’s safe to do so.
And Gloucestershire College has closed due to adverse weather and staff shortages.
North Hertfordshire College also closed its campuses today for staff and student safety.
Harlow College, and its Standsted Airport College campuses have also closed today.
East Sussex College has said “Due to adverse weather conditions and impact on travel arrangements, all lessons have been cancelled today, Monday 12th December.”
Others have been advising students how to keep warm on site. Students at Blackpool Sixth have been advised to “dress appropriately for the time of year” and to tell a member of staff if they’re too warm rather than opening a window.
Colleges have been taking to social media to post pictures of their festive transformations.
Take care when travelling in this morning ❄️
Big thanks to our Estates Team who have out been clearing the paths into our campuses! pic.twitter.com/925oFgcWOJ
The government has scrapped its flagship pre-employment skills programme following years of low starts, it has been confirmed.
Reports that emerged over the weekend were confirmed by skills minister Robert Halfon in a written ministerial statement in the House of Commons this morning.
Halfon said: “The traineeship programme has been running for nearly 10 years and the number of starts has remained relatively low.
“It is right, therefore, that we focus our offer on our mainstream provision. This change will make it easier for young people and employers to navigate our skills offer and will enable providers to better tailor their programmes to deliver the key skills needed to drive growth in local communities.”
From August 1, 2023, provision previously delivered through the traineeships programme will be “integrated” in to 16-19 study programmes for young people and the non-devolved adult education budget for adults. Mayors with devolved skills powers will decide what’s best for their areas, the statement says.
Official figures published last month showed there were 15,500 traineeship starts recorded in 2021/21 – just 36 per cent of the 43,000 target. It comes despite the Treasury investing £126 million in traineeships in 2021/22 and £111 million being pumped into the pre-employment programme the year before, when 17,400 starts were recorded against a target of 36,700.
Halfon points to “great alternatives” to traineeships, “such as T Levels and the T Level transition programme, bootcamps, apprenticeships, and sector-based work academies.”
However the body representing training providers as slammed the government’s decision as “an unmitigated disaster for social mobility.”
Hickie
Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said:
“Axing traineeships would be incredibly short-sighted. The government’s own research on traineeships shows their effectiveness. Around three-quarters of all trainees have successful outcomes – either taking on work, starting an apprenticeship or further study – within 12 months.”
AELP has warned that the government’s plans to end funding for those currently with a 16-18 traineeships contract, but not a wider 16-19 study programmes contract “could be the final nail in the coffin for many” providers in light of rising costs of delivery in the training market.
Of the 136 providers with 16-18 traineeship contract allocation in 2021/22, only one, South West Regional Assessment Centre Limited received a wider 16-19 contract as a designated special post-16 institution.
“To announce this decision, without any form of consultation – and right before Christmas – is incredibly poor form,” Hickie said, adding: “Coupled with the planned level 2 and below reforms, this could be an unmitigated disaster for social mobility, by limiting access to skills training at entry level.”
Earlier this year FE Week revealed that more than half – £65 million – of the 2020/21 traineeships budget had to be handed back to the Treasury. A bigger underspend is now expected for 2021/22.
Some 290 training providers and colleges currently receive procured or allocated budgets for traineeships, ranging from £3.2 million at Strode College for 19-24 traineeships (procured) to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which was allocated £5,500 for 19-24 traineeships.
Introduced as a flagship pre-employability programme in 2013, eligible 16 to 24-year-olds were funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for pre-employment training and unpaid work placements from six weeks to one year, although most last for less than six months.
But traineeship starts have been on a rapid decline, from a high of 24,100 in 2015/16 down to just 12,100 in 2019/20.
Ministers saw traineeships as a good route to help get young people back into training and work after the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to back the programme with more funding.
But providers have often warned that the lack of learner incentive means that traineeships are currently limited to those willing and able to take on a placement without getting paid.
Others have argued that other government programmes that do offer payment, like Kickstart and apprenticeships, have systematically displaced traineeships.
From PA to chief executive, Brenda McLeish has risen through the ranks to run one of the country’s largest and most successful training companies, grabbing numerous awards and accolades in the process. Trading conditions in the training sector are tougher than ever, but that won’t stop the ‘purple people’ from going for growth, she tells Jessica Hill.
With over 1,000 employees and 4,500 employer clients on her books, Brenda McLeish is the chief executive of one of the country’s largest training providers.
But this month, she’s relying on trains and taxis to get around Teesside after leaving her car in the garage before builders started digging up the foundations of her driveway. The car is now it’s stuck there until the work is done.
“How can you run a £75 million business and not think about these things?” she recalls her husband chiding her.
And what a month it’s been. Just a few weeks ago, McLeish was being invested with her OBE by the Prince of Wales for services to further education. “The dedication and hard work of our purple people made this happen,” McLeish said at the time.
Far from transport woes being the top concern of the day, McLeish is very much focused on LCG’s employees – or the “purple people”, as they describe themselves.
The term was coined by staff after a company rebrand changed the colour of the logo from orange to purple in 2012. And it’s everywhere at LCG’s offices in County Durham, from festive decorations to the fresh flowers on reception and a large screen above it showing LCG learners against a purple background, sharing life-affirming messages.
McLeish’s taxi driver this morning remarked as they arrived that “I don’t know what the boss is doing, but every time I pick somebody up from here, they’re always happy” she tells me.
While it would be easy to fob the comment off as a clever piece of PR, there is a chipperness in the purple people I meet. Some of that is driven by McLeish’s own effervescent demeanour and the way she cares for her staff.
Remembering roots
“There’s no switch you can turn off to take that Northern girl out of out of me and make me forget where I’ve come from,” she says.
The office is only a half hour drive away from the Stockton council housing estate where McLeish grew up, in a region with the highest rate in England (8.4 per cent) of economically inactive adults due to ill health.
Helping those people grasp opportunities is something McLeish cares deeply about. She recalls one LCG learner – an alcoholic in an abusive relationship who had had her children taken off her – who is now training to be a midwife.
“Slowly changing the world, that’s what makes these purple people here buzz. They can genuinely see they’ve changed people’s lives every day.”
Post-pandemic lull
The offices are also buzzing because of the sheer number of staff there – McLeish told them all to return to the office as soon as they could post-pandemic, and believes the work from home culture “isn’t good for society or business”.
But LCG’s face-to-face businesses are still “nowhere near” pre-Covid levels. Attendance at physical academies and community-based provision is down in volume by at least a third, with people “genuinely not re-presenting into venues” because “they’ve got used to being at home, whether it’s because they’re scared or have underlying health conditions”.
The pandemic has also been damaging for the apprenticeships side of the business: government data shows apprenticeship starts in 2021-22 were 11 per cent down on 2018-19 nationally.
“How can a company take on young school leavers in an office where nobody’s working consistently? That’s a real challenge for us,” says McLeish.
But at least that’s been offset by LCG’s booming online learning business, which doubled in volume during the pandemic, buoyed by the company’s ‘educate whilst you isolate’ campaign.
Also noticeable is that all those purple people wandering about smiling are women. In fact, 80 per cent of McLeish’s senior team is female. She denies “trying to create a female bias”, stressing “it’s because they’re great at what they do”.
Interesting career path
McLeish always had a natural leaning towards education. In one school report, her teacher remarked on her career path that “I’ll see you in the classroom”.
“I didn’t have the greatest of upbringings. I was quite gifted academically but couldn’t afford university because I needed to earn money,” she says.
After a short stint as a medical secretary, McLeish got a job as a college PA at Eastern College and rose through the ranks to become a senior manager at 28.
While coordinating teachers there, McLeish got her adult teaching certificate and taught night classes in basic IT skills so she could “fully understand what I was asking other people to do”.
LCG has grown rapidly since McLeish joined as business development director in 2008, when as a team of 40 “everybody was expected to pitch in”. In 2015, the year McLeish became chief executive, LCG’s founders sold it in a deal backed by private equity, and it has since bought up eight other businesses.
Broadening the reach
McLeish credits its growth choices for the company’s survival in a notoriously tough training provider market. “Without quantity of scale and investment, it’s often really difficult to financially manage all those different audits, funding and Ofsted requirements,” she says.
The new businesses have broadened LCG’s offer. Its 2015 purchase of Hartlepool-based Workwise, a call centre of 30 staff, meant the company became “less dependent on external companies” to find new learners.
But there have been bumps in the road. Last year, LCG bought training provider Antrec Limited, which, among other things, provided taxi driver preparation courses in the Liverpool City Region. But in May the combined authority did not give LCG a contract in its latest adult education budget bidding round – despite an outcry from a local council LCG was working with – and McLeish had to shut the Liverpool office down.
McLeish with Prince William collecting her OBE
Bringing London Hairdressing Apprenticeship Academy into the fold in 2020 gave LCG a foothold in the hair and beauty training market in the capital, and its most recent acquisition this summer, of Yorkshire-based White Rose Beauty Colleges, makes it now one of the biggest beauty trainers in the country.
In an adjoining office room, purple people are liaising with representatives from the awarding body VTCT about “being the biggest [in that market] and how we can strengthen that relationship,” McLeish explains.
But while White Rose are rated outstanding by Ofsted and are “absolutely fantastic at what they do in the classroom”, McLeish admits when LCG took them on they were “really struggling without that bigger piece around funding, administration and marketing … they were drowning in all the other challenges that sit outside the classroom”.
She explains: “We often find when we bring in new businesses that the provision is brilliant, but all the external factors are suffocating the business.”
Getting back to work
McLeish is scathing of some back-to-work programmes.
She recalls in her college days English and maths lessons were “like a social clubs” and claims most unemployed people LCG works with “could teach you how to write a CV – you don’t need to teach them – because every bloody job centre programme is just regurgitating that stuff”.
“We truly believe in giving people skills they can use to transform their lives, whether that’s just being able to help their children with their homework or to break that [unemployment] cycle,” she says.
But reversing a culture of entrenched unemployment is tough. LCG has a construction academy in Middlesborough, but McLeish admits after learning those skills many trainees will “earn a little bit of money on the black market and continue to draw down benefits”.
“A lot of people say to us that to come off of benefits they’d need to be earning £25,000 pounds a year. They say, ‘I’ve never worked all my life. Where am I going to get a job earning that?’ That’s the cycle, isn’t it? It’s not their fault.”
But there are some bucking that trend. McLeish recalls one former student, a man on benefits who had never worked. His two school leaver sons were destined for the same fate when McLeish says he told LCG he wanted to “do something with my sons because I don’t want them sitting on their asses like I did”.
All three entered a plastering course, and although one son fell by the wayside the other two qualified and eventually set up their own company.
Expanding apprenticeships
McLeish has ambitions to expand LCG’s apprenticeships portfolio, which means “engaging with those people still scared to leave the house”.
LCG practises what it preaches to businesses through its Purple People Academy, which in 2018 took on 30 school leaver apprentices, and McLeish claims “many employers have taken on that blueprint in their own businesses”.
It is also exploring what McLeish believes are “massive opportunities” working with offenders in prison and when they’re being rehabilitated, following a recent law change enabling some prisoners to undertake apprenticeship programmes.
The company is also a publisher, and currently develops and sells 200,000 learning resources a year in England. LCG has eight PRNs and is inspected and audited on each, which McLeish admits “keeps us on our toes”. Thankfully, five Ofsted inspections in the last 12 months all came out ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’.
But some competitors have buckled under market pressures. HGV training provider Systems Group Ltd last month called in administrators. Lifetime Training was bought by one of its lenders as an audit investigation by the Education and Skills Funding Agency into its use of additional learning support funding was about to commence.
Now, of LCG’s 60 online qualifications, the five mental health programmes are the best performing, seeing a third of its online programme registrations. It will come as no surprise that the most popular course is mental health in young people. McLeish expects demand for mental health courses to remain high as the recession bites, with “the world at the minute demanding it”.
‘Massive opportunities’
McLeish collecting award
The recession is causing employers to pull back on paying for training, but McLeish believes many companies remain ignorant of the “massive opportunities” offered by government funded training programmes.
“We’re trying to say to employees ‘don’t write us off, use the apprenticeship levy, the adult education budget or one of the boot camps to fund your training requirements, rather than your cold, hard cash’. To this day, even [apprenticeship] levy paying employers tell us they didn’t know they could do it all for free.”
The downturn is also affecting LCG’s staff, despite their buoyant appearance. Instead of throwing the usual Christmas office party, staff are getting a voucher for £30 – the equivalent per head cost of the party – and an advent calendar.
Furthermore, McLeish is determined “nobody is ever going to go hungry in this business,” with free breakfasts for students in the academies and free fruit for all staff.
Ofsted’s enhanced inspections which assess how well colleges are meeting local skills needs were introduced at the start of the term. Jason Noble spoke to leaders of the first handful to be rated to find out their experience
Back in May, Ofsted published its latest five-year strategy, which made it clear that all colleges in England will be paid a visit by inspectors within a four-year time frame under new “enhanced inspections”.
Those visits, introduced in September, continue to feature the usual inspection criteria, such as quality of teaching, leadership, high needs and safeguarding, but this time with the added assessment of how well a college is meeting the skills needs in its local area too.
It comes amid a drive to introduce new local skills improvement plans, which are designed to identify local employers’ skills needs so that colleges and training providers can align the courses they offer accordingly.
Ofsted’s visits to colleges now feature an additional dedicated inspector or inspectors, and allow colleges to put forward a second nominee to be a point of liaison specifically on those skills elements.
But unlike the other criteria, which go by the well-established ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ grades, skills inspections feature one of three ratings – ‘significant’, ‘reasonable’ or ‘limited’ contribution to skills needs.
Not subject to a separate report, the skills inspections feature as a sub-judgement and a paragraph in the main report, and so far, at least, do not appear to be actively influencing a change in an overall inspection grade.
Progress so far
At the time of going to press, six colleges have had published reports containing the new skills section. So how did the first batch fare?
One ‘significant’, four ‘reasonable’ and one ‘limited’ would suggest a broad experience of findings already, as those at the front of the line attempt to navigate their way through new criteria with little precedent to draw on. As such, views on those visits differ.
Newham College of Further Education in London secured the top ‘significant’ rating, with deputy principal Jamie Purser saying: “Inspectors saw a lot of people and a lot of touchpoints, we felt it was representative.
“There was a lot of work went into it, they asked for position papers and skills statements, so we felt it was representative of what we do.”
Graham Pennington
But Graham Pennington, principal and chief executive at Sandwell College in the West Midlands, which achieved a ‘reasonable’, pointed to a lack of clarity in several areas.
He said the skills judgement doesn’t neatly fit with a lot of his college’s work, such as ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) courses which was more of a foundation or “stepping stone” qualification rather than working towards a specific skills gap, or, as the West Midlands’ largest 16-18 provider, how skills contribution is assessed when so many students go to university or leave the area rather than enter the local labour market.
He added: “There is a bit of a question about local – do you mean Sandwell in our case, do you mean the region? What does you take as meeting local needs? What is local? I didn’t really feel that was fully explored with us before the inspection – what is the context and range that they wanted to look at?”
A spokesperson at Strode College meanwhile – the first to be given a ‘limited’ rating – said “failure to meet one of the criteria sufficiently is effectively a limited grade”.
Local meetings needed
As part of its evidence gathering, inspectors looked at colleges’ strategic plans, skills statements, and conducted surveys with employers they worked with.
But colleges were also expected to set up meetings for inspectors with key stakeholders they felt could explain the college’s work on meeting skills provision.
Colleges were given around six days’ notice to prepare those – a piece of work all the colleges agreed was “intense” and one “not to be underestimated,” according to Pennington.
Smaller colleges like Derwentside were required to set up 12 meetings, but larger ones like Newham and Sandwell had 30-40 meetings – a mix of video calls, telephone chats and face to-face meetings over just a couple of days.
Those meetings were picked by colleges and featured a diverse mix of voices, including local or mayoral combined authorities, business groups such as local enterprise partnerships and chambers of commerce, employers both large and small, NHS trusts, local schools, and job centres.
In addition, Purser said: “They went into quite a lot of lessons and said ‘tell us what you know about skills, tell us what you know about local jobs, do you know how much you might get if you are going to go into these sectors, what sort of jobs are available.’
Stakeholder ‘triangulations’
Purser continued: “They did quite a lot of triangulations between our external stakeholders, our strategy documents, what governors knew, and how much they supported and promoted what we were doing, so it was quite a detailed, quite a forensic examination of our skills policies.”
And from speaking to the first four, it becomes clear that the differentiator between a ‘significant’ and a ‘reasonable’ is around how well embedded employers are in curriculum planning.
Purser said it is weaved into all aspects of Newham’s business, from strategic plans to resources and estates documents, and right through to on-the-ground teaching – even in ESOL courses where CVs, job boards and newspaper adverts are fed into the curriculum.
Jamie Purser
Chris Todd, principal and chief executive at Derwentside in the north east, which secured a ‘reasonable’ rating, added: “We came very close to a strong, but one of our strands, a small point, that pulled us away really, it was just around the way we engage with employers to design our study programmes. We do it in bits but there is not a strategic approach.”
Todd said following the visit the college is now working on sector-specific employer focus linked to its programmes to test out changes to the curriculum with employers on board.
Ofsted’s handbook says ‘limited’ sub-judgements will be instances where leaders “do not engage effectively enough with employers and other relevant stakeholders”, “do not ensure that the curriculum is planned and/or taught effectively”, and “are not sufficiently clear how they are contributing to skills needs”.
Growing in experience
Undoubtedly, as more reports are published colleges further down the line for inspection will be able to learn from the experience of others. But leaders having already gone through the process have already shared their tips.
Purser said feedback from the pilots held in the summer term earlier this year found that it wasn’t always best to get senior leaders for the stakeholder meetings, but people like training managers could sometimes provide more insight.
Chris Todd
Todd, meanwhile, pointed to having things like destination data of college leavers.
Pennington said: “To prepare for this properly you need to develop your own skills narrative separate from just your strategic plan so it is clear how the two things fit together.”
All agreed that having the dedicated skills nominee was vital to co-ordinate the stakeholder meetings.
Possible improvements
So, what do the quartet think could be improved? “It was quite difficult to get the right people within the organisations to talk to the inspectors at the right time, even given a weeks’ notice,” Strode’s spokesperson said.
“The overlap between what was additionally required within the extended EIF and the previous EIF caused some confusion in the early days,” they added.
Todd said he would rather Ofsted used its four-point grading system as it does for all other areas of the inspections, while Pennington wanted more understanding of colleges’ individual circumstances like student make-up and deprivation.
Derwentside’s deputy principal for strategic partnerships, Susan Errington, concluded: “The skills element is an opportunity for colleges to showcase what is good about FE. What you are seeing within the sixth form college sector is 100 per cent are now ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ and general FE colleges are going in that direction. But for a ‘good’ college this is a great opportunity to showcase it.”
Interesting fact: Helen has a broad HR and coaching career in retail, financial services, and local government. Her ongoing voluntary work in the education sector includes career mentoring for young people and helping to shape career strategies in local schools.
Rachel Curry
Principal and Deputy Chief Executive, The Manchester College and LTE Group
Start date: December 2022
Previous job: Deputy Principal & Estates Strategy Lead, The Manchester College
Interesting fact: When Rachel was growing up in Bridlington, she and her family used to look after a beach donkey called Starsky during the low season.
Trevor Hewlett
Head of Community Led Learning, WEA
Start date: November 2022
Previous job: Interim Leader, College of West Anglia
Interesting fact: In 2008 Trevor completed a trek in the Sahara Desert, which included a wild desert camp under the stars, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.
