Interim chief executive officer, Education and Training Foundation
Start date: April 2022
Previous Job: Deputy CEO, Education and Training Foundation
Interesting fact: As part of her commitment to lifelong learning, Jenny attended the Gordon Cook Conversations, as well as being a Windsor leadership fellow.
Jonathan Porter
Technical Advisor for Engineering, City and Guilds
Start date: March 2022
Pervious Job: Curriculum operations manager (Engineering), Chesterfield College
Interesting fact: Before starting his engineering careers, Jonathan had applied to be a refuge collector. He didn’t get the job but from there was lucky to be involved in a career in education to help change so many lives.
The parliamentary education committee has welcomed five new members in the past year after several MPs stood down or took frontbench jobs.
The current committee looks very different to the one formed in early 2020 following the last general election.
The political make-up of select committees is determined by representation in the Commons, with parties putting forward MPs. Membership can change frequently.
For example, Christian Wakeford recently left the committee after defecting from the Conservative to the Labour party. Tory MP and former teacher Jonathan Gullis stood down after becoming a parliamentary private secretary (PPS), as did David Johnson, who is PPS to education secretary Nadhim Zahawi.
The Conservatives have seven MPs on the committee, while Labour has four. Chair Robert Halfon, with original Conservative members Dr Caroline Johnson and Tom Hunt, remains, as do Labour MPs Apsana Begum, Kim Johnson and Ian Mearns.
Meet the new members…
CAROLINE ANSELL, CONSERVATIVE JOINED MARCH 2022
First elected as the MP for Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 2015, Ansell lost her seat in 2017 and then regained it at the 2019 general election. She is a former French teacher and referred in her maiden speech to her “passion” for education. She also served as a councillor on Eastbourne Borough Council.
ANGELA RICHARDSON, CONSERVATIVE JOINED MARCH 2022
Richardson was elected as the MP for Guildford in Surrey in 2019, replacing the former skills minister Anne Milton who ran as an independent after resigning the Tory whip in protest over Brexit. Before becoming an MP, Richardson worked in investment banking and in the City. She has been a school governor and chair of a parent-teacher association.
ANNA FIRTH, CONSERVATIVE JOINED MARCH 2022
A former councillor in Sevenoaks, Kent, Firth was elected as the MP for Southend West in a byelection in February this year following the murder of Sir David Amess. She was the co-founder of the Invicta Academy, an online learning platform set up to provide lessons during Covid lockdowns. Invicta last year was forced to stop listing MPs, including the former education secretary Gavin Williamson and committee chair Halfon, as “sponsors”. Companies House records show Firth resigned as a director of Invicta in February.
MIRIAM CATES, CONSERVATIVE JOINED OCTOBER 2021
Elected in 2019 for the South Yorkshire seat of Penistone and Stocksbridge, Cates was once a science teacher in Sheffield. She went on to own a technology business with her husband, and has talked about the importance of “digital skills”
KATE OSBORNE, LABOUR JOINED JULY 2021
Osborne has been the MP for Jarrow in Tyne and Wear since 2019. She worked for Royal Mail for 25 years, and was a trade union representative. She was also a councillor in Preston until her election to Parliament
Spanning over 500 pages in total, the “trailblazer” local skills improvement plans – a key plank of the government’s “employers-first” skills reforms – have been published. Shane Chowen takes a look to see if they live up to the hype.
The pros and cons of an “employers-first” skills policy have filled column inches in FE Week since its first publication over ten years ago. Ministers are currently attracted to the narrative because, as a starting point, it means you can, at least in theory, then talk about tangible economic outcomes like jobs, business growth, incomes and productivity.
In today’s policy landscape, the latest manifestation of “employer leadership” in the skills system comes in the form of local skills improvement plans (LSIPs).
LSIPs were first mentioned in the House of Commons by the former education secretary Gavin Williamson on the day that the skills white paper, Jobs for Growth, was published, back in January 2021.
“The white paper is going to put employers firmly at the centre of our local skills systems,” he said. “It will introduce German-style local skills improvement plans, which will be led by business organisations such as local chambers of commerce. Those plans will identify the skills that an area needs and spell out what needs to change to make training more responsive to employers’ needs.”
Gavin Williamson speaking in the House of Commons
The white paper itself went further. There will be new accountability structures placed around some further education providers to make sure they’re doing what employers say they want: “To lay on provision that meets the skills needs of the local area, providers need to have a clear articulation of those needs. Many providers do this well independently… but some do not.”
And then a consultation on reforms to FE accountability, which closed six months ago and appears to have stalled, laid out proposals to align multi-year funding agreements to LSIPs, publish how well a provider is delivering against the priorities of the LSIP on a new performance dashboard and an expectation that a college will “reflect” on how it is doing what its LSIP says is needed locally through new accountability agreements.
All of this took place as eight chambers of commerce were chosen to produce trailblazer LSIPs and new primary legislation for LSIPs made its way through parliament.
The eight chambers each get a share of £4 million provided by the Department for Education to develop their trailblazer LSIPs, which were published this week:
Business West Chamber of Commerce – West of England
Cumbria Chamber of Commerce – Cumbria
Doncaster Chamber of Commerce – South Yorkshire
East Midlands Chamber of Commerce – Leicester and Leicestershire
Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce – Kent and Medway
North East England Chamber of Commerce – Tees Valley
North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce – Lancashire
Sussex Chamber of Commerce – Sussex
What were the trailblazers asked to do?
It’s worth remembering that a form of local leadership over skills is not new. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were set up as employer-led bodies to oversee economic development in their areas, including, albeit to a limit degree, skill infrastructure.
We also currently have skills advisory panels (SAPs), linked to LEPs and Mayoral Combined Authorities, which each receive an annual grant from the DfE to analyse labour market data and produce a local skills report. Panels that are in LSIP trailblazer areas were still given their £75,000 grants this year, but had to support the development of the LSIP, rather than publish their own report.
Ministers never really properly explained what it was about the LEP/SAP set-up that still makes LSIPs necessary. In fact, LEPs were specifically excluded from being recognised as employer-representative bodies for the LSIP trailblazers. Yet, they felt it necessary to cough up £4 million for LSIP trailblazers on top of the £2.7 million already provided to the advisory panels.
The risk here was duplication and even more confusion for employers and providers.
The trailblazers, though, are not the finished product. The brief was as much about testing approaches and processes for making the plans as it was about the plans themselves.
When chambers of commerce were asked to bid to become an LSIP trailblazer, they were specifically told that they shouldn’t try to dictate what individual providers should deliver, nor should they set out what could happen if funding was any different.
Despite the latter instruction, but somewhat pleasingly, funding comes up time and time again in the trailblazer LSIPs. They want continued funding for their LSIPs of course, but there are calls from South Yorkshire for fully funded ESOL and repeat level 2s through the adult education budget; Kent and Sussex want to propose funded locally designed non-accredited short courses; and Tees Valley asks for the ability to develop apprenticeship standards for jobs that don’t yet exist.
What has been produced?
The published trailblazer LSIP documents each follow a similar structure; a bit of context about their area, lists of ways that employers have been consulted and commentary on what it is about their local systems that they think needs to change.
Where there are recommendations, there are some common themes which, if you work in or around FE and skills, aren’t particularly new or surprising.
Employers find the skills system too complex, qualifications lag behind advancements in industry, formal courses are too big and time-consuming, tutors aren’t up-to-date, and SMEs feel systematically excluded.
In turn, recommendations such as more bespoke and modular courses, better careers advice services, apprenticeship levy flexibilities and “one-stop-shop” websites aren’t all that ground-breaking.
Lancashire’s LSIP comes in at 134 pages compared to Leicestershire’s 27, yet Leicestershire’s more convincingly satisfied the brief because it produced a sustainable model for business-provider relationships using brand new tools and methods. In its “roadmap for change” it maps out a simple structure for the sort of system leadership DfE should be looking for, with clear lines of accountability at priority sector level informing a strategic oversight board.
Another interesting thing to look at is the approach chambers took to deciding what sectors to focus their LSIPs on.
Most made the decision to take a lead from an existing evidence-base, usually the skills advisory panel, with some prioritisation. West of England chose three sectors (social care, aerospace and advanced manufacturing) to focus their LSIP on, whereas Lancashire chose 11.
Tees Valley dedicated its entire LSIP to its low-carbon and net-zero industry. This is a very different approach to other areas which selected existing established industries in their local economy. The Tees Valley LSIP states: “Studying the skills requirements of the sector at this early stage will provide insights from industry. This will help shape future provision and avoid the problems faced by other industries, such as skills gaps and a drain of talent from the area.”
They are critical of a skills system which, they argue, fails to prepare for future industries. Taking aim at apprenticeships specifically, they say employers can’t form occupational or apprenticeship standards until job roles exist which, they say, doesn’t work for employers in low carbon: “When the predicted jobs finally do come on stream, there is no skills base to fill them because the qualifications haven’t been developed.”
South Yorkshire decided not to name specific sectors at all and instead reported on common issues across its whole labour market; this included the most-detailed look at how the skills system can make the workforce more inclusive. Alongside this, Sussex, Tees Valley and West England observed how access to affordable childcare was a barrier to training.
Not all of these approaches will strictly meet the brief that the DfE laid down; but officials should be supportive of areas having varying outlooks if the whole point of trailblazers really is to see how employers do things differently once they’re given some scope for leadership.
How DfE responds to the recommendations made by employer groups will also be interesting.
Chambers called for some level of modularisation built into the whole skills system because engagement with full qualifications was seen by employers as too costly in terms of time and money.
This was probably the most common recommendation across all LSIPs.
An easy thing for DfE to do in response would be to point to the lifelong loan entitlement, due in 2025. This would miss the mark for employers who, based on most of the LSIPs, say that smaller courses are needed at all levels.
So the LSIP exercise gives us a useful test to see how far DfE will go to really reform the system around employers or, as many suspect, continue to pay lip service.
The LSIPs create a similar challenge for employers.
Another universal theme across the LSIPs is that the exercise itself has “galvanised” employers with a willingness to engage in all sorts of ways – from taking part in regular skills conversations (as in Sussex) to providing more work experience (South Yorkshire) and doing more with providers in curriculum design (Cumbria).
All very welcome – but there is less to say about how to make it happen. The West of England LSIP’s main recommendations are less about whole-system reform and more concerned with capacity within a well-performing system to do things better: “Within the current system, the quality of engagement between industry and skills providers contains many pockets of excellent and innovative practice, but is not systematically meeting either business needs for skills, or skills providers’ needs for clear information and engagement to develop well-functioning and sustainable training provision based on business workforce planning.”
The verdict
The crucial next step is how DfE chooses to respond to the LSIP trailblazers that it has been presented with. There is some good evidence of new strategic structures and sustainable approaches to the use of data that it could deem to be higher risk, but are at least offering something tangibly different and collaborative.
Some feared that LSIPs would be developed in isolation and that ITPs in particular would be excluded. But there are several examples from the trailblazers where a strong and well-networked ITP base is seen as a strategic asset alongside colleges, schools and universities.
While there are some genuinely creative and refreshing proposals and commitments from the chambers, they will be conscious, and perhaps suspicious about, the DfE’s willingness to give up so much power and control.
The chief executive of England’s largest apprenticeship training provider has stepped down after 10 years at the helm.
Alex Khan’s departure from Lifetime Training was communicated to staff today and comes just weeks after Geoff Russell, who used to head up the Skills Funding Agency, became a new executive chair at the firm.
Khan is also likely to step away from his position as vice chair of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers as a result, just two months after being elected.
He will be replaced at Lifetime Training by JTL Training’s chief executive Jon Graham.
Khan’s departure marks the latest in a shakeup of the leadership team at Lifetime Training as it looks to recover its finances and starts numbers that were decimated by the pandemic.
Three weeks ago, staff were told that Lifetime’s chief financial officer, Peter Mitchell, and chief commercial officer, Sean Cosgrove, would be leaving the business.
Lifetime Training was put up for sale in 2019 by its private equity parent Silverfleet Capital. But the auction was put on ice in 2020 in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Lifetime Training, which is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, has sat top of the apprenticeship provider table when it comes to starts for a number of years. But they have fallen dramatically in recent times.
The provider recorded 20,170 starts in 2017/18, which grew to 23,020 a year later, before falling by more than a third to 14,980 in 2019/20. In 2020/21 Lifetime had 12,910 starts and so far in 2021/22 they have recorded 6,990.
Most of Lifetime Training’s apprenticeship are in retail and hospitality – industries which have been hit the hardest by Covid-19. The falling starts numbers led to large-scale redundancies in 2020.
Lifetime Training’s latest accounts are for the 2019/20 year and show turnover decreased by 16 per cent, from £71,486,000 the year before to £59,913,000, while profit was down 40 per cent from £11,644,137 in 2018/29 to £6,879,657 in 2019/20.
Khan joined Lifetime Training in 2012 and over the last 10 years has grown the business from a team of 300 to over 1,200.
An email to staff from Lifetime Training’s management, seen by FE Week, said: “The business would not be where it is today without Alex’s talent and his tireless passion. We owe him a debt of gratitude.”
The email added: “But as Lifetime emerges from Covid-19, the next phase of growth for Lifetime will be led by our incoming chief executive, Jon Graham.”
Khan told FE Week: “The way in which our business works is you need to commit to new investment cycles and I thought well 10 years is a long time in one organisation so I decided to step down.
“It has been a fantastic journey. I love the business and the people. We have grown into new sectors and we have fantastic relationships with clients who we continue to support their aspirations of their people.”
Graham was previously on the advisory board of the Skills Funding Agency, a predecessor of the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
He is also a director of the Education and Training Foundation sits on the AELP board.
AELP has been contacted for comment about what happens with the vice chair role following Khan’s departure from Lifetime Training.
A JTL spokesperson said its current chief operating officer, Paul McGuire, will act as interim chief executive whilst the board starts the process for selecting a permanent replacement for Graham.
Not much is in place to encourage smaller construction businesses to go green, write Andrea Laczik and Kat Emms
This week, the Department for Education published its sustainability and climate change strategy. It includes pledges such as all FE staff integrating sustainability into their teaching, and new capital projects being evaluated on whether they are net zero.
But here, we want to focus on a big industry partner for FE.
When it comes to the hugely pressing issue of climate change, the construction sector has a particularly important role to play. By some estimates, construction contributes up to 11 per cent of global carbon emissions. On Earth Day, that’s an especially sobering thought.
So, to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require immediate action within the industry on a scale never seen before.
In our Greening Construction report out last month, we explored what green skills are required and the challenges the construction industry faces.
In partnership with the University of Oxford, The Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) and the Environmental Change Institute (ECI), we combined a literature review, document analysis and stakeholder input.
Too much focus on STEM over soft skills
In mainstream narratives, net zero is often framed in terms of developing science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills.
But Edge’s report outlines that communication, leadership and general business and administrative skills, as well as professional integrity and sustainable dispositions, are also vital to the green revolution.
Professional integrity is vital to the green revolution
In the construction industry, which already lacks regulation, this will mean a huge overhaul of the skills and training system.
This cannot happen without significant sector input.
Fortunately, organisations such as the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) – the UK’s trade body for small and medium enterprises and micro-building companies – are keen to do their part.
Lack of incentives
Greening construction poses a huge challenge to the sector, but it’s also a market opportunity worth between £3.5 and £6.5 billion a year or more.
Unfortunately, there’s currently little incentive for SMEs and micro businesses – which make up 99 per cent of the construction industry – to invest in green skills.
This is because their current skills are already in high demand. This reduces any incentive to invest in training and resources, which is challenging for smaller businesses to achieve.
There’s also a more systemic issue at play. At the report’s launch, Brian Berry, FMB chief executive, explained: “When governments introduce policies, such as the Green Home Grants scheme, and then shuts them down, small businesses lose confidence in investing.
“There’s currently no long-term government plan to working with the building industry to upskill and deliver a carbon-zero built environment.”
But the climate will not wait. Things must change now.
Diversity and employment
The construction sector’s current training landscape is patchy and confusing at best.
To circumvent this problem, many companies recruit from those they know, resulting in a shortage of workers and a lack of diversity in the sector.
Bricklayers, carpenters and other tradespeople are all in short supply – vacancies in the industry are currently at an estimated 42 per cent.
Furthermore, women constitute only around 11 per cent of construction sector employees, while ethnic minority workers constitute only seven per cent.
Brexit and the pandemic have exacerbated these problems. But developing green skills presents an opportunity to tackle skills shortages and make the industry a more attractive option for a broader workforce.
Solutions for a zero-carbon built environment
As Edge’s report emphasises, and as Berry agrees, the government needs a longer-term strategy for greening construction. Berry said: “The government has already created various initiatives, flexible apprenticeships, bootcamps and T Levels.
“But many small companies don’t know how to access these. If we’re to deliver a zero-carbon built environment, industry, government and the education sector must collaborate and pull these into a long-term strategy for skills.”
Despite the myriad challenges, there’s one positive foundation to build on. And that’s the increasing desire of further education learners to combat climate change.
With close collaboration between government, industry and training providers, it’s eminently possible to transform the construction industry into a vehicle for a more sustainable future.
Lia Nici is the first ever FE teacher to be the prime minister’s ‘eyes and ears’ in Westminster – his parliamentary private secretary. She tells Jess Staufenberg why complaining about the system is not the answer
Lia Nici is waving at me from the other end of Portcullis House. There’s a relaxed Thursday afternoon feel as I head over – politician bingo locates Jeremy Hunt in the lunch queue, Daisy Cooper of the Lib Dems crossing the floor, Jeremy Corbyn with young people at a table. Welcome to the home of UK MPs in Westminster.
Nici herself is far from home – she is four-and-a-half hours away from her constituency, which clings to the coast of north-east Lincolnshire. I’ve come because Nici is a number of intriguing “firsts”.
She is a “red wall MP” – Great Grimsby voted her in as its first Conservative MP in 70 years in 2019. And she surely must be the first FE teacher to be a parliamentary private secretary to a prime minister.
But she is not, she tells me, in a vanishing minority as a Tory FE teacher. “As soon as I came out as a Conservative, it was interesting at work,” she grins. “People would come up in the corridor, and say quietly, ‘I vote Conservative too!’”
Right on cue, Nici waves to a colleague on the next table who Nici says is a former headteacher. So it was a positive experience? I ask.
“Sadly I’ve got colleagues, some of them union representatives, who were great colleagues but as soon as they knew I was a Conservative, they refused to speak to me,” she says.
Some colleagues refused to speak to me
“It’s really sad that in an educational institution, people feel so under pressure they can’t be open that they are a Conservative.”
Of course, there are some awkward facts to mention. Under her party, funding per student aged 16 to 18 fell by 14 per cent in real terms for further education and sixth-form colleges between 2010 and 2019. Spending on adult education fell by 49 per cent.
Meanwhile, apprenticeship starts for learners aged 19 and under have nearly halved since the levy was introduced.
For many, the Conservatives’ cuts to the FE sector have been unforgiveable. What makes Nici a Conservative?
She takes me to her childhood. Her mum was a born-and-bred Grimsby girl who was in the police force until she married Nici’s dad, an Italian, and together they ran a restaurant.
“Both my parents came from poor backgrounds, but they worked hard to better themselves,” says Nici, who grew up in the flat above the restaurant. “That ethic was always there. If your skills are good enough, there is always someone who will pay you.”
A young Nici wearing one of her Dad’s aprons
helping out in their Italian restaurant
Nici remembers a family friend offering advice for her first job in a florist. “She said: ‘Don’t forget, when you’re working, someone is paying you to work for them. There’s always a job to do to help that business.’
“That’s what makes me a Conservative. Through your own endeavours, and with supportive others, there’s always some way you can develop.”
Overcoming the odds has a close-to-home meaning for Nici. “I’ve had a few challenges in my life, and I always say, nothing is insurmountable or not solvable. Apart from death,” she tells me.
“When you’re dead, you can’t do anything. While you’re alive, you’ve always got an ability to improve a situation.”
When she was just 12, Nici’s father took his own life.
As a single parent, her mum took on multiple jobs, and went on to become a social worker. “Throughout my whole life, the key influence has been my mum.”
Nici greatly enjoyed sixth form, focusing on art as her favourite subject, but a debilitating bout of glandular fever contributed towards “terrible results” in her A-levels, and she took an art foundation course at Grimsby College, now Grimsby Institute.
Rather than go to university, she had her eye on entering the television industry straightaway, partly inspired by her father. “My dad was a photographer. He would convert the bedroom into a dark room, and he taught me about shot composition.”
So she did a higher national diploma in writing and design and got some work at the National Film and Television School. She later moved to Newcastle as a runner for the BBC’s children’s series Byker Grove with Ant and Dec (then PJ and Duncan), working her way up to assistant director.
After the BBC, Nici set up her own TV production company, working on corporate films. It was a male-dominated world, she tells me.
“A woman coming in with the camera on her shoulder was unusual.” She laughs as she remembers asking men at work to remove posters of topless women from the shot: “‘Would you mind taking that calendar down while I film, please?”.
But the reality of “standing in the pouring rain” as a camera operator began to bite, and she applied to be a college lecturer at her alma mater, Grimsby College.
Teaching at Grimsby Institutes
She would stay in FE for 22 years, teaching video production and other media qualifications from entry level through to HE, until it became, she says, “one of the most highly regarded media departments in the country”.
Is being an FE teacher good preparation for being an MP?
“It is absolutely perfect. I think education is one of the toughest areas to work in. In this job, you need a lot of resilience too.” As in teaching, Nici now works a six-day, sometimes seven-day, week.
But Grimsby felt like a forgotten town, she says. Her local Labour MP, the late Austin Mitchell (in post from 1977 until 2015), was “wonderful” – a working-class Brexiteer who should “really have been a Tory”, she says. But it was frustrating that Mitchell was usually stuck in opposition.
So she became a parish councillor for her village, then a ward councillor. Soon the Conservatives gave her Hull North, an unwinnable seat, to try for parliament.
Being heckled in a Labour stronghold was “terrifying”, she says, as was putting campaigning costs “on my credit card”. But she loved the debates, and in 2018 took voluntary redundancy from Grimsby Institute.
However, making her views known in Great Grimsby had a more unnerving consequence. A local man began harassing her.
“It started with little comments, like ‘you’re a Tory’. Then he’d block us into our lane and wouldn’t let us out with the cars. It really ramped up when I was selected to stand.”
Nici won her seat in 2019, with a majority of about 7,000 votes, but it was only in October last year that her 49-year-old harasser was fined. She tells me she worries about the “black and white” world of opinion today.
To be fair to Nici, she appears to listen closely and answer my questions frankly, without contortionist political double-speak.
But she can come across as fairly black and white herself.
A general loyalty to Boris Johnson as a red wall MP is perhaps to be expected, yet she raises no word of criticism about lockdown parties in Downing Street (and during our conversation, the new chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris comes along to say hello). Rather, she has called him the “best” prime minister.
Nici with Boris Johnson
She recalls first meeting Johnson at 5am in Grimsby fish market, “with everyone getting on their trilby hats and white overalls”. Now she is his PPS and her job is to feed back issues among MPs to Number 10.
I should say we are speaking before Johnson was handed his fine in mid-April for breaking lockdown rules in 2020 (making him the first ever prime minster to be found to have broken the law).
“He has apologised,” she begins. “But my concern is, if people were so angry at the time, why didn’t someone report it then, rather than to the press 18 months later?”
Although this is a valid question, I’m not sure it’s of greater concern than the prime minister’s top team breaking the rules they had set for the nation.
She adds, by way of an excuse: “Westminster and Number 10 is a very strange location, in that it’s both work and the prime minister happens to live there.”
Nici explains to me she felt some MPs were forgetting that other brands, such as City & Guilds and Cambridge Nationals, are also in the same space as BTECs, and felt “they were being lobbied by Pearson… I was being a bit naughty,” she acknowledges.
Nici with constituents in Great Grimsby
Nor does she mince her words on FE funding.
“FE never has enough money,” she says. But “funding isn’t everything. When the New Labour government came in in 1997, and flooded money into FE, in my opinion it was wasted.
“It didn’t get spent on students, it was spent on brand new computers for people, better working environments and members of staff. It didn’t get to students.” It’s a bold claim.
“The bottom line is that having a passionate lecturer in the work environment is the most important thing,” she says, adding that in that respect, “it didn’t make a difference whether a lecturer was on £23,000 or £33,000”.
But we know salaries impact on whether passionate lecturers stick around.
It all comes back to Nici’s self-starter mantra. “People say to me, ‘Oh it’s the system’, but I say, ‘We are the system.’
It’s about having that positive mindset to say, ‘Yes, we’ve got challenges, but we’ve also got opportunities’.” She says: “FE colleges are corporations, and it’s down to corporations to make choices.”
Nici alongside Alex Burghart during a visit to the Grimsby Institute hospitality department
So Nici’s rise to Johnson’s side does not appear to mean the sector has a staunch champion for funding in Number 10 (despite being appointed an ‘FE ambassador’ by Gavin Williamson).
She does speak enthusiastically about the importance of greater diversity in apprenticeships, as chair of the government’s Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network, which brings together employers.
But she seems most passionately committed to upskilling her constituents in Grimsby, and has warned the levelling-up agenda must deliver “physical change” for them – or she will likely lose her seat.
It’s been a fascinating conversation. Perhaps if Nici does lose her seat in 2024, she could return to the sector she left as a principal, bringing her all-positive mindset to the extremely tight circumstances leaders operate under.
Of course, she should never be made to feel like an outcast on her return.
Small and medium-sized employers are turning apprentices away again due to a cap on starts that the government is so far refusing to reset or increase.
Non-levy-paying businesses have been capped on the number of apprentices they can start through the digital apprenticeship service since January 2020 – starting with a limit of three before increasing to ten that summer – to ensure the overall apprenticeships budget is not overspent.
The cap was reset to zero in April 2021 as SMEs fully transitioned on to the service and amid concern that employers were reaching the limit.
Apprenticeship providers and employers were hoping and expecting the cap to be reset again at the start of this month, or at least be increased, as reports emerged of a number reaching the limit.
But there has been no communication to the sector from the Department for Education on the issue. A DfE spokesperson told FE Week this week that officials are keeping the level of the cap “under review to ensure it is sufficient to allow SMEs to use apprenticeships to grow their business”.
Sector leaders say the stance flies in the face of the government’s ambition to increase the number of apprentices in SMEs, especially after starts took a plummet nationally during the pandemic.
‘This is the worst time to switch off the tap’
Gareth John, director at accountancy apprenticeship provider First Intuition, told FE Week he has ten SMEs who have reached the cap so far and are now being prevented from taking on any more apprentices despite plans to do so.
John said those being impacted are the “large” SMEs who have wage bills just shy of £3 million and therefore do not pay the levy but are “some of the most important employers, particularly in regional economies” as they are able to recruit large numbers of apprentices.
He said this is the “worst time to switch the tap off” as employers look to rebuild their staff levels following the Covid-19 pandemic. He added that apprenticeships are essential for teaching the “essential broader skills” that young people require after having their development hampered by the pandemic.
John added that his “big frustration” is that SMEs could wind the clock back five years where they do not do apprenticeships because of the barriers in their way.
One SME being stifled by the cap is Kirk Newsholme Chartered Accountants, based in Leeds. The firm’s training coordinator, Amy Carter, said the company has hired 13 new trainees in recent weeks with plans to put them on apprenticeships on the assumption that the cap would be reset this month.
But Kirk Newsholme, which already has five of its ten apprenticeship spaces filled, has now been left in a position where it will have to choose some of the 13 new recruits to take the apprenticeship, while the remainder will instead be put through a commercial course.
On top of this, the company has a trainee on a basic level apprenticeship who is about to progress on to a higher level but in doing so will be classed as a new start. Another apprentice resigned five months into their programme, but they will still continue to take up one of the ten spaces under DfE rules.
Carter said the system “feels backhanded when the government is trying to grow the number of SMEs in apprenticeships but when employers try to step up, it all of a sudden comes to a halt”.
She added that the new recruits who will have to be put through commercial courses instead will miss out on the “extra skills and benefits” an apprenticeship offers and cost her business even more. Carter said the cost of each apprenticeship usually ranges between £3,000 and £4,000 but the commercial training route typically costs around £14,000.
John listed a number of other employers, who did not wish to be named, that his provider works with and have hit the cap: “One of our employers in Bury St Edmunds said they wanted to sign up another five apprentices before the end of this year, another in Stevenage said four, one in Sheffield said 12, one in Norwich said they had recruitment plans for 20 more apprentices, and another in Royston said ten.”
The DfE said its analysis of non-levy demand shows that a reservation level of ten was sufficient for 99 per cent of non-levy paying employers during 2020/21.
But John pointed out the DfE is most likely not comparing like for like, as in that year SMEs could also tap into procured non-levy contracts held by training providers. These contracts ended for new starts in April 2021 and all new SME apprenticeships must now be put through the digital apprenticeship service where all employers now manage and spend their apprenticeship funding.
John also questioned why the DfE wouldn’t agree to lift the cap if only one per cent of SMEs were affected.
Levy transfers are ‘no magic bullet’
One option the DfE offers to SMEs that have reached the cap is the ability to gain further funding for apprenticeships through the receipt of levy transfers from larger employers, which don’t count towards the reservations limit.
But providers and employers who spoke to FE Week bemoaned the lengthy and bureaucratic nature of this process.
“The DfE seems to think levy transfers are some kind of magic bullet that will solve everything,” John said. “We had one employer who went through the whole rigmarole of that levy-pooling service and when they got to the end of it, they were offered a fraction of the funding. It was useless.”
Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, added: “Many SMEs find the transfer process too slow when they have new demand. Furthermore, there is no guarantee of funding through the levy transfer system, which makes planning growth difficult and is why the cap was increased in the first place.”
Gordon Franks Training is one provider that has been able to secure levy transfer funding to help five of its employers who have reached the cap to take on more apprentices. But managing director Sue Fielding said the process is proving “problematic” because red tape is delaying the releasing of funds.
“Our employers are very, very frustrated. We have to go through loops to get the levy transfer, but what if I didn’t have it? They would turn apprentices away,” she said.
“This also only papers over the cracks as we have more employers nearing the ten cap and more funding will be required.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “SMEs play a key role helping to create apprenticeship opportunities, particularly for younger people and those in disadvantaged areas.”
But Hickie hit back: “There are employers ready to take on more apprentices and providers that are happy to deliver high-quality training, yet inaction on the cap of ten is blocking them from doing so. How does the government square this with the aim to increase SME participation in apprenticeships? We urge officials to take action and either reset or lift the cap as soon as possible.”
All new further education teachers will be required to build sustainability into their teaching next year as part of the government’s climate change strategy.
The Department for Education’s final policy document on the strategy was published today, following a draft that was released in November and launched at the COP26 conference in Glasgow.
The new “requirement” for FE teachers will come into effect in 2023. Existing college staff will however not be required to include sustainability into their teaching.
While the sector has responded positively to the government’s commitment tackling climate change – the key policy proposed for FE doesn’t go as far as what college leaders had hoped.
The Association of Colleges sent a letter signed by 150 principals to education secretary Nadhim Zahawi in October calling for all courses for 16- to 18-year-olds to change to include compulsory modules on climate change. The AoC was unable to comment on the DfE’s new strategy at the time of going to press.
Launching the Department for Education’s climate change strategy, Zahawi said: “We are delivering a better, safer, greener world for future generations and education is one of our key weapons in the fight against climate change.”
The policy paper says that by 2023 the government will develop an occupational standard for further education teaching which explicitly requires all new teachers to integrate sustainability into their teaching.
Teachers will be expected to do this through modelling sustainable practices and promoting sustainable development principles in relation to their subject specialism.
While it was not clear from the strategy whether new FE teachers will be required to teach sustainability to all students, including adults and 16- to 18-year-olds, the DfE told FE Week: “The requirement applies to all new teachers, regardless of courses/level.”
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association welcomed the plans, saying that sixth form colleges have a “long-standing commitment” to the sustainability agenda.
“Teachers in sixth form colleges are already mindful of the importance of tackling issues of sustainability in the classroom and the most likely impact of this latest requirement is that it will help to embed, and perhaps even expand, existing good practice,” he said.
Other key policy updates around sustainability were announced in the paper.
Policy makers said that by 2023 all bids for capital funding for further education and higher education will need to consider environmental impact, carbon reduction and adaptation measures, and align with the government’s targets and objectives.
Ministers also pledged to introduce a new natural history GCSE by 2025. The new qualification will give young people a “further opportunity to engage with and develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the natural world”.
The government also said that every education setting will have nominated a “sustainability lead” by 2025. These leads will receive carbon literacy training and will be responsible for putting in place climate action plans.
The DfE said that “at least four schools and one college will have been built via the Gen Zero Platform that the department demonstrated at COP26” – this will also happen by 2025.
The DfE told FE Week that the GenZero platform is a kit of parts for delivering the “widest range of educational buildings to the highest standards in the most economic method”.
“As part of the development we are piloting five GenZero schools and colleges selected from the department’s building programmes,” the DfE told FE Week.
“Each will be selected on their suitability for incorporating the GenZero principles and will then undergo a rigorous monitoring and evaluation process to collect evidence on performance to technical and sustainability standards.”
So far Forge Hill, a new free school in West Sussex and Ashington College, Northumberland, have been selected to take part and are undergoing feasibility studies.
The government has previously spoken about how colleges will be “key” to hitting their target of supporting 440,000 net zero jobs by 2030.
The paper outlines how its existing programme of skills reforms, including trials of levels 4 to 6 short courses, the strategic development fund for colleges and local skills improvement plans each have a role to play in the sector’s contribution towards green skills.
Many of the issues putting young people off apprenticeships are in the control of employers and providers, not careers advisers, writes Laura-Jane Rawlings
Frustrating as it is that the conversation has not moved on in the past ten years, we have to sense-check the narratives we are using. The careers system isn’t perfect, but it is changing.
Let’s explore the role that careers education has in “delivering for apprenticeships”. It’s a requirement that young people get to hear about all routes available to them.
Young people in education tell us via the Youth Voice Census that they are hearing more about apprenticeships than ever before.
In 2021, 86 per cent of young people had apprenticeships discussed with them in school, which is a significant increase on the years before. Anecdotally, more schools are opening their doors again to great in-person activity.
But despite hearing much more about apprenticeships, only 29 per cent of young people aged 14 to 18 were likely to apply for one.
So we need to better understand what sits behind that decision – and much of it is in the hands of providers and employers.
Here are the key factors that are holding young people back:
1. Availability
Only 9.9 per cent of young people think they will find a good-quality job where they live. If you search Find An Apprenticeship in your local area, how many vacancies come up?
Today in Corby, there are 15 higher/degree apprenticeships in a 20-mile radius, for a town with around 400 young people looking for post-18 pathways.
Young people can only look for what’s available in their area. Social mobility and disadvantage will mean that young people cannot always afford to travel or feel confident enough to move.
We have to look at the whole apprenticeship pay structure
We can provide more apprenticeships and make it easier for SMEs to provide apprenticeships too.
We also have to think about the barriers to apprenticeships. Is there more that providers or employers can do to ensure more affordable travel? Perhaps paying a month in advance, supporting season ticket loans, and thinking creatively about how more young people can access opportunities outside their local area.
2. Job descriptions
When you’re on Find An Apprenticeship, check out the job descriptions of a random number of vacancies, including the jargon being used, the descriptors and information available.
Job descriptions are most often the first interaction with an employer that a young person has. Most organisations will not change the language, tone or description of a job to meet their target audience when thinking about apprentices.
However, this is an organisation’s chance to think differently about the requirements it is asking for.
Compare that to a university prospectus, which is solely written with the target audience in mind: they sell the course, content and the wider opportunity too.
3. Person specifications
Person specifications have the power to very quickly make young people feel as though they are not good enough for a job. This approach needs to be rethought.
We also need to update our expectations.
Young people have had limited to no access to work experience or part-time employment for at least the past two years during Covid. However, many employers are still asking for recent work experience.
4. Salary
While young people are, in the main, willing to accept a reduced salary for quality training, they cannot, and do not, want to work for the minimum rates, particularly where they are doing a real job alongside their training.
This is a contentious issue, but we have to look at the whole apprentice pay structure.
These areas I have mentioned here are just the tip of what we know from young people, through the Youth Voice Census. There is more we all need to do to level up apprenticeships.
But it is not the sole job of the careers system. In fact, it has no control over the four points I have raised above!
