Investigation ‘inconclusive’ on Covid-related death of lecturer but college did break health and safety laws

An investigation into whether a college lecturer who died of Covid-19 contracted the virus at work has come back inconclusive – but the college has to pay a fee for breaking health and safety laws.

The Health and Safety Executive opened a fatality investigation into Donna Coleman’s death after the University and College Union raised Covid health and safety concerns at Burnley College during the pandemic.

Coleman (pictured) tested positive for coronavirus on December 14 and died on January 6, 2021 aged 42.

The HSE found the college failed to meet social distancing and ventilation requirements, failed to enforce the wearing of face coverings by some staff and senior managers, and that staff were being encouraged not to report close contacts of Covid.

The college also held a Christmas party for staff where social distancing requirements were not met on December 18 – after Coleman contracted the virus.

At the time, the country was in “very high alert” tier 3 restrictions, where outdoor and indoor socialising was banned and hospitality and entertainment venues were closed.

In a letter about the outcome of the investigation Laura Snelgrove, an inspector for the government’s health and safety regulator HSE, said it was “impossible to conclude that from the evidence presented, on the balance of probabilities, that Donna Coleman’s exposure to Covid-19 took place within the workplace”.

Snelgrove added that the evidence does not present a specific, identifiable incident that led to an increased risk of exposure and the information gathered confirms the general levels of Covid-19 infection within the community was “very high” at the time when Coleman tested positive.

However, the HSE did rule that health and safety laws were “broken”, and Burnley College will now have to pay a fee to cover administrative costs due to these “material breaches”.

HSE said it could not share the value of the fee, but told FE Week the agency will meet with the college, Coleman’s family and the UCU next week to discuss the findings.

The UCU said the union, alongside Coleman’s family, is pursuing appealing the HSE’s inconclusive ruling about where Coleman contracted the virus.

Health and safety failings identified by the HSE include a failure to meet social distancing and ventilation requirements within the office that Coleman shared with two colleagues, one of whom also tested positive for Covid on the same day as Coleman.

Vicki Coleman told FE Week she was confused by the HSE decision and felt the inconclusive ruling was contradictory.

She confirmed her family will be appealing and told FE Week they have also reported the case to the police.

Paying tribute to her sister she said: “Donna was really caring just thought of everybody before herself. She was compassionate.

“She probably took on more than she should have done with people’s problems and was always a bit of an agony aunt. But she just always saw the best in people.”

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “The HSE has found numerous instances where Burnley College failed in its duties to protect the safety of its staff and students during the deadly second wave of Covid. 

“Whilst the HSE was not able to find that Burnley’s failings directly caused Donna’s death, it is clear that the college endangered the lives of staff and students. The college should not need a yearlong investigation to address basic failings like refusing to allow staff to self –isolate when it was a legal requirement or to realise that it is incredibly reckless to push ahead with a Christmas party during a pandemic.”

Grady added: “Many workers have lost their lives to Covid and today our thoughts remain firmly with Donna’s family. We hope that the HSE investigation is a stark reminder to employers that they need to take workplace safety seriously and engage with unions when we raise health and safety concerns. The risk of not doing so is too great.”

Burnley College did not respond to requests for comment.

How can ITPs support learners with complex mental health needs?

Many learners tell us mainstream school negatively affected their mental health and that they need more support now, writes Zoe Whitmore

Our education centres sadly reflect the national data on mental health, seeing increases in self-harm, suicide attempts and suicide ideation among our learners.

The mental health and wellbeing of our young people has never been more important. Now, one in six children aged five to 16 have been identified as having a mental health problem. The impact of the pandemic has only made these figures worse.

So the mental health of learners is a central thread in their learning journey within our centres. During their induction sessions we have one-to-one informal meetings to identify how we can support their needs and requirements.

Some of our learners have spoken about how they were placed in seclusion or isolation units because of their mental health issues in some school settings, sometimes caused by bullying or anxiety. This, then, excludes them from their peers, making them feel more alone and ostracised.

One of our learners said she feels “listened to by staff”, and that she feels safer and more content here rather than at home. So in my role I strive to maintain an inclusive environment across our centre, where everyone feels part of something positive and part of each other. 

It’s helpful to learners to have regular and open discussions around mental health subjects so they can be comfortable and confident talking about their feelings and able to ask for support. 

It’s helpful to have rooms that enable quieter spaces

It’s important to be part of a connected system of support, so it’s useful to work with local partners to deliver sessions supporting the development and wellbeing of our young people.

Local mental health services have exponentially growing waiting lists and treatment times for young people. So having extra sessions in our centres from these services is a vital part of the support we can offer.

Part of what I do as a mental health first aider in our centres is recognising the need to access more specialist help. We have a consultant mental health specialist, Dr Anna James, of March Training, working across our centres to deliver specialist early intervention support.

Recently, she has been teaching our learners “how to look after their brain”, in preparation for their upcoming exams, and to take away some mindful techniques for the future. Our learners enjoyed learning about how their brain functions and ways in which neuro-developmental disorders such as ADHD can affect learning, and overcoming barriers associated with this.

Another good tip is for staff and learners to use humour to keep a feeling of positivity and help people laugh through some of their darker times. 

Happy engaged gen Z student girl watching webinar, attending online class, learning conference, talking to teacher on video call, laughing, writing, studying in library with headphones, laptop, books

One of my learners recently told me that if their school had been more like us, their mental health would not have been so poor. They said they would not have become fixated on suicide ideations and suicide attempts.

Mainstream school negatively impacted this student so severely because of their ADHD. They were labelled as ‘naughty’ and pinpointed at every opportunity for having done something wrong, when this was not always the case.

It pays to work hard to build the relationship between teacher and learner, so that this person feels comfortable and accepted. This young person now has better attendance and rapport with staff because we treated them as an individual, showing understanding of the way they learn, and adapting to it.

It’s also helpful to learners to have rooms that enable quieter space for times of heightened anxiety or frustration, as well as sensory items to calm them.

Staff who are experienced in learner behaviours, additional support requirements and mental wellbeing results in group profiles being created to ensure that each learner is considered individually.

For me, it’s vital that we create a structure that encourages social contact, develops each learners’ sense of identity and achievement while building a resilience that will serve them in adulthood.

DfE – look at Scotland’s plans for an adult learning strategy

England needs an all-stages and all-levels levelling-up lifelong adult learning plan, writes Sue Pember

Both Wales and Scotland are pursuing plans for an enhanced adult learning offer. These plans put centre stage adult learners’ goals and hopes for the future, a system that builds on the strengths, experiences and skills that they already have to improve their life chances.

The draft Adult Learning Strategy for Scotland: 2021-26 was published last week and looks at “expanding and extending” adult learning as well as “connecting the adult learning journey”.

Meanwhile, in England, in the post-19 sector, we have a continuous stream of new initiatives often at odds with schemes or proposals previously announced but not yet implemented. 

This ad hoc approach is not providing a large cohort of adult learners with what they need. It is leading to many poorly attended new initiatives with poor value for money, deadweight activity, frustrated learning institutions and prospective learners who can’t find a way into the system.

That’s despite the fact that the rapid development of artificial intelligence, net zero policies, the volatile job market,, and recovery from the pandemic, coupled with the rise in cost of living, makes adult learning key to many government responses.

Lifelong learning should be the overarching framework for all stages and levels of education. It is much more than access to a post-19 lifetime loan. Whether you are starting out in a new job, making a career move, or thinking about retirement, education and learning new skills will make a difference to your life.

This ad hoc approach is leading to poorly attended initiatives

This concept of lifelong learning needs to be nurtured and promoted. New and existing skills programmes should address the gaps they are trying to fill and be developed with the sector with the needs of learners in mind.

Adult learners have many barriers to learning and these barriers need to be understood and mitigated.

It is of little use to say to someone who has a couple of GCSEs or a level 2 qualification that the government has made available a free level 3, but that it doesn’t provide funding to cover cost of living, childcare or costs of caring for relatives, or the cost of transport to the venue, or new IT kit.

There are also barriers around confidence and concern if they didn’t do well at school. How can they be sure they can succeed now? They need help here, with better adult guidance, support and mentorship built into programmes.

Although the levelling-up white paper goes some way towards focusing resources on one set of issues, it does not go far enough.

Going forward, we would ask government to support the development, in consultation with the sector, of an all-age, all-stages and all-levels levelling-up lifelong adult learning plan. It should highlight how learning new skills supports the economy, improves productivity, facilitates integration and improves personal and financial wellbeing.

This strategy should become the framework for devolution of skills and education budgets and support the post Covid-19 recovery, and should recognise the central role of the adult community education sector in this agenda.

We need to build on what works, and not invent another nationally designed scheme that competes with the existing offer.

Building on the work the Department for Education has done on level 3 and the loan entitlement for HE, the plan should spell out new government-wide strategies for level 2. It should include the vocational shortage areas for skills training in healthcare, service industries, transport and basic skills including ESOL, health and wellbeing, and digital.

The plan should also include a mechanism for preparatory work on new subjects that are not yet featuring in job vacancies, such as developing green agencies.

There should be a national promotion of the adult learning offer. Government should run a national campaign that explains what is free and supported and how to access courses.

It should establish a branded adult education centre in every town, which supports adults into learning and throughout their education journey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Raise the profile and status of education

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

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

2. Better data – better sharing

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

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

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

3. Clearer accountability

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

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

4. Better digital access

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

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

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

5. Providing adequate funding

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

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

Expecting providers to deliver more with less is not sustainable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Normalise anxiety

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

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

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

Remind students that thoughts are not facts

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

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

Address their phone, screen and social media use

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

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

Provide advice and support to create a routine

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

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

Make sure they take time for self-care

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is how evaluation practices lead to better governance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Areas to identify impact include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apprenticeships with good wages are ‘like gold dust’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tony Scannell

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

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

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

Lower pay reflects employer investment in training

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Principal under investigation given £75k for loss of office

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

De Felice did not respond to requests for comment. 

Not enough desks for DfE staff sent back to the office

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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