As a boss of an independent apprenticeship provider, my hands are tied

FE colleges have access to capital and bailout funding, but independent providers are largely ignored, writes Iain Elliott

At HETA and GTA England we don’t do politics, just training. But we do welcome MPs of all political persuasions to visit, because it helps us inform the skills and training debate and raise awareness of what we do.

If we can help to shape government policy that’s great. It’s important that people get out of Westminster and listen to learners and employers.

The latest politician to call in was Toby Perkins, shadow minister for skills and education. He toured our headquarters in Hull and chatted to learners and apprentices working on fabrication and welding, mechanical and electrical engineering.

He wanted to know about their journey from school to traineeships and apprenticeships, and about how we help them get jobs. He spoke to employers about how to use their leftover apprenticeship levy. He asked a lot of questions and listened intently.

Mr Perkins was impressed with learner attitudes, modern facilities that showcase attractive career opportunities and the strength of our relationships with employers dating back to 1967. This was when HETA was launched as an independent learning provider (ITP) in a rundown property near Hull’s fish docks.

We’ve moved twice since then, most recently in 2018 to a site that we transformed with a £4 million investment helped by grant funding from the now defunct Humber LEP and support from Hull City Council.

Give the ITP network fair and focused access to strategic funding

Using reserves and borrowings, we’ve committed even more than that to a newbuild at Stallingborough, near Grimsby. We are aiming to open it in August 2023 to replace the nearby facilities which we’ve leased for over 15 years.

We’ve also got a centre at Scunthorpe that is less than ten years old, and everything we do is consistent with the principles we adopted 55 years ago, working as members of the Group Training Association – GTA England – to deliver exactly the sort of training that businesses want. We are employer-led and we always will be.

But there has to be a level playing field. While FE colleges have had access to capital and bailout funding, the ITP and GTA network is largely ignored.

Our new centre is a key element of a £42 million regional investment programme that is regenerating 189 hectares of land to create attractive new locations for business and industry.

We know from our work with GTA England and with hundreds of employers that the demand for the facility is there and will increase.

During 2021 we received more than 800 applications for 210 learner places. Numbers this year are similar but we haven’t been able to access any capital funding from the government for the project, and we feel as though we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

In short: give the ITP and GTA network fair and focused access to strategic funding and we’ll deliver the government targets for skills growth.

We also spoke to Mr Perkins about the enormous amount of effort we put into visiting schools and inviting students into our training centres, but there’s a view among our team and among employers that parents and their children don’t know enough about their post-16 options.

We would like to get to the situation where, at 16, we have more discerning customers.

Katie, an apprentice who is employed by a major local business and learning mechanical and electrical engineering, told Mr Perkins she worked in admin and knew nothing about STEM until she went to Rwanda with her Girlguiding group and experienced building houses.

It’s great that she found her vocation, but she’s now 27 and it really shouldn’t have taken that long.

We’re working to get the message across to the real decision-makers – the young people and their families – that apprenticeships are a fantastic post-16 opportunity.

And our message to the government is that there’s never been a more important time to invest in training.

By the way – there’s an open invitation for all policy makers and influencers to come to Humberside!

Political education should be embedded in the FE curriculum

Without a counter-narrative from educators, students can believe inaccurate versions of the world, writes Maxine Looby

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learnt as a teacher is never to assume what I think my students know.

With the internet at their disposal, students have the world at their fingertips, and at the very least we would assume they have a basic understanding of significant world events. It’s a very easy assumption to make.

I was teaching my students about the Holocaust when it soon became clear that out of about 15 students, only two had heard about this horrendous, globally significant event. My students speak English as a second language, and come from all over the world.

They were very moved and shocked. Sadly, as with the Holocaust, significant numbers of my students have had to flee war and persecution. But outside of my ESOL class, I think you’d also find this across the board, with many students.

There needs to be a real commitment to teach students about socio-political and historical events and contexts. Students often don’t have a clear understanding of what’s happening in the wider world, or their local history. 

One takeaway for me from these lessons is the genuine interest and gratitude students show when given the opportunity to learn. 

I also taught a class recently about the local history of Oldham, in our programme of study in ESOL called Skills for Life. Learning about past history and how this links to the local economy and current unemployment rates should be integral to learning.

Oldham was once the world’s manufacturing centre for spinning cotton. Being able to physically reference some of the cotton mills from the classroom window brings that history alive, and it also directly pays respect to the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities who came to Oldham and worked long hours in those same mills to help to build the economy.

It’s especially important that all students from Oldham understand the history and context, because it’s a very multicultural town but division and racist attitudes still exist. Local history gives all of our students a sense of pride and purpose.

One student from South America came up to me after the lesson and said, “Thank you.” When I asked her why, she said, “I would never know this, and I appreciate all the work Asian people did when they came to this country to help me have a better life now.” 

For International Women’s Day, I focused on two extraordinary but little-known women. 

Amy Garvey was a feminist from the Caribbean, and one of only two women to chair the Pan African Congress, in 1945. She was also an author, educator, theatre producer, restaurant and club owner and executive of the Black Star Line ship. She edited the first newspaper for African Caribbean communities in the UK and campaigned tirelessly for equality for girls and women.

It shouldn’t be up to an individual teacher to be interested enough

Jayaben Desai was a factory worker who led a two-year strike in the 1970s against the way Asian women were being treated unfairly in the workplace, including being paid less than their white counterparts and having to request to use the toilet. At one point, 20,000 demonstrators joined in her protest. No one in any of my classes had heard of her. One my male students said, “Wow, that’s a strong woman!”

This kind of learning challenges sexist attitudes, and it’s also important for my women students. Some of them have faced very difficult or similar struggles coming to this country.

The real problem is that socio-political education is not embedded in the FE curriculum, or in the school curriculum. There’s no requirement to teach students a rounded understanding of the world, or why things are like they are now. 

It shouldn’t be up to an individual teacher to be interested enough or understand the importance to bother to teach it. Without a counter-narrative from educators, they can believe versions that are inaccurate and which fuel tensions between communities.

Otherwise, too many of our students are only hearing one side of the story about their local area or wider global events.

Parents of older learners will be sceptical about the SEND review

The fight for resources becomes harder the older students become – making the SEND review especially critical for this group, write Rachel Amos and Janvi Patel

With a long trail of delays behind it, the government’s SEND review is billed to finally arrive this year, evaluating the support system for those students with special educational needs and disabilities.  

There is already considerable concern amongst parents that not only are they not being consulted about the SEND review but that all the messages coming from government ministers suggest the focus is on changing the system (again) and not making the system we already have work better.

From a legislative point of view, the system is good – the Children and Families Act 2014 pulled education, health and care together and enables a holistic approach.

Unfortunately, it is in the implementation of the act, the divergence of application from one local authority to another and the fight that parents have to access help that lets this down.

Parents of older children and young adults with SEND will be the most sceptical of the SEND review outcomes.

Education and health care plan (EHCP) provision is supposed to run until children are 25 years old, but in truth, that is very hard to achieve. Most EHCPs are delivered at the top of primary school, with a decline in provision as learners move out of formal education.

I talked to Nick, who has a rare genetic condition, for this article. He was born in 1984, and Great Ormand Street Hospital refused to give him a life expectancy span – the only other recorded person with the condition had only lived to age 15. Nick is now 37.

He cannot speak, as he has a tracheostomy, so Nick had a statement in school and was supported. But when he left aged 17 – unable to complete A-levels – his father says his life “fell off a cliff”.

He has never had a paid job and got very little support. He is very good at spelling, and is very active in online chat groups about his condition, but at 37 his heath is poor. The family feel strongly that if he had been better prepared for leaving school, he could have been able to contribute much more, and might even have had a job.

Stories like these are a waste of opportunity and capability

Stories like these are a waste of opportunity and capability, and a waste of the statemented support Nick was given, which vanished overnight. Not only did his educational funding disappear, a new struggle began and this is the reality for many parents of older SEND students.

The personal independence payment (PIP) was brought in in 2013 by the then chancellor George Osborne to replace disability living allowance (DLA) as part of the austerity cuts.

PIP is assessed very differently from DLA, and even if a child has had DLA throughout education there should be no assumption that they will get PIP post 18. It is also a lower amount, despite the costs for the SEND young adult increasing as they get older.

At a point of extreme change and flux, SEND children and their parents may embark on the toughest legal fights of that journey, on a diminished income. Only eight per cent of parents of disabled children are in work.

Another obvious flaw in the system is for learners who have a late diagnosis – this is particularly likely if they are neurodiverse or have a hidden disability.

One of the parents that Support SEND Kids interviewed last year spent £50,000 to achieve support for her daughter who was diagnosed with autism at age 17.

That is well beyond the means of most parents and these sorts of costs are financially crippling. Who knows how good her outcomes might have been if she had been diagnosed earlier?

The recent SEND Money Survey carried out by Let Us Learn Too and the Disabled Children’s Partnership reported that UK families have spent a combined £14.6 billion fighting authorities, a tragic waste of money and time, given that appeals have a 95 per cent success rate.

And in many cases, “success” may come too late for some of the older learners.

Families with learners who are over 16 stand to lose a lot if the SEND review fails. We mustn’t let any more lives fall off a cliff.

Activate Learning and Lincoln College Group drop merger plans

Plans for a merger that would create the largest college group in the country have been dropped.

Activate Learning and Lincoln College Group started exploring a merger last year when it was announced the latter’s chief executive Gary Headland would take the reins at Activate after its chief executive Sally Dicketts retired.

But Activate announced today that the merger will not go ahead. In a statement the group said this decision was made following due diligence being carried out.

However, Dicketts later told FE Week that “nothing untoward” was found with the due diligence, and instead the decision was strategic.

“The biggest reason for Activate is we have virtually doubled in size with Bracknell and Wokingham College and then taking on the Surrey group of colleges which happened just before lockdown.

“Those colleges were also slightly difficult financially, because they had very large deficits.”

Dicketts explained that when Headland was appointed he suggest a merger could be looked at- something governors were open to considering.

“But obviously it has to fit in with the strategic plan we have. We aren’t anti-merger, but it has to fit in with where we are at the moment,” she said.

“It also has to be financially right and I think what we felt with where we are at the moment, given those [previous] mergers, our group services are probably at their maximum capacity.

“Therefore, if we now merged we would probably have to take on more pupils and therefore the financial savings that we have made in the past wouldn’t be there and the board felt there was still quite a lot to do within Surrey to really bring them on board.”

Dicketts explained that the technical challenges associated with a merger were also a factor.

“Something like 70 per cent of commercial and public sector mergers never happen. Normally because you have got to change all your systems,” she said.

“A lot of our systems are different… once you start getting into all of that in a merger, then you start getting into the cost of implementing it.

“That is when you think, if you have just taken over two colleges that are net losing six and a half million, do we have a lot of cash left over to put into changing all of these systems, when frankly we’ve just changed them.”

Both Lincoln College Group and Activate Learning are made up of multiple colleges and have international and commercial operations.

LCG has three colleges located in Lincoln, Gainsborough and Newark and Activate’s seven campuses serve Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 383

Judith Feline

Trustee, Prisoners’ Education Trust

Start date: April 2022

Previous Job: Governor, HMP Maidstone

Interesting fact: When Judith was working in Bedfordshire she secured a £2.4 million Millennium Lottery Grant to create the Forest Centre – a country park visitor and conference centre

Dan Baxter

Business Manager, Education Practice, Peridot Partners

Start date: April 2022

Previous Job: College Engagement Manager, National Citizen Service Trust

Interesting fact: Dan has won the trophy of Pointless but, sadly, didn’t win the jackpot because of a lack of Taylor Swift Knowledge

Jamie Rowley

Director of Apprenticeships and Employer Solutions, City College Plymouth

Start date: February 2022

Previous Job: Head of Academy for Construction and the Built Environment, City College Plymouth

Interesting fact: Whilst at a motel in Dover, Jamie was invited to dine with June Whitfield who was there with her family

Martin Buck

Head of Assessment and Product Development, Skills and Education Group

Start date: March 2022

Previous Job: Head of Digitial Improvement, NCC Education

Interesting fact: Martin enjoys cycling and has completed many of the UK’s iconic long-distance challenges, including the famous Land’s End to John O’Groats, Lon Las Cymru and Scotland’s North Coast 500

Employer groups call on Sunak to reform levy funds in his spring statement

Employer groups are calling on the chancellor to allow apprenticeship levy funds to cover the cost of apprentice wages and transport expenses in next week’s spring statement – but there are conflicting views on whether other training programmes should become eligible. 

The apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017 and aimed to help increase investment in training. However, many levy-paying businesses have found it challenging to use for their training needs. 

A 2020 report from the Confederation of British Industry said that many businesses that pay into the levy – those with an annual pay bill of over £3 million – claimed it had become a “barrier” to increasing their investment in training. 

At the time, the CBI recommended the government turn the apprenticeship levy into a “flexible skills and training levy”, which could be used for short modular courses, pre-apprenticeship programmes, product training, professional courses and soft skills training. 

However, to date, these calls have fallen on deaf ears, and joint minister for FE and HE Michelle Donelan told FE Week last month that there were no plans to introduce big changes to the system any time soon. 

Despite this, employer groups are continuing to call for reforms ahead of chancellor Rishi Sunak delivering his spring statement on March 23. 

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) wrote to secretary of state for education Nadhim Zahawi urging the government to use the statement to introduce “much-needed flexibility” to the levy. 

“Bringing about more flexibility in the apprenticeship levy would not cost government or businesses a penny but could help bring about an estimated 8,000 new apprenticeship places across the retail industry,” Helen Dickinson, chief executive of BRC, said. 

BRC said the government should allow levy funds to cover associated training costs – including transport, or backfilling roles to free up staff for off-site training. 

Like the CBI, the BRC also said the government should allow a wider range of courses to be supported through levy funds – allowing funds to be used to support more young people through “vital” pre-employment and pre-apprenticeship programmes. 

Make UK, a group that represents manufacturers in the UK, wants to see a portion of levy funds being spent on apprentice wages and meeting other costs, such as capital expenditure. 

“Make UK has called for simple changes to the apprenticeship levy to make it work better for employers,” said Jamie Cater, employment senior policy manager at Make UK. 

“While apprenticeship starts in manufacturing and engineering have recently increased significantly – a trend we expect to continue this year as employers recover from the impact of Covid – the government could do more to support businesses to recruit and retain apprentices. 

“Allowing a portion of levy funds to be spent on apprentice wages and meeting other costs, such as capital expenditure, would remove some of the immediate barriers to employers investing more in apprenticeships and reduce the amount of unspent funding returned to the Treasury.” 

Using unspent funds from the apprenticeship levy to cover apprentice wages is a policy switch favoured by the Labour Party. 

Other employer groups highlighted how the government needed to do more to meet employers’ needs. 

“Many of our businesses are small and medium-sized and do not necessarily understand the scheme and how it can be applied to their business, or deem it overly bureaucratic,” Claire Steiner, chair of education and training at the Institute of Travel and Tourism, told FE Week.

 “More ‘how to’ communication aimed at smaller businesses would be beneficial to encourage take-up and investment in skills in the workplace.” 

While groups were calling for change, the Federation of Small Businesses warned against “well intentioned” reform of the levy. 

In a letter to Sunak, the FSB said the levy should not be turned into a broader training levy if this leads to levy funds drying up for those smallest employers. 

“We would ask you to apply appropriate scepticism to superficially attractive changes to the levy which will not lead to positive results in the small firms in which the majority of the employed population work,” said Mike Cherry, national chair, and Martin McTague, national vice chair, policy and advocacy, at FSB. 

Surprisingly, none that spoke to FE Week called for employer cash incentives, which were introduced to help recover apprentice starts post Covid-19 at a price of £3,000 each, to be extended. The cash bonuses end this month.

Conflicting principal views on Eton’s elite sixth form plans

A college principal and government social mobility adviser has welcomed the idea of Eton opening an elite sixth form on his doorstep – but the prospect concerns his counterparts in other affected areas of the country. 

Three towns – Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham – have been picked by the all-boys public school to open selective sixth forms in partnership with multi-academy trust Star Academies. 

Announced last week, the colleges will be designed to give disadvantaged young people who “have done well in their GCSEs the opportunity to achieve the A-levels they need to go to Oxbridge and other elite universities”. 

Eton claimed that the colleges’ small size will allow them to target a “very specific academic education” and will ensure that they “do not disrupt the existing pattern of local post-16 education” – a statement challenged by education experts. 

But Oldham College boss Alun Francis, who is also the vice chair of the government’s social mobility commission, told FE Week he was supportive of the plans. 

He said they would provide “elite routes” for those growing up in Oldham who want “to move out to move on” of the area while education providers like his “focus on routes to high skills for those who stay here”. 

“Oldham needs excellent provision of both kinds,” he told FE Week. 

However, a group of principals in Middlesbrough, and the surrounding area, warned they are already facing high levels of post-16 competition and called for more investment in existing providers. 

The news of Eton’s sixth forms comes after sector leaders expressed concerns that government plans to introduce “elite” sixth forms as part of its levelling-up agenda into areas with “weak” education outcomes could put pressure on existing provision. 

Francis said Oldham needs organisations like Eton who see their core business as part of a “bigger jigsaw puzzle and who are willing to engage in the wider challenges of levelling up”. 

Eton College and Star Academies intend to bid in the next wave of the Department for Education’s free schools programme, with a view to welcoming their first students as soon as 2025. 

The colleges would admit 240 students per year and will offer many of the educational and co-curricular opportunities available at Eton, including “knowledge-rich teaching from subject-specialists; access to talks, academic essay prizes and debate clubs; Oxbridge-style tutorial sessions and the chance to learn Latin”. 

A spokesperson from Eton told FE Week that should their bids be successful, the new colleges will not be highly selective. 

“They will be sixth form colleges, which are, by their very nature, selective. They will be 16-to-19 colleges with specific criteria for admission – just like pretty much all 16-to19 colleges and sixth forms in the country. 

“The admissions policies at these new colleges will not be designed to be exclusionary – they will be designed to ensure that the young people we admit are suited to the kind of academic curriculum and pedagogy we are designing.” 

The spokesperson confirmed that students would not be required to take special entry examinations. 

Putting pressure on existing providers 

While Eton claimed its new sixth forms would not disrupt the existing pattern of local post-16 education, a group of principals of colleges including Stockton Sixth Form, Prior Pursglove Colleges, Middlesbrough College, Hartlepool College, Darlington College, Stockton Riverside College and Redcar and Cleveland College issued a joint statement to FE Week expressing some concern at the plans. 

“We are aware that Star Academies and Eton College plan to bid through the ‘free school’ process to develop a new sixth form in Middlesbrough,” the principals said. 

“We would hope that the free school assessment process will take into account the quality and high progression rates of existing post-16 providers as well as the conclusions of the local area review carried out in 2016 which highlighted poor key stage 4 outcomes and high levels of post-16 competition already in existence across the Tees Valley.” 

The principals cited the fact that 19 school sixth forms and seven colleges were highlighted as offering A-levels to a population of less than 700,000. 

“We would collectively welcome any additional investment in the existing A-level provider network across the Tees Valley to support our current ‘raising aspirations’ programmes as part of the levelling-up agenda,” they said. 

A spokesperson for Dudley College of Technology said the college is waiting for discussions with elected officers at the council and Star Academies to “fully understand the proposition and to gauge its impact on the communities the college serves”. 

The idea that Eton’s new colleges would not disrupt the existing pattern of local post-16 education was challenged by Sam Freedman, an ex-government adviser now at Ark Schools. 

He told FE Week that if you open a selective institution at any age group, anywhere, you will “suck out the young people who have got the best grades from other institutions”. 

“That just has to happen by definition. And it will have a negative effect on those institutions,” he said. 

“It’s great to have Eton contributing more to the state sector. They’ve got a lot of expertise and a lot of money. But I’d much rather see them try and run a sixth form or a school that was inclusive.”

Tactical subcontracting deal abandoned in mayoral combined authority

An education charity has pulled a tactical subcontracting deal worth up to £350,000 of adult education funding after a mayoral combined authority intervened.   

According to a tender published on the government’s contracts finder website last week, the WEA was seeking subcontractors to deliver almost a quarter of its £1.5 million adult education budget (AEB) allocation in West Yorkshire for the last four months of the 2021/22 academic year.   

Bids had to be submitted by March 18 for the contract, which would run from April 4 to July 31.   

The short duration and last-minute nature of the tender suggests it was a tactical move to use up unspent funding from the AEB.   

West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) funding rules are in line with those for the national AEB administered by the Education and Skills Funding and state that providers “must not subcontract to meet short-term funding objectives”.   

The WYCA has a three per cent tolerance threshold in its AEB – meaning providers will need to use up at least 97 per cent of their allocation to avoid funds being clawed back.   

On Monday, the same day FE Week enquired about the tactical nature of the subcontracting opportunity, the combined authority contacted the WEA and informed the grant-funded provider that it is not allowed to continue with the proposed subcontract.   

However, the WEA claims this was only because the charity is technically classified as an “out of area” provider.   

A WEA spokesperson said the combined authority had provisionally signed off on the subcontract during a previous meeting – despite it appearing to be a breach of funding rules.   

“We had proposed subcontracting to WYCA in a recent partnership meeting and the procurement was actioned after this meeting,” the spokesperson said.   

“The WEA does work in partnership with other charities, local employers and community organisations to gain specialist expertise and connections into local jobs and hard-to-reach communities. Normally these are long-standing partnerships to achieve common goals, and this was a model we were hoping to replicate in West Yorkshire.   

“However, WYCA have been in touch to clarify that, as we are classified as an ‘out of area’ provider, despite our long-held footprint in region, their rules do not permit us to subcontract. As such, we are in the process of rescinding the procurement and finding alternative ways to deliver the specialised reach intended.”   

The WYCA refused to comment on why it allegedly signed off on the tactical subcontracting deal initially and later rescinded its approval.   

A spokesperson would only say: “We monitor subcontracting closely with regards to our adult education budget and providers who have to get our permission to make changes.    

“Changes will be considered if there is a strategic rationale which is aligned to the West Yorkshire AEB strategy and our priorities.”   

The ESFA has attempted to stamp out tactical subcontracting for many years. It launched a fresh crackdown on subcontracting overall in 2020 which made clear that “entering into subcontracting arrangements for financial gain” would not be acceptable.   

Mayoral combined authorities that have control of the AEB for their area mostly follow ESFA funding rules including for subcontracting, but they have the power to make their own amendments. 

Ofsted downgrades new provider after ESFA apprentice pay tip-off

Ofsted has downgraded a new provider following a surprise follow-up visit after the Education and Skills Funding Agency tipped the watchdog off about alleged illegal apprentice wages.   

The case, believed to be the first time the inspectorate has policed apprentice pay, has raised questions about which government arm is responsible for audits. The membership body for private providers has called for clarity on this “inconsistent” approach.   

London-based charity Uganda Community Relief Association (UCRA) is challenging Ofsted after its monitoring visit report resulted in ‘insufficient progress’ judgments in two areas – an outcome that has led to a suspension on new starts.   

The watchdog claimed the provider’s 27 junior content producer apprentices “are not in suitable employment, are not paid an apprenticeship wage and too many do not receive monthly pay”.   

However, the provider claims an original monitoring visit took place in early December that resulted in ‘reasonable progress’ provisional judgments across the board, and involved no questions about apprentice pay.   

UCRA told FE Week that Ofsted returned to re-inspect the provider unexpectedly, with a different inspection team, in mid-January at the request of the ESFA after the draft report was shared with the agency.   

The ESFA began conducting its own investigation into the provider in November after one of its employers submitted a request for apprenticeship incentive payments in which financial information was shared.   

UCRA told FE Week the employer in question, which has been denied the cash incentives, was unable to pay its employees, including the apprentices, in October following a downturn. But this issue has since been resolved and all payments have been made, UCRA claimed.   

The provider also denies that the apprentices are paid anything less than the apprenticeship minimum wage and insists evidence of this has been shared with the ESFA and Ofsted.   

“This is a very confusing and frustrating situation,” an UCRA spokesperson said. “Ofsted was very happy with what they saw during their first inspection in December – the feedback was so good it blows your mind. They spoke to the learners and were so impressed.”   

The spokesperson questioned why Ofsted was made to effectively audit their provider – a job that typically lies with the ESFA.   

“Is this Ofsted’s writing or is it the ESFA’s? They are supposed to be two separate bodies. The ESFA audits, not Ofsted,” they said.   

“I am 100 per cent sure apprentices are paid the minimum wage because I have seen their payslips and have given them to the ESFA.   

“Ofsted looks at the quality of education, not apprentices’ payslips. This is the ESFA talking.”   

Apprentice pay is not an issue that Ofsted usually reports on, and nowhere in the inspection handbook does it say this source of information could be used during inspections.   

But a spokesperson for the watchdog told FE Week that inspectors do not rule out “the different sources of evidence we might need to gather at different times to carry out an inspection effectively”.   

They added that any concerns from providers should be raised through Ofsted’s complaints process.   

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers said it was not aware of Ofsted auditing apprentice pay before and called for a more consistent approach.   

Director of policy Simon Ashworth said: “AELP strongly believes in provider accountability. There must be strong measures in place to protect and safeguard the interests of apprentices, regardless of how any concerns are raised. We would, however, ask that a consistent approach is taken, so that in future providers understand what the respective responsibilities of ESFA and Ofsted are.”   

The ESFA said it would not comment on individual cases.   

UCRA, established in 1984, has previous experience of providing training as a subcontractor. It also offers a range of other services to the community, including immigration advice and casework and guidance on how to operate a foodbank.   

The charity began teaching its own apprenticeships to adults in August 2020 and has been delivering adult education courses since January 2021. It currently has 32 adult learners, as well as 21 traineeship students. All training is taught online.   

Ofsted’s report is full of praise for all of the provider’s courses, barring the junior content apprentices.   

Of the four judgments, two were judged as ‘reasonable progress’ in the final report.   

“Leaders and managers have a clear rationale for the curriculum they offer,” Ofsted said, for example.   

UCRA told FE Week it is now challenging the report and wants to stay in the apprenticeship delivery market despite this setback.