As the cost-of-living crisis has gathered pace, affecting homes and businesses alike, all eyes have been on government for support and solutions. Yet the commitment to a further £2.3 billion for schools in 2023 and 2024 was one of only a few bright spots to come out of the autumn statement.
Schools are the crucial foundations of essential, academic, practical and lifelong learning; they provide the socialisation, civic responsibility and world knowledge every child needs. They build an infrastructure of knowledge, skills and behaviour, so that when a learner is preparing for their next steps, they have had the best start possible. Our schools do amazing work and have been under-funded for many years.
I fully concur with Mr Hunt: ‘pro-education is pro-growth’. The best teaching, learning and experiences are essential to ensuring that we have a workforce ready and able to take on the roles of the future, taking us out of recession and ushering in a return to economic growth.
But with no mention of skills or colleges in the announcements, how will we ensure young people and adults have the highest quality technical and vocational training to drive productivity to that end?
Further education has benefitted from significant capital funding projects in the past few years – over £400 million’s worth – to ensure that fit-for-purpose buildings and modern learning facilities, in line with industry standards, are in place to deliver the newly introduced government T level qualifications, higher technical qualifications and apprenticeships. But while essential, a focus on buildings, resources and equipment simply isn’t enough.
Funding rates for 16- to 18-year-olds are 11 per cent lower than they were in 2010 and adult funding is half what it was ten years ago. Yet the costs of delivering have increased, and with inflation now clearing 11 per cent these will continue to soar. Bus trips, subsistence, materials, technology, resources – everything has gone up.
Delivery of economic growth comes at a cost and that cost is increasing
According to Julian Gravatt of the Association of Colleges, between 2015 and 2025 spending on schools will have grown by 51 per cent, higher education student outlays by 71 per cent, yet further education by 25 per cent. Over the same period inflation will have risen by 45 per cent.
Teesside, which my college group serves, is home to Europe’s largest brownfield site, ‘Teesworks’. A freeport with inward investors lining up and some breaking ground now, Teesworks is lined up to become a cradle for the UK’s renewable energy industries and technologies.
There are plans for the site to bring thousands of skilled jobs and regeneration to the area – precisely the ‘levelling up’ and opportunities for social mobility we all wish for. So it’s vital, alongside this incredible repurposing of heritage industries, that skills and the successful colleges and providers which provide them are included in government investment plans.
I do not want to take anything away from the schools who so deserve the increase in funding that they have been allocated. And I am extremely grateful for the financial investment my college group has received in recent years from the government. But I would call upon the chancellor to reflect on the funding of further education.
It would be encouraging to see education discussed as a whole in such announcements, with a closer focus on the various learning provisions that make up our education system, and inclusion of further education as a separate entity.
Further education works with industry to build curriculum to deliver knowledge and skills aligned to the jobs of the future. We work with employers to ensure learners have access to the best work experience and industry placements to support them in developing the attitudes and behaviours of the workplace. And we work with other providers to ensure that the local offer is inclusive and fit for the demands of the local community.
Colleges, sixth forms and training providers collaborate to support the delivery of economic growth – but this comes at a cost, and that cost is increasing.
Pro-education is indeed pro-growth, but we must be pro-entire-education, ensuring there is a sustainable strategy for post-16 education through and beyond this recession.
Gillian Keegan has rehashed the government’s previous skills investment pledges after FE was ignored in the chancellor’s education funding boost last week.
The education secretary wrote to the whole education sector today and claimed that Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement “underlined the government’s commitment to education as he seeks to restore stability to the economy”.
Despite the autumn statement not mentioning the word “colleges” once, Keegan said it was “great to hear him [Hunt] acknowledge the massive contribution our heads, teachers and classroom assistants make to our national life and his statement reinforces our mission to drive up standards and give every child or learner an excellent education”.
The autumn statement announced that schools will receive £2 billion in extra funding in each of the next two years, which is the “biggest injection of funding ever”, allows schools to return to at least 2010 levels in real terms, and is “what the sector said it needed”.
The only announcement for FE was the appointment of Sir Michael Barber as a new adviser to the government on skills.
Keegan offered no explanation as to why FE and skills received no additional funding like schools.
Instead, she reminded the sector today: “We are already investing an additional £3.8 billion in skills in England over this Parliament, including high-quality technical education for 16 to 19-year-olds and boosting opportunities for adults to upskill.”
She added that the nation currently has 1,255,000 vacancies, so “we need to upskill, train and retrain to ensure business needs are met and more people realise their potential”, adding that reforms including T Levels, higher technical qualifications, skills bootcamps and degree apprenticeships are all being rolled out to this effect.
Keegan said the lifelong loan entitlement, set to be introduced from 2025, will also “mark a profound shift in the way students of all ages can obtain funding for further and higher education”.
She concluded: “I would like to echo the chancellor’s comments and thank all of you, across the education sectors, for your tremendous efforts. His comments underline our belief that education is an engine of growth and social change.”
Colleges in the fifth wave of the T Level rollout are being invited to bid for a slice of £150 million to help upgrade their facilities and purchase specialist kit.
The capital fund, which reopened today, is being made available to those that will offer the new technical qualifications from 2024. It follows previous funds that totalled £38 million for wave one, £95 million for wave two, £135 million for wave three, and £150 million for wave four.
There are two parts to the fund:
the building and facilities improvement grant (BFIG) which providers need to bid for
the specialist equipment allocation which is awarded using a formula allocation
The specialist equipment allocation is a payment available to all T Level providers when they begin delivery of a T Level route for the first time. In waves one, two and three the allocation was based on the number of students a provider expected to have in the fourth year of T Level delivery.
Providers delivering T Level routes for the first time in academic year 2023 to 2024 are eligible for wave four specialist equipment allocation funding. DfE will allocate funding based on the October 2022 T Level data collection.
To receive the specialist equipment allocation for the 2024 to 2025 academic year, new providers must have registered to deliver T Levels by midnight on 24 March 2023.
New and continuing T Level providers delivering T Level routes for the first time will be eligible to receive funding if they complete the May 2023 and October 2023 T Level data collections, today’s guidance said, adding: “You need to confirm projected student numbers for the first 4 years of delivery of the T Level route, starting with the 2024 to 2025 academic year.”
Providers must bid for the BFIG by 12 noon on February 3, 2023. This grant is not available for independent training providers.
Skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister Robert Halfon said: “T Levels are the new gold standard for technical education and this funding pot of over £150 million will help to ensure that providers have the world-class facilities they need to deliver top quality courses.
“I’d encourage T Level providers to bid so they can extend the ladder of opportunity to more young people looking to gain the skills and workplace experience to forge successful careers.”
The first three T Levels – the technical equivalent to A-levels – in construction, digital and education and childcare were launched in September 2020.
A further seven were made available from 2021 in subjects including health, science and onsite construction and subjects including finance, media and legal will be introduced from 2022 and 2023.
All providers, including those judged ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted, will be able to offer any of the 23 T Levels available from 2024. The last T Level, in marketing, will be available for all providers to deliver from 2025.
As previously revealed by FE Week, colleges will have to keep on running T Levels for at least 20 years if they want to avoid handing back the millions they will receive in capital funding.
An ‘inadequate’ specialist college has been criticised again by inspectors for “overstretched leaders” failing to improve its teaching and curriculum.
Trustees of the London-based The Michael Tippett College were found not to have been given “secure” assessments of the quality of teaching and leaders lack enough expertise in SEND education to improve, according to a monitoring visit published today.
The college made “insufficient progress” in three of the four areas examined by Ofsted eight months after a damning full inspection found that safeguarding, education, personal development and leadership and management were all ‘inadequate’.
Perry Vlachos, the acting head of Michael Tippett College, has been the sixth college leader in seven years.
Vlachos explained that if the college fails to make improvements by the next Ofsted inspection, expected in early 2023, this could trigger a review of funding arrangements by the ESFA.
Today’s monitoring visit did find ‘reasonable progress’ on improvements to safeguarding after the previous inspection found that students were being tube fed and medicated in classrooms in front of their peers and staff.
Policies have been rewritten to be “fit for purpose” and leaders have taken “appropriate action to rectify the specific issue noted at the previous inspection regarding learners’ dignity when using feeding tubes” the monitoring visit report states.
The education watchdog praised staff, who treat learners with respect and have created a “calm and orderly environment”.
The college are currently receiving support from a college with an outstanding SEND provision, who are providing the leadership team with “expertise and experience to better personalise the curriculum to make it more fit for purpose for the students” he told FE Week.
Vlachos said they have not been able to recruit specialist SEND teachers or leaders because of uncertainty about the future of the college.
He says they have attempted to address the problems raised by Ofsted, who in turn have offered useful guidance on where the college has gone wrong.
Ofsted said that the trustees, leadership team and staff have worked “diligently to make improvements, but they are overstretched and continue to have insufficient expertise in the education of learners with SEND” to have an impact or bring about “rapid and sustained improvement.”
The report says the college has been unsuccessful in recruiting additional SEND expertise to their board, or any additional leadership capacity at all since the last inspection.
Inspectors said that the amount of time spent on improving safeguarding led to “limited” efforts to improve teaching. For example they found that “targets that teachers use are the same for all learners, regardless of their ability and prior knowledge and attainment”.
Teachers are not “adequately appraised” by leaders and do not properly integrate life skills into vocational subjects.
And inspectors found no comprehensive plan for the curriculum, noting that teachers “only plan one term at a time.”
The Michael Tippett College is an independent specialist college in Balham, south London, with 42 learners aged 19 to 25, which has struggled to achieve a good inspection since they opened in 2016.
At the time of the last inspection, Lambeth Council told FE Week that it was reviewing its relationship with the college, noting Ofsted’s “concerning findings.”
Executive Dean – Engineering, Digital and Sustainable Construction, University College Birmingham
Start date: November 2022
Previous Job: Executive Director, Solihull College and University Centre & Greater Birminghan & Solihull IoT Interesting fact: Rosa is a trained aerospace engineer and has taught all over the country from Inverness to Southampton.
Clair Hanson
Area Education Manager – Greater Manchester, WEA
Start date: November 2022
Previous Job: ESF Community Grants Project Organiser, WEA
Interesting fact: Clair was proud to become a first time graduate at the age of 40, which is why she is passionate about adult education and the WEA. She also runs an Instagram account tracking the adventures of her family pet, Bill the Chinchilla, at @marplechinchilla
Chris Payne
Managing Director, Acacia Training
Start date: October 2022
Previous Job: Chief Executive Officer, NEBOSH
Interesting fact: Chris once played the character Tony Manero in a local theatre production of Saturday Night Fever for charity
The head of a Bedfordshire college has resigned after more than a decade at the helm.
Ali Hadawi, principal at Central Bedfordshire College for 11 years, has handed in his notice and is due to leave his post at the end of the month.
A statement from the college said: “The board is grateful for his contribution and many achievements whilst in post, and he leaves with our best wishes for the future.”
The establishment confirmed that Sarah Mortimer, the college’s vice-principal for more than a decade, will be acting principal and accountable officer.
The college added: “Central Bedfordshire College is currently in the process of a merger with The Bedford College Group, therefore recruitment for the principal role as part of the merged structure will take place at a later stage.”
FE Week understands that Hadawi had been planning to leave at the end of January, but requested an early departure due to poor health.
The college’s merger with The Bedford College Group was announced in March, and planned to take effect in February 2023.
At the time of the announcement, Hadawi said it would allow the college to expand its offer of courses and boost learner numbers.
It had previously been eyeing a merger with Barnfield College several years ago, but negotiations collapsed in 2017.
Dr Michelle Meadows was second-in-command at Ofqual during the 2020 exams fiasco, a grading disaster that will echo for years to come. She reveals to Samantha Booth what happened behind closed doors …
Dr Michelle Meadows is used to a grading crisis. She helped to handle at least five that hit the headlines in her two-decade career at exam board AQA and qualifications regulator Ofqual.
But perhaps none was as big as the 2020 pandemic grading fiasco. As Ofqual’s deputy chief regulator until last year, Meadows was deeply involved in creating the unprecedented alternate awarding system for grades when exams were cancelled.
So much has been written about what went wrong: from government pressure for Ofqual to ensure grading standards were in line with previous years to communication failures and a lack of public trust in the regulator.
Meadows says that with hindsight it is “easy to say that was a policy mistake”. But Ofqual was being pushed to the limits of its remit as a regulator during 2020, with just four months to roll out the alternative plan.
“Ofqual stepped into a role that was not really what it was set up to do,” Meadows tells me from her University of Oxford office, where she is now an associate professor and course director of a masters in educational assessment.
On the other hand, she accepts Ofqual – and importantly government ministers – should have been out there “explaining, explaining, explaining”.
School reports were “pretty indifferent”
Born in the north west, Meadows describes herself as a “problem-solver”. Working in regulation was the dream as it’s “problem-solving on a day-to-day basis”.
For someone who ended up working in education, though, the 54-year-old admits her own academic performance at her comprehensive was “truly unremarkable”.
A younger Meadows (centre)
“If you look back at my school reports, they were pretty indifferent. I had a very ambivalent relationship with the whole business of being educated.”
But she was nevertheless put in the “upper” stream for O-levels, something she now questions “because there was no standardised assessment”.
After obtaining “average” O-levels, she did A-levels at Stockport College, also the alma mater of Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner.
One thing she did know from 13 was that she wanted to be a psychologist. She scraped two Cs to study at Hatfield Polytechnic in Hertfordshire and became the first person in her working-class family to go on to tertiary education.
Although psychology is hugely popular now at A-level (there was an 11 per cent rise in entries last year), it was an unusual choice in the 1980s. Her college didn’t even offer it as an option.
Her parents – a shorthand typist mother and electrician father – had both studied at technical colleges so going to university was a “mystery, but a serious thing”.
Her love of education really began at 19. She credits this, and a chance to retake A-levels, as her driver for “fairness and second chances” in life, adding: “I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I had.”
“I feel very strongly that for the vast majority of students, how they do …. in terms of their qualifications, it’s just a reflection of them – a snapshot – at that point in time.”
After graduating, she worked as an assistant psychologist at St Mary’s Hospital in west London and completed a PhD in driver behaviour before unexpectedly helping to create the “blueprint” for the national speed awareness course in Lancashire.
She was perfectly happy working in academia, but wanted a “good chewy problem” and was hired as a senior researcher at the exam board AQA in 2002.
The first crisis in 2009
“I did not know what I was getting myself into at all really,” Meadows reflects, arriving to see staff exhausted from the demanding curriculum 2000 reforms on post-16 education.
Her first crisis came in 2009 when Ofqual, the new regulator in town, decided to lower grade boundaries in GCSE science at AQA, as grades couldn’t be aligned across the boards.
The second was in 2012 with grading the-then modular GCSE English, which led to a High Court judicial review by 150 schools, 42 councils and 167 pupils. Many received lower than expected results.
It boiled down to the qualifications structure, which the judge said was “the source of such unfairness”.
Meadows says the modular structure allowed some schools to do the exam in January and wait until June to take coursework. This meant some were “able to work out what mark their students needed to get the magic grade C”, which “broke the awarding process”, making grade boundaries higher than usual.
Meadows says at first it was difficult to spot what was causing the issue. But a bright researcher dug into the data and found huge spikes on grade boundaries for those schools that took the exams early.
Meadows thinks the Michael Gove reforms to linear GCSEs made sense as the qualification modules were too small, and the introduction of more grades through the 9-1 system gave more meaningful information on a student’s performance.
But she thinks it’s a “great shame” that AS courses are now fading away, narrowing post-16 study for some students.
“That fabulous feedback mechanism at the end of year one has now been removed,” she says, adding “a lot of people working in education would welcome” it back.
From exams are on to schools shutting…
Meetings began with exam boards and the Department for Education in early March 2020, just as the Covid pandemic was spiralling. Meadows had been promoted to deputy chief regulator, as well as overseeing the risk and research teams.
Early meetings were about how to spread out exams to mitigate any disruption.
“We were working out how to make exams work. Almost overnight we went from exams will go ahead in some form to, oh, schools are shut. It just proved impossible for exams to go ahead.”
At the outset of creating a standardisation model, Ofqual knew some grades would have to be downgraded with estimates of 30 per cent (which was similar to UCAS predicted grades).
While it worked to keep results in-line nationally, it was disastrous for many pupils.
In the end, almost 40 per cent of grades awarded by teachers were pulled down after going through the standardisation model.
Come results’ day, with pupils in tears on television over how their grades had been unfairly hauled down by this faceless regulator, Ofqual and ministers – who had made the decision to standardise grades – were forced to make a U-turn.
Consultation with the sector before drawing up the model was “incredibly positive”, but Meadows says there was a difference between “theoretical propositions and practical realities”.
“We knew it would be problematic and in our risk analysis we had identified a probability that the public wouldn’t accept these grades,” she says. “But having said that, we had four months to deliver something, so we were heads down trying to create the best possible model in no time whatsoever.”
Meadows says what was unexpected was the extent to which different schools and colleges would behave in “different ways”. Some tried to “pre-standardise” to try to reduce the chances of downgrading; others awarded many A* and As despite previously having a full range of grades.
“[Results day] took a massive toll because whatever we think about Ofqual I can hand on heart say they are good, earnest people trying to do the right thing. It felt like Ofqual was hated, that we were somehow incompetent or evil. Neither is fair at all.”
Meadows takes particular aim at a Daily Mail article on chief regulator Sally Collier, who resigned after the fiasco, as being “deeply unpleasant and personal”. The article included details of Collier’s marriage.
Collier is one of five chief regulators in Meadow’s seven years at Ofqual. “That is a lot of turnover, and I think speaks to the difficulty of doing the job. You can be guaranteed that within your three or five-year term, you’re going to have one big doozy of a crisis or you’re going to have something where you disagree with government.
“It makes it tremendously difficult. That’s a terrible shame as it puts experts off doing these jobs.”
Warning over T-Levels
A large part of Ofqual’s work is regulating vocational and technical qualifications. But this wasn’t always the case, Meadows says, as the regulator mainly focused on general qualifications when it launched.
“Now it’s totally transformed. The problem is regulation has to be risk-based – and there are 200 awarding organisations offering 18,000 VTQs and they are enormously disparate.
“You can’t have infinite resource to regulate all qualifications equally, you’ve got to make some difficult choices.”
While Meadows has “some sympathy” for the view the vocational landscape is too complex, she says the need to “really weed out” qualifications is “incredibly resource intensive”.
She worries “a lot of faith” is being placed in T Levels. “I would personally be treading very carefully and want to make gradual changes… which never fits the political cycle. There’s always a desperate desire to want to do things quickly and that’s understandable not just from a political perspective, but also if you believe that something isn’t working well, you want to fix it.”
Just one in four special educational needs students remain in employment a year after their supported internship has ended, FE Week can reveal, prompting calls for more dedicated aid for the scheme.
Those delivering the “life-changing” programmes say that learners still need support once they have moved from internship into paid work, and the government should help fund that assistance as it looks to double the number of placements.
Supported internships are structured programmes for SEND students aged 16 to 24 who have an education health and care plan (EHCP) to get into sustained employment, with placements lasting for six months to a year.
They are enrolled by a learning provider, but spend a significant amount of time – often between two or four days a week – in work with an employer and assisted by a dedicated job coach.
The DfE has committed £18 million over the next three years to nearly double the numbers taking advantage of the scheme, with ambitions for 4,500 on programmes each year by 2025.
But data released to FE Week under the UK’s Freedom of Information laws has revealed that just a quarter of students on supported internships found employment in the year following completion.
The internships have steadily grown from just 216 starts in 2013/14 to 2,499 starters in 2020/21, with that most recent intake representing a near doubling of the 1,291 seen four years prior, suggesting that the government target is achievable.
Completion rates for the programmes is an average of nearly 84 per cent since 2013/14, according to the data.
A study by Cooper Gibson Research in 2020 (which interviewed 42 providers and eight wider stakeholders involved in the programmes) reported that most providers estimated at least half of their students on supported internships secured paid work at the end of their placement.
Providers which have reported strong employment figures have said they have laid on longer-term support from their own funds to help learners beyond the end of the programme. But more government support would bolster that, they say.
The Hive College in Birmingham, which supports around 12 people on supported internships each year with around half moving into paid employment, runs a three year ‘live’ programme in which learners do one day a week in work for their first two years before the supported internship in the third year.
Ruth Martin
Ruth Martin, placements co-ordinator at the college said: “We have always offered a three-year [programme] and post placement support. We will continue to monitor those students, we will contact them directly, but also the companies can contact us if there is an issue, and we can go in and support.
“That’s really key, and I think that’s where other places fall down. That’s a financial investment – we can’t claim on that money, that is us off our own back because we want it to be sustainable.”
Kent-based Bemix, another provider for supported internships, also runs a pre-internship year. In the last few months it has also begun piloting an additional work coach who can be the “first line of response” when one of its graduates gets into difficulty.
Matt Clifton, chief executive, said it was more effective for the provider to do that than a Job Centre Plus or Department for Work and Pensions worker, as it already has a relationship with the learner.
“What we hope to demonstrate is that that brings a value to the public sector that far outweighs what needs to be spent on it,” he added.
“What we hope to demonstrate is that it’s that relationship that brings a value to the public sector that far outweighs what needs to be spent on it,” he added.
Matt Clifton
Bemix, which has 45 young people on supported internships this year, also reports around half moving into paid employment following their internship, but hoped the pilot will bolster that number (and the numbers remaining in work).
London South East Colleges runs a number of supported internship models. One features a tie-up with Mencap for those with severe learning difficulties in which Mencap works one-to-one with the learner in the workplace. Another is a partnership with Bromley local authority, Project SEARCH and the Princess Royal Hospital in Bromley specifically as an NHS supported internship.
The college group reported that six of the initial seven on the NHS programme moved into paid jobs with the hospital. The college also has around 28 on the regular supported internship this year.
More than 80 per cent of supported internship completers at LSEC were offered jobs in the last year, it reported.
Like others, learners go on employment preparation the year before, which features one day per week work experience in the second and third terms.
Rhona Sapsford, assistant principal for high needs and foundation learning at LSEC, said she would like to see employers encouraged to take on interns in the same way they get on board with school work experience placements.
She added: “We don’t want them [learners] going off a cliff edge. We can all tick a box and say we have got so many outcomes, but the sustained outcomes are the most important.”
Those successful providers have agreed that ongoing support is crucial to delivering higher numbers in long-term employment, but other challenges remain too.
Rhona Sapsford
For one, the amount of work a learner does can impact on Universal Credit payments, while some providers say the DWP does not demonstrate the expertise to understand supported employment for those moving jobs or encountering difficulties.
Elsewhere, providers agree that more promotion is needed for what supported internships are to get more employers on board.
In addition, NATSPEC – the membership body for providers of further education for those with SEND – has found that some local authorities are reluctant to spend any of their high needs funding on supported internships.
Ruth Perry, senior policy manager at NATSPEC, said: “Their line is that the college has the basic study programme funding from ESFA [Education and Skills Funding Agency] which should more than cover the interns’ one day a week in college plus Access to Work funding from the DWP to cover the in-work support, so why would you need high needs funding on top of that?
“The reality is that a lot of work goes into setting up the internships, supporting the employers, working with families, and these things cost. ESFA guidance does make it clear that high needs funding can be spent on those things but many LAs choose not to. A real quick win for doubling your numbers would be to sort out that funding issue.”
The DfE says £10.8 million of the investment will be for local authorities to strengthen their supported internship offers.
Ruth Perry
Elsewhere, sometimes a small issue such as adding additional responsibilities or tweaks to job roles can cause problems for those employees and has resulted in employment ending. Those could have been resolved had ongoing support been available or had it happened during the internship year when the job coach or college could have intervened, providers say.
To help bolster the success of supported internships, the National Development Team for Inclusion, British Association of Supported Employment, and Project SEARCH have come together to develop support, including encouraging specialist and FE colleges to become part of the new local SEND employment forums, and help employers work towards a kitemark for inclusive recruitment.
And while providers all agree the programmes are “transformative” – with other benefits around wellbeing and confidence, NATSPEC has said the government must also be mindful they are not the only route to employment.
Perry said that for those with high needs, their health needs and abilities means that three or four days a week in work may not be possible, with only up to around 12 hours a week ever likely to be viable for them.
“Many of our young people need more than just employability training in order to function successfully in adult life,” she said. “There are other preparing for adulthood pathways that are equally important, such as independent living, being part of a community, having a social life and friends, and being able to maintain good health.”
A DfE spokesperson said the eight-figure investment over the next three years will build capacity and quality of the programme, adding: “Supported internships are a popular and high-quality study programme providing young people with education health and care plans with the skills they need to build a fulfilling career through learning in the workplace.
“We continue to support pathways to employment for disabled learners, including through investment to expand and improve the supported internship programme.”
What we really learnt this week at the AoC conference is that our political class (currently) has no real answers for the FE funding and workforce skills conundrum.
First up was a business-like speech from the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. Her address to college leaders was predictably upbeat. The fact she turned up at a post-16 event tells you that she cares enough to have a serious stab at what the opposition might do in government.
A lot of spade work has already been done by the party’s council of skills advisers, led by one of the most successful Labour cabinet ministers of his generation, Lord David Blunkett.
We heard a repeat of the need to flex the apprenticeship levy. The desire to replace competition with more collaboration at the local level. And the setting up of a new national body, Skills England.
The problem with the latter is that it came across in Philipson’s speech as the failed statist models of previous Labour governments. Of course, there is much to be said for getting social partners and key stakeholders around the table to develop a shared vision for better skills and increased productivity. That’s precisely what many of the world-leading systems do already.
But reheated versions of 1970s corporatism, at a time when there are already enough vested interests on the supply-side, is the last thing the country needs.
What is clear is that Labour has no comprehensive – systems level – set of proposals to grow skills or seriously improve workplace productivity. Instead, it offers a number of tactical interventions that give the impression of concerted action, when they fall far short of what is actually required.
Philipson couldn’t say if Labour would restore FE funding to 2010 levels. She did promise a “higher-trust” model of delivery, but then left hanging how such an approach might actually be achieved. For an opposition perhaps less than 18 months away from forming a government, there was no sense of a coherent plan.
Gillian Keegan arrived on the second day to tell the sector about her three “game changers” for further education.
I don’t know who briefs ministers on these set piece speeches these days, but the general ignorance in which they announce policy initiatives, as if this is the first time they have been tried, is genuinely alarming.
Take local skills improvement plans (LSIPs). They are no different in substance to the strategic area reviews (StAR) initiated by Charles Clarke when he was education secretary.
They mainly faltered because, in the end, the Learning and Skills Council had no real powers to close facilities and realign skills needs in terms of economic demand.
Fierce local opposition, combined with Whitehall inertia, scuppered most of these plans.
Institutes of Technology are another wheeze that have a long history in one form or another, going right back to 1985 when the Sunday Times first reported the setting up of 20 City Technology Colleges. These eventually merged into the academies programme pursued vigorously by both Labour and Conservative governments.
And finally, Keegan’s third game changer was improvements in the FE workforce.
Unsurprisingly, college principals will be left completely underwhelmed by this part of the speech. In a tight labour market with industry pay rates operating in a different universe to current teaching pay scales, only some major uplift in pay flexibilities are going to cut it.
This isn’t the first time a cabinet minister has piled on the hyperbole about ‘supporting’ the FE workforce.
In 2014, Matt Hancock (currently to be found mired in ITV’s I’m a Celeb, bushtucker trials) set out similar promises. Published in The Government’s Strategy to Support Workforce Excellence in Further Education, Hancock said: ‘We need to raise standards amongst all teaching staff to that of the best in the sector.’
Unfortunately, staff in the sector never get the chance to leave their day jobs, abandon their residents, to trouser a handsome £400,000 on the side.
