Large HGV training provider goes bust blaming inadequate funding

A large training provider for the HGV industry has called in the administrators – blaming inadequate funding levels that are failing to cover the true cost of delivery.

System Group Ltd informed “dismayed” staff today of the business’s closure. It puts more than 100 people out of work and over 2,000 learners, who are mostly only skills bootcamps, having to find other places to complete their training.

System Group delivers transport and logistics apprenticeships to around 500 apprentices nationally and holds adult education budget contracts in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and West Midlands Combined Authority worth £2 million and £300,000 respectively.

It had become one of the government’s main providers of HGV licence and driving skills bootcamps – a major skills shortage area that ministers are trying to tackle.

FE Week understands large employers such as Sainsbury’s, Next, and Royal Mail will be affected.

System Group, which is owned by investment firm Rcapital, made a loss of £1.1 million in the year ending April 2021, according to its latest accounts.

A spokesperson for Rcapital blamed insufficient government funding rates on the decision to close.

“The directors came to the difficult decision that System Group showed no real prospect of trading profitably, owing to the fact that the costs of training were significantly higher than the grants received from public bodies to train our students,” the spokesperson said.

“Especially given the current economic environment and high levels of inflation, System Group’s business model was therefore not sustainable.”

The comments will resonate with many other providers across the country who have complained that the funding offered for many courses and apprenticeships does not meet the true cost of delivery – an issue that has become particularly acute in recent months.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said: “Many training providers are extremely concerned about what the future holds, and, despite unprecedented inflation, some funding rates have not been reviewed for many years. Unless urgent action is taken, we will sadly see more providers driven out of the market, and therefore unable to deliver critical skills programmes.”

Eddie Williams and Tim Higgins of accounting firm PwC have been appointed as joint administrators of System Group.

PwC said: “Although the business has historically broken even, or has been marginally cash generative, it has been impacted by challenging conditions around a number of key education programmes in the sector and experienced severe liquidity challenges.”

System Group, headquartered in Liverpool, is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and has delivered transport and logistics training for more than 25 years.

Employees who lost their job today told FE Week of their “dismay” and “anger” and hit out at management for a “lack of compassion” in how they communicated the closure.

“It is just before Christmas and people don’t know whether they’re going to be paid. Staff are rightly upset,” said one staff member who wished to remain unnamed.

System Group currently has 132 full time employees. Of those, 105 have been made redundant immediately, with 27 retained in the short term to support the administrators.

PwC’s Eddie Williams said: “We know that this will be an incredibly difficult time for staff and the learners. Our team will be doing everything possible to support the employees affected. In parallel, we will be rapidly engaging with retained employees and hope to provide them with an update around their position over the coming days.

“Fundamental to this will be the ongoing support of key government customers alongside local councils as a basis for allowing the company to continue to provide ongoing services and support to learners.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are working with the appointed administrators to minimise the impact on employers and learners.

“Our priority remains finding high quality alternative training providers for apprentices and anyone enrolled on Skills Bootcamps so they can complete their training.”

FE Commissioner warns of college solvency risk and the danger of reclassification

Shelagh Legrave completed her first year as FE Commissioner last month. But, while she is keen to focus on positivity in the sector, she tells Billy Camden how budget pressures could force a handful of colleges into insolvency, why she is firmly against reclassification, and reveals her most “worrying” concern…

Reducing the number of colleges in intervention was one of Shelagh Legrave’s key priorities as FE Commissioner when she came onboard – and it appears she has achieved that goal in the short term.

Just three formal intervention reports were published over the past 12 months, with Legrave revealing that nine colleges have exited the process in that time, while 15 remain in intervention.

She puts the low numbers of colleges receiving formal FE Commissioner intervention down to good Ofsted performances since the pandemic, but also says colleges are learning how to make “every efficiency they possibly can to live within the means of their income”. Leaders are also “being good with their resources” and apprentice numbers in colleges are “going up”, she claims, which adds to the income.

But, looking forward, the picture is “less rosy”. This is largely because of rocketing energy bills – with increases of up to 500 per cent for some colleges, huge inflation, and also the pressure from unions on leaders to give staff adequate pay rises in the face of the cost-of-living crisis.

Going under still a risk

So, could we see more colleges going into administration? “There are a small number of colleges where it will threaten their solvency,” Legrave admits.

“There are some that will struggle to maintain sufficient cash. The government has always been clear that it will support colleges where it possibly can, to help deliver to its students and meet the local needs. But I’m worried about the state of colleges finances.”

The commissioner, who won’t name those most at risk of going bust, says the “bigger” problem for her is that some colleges are having to stop delivery of priority courses because they can’t find the staff to deliver them, particularly in engineering, construction and digital.

“There is a real concern that skills needs will not be met just because they can’t find the staff.”

Public versus private

Another live issue concerning colleges is their future as private or public sector organisations. The Office for National Statistics is currently reviewing the classification of colleges and is expected to announce its decision on November 29.

Legrave wants colleges to retain their current private sector status.

“I’m not in favour of reclassification,” she says, “but I totally accept it’s not my decision or indeed anyone in the government’s decision.

“I think staying the same brings less bureaucracy and less complications in the current state, and more able to operate on a level playing fields of universities and private training providers. But I’m equally pragmatic about this. If we are reclassified, we make the very best.”

FE Week understands that colleges will be able to continue to operate subsidiaries and retain their reserves if they are reclassified to the public sector – which should alleviate some concern among leaders.

Legrave doesn’t anticipate the role of the FE Commissioner to change if colleges are reclassified. “I will still continue as an independent adviser with a team of practitioners supporting colleges and it won’t affect intervention position.”

‘Active support’ visits

Despite only three intervention reports having been published over the past year, Legrave says she feels her team has been as visible as ever to the sector through their “active support” visits.

Under this scheme, any college can request help and support from the FE Commissioner through a diagnostic assessment – a process that was previously only open to colleges where a new principal had been appointed.

The concept of Active Support includes a new “curriculum efficiency and financial sustainability” (CEFS) programme, which builds on the cost-cutting school resource management adviser programme.

Legrave, who has conducted over 50 active support visits herself this year, explains: “The whole tenor of my work this year has been ensuring that we do our very best to support every college not just those colleges in intervention.

“And we’ve also worked hard on CEFS, rolling out now to over 20 colleges. This is just helping them to ensure they’re getting the most effective way of delivering their curriculum and other commercial courses.

“There’s a whole range of different active support that’s been provided, from me speaking to governing bodies to position policy and make certain that the governing bodies are aware of the support we can provide to myself, to advisers or deputies going into support colleges who needed a bit of help around strategic positioning.

“It is wide-ranging. A significant majority will have benefited from something. And I’m still passionate that the more we can share, the better we will be as a sector.”

Subcontracting concerns

However, the area in colleges that Legrave worries about the most is subcontracting.

FE Week has reported on several scandals in recent years, such as one ongoing case involving Brooklands College where seemingly poor subcontracting oversight led to the government demanding £20 million be repaid.

“There tends to be legacy contracts that haven’t been overseen sufficiently in order to make certain that the subcontractors are delivering,” Legrave says.

“It’s only in a few cases, but it’s still causing a problem. And I think that’s frustrating given that the message to the sector from some time ago was reduce your subcontracting.”

The “danger”, in Legrave’s view, is that subcontracting is seen as a way of “bolstering income” through management fees. Some colleges also use it to use up allocations that they are struggling to spend at the last minute – known as tactical subcontracting.

She adds that colleges are struggling to use up their adult education budget contracts partly because “some of the rules around eligibility of learners have continued to tighten and therefore seeing the opportunity to subcontract to somebody to deliver it for you is obviously advantageous to the college, but not always well controlled”.

Not fear, but support

Legrave’s predecessor Richard Atkins’ four-year tenure as FE Commissioner was seen as adversarial by many. His visits were sometimes followed by the departure of principals and chairs, with his no-nonsense approach dividing the sector’s opinion.

When FE Week spoke to Legrave last year as she took over the role, she said she wanted to change the perception of the position to one of “fear” to one of “support”.

Does she feel she has achieved this mission yet? “I think I am making progress but that is more anecdotal than hard evidence,” she says.

“I feel very welcomed when I go to see colleges. I’m not having colleges say to me well we don’t want to talk to you.

“For me, it’s all about positivity, selling the sector successes, and there are some colleges doing some really wonderful things.”

Autumn statement: silence on skills funding ‘criminal’

Further education was offered no extra funding in today’s autumn statement despite pleas for more resources to relieve hikes in costs and staffing challenges.

It was better news for other parts of the education sector, however, as chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the schools budget will receive a £2.3 billion boost in 2023-24, and then again in 2024-25. The extra £4.6 billion will restore per pupil funding to 2010 levels in real terms, the government said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said this announcement will mean that school funding is expected to exceed school costs.

But the only announcements for FE were a new government skills adviser, and an increase to the apprentice minimum wage.

Refusal to extend the schools funding boost to colleges triggered a scathing response from the chief executive of the Association of Colleges David Hughes.

He estimated that extending the funding increase awarded to schools to the college sector would cost “only” £240 million. It was “criminal to overlook colleges once again, deeply disappointing and wrong” and a “levelling up failure”, he tweeted.

Forecasts by the IFS had predicted that total spending on adult education was already set to be 25 per cent lower in 2024-25 that in 2010-11.

The institute also calculated that per-student funding in colleges was already 15 per cent lower in real terms in 2021-22 than in 2020-11. 

IFS director Paul Johnson said: “Despite making much of the education secretary’s background in vocational education, the chancellor has done nothing in this statement to reverse the long-standing squeeze on resources for further and adult education.” 

Extra funding awarded at the 2021 spending review has been protected in cash terms for the remaining two years of the spending review period. 

This included an increase to the national base rate for 16 to 17-year-olds, which kicked in this August. However, that was in return for delivering 40 additional teaching hours for students, and comes as inflation, energy and staffing costs take their toll on budgets. 

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, described the chancellor’s speech as “little more than warm words” in the face of no extra cash.

“It’s positive to hear department spend will be honoured until 2024-25 – the situation could have been much worse,” she said.

“However, we cannot escape the fact that there has been systematic under-investment in the system for a number of years now.”

Hughes meanwhile has attacked the education secretary for her “hollow” words at this week’ AoC annual conference.

“The education secretary Gillian Keegan joined me on stage and assured college leaders that they are a priority for this government and that she understands skills,” he said.

“Those words will ring hollow today for college leaders trying to absorb soaring energy prices and wider inflationary pressures while also funding the cash to pay college staff what they need to live and what they deserve.”

The word “college” was not mentioned once in Hunt’s speech or the autumn statement documents.

Another adviser to advise on skills 

Sir Michael Barber
Barber

Public administration supremo Sir Michael Barber was announced as the latest wonk to advise the government on skills policy.

Barber, a former chief education adviser to awarding giant Pearson, has been appointed to advise Hunt and the education secretary Gillian Keegan on “maximising the impact” of the government’s flagship skills reforms.

He was the head of the first delivery unit at Number 10 Downing Street under Tony Blair, and is currently the chancellor of the University of Exeter. He’s written several books on policy implementation.

The chancellor told the House of Commons that “there are many important initiatives” in the skills space but “as chancellor I want to know the answer to one simple question: will every young person leave the education system with the skills they would get in Japan, Germany or Switzerland.”

Treasury documents provide little extra explanation on Barber’s role and remit, only that he will be asked to advise on “maximising the impact” of existing reforms, including the rollout of T Levels, expanding higher technical qualifications, growing skills bootcamps and the introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement. 

While it’s not clear how much, if any, of Barber’s work will be done in public, it will give ministers some flexibility to deflect or delay decisions on challenging or controversial issues. 

Professor Alison Wolf told FE Week she will retain her role as a Number 10 adviser on skills policy, a position she has held since February 2020. Barber’s role will be in addition to Wolf’s.

More skills powers for some mayors

Over half of England will soon be covered by a devolution deal, according to the chancellor today. 

A deal for a new elected mayor of Suffolk was announced and further deals for Cornwall, Norfolk and “an area in the north east” were re-confirmed. Those deals were supposed to be wrapped up this Autumn.

The chancellor also recommitted to the trailblazer devolution deals for the Greater Manchester and the West Midlands combined authorities. Those deals will be signed by early 2023 and promise even more devolved powers over skills, transport and housing. 

Earlier this year FE Week revealed that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was seeking a co-commissioning role with DfE for 16 to 19 courses and the West Midlands wanted “greater influence” to join up local technical education, employment support and careers service. 

None of those details, nor any specific powers for the other county deals, were confirmed today. 

Adult education and apprenticeships

The only commitment around adult education was restating plans to introduce the lifelong loan entitlement from 2025 and there were no new measures reforms to the apprenticeship levy. This is despite a claim made in March, when then-chancellor Rishi Sunak, said the levy would be reviewed to check it is funding “the right kind of training.” The outcome was supposed to be announced this Autumn, according to Sunak’s spring statement.

The apprentice minimum wage will increase by 9.7 per cent to £5.28 an hour from April 2023. The national living wage will increase to £10.42 an hour at the same time.

We don’t know about energy support 

Colleges, training providers and other non-domestic energy users, including businesses, are currently able to receive help through the government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme.

The scheme reduces rates to £211 per megawatt hour for electricity and £75 for gas between 31 October this year and 31 March 2023. 

But the government is reviewing what support they can offer beyond this date, saying it is “not sustainable” to continue supporting large numbers of businesses.

Public sector organisations will “not be eligible for support through the review”, meaning it is currently unclear what support they will receive from April next year. 

Any extra support would most likely have been announced today, so this does look ominous. 

If there is no support forthcoming, then this would leave colleges and training providers facing a big hit in extra costs.

One college, South Essex, confirmed it would apply a four-day week across its campuses earlier this year.

Autumn statement: Apprentice minimum wage to rise to £5.28 an hour

The apprentice national minimum wage will rise by 9.7 per cent to £5.28 from April 2023, the Treasury has announced as part of the autumn statement.

Treasury documents have confirmed that the rate, recommended by the Low Pay Commission, should be accepted, and will mean a 47p increase on the current £4.81 apprentice minimum wage rate.

It comes as chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the national living wage for those aged 23 and above will increase by 9.7 per cent to £10.42 per hour, expected to help more than two million low paid workers, with an increase of £1,600 to the annual earnings of a full time worker on the national living wage.

Elsewhere, the national minimum wage for 21- to- 22-year-olds will go up by 10.9 per cent to £10.18 per hour, while 18- to- 20-year-olds will get a 9.7 per cent increase in the minimum wage to £7.49 per hour.

Those aged 16 and 17 will also get a 9.7 per cent uplift in their national minimum wage to £5.28 per hour.

All rises will take effect from April 2023, the Treasury confirmed.

The Treasury said it remained “committed” to tackling low pay, and continued its ambition for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median earnings by 2024.

Ex-minister Robin Walker elected as education committee chair 

Robin Walker has been elected as the chair of the parliamentary education select committee.

The former schools minister, who resigned in July over Boris Johnson’s leadership, received 228 votes in a ballot on Wednesday. 

It comes after Robert Halfon, who had served in the role since 2017, returned to the Department of Education (DfE) last month as skills minister. 

Fellow former schools minister Jonathan Gullis, former committee member and ex-chair of the Local Government Association children and young people board David Simmonds and current committee member Caroline Ansell were also nominated. 

Walker said he was “honoured to receive the support of some of the people I respect most in parliament from opposition and government alike”. 

“Nothing can be more important than education, which unlocks opportunity. The work of the education select committee is more relevant and important than ever.

“I am looking forward to working with the committee on issues such as childcare and the cost of living, to keep up the great work which former chair Robert Halfon started on attendance, safeguarding, skills, careers and SEN and to hold ministers to account.”

Nominations for the position ran from October 31 and ended at noon on Tuesday. Only Conservative MPs were able to stand for election.

Each MP needed to gather at least 15 signatures from fellow Conservatives to be nominated.

Walker had been backed by MPs including David Davis. In his candidate statement, he said: “I am informed enough to hit the ground running, but independent enough to hold ministers to account.” 

He added that alongside continuing Halfon’s “excellent” work on skills, SEN, attendance and levelling up, he wanted the committee to do more on “safeguarding, and the cost pressures facing schools and families”. 

The results of the ballot were announced in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon. 

Gullis left his DfE role after just 50 days in October following the announcement that former long-serving schools minister Nick Gibb had returned.

Socio-emotional skills are a priority to build a fairer society

Social and emotional skill development at our college is the fundamental building block that underpins learning and relationships. We are not alone in this belief. The Education Endowment Foundation and a significant body of research have evidenced the long-term impact of socio-emotional skills across the life of young learners.

In Pearson’s School Report, the characteristics teachers felt learners needed to thrive in today’s society were resilience, kindness and self-esteem. These don’t happen by accident, but through an intentional and considered implementation of observable quality practice.

Take diversity. It’s important to “meet all people where they are” and promote diversity through considering, exploring and centring others’ experiences and emotions, whilst reflecting on our own responses.

The equity effect of this learning, where in high-quality provision those with the lowest levels of socio-emotional skills develop the most alongside supporting the learning of their peers, means there is much to gain for colleges, students and society.

Socio-emotional learning has always been, to some extent, at the mercy of fashion and politics. Shared language and practice across schools, FE and out-of-school provision has been weak, and as a result we have arguably failed to recognise that young people “transfer” learning into and across all the domains of their lives – a failure that needs to be addressed if we want young learners to build a fairer society.

Creating the right environment

At YMCA George Williams College, we have an evidence-informed approach to socio-emotional skill development that connects all these domains, including a theory-informed outcomes framework and a suite of measures to help organisations understand how well they are promoting this development. One of our key tools is the social and emotional learning programme quality assessment (PQA), developed by the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Programme Quality in the US.

The PQA helps to structure how we centre “quality” in socio-emotional skills development. In the same way that these skills develop across all areas of young people’s learning, the staff practices that support them should also be present. Creating environments that promote socio-emotional skills development is the most important step we can take as managers of educational spaces.

Establishing a safe space

At the foundation of all this is “safe space” – building environments of emotional and psychological safety for all students. This involves using positive and warm language to convey inclusion and mutual respect, showing genuine interest in young people’s wellbeing and proactively managing group work to create opportunities to talk and listen to others.

Supporting learners

“Supportive environments” build on “safe space”. They include educators naming and acknowledging young people’s emotions and supporting them to name them too. They also include discussion about how we handle our emotions, and what can create certain emotional responses.

Becoming interactive

“Interactive environments” focus on fostering teamwork and facilitating the development of shared goals. They include group process skills, promoting responsibility and leadership, and encouraging young people to mentor one another. They also include formal opportunities for young people to learn about and value difference.

Engaging proactively

And finally, “engaging environments” focuses on setting plans and goals, offering support for student interests and furthering learning. This could involve providing all students with opportunities to take responsibility, developing peer mentoring schemes or group leadership opportunities.

Each of these tips may seem small and potentially fleeting, but evidence shows they are not. The PQA guidance equips us with a checklist of simple and practical ways in which we can enhance our learning environments to also be socio-emotional environments. This ensures our classrooms are supporting all students to learn, grow and reflect on their relationships with themselves, their peers and the world around them.

The staffroom: How study skills can help learners to succeed

Vocational learners at level 3 can sometimes struggle with written work and the related study skills needed to achieve their qualification, such as referencing. While these skills should be embedded throughout their programme of study, they can fall by the wayside as this embedding is not usually required by the awarding body. Time and money are also limited in FE, so KPIs can take precedence over the ‘hidden’ curriculum that helps learners succeed.

However, if study skills are integrated into your scheme of work, they will support students at every stage of an assignment and have a beneficial effect on their achievement. You should have staff in your setting working as librarians and/or learning support practitioners who can help with ideas, resources, and delivery to embed study skills. These skills include decoding command verbs in assignment briefs, structuring written work, referencing, and proofreading.

Firstly, do your learners understand what you’re asking them to do? Try asking them to explain the difference between ‘analyse’ and ‘evaluate’ and you’ll probably have your answer. If your learners don’t have a good grasp of command verbs in assignment briefs, the danger is that they will write too much when it isn’t needed and vice versa. Spending time during induction to begin covering this kind of ground will prevent problems later.

Secondly, did you notice that I previewed the content of this article in the last sentence of my introduction when I talked about ‘decoding command verbs in assignment briefs, structuring written work, referencing, and proofreading’? What about the fact that I’m trying to be persuasive, so I’m using rhetorical questions, albeit liberally? Each of my paragraphs also encapsulates the topic of that paragraph in the first or last sentence. I’m also using discourse markers like ‘firstly’ and ‘secondly’ to highlight the flow of ideas in this piece.

If study skills are integrated, they will support students at every stage

Structure-related skills will make writing easier, so do support your learners with outlining, paragraphing, purposes of texts, literary devices, and so on.

Thirdly, I’ve lost count of the number of times when I’ve seen a student in tears because they haven’t been referencing as they go or they can’t get their heads around the required referencing standard. Luckily, there are a number of technological solutions available to simplify referencing. Evaluate these and use the right one to make your students’ lives easier.

Your setting may already have access to tools to help with referencing, but they simply haven’t been publicised widely. Talking about referencing is also a good opportunity to talk about researching with good quality sources and why plagiarism must be avoided. Referencing is also a valuable skill to teach which prepares your students for the transition into higher education.

Finally, proofreading can’t be left entirely to spell checkers when you’ve used the wrong word, but it’s spelled correctly. While your learners may get a kick out of inadvertently writing about the ‘Grate Exhibition’, external verifiers and Ofsted will take a dimmer view. Having a fresh pair of eyes is a great way to proofread too, so get your learners supporting their peers by checking each other’s work. Having a good understanding of spelling, punctuation, and grammar still matters despite technology and will allow students to thrive in so many ways.

In conclusion, level 3 vocational learners need support with study skills, but don’t always get the input they need. Resource constraints can make embedding them difficult, but the positive impact on learner attainment means it’s worth investing in.

Decoding command verbs helps learners to understand exactly what they need to do. A mastery of structure ensures learners understand exactly how to plan and execute their writing. A good knowledge of referencing will encourage your students to research more widely and avoid plagiarism. Focusing strongly on proofreading also enhances learners’ knowledge of spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Study skills, embedded in the right way, can help students see that written work doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

This article is one of a number of contributions to The Staffroom from the authors of Great FE Teaching: Sharing Good Practice, edited by Samantha Jones and available from SAGE.

T Levels need time to meet our expectations

With the roll-out of T levels well underway, I’ve been working with the Baker Dearing Educational Trust on reviewing how well they’ve been working across University Technical Colleges – 20 per cent of which now offer the courses.

What I’ve found, pleasingly, is that T levels are already popular among students. One UTC told me that more than six times as many of their young people had opted to study a T level in engineering than the BTEC.

What attracts students is the industry placement. They aren’t worried about the policy issues. They like that they are going to be getting a 45-day minimum placement with an employer.

While some of the BTEC programme can be quite generic, the T level’s occupational specialism also helps students focus on a particular area that they are passionate about.

The ‘Achilles Heel’ of employer engagement

I’ve seen some fantastic examples of how companies have engaged with the delivery of T levels and where teachers have been able to include them in course delivery.

What worries me though is those providers which do not have as strong a relationship with employers as UTCs do, so do not have networks of local employers to, for example, help advise on the curriculum.

Where providers have a weak relationship with local firms or have partners which make little input, employer engagement will be the Achilles’ heel of their T level provision.

Involving employers with T levels works when teachers invite them to do sessions with the students. Employers can also take students on trips and visits, even prior to the work placements.

What attracts students is the placement. They aren’t worried about policy issues

Companies can furthermore supply technicians to train staff on using specialist equipment to deliver T levels.

What also needs to be addressed is how, despite the government’s marketing efforts, there are many small-to-medium-sized enterprises out there who are not engaging with providers on T levels.

So at a local level, providers should directly engage with their local SMEs by, for instance, holding business breakfasts so SMEs can come to the table to talk about T levels.

Teachers still wary

The UTCs I have visited ensure those staff who don’t teach T levels but teach related skills like maths, English and science are being involved in delivering aspects of the T level.

In many cases, students are still required to have passed maths and English before they start the T level. This is despite the government axing this requirement last year and is because teachers have realised T level content, projects, and examinations require students to have a higher level of literacy and numeracy.

In some cases, students who have achieved a grade three are being steered towards BTECs – which teachers are reluctant to stop delivering.

BTECs offer much greater flexibility and I have seen UTC students using them if they want to also do an academic programme: A couple of A-levels and then one BTEC alongside.

Another pull factor of BTECs is that when UTCs are marketing to parents, they know if a student gets a merit or a distinction, they’re going to have an opportunity at university.

While T Level students going onto university will be a minority, universities are reluctant about them because they know the courses were meant as a route into skilled employment. I think there’s a fear that students would start a degree programme and not stay on it.

T levels need time

To draw out this reluctance towards T levels, there needs to be more data, especially on student destinations.

Once we get a lot more information around the T level destinations showing that students are getting onto higher and degree apprenticeships, then I think that will definitely ease some of these fears.

T levels, like any successful qualification, need a couple of years to bed in to develop the data and the positive outcomes to win over educators as well as employers.

Despite challenges, skills bootcamps can still be a success

Last Wednesday, Ofsted published its thematic review into wave two of skills bootcamps. This was a welcome opportunity to take stock of this relatively new programme and I’m pleased the review highlighted the positive experience that learners generally get from these bootcamps.

More widely though, the report made for tough reading at times – including raising concerns over the quality of training where providers had little track record of delivery. However, I’m confident providers are ready to take this challenge on board. Lessons will be learned.

Promising early signs

Skills bootcamps are a great way to help employers quickly fill skills gaps. Their shorter nature means they offer a way for learners to get an accelerated boost to their skills – and we’ve already seen them being used to good effect in tackling the HGV driver shortage. They also provide an important link to other forms of work-based training down the line.

It was positive to read that most learners are satisfied with the content and quality of their training, and that providers have responded effectively to the aims of the programme. However, we should be cautious about the report’s wider findings, given the sample group used by Ofsted only includes a very small percentage of providers. In fact, many providers with a strong track record of delivery were not included in the study.

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that the report has identified significant areas for improvement. This includes the need for better quality across provider types, better employer engagement, better oversight of subcontractors, and more measures to be put in place to identify learners’ prior experience.

Many providers with a strong track record were not included

We have seen similar challenges in other parts of the sector, and although they can be addressed, it’s frustrating to see them again. I know from speaking to providers – including Mark Dawe from the Skills Network – that the lessons learned in wave two are already being applied to wave three. The review itself was early on in the programme, so provides a great checklist for the future.

Dawe also pointed out that it takes time for employers to engage with new skills programmes and for them to work out how they would fit into their talent and workforce strategies. We only need to look to recent experiences with T Levels for evidence of that.

More scrutiny will help

Although Ofsted’s remarks shouldn’t detract from the many positive outcomes learners and employers have seen from skills bootcamps, we do need to put in place more safeguards and scrutiny.

Skills bootcamps sit outside mainstream established provision and are an outlier in terms of rules, compliance, reporting and quality when compared with other programmes. Giving Ofsted the power to inspect all bootcamp providers from April next year is a welcome move; we’ve long called for this, and at our recent autumn conference, 84 per cent of attendees agreed it was the way forward.

Having said that, though, the government must allocate Ofsted the right resources for this to work! Bringing skills bootcamps within its remit means these programmes will now be properly scrutinised and ensure they are reaching the high standards we all expect. The next step should be to add bootcamp subcontracting to the Department for Education’s existing rules and approaches, and ensuring the next round of procurement takes providers’ track record properly into account.

This report has been challenging. But we should welcome this sort of challenge. Lessons have been learned and we must now redouble our efforts to make the programme a success.