GCSE and A-level exam fee rises of up to 17 per cent “makes a mockery” of financial planning, claim school and college leaders.
Edexcel, run by Pearson, and OCR have increased fees for all 2023 exams by a flat six per cent. England’s largest exam board, AQA, has hiked prices by between five and 17 per cent, although it still has the lowest prices overall.
The boards, which will earn several million more from colleges after the rises, say they need to cover higher costs. But leaders say the increases are disappointing as schools and colleges battle soaring energy and staffing costs.
Chichester College Group, which has nine colleges and training providers, expects the hikes to cost an extra £300,000 this year on top of its “already eye-wateringly high” costs across the group which account for more than £3.3 million.
“The increase in exam costs is yet another pressure being put on colleges across the country,” said chief executive Andrew Green.
“This increase comes at a time when colleges are faced with soaring energy bills, soaring inflation and serious underfunding. Colleges have faced more than a decade of brutal cuts and increased costs, made worse by the pandemic.
“That money could have been used to assist our staff by contributing towards additional pay or funding the recruitment of more learning support assistants to provide support to our students.”
Luminate Education Group, which has seven members, including two universities and one training provider, expects the hikes to cost an extra £200,000 this year.
Less than inflation
Deputy chief executive for curriculum and quality Gemma Simmons-Blench told FE Week this increase will have a “knock-on effect, as our budgets are set far in advance”.
“At a time when the FE sector is facing growing financial pressure and with the government not making its position clear on funding provisions, the hike in prices means that we will have to look at our budgets further in order to ensure that [financial] targets are met,” she said.
“The awarding organisations have stated that the increase is less than inflation. While this may be the case, the increase far outweighs the funding increase, and we urge exam boards to reconsider their position on this.”
E-ACT, which has 13 secondary schools, expects the hikes to cost an extra £180,000. Tom Campbell, its interim chief executive, said another “unfunded cost increase” made it “increasingly difficult to do anything resembling thoughtful financial planning”.
“It risks causing confusion amongst accounting officers and trust boards, making it impossible to deliver the budgets agreed with the Education and Skills Funding Agency at the start of the year.
“In-year changes to costs like these make a mockery of the funding agreements and annual budget-setting cycle.”
A spokesperson from NCG confirmed with FE Week that even a 5% increase in fees would raise their costs by around £200,000 per year.
“This is at a time when colleges across the country, and the hard working staff within them, face enormous funding pressures. However, we have very positive relationships with all of our awarding organisations and we are keen to work closely with them to better understand and highlight the impact that any changes may have on colleges across our Group.”
Sciences keep rising
Frustration over fees grew last year after FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week revealed boards were raising prices, despite cancelled exams and teacher-set grades.
AQA has hiked prices for A-level art by 17 per cent – from £89.65 to £105.10. Other subjects have risen between five and 12 per cent. The non-for-profit organisation said increases for most of its qualifications were “well-below inflation”, currently at 9.9 per cent.
Rises above inflation were to “better reflect the market and true costs of delivering these qualifications”.
Fees for A-level biology, chemistry and physics have risen by 10 per cent, while GCSE geography and art are up 12 per cent. A maths GCSE now costs £41.20, up from £39.15.
AQA could gain an extra £4.9 million if entry rates remain the same as this summer. Tracey Newman, the board’s director of customer and sales, said: “As an independent charity, we don’t charge more than we need to for our qualifications and services, and we’ve kept entry fee increases well below the rate of inflation for most of our qualifications.”
Sufficient warning needed
Ofqual’s conditions say boards should publish fees “sufficiently far in advance” of exams to “satisfy the reasonable planning requirements” of schools and colleges.
All three boards published fees in the past three months – OCR and Edexcel in August and AQA last Friday – but schools and colleges set budgets months in advance.
A maths GCSE with Edexcel now costs £46.80, compared with £44 last year.
A spokesperson said it recognised school budgets were “stretched” and “we will always aim to keep fee increases to a minimum while providing as much value for money as possible”.
Likewise, OCR, a not-for-profit owned by Cambridge University Press & Assessment, is hiking fees six per cent. A maths GCSE now costs £47, up from £44.25.
An OCR spokesperson said it aimed to keep any fee increases “as low as possible”.
The fifth national Colleges Week comes in a time of turbulence in Westminster. Shane Chowen sits down with David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, to talk campaigning and what’s next for the movement.
Colleges have enjoyed a few years in the limelight now. The Colleges Week campaign has no doubt helped by giving colleges, and the AoC, a hook to draw in and win around MPs and influencers.
Colleges Week was born in anger, David Hughes told a reception in parliament this Tuesday. The anger and disappointment at being “so close” to finalising a special pay deal for college staff in 2018, which was canned at the last minute by a certain then-Treasury minister Liz Truss, catalysed a noisier campaigning strategy from the usually mild-mannered trade body.
“No more Mr Nice Guy” read the FE Weekheadlines at the time, reporting on Hughes’ switch to a more direct strategy.
So much so that just months after that fateful summer in 2018, a rare alliance between the AoC and the trade unions mobilised thousands for a march on parliament calling for investment in further education. Teachers and students marched side by side with their principals. It was quite the sight to behold.
Fast forward four years and the Colleges Week campaigning strategy is notably less rebellious, and the sector arguably more fractured.
This year’s event coincides with the fourth week of walkouts in dozens of colleges across the country over low pay in the face of the cost-of-living crisis. A far cry from the solidarity and collectivism shown in 2018 when Hughes spoke passionately alongside union leaders and opposition MPs like Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Rayner atop a double decker bus in parliament square, slating the government’s record on FE.
There are no major campaigning events this year, but colleges have been encouraged to “engage” with MPs and stakeholder locally, and post on social media using the #CollegesWeek hashtag.
Hughes addressing the 2022 Colleges Week parliamentary reception
I arrive at the AoC’s central London offices the day after the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, warned the House of Commons of “eye-wateringly difficult” decisions to come on public spending, keen to see which David Hughes I’ll be greeted by.
Will I get the pragmatic ‘Mr Nice Guy’ focussed on influencing through conciliatory relationship building with ministers and officials, or will I get the activist that once mobilised thousands to march behind the cause?
He starts reflectively.
“I’ve been at AoC for sixth years and I’m on my seventh secretary of state in that time. That’s quite phenomenal, isn’t it? The thing I keep clinging on to, and it is hard, is to not become hopeless. As a leader the job is not to be hopeless, you’ve got to try and find a way through.”
One reason to be hopeful is that, unlike in 2010, colleges have successfully positioned themselves as an economic priority. It was always “unlikely”, Hughes tells me, that colleges will ever have been a political priority in education against the scale and lobbying power of schools, early years and universities.
“But economically, we’ve repositioned colleges centrally in that skills role. You’ve got a skills directorate now at DfE with a director general absolutely on our case and working with us. We’re not on our own. We’re not isolated like we were in the austerity era of 2010-2011. And I think we’ve got more champions in Whitehall than we’ve ever had.”
Building those relationships has delivered results. The spending review last November delivered the first funding increase of any substance in years was “promising, not brilliant” for colleges, he says.
Even this July, Hughes says, then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi was due to meet with then chancellor Rishi Sunak to talk about how to finally exempt FE colleges from VAT and invest in college staff. “So, there was no need to do marches. We had the education secretary fighting for us.”
However, that meeting never took place. Sunak, and then Zahawi, both resigned that week triggering the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership.
Colleges emergency cash
The short-term situation looks miserable, Hughes admits. Inflation has all but cancelled out any of the funding increases and colleges again face massive financial challenges.
“I’m really worried about that. But I’m also realistic. We’ve got to defend what colleges have got already at the very least, because we’re not going to get any more money I don’t think. That just feels unrealistic now. And I’ve not thought that for years.”
Despite his despair, Hughes has presented his wish list in a recent letter to current education secretary, Kit Malthouse. He wants a workforce fund to increase staff pay, more bursary funding for students that are struggling, and capital funds aimed at improving the energy efficiency of college estates.
Another difference between now and the austerity of the 2010s is the already volatile and vulnerable state of college finances. Over the last decade colleges have merged, buildings and land have been sold, and three colleges have gone insolvent and closed their doors for good.
South Essex College announced last month it will close on Fridays to help save money in the face of a likely doubling of its energy bills.
Hughes doesn’t think there will be any more insolvencies, but admits the 2022-23 will see some colleges in “really difficult” circumstances, to the point where emergency cash may once again be needed for even more restructuring.
All of that sounds bleak, but all I’ve heard about so far in response is exchanges of letters with multiple secretaries of state and discussions with civil servants. I recall the drizzly October afternoon in 2018 atop that double decker bus and ask directly and suggest to Hughes that he’s softened up since then.
Colleges Week 2018
“I don’t think so,” he says, “I’m still saying the same things. There’s always a difficult line to tread in these roles. It’s kind of seductive to be able to stand on a platform and shout at the government but actually, I don’t know, it just doesn’t work. There’s a time and place.”
“So, I don’t think I’ve gone soft. I think we’ve been sailing with a tailwind.”
“We’re seriously considering another march on parliament in April or May next year because I think things are going to get worse this winter and there’s a point where you say ‘enough is enough’. For the first time in five or six years, we’ve got a prime minister and a chancellor that don’t get the skills agenda.”
Union relationship strained
Has one of the consequences of Hughes’ more pragmatic approach in recent years led to a breakdown of the coalition of supporters he built in 2018?
A few weeks ago I met with lecturers from a north west college that were on strike. They told me that the days of principals and teachers feeling like they were on the same side were long gone. I ask Hughes if he thinks he should have worked harder to keep the sector united.
He describes UCU’s recent strike action in colleges as intentionally “very aggressive and confrontational”.
“There isn’t a college in the country that is paying [staff] less than it can. And there isn’t a college leader in the country who thinks that they’re paying enough. But they’ve got a tough job to balance the books. If your energy costs go up two or three times in an organisation with virtually no margin, that’s bloody hard.”
Campaigning side by side again with UCU looks implausible at this point.
When I ask Hughes what his relationship is like with the UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, it’s the first time in our interview where there’s a palpable pause before answering.
“It’s quite distant,” he says carefully. The approach of the UCU’s FE committee “is very clearly to get their members out on strike as much as possible because that way they’ll win the most for their members. I don’t blame them. Inflation is shattering people’s household finances. But it’s very difficult for any employer to be giving 10 per cent pay rises.”
Grady has been visiting picket lines at colleges over the last few weeks and it’s been principals in the firing line via her megaphone. Addressing striking lecturers at City College Plymouth earlier this month, Grady described the former principal of Nottingham College as an “atrocious man” for, in her words, attempting “fire and rehire” tactics, and called on her members to “make Jackie’s [the City College Plymouth principal] life a living hell.”
“I don’t think attacking an individual in that way is acceptable,” Hughes said.
The ‘unfortunate’ comments
Grady’s comments in Plymouth were especially “unfortunate”. In December 2018, the sector was shaken with the news that the former principal at City College Plymouth, Garry Phillips, had taken his life weeks after resigning from his role at the college.
His resignation came shortly after a union vote of no confidence and the college corporation said in a statement at the time that “external pressures on the corporation and on Garry have become a material distraction to the college’s core purpose”.
“I think given the recent history at Plymouth, with Garry, it was a really unfortunate thing to say. I would ask Jo to reflect on that kind of language.” Should she apologise, I ask. “She should”, Hughes replies, “but I don’t think she will”.
FE Week contacted UCU for a response to Hughes’ call for an apology. A spokesperson said: “Taking picket line speeches out of context and suggesting that a general secretary encouraging members to put their employer under pressure is equivalent to inciting a workplace suicide is not only insensitive but a vulgar weaponisation of mental health.
“Rather than trying to distract from the dispute, the Association of Colleges and college principals should raise pay and protect their staff from the deepening cost of living crisis.”
Colleges’ future could be public sector, but should be tertiary
Alongside budget pressures, college leaders are also preparing in the background for the possibility of being reclassified as public sector organisations.
The Office for National Statistics launched its reclassification review in May and is due to conclude at the end of this month, potentially ending a decade of colleges being classified as private sector organisations.
Hughes is careful not to land on a firm for-or-against position on reclassification. “There are pros and cons to both, right”, he explains “and we literally can’t influence the the ONS’ judgement. We’ve met with them several times to inform the process. That’s all we can do on that front. I’m being neutral because there’s no other position to take.”
A “good deal” from reclassification to the public sector could help ease some of the current cost pressures on colleges without costing the DfE any money. A guarantee on local government pensions for colleges, as it does for academies according to Hughes, for example could reduce costs significantly. Other upsides could include hefty VAT rebates and a fairer payment mechanism through the ESFA. All of which are being looked at, Hughes says.
A bad deal though could include even more control over colleges’ accounts, their ability to borrow, who can be on a board to sign them off and what happens to reserves.
If that happens, Hughes says he will lobby ministers to reverse the legislative changes that triggered the ONS review, to then in turn trigger another review to reclassify back to the private sector. “There are some companies telling colleges to hide their reserves in some kind of charitable trust in case DfE decides to take them away. Which they could. But I don’t think they will.”
“We’re being completely opportunistic,” Hughes says. “It’s within the gift of DfE to do all those good things for colleges whether they are private or public.”
Hughes’ plans for a possible future labour government offer some insight into his thinking on how the skills system should be work on the ground.The AoC, along with their counterpart for the training provider sector, AELP, and City and Guilds launched the ‘future skills coalition’ this week; an attempt to present the next government with a united policy position.
“I don’t think we’ve done ourselves any favours in the last year or two by having too many voices saying slightly different things,” Hughes says.
Part of that united position should be a more united tertiary system with colleges, training and providers and universities working much more closely, essentially eliminating competition on the ground between providers.
Hughes admits that the new coalition will involve some tough discussions, but seems convinced that there don’t have to be any losers.
“We’ve agreed with AELP and City and Guilds that there’s a big win for everybody if we get this right, which means the government stepping forward with better investment for the whole sector, and then everyone getting a share of that. And let’s not worry about whether it goes to a college, or an ITP, or an adult ed provider.
“I think mature organisations in both the college and the ITP sector will think this is a good idea. There will be some worries, I get that, but our job is to try and show that it can work.”
The government should reframe the language and branding of the lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) as researchers found the term “lifelong loan” to be unappealing to potential learners.
Think tank Phoenix Insights has published research exploring the challenges people face to retrain throughout their life, and found that the key reason is because adults do not want to take on more debt.
It warns that because of this, the government’s proposed lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) will require “focused tweaks” to entice midlife and older workers to take out the loans to retrain.
The LLE, due to be rolled out in 2025, will provide individuals with the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime. Funding will be available to study at levels 4 to 6, for both modular and full-time study at either colleges or universities.
Decline in adult learning
A decade long decline in adult learning is the driving force behind the scheme.
Phoenix Insights’ research, carried out by Public First, found that lack of knowledge around how loans work and the benefits of retraining are major barriers to overcome.
The think tank said the Department for Education should explore “creative ways” to highlight financial incentives for people in midlife to engage with lifelong learning, including alternative or additional means of financing the LLE.
While the report authors said they do not expect government to offer a grant for 100 per cent of costs, they believe that ministers could introduce “part subsidies or provider or employer bursaries/scholarships, particularly in skill shortage areas”.
“There is precedent for this approach in sectors such as the NHS and teaching (e.g. the NHS bursary and funded teacher training places),” the report said.
Phoenix Insights also called on the government to review the language used when discussing learning opportunities for adults of different ages.
Associations with low pay
It found that words such as “apprenticeship” and “internship” have “strong associations with low pay and ‘starting at the bottom’ – so rephrasing opportunities to lean on preferences for framing such as ‘upskilling’, ‘retraining’ and ‘on-the-job training’ will help give midlife and older people more confidence to engage”.
A renaming and branding of the LLE scheme to put it in a “more positive framing” has also been suggested, after the phrase “lifelong loan” was “widely viewed as negative and unappealing”.
The report added that having the scheme “too closely associated with government was also seen as a negative”, so the policy will “need to be delivered in an impartial and independent way that prioritises choice for the learner”.
Phoenix Insights also said that accurate information about the quality and outcomes of courses available to adult learners to support them in their careers – including potential new career routes or the number of vacancies available linked to the qualification studied – will be vital.
Risk or gamble
“Midlife and older people consider retraining to be a ‘risk’ or ‘a gamble’ and need to know what they can expect if they successfully complete a course – the presence of a ‘safety net’ as well as whether the course would be ‘worth it’ both financially and otherwise (e.g., a guaranteed job role or commitment to progression within their current role),” the report said.
Reza Schwitzer, associate director at Public First, said: “Our research shows that while people like the idea of lifelong learning, they don’t like the idea of a lifelong loan. Fear of taking on additional debt will be a huge barrier to mid- and late-career workers embracing the LLE, which is why we think there should be clearer assurances of job and career progression for everyone who retrains via the scheme.
“With some focused tweaks, the LLE can become a vital tool in helping over 40s make the shift they need o earn more, work longer, and contribute to a productive, growth economy.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “From 2025 our LLE will provide individuals with a loan equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use flexibly over their lifetime. We consulted on the LLE earlier this year and continue ongoing engagement with the sector. We will publish our response in due course.”
Two companies that were among the first flexi-job apprenticeship agencies have pulled out of the flagship programme just months after its launch.
And another key player has warned its future as a flexi-job apprenticeship agency could come to an end next year unless the government stumps up more grant funding, after finding the scheme is too expensive to deliver.
The Department for Education launched its first flexi-job apprenticeship register in February, after the scheme was announced by then chancellor Rishi Sunak in his Budget in March 2021 to help industries where project-based employment is the norm.
The agencies employ apprentices and place them with multiple employers, moving them around different projects throughout their apprenticeship. They target industries where shorter-term or freelance working patterns are prevalent and therefore struggle to comply with the 12-month minimum apprenticeship rule, such as creative, digital, agriculture and construction.
Fifteen organisations joined the register at its launch in February, but in an update released by the DfE this month, two of those – Nottingham College Services Ltd and HR Provider Ltd – no longer appear. A new company, Future Nation, joined the list in March.
Nottingham College Services, a subsidiary of Nottingham College, told FE Week it withdrew from the scheme due to low demand. The company was unable to comment further on its recruitment struggles at the time of going to press.
HR Provider Ltd was also unavailable to comment on its withdrawal from the flexi-job apprenticeship agency register.
The Department for Education refused to comment on the reasons why the companies were no longer on the list.
Both Nottingham College Services Ltd and HR Provider Ltd were among five of the original 15 agencies not to have received any grant funding to help with running the programme. The DfE committed £5 million in grant funding to 10 of the original agencies in 2021/22 and 2022/23, with a target of 1,500 apprentices recruited in the initial rollout of the flexi-job model.
ScreenSkills, which had taken part in an informal pilot of the flexi-job apprenticeship model in partnership with Warner Media, Netflix and the Department for Culture Media and Sport over the last 18 months, has received a chunk of grant funding to become a flexi-job agency, but told FE Week that uncertainty of funding going forward put its involvement in future under threat.
DfE flexi-job support to end
Sara Whybrew, apprenticeship and policy consultant at ScreenSkills, said: “At the moment the pilot gets some support from DfE but that will come to an end, and the expectation is that industry will pay for that support.
“That isn’t realistic because, particularly in the case of screen production, those industry players are paying the wage and associated oncosts for the apprentice, and they are paying the levy to cover the cost of the training. To ask them to pay for our additional support service, even though they value it, just isn’t realistic.”
Recognising that pumping grant funding in future years isn’t feasible, ScreenSkills instead wants to see a percentage of levy funds ringfenced to provide support services – including flexi-job services.
While it is unclear how many apprentices have been signed up to the agencies to date and despite two agencies dropping off the register, there are promising signs elsewhere with other agencies reporting a positive experience.
The DfE has confirmed there were 30 applicants in the last window to join the register, which are now being assessed, adding that it hoped to test the approach with new sectors and employers.
Whybrew said that “the actual service itself has the potential to make apprenticeships more accessible,” and reported “a high level of retention for apprentices”.
Matthew Lord, co-founder and director of Inspire ATA, which operates in the education space, said the model was “apprenticeships’ best-kept secret”.
He said it allowed schools to take on support staff as apprentices to match school terms, such as running January to July and place the apprentice in another school from September.
“The main barrier is simply that most employers don’t know that this is an option until we can meet with them to explain things. Once the understand the benefits it becomes an attractive option,” Lord said.
Evolve Apprentices Ltd, Calico Enterprise and Training and Apprenticeships in Construction Ltd all reported positives to the scheme for short-term projects.
Julie Deeley, director of operations at EN:Able Futures community interest company added: “It’s not an easy model to promote sometimes, but we all feel there is a lot of positive in the model, and it creates opportunities that would have gone by the wayside had we not been here.”
The St Martin’s Group, a membership body for the country’s largest apprenticeship providers, commissioned the Learning and Work Institute to investigate the reasons behind the issue that has troubled ministers in recent years.
Government data shows that only 53 per cent of apprentices on the new-style standards stayed on their programme until their end-point assessment in 2020/21 – meaning that 47 per cent dropped out.
The dropout rate for frameworks was 17 percentage points lower than standards in 2020/21.
St Martin’s Group’s research, shared exclusively with FE Week, is also the first of its kind to compare the outcomes and destinations of apprentices for those who complete and those who do not, according to the report’s authors.
Here is what we learned…
Lack of employer support most cited reason
L&W surveyed almost 2,500 apprentices, 900 of which had withdrawn from their apprenticeship early. A lack of support from apprentice employers (37 per cent) was the most common reason for non-completions.
This mainly related to employers not giving apprentices time off to study or complete their off-the-job training, according to the report. This meant that apprentices “often worked on their studies and assignments at home, leading to a poor work/life balance”.
Other common reasons for apprentices dropping out was poor course organisation/change to logistics (32 per cent); high workload (29 per cent); a lack of support from their tutor (26 per cent); and poor-quality teaching (24 per cent).
Thirteen per cent of respondents cited a lack of support from both their tutor and employer as a reason for withdrawal.
The researchers found that participants often felt that the employer and training provider “lacked an understanding of the other’s input into the apprenticeship, and like they were the ‘middleman’ in communications between the two”.
Low pay, cited by 12 per cent of non-completers, was 10th most common reason for leaving the apprenticeship early.
‘Drop outs still have positive outcomes’
Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that apprentices who did not complete their apprenticeship were statistically less likely to secure either a permanent job (eight per cent, compared to 29 per cent who completed) or a promotion (seven per cent, compared to 18 per cent who completed) with the same employer.
Apprentices who completed their apprenticeship are also significantly more likely to be in employment when compared to those who did not (94 per cent compared to 88 per cent), and to have received a pay rise (64 per cent and 60 per cent).
Those who completed their apprenticeship are also significantly more likely to be in experienced non-managerial roles when compared to those who did not (46 per cent compared to 40 per cent).
However, the St Martin’s Group said that while the research demonstrates the benefits of apprenticeship completion, it also “illustrates that many apprentices who do not complete still secure positive outcomes”.
A spokesperson added: “This is not captured in the current achievement data used to communicate the programme’s success, risking damage to the brand and public trust in apprenticeships which, during a cost-of-living crisis, is a critical sector for the UK economy.”
How do we improve the drop out rate?
The St Martin’s Group and L&W said the Department for Education should consider how to “realign accountability and responsibility to ensure employers are sufficiently incentivised to support completion”.
“This may require additional support and best practice guidance for smaller employers to help them to manage the demands of hiring, training and supervising apprentices, as well as additional support for apprentices working in smaller organisations – including incentive hiring payments, wage subsidies, and access to support networks,” the report stated.
The research also said there needs to be greater emphasis on pastoral care and wrap around support from training providers; clear and accurate information from employers and providers made available well before apprenticeships commenced; and expanding DfE data collection to capture more detailed information about pathways and reasons for withdrawal.
A training provider that teaches hundreds of young people who have had a poor experience of school education has gone bust, due to rapidly declining income and plummeting student numbers.
Achieve Training, based in Stoke-on-Trent and formerly known as PM Training, announced this week that it will close its doors on October 31 after more than 40 years.
Around 80 employees now face losing their job and students will need to be transferred to alternative providers to complete their training.
Sinéad Butters, group chief executive of Achieve Training’s parent company Aspire Housing, said: “We understand this is a difficult and sensitive time and we are doing all we can to minimise the impact of the closure.”
The closure comes after years of falling student numbers, blamed by Achieve Training on the government’s apprenticeship and funding reforms, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.
Its last full inspection from Ofsted, which resulted in a ‘good’ judgement, took place in 2018 when the provider had almost 2,000 students. A monitoring visit was conducted by the inspectorate during the pandemic in 2020, at which points learner numbers dropped to below 1,000.
Achieve Training’s latest published accounts for 2021 show it had around 500 young people on pre-employment programmes and just 124 apprenticeship starts in the year compared to 431 in 2019-20. The accounts show a loss of £551,729 in 2020-21 and the company’s overall turnover fell by 6.5 per cent to £7.79 million.
Achieve Training’s financial statements explain that skills funding is “now more complex, more competitive to obtain, less consistent, short-term, traditional funding sources are ending, bidding is now commonplace, employers have a bigger say, and it is increasingly focused on higher level skills and standards, which means Achieve Training’s traditional and reliable income stream is reducing”.
The independent training sector has also “seen significant regulatory changes, couple with stronger intervention and audit” which has resulted in Achieve Training being subject to financial clawback in previous years from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, according to the accounts.
Stoke-on-Trent has areas of high deprivation where the percentage of working-age people with no qualifications is substantially higher than the national rate. The unemployment rate is also higher than the national average.
A large proportion of learners who studied at Achieve Training have a “poor experience of school education and low levels of attainment, as well as multiple barriers to learning”, according to Ofsted.
Butter said: “It is with regret that I announce that Achieve Training will close on October 31, 2022, following a sustained period of financial strain.
“We understand that this is disappointing and upsetting news for many. Achieve Training has supported thousands of young people into work over the last 40 years.
“We are working with the colleagues affected to mitigate redundancy where possible and working with learners, apprentices and their employers to seek suitable alternative training providers to minimise the disruption to their learning.”
She added: “We would like to thank our colleagues for their continued and valued commitment in supporting learners and apprentices.”
The Public Accounts Committee questioned the Department for Education’s top civil servants on their plans for skills reform this week.
Giving evidence to the MPs was DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood (pictured centre), and the department’s director general of skills Paul Kett (pictured left).
Here’s what we learned…
Officials ‘pretty confident’ employer-led system is right direction of travel
The government has embarked on an “employer-led” approach to its skills reform agenda after finding this method worked successfully in other countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands.
But in July 2022 the National Audit Office reported that there is a “risk that, despite government’s greater activity and good intent, its approach may be no more successful than previous attempts to provide the country with the skills it needs”.
Acland-Hood told MPs the DfE was “pretty confident that that having an employer-led system is the right direction of travel”. She said this view was based on “quite a lot of international evidence” and a “whole string of incredibly thorough and thoughtful reports about our systems” from the likes of Lord Sainsbury, Baroness Alison Wolf, Dame Mary Ney, and Sir Philip Augar, who all made the same conclusion.
‘Nowhere in the world does retraining well’
Kett told the committee the UK’s biggest issue is overcoming barriers to people retraining throughout their life – and it is a major problem all over the globe.
“When we looked around the world when it comes to retraining in particular, there is nowhere in the world that does this really well.
“And so one of the things we’re trying to do is make sure we’re keeping that conversation going because everyone is wrestling with this challenge and we need to kind of keep learning from one another.”
Kett explained that the skills bootcamp model that has been rolled out in recent years is one that several other nations are “very interested in”. He explained this is because there is a consistent theme that employer “skin in the game” is critical to the retraining challenge.
Skills shortages can be UK’s ‘friend’ to ensure reforms work
Successive governments have made various attempts at reforming the skills agenda in the UK, but it is widely accepted that none of them have worked.
Asked why this government’s attempt would be different, Acland-Hood said: “I do think some of the challenges in the current context are also our friends. We have a very tight labour market, which is really incentivising people to think hard about this at this moment. And I’m a great believer in making sure that if you are in difficult circumstances, you do everything you can to try and turn that into change and improvement for the future.”
Kett added that putting Local Skills Improvement Plans on a statutory footing under law ensures they have “teeth” as colleges and training providers must now have regard for offering provision that meets the needs of their local area.
Skills system is complex but ‘not because we’re all idiots’
Committee MP Kate Green said employers feel the skills system is “disjointed” and listed off a stat from the Local Government Association that identified 49 employment programmes in nine government departments and agencies.
Acland-hood admitted this complexity can deter employers from engaging in training and retraining and the government is working on ways to “rationalise skills programmes”.
“We’re increasingly trying to work with other government departments who are leads for particular sectors so that rather than designing additional programmes, what they do is work with us to articulate needs and then we design through the kind of main suite of programmes,” she said.
The permanent secretary added that it is “incumbent on us to keep trying to make the system simpler for people” but the challenge is that the government has “two countervailing forces of people want the system to be simple and intelligible, but they also want courses available that relatively precisely meet their need”.
“It’s not complicated just because we’re all idiots, it’s complicated because there is this kind of deep desire for really kind of precise and tailored training and we have to design system allows tailoring within a kind of intelligible framework.”
New Unit for Future Skills struggled to recruit
The DfE has created a “Unit for Future Skills” to replace its “Skills and Productivity Board” which was in place for only a year. The unit is an analytical and research division set up to improve the quality of available jobs and skills data.
But Kett revealed the department was “experiencing some of the challenges recruiting highly skilled analysts” and had to borrow staff from the Office for National Statistics to get the unit off the ground in April.
The team, which currently has 18 staff, has “struggled to recruit to its full complement but we will get there”, he explained. “It’s not now affecting the work that they’re doing. It’s a growing unit and we will continue to make sure we secure the right people in that team.”
Apprentice dropout exit interviews to start this month
Acland-Hood told the committee the government is exploring the “challenge” of apprenticeship dropouts, explaining that there was a “significant shift in completion rates when we moved from apprenticeship frameworks to apprenticeship standards”.
Government data shows that only 53 per cent of apprentices on the new-style standards stayed on their programme until their end-point assessment in 2020/21 – meaning that 47 per cent dropped out.
The drop-out rate for frameworks was 17 percentage points lower than standards in 2020/21.
Acland-Hood said standards are harder to complete and many apprentices simply leave their programme to go into a better job after gaining the skills they need but before getting to their end-point assessment, which goes some way to explaining the rise in dropouts. She admitted completions need to be higher.
Kett said the DfE will this month launch a new exit interview feature for apprentices who drop out to better understand their reasons for doing so. The feature was first announced by then skills minister Alex Burghart in June.
“We don’t collect that [individual reasons for dropouts] systematically at the moment and this new data collection that launches this month will collect that for us,” Kett said.
We’ve seen first-hand the lack of consistent support for LGBTQIA+ within the sector and its impact on staff and learners. For a long while now, we’ve been alert to a tokenistic sector-wide ‘pink washing’ that takes place annually during Pride Month. We’ve been asking ourselves, ‘But what about the other 11 months? How are we supporting pride 365 days a year?’
So, we’ve taken matters into our own hands.
To be fair, we’d been guilty of this kind of tokenism too; we’d printed our Pride logo and posted it up through June, then taken it down again in July. When we reviewed observations which had taken place, we could clearly see that other important areas of inclusion like race and disability were regularly embedded into the curriculum, yet sexual orientation and gender identity seemed only to be covered during June.
At a push, it might make another appearance in February for LGBTQIA+ Histories month in February. We allowed that to persist. We didn’t challenge it enough.
So when we started working on the Skills First level 2 certificate in LGBT inclusion in the workplace, we already knew there was a lot more to be done. But what we found through our informal conversations with practitioners was a pervasive lack of knowledge and ultimately confidence around LGBTQIA+ inclusion, even down to terminology.
So our first step had to be to raise greater awareness and to provide CPD for our members to build their confidence. It wasn’t that they were opposed to doing more; we just had to remove the barriers that were holding back their ability to make positive change for LGBTQIA+ staff and learners.
Then, serendipitously, ETF funding became available that allowed us to speed this up. With Skillsfirst and the Association of Colleges partnering and providing guidance through the steering group, we developed a project that would eventually be called Pride in FE.
Sector-wide LGBT inclusion is still in its infancy
We brought in the LGBTEd group to provide expertise and to develop a rigorous and accessible programme of CPD that stretched from basic terminology to a range of complex topics including intersectionality and accountability.
But just like organisations’ commitment to LGBTQIA+ inclusion has to go beyond a calendar month, the sector’s commitment needed to have a legacy beyond the funding of Pride in FE. That’s how the Pride in FE Charter – with 10 commitments for providers to sign up to including to staff CPD and to challenging poor attitudes and actions towards staff and learners – came about.
We knew before and feel even more strongly now that sector-wide LGBTQIA+ inclusion is still very much in its infancy. More work is needed to build on the initial success of the Pride in FE project, which is why Mark Child has formed the ‘People of Pride Collective’ which brings together people who want to work collaboratively to further develop inclusive curriculums and environments for learners and staff alike.
The collective’s membership welcomes everyone regardless of identity or gender, neurodiversity, colour, disability, or place in the sector. Parents and learners are particularly welcome, because they are their children’s strongest advocates and consistently highlight the need to better support young people.
The goal remains accessibility – for people of pride across the sector to work and study in welcoming environments where they see themselves reflected, but also for their allies to better understand how to make that a reality.
It’s with that aim that we feel it’s time to move away from the use of acronyms such as LGBTQIA+ and LGBTQQIP2SAA and towards an overarching name that, as Mark says, stops putting people into categories and is all encompassing. We propose a community title of ‘People of Pride’ instead.
Ultimately, we want to ensure that all identities are recognised and included at all times, and that significant others such as chosen family members, friends, and allies are also acknowledged for their positive support.
That’s about more than a name. It’s about commitment, listening and challenging ourselves. But we all know identities matter, and we need to be proud enough to display ours all year round.
Our new government, already on its second chancellor, is now looking to make urgent public sector efficiencies. Meanwhile, the opposition are preparing to present themselves as a government in waiting. For different reasons, both sides will be keen to look at levy reforms, so while the skills minister and her shadow are in listening mode, here are my top six asks:
A modular model
Recently, the employers we work with in adult health and social care have been asking about modular programmes, like the proven model for Open University.
It would be easy to do this for apprenticeship standards. Apprentices could then better fit their modules in around their (often complicated) work and personal lives, and attain individually assessed modules to build towards a complete apprenticeship over an extended period.
This would promote inclusion and social justice for those who would otherwise be unable to access a full programme and be really helpful for short-handed employers struggling to commit to the necessary off-job training for extended periods.
Responsive funding
At a recent HIT employer forum, we asked our employer partners whether they would find it helpful to have irregular, non-linear, draw down of the levy to respond to the needs for up-front training, seasonal capacity issues and demands, and learner availability. They all said ‘yes’.
In the case of front loading, this would help employers to get learners up to speed faster and allow an extended period over which those learners would be able to embed and practice their learning. Where we have piloted this, we have found that learner engagement improves as there is greater involvement in their programme from an earlier stage.
Top-up training
Currently, if a potential apprentice has already completed over 50 per cent of the apprenticeship knowledge, skills and behaviours, they cannot access the apprenticeship. This is frequently a bar to further development.
Let’s extend the levy to support top-up training to build existing skills into a full apprenticeship. This would resolve accessibility to apprenticeships for partially skilled people, and again promote inclusion and social mobility through a complete, fully assessed programme of learning with transferable skills.
Bitesize learning
Sitting on the CBI’s south east council, I know the organisation has strong support from its members for opening up of the apprenticeship levy to smaller pockets of learning. Working on the principle that apprenticeship standards were developed by employers for specific roles, we can argue that all the learning for each role is already contained within apprenticeships.
Further, the standards are broken down into what is effectively a matrix with skills, knowledge and behaviour as column headers and occupational duties as line topics. It follows that any element of any line or column can be delivered in bite-sized chunks.
Allowing these bite-sized elements to be delivered through the apprenticeship levy, whether eventually leading to a full apprenticeship or not, would meet the demands of the CBI and their members without needing new programmes, systems, providers or contracting. Everyone would gain from this approach, and in particular learners if this was combined with the other suggestions above.
T level transition
The DfE T levels team is beginning to recognise that some students will need extra workplace support to become fully competent after they complete their programme. In the case of the culinary T level, it is difficult to see how an 18-year-old could possibly go straight from school into a chef de partie role in the same way as someone who has studied for a workplace apprenticeship. There may be equivalence of knowledge, but their skills and behaviours will almost certainly need extra attention. Flexibility in the levy to support such learners to top up their T level to an apprenticeship would benefit businesses and individuals alike.
Functional skills
Last but certainly not least, it makes sense to allow the levy to support essential skills development in English, Maths and ICT. These are currently significantly underfunded for apprentices, and more support is needed.
