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How we’re rethinking teacher development for sustainability

In January 2023, I took on the role of head of teacher development and quality improvement at Suffolk New College. I’m determined to think differently about the teaching landscape to empower my colleagues to be innovative for our learners, and for me, one of the key factors driving us towards a new paradigm of education is the desperate need for more sustainable lives.

When the ETF announced the new teacher professional standards in 2022, an amendment caught my eye. PVA2 called on teachers to ‘promote and embed education for sustainable development (ESD) across learning and working practices’.

I was bemused. What does this even mean? Is this about using less paper? Recycling bins in classrooms? More digital lessons? And how could I teach this authentically to trainee teachers and my peers if I didn’t know? And with that I went on a journey.

I’m still on that journey, but at this juncture I have concluded that ESD isn’t just about green skills, climate change and the environment. It’s about developing, promoting, and eliciting the knowledge, skills, values and attributes we need for a different society altogether.

That sounds like a big ask, but the truth is that the solutions are mostly already here. We just need to tap into them, and that’s a question of engaging everyone in the effort. Our staff don’t need CPD on sustainability for their subject specialisms; they are already living and breathing their industries. They don’t need external ‘experts telling them what they already know. They need time to connect with each other to develop what they do.

To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably, starting with teacher education. So my team and I have been planning a whole day of CPD activity to model that.

We have a floor full of escape rooms for staff to crack, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and exploring themes such as poverty, health and education. Staff will be able to make artistic sustainability pledges to display to students. There’s a workshop dedicated to gamification tools to use as building blocks to engage individuals in solving problems and drive sustainable behaviours. And our last workshop has definite Mission: Impossible vibes, but the message it delivers will be most definitely not self-destruct.

To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably

This is about long-term change, and creating a culture of change. The solutions we develop now can’t become a new status quo. They will need to continuously evolve and refine, and the biggest challenge to that is that humans are creatures of habit.

Sadly, this includes some educators for whom inertia is comfortable and who meet change with resistance. The measure of our success will be whether our sustainability-led approach to teacher education and CPD can bring them along on the journey.

Sustainability demands that we experience the world in a different way, and that means teaching in a different way. In other words, teaching itself must become more sustainable, and what could make it more attractive and enjoyable than to systematically empower teachers’ critical thinking skills and their problem-solving prowess.

After all, how else can we expect them to elicit these same kinds of skills in our young learners? We have a responsibility to teach in such ways that our learners have the knowledge and skills necessary to live responsibly. Designing a curriculum for sustainability involves reviewing the content knowledge we impart, but that’s only part of it. We have to model what we teach to have any hope of truly affecting their perceptions and behaviours.

So I’m grateful to the teacher standards for putting me on this journey and I’m excited to be taking this next step on it to bring more of our staff along on the ride. I hope other colleges and institutions will join us in thinking differently about shaping the next generation of students and teachers to meet the challenge of climate change.

How we go about that will vary across regions and contexts, but the core aims will be the same: creating enabling environments and fostering a culture of change. And the way I see it, that starts with teacher development.

Why colleges are well placed to lead education towards greater neuro-inclusion

I recently underwent a neurodiversity assessment. Finally, at the age of 56, I have a formal diagnosis of neurodiversity and dyslexia. Finally, I fully understand the challenges I’ve always had. I no longer feel like I’m rubbish at certain things; instead, I employ strategies to counteract the challenges I face, and I know what support to ask for from friends, family and colleagues.

Those challenges are simple but disruptive. Because my short-term working memory is poor, I often forget to do things colleagues have asked me to do unless I write them down. My spelling is not what it should be. And I sometimes find myself stumbling through answers while desperately trying to remember what the question was. In short, my brain functions in an atypical way.

Yours might too. Across the nine domains they measure, Cognassist (who assessed me) estimate that less than 10 per cent of people sit in the ‘average’ cognitive profile range. This suggests that places of work and learning that aren’t assessing for neurodiversity are potentially letting many people down and missing out on many talents.

I loved school and I thrived in many ways – but none of them academic. I had detentions on a weekly basis for my spelling, and I left without an O level to my name. In reality, I was being punished for something I never stood a chance of excelling at. I just got used to people thinking I wouldn’t amount to much.

Of course, neurodiversity and its associated conditions such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, and dyspraxia weren’t really recognised back then. We’ve come a long way since. Some brilliant work is happening across education, but there’s still so much more we could do.

When I left school at 16, I went to college. It was transformative. Finally, I was given the chance to learn in a different way – a heavily practical way that really suited me. I started to thrive and people started to believe in me.

Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface

A pivotal moment came for me a few years later, when one of my tutors suggested I should teach. It was the first time that I’d felt I had something to offer an education setting. Another year later, I became the youngest lecturer ever to have worked at Walsall College. My career since has spanned 35 years in further education, and I have taken my own education to masters level.

I was lucky. I found my way. But the fact remains that I was needlessly pushed to the bottom of the academic pile for years. I always had the ability to learn; I just needed the freedom to do it in a different way. How many talented people have fallen by the wayside because they never found their niche in education?

As chief executive of the Skills and Education Group, I am on a mission to ensure education policies and assessment practice become neuro-inclusive. Any policy or practice that is solely built around the assumption that we all learn in the same way is outdated.

We need to much better educate our teachers about neurodiverse conditions. Pupils can’t thrive on empathy alone; they need teachers who understand what their diagnosis means, the hidden challenges they present and the initiatives they can deploy to help them. We need to identify these conditions earlier, and we must be ready to support learners with them with every step of their journey.

And we need government policy that supports neurodiversity in delivery and assessment as a mainstream issue. Further education has traditionally provided a much more accessible curriculum for many by default. We can’t put this at risk through qualification reform when we should be codifying that inclusiveness and driving it to greater heights.

Colleges are precisely the kind of inclusive environments our whole education system should be learning from, but the sector can’t stop pushing forward. The collaborative networks of neurotypical and neurodiverse students they create are surely leading to a more understanding and accepting society.

Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface if that was the educational norm.

Colleges should be central to discussions about tuition and post-Covid recovery

The hashtag #andcolleges has been doing the rounds on social media for a little while now, representing the post-16 education sector’s frustration in response to statements, projects and policies focused on schools (and often universities as well) that demonstrate no apparent awareness of the significance of post-16 providers in the education landscape.

When it comes to closing the attainment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers, it is particularly puzzling to find colleges excluded from the discussion. After all, the majority of students from disadvantaged backgrounds progress to colleges at the age of sixteen, meaning that colleges support a far higher proportion (double the percentage) when compared with school sixth forms. More specifically, colleges work with the vast majority of the 300,000 students who need to resit their English and maths GCSEs each year, 70 per cent of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Last week, the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts published its report on Education Recovery in Schools in England. The report highlights the role played by learning lost during the pandemic in entrenching disadvantage, noting that a decade of progress in reducing the gap in attainment between learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers has been wiped out.

A significant focus of the report is on the role played by tuition, and the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in particular, in the drive to ensure the disadvantage gap rapidly returns to pre-pandemic levels and continues to close. There was no mention of the NTP’s sister programme, the 16-19 Tuition Fund, which last year made £92 million available to post-16 providers so they could provide catch-up tuition to young people.

Colleges work with the vast majority of students who resit English and maths

One of the report’s five recommendations was that DfE “should monitor how much tutoring is being provided, in 2022/23 and 2023/24 when it is providing a subsidy, and in subsequent years, and intervene if tutoring levels drop significantly.” The focus here was on the NTP, in recognition of the impact that tutoring can have on learners from disadvantaged backgrounds in schools, but we can certainly follow this with our hashtag – #andcolleges – where tutoring can play a significant role in closing disadvantage gaps for older learners.

There is strong research evidence that small-group and 1:1 tuition can have a significant impact on educational attainment, particularly in maths and reading, and particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. At Get Further, we have recently published our annual impact report for 2021/22 which demonstrates the equally significant impact that small-group tuition can have on learners resitting GCSE English and maths in post-16 settings.

With extra support provided by tutors, we have found that young people can achieve grade 4 in English or maths at rates considerably higher than the national average. We also know that achieving English and maths GCSEs can lead to economic benefits for learners, with an increase in lifetime earnings of over £45,000. Not only does the investment in tuition considerably improve the life chances of the individual young people who benefit from it directly, there are also significant benefits for the wider economy.

Post-16 education has a crucial role to play both in closing the disadvantage gaps that opened up during the pandemic and ensuring that the pre-Covid progress made in closing gaps is resumed. It is overwhelmingly colleges that are helping those young people who, due to disrupted education, missed out on a grade 4 in their English and maths GCSEs to catch up. They should not be left out of conversations about education recovery, not least because the financial and staffing pressures confronting schools are compounded in a sector that has historically been significantly underfunded.

In this context, and in light of the compelling evidence of the impact tuition can have the educational and life chances of all young people, including those over the age of 16, we are calling on the government to ensure that colleges are more than an afterthought in the decisions taken about educational recovery.

The government needs to extend and scale up national tutoring policies to ensure that high-quality, fully-funded tuition is available beyond August 2024 to all young people who need that extra bit of support to truly achieve their potential.

Mind the gap: adult skills education must adapt to changing learner needs

The workforce and learner demographics landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by factors such as demographic shifts, technological advances, and the changing dynamics of the global economy. In 2015, people aged 60+ represented 12.3 per cent of the global population, but by 2050 this will have increased to over a fifth (21.3 per cent). Additionally, more and more people are moving towards entrepreneurship, favouring its autonomy and flexibility over traditional employment structures.

It is increasingly clear that our current systems – those that govern work, education, and the intersection of the two – are at odds with these seismic changes. There is a change in how we learn, upskill and consume information. The adult education sector must adapt to fill this gap with new, innovative ways of delivering training.

For a recent report for the City of London, Social Finance conducted research into Global Skills Trends and Best Practices and came across the following workforce and learner demographics trends that are changing the employment landscape and training requirements.

An ageing population at risk of exclusion

Although working longer has financial and non-financial benefits, recent digital and technological advances mean older people are at higher risk of being excluded from the workforce. Regular skill development boot camps for older adults in lifelong learning centres could optimise the demographic benefit.

The spring budget showed the treasury is aware of this with its introduction of ‘returnships’ to motivate adults over 50 to rejoin the workforce. Elsewhere, India-based Magic Billion offers certified training to local talent, helping bridge skill gaps in nations with older populations. Collaboration with this kind of global expert could offer a temporary stop-gap and prevent an economic slowdown due to skill shortages.

Non-linear career paths

The notion of a career for life is waning, replaced by the rise of non-linear careers. Millennials in particular are leading this change, with over 21 per cent in the US having switched jobs in the past year, a threefold increase compared to non-millennials.

In the UK, millennials have held as many jobs as 55-year-olds have had in their entire careers. This trend is fuelled by a quest for better salaries, personal growth, work-life balance, and monetising hobbies. But job insecurity, the disappearance of industries and lack of progression also force frequent employment changes. COVID-19 has accentuated this trend.

Other systemic problems mean those spending significant time out of the workforce for reasons from parental leave to contact with the criminal justice system continue to face challenges when re-entering employment. For instance, only 23 per cent of those released from custody are employed six months later.

Whatever the reason, supporting such transitions with high-quality education and skills training at every life stage is crucial and requires collaboration between private trainers, employers, and government. Enhanced data collection would also help to track the challenges of those available to rejoin the workforce and refer them to existing services.

The age of entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial activity among young people in the UK has doubled since 2000, with 53 per cent expressing a desire to set up their own businesses. This global trend sees individuals increasingly keen to turn hobbies into careers. Yet there’s a noticeable lack of training and support to capitalise on this upsurge in entrepreneurialism.

Unique programmes such as The Prince’s Trust’s Get Into offer potential solutions, with its hands-on training to support budding entrepreneurs. Likewise, Senart’s young creators programme offers invaluable mentorship aligned with participants’ goals.

Local government bodies can play a crucial role by fostering such practical learning programmes in collaboration with the private sector.

To tackle our already growing skills shortages and changing demographics, we need to re-envision an education sector where every learner, regardless age or circumstance, can learn, grow and contribute. To do that, we must respond to the trends shaping not only industry but the aspirations of individuals. Our report showcases various examples of how collaborative efforts are effectively narrowing the skills gap, and we must learn from their successes.

Judge upholds 71-year-old teacher’s Covid complaints

A sixth form college in north London has lost an employment tribunal because of its “failure to take on board” the complaints of a 71-year-old teacher about working in a classroom with no windows during Covid.

Lorraine Naidoo, a part-time English as a second language teacher, took the 16 to 19 Haringey Sixth Form College, to an employment tribunal over its actions in 2020.

Naidoo’s classrooms had no limit on the number of students to make sure they were social distanced and one had a window that wouldn’t open, a judgment published this week said.

She repeatedly raised her concerns because of her age, as older people were at higher risk of serious illness if infected with Covid-19. 

Judge Jeremy Lewis backed her claim of indirect age discrimination. 

While there was a general risk assessment, the tribunal judges said there was a “serious failure” to adequately consider if additional requirements were needed.

Judge Lewis, who signed the judgment, said there was also a “wholly unreasonable failure” to comply with ACAS fairness practices. 

Haringey said it was “disappointed” and is considering an appeal. A separate hearing will consider compensation for Naidoo. 

Naidoo used two classrooms, one of which had a single window that was sealed shut. 

The space tended to become “stuff and smelly” in the summer, she claimed, which health and safety guidance has suggested is a sign of poor ventilation. 

The sixth form said there was a system to draw in fresh air, but the judges said such systems were “recognised as less than satisfactory”. 

Judge Lewis also said there was “no evidence” the sixth form was unable to buy carbon dioxide monitors before the government rolled them out in September 2021.

Naidoo was moved to a “smaller teaching room without notice” on one occasion.

In a risk assessment, Naidoo asked for each pupil to have their own table to help physical distancing, and windows that could be opened. 

But Judge Lewis said there was a “failure to take on board and take into account” her concerns. 

Naidoo was signed off with work-related stress at the end of September and never returned.

An occupational health report indicated that her concerns on the lack of safeguards was an “obvious impediment to her health recovering”, the judgment said.

It wasn’t until October 9 that a “nine-point plan” was sent by the sixth form that included the suggestion to “cap your group size”. It also said she could request personal protective equipment “at any time”. 

But Naidoo said it didn’t “sound like the detailed formalised plan I requested”. Judge Lewis also said in “large part” the nine points were “merely a restatement of existing practice and guidance rather than being additional measures”. 

In her formal grievance, Naidoo said her risk assessment was “ignored” and “made me feel that I was alone in dealing with the increased serious health risks I was being exposed to at work.” 

Judge Lewis said the sixth form “did not deal with the issues raised promptly” and that there was “no adequate investigation” in response to Naidoo’s grievances. 

There was a “wholesale and wholly unreasonable failure” to comply with the ACAS code of practice, which sets out principles for handling disciplinary and grievance situations in workplaces. 

A sixth form spokesperson said it was “very proud” of how it dealt with the “many challenges arising from the pandemic, to ensure we continued to deliver a high-quality teaching and learning experience for our students, whilst doing our very best to comply with Covid guidelines, rule, recommendations and regulations and keep all within our college community safe”.

Its Covid data “evidenced the extremely low infection rates” at the sixth form, “with no serious cases of Covid-related illness”.

Naidoo started at the sixth form in 2008, but retired to work part-time in 2012. She had worked for less than three weeks of the September 2020 college year, which Haringey said was “unfortunate” as she was unable to see “the many measures we put in place for all in our college community, with a great deal of success”.

HSE spot checks of schools in March 2021 found that 80 per cent had a good understanding of what it meant to be Covid secure.

PeoplePlus walks away from AEB delivery

A major training provider is walking away from adult education budget delivery this summer due to the “continuing tight labour market”.

PeoplePlus Group has decided not to renew its AEB contracts, currently held across multiple mayoral combined authorities, for the 2023/24 academic year. The company will switch its focus from face-to-face direct delivery to its online digital delivery platforms.

The decision appears to have been made abruptly, considering the firm was awarded a new AEB contract in the North of Tyne area just two weeks ago.

PeoplePlus held the largest national AEB contract among all independent training providers in 2020, with an allocation of £5.6 million. At the time it was delivering courses to around 8,000 adults and training to around 3,000 apprentices.

But the scale of this provision has plummeted in recent years after the company failed to secure another national contract with the Education and Skills Funding Agency in the controversial 2021 AEB tender.

PeoplePlus also sold its “loss-making” apprenticeship business to Babington Business College in December 2020.

The company was downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted last month when it had just 148 adult learners on its books studying level one and two courses in subjects such as security, health and safety, customer service and digital technology.

Ofsted reported that achievement rates across PeoplePlus’ students were “too variable”, and that there was not enough effort to improve learners’ English and mathematic skills.

On some courses, the “type or location of work opportunities are not always compatible with the needs of the learners”, inspectors added.

PeoplePlus said all current learners would be “unaffected” by the decision to discontinue its AEB delivery, adding that the provider will support them to complete their qualifications.

The company would not confirm whether any jobs were at risk.

PeoplePlus currently holds AEB contracts with combined authorities in West Yorkshire and Tees Valley and a five-year contract with Liverpool City Region, worth more than £1.2 million, £755,800 and £657,000 respectively.

It also recently secured a five-year contract with Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority for an unknown amount of funding.

Last August PeoplePlus scooped a seven-year £15 million contract to offer teaching at the Werrington Young Offender Institution in Staffordshire and was delivering education programmes across 22 adult prisons at the time.

PeoplePlus is owned by Staffline Group PLC, one of the biggest recruitment firms in the UK. In its latest annual report for the year to December 31, 2022, Staffline noted that PeoplePlus was “impacted by the disruption to its skills training as a result of the tight labour market, with workers being able to go straight into jobs without pre-job training”. That caused its revenue to slide by 6.3 per cent from £83.1 million to £77.9 million, according to Staffline’s accounts.

Staffline also devalued PeoplePlus by 12.1 per cent to £59.6 million, which it blamed on a “reduction of forecast earnings by the division”.

A spokesperson for PeoplePlus said: “In the continuing tight labour market, we want to ensure that our adult education offering in England is optimised for these new conditions and the changing requirements of learners.

“This means that, from the 2023/24 academic year, we will be revising our footprint in the sector to allow us to focus on the continued rapid growth of our digital learning platforms and our portfolio of partner services through which we support a fast-growing number of fellow provider organisations.

“Learners on our 2022/23 programmes will be unaffected by the transition to this new service model as we support them to complete their qualifications.”

‘Inadequate’ provider stops trading with almost £1m in unpaid bills

An insolvent adult care training provider has left creditors with over £960,000 in unpaid bills after announcing it will wind up operations following a scathing Ofsted verdict.

Bestland Solutions Limited, which traded under the name Training Associates during its 20-year operation, was given an ‘inadequate’ rating by the watchdog in March. Inspectors found apprentices quickly dropped out due to being “overwhelmed” and demoralised by the lack of off-the-job training.

The provider, which offered mostly adult care training nationwide to more than 500 apprentices at the time of the inspection, has since had its skills funding agreement with the government terminated.

Leaders of the firm held a general meeting on June 13, where it announced a special resolution to wind up voluntarily.

According to Bestland’s statement of affairs published this week, the company will be unable to sell any of its assets, leaving creditors unlikely to recoup their share of a total debt of £960,343.76.

Elias Paourou and Sean Bucknall, the joint voluntary liquidators from Quantuma Advisory, identified close to £560,000 worth of assets, including a £355,000 director’s loan account. But they estimated that none of it could be used to pay off debts.

Documents show employees are likely to be left in the lurch with regards to unpaid wages. Bestland owes £116,757 in back pay, holiday pay, tax and national insurance contributions.

The company has also incurred debts of £843,434 to non-preferential creditors, namely trade creditors, banks and employees.

Bestland Solutions chief executive Jeremy Gilbert did not respond to FE Week’s request for comment. Quantuma Advisory declined to comment.

Unpresidented: College in ‘crisis’ over best-paid CEO’s new role

A college is facing “serious questions” over its governance following accusations of nepotism and a newly created role of president for England’s highest-paid principal which has thrown the recruitment process for his successor into disarray.

Multiple attempts to fill the post at Weston College, first advertised in October, have failed and at least two job offers to successful candidates have been withdrawn. Some interviewees have questioned the board’s decision to keep Sir Paul Phillips on in a remunerated role after he retires this summer.

Eyebrows have also been raised after it came to light that Phillips’ son has held a senior leadership position responsible for the college’s finances and has recently been promoted to chief operating officer.

Current Cornwall College deputy principal Kate Wills had resigned from her post to become Weston College principal from September 1. Cornwall College has since appointed a successor. But her new job offer was withdrawn last week in mysterious circumstances.

According to a Weston College spokesperson, the board and Wills “had asked” Phillips to support the new principal for an “unspecified period of time”.

The board of governors, chaired by Andrew Leighton-Price, told staff in May in memos seen by FE Week that it was “absolutely key” that the role of president be created as it will support initiatives around governance, profile bids, the Centre for Excellence in SEND and various events, as well as being “responsible for mentoring the principal et al”.

The president position, which FE Week understands will be remunerated, had allegedly rung alarm bells with candidates being interviewed for the principal post.

One offer was withdrawn as early as November during the first round of recruitment. Two more rounds followed, with the college finally appointing Wills as principal before withdrawing the offer.

Wills told FE Week: “Following discussions between the board of Weston College and myself, both parties have agreed not to confirm my move to the college at this time.”

A Weston College spokesperson said: “We do not propose to comment about the appointment of Kate Wills as a successor to Sir Paul. An announcement will follow at the appropriate time.”

The spokesperson added that “while discussions have taken place” around the president role, Phillips “has not agreed any finalised arrangements to this end”.

Union officials said the principal situation was “very worrying”.

Nick Varney, the University and College Union regional official, said: “Sir Paul’s demand to be named honorary president is creating a crisis at the college. No one is sure who is actually in charge, and the person appointed as principal has now had her career thrown into disarray.

“There are now serious questions for the board of governors to answer.”

‘Sir Paul’s personal fiefdom’

Phillips is the highest-paid college principal in the country, earning a total package of £362,000 in 2022, as revealed in FE Week’s principal pay analysis this month. Known as Dr Paul to staff and governors, Phillips was due to retire three years ago, but stayed for the pandemic period.

In his time as principal, Weston College was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, though it has not been inspected for a decade. According to its latest accounts, the group generated a surplus after tax of £218,000 in 2021/22, down from a surplus of £1.1 million the year before.

Phillips was awarded a knighthood last year and named a “national leader of further education” by the government in 2017.

In anticipation of Phillips’ departure now planned for August, the corporation has arranged numerous events to celebrate his retirement – despite him taking up the presidency.

On June 29, a retirement dinner is set to take place with a celebrity host. The next day a final staff meeting and lunch is scheduled, where a recreation of a “Love Actually”-style photo montage will be shown.

Staff were also asked to attend filming slots last week where they would lip sync a tailored version of Tina Turner’s Simply the Best, including the chorus: “You made us the best, better than all the rest, better than anyone, and we have passed the test, we’re grateful for you, leading us with joy each day, it tears us apart, knowing you’re retiring today.” The final music video is poised to be played at the staff meeting.

In addition to a digital card for all staff and learners to sign, the finance department has set up a donation page on the college’s website. Financial donations will be used to purchase holiday vouchers for Phillips and his wife to go on “a special trip to remember us all at the college”.

The festivities have reportedly left a sour taste in the mouths of many staff members at Weston, especially in light of the strikes last October over pay, and the exorbitant pay package agreed by the board to Phillips.

“Our pay is appalling compared to the leadership team and other colleges around England,” remarked one staff member who wished to remain anonymous. They added that some staff are discussing whether to boycott the farewell meeting.

“I do not want to shame the work that we do at Weston College. The staff make the college not Dr Paul, and I certainly do not want to pay for him to have a holiday when I myself have not been able to afford one for three years.

“We have team members going to the food bank,” they added. “We are not a cult, and he is not our leader.”

A Weston College spokesperson said the events for Phillips “befit his unparalleled contribution to the college, and FE nationally, over the last 21 years of his tenure”.

They added: “The costs associated with the event are limited, since it is held on college premises, with catering usually provided by learners, giving them an opportunity to showcase their achievements.”

UCU’s Varney said that the staff have been ignored by the college’s governors.

“Weston College looks like it is being run as Sir Paul’s personal fiefdom, and it shows that further education’s governance model is not fit for purpose. We need a new model that works for staff and works for students,” he said.

A family business

Multiple sources have raised concerns with FE Week about the board approving the appointment of Phillips’ son, Joe, as a senior leader in charge of finances.

Joe Phillips has recently been promoted from his job as Weston College’s vice-principal for finance and business planning to the roles of deputy principal and chief operating officer.

Weston College maintains that Paul Phillips had “no influence” over his son’s promotion and none of his positions since joining the college in 2010 have had any conflict of interest. The college also said that his appointment was “transparent, competitive and robust” and he was unanimously appointed to the role.

“There is no conflict of interest in respect of his previous or new position since, as deputy principal, he reported to another leadership board member alongside the chair of audit committee, with a further officer from the Association of Colleges. This fully mitigated any potential conflict of interest and was approved by the college’s external auditors,” a college spokesperson said.

Governance experts told FE Week that colleges must publicly publish a conflict of interest policy on their website, as mandated by charities law. Weston College has only published a conflict of interest policy for governors.

“It is not just a matter of poor governance, I think it could be a breach of the law as well not to have a conflict of interest policy. If they haven’t got a conflict of interest policy, they ought to have board minutes which actually deal with this particular point and issue,” one expert told FE Week.

“That doesn’t sound right to me,” they added when asked about Joe Phillips’ positions and promotion. “He may be the best person for the job, in which case some procedures would need to be put into place to manage the conflict of interest.”

The expert also refuted the claim that conflicts of interest can be approved by external auditors. “They don’t have any governance responsibilities to them,” they said.

This is not the first time that questions have been presented over the college’s structure. According to corporation minutes from 15 December 2021, one governor questioned the “firewall between related parties” in the new structure.

Weston did not respond to FE Week’s requests to see its conflicts of interest policy.

The Department for Education and FE Commissioner declined to comment.

Level 2 apprenticeship spending down by £200m since the levy

Annual spending on level 2 apprenticeships has plummeted by more than £200 million since the launch of the levy – as money paid out for higher levels rockets, FE Week can reveal.

New figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request also show the only age group that has experienced a fall in apprenticeship spending over that period is 16 to 19-year-old school leavers.

Experts have put the trend down to the “clunky and arduous” apprenticeship system that small and medium-sized employers (SMEs), who have traditionally taken on a disproportionate number of lower level and young apprentices, struggle to navigate.

A Department for Education spokesperson said apprenticeships were “employer-led and businesses have flexibility to spend their levy funds to invest in the skill level they need”, adding that “these figures show they are doing that”.

Falling numbers of entry-level apprentices have been well reported since the launch of the apprenticeship levy in 2017, with latest official government data showing level 2 starts have dropped by two-fifths from 161,390 in 2017/18 to 91,520 in 2021/22.

But, because the government refuses to publish spending data for the levy, the sector is left to guess how much less funding this trend translates to.

FE Week can now reveal, for the first time, exactly how much funding has been spent on each level of apprenticeship in every year since the levy was introduced after obtaining the data under the FOI law.

It shows that level 2 apprenticeship participation spend dropped by a third, from £622 million in 2017/18 to £421 million in 2021/22.

All other levels experienced an increase in spending over the same period. Level 3 apprenticeship spending grew by more than quarter, before much bigger increases from level 4 onwards.

Spending on level 6 apprenticeships grew nine-fold, while level 7 apprenticeship spending was 20 times higher in 2021/22 than in 2017/18.

FE Week has also got hold of apprenticeship spending data by age for the first time. It shows that spending on apprenticeships for young people aged 16 to 19 fell by £60 million, or a tenth, from £686 million in 2017/18 to £626 million in 2021/22.

Meanwhile, spending on apprenticeships for 19 to 24-year-olds grew by £312 million, or four-fifths, from £389 million to £701 million, and spending on apprenticeships for those aged 25 and older went up by £474 million to £934 million in 2021/22, which is more than double the £460 million spent on this age group in 2017/18.

Since 2017, apprenticeships in England have been funded from a levy equivalent to 0.5 per cent of payroll imposed on large employers with annual wage bills above £3 million.

Levy payers can then use their levy pot to fund their apprenticeships. The levy was designed so that large employers would not spend all their contributions, with their unspent funding going towards paying for the rest of the system, such as apprenticeships for non-levy paying SMEs.

But SMEs have since complained that the system for signing up apprentices through the government’s digital apprenticeship service is too bureaucratic, time-consuming and complex, forcing many to turn their backs on apprenticeships.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “Although the shift towards an employer and demand-led apprenticeship service has been a generally positive move, the system is still too clunky and arduous for SMEs. SMEs traditionally have taken on a disproportionate number of young people, particularly those at level 2.”

He added that the continuing lack of a level 2 business administration standard, which was a hugely popular apprenticeship under the old-style frameworks until it was switched off in 2020, has also impacted entry-level apprenticeship numbers.

Stephen Evans, chief executive at the Learning and Work Institute, calculated the real terms changes in spending for each level by adding inflation. This showed a £264 million, or two-fifths, drop in level 2 spending between 2017/18 and 2021/22.

He said the changes in spending were the “natural consequence of allowing free employer choice with few incentives to underpin investment in young people and apprenticeships at all levels”.

He added: “They reflect the historic pattern of employer investment in training, with graduates three times more likely to get training than non-graduates.

“The growth in higher apprenticeships is welcome, but this should not be at the expense of training at other levels and for young people. Learning at all levels boosts productivity and we need to tackle our historic shortfalls, or we will all be the poorer for it.”