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Employer-led skills bodies must be open to scrutiny

As we reported last week, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill is now in the hands of the bill committee – a group of 17 MPs selected along party lines. That means, unlike in the Lords, the government has a majority.

Bill committees have an important job, but you won’t see clips of them on the news or even video broadcast on the parliament website. That’s because it’s the committee’s job to get in amongst the detail of the bill, so debates tend to be more technical. Great for FE wonks, not so great for broadcast news coverage.

The main players this week were skills minister Alex Burghart, and the shadow skills minister, Toby Perkins. You only usually see these two cross swords briefly at the despatch box in the chamber of the House of Commons during education questions, but they had nine hours scheduled to spend together this week.

ERBs will be held to account, says skills minister

The government, as expected, used their majority on the committee to reverse the changes made to the bill in the House of Lords. But they also had to respond to “probing amendments”. These are amendments made by the opposition not necessarily to appear in the bill, but to force the government to give more detail, clarity or explanation on something.

A big part of the bill is giving powers to designated employer representative bodies (ERBs) to develop local skills improvement plans (LSIPs). Labour had multiple attack lines; that ERBs lack duties to work in partnership with providers and local authorities (particularly in non devolved areas) and that they lack requirements concerning transparency that should come with such an important role.

Their amendments, albeit unsuccessful, did require the minister to make a number of commitments on what will follow by way of statutory guidance. In other words, the government didn’t want to accept a change to the legislation, but they will in effect use other means to tell ERBs who they should engage with when putting LSIPs together.

Statutory measures around transparency, proposed by Labour, were also defeated.

The opposition highlighted that chambers of commerce are exempt from freedom of information requests as they are private entities, and that there is currently no requirement for them to publish declarations of interests written in to the bill.

Again – the government wasn’t budging, although Burghart, maintaining his view that ERBs aren’t always going to be chambers of commerce (despite all eight trailblazers being so), did say that every ERB will be held to account against the terms of their designation, which the secretary of state can enforce and amend.

If that was the case – surely the trailblazer process was a perfect opportunity to test the effectiveness of those alternative ERB models?

And surely Labour has a point on transparency. The skills bill will give ERBs enormous responsibility and influence over public education funding in their area. Ministers must guarantee that agreements between DfE and every ERB are published in full and that they require ERBs to operate transparently and in line with public service principles.

Little sign of ministers listening during the debates

MPs also covered apprenticeships and level 3 qualifications this week. Labour raised concerns about the decline of younger and lower level apprenticeships, so wanted
a review of the levy in the bill. The opposition also made the case that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is conflicted by being the body responsible for promoting T Levels at the same time as approving withdrawal of other level 3 qualifications.

Again, the government had their way and the bill wasn’t changed.

The sector was lifted recently by the new education secretary’s “I am listening” mantra. But there has been little sign of that in the skills bill debates so far. Concerns about ERB effectiveness and transparency were written off as “unnecessary”. Requirements for LSIPs to contribute to inclusive local economies and to work to close the disability employment gap were talked down by the government and relegated from legislation to statutory guidance.

The bill committee will conclude next week. It’s expected that popular lines added in the Lords to flex universal credit conditionality, and to boost the Baker clause, will also be removed.

Organisations that have submitted written evidence to the bill committee are:

• Central YMCA

• The WEA

• London Institutes for Adult Learning

• Association of Colleges

• The Open University

• Engineering UK

Local Government Association

• Birkbeck, University of London

• Right to Learn

• University of Salford

• Universities UK

• Pearson UK

• Right to Learn

• Course Hero

NHS called on to aid T Level placements crisis

The NHS and local councils are being called on by government to aid the T Level placements crisis as colleges rush to find enough for every student starting classes this year.

Health Education England (HEE), which oversees training for the NHS, is commissioning research to gauge the viability of health service trusts to host industry placements of at least 45 days.

This is not just in the health and science routes, but for the digital T Level route too, for which colleges have told FE Week finding placements has been a “big problem”.

The country’s 150-odd local councils are also being pushed to offer at least one placement each in the next 12 months while the Department for Education has dispatched other sector bodies to drum up support from the private sector.

A specification document for the HEE tender reports that “T level providers have not been able to source all industry placements locally” for over 8,000 students expected to enrol on the flagship qualifications this year.

The document reveals the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s employer engagement and apprenticeships performance division is looking to support 30 per cent of those placements at a national level.

HEE will now undertake a “maturity modelling exercise of NHS Trusts that could support wave two industry placements”, which will provide a “clear picture of the ‘hot’ and cold’ spots of placement readiness and capacity”.

Students on the flagship level 3 qualifications, which launched last year, are expected to complete a minimum of 315 hours on a placement.

The DfE has already relented to introducing radical flexibilities for placements, in what is fast becoming a headache for officials.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi told the Association of Colleges conference last month he had seen evidence that there would be sufficient numbers of employers and placements available when T Levels are at full scale.

Yet FE Week has already heard from principals of T Level colleges that they currently have students who cannot find industry placements.

To help providers source placements, the government has made millions of pounds available in capacity and delivery funding to support them to organise placements in the build-up to their rollout.

Securing digital T Level placements ‘difficult before Covid and continues to be’

Colleges have given a lukewarm welcome to extra NHS support and want more employers to invest in T Levels and greater flexibility from the government.

Leeds City College’s head of careers, work experience and progression Gina Yates said working in partnership with the local NHS, other education providers and local authorities means they have enough placements for the over 40 students on the health T Level they started this year.

But, she says, the digital route they also rolled out in September is a “completely different story”: they need 22 placements but have only confirmed six so far.

The NHS’s digital teams have proven quite “difficult to pin down – we seem to have lots of conversations with them, but those don’t result in placements”.

Securing digital placements in Leeds with commercial companies is also “quite difficult,” Yates says: “It was difficult before the pandemic, and it continues to be difficult because of the changing working patterns.”

One of the flexibilities the DfE introduced last month for industry placements means students can spend a maximum of 40 per cent of their placement hours remotely, but this must take place at either the provider’s site, a training centre or simulated working environment run by the employer.

Yates says this was the worst of both worlds as digital employers are now largely working from home, so students cannot get experience in the workplace and cannot build the skills to work from home.

Colleges could also face “huge competition” for NHS placements with higher education institutions, she says, though this has not affected T Levels yet.

Greater support from the NHS would “definitely help,” but other large organisations need to be “investing” in T Levels as well, she believes.

‘If remote working is the norm, the placement should map that’

Much like Leeds, Truro and Penwith College curriculum development director Adele Bull has told FE Week their local NHS and healthcare community believes it can place the provider’s 26 health T Level students and she welcomed the extra HEE support.

Placing just five students on the digital T Level has proven “really challenging,” as employers are working remotely from their homes or sheds, which creates safeguarding problems.

Despite the virtual placement flexibility, a “significant amount of placement needs to be in the workplace,” so Bull argues: “If an industry as a norm is remote working, it makes sense that the placement maps that.”

The college also rolled out the science T Level this year with 16 students, but it has proved “challenging” to find employers owing to the “rurality of our location”.

Construction and councils being pushed to support T Level students

A DfE spokesperson said: “We have been working with key intermediaries in the public sector to ensure the provision of industry placements across a broad range of public sector organisations.”

Officials are also “working with a variety of key intermediaries across all sectors,” such as construction, to “to help raise awareness of T Levels and encourage an even greater number of employers to offer placement opportunities”.

CITB (the Construction Industry Training Board) is one of these sector intermediaries and says its regional teams are speaking with colleges and construction employers to find out what they need in order to support placements.

The organisation has also been holding webinars to encourage and build understanding of T Levels among business.

The Local Government Association has been carrying out specific work with the DfE to build a supply of public sector placements for both 2020 and 2021 students and believes the qualifications are “an important way of supporting talented young people into a successful and fulfilling career in local government”.

A spokesperson said the association is “aiming to raise awareness and help establish T Levels as credible pathways for local councils so they provide quality placements for students”.

The association is acting as a broker between employers and providers, with one current campaign focusing on encouraging councils to offer at least one placement over the next year.

But the spokesperson said they are “hoping more councils will opt to maximise the opportunity,” to access the government’s £1,000 cash incentive, given to employers for each placement they host, while they are available – until July 2022.

New shadow ed sec to push Zahawi on Omicron plans

The new shadow education secretary has requested an “urgent briefing” from her opposite number Nadhim Zahawi about how government will respond to the Omicron variant’s impact on education.

Bridget Phillipson was appointed on Monday to replace Kate Green in a reshuffle by Sir Keir Starmer of his frontbench team.

In her first interview, she told FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week she would be pushing the government “to make sure they respond effectively following the emergence of the new variant, and to see whether they’ve really learned anything over these last couple of years”.

The latest government figures show there are now 29 known cases of the variant in England.

Phillipson said the country needed to avoid “any further disruption to children’s and young people’s education as far as possible”. She said ministers must avoid “last-minute decisions which cause further and unnecessary alarm and anxiety for everybody”, like the confusion over school and college closures last winter.

“Of course the government must be guided by the evidence they receive from public health experts, and to that end I’ve requested an urgent briefing with the secretary of state to understand what the current position is to make sure that all measures that are necessary are being put in place.”

Zahawi struck a conciliatory tone this week as he thanked Green for working “across the political divide”, and welcomed Phillipson to her post.

Phillipson said she would “always work constructively with the secretary of state to get the best possible outcomes”.

But she said she would “also push the government really hard on their complete failure to bring forward a decent plan for education recovery”.

The new shadow education secretary also spoke of her “passion” for her brief and her desire to create an “ambitious, forward-looking and positive vision” for Labour as it heads into the next general election.

She said her own “great” state education “transformed” her life, and she was “determined” to give all children and young people the same opportunity.

Born in Gateshead, Phillipson attended John F Kennedy primary school and St Robert of Newminster Catholic School in Washington, before reading modern history at Oxford.

She described the “fantastic support” she received from staff. “I’m still in touch with many of them and I’ll always be tremendously grateful for the impact they had.”

Phillipson was just 26 when she became the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South in 2010. She served as an opposition whip and on the public accounts committee. More recently she was shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, before moving to the education role this week.

Beyond Covid, Phillipson said she was concerned about inequality in the education system.

She is also focused “skills throughout life and apprenticeships”, which is a “big priority” for Labour. She is “delighted” that Toby Perkins is continuing to lead in this area as shadow FE and skills minister.

“Part of the reason that we’ve seen such weak growth in recent years and poor productivity is because we aren’t doing enough to tackle those major skills issues that we face, not just for children and young people leaving education but right throughout life,” Phillipson said.

“I’m determined to make sure that people have the opportunity to learn and gain new skills and retrain throughout their working lives and to make that as easy as possible for people to achieve.

“I’ve seen in Sunderland and across the north east the enormous transformative power of our further education colleges and skills providers and how people’s lives can be changed with the chance to gain new skills and opportunities.”

Phillipson isn’t giving much else away about her party’s policy development process, but says she’s “excited about the prospect of getting out around the country.

“I’m looking forward to working with parents, families and right across the sector in making that an ambitious, forward-looking and really positive vision for the future of education for Labour at the next election.”

Sector leaders urge quicker rollout of repeat level 3 adult offer

Ministers are being urged to bring forward a policy change allowing adults to take level 3 qualifications for free even if they already hold one, as leaders predict a “massive underspend” due to lack of demand.

It comes as most mayoral combined authorities confirm they will also roll out the extension of the policy, funded through the national skills fund, from April 2022.

Since April 2021, any adult aged 19 and over who does not already have a level 3 qualification or higher has been allowed to access hundreds of fully funded level 3 courses. It is backed with an initial £95 million and is part of the prime minister’s flagship lifetime skills guarantee.

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi last month announced an extension to the scheme: from April 2022, anyone who earns below the national living wage or is unemployed will be able to access the courses for free “regardless of any prior qualifications”.

It means low earners and the unemployed can take a level 3 qualification for free even they already hold A-levels.

Sector leaders have lobbied for this change all year and say it will be critical to tackle skills shortages. But they question why it can’t be rolled out sooner.

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We would like to see the policy implemented as soon as possible. There is no good reason to wait until April 2022.”

Shadow FE and skills minister Toby Perkins added: “Britain faces skills shortages now, not from April next year, and it’s extraordinary that having delayed so long already, the government only plan to change course months into the future.”

The Department for Education defended the delay, insisting it is “right” that the sector is given time to prepare for this “important eligibility expansion”.

Sector leaders have claimed victory over the policy change. They want government to go further and allow all adults access to the free courses whatever their prior achievement level, as many will need to retrain to find new jobs post-Covid-19.

FE Week understands there has been lower-than-expected take-up of the current scheme, which could have partly been the government’s motivation behind the removal of the first-ness element.

Board minutes for the Greater London Authority have already warned that a number of colleges and training providers in the capital London have rejected the opportunity to receive funding for the government’s new level 3 adult offer, as reported by FE Week in July.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, also said he was “worried” earlier this year that there would be a slow start to the new flagship level 3 adult offer owing to the restrictive eligibility rules.

Hughes welcomed the widening of the policy but warned employers are “crying out for people with level 3 skills, and yet too many adults are unable to access free training because they already have a level 3 which does not match the job needs”.

The DfE has refused to share figures showing the number of people signing up to the level 3 adult offer, despite repeated requests from FE Week.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, told FE Week he anticipates a “massive underspend of the national skills fund this year” because of its “inflexibility”.

However, he welcomed the DfE’s move to only allow repeat level 3s to low earners and the unemployed as this will help avoid “deadweight costs”.

“The fact this flexibility is only being granted to the lower paid and those in receipt of unemployment benefits should help mitigate the obvious risks of this turning into yet another publicly funded skills initiative for the sharp-elbowed middle class who are already well endowed with skills and qualifications,” he said.

Former DfE director of FE funding Sue Pember, who now leads adult education network HOLEX, said she “cautiously welcomes this new initiative”, warning there is a risk it could now be “gamed”.

“For many adults whose previous qualification is now not relevant, it will be very helpful in getting them a new job in a new vocational area. However, with no new funding there is a risk that this new client group displaces the adults who do not have a qualification,” she added.

“There is also a risk that the initiative will be gamed by providers who will go for low-hanging fruit and mass recruitment of those who already have a job and already have a level 3 or higher qualification. It will need careful management to ensure this does not become a deadweight programme.”

Funding for the level 3 adult offer is distributed nationally by the Education and Skills Funding Agency but a chunk is handed to the ten mayoral combined authorities with devolved adult education budgets to distribute in their areas.

London said it already has this policy extension in place, and four of the other authorities – West Yorkshire, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – confirmed they will follow the ESFA’s lead in introducing it in April 2022.

Two others – Tees Valley and the West Midlands – said they were considering the change and will make a decision in due course. The remaining three areas – Sheffield City Region, North of Tyne and the West of England – did not respond at the time of going to press.

Move into apprenticeships loses university’s ‘outstanding’ ranking

A university has lost its ‘outstanding’ Ofsted grade following a move into the apprenticeships market.

Kingston University dropped to ‘good’ in its first visit from the watchdog since 2015.

Grade one education providers are being inspected this term for the first time since 2010, after an exemption was removed last year.

This week’s report for Kingston University was full of praise for its level 3 art foundation course – the only provision in scope during its last inspection – where inspectors said staff have “successfully maintained the outstanding quality”.

But it was the university’s newly designed apprenticeships that scuppered its effort to retain the top grade. Inspectors still strongly commended the university’s provision in this area but warned of staff recruitment issues and occasional poor communication with employers.

The university began offering level 5 and 6 apprenticeships, in areas such as nursing, civil engineering, environmental practices and chartered surveying, in 2017. It had around 430 apprentices at the time of Ofsted’s inspection last month.

The degree apprenticeships were developed in response to skills shortages in London. For example, the nursing associate apprenticeship helps to address staffing shortages in local NHS trusts, while the social work programme helps support the local council to recruit and train new social workers.

Ofsted described the apprenticeships as “effective” and praised leaders for having invested “significantly” to support their introduction of the programmes.

But the watchdog found that managers have struggled to recruit sufficient staff in the construction-related disciplines, which has resulted in “heavy workloads and pressure on staff time in this area”. And “occasionally”, apprenticeship staff “do not communicate sufficiently and frequently with apprentices’ employers”, inspectors found.

“Where this is the case, teachers do not hold apprenticeship review meetings in a timely manner. Employers are therefore not always clear about the progress of the apprentices and unable to ensure workplace opportunities link with classroom-based activities,” the report said.

But overall, Ofsted reported that learners feel “privileged” to have the opportunity to study at the university.

A Kingston University spokesperson said: “The university has been developing a number of degree apprenticeship courses over the past four years, and this new provision was included in the Ofsted review for the first time this year.

“The relatively new degree apprenticeship provision, which has a much larger student cohort than the foundation programme, was ranked good, reflecting the investment made by Kingston University to deliver high-quality compliant apprenticeships, as well as supporting the needs of the employers in different sectors.”

‘Inconsistent quality’ of degree apprenticeships at university slammed

A university has come under fire for poor supervision of its degree apprenticeships.

Ofsted said the apprenticeships on offer at the University of Hull suffer from “inconsistent quality” because they are managed within individual faculties with little central oversight.

In a ‘requires improvement’ report published yesterday, inspectors warned that managers lack a “cohesive strategy” to develop staff understanding of apprenticeship delivery. They currently do not have the “skills required to deliver these effectively”.

Ofsted was handed powers to inspect level 6 and 7 apprenticeships from April 1, 2021.

Before then, the inspectorate’s remit only extended up to level 5, while the Office for Students held responsibility for overseeing higher-level apprenticeships.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman had voiced concerns multiple times that some universities were getting away with offering level 6 and 7 apprenticeships that are simply “repackaged graduate schemes”.

At the time of the University of Hull’s inspection, there were 344 apprentices on programmes from level 5 to level 7. The higher-level programmes include degree apprenticeships in nursing, senior leadership, chartered management, supply chain professionals, laboratory science and social work.

Ofsted found that most apprentices are “well motivated and positive” about their studies and develop “appropriate professional behaviours” from an early stage in their apprenticeship.

However, the university’s oversight and understanding of the programmes was where it faltered. Inspectors reported: “Leaders manage the quality of apprenticeships within individual faculties of the university, alongside the wider range of university courses provided. As a result, there is insufficient strategic and operational oversight of the quality of the apprenticeship programme to inform improvements. This results in inconsistency in the quality of apprenticeships and in apprentices’ experience.

“Current arrangements for governance are not rigorous enough. Governance arrangements provide some academic challenge about the quality of education. However, this is internal challenge between faculties, and there is no oversight to ensure that this challenge is impartial and thorough.”

Managers and lecturers were also criticised for not communicating the requirements of the apprenticeship and the end-point assessment clearly enough.

Ofsted found that too many apprentices repeat learning, namely in the level 6 and 7 provision, and do not make progress as “swiftly as they should”.

Professor Becky Huxley-Binns, pro-vice-chancellor for education at the University of Hull, said: “We accept and acknowledge the findings from Ofsted, following their recent inspection of our apprenticeship provision.

“We are pleased that Ofsted recognised that our apprentices felt their skills and confidence in the workplace had improved during their time with us, and inspectors noted they had displayed positive attitudes to learning.

“Looking ahead, we are committed to making the improvements required to ensure our apprentices receive the highest possible standard of learning.”

Winners of the 2021 National Apprenticeship Awards revealed

Apprentices from Waitrose and Bentley and employers such as JCB are among the winners of this year’s National Apprenticeship Awards.

The 12 employer and 15 apprentice award winners were recognised this evening during a 90-minute livestreamed event hosted by BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker and organised by the Department for Education.

STEM ambassador handed apprenticeship champion award

Ian Green, who is senior controller and section manager at the Nissan Skills Foundation as well as being involved in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and manufacturing) ambassador hub for the north east, was named this year’s apprenticeship champion.

He has visited schools to get children interested in STEM subjects before they reach secondary schools, work which eventually led to the creation of the foundation, which has delivered to hundreds of schools and thousands of young people every year.

A former apprentice himself, “Ian believes apprenticeships can be the gateway to not just jobs but phenomenal careers,” the awards brochure says.

Employers large and small recognised

The award for small-to-medium enterprise employer has gone to Lander Automotive, an automotive and commercial vehicle components manufacturer based in Birmingham with 241 employees and 75 apprentices.

Recruitment of apprentices has been “critical for planning the future of the business and counteracting an aging workforce,” and has helped them make the majority of their employees under 40.

Wakefield Metropolitan District Council has won the large employer of the year award.

It has 4,879 employees including 419 apprentices across multiple levels and disciplines and apprenticeships help employees progress and fills hard-to-recruit positions.

“As a council with areas of substantial deprivation, apprentices give Wakefield Council the opportunity to offer young people opportunities they would not usually have, whilst helping the local economy along the way,” the brochure says.

J.C. Bamford Excavators, parent company of JCB, has this year won macro employer of the year after its apprentices won several accolades in 2020’s awards. It has 6,500 UK employees and 260 apprentices.

The world’s “third largest construction company,” has put apprenticeships at “the centre of their staff development since their foundation in 1945, and this commitment to building a bold, innovative, highly-trained workforce in-house remains the bedrock of the business,” the brochure reads.

LabCorp, a research organisation based in Harrogate, has won the recruitment excellence award this year.

Its 234 apprentices are employed mostly on science standards and the courses are “hugely important to both the company and the communities they operate in,” the brochure explains.

Apprentices who form ‘critical parts’ of their employers awarded

Nihal Dhillon, a level 6 engineering degree apprentice at JCB Earthmovers, has also won the rising star award, having “cultivated the ability to present his ideas to company directors, as well as aid other apprentices/students in their upcoming or present careers”.

Gemma Smith has been named intermediate apprentice of 2021, having just completed her level 2 in butchery.

She currently works as a meat specialist at Waitrose, Gemma has “committed to developing her professional skills and learning new things and has been self-driven in completing her apprenticeship”.

Level 3 digital marketing apprentice Jess Liddy from Google has taken home the advanced apprenticeship award.

She is “dedicated” to becoming an ambassador for apprenticeships and has “excelled in her scheme,” with her “self-confidence and ability to step outside her comfort zone having grown significantly, particularly in public speaking”.

Adam Hearn, who is currently completing a level 6 manufacturing engineering degree apprenticeship, and believes the course has “taught him a lot about himself”.

He is now a “critical part” of the team at Braintree Precision Components in Essex and has used his skills to set up an Explorer Scout group in his area.

The full list of winners

68 live investigations into FE providers, and 7 more ESFA accounts findings

The Education and Skills Funding Agency, which distributes £62 billion of education funding, has published its annual accounts for the year end March 31, 2021.

Here’s your FE Week guide to the key findings …

Funding overclaims from ITPs contribute heavily to £9.5m cash losses

The ESFA recorded 48 cases of “cash losses” totalling £9.5 million in 2020-21.

The largest sums lost related to unrecoverable overpayments to independent training providers that went bust.

The debts arise mainly where providers have overstated funding claims for delivery during a contract, for example where a learner started but did not complete.

In such circumstances, the ESFA seeks to recover the overpayments from providers in cash or from deductions against future payments. But in a number of cases, funds are unable to be recovered due to the provider closing down. If, after a prolonged period of time, insufficient funds from the provider’s receiver or liquidator are received or the provider is dissolved, the ESFA simply abandons the claim.

Un-recoverable grant overpayments above £300,000 in 2020-21 include:

Accent On Training Ltd = £2,466,000

Positive Outcomes Ltd = £2,073,000

Provident Training Ltd = £1,352,000

Education & Youth Services Ltd = £532,000

AMS Nationwide Ltd = £608,000

Bankrupt college makes up biggest proportion of £33m waived funding claims

In 2020-21, there were 24 claims waived or abandoned by the ESFA totalling £33 million.

Balances owed by academies and colleges may in some circumstances be waived to facilitate the re-brokerage of the academy or college to a more sustainable academy trust or college, or support closure.

West Kent and Ashford College, which is one of the first two colleges to be going through the education administration process, saw £20.6 million waived in 2020-21. The ESFA estimated that the total cost of putting West Kent and Ashford College, and its sister Hadlow College, through administration will probably run to over £60 million.

Another notable waiver for FE was Watford UTC, which had £463,000 abandoned.

£500k lost on Erasmus plans

The ESFA posted “fruitless payments” of £520,000 relating to work staff did on evaluating the feasibility of a successor to the Erasmus+ grant scheme in the run-up to Brexit.

However the agency was not chosen as the “preferred delivery partner” so stopped the work. A fruitless payment is one which “cannot be legally avoided because the recipient is entitled to it even though nothing of use to ESFA will be received in return”.

Only half of planned risk meetings with FE providers conducted

As part of the ESFA’s move to identify vulnerable colleges and providers early, the agency conducts meetings with those who are identified to be “high risk”, with the aim of identifying financial and/or quality issues before they become real problems.

A total of 438 of these meetings were carried out in 2020-21. This was, however, around half of the planned target.

Post-16 provider relief totalled £11m

The ESFA launched five different provider relief schemes, such as for apprenticeship and adult funding, to give “lifeline” financial support to providers during the pandemic.

Today’s report shows these schemes totalled £11 million, which in turn “protected provision and supported 32,800 learners and apprentices”.

No colleges enter formal intervention

The agency conducted 23 assessments of further education colleges in 2020-21. None resulted in formal intervention. Five of them led to the colleges’ plans being endorsed and the rest continue to work with ESFA to improve their plans.

There are 68 live investigations into FE providers

At 31 March 2021, the ESFA had a total of 80 live investigations and allegations in triage to carry forward into 2021-22.

This comprised 12 ongoing academy trust cases at “various stages” of the investigation cycle and 68 live cases relating to colleges and independent training providers.

The agency said the cases carried forward from both sectors “continue to reflect the complex nature and longevity of investigation casework”.

“ESFA investment in counter fraud and investigations, and the enforcement team, has ensured an appropriate response to increasing demand whilst also championing continuing improvements to mitigate and prevent future issues arising,” the report added.

Top ESFA staff bag bonuses totalling £60k

Eight of the 13 officials who held executive roles during the past year got a bonus. Matthew Atkinson, director of provider oversight, was handed a bonus between £15,000 to £20,000, while three others got bonuses between £10,000 to £15,000.

Former chief executive Eileen Milner was the ESFA’s highest-paid on £150,000 to £155,000.

Her replacement, former regional schools commissioner John Edwards, is paid £125,000 to £130,000 a year.

DfE brings back Covid workforce fund for colleges

Funding to cover teachers who are absent due to Covid-19 has been made available once again by the Department for Education, as workforce absences begin to climb in the sector.

The Covid-19 workforce fund, first brought in last December, has been opened again for FE colleges, sixth forms and specialist post-16 providers with separate guidance from schools accessing the fund.

There are few material differences between the two waves of funding, however this latest funding again excludes independent training and adult community learning providers.

This comes as the government’s latest data on attendance in education settings today shows 1.5 per cent of FE college teachers and leaders were absent due to Covid-19 on 24 November, up from 1 per cent on 10 November.

This week’s figures are an increase on the week of 20 October as well, where workforce absence rates were at 1.2 per cent.

Here are the key points from today’s guidance…

Cash will cover employing supply teachers or upping part-time teachers’ hours

“Colleges should only apply for this fund once they have used other options as far as possible,” the guidance reads.

But colleges can apply for this funding to cover the costs of employing supply teachers or support staff to cover teacher absences.

Or to increase the hours of part-time staff where they will be covering teacher absences.

The DfE has said: “Colleges should ensure staff are happy to temporarily increase their hours and consider their staff workload and wellbeing.”

Colleges cannot claim to cover absences by temporary staff, just permanent staff and those on long-term contracts, as well as educational and non-education support staff such as cleaners and caterers who are “necessary to avoid full or partial closure or fulfilling a legal duty”.

Funding only for colleges with 45 cash days or fewer

Sixth form and general FE colleges will be eligible for funding if their end of month cash position is 45 days or less at any point between November 2021 and March 2022, according to their November financial return.

Special post-16 providers will be eligible for the funding if their reserves at the end of March 2021 were no more than four per cent of their annual income.

The DfE has warned funding can be claimed back where these conditions are not met at the year-end.

Different absence rate thresholds for colleges and specialist providers

The absence threshold for this funding has been set for colleges at:

a teacher absence rate at or above 20 per cent on a given day
a teacher absence rate of 10 per cent or above for 15 or more consecutive days (not including weekends)

Colleges have to exceed either of these to be eligible and it ought to be calculated at a corporation level, not a teacher level.

The DfE expects providers to consider moving staff across different sites to make up for absences before considering spending on extra staff.

Where campuses are more than an hour apart by car, the absence threshold can be applied at a campus level.

Specialist providers must meet either of these thresholds:

a total teacher and leader absence rate at or above 15 per cent on a given day
a total teacher and leader absence rate of 10 per cent or above where that has been experienced for 15 or more consecutive days (not including weekends)

When claiming for education and non-education support staff costs, such providers must be experiencing:

a total support staff absence rate (teaching assistants and other staff) at or above 15 per cent on a given day
a lower total support staff absence rate (teaching assistants and other staff) of 10 per cent or above where that has been experienced for 15 or more consecutive days (not including weekends)

What assurance processes are involved

Colleges have to be able to prove they were open for on-site delivery on the days they are claiming for.

Records will have to be kept of all expenditure on staff absences and colleges cannot be claiming for costs from an existing insurance policy.

Colleges cannot claim until next spring

Much like the last time this fund was opened, providers cannot claim this funding until the following spring.

“Colleges will be able to make claims for costs eligible for reimbursement through this fund in spring 2022. We will publish detailed guidance about the claims process then,” the DfE has said.

The guidance highlights, though, colleges will continue to receive their core funding allocations, as well as their high needs funding from local authorities.

While colleges can use the 16-19 Tuition Fund, which received a £102 million expansion in February, to help students catch up with lost teaching, the DfE has stressed: “Colleges must not divert this funding to help meet the costs of staff absence.”

Colleges are expected to be financially prudent when sourcing cover, the guidance also instructs.