Further education leaders have vowed to march on parliament if proposed cuts to Whitehall budgets hit the sector.
The Treasury will write to all government departments in the coming days to demand they find efficiency savings to reduce the level of borrowing needed in a bid to calm the financial market, according to reports.
The moves comes despite prime minister Liz Truss saying that she was “not planning public spending reductions” during the Conservative party’s leadership contest.
Leaders of colleges and training providers now fear that their frontline services, which are already under huge pressure because of high inflation, will bear the brunt of cuts to the Department for Education’s budget.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “The idea of further cuts to college funding is chilling. After 12 years of underinvestment there is no fat to cut. Reduced funding would mean fewer courses on offer, lower hours of teaching, less student support and an even worse staffing crisis.”
Hughes also took to Twitter to say his membership body would organise a protest after Derwentside College principal Chris Todd tweeted: “If this [Whitehall cuts] comes to further education, after everything we’ve been through, I’m marching on the capital. Who’s with me?”
The University and College Union, Sixth Form Colleges Association and adult education provider network HOLEX all told FE Week they would join a sector-wide protest.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said: “It would be a grotesque act of harm and deeply damaging to the life chances of those who rely on further education to announce further devastating cuts. If further cuts are visited on further education, UCU and its members will have no hesitation in taking to the streets.”
Bill Watkin, SFCA chief executive, added: “If the request to find efficiency savings leads to the possibility of cuts in frontline services we will respond in the strongest possible terms. Funding cuts would affect the whole of 16- to 19-year-olds education, so it would be important to respond with one voice. We saw from the Raise the Rate campaign what can be achieved when colleges, schools, students, and trade unions work closely together.
“We hope that common sense will prevail, but if it does not we will do everything we can to ensure that the government’s economic experiment does not damage the life chances of sixth form students.”
The DfE’s total departmental spending came to £102,897,000 in 2020-21, according to its most recently published accounts. It is not clear at this stage how much in savings each government department will be told to find by the Treasury.
Last year’s spending review pledged funding increases to 16- to 18-year-olds and adult education budgets.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that due to significant cuts over the past decade, government spending will still be 25 per cent lower in 2024–25 than 2010–11 for adult education.
Per student spending in further education and sixth form colleges for 16- to 18-year-olds will also be 10 per cent lower by 2023-24 than when the Conservatives entered government, according to the IFS.
Sue Pember, the director of policy at HOLEX and a former DfE senior skills civil servant, said all services should be worried that the government is beginning to talk about cuts but she urged her counterparts to “not do the government’s work for them and use this exercise to create division in the wider education sector by suggesting some things are less important and therefore can be cut”.
“All the slack, if there was any, was cut out of the sector in 2012. What is left is the minimum needed to build a cohesive society and support economic growth.”
Pember added: “What we must do is work collectively to reiterate the importance of adult education and skills development in a period of recession. People are worried and they need support through learning new skills so they can ride out of this period of upheaval and set of unknowns.”
Jane Hickie, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive, said her membership body is also “deeply concerned” with reports that cabinet ministers will be asked to find “efficiency savings” which are tantamount to funding cuts.
“The training provider sector can ill afford any more financial blows at this challenging time,” she said. “I hope the education secretary Kit Malthouse will make a strong case for continued – and ideally increased – investment in further education and skills.”
From care worker to chief executive, Lynette Barrett has risen up the ranks at National Star, the adult special educational needs college in Gloucestershire. She tells Jess Staufenberg about how to keep staff during a cost-of-living crisis
Time clearly flies when you’re a member of staff at National Star.
It keeps happening as we walk around – staff are surprised at how long they’ve been here. In one classroom, I’m chatting to student Sam Vestey, who is showing me his BBC interview about why the blue disabled badge needs changing (it should feature more than just a wheelchair because some disabilities are hidden, he explains).
At one point I ask the delightful Simon Welch, college principal, how long he’s been here. He thinks for a moment, then grins: “14 years”.
In another building, the college’s irrepressible students’ union leader, Chelsea Pettitt (who seems to know literally everybody), comes scooting around the corner. She takes us to the hydrotherapy pool, where a student is in a session with two apprentice physiotherapists.
One of them, surprising even herself, explains that she’s been at the college for almost four years. Welch too is surprised. “I can’t believe that,” he exclaims.
In the music room, we meet a professional musician who now works at the college leading its music department. In the physiotherapy room, a physiotherapist runs out of fingers trying to count all the physiotherapists employed on site (turns out it’s about 30).
Chelsea Pettit, National Star student union president, and Simon Welch, college principal
And as we head towards the dance room – where, brilliantly, students can use hanging ropes to spin themselves around – we continue to meet people who greet one another like old friends. The banter is endless (I particularly enjoy the mock scraping-and-bowing to Chelsea in recognition of her new elected role as campus queen).
Finally, we reach the “manor house”, or Ullenwood Manor, which was the original Star Centre back in 1967. In an upper room is newly-appointed Lynette Barrett, chief executive of the £46 million turnover organisation.
Guess when she began here?
In 2001, aged just 25.
She arrived as a care worker, with only a couple of years’ experience as a care worker and two small children at home. Since then, she has climbed up and up – from senior facilitator, to deputy manager, head of department, director of residential services and finally chief operations officer in 2017 – before landing the top job in July.
She’s also chair of Natspec, the membership association for FE providers with SEND learners.
Finding and keeping staff is core to Barrett’s mission. As the former chief operations officer, she saw the impact of the pandemic on staffing up close – too close.
“Last year was incredibly difficult. The health and social care sector was having a massive staffing crisis. People were looking to come out of health and social care.
“Suddenly I felt very out of control” she adds. “It didn’t matter how much I put in, I couldn’t sustain the quality I’d prided myself on for all those years.”
The college needs 600 facilitators (support and care workers who help students access their lessons). They are the backbone of the organisation but during the pandemic 100 of these roles went unfilled.
Everyone had to pull double their weight. Two students, due to their vulnerability to Covid-19, ended up in intensive care – mercifully, nobody died.
Barrett chatting with a college student
“My biggest concern wasn’t the 100 vacancies, my fear was that would grow,” says Barrett, wide-eyed at the thought. “I was saying to [then-CEO David Ellis] ‘we have to retain who we’ve got. For every one we lose, that’s ten years’ experience out the door.”
Barrett and Ellis jumped into action. The college had already launched a ‘training unit’ for staff in 2004, but it now changed its advertising to emphasise career progression.
Current job postings for facilitators, for example, promise a £250 ‘golden hello’ after probation, highlight a five per cent salary increase from January this year and a free college bus service from Cheltenham and Gloucester (which Barrett wants to expand). Staff who stay get a ‘commitment payment’ and those who help hire someone also get a financial reward.
At the same time, a new director of people, Elaine Gisby, was found. She moved away from text-based adverts to more videos on social media, says Barrett.
The team even switched from making people download a job form online – which needs digital skills – to ringing on a phone. Meanwhile for staff already in college, there was a big boost to internal communications “to keep staff informed and engaged”, says Barrett.
Barrett at her desk in the main manor house
It was a huge “one-off investment” from the college’s reserves, costing £2.5 million.
And Barret herself is, of course, perhaps the best advert of all.
Things had looked a bit bleak when she was younger. She had the “attention span of a gnat” in primary school and found writing especially difficult (eventually diagnosed as dyslexia). Special support helped, and Barrett soon reached the top of her classes. But the move from a primary school with 28 pupils to a secondary with 1,200 was a disaster.
“Some of the solutions for me were very extreme. In those days you were either in mainstream, or in remedial class, with some children who had severe learning disabilities. I could not identify myself with that. So I stopped going.”
Barrett took a job as a groom at a stable, leaving school in 1991 aged 15. It didn’t work out, and she landed a hairdressing apprenticeship, working for five years until marrying and having her first son aged 21.
When I was 15 I stopped going to school
Not long after, she took on some shifts at a nursing home where her older sister worked, gaining level 2 and 3 in health and social care. When the nursing home shut, she stumbled across National Star.
How does it feel to sit here now as chief executive?
“It is a bit surreal. There was never any intention to end up here. I feel very proud, but I also feel very privileged, in terms of the trust and confidence in me as a person.”
Barrett also admits that a big part of her drive for more senior roles was a need to pay the bills.
“It was very difficult to make ends meet,” she says of her earliest years. “One of my drivers in terms of career progression was not just being ambitious, I needed to earn more money.” Even with a husband working, Barrett was feeling the bite.
Barrett’s experience might resonate with applicants for the college’s current facilitator vacancies: the advert online offers £10.50 to £10.92 an hour, or £13.13 to £13.65 at the weekend.
(It’s worth adding that the job “encourages those with no experience” to apply, pledging access to training and qualifications).
At the same time, the college’s energy bill is set to rise from £200,000 a year to half a million. The college is also due to post a “small deficit” this year and again in 2023.
But Barrett insists that she “can’t just pass that cost straight onto the local authority”. The college has already increased its charge to the local authority – where it was £100,000 per student place a year ago, it’s eight per cent higher today.
I can’t just pass the costs straight onto the local authority
So with finances tight, how can Barrett hold onto staff?
“There is something about the culture of the organisation that makes it a desirable place to be,” she says. She’s right – it’s tangible. But that’s partly because of the facilities, which look fantastic. For example there is a new £6 million residential site underway. The campus feels like an exciting, enduring place.
A computer generated image of the £6 million residential facility being built
While the LA’s payments cover staff costs, philanthropy and fundraising must cover any capital projects, facilities and equipment like the hydrotherapy pool.
But this isn’t easy either. “There’s so much more competition out there in terms of charities, and so many were hit hard by the pandemic,” says Barrett. “A charity that supports disabled adults is not so sexy in that sense. It’s surprising how many people never rub shoulders with someone with a disability.”
Career progression and development remain a key weapon in Barrett’s arsenal for keeping her expert staff. There are 70 staff working on care apprenticeships, seven training in leadership and management in adult care, six on nursing or physiotherapy degrees and two doing post graduate qualifications.
With specialist education, the quality comes from expertise
Proving the value of providers like National Star also helps. The college is in talks with two general FE colleges outside the south-west to offer its expertise to their learners. “It could be a satellite site, or they could subcontract us,” she says, saying more detail will be announced later this year. It’s a way to show the college adds real value across the system.
And in her role as chair of Natspec, Barrett is supporting member efforts to increase the prominence of adult learners in the SEND review consultation, because it is so “school focused” (see FE Week ad nauseum).
Barrett is adamant that “whatever we end up with” from the review, local authorities are made to implement the policies. “Unless local authorities are held to account and made to follow it, it won’t work.”
Meanwhile Natspec has also expanded its own training offer to members, in an effort to keep and develop more staff, according to Barrett.
“This is not the time to cut back,” she concludes. “With the specialist education sector, the quality comes from expertise. The only way to get that, is to remain in the sector.”
Next year’s GCSE and A-level grades will return back to pre-pandemic levels, government has confirmed, albeit with a “soft landing” and exam aides will be allowed in some subjects.
In summer 2022, grades were set at a “midway” point between 2019 and 2021 after two years of teacher grades due to the pandemic. Top grades had soared during these years.
The Department for Education and Ofqual confirmed today that grades will fall back to pre-pandemic standards. But there will be “protection” for students impacted by Covid disruption. It will also help “in case students’ performance is slightly lower than before the pandemic”.
DfE said senior examiners will use the grades achieved by previous cohorts of students, along with prior attainment data, to inform their decisions about where to set grade boundaries.
This means, for example, a typical A-level student who would have achieved a grade A before the pandemic will be just as likely to get an A this summer.
Advance information – which was used last academic year to help students target their revision – will not be available again. It has already been confirmed that optionality in some GCSE subjects would be removed.
But formulae and equation sheets will be staying in GCSE mathematics, physics and combined science
Consultations to “futureproof” exams will also be held. This includes guidance for schools about gathering evidence to ensure “preparedness” should exams need to be cancelled ever again.
Exams boards body the Joint Council for Qualifications will consult on maintaining extra spacing between exams next summer. This was brought in during Covid, but Ofqual said it was well received by schools and reduced the chance of students missing exams through illness.
A third consultation will propose removing the expectation that students engage with unfamiliar and abstract material, such as unfamiliar vocabularly, in modern foreign language GCSE exams from next year onwards.
Chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton said its 2023 plans were a “step further” towards normality, but still recognised Covid’s impact.
“Our approach to grading in 2023 will provide a soft landing for students as we continue the process of taking the exam system back to normal.”
Education secretary Kit Malthouse said the transition back to “pre-pandemic normality” was because students working towards qualifications next year “expect fairness in exams and grading arrangements”.
Ofqual has also confirmed that it does not expect adaptations previously used to respond to the pandemic to be used in vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) this year, meaning the qualifications will return to pre-pandemic standards.
Awarding organisations “are expected to take account of the approach used in general qualifications so that students taking VTQs are not advantaged or disadvantaged in comparison”, Ofqual said.
In T Levels, Ofqual has asked awarding organisations to be “generous in the first years of awards, to reflect the fact these qualifications are new”.
Staff at Croydon College have called off a strike after accepting a new pay deal worth up to 8 per cent.
The University and College Union said the offer also includes a commitment from management to look at workloads and to create joint working groups that will aim to improve career progression for learning support workers and technicians.
Strike action was suspended at Croydon College after the offer was made but went ahead this week at 17 other colleges, with a further 12 set to join the strike next week.
Staff at eight further colleges also have mandates to strike but are not yet going forward with action.
The UCU rejected a 2.5 per cent offer from the Association of Colleges in June, describing it as “totally unacceptable”. That had been increased from first 1 per cent and then 2.25 per cent.
Staff across the country are calling for a 10 per cent rise with a minimum uplift of £2,000 to help them cope with the cost-of-living crisis.
Croydon College’s pay award means those earning under £25,000 will see their pay rise by 8 per cent, and those earning between £25,000 and £40,000, including lecturers, will see their pay rise by 5 per cent.
UCU regional official Adam Lincoln said: “This deal is the result of determined organising from our members at Croydon College. We are always willing to negotiate fairly with management and we thank the college leadership team for their serious engagement with UCU in negotiating this agreement.
“We are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and our members in further education are taking action like never before with around 4,000 staff hitting colleges across England with strikes. There are up to seven days of strikes still set to take place over the next three weeks. Employers urgently need to make improved offers that address the cost-of-living crisis. If they fail to do so, they will face further disruption.”
Labour would reform the apprenticeship levy so that it can be spent on other types of training if the party comes into power.
The party plans to turn the policy into a “growth and skills levy” where businesses could use up to half of their contributions to fund non-apprenticeship training such as modular courses.
Full details of the policy are set to be published in a report produced by Labour’s Council of Skills Advisers – led by Lord Blunkett – in the coming weeks.
It is unclear at this stage how small and medium-sized employers would continue to access apprenticeships under the proposed system, but shadow skills minister Toby Perkins promised that non-levy payers will not see a reduction in the amount of funding available to them.
Keir Starmer made no mention of apprenticeships in his speech at his party’s annual conference today, but he did make a commitment to “give employers new flexibility to invest in world class training they need”.
Following his speech, the Labour Party press office announced several skills reforms to be overseen by a new body called Skills England, which would enforce greater devolution of adult education funding streams as well as an overhaul to the apprenticeship levy system.
Only employers with a wage bill of £3 million or more pay into the apprenticeship levy, at a rate of 0.5 per cent of their annual wage bill.
The current government’s levy policy was designed so that large employers would not use all their funds. Levy-payers lose access to their contributions after 24 months and unspent money is made available to small and medium-sized businesses who do not pay the levy to use to train apprentices.
Expanding the apprenticeship levy was a policy idea favoured by the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who pledged to reform the policy in his 2019 general election manifesto. His commitment followed calls from multiple industry representative bodies for apprenticeship levy payers to be able to fund wider skills training from their levy cash.
A Labour spokesperson said that under its newly proposed “growth and skills levy”, firms will be able to “spend up to 50 per cent of their levy contributions, including currently unspent money, on non-apprenticeship training, with at least 50 per cent being reserved for apprenticeships to preserve existing provision”.
“This flexibility will enable businesses to use more of the money in their levy pot for training, rather than it sitting unspent, investing in essential skills that we need to prepare Britain for the challenges of the next decade,” the spokesperson claimed.
It is unclear whether it is therefore Labour’s hope that all levy-payers will utilise all of their levy-contributions, which would mean there is no money left to fund SME apprenticeships, or if additional funding will be made available.
Perkins told FE Week that full details of how SMEs will be able to access apprenticeship funding will be shared by Labour’s Council for Skills Advisers. But he offered assurance that SMEs would not see a reduction in the apprenticeship funding they can access.
Labour’s spokesperson said that for SMEs who do not pay the levy, they would “be able to reclaim 95 per cent co-payments on approved courses in the same way as they do for apprenticeships”. Again, it is not clear at this stage precisely how this will work.
Labour said it will establish a new expert body, Skills England, to oversee its skills reforms. This includes approving a list of qualifications that businesses could spend their “flexible levy money”.
The list of qualifications will include modular courses in “priority areas, which lie at the core of our industrial strategy, including digital and green skills, social care and childcare that would boost training opportunities with a view to supporting national ambitions such as the transition to net zero”.
The growth and skills levy would also fund “functional skills and pre-apprenticeships training helping tackle key skills gaps especially around basic digital skills that hold back individuals and organisations”.
Labour said it also plans to merge the various adult education skills funding streams such as the Shared Prosperity Fund and Multiply, with the existing adult education budget. This would then be devolved to combined authorities who currently have control of the AEB for their area.
‘Skills England’, which would replace the current Unit for Skills within the Department for Education, would oversee this effort. Labour said the body would be run by experts from the Treasury and Department for Education, and pull together relevant trade associations, large and small employers, representatives of trade unions, central and local government, further and higher education.
The government has finally confirmed portfolios for new Department for Education ministers appointed in Liz Truss’s first reshuffle.
Andrea Jenkyns remains minister for skills – although her title has been shortened from “minister for skills, further and higher education”. Meanwhile Baroness Barran – who had been minister for the school system – is now minister for the school and college system.
According to the DfE website, Jenkyns’ role now also includes strategy for post-16 education and covers funding for educating or training 16- to 19-year-olds, however higher education reform and Covid-19 recovery for further and higher education are no longer listed in her responsibilities.
Obligations she held for reducing NEETs (not in education, employment or training) and careers education and guidance have moved across to Barran.
In addition, Barran’s role includes education provision and outcomes for 16- to 19-year-olds, governance and accountability of colleges, and intervention and financial oversight for further education colleges.
The DfE has confirmed that universities will come under the skills portfolio, and said that the FE brief has been split between two ministers given its breadth. Jenkyns will drive the skills agenda and Barran take responsibility for the college system, it said.
In another sign Truss plans to make good on her promise to open more grammar schools, Tolhurst’s brief includes “strategy for schools, including standards and selection”.
She will also oversee exams and SEND. While Gullis will take charge of overseeing school accountability, behaviour and catch-up.
Here’s what’s in each minister’s brief…
Kit Malthouse, education secretary
Early years
Children’s social care
Teacher quality, recruitment and retention
The school curriculum
School improvement
Academies and free schools
Further education
Apprenticeships and skills
Higher education
Andrea Jenkyns, skills minister
Strategy for post-16 education
T-levels
Qualifications reviews (levels 3 and below)
Higher technical education (levels 4 and 5)
Apprenticeships and traineeships
Funding for education and training for 16 to 19 year olds
Further education workforce and funding
Institutes of Technology
Local skills improvement plans and Local Skills Improvement Fund
Adult education, including basic skills, the National Skills Fund and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund
Higher education quality
Student experience and widening participation in higher education
Student finance and the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (including the Student Loans Company)
International education strategy and the Turing Scheme
Baroness Barran minister for the school and college system
Academies and multi-academy trusts
Free schools and university technical colleges
Faith schools
Independent schools
Home education and supplementary schools
Intervention in underperforming schools and school improvement
School governance
School capital investment (including pupil place planning)
Education Investment Areas (jointly with Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for the School Standards))
Education provision and outcomes for 16 to 19 year olds
College governance and accountability
Intervention and financial oversight of further education colleges
Careers education, information and guidance including the Careers and Enterprise Company
Reducing the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training
Safeguarding in schools and post-16 settings
Counter extremism in schools and post-16 settings
Departmental efficiency and commercial policy
Kelly Tolhurst, schools and childhood minister
Strategy for schools, including standards and selection
Qualifications (including links with Ofqual)
Curriculum including relationships, sex, and health education and personal, social, health and economic education
Admissions and school transport
Early years and childcare
Children’s social care
Children in care, children in need, child protection, adoption and care leavers
Disadvantaged and vulnerable children
Families, including family hubs and early childhood support
Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including high needs funding
Alternative provision
School food, including free school meals
Children and young people’s mental health, online safety and preventing bullying in schools
Policy to protect against serious violence
Jonathan Gullis, school standards minister
School accountability and inspection (including links with Ofsted)
Standards and Testing Agency and primary assessment
Supporting a high-quality teaching profession including professional development
Supporting recruitment and retention of teachers and school leaders including initial teacher training
Teaching Regulation Agency
National Tutoring Programme
Education Investment Areas (jointly with Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for the School and College System))
School revenue funding, including the national funding formula for schools
School efficiency and commercial policy
Pupil premium
Behaviour, attendance and exclusions
School sport
Digital strategy and technology in education (EdTech)
Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Geoff Barton has announced he will stand down from his role in 2024, three years earlier than planned.
But Barton said he believed 2024 would be the “right time for our association to have a new leader with a fresh approach”. He will leave in April of that year.
The former headteacher was elected in a landslide in 2017, in the first contested election in ASCL’s history. He said he was giving notice now to kick-start the “lengthy” election process for a new leader, to “ensure that there is a smooth transition”.
“I’ve decided to step down as ASCL general secretary in April 2024. By that point I will have been in post for seven years, and I believe it will be the right time for our Association to have a new leader with a fresh approach.
“Over the next 18 months, it will be business as usual for me, and I look forward to continuing to work with the ASCL team – with, and on behalf of, our 22,000 members. As we always say, we work on behalf of members and act on behalf of children and young people.
Leadership courses are often focused on schools or are too costly. To develop as a leader, collaborate and listen hard to your staff, writes Jonny Kay
Among those FE staff heading into 2022-23 with a mix of excitement and nervousness will be those who have become leaders for the first time.
Many new leaders will be taking up roles and so our attention turns to the support, guidance and training they will need.
Much like those entering initial teacher training, new leaders can expect to work with a mentor, complete a statutory induction and work to identify their own developing needs.
But what support is available outside of their new role?
Well, over the last year, the national professional qualifications have been relaunched. They are now less focused on specific roles and more focused on leadership and development of teaching and learning, behaviour and culture.
These qualifications are excellent and they are funded, but there remains a clear focus on primary and secondary school settings, leading many to ask: what is available for FE leaders?
Of course, there are opportunities available and the Education and Training Foundation has a range of courses for new, aspiring and current middle and senior leaders.
But these courses can be costly, too broad in content or unavailable until numbers are confirmed.
As a result, there remains a lack of FE-focused leadership training opportunities. But why is it so important to have FE focused leadership development?
To start with, FE remains the most truly diverse sector, and leaders are tasked with managing and leading that diversity at all stages.
They must handle staffing, induction, finance and budgeting, progression, timetabling, recruitment, retention, managing achievement, apprenticeships, higher education and adult provision.
Some of this simply does not exist in primary and secondary settings (or they do so at a significantly reduced level. Middle leaders in FE regularly manage 50 or more staff and a budget in the millions of pounds).
As a result, the generic elements of leadership (delegation, clear communication, curriculum intent, managing teams) are very different as there are so many variables to manage, mitigate against and consider.
So, what can new leaders do to continue their development in FE?
The answer to this is collaboration.
Network with both new and experienced leaders
By collaborating and networking with new and experienced leaders within and outside of your own setting, there is the opportunity to share best practice and discuss new strategies to resolve age-old problems.
It is also important to accept that failure is inevitable. There is no such thing as a perfect leader, so it is vital to accept that you will make mistakes.
This is why it is so important to identify and work with a mentor and a coach – they perform different roles but will become equally as important.
Both will give feedback which will allow you to develop effectively, as will your team: giving regular feedback opportunities to your team will help to shape what leader you become.
Remember that effective leaders speak last. Seek to communicate, open a dialogue and gain feedback from your team as they will give you the richest feedback on the impact you have. Good leaders communicate – ineffective leaders broadcast.
Feedback is important. Seek it always: you have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
The simplest method for improving leadership is to consult the literature. Read. Broadly and often.
Books from inside and outside of education will provide a host of approaches; whether Sir Alex Ferguson’s Leading, Simon Sinek’s Start With Why or Mary Myatt’s High Challenge, Low Threat, each will signpost transferrable skills and ideas to support the steps you want to take.
No matter the preparation or training undertaken by a new leader, it’s important to remember that what is out there is support only. You must find your own leadership style and find what works for you.
Like anything, this can take time. In the coming months, new leaders will strive to be different things for different people, dealing with innumerable new challenges using a range of leadership models and styles.
To do this successfully, authentic leadership is key.
People on universal credit say work coaches don’t engage properly and rules stop them from accessing training, write Trinley Walker and Olivia Gable
Throughout the pandemic, the government placed a strong emphasis on the role of training and re-skilling through programmes.
It has done this through Restart and JETS (Job Entry Targeted Support), which formed part of its Plan for Jobs.
But the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education can be misaligned in practice.
For example, universal credit is underpinned by a “work first” approach.
Re-entry into the labour market is prioritised for out-of-work claimants, with individuals required to demonstrate the steps they have taken to find employment each week.
Should they not fulfil their requirements, they risk being sanctioned (losing financial support).
Although different types of conditionality dictate how much time claimants must spend on job search activity, a significant proportion have to show 35 hours of activity.
This leaves little opportunity for training and education.
But what if people claiming universal credit hold ambitions that reach beyond the immediate and available jobs they can get with their current experience and qualifications?
What if they want to boost their opportunities to access better-quality work?
Conditionality rules makes it hard for claimants to take up training opportunities.
The government’s skills bootcamps are a case in point.
Many of its courses are highly intensive, run over a 16-week period and sometimes requiring full day participation, while others require evening and weekend learning time.
For many people getting universal credit, this would leave no time to meet the requirements to search and apply for jobs set out by their work coach, and so could risk a break in financial support.
This means people with a universal credit claim generally cannot access full-time training.
The government is now running a pilot scheme called Train and Progress which allows a small number of claimants to access up to 12 weeks of training without having to meet work search requirements.
In our recent research, we conducted interviews on this issue.
While most of the interviewees were engaged in training in some way, these efforts could be disrupted by their conditionality requirements.
Some interviewees were required to conduct job activity for 35 hours a week, limiting their ability to undertake training.
One person we spoke to had to use classroom time to search for jobs, putting her at risk of missing out on the learning experience.
One claimant had to use classroom time to search for jobs
Interviewees also reported variable experiences with their work coaches.
While some interviewees benefitted from relationships with work coaches who were responsive to their needs, too often, this wasn’t the case.
Typically, people found their engagement with work coaches to be transactional. It was conducted through brief meetings in which their underlying needs were not addressed.
Some interviewees had to research training opportunities themselves as their work coaches were not well informed about the local area.
Our research also found that childcare responsibilities present a further barrier to training.
There could be significant strain where parents were attempting to balance training courses with conditionality requirements and part-time work.
We are calling for:
People on a course while receiving universal credit to have a one-year pause on conditionality so they can study full-time or part-time without risking their benefit entitlement.
The DWP to create opportunities for people on universal credit to discuss training access with their work coach at any point in their claim. This should trigger a training-focused meeting and potentially signpost to the National Careers Service.
The DfE to ensure work coaches have up-to-date knowledge of local skills ecosystems, labour market demand and training opportunities, including government skills initiatives, by establishing a specialised group of career developers.
Better alignment between DWP and DfE programmes to facilitate training for people on universal credit.
With the cost-of-living crisis set to deepen further, it is vital that people on low incomes who want to build new skills are offered tailored advice and support. This will allow them to access training that might help them move in to more secure forms of employment.
