Firm that took over Learndirect goes bust

The company that bought Learndirect, previously England’s largest training provider, has suddenly ceased trading after failing to secure enough skills contracts to clear “significant liabilities”.

Multiple creditors, including government departments, are on the hook for potentially millions of pounds after Dimensions Training Solutions Ltd (DTS) filed for insolvency this week.

The DTS board told FE Week the decision to close follows an unsuccessful attempt to win new government-funded skills contracts and a failed effort to refinance the business with external investment.

It comes just six months after the firm was sold by previous owner Wayne Janse van Rensburg to The Firebird Partnership.

Janse van Rensburg secured around £35 million worth of European Social Fund (ESF) contracts through the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions after buying Learndirect in 2018. The ESF contracts expire in March 2023.

The new DTS board refused to say how many staff will lose their jobs but latest accounts for the firm show 47 employees in 2021. It is also unclear how many learners will be impacted by closure of DTS.

Insolvency practitioners from James Cowper Kreston have been engaged to assist with the liquidation process.

In a statement the DTS board said: “When the business was acquired in January of 2022 it was in a precarious financial position with significant liabilities on the balance sheet, however we believed that because of the strength of the staff team and the quality of our service we would be able to win enough new tenders to rectify the historic position.

“Despite successfully winning three new contracts this has not been enough and therefore external investment has been sought, or new owners that could provide continuity of employment and learning for staff and young people. We received an offer of investment but unfortunately due to the political uncertainty and delays in awarding new contracts this offer was withdrawn this week and we have had no choice but to pursue this course of action.”

The board would not disclose the scale of the financial problems but latest accounts for the group of companies shows net liabilities of almost £15 million.

DTS was incorporated in 1998 and delivered a range of commercial and government-funded training.

It bought Learndirect from Lloyds Development Capital in 2018 shortly after the adult training and apprenticeship was dealt a fatal grade four Ofsted report following a High Court battle. The Education and Skills Funding Agency then stepped in and cancelled Learndirect’s contracts which were worth around £100 million.

Learndirect and DTS, under the ownership Janse van Rensburg but management of chief executive Pamela Rae Welsh and chief operating officer Andrew Niedzwiecki, managed to secure around £35 million in European Social Fund contracts from the ESFA a year later despite the fiasco.

DTS also bagged an adult education budget contract with the West Midlands Combined Authority in 2020/21 worth around £800,000.

Around £2.6 million of DTS’ skills contracts were subcontracted out in 2021/22.

FE Week understands that subcontractor payments have stalled in recent months after DTS’ financial challenges began to bite.

An email to suppliers from the DTS board said insolvency practitioners “will contact you in the coming days and provide you with further information including about how to make a claim with the company for money that may be owed to you”.

DTS was taken over by Stewart Lambert, Ian Finlay and Charlie Rigby, who are part of The Firebird Partnership, in January 2022.

DTS’ board said the firm’s directors and shareholders were “deeply saddened that they have had to take the decision to put the business into liquidation”.

“Our staff and supply chain partners have worked tirelessly in incredibly difficult circumstances over the last six months and during that time have delivered courses to thousands of participants with high success rates and satisfaction levels,” the board added.

“We are grateful for all of their efforts and are incredibly disappointed that we were not able to secure the future of the company despite our best efforts.”

After hearing that DTS had gone into liquidation, Janse van Rensburg said: “It is deeply saddening that the next chapter of the DTS business has not materialised and that the new owners and shareholders of DTS have had to make the difficult decision to put the business into liquidation. Our thoughts are with all learners, staff and suppliers.”

The DfE and DWP were approached for comment.

Revealed: Brooklands College resizing plans to ensure ‘financial security’

A college fighting for survival is selling off land and a historic mansion to make way for houses in a deal worth around £45 million, FE Week understands.

Leaders at Brooklands College, which has failed to file accounts for the past three years after being stung by a £20 million apprenticeship scandal, claim that the new venture will ensure the college’s financial security going forwards.

The college has teamed up with housebuilding company Cala Homes to undergo a “resizing” project which involves redeveloping its Weybridge campus.

The college has remained tight-lipped about exactly how much land and property will be released, but a spokesperson said most parts are ex landfill sites and surplus to requirements.

FE Week understands that the college’s three-storey, Grade II listed red brick Victorian mansion called Brooklands House, which was built in the late 1890s, is one property that will be redeveloped for housing.

The property used to house the family of Dame Ethel Locke King, who was behind the famous Brooklands racing circuit, previously dubbed the ‘Ascot of Motorsport’.

The college’s plans, put out for public consultation this week, say the mansion “has fallen into decline because it is not suitable for education use and the college cannot afford to maintain it to the standard necessary for a listed building”.

Brooklands College claimed that no staff will lose their jobs as part of the resizing project, and no course provision will be lost.

Principal Christine Ricketts said the partnership will allow the local community greater access to the college’s “beautiful woodlands”, as well as greater access to its sporting, catering and hair and beauty facilities.

She said: “We have considered our position in the community, our history of service and our commitment to education and skills training, knowing that in order to recover from past financial struggles we must refine our approach. 

“The resizing of the college is part of this process. Choosing to focus on offering our students and staff, greener, state of the art facilities means that we can continue to offer our local community the very best in vocational skills and training.”

The deal will provide funds to allow the college to revitalise its teaching spaces, including a new sports hall and “independent working hub” for the use of the college and wider public.

Brooklands College refused to say how much money it will gain from the project, but FE Week understands it will be in the region of £45 million.

As well as the deal with Cala Homes, the college also recently secured an undisclosed share of the Department for Education’s further education capital transformation fund.

Chair Andrew Baird said: “These proposals are the culmination of several years of work by the Brooklands leaders and their advisers.

“Governors were looking to reshape the College to meet the skills needs of the local community in the first half of the 21st century and we believe that this scheme achieves that aim, while recognising the College’s historic place and character in the community.”

Brooklands College was plunged into financial difficulty in late 2018 after an FE Week investigation exposed how it subcontracted out almost £20 million to a small private training provider called SCL Security Ltd in just three years.

The ESFA, FE Commissioner and Ofsted then stepped in to investigate, which led to the private provider, headed up by Andrew Merritt, being kicked out of the apprenticeships market.

Among other findings, the agency discovered that apprenticeship funding was being used to pay the wages for the 16-to-18-year-olds, which is strictly against the funding rules.

SCL Security Ltd filed for insolvency in October 2020.

The college has refused to divulge details relating to the £20 million clawback and its plan for payment to the ESFA.

The debacle led to the resignation of former principal Gail Walker and chair Terry Lazenby.

Ricketts took over as principal in May 2019 before Baird, one of the government’s paid national leaders of governance, was parachuted in to chair the college in October 2019.

The college has not filed accounts since 2018 or published board minutes since October 2021.

Andrea Jenkyns: 12 facts about the new skills, further and higher education minister

Andrea Jenkyns has been named as the new minister for skills, further education and higher education at the Department for Education.

Here is what we know about her…

1. Jenkyns was first elected as an MP in May 2015 for the Morley and Outwood seat in West Yorkshire. She defeated Labour’s former children, schools and families minister and shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, at that election by 422 votes.

2. Her promotion to the DfE is her first paid ministerial post, but has served as an assistant whip in the whips office since September last year and was a parliamentary private secretary in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government before quitting in 2018 to campaign for Brexit.

3. Prior to her life in politics, Jenkyns’ jobs have included working for Greggs, as a music tutor, and as a manager in a retail store.

4. Jenkyns is understood to be an operatic soprano singer, and released an album, Ilyis, in 2006 under the name Andrea.

5. She studied for two degrees – one in international relations from Lincoln University, and another in economics from the Open University. In an April 2018 debate on higher education she told the house she was the first person in her family to go to university.

6. Media reports suggest that her father sent her photo in to the Miss UK competition when she was 18, where she reached the finals.

7. Jenkyns has some HE experience beyond being a learner – she served as a director of the National Centre for Higher Education Policy at the University of Bolton from July 2019 until September last year, according to her Parliament register of interests. That saw her earn £25,000 a year for eight hours work per week.

8. Elsewhere on her register of interests, Jenkyns was an unpaid member of pro-Brexit group Foundation for Independence’s political advisory board from March 2021, and from May until September 2021 an unpaid member for the Foundation for Education Development National Ambassadors Group.

9. Among education issues she has spoken on in parliament have been the Kickstart scheme, mental health support for children in schools, minimising exam stress for SATs students, supporting sports provision in schools, clarity on the GCSE 1-9 grading system, and increasing college funding for 16 to 19s.

10. In March 2016 in a debate on apprenticeships, Jenkyns announced an ambition to create 50 new apprenticeships in 50 days alongside local businesses in her constituency.

11. In July 2019 she issued a tweet in which she reported to have suffered whiplash and concussion after an accident swinging around on her seat at a constituency meeting.

12. Jenkyns courted controversy last week after raising her middle finger to a group of protestors outside Downing Street on the day of the prime minister’s resignation. She later issued a statement that said she had been a regular victim of abuse and was standing up for herself.

Andrea Jenkyns named skills, further and higher education minister

Andrea Jenkyns has been named as the new skills, further and higher education minister in the Department for Education.

Jenkyns, Conservative MP for Morley and Outwood in the north of England, joined Brendan Clarke-Smith as new junior ministers in the DfE last week, but the exact nature of their roles were not made clear.

She announced this evening that she will take on the skills portfolio previously held by Alex Burghart as well as the joint FE and HE brief previously held by Michelle Donelan.

Jenkyns tweeted: “Thrilled to be appointed as skills, further and higher education minister @EducationGovUK.

“We’ll be powering ahead with ambitious plans to boost skills and opportunities for everyone, regardless of where they are in life, delivering for individuals, employers and the economy.”

https://twitter.com/andreajenkyns/status/1546915723401957376?s=20&t=NQ6StazKoLpgD6RVbh336g

Jenkyns – a Boris Johnson loyalist – was first elected in May 2015, and had been an assistant whip in the Whips Office since September last year.

Prior to that she had served on a number of committees.

The new minister has already attracted some controversy after footage emerged that showed her raising a middle finger to protestors in Downing Street.

Jenkyns has since issued a statement in which she explained that there was a “baying mob” outside the gates who were shouting abuse to MPs. She said she had “reached the end of my tether” following “huge amounts of abuse” over the years, adding: “I should have shown more composure but am only human.”

L-R: Will Quince, schools minister; Baroness Barran, minister for the school system; James Cleverly, secretary of state for education; Brendan Clarke-Smith; minister for children and families, Andrea Jenkyns, minister for skills, further and higher education

The new appointment follows a whirlwind week in British politics in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign after an exodus of junior ministers and the resignation of two of his top cabinet members – Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid.

Last week, then-education secretary Nadhim Zahawi was promoted to replace Sunak as chancellor, with then-joint HE and FE minister Michelle Donelan stepping up to fill the education role.

She sensationally quit after 35 hours, replaced late last week with Braintree MP James Cleverly.

In addition, skills minister Alex Burghart, parliamentary under secretary of state Will Quince and school standards minister Robin Walker all quit, before Quince returned on Friday in the higher role of minister of state.

Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was appointed as a junior minister alongside Jenkyns. He has confirmed he will take the children and families brief, previously held by Quince before he resigned last week.

‘Stressful and exhausting’: Ofqual report exposes teacher grade woes

Half of school and college staff felt pressured from either senior leaders or parents and students to change teacher assessed grades (TAGs) last year, an Ofqual survey has found.

The exams regulator quizzed schools, colleges and students on how they found the TAGs process, after summer exams were cancelled in 2021 due to the pandemic.

Half of 1,500 staff said they felt “undue pressure” on their professional judgment, an increase from 31 per cent in 2020 when centre assessed grades were awarded.

Thirty-one per cent of respondents felt pressure from their senior leadership team (SLT), which was often “centred around reducing student grades to meet previous year’s grade profiles”.

Nearly half of those involved in internal quality assurance – where the school or college signed off results – said grades were changed. A third (119) said this was because of the prior attainment profile, where grades were not inline with past distributions. Generally grades went down.

Cath Jadhav, Ofqual’s director of standards and comparability, said last year that schools and colleges did not need to award grades to closely match previous years, or be “used to suppress results”.

Schools and colleges just had to explain why there were “substantial variances” when exam boards quality assured grades.

The survey also found a “slightly smaller, but still substantial” number of respondents said there was SLT pressure to increase grades.

“Both pressures conflicted with their professional judgement and the need to be fair to their students,” the Ofqual report said.

“They also mentioned having individual grading decisions checked and scrutinised by
management and the burden in having to justify decisions and the additional work
this sometimes required.”

‘Stressful, time-consuming and exhausting’

One in five (21 per cent) reported pressure from students and their parents, despite a warning this could amount to malpractice.

The most frequent words used to describe judging TAGs by schools and colleges were “stressful, time-consuming and exhausting”.

TAGs

The median time taken to decide grades was 15 days – over twice as long as for CAGs, likely because last year schools and colleges had to assess students on what they knew last year, rather than predict what they would have achieved should exams have gone ahead in 2020.

Nearly half (43 per cent) of respondents found the process of agreeing TAGs with other staff members easy or very easy, while a quarter (24 per cent) found it difficult or very difficult.

Most staff – 85 per cent – rated their confidence in grades at over 75 out of 100.

Last year, schools and colleges were handed masses of new guidance and resources for TAGs.

But 18 per cent said this was “unclear, vague and inconsistent or even contradictory”, with 41 per cent saying there was “inadequate support” from exam boards.

‘Too much time’ on TAGs assessment

Nearly two-thirds (57 per cent) of surveyed students felt that too much, or far too much, time had been spent on assessment.

The survey took place after TAGs were submitted, but before students got their results in August.

Ofqual’s chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton said teachers “worked incredibly hard to award grades in the exceptional circumstances” but it had an “additional burden” on schools, colleges and students.

“It’s great that exams and formal assessments have taken place this year, and again, I would like to thank teachers and pay tribute to the resilience of students.”

Doubt cast on government skills reform plan by public spending watchdogs

Warnings have been issued by public spending watchdogs that the government’s skills reform plans may be no more successful than previous attempts to provide the country with the skills it needs.

The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have said that education chiefs need to step up their efforts amid fears current policies for an employer-led system may not work.

The ‘developing workforce skills for a strong economy’ paper published today by the NAO has called on the Department for Education to put together an implementation plan outlining incentives for employers and learners, how central and local government will work together and metrics the government will use to measure progress.

It has also requested further thought on how barriers to skills training can be addressed and issues around reskilling or upskilling older workers who form a growing part of the UK workforce.

The NAO’s report said that the government “has a reasonably good understanding of current skills needs,” and recognised that “spending on adult education, apprenticeships and other skills programmes has been rising and totalled £3.9 billion in 2021-22”.

But it warned that the “DfE considers that the skills system will be most effective if it is led by employers, but there is limited assurance that the conditions are in place for this approach to be implemented successfully”.

It explained that the model will rely on employers having the capacity and willingness to become more involved in developing local plans, and evidence to date meant it was unclear what assurance is in place for that.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “To help people achieve their potential in the workplace and drive economic growth, it is essential that government and employers support opportunities for learning and development.

“The government has taken sensible steps to address skills shortages in recent years, but the challenges it faces have increased.

“There is a risk that, despite government’s greater activity and good intent, its approach may be no more successful than previous attempts to provide the country with the skills it needs.”

Data in the NAO’s analysis indicated that nearly one in four vacancies were because of skills shortages, rising to more than one in three for the manufacturing and construction sectors.

It reported an 11 per cent fall in employers’ spending on training from 2011 to 2019, while the number of adults in government-funded education or skills training had fallen by nearly half between 2010/11 and 2020/21 – down from 3.2 million to 1.6 million.

The report said the decline was seen particularly in disadvantaged areas, with a drop of 39 per cent from 2015/16 to 2020/21, 280,100 people.

The Further Education Skills Index – the government’s proxy measure of the value of further education on productivity – has fallen by 46 per cent since 2012/13, the report said, largely as a result of a drop in learner numbers.

The NAO reported that employers and providers were struggling to navigate the growing and disjointed skills programmes – which can range from apprenticeships and skills bootcamps funded by the DfE, to the train and progress initiative for universal credit claimants and the new multiple numeracy programme led by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Meg Hillier, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: “A properly skilled workforce is vital for the economy, yet training over recent years has fallen off a cliff. Once again, it is people in the most disadvantaged areas who are missing out on opportunities to upskill.

“The NAO highlights some recent positive steps by government, yet the workforce challenges of Brexit, an ageing population and the march to Net Zero are truly immense.

“In the face of this gathering storm, DfE must step up and provide better support to people and their employers on developing skills. It’s vital that they get this right to ensure the country’s workforce remains competitive.”

The DfE’s reforms come as part of the skills and post-16 education act 2022, which includes a commitment for lifelong loan entitlement, and ambitions for strengthened links between employers and further education providers to create courses designed to meet the needs of businesses and allow them input in designing courses.

It includes proposals to recruit more teaching staff, create LSIPs (local skills improvement plans) to respond to local labour market needs in key skills, and reform levels 4 and 5 technical education.

A flagship proposal is the lifetime skills guarantee which allows adults without a level 3 qualification to take a free course. But early data on this scheme found that it was struggling to boost enrolments.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We are investing in high quality training to deliver the skilled workforce employers need to grow and plugging skills gaps in our economy, helping more people into jobs.

“This includes rolling out new T Levels in fields like construction and manufacturing, while investing £2.7 billion by 2025 to support businesses to create more apprenticeships.

“We’ve also launched the Unit for Skills to focus future support and are investing £1.6 billion over the next three years, including on expanding our popular skills bootcamps and free courses for jobs offers.

“The NAO recognises the progress made but we know there is more to do.”

Caretaker Cleverly may soon find his department at the centre of the Tory battle

With billions of tax cuts promised, who will put their head above the parapet and demand some proper spend on FE? asks Tom Bewick

When the government is in full meltdown, Monty Python style moments of British humour are never very far away.

The new junior education minister, Andrea Jenkyns MP, it appears, gave the middle finger to a ‘baying mob’ outside Downing Street last week. She later apologised.

Of course, this rather predictably led to the ‘be kind’ brigade on social media calling for her resignation – in a manner not too dissimilar from the famous stoning scene in Life of Brian.

Shortly after, we saw pictures circulating of the uber Johnson loyalist, now at DfE and tipped to be skills minister, Brendan Clarke-Smith MP, wearing a face mask covering his private parts.

It all feeds into a rather chaotic narrative.

One akin to drift, dither and decay, of what is now the outgoing Johnsonian administration. 

Yet, the temporary changing of guard at Sanctuary Buildings could not have come at a worse time for FE.

Sector insiders will tell you, that ideologically-speaking, DfE officials have been offside with Conservative ministers in the post-Brexit mould for quite some time.

Leadership hopeful for next PM, Suella Braverman MP, perhaps neatly characterised the mood of large swathes of the card-carrying membership, writing in the Telegraph:

‘Napoleon derided Britain as a nation of shopkeepers. We’re in danger of becoming a nation of regulators.’

It will make uncomfortable reading for the new secretary of state, James Cleverly and his relatively inexperienced team of junior ministers.

Because the contours of the coming battles in the leadership contest are already marching over the hill.

For years, the Department and its phalanx of quangos have been gold plating policies and regulations with very little regard for the consequences.

The list of Stalinist-inspired manoeuvres began during the New Labour era; placed on steroids after the general election in 2017.

They include not only the growing intervention in the day-to-day running of the nation’s 24,000 schools (e.g. usurping the role of local authorities via academisation); but the curious takeover of England’s further education colleges as well.

Ian Pryce, principal and chief executive of Bedford College Group, warned his colleagues in a recent opinion piece that they were displaying a kind of Stockholm syndrome:

‘There is a real danger we might sleepwalk into a reversal that might look superficially attractive. Government can be a charming seducer when it comes to presenting captivity as the solution to our current woes’, he said.

And we all know the captivity he is referring to.

Not since the 1870 Balfour Act has government, in effect, set up a national state backed awarding body in FE, as it has done with the roll-out of T Levels.

Whatever the real merits of a qualification that at least tries to address the underlying weakness of our technical education system; it is this very un-conservative ideology that these and other recent policy interventions represent that could increasingly become a battleground.

Nadhim Zahawi, former education secretary and now chancellor, with former universities minister Michelle Donelan

Because the real problem when the government starts taking ownership of things (qualifications, FE colleges etc.) is that it then has to sustain these newly acquired ‘assets’ it owns in the public sector borrowing requirement.

In practice, that means more civil servants to manage things; higher taxes to pay for them; additional statutory and regulatory instruments; particularly as politicians look to assert control over what they see as part of their domains.

The proposed new regulatory scheme planned to approve funding of level 3 qualifications in future (in England), as outlined in the Skills Act, is just one tiny example of where ministers have unwittingly written a blank cheque out to “the machine” in future.

You don’t have to be a political genius to see that the next prime minister is probably going to call time on this ever-expanding model of the corporatist state.

Particularly when the wages bill in Whitehall is currently running at over £100 billion per annum.

Even the former education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi – now the chancellor – has backed a Conservative pressure group’s charter calling for more than £46 billion worth of tax cuts.

Of course, all this is red meat to Tory party members – the only people at present who can decide our next prime minister.

But this may also lead to some real ideological battles over the summer affecting the whole future of post-16 education.

We know that by the end of this spending review period (and accounting for higher inflation) FE will receive around a billion pounds less than it did in the period ending in 2010.

It makes you wonder: which candidate is going to put their head over the parapet and demand some restorative spending on FE?

And when the exam results are published in August, showing how ‘grade inflation’ is perhaps inevitably entrenched in the post-pandemic awarding system; you can bet the frothing-at-the-mouth education traditionalists will cry out (again): “Oh no, academic standards are falling!”

When you add all the other skirmishing going on at the moment in the so-called ‘culture wars’, you really start to see why the whole conduct of education and skills policy in this country maybe about to get a real serious kicking.

Mega London college group gives staff another ‘landmark’ pay rise

A large London college group has today announced another “landmark” pay deal for staff – its second in the past four years.

Capital City College Group has agreed to an inflation-busting 9 per cent pay rise for staff on £30,000 and under from August 2022, while staff paid between £30,001 and £45,000 per year will get a 5 per cent rise, with a further 1 per cent in January 2023.

It follows 10 days of strike action last year.

CCCG rewarded its staff with a 5 per cent pay rise in 2018. Shortly after, the group ran into significant financial difficulty after finding a surprise £10 million deficit.

The college group has since improved its financial position and recorded a £167,000 operating surplus in 2020/21. CCCG was unable to say how much its new pay deal will cost the group in total annually at the time of going to press.

The Association of Colleges is currently recommending its members give staff a 2.5 per cent pay rise this year.

Roy O’Shaughnessy, chief executive of CCCG said: “Given the national cost-of-living crisis affecting all our staff, the financial constraints we are working under and the need for any pay award to be sustainable over the long-term, we had to find a difficult balance between what we can afford and what is fair for as many of our staff as possible. Having secured this pay deal, we feel that we can look to the future with some confidence.”

O’Shaughnessy added that recruitment is a significant challenge for the college sector and matching the salaries from many different sectors to “meet the needs and expectations of industry has been tough”.

“This award helps enable this and ensures we can deliver high quality and industry standard education,” he said.

The deal includes an increase in hourly paid lecturer (HPL) rates for the 2022/23 academic year and these rates will increase further in line with the pay award, a spokesperson said. This is worth up to a 15 per cent increase on the hourly rate for HPLs, worth up to an extra £4 per hour. The hourly paid support staff will see their hourly rates increase by 9 per cent.

The University and College Union said it has also secured an increase in holiday entitlement by three days, accompanied by a harmonisation of holiday entitlement across CCCG.

UCU regional official Adam Lincoln said: “This deal is the result of determined organising and industrial action from our members at CCCG.

“Crucially, it demonstrates that college employers have the resources to offer decent pay rises, which go some way towards protecting low-paid staff from the cost-of-living crisis.”

The UCU also today announced a pay agreement with Waltham Forest College which will see an average pay award of 6.1 per cent for all staff and the extension of the “lecturer pay scale by two spinal points”.

September 2022 Ofsted inspection changes: What FE providers need to know

Ofsted has reviewed and updated its inspection framework and handbooks for September 2022, as it prepares to introduce a new “sub-judgement” for colleges on how well they are contributing to local skills needs.

The education watchdog will also end a curriculum grace period for schools and FE providers in place since 2019.

Here’s what FE providers need to know.

1. Only colleges to be judged on meeting skills needs

Ofsted’s five-year strategy, published in May, said that over the next four years all colleges will be subject to “enhanced inspections”. This will involve an assessment on how well they are meeting the skills needs of the economy. The watchdog has been given extra funding for additional inspectors to make this happen.

It comes as the government embarks on a national rollout of local skills improvement plans as part of the reforms outlined in the skills and post-16 education act 2022.

Ofsted confirmed today that its evaluation will include a “sub-judgement on the college’s contribution to meeting skills needs”, which is “linked to and dependent on the quality of education and leadership and management key judgements”.

“This evaluation will take into account not just skills needed immediately for employment, including for those already in employment, but also skills which are necessary to ensure students’ progress towards employment, in necessary stages by means of further and higher education, training, work experience and increased personal independence at all levels,” Ofsted said.

Inspectors will arrive at one of the following judgements about the college’s contribution to skills needs: limited; reasonable; or strong.

The sub-judgement will only relate to provision which is within Ofsted’s inspection scope – meaning that skills bootcamps provision will be excluded.

Independent training providers are excluded from this new sub-judgement.

2. Ofsted curriculum grace period ends …

When it introduced its new inspection framework in September 2019, Ofsted put in place “transition arrangements”, which gave schools and FE providers a grace period in which to bring their curriculum in line.

This meant that any education provider still in the process of updating its curriculum could still receive a ‘good’ grade, provided other aspects of the provision were good.

This was originally due to last until September 2020, but this was delayed due to Covid restrictions. The end to the grace period was then pushed back again from September 2021 to this spring, and then again to September 2022.

Today, Ofsted confirmed the grace period would end in September, and has removed the arrangements from its inspection handbooks.

3. … But new grade descriptor to prevent ‘cliff edge’

However, the watchdog said it was “not introducing a ‘cliff edge’ for a judgement of good”, and recognised “that you are likely to always be revising elements of your curriculum”.

The change “does not mean that schools and FE providers will now be expected to meet every single handbook criterion to remain good”.

A new grade descriptor has been added to the quality of education judgement, “acknowledging that settings are no longer facing emergency measures and are taking longer-term approaches to return pupils and learners to the curriculum they always intended”.

In a blog post published today, Ofsted national director of education Chris Russell wrote that “we do not expect curriculum to be perfect or a ‘finished article’”.

“Indeed, the best curriculum thinking is always evolving to meet changing circumstances. Inspection supports this approach to continuous improvement.”

4. ‘Time to move on from temporary Covid measures’

Ofsted acknowledged that Covid “continues to have an impact on early years settings, schools, and further education providers, and is likely to affect how they make decisions for some time”.

But it also said that education providers were “moving on from an emergency response to the pandemic and returning to more usual ways of working”.

“We believe that now is the right time to move beyond the temporary measures that we placed in our handbooks as a response to the national disruption,” Russell added.

To reflect this, paragraphs about temporary Covid measures have now been incorporated into the main sections of each handbook, making it “clear that inspectors will continue to take account of issues that providers may be facing”.

An example given is a “clear expectation that conversations between leaders and the lead inspector will continue to include a discussion on the impact of COVID-19.

“This ensures that our inspections continue to be informed by the different contexts in which you work and the range of challenges that you may still face.”