Training providers will this week warn against new legislation in the Skills Bill that they fear will impose “costly bureaucracy” on the sector.
At its annual conference, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) will highlight an unexpected set of conditions required of independent training providers to be on a new government list of approved providers.
Under the proposals, any provider not on the list will not be granted funding agreements or be allowed to subcontract with another provider who is on the list. It will be additional to the existing register of apprenticeship training providers.
No consultation has taken place prior to the conditions being included in primary legislation and AELP said this should happen before any new requirements for providers are introduced via regulation.
The association is worried that conditions stipulate providers should take out a potentially expensive form of insurance cover which doesn’t currently exist in the sector. The government’s own impact assessment of the Skills Bill states the new list could impose “significant” extra costs on providers.
‘A major rethink is required’
AELP chief executive Jane Hickie (pictured) said her members have been put in a good position to support businesses recover from Covid with extra funding for apprenticeships and traineeships, but what “we don’t need is for them to be saddled with unnecessary and costly bureaucracy which is threatened by the new legislation”.
“A major rethink is required,” she added.
The Skills Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Lords on 15 June.
AELP’s four-day conference, sponsored by Learning Curve Group and NOCN, will feature keynote speeches from skills minister Gillian Keegan, shadow skills minister Toby Perkins and Commons education committee chair Robert Halfon among many others.
The future of apprenticeships, traineeships, adult education and devolved skills programmes will be discussed by sector leaders, who will also give their verdict on the government’s controversial catch-up funding announcement.
Up to two-thirds of schools and colleges will have to wait until at least next spring to hear if they will receive grant funding for senior staff mental health training, the government has confirmed.
The Department for Education published brief new guidance on Wednesday setting out further details of its pledge to offer every school and college training for a senior mental health lead. The government has announced £9.5 million so far for leads in up to 7,800 schools and colleges.
But training has still not yet begun almost three years after the plans were announced in a 2018 government mental health green paper. The DfE has blamed delays on the 2019 election and Covid.
The DfE reiterated previous statements that around a third of schools and colleges can benefit in the next year.
But amid widespread frustrations over long waiting lists for other children’s mental health services, most schools and colleges could find themselves on a waiting list too.
The DfE said it would create a “waitlist” for those schools and colleges not approved this year, but schools and colleges will still not be given certainty over provision in future academic years.
The DfE “will confirm future grant funding in the spring of 2022”.
2. Training aimed at heads and SLTs
The guidance underlines that funding is primarily aimed at school and college leaders, which could leave some more junior staff with a mental health remit disappointed.
A section on ‘which staff can get the training’ says it is up to schools or colleges, but suggests heads, deputy heads, and members of the senior leadership team.
Existing mental health leads or mental health support team coordinators can be nominated.
But schools and colleges considering appointing staff who are not senior leaders “need to consider whether the individual has the authority, capacity and support to influence and lead strategic change within the setting”.
3. ‘Up to £1,200′ for two days’ training
The DfE says schools or colleges “should get up to about £1,200,” but will have to wait until the autumn term to find out exactly how much.
Training should be “approximately two working days”, depending on specific learning needs and types of course.
But training providers have still not yet been invited to submit their senior lead training offers for quality assurance, and the DfE’s criteria for this assurance will only be published “in the summer”.
A list of approved courses will then be published in September, suggesting training is unlikely to start immediately in the next academic year.
5. Focus on ‘whole school or college approach’ to mental health
The DfE makes clear the funding is not compulsory, but designed to give schools and colleges the knowledge and skills to develop a “holistic”, “whole school or college” approach to promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing.
It says a “coordinated and evidence-informed approach” improves pupil emotional health and readiness to learn. Funding is to go towards both training and hiring supply to cover staff while away.
The government’s education recovery commissioner Sir Kevan Collins has offered his resignation after ministers allocated just £1.4 billion in funding for the next phase of their catch-up plan, it has been reported.
In his resignation letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, published by Tes, Collins warned he did not believe it was “credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size”.
The Times has also reported that Collins said he had “no option” but to resign following today’s announcement, and accused ministers of taking a “half-hearted approach”.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson announced initial spending of just £1.4 billion today, £1 billion of which is to be spent on tutoring. But the government only committed to a review of the time spent in school and college, with findings due “later in the year to inform the spending review”.
Collins’s response to the announcement today was lukewarm, with the former Education Endowment Foundation chief executive warning that “more will be needed” to meet the scale of the challenge.
‘We risk failing hundreds of thousands of pupils’
In his resignation letter, Collins warned that without a “comprehensive and urgent response” to the pandemic, “we risk failing hundreds of thousands of pupils”.
He also revealed that he told the prime minister last week that he did not believe it would be “possible to deliver a successful recovery without significantly greater support than the government has, to date, indicated it intends to provide”.
“I am concerned that the apparent savings offered by an incremental approach to recovery represent a false economy, as learning losses that are not addressed quickly are likely to compound”.
He said the package of measures announced today provided “valuable support”, but said he did not believe it was “credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size”.
“I hope that you are able to allocate the additional resources that are likely to be needed for a successful recovery through the spending review. I believe the settlement provided will define the international standing of England’s education system for years to come.”
‘We hope this will focus the minds of ministers’
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL college leaders’ union, said he was “sad but not surprised that Sir Kevan Collins is reported to be standing down as education recovery commissioner following the government’s announcement of a recovery package which clearly falls a long way short of what he had in mind”.
“Sir Kevan has huge credibility across the teaching profession and across government. We hope that this episode will focus the mind of ministers on the need to match their recovery rhetoric with action.”
Williamson told BBC News today the government was looking at interventions they can “actually deliver today” rather than waiting for the spending review later this year.
Asked about pushing for extra cash, he told Sky News that “all the time you’re in discussions right across government” but the prime minister Boris Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak are “committed” to taking actions needed.
Another wave of strike action by educators has been announced at 49 prisons and young offenders’ institutions.
The University and College Union (UCU) said staff will take action on Thursday 10 and Wednesday 23 June, following two days of strikes in May.
This has all come about due to a dispute between workers and Novus, the UK’s largest prison education provider.
The union has accused the provider, owned by the LTE Group, of a “failure to meaningfully engage with UCU over Covid health and safety concerns of prison educators teaching and supporting learners on the prison estate”.
Novus is also alleged to have launched complaints and investigations against UCU health and safety representatives, which the union said is “making it difficult for staff to raise safety concerns and impossible for any meaningful health and safety discussions to take place”.
The UCU’s general secretary Jo Grady said “all” Novus needs to do to halt the strikes is “stop its bullying behaviour, withdraw the unfair complaints and investigations against our health and safety representatives, and take staff safety concerns seriously”.
She said it was time for LTE Group’s board, which is due to meet on 15 June, to step in and “end Novus’ bully-boy tactics and work with us to resolve the dispute.
“Until they do so UCU will continue to support prison educators to take industrial action and protect themselves.”
Union members were balloted for strike action in April, with over two-thirds voting in favour.
Around 600 staff will take part in the June strikes.
MPs ‘shocked’ by ‘bitter’ strike dispute
Several meetings have been held between Novus and the UCU to resolve the dispute with the help of government industrial relations conciliation service ACAS.
The co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group Liz Saville Roberts MP has written to LTE’s governors, calling on them to address the UCU’s concerns and withdraw the action against the representatives.
Saville Roberts, MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, said the 100 cross-parliamentary members of her group had been “shocked to learn about this increasingly bitter dispute”.
She said the UCU had given them “alarming” reports of Novus “intimidating” health and safety representatives, covert recording and exploitation of private union meetings, and fake social media accounts “set up to discredit UCU.
“We are told the board has now involved itself in the dispute by making unfounded allegations against union representatives and commissioning an investigation without reference to any formal procedures, which UCU describes as counter to natural justice.
“We are at a loss to understand why Novus has taken such a confrontational attitude towards the union at this dangerous time for prisoners and prison staff.
“We ask you to put staff health and safety first, withdraw any threats of action against UCU branch representatives and work with the union to address staff concerns in good faith,” she writes, offering the group’s help in resolving the dispute.
Provider complains of ‘false allegations’ about its board
Novus has said its relationship with the UCU has declined since it declined to institute health and safety procedure changes without the agreement of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and after it claimed it was given less than 24 hours to assess the impact of the changes.
Also, after employees reported “serious” concerns about the behaviour and approach of UCU representatives, including bullying and intimidation. Novus claims UCU has refused to have “meaningful engagement” about health and safety matters until allegations about its representatives are withdrawn, but Novus says these come from the employees.
“These events have led to an increasingly strained relationship between UCU and Novus,” the provider said, which have been inflamed by “false allegations” about them and the LTE board.
Novus refutes that it has ever refused to meet with UCU to discuss health and safety matters, ignored requests to meet with ACAS, made it harder for employees or UCU representatives to report concerns in that area, or intimidated representatives.
“UCU’s persistent misrepresentation of Novus to its employees and more widely in the public domain is a matter of grave concern for the group,” Novus has said.
“Such false allegations are damaging to employee trust in their employer and continue to erode a previously good working relationship between employer and union.”
The 49 prisons and institutions which will be affected by strikes are as follows:
Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Altcourse
HMP Birmingham
HMP Brinsford
HMP Brixton
HMP Buckley Hall
HMP Deerbolt Bowes
HMP Doncaster
HMP Durham
HMP Featherstone
HMP Hatfield/Lakes
HMP Haverigg
HMP Hewell
HMP High Down
HMP Holme House
HMP Hull
HMP Humber
HMP Kirkham
HMP Kirklevington
HMP Lancaster Farms
HMP Leeds
HMP Lindholme
HMP Liverpool
HMP Northumberland
HMP Oakwood
HMP Onley
HMP Pentonville
HMP Preston
HMP Risley
HMP Rye Hill
HMP Stafford
HMP Swinfen Hall
HMP Thameside
HMP Wandsworth
HMP Wealstun
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
HMP Wymott
HMP/Young Offender Institution (YOI) Low Newton
HMP/YOI Moorland/Lakes
HMP/YOI Styal
Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution (HMYOI) Askham Grange
The government has published plans to expand the 16-19 Tuition Fund as part of a £1.4 billion package of measures to support education recovery.
£222 million is being allocated to the existing 16-19 tutoring programme, which originally launched last July with £96 million for providers to hold “small group tutoring” for disadvantaged 16 to 19 students whose studies have been disrupted by the pandemic.
Colleges opted in for the money, which could be spent on extra tutoring for students without a grade 4 pass in English and maths to study either of those subjects, or another course where learning had been disrupted by coronavirus.
This latest cash injection will have a special focus on subjects like maths and English, and the Department for Education expects the money will deliver around 700,000 courses each year – though no time frame is given for this funding.
In a release announcing the funding, the department says this funding will “make sure when teachers identify a disadvantaged child in need of support as a result of the pandemic, extra support is available”.
There will also be funding for schools or colleges to offer students in year 13 the option to repeat the year “if they have been particularly badly affected by the pandemic”.
The DfE said it will fund providers to accommodate the additional student numbers.
Government ‘must make sure no child is left behind’
Prime minister Boris Johnson
Prime minister Boris Johnson said: “Young people have sacrificed so much over the last year and as we build back from the pandemic, we must make sure that no child is left behind.”
It was announced in February this year the government had set aside £102 million to run the 16-19 Tuition Fund for another year.
Earlier this year, it was also announced former Education Endowment Foundation chief executive Kevan Collins had been appointed the government’s education recovery commissioner, with a remit to advise on interventions to catch up the education of students aged up to 19.
Education secretary Gavin Williamson said this third “major” package of catch-up funding in 12 months, “demonstrates that we are taking a long-term, evidence-based approach to help children of all ages”.
Measures ‘hugely disappointing,’ says ASCL
Plans for an extra year of sixth form for students who cannot complete A-level courses in time were revealed by The Times today, from a leaked report by Collins.
It had been rumoured the government was putting aside up to £15 billion for this education recovery package, in the face of opposition from the Treasury.
Geoff Barton
Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Geoff Barton called the £1.4 billion “hugely disappointing,” adding: “The amount of money that the government plans to put into education recovery is insufficient and shows a failure to recognise the scale of learning loss experienced by many during the pandemic – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“There has obviously been a battle behind the scenes over funding for education recovery which the Treasury has clearly won with the result that the settlement is less than a tenth of the £15 billion that was being mooted.
“The announcement has then been snuck out in half term presumably with the hope that it won’t attract too much attention.”
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, says the announcement “falls well short of the comprehensive package of support that is required to ensure that no young person is left behind by Covid.
“These measures, little more than an extension of the small-scale 16-19 tuition fund and the promise of additional funding for students that wish to repeat a year, will only address the needs of a very small number of students.
“More information is needed, but ultimately, it would appear that the government has missed the opportunity to introduce the bold measures necessary to start repairing the damage caused by Covid.
“It is vital that ministers grasp the nettle in the spending review later this year and introduce the serious additional investment that is required to meet the needs of sixth form students.”
Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said “the failure to fund additional teaching hours or to extend the pupil premium to age 18 means that many disadvantaged students may fall through the gaps”.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie pointed out “not every 16 to 18 year old is at school or college,” with 36,000 young people on 16-19 study programmes with independent training providers.
“Once again, It would appear that they will get nothing and by taking this decision the DfE has actually forgotten those very young people they vowed not to.
“Here is a prime example of the levelling up agenda being failed by the government, taking an institutionalised approach instead of one that will benefit all of the affected learners themselves.”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green said Kevan Collins “has all but said this plan is insufficient.
“Kevan Collins told ministers that 10 times this level of investment was needed to help children recover.”
As such, this announcement “makes a mockery of the prime minister’s claim that education is a priority”.
Other funding announced by the DfE today includes £218 million extra for the flagship National Tutoring Programme for schools, as well as £69 million to expand the Early Career Framework professional development scheme to all new teachers.
From the drop in the price of cream to zero weddings, the land-based colleges sector has lost millions of pounds. But innovation is still happening, reports Jess Staufenberg
At Wiltshire College the plans for a new, robotic dairy farm had been in place for three years when lockdown hit. It is an extraordinary piece of equipment: cows enter the automatic milking stations when they want to be milked – rather than at fixed times – and students check high-speed welfare data flooding in about each cow, including any infections, lameness, temperature and weight.
It was part of a £9 million drive to improve facilities across the college, says Ian Revill, the assistant principal. “This is emerging technology that our students need to understand,” he explains.
Then Covid-19 arrived. Delays to the building work immediately pushed up the costs of the robotic dairy project. Then, once complete, the new shiny building sat there for many weeks without the college being able to show it off.
“We’ve done that huge investment, but our recruitment team haven’t had the opportunity to showcase that. So we have missed out financially on the bounce factor of that investment,” Revill grimaces.
“We’ve done what we can on social media, but this kind of thing sells itself on smelling, touching, seeing. It doesn’t lend itself to an online experience.”
Robotic milking
‘Millions of pounds lost’
At the same time as losing out on face-to-face marketing time, the land-based college sector has lost millions of pounds of income in other ways, FE Week can reveal.
The sector – which delivers agriculture, horticulture and other outdoors-based courses – is small within further education and college numbers have dropped since their heyday after the Second World War, and now stand at 36 in England. About two-thirds have joined general FE college groups to ensure their viability.
Unique about these colleges is the significant proportion of their income they raise from commercial operations, which double up as a core part of the student learning experience. Land-based college courses typically receive a funding uplift to support some “specialist” expenditure, such as on animal welfare and equipment, but commercial income continues to be critical.
For example, Revill says that about a third of Wiltshire College’s revenue usually comes from commercial activities. The farm alone brings in £1 million a year, including milk for Cadbury’s. Other financial impacts soon followed as the pandemic rolled on.
“We have a small deer farm where we produce venison, and that’s tailored for restaurants, so that market completely dried up,” Revill says. “People like us who are producing more niche products for farmers’ markets have been hit.”
The college also has a cat rehoming facility on campus but, with visitors banned, found itself having to take care of more cats as yet another cost. Meanwhile, lambing fairs in March that usually bring in £50,000 have been missed for two years in a row.
At the same time, the costs of running ageing rural sites continue unabated. “A lot of our built space is in old ancestral homes, and the general upkeep is expensive,” Revill says.
The college deals with its own sewage, for instance, because it’s too remote from the central system. “All this continues 365 days a year. There’s a cost of hidden infrastructure that often no one appreciates.”
It’s a tough outlook after a £9 million outlay on cutting-edge technology.
Weddings, cheese and product trials
Revill’s words are echoed across the sector. Chris Knell, finance director at Plumpton College in East Sussex, says £1.8 million was lost in commercial income in 2019-20, with an additional half a million pounds lost from “fee-paying” short courses such as licences to practice (for instance, tractor-driving qualifications).
A further million pounds of commercial income has been lost again this year, says Knell, of which £250,000 was from lost residential placements for languages students in summer.
Meanwhile, the price of dairy also plummeted. “The price of milk is set by cream, and that’s set by the café and restaurant industry,” Knell explains. “So income from milk and cheese sales has dropped.”
Thankfully, the college planted a vineyard in 1989 that wins international sparkling wine awards, and alcohol sales did not suffer over lockdown. Waitrose buys about 10,000 bottles from the college every year, and wine sales come to around £200,000 annually, says Knell. The success has also allowed the college to set up new viticulture apprenticeships.
Vineyards at Plumpton College
At Reaseheath College in Cheshire, the losses from not being able to run licence-to-practise courses amount to £50,000. Meanwhile the loss from summer schools was even higher at £142,000.
Cheese sales at local markets would generally bring in about £40,000 a year, which again has disappeared. But the college has a unique facility that would usually bring in more than £230,000 a year and acts as a crucial learning resource for students.
“We’ve got an industry-standard food hall on site, which companies will use to test a new product,” explains Sharon Yates, assistant principal. It is the only college food hall with a double-A star accreditation from the British Retail Consortium, she says.
“A company won’t want to take down one of its own production lines to trial a new product, so they come here.”
A drinks company, which she cannot name, would want to hire the facilities to try out a new flavouring, for instance. With lockdown easing, bookings are thankfully flooding back in, she says – but it has been a huge hit to take.
Weddings are another area where college income has been reduced to zero. Kingston Maurward College, in Dorchester, was Dorset’s wedding venue of the year two years ago, and would normally have 40 weddings a year, according to principal Luke Rake. He estimates an annual loss of between £250,000 and £500,000 due to no weddings.
Overall, in a normal year, the college would bring in about £3 million to £3.5 million through its commercial operations, making up about 35 per cent of its funding. Rake says about £1 million of that was lost last year, because the pandemic “destroyed” the commercial side.
A walled garden for visitors and students at Plumpton College
Accommodation refunds
But the biggest hit has been around on-site accommodation, explains Alex Payne, chief executive of LANDEX, the membership organisation for land-based colleges.
“The most significant commercial loss has been in residential income […] due to this element being purely commercial, as residential provision is not eligible for capital support,” she tells FE Week. “In some cases, contractual commitments to transport providers have also been a challenge.”
Reaseheath College, for instance, has lost £667,000 in accommodation income. “For any period where students couldn’t come in, we have refunded them,” explains Knell at Plumpton College.
College leaders say they have made use of the government’s furlough scheme, and in at least one case taken out a business support loan.
‘Commerciality is about culture’
But it is students who lose out when commercial activity drops.
“Effectively, all the money including from the commercial side goes into a single pot and we spend it on the students,” says Rake. “If we make a profit, that goes into facilities development.”
Learning is also compromised if commercial activities suffer, continues Knell.
“Let me put it this way. You don’t train an agricultural student in a farm that loses money. You don’t train a viticultural student with a product no one wants to buy. For me, commerciality isn’t about income – it’s about culture.”
A student at Wiltshire College
But the sector has tried to make the best of it.
Tough decisions have been made: at Plumpton College, the number of staff with access to the college purchase order system was slashed from 30 to six. “We kept an iron grip on every penny that could be spent,” says Knell.
Operations that could be shut down, such as cheese rooms, were while others, such as camping facilities, are set for expansion.
Meanwhile, at Kingston Maurward College, the country estate park is now free to visit, rather than £8 an adult. “We decided it had been a terrible year for everyone and to be more inclusive,” says Rake.
This has been a commercial success: footfall has shot up, with coffee sales making the venture more profitable than before. “It’s a different way of looking at the business.”
Other lessons have been learnt. James Fryer, head of farm estate and grounds at Brooksby Melton College in Leicestershire, said the lockdown coincided with a decision to move away from seeking to raise as much income as possible.
Instead, the college’s commercial operations are now more learner-focused, he says. For instance, the college is no longer buying faster-growing cow breeds, but slower growing breeds native to the UK to emphasise sustainability to students.
“We’ve previously expected the farm to make money to fill the college coffers, which perhaps has meant the farm has suffered. Now we want to focus more on the farm as an outdoor classroom.
The idea is that, with less over-stretched facilities, student application numbers will rise. This year the college has 350 more applications for September compared with last year.
This income loss is going to have a long tail
Other changes are afoot. Wiltshire College is looking at more partnerships with industry so that the latest equipment can be borrowed, rather than bought every time.
But the sector is still under huge financial pressure. Principals are unanimous in warning that its students will be more needed than ever post Brexit and with climate change and food security concerns at the fore.
“This income loss is going to have a long tail,” Revill concludes.
“The land-based sector has been underfunded for so long. If we want to train students in skills for the future, the sector needs to be properly recognised.”
If ministers did the necessary background research, failed initiatives like the National Colleges would be less likely to be repeated, writes Tom Richmond
Albert Einstein famously asserted that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
When the policy memory of many government departments – particularly on education matters – seems about as long as the average ministerial tenure, there is inevitably a risk that the same mistakes could repeat themselves.
Step forward National Colleges.
Launched to much fanfare in 2016 with £80 million behind them (not to be sniffed at in the age of austerity), the five National Colleges were set up to ensure that the UK had enough skilled workers in several industries crucial to economic growth.
The plan was for the Colleges to focus on training at levels 4 to 6 (degree level) to plug the gaps in our skills system.
When they were launched, who would disagree with the concept of a National College for High-Speed Rail to support HS2, or a National College for Nuclear to support Hinkley Point?
Throw in National Colleges for Onshore Oil and Gas, Digital Skills and the Creative and Cultural Industries, and you have a policy that appeared to be in exactly the right place at the right time.
That’s after the College took millions in government funding and even blew £73,000 on a legal challenge over its ‘inadequate’ Ofsted grade, which it eventually abandoned.
Rather than being scrapped, it has been converted into part of the University of Birmingham.
Despite this dramatic rescue, it is just yet another dismal episode in the National College saga.
Seasoned observers may have raised an eyebrow when National Colleges first emerged, not least because it had only been a few years since “National Skills Academies” (NSAs) were unveiled ̶ accompanied by their very own fanfare, naturally.
These Academies, like National Colleges, were supposed to be employed-led centres of excellence that would improve the quality and quantity of vocational training by responding to skills needs in particular sectors.
They were first established in 2006 and subsequently rolled out in industries such as nuclear, and creative and cultural skills (detecting a trend yet?).
Although the idea for NSAs originated in a New Labour government white paper in 2005, the coalition government kept the ball rolling in the early 2010s with new NSAs in “green skills” and health.
The policy rationale was always dubious
Even so, the top-down nature of this initiative coupled with a strong whiff of ministers “picking winners” meant that the policy rationale was always dubious.
The quiet relegation of NSAs in the mid-2010s coupled with the appearance of National Colleges was a subtle switch that was never fully explained or justified.
Spending public money on shiny new buildings for some of the National Colleges and NSAs also raised questions about whether improving existing facilities and colleges would have been a more sensible bet.
It would be wrong to say that National Colleges and National Skills Academies were identical in every respect. Nevertheless, the circular nature of such policymaking does not bode well.
Ministers come and go, as do senior civil servants, with the latter often showing even less interest in policy history than the former.
If the necessary background research had been done before National Colleges were devised, considerable resources and ministerial blushes would almost certainly have been spared.
The latest wheeze comes in the form of “Institutes of Technology” (IoTs), which are yet another attempt to impose a top-down institutional solution on the skills landscape.
That is not to say these Institutes are doomed to fail, nor that the investment isn’t welcome (it certainly is). Nevertheless, one wonders whether we will look back in a few years from now on IoTs and ask why nobody pointed out at the time that we were about to make the same mistakes all over again.
Amidst all the uncertainty surrounding the future of the IoTs and the remaining National Colleges, all we know for certain is that Einstein would not have enjoyed a career in skills policy.
Initial challenges to making best use of the College Collaboration Fund were tackled by both sides, write Rebecca Conroy and Sam Parrett
“Collaboration” brings to mind teamwork and shared goals.
This is what we were thinking of last year when London South East Colleges applied for a grant to work with East Sussex College Group from the Department for Education’s College Collaboration Fund.
The £9 million fund was introduced by the government in February 2020 in a bid to improve governance and leadership at colleges.
It followed the Strategic College Improvement Fund, which ended in 2019. Bids of up to £500,000 can be submitted by groups of colleges to “share good practice and expertise” over a 12-month programme.
As with all new relationships, we came up against challenges on the way, but managed to tackle them and achieved more than we had initially hoped.
LSEC led the project and was awarded funding based on a comprehensive bid, focusing on four main areas: financial resilience, SEND quality, leadership and governance and digital transformation.
The DfE’s match funding requirement of 25 per cent was covered by LSEC, as we were confident the benefit of the project outweighed these initial costs.
Throughout the project, we have delivered four virtual conferences around our selected workstream. We also developed digital transformation strategies for both colleges, established nine new online courses (focusing on healthcare, digital and warehousing) and collaborated with eight additional colleges to see what further lessons we could learn from them.
Both of our college groups are also on track to reduce costs for subcontracting to zero by the end of 2021-22 to ensure that we are meeting the specific needs of our communities.
We have packaged this programme into a college improvement framework called #ChangeMakers – a comprehensive resource we will share with the sector.
An independent project manager was also recruited
But, as with any new venture, reaching these positive outcomes has required flexibility, lateral thinking and a common purpose.
Initially, it was difficult for ESCG to find the time needed for staff to dedicate to the project. Focus was understandably on the day-to-day running of the college during a global pandemic!
However, we both understood that staff buy-in was crucial and people had to be supported in terms of their time and workload. So we used some of the funding to backfill some roles and free up other staff to commit fully to the partnership.
An independent project manager was also recruited to facilitate conversations across both our colleges. This unbiased oversight proved invaluable by keeping us all on task.
As CEOs, our positive relationship with each other from the outset also helped ensure that our teams were encouraged to work well together.
We were aware of potential resistance from staff to this new partnership and to the changes being suggested. However, we established a systemised leadership approach, which is about embedding processes you know work, delivered by the people on the ground who have tried and tested the techniques.
It also provided excellent CPD opportunities for staff
For instance, LSEC staff at all levels shared their experiences of what genuinely works for them in practice, while ESCG staff listened, asked questions and fed back. Both teams then came up with solutions together. The staff could see the real value of what we were trying to achieve and felt involved in making changes.
It also provided excellent CPD opportunities for LSEC staff, through mentoring and supporting others.
Having to conduct the entire programme of work virtually had its limitations, particularly in relation to our special educational needs workstream.
LSEC’s expertise in this area has helped ESCG to develop a new and consistent offer across its sites – but owing to the pandemic, it was not possible for ESCG staff to visit LSEC’s facilities.
We tackled this issue using virtual tour technology, which was adequate but not quite the same. With restrictions now easing, our teams are planning proper site visits.
Our strong college-to-college partnership and commitment of staff has been crucial – but in reality, the project would not have been a success without the funding.
This model is a gamechanger for FE, facilitating real collaboration and harnessing the expertise and talent we know is widespread in our sector.
Through its many incarnations, the Learning and Work Institute has supported initiatives that are still with us now, writes Alan Tuckett
The Learning and Work Institute celebrates its hundredth birthday today. Despite never being blessed with a surfeit of cash, the LWI can look back on 100 years of advocacy and research for lifelong learning.
Along the way it has fostered a range of successful innovations that led to the establishment of major national and international institutions. It has throughout been a critical friend to governments, challenging and supporting policy around adult education.
The LWI was founded as the British Institute of Adult Education (BIAE) in 1921. It was the brainchild of Lord Haldane (who went on to become Lord Chancellor) and Albert Mansbridge, who also created the Workers’ Educational Association.
I was an active member from 1974, and led its work from 1988 until 2011. Its membership when it first opened was limited to individuals rather than institutions, drawn from universities, voluntary bodies and local government. They recognised the value of a national voice promoting adult education that could also research and share good practice.
In the 1920s it fought budget cuts and launched two inquiries, one on broadcasting and adult education, and the other on the role of film in national life. These led to the BIAE helping to create the British Film Institute, and the BBC’s education advisory council.
In 1934 the BIAE’s charismatic secretary, W.E. Williams, noticed the lack of public art in provincial towns and established Art for the People, taking exhibitions of borrowed works to municipal settings.
Parallel initiatives in music led to the creation of the Council for Encouragement of Music and the Arts, which from 1945 became the Arts Council, eventually led by Williams.
Meanwhile, Williams also became chief editor of Penguin Books, and during the Second World War, the BIAE seconded him to run the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, too. The weekly discussion materials sent to soldiers about current affairs are often cited as contributing to Labour’s 1945 landslide.
In 1945 local authorities established the National Foundation for Adult Education, with local authorities and other providers as institutional members.
BIAE was strapped financially, and in 1948 the two amalgamated as the National Institute of Adult Education.
NIAE’s international work helped create the European Bureau of Adult Education in 1954 and the International Council for Adult Education in 1974.
From 1975 NIAE hosted the government-backed Adult Literacy Resource Agency and its successor bodies, playing an active role in the establishment of English as a Second Language courses.
Throughout the 1980s it also supported activist member committees on gender and race equality, and promoted learners’ voices.
Its work had a major influence on the expansion of adult opportunities between 1997 and 2003
Then in 1973 the NIAE became the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, to mark a broadening brief. Until 1991 it hosted two additional innovative government-funded agencies, REPLAN – for unemployed adults – and the Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education.
NIACE returned to advocacy with a bang in the run-up to 1992 legislation, where the government threatened to end public funding for community adult education.
Working with the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and local government, NIACE co-ordinated a campaign that saw the proposal reversed in just six weeks.
At the same time NIACE launched Adult Learners’ Week, to celebrate existing learners and encourage others to participate, with free helplines and in partnership with television companies. It was a striking success, was adopted by UNESCO and spread to 55 countries.
NIACE’s annual adult participation surveys have also helped the government to focus on who doesn’t participate, and its qualitative studies have put forward solutions.
Its work had a major influence on the expansion of adult opportunities between 1997 and 2003, and has been essential in the fight to limit cuts as public policies have narrowed in the years since.
The latest name change came in 2014, with the amalgamation of NIACE and Inclusion, which was the research organisation that developed from the unemployment unit.
As it celebrates its centenary, the LWI’s work is as relevant and vital as ever.
