Lisa Wilson, Group director of apprenticeships and employer services, Nottingham College
Start date: March 2021
Previous job: Director of apprenticeships, RNN Group
Interesting fact: She has run the Manchester half marathon and taken part in a number of ‘Tough Mudders’
Chris Malish, Principal, Hull College
Start date: May 2021
Previous job: Deputy chief executive, Bradford College
Interesting fact: He achieved the qualification to become a lifeguard at age 14, though never ended up being one.
John Mothersole, Chair, The Sheffield College
Start date: April 2021
Previous job: Chief executive, Sheffield City Council
Interesting fact: He has a banjo, guitar, clarinet and saxophone, and dabbles with them all but has mastered none – although he has conquered the piano
Damian Hinds, Chair, T Levels All Party Parliamentary Group
Start date: April 2021
Concurrent job: MP for East Hampshire
Interesting fact: Before he was elected to Parliament, he worked for almost 20 years in the hospitality business, including in hotels and pubs.
The shadow education secretary has refused to reveal if the Labour Party employs even one apprentice.
At FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference shadow education secretary Kate Green was quizzed on how many apprentices work for the political party, which often criticises central government for not employing enough of the learners.
But while admitting it was a “legitimate question to ask any politician”, she said they “don’t share information about our workforce”.
Kate Green
Her own constituency office does not employ an apprentice, she says, because it is a “very, very small” team, so they would not be able to provide the necessary “intensive support”.
But they have made a “huge priority” of taking on young people with learning disabilities “to give them their first work
experience.
“So I think it’s horses for courses, isn’t it?”
During the question-and-answer session, FE Week editor Nick Linford asked the shadow education secretary again whether the Labour Party had any apprentices at all.
But Green would not be moved, saying “we just don’t disclose the source data of our workflow”.
“I’m guessing the answer is probably ‘none’,” Linford replied, but Green advised him not to make that inference.
Yet when pushed again to give an answer, she said: “We don’t disclose that data.”
Approached for further comment after the session, the Labour Party told FE Week it had “nothing to add” to Green’s remarks.
Shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister Toby Perkins has told FE Week one of his constituency workers is on a level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship.
All public sector bodies with 250 or more staff in England have been bound to a target to employ an average of at least 2.3 per cent of their staff as new apprentice starts over the period of April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2021.
Latest official data shows that from April 2017 up to the end of March 2020, 1.7 per cent of the civil service’s headcount were new apprentices.
Also speaking at the conference on Thursday was Commons education select committee chair Robert Halfon, who attacked the 2.3 per cent target as “unambitious” and “sending all the wrong signals”.
He said the public sector “should be leading the way”, and wherever possible, all new recruits to the public sector should be offered an apprenticeship.
Additionally, the number of apprentices a company employs should feature in the criteria for awarding public sector contracts, Halfon added.
Thousands of apprentices on a new level 5 management programme have already dropped out of the course, official figures have revealed.
The operations or departmental manager standard had a retention rate of just 53.5 per cent last year for 4,250 “leavers”.
That means 1,980 apprentices – 47 per cent – who were due to finish between August 2019 and July 2020 did not complete their course.
The management standard has been one of the top 10 most popular apprenticeships at all levels and sectors in England for the past two and a half years, with 5,542 starts in the first six months of 2020/21 alone.
In 2019/20, it secured 10,052 starts, making it the fifth most popular apprenticeship that year; and in 2018/19, it saw 10,466 starts, and placed seventh.
DfE apprenticeships statistics, published 29 April 2021. Click to expand
The maximum funding band for the course was cut from £9,000 to £7,000 for starts from March 4, 2019.
The Department for Education does not publish funding values, but it is likely that around £10 million was spent on these nearly 2,000 apprentices who did not finish the course.
The achievement rate on the standard that year was also only 52.9 per cent.
Retention rates on all level 5 apprenticeships overall have been dropping year after year: in 2017/18, the level recorded a 64.8 per cent rate; then in 2018/19, the rate was 61.1; and in 2019/20, it was 57.5 per cent.
Government repeatedly warned about management apprenticeships
Official government data published last month showed that just 60.2 per cent of apprentices training on new-style standards stayed on their programme until the end in 2019/20, compared to 48.3 per cent the year before.
The retention rate on the old-style frameworks has stayed consistent at 69 per cent.
The DfE has made a policy not to share provider-level data for last year, publicly, or even with Ofsted, citing as its reason the disruption caused by Covid-19 to the apprenticeship delivery.
FE Week has long warned that management apprenticeships would come to dominate the sector following the introduction of the levy and other reforms since 2017.
Since then, a number of prominent sector figures have expressed their own concerns about the rise in management training as apprenticeships.
Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned in 2018 graduate schemes were “in essence being rebadged as apprenticeships”.
In 2019, the National Audit Office reported levy-payers “are replacing their professional development programmes – for example, graduate training schemes in accountancy or advanced courses in management – with apprenticeships”.
The move to publicly funding management courses has been defended by Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education chief executive Jennifer Coupland, who said in January 2020 that the practice was “perfectly legitimate”.
Northern College has been a beacon in the world of adult education and a forerunner in what we know is a fantastic way to kickstart career change – one of the most important parts has been the residential element. Residential courses should not just be for HE students or those who go to private schools but should be for all students and adults. That is why we need adult residential centres in every region.
Residential activity is recognised as an integral funded element in the national citizen service programme which has been developed for young people; and therefore, we should have similar a residential experience for all adults.
So it’s unfortunate when we are talking about skills bootcamps and intense provision that Northern College, which provides residential education for adults, seems to be at risk. It’s not at risk because of anything it could have foreseen but because of the unintended consequences of administrative action that the DfE may or may not choose to do.
Three issues have come together to create a perfect administrative storm: when the DfE undertook a review of residential funding, the scope was wide, and it was always felt that adult residential was only added as an afterthought. The focus of the consultation was about finding solutions that worked for the 16-to-19 sector, such as elite sport and land-based activity.
In hindsight, the funding review should have been split and adult residential activity viewed through a different lens, where the pros and cons could have been properly aired. As it stands, we don’t know whether the DfE is going to take the action it proposed or not.
The second issue is about funding rules that have been in existence since before 2007. It doesn’t seem right to start changing those rules retrospectively without looking at the impact and modelling of those changes and offering tapered support.
And lastly we have the issue of the pandemic and the DfE announcement about retrospective clawback, and the department’s inability to recognise that they created the issues by insisting that providers stayed open, then closed, then went online and so on, and not meeting the consequent increased costs of delivery.
Each one of these issues stacked on top of the other puts the institution at risk, a triple whammy that could be diverted with joined-up administration and impact assessment.
What is needed is a debate on what type of adult skills offer we want, then a discussion about funding. Let’s not allow the unintended consequences of proposed policy changes to undermine a much-needed and loved learning institution, and let’s not jump to the FE Commissioner’s sole solution to any problem – merger.
If funding can be adjusted to allow for other small unique establishments, such as Institutes of Technology and University Technical Colleges to operate, then the DfE should be able to do the same for adult residential colleges.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency has moved a step closer to limiting apprenticeship providers’ delivery to the sectors they have experience in.
Under new conditions published last week for the refreshed register of apprenticeship training providers, providers must prove their “experience of managing and delivering training to learners and are established within the sectors in which you intend to deliver”.
And if in the future the provider wants to move into sectors they did not mention in their initial application, they must for the first time inform the agency “within one calendar month”, a spokesperson told FE Week.
Failure to do so will now determine the provider as “high risk” under the intervention regime.
However, the process for informing the ESFA of any delivery changes is still being worked on.
The agency’s director for apprenticeships Peter Mucklow told FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference this week that those details will be set out in “due course”.
He said it is “clearly a warning sign” if a provider changes the sectors they deliver in at “very short notice” and “as regulator, we ought to know about that and be at least able to raise questions”.
But he insisted it is not the ESFA’s intention to “prevent good providers from moving into new areas”.
Plans to limit providers by apprenticeship standards and sectors were first revealed by Mucklow’s predecessor Keith Smith at last year’s AAC.
FE Week understands that since then, the proposal, as well as another to introduce earning limits on providers, has been drawn up but the agency is holding out for extra funding from the Treasury to increase its oversight capacity, which is not yet forthcoming.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said it “seems reasonable” for providers to prove their sector-subject expertise, but her organisation is “watching carefully the ESFA’s approach, which may further evolve moving forward”.
“Informing the ESFA is very different to seeking approval, but we are clearly moving towards a more regulated marketplace for apprenticeship training through another RoATP refresh and the ESFA making moves to gather more granular information on sectors and standards,” she added.
“Apprenticeships are driven by employer-led demand, so a balance of risk and oversight needs to be struck.”
The move to potentially limiting providers by sectors would align the provider register to the one for end-point assessment organisations, which can only assess apprenticeship standards they are experts in and approved for via application.
Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, said that if the ESFA had “managed the provider register, setting the bar high enough in the first place”, the agency “would not now find itself in this remedial position”.
“Too often over the last few years we’ve seen officials encourage new market entrants to the detriment of system-wide quality.”
But, he added, one “problem with the ESFA now micro-managing the provider base is that, over time, it may end up stifling innovation and discouraging business investment”.
This will be the third version of the register of apprenticeship training providers since its launch in March 2017. The most recent “refresh” was in January 2019.
The national finalists for this year’s FE Week and AELP AAC Apprenticeship Awards have been revealed.
From 350 entries the shortlists for the 21 awards, being run in partnership with Open Awards, were announced at a virtual ceremony on Thursday evening, hosted by comedian and impressionist Rory Bremner.
They will now go forward for the awards, which will be announced at a gala dinner in Birmingham on Thursday, July 8.
Shane Mann, managing director of FE Week’s publisher Lsect, said: “These finalists are some of the very best of the apprenticeship sector and show just what can be achieved.
“The past year has placed an enormous strain on all our lives, both in our private lives and our places of work.
“The judges were astounded by the innovation, tenacity and thoughtfulness of apprenticeship providers and employers across the UK. These awards are just one of many ways we can show our appreciation and celebrate their exceptional work.
“In past years we’ve announced the national finalists during a parliamentary reception. This wasn’t possible this year.
“But it was great to have Rory Bremner host this evening’s special online presentation.”
The big award, apprentice provider of the year, will go to either Cardiff and Vale College, Exeter College, Acacia Training and Salford City College.
Meanwhile, Lee Marley Brickwork, Merseyside Police, Pendennis Shipyard Ltd and the Royal Air Force will duke it out for apprentice employer of the year.
AELP chief executive Jane Hickie said it was “very difficult to choose the shortlist for each category.
“As this year’s array of finalists demonstrates, the fantastic training being delivered to young people and to existing employees who need to enhance their skills in the face of the pandemic and current economic uncertainty never ceases to amaze me.
“AELP partnered with FE Week on these awards as a way to demonstrate the amazing work done by providers in supporting their learners and employers – we certainly have many examples of outstanding work demonstrated across the sector.”
A number of sector leaders are also in the running for the individual award for outstanding contribution to the development of apprenticeships.
These include Anthony Impey, chief executive of Be The Business; Andy Berry, principal of Bridgwater & Taunton College; Rob Colbourne, chief executive of Performance Through People; and Robert Watts, European apprenticeship and early talent programme manager for Covance Laboratories.
Labour is “interested in exploring” greater devolution of skills budgets to mayoral combined authorities, its shadow education secretary has said.
Speaking to the FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference this morning, Kate Green would not say definitively whether Labour would hand over a greater amount of funding to metro mayors, many of whom already control their local adult education budgets.
But she said she “finds it very difficult to see how you can dictate these decisions from Whitehall.
“The needs of employers for apprenticeships in Cornwall and Devon are going to be very different from what we need in Greater Manchester,” the Stretford and Urmston MP said. “We’re very different sorts of economies.”
Her view is local and regional leaders “must be empowered, giving them a genuine voice to shape the system so that it delivers for their local economy and community; rather than settling for a system handed down but that doesn’t work for local communities.
“Our metro mayors and combined authorities must have a major role in supporting apprentices and apprenticeships, so that the training system works hand in hand with regional and local regeneration and industrial strategies to revitalise regional and local economies.”
As a Greater Manchester MP, she has become “immensely frustrated” the mayor for the area’s combined authority Andy Burnham “has not got his hands on the 16-to-19 skills or the apprenticeships budgets and all the spending that goes into skills and training in Greater Manchester”.
There are currently eight areas, including the Greater London Authority, which have a devolved adult education budget. And subject to legislation, Sheffield City Region and West Yorkshire combined authorities will join them from 1 August.
A number of the mayors leading those authorities co-signed a letter in 2018 calling for unspent levy funds in their areas to be handed to them.
London mayor Sadiq Khan went even further at the time, saying he wanted “London’s whole contribution to the apprenticeship levy to be ringfenced and devolved to spend on meeting the capital’s complex skills needs”.
In a speech on devolution last December, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced Labour would launch a UK-wide Constitutional Commission to look at devolving power to local areas.
He said: “The case for the next phase of devolution was urgent before Covid, but the pandemic has put rocket boosters under it.
“Our Labour council leaders, mayors and metro mayors have stood up for their communities against a centralised Westminster-knows best response.”
But when asked directly by FE Week editor Nick Linford if she would lobby Labour leader Keir Starmer to devolve the apprenticeship budget, Green would not give a yes or no answer.
Instead, she said: “I think it’s an important conversation to have with colleagues internally.”
Pressed again, she said: “I think we can interpret the answer being I’m very interested to explore that.”
Green stressed it was “really important you don’t make policy on the hoof, you are properly examining the implications of policies, and you’re thinking about talking to all the stakeholders in that policy territory.
“But as I say, I just think that if you’ve got a mismatch in governance between economic regeneration and social justice strategies on the one hand, and employment, training and skills strategies on the other, that does not sit easy with me.”
It was “concerning,” she said, that a third of them resulted in at least one ‘insufficient progress’ judgement.
“The quality of apprenticeship training does need to improve,” Spielman told delegates, after she and Ofsted more widely have expressed repeated concerns about quality in the apprenticeship sector.
Ofsted’s 2020 annual report said apprenticeships were the “weakest” area of provision in FE providers, with one in ten judged ‘inadequate’ last year.
Speaking this morning, Spielman said: “Let’s be frank, this can’t be blamed on Covid. This is the same pattern we were seeing before the pandemic.
“To have such a high proportion of insufficient progress judgments is troubling.”
Ofsted’s stated concerns contrast with the Department for Education, which has continually boasted of the quality improvement apprenticeships have experienced because of the government’s reforms to the sector since 2017.
When asked by FE Week editor Nick Linford today, neither Spielman nor Joyce would be drawn on whether quality had improved since the apprenticeship reforms.
Joyce explained they were at an “early stage” of their evaluation of the programme, partly as there were still providers delivering apprenticeship frameworks while being inspected by Ofsted, as opposed to the reforms’ flagship apprenticeship standards.
Apprenticeship achievement rates ‘not yet high enough’
Speaking at AAC on Monday, Keegan said she had ordered an investigation into the “astonishingly” high apprenticeship drop-out rates.
That is after official government data published in March showed just 60.2 per cent of apprentices training on new-style standards stayed on their programme until the end in 2019/20. This figure was 48.3 per cent the year before.
Peter Mucklow
The retention rate on the old-style frameworks has stuck at 69 per cent.
And addressing the conference today, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of apprenticeships Peter Mucklow said achievement rates “are not yet high enough,” though they had increased by 12 percentage points between 2018/19 and 2019/20.
However, that still only brings it up to 58.7 per cent – much below the 61 or 62 per cent which Linford told him “used to be minimum standards threshold”.
The apprenticeship regulator is reviewing a proposal for a level 2 business administration replacement, which employers hope to have ready for delivery from September.
Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) chief executive Jennifer Coupland told FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference today they are mulling over a “public sector organisation administrative assistant” standard.
This has been put forward by a group of employers, including the NHS, after repeated bids for a level 2 business administration apprenticeship standard to replace the old-style framework were rejected.
She said the institute “will always respond to employers who come forward with proposals for new apprenticeships and we take every proposal on its merits”.
A “number” of employers had come forward with the proposed new standard at level 2, which would be considered “in isolation from things that may or may or may not have gone before,” as “that’s a fair and proper thing to do”.
Coupland said the proposed standard would have to meet IfATE’s “usual” tests to be approved for delivery.
It is not clear at this stage how this new proposal differs from the level 2 business administration, aside from having a different name.
It was Coupland who drove the final nail into the level 2 business administration standard’s coffin, ahead of the framework being switched off last July.
At a last-chance meeting with employers in February 2020, after she took the chief executive post the previous November, Coupland said the employers’ proposal did not meet the requirements for an apprenticeship, namely the minimum 12-month duration rule.
She also told the employers they would not be able to submit any further proposals for the standard.
Employers have been able to utilise the level 3 business administrator standard, and the Education and Skills Funding Agency has highlighted the level 2 customer service practitioner standard as a replacement for the level 2 framework.
FE Week reported last October plans were afoot for a new, level 2 “Organisational Support Assistant” standard, which was being developed by the NHS and local councils for use in the public sector.
And plans for this new replacement appear to be quite far forward.
Lucy Hunte
Addressing an Annual Apprenticeship Conference workshop yesterday, NHS Health Education England’s national programme director Lucy Hunte said her organisation was “busy” with getting the new standard ready for delivery hopefully from this September.
The programme would be “widened” to outside the public sector, she said, adding that surveys will be “coming out shortly just to get private sector input.
“But the aim is we would hope to have this ready for delivery from September, but don’t hold me to that, and obviously this is all IfATE-dependent.”
Hunte said the institute “is really interested in the social mobility aspect this time round”.
