The skills white paper must create a coherent system but local authorities are needed to provide the links and oversight, write Ruth Lupton and Stephanie Thomson
Andy Norman was right. At the end of January the research analyst at the Centre for Progressive Policy argued in these pages it’s “risky business to have an employer-dominated skills system”.
In confirming that devolution has no part in government plans to transform post-16 education and training, last month’s FE white paper missed a crucial opportunity.
It was an opportunity to build a more coherent system, fit to serve the needs of individuals as well as employers.
Holes in progression routes
The impact that a poorly coordinated post-16 system is having on the 40 per cent of young people without at least a grade 4 in both English and maths was explored in our recently published research for the Nuffield Foundation called ‘Moving on from GCSE “failure”’
The structure and nature of provision is part of the problem. Every local area has a different mix of academic, vocational and apprenticeship provision and institutional arrangements. Some provision is clearly linked to local labour market needs – for example, where a large local employer or growth sector stimulates demand for skills.
But employer demand waxes and wanes and financial pressures, competition and incentives mean that local provision can be volatile. This creates holes in progression routes that young people (and adults) find difficult to climb out of.
Greater coordination between employers and providers is needed, but it is hard to see how the linkage to the local labour market promised by the white paper will work if strategic authorities responsible for industrial strategy, planning and transport are not involved.
To do this, combined and local authorities need to be centrally involved in provision planning and given capacity to commission specific provision (in the 16- to 18-age phase as well as for adults) where this aligns with local priorities.
Lack of local oversight
But making the system work better isn’t just about getting provision right and expecting learners to make informed choices. Our research revealed many blockages to progress, including transport links.
However, the two key issues were local practices around entry requirements and inadequate guidance and support.
Most geographic areas in our study had a vast array of provision, but once GCSE-based entry requirements were taken into account, this narrowed dramatically, giving some young people limited choice about what they did after school.
For those who did not move straight to A-levels, the rush to identify suitable courses or apprenticeships following GCSE results created too many risks of drop-out or direction change.
Many GCSE “lower attainers” were not ready to make career decisions and reported that advice and support had been minimal. Yet no one locally has an oversight of these linkages between the pre- and post-16 phases, nor the authority to intervene.
Capacity to map provision needed
To improve the way the system works, the local state, whether combined or local authorities, needs the analytical capacity to map the provision that exists and, crucially, the associated entry requirements.
This way, gaps in provision could be properly identified and action taken with providers to make sure entry requirements are appropriate and do not block progress.
This capacity would underpin the building of progression pathways and foster collaboration and information flows across pre- and post-16 phases.
It would identify young people at risk of dropping out. It would form the basis of a wraparound support service starting in year 11 and continuing through to 19 to help young people construct a career pathway that recognises they might need to take sideways moves.
Supporting post-16 progression demands not just better employer-provider collaboration but strategic oversight and practical intervention in education and training sub-systems, from school to adult learning.
If we are to persist with a centrally funded and regulated market approach, we need to find much better ways to make it work locally.
This means trusting local leaders to ensure that the white paper’s proposals don’t just create a new set of cracks for young people (and adults) to fall through.
A Conservative MP who worked as a further education lecturer for 20 years has been appointed chair of the government’s Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network during National Apprenticeships Week.
Lia Nici, who represents Great Grimsby, will take responsibility for shaping objectives for the network of 88 companies, with the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
Nici, who previously worked at Grimsby College, said she was “delighted” to have been invited to the role, as working with the “brilliant” employers in the network “will go a long way” to ensuring apprenticeships are open and accessible to all.
“We need this richness of diversity in our talent in order to stay competitive and to level the country up,” she said.
It comes after FE Week found last October the proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic 16- to 18-year-old apprentices made up just 7.7 per cent of starts in the first three-quarters of 2019/20.
The network was founded during National Apprenticeship Week 2017 and now includes companies such as Channel 4, Siemens Plc, Lloyds Banking Group, a number of NHS Trusts, as well as small-to-medium enterprises.
Their aim is to encourage more people from underrepresented groups including those with disabilities, women and members of the Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, to consider apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan announced Nici’s appointment at a meeting of the network this week. FE Week reported in October they had not met since last February, as meetings were paused by the pandemic.
Keegan said the government “wants to make sure everyone, no matter where they live or their experience, can gain the skills they need to get ahead”.
The minister also said Nici, who previously led multiple media organisations such as Estuary TV, a TV station run by the Grimsby Institute, has a “wealth of experience and will play a key role in making sure we level up by developing talent from all parts of the country”.
All providers on the government’s register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) will need to reapply yet again over the course of the next year as plans for another “refresh” are unveiled.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency published further details today about the next phase of register which has been closed to new applicants since April 2020.
The agency says it has a “new set of application criteria” that every provider will be required to meet. This means each provider already on the register will need to reapply from May 2021 through a “phased reapplication process”.
It has been barely two years since the ESFA’s last refresh which required reapplications from providers as they agency sought to “strengthen” it.
The ESFA also announced today that providers currently on the register that have not delivered training over the most recent six months will be considered for removal, starting from May 2021.
As announced last April, any levy-paying employers delivering services critical to the Covid-19 response are currently able to apply to the register if they are able to provide the apprenticeship training their organisation needs, via the ‘employer’ application route.
The agency said today that it is now extending this so employer providers can apply through both the ‘main’ and ‘supporting’ routes to the register also. This will take effect from 1 March 2021.
But any providers who have been successful through this exceptions policy since its inception in April 2020 will still be subject to the refresh planned from May.
The agency is also widening the “current set of targeted entry conditions” to the register to allow more training providers to enter “through the additional ‘main’ or ‘supporting’ routes, where applicants can demonstrate they are catering to critical workers and have a linked employer’s endorsement”.
The new guidance adds providers with a grade four Ofsted rating will be temporarily eligible to reapply to the apprenticeships register with a re-inspection monitoring visit outcome showing that either ‘reasonable’ or ‘significant’ progress has been made.
It reads: “Covid-19 has caused significant delays to Ofsted’s ability to undertake full inspections. Providers that were previously graded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted but are overdue a full re-inspection, which has been delayed because of Covid-19, will be temporarily eligible to reapply to the register of apprenticeship training providers with a re-inspection monitoring visit outcome showing that either ‘reasonable’ or ‘significant’ progress has been made.
“Any eligible providers will be able to apply in line with the widening of the register’s entry conditions effective from 1 March 2021, as detailed above. This exception is temporary while inspection activity is limited due to Covid-19 and we will provide an update when this arrangement will cease to apply and Ofsted returns to conducting full inspections.”
Last month’s FE white paper revealed that the government would undertake a “full refresh” of the register, commencing in April 2021 and will adopt “more stringent entry criteria for both new and existing providers, to better determine whether providers have the capability and capacity to be able to deliver these higher-quality apprenticeships”.
This will be the second time the register has been “refreshed”, after it was first launched in March 2017, relaunched in January 2019, only to be closed to most new applications since April 2020.
Whether it’s teaching in prisons or walking on hot coals, Steve Kelly, principal at Keighley College near Bradford, says the biggest lesson in life is to trust
Steve Kelly was trusted early on in his teaching career. There he was, sat in a PGCE class at Charles Keene College in Leicester as a slightly older student, having pledged to avoid becoming a “traditional teacher”. His trainer, David Grayson, put an acetate slide on the projector and turned to the class.
“I distinctly remember that first lesson with David,” Kelly tells me. “He put this image on the screen and it was the crappiest picture of a cartoon student, with a cap on, scruffy jeans, not looking great. The activity was to take this picture and tell me everything we need to do to help this student learn.” The lesson was not to focus just on qualifications, but on helping somebody become themselves in every direction possible – a lesson that “really stuck with me”.
After just a few months Grayson, who became Kelly’s mentor, offered to pay him to teach the special educational needs module of the course, given his degree in youth and social work and experience working with young people with autism at camps in America and as a qualified youth worker in Leicester. “That’s what was amazing about David. He saw in me an ability to fix things ̶ this part of the course was poor and he allowed me to do that. He trusted me. What I learned from David was to trust your staff.”
Kelly and his grandfather
Kelly himself has come from an environment in which he was well trusted. He calls himself a “slow reader and a reluctant student” whose mum, a bright woman who had to leave school early to work in Liverpool’s factories, made him sit at the dinner table for a certain amount of time to improve his reading. His father and grandfather were both dockers, and together with his mum taught him a strong work ethic. But along with the discipline came a clear message, says Johnson, that “’whatever you want to do, we’ll support you in those decisions’”. He “did miserably” in his A-levels and began to volunteer aged 18 at a residential home for young people with learning difficulties. It looked like a career towards teaching, but at that point “I wasn’t very teachery in my head”.
But the result of such a trusting home environment was the confidence to make bold decisions for himself. While at Northampton University, and supposed to be studying a degree in psychology and performance, Kelly set up a theatre production company that soon began to take on big events. Two-and-a-half years into his degree he quit, literally moments before sitting an exam. “I realised I knew nothing about what I was going to write about. I was either going to go into the exam room, or walk away, and I walked away.” It’s a bold move, and not one everyone would bounce back from. But Kelly was making money, driven by a growing capacity to spot gaps and think up solutions.
I was either going to go into the exam room, or walk away, and I walked away
One of the biggest gigs his production company landed was launching the infamous ‘Nemesis’ ride at Alton Towers. Kelly surely must be the only principal in FE whose voice has introduced a heart-stopping themepark ride to thousands of overexcited people. “We did all the lights, smoke and stuff like that. It was brilliant.” I can just imagine his Scouse twang hiking up the octane levels several times over on the speakers, with an appropriate amount of drama and fun raging around. Like many of the most trusting people, Kelly seems comfortable in allowing fun – and even a certain amount of rule-bending – to play a big role in his leadership style.
Kelly on summer camps
It’s partly why Kelly became known for “ripping up lesson plans” halfway through a session and prioritising student experience. “I was good at saying, this isn’t working, let’s just scrap it. People didn’t always know what to say to me in lessons – they’d say, you changed the lesson halfway through. And I’d say, did they learn? Did they progress? Did they enjoy it? And they’d say yes, so I’d say, what are you moaning about?” He laughs infectiously – you can imagine that staff meetings with Kelly are a riot.
I was good at saying, this isn’t working, let’s just scrap it
It’s the kind of energetic, flexible approach that will have likely stood him in good stead working in some of the toughest FE environments around. Shortly after qualifying as a teacher, he taught at HM Prison Glen Parva in Leicestershire with responsibility for all learners with special educational needs for almost three years. Talk about the deep end. Since then, he’s held roles overseeing the learner experience and vulnerable students at Leicester College, Chesterfield College and The Sheffield College. He even did a stint as an education consultant, just to try it out.
Perhaps the more unusual quality about Kelly is that he doesn’t just trust himself to take risks but appears to trust others too. “One of the strategies I’ve done at the college is basically devolve lots of authority from me. I ultimately am in charge of the college, of course I am. But I have no authority whatsoever. My heads of department have the budget, the staff responsibility, the curriculum, in their hands.” Mischievous staff reading this should take note, to see how wild a suggestion they can make that Kelly might be willing to pilot. “My answer will always be yes, to whatever you’re asking to do, unless I can really see a good enough reason to say no.”
Kelly on results day at Keighley College
His key performance indicators in staff meetings also sound fairly unorthodox. “I’ll say, I’m not bothered about your registers, all those tick boxes. Are the students engaged? Are they having fun?”. One member of staff replied to him, “Yes, but you’ll be worried if sign-up rates dip”, to which Kelly replied, “Well, they won’t, because you’re in charge”.
The all-trusting, it-should-be-enjoyable approach extends to learners too. As we speak, a student of Kelly’s is waiting to find out whether he will be allowed to stay at the college following a fairly serious behaviour incident. There is no decision to be weighed in Kelly’s mind: of course he’ll be kept on. “He probably would have been excluded from most colleges. But he’s going to volunteer some time with student services, tell other students why his behaviour was not appropriate, eat some humble pie. If I can work in a restorative way, he can learn to be respectful.” He looks at me seriously. “Why should I, in a nice lovely office, ruin a kid’s life?”
Much of this thinking – which the literature often terms “servant leadership” – has been developed in Kelly over a lifetime of reading self-development and people-management books. He’s writing one himself at the moment, and reels off his top three recommendations: Good to Great by Jim Collins, How to be Brilliant by Michael Heppell and Start with Why by Simon Sinek. The approach may be partly inspired by his summer stints in America, where self-development and self-belief are perhaps a bigger part of the culture than in Britain.
In another off-the-wall anecdote, Kelly tells me he attended one personal development training exercise at which Oprah herself was present. But that’s not the most extraordinary bit: the exercise involved all the participants walking on hot coals. Really? I repeat, trying not to sound too incredulous. “Yes, hot coals. You don’t wreck your feet. You walk that fast.”
Kelly in a TV interview
Perhaps what Kelly understands best of all, as a former drama type, is that most people want to feel significant ̶ to have a small stage on which their voice is heard. It’s why he thinks it’s a good idea for the misbehaving student to sit on the college’s student voice committee. “We’ve trusted him, he wants to change his behaviour and we can also show that by giving him this authority. The word is ‘significance’. He doesn’t feel significant at the moment. It’s about certainty and significance.” As a former prison teacher, he’s seen it before. “That’s why people join a gang. There’s certainty in it, and there’s significance, because you’re important.”
Being an enabler, one imagines Kelly will, like many leaders, want to look around for new challenges once his institution is up and flying. He jokes that he’s done so many roles he “sounds about 90 years old”; but he has stayed the course in several places, including eight years at Leicester College and five years at Chester College. And challenges remain: Keighley College is still establishing itself after breaking away as a separate institution from Leeds City College in 2018, within the also rebranded Luminate Education Group, formerly the Leeds City College Group. But when he took the principal post in 2019, a ‘good’ Ofsted grade was already in the bag from the year before, and the report gave a particular nod to the ‘outstanding progress’ made by the two specific groups he was responsible for before he became a principal: 14-to-16 and SEND learners. So far, so solved. So what keeps him ticking? I ask.
“I’m devoted to students, but I’m equally devoted to staff,” he replies straight off. “I’ve always been really interested in teaching leaders. So I’m here to look after them but also to let them get on with it. They can make decisions. They’re big boys and girls.”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green has made her first visit, virtually, to an independent training provider to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week.
The Labour MP was this afternoon joined by shadow apprenticeships minister Toby Perkins to meet midlands-based Remit Training which trains thousands of apprentices in automotive, IT, business, retail, food manufacturing, hospitality, care and management every year.
Remit demonstrated training areas featuring full-sized cars
They spoke with Remit’s chief executive Sue Pittock, senior account manager Andrew Murdoch, an apprentice, and were also treated to a virtual tour of two automotive training areas.
After the visit started at around 12pm, Green and Perkins saw over video, firstly, the provider’s car-focused areas, including its spray paint booth.
At another of the provider’s centres, the two were shown the area used to train apprentices on heavy goods vehicles – which featured its very own inspection pit and two lorries.
Remit’s heavy goods vehicle training area
Speaking during the tour, Green said: “We know that apprenticeships offer a great start for a young person, building a career. They give them a hands-on learning opportunity, the chance to earn and learn.
“So the top class companies like Remit that support apprentices through their learning journey are going to be so important to our Covid recovery.”
This would be funded through the £330 million apprenticeship levy underspend the Department for Education handed back to the Treasury in 2019.
Sue Pittock
Pittock warmly welcomed the proposal, calling it an “ideal answer,” because: “If somebody in government looks at it and says, ‘what would I want for my own son or daughter or any other member of my family’, you want them on an apprenticeship programme, you’d want the employer to have that subsidy, so they can say, ‘no, I’m not just going to put them on a Kickstart programme that might only last six months and then they might not have a job’.”
Perkins said they were “really grateful” for her support, and said they can “collectively” continue pushing education secretary Gavin Williamson and apprenticeships minister Gillian Keegan “to think seriously about having a wage subsidy at this moment in time, when we know it is difficult to encourage businesses to take up, take on those apprentices”.
Speaking to FE Week following the visit, Pittock said she thought it was “fantastic” that Green and Perkins had taken the tour, and they had a “great” debate around the wage subsidy.
Yesterday afternoon a group of sector leaders and policymakers took part in an FE Week roundtable to mark National Apprenticeship Week.
The roundtable, in partnership with NCFE, was an opportunity to debate and explore the impact of the FE white paper published last month on apprenticeships.
Watch now
Roundtable Title: Quantity AND quality: FE White paper & the next phase of apprenticeship reform
Panel: Nick Linford, FE Week (Chair), David Gallagher, CEO, NCFE, Jennifer Coupland, CEO, IfATE, Jeff Uden, Head of Talent & L&D, Iceland Group, Paul Joyce HMI, Ofsted, Tim Smith, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, Multiverse, Lucy Hunte, National Programme Manager, Health Education England, Jo Maher, Principal, Loughborough College,
Crawford Knott, CEO, Hawk Training
The education secretary has urged colleges to embrace the new level 3 offer under the lifetime skills guarantee as the £95 million scheme edges closer to its launch.
Delivering a keynote speech at today’s Association of Colleges conference, Gavin Williamson said colleges will be “absolutely key” to the programme’s success and “strongly encouraged” delegates to get involved if they hadn’t already.
FE Week recently highlighted the plight of the fully funded level 3 offer for 24-year-old and above learners for independent training providers, who are being given just a four-month window to start and complete the substantial courses.
The issue stems from the scheme being funded by the new national skills fund but routed through adult education budget allocations, the contracts of which run out for private providers in July.
Colleges are funded differently through “grants” and will continue to receive funding for the level 3 offer in the next academic year.
The government has set aside £95 million to fund the “entitlement” during the next financial year from April 2021 to March 2022.
Williamson said: “The lifetime skills guarantee will include our new level 3 offer for adults, which is backed by new money from the national skills fund and will enable tens of thousands of adults to benefit from hundreds of free qualifications from April.
“Colleges will be absolutely key in delivering this new offer and ensuring adults across the country can develop the skills they need to get ahead in the labour market. I want to thank you for all the hard work you’ve already put in to scale up this offer ahead of April.
“I strongly encourage you to take up this level 3 entitlement offer and thank those who’ve already embraced it.”
‘The future is further education’
The education secretary also used his AoC conference speech to urge colleges to “think local” as the sector moves through its next set of reforms.
He insisted that “the future is further education” but that employers must be “central” to the system as outlined in last month’s FE white paper.
Williamson said: “I want the white paper to reshape the whole system of learning and acquiring skills in this country.
“And it is going to do this by putting employers firmly at the centre of a local skills systems, firmly at the heart of our colleges, working together with you, our colleges, and other local partners to shape technical skills provision, so that local economies thrive and local businesses benefit.
“We know that education and training must develop hand-in-hand with business partners if we are ever going to beat our chronic skills shortages.
“So we need to think local. We need local solutions for local skills needs. We need you to work with local businesses and employers so that the courses you offer are those that are likely to lead to jobs.”
A key new proposal in the white paper is “local skills improvement plans” led by businesses in chambers of commerce, which will be piloted and backed with a new £65 million strategic development fund in 2021/22. The cash will also support the development of new “college business centres”.
Williamson said there will be more information “coming soon” on the year-long strategic development fund pilot.
Eleven colleges that showcase “the best and most innovative practice” in the sector have been honoured at the Association of Colleges Beacon Awards 2021.
This year’s winners and highly commended were celebrated during the membership organisation’s annual conference today, which is taking place virtually amid the coronavirus pandemic.
AoC chief executive David Hughes highlighted how those rewarded have gone “above and beyond in providing high-quality technical and professional education”.
“The awards showcase exactly why colleges are so important to every community and why people value them,” he said.
“They recognise the very best collaboration, support and education and training that is delivered by expert teaching staff.”
Full details about each entry can be read here. The categories and winners are as follows:
British Council International Award
Winner: DN Colleges Group
Careers and Enterprise Company Award for Innovation in Careers and Enterprise
Winner: West Suffolk College
Edge Award for Excellence in the Practical Delivery of Technical and Professional Learning
Winner: Strode College
Highly commended: Lancaster & Morecambe College
Pears #iwill Award for Social Action and Student Engagement
Wnner: East Durham College
NOCN Group Mental Health and Wellbeing Award
Winner: Bridgend College
Jisc Award for effective use of Digital Technology in further education
Winner: TEC Partnership
Highly commended: Petroc College
City and Guilds Award for College Engagement with Employers
Winner: Bridgwater & Taunton College
RCU Support for Students Award
Abingdon & Witney College
Inclusive Learning Leadership Award, supported by The National Centre for Diversity
The long-awaited national adult education budget tender has been launched by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
Bids for a slice of the £73 million initially up for grabs in 2021/22 are being invited over the next six weeks, with a final deadline of 22 March.
The procurement includes caps depending on the type of provider applying for the funding to “mitigate significant oversubscription and speculative bidding”. A minimum contract value has been set at £150,000 and a maximum of £3 million.
The ESFA had originally planned to launch the tender in July 2020 but it has faced a number of setbacks. It is a “re-procurement” exercise, and follows roughly the same scope as the controversial AEB tender that caused havoc in 2017 – the contracts for which expire this year.
Priority courses for this tender includes the new first full level 3 qualification offer for those aged 24 and over as per the prime minister’s lifetime skills guarantee, as well as sector-based work academy programmes (SWAPs) – both of which were key features in the chancellor’s Plan for Jobs.
Each provider that bids will have their financial health assessed to ensure “its ability to meet ongoing financial commitments”.
For “new” providers, they will have bids capped at £1 million, subcontractors will be capped at £2 million, and “existing” providers will be capped at £3 million.
As previously reported by FE Week, traineeships are excluded from this procurement. Only providers with an AEB grant allocation (such as colleges) and those part of the current traineeship tender exercise will have access to traineeship funding in 2021/22.
The total AEB procurement could potentially reach £157 million if extensions are granted in future years, but these are not guaranteed.
Outcomes are set to be communicated to bidders by 24 June and the service start date will be 1 August 2021.
This tender is just be for the national budget, not for devolved combined authorities which run their own procurements.
