Sector gives FE white paper the thumbs up

The FE white paper has been given a warm welcome by sector leaders and FE Week readers, with almost two thirds rating it as ‘good’.

FE Week today ran a webcast in partnership with NCFE exploring the much-anticipated ‘Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth’ document, which was published last Thursday.

The white paper included more than 30 proposals and while the majority repeat or build on current reforms, there were some new announcements including ‘Local Skills Improvement Plans’ and greater intervention powers for the education secretary.

During today’s webcast, a panel of sector leaders gave their views on the white paper and were asked to rate it out of ten, while the watching audience was also asked whether they thought the white paper was ‘amazing’, ‘good’, ‘fair’, ‘poor’, or ‘awful’.

Around 700 of the 1,150 audience members voted with 64 per cent saying it was ‘good’, 34 per cent saying it was ‘fair’, one per cent saying it was ‘amazing’ and the same amount saying it was ‘poor’.

As for the sector leaders, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes rated the white paper as an eight out of ten.

Hughes explained his score, saying: “I think there’s a lot of opportunity in it.

“I don’t think it’s perfect, it does not cover everything. There’s lots of areas for development, but there’s a commitment to do that work with us.”

Policy director for adult education network HOLEX Susan Pember said she would have given the white paper a score of six out of ten on Friday. Yet she had had a rethink, saying during her presentation that “there are some brilliant things in there,” and ended up giving it a nine – the highest score of all the panellists.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie gave an eight and a half score on behalf of her members.

She lamented the “noticeable absence” of a strategy for level 2 and below in the white paper, saying: “We need to provide people with an opportunity from the bottom up.”

But Hickie said it was a “really good thing” the white paper said the government would take ‘tougher’ formal action against schools which do not comply with the Baker Clause, which mandates schools to allow FE and skills providers talk to pupils about potential study routes.

David Russell, chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation, rated it as an eight out of ten and said that was a “really good” rating for a government white paper.

As FE Week editor Nick Linford, who hosted the webcast, pointed out: Hughes, Pember and Russell have all worked in Whitehall during their careers, overseeing multiple reform attempts, so their high scores for this latest white paper were “quite tremendous”.

NCFE chief executive David Gallagher would not be drawn on a numbered score, joking that his awarding body “will apply an algorithm and get back to you”.

Pushed by Linford for a score, Gallagher said he “never likes to fall into the trap” of rating out of ten, but did say: “The constraints we’ve got means we haven’t got a landmark paper.”

The devil’s in the detail with these things

A number of panellists spoke about how the white paper appears to have been restrained by having a one-year, rather than a multi-year, funding settlement.

Skills minister Gillian Keegan told FE Week in an interview last week: “Obviously having a three-year settlement is great because it gives visibility, it gives that long-term money,” but she claimed the one-year settlement had not hampered the white paper’s speed or boldness.

Today, Gallagher did credit the document for “making sense,” and for there being “nothing any of us are wildly opposing”.

“But the devil’s in the detail with these things, so I would be slightly less generous than colleagues based on those concerns but not massively so,” he added.

DWP Kickstart gateway firms approved by algorithm, with no trading history or based abroad

[UPDATE: Five days after publication of this article, the DWP got in touch to say that they use human checks as well as their algorithm in the gateway approval process.]

 

An FE Week investigation has found dozens of companies selected by the Department for Work and Pensions to become “Kickstart gateways” with little to no trading history or based outside of the UK.

The DWP has issued more than 600 approved firms a per job placement fee of £300, plus up to a further £1,500 for every 16 to 24-year-old on Universal Credit they put through the new £2 billion wage-subsidised employment programme.

FE Week’s  findings have raised serious concern over the “automated due diligence checks” used by the DWP as part of a contract selection process using a new “Cabinet Office Spotlight Tool”.

Small employers have to use ‘gateway’ companies (which include colleges, chambers of commerce and hundreds of private companies) where they have less than 30 vacancies according to DWP policy.

The DWP is understood to be so concerned about the quality of gateway providers that they have now stopped taking applications and scrapped the requirement for small employers to use them from 3 February.

FE Week has shared its findings with the relevant government departments.

Examples of gateway firms shared with the Treasury and DWP  include Kickstart Jobs Ltd, which according to companies house was incorporated just three months ago.

Another, KA001 Limited, lists a gmail contact email address on the gov.uk Kickstart website and their first set of accounts filed in November 2020 shows “total assets less liabilities” of £100.

FE Week also shared the example of Casual Speakers Ltd, a DWP authorised Kickstart gateway firm which Companies House lists as being based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and therefore has not filed accounts in the UK.

A DWP spokesperson replied to questions about how these firms were selected by saying: “Kickstart gateways are subject to stringent checks.”

Responding to our findings, shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonny Reynolds, said: “Billions of pounds of public money is being poured into Kickstart and we must ensure it is being spent well to create meaningful job opportunities for young people. Young people and businesses can’t afford any more incompetence from this government.”

A college manager that runs a Kickstart gateway in partnership with a local chamber of commerce, who did not want to be named, said: “It beggars belief that the DWP would agree that companies with little or no recent trading history or which were only set up in the weeks and months ahead of opening up the gateway application process were allowed into the process.

“We need urgent action to resolve this.”

According to the official Kickstart gateway website, the “DWP has checked the organisations listed in this service using the Cabinet Office Spotlight Tool”.

The same webpage links through to another government site which states: “The Spotlight is a new tool to improve the management of grant applications. It has been purpose built by the Cabinet Office.

“Spotlight saves time by performing automated due diligence checks on each application. These complicated checks, which used to take hours, are now done in seconds. Spotlight checks large amounts of data to highlight areas for further investigation. Risks are emphasised to help grant administrators make better funding decisions.”

The site continues: “Spotlight saves time, improves decision making, and reduces the risk of fraud. Spotlight is available across all government and public length bodies.”

FE Week also found many companies advertising themselves as being a Kickstart gateway with no history of job matching.

Firms advertising their Kickstart gateway services include Banana Scoops Ltd, an ice cream supplier to Ocado which claimed on Twitter to have 70 placements already approved with DWP.  Another encouraging applications from small employers is Rollerworld Limited, a company with an ice rink in Essex.

FE Week also showed DWP the website www.kickstartschemegateway.co.uk, which could be mistaken for being government owned.

A spokesperson for DWP said: “Employers should find their gateway through the approved gov.uk page.”

And despite there being no training requirement for Kickstart, when asked about some gateway providers keeping the £1,500 the DWP spokesperson said: “Where Kickstart gateways provide some or all of the training they retain an agreed portion of the £1,500 support and training funding.”

The DWP website states: “Every job placement created gets £1,500 funding. This will be paid to you and you will need to pay this to the employer.”

Government Kickstart minimum vacancy rule to be scrapped, hitting hundreds of ‘gateway’ providers

The chancellor is to scrap the minimum 30 vacancy requirement for the government’s Kickstart scheme, scuppering the plans of organisations that had become so-called “gateways” to help smaller employers access the programme.

FE Week understands that some organisations have been told by ministers that the vacancy limit will be scrapped, meaning any business will be able to directly access the Department for Work and Pensions scheme without the need of Kickstart gateways.

Hundreds of organisations successfully registered to become gateway providers and include colleges, local chambers of commerce and private training providers.

They will still be able to operate across the UK but there will be little incentive for employers to use them.

The Kickstart scheme, announced by chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak in his summer statement in July, offers a six-month work placement to 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long-term unemployment– with the government picking up their wage bill.

Currently, employers have to be able to offer a minimum of 30 placements to be allowed to apply for the scheme. Those which cannot have to apply to join through a Kickstart gateway provider.

For each placement, gateway providers receive £300 to support administrative costs, while employers are supposed to receive £1,500 per placement for help with setup costs.

However, FE Week understands the Treasury is concerned about the revelation that some gateway providers have been taking the full £1,800.

This newspaper raised concerns about this approach with the DWP in October, but was told that although the £1,500 had to be spent on start-up and support for the young person, gateway providers and employers were free to come to “suitable arrangements” on how that support would be provided, including models where all the support was provided by the gateway.

One gateway provider to have adopted this approach is a partnership between the Federation of Small Businesses and Adecco Working Ventures, which was celebrated at the time of its launch in September by the work and pensions secretary Thérèse Coffey.

The FSB said last year that as part of the scheme, Adecco Working Ventures would “ensure quality of support throughout the process and advise on those valuable next steps of re-entering paid, full time employment”, with the £1,500 government grant going “to provide this comprehensive wrap-around support”. The FSB then received the £300 gateway payment.

Adecco Working Ventures was launched in July as a joint venture between the Adecco Group UK and vocational training provide Corndel. In November, it was revealed that private equity firm THI Investments would acquire Corndel for more than £40 million.

News reports at the time said it was expecting “an additional £30 million of sales” to come from its partnership with Adecco.

It is understood the move to scrap the minimum jobs requirement has prompted fury in the further education and skills sector, after training providers scrambled to become gateway providers to support the scheme last year.

Providers are also said to be angry about the way the announcement has been handled, coming just days after the government’s skills for jobs white paper pledged a greater role for employers’ groups such as chambers of commerce.

Announcing the vacancy rule change, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey said: “Kickstart has moved up a gear and I encourage employers to join us and invest in the next generation of talent by joining our Kickstart scheme.

“By removing the threshold of a minimum 30 jobs for direct applications, we are making it even simpler to get involved.

“Now is the time to prepare for post-lockdown placements and employers will now have a choice to apply direct or through one of our 600 fantastic Kickstart gateways who may be locally connected or sector-specific providing that tailored support.”

Ofqual’s criticism of the government’s T Level plans gives me hope

The regulator agrees with many principals like me that the T Level reforms have serious flaws, writes Neil Patterson 

Reading Ofqual’s response to the government’s consultation over post-16 qualifications gives me hope. It echoes opinions that have been shared by many I know since the intended reforms were announced.

I was part of the original panel at the Department for Education for some of the engineering T Levels. In our first meeting I remember a DfE “suit” saying that he was there to “make sure the panel didn’t subvert DfE policy direction”.

Just over a year later I resigned from the panel because it was clear he meant it.

My concerns about work placements, the size of the qualification, the impact on the disadvantaged and the bifurcation into purely academic or purely vocational were clearly not as important as getting this flagship sailing before it had been leak-tested.

As an engineer, I know that engineering is not just an academic subject, but nor is it just vocational. To split it in two at age 16 is in my view too early.

It’s a view that is backed up by the choices our students make in our sixth form, too. Just over half of last year’s leavers had studied a blend of A-levels and vocational and technical qualifications.

Even for those going on to university, only eight per cent had come through a purely academic route, while 58 per cent did a blend of A-levels with vocational and technical qualifications. The remaining third followed a purely vocational route.

To split the subject in two at age 16 is in my view too early

Switching off these smaller qualifications and offering only T Levels is cutting off a route for a great number of talented young people.

My student whose creativity was ultimately unleashed on his product design A-level may not have been quite so attractive to the F1 team that snapped him up.  

The girl who studied maths alongside engineering avoided the need for a foundation year at university, which meant she could get earning sooner.  

The young man who bagged a degree apprenticeship with Aston Martin was more marketable because of his knowledge acquired on the physics and maths A-level courses, which illuminated his learning in the BTEC Diploma in Engineering. 

They and many like them have gone on to great things because of the combination of qualifications available now.

To do away with them, and in their place put a large, inflexible, high-stakes T Level would be a mistake.  

Furthermore, the T-Levels won’t suit a lot of the students who would normally take a BTEC Extended Diploma, equivalent in size to three A-levels, and an option favoured disproportionately by those with protected characteristics and disadvantaged young people.

This picture is seen across the UTC network.

 In a study by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust of last year’s leavers, they found that the proposals in the post-16 qualifications review would meet the learning and progression needs of just 60 per cent of UTC students.

Forcing more young people on to courses that aren’t right for them will lead to lower completion rates and more NEETs, particularly among the disadvantaged, who face additional barriers to attending the extended work placements that are part of the T Levels.

When I talk to the employers in our region, particularly in the high-performance technology sector, they speak of the struggle to recruit young people with higher-level technical skills.  

The Augar report into post-18 education concluded that “England needs a stronger technical and vocational education system at sub-degree levels”.  

Under the current proposals, I am concerned that it will lead to a divergence of final qualification levels, with even fewer attaining qualifications at levels 4 and 5 – take-up of which is already low here compared with other countries.

I welcome the process of removing the dead wood from the qualifications landscape.

But the binary proposals don’t recognise the great synergy in pairing academic and vocational qualifications in engineering at level 3, and how that fits with the needs of businesses whose productivity and growth is slowed because of a shortage of skilled workers.

When I wear traditional Indian dress, people still react differently

In this third lockdown, we mustn’t forget the conversation around racism and diversity, writes Anita Lall

“Women don’t do science”. “Asian girls don’t go to university”.  

These are just a handful of the phrases that I often heard growing up from my school and college teachers.  

The comments continued whilst at university from members of my community and sadly some university tutors.  

Despite such comments, my passion was science and fully supported by my parents, I pursued this as my first career. I always thought back to those comments and what I could do to stop this happening to other young women.   

Now that we are into a third lockdown, the huge international conversations around racism and diversity from the summer risk being forgotten if we don’t stay focused. 

For me, teaching in further education has provided the ideal opportunity to challenge stereotypes and serve as a positive role model for young women in science. 

These comments still persist in our society decades later, which is why we mustn’t take our eye off the ball. Many of my BAME female vocational science students still report being told that science as a career is not for them.  

Such stereotypes, however, are not purely seen in science. Young men are often discouraged from pursuing childcare and nursing qualifications. 

Times are starting to change with BAME students in FE increasing from 19 per cent to 23 per cent in the space of eight years. But Black and Asian representation in senior leadership has consistently decreased from 2012 to 2019.  

Fifteen per cent of FE staff identify as BAME, which drops to nine per cent for senior managers.  This is something that we must actively address. Many colleges deliver learning in local communities and within faith institutions ̶ but how many proactively recruit staff from that community? 

It is not enough to just challenge the stereotypes ̶ the barriers need to be broken down and senior leaders need to act.  

Those working in all ranks of FE have a positive duty to break down the stereotypes and challenges that BAME students face and encourage them to seek opportunities in further education in the sectors from which they are traditionally put off.  

Assumptions held by both staff and students need to be broken, and colleges should have high aspirations for all their students. 

Imagery is a powerful tool

I can remember wearing traditional Indian dress to a college event a few years ago and colleagues walking past me didn’t recognise me. In wider society, I am talked to differently if I wear Indian dress.  

Think about how you unconsciously perceive students who wear traditional dress to college and the assumptions you make. 

Imagery is a powerful tool. Colleges need to ensure their marketing is fully inclusive and positively portrays men and women from ethnic minorities across a variety of courses.   

At my college, this is something that we are continually working on. I am all too aware of the strong positive impression BAME teachers and senior leaders have on parents from ethnic minorities at open days and other events.  

To see minority groups visibly represented within the workforce and especially at a senior level sends a powerful message to students. 

As the visible BAME leader at my college, I am acutely conscious of this and the positive impact that I can have. 

At the end of the day, we must continually affect less biased, more equitable and lasting behaviour change.  

Our senior leadership team is small but diverse and this means that decisions are well tested and considered. 

So what can you do to address some of these issues?  

Invite people in your college to share how they have observed or experienced inequity and bias, and empower them to be part of the solution.  

Enlist enthusiastic staff (and students) who want to actively participate in being part of a change, and equip them to do so.  

Actively address the systems that inhibit equality, diversity and inclusivity in your college one at a time.

It’s never too late to start. 

 

Departing Hull College chair lashes out at ‘failure’ of government oversight

Daf Williams, just hours after a shock resignation from the position of chair to the board of Hull College Group, has denied there has been a failure of governance and instead accused the government regulators of failing to do their jobs.

The resignation came on the day of a visit from the FE Commissioner’s team and shortly after FE Week revealed the new interim chief executive had launched an investigation into a £240,000 three-year rugby stadium naming sponsorship deal.

Read the statement from Williams, sent to FE Week, in full:

“I am very sad to be leaving a role that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Hull College has some amazing people and I am very glad to have been involved. I joined the Board as Chair two years ago, with the College already two years into intervention by the FE Commissioner taking on the challenge as a volunteer to try to help turn around the College’s fortunes. I have since then put in countless hours for free, working alongside many other volunteers on the governing body, all committed to give our time to try to make a difference.

“Sadly balancing a busy working life and these commitments have proved too much.

“I am aware of the criticism of governance at the college. I believe Hull College has a very strong governing body which has been improved greatly in recent months, but whilst I do not accept there is a failure of governance it is clear that I have been chair for two years and improvement has not been at the pace we would have hoped in that time.  

“I have a strong view that if the charge that we have failed as governors is to stick, then there is also a failure on the part of our regulators. They have had all of the same information as we have had over the last four years of intervention and if we have missed things not being done correctly then so have they. Whilst we as governors are all enthusiastic amateurs volunteering our time to try to help, they are specialist professionals from the sector, paid to spot these matters, which sadly they have not.

“As a former council leader, I have a good understanding of how intervention works in local government, where officials are embedded in the organisation they are seeking to turn around and where they genuinely work collaboratively to try to fix the problem. Sadly that does not seem to be the approach from the FE Commissioner team, where intervention is really just a form of regular inspection, making occasional visits to observe and make recommendations, then leaving for you to fend for yourself. I do hope in the future, the process for intervention is reformed, to offer more support for volunteer governors, to help them to get it right.”

Picture: Daf Williams at a Hull College Group graduation ceremony in October 2019

Chair of Hull College Group resigns amid spending concerns and FE Commissioner visit

The chair of the troubled Hull College Group has resigned.

Daf Williams (pictured) has left the post just hours after FE Week revealed the college’s new interim chief executive had launched an investigation into a £240,000 rugby stadium naming deal.

The FE Commissioner was set to go into the college today as his intervention continues.

The college has seen a number of changes in recent times with new governors joining the board and four interim bosses since the last permanent chief executive left in 2019.

A statement from the college said: “This new era for the college is a good time for the current chair of the board (Daf Williams) to hand over the reins.

“Daf has worked tirelessly giving his time voluntarily to the role of chair during the last two years but the current pandemic pressures mean that finding the elusive balance of his professional and voluntary role as chair has proved increasingly difficult to achieve.”

Current interim chief executive Lowell Williams added: “On behalf of the college and the board our sincere thanks to Daf, I have only worked with Daf for a month, but rarely have I met such a committed individual to the success of the college and wider city of Hull.

“I know that Daf will continue to play a huge role in his professional capacity in the future of Hull and the Humber.”

Daf Williams has been chair of Hull College Group since December 2018. His day job is the head of policy, communications and economic development at the Associated British Ports (ABP) in the Humber.

He is a former leader of City of York Council with other political experience having previously worked for MPs and ministers in Whitehall.

Prior to joining ABP, Daf Williams was head of corporate affairs for Yorkshire Water.

 

A new fiasco in the making? We grade the various exam replacement plans

The government has finally published its consultation revealing the plan to replace GCSE and A-level exams this year. In some quarters it has done little to quell the fear that we’re heading for another fiasco – but this time, with teachers left to cop the blame. FE Week investigates …

Move over mutant algorithm, we have a new scapegoat…

A key concern is that teachers are being primed to be the fall guy – in place of the so-called “mutant” algorithm which politicians blamed for last year’s fiasco.

Teachers will be tasked with coming up with a grade for each student based on evidence that includes coursework, potentially mandatory mini-exams.

While teachers have been promised support and guidance from exam boards, there are big concerns about how any sort of consistency across grades can be ensured.

There is also anger that this plan B hadn’t been enacted earlier in the year, rather than cobbled together this month.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary at the National Education Union, said collecting evidence across the country will prove “much harder now” than if schools and colleges had been supported to do it from the start of the academic year.

Simon Lebus

Ofqual’s interim chief regulator, Simon Lebus, admitted teachers have a “heavier responsibility” under the plan.

He said the quality assurance arrangements – whereby exam boards sample the approaches and grades set by schools and colleges – alongside support from the boards would be “so important” to help teachers in “what is undoubtedly quite a burdensome task”.

But Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, said the risk is that “hardworking teaching profession is fed to the lions”.

‘Pandora’s box’ of appeals

Students can appeal to their school or college, but grades would only be changed if the original judgment was “not legitimate”.

The appeal should be considered by a “competent” person not involved in the assessment, which could include someone from another school or college.

If a student is still not happy, they can appeal to exam boards – but only if the school or college has “not acted in line with the exam board’s procedural requirements”, not to challenge the merits of the teacher assessment.

Mary Curnock-Cook

Mary Curnock Cook, former chief executive of university admissions service UCAS, said the “sheer volume of appeals might overwhelm the system.”

Tom Middlehurst, curriculum and inspection specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said it could put schools and colleges in an “extremely difficult situation” of having to organise an appeals system against “the grades they awarded, when common sense would suggest that this should be done by another body”.

Bousted said a “pandora’s box of appeals” could cause “great anguish and workload for seemingly very little benefit”, but suggested exam boards could instead run the process.

Lebus himself, in an interview with FE Week’s sister paper FE Week, admitted there are concerns over the extra workload, adding an “adversarial appeals process” would put schools and colleges in an “invidious position because it can be corrosive of trust and good relations”.

Meanwhile professor Barnaby Lenon, dean of education at the University of Buckingham, who sits on Ofqual’s standards advisory group, warned the timescales to achieve all this are too tight.

Ofqual is proposing to bring results day forward, possibly to early July, so that appeals could be submitted immediately.

‘Huge task for exams boards’

Under the proposals, exam boards would set papers for students, marked by teachers, to feed into the grading process. Ofqual is mulling over whether to make them compulsory, too.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said the papers would need to be “exceptionally well designed”, adding: “All of this adds up to a huge and complex task for the exam boards.”

The consultation suggested a combination of questions from past papers and new questions could be used.

Past papers have their advantages because exam boards already have the data on how children performed, to use as a comparison to how children perform this year. But they are complete papers and may not evenly cover all the topics students have studied.

It is also understood that the Joint Council for Qualifications has set up a working group to find commonalities between the exam boards to help create guidance.

But Middlehurst highlighted a conflicting issue in the plans. “On one hand, having common assessments would ensure greater consistency in how grades are awarded,” he said. “But on the other hand, it may be more difficult to take into account the differing extents to which students have lost out on learning during the pandemic.”

Lebus reckons the more frequently mini-exams are taken the “easier, I think, the task becomes of ensuring fairness across the piece and that students are being held to a consistent standard whatever school or college they are studying in”.

What about learning loss?

There has been little news on who will make up the DfE expert group, announced before Christmas, to help come up with plans on differential learning loss.

Sam Freedman, a former government advisor, said Ofqual has acknowledged a key reason exams had to be cancelled was the “huge and differential loss of learning suffered over the course of the past year”.

In last year’s centre-assessed grades, teachers were asked to come up with a grade they thought a student would have achieved had they sat their exams.

All of this adds up to a huge and complex task for the exam boards

This year, Ofqual wants the grade to be based on the teachers’ assessment of how they are performing now.

But Freedman sums it up like this: “In other words, it’s not possible to assess the course but the only way of providing a grade is to assess the course.”

Instead, Freedman says the government should – for A-level students – work with universities to ensure that offers are not conditional on precise grades, “but are much more flexible”.

Universities UK said universities will be actively considering any additional support needed for students to transition, with some universities already announcing they were going to lower A-level requirements.

On the issue of fairness, Lebus said exam boards would be key in providing quality assurance. He also signalled that the ambition is to keep outcomes broadly in line with 2020 and confirmed a final plan announced in the week of February 22.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 340

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving.

Toni Rhodes, Principal, Sunderland College and Hartlepool Sixth Form

Start date: July 2021

Previous job: Vice principal of quality and access to learning, Barnsley College

Interesting fact: She has a background in social care.

Jon Collins, Chief executive, Prisoners’ Education Trust

Start date: April 2021

Previous job: Chief executive, Magistrates Association

Interesting fact: He lived in San Francisco for six months after university, where he volunteered for Project Open Hand, a food bank providing support to people with HIV/AIDS.

Paul Kennedy, Chair, WELL Training

Start date: November 2020

Concurrent job: Co-founder, Mood

Interesting fact: As group HR director for online travel company ebookers, he once visited five countries in a single day: the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria.

Nigel Duncan OBE, Deputy FE Commissioner, Department for Education

Start date: January 2021

Previous job: Further Education Adviser, Further Education Commissioner’s Office

Interesting fact: He has traced his family back to 1472 at the time of Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses