Fears of adult education desert amid cost-cut plans

The proposed closure of adult education centres has prompted a backlash for cash-strapped local authorities.

Cornwall Council, which takes control of a near-£11 million adult education budget next year under a devolution deal, is proposing to close seven of its 17 adult education centres, FE Week understands.

Most of the 2,250 learners using the centres take low-level skills courses in IT, English, maths and English as a second language, or community learning courses such as arts and media.

The centres earmarked for closure are in the western and eastern ends of the county, some in towns with no other adult education options and hours from other centres by public transport.

A petition opposing the closure of a centre in Penzance gathered 720 signatures in three weeks.

‘Poorly thought out’

Meanwhile in Kent, the proposed closure of Gravesend’s Victoria Centre prompted a Labour borough councillor to call the Conservative county council leader’s decision “irrational” and “poorly thought out”.

Kent County Council is considering closing or moving seven of its 17 centres, which serve about 8,000 learners each year, in response to adult education funding rule changes which place a greater emphasis on “work skills and careers” over leisure and repeat learner courses.

Both local authorities face critical financial pressures after years of cuts to government grant funding – Cornwall is predicting a budget gap of £67 million next year while Kent has a £111 million target for cuts and “savings” this year.

Last week Cornwall Council said the seven centres facing the axe were in deficit and learner numbers – which include 225 enrolled students served by 39 teachers and staff – “have not recovered as quickly as hoped” post-pandemic.

The council told FE Week a council board of governors would consider closures this month.

Cornwall Council will take control of £10.9 million in regional adult education and skills spending from August.

‘Further education deserts’

Liberal Democrat MP Ben Maguire, who represents North Cornwall, said he was “shocked” by the proposals which will see one of the county’s most remote areas lose two centres.

He said the move risked turning his constituency into a “further education desert” for adults who want to improve their qualification levels, or who have special needs.

Steve Yates, a teacher at the Penzance centre, said staff understand the projected saving from closure was rent that the council pays to itself as the building’s owner.

He added: “The centre helps learners improve their job skills, communication, maths and English. A lot of them progress into higher education and the elderly certainly build up their skills in IT classes given that everything is now going online.”

The council’s Labour group leader Kate Ewert, who attended university after completing an access to higher education course at one of the centres, called the proposals a “kick in the teeth and short termism of the highest order”.

She said: “These proposed closures will disproportionately affect those adult learners who are unable to travel or who may have limited internet connectivity.

“Recently, the Conservative-led Council in Cornwall declared with great triumph that Cornwall had devolved adult education from government to Cornwall Council – within months they are closing centres down. 

In recent years the council has been allocated around £2.9 million for adult education, split between community learning and skills, with a further £6 million allocated to local colleges.

‘Alternative’ provision available

Cllr Barbara Ellenbroek, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder with responsibility for adult education, said: “The financial challenges facing all local authorities mean we simply cannot keep providing a service if we are losing money, especially when we can maintain access to courses through alternative delivery methods.

“Many people now prefer to access education online, and there are alternative providers available, as well as the remaining centres which will continue to operate as normal.

“This is not a case of reducing our offering, it is about delivering it in the most cost-effective way to ensure we are providing the very best value for money.”

Sue Pember, policy director at adult education network Holex, said the challenges facing Cornwall “stem from the broader financial pressures on county and local authority funding”.

“Due to these financial constraints, councils nationwide are being asked to review spending across all services, not just adult education,” she added.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 480

Kelly Lee

Training Director, GEM Partnership

Start date: December 2024

Previous Job: Operations Manager, GEM Partnership

Interesting fact: Kelly loves travelling with the family around Europe watching her 14 year old son race motocross and competing at an international level

Beth Curtis

Vice Principal – Business Development, Riseholme College

Start date: August 2024

Previous Job: Interim Group Vice Principal Strategy and Business Development, TEC Partnership

Interesting fact: Beth visited over 25 countries on a year-long round-the-world trip in her twenties

Merger can be the best option to secure a college’s future

When I walked into Strode College to take up my first principalship in 2022, I was acutely aware of the challenging financial landscape that FE colleges operate in, especially small rural colleges.

What I wasn’t prepared for was a historical traineeship sub-contracting issue to be revealed in my first week. We were facing a year-long investigation, culminating in a multi-million-pound deficit and immediately placing us in intervention.

We worked hard to address this, collaborating with the department for education (DfE) and the further education commissioner (FEC) to stabilise cash flow and significantly boost capital investment.

For our stakeholders, we wanted it to be business as usual. Throughout the process, we grew student numbers, improved outcomes and increased local engagement – a testament to our success.

Ultimately though, it became clear that joining forces with another college would be the only way to secure a stable future for our students, staff and community.

Our decision to merge was rooted in our absolute commitment to securing the future of Strode College. So, rather than focus on the word ‘merger’, which felt daunting, we looked on the process as a strategic means to safeguard our fantastic provision. 

Interested colleges were invited to submit an expression of interest, but only one was taken forward. I am confident that the resulting partnership with Bridgwater & Taunton College is the best possible way forward for our whole college community.

Here are some of the lessons we learned along the way.

Embracing change and being transparent

During times of institutional change, staff stability becomes more important than ever. Their dedication drives our students’ success.

So it was critical for us to be open and transparent about the process.  We had frequent and honest conversations with all our stakeholders – including our board, staff and students. We held regular meetings, explained the challenges we were facing and were consistent with our messaging.

This was not just about communicating our merger plan, but about engaging our community in the process and actively listening (and responding) to their concerns.

Commitment to inclusion

Our aim post-merger is not only to preserve our central role for our community but to strengthen it. Listening to our stakeholders’ insights was therefore crucial to making decisions about our future and carrying forward the unique and valued aspects of our college culture.

Reassuring our community  that their support systems would not just continue but would grow stronger in the merged institution (with improved capital funding and access to specialist skills and resources) wasn’t just about what we were saying, but how.

To that end, we ensured our comms were inclusive and genuinely reflective of the care we have for all our members of our community.

Finding the right partner

The key, of course, was to find a like-minded partner with aligned values. We focused on identifying a college with a similar commitment to student success, inclusion and community enrichment.

These shared values gave us reassurance that our priorities would remain intact when we become part of a larger college group. We will retain our culture, vision and ethos in the new group structure, with local accountability via a local governing body.

Better still, each institution will bring complementary strengths to the table. Joining forces with Bridgwater & Taunton College will strengthen FE provision across the region, creating more career-focused progression routes, apprenticeships and other employment opportunities.

This will enable Strode College to invest in pedagogical innovation and further enhance the student experience by expanding our enrichment programmes. This will create more opportunities for personal and academic growth. 

We also have a well-established reputation for high-quality delivery at A Level and Level 3. Combining this expertise with Bridgwater & Taunton College’s strengths (stakeholder partnerships, apprenticeship delivery and national policy engagement) is an exciting prospect for us all. 

Opportunities for growth

For many colleges, a merger may feel like the last-resort option. To other college leaders facing similar situations, I would say this: your resilience will undoubtedly be tested by the process, but it can lead to a stronger future for everyone involved.

Transparency, staff engagement, inclusion and alignment of values are essential to protecting what matters most: the wellbeing of our current students, prospective students, staff and wider community.

The Staffroom: Why you should check your pension without delay

My whole career has been one spectacular downward trajectory. Rather than soaring ever upwards, I have plummeted Icarus-like into the depths more than once – at least in terms of salary. I have done so happily and willingly because the life of an ordinary teacher is where the action is as far as I can see.

I like to think that’s where I’m able to make the most difference, but it has made a difference for me too, one I didn’t think much about at the time.

Recently, a colleague sat next to me in the staffroom with urgency. “’Dave, this might apply to you too,” he said. The sense of discovery in his voice felt like he was sharing some arcane secret, unrolling a tattered treasure map or uttering some long-hidden spell.

Since then, others in our staffroom have found themselves discussing this too. It’s opened a fair few eyes. So allow me to share it with you too.   

I well understand that pensions are a field into which even wizened teachers fear to tread. I am no financial advisor and my money nous would make a piggybank blush. It’s a complicated field and my grasp of it is shallow.

The contribution goes out at source, I long imagined, so I can just ignore it and it will all work out fine in the end. As the end approaches (for my work life, if not my life’s work), I realise the 27 years I’ve spent thinking like that might not have been wise.

You know all those messages you get telling you to check your pension statement? I am now learning that maybe you actually should. 

If you are as long in the tooth and lengthy in service as I am, your pension will be split into two parts and two pots.

There is the newer system based on a career-average calculation. It’s a pretty simple system. At the most basic level, the more you pay in, the more you get out. You just need to remember that you can pay more in if you can afford it.

The older pot, on the other hand, is based on a final-salary scheme. This is where you might well have problems if you have had a topsy-turvy career like mine. 

Not doing this could cost you tens of thousands of pounds

The final-salary scheme, probably the more lucrative of your two pension pots if you’re of my advanced age, takes for its calculations an average from the best three years of salary you have had over the past ten. 

But what happens if your best three years were more than ten years ago, say if you decided to step down from management for a final quiet decade?

Simple. You lose the higher three years. The old salary falls off the tail of your relevant period and no longer counts. In terms of your pension, it might as well have never happened.

Your lower later salary becomes the one that will be used instead, which could cost you tens of thousands of pounds. Do I have your attention now?

What if I told you there is a way to save those higher-paid years if you act quickly enough?

All you have to do is opt out of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme for a single month. Doing so will lock in the higher three-year salary so long as those three years fell within the decade before you opted out.

They will then be used for a hypothetical calculation of your final salary, even if you keep on teaching for another ten years. You lose a single month’s contribution but gain tens of thousands in pension.

In other words, you pay less and gain more. That’s a bargain. It’s also a no-brainer. You’ve earned it, so ensure it’s locked in.

I don’t know if I’ve managed to make pensions exciting. If I’ve encouraged you to check your pension statement, that’s enough.

If not exciting exactly, there is someone who can make pensions accessible. David Fountain is the teacher- expert on all this. Visit his website, and if you’re on Facebook, join his ‘Teacher Pensions – Teacher to Teacher (UK)’ private group.

Trust me, future you will thank you. You’re welcome.

More than a number: why our exam grade fixation needs to change

Post-16 education isn’t all about getting those ‘magic’ exam pass grades. For many learners, the immediate challenge is to simply make progress.

More than 330,000 students resat either their English or maths GCSE this year. Of these, only 20.9 per cent and 17.4 per cent respectively achieved the grade 4 pass mark or above at the second attempt.

That means hundreds of thousands of teenagers are, once again, taking their next vital step towards work or further studies without one, or both, of these core subjects.

And that is where nation’s colleges have a vital role to play.

While the media’s attention remains on higher-achieving students, much of our work involves welcoming learners who have few or no qualifications and, often, a range of other challenges.

Many have had their confidence shaken by a system that’s told them they’ve ‘failed’ for not hitting that grade 4 target – a target Professor Becky Francis, addressing the Association of Colleges annual conference, described as “a relatively random indicator”.

Different starting points

One of our first and most important tasks is to let them know that we certainly don’t regard them as failures and we do things differently here. We can help them set realistic goals and draw up action plans so they can reach them.

In doing this, we must avoid the kind of discussions that can put a student’s defences up. ‘You haven’t got your maths so you can’t get into Level 3 bricklaying’ is defeatist, triggering and unhelpful.

Focusing instead on what can be done and how we can help them get there, we begin to appreciate that the definition of success changes for each individual.

Achievement is about personal progress, and many of our young people have to overcome obstacles ranging from family trauma to financial disadvantage to academic hurdles. Any step closer to ‘the norm’ in terms of outcomes, no matter how small, is cause for celebration and fostering self-belief.

Clearly, a central part of further education’s role is to equip our students with the skills – vocational, essential and personal – they need to succeed.

This is something Keighley College has been doing for its industrial heartland community for 200 years. No “relatively random” target should distract from any part of that effort.

No diploma for kindness

Understanding the mindset of our students and helping, where necessary, to challenge or change it is just as important as their qualifications.

Unfortunately, due to the stringent demands of the timetable, this is a task we have to try to squeeze in where we can, when what it deserves is substantial, dedicated effort.

Statistically, the cohort of learners we serve tend to have an increased need for a more personalised approach. Sadly, the funding model only supports flexibility through additional arrangements at the time of sitting exams, no as a normal way of working throughout the year.

More flexible funding would help, but creating a truly inclusive environment also requires a huge effort to address mindset and the anxiety tied to “failing” in these subjects. 

Imagine, instead, a college that had the courage (and freedom) to say to students at the start of each academic year: ‘Until October half term, your induction will focus on mindset and calming mechanisms – not just what you’re learning, but why and how’.

By half term, we would have created such an inclusive culture that learning might accelerate out of that in a completely different way, and one that might actually lead to improved achievement rates.

But there’s no funding or accreditation for mindfulness or self-regulation, so they are effectively treated as luxuries.

We are trying to get our learners, especially those who may have suffered some setbacks, to find themselves again and tune in to the best version of themselves. But the system we operate in is far too transactional to allow us enough space to do that.

Like so many colleges, we will continue to do all we can within our constraints to create that supportive platform for all our students.

As the saying goes, perfection should not be the enemy of good. It would be handy if policy wasn’t its enemy either.

Dismay and delay as OfS wrecks higher ed plans

A shock move by the higher education regulator to close its register and put applications for degree awarding powers on ice has forced “disappointed” colleges and training providers to delay courses.

The move could also be illegal, according to a senior education lawyer, with one HE representative body taking advice about a judicial review.

The Office for Students (OfS) announced on Monday it had closed its register to new higher education providers for the first time so its staff could prioritise “severe pressures” facing universities.

It also paused granting any more institutions degree awarding powers. These changes will be in effect until August 2025.

The move has left colleges and training providers unable to introduce new higher education provision in key sectors like health, engineering and hospitality.

There are 18 providers whose applications to join the OfS register are in the early stages and have now been paused. And there are 20 providers hoping for degree awarding powers.

Degree awarding power applications for a further 17 providers that are already in progress will continue.

Stifling economic growth

Waltham Forest College is one of the colleges affected by the closure of the register.

Its “carefully planned” HE courses in partnership with local NHS Trusts are now in limbo, despite the skills they’d deliver being flagged as priorities in the London Growth Plan.

Principal Janet Gardner told FE Week the register closure follows “a lot of investment” in developing the new provision.

“Specialist staff have been employed, equipment purchased, new quality structures with committees, space has been refurbished. This was a long process to ensure we were ready before we registered,” she said.

“So for us, this is disappointing. We would like the OfS to reconsider their decision. Any delay has a knock-on effect on what we’re able to offer current and future students.”

Apprenticeship provider HIT Training had rallied employers to commit “350 places” for their planned level 6 degree programme for the hospitality sector.

Mike Worley

Managing director Mike Worley told FE Week the course would have “attracted talent to a sector that is crying out for bright and hardworking people but currently unable to compete with sectors offering degree apprenticeships”.

He added: “Using OfS resources to support failing HE providers at the detriment of bringing innovative, financially stable providers into the market will stifle the skills and growth the Labour government is seeking to achieve.”

Derwentside College principal and chief executive Chris Todd said closing the register delays his plans to introduce and expand higher-level diploma courses in engineering, which has “strong demand”.

Despite the outcry, the government appears to have backed the OfS.

A DfE spokesperson said: “The dire economic situation we inherited emphasises the importance of putting universities on a firmer financial footing, so they can deliver more opportunity for students and growth for our economy.

“The Office for Students is rightly refocusing their efforts on monitoring financial sustainability to help create a secure future for our world-leading universities.”

‘Legally questionable’

This unprecedented step follows new analysis of higher education providers’ financial and student recruitment projections indicating that up to 72 per cent could be in deficit in 2025-26. 

The OfS said small, medium and specialist providers are more likely to be struggling the most financially and it is these types of providers that would typically be seeking registration and/or degree-awarding powers from the regulator.

Providers with existing time-limited degree awarding powers that lapse during the pause will have them extended, an OfS spokesperson told FE Week.

A body representing independent higher education providers accused the OfS of directly jeopardising the financial sustainability of existing providers and “prioritising one set of students’ interests over another”.

Alex Proudfoot, chief executive of Independent Higher Education, said: “What is perhaps most worrying of all is that the OfS board seems to believe they can simply disapply their core statutory duties as determined by parliament, whenever it suits them. This is troubling as a precedent.”

FE Week understands the body is consulting lawyers on possible options, including a judicial review.

Writing in FE Week, senior education lawyer Smita Jamdar said “the legality is questionable.”

She added: “The Higher Education and Research Act states the OfS ‘must’ register an institution if certain conditions are met, one of which is that the application is made in the manner specified by the OfS.”

The OfS has issued a notice to state that, for now, its “specified manner” means “not in the period between November 26, 2024 and August 1, 2025”.

Jamdar added: “The OfS has used its power to specify a manner of application to impose a moratorium on submissions for 10 months, which may be extended. If its approach is correct, it could pause its duty to register indefinitely, which would completely undermine the mandatory nature of the duty.”

Harry Potter and the education policymakers’ mistake

Every other Christmas, as I re-watch the Harry Potter movies, I dust off my unpopular opinion of how the series should have ended differently. (Spoilers ahead.)

I am a fanboy of screenwriting-guru Robert McKee. “The finest writing not only reveals true character,” he says in Story, “but arcs or changes that inner nature.”

This is why I think Harry Potter should have stayed dead, leaving Neville Longbottom to take down Voldemort in the finale. Harry doesn’t really change. He’s ‘The Boy Who Lived’ from page one. His sacrifice to raise others up would have been much more meaningful.

Neville, on the other hand, is a character with a fantastic story arc. First seen being reprimanded by his gran for losing his toad “again”, by the showdown in the seventh book, he has grown into the hero who is first to charge Voldemort, with no protection from plot-armour prophecies.

The tedious expectation that Potter will always be the hero who saves the day has a lot in common with the way schools are looked to as the solution for, well, everything.

It is particularly apparent in the debate around English and maths, where the entire, brief “solutions” paragraph in the Association of College’s policy paper English and Maths: Towards 100% Success’ argues that it “has to start pre-16”.

That paper was published the day before the general election, so it is little wonder that the new government has since consistently focused on schools while sidelining FE on issues of teacher pay, VAT, and the level 3 pause and review.

Meanwhile, like Neville, colleges have undergone a dramatic and inspiring character arc, rising as unexpected heroes of English and maths. There has been a 94-per cent improvement in the achievement of these subjects through post-16 in the decade since the resit policy was introduced.

In fact, it is the only policy area in education where the disadvantage gap is actually closing. FE teachers’ enthusiasm for research has built a wide range of evidence, from the impact of mastery pedagogy on GCSE scores to the power of empathy, to the wellbeing opportunities resits can provide.

Colleges have undergone an inspiring character arc

By 2019, the last year before Covid caused accountability measures to be paused, the top 20 FE colleges were averaging strong progress scores in English and maths. Those same colleges, when the resits policy was introduced just a few years before, were averaging negative headline measures.

To put it bluntly, when they started out they were making students worse at English and maths. They were toadless.

How they changed that was by supporting their staff and believing in their students. A Dumbledore’s Army of resit teachers got their heads down into research about gillyweed, had the courage to stand up to the friends who needed convincing, and pulled something extraordinary out of a hat, turning the toughest but most important policy in education into a success.

You might think I’m stretching the applicability of Potter too far. Possibly, but it’s Christmas so indulge me.

Voldemort wanted to purge Hogwarts of ‘mudbloods’ and the weak and the vulnerable. We need to be absolutely clear that those at risk if we ease up on resits are the economically disadvantaged, and Gypsy, and Roma, and Black, and SEND students.

They have the lowest prior attainment at 16 only through lack of opportunity. It is their right to catch up that is protected by the policy.

We know from the department for education’s embarrassing backpedalling on the condition of funding last week that civil servants would be content negotiating Voldemort’s purge down to 2.5 per cent.

“We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy,” Dumbledore might have counselled them.

I will hold onto my hope for the underdogs to be given the moment that Neville was denied; FE, and the students continuing with English and maths in 16-19, triumphantly taking us from the current 78 per cent achievement rate to the heights of 90 per cent or beyond.

The curriculum and assessment review provides an opening for DfE’s redemptive character arc too, perhaps mirroring Dumbledore’s own regretful reflection on his sorting hat: “Sometimes we sort too soon.”

Please stop cutting off opportunities at 16.

The implications of a pause in OfS regulatory functions  

The announcement that the Office for Students’ (OfS) is pausing some aspects of its regulatory functions to focus on financial sustainability among registered providers raises immediate and longer-term problems.

It immediately affects those wishing to register with the OfS or applying for degree-awarding powers (DAPs) or university title (including some that are in progress). It also has implications for the future of regulation of higher education more widely.

The legality of this decision is questionable in the first place. The higher education and research act states that the OfS “must” register an institution if certain conditions are met, one of which is that the application is made in the manner specified by the OfS.

The OfS has used its power to specify a manner of application to impose a moratorium on submissions for 10 months, which may be extended. If their approach is correct, it could pause its duty to register indefinitely, which would completely undermine the mandatory nature of the duty.

But it cannot have been the intention of parliament that the regulator could “specify the manner” of application in this way, particularly in relation to those who have already applied.

The powers to authorise DAPs and university title are discretionary rather than mandatory duties, but other cases of a blanket refusal to exercise a discretionary power (even temporarily) have been found unlawful.

Colleges who are applying for DAPs or seeking to have their DAPs extended or varied could challenge the pause.

Preparing for such applications is time-consuming and costly. Business plans are based on securing or varying these at particular points in time. A delay will inevitably result in wasted expense and, in some cases, push affected providers towards financial difficulties.

This primarily affects those who are directly impacted, but the registered sector as a whole would benefit from confidence in the lawfulness of the regulator’s actions.

There are wider implications too.

First, it does not exactly inspire confidence in registered providers as a group that the regulator has declared itself unable to carry out its statutory duties and functions because it is overwhelmed by its work in managing financial risks.

There needs to be an urgent and strategic review

Second, the public accounts committee considered the risks associated with fraud through franchised providers earlier this year. One of its recommendations was requiring such providers to register with the OfS as a means of safeguarding student and taxpayer interests.

It appears that this important recommendation cannot now be pursued until at least August 2025, leaving students affected by fraud and financial instability unprotected. And if the OfS can switch off its registration duties at will, it may not be a viable option at all.

Third, the OfS currently has several, possibly dozens, of open investigations into concerns about quality and standards and other matters, some of them affecting colleges. Some of these have been open for over two years.

It is difficult to see how it can direct appropriate resources to these given how all-encompassing its work on financial sustainability appears to be, although it has said other strands of work are unaffected.

Meanwhile, the OfS continues to amass additional responsibilities: lifelong learning, harassment and sexual misconduct and, if or when it is implemented, extensive duties under the higher education freedom of speech act 2023.

Given this new development, there is little to inspire confidence in its ability to do all of these things well.

There needs to be an urgent and strategic review of whether this regulatory system can withstand all the pressure it is asked to bear.

The final question is what exactly the OfS is doing to address the financial challenges facing the sector.

Its focus seems to be on reacting to individual providers in financial distress.  Given that it predicts nearly three-quarters will be in difficulty, it should review how it could be more proactive in helping the sector as a whole.

Generally, reducing the regulatory burden would help, but there are three specific areas where the OfS could be most impactful:

  1. Guide and support governing bodies in overseeing effective responses to financial challenges.
  2. Provide clear and realistic guidance on how it will assess quality and standards and consumer protection conditions when providers are rapidly responding to financial difficulties.
  3. Review and radically improve or replace its student protection regime. We’ve known since 2019 that many plans were not of good quality, and its own processes for approving revisions are slow and cumbersome.

Investigation: Driven to despair by council SEND transport mess

When a taxi driver abandoned blind student Thomas* in a town centre, police were forced to rescue him and take him to college.

Thomas, who was 19 at the time, has a learning disability so is unable to use a cane to navigate streets on his own.

College principals say such negligence isn’t uncommon – other incidents include cab drivers leaving disabled students in cars as they go shopping.

And it’s part of a wider issue of poor council transport provision which means some students have college places but can’t get to lessons.

Josie Grainger-Francova, principal of RSBC Dorton College where Thomas attends, said Bromley London Borough Council finally accepted the taxi incident was a safety breach when she confronted them.

She said: “It was an external safeguarding issue because it was not the first time he’d been left on his own.

“We are responsible for what happens to that student when we deliver them to the taxi. It is then the taxi firm’s responsibility to keep that young person safe and I feel that’s not always happening.”

A Natspec survey of 66 specialist colleges found four in 10 believed council-arranged transport was unsafe.

Meanwhile, 59 per cent said fewer learners had transport this year because provision was so poor, and 65 per cent said transport issues had resulted in delayed starts to students’ education – with the East of England and North West worst affected.

FE Week heard of a college in Birmingham where 70 of its vulnerable students suffered a delayed start to their education in September due to issues arranging transport.

The Natspec poll also uncovered safety concerns including “inappropriate groupings” and “overly crowded conditions” in shared buses.

Delays and dropouts

RSBC Dorton College, a small specialist institution in Orpington, Kent, for visually impaired learners, has 26 students who live across 11 local authority areas. They attend two days a week to develop independence skills, then three days at partnership FE colleges closer to their homes.

Grainger-Francova said one of her students initially lost their place at a partnership college because the council hadn’t confirmed transport with the family, causing the college to get involved.

“I went to the CEO of the local authority, and the next day, transport was in place and we got the student back into the partner college,” she said.

“In the last few years, we’ve had students who haven’t come to us for weeks, if not months, because their transport was not in place, despite having their placement funded.”

In Birmingham, Queen Alexandra College serves 408 learners from 17 local authorities, most of which are in the West Midlands.

Deputy principal Jan Gormley told FE Week that 17 per cent of them suffered a delayed start this academic year, with some families still in limbo now. Two students have dropped out due to transport issues.

Birmingham City Council, which fell into bankruptcy last year, asked families in spring to contribute more for SEND transport, raising fees on parents by one-third to £1,028, while reducing routine taxi provision.

The council also pays 45p per mile to families as part of its personal transport budget, excluding the first three miles of each journey. Its 2024/25 transport policy states “payments may be withheld if the student is not attending school/college regularly and feedback may be sought from the establishment”.

Families forking out

FE Week spoke to parents about delays to their applications for travel assistance.

Charlotte* said her 17-year-old autistic daughter started at Portland College in Mansfield, Notts, one week late and only got taxi provision two weeks ago – almost three months after the start of the academic year.

She applied for transport assistance online in June but Charlotte said Derbyshire County Council took three months to change the name of her daughter’s college in her education, health and care (EHC) plan after her initial college choice rejected her.

She added: “I’m losing hundreds of pounds because it took them so long. I’ve had to use my own annual leave.

“[I pay] £151 a month in council tax for a two-bedroom house, I would expect a better level of service. The provision is diabolical.”

Derbyshire County Council said: “We acknowledge we had some issues providing transport for some students at the start of this academic year, for which we have apologised to the families involved.

“Almost all students have now been allocated transport, but for a few cases we are still endeavouring to source appropriate transport for them. We are in touch with these families and keeping them updated and would like to again offer our apologies.”

The council approved 76 per cent of the 572 transport assistance applications this year.

While Derbyshire has not changed its policy, it has forecasted a £1.6 million overspend in FE high-needs spending.

‘Disregard for students?’

Though councils are not legally obligated to provide transport to over-16s, Department for Education statutory guidance issued in April noted local authorities should “pay particular attention” to SEND learners as they are “significantly less likely” to participate in education, employment or training.

Mark Dale, principal of Portland College which supports over 200 SEND learners across five local authority areas, said young people were already falling through the cracks – one has dropped out since September and seven suffered delayed starts.

He said: “There is a danger they will be effectively blocked from taking up an education placement.”

But he did not believe councils are intentionally causing delays, and said it was a “rational response to the situation they find themselves in”.

Gormley disagreed, and said: “[Local authorities] understand enough to commission the provision so perhaps it’s a disregard for students’ wellbeing and their safety and their equal access to the provision that they’ve commissioned.”

Nottingham City Council and Birmingham City Council were approached for comment.

Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, said the answer was beefed up statutory regulation.

She added: “We recognise that local authorities are in a very difficult financial position, and anything that is not a statutory service is vulnerable to cuts. That is why we would like to see transport for 16-25 year olds with an EHCP given parity with [transport] provided for children of compulsory school age, and brought into the same statutory framework.

“We’d also like to see decisions about transport support being made – at least in principle – at the same time as a provider is named in an EHCP.

“There is little point in identifying the provider best able to meet a young person’s needs if the means by which to access that provision is denied them.”

*Names have been changed to protect identities