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Provider-level achievement rates to return in 2021/22

Next year’s provider-level qualification achievement rates (QARs) will be published following a two-year suspension.

The Department for Education has today confirmed school and post-16 accountability arrangements for 2021/22.

It said results from key stage 4 and post-16 qualifications in 2021/22 will be published in school and college performance tables using the government’s “normal suite of accountability measures, as far as that is possible”.

For QARs, which have not been published at provider level since 2018/19, the update said: “Institution-level qualification achievement rates for post-16 providers will be published for education and training, traineeships and apprenticeships.

“These will be published through Explore education statistics.”

QAR data, which is used to measure providers’ performance and hold them to account, was scrapped for the 2019/20 academic year following the Covid-19 outbreak. Providers were not able to receive the data themselves and it was not shared with Ofsted.

While provider-level QARs were again not published in 2020/21, some of the data was produced and shared with providers, the DfE, and the inspectorate.

The DfE said it was reintroducing league tables for school, college and FE provider qualifications because “after two years without publication of performance data, it is important that this information is publicly available to parents and students to support them when choosing schools and post-16 institutions, given the importance of qualification outcomes to student progression”.

However, it said it recognised the “uneven impact on schools and colleges of the pandemic” and will “ensure clear messages are placed on the performance tables to advise caution when drawing conclusions from the 2021/22 data”.

Qualification results achieved in 2021/22 “will also count towards school and college performance measures in future years”.

The DfE said it would need to “adjust the way that we calculate some performance measures at both key stage 4 and 16 to 18 stages for 2021/22 to take account of the fact that results of qualifications achieved in 2019/20 and 2020/21 will not be included”.

The changes to methodology “will be designed to minimise the impact of gaps in data for schools and colleges”. For example, at 16 to 18 level, the government “will not be able to use KS4 baseline data from 2019-20 or 2020-21, which will affect the 16 to 18 value added measure and the English and maths progress measure in 2021-22 and future years”.

“We will need to confirm whether these measures can be produced. Details of these adjustments will be available in technical guidance in due course.”

University apprenticeships to be externally assessed

Degree apprenticeships will have to assessed with an industry expert who is independent of the university, under new proposals published today.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has launched a consultation on changes to how degree apprenticeships are created, run and examined.

One of their proposals is for the end-point assessments of all degree apprenticeships to include input from a “trained individuals with appropriate occupational and industry expertise,” independent of the higher education institution.

That EPA will also have to be integrated with the degree assessment, following concerns from skills minister Gillian Keegan the two forms of examination were separated “by a long way”.

Plans to let employers mandate degrees in apprenticeships where graduating is necessary for the occupation, and safeguards to stop existing programmes being “rebadged” as apprenticeships are also covered by this consultation.

Keegan today said IfATE’s proposals “will help make sure degree apprenticeships continue to meet the skills needs of employers and create even more opportunity to earn while you learn for people across the country”.

Assessor changes will ‘address conflicts’ in apprenticeship assessment

The current rules on degree apprenticeship assessments do not insist assessors come from outside the higher education institution.

They do not even force universities to use someone from a different department to the apprentice.

IfATE hopes their proposed tightening of the rules around external assessors will “address the conflicts inherent in integrated degree apprenticeship assessment,” the consultation document reads.

Integrating degree examinations and EPA is intended to reduce the burden on apprentices while also providing a single check of their competence and whether they have met the requirements for the degree.

It is also meant to “achieve better alignment between the on- and off-the-job training”.

IfATE does not intend to prescribe how employers and providers integrate the two assessments, but will set a principle, provide examples of best practice and support trailblazer groups when they are developing a standard.

Yet the institute does insist it “not be possible to pass either the degree or the apprenticeship in isolation from one another”.

University Vocational Awards Council chief executive Adrian Anderson said his organisation had “long championed” the integrated model, including the use of individuals with appropriate occupational and industry expertise.

He says the model “is being used for some of the most significant apprenticeships,” including the level 6 police constable course.

Employers mandating degrees could flood apprenticeship market

The consultation also proposes employers be handed powers to “mandate degrees in apprenticeship standards” if graduate status is a labour market requirement for an occupation.

Under the current system, apprenticeships can only include degrees if specific bachelor’s or master’s qualifications are needed for the occupation.

It could lead to a further flooding of degree apprenticeships onto the apprenticeship market.

The report notes how degree apprenticeships have swelled since they launched in 2015, with over 30,000 starts on apprenticeships at levels 6 and 7, including over 20,000 starts on degree apprenticeships, in 2019/20.

In just the first six months of 2020/21, there were 5,853 starts on the level 7 senior leader degree course, 1,731 on the level 6 police constable degree programme, and 1,434 on the level 6 chartered manager course.

Level 6 and 7 courses which currently do not have a mandated degree may be able to become degree apprenticeships if their trailblazer group “considers it appropriate,” the impact assessment report states.

Over the past few years, Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman has frequently expressed concerns about a trend she raised in her 2018 annual report of “existing graduate schemes being rebadged as apprenticeships”.

IfATE hopes to ‘rule out rebadging’

In the consultation, IfATE says it will publish guidance on how providers can ensure off-the-job training (the degree) complements their on-the-job work to combat this.

The quango will also make providers validate degrees which are specifically for an occupation against IfATE’s “employer-specified” knowledge, skills and behaviours for that occupation.

“The idea is to rule out degree apprenticeships that amount to no more than rebadging of existing full-time or part-time degree programmes,” the institute has said.

IfATE chief executive Jennifer Coupland has said since her organisation launched in 2017, “we’ve seen lots of examples of good practice, which we want to make the norm across the whole programme”.

The consultation is being run through IfATE’s website and closes at midnight on 16 September.

New ‘skills measure’ would trigger Ofsted inspections

Colleges that fail to align their provision with local and national needs will trigger Ofsted inspections in the future, under plans announced today by the Department for Education.

Officials are proposing to introduce a new “skills measure” that will capture how well a college is delivering courses that the economy needs as part of its funding and accountability reforms – a consultation on which was launched this afternoon.

While the metrics for this new measure are yet to be developed, the DfE “expects” that Ofsted will want to “consider the new skills measure when deciding which colleges to inspect, by taking the new measure into account in its risk-based assessment for planning inspections”.

According to the consultation, this will “ensure that inspections have a greater focus on how well providers support individuals into good jobs and meet the needs of the local labour market, alongside evaluating the quality of education and training”.

The DfE makes clear that inspecting how well a college is meeting skills needs should be in addition, and not substitute for, the “important job Ofsted already does to inspect the quality of education and training”.

Officials are currently working with the watchdog to “explore how its approach to inspection – which currently assesses meeting local skills needs through ‘leadership and management’ and ‘quality of education’ judgements – can best be enhanced”.

Options currently being looked at include increasing the frequency of full inspections from a five year to a three-year cycle; and making meeting local skills needs a “more prominent feature within Ofsted’s inspection framework so that it can reach a clear judgement on how well a college is performing on this objective”.

‘Performance dashboard’ for colleges proposed

The DfE says that where there are concerns regarding performance, it believes that formal intervention should only take place after a “qualitative, human judgement” and not on the basis of the skills measure alone.

Therefore, if a college is underperforming on the skills measure in between inspections, the FE Commissioner “will support the college to improve”. The FE Commissioner will “also want to support colleges in formal intervention in improving their performance against skills needs”.

The skills measure will be one part of a new proposed “performance dashboard” for colleges, which would be made publicly available.

READ MORE: Simplifying FE funding and accountability consultation launched by DfE

According to the consultation, the dashboard will provide a “performance snapshot” of individual colleges “for all interested parties and public scrutiny, as well as an overview of how well the local and national further education system is performing”.

The DfE proposes the dashboard is structured in two parts:

Part 1: core performance measures:

Quality – a provider’s current Ofsted rating.

Financial health – a provider’s current ESFA rating.

Skills – a new measure to capture how well a college is aligning its technical provision with local and national skills needs.

Part 2: supporting performance indicators:

A longer list of performance indicators that reflect what excellent delivery looks like. The DfE envisages that these performance indicators will consist of student outcomes (including the needs of different cohorts), employers’ and students’ experience, and how well a provider is engaging with meeting local skills needs, including the balance of provision across different sectors, for example through local skills improvement plans. The DfE will also look to include academic provision.

You can read about the other funding and accountability measures proposed in today’s consultation here.

National Skills Fund consultation launched

A consultation has been launched on the government’s new level 3 qualifications offer, its skills bootcamps programme and how it can “meet critical skills needs”.

The consultation on the offers, all run through the £2.5 billion National Skills Fund, was originally meant to begin in the spring but was pushed back.

The Department for Education has invited providers, awarding bodies, employers, local authorities, regulators, representative bodies and the public to take part before the September 17 cut-off.

“The responses from this consultation will help shape the provision which is currently funded through National Skills Fund investment,” the consultation document explains.

FE Week has pulled out the important information from the document’s three sections: free level 3 qualifications for adults, skills bootcamps, and meeting critical skills needs.

Free level 3 qualifications for adults

The DfE is eager for the entitlement for a first, full, free level 3 qualification for anyone aged over 24 to “be delivered in a way that works for them, helping adults overcome barriers to accessing learning”.

This section focuses on such barriers, including financial ones, and asks respondents for their thoughts on how barriers can be overcome. Perhaps through flexible start dates, breaks in learning, or weekend and evening classes, it poses.

Officials are also looking for answers to how adults can access the level 3 entitlement without that level of learning.

“We recognise that for some adults accessing the free level 3 qualifications may prove challenging as they may lack some of the prior learning or experience needed to engage in learning at level 3,” the consultation document reads.

How employers can “benefit from this offer and the skills it provides” is also explored in this section.

Skills bootcamps

The new short courses in digital and technical skills are being rolled out to every region of England, following pilots across the nation last year.

Ahead of the wider introduction of bootcamps, the DfE is asking providers what they find most valuable about the courses.

It is also questioning what challenges providers face delivering them and how the courses could be changed, including by asking them for their thoughts the current 16-week maximum period for bootcamps.

“Some further education colleges and other providers have said to us that they have held back from delivering skills bootcamps because – while they have been delivered on a smaller scale – skills bootcamps have been funded through a separate procurement process,” the consultation reads.

While employers are already being asked to pay 30 per cent of course cost for training their own employees, the consultation is also seeking views on non-financial contributions employers could make.

This may include giving up space for training, providing equipment, or allowing their workers time to learn.

Additionally, “to ensure that adults can easily move onto other training or learning after completing a skills bootcamp” the consultation wants answers on how the courses can fit into progression routes.

Respondents are asked what further learning bootcamp participants should progress onto, ranging from no further learning to an apprenticeship or other further training or learning opportunities.

Meeting critical skills needs

The consultation highlights a “growing employer demand for higher technical skills which is not being met,” in industries such as manufacturing and construction, on top of a shortage of STEM skills.

To meet this problem, the DfE is asking respondents for skills gaps below degree level they think will not be met now or in five years’ time.

One possible solution the government is seeking views on is shorter courses lasting under 12 months in areas of emerging technologies or industries in a period of transition.

The consultation asks if there are particular sectors or occupations which short courses may help, or if short courses might help adults overcome barriers to learning.

Employers and providers are also asked if they have funded or delivered short courses.

Simplifying FE funding and accountability consultation launched by DfE

The government has launched a consultation on proposals to simplify funding and accountability systems in further education.

As promised in the ‘Skills for Jobs White Paper’, the reforms aim to give colleges and providers more autonomy by relaxing ringfences, introducing a multi-year funding regime, and holding them to account for the outcomes they deliver.

You can read the 68-page consultation document here. It will be open until October 7.

The reforms to funding will only apply to adult streams and not 16 to 19 or apprenticeships.

Plans for simplifying the funding system that the government is seeking views on, in the words of the Department for Education, include:

Establishing a new Skills Fund to bring together all direct funding for adult skills.
Ensuring the system can support both qualification-based provision and non-qualification provision so adults can retrain and upskill in the most effective way.
How a needs-based approach could be introduced to distribute funding across the country.
How funding can be most effectively distributed between colleges in non-devolved areas, in particular:
O What a simpler formula might look like if a system based on funding learners is retained
O Moving to a lagged funding system
O Delivering a multi-year funding regime

What entitlements and eligibility rules should apply in a new system.
How funding for Independent Training Providers and other non-grant funded providers would work in a reformed system.

The accountability reforms will focus on “outcomes and will take a strategic approach to support and intervention”. Views, in the words of the DfE, are being sought on the following areas:

Specifying the outcomes we expect colleges to deliver through a new Performance Dashboard.
Introducing a new skills measure that will capture how well a college is delivering local and national skills needs.
Introducing a new Accountability Agreement that will reinforce colleges autonomy while providing a clear sense of mission.
Exploring an enhanced role for Ofsted to inspect how well a college is delivering local and national skills needs.
Enabling the FE Commissioner to enhance its existing leadership role, with a renewed focus on driving improvement and championing excellence.
Improving data quality and reducing the requirements we place on providers through student data collection and financial reporting.
Retaining the necessary regulation and oversight to ensure the effective operation of the market, including providing assurance on the use of public funds.

Revealed: The local skills improvement plans trailblazers

The employer representative bodies that will lead pilots for new local skills improvement plans (LSIP) have been named.

Eight different chambers of commerce will spearhead the development of the plans in eight trailblazer areas this year, backed with £4 million of revenue funding.

First mooted in the FE white paper, the plans will aim to make colleges to align the courses they offer to local employers’ needs.

They are hoped to address concerns that employers do not currently have enough influence over the skills provision offered in their locality and struggle to find staff to fill their skills gaps.

The LSIP trailblazers are:

In application guidance published in April, the Department for Education said the LSIPs will “set out the key changes needed to make technical skills training more responsive to employers’ skills needs within a local area”.

They should be created in collaboration with colleges and training providers, with employers “setting out a credible and evidence-based assessment of their skills needs, to which providers will be empowered to respond”.

“The plans will help ensure provision is more responsive to emerging and changing skills needs and being locally driven, can be tailored to the challenges and opportunities most relevant to the area,” the guidance added.

Pilot areas for £65m Strategic Development Fund announced

The Department for Education has revealed the pilot areas for the new Strategic Development Fund.

The £65 million fund, first mooted in the Skills for Jobs white paper, went to tender in April.

Eighteen winners have now been announced, of which eight will be Local Skills Improvement Plans trailblazer and development fund pilot areas.

The remaining ten will just be piloting the development fund, which the application guidance stated is intended to “begin building the local collaborations that will create a stronger and more efficient overall delivery infrastructure and support a more co-ordinated offer across the local area”.

The pilots will also “support the development of a high-value curriculum offer in support of longer-term skills priorities” in a local area and “strengthen the relationship with employers”.

Sixty per cent (£38 million) is meant to be spent on capital and 40 per cent (£27 million) is for revenue, and this money must be used by March 2022.

Eight employer representative bodies have also been announced as LSIP trailblazers today.

See the full list of joint-trailblazer and development fund pilot areas, and solely development fund pilot areas, below.

Joint Trailblazer and Development Fund pilot areas

Pilot area	Collaboration members	Endorsing Employer Representative Body	College Business Centre
Weston College	Bath College, City of Bristol College, Gloucestershire College, Hartpury College, South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, University of West of England and Yeovil College	Business West Chamber of Commerce	No
Lakes College Cumbria	Carlisle College, Furness College, Kendall College and Cumbria University	Cumbria Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Barnsley College	Barnsley College, Sheffield College, RNN Group, DN Colleges Group, University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, Linkage College, Thomas Rotherham College and Oakwood High School, Sheffield Hallam University, Landmarks College, Mears Group Aspire/Igen	Doncaster Chamber of Commerce	No
Loughborough College	Leicester College, SMB Group, North Warwickshire & South Leicestershire College, Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport & Physical Activity, Leicester and Rutland Sport	East Midlands Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Mid-Kent College	EKC Group (East Kent Colleges) and North Kent College	Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce	No
The Education Training Collective	Hartlepool College of FE, Middlesbrough College, Darlington College, Teesside University, Learning Curve Group, Tees Valley Collaborative Trust and Queen Elizabeth SFC	North-East England Chamber of Commerce	No
Myerscough College	Blackburn College, Blackpool & the Fylde College, Blackpool SFC, Burnley College, Cardinal Newman College, Lancaster & Morecombe College, Nelson & Colne College Group, Preston’s College, Runshaw College and West Lancashire College	North and West Lancashire Chamber of Commerce	No
Chichester College	Bexhill College, BHASVIC, College of Richard Collyer, East Sussex Colleges Group, Greater Brighton Met College, Plumpton College and Vardean College	Sussex Chamber of Commerce	No

Development Fund only pilot areas

Pilot area	Collaboration members	Endorsing Employer Representative Body	College Business Centre
Cheshire South and West	Cheshire College South and West, Warrington and Vale Royal College, Macclesfield College, Reasheath College and Priestly College	West Cheshire and North Wales Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Derby College	Nottingham College, Burton and South Derbyshire College, The University of Derby and Nottingham Trent University	East Midlands Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Fareham College	Isle of Wight College, Havant and South Downs, Eastleigh College, Blackburn College, Southampton City College, Highbury College Portsmouth, Portsmouth College, Itchen College, Barton Peveril College and Lighthouse Learning Trust	Hampshire Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Halesowen College	Halesowen College, Dudley College of Technology, Walsall College, Sandwell College, City of Wolverhampton College	Black Country Chamber of Commerce	No
Milton Keynes College	South Central Institute of Technology, Open University, Cranfield University, Learning 2050 and Milton Keynes Artificial Intelligence (MKAI)	Milton Keynes and Northants Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Tech Partnership Grimsby	East Riding College, University of Hull, Bishops Burton College, DN Gorup, Selby College, Wilberforce Sixth Form College, Grimsby Institute of F&HE, Hull College, Modal Training Ltd and Scarborough TEC	Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce	No
Telford College	Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College, Shrewsbury Colleges Group and SBC	Shropshire Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise Ltd	Yes
Truro & Penwith College	Cornwall College Group	Cornwall Chamber of Commerce	Yes
Warwickshire Colleges Group	Coventry College, North Warwickshire & South Leicestershire College, Solihull College and University Centre	Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce	No
West Nottinghamshire College	West Notts College, Chesterfield College, RNN College Group, Lincoln College Group, Futures, Inspire	East Midlands Chamber of Commerce	No

Staff vote to strike at 15 colleges

University and College Union members in 15 colleges across England have voted for strike action in a row over pay.

College bosses have until September to increase staff pay by more than 5 per cent or they will face walkouts, the union said today.

Eighty nine per cent of members who voted backed strike action, on an average turnout of 62 per cent.

Pay ballots covered Carshalton College, City College Plymouth, City of Bristol College, City of Liverpool College, Croydon College, Kingston College, Lambeth College, Merton College, New College Swindon, Sheffield College, Wandsworth & Tooting College and Weymouth College.

Separate ballots over working conditions, compulsory redundancies and pay covered City & Islington College, Westminster Kingsway College and the College of North East London, which are all part of Capital City College Group. The group is planning to make 30 staff redundant while investing in a controversial “teacherless” tech venture, as revealed by FE Week in June.

In December, the Association of Colleges recommended colleges give their staff a 1 per cent pay rise because of the unforeseen and “severe financial pressure” colleges are facing owing to the Covid-19 pandemic that has “forced many into deficit”.

The UCU said staff are “angry” about this offer after years of joint campaigning with colleges, which won further education £400 million of increased government funding.

A spokesperson added that £224 million of the funding arrived in August 2020 and “should have been used for staff pay, with the AoC indicating it would make a more significant pay recommendation as a result”.

The pay gap between college and schoolteachers currently stands at £9,000 as staff working in further education have suffered real terms pay cuts of over 30 per cent in the past decade.

‘Staff will not sit back while their pay is held down’

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “This ballot result is an emphatic message from college staff to principals that they will not sit back while their pay is held down. College leaders urgently need to come to the negotiating table or they will face severe disruption in the autumn.

“Colleges need to understand that delivering top class education is reliant on looking after your staff and ensuring they are paid fairly.

“The employers who engage with us on pay and conditions will receive a positive hearing, but those who refuse should not be surprised at the determination of staff to take action.

“Pay in further education is a problem, and it is time for colleges and the AoC to get serious and do something about it.”

National adult education budget tender results revealed

There are 83 winners sharing £62.6 million from the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s adult education budget tender, FE Week can reveal.

Results for the delayed procurement were finally communicated to training providers last night.

They will now be observing a voluntary ten-day standstill period until July 26 before commencing contracts on August 1.

Tender documents, seen by FE Week, show that 25 of the winners have been awarded their full bid values while 58 received pro-rated awards of 48.4 per cent of their original bid.

A total of £66 million was available in the procurement. There is no explanation as to why only £62.6 million is being dished out.

According to the documents, potential contractors were ranked in order of “technical score” which resulted in “blocks of scoring”.

The process was as follows: “’Block 1’ comprised of the potential contractors with the highest final technical score (FTS). These scores ranged from 500 – 410.

“’Block 2’ comprised of potential contractors with the second highest FTS achieving scores of 400.

“The AEB Budget was allocated to the highest scoring potential contractors until the budget had been used in full blocks. Potential contractors in Block 2 whose bids included SWAPS (Sector-Based Work Academy Programme) as part of their delivery were prioritised.”

Results for the national AEB tender have been hit with multiple delays.

Outcomes were originally supposed to be communicated on June 24. The ESFA then said they could not meet that deadline and bidders were told the outcomes would be ready for June 28, only for this date to be further pushed back.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie said: “Congratulations to the precious few independent training providers (ITPs) who have won contracts in the latest AEB procurement and my commiserations to those of you who missed out. I am sure that among the hundreds of bids, there were many of high quality with a real focus on retraining adults as part of the pandemic recovery effort.

“Knowing that there are clawbacks in this programme and underspends in other programmes, it is so frustrating to know that ITPs are queuing up to spend a very small pot of funding in relation to the total budget and that much more funding could have been allocated to this procurement.”

She continued: “Here is a classic example of the levelling up agenda being failed miserably and we should see this in the context of the likelihood of a very tough Spending Review.

“The appalling handling of the procurement has resulted in stress and anxiety for our members and their staff, not knowing whether they would be in a position to deliver the programme after 31 July.

“The procurement has been another miserable experience all round and the whole process has been hugely damaging in a number of ways.”