The prevention of NEETs (not in education, employment or training) is a critical national priority and a key feature of the recent skills white paper.
Having a shared responsibility to support our most disadvantaged learners has always been central to our mission.
However, the scale of the challenge is significant. Nationally, nearly one million 16 to 24-year olds are NEET. But in Surrey, there are signs of improvement which we believe is due to better and more timely destination tracking.
In October, 12.5 per cent of our young people were NEET or ‘not known’, compared to 15.7 per cent in the South East and 13 per cent in England.
Our data shows RONI (risk of NEET indicators) scoring applied to all year 11 settings and the electively home educated, so we have a clear oversight of emerging risk. This ensures the best possible chance of a successful post-16 transition.
Surrey’s post-16 phase council brings together senior leaders from Surrey County Council and FE providers for proactive intervention, with distinct areas to our collaborative work. They include:
Understanding root causes
Work is carried out in primary and secondary schools to identify risk early, so intervention strategies can be deployed. This includes mentoring support and using the RONI score.
Surrey County Council defines ‘high-risk cohorts’as those presenting with severe absence (less than 70 per cent attendance) in schools.
Socioeconomic vulnerability is also used to indicate risk. Nearly 60 per cent of those deemed at risk of becoming NEET receive free school meals. Over 40 per cent have a child in need (CiN) or child protection plan, and 28 per cent have parents with mental health concerns.
The here and now in FE
For those young people who are already over 16, our focus is on maximising learner engagement through comprehensive support, which involves:
• Understanding individual circumstances.
• Collaborating with partners and support services to provide wraparound support.
• Offering creative and flexible approaches to learning, such as bespoke timetables, mentoring and coaching, thus creating a sense of belonging for every learner. Ultimately, this should maximise learner engagement.
These distinct areas need to intersect to be wholly effective. At the Post-16 Phase Council, we are collectively committing to the early exchange of data. FE colleges need early, actionable data from schools to analyse pupils who risk becoming NEET to ensure a seamless transition and immediate support.
What makes the SurreyFE approach to NEETs different is our strong partnerships with stakeholders – our council, the High Sheriff of Surrey, sixth-form colleges, charities and others – in this NEET prevention work.
Gaining momentum
SurreyFE is in the early stages of launching a careers and NEETs engagement programme that will initially focus on the occupational pathways of construction and health and social care. It will target pupils in years 10 to 12 and young adults at risk of disengagement by providing taster events, employer-led career days and mentoring and progression pathways.
We have high aspirations for our learners. By enhancing our engagement tools and focusing on clear progression routes, we are confident our SurreyFE collaboration will have a big part to play in NEET prevention in the county.
Our collective ambition remains resolute: to ensure no young person is left behind.But the NEETs challenge is complex and requires system-wide innovation.
We are committed to achieving a step-change in prevention across the region. We now issue a clear call to action to our partners across the sector: please share your most impactful and innovative approaches, strategies, or interventions that have demonstrably reduced NEET numbers.
By pooling our collective expertise and proven practices we can significantly accelerate our impact and realise our high aspirations for every learner.
There’s a line in the classic eighties vampire movie The Lost Boys that came to me as new learners entered their FE classrooms in September: “You’ll never grow old, and you’ll never die. But you must feed…”
For many young people studying English and maths, FE can feel exactly like this – an endless cycle of resits, repeated exams, and familiar teaching approaches that never quite meet them where they are.
Learners are expected to keep going, to keep feeding the system with effort and compliance, yet are rarely given the time or conditions needed to rebuild what was missing long before they arrived.
They are not failing because they lack ability; they are lost inside a system that has never fully taken responsibility for their journey.
I came to my college last year new not just to the institution but to the FE sector – new to the acronyms, systems, and the particular language of FE that can feel like a world of its own. I’m still learning how funding rules shape curriculum decisions, how resit requirements drive timetables and how accountability measures ripple through daily practice.
I was struck by the contrast between the college’s forward-thinking approach to vocational education and its more traditional approach to English and maths.
In workshops, studios and training spaces, teaching is applied, responsive and clearly aligned to real-world outcomes. Learners are trusted to learn by doing, to problem-solve, to make mistakes and improve.
By contrast, English and maths delivery often remains exam-driven, content-heavy and disconnected from how learners succeed elsewhere.
I have worked in education for over 20 years, from early years to key stage 5. One truth has remained constant: when pathways are unclear, outcomes are prioritised over understanding and SEND systems fail to intervene early, learners do not fall behind by accident. They are pushed there by design.
National datasets and Ofqual-reported outcomes consistently show that only around two-thirds of GCSE entries achieve a grade 4 or above. Post-16 resit success rates – particularly in maths – remain significantly lower. FE colleges therefore receive large numbers of learners with grades 1 to 3 or U, many of whom have struggled with reading, number confidence or exam anxiety for years.
FE is effectively asked to compress long-term foundational gaps into a single academic year, while being held accountable for outcomes it did not create.
Alongside this academic fragility, learner complexity continues to rise.
Increasing numbers of post-16 learners present with identified or emerging special educational needs, often without complete documentation.
Exam access arrangements are frequently inconsistent, with learners reporting support approved at one stage and removed at another.
When they enter FE, the process begins again – gathering evidence, reassessing, reapplying – while learners continue to sit assessments without the support they require.
One of the clearest tensions in FE is between vocational success and academic exhaustion. Many learners thrive in applied settings, gaining confidence as their skills visibly improve. Attendance and engagement reflect this.
Yet those same learners often disengage rapidly in English and maths lessons when teaching relies heavily on worksheets, abstract tasks and exam-style questions.
Teaching conditions cannot be separated from this experience. Across the country, many English and maths teams are doing thoughtful, creative and highly effective work in extremely challenging circumstances. At the same time, practitioners are managing mixed-level groups, SEND, emotional histories and high-stakes exams with limited subject-specific professional development.
Where pedagogy does not evolve to reflect post-16 learners, motivation fades quickly.
Inspection commentary, sector research and practitioner evidence increasingly point to the limitations of a resit-driven model.
Government proposals for new ‘stepping stone’ English and maths qualifications acknowledge the need for greater learner confidence and alternative pathways, but their impact will depend on whether they genuinely prioritise skills development over repeated assessment.
A skills-focused approach, prioritising literacy, numeracy, communication and problem-solving in meaningful contexts, offers a more realistic way forward.
Our learners are not disengaged by choice. They are navigating a system that values outcomes over understanding. They are not the Lost Boys. The system is lost, and it is our responsibility to get it back on track.
Diversity initiatives are happening across the FE sector, reflecting the need – as highlighted in this article by JTL’s Clair Bradley – to address gender imbalances, particularly in the trades.
But my doctoral research into why young women choose engineering and trades routes shows that raising the visibility of male-dominated careers to girls and young women should not be the destination, but the starting point.
Showing girls a pink hard hat or a welding torch won’t shift entrenched participation patterns unless we also build plausible and viable spaces for them to belong, succeed, and be recognised on their own terms.
In interviews I conducted with young women at a large FE college, one consistent insight emerged: careers become thinkable and doable through layered social experiences at home, school and college, not through one-off interventions.
In my thesis I frame choice-making through three lenses: visible, plausible, and viable. Visibility is about bringing options into view; plausibility is about aligning those options with a young woman’s sense of self, values and identity; viability is about connecting skills, pathways and capital (social, cultural and institutional) so progress is attainable and recognised.
When FE providers fixate on visibility alone, they inadvertently treat girls as observers in a world designed for someone else. Our project in FE then is to invite participation, legitimise presence, and empower young women in male-dominated contexts.
This means reframing how we talk about trades and engineering qualifications.
Several participants I interviewed articulated their motivations in unexpected ways. Brickwork was a “creative craft” and plumbing was a “caring, socially useful vocation”. These are not soft glosses on tough jobs; they are legitimate dimensions of labour that many young women found compelling.
They offer broader narratives that reflect the full reality of the work: creativity, community impact, problem-solving, and systems thinking alongside technical skill. Doing this gives girls more ways to imagine themselves in a role without having to deny femininity or adopt a “tomboy” identity to justify being there.
Tokenistic gestures like a ‘Women in Trades/Engineering’ day can backfire. They risk communicating that women are an exception, or worse, a diversity goal to be met. What works instead is small, sustained practice:
Marketing that names values, not just tools. Highlight creativity, care, social contribution and problem-solving alongside technical competence.
Open events that widen the scope. Stop targeting only “girls who are good at maths” and start engaging those who enjoy design, making, fixing and finding creative solutions.
Train all FE staff in gender-aware practice, challenging gender-blind approaches and everyday sexism.
Group female learners where possible and create peer/mentor support networks.
Audit workshop and classroom cultures, ensuring fair task allocation, inclusive language and clear reporting routes for issues.
Most critically, FE must shift from gender-blind to gender-aware practice. In my research, some trades and engineering tutors took pride in claiming “all learners are the same.” In reality, this can lead to young women encountering lower expectations, and everyday sexism disguised as banter.
Gender-neutral rhetoric can mask gendered cultures. Gender-aware inductions, staff training and mentoring are practical tools to tackle the hidden curriculum, which includes language in workshops, allocation of tasks, assumptions about physical strength and who gets stretched versus who gets sidelined.
Pairing women where possible, facilitating cross-programme tutorials and establishing peer and alumni networks are inexpensive, high-impact steps that address belonging.
We should also not underestimate parents’ roles, as many girls’ choices were anchored in home practices such as exposure to tools. Colleges should deliberately involve parents in open events and guidance, as co-constructors of plausibility. If home life remains firmly bounded by traditional gender expectations, then non-traditional pathways rarely feel plausible.
None of this avoids the harder issue: misogyny and sexism exist in classrooms and workshops. FE leaders can and should equip tutors and support teams with tools and expectations. Challenge sexist banter, set equal tasks, use inclusive language, recognise gendered microaggressions and maintain safe learning spaces.
If we want diversity across male-dominated qualifications and careers, we must move beyond visibility and build spaces that make women’s presence plausible and their progress viable.
Diversity won’t arrive through banners; it will be built in the workshop, in the timetable and in the language we use.
Inclusion has always been central to the mission of further education, but the renewed Ofsted inspection framework places it firmly at the heart.
This is not about preparing for inspection; it’s about creating welcoming environments where every learner can thrive and achieve regardless of the barriers they face.
The framework acknowledges that disadvantage is complex and multilayered. It is not enough to recognise that some learners experience hardship; we must understand the breadth and depth of those challenges.
Among the most significant areas are learners who experience socio-economic disadvantage, those with special educational needs and disabilities, individuals known to youth justice services, and those involved with social care.
Each of these groups faces particular obstacles that can affect attendance, engagement and achievement.
Added to this are learners who have not yet achieved a level 2 qualification in English and or maths, which is a barrier that typically limits progression and confidence.
These challenges do not exist in isolation. A learner may be disadvantaged economically and also have SEND needs, or may be navigating the complexities of social care while struggling with mental health.
These realities for learners may be due to an entrenched trauma that will be an invisible barrier.
For providers, this means moving beyond surface-level solutions to systemic approaches that address these overlapping barriers. Inclusion cannot be treated as an add-on; it must be woven into curriculum design, learner support and organisational culture.
The renewed framework asks a fundamental question: how do providers ensure that these learners are not only present, but successful? This requires a shift in mindset.
Inclusion is not about compliance; it is about curiosity, connection and commitment.
Providers must ask themselves: how do we know our learners feel included? What evidence do we have that barriers are being dismantled? Do these learners feel that they belong, do they thrive and achieve? Where can we go further?
Embedding inclusion begins with understanding the lived experiences of learners.
Economic disadvantage may mean a lack of access to technology or transport. SEND needs require tailored teaching and support strategies. Learners known to youth justice or social care often need stability and trust before they can engage fully. Those without level 2 English and maths may need confidence building alongside academic support.
These realities demand coordinated responses across teaching, support services and leadership.
Leadership plays a critical role in setting the tone. Inclusion must be visible in strategic plans, resource allocation and performance measures.
It is not enough to champion inclusion rhetorically; it must be prioritised operationally.
Staff development is equally vital. Tutors and support teams need the skills to identify barriers early and respond effectively, whether through adaptive teaching, wellbeing interventions or collaborative planning.
The National Association for Managers of Student Services (NAMSS) tutorial conference and student engagement conference, both happening in this month, will support providers to break down these barriers through the taught tutorial and also wider enrichment.
While the Ofsted framework provides an external driver, the real motivation should be moral and educational. Inclusion is about equity, belonging and opportunity.
When learners feel that they are seen, that they belong, are supported and valued, outcomes improve.
The renewed framework challenges us to think about inclusion as a culture, not a checklist. For providers this is an opportunity to lead with integrity and innovation.
Inclusion is not static; it evolves with the external environment, with society, technology and our learners whether they are young people, adults or apprentices.
The question for every provider is: are we ready to evolve? The renewed framework sets the stage, but the narrative is ours to write. Let us ensure that it is one of equity, belonging, connection and empathy.
Parliament is debating the merits of introducing a statutory duty of care for higher education providers. The dicussion has been prompted by years of pressure from families and student campaigners, including ForThe100, and is being amplified by groups organising around sexual violence and institutional accountability.
It is tempting in FE and skills to see this as an HE issue. But that would be a mistake. Even if any new legal duty is initially framed around HE, the expectations that sit behind it will travel quickly through the rest of the system, including FE colleges without HE provision and independent training providers.
Under the proposal, a statutory duty of care would place a legal obligation on institutions to take reasonable steps to protect students from harm, including harassment, sexual violence and serious welfare risks.
The trigger would not have to be a formal complaint, but whether the institution knew, or ought to have known, that a learner was at risk.
This goes further than current regulatory requirements. HE providers are already subject to Office for Students conditions on complaints handling and harassment and sexual misconduct.
Those requirements focus on having effective processes in place. Duty of care would test whether an institution’s actions meet a legal standard of reasonableness in preventing and responding to harm. That distinction matters, and recent events outside education underline why.
Allegations of widespread sexual harassment at McDonald’s UK, involving large numbers of young workers and apprentices, have prompted legal action, union intervention and government-facilitated mediation.
The central question being tested there is not whether policies existed, but whether the organisation took reasonable steps to prevent harm and respond consistently when risks were known. That is precisely the territory a statutory duty of care in education seeks to occupy.
That same question is now being asked, in a different form, of education providers responsible for both young and adult learners.
Many FE colleges delivering HE are registered with the OfS. Others deliver HE through franchise or validation arrangements. In both cases, partner universities will expect equivalent standards of learner protection across the whole delivery chain. Once universities face heightened accountability for student safety, weaker practice in partner colleges becomes a reputational and contractual risk.
But the impact will not stop with HE provision.
FE colleges already carry statutory safeguarding duties for under-18 learners, and Ofsted tests safeguarding culture, leadership oversight and how providers identify and respond to risk.
As national debate sharpens expectations around adult learner safety, it will become increasingly difficult to justify weaker arrangements for adult FE learners. The expectation may not be written in the same legislation, but it will surface through inspection, governance scrutiny and public perception.
ITPs should also assume they will be drawn into the spotlight. Many deliver apprenticeships where learners spend most of their time in workplaces. That creates distinctive risk.
Harassment or abuse may occur off-site, disclosures may happen outside the classroom, and responsibility can appear blurred between employer and provider. In a climate where Parliament is debating institutional responsibility for learner safety, a provider will still be expected to demonstrate what action it took when concerns were raised.
So what does preparedness look like?
First, clear and accessible reporting routes for learners and staff. If someone feels unsafe, they should not have to navigate informal networks or guess who to contact.
Second, consistent case handling. Long and fragmented email chains and ad hoc notekeeping make it difficult to prove reasonable steps were taken. Structured recording, defined responsibilities and documented follow-up provide confidence for learners and evidence for leaders.
Third, leadership oversight. Governors and senior leadership teams need visibility of welfare trends, not just isolated incidents. Without reliable data, providers cannot identify patterns or intervene early.
None of this depends on waiting for legislation. New legislation around duty of care is unlikely to arrive overnight. It will probably emerge through OfS conditions, Ofsted expectations and contractual demands from partners. The effect is already being felt, and providers are being watched more closely on how they protect learners.
Duty of care may begin in HE but its influence will reach across FE and skills. Providers that recognise that early will be better prepared for future regulation, stronger partnerships and, most importantly, safer learning environments.
The first results are out – and the outcomes of Ofsted’s inspections under the new education inspection framework look encouraging.
After last year’s extensive consultations, there’s an argument that all’s well that ends well. But employers and providers need to be confident that inspections will still be conducted fairly throughout 2026 and beyond.
The Fellowship of Inspection Nominees (FIN) has supported providers scrutinised under the new regime, although not enough yet to flag up definitively what our members believe is good or bad about the experience. However, we can offer pointers for those preparing for inspection in the coming months.
A key observation is inspectors are closely following the toolkit when making visits, even using it as a checklist, so providers should use the document as the template for preparation.
But following this simple recommendation won’t on its own guarantee a positive outcome. As FIN called out last year, the toolkit contains some frustrating ambiguities: What is meant by “typically”, and how often is “regularly” – every month or every six months?
Providers, and hopefully inspectors, should apply common sense in interpreting what is required to secure an expected or strong standard.
“Embedded” and “transformational” practice were seen in recent inspections as evidence of being strong across the board. At this stage though, it is not clear whether being consistently strong with no improvements required merits the awarding of “exceptional”. It will be interesting to see how many independent training providers achieve the highest standard compared with, say, sixth-form colleges.
Providers must be ready to showcase evidence and push for the award of a strong standard if they feel it’s deserved. Our members report that to meet an expected standard, perhaps even more evidence is required than under previous frameworks.
In terms of process, not every lead inspector wants to watch a presentation from the nominee at the start of a visit. Providers may instead be given a template to follow by Ofsted as an opening brief.
As expected, inclusion is a major feature of the new framework, whether it’s part of a monitoring visit or a full inspection. Providers should know the barriers to be overcome by every learner and be prepared to present evidence on how overcoming them is being achieved, and the distance travelled.
Furthermore, the provider should proactively identify the barriers rather than waiting for the learner to declare any. Again, in this respect, Ofsted is referring to all learners, not just the ones with special or additional needs.
Safeguarding is another area for particular focus. Inspectors will expect leaders to have undergone safeguarding training. One inspector wanted to see the name and phone number of the provider’s safeguarding officer in the safeguarding policy document, even though names can often change.
In a visit before Christmas, a nominee felt that repeated questions from the inspectors on inclusion and safeguarding were a means of establishing whether a strong standard had been achieved.
FIN keeps emphasising to members of all provider types, including employer providers, the importance of maintaining strong governance, and the recent inspections have underlined this requirement. With our support, members are preparing presentations to inspectors on this.
One aspect that hasn’t changed is Ofsted wishing to see evidence of good careers guidance. It’s advisable for each provider to have a strategy document for CIAG and to show it to the inspection team. Inspectors are less likely to dig further if the approach seems sound.
During the consultation period last year, we wanted Ofsted to recognise it must understand the context in which each individual provider operates. The early inspections indicate that providers should ensure the Ofsted teams are on top of this because our members feel they aren’t. For example, do inspectors appreciate that where apprenticeship standards incorporate a professional qualification, apprentices might not be interested in completing the programme once the qualification has been achieved?
It’s too early to confirm that FIN was justifiably concerned about whether inspectors would be consistent in their judgements under the scorecard system. But based on recent inspections, we hope to see much greater recognition of individual leaners’ distance travelled than inspectors’ reliance on achievement data.
Poor progress in English and maths tracks “right back to primary school” and requires intervention at the earliest stage to break the “treadmill” of GCSE resits in post-16 education, Ofqual’s chief regulator has said.
Sir Ian Bauckham was quizzed by MPs on Parliament’s education committee today for the first time since his pre-appointment hearing in December 2024.
Here’s what we learned…
Tackle the ‘root cause’ of poor English and maths
The chief regulator said he “agreed” with the committee’s September 2025 report into further education that expressed “strong views about the treadmill of resits” in colleges.
Government mandates students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 study towards these qualifications as a condition of their post-16 places being funded. Most resit the exams.
Bauckham outlined his concern that a big contributing factor was “too many” students in primary education not reaching the expected standards in English and maths.
He told MPs that there is “no point” in a student who has spent 11 years studying English and maths and “only achieved a grade one or grade two repeatedly sitting an examination in the hope that by luck, one day they might scrape enough marks to pass”.
Bauckham urged the government to “look at the root causes of students making so little progress” and try to “address that much earlier on”.
“It tracks right back through primary, through secondary, to try to ensure that we don’t have students who have got these gaps in their learning,” he said.
He added that Ofqual is working “intensively” with the Department for Education on promised new level 1 “stepping stone” qualifications for students struggling with English and maths but could not give a date for when they could arrive in schools and colleges.
V Levels should not be dictated by T Levels
Bauckham was also questioned on his response to last year’s curriculum and assessment review, of which he was an observer on the review panel.
“What I witnessed was a very rigorous, very thorough overview of the whole curriculum, assessment and qualifications landscape in England,” he said.
He told the committee that he found independent reviewer Becky Francis’ recommendations to be “broadly sensible” and did not think anything was left out of her final report.
Regarding the proposal to introduce V Levels as small vocational qualifications to sit between T Levels and A Levels, Bauckham warned that the development should prioritise “distinctiveness”.
“The policy intention is not to force V Levels into a mould dictated either by T Levels or A Levels, but to create and then maintain a distinctiveness for V Levels,” he said.
The government’s consultation on V Levels closed yesterday.
AI ‘not ready’ to solely mark work
Bauckham said he wasn’t convinced that AI was ready to be the only marker of student work and exams.
That was because it still makes mistakes and is hard to challenge.
He added that it can be used to quality assure and detect “unexpected” patterns in examiner marking but hallucinations meant it is not yet ready to undertake sole marking.
Bauckham also cast doubt on how contested exam grades would be reviewed if they were marked by a “complex series of algorithms inside an impenetrable black box”.
And he said he had “signalled my anxiety” to the DfE about the use of AI cheating in qualifications with extended writing coursework.
He said there is “relatively little” of this coursework, but highlighted history and English A Level, where 20 per cent of the qualification is extended writing.
The chief regulator has commissioned a “significant piece of work internally at Ofqual to ascertain the extent to which this risk is being realised at the moment and what the options might be in any reform of those qualifications for closing down that risk and assuring ourselves of the integrity of these qualifications”.
He added: “I would not be being transparent if I didn’t say I am concerned about that, I visited a number of providers up and down the country, spoken to teachers and a number have raised this with me.”
‘Justice delayed is justice denied’
MPs also asked the chief regulator to comment on the “significant” number of fines handed out last year to awarding bodies for regulation breaches.
Bauckham said Ofqual had used its legal enforcement powers on more than two dozen occasions last year, including handing out fines and imposing special conditions.
After “inheriting” a large backlog of cases when he became chief regulator, partly due to covid, Bauckham admitted that Ofqual did not always prioritise closing cases quickly and his ethos was to send strong messages to exam boards when there are breaches.
“Justice delayed is justice denied applies in this circumstance,” he said.
“It feels to me as if those powers were given to us by Parliament, not only to send clear, strong messages to exam boards and to the sector that where there are breaches that are potentially damaging for the integrity of the qualification or for students, they are sanctioned and clear, strong messages are sent,” he added.
“I’m particularly keen that that’s done in a timely way.”
Boards didn’t like Bauckham’s new ‘rebuke’
Ofqual recently gave itself new powers to publicly “rebuke” rule-breaking awarding bodies where the case is not serious enough to warrant a financial penalty.
Bauckham told the committee that following a consultation with exam body chief executives, he concluded that public shaming was the right approach.
“We got very sharp feedback from awarding organisations who said they would find it a very difficult thing to receive indeed,” he said.
He added that it would lead CEOs to have difficult talks with their boards and even impact share prices of publicly listed awarding bodies.
“They didn’t like it very much, which gave me assurance that it might be effective.”
Admissions might sit in one application, assessments in another, progress reviews elsewhere, and finance, procurement, and governance in separate tools. Staff spend hours switching screens and re‑entering data; managers wait for reconciliations before acting; compliance teams piece together spreadsheets for audits. The result is lost time, blurred visibility, and added stress that no one can afford.
The problem: why fragmentation costs FE time and clarity
Evidence across the sector highlights the challenges of disjointed technology. For example, the Department for Education’s 2024–25 Technology in Schools survey revealed barriers FE teams know well: difficulty integrating systems, uneven digital strategies, and infrastructure gaps that add workload and slow adoption of new tools. Similarly, Jisc’s transformation work notes that fragmented estates and duplicated processes are among the biggest obstacles to efficiency, recommending shared services and common data models to cut duplication and standardise practice.
These constraints don’t reflect a lack of effort or skill. FE staff consistently go the extra mile to keep learners supported and employers engaged, often juggling complex timetables with quality activity and pastoral care. Yet when the learner record is split across platforms, early interventions come later than they should. Reviews take longer because attendance, off‑the‑job (OTJ) hours, and assessment outcomes are pulled from different sources. Funding teams wait for reconciliations across separate dashboards, so deadlines tighten and audits become a scramble. In short, energy drains away from teaching and coaching, and time – the most valuable resource – is lost to chasing data rather than acting on it.
A 2024 study by EDUCAUSE showed that manual processes and legacy systems absorb hours that should be used for service improvement, with staff reporting significant time lost to rekeying, duplicative tasks, and tool sprawl. FE providers face the same reality, amplified by evolving policy demands and inspection cycles that expect timely, routine evidence rather than special reports created at short notice.
When data is scattered, risk grows. Leaders need coherent, real‑time views of achievement, retention, in‑year QAR (Quality Achievement Rate), and employer engagement to steer programmes effectively. If information is slow to compile or inconsistent between systems, reporting becomes reactive, and weak signals are missed. Jisc’s 2024–25 Digital Experience Insights findings underline the wider implications: digital maturity is not just about access to tools, but about how consistently and coherently processes work together over time.
This has implications for inspection readiness. Ofsted’s FE and Skills approach asks providers to show impact using evidence that emerges from everyday practice: how curriculum intent translates into implementation, how inclusion is embedded, and how safeguarding works in reality. That means the systems staff already use should surface the right information without extra effort. If key documentation and data sit in different places, teams spend days piecing a story together, even when the underlying practice is strong – an avoidable burden in a sector where capacity is already tight.
Funding compliance adds further pressure because requirements are precise and timelines unforgiving. The DfE’s 2024–25 Apprenticeship Funding Rules set clear expectations on initial assessment, recognition of prior learning, progress reviews, and training plans. Alongside this, the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) specification requires providers to record OTJ hours at the end of the practical period – to the nearest hour, fully evidenced – a task that is straightforward in a unified system and brittle when hours live in spreadsheets or separate trackers.
The direction of travel raises the bar. From August 2025, the DfE began phasing in minimum OTJ hours per standard, decoupling OTJ from time on programme and shifting emphasis to planning and evidence at the level of the apprenticeship standard. Providers relying on different tools for OTJ logs, KSB evidence, and gateway checks will face additional reconciliation work at exactly the point when staff need to be supporting learners and collaborating with employers.
Learners feel the impact of disconnected systems every day. Research consistently shows that while access to digital tools matters, learners value consistency and usability just as highly – and both depend on joined‑up processes rather than systems pieced together at review time. When induction, initial assessment, plans, and reviews run in one place, learners can see progress and act on feedback quickly. But when information is scattered, things slow down: actions sit in one system while plans live in another; attendance gets updated after reviews; and notes hide in email chains instead of the learner record. Those small delays add up, and timely support slips through the cracks.
Employers notice the same friction. They want a clear picture of progress, OTJ training hours, and skills development – and they need to know what’s next to support on‑the‑job learning. Without a single source of truth, conversations turn into a cycle of manual updates and spreadsheets. When everything sits together – the commitment statement, training plan, review notes, and milestone evidence – employers can make decisions confidently, and tutors spend more time coaching instead of compiling.
Capacity is one of the biggest challenges for FE teams. Every extra login, every mismatched report, and every manual update adds pressure to already busy schedules. When systems work together, those small frustrations disappear. Staff spend less time chasing data and more time focusing on learners and employers. The result is a calmer, more productive environment where energy goes into teaching and support rather than administration.
Security and governance tie these issues together. As estates grow more complex, each system becomes a potential point of vulnerability and a different set of practices for identity, logging, retention, and audit. The National Cyber Security Centre advises public services to strengthen governance, manage supply‑chain risk, and reduce exposure through better architecture; the National Audit Office warns the threat to public services is “severe and advancing quickly,” with legacy systems and skills gaps compounding risk. Consolidation is therefore not just about convenience – it is about resilience: fewer systems to secure, clearer accountability, and simpler evidence that policies are being lived in daily practice.
Any modern strategy depends on up‑to‑date, real‑time insights rather than looking back at old, aggregated data. Leaders need in‑year QAR, attendance trends, cohort risk, and funding indicators at their fingertips to adjust intent and implementation before impact is locked in. If analysis requires multiple exports and manual joins, it arrives too late to change the outcome.
The solution: OneAdvanced Education – built for FE, not around it
To tackle fragmentation without complexity, OneAdvanced Education provides a full apprenticeship management suite, Education Analytics, finance, spend and governance solutions, and intelligent AI capabilities – all held in the cloud and integrated back into our on-premise ProSuite applications. And, as ProSuite functionality progressively moves into the cloud, this will deliver a future-ready, comprehensive environment that simplifies delivery even further, with one version of the truth.
Many FE providers will already recognise bksb (now Assessment and Learning), PICS (now Learner Management System) and Smart Assessor (now ePortfolio) – all are widely used across FE. Within OneAdvanced Education, these sit inside one interface with a single login. For apprenticeship delivery, the workflow brings onboarding, ILR data, initial assessment, progress reviews, OTJ tracking, KSB alignment, gateway checks, and employer engagement into a coherent journey. Evidence is captured once and stays current; employers see progress without chasing; and audit trails reflect real work rather than reconstructed paperwork.
With OneAdvanced Education, everyday tasks are shaped around the realities of FE roles, but now they flow more smoothly and take less effort. In practice, bringing information together reduces back‑and‑forth and helps staff act sooner. It also makes conversations with learners and employers clearer, because everyone can see the same up‑to‑date picture.
For leadership and quality teams, OneAdvanced Education brings Education Analytics, replacing manual compilation with live, accessible insight. Key measures like in‑year QAR, retention trends, and provider health update automatically, so improvement discussions start with the latest data. Predictive tools highlight learners who might need extra support, while clear cohort views show where teaching strategies are working best. Scenario planning helps set achievable targets and avoid last‑minute surprises.
Intelligent automation within the platform is designed to make everyday work easier while keeping staff in control. Instead of repeating manual steps, reviews automatically pull in the latest attendance, OTJ hours, and assessment data, with prompts for missing evidence and reminders appearing in context. AI adds helpful support by summarising notes and highlighting patterns that need attention, while all outputs remain visible and editable. Compliance guardrails are built in, so tutors gain time without losing oversight and leaders benefit from consistency without sacrificing flexibility, aligning with DfE guidance on responsible AI in education.
A further advantage is that compliance sits inside everyday workflows. Because onboarding, plans, reviews, and evidence live together, DfE funding rules are easier to apply consistently and ILR returns are more straightforward to reconcile. Actual hours for OTJ are captured accurately over the practical period; reviews document progress against the plan; and adjustments linked to recognition of prior learning are recorded at the point decisions are made. When policy evolves, configuration changes centrally, so teams adapt once and carry on. That all means fewer Friday‑afternoon fixes and stronger assurance during audit.
Security and governance are embedded within OneAdvanced Education rather than bolted on. Cloud delivery with UK data residency, role‑based access, auditable actions, and consistent retention policies give leaders confidence that the platform supports obligations as well as operations. Fewer systems hold learner and employer data, so the attack surface narrows; processes happen in one place, so training and adoption are easier to sustain. These are exactly the kinds of measures public‑sector guidance promotes to strengthen resilience and reduce exposure.
Building on these embedded safeguards, FE organisations also need dedicated tools to manage governance and risk. Our Risk Management solution tracks and mitigates risks with clear dashboards and alerts, while Meetings and Board Management replaces paper packs with a secure digital workspace, making agendas, actions, and compliance evidence easy to manage. Together, they reduce admin and strengthen accountability.
Finance is another ‘admin-heavy’ area in which manual input can waste significant time for staff members. OneAdvanced Financials brings accounting, reporting, and forecasting into one intuitive platform, using real-time dashboards and automation to eliminate repetitive tasks. Self-service access gives budget holders instant visibility, enabling faster decisions, stronger compliance, and less time lost to manual reconciliations.
Conclusion – clarity, time, and confidence for FE teams
Fragmentation is not merely inconvenient; it consumes hours, introduces risk, and slows the responsiveness that defines effective FE practice. The evidence and lived experience point to a clear route forward: integrate systems, standardise data, and prioritise usability so information flows to the people who need it – leaders, tutors, coaches, employers, and learners. OneAdvanced Education makes that possible: a unified platform that respects FE complexity, consolidates trusted tools, and gives providers a consistent and comprehensive view across teaching, apprenticeships, and operations. Staff gain time, leaders gain clarity, and learners benefit from joined‑up support.
To see OneAdvanced Education in action, don’t miss our Launch Event on January 29 – register today.
A care worker apprenticeship training provider is being chased for £1.2 million by the Department for Education after investigators uncovered systemic contract breaches.
A financial investigation outcome report published today said the sum is “being recovered” from Park Education and Training Centre after officials found missing evidence to support many apprentice funding claims over four academic years.
Investigators flagged a range of issues including a lack of signed apprenticeship agreements, enrolment checks, unverifiable signatures and absent off-the-job training records.
They also found no evidence that the north west London-based company had taken steps to address conflicts of interest between the provider and temporary employment agencies apprentices were employed by.
There was also a lack of proof to show apprentices received wages at or above the national minimum wage.
But company owner Aiah Kanda told FE Week the DfE’s clawback demand “has not been done fairly” and argued that Park Education and Training Centre should only have to repay “about a quarter” of the £1,203,085 sum claimed.
Kanda, who also part-owned home care agency Own Care until October last year, blamed “very, very high” staff turnover in the care industry for the lack of funding claim evidence.
The company owner said the department is now asking for “all the money” it paid for apprenticeship training since the company’s registration in 2021.
He questioned why the company should have to repay funding claims for apprentices who have received their diplomas but not yet completed their end point assessment, arguing that many fail to complete because of high turnover in the care industry.
He added: “So that because this person didn’t achieve something at the end, therefore you have to pay everything back. That doesn’t make any logical sense to me.”
Kanda suggested that missing evidence of learning could be obtained by calling learners.
He claimed that “over 80 per cent” of learners achieved but was unable to estimate how many completed their end-point assessment.
The businessman told FE Week the future of his company is now uncertain in light of the clawback demand.
He said: “With that huge amount of money, where is it going to come from? Because this money is not going to be lying down there, you’re paying teachers, you’re paying rent, you’re paying all those things.”
Inspectors found a “varied experience” for the company’s 215 apprentices, with many making “slow progress” and receiving inconsistent training or reviews.
The DfE’s published data shows Park Education and Training Centre recorded a 62.2 per cent total apprenticeship achievement rate in 2023-24 for 50 leavers. It no longer appears on the apprenticeship provider and assessment register (APAR).
The department’s investigation report is the second the DfE has published on an ITP’s use of public funding since it updated its policy in December 2023.
