Exams watchdog Ofqual is to take the lead in a  “new simplified external quality assurance (EQA) system” for apprenticeships it has been confirmed this afternoon.

The Institute for Apprenticeship and Technical Education (IfATE) had been consulting on ending the current complex arrangements in which employer bodies and even the IfATE themselves are responsible for oversight of the end-point-assessment organisations (EPAOs) for apprenticeship standards.

The IfATE will however “retain oversight of the system, and EQA will still be delivered within the Institute’s framework. The Institute will continue to have a statutory responsibility to evaluate the quality of end-point assessments.”

Chief executive at the IfATE, Jennifer Coupland, said: “We believe that the new system will be stronger and much simpler for end-point assessment organisations. Most importantly it will ensure quality for apprentices. I’d like to thank all those who took the time to respond to our consultation and we now look forward to taking the next steps.”

Sally Collier, chief regulator of Ofqual, welcomed the decision and said: “we hope that the new arrangements will increase confidence in the apprenticeship system and provide clarity and consistency for employers and end point assessment organisations.”

Read the IfATE statement in full here.

Read the Ofqual statement in full here.

The only FE colleges in administration, Hadlow College and West Kent College, continue to be owned and run by accountants at BDO after failing to transfer to North Kent College this weekend.

FE Week reported in May that the Education and Skills Funding Agency had been unsuccessful in agreeing a financial deal to incentivise North Kent College to take over the two colleges.

Administrators were originally due to hand over the keys on March 31, which was then pushed back to May 31 and then rescheduled for July 31.

On July 31 a spokesperson for Hadlow College said the transfer was on track but this morning rowed back, saying it had not taken place over the weekend and would not say why nor when it might.

BDO has come under increasing pressure from the ESFA to keep their costs down as they continue to run the college for far longer than had originally been planned.

The most recent administrator report lodged with Companies House showed that senior BDO staff were charging up to £310 per hour, as agreed with the Department for Education, and the costs to the public purse were already in the millions.

A joint statement from Hadlow College, West Kent College and North Kent College said: “The transfer has been delayed by agreement for a short period due to certain administrative matters, which are taking longer than expected to complete. The aim of all parties remains the completion of the transfer at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime, the Education Administrators continue to work in partnership with North Kent College to further refine the transition plan and, where possible, commence its implementation.”

A spokesperson for Hadlow College subsequently added: “The transaction will take place no later than the 15th August.”

The Department for Education said they are working closely with the Joint Education Administrators and North Kent College to ensure that the transaction is completed as soon as possible.

A new service that allows employers to share their vacancies with redundant apprentices has been launched by the Department for Education.

The “vacancy sharing service” has been set up alongside a new online and telephone support service for apprentices who have lost their jobs during Covid-19 outbreak.

Apprenticeship vacancies can already be viewed via the government’s Find An Apprenticeship website, but the new service, which can be accessed by clicking here, will see the DfE “share your [employer] details with [redundant] apprentices who are interested in your opportunity, so they can contact you directly”.

Separately, a new ‘Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices’ is available for apprentices by calling 0800 015 0400.

Out-of-work apprentices are being advised to call that line to “get free advice, find new opportunities, and access local and national support services offering financial, health and wellbeing, legal and careers advice”.

“You can also read our guidance for apprentices affected by redundancy. There’s advice for finding alternative employment, plus information about financial support and talking to someone about how you’re coping,” the service adds.

The government has set an aim of helping apprentices to find alternative employment within 12 weeks of being made redundant.

Apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “Covid-19 has had a big impact on business and the jobs market, and we know that some apprentices have lost their jobs or are facing redundancy as a result.

“We are taking unprecedented steps through our Plan for Jobs to protect, support and create jobs, with a clear focus on ensuring people have the right skills to get into work and progress. This includes creating more high quality apprenticeship opportunities to help get our economy moving.

“Our new Redundancy Support Service for Apprentices will make sure apprentices who have lost their jobs can get the help and support they need to get back on track and on the path to a new career.”

The new service also advise employers that they could be eligible for incentive payments for hiring a new apprentice from tomorrow, as announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak in his summer statement.

From August 2020 until the 31 January 2021, businesses taking on new apprentices will be rewarded with £2,000 for a 16 to 24-year-old and £1,500 for a 25 year-old or over. Further detail of the incentives can be found here.

The incentives are hoped to go some way to reversing the substantial drop in apprenticeship start caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Data published by the DfE yesterday showed that apprenticeship starts for the month of May 2020 fell 60 per cent on the previous year.

And starts recorded from March 23 – when lockdown started – to the end of June showed a 52 per cent drop compared to the same period in 2019.

A minimum duration rule that was preventing some people from returning to and finishing an apprenticeship will be scrapped from tomorrow, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has announced.

Rules for funding apprenticeships in 2020/21 were updated yesterday and for the first time included a new exception to the 12 month minimum duration policy.

Paragraph P46.2 says that if a training provider recruits someone that had previously been withdrawn from an apprenticeship they would not need to repeat a minimum of 365 days of learning.

The document calls the paragraph a “clarification”, but a Department for Education spokesperson has since confirmed this was a mistake and it should have been described as a new rule.

Until now a training provider was not allowed to use prior learning on an apprenticeship to avoid the 12-month minimum duration or the 20 per cent of the job requirement, unless they were on a break in learning or their gap between employment was 30 days or less.

This meant some were blocked from re-joining and completing their apprenticeship as it was not possible to justify a further 12 months on the programme.

The new rule means, for example, that if an apprentice was on a one year apprenticeship but withdrew two years ago after eight months on the course, they can now return at any time in 2020/21 to complete the remaining four months of their training.

An ESFA spokesperson said: “Paragraph P46.2 means that if an apprentice has been on a break in learning, or they have been withdrawn completely, they can restart the same programme to finish what they started.

“There are no time limits on restarting learning aims, other than the certification end date, which the provider is able to check. We accept that it should have been identified as a new rule rather than a clarification.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief policy officer Simon Ashworth welcomed the new rule.

“This is helpful, particularly on shorter apprenticeship programmes, such as level 2, as it enables apprentices who have previously dropped off the programme to engage at a later date and resume their apprenticeship, rather than having to navigate the challenges of undertaking another minimum period of training and ensuring that includes a further minimum 20 per cent of off the job training,” he said.

“It’s important to recognise that that the total training time across both employment periods needs to be at least 365 days, one of the government’s key requirements for what constitutes an apprenticeship.”

A long-running adult education charity in Brighton is to close with the loss of almost 50 jobs tomorrow after a local council rescue deal collapsed at the eleventh hour.

Staff at the Friends Centre were expecting to transfer to Brighton and Hove City Council, which the learning provider subcontracts from, on August 1 with the training brought “in-house”.

But they were informed on Tuesday that this agreement has fallen through as the 75-year-old charity is no longer solvent.

The Friends Centre has suffered from considerable financial difficulties in recent years after losing access to direct government skills funding, hitting repeated deficits and experiencing a substantial drop in cash reserves.

More recently, the impact of closure and course cancellations resulting from the Covid-19 restrictions has been severe and has caused the charity to go into administration.

One staff member who did not wish to be named told FE Week this is a “huge loss to the city”.

“The staff team, volunteers and learners are all devastated by this news and extremely disappointed that charity management and Brighton and Hove City Council failed to find a solution,” they added.

Helen Osborne, chief executive of the Friends Centre, said the charity was “pleased to enter into an arrangement proposed by the City Council which would have seen a significant part of our work and around half our staff transfer to the council”.

But even though they have worked “hard” with council officers to address the financial, legal and property aspects of this transfer and to design a curriculum that would “continue to meet the needs of our learners”, the charity is “deeply disappointed that the council has concluded, against our wishes, that there are still obstacles that cannot be overcome”.

“We very much regret that Friends Centre can no longer continue to serve the learning and skills needs of people in Brighton and Hove, in particular those many disadvantaged and vulnerable learners with low or no skills who have been the main focus of our work,” Osborne added.

Hannah Clare, chair of Brighton and Hove City Council’s children, young people and skills committee, said the rescue deal, agreed in April, was dependent on securing a lease of the Friends Centre’s Isetta Square site, and on the charity being able to remain financially solvent.

“However, landlord consent for this lease has not been secured and sadly the Friends Centre has informed us they will be moving into administration on 31 July,” she explained.

“As a result it is not felt it would be right for us to enter into any lease arrangements on this basis.

“As part of these developments, the council has looked at alternative properties within the council’s portfolio, but there are no available properties suitable for teaching at this current time. 

“Therefore the recommendations agreed in April are no longer achievable – a situation that is deeply regrettable.”

Twenty one staff from Friends Centre were due to TUPE to the council. FE Week understands 46 jobs will be lost in total as a result of the charity’s insolvency.

Clare said the council’s priority is now to “secure the future provision of adult and community learning in the city” and they will “work towards establishing alternative provision and move forward delivery of adult education”.   

The Friends Centre launched in 1945 when it started teaching demobbed troops, evacuees and refugees from the Second World War. It teaches around 1,000 people annually, including English, maths and IT skills for the homeless.

Other courses on offer include functional skills, English for speakers of other languages, and mental health awareness.

The charity is classed as an independent training provider and lost access to direct government funding in 2017 after failing in its bid to the controversial adult education budget tender, which was riddled with problems and delays.

It has since had to subcontract from Brighton and Hove City Council and colleges, a model which Osborne said is “unsustainable”.

Alan Tuckett, who led the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education for 23 years and became known as FE’s “campaigner-in-chief” for lifelong learning, was chief executive of the Friends Centre in the 1970s and is currently the charity’s president.

He told FE Week that the loss of the Friends Centre is a “major blow to Brighton, and loses one more independent adult education centre committed to learning for active citizenship, social solidarity and a second chance for people failed by the system”.

“It is a victim of a decade of cuts to adult opportunity, and is lost at a time when more than ever we need places to meet and actively make community together,” Tuckett added.

“Its loss is one more badge of dishonour for government.”

Colleges and training providers will not have access to qualification achievement rate (QAR) reports to use internally for 2019/20, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has announced.

At the beginning of lockdown the agency said that it would not publish institution-level achievement rates for the current academic year due to disruption caused by Covid-19 pandemic.

Officials also confirmed that the data will not be used by others, such as Ofsted, local authorities or devolved authorities or within ESFA, to hold institutions to account.

Yesterday, the agency revealed that they have now taken the decision to “not supply 2019 to 2020 QARs for institutions to use internally themselves”.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief policy officer Simon Ashworth said this was an “eminently sensible” approach because “the agency was clear that it didn’t want to use the QAR to hold providers accountable for the unforeseeable consequences of the pandemic”.

“The coronavirus is impacting on delivery in many ways beyond providers’ control and it will continue to do so for at least the remainder of 2020 as the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has recognised in its approach to maintaining Covid-related flexibilities,” he added.

The 2019/20 academic year includes learners who were due to pass between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020. Achievement rates would have been published in March 2021.

The ESFA said they are currently still reviewing what data “we will publish for statistical purposes in 2021 for the 2019 to 2020 QARs but, it will not contain any data at institution level”.

QARs calculate what proportion of learning was successfully completed in each academic year by providers.

They are produced for apprenticeships, adult education and 16 to 18 programmes.

The latest achievement rates were published in March and showed the overall national rate for apprenticeships dropped 2.2 per cent points last year to just 64.7 per cent.

The achievement rate for the new apprenticeship standards was particularly low, averaging just 46.6 per cent compared to 68.7 per cent for frameworks.

The ESFA minimum standard threshold sits at an achievement rate of 62 per cent.

If more than 40 percent of a provider’s provision fails to meet the minimum standard then intervention can be as severe as contract termination, in line with the ESFA’s “oversight of independent training providers” operational guidance.

Apprenticeship starts for the month of May 2020 fell 60 per cent on the previous year, figures published this morning show.

According to Department for Education data, there were 22,300 starts in May 2019 but this dropped to 9,000 12 months later, which would have been caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.

Young people appear to be the hardest hit as starts for those aged 16 to 18 plunged by 79 per cent, from 2,900 to 600.

Starts on level 2 apprenticeships have also fallen more than any other level – from 8,000 in May 2019 to 2,100 (74 per cent) in May 2020.

Today’s data also shows that starts have continued to fall by around half since lockdown started in March.

There have been 34,690 apprenticeship starts reported to date between March 23 and June 30, 2020, fewer than the 72,800 reported for this period at this point last year, a decrease of 52.3 per cent.

The DfE’s statisticians note that final data will not become available until later in the year, therefore “at this point it is unclear what the true number of starts in the affected period was or if the level of reporting at this point in the year has been affected by the lockdown”.

Latest apprenticeship vacancy data, from the government’s Find An Apprenticeship website, has been released and shows a considerable drop.

Vacancies in April, May and June 2020 – the three full months for which data are available since the coronavirus restrictions were implemented – were 2,120, 1,850 and 4,030, which compares to 10,900, 13,030 and 12,100 in April, May and June 2019 respectively.

The DfE has also, for the first time, published data about its ‘Skills Toolkit’ – a website which directs people to existing free courses.

An estimate of “at least 136,000 registrations” were recorded on the courses that featured on the toolkit since it was launched in late April 2020.

The DfE said this is a “provisional” estimate as there “may be a data lag in reporting”. The department also doesn’t hold comparible data for registrations on the courses pre-Covid, so it is unclear whether their popularity has increased or fallen.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie said today’s starts numbers, including the “big drop” in advertised vacancies, show why the government “made a serious error in deciding that its Covid provider relief scheme should not cover the large majority of apprenticeship provision“.

“Providers are now having to take very difficult decisions about reducing capacity despite the measures announced by the chancellor in his summer statement,” she added.

“The government’s Plan for Jobs will be an acid test for getting the apprenticeship programme back on its feet.  The key question is whether the new employer incentives will be large enough to really make a difference.”

Responding to today’s data, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “Apprenticeships are a fantastic way to get ahead in a wide range of exciting industries and will also play a vital role in delivering the skills our economy needs to grow after coronavirus.

“To help create more high quality apprenticeship opportunities we are providing £2,000 to employers for each new apprentice they hire aged under 25 and £1,500 for each new apprentice they hire aged 25 and over.

“We are also investing £111 million this year to triple the number of work placements available across England to help more young people gain the skills, experience and confidence they need to enter the world of work.”

England’s largest apprenticeship provider is planning to slash around 300 jobs as it battles with “significantly reduced” learner numbers caused by Covid-19, FE Week can reveal.

The move by Lifetime Training Group will see its workforce drop by up to a quarter.

Chief executive Alex Khan said that historically his provider has averaged around 1,800 apprenticeship starts a month but since the pandemic hit they have averaged around 350. 

He told FE Week: “Lifetime’s workforce is built based on the number of learners that we have on programme and undertaking assessment.

“Following a period of significantly reduced apprenticeship enrolments combined with learners continuing to achieve their apprenticeships, we expect to see a downturn in learner numbers across the group while the economy rebuilds over the coming months.”

As a result, Lifetime Training has now entered a period of consultation with its staff and propose to make reductions of circa 20 to 25 per cent – around 300 job losses across a “range” of roles.

Khan added that his provider is just one of a “large” numbers of training firms needing to make headcount reductions to stay afloat as the impact of the pandemic bites.

Last month, FE Week revealed that another one of the country’s largest apprenticeship providers – QA Ltd – was also planning to make hundreds of redundancies.

Colleges, such as Bradford, are also having to make large scale redundancies following a drop in apprenticeship business caused by Covid-19.

Lifetime Training Group has grown considerably in recent years after private equity firm Silverfleet Capital acquired a majority stake for a rumoured £115 to 120 million, according to Edu Investor.

Aside from their apprenticeship provider, the group includes awarding body Innovate Awarding and Edtech provider Skilltech Solutions and currently employs just over 1,200 staff.

Lifetime Training stands out as by far the largest apprenticeship provider in the country, with a cohort planned to finish in 2018/19 of 16,060 apprentices, more than double the British Army, the next largest provider.

Lifetime also topped the list of providers receiving funding from levy-paying employers last year after it was paid £51.5 million – almost double the next closest provider QA Limited on £26 million.

In 2014/15, Lifetime Training recorded 15,530 apprenticeship starts, which increased to 23,020 in 2018/19.

Khan said his provider’s starts figures have dropped to around 16,000 this year, with the lockdown months of April and May experiencing the largest fall.

While Lifetime Training is forecasting higher numbers next month when the government’s employer incentives kick in, the learner volumes on programme in the short to medium term “do not justify” the current headcount.

Khan added that it will take “some time to return to our historical averages” but it is “likely that in the future we will rebuild capacity”.

Lifetime Training currently offers apprenticeships in sectors including retail, business and management, hospitality, fitness, childcare and teaching, health and social care and clinical health.

The provider is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and recorded a turnover of £62 million and profit of almost £11 million in its most recently published accounts for the financial year ending July 2018.

The government has offered providers extra financial support if they are struggling with low starts numbers through their Covid-19 supplier relief scheme, which allows bids for apprenticeship and adult education budget funding in advance of delivery.

However, any apprenticeships funded through the government’s digital system – mostly with levy-paying employers – are not eligible for the support.

Khan said Lifetime Training has not has not applied to the relief fund because around 90 per cent of their apprenticeships are with levy-paying employers and are therefore ineligible.