Pearson unveils 2020 BTEC award winners in its first ever online awards ceremony

The winners of Pearson’s tenth annual BTEC Awards are being announced in a ceremony this afternoon which is taking place online for the first time ever due to the coronavirus.

YouTube influencer and BTEC Ambassador Flex is hosting the 2020 awards and this page will be updated when each prize winner is revealed.

Double Olympic gold medallist and world champion gymnast Max Whitlock and architect, TV presenter and campaigner George Clarke will be among those presenting awards.

The ceremony will begin from 2pm and you can watch it live here:

The first award goes to Hannah Whyatt from Tupton Hall School for the BTEC Science Learner of the Year 2020!

Congratulations to Jonathan Morris from Walsall College for being awarded the BTEC Creative Media Learner of the Year 2020 award!

 

The winner of the BTEC Art and Design Learner of the Year 2020 award is Aaron Wilson from Wigan and Leigh College!

 

The winner of the BTEC Hospitality, Travel and Tourism Learner of the Year 2020 award is Jessica Elmore from Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College!

 

The award for the BTEC Child and Social Care Learner of the Year 2020 goes to… Emily Campbell from Ballyclare Secondary School!

 

The winner of the BTEC Teacher of the Year 2020 award is Kimberly Stephens from Maesgwyn Special School!

 

Well done to Caitlin Marsh Brown from Isle of Wight College – CECAMM for being named the BTEC Engineering Learner of the Year 2020!

 

Congratulations to Charis Pulei from Braeburn International School Arusha for winning the BTEC Performing Arts Learner of the Year 2020 award!

 

Congratulations to James Booty from Basingstoke College of Technology for being awarded BTEC Tutor of the Year 2020!

 

The award for the BTEC IT and Computing Learner of the Year 2020 goes to… Andrea Rodrigues from Ada the National College for Digital Skills!

 

Well done to Cooper Sommerville from East Surrey College for winning the BTEC Public Services Learner of the Year 2020 award!

 

 

The next category is the BTEC School of the Year 2020 award. And the winner is…. Cambridge House Community College. Congrats!

 

The recipient of the BTEC Sport Learner of the Year 2020 award is… Stefanie McCluskey from Belfast Metropolitan College!

Up next is the BTEC Land-Based Learner of the Year 2020 award. And it goes to… Georgina Green from Riseholme College!

The recipient of the award for the BTEC College of the Year 2020 goes to… The Blackpool Sixth Form College!

 

Congratulations to Marium Shafique from Nelson and Colne College Group for winning the BTEC Adult Learner and Business and Enterprise Learner of the Year 2020 Award!

Well done to Lin Min Khant from Myanmar Noble University who has been named the BTEC Young Learner and Construction Learner of the Year 2020!

Shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked

The shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey has been sacked by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

A spokesperson for Starmer said she had been “asked to step down” after sharing an article that “contained an antisemitic conspiracy theory”.

Earlier today, Long-Bailey shared an interview with actor Maxine Peake in the Independent, in which Peake claimed that “the tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”.

Long-Bailey insisted in a later tweet that her original tweet “wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of all aspects of the article”.

“I retweeted Maxine Peake’s article because of her significant achievements and because the thrust of her argument is to stay in the Labour Party,” she said.

Starmer’s spokesperson said: “As leader of the Labour Party, Keir has been clear that restoring trust with the Jewish community is a number one priority. Antisemitism takes many different forms and it is important that we all are vigilant against it.”

Long-Bailey was appointed in April after Starmer won the Labour leadership election. She replaced Angela Rayner, who became the party’s deputy leader.

Long-Bailey later tweeted she had tried to discuss the matter with Starmer but he had “already made his decision”.

She added: “I am proud of the policies we have developed within the party from our Green Industrial Revolution to a National Education Service and I will never stop working for the change our communities need to see.

“I am clear that I shall continue to support the Labour Party in Parliament under Keir Starmer’s leadership, to represent the people of Salford and Eccles and work towards a more equal, peaceful and sustainable world.”

College to axe 107 jobs after ‘short-sighted’ DfE rejects Covid support plea

A college in Yorkshire is to make over 100 staff redundant and its principal has branded the government “short-sighted” after their apprenticeship Covid provider relief application was rejected.

Bradford College, which almost went bust last year, is aiming to save £1.5 million through a restructure that involves winding down two of its subsidiary companies to “keep financially sustainable”.

After experiencing a “significant” £2 million fall in apprenticeship income since lockdown, leaders applied for supplier relief support from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to ease budget pressures, but their application was turned down last month as they had too much cash in the bank.

Principal Chris Webb has now hit out at the decision and told FE Week: “The ESFA are short-sighted in not supplying colleges with support into next year which will detrimentally impact on the recovery opportunity for apprenticeships. By this time next year it will be too late.”

A spokesperson added that they are “deeply saddened” to be in this position, “especially after the exceptional efforts by all our staff who went above and beyond expectations to ensure learning continued online and students remained supported” throughout the pandemic.

But there has been a “significant reduction in apprenticeship starts, which is further impacting the college’s income, and therefore we have no option but to reduce staffing costs in this area”.

“At present, 32 per cent of our apprentices are either redundant, furloughed or have been allowed to take breaks in learning which has result in the loss of funding for those apprentices,” the spokesperson added.

A total of 107 jobs are now to be lost.

University and College Union regional official Julie Kelley said she understands that Covid-19 has placed “additional pressures” on Bradford College but “this looks like a knee-jerk decision.”

Bradford College principal Chris Webb

The news comes a day after Association of Colleges boss David Hughes told MPs on the education select committee that college sector income, which currently totals around £7 billion annually, could fall by £2 billion next year as the “enormous impact” of Covid-19 bites.

He said the AoC had recently surveyed the 17 colleges that provide apprenticeships and they predicted a 50 per cent drop in starts next year, which would equate to a £30 million loss just to those 17.

Hughes added that government “must must must” do something to support them instead of offering “warm words”.

Bradford College said it hopes to mitigate its job losses by filling vacancies and identifying potentially new roles through their redundancy consultation.

Forty of the 107 losses are from the college’s apprenticeship provider, City Training Services, which will be closed after it made a £664,000 loss last year, according to its 2018/19 accounts. It had forecast that its revenue would drop by £200,000 each month from March 2020 due to the pandemic.

Bradford College’s other subsidiary to shut will be its recruitment firm Beacon Recruitment. Both services offered by the subsidiaries will be brought into the college.

The remaining 67 jobs to be lost are mostly in support departments in the college, such as admin, HR, finance, and student services. Class-based learning will mostly be unaffected.

The college’s spokesperson reiterated that apprenticeships are “particularly hard hit and, like other colleges across the country, we expect a further drop in income for the 20/21 academic year, causing further impact”.

They added that “unfortunately in six to 12 months when apprenticeship roles are needed to restart the economy we won’t have those staff in place”.

Last month FE Week revealed how the ESFA had rejected a third – 58 out of 165 – of provider applications to their supplier relief scheme, for apprenticeships and adult education budget funding, claiming they were unable to prove immediate “need”.

Asked to comment on Bradford’s rejection, the agency said their scheme reflected Cabinet Office guidance that there must be clear and consistent parameters when considering any request for supplier relief.

They added that any training provider that was unsuccessful in their bid was able to appeal if they believed their application had not been properly assessed.

This is the second time in two years that Bradford College has had to take drastic steps to survive.

In a rare move and as revealed by FE Week in 2019, officials from the Department for Education last year forced a major bank – Lloyds – to halve a £40 million unsecured loan after threatening to put Bradford College into insolvency.

The deal involved the college being given £12.9 million by the ESFA to pass on to the bank while the bank gifted an equal amount of £12.9 million to the college, in what they called “debt forgiveness”.

The college’s spokesperson said that in addition to mitigating the effects of Covid-19, the proposed restructure should “ensure that the college continues to meets it financial obligations to lenders and ensures we do not risk breaching our banking covenants following last year’s financial restructuring”.

Bradford’s 2018/19 accounts show the ESFA gave them an emergency grant of £4.866 million last year, following a £9.274 million bailout the year before.

The financial statements also show £2.8 million in redundancy costs that took place last year when more than 100 jobs were lost.

Commenting on the fresh round of staff cuts the college’s spokesperson said: “These proposals have been developed in order to make essential cost savings and create a sustainable financial platform for the future following the Covid-19 outbreak the government’s lockdown measures.”

They added that it is hoped that a “large number” of job losses will be made through voluntary redundancies and that compulsory redundancies are kept to a minimum.

UCU’s Julie Kelley criticised the “completely unrealistic” timeline of the consultation as the college told staff of the redundancies yesterday but “wants them axed a week later”.

“Bradford College needs to make sure it doesn’t put itself at risk of unfair dismissal claims and instead work with us to make the case for government funding to defend its academic capacity,” she added.

Apprenticeship starts continue to plummet since lockdown, new data reveals

Apprenticeship starts have dropped by almost half since lockdown compared to the same period last year, according to new Department for Education figures.

Provisional data published today shows that from March 23 to May 31 there were 26,090 starts compared to the 50,050 reported between those months in 2019 – a fall of 47.9 per cent.

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

Young learners have been the hardest hit by Covid-19, as the data shows just 2,020 (7.7 per cent) of the 26,090 starts were for those aged under 19. Starts for over 25s made up 16,670 (63.9 per cent).

And level 2 apprenticeships accounted for 7,020 (26.9 per cent) of starts; this was 37.1 per cent in 2018/19.

Last month DfE data revealed there had been 13,020 apprenticeship starts reported between March 23 and the end of April, compared to 26,300 for the same period last year.

Responding to the latest figures, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Mark Dawe said: “With youth unemployment having doubled, we need an urgent policy response that protects both existing apprentices coming off furlough and stimulates new apprenticeship opportunities for other young people while also providing an option for unemployed adults.

“The DfE should finally recognise too that both levy and non-levy apprenticeships need to be protected by its provider relief scheme.

“Apprenticeships are jobs and most observers agree that a significant wage subsidy is required to encourage employers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to offer new opportunities.”  

A DfE spokesperson said: “We acknowledge this is a challenging time for employers, apprentices and people thinking about their next steps, but we absolutely remain committed to investing in apprenticeships.

“They are an excellent way to get ahead in a wide range of rewarding careers and will continue to play an important role in delivering the high-quality skills that employers need and will support our economic recovery post Covid-19.

“We are looking at how we can support employers, especially small and medium sized businesses, to take on new apprentices this year and will provide further detail in due course.”

College sector could lose £2bn out of £7bn next year, claims AoC boss

Total income across colleges in England could fall by £2 billion next year as the “enormous impact” of Covid-19 bites, the chief executive of their membership body has said.

Association of Colleges boss David Hughes revealed the prediction during an education select committee hearing this morning in which he added the government “must must must” do something to support them instead of offering “warm words”.

It comes after ministers controversially snubbed colleges from their £1 billion education catch-up fund last week.

Hughes told the committee of MPs that college sector income currently sits at around £7 billion but a large chunk of that is now “at risk”.

“We think there is about £2 billion of college income at risk for the next academic year out of £7 billion,” he said.

“That is an enormous impact and this is on a sector that has faced a decade of austerity and neglect. It is a very vulnerable sector.

“It is not just the independent training providers, colleges all over the country are well run, well led, have fantastic relationships with employers. There is one college that has 40 per cent of its income commercial because it is working so effectively with businesses, all of that income is at risk.

“The government must must must do something to support those colleges at risk.”

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the AoC called for emergency financial support to be made available to colleges to keep them afloat after estimating that an average college might lose between £500,000 and £1 million per month of temporary closure or reduced capacity.

Earlier in today’s hearing, Hughes said the AoC has recently surveyed the 17 colleges that provide apprenticeships and they predicted a 50 per cent drop in starts next year, which would equate to a £30 million loss just to those 17.

“The capacity [for apprenticeships] is going to be lost unless the government steps in,” he added.

“We’re saying let’s absolutely secure the capacity in those sectors that are the highest priority: engineering, manufacturing, construction, NHS, social care and digital.

“Let’s secure the capacity and work with employers to make sure the apprenticeship system goes ahead successfully.”

Social Mobility Commission finds apprenticeship system ‘failing’ young disadvantaged people

The apprenticeships system is “failing” young disadvantaged people and needs “decisive” government action to stop it from becoming worse, according to the Social Mobility Commission.

A report published today by the independent advisory non-departmental public body warns that disadvantage gaps exist at “every stage” of the apprenticeship journey, from initial selection of candidates by employers to the quality of training apprentices get.

Their analysis found there was a 36 per cent decline in starts by learners from disadvantaged backgrounds between 2015/16 and 2017/18 – the year the levy was introduced – in comparison to a 23 per cent decline for more privileged apprentices.

At the same time only 13 per cent of degree-level apprenticeships – the “fastest growing and most expensive apprenticeship option” – were taken by disadvantaged apprentices.

And on average, apprentices from disadvantaged backgrounds earn less than non-disadvantaged apprentices.

The authors of ‘Apprenticeships and social mobility: Fulfilling potential’  also warned that the coronavirus pandemic may further worsen the disparity.

Steven Cooper, joint deputy chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said the apprenticeship levy, introduced in April 2017, has “disproportionately funded higher-level apprenticeships for learners from more advantaged communities, rather than those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who would benefit more”.

He added that it is “no longer credible for the government to assume that apprenticeships automatically improve social mobility and leave the system to its own devices”.

The Department for Education said they are “absolutely committed to levelling up opportunity across the country” and will do “all we can to make sure no-one is left behind as a result of coronavirus”.

The Social Mobility Commission’s report sets the government six targets to meet by September 2023 (see list below).

Despite the apprenticeship currently “not delivering”, the commission states that apprenticeships are one of the most “effective means” of boosting social mobility for workers from poorer backgrounds.

They found, for example, there is a 16 per cent boost to wages for disadvantaged learners who complete their training, compared with 10 per cent for others.

But it is getting into and through the system that is the problem.

The research, conducted by London Economics, mirrored the traditional steps in the apprentice journey: from selection into apprenticeship training until entry into the labour market.

They found a “big gap” between apprentices, depending on their socio-economic status, in terms of employer selection for training; the quality or “value” of the training received; the likelihood of completing training and of progressing into higher-level apprenticeships, or further and higher education; as well as levels of pay after undertaking an apprenticeship.

The authors described this as a “remarkable” finding and proves that the levy has been “ineffective” in narrowing the disadvantaged gap.

For example, in 2017/18, disadvantaged learners “clustered” in apprenticeships at lower levels: 48 per cent of disadvantaged starters were enrolled into an intermediate apprenticeship, compared with only 41 per cent of starters from non-disadvantaged backgrounds.

They also “clustered in low-paying subject areas at higher apprenticeship levels, particularly for women” such as the services, health, education or public administration sectors, and had “shorter planned apprenticeship durations than their peers, on average, within higher-earning subject areas such as engineering, construction and Information and Communications Technology”.

The commission found that disadvantaged apprentices are less likely to complete their training than non-disadvantaged peers.

A total of 63 per cent of apprenticeships started between 2013/14 and 2014/15 were successfully completed within three years at intermediate level by disadvantaged men and women, compared to 67 per cent for their more privileged peers.

The main reason for dropping out included low levels of pay with small and medium-sized enterprises more likely to pay apprentices the minimum wage.

And young disadvantaged learners were up to four percentage points less likely to progress to qualifications at higher levels, compared with non-disadvantaged learners.

Lead author Alice Battiston said: “The relatively low completion rate achieved by disadvantaged apprentices, particularly at intermediate level, is another alarming point emerging from our analysis. Specific interventions are needed to reduce drop-outs.”

She added that disadvantaged apprentices are at greater risk from an economic decline following Covid-19, as many are employed in sectors such as hospitality and retail.

Cooper said strategic action and direction are needed to target the apprenticeships system better on disadvantaged communities and improve the system’s value for money.

“This is an easy win for the government in its attempts at levelling up – if it can get this right. The government must look at the structural barriers in place and take action to channel resources where they will have the greatest effect,” he added.

The DfE’s spokesperson said: “We are looking at how we can make sure more people and businesses can take advantage of apprenticeships in the future including  supporting employers, especially small and medium sized businesses, to take on new apprentices this year.”

The commission’s six targets for government to meet by September 2023: 

1: Increase the share of apprentices from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds to pre-levy level.

2: Increase the proportion of starters from disadvantaged backgrounds at advanced and higher levels to comparable levels currently prevailing for non-disadvantaged apprentices. 

3: Eliminate the disadvantage gap in levy support for starters at higher level.

4: Ensure the average planned duration of comparable apprenticeship programmes are at least as long for disadvantaged learners as for non-disadvantaged learners (with no shortening of planned duration compared to current levels)

5: Reduce incidence of non-achievement for all socio-economic backgrounds to levels comparable to those in other education sectors.

6: Ensure completion rates for comparable apprenticeship programmes are the same for both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged learners (and comparable to completion rates in the wider education arena).

The reformed apprenticeship system need not fail the young and disadvantaged

It should come as no surprise that the reformed apprenticeship system has been found to be failing young disadvantaged people.

At FE Week we, and many others, predicted young people would be hit hardest in the move to the employer-led levy-funded system introduced in 2017.

Today the Social Mobility Commission joins the voices calling for a rethink and given they are an advisory body funded by the Department for Education the government might have been expected to listen.

Yet the response from the DfE, in the form of a statement from a spokesperson as opposed to Gillian Keegan the apprenticeships minister, fails to even respond to the report findings.

Instead of acknowledging they need to prioritise young people the government appears preoccupied with a solution to the lack of funds for small employers, a problem of their own making in the way levy funds have been distributed.

This suggests it is ministers in the Treasury and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy developing and directing apprenticeship policy.

If the government wanted to take a step back from the policy of employer-ownership and reverse the decline in the take-up of apprentices there are some simple policy changes they could make in time for the new funding year from August 1.

Firstly, the need to acknowledge that the government cannot simply purchase more apprenticeship provision for young people. If employers aren’t incentivised they won’t recruit – which is why an ‘apprenticeship guarantee’ policy sounds attractive but operationally impossible.

So rather than putting a lot of energy into debating the merits of an impossible ‘apprenticeship guarantee’, here are six practical modifications to the current apprenticeship system that would benefit young disadvantaged people. It is worth remembering that before 2007 funding was only available for those under the age of 25 and there are plenty of funding levers that can be used to swing the balance back towards young people.

  1. Reintroduce a ring-fenced budget for young people, but widen it from 16 to 18 to 16 to 24 year-olds. This could be funded by, for example, making half the levy funding only available for this age group. Providers would then actively prioritise the recruitment of young people in order to access the funding.
  2. Remove the 10 percent top-up to the levy funds, worth close to £200 million per year, and re-purpose the funds to widen the provider and employer 16 to 18 financial incentive to 16 to 24. By increasing the financial incentives both employers and providers will be more likely to prioritise young people.
  3. For the small employers, increase the employer co-investment from 5 percent to at least 20 percent for those aged over 24 and reduce it to 0 percent for those under the age of 24.
  4. Increase the funding rate caps on lower level apprenticeships, particularly at level 2. My concern is the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education see these as low value and risk setting unaffordable funding rate caps. But for many young and disadvantaged learners they are their only entry route.
  5. Significant reductions to the funding caps on higher level apprenticeship standards, particularly those in management that are being used by employers to rebadge their existing training. Employers should be expected to pay fees in addition to the levy funding and this would free up more levy funding for the younger apprentices (see point 1 above).
  6. The public sector could and should be a significant recruiter of young and disadvantaged people to the apprenticeship programme. So the government should revisit the effectiveness of the 2.3 per cent public sector annual starts target and focus it on both young people. Seeing government departments putting dozens of their managers on MBA apprenticeships and continuing to only take graduate trainees does not impress me.

Hopefully these suggestions are useful. If nothing else, it would be good for Gillian Keegan to take more of a leading role joining and then driving the debate about how to encourage and incentivise both providers and employers to recruit many more young and disadvantaged people.

EU students to be barred from FE loans next year

Students from the European Union will lose eligibility for advanced learner loans from August next year, the government confirmed today.

Universities minister Michelle Donelan announced the new rules this afternoon, which also apply to students from the European Economic Area and Swiss nationals.

It comes as the UK prepares to leave the transition year for leaving the European Union at the end of December.

“Following our decision to leave the EU, EU, other EEA and Swiss nationals will no longer be eligible for home fee status, undergraduate, postgraduate and advanced learner financial support from Student Finance England for courses starting in academic year 2021/22,” Donelan said.

She confirmed that this change will apply to further education funding for those aged 19 and above, including the national and devolved adult education budget, and funding for apprenticeships.

The EU makes up 11 per cent in terms of learners and funding for colleges currently, according to statistics published by the Student Loan Company.

Donelan said the changes will not affect students “starting courses in academic year 2020/21, nor those EU, other EEA and Swiss nationals benefitting from Citizens’ Rights under the EU Withdrawal Agreement, EEA EFTA Separation Agreement or Swiss Citizens’ Rights Agreement respectively”.

“It will also not apply to Irish nationals living in the UK and Ireland whose right to study and to access benefits and services will be preserved on a reciprocal basis for UK and Irish nationals under the Common Travel Area arrangement.”

She added that EU, other EEA and Swiss students, staff and researchers make an “important contribution to our universities…I want that contribution to continue and am confident – given the world-leading quality of our higher education sector – that it will”.

Home fee status currently allows those impacted to pay tuition fees at the “home” rather than the more expensive overseas rate on courses of FE in England.

 

Cross-party group of MPs urge education secretary to include 16-19s in £1bn Covid catch-up plan

A cross-party group of MPs has written to Gavin Williamson today urging him “to extend eligibility for the Covid catch-up fund to include sixth form and other colleges”.

The officers of the All Party Parliamentary Group for sixth form education said they “do not understand why 16 to 19 providers such as sixth form and other colleges are not able to access” the £1 billion support package.

Last Thursday, the Department for Education caused confusion and anger after telling the press that 16 to 19 providers would be included in the Covid-19 catch-up fund only to send out a “correction” two hours later that removed them.

The education secretary and prime minister Boris Johnson then launched the funding to help only school pupils catch-up on the teaching time lost due to the coronavirus pandemic on Friday.

FE Week understands it was the Treasury’s decision to pull colleges from initiative.

In the letter to Williamson sent today, co-chairs of the APPG Dame Diana Johnson MP and Jason McCartney MP said: “The £1 billion Covid catch-up fund to tackle the impact of lost teaching time is welcome, and we hope that it benefits pupils in primary and secondary schools. However, we do not understand why 16 to 19 providers such as sixth form and other colleges are not able to access this fund.

“Funding for 16 to 19 education is significantly lower than funding for 11 to 16 education, and 16 to 19 year olds studying in colleges already face a number of funding inequalities despite being more disadvantaged than their peers in school sixth forms. So we find it very hard to understand why these young people will not be able to benefit from the Covid catch-up fund. 

“We urge you to extend eligibility for the Covid catch-up fund to include sixth form and other colleges, and to clarify whether other 16 to 19 providers such as school sixth forms, 16-19 academies and 16-19 free schools are eligible to access the fund.”

The other Conservative signatories were vice chairs Peter Aldous, Caroline Nokes and William Wragg while the Labour Party’s Rachel Hopkins and the only Green MP Caroline Lucas also lent their support to the appeal.

The letter was also sent to apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan, chair of the education select committee Robert Halfon as well as academies minister Baroness Berridge.

Williamson dodged multiple questions from MPs who challenged him on the exclusion of colleges from the £1 billion scheme during education questions in the House of Commons yesterday.

Boris Johnson was also quizzed on the issue by Daniel Zeichner MP today. The prime minister said: “We will of course do everything we can to ensure not just our schools but our colleges also get the attention they need.

“There is massive investment now going into the rebuilding of FE colleges and ensuring our FE sector gets the investment it deserves.”

The Association of Colleges and Sixth Form Colleges Association had been in discussions with the DfE about the support package and both expected their members to be included in the announcement.

On the night of the announcement, chief executive of the AoC David Hughes said it was “indefensible to overlook the needs of the 700,000 in colleges”.

At the time, Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, added the last-minute exclusion of FE providers was “unjustifiable”.

The letter sent to Williamson can be accessed here.