A former Skills Funding Agency manager has accused the government of “stalling” the training industry at a time of national crisis.

Martin Taft, who is now the managing director of Midlands-based Springboard Training, said the suspension of the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) in April has prevented new providers from offering support during the economic fallout from Covid-19.

Describing the ESFA as acting as a “bottleneck”, Taft, a former service centre manager at the SFA until 2018 who has also worked at apprenticeship providers such as 3aaa and Geason Training, said: “Rather than perpetuating the monopoly of larger organisations in the further education sector, the ESFA has a duty towards small, high-quality training companies who can deliver tailored support within the local community.

“Ultimately, it is learners who are suffering due to the lack of options available.”

Springboard incorporated in November 2019 and currently offers commercial training in leadership and management, digital skills, customer service and employability. It wants to become an approved apprenticeship provider to “expand its offering and support further people into careers and upskill within their current capacity”.

The ESFA suspended RoATP to give “time for applications in progress and second applications to be completed and submitted,” and to give the government an “opportunity to review our future approach to the register,” the agency said in spring.

Suspension meant the register was closed to new bids to join, including second applications from providers which had already applied in the previous 12 months.

The ESFA told Springboard this month the register remained closed in response to the pandemic, but levy-paying companies delivering services considered “critical to the COVID-19 response” were still able to apply to provide apprenticeship training as needed as an employer provider.

Their review, they continued, was “still in progress” and the government is still “regularly assessing the impact that the Covid-19 emergency is having on training providers and apprenticeships and cannot confirm a re-opening date at this stage”.

But they promised further communications on when and in what form the RoATP will reopen would be provided in the coming months.

Benn Carson, a further education consultant, has joined with Springboard in its criticism of the ESFA, accusing it of “failing the sector” by using the pandemic as an “excuse” for closing RoATP.

He urged ministers to rectify the problem “urgently”, as: “Local and niche providers dealing with vulnerable learners are critical to our skills system. By shutting them out of registration, the ESFA has dealt a serious blow to the life chances of an entire generation and the damage is incalculable.”

The review into RoATP is likely to cover plans to make providers become “accredited” for apprenticeships standards they offer – as revealed by the ESFA’s then-director of apprenticeships Keith Smith at FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference in March.

FE Week also understands there are plans to potentially introduce funding caps on providers which are yet to have a full Ofsted inspection.

A new, “strengthened” RoATP was launched earlier last year, following a number of problems in the register’s application process: including one-man bands with no delivery experience allowed to access to millions of pounds of apprenticeships funding.

The Department for Education, responding to a request for comment from FE Week, highlighted how any training provider which has not been trading for at least one year is not permitted to apply to be on the RoATP.

A department spokesperson said: “Covid-19 has had a significant impact on jobs including apprenticeships.  We’ve taken action to boost the number of apprenticeships available – offering cash incentives to employers so they can take on more apprentices – but it is also right that we make sure there continues to be the right level of high quality training on offer.

“To help provide necessary stability during this unprecedented time we closed the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers to all new applications in April. We are continuing to work through options and we will update in due course.”

The 20 colleges which will take part in the first year of the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence have been announced today.

The “centre”, run by WorldSkills UK with £1.5 million from awarding organisation NCFE, will involve training up teachers in international best practices, as well as digital workshops featuring talks from training managers from other countries.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said the “innovative partnership” between WorldSkills UK and NCFE will ensure “young people receive the best vocational training possible and help businesses access the talented workforce they need to rebuild after Covid-19”.

The 20 colleges (see list below), picked from 55 applications by general FE colleges, will have five staff members taught by high performance skills coaches – who also work as WorldSkills UK training managers – how to use techniques the coaches used to train competitors with students at their college.

This will not only involve teaching technical skills, but will also incorporate the psychological conditioning competitors receive during their preparations for the international WorldSkills and EuroSkills tournaments.

WorldSkills UK’s deputy chief executive Ben Blackledge said: “It’s about taking those learnings, and also the technical learnings, and applying that to anyone in the college, whether they are doing a level 6 or a level 1.”

As one of the participating colleges, Trafford College said getting involved was a “no-brainer”, having been very proactive with skills competitions. One of their students, Ben Metcalfe, is a potential competitor for WorldSkills Shanghai next year.

Assistant principal Joan Scott (pictured) said they are hoping they will get a “brilliant” development programme for the five educators they have chosen for training from a performance coach assigned to them by WorldSkills.

There is, Scott says, “often a gap between what you’re doing in colleges and those international standards, so we’re hoping we could empower our teachers to really help and boost standards of the delivery of technical education.

“It’s not just about putting people in competitions.”

And with the economy stalling and unemployment rising, Scott highlights the importance of equipping students with high level skills to compete in the job market, while also helping employers to be more competitive.

The college is hoping the training from the centre of excellence will give students a “base from which to get jobs and be more successful”.

This programme is not about competitions and getting the UK more gold medals

Raising standards to international levels was also brought up by the chief executive of Chichester College Group, Shelagh Legrave, when she spoke to FE Week about taking part in the centre.

She is “absolutely thrilled” the college has been chosen, as she wants more of their students participating and winning WorldSkills UK’s annual National Finals and getting onto Team UK.

Another reason for taking part in the centre and taking on that international practice is: “You don’t know if the benchmark you are achieving is the benchmark the rest of the world is achieving.”

Chichester is already deeply involved with WorldSkills UK: Lecturer Andy Pengelly is the WorldSkills UK training manager for joinery, and head of furniture studies Christian Notley is training manager in cabinet making.

Legrave says a “really welcomed” opportunity with the centre is to “expand the practice we have in WorldSkills in furniture making” across the college “more systematically”.

Blackledge said WorldSkills UK is “keen” on involving colleges who have not participated with WorldSkills before, like City of Liverpool College and Barking and Dagenham College, this year: “This programme is not about competitions and getting the UK more gold medals – it’s about how do you take the learning and benefits from the competition and making sure they are more widely embedded.”

The Centre of Excellence programme will also involve using WorldSkills UK’s “unique insight into global skills systems” to help develop assessments and qualifications, as well as independent research into how other countries improve the teaching in their skills system.

In addition to the 20 colleges, a further 35 will be invited to join the WorldSkills UK Innovation Network, with access to the digital workshops, and with an opportunity to join the centre next year. Independent training providers are also set to be invited to join the programme from next year.

Speaking ahead of the Centre of Excellence’s national launch at Trafford College today, WorldSkills UK chief executive Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE said: “This is a radical new way of working with college leaders to bring global best practice to local economies and level up skills across the country – ensuring that we can embed international standards into training programmes and deliver what employers need in order to kick-start the economy.”

Colleges selected to be part of the first year of the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence 

College	Region
North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College	East Midlands
West Suffolk College	East of England
Barking and Dagenham College	London
Sunderland College	North East
East Durham College	North East
Middlesbrough College	North East
City of Liverpool College	North West
Wirral Met College	North West
The Trafford College Group	North West
Preston’s College	North West
Dumfries and Galloway College	Scotland
New College Lanarkshire	Scotland
Chichester College Group	South East
Havant & South Downs College	South East
Wiltshire College	South West
Cardiff and Vale College	Wales
Coleg Gwent	Wales
Dudley College of Technology	West Midlands
Rotherham and North Notts Group	Yorkshire and the Humber
Doncaster College and North Lindsey College	Yorkshire and the Humber

The members of the Association of Colleges’ new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) steering group have today been revealed.

The group (full list below) will be chaired by NCG group deputy principal Palvinder Singh and is currently developing an “action plan” to tackle discrimination across the further education sector.

FE Week revealed the association had created the committee last year after our analysis found that less than seven per cent of principals were non-white, and after the AoC’s BAME Principals’ Group was disbanded in 2017.

Yesterday the association again refused to name the members of its new EDI group to FE Week on the grounds it would not be in accordance with their “general policy”, but this afternoon they were listed in a weekly email from AoC deputy chief executive, Kirsti Lord.

In the email, seen by FE Week, Lord said the group has a remit “of working to increase the diversity of leadership and governance in the sector, through influencing the Department for Education on policy, the Education and Training Foundation on development, and sharing practice in the sector”.

“The commitment around influencing policy to ensure that college is a welcoming space for all, and the potential for FE to be seen as an attractive career prospect for more diverse communities, are at the heart of the group’s work, in addition to sharing practice and facilitating thought leadership on EDI,” she added.

Lord told FE Week earlier this week that AoC has proposed extending membership of the EDI group to “all relevant membership organisations to ensure insights and actions are reflected”.

It will now be meeting “more frequently to drive these actions and engage with sector members and stakeholders”.

The email continued: “The EDI steering group will be sending an action plan to the AoC board in October for sign off. The commitment around influencing policy and the shape of ITE to ensure that college is a welcoming space for all, and the potential for FE to be seen as an attractive career prospect for more diverse communities are at the heart of the work, in addition to sharing practice and facilitating thought leadership on EDI. Once signed off, the action plan will be published on our website, and be regularly RAG rated for progress.”

Palvinder Singh is also supporting another new organisation, the Black Further Education Leadership Group (BFELG), which is being convened by a number of existing and former college leaders including: former Highbury College principal Stella Mbubaegbu; former Cornwall College principal Amarjit Basi and former chief executive of the Network for Black Professionals Robin Landman, who for the last six years has been a recruitment associate specialising in further education and training and equality and diversity.

With assistance from college principal’s such as Dawn Ward from Burton and South Derbyshire College, the BFELG gathered signatures from sector leaders for an open letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, saying: “At a time of elevated advocacy for FE, failure to recognise the insidious nature of racism undermines the sector’s ability to fully engage with all its constituent communities.”

Their letter includes a number of recommendations, including a “radical revision” of FE curricula and qualifications to include teachings on colonial history and its influence on society; and for professional development programmes to include a consideration of racial equality.

Earlier this week Stella Mbubaegbu sent a letter on behalf of the BFELG to “all BAME chairs/governors to consider becoming a member of the BFEG and/or signatory of the Open Letter. A group of chair/governor members has been formed within BFELG to better engage with and harness the expertise of this constituent group.”

The letter also said: “Significant, in their silence and disappointingly, we have not heard from the government, although we have been assured very recently that a response will be with us sooner rather than later.”

The Department for Education was approached by FE Week for comment on Tuesday but they failed to respond.

The full membership of the AoC’s EDI steering group is:

• Palvinder Singh, Group Deputy Principal, Newcastle College Group (chair)
• Anthony Bravo, Principal, Basingstoke College of Technology
• Everton Burke, Chair, Burton and South Derbyshire College
• Solat Chaudhry, Founder and Chief Executive, National Centre for Diversity
• Arinola Edeh, Principal and Head of Service, ‎Westminster Adult Education Service (on behalf of Holex)
• Angela Foulkes, Principal, The Sheffield College
• Jo Lawrence, Vice Principal, Joseph Chamberlain College
• Mel Lenehan, Principal, Fircroft College
• Rajinder Mann, Vice Chair of Burton and South Derbyshire College and EDI consultant
• Rachel Nicholls, Acting Principal, Peterborough College
• Seb Schmoller, Chair, The Sheffield College

Ofsted will soon be handed powers to inspect all universities that offer apprenticeships – including the likes of Cambridge, FE Week can reveal.

In a controversial move, the education watchdog is set to take on responsibility for overseeing all apprenticeships, including those at the degree levels of 6 and 7, for the first time.

Only the Office for Students can police higher apprenticeships under current policy, while Ofsted’s remit goes up to level 5 – a position that has frustrated the inspectorate for many years.

Plans have been drawn up to strip the OfS of this role amid concerns the higher education regulator is not up to the job. It is understood that the switch to Ofsted will be announced imminently.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said they are working “closely with the Office for Students and Ofsted to consider carefully what the most appropriate quality assurance arrangements should be for level 6 and 7 apprenticeships” and will “provide further updates in due course”.

The Russell Group, which represents the 24 “leading” universities in the UK including Cambridge, did not pour cold water over the plan for Ofsted to inspect their members.

But a spokesperson said the group will continue to work with government on delivery and expansion of the apprenticeship route, including how to avoid “overburdensome or disproportionate regulation”.

The University Vocational Awards Council, which also represents a number of universities, has previously voiced its opposition to such a move and questioned Ofsted’s expertise to inspect degree-level fields such as registered nurses, social workers and architects.

FE Week analysis of the latest DfE data, which covers the first three quarters of the 2019/20 academic year, shows there were 231 providers offering level 6 and 7 apprenticeships – with over 26,000 starts between them.

Of those 231 providers, 47 (20 per cent) are currently completely out of Ofsted’s scope of inspection as they deliver no provision at level 5 or below.

Included in this 20 per cent are many prominent Russell Group universities such as the University of Manchester, University of Nottingham and the University of Warwick.

The most well-known redbrick university that delivers higher apprenticeships but has been out of scope for Ofsted visits to date is the University of Cambridge.

Cambridge currently delivers two level 7 apprenticeships that have a combined cohort of 120 apprentices: applied criminology and police management, which commenced in 2019; and architecture, which launched this month.

A University of Cambridge spokesperson said they would “welcome scrutiny from relevant bodies” and should Ofsted begin to oversee all levels of apprenticeship provision, “we will necessarily adjust to meet the requirements in the best interests of our student apprentices and their employers”.

Oversight of degree apprenticeships has sat with the OfS since their launch, but monitoring of the provision is not official inspections of the type Ofsted conducts.

A decision was made in June 2019 for the higher education regulator to oversee all level 6 and 7 apprenticeships, including those without a prescribed HE qualification delivered at providers not on the OfS’ register, which had gone years without any oversight.

This was against the recommendation of the post-18 education review conducted by Philip Augar, who had called for Ofsted to inspect all apprenticeships.

Frustration has been building over the pace of the OfS’ work in this area. The regulator has so far only completed “pilot reviews” to a small number of providers not on its register of HE providers in late 2019 and concluded an evaluation of the pilot before lockdown hit.

OfS previously said they would publish these reports, but has now gone back on that promise. A spokesperson explained that they have paused their oversight of level 6 and 7 apprenticeships until HE providers are able to return to “a more normal operating environment”, as is the case for its other regulatory activity.

Being handed oversight of all apprenticeships will mark a big win for Ofsted, which has been clamouring for the job for over four years.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman has voiced concerns multiple times that some universities and training providers are getting away with offering level 6 and 7 apprenticeships which are simply “repackaged graduate schemes”.

In an interview with FE Week in March 2019, Spielman said the first FE inspection she observed found a large accountancy firm had “very clearly” turned its tax graduate trainees into level 4 and 7 apprentices.

But because the inspectorate’s remit only extends to level 5, Ofsted could only inspect the level 4 provision, while in another room level 7 apprentices were not being reviewed.

“It was very clearly a graduate training programme that existed for many years that had been reframed slightly to make sure it genuinely did meet the requirements, but nevertheless was the kind of training that firm would have always have been providing and paying for,” she told FE Week.

“We were there to look at only one piece of this graduate traineeship programme, which made for an extraordinarily artificial conversation.”

Last week, Ofsted’s deputy director for FE, Paul Joyce, said he would welcome the power to inspect all apprenticeships and it is something “that I think we could do, absolutely”.

PICTURE: Madingley Hall, built in 1543 by Sir John Hynde, part of Cambridge University and home to the Institute of Continuing Education where apprenticeships are delivered