The deadline for providers to submit bids for supplier relief from the Education and Skills Funding Agency has been extended.
The application process launched last Friday and the closing date had been set for today, but this has now been changed to midnight on Sunday 3 May.
We have extended the deadline to submit applications to the Provider Relief Scheme. Eligible providers now have until midnight Sunday 3 May to request support.
We have done this as a result of feedback from training providers and look forward to receiving your applications.
The Department for Education appears to have backtracked on a decision to scrap monthly apprenticeship data releases by now committing to “replace” and “repurpose” them.
In a controversial announcement on Tuesday described by one sector leader as “staggering”, the department said it would “cancel all in year further education and apprenticeship releases” from May until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic. They added that they would still publish the end of year releases normally in November.
But in their apprenticeship stats to include the month of February published this morning, the DfE said it would now be “replacing the remaining in-year dates” to “enable us to provide release(s) with more relevant information to cover the period affected by the pandemic”.
They “intend to make headline statistics” such as apprenticeship starts available on a “regular basis, and to similar timescales to those currently, but we intend to repurpose our releases to focus on the most relevant information available”.
The publication explained that the current releases and measures “may now provide very little value and/or may be misleading given how the pandemic will have impacted on both apprenticeship training and provider reporting from March”.
“While collections remain open we have no way to quantify how robust any reporting by providers will be during the period affected by the pandemic,” it said.
“Where there are updates they may well be small corrections to pre lockdown periods. Therefore, given the expected large drop in starts from March, comparing a participation measure in say the third quarter of 2019/20 to this point in 2018/19 would offer no meaningful insight to activity in the third quarter.”
It continued: “While we expect to include some headline summary we wish to repurpose our releases to focus on the most useful and relevant measures and comparisons.
“We are therefore consulting users on this and seek your feedback on key data needs in terms of the regularity of data needed and also the type of breakdowns users would find most useful, e.g. similar to those we currently publish such national apprenticeship starts by age, level and individual framework/standard etc, so we can consider going forward and in light of continued data quality assessments.”
The apparent U-turn will be welcomed by many in the sector, including Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, who described the DfE’s original decision as “staggering”.
Labour’s new apprenticeships and skills minister Toby Perkins said earlier this week that scrapping the monthly releases would be “alarming”.
Following today’s announcement, he tweeted: “I very much welcome DfE’s decision to reverse their previous edict about not publishing apprenticeship data.
“Hiding data that points to problems is no way to tackle them, and glad that government have realised that.”
I very much welcome @educationgovuk decision to reverse their previous edict about not publishing apprenticeship data.
Hiding data that points to problems is no way to tackle them, and glad that Government have realised that. https://t.co/xDlDSqKhZ4
Government plans to axe the controversial MBA qualification from the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship have been put on hold.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) has revealed the move will not happen until at least November, possibly even 2021.
It was set for the chop after education secretary Gavin Williamson requested a review of the popular programme, worth up to £18,000 per apprentice, as he was “unconvinced” it provides value for money.
A revised level 7 senior leader standard that excludes the MBA was drawn up by its trailblazer group earlier this month and has been consulted on.
But in a blog post this week, the IfATE’s senior relationships manager for standards development, Sally Timmins, said that due to Covid-19, they have agreed an “update to the envisaged development timeline to project when the revised apprenticeship standard could be approved for delivery if it got through the institute’s approval process without any problems”.
“We have agreed separate submission dates for the standard and the end-point assessment plan/costings which now means a final approval date of end November/early December,” she added.
“Consideration will also need to be given as to whether a notice period needs to be given between its approval and final implementation.”
As previously reported, the IfATE ordered the trailblazer group of the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship to remove the MBA from programme as it would no longer “meet the intent of our policy on mandated qualifications”.
However, the institute has since confirmed to FE Week that providers would still be allowed to offer the MBA as a non-mandatory qualification, though costs for qualification registration, certification and any training not directly related to the standard would not be fundable from the levy.
An employer could choose to pay these costs out of their own pocket to enable their apprentice to acquire the qualification in addition to passing the apprenticeship via the end-point assessment.
FE Week has spoken to a number of universities that have said they intend to continue offering the MBA in the apprenticeship after it is scrapped as a mandatory qualification.
The IfATE previously told FE Week that as the changes to the occupational standard and end-point assessment plan are likely to be significant, they expect to change the funding band, which currently sits at £18,000.
The level 7 senior leader apprenticeship has proven extremely popular since its launch in February 2018. FE Week analysis shows it had 6,387 starts on the programme up to the first quarter of 2019-20, worth up to £115 million.
Apprenticeship starts for the month of February 2020 fell 11 per cent on the previous year, figures published this morning show (see below).
The statisticians at the Department for Education said: “Apprenticeship starts reported to date have decreased to 198,600 from 214,200 in the first two quarters of 2018/19, a decrease of 7.3 per cent.”
They go on to say that of the 198,600 starts in the first half of this academic year, 64.9 per cent (128,900) were on the apprenticeship digital system and 74.3 per cent (147,600 starts) were on standards.
Reaction to the latest figures:
Gillian Keegan, minister for apprenticeships and skills, told FE Week: “The reforms introduced in 2017 mean apprenticeships are longer, more rigorous, and quality assessed by independent organisations. This has resulted in a slight decline in the number of starts, but we will continue to prioritise quality over quantity.
“While the impact of the coronavirus is still becoming clear, we are supporting employers, apprentices and training providers during this challenging time so people can continue to access high-quality apprenticeship opportunities. Apprenticeships are a valuable route into good quality employment and will play a vital role in securing our economic recovery, post-coronavirus.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said: “These pre-pandemic figures are bad enough which is why the government should be getting round the table with us to discuss how covid-19 provider support measures should apply to all apprenticeships and not just to those offered by SMEs.
“New apprenticeship starts are falling off a cliff and the more time the government vacillates over the covid-19 guidance, the worse it’s going to get. Furthermore we must get full transparency in terms of publishing the starts data over the coming months because the statement the DfE made about this earlier this week was very alarming.”
Providers that failed to meet the minimum standard for apprenticeship achievement rates last year will be informed next week of the government’s “action to challenge this situation”.
With a minimum standard threshold of 62 per cent for apprenticeships, the move is expected to impact on several hundred providers after the sector average rate fell 2.2 percentage points to just 64.7 per cent.
The ESFA said in an update today that they have now “reviewed” providers’ data published in the national achievement rates tables (NARTs) for 2018/19.
Where a provider did not meet the minimum standard achievement for “all-age apprenticeship provision”, the agency “will be writing to all providers from next week on our proposed action”.
The update added that the position on minimum standards is to “continue to be rigorous in driving up the quality of apprenticeship delivery”.
Providers have to have more than 40 per cent of their cohort on frameworks and standards above the 62 per cent to achieve the minimum standard.
“To calculate the tolerance we will calculate how many of the apprenticeships delivered by a provider are below the minimum standards threshold; if the QAR for an apprenticeship is below the 62 per cent threshold, we classify that apprenticeship as falling below the minimum standard.
“We will then calculate if this is more than 40 per cent of the total cohort for apprenticeships, if so the provider will be in scope for intervention.”
It means that even if a provider’s overall achievement rate was above 62 per cent, they could still fail the minimum standard.
The published NARTs list the overall apprenticeship achievement rates for providers with cohorts of at least 30, and shows 215 out of 737 (29 per cent) with an achievement rate below 62 per cent, failing the threshold but not necessarily failing the minimum standard.
The ESFA’s policy document reminds providers that “poor or declining education performance data can lead to escalating intervention action and we will act early in the best interests of students, apprentices and the public purse”.
It adds that where the underperforming provision “exceeds the tolerance level but the cohort is small and it is predominately new or immature provision that is below the minimum standards threshold, we will take this into account when deciding whether to take intervention action or what intervention action to take”.
Any provider in this position is “expected” to “set quality improvement targets for the poor provision as a priority”.
The agency’s operational guidance warns that where independent training providers fail on minimum standards, they can “expect to have their contracts terminated early, subject to protecting the interests of learners”.
It adds, however, that “where we have evidence that learners’ interests would be best served by maintaining the contract we will only do so under strict conditions with rigorous monitoring, and we will seek to terminate the contract immediately if the provider fails to improve”.
And “failure to comply with additional contractual obligations and/or remedy a serious breach may also lead to early termination of the contract”.
In an FE Week webcast on Monday, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan expressed concern at historic “low quality” apprenticeships delivery.
She said: “I was quite shocked at some of the lower quality delivery that happened in the first stages of the levy being introduced and I never want to go back to those days…I’ve met people on the doorstep who’ve actually said to me this is a load of old rubbish. We have to make sure that every apprenticeship is quality.”
The education secretary today dodged an MP’s question about his department’s delay in launching supplier relief support for training providers.
On 20 March, the Cabinet Office published a policy notice that allowed payment in advance of delivery on publicly funded contracts up to 30 June owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
Mayoral combined authorities were quick off the mark in letting their training providers know how they would comply with the notice, but it took the Department for Education more than a month, until 24 April, to launch applications for support.
During an education select committee hearing primarily focussed on vulnerable children this morning, the first question on FE was from Ian Mearns MP who asked education secretary Gavin Williamson: “Why didn’t the DfE immediately comply with the Cabinet Office guidance and announce support for those providers with an ESFA contract? Why wasn’t this support package automatically done?”
Williamson offered a blunt response: “We always comply with Cabinet Office guidance and we always will do.”
Mearns pressed back the that “implication” is that the DfE “hasn’t done so on this occasion so I would ask you to look at that please”.
On Monday, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan joined an FE Week webcast to answer questions on the same topic and described the difficulty in figuring out with Treasury which parts of the FE sector could benefit from the support (click here for full story).
Williamson went on in today’s hearing to state that apprenticeships will play a “really important part” of the country’s economic recovery from coronavirus.
He said his department has taken a “whole number of actions in terms of increasing the flexibilities so people can continue their apprenticeships” and quoted the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ survey that found over 81 per cent of apprentices are “continuing [training] as we speak”.
“What we have been looking through the ESFA is how we support some of those apprenticeship providers who aren’t able to continue to deliver apprenticeships either through online learning or being able to access those apprentices in those critical areas where we are needing to preserve that high quality, how we can put a package there to support those providers and making sure we have a sustainable future in apprenticeships,” he added.
Applications for supplier relief need to be submitted to the ESFA by the end of this Thursday and cover procured adult education budget funding contracts and non-levy apprenticeship allocations.
Any potential ESFA supplier relief for providers of European Social Funding is still being considered.
Williamson was also questioned today on the DfE’s new ‘Skills Toolkit’. He confirmed this new “platform” was created through “existing resources that we corralled together” to help train adults’ digital and numeracy skills who are currently not in work.
He was also asked why the DfE was ploughing ahead with the launch of T-levels in September considering the disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, to which he said the new qualifications are “one of the most important tasks that this government has”.
“I want to see that happen, I want to make that happen,” he added.
Williamson also touched on the Augar review and said the DfE’s response to it has been pushed back with the spending review.
And on the upcoming white paper and FE Bill, the education secretary said it has the possibility of being “revolutionary” for the sector and is currently being worked on by a task force led by the DfE’s new director of post-16 strategy, Keith Smith.
Since 2005, Skills Forward has been pioneering new ways of working for the education and skills sector; enabling digital delivery of skills assessments for colleges, training providers and organisations, and supporting the sector through periods of great change.
As the business celebrates its 15th anniversary in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Skills Forward is putting its years of expertise and innovative range of edtech solutions to good use to support learners and apprentices during this challenging time.
Whilst the long-term implications of COVID-19 on the sector and the wider economy are as yet unclear, Skills Forward is supporting education providers in the short term with its eLearning solutions.
With face to face delivery next to impossible in the present climate, many training providers are worried about their funding and the future of their apprenticeship programmes and apprentices.
Skills Forward, which operates as part of the not-for-profit NCFE Group, has been supporting its customers to stay online and on track by scaling up their eLearning activities. Using software such Skills Portfolio, an e-portfolio application to support and evidence online delivery, apprentices have been able to continue their training remotely.
“We have always aimed to respond to the needs of the sector and stay ahead of the curve, diversifying our offer wherever necessary as part of our commitment to our core purpose to promote and advance learning,” said Dan Howard, Managing Director at Skills Forward.
Managing Director, Dan Howard (front centre) with the Skills Forward team at their Mansfield headquarters.
“We are all collectively facing the new challenge of coronavirus, and now is the time to pull together and support each other as a sector and ensure the futures of the learners who will be impacted. Where we can use our expertise as an eLearning provider to help learners stay on track and providers to stay afloat, we’re more than happy to do so.”
One such customer is SD Consultancy, a training provider based in the Scottish Borders which has been adapting to the new requirements of the coronavirus pandemic with the support of Skills Forward.
Sarah Dalrymple, Director at SDConsultancy commented: “We have been using Skills Portfolio for a few years now and the more we work with the software, the more we appreciate its value and importance in the work that we do. It is easily accessible, easy to use and is fit for purpose.
“As we went into lockdown for COVID-19, it was really important to us to continue to support our apprentices and candidates and we were delighted to be able to continue to work with them using Skills Portfolio. A lot of work can be done remotely and we have worked closely with a large number of our candidates to ensure their progress is supported and their learning and development continues.
“We are delighted with how it works for us and our candidates, and although we definitely cannot say that it is ‘business as usual’, we can most certainly say that we are offering comprehensive support through Skills Portfolio.”
“In everything that we do at Skills Forward, our learners come first. We are driven by the individual successes of the people who use our learning platforms and access our curriculum and feel incredibly privileged that we get to play a part, however small, in shaping a person’s future,” Dan added.
“Ensuring that apprentices can continue to receive teaching means that we are supporting training providers to access their funding to remain operative. Training providers are a vital part of the skills system and will be integral, alongside apprentices, as we rebuild our economy. We’re especially proud to champion eLearning and the capabilities of online delivery.”
Skills Forward has come a long way in the last 15 years. Launched in 2005 as ‘For Skills’, the company has grown exponentially and now employs over 30 people at its offices in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and Houghton-le-Spring near Sunderland.
With a customer base spanning FE colleges, private training providers and some of the UK’s biggest employers including British Airways, Tesco and the Royal Navy, in the last year alone, Skills Forward provided over 2.9 million assessments to the post-16 employability and skills sector and daily sees over 18,000 learners logging in to its systems.
The majority of apprenticeship providers are not eligible for supplier relief from the Department for Education because of the Cabinet Office’s “very specific” policy notice, according to Gillian Keegan.
The apprenticeships and skills minister described the support as an “anomaly” and said her team worked closely with Treasury to see what parts of the FE sector could use the coronavirus supplier relief scheme.
When asked during an FE Week webcast yesterday why apprenticeships funded through the DfE’s digital system, mostly those with large levy-paying employers, are excluded, she said: “The only exception [to support from the coronavirus business interruption and job retention schemes] has been, and I suppose this is an anomaly, the Cabinet Office notice – where there are direct government relations for critical suppliers, that there is a little bit more flexibility added to those people that qualify for that.
“I will be honest it did take us a little bit of time to come out with this. That was because the original purpose of that Cabinet Office notice was actually more for critical suppliers to government in terms of direct services to government, so people maybe operating prison services and all that kind of thing.
“So we had to work with Cabinet Office and Treasury to see if it related to this sector and that is what resulted in that guidance on Friday. It really is only for those covered under that very specific Cabinet Office notice PPN 02/20.
“You need to look at this as quite specific, quite special under this Cabinet Office notice that has allowed a bit of extra support that goes to those where it has more of an impact, on small and medium sized business apprenticeships and providers.”
In a letter to all MPs reported by FE Week earlier this month, Keegan had said the supplier relief “does not apply in relation to apprenticeships funded from employer digital accounts” because “the contractual relationship is between the employer and the provider.”
Keegan stopped short on the webcast of expanding on the contractual issue, which many in the sector have queried and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers is seeking legal advice over.
FE Week analysis shows that of the 198,632 apprenticeship starts in the first six months of 2019/20, around two thirds of the provision would be ineligible for supplier relief.
The minister said the “only thing we could have done to include everybody the same was to leave it as it was and to have no supplier relief scheme”.
“That would be in line with every other business across the country,” she added.
“Saying we will come up for an exception for this sector which means they have all their income protected over and above what they are not delivering is not actually very fair to the rest of the businesses in the economy, is probably what the Treasury would say to us.
“This is something this sector is getting over and above most other sectors in the country.”
Keegan explained that she has spent a lot of time talking to other businesses that have had their income “completely turned off 100 per cent overnight” and they are “understandably looking for some kind of additional help because we have in many cases put a handbrake on sectors of our economy”.
She said the FE sector “is not really in that position” and there “is a way to continue to earn money if you can continue to deliver the services online to apprentices”.
“In a way there is some extra relief being afford to this sector that hasn’t been afforded to other sectors. They have access to 100 per cent of revenue if they can provide 100 per cent online.”
Keegan claimed to have spoken to many different providers and she has “not actually spoken to one that has said they have not been able to switch anything online”.
“I am sure they exist but there is not many of them.”
She admitted her “biggest worry” is the recruitment of new apprentices and “how to keep the whole pipeline going with all this uncertainty”.
The forecast recession looks likely to hit young people the hardest, but investing in their skills is key to recovery. Neil Bentley-Gockmann sets out three ways his organisation is leading the charge
It is an understatement to say that these are tough and uncertain times for us all. And for young people looking to get their first step on the career ladder, the outlook is particularly challenging. Many have had their education and training unavoidably disrupted at a point in their lives when they should be finding their feet, working out what to do next and thinking about their career direction.
However, we know that crucial to rebuilding the UK economy will be highly skilled, motivated young people. That is why, alongside working to attract more inward investment by tackling slow productivity growth, adopting new technology and plugging our skills gaps, we must stay focused on supporting the next generation so that they can play an active role in our economic recovery and see a better future.
We should reset the dialogue on the importance of skills for the recovery
The government is working hard to protect employment against the COVID-19 crisis, but a recession is forecast and research reports this month from The Learning and Work Institute, The Resolution Foundation and Youth Futures Foundation have shown that its impacts will affect young people disproportionately. This analysis has helped us focus on three ways that we can best help to support nearly 200,000 young women and men in the coming months.
Firstly, we are increasing our online support for thousands of young people who are going through our national and international skills competitions’ training programmes. We will continue to develop their skillset and mindset to the highest possible levels so they can build their confidence and potential. Working with our National Competition partners, we will deliver online assessments to help students and apprentices compete virtually in our skills competitions to enhance their current training. We are delivering remote training to our Squad UK members who are preparing for international competition. By delivering our training programmes online, we are ensuring young people can continue to develop their skillset and mindset to the highest possible levels so they can build their confidence and potential.
Secondly, we are increasing our online careers advice and guidance for thousands of young people not yet in work – who are in school or college – to help them make more informed choices about their next steps. We are aiming to engage 35,000 students through our toolkits and will be targeting resources at schools and colleges in disadvantaged areas to ensure we are engaging those who are hardest to reach. By deploying more online careers advice models – our alumni network of highly skilled individuals, who have achieved success in their careers, we will be increasing our efforts to encourage young women and men to make career choices that challenge gender stereotypes, and support more young people who are BAME, identify as LGBT+ or have a learning disability to take up apprenticeships and technical career routes.
Thirdly, we are drawing on the expertise of our established network of 1900 partners across the UK – including hundreds of colleges, training providers and employers, sector skills bodies and organisations like NCFE, National Careers Service, Youth Employment UK, Education and Employers and the Careers & Enterprise Company – to ensure our outreach has maximum impact. And together we will continue to explore ways to power the development of a world-leading technical education sector through global benchmarking and bringing international best practice back to the UK. Through the new WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence, in partnership with NCFE, we will work with college partners to help mainstream world-class standards in skills development to help thousands of young people achieve higher standards and boost their potential.
As the public health and economic context evolves, we will work with our partners to prepare for a skills-led recovery and the development of a “skills economy” which rightly values high-quality apprenticeships and technical education routes for all young people. The significance of workers in public and other essential services – many of whom are trained in our skills system – is shining a bright light on the value of skilled work. And as we all adapt to new ways of living and working, we should hit the control-alt-delete buttons to help us reset the dialogue on the importance of skills for the recovery, the country and the future of the next generation.
The young people we support today with advice, knowledge and skills, will be the workforce of tomorrow helping employers lead the charge towards recovery and economic growth for the prosperity of all. That’s why investing in young people now is crucial. Because when young people succeed, we all succeed.
