There are now more questions than answers about the national skills fund, writes Simon Parkinson

The WEA gave a cautious welcome to the news that the national retraining scheme would be integrated into the new “national skills fund”

As many of you will remember, the national retraining scheme pilot was announced to much fanfare in the 2017 budget with the backing of £100 million, of which the Get Help to Retrain website was one product.

Then in early April, the Department for Education cancelled all national retraining scheme tender activities for all products, and about a month ago the skills minister, Gillian Keegan, announced the scheme was to be “integrated” into the national skills fund, with “learnings” from the retraining scheme carried forward.

It seemed to make sense – why have two streams when there could be one?

There is certainly scope for simplifying education funding. As a national organisation delivering courses locally, the WEA receives funding from a bewildering array of streams, both central and devolved.

That creates administrative costs for us. More importantly, it sometimes leads to students in one part of the country being able to access a very different range of courses to those elsewhere – as determined by the funding available.

But the lack of detail on what the national skills fund would include has now begun to raise more questions than answers. There is a lack of clarity on how the funding from the national retraining scheme “pot” will be incorporated into the new fund. We found out some of the cash would be returned to the Treasury, although we still don’t know how much exactly.

Worse still, the national skills fund became the rationale for the closure of the Union Learning Fund. This was set up in 1998, was worth around £11 million a year, and was supporting around 250,000 workers a year to access learning.

When the need for retraining and reskilling is paramount, this feels like a big mistake. It is difficult to see how a new programme could match the well-established confidence that workplace learners have in Unionlearn.

Worse still, the national skills fund became the rationale for the closure of the Union Learning Fund

In parliament, Gavin Williamson also made clear that the national skills fund would be just that – entirely national.

So where does this leave the mayoral combined authorities that still hold the purse strings on much of the adult education budget? How will the national skills fund complement the investment flowing through the regions?

Perhaps we are being impatient. Around the corner are a spending review, FE white paper and (one assumes) some consultation on the direction of the national skills fund.

The nation is about to enter one of the toughest economic periods in history, with some predicting unemployment rates at similar levels to the 1980s.

The prime minister has made some stirring announcements about the importance of adult learning. Now is the time to add detail to those statements by releasing a plan – for consultation – on the national skills fund.

We appreciate that the government must move quickly in order to bring the new level 3 entitlement in by April as promised.

Welcome though that is, it’s clear that investment in the non-accredited courses and lower level qualifications is also very much needed.

These courses and qualifications often act as necessary stepping-stones towards level 3 qualifications. Not everyone is ready to go straight into a qualification, especially if they have had a negative experience in education previously, or they’ve been out of it for many years.

We also believe that there should be maximum flexibility in the courses available. Essential skills such as critical thinking, communication skills and resilience can all be gained through many different forms of education, not only the narrowly technical and vocational routes.

We at WEA would also point to the importance of adult learning in workplaces and community venues, as well as colleges.

The national skills fund ought to be pragmatic in the short term, but with a clear direction of travel. It can’t be a hasty sticking plaster.

The sector is shooting itself in the foot if we don’t argue that colleges getting financial help should be transparently listed, writes Stuart Rimmer

Should the names of colleges getting bailouts be made public? Well, the simple answer to that simple question is – yes! Of course they should.

Towards the end of last month, details of the revised college oversight policy were amended. We were told colleges that apply for government bailouts will now not automatically fall into formal intervention, although it is unclear why. 

That, of course, means their names won’t be published online. Here’s why that’s a bad idea… 

1.   Values 

This is the most compelling reason to publish college names. Simply put, public funds should be a matter of public record. Earlier in the year FE Week calculated that £725.8 million has been spent on bailouts and restructuring funding, based on National Audit Office figures. This is not just loose change down the back of the sofa. We cannot just ignore it because it may cause embarrassment.

2.   Funding 

The size of bailouts is not always reflective of poor management, as some would try to make us believe. Actually, it often points to chronic underfunding of our sector.

Colleges under intervention rose by two-thirds in 2018-19. Meg Hillier, chair of the influential commons public accounts committee, recently said this situation “paints a stark picture of the college sector’s plight”.  

The scale of intervention and bailouts needs to be known in order to form part of the evidence base for colleges to argue for greater funding. 

3.   Institutional equity

At East Coast College I led one of the first deals in 2017, through the ESFA’s fledgling Transaction Unit, latterly the Provider Market Oversight (PMO), which leads on college financial health in high-risk and complex cases. While I’m not allowed under disclosure to talk directly about it, I can say that we got a weak deal in comparison to many “fresh start” colleges that followed, as the system became more sophisticated, knowledgeable and generous.  

If deals for bailout funding are now permitted behind closed doors – with colleges and agencies hiding behind the nonsense “commercial sensitivity” argument – then the system is not transparent about whether it is treating everyone who passes through it fairly. More importantly, the situation leaves the power dynamic resting unhelpfully with the centre. 

4.   Institutions, not individuals 

One of the big problems with the dialogue around bailout is that individuals often get stigmatised. This must stop. We need to shift the narrative towards “how can we help a college in need?”. As of February 2020, the government was intervening in 48 per cent of all open colleges – with more than one-tenth in formal intervention. This is clearly not an individual personality issue. 

5.   Flattered accounts

Bailouts flatter financial performance reporting. It is a huge injection of cash that can reduce debt gearing, increase cash holding and improve performance ratios, such as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). Not being transparent about them can stifle the public’s understanding of how a college is really performing. 

6.   Details, details, details

More contentiously, I think that not only should the bailout figure be made public but also how it is spent. Currently this relies on freedom of information requests and journalistic wrangling.  

We should know: is the bailout used to reduce debt and create long-term sustainability and drive rapid improvement of student experience? Or is it spent to excess on consultant fees servicing the various machineries of intervention?

The vast majority of colleges spend bailouts wisely. Good consultants no doubt can add huge value, but the rise of ameliorating banks and reporting back to the centre means too many pound notes flutter away from the sector. We should at least start to be honest about this.   

Less backstairs intrigue should make the jobs of the ESFA, Project Management Office and FE Commissioner office easier too.  So win, win, win, win. 

Providers are stuck in a vicious cycle of ignorance and avoidance that frustrates both learners and Ofsted, writes Chris Quickfall

If apprenticeship providers were offered a way to reduce dropout rates, improve the learner experience, satisfy Ofsted and were paid to do so, it would be reasonable to assume that most would jump at the chance. 

What, after all, is not to like? 

Yet when it comes to making and claiming for reasonable adjustments (RAs) to support apprentices with learning needs, there are those providers that still fail to do so. 

The question is, why?

For some providers it’s a case of “once bitten, twice shy”. 

There’s a wariness about making claims for learning support funding that require more evidence, partly because of the perceived admin burden. But it can also be because they’ve had trouble in the past justifying additional payments to auditors. So they are disinclined to put themselves through it again. 

That’s despite the fact that by not providing the support learners need, providers run the much greater risk of being criticised by Ofsted.

At first glance, too, the challenge can seem daunting. Each apprentice is in a different working environment and programmes are strictly controlled in terms of content, timescales and employer involvement. 

Creating individual plans and making the necessary learner adjustments isn’t straightforward without the right experts behind them, and the onus is on the training provider to explain to the employer how they would work. 

Most employers, in my experience, are positive and responsive – but the provider must still manage the process, and that can be off-putting for some.

Many providers are also under the impression that any learning difficulties will be spotted because they already conduct assessments for English and maths. 

Unfortunately, this is a pretty imprecise metric. 

There is a common assumption, for instance, that if an apprentice is bright they won’t have any learning difficulties. That’s simply not true. I’d argue the smarter a learner, the less chance an educator has of spotting any need without a cognitive assessment.

Finally, self-identification can itself obscure the problem rather than illuminate it. 

Yes, one in ten apprentices self-identify with a learning difficulty or disability. But research by Cognassist last month suggests that this is the tip of the iceberg – over one-third of apprentices have a learning difficulty that could require additional support. 

All of which suggests that the issue of unidentified learning difficulties and disabilities is much greater than generally thought.

It suggests the issue of unidentified learning difficulties and disabilities is much greater than generally thought

It then becomes a vicious cycle. Providers aren’t fully aware of how great the problem is, they lack a full understanding of what adjustments can be made, the learner experience suffers, Ofsted isn’t happy, dropout rates rise and employer satisfaction falls. 

And all this happens as providers are missing out on an estimated
£22 million in extra learning support funds.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Our work with Bradford College demonstrates that achievement rates can improve by at least ten per cent with a more robust cognitive assessment process embedded in the learner journey. 

If providers develop a better understanding of the adjustments that can be made and make them, then programmes will be much more tailored to individuals’ needs, achievement rates will go up, dropout rates will fall and funding will increase. And that’s even before any additional learning support payments.

There’s one last, key area that many providers are missing out on when it comes to providing appropriate support, and that’s reasonable adjustments at the end-point assessment (EPA). 

The EPA is a vital part of the learner journey and therefore it’s crucial that any reasonable adjustment needed by the learner is implemented.

All of this requires providers to adopt more flexible and robust assessments and to raise the level of awareness of learning difficulties among trainers and management. 

Only then will they have the confidence to make the adjustments needed and deliver more flexible programmes. 

But as things stand, those providers lacking such a strategy are not only failing to address the needs of their learners, they are also short-changing themselves.

“The Reasonable Adjustments Series” is a season of digital conversations which will break down reasonable adjustments, explain why they matter and the impact they have on learners.  To register for a free seat please visit https://cognassist.me/RAP