A two-year £10 million project to renovate the digital apprenticeship service as it is scaled up is being launched by the Department for Education.
The development, to start as soon as next month, will aim to “simplify processes to remove burden” by, for example, creating a new function for paying end-point assessment organisations direct.
Large levy-paying employers have had full use of the digital service to manage their apprenticeships since the “minimum viable” system became operational in 2017.
It currently allows businesses to manage their apprenticeship funding, select a suitable standard or framework, choose a provider to deliver training and provide digital certification.
Over the last three years the department has “continued to add new capabilities” that are “connected through personalised user-outcome, AI based, real time data model”.
Two tenders looking for suppliers to now “make the service easy to use” and enable “all employers take greater control of apprenticeship funding” are currently live from the DfE and total £5 million each.
The successful bidders must scale the apprenticeship service “so that this holds true at significant volumes”.
Another “problem to be solved”, according to the tenders, is to “surface unmet demand to the marketplace” by “ensuring suppliers have visibility of real-time employer demand and can explore opportunities to fill gaps and meet employers skills needs”.
Officials also want the service to “mature” by suppliers “building out our continuous improvement function with focus on simplifying processes to remove burden, ensuring we maintain service availability and reliability as we scale the volume of users and increasing performance and efficiency”.
A key part of the upgrade will be to add a function that enables end-point assessment organisations to receive payment direct from government – rather than the current system where they are paid through training providers.
The incumbent software house supporting the digital apprenticeship service is the firm Contractsonline Ltd.
Both DfE tenders are worth up to £5 million and both “opportunities will both be supporting apprenticeship services”.
“Whilst there is some cross over in capabilities required for delivery, there is varying essential criteria which we are looking for in each opportunity,” the tenders state.
“They will be run independently of each other and will be assessed against the skills experience outlined. The current delivery model brings together managed services, potentially from different suppliers and permanent staff.”
While the government has promised £1.5 billion of new cash to colleges over this parliament to create “cutting-edge facilities”, a number of multi-million-pound building projects are already under way.
Construction was being pushed ahead for Institutes of Technology and T-level facilities ahead of their rollout in September, but the coronavirus pandemic has stopped some in their tracks and put question marks over their completion dates.
FE Week spoke with a number of affected colleges to find out how they have adapted to delivering the projects during this crisis.
Capital projects to launch T-levels in September
Almost £40 million has been made available in capital funding for providers delivering T-levels from this September to use for building new classrooms and refurbishing buildings.
Derby College Group received £1.2 million as it was delivering T-levels in the construction, digital and education and childcare, which it has spent on a virtual reality laboratory, new digital laboratories and a space for construction students.
The Roundhouse at Derby College, which will be getting enhanced facilities for its T-level
After skills minister Gillian Keegan told providers in April the T-level roll-out would go ahead as planned in September, DCG decided to progress the works as the time was “opportune”, due to minimal occupancy levels by staff and students on-site.
Vice principal Kate Martin said although lockdown presented the estates team with “some challenges in progressing the work, we are confident that these will be ready for the first T-level learners in September”.
The college said construction workers are encouraged to wear gloves and masks, and hand- washing facilities and sanitisers are being provided. An independent health and safety consultancy is checking whether social distancing guidelines are being adhered to.
The college is also putting in place measures so that a minimum amount of personnel are on site at any one time – including through the use of staggered start and finish times.
Principal Nav Chohan said his college is “still on target to deliver all capital works and the new curriculum for September”, but would “continue to monitor progress in the light of any future Covid-related restrictions”.
Although “the planned works are not major”, he said the current lockdown restrictions would need to be lifted to some degree so work can continue.
Havant & South Downs College in Hampshire, which won £495,000 in July, has said work is due to start in June on refurbishing three spaces for T-levels in education, construction and digital. A spokesperson told FE Week: “Our focus for T-level delivery from September 2020 remains.”
With regard to social distancing measures to be followed on site, she said: “We are content that the necessary steps will be taken to comply with government guidelines.”
Conceptual images for Dudley College’s Institute of Technology
But construction work for Dudley College, which led a successful £30 million bid to build facilities in advanced manufacturing, modern construction methodologies and medical engineering, grounded to a halt following the Covid-19 outbreak.
It has since put in social distancing measures, but the project is now five weeks behind.
The measures meant that toilets, the canteen and site offices were scaled up to multiple cabins so workers could be the minimum two metres apart.
A spokesperson said contractors are “confident” some time will be made up so the institute can open as planned in September 2021.
Exeter College, which was part of a consortium led by the University of Exeter and received £15 million for an Institute of Technology, is building a new digital and data centre on site that is set to be completed early next year.
Robert Woolcock, operations director at Exeter’s building contractor Willmott Dixon, said personal protective equipment (PPE) was in adequate supply at the site and, after initial difficulties in getting hold of stocks, hand sanitiser and cleaning products were being distributed.
And because the college is closed: “We have been able to open up additional canteen and welfare facilities for the site workforce to use which has ensured that social distancing can be observed in break times as well as during construction.”
HCUC in London is part of a group building an £8.6 million Institute of Technology, based on Uxbridge College’s campus and focused on subjects such as computing, games design and animation, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and building services and construction.
The college said all construction work had continued through the pandemic with a reduced workforce, and the institute will be ready to accommodate new learners from October.
Solihull College and University Centre said its advanced manufacturing and engineering Institute of Technology opened to its first students last September, but it then carried out capital investment projects on campus, with a completion date set for this September.
The college said it is “ensuring building work is completed in a way which adheres to social distancing and associated safety advice”.
But where this is not possible, the spokesperson said, construction work has been paused.
Mayoral combined authority and local enterprise partnership projects
A number of college building projects, paid for out of mayoral combined authorities’ and local enterprise partnerships’ capital funds, have also been in the works for a number of years.
A spokesperson said it does not yet know how its projects will be impacted by coronavirus, but “there will likely be some impact in the long term”.
Halesowen College, in the West Midlands, is spending £8.4 million to reshape its main campus to create an essential skills and business, construction management and digital centre, along with a student hub.
However, construction work on the project, which is being part-funded by the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership, stopped for a week when the lockdown was announced, and only resumed once the government made it clear such work could continue.
Following this, workers had to sign to say they have read and understood the government’s guidelines on safe operating procedures and new Covid-19 risk assessments.
Everyone working on site has been issued with PPE and the number of people on site is kept to a minimum, with people like architects and surveyors working digitally through the use of live streams and video conferencing.
Regular safety briefings are held for everyone working on site, and they are all aware that if they or a member of their household display symptoms, they should not come to site, a spokesperson for the college said.
She said this “fastidious approach” to safety on site means the project is still on track to meet its original deadline of December 2020.
Michelle Brabner’s first days in her new job as college principal occurred just as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
It would be fair to say that I consider myself fortunate. My family and I remain healthy so far, I have a career I am passionate about, and even though I find myself working from my spare room, I do have a spare room and garden space to enjoy (in those intended, but never quite managed, breaks!). I was thrilled to become the principal of Southport College and King George V Sixth Form, and started in my role with great excitement on March 9.
Coronavirus was impacting on the UK and discussions around how it would affect colleges were high on the agenda.
My first couple of days were a repeating whirlwind of meeting staff and students and discussing coronavirus. At the end of my first week I remember thinking what an amazing and crazy time it had been, not quite what I expected, and thank goodness I didn’t have to close the college in the first few days.
Starting contingency planning for a pandemic wasn’t my preferred focus when joining the college – I wanted to get to know the people.
Starting week two, closure was certain, and the priority had to be continuing the planning for this. Thankfully, the college staff had focused on the need to move to distance learning after our early discussions, and lots of testing of systems and processes were under way. Eight days into my time at the college we had to take the decision to move to remote working. I fear I may go down in history as the principal that joined the college and then closed us within days! But, it was the right thing to do.
I have always been a believer in the crucial importance of relationships and how we make people feel. Every day in lockdown I miss the chance to interact with the students. Thankfully I had opportunities before the coronavirus hit to make a start on establishing relationships. The college had a successful full
inspection in February and I was able to spend many hours with staff focused on securing the best possible outcome. At the time I could never have known just how much of an investment that would be. The outcome was ‘good’, although celebrations have been somewhat muted by the pandemic.
On day one at the college I did introductory presentations, just so staff knew who I was – the person behind the role. At the time it felt a little self-indulgent, but at least the staff now know the face at the end of the emails I am sending to keep everyone informed and hopefully feeling supported. Who knew that Teams, Zoom and emails would become the main tools in developing those critical working relationships?
But oh how I miss a face-to-face brew with the people I work with!
I am one of many people who have completed a course at the Oxford University Saïd Business School to prepare me for a principalship. It was great, prepping me for finance, governance and strategy among other things. What was certainly not included was moving a college to remote working in a matter of days.
I am sure we will come out of this with innovations and a continued passion for our role in the community
Despite this, I find many positives, not least what a superb group of people I have joined. They are committed to supporting everyone, whether it means finding PPE in far-flung corners of our buildings to get to the NHS, delivering loan laptops to students, or rapidly creating a vibrant learning community online. I love nothing more than to hear the great news of innovations that are happening. We’ve seen motor vehicle workshop sessions delivered from home garages, and A-level students discussing current affairs in online debates.
New to the college? Yes, I definitely am. Proud to be working with staff who respond to a challenge with positivity, gusto and passion? Absolutely. Looking forward to the day when we’re working physically together in our new and improved “normal”? Categorically. FE has great support networks and I am sure we will come out of this with innovations and a continued passion for our role in the community.
Someone close to me recently shared that when we work outside of our comfort zone we feel challenged.
But our comfort zones are not rigid – they stretch. Without realising it, magic happens, and what was once a challenge starts to fall within our comfort zone. Let’s keep making the magic happen and carry on expanding and growing as a sector.
A college in Eastbourne has allowed its local hospital to relocate its chemotherapy unit to its campus to ensure cancer patients can be treated in a safe setting during the coronavirus pandemic.
East Sussex College’s Kings Building has been transformed to support the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and is currently used to treat, on average, 85 patients per day.
A spokesperson for the trust said the purpose of the move was to “protect the most vulnerable from entering the acute hospital” and to provide “additional bed capacity within the hospitals, should we have seen the Covid surge that we were expecting”.
The trust’s healthcare team had to make a number of adjustments to the college’s building, which is usually used for beauty courses, such as reviewing health and safety, fire safety, deep cleaning and security.
Becky Cavalier, head of nursing at the trust, said they are “extremely grateful to East Sussex College”.
“Everyone involved in organising this temporary relocation has been fantastic and pulled out all the stops to make it happen,” she added. “We were treating patients within a week of our first initial conversation with the college.”
And this is not all East Sussex College is doing to help the NHS during the current crisis.
Julian Kupper, an engineering tutor who teaches at the Ore Valley campus in Hastings, has been using his 3D printer at home to produce hundreds of protective face shields for local healthcare staff, alongside teaching his students online.
The first batch of 150 visors were delivered to Eastbourne District General Hospital on April 6.
Kupper said: “About four weeks ago it became evident to me that there would be an increasing and dire need for PPE and specialist medical equipment. I spent two days looking at what others were doing in different countries to tackle this issue and found a design for masks that I could produce using my 3D printer.”
He found a suitable design that met EU specification and began printing at his home at the end of March.
“I arranged for two of the college-owned printers to be delivered to my house and have spent time producing the visors and communicating with the local NHS trust and the exec team at the college.”
Kupper said he is determined to continue with the production of the masks until the demand begins to drop.
Pictured from left: Caroline, Jenny, Maria, Emma, Seena, Tracy, Lorraine from the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust chemotherapy team in East Sussex College
More than 30 Darlington College workers have run the equivalent of four marathons in their daily hours of exercise since April 14 to raise funds for their local hospice to battle Covid-19.
The college’s marketing and engagement manager Claire Turner said she was “thrilled and quite emotional” when so many staff signed up for the event.
“We asked them to chronicle their runs and it has been fascinating to see where our colleagues have been running and how they are getting on. We are looking forward to how much the event will finally raise.”
Staff raced to raise the funds, almost £700 so far, after hearing that locally based St Teresa’s Hospice had to cancel or postpone a number of fundraisers due to coronavirus.
The hospice needs to raise £3 million a year to provide free care for people with life-limiting illnesses and their families.
Even though it can get extra support from government, the hospice is still facing a deficit on that £3 million target.
Although each staff member was asked to do a mile of the marathon, some chose to run the full 26 miles themselves.
St Teresa’s chief executive Jane Bradshaw said the speed with which the college organised the fundraiser was “astounding”.
“We are so grateful for their continued support and can’t thank the staff enough because it is help like this that allows us to continue our work at this very difficult time.”
Darlington College has also donated personal protective equipment to the hospice.
Pictured: Darlington College Assistant Principal Mike Chapman with his son Hendrix as they prepare to join a virtual marathon in aid of St Teresa’s Hospice
A high-profile QC has worked with solicitors to write to the apprenticeships minister, Gillian Keegan, arguing that the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s provider relief scheme is “unlawful”.
James Goudie QC, a senior silk at 11KBW, as well as a deputy High Court judge and a master of the bench of the Inner Temple, was instructed by the law firm VWV to help present the case in a letter on behalf of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.
The letter from VWV, dated April 27 and shared with the media, comes after the ESFA excluded the majority of apprenticeship provision from the relief scheme launched last Friday on the basis it was not covered by the Cabinet Office’s coronavirus policy notice PPN 02/20.
Keegan had told MPs that where apprentices are recorded on the government’s digital system, the contractual relationship is between the employer and the provider, rather than the government.
The lawyers counter this argument, stating that “this is comprehensively wrong in at least three respects”.
“First, the source of funding is simply irrelevant. Second, there is a contractual relationship for the provision of apprenticeship services. Third, there is more than one contractual relationship and it is important to focus on the right one.”
Goudie goes on to explain that the “scope” of the Cabinet Office guidance states that it “covers goods, services and works contracts being delivered in the UK” – which all apprenticeship providers fall under.
“These are public service contracts, by way of duly procured framework agreements and all providers had to go through an application process with the ESFA to pass quality and financial thresholds to be admitted on to the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers,” Goudie said.
“Our clients are calling for no more, and no less, than the straightforward application to their situation of straightforward guidance.”
His letter states that the AELP’s case is that apprenticeships funded through the digital system have a “plain and obvious entitlement by way of legitimate expectation to supplier relief under the guidance” and it is “unclear on what the failure to pay is based”.
The failure not to provide supplier relief, if persisted in, will be “unlawful”, it continues.
“This is on each of two broad grounds. First, the failure is not in accordance with, but is contrary to, the guidance. Second, it is discriminatory.”
It goes on to list a number of aspects of the DfE’s decision that “display a multiplicity of legal errors” including that failure to comply with Cabinet Office guidance is an “abuse of power”.
The letter concludes: “We understand that you are conducting a review. We trust that the threatened injustice will speedily be removed.”
A DfE spokesperson confirmed they have received the letter from the AELP and “we will respond in due course”.
There are 1,624 main and employer providers on the register of apprenticeship training providers currently, of which 593 have non-levy allocations this year, amounting to £690 million.
That means there are 1,031 providers that only have access to levy funding, and are therefore not eligible for the supplier relief.
The DfE has also confirmed that non-levy apprenticeships funded via an employer transfer or that have recently transitioned on to the government’s digital system will not be eligible for supplier relief.
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 provider with the largest number of starts in that period was Lifetime Training.
FE Week analysis shows that of their 10,000 recruits, more than 90 per cent were funded through the government’s digital system and are therefore ineligible.
Lifetime’s chief executive, Alex Khan, told this newspaper they will not be applying for the financial support as a result.
But Khan is not expecting the lack of additional help to have a big impact on his business, as it may do for others.
“Whilst the government furlough scheme is in place the main cost burden for Lifetime can be managed. However, it is worth noting that we do not have many training facilities or academies that we are exposed to funding whilst they are vacant,” he said.
“This is not true, however, for large portions of the sector, where the financial exposure to such indirect costs will make things incredibly difficult.”
The dramatic impact of the coronavirus crisis on apprentice recruitment is laid bare for the first time in a survey of over 300 providers.
Responding to an FE Week request for data on the last day of April, 304 providers said they had between them planned 13,732 starts in the month but only achieved 2,693, missing their pre-coronavirus expectations by 80 per cent.
And 137 of the providers that responded, whilst planning 3,756 starts in the month, said they had not been able to start a single apprentice.
The findings will come as a concern to the apprenticeships minister, Gillian Keegan, who earlier in the week had said her “biggest worry is the recruitment of new apprentices”.
On an FE Week webcast Keegan said the ESFA would be receiving data on starts in early May “so we’ll have a couple of weeks probably to look at that and analyse it”.
She acknowledged that “potentially businesses and others are not going to have this top of mind right now” but was concerned about “how to keep the whole pipeline going with all this uncertainty”.
Many providers spoke openly about the impact on recruitment this month, with employers hit by the lockdown and focused on little else other than survival.
Grant Glendinning, principal at Carlisle College, said they had no starts in April, despite originally planning for 180, covering construction, engineering, motor vehicle mechanics, accounting, business administration and health and social care.
He told FE Week: “There is huge disruption to the apprenticeship ‘supply chain’ currently. Employers are in survival mode, and there is little capacity for them to focus on training over business continuity.”
Lee Acton, chief executive at Skillnet Limited, planned 120 automotive starts in April but in reality there were none “as in the main they would have no members of staff to mentor them as they are either furloughed or working flat out to deal with existing business”.
Other providers continue to start apprentices, but far fewer than planned.
HIT Training, one of the largest training providers in the country, had 102 starts out of 700, representing just 15 per cent of the plan. Managing director, Jill Whittaker, said: “80 per cent of the hospitality sector is on furlough, and the care sector is either closed (early years) or extremely busy (healthcare and adult care).”
But not all providers have seen reductions.
Jo Phillips, apprentice operations manager at Staffordshire University, said all 34 starts on police-related apprenticeships that had been planned did take place in April.
Responses to the survey suggested the ability to continue to start apprentices was highly dependent on the industry.
In the case of Capital City College Training, with 27 starts out of a planned 100, their managing director, Jackie Chapman, said they haven’t recruited the planned starts in healthcare, construction and catering but they did go ahead in project management, pharmacy and management.
The provider feedback also suggested that where starts are still taking place, they were typically from public sector organisations.
One respondent from a large apprenticeship provider with 200 out of a planned 400 starts in April said: “The impact is almost a clear split between public and private sector. The public sector has shown significant growth in comparison to normal months.
“Whereas, as a provider, we traditionally see 10 to 15 per cent of total starts being from the public sector, April has seen this jump to almost 60 per cent. Even this number in comparison to a ‘standard’ month is showing comfortable growth. This has been heavily driven by cohort level starts in central government departments.”
Keegan was keen to point out earlier this week that it was important to make sure “everybody is aware that furloughed employees can start apprenticeships”.
September is the “peak” month for recruitment, she said, so “we really need to stay close to this over the next few months to really do the best job we can”.
A cross-party group of MPs is fighting to save a land-based college they fear could be closed following the launch of an FE Commissioner review of its provision.
Conservative MP Neil Hudson, who represents Penrith and the Border in Cumbria, has been joined by other local members of parliament, including former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and former education select committee member Trudy Harrison in an attempt to preserve Newton Rigg College.
FE Commissioner Richard Atkins has been ordered to review the provider by its parent college.
Askham Bryan College, based 100 miles away in York, took over the running of Newton Rigg from the University of Cumbria in 2011.
While Askham Bryan has remained tight-lipped on the reasons behind the review, Hudson told FE Week it is “looking at how the needs of the students can be supported and what provision is required locally and what alternative options are required for delivery”.
The governing body will consider the findings and decide what further action is needed
The worry for the community and himself is “what does this mean for the long-term future of the college?”. His understanding was that the review would look at whether its provision could be run elsewhere.
Because of that, he decided to launch a campaign to secure that future and seek support from like-minded stakeholders to discuss “viable future plans for the college”, which they can present to Atkins and the Department for Education.
Hudson is currently running a petition for people to show their support for Newton Rigg College, which he said has been signed by over 900 people at the time of writing.
He said the college, which is over a century old, had a “tremendous” heritage and is “unique” in the county for specialising in land-based sectors.
Newton Rigg offers apprenticeships between levels 2 and 4, as well as a number of short courses, in a range of land-based disciplines, including agriculture, arboriculture and animal and vet nursing.
Just eight months ago, plans were being drawn up for a new state-of-the-art “high tech” centre for the college, after a £2.4 million dairy unit was opened there in 2014, followed by a £450,000 sheep husbandry centre in 2017.
Hudson said the Covid-19 crisis had put into “sharp relief the importance of training people up to go into the land-based economy” as the pandemic highlighted the importance of both food security and “good supplies of locally provided food”.
The FE Commissioner was invited to carry out the review in December, according to the Department for Education, and when it is finished, the findings will be given to the college, who will have discretion on when to publish it.
Askham Bryan principal Tim Whitaker said it was “an independent review of educational provision”, anticipated to conclude in May.
“The governing body will consider the findings and decide what further action is needed,” he said, adding:
“All courses at Newton Rigg campus are continuing as planned for this academic year, 2019-20.”
The college declined to comment on why it had commissioned the review.
Were Newton Rigg to close, the nearest FE college would be Carlisle College – which is over an hour away on public transport.
He is not the first MP to stand up publicly in recent months for under-threat local campuses.
In February, Conservative MP for Rother Valley, Alexander Stafford, organised a meeting with Atkins over plans by the RNN Group to shut its “under-utilised” campus in Dinnington, South Yorkshire.
And former Conservative MP and minister Margot James held a debate in parliament last October to raise her concerns with minister Michelle Donelan over the sale by BMet of Stourbridge College, in her constituency.
Meanwhile, Labour MP Mike Amesbury has called on Warrington & Vale Royal College principal Nichola Newton to stand down over plans to sell off the college’s Hartford campus, telling FE Week last month that a “more concerted effort” should have been made by the college to develop “a good FE offer” at the campus.
