Colleges across England are identifying staff that could be eligible for an 80 per cent wage subsidy from the Covid-19 job retention scheme, FE Week understands.

One principal said they had identified “about 30 staff to furlough on the basis that we’ve lost income from apprenticeships and commercial programmes”.

Another said their board had unanimously approved a plan for more than a dozen staff to be furloughed as they worked in restaurants, salons and gyms that relied on fee income and had shut this month.

The coronavirus job retention scheme is a temporary scheme which will last at least three months starting from 1 March 2020.

The government, due to have the scheme up and running by the end of this month, says “employers can use a portal to claim for 80 per cent of furloughed employees’ usual monthly wage costs, up to £2,500 a month, plus the associated Employer National Insurance contributions and minimum automatic enrolment employer pension contributions on that wage”.

But colleges leaders have been seeking more guidance as the HMRC also said: “Where employers receive public funding for staff costs, and that funding is continuing, we expect employers to use that money to continue to pay staff in the usual fashion – and correspondingly not furlough them. This also applies to non-public sector employers who receive public funding for staff costs.”

Many colleges are considering what to do for staff funded from unprotected sources as the Department for Education is only promising to keep paying the Education and Skills Funding Agency grant income.

In a briefing last night, the Association of Colleges said they have had “had lots of queries about the job retention scheme and about whether colleges should use it”.

They warned their member colleges that they have “been told clearly by senior officials that DfE won’t be able to cover all college income streams”…so…“ in the absence of any new guidance, we think it entirely proper for colleges to consider furloughing staff whose roles wholly relate to non-funded activities which have now stopped or to physical locations which are now closed”.

The Treasury, as the body responsible for the scheme, has been approached for comment.

The government’s latest guidance on furloughing during Covid-19 can be found here.

The Department for Education said this week the independent report into their own oversight of college finances will be published “as soon as possible”.

The former skills minister, Anne Milton, commissioned Dame Mary Ney to conduct the review after the shock collapse of the Hadlow College Group revealed serious failings by the funding body to spot warning signs.

It is understood Ney submitted the report on time and it was due for publication last December.

But a spokesperson for the DfE told FE Week today: “Ministers are currently considering the report from Dame Mary Ney and we will publish the report and the Government’s response as soon as possible.”

As previously reported, it is understood that Ney will heavily criticise the Education and Skills Funding Agency for the calculations it uses to determine the financial health scoring and grading. She is expected to argues that had it been more robust, it could have intervened in college failures, such as that of Hadlow, much sooner.

Colleges self-grade using the agency’s scoring system by inputting three measures: one based on cash, another on debt and then margin.

These metrics then formulate an overall financial health grade of ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.

Hadlow College came under investigation by the government once financial irregularities were uncovered, including submitting partial information to the agency so it would generate a ‘good’ financial health rating.

But the FE Commissioner found that had the ESFA looked at Hadlow’s published accounts, they would have rated the college as ‘inadequate’.

Ahead of Ney’s report being published, the system was also criticised by former Skills Funding Agency deputy director Tony Allen, who said when he ran the SFA’s Large Companies Unit: “We had a much better sense of what was going on.”

“We advised and supported, managed risks and dealt with issues as they were arising. Face-to-face support by individual and group methods headed off many early problems.”

But, owing to DfE funding cuts in 2016, this “supportive” approach was dropped in favour of what Allen summarised as “a service desk approach”, which he said was unusual in the public sector as it allowed organisations to be given millions of pounds and told to “get on with it”.

The ESFA has already made changes to the way in which it oversees college finances, seemingly aware its past approach had proved troublesome.

Last September, it was announced college financial returns, historically submitted at least twice a year, will from then on be consolidated into a single annual return.

This, the agency claimed, would help college governors, as well as the ESFA, “spot signs of declining financial health and ensure preventative action can be taken at an earlier stage”.

And in December, the ESFA published a new integrated financial model for colleges, in place of the agency’s modelling for financial plans, financial record, and cash flow forecast.

The National Audit Office has confirmed to FE Week they remain on track to publish the findings from their own enquiry, which is similar to Ney’s, this summer.

Training providers in London are to receive “advance payments” to “support provision and recognise the disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak”, the deputy mayor of the Greater London Assembly (GLA) has revealed this evening.

The two letters signed by Jules Pipe (pictured), sent to providers with devolved adult education budget (AEB) and European Social Fund (ESF) contracts, can be downloaded in full via the links below.

The news comes less than 24 hours after FE Week revealed details of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) support for providers with AEB funding.

Both the GLA and WMCA announcements are responses to the cabinet office guidance on “supplier relief due to Covid-19”.

London’s deputy mayor described the support as demonstrating his “commitment to maintaining a strong and responsive provider base” for around 30 AEB funded providers with £32.5 million of contracts benefiting this year.

But, the majority of AEB funding in England has not been devolved and only the GLA administers ESF locally.

The Department for Education has said they will support colleges that are ‘grant funded’ but has yet to say if or how they will financially support private providers with AEB and ESF contracts. Allocation figures for 2019/20 published by the funding agency show they currently contract with around 230 AEB procured providers to the tune of over £80 million, with a further £8.5 million for procured 19 to 24 traineeships.

In his letter to AEB providers with contracts secured following a tender, know as the ‘procured providers’, Pipe writes: “Your monthly payments will be uplifted to your average monthly earned funding (based on the average of the previous three months) and up to the profiled contract value for the 2019-20 funding year.”

The letter goes on to say: “The funding uplift will be an advance payment and it will be reviewed as part of the end-year reconciliation process in December 2020, at which point the GLA expects to take the impact of Covid-19 classroom delivery closure into consideration as part of any performance management arrangements.”

This will, Pipe continues, require a “variation to your contract”…”and further guidance will follow detailing the arrangements for this.”

The letter to ESF funded providers says that if delivery on the 2019-23 programme has started, providers can “request an additional advance payment of up to 5 per cent of the lifetime contract value to support the project during the period of classroom closures caused by Covid-19”.

Both the AEB and ESF letter say providers are “permitted to carry forward underperformance caused by Covid-19 closures to deliver in future years” … but … “we will need you to commit to ‘open book’ accounting where your delivery is less than the amount we pay you in a month – it is not permissible to accrue any profit on these funds.”

 

Click here download the GLA letter to AEB procured providers

Click here download the GLA letter to ESF providers

The government “cannot require” colleges to remain open over the Easter holidays amid the Covid-19 outbreak, the Association of Colleges has been told.

And colleges that have already closed to all students will not have to reopen.

The AoC published the “urgent clarification” on its website this afternoon following new communication with the Department for Education.

Earlier this month, colleges were told they must keep campuses open only to vulnerable children and those of “key workers” indefinitely, including during the holidays, while most people go on an unprecedented nationwide shutdown.

Emergency legislation, the Coronavirus Bill, went through Parliament last week and received Royal Assent on 25 March. It allows the government to force colleges and schools to stay open or “relax some requirements around education legislation in order to help these institutions run effectively during the event of an emergency”.

While many colleges have stayed open to children of key workers and vulnerable students up to the age of 25, some, such as Totton College and Halesowen College, have closed their sites to everyone. Various plans are in place at the colleges to continue supporting vulnerable learners remotely during the crisis.

The AoC said that over the weekend the DfE published guidance which said vulnerable students, particularly those with a social worker, had to still go into an educational setting during the closure period.

This “raised concerns among colleges”, especially among those that have closed their doors to all students.

“Many asked whether they had to reopen to support these students to attend day-to-day,” the AoC added.

The DfE has now provided the association with the following clarification, which officials will publish in due course: “We expect colleges (including those that have closed) to know where their vulnerable learners are and to have a named member of staff to liaise with social workers.

“We do not expect colleges that have closed to reopen and given the very small numbers of learners attending at each institution we cannot require colleges to remain open over Easter.”

The DfE has been approached for comment.

Training providers in the West Midlands will continue to be funded for the next three months irrespective of their recruitment levels, FE Week can reveal.

A letter sent last night from the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to its adult education budget providers (see links below) said monthly profile payments will be made to providers based on an average of their monthly earnings over the previous three months.

The announcement appears to be the first of its kind based on Cabinet Office supplier relief support due to COVID-19 and comes ahead of any news of support from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

Last Friday, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay said in answer to a parliamentary question that “both the Treasury and Department for Education are exploring the impact of the current disruption with training providers” but that they are still working on “detailed operational guidance, which will be circulated as soon as possible”.

While the WMCA’s funding will be handed over regardless of delivery, their officials will “assume that providers are continuing to deliver where they can and/or are not making a profit on levels of performance below the payment amount”.

In light of these measures, the WMCA said it is “expected” that providers and any subcontractors will “not furlough employees involved in the delivery of WMCA AEB funded learning but will continue to pay them at their current rate”.

The combined authority confirmed their policy reflected the Cabinet Office Guidance Procurement Policy Note – Supplier relief due to COVID-19, published on 20 March, and “our commitment to maintaining a strong and responsive provider base”.

Cabinet Office’s supplier relief guidance states: “Central government organisations should note that managing public money prohibits payment in advance of need in absence of Treasury consent as this is always novel contentious and repercussive.

“However, in the circumstances Treasury consent is granted for payments in advance of need where the Accounting Officer is satisfied that a value for money case is made by virtue of securing continuity of supply of critical services in the medium and long term.

“This consent is capped at 25 per cent of the value of the contract and applies until the end of June 2020.”

Last week, Liverpool City Region and Tees Valley combined authorities announced they would honour their AEB payments for the rest of the 2019/20 academic year. But Liverpool’s also said “any funding deemed to have been spent inappropriately will be recovered from providers.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said providers in the West Midlands will be “very appreciative” of the support that mayor Andy Street and his team has “offered in this very difficult time”.

“We’re also grateful to the other elected mayors for the statements which they are issuing on AEB payments and AELP is asking all MCAs to look carefully at the details of the WMCA announcement and adopt a common approach,” he added.

“The WMCA announcement exposes again the entirely contrary approach that the DfE is taking towards the Cabinet Office guidelines in respect of apprenticeships, national AEB and other skills programmes and in the absence of an explanation, we have to ask why it is refusing to comply with them.”

Lawrence Barton, managing director of GB Training – a private provider that contracts with the WMCA, told FE Week the profiled payments structure set out marks a “strong, pragmatic and sensible approach that offers training providers the financial support they need during this unprecedented period of economic uncertainty”.

“As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds it is leading to significant fluctuations in demand for various skills sets across the region,” he added.

“The WMCA’s model gives us the flexibility we need to be nimble in responding to those variances.

“More fundamentally, the model vindicates the decision to devolve adult education funding provision.”

A spokesperson for BCTG, another private provider contracted with the WMCA, said: “BCTG really welcome this commitment from WMCA to provide stability and clarity in terms of funding in the medium term.

“BCTG supports a sub-contractor supply chain of 15 providers, who are reliant on maintaining cashflow. The additional flexibilities introduced will allow us to target those most affected by the crisis, such as those needing to reskill and those who are at increasing risk of losing their jobs.”

The Department for Education said last week it would only continue to pay grant-funded colleges during the Covid-19 crisis, and that government policy “does not allow payment for services in advance of delivery”.

Six mayoral combined authority areas and the Greater London Authority had millions in adult education budget funding devolved to them in August 2019. The West Midlands Combined Authority’s annual budget totals £125.6 million.

Around £28 million of that was put out to tender and split between 21 private training providers. The rest goes to grant funded providers, such as colleges.

Important documents for WMCA providers (click to view):

Letter to AEB providers

Payment declaration

Information about Covid-19 flexibilities

“It might help” colleges if they were allowed to access the government’s new free school meal vouchers scheme, their membership organisation has said.

From today, schools can provide every eligible child with a weekly shopping voucher worth £15 to spend at supermarkets while they’re closed due to coronavirus.

Parents will receive the voucher through their child’s school, which can then be redeemed online via a code, or sent to their house as a gift card and used at stores such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and M&S.

But the scheme is not open to colleges – a decision which one FE leader has labelled as “extremely disappointing” and shows the government has “deemed post-16 students as less in need of financial support to eat at this time”.

The average college has “hundreds” of 16 to 18-year-olds who would normally receive free meals, according to the Association of Colleges.

The Department for Education told FE Week that FE institutions are already themselves supporting many students who are entitled to free meals, and it will provide further guidance for them on this in the coming days.

It is not clear whether any financial support, like what is being made available to schools, will be open to college students.

AoC’s chief executive, David Hughes, said: “Just like schools, the shutdown of colleges has left hundreds of 16 to 18-year-olds in every college who would normally receive free meals at risk of going hungry.

“Colleges have been making their own arrangements to ensure their students access to regular meals – generally by making payments direct to student bank accounts.

“This may not be not sustainable and it might help if Department for Education extended the national voucher scheme on an opt-in basis for colleges.”

A student services lead at a general FE college, who did not wish to be named, was outraged with the DfE’s decision.

“This is a gross misunderstanding of the part young people in FE learning play within their community and family,” they told FE Week.

“Many are independent livers, carers for parents, grandparents and younger siblings, currently we need a whole family approach to financial support. Any delay to this approach puts families at risk.”

They added: “Our college has used a system that enables us to ensure we can bridge the Easter holiday gap, however there will be a variety of systems in place and those who cannot do that will be frustrated by this move.”

As reported by this newspaper last week, FE providers have already taken matters into their own hands in the absence of the universal voucher system.

For example, Boston College and MidKent College both opted for direct payments to students or their parents or carers.

The Department for Education has suspended its new College Collaboration Fund to “help colleges focus on their staff and students’ welfare” during the coronavirus pandemic.

Planned pilots for a governor recruitment scheme and board performance audits have also been paused.

The £9 million collaboration fund was first unveiled last month and will allow bids of up to £500,000 to be submitted by groups of colleges to “share good practice and expertise”.

The 12-month programme is supposed to run during the 2020-21 financial year, with the deadline for the first round of applications set for 8 April 2020.

But announcing a suspension of the process today, the DfE said: “We will be adjusting the timescales for the governance pilots and the college collaboration fund (CCF) to help colleges focus on their staff and students’ welfare.

“We are exploring flexibilities within CCF to support colleges in developing good practice on maintaining delivery.”

The Association of Colleges has also said applications to the grant scheme have been suspended until further notice, as providers mobilise against the Covid-19 outbreak.

The DfE is yet to say when applications will resume.

The pilots being paused are worth over £200,000 combined.

One, the ‘FE Colleges Governor Recruitment Services Pilot’, will include at least 30 “effective leaders” being recruited as chairs, deputy chairs, and finance and audit chairs for colleges in “the greatest need of help”.

The other pilot is for around 30 board “capability reviews”, which would also be run at struggling colleges referred to the supplier by the FE Commissioner or the ESFA.

An Ofsted consultation that includes plans to withhold inspection reports until complaints are resolved has been extended by four weeks.

The ‘changes to Ofsted’s post-inspection processes and complaints handling: proposed improvements’ call for evidence was launched on 3 March and had a deadline of 31 March.

But due to the coronavirus pandemic, the watchdog announced this morning that schools, colleges, training providers and other stakeholders will now have until 30 April.

Earlier this month, Ofsted suspended routine inspections and the publication of inspection reports until further notice.

In an FE Week webinar last week, the inspectorate’s deputy director for FE and skills Paul Joyce said this was because they are “well aware providers have enough to deal with”.

He added that Ofsted will have “do the right thing” as its mantra going forward.

Included in this consultation are plans to withhold publication of inspection reports until the inspectorate has resolved complaints about them.

It proposes that formal complaints raised by providers within two working days of receiving their final report will effectively delay publication of the report until the complaint is dealt with.

Under the current system, providers have to submit formal complaints within 10 days of an issue of concern, but Ofsted does not normally withhold publication of reports while it considers complaints.

The watchdog’s consultation admits the current approach has led to it having to take action after it has published a report “when a complaint investigation highlights an error in the inspection process”.

The consultation also proposes that providers will receive five working days to review their draft report and submit concerns about issues of “factual accuracy and the inspection process”. At the moment, they only receive one, but some other types of provider get longer.

Ofsted also wants to introduce “greater consistency” in post-inspection arrangements.

A new timeline will mean that all providers “should expect to see their draft report within 18 working days of the end of their inspection”, and Ofsted will aim to issue all final reports to providers “within 30 working days of the end of the inspection”.

The current system of internal reviews, which are the last step for those not satisfied with the way their complaint has been handled, will be retained.

Ofqual is hiring a director to lead a new apprenticeships team that will be “operating in the field” as it steps up its regulatory work in the end-point assessment market.

This “critical new function” will include a team of nine who work remotely to find out if assessments are being delivered “appropriately and consistently”.

Led by the ‘associate director for vocational and technical qualifications assessment delivery’, a job advert for whom is currently live with an annual salary offer of up to £71,050, the team will be “deployed to monitor, evaluate and report on” end-point assessment organisations (EPAOs).

They will “secure evidence and insight” that can be used to “address risks that EPAs do not deliver a sufficiently valid and reliable measure of occupational competence”.

The recruitment drive comes a month after a consultation on plans for Ofqual to become the external quality assurer (EQA) for all but integrated degree apprenticeships within the next two years was launched.

Currently there are 20 EQA organisations, a mix of professional bodies, employers and quangos, which monitor the near-300 EPAOs that run examinations for apprentices.

The consultation states that all EPAOs will need to become registered with Ofqual over time.

The exams regulator’s job advert states that its work in apprenticeships has increased over recent years, and will be “growing again over the next two years as more end-point assessments become regulated”.

The new director and field team’s work will range between “very broad thematic activities looking across or within apprenticeships standards, industry sectors or assessment methodologies to highly specific activity looking at aspects of single provider, niche provision”.

Activity will “routinely include working alongside Professional Body and Employer representatives and the Associate Director will need to work with the wider VTQ leadership team and external organisations including the Institute for Apprenticeships to draw on and maximise the impact of sector expertise”.

Field operations could include “supporting EPAO fora to discuss and resolve identified inconsistencies in EPA delivery or to secure greater comparability in the level of demand of assessments between different EPAOs delivering against the same apprenticeship standard”.

“The field team may give targeted advice to individual EPAOs, produce thematic reports on cross cutting issues and gather intelligence or evidence that will inform subsequent compliance activity,” the job advert added.

“Field work approaches must be designed to be both adaptable and targeted and could range between very broad thematic activities looking across or within apprenticeship standards, industry sector or assessment methodologies to highly specific activity looking at aspects of single provider, niche provision.”

The deadline for applications to the director role is 19 April. Interview dates are scheduled for May 2020, but they’re subject to change in light of the coronavirus pandemic.