The government has committed to building “stronger” relationships with colleges, including increased dialogue with all college boards from September.

New whistle-blowing requirements will also be imposed on colleges, and there will be “strengthened” alignment between the FE Commissioner and the Education and Skills Funding Agency, according to skills minister Gillian Keegan.

It comes after Dame Mary Ney’s independent review of college financial oversight, published this morning, concluded there needs to be a shift to “nurturing and supporting” all colleges on an individual basis to spot early signs of weakness.

However, it is not clear whether ESFA staffing, which has suffered from years of cuts and was a key area of concern to Ney, will increase to boost oversight.

Her review was initiated after Hadlow and West Kent and Ashford Colleges were placed in education administration last year.

The overarching recommendation was that there needs to be a “more proactive relationship with all colleges individually”, as opposed to the current regime which is “largely focussed on financial failure”.

In the government’s response, skills minister Gillian Keegan said she endorses the view that government “must have a strategic relationship with FE colleges”.

“This means not just acting as a regulator, or intervening in the event of failure, but ensuring that every college is part of a coherent plan to meet local and regional need.”

She said the FE Commissioner Richard Atkins has played a “critical role” in bringing FE practitioner expertise into government, so she intends to “maintain the role, reporting directly to ministers as a public appointment, but strengthening alignment with the ESFA, and placing its civil service support team there”, as first reported by FE Week in May.

“This change will further empower and develop the ESFA’s territorial teams and enable them to draw upon practitioner expertise,” Keegan added.

“There will be a regular strategic dialogue with each college board around priorities. This will reduce the perception that support is only available to colleges in trouble, and focus not just on prevention but on building success and outstanding practice.”

Ney’s review also recommended further action to improve the effectiveness of the financial data collected from colleges.

Keegan said that in February, the ESFA “took the first step” towards adopting a new integrated single data return, and they have also commissioned a July financial collection to assess the financial impact of Covid-19 on the sector.

“This will enable us to continue to work with governing bodies to mitigate financial risks arising from Covid-19, avoid failure and help reduce intervention, while remaining ready to act decisively when necessary.”

She added that this will be supported through “additional requirements” for colleges to be transparent – including protection for whistle blowers – through the ESFA’s Audit Code of Practice and grant conditions.

Starting from 2020/21, they will require “all colleges to publish their whistleblowing policy externally”.

The ESFA is also “considering” the link between the ESFA’s financial assessments and Ofsted judgements.

Keegan has also committed to reviewing the agency’s governance guidance to “strengthen transparency” after Ney warned that failures of financial stewardship have “at their core weaknesses in leadership and poor adherence to effective governance arrangements”.

In addition, the minister confirmed that there will be a new round of the College Collaboration Fund after the review highlighted how a collaborative rather than competitive approach between colleges has driven improvement.

Further changes are expected to be announced as part of the FE White Paper after the summer.

Keegan concluded: “Fundamentally, Dame Mary Ney’s report demonstrates that government must set out a long-term radical vision which places colleges where they belong – driving the success of regional economies and communities. This could not be more opportune.”

Ney said: “I am encouraged that the recommendations from the review are now being taken forward by the department, as part of the development of an ambitious strategy for sector. I wish all in the sector well in their endeavours.”

But one area Keegan fails to address in her response is a 60 per cent reduction in ESFA staff capacity for oversight of all colleges, which Ney says has led to “prioritisation of resources to focus on the most problematic cases”.

FE Week asked the government if it is considering increasing ESFA staffing in light of Ney’s review but they declined to comment.

The number of apprentices that small employers can start through the digital apprenticeship service will increase from three to 10 from tomorrow, the government has announced.

This cap will be in place for the remainder of the 2020-21 financial year, as from April 2021 the Education and Skills Funding Agency plans for all starts to go through the online apprenticeship system.

The digital service was launched in April 2017 but was only for levy-paying employers to manage and spend their apprenticeship funding.

Since January 2020 employers who do not pay the apprenticeship levy have been able to create accounts on the service and reserve funding for an apprenticeship in advance of recruitment as part of the ESFA’s move away from the use of government-procured contracts. 

However, non-levy payers were capped at just three starts each owing to ongoing affordability issues.

In a new document outlining how apprenticeship funding will work from August 2020, published today, the ESFA said: “For the remainder of the financial year 2020-21, the number of ‘active’ or ‘used’ reservations available to non-levy payers at any given time will increase from three to 10.

“This enables non-levy paying employers to recruit more apprentices for their businesses through the apprenticeship service.

“This policy will come into effect from 15 July and will continue to be kept under review as we further assess how the new system is working.”

The agency reiterated that the transition period to move all employers who do not pay the apprenticeship levy onto the apprenticeship service has been extended from October 2020.

Funds available to providers through non-levy procured contract allocations can be used for new starts until 31 March 2021 and “we plan to fund all starts through the apprenticeship service from 1 April 2021”. 

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has this afternoon published details of the eligibility rules for the new apprenticeship employer incentives.

Cash “bonuses” for new hires that start an apprenticeship were first announced by the chancellor as part of the summer statement last Wednesday.

From August 2020 until the 31 January 2021, businesses taking on new apprentices will be rewarded with £2,000 for a 16 to 24-year-old and £1,500 for a 25 year-old.

Eligibility for the cash, we now know, requires that the apprentice “must not have been employed by the employer within the six months prior to the [apprenticeship] contract start date”.

The document goes on to say that there is no limit on the number of incentive payments and “the payment will be made directly to employers in two equal instalments, where the apprentice is still in learning at day 90 and day 365”.

This means, unlike the current £1,000 payment to the employer for taking on a 16 to 18-year-old (which remains in place and is passed on to the employer by the provider) the employer will need to claim the incentive payment via the online apprenticeship system from 1 September 2020.

With the 90 day rule, the earliest the first half of the incentive payment would be received for an apprentice starting in August would, it seems, be 30 October.

A new public awareness campaign to boost the popularity of higher technical education is to be launched by government as ministers confirm plans for “major” reform in this area.

As first announced by former education secretary Damian Hinds in 2018, the Department for Education is planning to overhaul qualifications at levels 4 and 5.

Following a consultation, current education secretary Gavin Williamson today confirmed that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education will be approving new and existing higher technical qualifications, and awarding them a quality mark, starting with the digital sector from 2022.

The idea is to create a “high quality” technical option for students to progress onto after T-levels or an apprenticeship, particularly in skill-shortage sectors like construction, manufacturing and digital.

The DfE said the quality of the existing 4,000 qualifications at levels 4 and 5  – such as higher national certificates and diplomas that sit between A-level and degrees – can be “variable” and it can be “hard for students and employers to find the ones that are right for them”.

New higher technical qualifications will therefore only be approved where they “provide the skills employers need” and meet “employer-led occupational standards”.

To increase uptake, the DfE is developing a “new public awareness campaign” to be launched in autum next year.

The department was unable to say how much their communications strategy would cost or what it would involve, but a spokesperson said it will “showcase the benefits and the wide range of opportunities that studying a higher technical qualification can open up and making sure students get the right information, advice and guidance to make informed choices”.

The campaign will be run in partnership with employers and careers advisers.

The announcement comes days after Williamson pledged that the upcoming White Paper for further education will lead to a reformed “world-class, German-style” system.

Williamson said today: “For too long we have been training people for the jobs of yesterday instead of the jobs of today and tomorrow.

“Employers are struggling to find the computer programmers, engineers, electricians and technicians they need, and students of all ages are missing out on the high skill, high wage jobs that higher technical education can lead to.

“The measures I have announced today will boost the quality and take-up of these qualifications to help plug skill gaps, level up opportunities and support our economic recovery.”

A “national approval scheme” for the new higher technical qualifications will be delivered through the IfATE.

Under the plans, awarding bodies will submit higher technical qualifications to IfATE’s employer-led route panels, which already oversee the approval of standards and T-levels, for approval.

The submissions will be managed through a phased application process, much like was done with T-levels.

In the first year, the focus will be “exclusively” on digital qualifications, leading to occupations like network engineer, cyber-security technologist and software developer.

Qualifications will be compared to new digital standards at level 4 and 5 which have been subject to a recent IfATE route review of quality, and will be available on the institute’s website “shortly”.

The first qualifications will be available from September 2022.

Attention will then turn to qualifications on the construction and health and science routes which will be available from 2023.

The IfATE said it will provide full details of the approval process to interested awarding organisations and universities when the window for submission of qualifications opens in September.

Where level 4 to 5 technical qualifications fail to meet the institute’s kitemark, the DfE said they will “take action” by reducing the funding available to them from 2023.

Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education said: “Covid-19 has really focused public attention on the quality of training at all levels, and the role it can play in economic recovery.

“We are looking forward to starting our work on higher technical qualifications to help provide the skills our economy needs.”

Matthew Percival, the Confederation of British Industry’s director for people and skills, said: “Putting employers in the driving seat will give them confidence that courses on offer meet their needs.

“With four-fifths of employers expecting to increase higher skilled roles in the coming years, offering clear progression routes through higher technical qualifications will be essential to creating a sustainable and inclusive future economy.”

The flagging traineeships programme was given a new lease of life by the government this week with a major funding boost to help combat youth unemployment post-Covid-19.

But what exactly are traineeships and how are they run? FE Week has spoken with providers, employers and a former skills minister to find out…

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced in his summer statement on Wednesday a £1,000 employer bonus for each traineeship learner they take on, funded from an injection of £111 million.

The plan, which allows incentives to be paid for up to a maximum of ten trainees per company, is to triple the number of traineeships to over 30,000.

Introduced as a flagship pre-employability programme in 2013, traineeships had been created for 16-to 24-year-olds (and 25-yearolds, if they have an education health and care plan) who are qualified below level 3. However, the government is now expanding eligibility to those with A-level-equivalent qualifications.

Once on the course, the trainee will take part in work placements with an employer on the programme which can last from six weeks to six months.

This cannot be a churn of young people

Trainees will also receive work preparation training and English and maths training if lacking a level 2 qualification.

The training is funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, but unlike apprenticeships, trainees are not paid for the work they do. However, they are guaranteed an interview for an apprenticeship or job at the employer at the end of the traineeship, if one is available.

Traineeships are, says Tony Holloway, operations director for provider Qube Learning, what amounts to a “paid induction” for a job with an employer.

Qube trains around 40 to 50 trainees a month in retail and the services sector and Holloway says around 76 per cent of their trainees end up in full-time employment and around 60 per cent of them go into apprenticeships.

Holloway thinks the £1,000 incentives will “give employers reassurance they can carry on investing in young people and in future talent”.

“So this is going to create many more opportunities for young people,” he adds.

But what the sector has to be careful of, he warns, is “those opportunities are not exploited by either providers or employers. This cannot be a churn of young people – it has to be longlasting jobs.”

It needs to be understood by the parents of people who need traineeships

It is a point also raised by Janet Holland, chief executive of Derwent Stepping Stones, a childcare charity based in Derby. “There is a real risk of young people being exploited through the programme. Employers could see the opportunity of getting some free labour.”

Holland says those in the childcare sector “are on our knees”, so she is looking to use this scheme to start trainees in September and see if their usage levels go up. If they do, there will be an apprenticeship for them.”

Derwent Stepping Stones takes on a couple of trainees each term for eight to 12 weeks and over 20 of Janet’s 60 staff have come up through the traineeship route, she says.

The main benefit to them as an employer, and for the learners, is the chance to “try before you buy”, and because their traineeship programme is “very structured”, by the time the trainees move into an apprenticeship, they have been signed off on many basic skills for the job.

Holland briefed early years managers in Derby about traineeships earlier this year and said many had “never heard of them”, but there was “a lot of interest, particularly about ‘try before you buy’.”

Employers could see the opportunity of some free labour

Despite the advantages of the programme, traineeships have not had much love up until now: in terms of starts, there were just 14,900 last year, down from 24,100 in 2015-16.

The slump in delivery levels previously led the Department for Education to decide to cut the traineeship budget from £20 million to £8.5 million, as revealed by FE Week in February.

This came after then-skills minister Anne Milton hailed the success of traineeships in June 2019 once research showed 75 per cent of learners move on to work or further study within a year of completing their programme.

Speaking to FE Week ahead of the chancellor’s announcement, Milton (pictured) said that despite the cuts, ministers involved in the programme were “well aware of the benefits” of traineeships but that the programme has not had “very much attention” and was “poorly understood” outside the sector.

“It was the last area when I was a minister that I felt really needed grabbing hold of,” she said.

“It needs to be understood by the parents of people who need traineeships,” she argued, but there also needs to be a “clear pathway” from a traineeship to a job with progression opportunities. “Without a doubt we probably need incentives for employers.”

Yet despite the public’s lack of awareness of the programme, it can be popular among certain employers.

Phil Eves, employment and skills coordinator for BAM Construction Midlands, which works with around a dozen trainees every year, is another advocate of the programme: “We’re trying to work smarter, faster, safer and through traineeships and the work [training provider] JTL does, that gives us the right sort of candidates.”

“With schemes like this, I can talk to our supply chain and say we need to give people the opportunity to get on site.”

Employer support is crucial to the success of traineeships, as Smart Training and Recruitment data, quality and compliance director Rich Ashton knows from his provider’s work with the British Heart Foundation.

Smart takes on about 100 trainees a year and has seen “fantastic success”, with some, for example, progressing up to level 4, according to Ashton. And while most traineeships are unpaid, small fees to cover costs, such as travel, can be introduced.

As an inducement, and also to help trainees pay for costs, for every week a participant attends their placement, Smart pays them £40.

Ashton says: “It just seemed fair. There were odd queries about bus fare, so as long as they attend their work placement and are doing their work hours, we will pay them £40.

“One of the first barriers we found was, while they were eager to take the opportunity, they literally had no money to get to the location. We looked into different schemes, refunding bus fares and obtaining tickets, but sometimes we found we were having to subsidise them before, because they had no money.”

Ashton said the scheme, which has been running for three years has: “Worked quite well for us. While we know it’s not a requirement, we want to put something in their pockets so they’re covered for their outgoings while attending their work placement.”

Now, everyone is talking about the scheme

Without BHF’s partnership, he adds, “we would have struggled for employers who were willing to participate because it wasn’t something they were aware of and even when we talked about the benefits of traineeships, it was apprenticeships they were primarily concerned with”.

He feels the new incentive is “good news” as the scheme has, in the past, not been promoted among school leavers and employers, but now “everyone is talking about it”.

Smart, until the Covid-19 pandemic, delivered teaching and learning on site of the trainee’s work placement, but has had to adapt to remote delivery.

The provider “pushes for as many hours as possible” on the work placement and plans courses to include 240 hours in total.

A lot of their participants opt for a digital skills course to add on to their traineeship as, Rich says it’s a “good fit in the modern world” and the provider does not want it to be a “generic, off-the-shelf course”.

 

The middle tier of managers have become more and more pivotal as roles within FE senior leadership change. But there is “a price to pay” if colleges do not prepare staff for the job, according to the FE sector’s workforce development organisation.

The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) spoke up for the leaders it calls “the engine room of a college” while promoting a compendium based on its Leading From The Middle training programme, run by the skills consultancy FE Associates.

The programme trains middle leaders, usually heads of department, in areas such as leading a diverse workforce, understanding college finances and building awareness of how reforms impact upon the sector.

The ETF has run the programme on behalf of the Department for Education since October 2018, reaching more than 350 participants.

It has now published an online compendium that looks into more than 30 issues based on projects completed by the programme’s participants. These include improving attendance in sports academies, supporting ESOL learners, and setting expectations to create work-ready learners.

To mark its publication, FE Week spoke with the programme’s leaders and participants to find out more about the challenges behind middle management and how the course prepares staff to be what one participant called “the sponge of the college, soaking up pressure from every angle”.

The ETF’s director of design and development, Mark Wright, says the programme “emboldens participants to be more confident leaders, and use that confidence as a thrust to apply for more senior roles”.

“This is about impact and effectiveness, so we designed it on the basis of it being the shot in the arm that the sector needs.”

That is in response to what he calls “a delayering of FE” over the past ten to 20 years, whereas “there used to be lots of micro steps taking you up the rungs.

“Now those steps have become more gulf-like.”

The Social Market Foundation’s 2019 paper on policies for strong leadership in FE colleges says middle managers have taken on more responsibilities for managing budgets and management information systems since college incorporation, and are handling pressures from other departments.

Yet the training offer has been “thin”. 

The paper called for the Department for Education to “increase investment in training and development for middle leaders”, adding such programmes should be “expanded significantly”.

Wright agrees that middle managers have taken on more duties, to the point they are “the engine room” of the college.

“It is a really pivotal position and it is becoming more so because of the sector has had a lot of value taken out of it. It’s put more of an onus on to the middle tier.”

He cautions providers that there is a “price to pay if you don’t train people. You can tell the difference between colleges that do invest and those that haven’t been able to”.

FEA’s managing director, Matt Atkinson, says the mounting challenges faced by middle leaders prompted the compendium.

“Participants were dealing with very similar issues and challenges so we wanted to create a resource bank that other leaders, particularly middle leaders, could use.

“What we’re trying to do is put something out into the sector that says ‘we’re all dealing with similar things at this time, a number of people have come up with quite creative ways of solving problems’.

“A lot of the stuff that comes out about leadership development tends to be focused on the senior tier.

“Whereas 360 people have completed this programme … there has been so much learning.”

That learning involves a number of sessions, firstly involving an initial assessment to give participants a baseline of what they need to focus on.

“Primer days” then help them to understand the issues around the programme’s five modules.

But this is blended with online provision, featuring webinars and short videos from leaders to explain what they have done to raise their capacity.

But, Wright says, the ETF recognises that not everyone will feel “comfortable” with the face-to-face element, so it is trialling an online-only version.

Atkinson also highlights the programme’s mentoring from “very experienced” sector managers and “focused learning activities” – the individual projects that have been adapted into the issues covered by the compendium.

And what do the participants make of the programme?

Florence Marfo, a programme manager for languages at Morley College in south London, was one of the first to take the programme in October 2018 after feeling “lost and dumped” at work. She had tried to raise standards in her department but did not know how to make the most of the support from other departments.

The training was “very practical” with “excellent coaching”. But the most useful thing was the chance to get the frustrations of work off her chest: “It was very good to have somebody to sound ideas off. We did not have that in my workplace. It really helped and made a difference.

“Eighteen months later I was contacted by somebody. That was also like another coaching session because I talked to him about some of the frustrations I had. It was just like having a one-to-one session again.”

She says the programme has made her “happier” to stay in her current role. A second cohort of Morley’s middle managers have now done the course, all of them enjoying the experience.

While it made Marfo happier in her current role, it helped Farnborough College’s head of faculty Mark Treagust to boost his career.

When he took part earlier this year he looked at assistant principal roles s part of his study, soon realising “we are capable of going for those jobs and getting them”.

“It was very well-timed for me because I had applied for a new role myself. I feel that if it was not for the course, I would not have had the confidence to go for it – and the knowledge and the ability to get it.”

Treagust becomes assistant principal of Sparsholt College, also in Hampshire, in August and says the course taught him: “There is no upper ceiling, anything is possible.”

He describes the role of middle management with an analogy used on the course: “You are the sponge of the college, you have to soak up pressure from every area, whether that be your peers, your staff, students, parents, senior leadership. That can become quite laborious.”

Aside from boosting his confidence, he found the course changed his perspective on his own performance. After working in FE for ten to 15 years and being a manager for more than five, he says he was “in danger of having an opinion my management style had been formed, but I’ve learnt it is a very fluid thing”.

The compendium is available on the ETF website at https://tinyurl.com/y7rd2kz9