A university is scrambling to recruit MBA apprentices amid the government’s review of the programme’s funding.

On Monday the University of Bradford contacted small businesses to insist that “if you’ve ever wanted to do an MBA, now is the time”.

An email, seen by FE Week, claims that government has “temporarily opened” the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship “up to non-levy paying companies” – even though the controversial course has been available to all employers since it launched in February 2018.

If you have ever been considering doing an MBA, there couldn’t be a better time

The university also claims the programme has been “massively subsidised for a limited period, meaning rather than firms having to pay £18,000, they would pay only £900”, despite the 95 per cent subsidy referred to for small businesses being government policy since April 2019.

The email adds: “Because there is only a limited window to apply and the government are due to review funding later in the year, if you have ever been considering doing an MBA, there couldn’t be a better time”.

It goes on to list eight course teaching dates from June 2020 to March 2021.

Craig Johnson, a senior lecturer at the university, signed it off by stating: “I urge any business which wants to grab this opportunity while it’s available.”

A review into the level 7 senior leader apprenticeship standard was launched in February after education secretary Gavin Williamson said he was “not convinced the levy should be used to pay for staff, who are often already highly qualified and highly paid, to receive an MBA”.

Government funding for it could be switched off later this year as a result.

A spokesperson for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education said the trailblazer group for the standard is currently reviewing the programme and will provide feedback by May 20.

The Department for Education said the deadline of June 1 for a decision on its funding future still stands.

They added that while the review is underway, it’s up to providers to decide how to recruit and promote the apprenticeship.

Training providers, including many top universities, have made millions from the MBA apprenticeship since 2018 as it soared to become one of the most popular standards in the country.

FE Week analysis shows there had been 6,387 starts on the programme since launch to the first quarter of 2019/20. Each of these attracted up to £18,000 of levy funding – meaning as much as £115 million has been spent on this standard to date.

The University of Bradford told FE Week it currently has 15 apprentices on the programme, but could not say how many more are expected to enrol this year.

When challenged on their claims about the programme being “temporarily” opened and subsidised for a “limited period” to small businesses, the university denied that the advert was misleading.

“The funding is under review. MBA apprenticeships are therefore under scrutiny and therefore we do not know how long we will be able to offer the MBA as an apprenticeship,” a spokesperson said.

“We want to raise awareness amongst local businesses while it is confirmed that funding is available.”

There is only a limited window to apply

Most universities were not able to deliver apprenticeships to small business until the Education and Skills Funding Agency started moving non-levy payers onto the digital apprenticeship service in January.

Prior to that, only providers that won a non-levy allocation via a tender could train apprentices for SMEs.

The University of Bradford confirmed that it only began offering apprenticeships to non-levy payers in recent months.

Natalie Wilmot, an MBA director at the University of Bradford, believes it is “important that the government continue to support this apprenticeship”.

“We see leadership and management development as crucial to boosting UK productivity, as it ensures that people are properlyprepared for leadership roles, instead of continuing to rely on ‘accidental managers’ – people with technicalexpertise in their area, but little formal training or education in business and management,” she added.

All planned routine funding audits of FE providers have been put on hold, the government confirmed today.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency told FE Week it had made the decision “prior” to the prime minister’s announcement of new Covid-19 lockdown measures last week.

The “pause” on financial assurance audits will “cover the period for, at least, the duration of the lockdown”.

A spokesperson said the ESFA “understands” the challenges providers face as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and have been “sensitive to these challenges where we have contacted providers to complete funding audits and investigations already in progress”.

They added, however, that it may be necessary for the agency to contact providers during the crisis in order to continue to maintain effective oversight and protection of public funds.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said pausing audits “is a sensible decision”.

“We’re not sure that the agency had understood the seriousness of the challenges facing independent training providers in the light of the DfE’s decision not to guarantee funding but it appears that they are now beginning to realise that this is a battle for survival and that therefore unnecessary distractions such as audits should be avoided at all costs,” he added.

The ESFA’s decision follows other suspensions of normal regulatory visits by various government bodies.

Last month, Ofsted announced it had paused all of its inspections until further notice and later confirmed it had also suspended the publication of all reports that were due to be published during this period.

The FE Commissioner Richard Atkins has also confirmed that his team has paused intervention visits. He has offered “confidential” support to any colleges that need it and promised that formal intervention would not be triggered if they seek assistance during the current crisis.

Training providers in Liverpool will continue to receive adult education payments to “provide stability and help to protect the sector during Coronavirus crisis”.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) told FE Week today it has guaranteed funding until at least the end of June, and it is “assuming” this will later be extended to July to round-off the academic year.

It comes after FE Week revealed details of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and Greater London Authority (GLA) support for providers with AEB funding.

All three announcements are responses to the cabinet office guidance on “supplier relief due to Covid-19”.

Nationally, 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 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.

LCRCA took control of an annual £50.35 million budget to deliver adult education in September 2019, and 19 private providers shared a pot of around £15 million that went out to tender.

A spokesperson for the LCRCA said, “desperate” as they are “to get money into the sector to make sure there is a sector to come back to after the current crisis”, they will look to pay providers up until the end of the academic year in July.

“Our assumption is everyone else in the country will be looking to extend the period to the end of the academic year.

“We are looking at how we can do that, including talking with central government to make sure what is permitted.”

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: “By supporting our adult education budget providers at this difficult time we will enable them to support their existing learners as well as the learners of the future.”

The government devolved adult education budgets to seven mayoral combined authorities last year, including the GLA, WMCA, LCRCA, Tees Valley, the West of England Combined Authority, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.

FE Week has approached each of them to find out what arrangements they have made to fund AEB providers through the Covid-19 outbreak.

Mayor of the WMCA, Andy Street, has written for FE Week to explain why they have been quick to act on cabinet office supplier support guidance for adult education budget funded training providers.

He said the move “shows the importance for us of maintaining a strong and responsive provider base”. You can read his full article here.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has today announced they will stop accepting applications to the controversial register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP).

It will close to new bids, including second applications from providers that have already applied in the past 12 months, from 15 April.

This will provide “time for applications in progress and second applications to be completed and submitted” in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency revealed the move in its weekly update to the sector, which said officials will “take this opportunity to review our future approach to the register”.

“We will advise further on when and in what form the Register will re-open,” the update added.

The news comes as the ESFA also confirmed they have paused plans to implement a “provider growth limit” that was “to be applied to new RoATP listed providers and planned for later this year”.

A “provider earnings limit” was first mooted by Keith Smith, the ESFA’s director of apprenticeships, in November 2018 at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference.

He said at the time this would apply to all providers, not just new ones.

No official announcement from the ESFA has been forthcoming since.

The ESFA’s review of RoATP is likely to include plans to require providers to be “accredited” for the apprenticeship standards they offer, as Smith told FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference in March.

Any restrictions would form the second phase of the ESFA’s attempts to strengthen its register of apprenticeship training providers, which was relaunched last year following a host of problems with the original application process.

One-man bands with no delivery experience were, for example, being given access to millions of pounds of apprenticeships funding.

Today’s ESFA update said that any provider that has been “advised they have been accepted to RoATP, that has not yet completed the onboarding process, and that are planning to start apprentices before 1 August should ensure that they do so by midnight Tuesday 14 April 2020”.

“Onboarding is expected to resume from 1 July 2020,” it added.

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.