ESFA insists the apprenticeship budget is not under pressure

The top apprenticeship civil servant has sought to reassure the sector after fears were raised of a budget overspend this year, as part of a wide-ranging interview with FE Week.

Keith Smith, director of apprenticeships at the ESFA, said he was “not expecting any pressures” on the £2 billion budget this year, in response to a question about a recent presentation by the Institute for Apprenticeships’ chief operating officer, Robert Nitsch.

The IfA forecast (see below) shows the apprenticeships budget could be overspent by £500 million in 2018/19, rising to a £1.5 billion overspend in 2021/22.

The figures were exclusively reported by FE Week last week, and prompted demands for an “open debate” on how the levy operates, and for the IfA to share the full presentation.

“I think what they were trying to set out was one scenario or a potential, particular illustration of what the budget might do and might happen, depending on some assumptions about demand, take up and those sorts of things,” Mr Smith said.

However, he added that from the agency’s “current point of view we’re working within the context that the apprenticeship levy does and can continue to cover the costs of the programme”.

“For us going forward, very much what we’re trying to do from the budget that we’ve got, that we use that to support all of the high-quality apprenticeships that we want to continue to support.”

Mr Smith said it was “really important to say” that the IfA had “looked at the medium to longer term against various different scenarios and assumptions”.

He said the agency was “working hard to make sure” that “levy-paying employers have confidence to be able to make really high-quality business decisions to invest in their workforce”, to “continue to operate a system for small employers” and “that we can continue to fund as many of those high-quality apprenticeships as we’re able to”.

“And there’s no sense from us in the short term that that potentially is at risk.”

Mr Smith said the agency’s immediate focus was on “delivering on the government’s commitment for three million apprentices” and “creating a more diverse and ethnically diverse apprenticeship programme”.

“We’re completely focused on delivering that for the 2020 commitment,” he said.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the IfA to reveal the full presentation, which was delivered as part of an employer engagement event at Exeter College on November 30.

It has so far refused to share the slides, on the basis that they were produced specifically for the event and “were not intended to be shared beyond this”.

Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden wrote to the IfA boss Sir Gerry Berragan asking him to publish the presentation, after having told FE Week of his intention to do so.

He said the figures cited from the presentation had “raised some concern across the education sector” as they had “not been previously indicated”.

Publishing the presentation would be “useful”, Mr Marsden wrote, “otherwise it undermines what I imagine was the purpose of the exercise, which was to reassure stakeholders and employers”.

“With an apprenticeship programme still adapting to the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, and fluctuating starts across levels and standards, I believe maximum transparency as to where the apprenticeship budget is being spent is essential for the health of the sector,” he said.

Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, has also tabled a parliamentary question about the presentation – although at the time of going to press it had yet to be published on the parliament website.

3aaa police enquiries continue as DfE ‘has not yet completed its work’

The police will only decide whether to launch a criminal investigation into disgraced apprenticeship firm Aspire Achieve Advance after the Department for Education “has completed its work”.

Derbyshire Constabulary started making enquiries into the defunct company, better known as 3aaa, on October 11, following a referral from Action Fraud.

The case was passed on by the DfE following its own second investigation into the training provider, which got underway in June.

But a police spokesperson told FE Week this week that they still haven’t been able to decide whether a criminal investigation needs to be opened.

The spokesperson said this was because the police need to wait for the DfE to conclude its own investigation, which has been going on for seven months.

“A criminal investigation has not begun as the Department for Education has not yet completed its work at 3aaa,” he told FE Week.

“The department is carrying out the necessary work with the agreement of Derbyshire Constabulary and, once it has completed its work, officers will look into this allegation.”

Despite admitting that the police are waiting for the DfE to pass over more information, the spokesperson added: “The Department for Education is not delaying an investigation into 3aaa.”

The DfE would not say when it expects to wrap up its own investigation.

“We do not comment on the details of any investigations, ongoing or otherwise,” a spokesperson said.

Once the police force has all of the information from the DfE and whistleblowers it will decide if the allegations break any laws. If this threshold is passed then a criminal investigation will open.

FE Week exposed the truth behind the government and police investigations into 3aaa last month.

The company, which had 4,500 learners and 500 staff before it went bust in October when the ESFA pulled its £16.5 million skills contract, allegedly manipulated Individualised Learner Records to artificially inflate achievement rates by a huge amount and misused employer-incentive grants.

3aaa received nearly all of its income from government skills funding.

It was co-founded by Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008, but the pair stepped down in September as the ESFA came knocking.

Their latest accounts show that they took out huge directors’ loans totalling more than £4 million between them.

At the end of 2015, both owners purchased multi-million pound properties.

3aaa splashed its public cash on £1.6 million of sports-club sponsorships, an Elton John concert and Tesla supercars among other luxuries.

And as revealed by FE Week last month, the company also paid for its former managing director’s child’s school fees as part of a “generous bonus”.

The first ESFA investigation into 3aaa, carried out by auditing firm KPMG in 2016, found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

The finding is understood to have resulted in the company paying back a substantial six-figure sum.

But it didn’t stop the agency from giving the provider a £7 million apprenticeships contract increase in the same year.

After launching a second investigation into 3aaa in June, the DfE called in an independent auditor to investigate the ESFA over its contract management of the former apprenticeships giant.

Technical training must match the best academic options

The new year will include the introduction of T-levels – which makes this an ideal time to celebrate the best that vocational education can offer, says Anne Milton

One of the great privileges of my job is the opportunity to meet apprentices, their employers and brilliant training providers.

Whether it’s visiting Leeds Teaching Hospital – where I saw how our high-quality nursing apprenticeships are helping to make sure the NHS can continue to get the skilled staff they need – or seeing the amazing work by engineering apprentices at Airbus, there is always one common theme: how apprenticeships can transform lives; the impact they make on people’s futures; and the positive energy they bring to employers.

That’s why I was thrilled to attend the National Apprenticeship Awards last month, to celebrate the brilliant achievements of all the winners and nominees.

The ceremony not only showcased the fantastic apprentices, but also celebrated the employers and the training providers.

I wish more people could see what I saw that evening. The incredible energy and passion in the room was palpable and the event was a strong reminder of how an unrelenting focus on quality pays off. Quality has always been and remains at the heart of our reforms, and is at the heart of what providers deliver.

That’s why we recently announced updated and strengthened guidance detailing our new, more robust, approach for providers looking to apply and secure a place on our register of apprenticeship training providers. This will make sure any provider is of consistently high quality.

The ‘snobby’ attitude towards technical education needs to change

Our new tougher approach builds on checks that were already in place, but provides greater assurance that public money is being used effectively. I would like to thank all those who took the time to respond to our review. Your feedback has been invaluable and has helped us to shape this new process.

Last week the Damian Hinds, the education secretary, set out his long-term ambition for technical and vocational education. I was really pleased that in his speech he underlined the need for Britain as a nation to change its “snobby” attitude toward technical education. Our academic system should rightly be celebrated, but we also want technical and vocational routes to be equally celebrated. It is more important than ever that we all make sure we offer the next generation the widest choice of high-quality technical training options that match the best academic options.

I know many of you share this view. The education secretary set out a number of new measures, which include national standards for higher technical qualifications and a new destination measure to recognise those schools and colleges whose pupils not only go on to study degrees, but also higher technical apprenticeships or higher technical qualifications.

To coincide with his speech we published our second T-level action plan that shows the progress we have made this year. The plan details the next seven T-levels that will be taught from 2021, including one in healthcare science and onsite construction and how providers can apply to teach them. Do take a look and apply! Also, if you haven’t already, do take the time to respond to our T-level funding consultation. It is a chance to have your say and help us to shape this system. Your views are vital so that we can make sure T-levels give young people the technical skills they need and our economy the workforce it needs.

It is an exciting time for the sector and I’m really looking forward to building on this work in the new year. And now I’d like thank all the readers who’ve taken the time to read this and all my previous columns. This is my last FE Week column for this year, and so I want to thank FE Week for its journalism over the past year and wish all readers a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. See you in 2019!

More new qualifications? Hold on – T-levels aren’t off the ground yet

T-levels are more than another alphabet soup qualification, says Gordon Marsden. But it’s the government’s job to make sure HE and FE providers – and learners – know how much more there is on the menu

Damian Hinds’s speech last week at Battersea Power Station laid out the government’s vision for a “new generation” of higher technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5 for T-level students to progress on to.

There were certainly warm words, but details were lacking. It’s not even clear whether these will be an entirely new suite of qualifications or a rebadging of existing ones. The education secretary would also seem to be jumping the gun, given all the problems dogging the development of the level 3 T-levels.

Talking about vocational failure and the need to act on it could have been said at any time in the past 30 years. Since 2010 the Labour Party and I have said repeatedly that we have to put vocational and technical education on an equal footing with academic routes to get the high-skilled workforce we need to improve productivity and compete internationally. That imperative – given Brexit – has accelerated.

The Sainsbury Review was a crucial step forward, but the government’s handling of T-levels has fallen far short of its vision to create a much broader eco-system fit for 21st-century Britain.

The review said that “short, flexible bridging provisions should be developed”. But there’s no detail on this – how learners could cross over to T-levels from academic subjects and vice versa ¬– than when I first raised it with Nick Boles, the skills minister.

There were certainly warm words, but details were lacking

I’m concerned that presenting T-levels simply as a competitor to A-levels could damage their take-up and viability. But the Department for Education has left the education secretary to plough on about UCAS A-level and points equivalence for universities. Exhortation alone won’t do that. The government must first convince HE and FE providers, with the learners and families, that T-levels are not just another alphabet soup qualification, but are the vanguard of new high-quality pathways into the world of work.

Presenting them antagonistically as the new kid on the block against the entrenched brands of A-levels and BTECs will not do the business.

Many believe the pre-16 curriculum remains too narrowly academic to allow many students, to take on T-levels. Simply aiming at those whose preparation has been largely geared towards taking A-levels, and assuming that will be an adequate proxy for taking T-levels, is a risky strategy. Far more resources going into the promised transition year will be needed.

There is a particular challenge to get SEND students involved. We know that a number of SEND learners, particularly many on the autism spectrum, can be very successful in progressing not just in digital skills, but also in creative, art and design pathways. That talent must not be wasted.

There are looming capacity issues if T-levels do start to take root and take off. What capacity will colleges have to be involved since the Chancellor closed his purse to new funding, despite unprecedented lobbying by the sector?

Who will teach T-levels? Existing FE, school, college or training staff, recent graduates doing crash courses in T-level teachings or a new cadre? Whatever the answers are will require a big infusion of money beyond the existing £500 million by 2022. And a whole new approach to funding continuing professional development for FE staff, which this government has consistently ignored, will be needed.

A review of higher technical qualifications at levels 4 and 5 for T-level students to progress towards is welcome, but given existing take-up problems with advanced learner loans there is no guarantee it will be a game-changer.

We also need to look at how we expand and deliver technical skills at level 6 or 7. This occupies crossover territory between FE and HE, which, frankly, Labour’s new National Education Service will be better equipped to handle than current DfE structures locked into dated silos.

Getting transient headlines for T-levels and talking up the importance of technical education is only a start. Unless ministers and officials do urgent due diligence on delivery and detail, T-levels, like other previous reforms, risk being fatally compromised.

Colleges are at last getting the recognition they deserve

The outgoing chair of the AoC reflects on the past six years of FE policy and practice

I was honoured to become chair of the Association of Colleges in January 2013. Like most people who work in our colleges, to me further education is a vocation and a passion.

The role that colleges play; the difference they make; the value they add is something that I have been privileged to be a part of for most of my career. So as I come to the end of my six year term as chair of AoC, it’s interesting to reflect on the experience of colleges during that period.

In the first decade of the 21st century, colleges had been generally successful in securing government funding to meet student and employer needs. However the financial crash and subsequent austerity measures meant that FE, like most public services, has faced continued hardship.

Decisions by government to cut departmental funding and then not to protect FE budgets have been devastating. In 2013 the 16-18 budget constituted two thirds of DfE’s “non-protected” budget and it has taken the brunt of education cuts. The raising of the participation age to 18 in 2015 saw no consideration given to the inequity of funding for this age group. Similarly the lack of protection for 19+ budgets has had severe consequences. Taken as a whole and over the six years, the cumulative impact has been a fall in funding that now calls into question the sustainability of the sector.

And while the financial neglect has been marked and consistent, it has not meant government has reduced the burdens. The surge of reforms has continued unabated.

Colleges have tackled new maths and English funding conditions that created enormous staffing, curriculum and logistical demands. They have dealt with substantial qualification reforms; the introduction of the levy and major reforms to apprenticeships; delegation of SEND budgets to local authorities; area reviews; new common inspection frameworks; new intervention regimes; and are facing imminently the devolution of AEB budgets; a new insolvency regime; and the introduction of T-levels.

This list is not exhaustive, and the AoC has worked with members throughout to mitigate the impact of austerity, influence policy and moderate some more severe proposals, and support members to deal with the changing environment.

This has been the reality of the college experience during the last six years. They have risen to the challenges: trying to secure and manage the funds necessary for investment and expenditure to meet local economic, business and student needs whilst balancing the books. The margin between success and failure can be very small, but getting it wrong is perilous.

Colleges have risen to the challenges

Yet despite the undoubted hardships and challenges faced by colleges, they have continued to get on with the job of doing everything they can within their powers – and resources – to meet the needs of their students and communities. The staff, leaders and governors in colleges do an amazing and increasingly difficult job, and they get it right far more often than not. It is one of the reasons I am so proud to be part of this sector and am optimistic about the future.

But it’s not only colleges’ resilience, fortitude, and passion for their mission to improve lives through learning that gives me cause for optimism. I sense that the value colleges add to our economy and society is at last being more widely recognised and understood. Every community needs a college, and their role will become ever more vital as we face the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution. As a civilised and mature democracy we cannot entertain the injustice or the consequences of failing to invest in the talents, skills and well-being of all our citizens.

Colleges are a community mainstay; they are necessary support to cope and thrive as we navigate our way through a future landscape that will be full of unknown hazards and opportunities. We must now continue to work energetically and collectively to make a new reality, where investment in our colleges is at the very heart of our plans to be a successful nation.

Can Hinds beat groundhog day with new higher technical qualifications?

Will the higher technical qualifications be genuinely new, or a simple brand wrapper around what already exists, asks Tom Bewick

Damian Hinds is the latest Secretary of State to call time on the country’s woeful skills and productivity record.

In the surroundings of Battersea power station – Europe’s largest regeneration initiative – Hinds used the anniversary of the government’s industrial strategy to give a rather cogent speech. He set out a convincing narrative of what had gone wrong in technical education reform in the past and proffered a rational four-point plan for how it could all be different in future.

One of those policy ideas was the introduction of new technical qualifications, aimed specifically at the sub-degree marketplace of level 4 and 5 qualifications. While the new T-levels will be equivalent to three academic A-levels, this next suite of qualifications will act as a kind of bridge between intermediate level 3 skills, the labour market and more traditional university education at level 6 and above.

To some in the audience it felt like a major revelation: a missing link in the technical education jigsaw. To others, it was more like groundhog day.

Two decades ago, working as a political adviser on post-16 education, an important letter flashed across my desk. It was a cover note written to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, by his Secretary of State, David Blunkett. The letter contained a rather prophetic statement that, even if it was no great state secret, has taken on more significance with the passage of time.

Blunkett was trying to win Number 10’s support for the creation of new two-year “vocationally orientated” foundation degrees. These were designed to answer the same challenge Hinds has recently identified: of England’s relatively low attainment at levels 3 and 4 compared to big competitors like Germany. In particular, overcoming the challenge of restricted options being available for those unready or unable to take on full-time residential degrees, such as part-time and older learners already in the workforce.

Based on the American community college model of “associate degrees”, it was thought that these new qualifications would equip business with the skills it needs, while helping more students leaving tertiary education progress directly into employment or further study. Blunkett cautioned the Prime Minister: “We must avoid any suggestion of linking higher education funding in general to the employment success of graduates unless we really want to bring the wrath of Oxbridge down upon our heads.”

Taxpayers will not appreciate paying for a whole new generation of bums on seats

Of course, this aversion to take on the vested interests in our universities would lead ultimately to the failure of foundation degrees as a policy. Foundation degrees simply ended up taking the place of many higher national diplomas (HNCs). After 2010, foundation degrees declined to less than 2 per cent of all university enrolments, as institutions simply used them as gateway courses to full-time bachelor degrees.

Improving productivity and labour market outcomes was never hard-wired into the policy for fear of the vice-chancellors. It turned out to be a historic mistake, as higher education has pocketed a 60 per cent increase in investment with no corresponding uplift in workforce productivity.

So, we appear to have come full circle. There are already many good qualifications at level 4 and 5. It begs the question whether what the Department for Education is now proposing is genuinely new, like T-levels, or a simple brand wrapper around what already exists.

It is unclear who will regulate these new courses – Ofqual, Office for Students or the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education? And will they be procured from awarding bodies in an open market, like A-levels and other vocational qualifications, or the controversial single provider model?

Only one thing is certain: if universities are able to award higher technical levels they will be smothered at birth and go the same way as foundation degrees. If further education colleges are to be handed the baton, they will need to be funded on the basis of defined labour market outcomes. Otherwise, we run the risk of inviting the wrath of taxpayers, who will not appreciate paying for the creation of a whole new generation of bums on seats.

ESFA finally launches ‘tougher’ apprenticeship provider register

The “tougher” register of apprenticeship training providers has finally reopened, more than a year after the last window closed.

It’s now open indefinitely – meaning that providers can apply on a rolling basis, rather than having to wait for an application window.

It comes almost 15 months after the Education and Skills Funding Agency revealed it would be reviewing the register after the third window closed in October last year.

Changes to the register include greater scrutiny of providers, who will have to have traded for at least 12 months and provide a full set of accounts.

Subcontractors delivering less than £100,000 of provision a year will now have to be on the register, whereas previously they did not need to be.

All providers will be asked to re-apply, although Keith Smith, the ESFA’s director of apprenticeships, revealed in October that the agency will segment them into groups – with those deemed “high risk” being invited first.

“We want to focus the re-application process on those providers that are potentially not delivering, and on those that we think will struggle to pass our new requirements,” he told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers autumn conference on October 30.

Those that go for 12 months without any delivery are likely to be kicked off the register, he said.

FE Week reported yesterday that a third of the providers on the register in 2017/18 had not delivered any training by the end of August.

There are currently 2,571 providers on the register, of which 1,930 are main providers, meaning they can access apprenticeship funding directly.

A further 261 are employer providers and 380 are supporting providers, meaning they can only deliver provision worth up £500,000 a year as a subcontractor.

The register was originally intended to open on a quarterly basis, and its lengthy closure has left many providers not currently on it that want to deliver apprenticeships frustrated.

Second round of T-levels teacher programme opens

Colleges and other post-16 providers are being urged to bid for cash to train industry experts as teachers, in the second round of the Taking Teaching Further scheme.

The programme, worth £5 million, seeks to recruit industry specialists and retrain them to work in the post-16 and FE workforce with a particular focus on the first T-level subjects.

Up to £20,000 per provider is on offer to train up to five “experienced industry professionals” in a level five diploma in education and training.

The deadline for applications is midday on February 15.

The programme was unveiled in June, and in October the Department for Education announced the names of the 37 providers that were successful in the first round, who will between them recruit 80 trainee teachers.

 “The Taking Teaching Further programme will help attract talented and inspiring people with industry expertise to teach in the further education sector,” said skills minister Anne Milton.

“These are the teachers who can inspire, energise and bring on the next generation of highly-skilled young people.”

She said she was “delighted” the second round had opened, and said she “would urge colleges and post-16 providers to apply and take advantage of this”.

This second round will focus on the same “priority sectors” as the first, which included the first T-level subjects in the fields of education and childcare, digital and construction, as well as engineering and manufacturing and other STEM subjects.

Buckinghamshire College Group was successful in the first round and has already recruited five trainee teachers.

Paula Kavanaugh, senior lead at the group, said these trainees were “benefitting enormously” from the support of experienced teachers.

“However, this is a two-way street and the college recognises and appreciates the value of recruiting industry professionals from these hard to recruit areas,” she said.

David Russell, chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation, which is running the programme on behalf of the DfE, said the second round “will continue to develop and build the country’s future through attracting bright industry talent into the FE sector alongside increasing collaboration between the sector and industry”.

“College staff work to transform the lives of 2.2 million people daily, so it is great that so much work is being put into the further education sector to boost the teaching workforce,” said Steve Frampton, president of the Association of Colleges, which designed the programme with the DfE.

More information, including how to apply, is available on the ETF website. 

 

Awarding bodies told to ‘strengthen controls’ on applied generals after ‘unwarranted’ rise in grades

Ofqual is urging awarding organisations to “strengthen their controls” on certain types of applied general qualifications, after it uncovered evidence of grade inflation on old-style BTECs.

Its research into the “legacy” level three BTECs, which don’t include any external assessment, found that the proportion of people gaining the highest grades on some of these courses almost tripled in 10 years – from 21 to 61 per cent.

These increases weren’t matched by either the learners’ prior attainment nor their subsequent degree or employment outcomes, according to the report.

“This research shows that there are unwarranted increases in results in some of the ‘older style’ applied general qualifications, and this has the potential to undermine public confidence and devalue the achievements of students,” said Phil Beach, Ofqual’s executive director for vocational and technical qualifications.

“We are therefore calling on awarding organisations to strengthen their controls on internal assessment in any qualification where there are potential risks to standards.”

Ofqual will also look at whether “additional bespoke guidance or additional regulatory requirements” are needed to “ensure qualification standards are maintained”, he said.

Applied general qualifications and tech levels are vocational or technical alternatives to A-levels that can lead onto higher education or employment.

The exams regulator focused on Pearson’s BTEC qualifications, as these are the “market leading” applied general qualification – representing 81 per cent of certificates issued in 2016/17, according to Ofqual’s figures.

The research looked at the ‘older style’ qualifications, which were entirely internally assessed.

Pearson, along with other awarding organisations, introduced new-style qualifications in 2016 that include a proportion of external assessment, in order to meet criteria for inclusion in the Department for Education’s performance tables.

However, the exams regulator said the “majority of assessment continues to be conducted internally”.

There were a number of “typical features” around internal assessment that “weaken the controls available to awarding organisations to maintain standards” which included the “unitisation of the qualifications” and “the availability of multiple re-submissions for each unit”.

A spokesperson for Pearson said it welcomed Ofqual’s report and “its intent to strength qualifications”.

The BTEC National qualification had been “strengthened through a series of other improvements including the introduction of external assessments, tighter rules around work resubmission, and greater pastoral support”.

“The result has been flattening out grade inflation over the last two years, as is evidenced by the recently published 2018 results where we’ve seen fewer students attaining the top grade,” he said.

Ofqual’s research looked into the profile, outcomes and subsequent performance of four cohorts of learners taking level three BTECs between 2005/06 and 2015/16.

It found that the proportion of level three BTEC learners gaining top grades – either a distinction or distinction star – had “increased substantially over time”, while A-level grades “remained stable” over the same time period.

For the level three BTEC subsidiary diploma, equivalent in size to an A-level, the proportion went up from 21 per cent in 2005/06 to 61 per cent in 2015/16.

At the same time, the learners’ prior attainment at GCSE remained “stable”, which suggested “no particular change in the overall ability of the cohort”.

Researchers also looked at how well the BTEC learners performed at university and in employment, in comparison to learners with A-levels.

They found that “successive cohorts” of BTEC learners were “increasingly less likely” to gain top degrees – either first class or upper second – than learners with equivalent A-levels.

Furthermore, the BTEC learners had a “progressively lower likelihood over time” to be in full-time employment, in a highly-skilled role and earning over £20,000 a year than those with A-levels.

“This report makes clear that there are great differences between the old and new versions of the applied general qualifications,” said Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association.

The new version is “more rigorous and demanding” and is “considerably harder for students to get the top grades” in – but “it is quite right that more and more sixth forms – in schools and colleges – are choosing them”.