Bonuses paid to men working at the Department for Education were on average 3.8 per cent larger than those paid to women last year.
Although the overall gender pay gap at the department continues to decrease, new figures show that in 2019, men received larger bonuses than women for the first time since records began.
The bonus gap was previously 2 per cent in favour of women in 2018, and there was no gap at all in 2017, the first year public bodies had to report on gender pay.
The median gender pay gap at the department has gone from 5.9 per cent in favour of men in 2017 to 5.3 per cent in 2019.
The latest figures also show that the proportion of highest-paid employees who are women has fallen, from 53 per cent in 2017 and 2018 to 50 per cent in 2019.
This is despite women making up 53.4 per cent of the department’s workforce, down from 57 per cent in 2018.
The DfE said it had undertaken “a number of activities to focus on closing the gender pay gap” and continues to “review and refresh all activites on an annual basis”.
Ofsted has also revealed it no longer has a median gender pay gap. The gap was previously 19.8 per cent in favour of men in 2018 and 2.3 per cent in 2017.
The bonus gap at Ofsted also fell from 25 per cent in 2018 to 7.7 per cent in 2019.
Nerd note: Although organisations report on both their mean and median pay gap, we report on the median as this is less likely to be distorted by outliers.
Jess Staufenberg meets Stuart Rimmer, whose entrepreneurial streak has helped guide his leadership of East Coast College
Hanging above Stuart Rimmer’s head is a portrait of an austere woman with a wide-brimmed hat and lace collar.
She’s looking sideways, face half in shadow, into the office of the East Coast College principal. The Suffolk institution is her old stomping ground, explains Rimmer. The inscription below reads “Miss Grace Musson, Principal, 1923-1946”.
“I’ve read lots of her old letters. Do you know what’s mad? She’s talking about exactly the same thing we are today. She’s talking about raising the participation age, setting up courses to teach navigation for sailors, and literacy for adults. Fast forward, and we’re still wrestling with participation, we’ve just set up a maritime centre and we’re trying to improve numeracy and literacy. Her wisdom continues through.”
Two things are striking about Rimmer. Firstly, you get a sense he deeply values the influential people he has encountered during his career. Secondly, he swings sharply between political despair and personal love for the FE sector. Is it a bad thing that not much has changed? I ask, nodding to Miss Musson.
Can you believe she was in her job for 20 years?
“In my dark moments about the FE landscape, I think we’re staring into the abyss. In my lighter moments, I see students in corridors who are ambitious and authoring their world and I find that fascinating. The institutions we work in have been around for 100 years, so it says something that society needs them and it will be ever thus.”
It’s a typically philosophical answer from an FE leader who has long warned policymakers to end an obsession with grades and instead focus on staff and student wellbeing. In a TEDx talk online, you can watch him read his “love letter to education” in which he says “our relationship hasn’t been going well lately, and it’s because you’ve changed”.
The portrait of Miss Grace Musson, principal of Lowestoft Technical College, 1923 – 1946, which hangs in Rimmer’s office
Putting his money where his mouth is, Rimmer sits on the Department for Education’s advisory panel on teacher wellbeing and has helped compile a mental health charter for the Association of Colleges, now signed up to by 150 colleges.
His frustration stems from FE being treated as a place “where we solve industrial shortages by pumping people full of skills… Education is much more sophisticated than that. The intent of curricula should also be to help people with their social and emotional development.” The problems in the system are causing staff burnout, Rimmer adds.
He looks up at Grace Musson and laughs drily. “Can you believe she was in her job for 20 years? Can you imagine a principal lasting that long now?”
Despite serious doubts about the “hero leadership” model of improving FE (“it’s too egotistical”) Rimmer clearly holds deep respect for inspirational people he has met along the way. He admires the work ethic of his parents, who lived in the basement of a block of flats in Lancashire which, over time, they bought and rented out. Most of the tenants were power station workers, so Rimmer says he was “always surrounded by people who worked. I learnt you had to put in effort to do OK.”
Authority was a problem for him at school, being what he describes as “slightly over-aggressive and reasonably bright”, and he left at 16 for a factory job. “For some people, that was where ambition went to die. But for me, it was working with an entrepreneur who clocked that I taught some of the men how to read.” This factory owner, called Ron Nisbitt, was a “patriarchal tough guy” who said “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”. Once Rimmer thought it made business sense to order 250,000 baseball caps from China to sell on in Liverpool. “We had to rent out space to house them and we lost money on it! He let me make mistakes.”
After a few years, Rimmer decided to study three A-levels during night classes at Lancaster & Morecambe College. He never turned up for his sociology exam because he was at a factory meeting, but two A-levels got him into Teesside University, nevertheless. First he studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics, displaying an academic interest in the way society runs, then a more practical masters in enterprise management. But big bucks soon bored him: “My first job in insurance in Manchester was soulless.” He did a PGCE in Sunderland, yet found “the linearity of school didn’t connect with me, it was too proscribed. FE felt a bit edgier and more interesting.”
Oil rig-like structures are being set up for students to practise on
That was when he landed a job as a business lecturer for then-principal Jackie Fisher at Newcastle College, which Rimmer describes as “like signing for Man United but not realising. Jackie had this huge reputation, and people say she was fierce and aggressive and she was, but she was hugely values-based. She’s produced more principals than anyone else and she did that through clear and strategic thinking.”
After a couple of years he moved back to Lancaster & Morecambe College, where, under principal David Wood, it was “less of a Darwinian existence” and he learned “more compassion and not to rush – there’s more than one way of getting to ‘good’”. By 39, he was principal at Great Yarmouth College. He spearheaded the merger with Lowestoft College in 2017 and again with Lowestoft Sixth Form College last year, to form East Coast College.
Now all three sites stand in a quad that’s still got work going on, such as the new £11.7 million Energy Centre specialising in offshore energy vocations. Rimmer’s entrepreneurial streak is evident in having secured most of the cash from the local enterprise partnership, and I’m shown around a jaw-dropping studio which simulates navigating a ship out of port from its cabin bridge, packed with exciting-looking bleeping controls, as well as under towering rig-like structures.
As we walk, Rimmer drops another strong entrepreneurial idea. “I would encourage FE to get a closer relationship with clinical commissioning groups (CCG), like we have, because they have money.” The college’s counselling service has been partly funded by Norfolk and Waveney CCG. It seems obvious once he’s said it.
But having been inspired by so many leaders along the way, one gets the sense Rimmer is now at a point where, like many others in FE, he is looking up the chain of command and seeing little that inspires him. I push him tentatively on East Coast College being graded ‘requires improvement’ in May 2018. “What I’m probably more interested in is our
corporation going through a proper ten-year planning cycle, regardless of Ofsted grades, which will come and go. As long as our purpose is clear and our mission is noble, and if we can look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and say we did a good job.”
Rimmer at the helm in the college’s new ship bridge simulator
I query that the 2018 report said “too much teaching is undemanding”. “I always think we can do better for our students. Yes, I’d like to see more students pass every year.” For Rimmer, the major obstacle to better quality is the working conditions of his staff – “the high pressure, stress and workload”.
What can be done? I ask, expecting the usual answer about smarter marking strategies. But Rimmer aims straight for the heart.
“I think some of the representative bodies have become lapdogs of the Westminster bubble, and as such we just do the bidding of Whitehall. There’s an urgency for the FE sector to become more political, as opposed to just talking about cuts – to become more radical and politically alive.”
How? “The only way FE will find its voice long-term again is if it rediscovers its socialist ideals, in that it’s there to support its communities and to make their lives better. This idea that people around here don’t have high aspirations really hacks me off. They do, they just don’t know how to navigate a system not designed for them.”
In the absence of inspiring policymaking, I suggest to Rimmer he should go for it himself. “At some point I might consider a more national job,” he muses. “But there’s a job to be done here. I believe in staying somewhere to live with your mistakes.”
One gets the feeling Miss Musson, with her steely look, approves.
More than 2,500 apprentices and adult learners have been left in the lurch after their provider immediately exited the training market following a grade four Ofsted report.
Progress to Excellence Limited (PtE), an independent learning provider established in 1997, today dropped from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’.
The education watchdog reported that leaders’ and governors’ growth strategy to expand the curriculum “has had a negative impact on the quality of education and training that apprentices and learners receive”.
Leaders “failed” to recruit enough high-quality staff to meet the increased range of vocational programmes on offer.
“Too many” apprentices and learners have experienced “disruption to their learning because of staffing issues”, who told inspectors that they “are having a poor experience”.
Following publication of the report today, Katy Lennon, acting chief executive officer of PtE, said: “Progress to Excellence Ltd will be exiting the apprenticeship market, with immediate effect. We will also stop offering funding for courses via advanced learner loans.
“All employers and learners are being notified of this situation, and where necessary, they will be supported by ourselves and the Education and Skills Funding Agency to find suitable alternative training to support their professional development.”
It is not known if the ESFA terminated PtE’s contracts, which is typical when a private provider is rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.
The firm declined to comment on whether it would shut down completely or if there would be any job losses. Its financial accounts showed there were 140 employees for the year ended 31 March 2018.
At the time of inspection in December, there were 2,008 apprentices, 609 adult learners and “a very small number of learners on traineeship programmes” at the Wirral-based provider.
PtE subcontracted out around 250 apprentices to four subcontractors.
Apprenticeship programmes included health and care, business and engineering and manufacturing at levels 2 to 5 while adult learners, who all used advanced learner loans to pay for their courses, studied hairdressing, beauty and fitness at level 3 and 4.
According to Ofsted, apprentices and learners were “frustrated” by how poor PtE staff “keep them informed”, and they complained that they have had “many different training and assessment officers”.
Students did “not benefit from a challenging and broad curriculum”.
While adult learners, most of whom are non-working parents, unemployed or ex-offenders, were reported as being “proud of the improvements they make and the skills they develop”, apprentices were found to be making “slow progress”.
Inspectors said apprentices and learners “are not prepared well enough for their next steps” because the advice on offer is “not impartial”. Careers advice was not “aspirational enough”.
Despite action being taken by the new chief executive after she identified a decline in quality, “too many apprentices” told Ofsted they were having “a poor experience” and about one fifth of current apprentices were beyond their planned end dates.
In 2017/18, over one third of apprentices did not achieve their apprenticeship.
The inspectorate said governors failed to hold previous senior leaders to account, apprentices were routinely not placed on the right apprenticeship and training and assessment officers do not ensure that all learners are on the correct programme.
The latter did offer developmental feedback to most learners but it was reported that they did “not support apprentices who have additional learning needs well enough.”
However, safeguarding arrangements at the provider were praised for being effective.
Apprenticeships at a major airline have been heavily criticised by Ofsted, which found “disorganisation” and “inconsistency” meant too many employees “did not see the value of being an apprentice”.
British Airways, an employer provider which is drawing down government apprenticeship funding for over 500 of its own staff, was found to have made ‘insufficient progress’ in one area and ‘reasonable progress’ in two others in an early monitoring report.
Apprenticeship providers that make ‘insufficient progress’ are typically suspended from taking on and training their own new apprentices by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
A BA spokesperson said they do not believe the report was a “fair” assessment of its provision and claimed that inspectors only spoke to three per cent of apprentices.
They also pointed out that Ofsted’s inspection only looked at the apprenticeship programme that BA delivers itself – the level 3 cabin crew standard.
The airline also has apprentices in a number of other areas, such as engineering, customer service, head office, and cargo, which were not subject to the inspection as they are delivered by other providers.
While apprentices on the level 3 cabin crew standard are “proud” to work for the employer provider, Ofsted found they are “frustrated by the disorganisation and inconsistent approach they experience in their apprenticeship”.
As a result, many of the ones inspectors spoke to “do not see the value of being an apprentice”.
Inspectors said they are not “sufficiently aware” they are even on an apprenticeship when they are recruited.
The arrangements that have been put in place with a subcontractor to ensure apprentices gain English and maths qualifications are not effective, the report reads, and too many learners failed their maths exams.
Leaders and managers do not ensure staff are giving apprentices clear information about what to expect in their end-point assessment.
This has meant apprentices do not know enough about what the assessment will involve when they come to that point in their programme.
Trainers are also not granted sufficient time before they start their sessions to take prior knowledge into account, so they cannot alter the delivery to meet apprentices’ needs sufficiently.
And while BA was found to have made ‘reasonable progress’ in safeguarding, managers have recognised an issue around apprentices feeling “patronised” and instances of “intimidating behaviour while flying”.
Inspectors reported actions taken in response to this “have not had sufficient impact in improving the experience for a few apprentices”.
A spokesperson for the airline said they “do not believe the report offers a fair assessment” of their cabin crew scheme and Ofsted’s findings are “at odds with the positive feedback we receive from the vast majority of our apprentices”.
They added that BA “remains committed to investing in our people” and will continue to work closely with Ofsted following the monitoring visit.
Apprentices do receive appropriate training, inspectors found, and thanks to the training they become “competent and compliant” cabin crew members who can work safely, in a short period of time.
This is because they benefit from learning in “high-quality” training facilities which reflect their on-board experience “exactly” and trainers utilise their expert knowledge to teach legislative requirements and health and safety regulations.
For example, they teach apprentices to understand the ‘ditching’ process – where a plane has to land in water in an emergency – and practical activities are used to check learners know how to open and close doors securely.
Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, used yesterday’s annual report speech to repeat her criticism first aired in 2018 that a minority of colleges simply try to “fill their rolls and attract funding”, whether or not the programmes they offer “open doors for the students that take them”. She added that some colleges were “flooding” local job markets “with young people with say low-level arts and media qualifications”. David Hughes tackles the criticism and whether, as suggested by the chief inspector, the government should step in
Unsurprisingly, the launch of Ofsted’s annual report has sparked many conversations; it always does because everyone becomes engrossed in debating whether Ofsted is getting it ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. For colleges this year discussion has centred on whether courses offered to young people help them into jobs.
The relationship between course subject and employment outcomes is a complex one at all levels and in all types of education. It is broadly accepted that a degree in any subject is good preparation for the world of work. So singling out courses at lower levels is wrong and unfair. When employers recruit a graduate they expect a suite of skills, abilities and behaviours that allow someone to flourish in their organisation. The job-specific skills are achieved on the job; but are learned best by people with transferable skills. You don’t need a degree to have those skills; colleges students achieve them on courses at every level, and in every subject.
Colleges strive to make the best decisions for their students and the wider economy
We also know that for many students, they learn as much or perhaps even more from enrichment and extra-curricular activities. I cannot remember the last time I asked a candidate at interview about their qualifications, but I often ask about other activities which show the breadth of skills we are looking for.
It would also be short-sighted to suggest that every course can be matched directly to a job, not least because the labour market changes rapidly. When the best employers recruit, they are not looking to recruit people who are 100 per cent ready to do a specific job, but rather those with the potential to grow and develop, to learn and adapt. College courses develop student potential; they also build the confidence which unleashes it.
One of the accusations thrown at colleges is that they are not honest with potential students about the destinations and outcomes of a course. I’ve not seen evidence of that, but if it exists then I am confident that Ofsted will unearth it and report back through inspection reports. My experience, backed up by Ofsted in its inspections under the new framework, is that colleges strive to make the best decisions for their students and the wider economy. They do set out progression pathways and offer good IAG. Results are pretty good with the vast majority progressing onto study at higher levels or using their transferable skills in a whole range of sectors and roles.
Ofsted’s new inspection framework speaks to this with deeper dives into the intent and impact of courses. It’s right to take a more developmental approach so that colleges can really focus on outcomes and positive destinations of students. But we need to understand those outcomes better and understand that most people do not have linear routes into work and through their careers. Careers are often messy, with initial qualifications counting for little and experience and broader skills and abilities mattering far more.
Over four years ago we found that the average college worked with over 600 employers. When I meet these employers, they enthusiastically talk about how their success depends on colleges supporting the development of their workforce for immediate and long-term skills needs. Investing in colleges to provide more advice to SMEs would result in more relationships like this – good for productivity as well as for student prospects.
I’m sceptical about anyone who believes they can determine what courses are needed to make the labour market more efficient. There are simply too many variables to make those sorts of direct links, particularly given that most of the 2030 workforce is already in work. That’s not to say that colleges should not look at labour market information, they do. Along with working with their local economic development team, the Local Enterprise Partnership, employer bodies and large and small employers.
Ultimately, colleges are expert at offering people the chance to succeed, no matter their circumstance or background. They do this by helping people find their passion and gain the transferable skills employers are crying out for. Employers working with colleges have high satisfaction levels, as do students and outcomes are very good too. Any intervention must not come at the expense of this.
The new boss of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has called for an additional £750 million of government money to prop-up small businesses’ apprenticeships.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Jennifer Coupland said the apprenticeship levy has meant small businesses have cut their training by ten per cent, while levy-payers have increased theirs by 20 per cent.
“It is time for the government to lean in more to support small and medium-sized businesses, to plug that gap,” Coupland said.
The institute’s chief executive, who started late last year, wants an extra £750 million, which she says would cover the cost for about 85,000 apprenticeships which non-levy payers cannot fund, in order to reach parity in the number of apprenticeships started by large and small employers.
Coupland’s comments follow repeated warnings from organisations like the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) that the levy shortages meant small to medium enterprises were being cut out of apprenticeship funding.
Most recently at the beginning of this month, when an AELP survey found more than half of non-levy providers said their funding allocation was not sufficient to cover both the cost of existing apprentices and of new starts from an SME.
The Department for Education’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater told the Public Accounts Committee last March that “hard choices” would have to be made in the face of the imminent overspend
And today Coupland admitted: “There is not sufficient money available for these small and medium-sized businesses and that’s what we need to improve upon.”
But the former director of professional and technical education in the Education and Skills Funding Agency appears to oppose attempts to stop levy-payers spending the cash on higher-level apprenticeships, which the AELP wants taken out of the scope of levy funding.
This is because she believes they fill skill gaps that have been identified by employers and IfATE is an “employer-led organisation” which wants to give employers “what they need out of the apprenticeship programme”.
And she said it would be “wrong” to broaden the scope of the levy to smaller businesses, or increase the percentage businesses pay.
The government has already put forward its own solution to the problem of SME apprenticeships by allowing small employers on to the digital apprenticeship service to access funding; until now, this had been open only to levy-payers.
Ofsted’s chief inspector is still “not happy” that some colleges steer too many of their students towards “superficially attractive” arts and media courses where there are limited job opportunities.
She said the minority of colleges simply try to “fill their rolls and attract funding”, whether or not the programmes they offer “open doors for the students that take them”.
“This doesn’t mean that the courses the young people are taking are completely worthless, but flooding a local job market with young people with say low-level arts and media qualifications when the big growth in demand is for green energy workers, will result in too many under-employed and dissatisfied young people and wind turbines left idle,” Spielman told the audience.
“So we need a clearer focus on matching skills to opportunities not just for Brexit. Many FE providers operate in places the government says it wants to level up, what better way to level up than to radically improve the quality of vocational and skills education in our towns.
“But it does also mean tackling the small minority of our colleges that have under-performed or been stuck for years.”
She added that the government must think “strategically” about skills and how the FE sector is funded and “encouraged to provide the right courses of the right quality”.
When Spielman first spoke out about the “mismatch” between the numbers of students taking arts and media courses and their “future employment in the industry” in November 2018, she said the qualifications give learners “false hope”.
Her controversial comments made headlines in The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Mail.
In Ofsted’s annual report, the watchdog said high levels of management and health apprenticeships are a “mismatch” compared to the government’s industrial strategy and needs to be addressed “urgently” (full story here).
After today’s speech, she told FE Week: “There is always a balance in the system.
“It is very important to have a level of local autonomy in decision making but the funding of post-16 education is, there is a strategic and tactical alignment to it.
“I am encouraging government to make use of the powers that it has to decide where and how to channel money to help make sure that overall we do the best job we can for young people.”
High levels of management and health apprenticeships are a “mismatch” compared to the government’s industrial strategy and needs to be addressed “urgently”, Amanda Spielman has said.
In Ofsted’s annual stock take of education, the chief inspector revealed that performance in the FE sector has “remained static this year”, but the “rapid growth” of apprenticeships is a concern.
Out of every 100 apprenticeships started in 2018/19, the watchdog found that 15 are health apprenticeships, 12 are business management, only six are in construction, five in ICT and five in engineering.
Business management and health accounted for almost half of all higher-level apprenticeships started last year.
“This does not appear to align well with our grand challenges as a country,” Spielman said.
She explained that the latest update to the industrial strategy highlighted four “grand challenges” that need to be met for the country’s future economic prosperity: artificial intelligence and data, ageing society, clean growth and future of mobility.
However, the industrial strategy “fails to recognise that the skills our nation needs may depend on the scale of apprenticeship delivery, particularly at higher levels”.
The FE sector needs to work “much more in tandem with the government’s industrial strategy”.
The chief inspector added that too many training providers are “not clear on the purpose of an apprenticeship” and as a result, their provision can “lack adequate sequencing or attention to education outside the workplace”.
“The gap between knowledge and skills required for our country and future and current provision remains, in particular in relation to a lack of training for low-skilled workers.”
Spielman concluded: “The apprenticeship funding system needs to target levy money more directly to skills shortages.”
Sector bodies have hit back at Ofsted’s chief inspector for “encouraging government” to restrict course choices made by colleges and employers.
One leader said putting restrictions on how firms can spend their cash risks “further reducing training opportunities in lots of workplaces”, while another warned that Whitehall “choosing winners” has a “very chequered history”.
The education watchdog’s 2019 annual report, published this morning, urged for the “mismatch” between apprenticeships currently being delivered and the industrial strategy to be “urgently addressed”.
Whitehall ‘choosing winners’ has a very chequered history
Amanda Spielman then said during her speech she is still “not happy” with some colleges “flooding” the economy with students on “superficially attractive” arts and media courses where there are limited job opportunities.
Speaking to FE Week after the event, the chief inspector said it is “very important to have a level of local autonomy in decision making” but there should be a “strategic and tactical alignment” to post-16 funding.
“I am encouraging government to make use of the powers that it has to decide where and how to channel money to help make sure that overall we do the best job we can for young people,” she added.
Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s lead on FE and skills, added: “Government needs to think, does it need to have more of a role in prioritising provision through its leavers, through funding for example, about what courses are funded, what sectors are funded and more about prioristing exactly what is needed.”
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, insisted that colleges are “experts at offering people the chance to succeed, no matter their circumstance or background” and any intervention by officials “must not come at the expense of this”.
“The relationship between course subject and employment outcomes is a complex one, as we know from the numbers of students who learn broad-based skills, confidence and self-esteem which support their careers in a variety of sectors,” he told FE Week.
“It would be wrong to suggest that we can simply match every student into a course which leads directly to a job, not least because the labour market changes rapidly, requiring skills and the ability to learn new things and to adapt.”
Hughes added that colleges would “welcome” discussions about what success looks like, but the “purpose and role of colleges is not static and cannot be defined purely by how many students in a discipline go directly into jobs in that sector.
“Many will study further, at higher levels or will use their skills transferable in other sectors and be very successful as a result.”
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said the government “already uses two major levers” to incentivise education providers to follow a preferred policy pathway: accountability and funding.
He added: “As the majority of their [sixth form colleges] students go on to higher education, colleges consider the long term prospects of their students alongside the immediate needs of the local labour market to ensure they are on the right courses with the right career plan.”
Encouragement and incentivising is one thing; curtailing choice is quite another
Defending apprenticeship choices, Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “If the transition of small and medium-sized employers on to the digital apprenticeship service goes smoothly and is supported by additional and urgently needed funding from the government, we believe that government should not be interfering in employers’ choice of apprenticeships.
“Whitehall ‘choosing winners’ has a very chequered history and at a time when business is already facing uncertainty over which way Brexit will land, the last thing employers need across different regions is being told how to spend the levy.
“Encouragement and incentivising is one thing; curtailing choice is quite another.”
And Matthew Percival, the Confederation of British Industry’s director for people and skills policy, said: “It’s important to every business that they are able to invest in training their workforce. The apprenticeship levy was supposed to help, but it has forced firms to focus on one form of training above all others.
“Putting more restrictions on how firms can spend their funds risks further reducing training opportunities in lots of workplaces.
“That’s why it’s vital that the government starts a consultation on the future of the system in the budget, including turning it into a flexible skills levy that will support higher levels of investment in training.”
