Notts ‘college’ funding terminated

A multi-site “college” is to have its funding contracts terminated, after serious safeguarding failures were exposed in a damning Ofsted report.

City College Nottingham, a private training provider with eight campuses across the Midlands, laid off staff and stopped taking on new enrolments ahead of the publication of a grade four inspection report on December 20.

FE Week exclusively revealed the safeguarding concerns in November.

They were later laid bare in Ofsted’s report: learners can “easily access inappropriate materials on college computers, including pornography” and staff and students do not feel “safe” because they “cannot be sure whether anyone on site is supposed to be there or not”.

A Department for Education spokesperson this week told this newspaper that “termination letters were issued to City College Nottingham on 24 December. We are meeting with the provider later this week to go through the next steps of our contract termination process, in line with our published intervention guidance”.

The spokesperson would not reveal the contract termination date, but the Education and Skills Funding Agency typically gives providers three months to wrap up.

At the time of the inspection, 191 learners were on adult learning programmes and there were 110 apprentices.

Nottingham College had a £1 million subcontracting agreement with City College Nottingham to train 300 of its learners, but terminated it in November when the safeguarding concerns first came to light. The majority of students have since been transferred to courses within Nottingham College.

Ofsted was drafted in after a whistleblower brought concerns to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).

The watchdog’s report said that not all learners had been issued with identity badges, but that a few “are particularly concerned for their safety while on college sites, and inspectors agreed with them”.

Inspectors reported that a staff member also “expressed concerns about their own safety at community venues”, as “access to learning areas is open to the public without challenge”.

They found that while staff raised these “significant concerns” before the start of term, managers had “failed to resolve them”.

The report added that “In practical workshops, poor practice and safety concerns identified before the beginning of term remain unresolved”.

While City College Nottingham was rated ‘inadequate’ for leadership and management and overall, Ofsted judged that it ‘requires improvement’ in all other assessed themes.

The private provider operates from sites across Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Burton-on-Trent and Stokeon-Trent.

Courses on offer include English for speakers of other languages, English, mathematics, fashion and textiles, construction trades, health and social care, and beauty therapy.

Twelve days after the inspection, which ended on November 8, 2019, City College Nottingham advertised on Twitter that all their places were “now full for the academic year 2019/20”.

Nottingham College previously told FE Week it took quick and decisive action after being made aware of the safeguarding situation, including having “immediately” provided reception and security staff at City College Nottingham’s Carlton Road campus to “ensure secure access”.

The college is “strictly enforcing the use of lanyards for staff and students in order to ensure only people with a legitimate reason to be in the building are in the building”.

It has also “suspended IT access to control safeguarding risk online until such time as adequate software monitoring can be introduced”.

City College Nottingham last year had a subcontract with Burton and South Derbyshire College worth £220,000. The college said this ended in 2018/19 and it had not entered into any new contracts in 2019/20.

The private provider’s direct ESFA contracts for 2019/20 totalled £1.3 million.

City College Nottingham declined to comment.

Profile: Anna Morrison

Jess Staufenberg meets an unconventional leader on a mission to unpick the apprenticeships system

Many education leadership success stories begin with somebody being the first in their family to go to university, beating all odds and rising through the ranks from there. Anna Morrison is different.

The director of Amazing Apprenticeships – the daughter of a headteacher and a social care boss – was entirely expected to go to university but resolutely did not want to. She already felt frustrated with her sixth form teachers refusing to let her out for work experience during her free periods. “One day a week I had no lessons at all, and I was saying ‘this is crazy – why are you making me come and sit in here all day when I could be going out seeing business?’”

Her itch to learn in an active, practical way is evident. “When I was doing A-levels, I realised I didn’t enjoy learning in that way. With music A-level, I loved the performance but not the theory. With theology, I thought we’d be doing lots of debates together, but we had to sit and learn texts. If you knew me, you’d wonder how I ever ended up doing that.”

A few trips to university campuses made up her mind. The social scene was right up her street, but sitting in lectures? Not a bit of it. “I was academically capable of going. My family, my siblings and cousins all had a high level of education – and this was the 90s, university was free, so why wouldn’t you?”

One teacher told her she would never achieve a senior management role without a degree. But Morrison was determined and so she saved up some money and, having never got on a plane before, flew to New Zealand. Within a day she had a waitressing job, working hand-to-mouth paying for her explorations around the country.

If someone tells me I can’t do something, it ignites something in me

Morrison puts her 18-year-old determination to do things her own way down to a family trait. “Usually if someone tells me I can’t do something, it ignites something in me where I say, ‘right, I’ll show you’.” Her grandmother was similar. “I’ve always been surrounded by a lot of strong female influences. I saw my nan as quite a trailblazer. Once she identified the need for a homeless shelter in our community, and she actually set it up. I was really close to her, so she inspired me.”

It could all have gone wrong. Aged 19, Morrison was back at home and casting around for work. She landed a job temping for North Hertfordshire College as a receptionist over the summer. “Most days it was just me, the cleaner, the postman and the security man.” Some people might have felt defeated sat at a desk somewhere near Luton, but Morrison, who is clearly a rampant organiser, spent her time devising a proper system for taking messages at reception. Soon she was made permanent, and after that oversaw all reception desks across the college. “And that’s when I got sucked into FE.”

The sector seems to have encouraged Morrison’s innermost talents and skills in a way school simply had not. “One of the things I really need to thank FE for is not letting my age be a barrier. I was regularly the youngest person in the meeting, but they would always listen and not patronise me.” She spent seven years at North Hertfordshire College in different departments, moving across marketing, budgeting and other briefs. “It was like the best rotational apprenticeship!”

Finally, actual apprenticeships landed on her desk. Morrison was asked to sort out the college’s low success rate. “It really was the best job to unpick what was happening.”

At the same time she joined the Hertfordshire provider network to make contacts in the region. The Learning and Skills Council, later replaced by the Skills Funding Agency, wanted to appoint a manager for the network and Morrison decided to go for it. Her remit was, in her own words, “to build partnerships and make stuff happen” between training providers, colleges, local authorities and funding bodies. She was just 27 years old.

Her experience leading on apprenticeships at the college, combined with her new role, brought Morrison a revelation. “I was going into schools and talking about apprenticeships – and that’s when I realised just how much people didn’t understand. They didn’t know where to begin.”

It’s a problem Morrison has spent her life unpicking. The opportunity to make this her full-time mission came when the Learning and Skills Council closed and her manager position with it. “I got to one of those exciting T-junctions where you either go left or right. Should I go back to a provider, or is there an opportunity to do it alone?”

She set up her own business, Anna Morrison Consultancy Services, in 2010 and then Amazing Apprenticeships in 2015. In the same year the organisation won the contract from the government’s National Apprenticeship Service as the approved communication channel for the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge for Schools and Colleges (ASKC) project, which gives staff free support and resources to help students understand apprenticeships.

I just don’t think we need a separate apprentice wage

With her team of seven staff, Morrison has built a website which “demystifies” the apprenticeship world, packed with resources, case studies and information. She is particularly proud of the “vacancy snapshot” section in which the recruitment processes of 65 big UK employers are made clear.

“I’ve spent loads of time understanding what it is schools didn’t understand. Teachers were saying the recruitment processes have become so complicated, and young people were saying they don’t know what steps to take. So we’ve worked it all out.” Morrison has huge names signed up: Google, Coca Cola, the UK Parliament, Jaguar, Amazon and more. “I would say we’ve got another brand coming to us every week.”

Whether sorting out a receptionist message system, or the way people understand recruitment processes, Morrison clearly doesn’t like a mess. But there is more to it than that – she feels strongly that no one should think a job is out of their reach. “There are a few things that make me tick. Helping people make sense of it is one. But it’s really important we show all young people they’re welcome to these employers. I don’t want young people saying ‘a company like Google don’t want someone like me’.”

Morrison visited Brixton prison last year and is particularly keen to extend apprenticeships to ex-offenders, care leavers, home-educated students and others not in the mainstream. “We’ve got so much more work to do in that space.” As she herself says, she may not have followed her parents into teaching or social care like her three siblings, but “you can probably see those values are with me”.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed. In June, Morrison was awarded a CBE, even managing a chat with Prince William about the importance of apprenticeships for mental health. If her aim was to prove the teacher wrong who told her she’d never get far, she has done it with considerable style and class. Her parents, in particular, are proud. “I think they always knew I would be fine – they were just nervous about me not going to university. They had to trust and support me.”

But the field is not clear yet. Since Morrison is focused on vulnerable groups, she is particularly frustrated by apprenticeship pay. It is one of the rare times she fumes. “My big policy thing, that I really didn’t think was helpful, is the apprentice minimum wage –  £3.90!”

It may be her influential voice alongside others in the sector that has helped get the issue to Number 10. On January 2, Boris Johnson announced the apprentice minimum wage will rise to £4.15. But it’s still less than the National Living Wage available in many jobs, now set at £8.72. “I just don’t think we need a separate apprentice wage!”

So, more remains to be done. But with a CBE to her name now, this non-graduate looks set to keep breaking down doors.

Radical college reform is inevitable. Let’s embrace it

There is broad agreement that the FE sector needs radical reform, yet little consensus on the detail. But what if that was all the agreement we really needed, asks Ann Limb

There’s nothing like ‘yesterday’s men’ (or women) appearing in the media to offer comment on the issues of the day from their own retrospective leadership positions. Politics has no shortage of them, and their interventions tend at best to be informative but ineffectual, and at worst ignored or ridiculed.

For my part, it is now almost 20 years since I served as a College Principal. I have never been far from the sector, and have remained an ardent advocate for colleges and their critical role in local communities throughout, but I have no intention of becoming a retrospective leader myself. It seems to me that there are plenty of fresh thinkers and ideas out there, and the biggest risk the sector faces is in failing to listen to them.

As the Independent Commission on the College of the Future rightly states in its interim report, there are “seismic shifts happening across the UK”. Keeping up is a challenge and the reality is that change in the FE sector must be equally volcanic in response.

Commissions and enquiries are all well and good, but in the end they often reflect the biases of their members, who tend to be more experienced, and can be more resistant to change. The FE sector needs to be less introspective in its current deliberations and truly embrace the widespread societal and political changes that are sweeping the country if it is going to be adaptable enough to meet the challenges they present.

Change in the FE sector must be volcanic

I imagine that Dominic Cummings and his new crop of fresh-thinking ‘weirdos’ could instinctively offer a bolder reforming vision than any sector-led crystal ball gazing. The time is right, the mood music resonates, and history teaches us that the Tories ‘get’ FE. Compare the incorporation of colleges under John Major with the Blair administration’s failure to implement one iota of David Blunkett’s Learning Age green paper or Helena Kennedy’s Learning Works report.

It is under Conservative governments that FE has been reformed and for the next 5 years we have a majority government that is prepared to turn things on their heads. Now is the opportunity for the FE sector to be on the front foot to shape an alternative future.

However, the alternative is not that FE continues to try to be all things to all people or worse, as the Commission’s interim report suggests, spends time searching for its place the ‘skills eco system’. Colleges of the future should build on their contemporary uniqueness. FE Colleges are the local route to life changing transformation for significant numbers of people and organisations.

Five themes have emerged from the Commission’s consultations so far, and as I filled in their online survey I began to lose the will to live after the third. Consistency and comprehensiveness give way to repetition and humdrum. In the end, what else needs consideration beyond purpose, practices and people?

Sir Christopher Ball coined the phrase ‘resources follow coherent purpose’. If exciting and imaginative but workable solutions for the future of FE are unearthed, the matters covered in the other themes – funding and a coherent skills ecosystem – will naturally follow.

In summary, this means ensuring that the college of the future is acknowledged as the provider of essential services to people and employers in every local community. The focus has to be local and the services must be integrated with all the other local services needed and used by local people. 

Governments and opposition parties who want to demonstrate their ‘staying in touch with the people’ credentials need to remember that voters experience policy locally.  The most reforming idea that could come from Boris Johnson’s radical entourage is that Westminster doesn’t have all the answers. Can the Commission possibly come to such a conclusion? And will the college of the future be ready for such freedom?

 

 

Improving teacher wellbeing requires commitment at all levels

A range of factors have made FE a less happy place over the past decade. There are strategies we need to adopt to change that, writes Kirsti Lord

Staff are the backbone of further education colleges and this week’s EPI report on the wellbeing of the school workforce made for sobering reading. Despite the average teacher being happier and more satisfied with life than the average graduate, within education as a whole FE lecturers are the lowest-scoring group on the happiness scale and the second highest-scoring group on the anxiety scale. This deserves our attention. The health and wellbeing of staff in colleges is a critical issue.

We know from previous surveys and research that many seasoned lecturers have considered walking away from the profession, with many citing heavy workloads, stress and low pay as factors. Teachers still overwhelmingly enjoy teaching but the decline in wellbeing and rising anxiety must be understood within the broader context of what has happened to the sector over the past decade.

In many colleges, budget cuts have resulted in efficiencies in management structures, less opportunity to progress and fewer clear pathways through organisations. Reduced professional development budgets have also resulted in staff feeling less invested in and less able to build their CV.

Whereas ten years ago it was common for each department to have a pot of hours to use to reduce timetables to enable staff to undertake projects, develop new provision, take on departmental responsibilities or carry out internal verification, such remission is now a thing of the past in most colleges. Yet these duties are still expected on top of a full timetable, which both increases the pressure and devalues the work.

We need a culture that builds optimism

Regulation and scrutiny have increased too, and staff can feel caught in a cycle that requires them to constantly prepare for the next observation, inspection or audit. Naturally, it makes them cautious, over-constrained and very risk-averse, which in turn limits opportunities to innovate.

With rising costs, ten years of cuts, pay freezes and losing staff, the capital and resourcing of FE has taken the biggest hit in the education sector. While the EPI report does not have enough data to make causal links between the two (It didn’t set out to find one), the neglect of colleges has certainly played a role in lowering wellbeing levels among staff.

Nevertheless, we know colleges must model positive behaviours, be safe and secure places of work and study for all who work, study and train in them. That’s why during last year’s Mental Health Awareness Week, the Association of Colleges officially launched the Mental Health & Wellbeing Charter.

Colleges need to be bold about their commitment to staff and student wellbeing. The charter gives them the chance to publicly state their commitment to that, to provide relevant information and training, and to create an inclusive college ethos which is respectful of those with mental ill health. 

Staff in colleges across the country are called on daily to be motivators, leaders and experts in their field. A culture that builds optimism, talks more about the issues staff are facing and seeks to understand them will ensure leaders are able to support their needs in a more effective way.

As we start the new decade, it seems timely to remind those colleges who have not yet signed up to the Mental Health Charter that it stands as a positive affirmation of their commitment to staff welfare. So much of the ‘happy balance’ college leaders strive to create happens on an individual, team and organisational level, and almost all successful wellbeing initiatives are results of cultural shifts, rather than management tweaks or movement.

One thing is clear, staff wellbeing in further education must improve. A political and financial reversal of the decade of neglect offers hope of alleviating the organisational factors aggravating the situation, but work must begin closer to home to ensure staff and lecturers feel valued, supported and motivated. Anything else is a disservice to their dedication and commitment to making colleges the amazing places they truly are.

A new beginning for apprenticeships or business as usual?

The general election delivered a landslide for the Conservatives. But what does it all mean for apprenticeships and training, asks Richard Alberg

The Conservative Party won an 80-seat majority, their largest since 1987. Among other outcomes, uncertainty around Brexit has temporarily abated. The Withdrawal Agreement has passed, and we will transition out of the European Union with just short of a year to negotiate a new trade agreement with the EU and other key trading blocks.

The broader impact of Brexit on our society and economy is, as yet, unknown. But what are the implications for the core business of apprenticeships and training?

The Conservative manifesto has promised, “significant numbers of new UK apprentices” for all new infrastructure projects. So we can expect new apprenticeships for those 40 new hospitals, new police officers and new nurses much discussed during the election. The manifesto also says the government will deliver a new National Skills Fund worth £3 billion throughout the next Parliament, a £500 million UK Shared Prosperity Fund to ‘replace’ the EU structural Fund, and £2 billion for the FE college estate.

The manifesto’s promises, however, create three thorny dilemmas for government, and it’s not clear how they will get around them.

First, as the editor of these pages rightly pointed out last year, there is little detail on how the apprenticeship levy overspend will be dealt with and whether the funding offered will be enough to plug the gaps in the FE sector after a decade of underfunding. I also note a report by the Office for Budget Responsibility which refers to a weakening of the economy and higher-than-anticipated government borrowing (not taking account of new spending promises in the manifesto). Does this mean that the manifesto is economically undeliverable?

Can the Conservatives get past their 40-year commitment to free-market belt-tightening?

Second, how does the need for investment in skills sit with the Conservatives’ traditional ideological reluctance towards investing to grow?

In a talk at his eponymous institute on 18 December, Tony Blair stated that he had not yet convinced anyone of the importance of the fourth industrial revolution. His comment was surprising, given the way that technology will irreversibly transform our economy and society, changing work, learning, our environment, and the way we live.

The UK is in a precarious position when it comes to the skills we need to excel both economically and socially to meet these immense social and cultural changes. It remains an open question as to whether the skill-based points system for immigration planned by the government, along with the degree of funding devoted to reskilling, will fill the yawning skills gaps threatening to undo our economy as we exit the EU. Radical action is needed, and the manifesto talks the talk around innovation. But can the Conservatives get past their 40-year commitment to free-market belt-tightening?

Lastly, no-one could have failed to notice that the Conservatives won by pulling voters away from Labour in the north of England, reassured by the promises of Brexit and change. So the analysis goes. 

But it is not enough to make promises to this new voter base, comprised of the populations of declining small towns with shrinking numbers of young people. They also have to deliver, on skills training and much else besides. Might we then expect the government to start making noises about social mobility as well as productivity in its apprenticeship policy, balancing Level 2 and 3 against Level 6 and 7 (still popular with employers) or even tilting public spending to lower-level apprenticeships? Again, it is hard to see how the Conservative Party will square its interest in productivity gains with claims of improving social mobility and social justice.

So much remains uncertain. But what is undeniable is that the governing party will have to make critical pivots in its thinking to stave off economic decline and to hold onto its electoral gains. 2020 promises to be another interesting year in politics, with our sector grabbing an increasing number of its headlines.

Government commissioned college finance review to slam ESFA

A government commissioned review is set to heavily criticise the Education and Skills Funding Agency and their intervention regime for failing to spot when colleges get into finance trouble, FE Week understands.

Dame Mary Ney, who had a 40-year career in local government, was commissioned to undertake the review in August after the FE Commissioner’s team found Hadlow College, now in administration, had an ESFA financial health score of ‘good’.

It is expected that Ney will be particularly critical of the calculations the ESFA uses to determine the financial health scoring and grading.

We need to know more than just what the single score is

She will argue that had the agency’s formula been more robust, it could have intervened in college failures, such as that of Hadlow, much sooner.

The Ofsted grade one college has been subject to government investigations after financial irregularities were uncovered. These included submitting partial information to the ESFA in order to secure a ‘good’ financial health rating. However, according to the FE Commissioner, had the ESFA looked at their published accounts they would have rated them as ‘inadequate’.

The agency’s scoring system allows colleges to self-grade themselves by inputting three measures: one based on cash, another on debt and then margin.

This set of metrics then formulates an overall financial health grade of ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive for the Association of Colleges, said this “broadly balanced” system has been around since 1994 but is in need of change.

“A college that is reporting a big loss or got low points on their current assets, or high debt, that is all a flag. But the big issue is you have got to be certain the figures are correct, which was clearly a bit of a Hadlow issue,” he told FE Week.

“What I think is a problem is that we are not a sector full of financial analysts. Ttere is a slight danger that a college thinks their rating is fine, so nothing more needs to be done.

“We need to know more than just what the single score is ­– you need to understand what contributes to it. It is useful as one of the things in the picture, but it is not enough.”

The ESFA appears to be aware of its trouble in overseeing college finances, and has already started to make changes ahead of Ney’s report.

It was announced in September that college financial returns, which historically have been submitted at least twice a year, will from this month be consolidated into a single annual return.

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

But principals were critical of the move, with Bedford Colleges Group boss Ian Pryce commenting at the time: “You don’t wait until you hear the football results and learn your team lost 10-0 as a basis for preventing problems and poor performance. You spot things early by developing strong human relationships.”

We are not a sector full of financial analysts

On December 23 the ESFA published a new integrated financial model for colleges (IFMC), which replaced the agency’s modelling for financial plans, financial record, and cash flow forecast.

Gravatt said the new spreadsheet, which all 248 colleges must have completed by February 28, will collect more cash data and thus give the ESFA a wider overview of a college’s financial health.

“This is a spreadsheet that those colleges applying for restructuring funding – about 10 per cent of the sector – had to fill in,” he explained. “But it ­is now being extended to 100 per cent of colleges,  asking them to predict their funding for up until July 2022.”

He added that while the financial health scoring and grading hasn’t changed, the ESFA has “promised that they are going to look at changing the system”.

Ney’s report will be published ahead of a National Audit Office’s value for money review on the management of colleges’ financial sustainability, which launched in August.

FE Week understands the government’s audit watchdog will release their verdict in the summer.

The DfE declined to comment on the upcoming Ney report.

London mayor seeks to reassure private providers over extra £77 for English and math quals

The mayor of London has attempted to reassure private providers they won’t miss out on extra English and maths funding for adult learners.

Sadiq Khan announced last month that the Greater London Authority would increase funding by £77 for every English and maths qualification at level 1 and 2 – at a cost of £2.7 million. The money will come from the adult education budget for 2020/21.

But FE Week subsequently spotted in the draft funding rules that this increase would only be given to “grant funded” providers – typically colleges and not private training providers.

The move would mean that private providers, which win AEB funding through a tender process with the GLA, would be paid less to deliver the same qualification as colleges.

Board papers for a meeting in November stated: “Further work is needed to determine whether these changes [to English and Maths funding] can be made to procured provision or whether they would undermine the integrity of the procurement process, which would open the GLA up to the risk of facing substantial financial sanctions from auditors.”

However, the GLA has told FE Week, following legal advice, they “expect” to be able to amend the funding rules so private providers can also claim the extra £77.

A spokesperson added that the authority expects private providers, like colleges, will be able to access greater support also promised by Khan to train staff to support learners with special educational needs and disabilities.

The decision as to whether to pay private providers the same as colleges will be taken at a board meeting in February.

The GLA will increase college allocations to include the £2.7 million based on the volume of delivery for these qualifications in 2018/19, funded from “unallocated money in 2020/21 budget”.

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said he expects the GLA to “reflect on the different treatment of grant funded and procured providers before the rules are finalised”.

But, he added, AELP’s concern with the proposals “is that even if independent training providers are entitled to use the uplift, the fact that the funding may come out of their existing contract means that the volume of their delivered AEB provision will go down.

“Additional funding should therefore be made available.”

Funding rates for English and maths qualifications more than doubled in 2012, but have not increased since 2013.

Announcing the funding uplift, Khan said in December: “We’re determined to use all the power and resources at our disposal to help create the workforce of the future – and that means making sure all Londoners have the opportunity to gain skills and make the most of their potential.

“A good level of English and maths is critical to improving someone’s life chances – but for too long funding levels haven’t matched what’s needed to help Londoners improve their basic skills. By increasing funding, providers across the capital can boost participation and achievement.”

More than a quarter of working-aged adults in England have numeracy and/or literacy skills below the level expected of an 11-year old, according to the GLA.

London area director for the Association of Colleges, Mary Vine-Morris, said it is “incredibly helpful” that the mayor “is willing to use the flexibilities afforded him through devolution to begin to address some of the long term problems colleges face”.

The GLA and six mayoral combined authorities were devolved AEB funding for their area from the central government in August.

Khan’s budget is £306 million annually.

DfE plans for all ‘outstanding’ providers to be inspected over next five years

Gavin Williamson has vowed to send Ofsted inspectors into every ‘outstanding’ training provider in England within five years, as he confirmed an earlier pledge to lift their inspection exemption.

The education secretary announced last September that the exemption, introduced by Michael Gove in 2012, would finally be abandoned. It followed repeated warnings from Ofsted that it was masking poor performance in colleges and providers that are currently protected from scrutiny.

Williamson has now confirmed he wants Ofsted to begin regularly inspecting grade one providers within five years of September 2020 – the normal timescale for inspections of those rated ‘good’.

A consultation on the move, which is subject to parliamentary approval, is being launched today.

If the exemption is lifted, grade one providers that have recently been given the once over can expect a short inspection, while those visited prior to September 2015 will be treated at length.

FE Week analysis has found 155 FE and skills providers are currently rated as grade one – although almost half of them (47 per cent) have not had a full inspection in over five years.

The five year timeframe may mean providers that have not been checked up on for as long as 13 years – for example, independent provider SAKS (Education) Limited – could have gone almost two decades without inspection.

But the Department for Education said Ofsted will prioritise visiting those providers that have gone longest without inspections.

Williamson said the exemption has meant “there is often not an up-to-date picture” of a provider’s standards.

And although the government “continues to trust our best schools and colleges to get on with the job of education”, making sure all providers are regularly reviewed “means parents will benefit from the expert insight Ofsted provides”.

FE Week understands lifting the outstanding exemption will cost Ofsted between £5 million and £10 million.

The Department for Education this week said it was not in a position to reveal how much additional money would be sent to the watchdog. That was a matter for the upcoming spending review.

The move has been welcomed by the Association of School and College Leaders, with its deputy director of policy Duncan Baldwin saying that while the exemption policy was “well-intentioned”, it is “time to reverse it” – especially because a new inspection framework was introduced in September.

The current exemption policy already permits Ofsted to revisit up to 10 per cent of grade one providers each year, so it has not stopped some colleges from losing their grade one: Swindon College, which was rated ‘outstanding’ in 2013, fell to grade three after an inspection in December 2018 found that leaders “had failed to maintain standards” after a large number of teachers and managers left the college.

Bury College dropped to grade three in 2017, ten years after a grade one in 2007, because of ineffective self-assessment, inconsistent teaching and low achievement rates.

Kendal College suffered a shorter drop from its grade one in 2010, to a grade two in 2017.

Police probe into 3aaa abandoned as ESFA pledges ‘tighter monitoring’

The police have dropped their criminal investigation against Aspire Achieve Advance (3aaa) – although the Insolvency Service continues its enquiries into the former apprenticeship giant.

Derbyshire Constabulary said it had run into “evidential difficulties”. Following a meeting with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) on November 29, 2019, it decided to not pursue the case.

Neither the police nor the ESFA would provider further detail, but a spokesperson for the Department for Education said it would “not hesitate to take swift and decisive action against those who attempt to break, or manipulate the rules, regardless of whether the relevant authorities take forward criminal proceedings”.

“Since the investigation into 3aaa, the ESFA has toughened up on oversight of providers,” he added, “and we have established tighter monitoring controls.”

A spokesperson for Derbyshire Constabulary said a “formal criminal investigation” into 3aaa began in March 2019, following a “number of fraud allegations made by the DfE”.

The government terminated its multi-million pound skills funding contracts with the provider in October 2018, following a five month investigation. The case was then passed to the police through Action Fraud. This was the DfE’s second investigation into the provider in two years.

The provider went bust and the High Court placed 3aaa into compulsory liquidation in late October 2018. Anthony Hannon was then made the official receiver handling the insolvency.

His investigation into the collapse is still ongoing.

Although Derbyshire Constabulary has dropped its case against the defunct provider, the insolvency service told FE Week that if Hannon does find evidence of criminality he can refer the findings to another prosecuting authority, such as the Serious Fraud Office.

The Insolvency Service has three years from the date of the company winding-up order to launch enforcement action “if it was to determine doing so was in the public interest in the light of any investigation findings”.

Sanctions imposed by the official receiver, if he uncovers unfit director conduct, include director disqualification of between two and 15 years.

3aaa had 4,200 learners and 500 staff on its books when it went bust.

The firm was holding £16.5 million in ESFA contracts, and received more than £31 million in government funding the year before its collapse.

Whistleblower evidence obtained by FE Week, showed how the provider inflated achievement rates by more than 20 percentage points.

Sales documents for 3aaa showed a potential £700,000 ESFA clawback. It is understood that this related to a range of apprenticeship and traineeship funding overclaims made through individualised learner record submissions.

The ESFA also investigated the alleged misuse of grants from an apprenticeship incentive scheme.

Nor was this the first ESFA investigation into 3aaa: in 2016 the auditing firm KPMG was asked to carry out an investigation and found dozens of funding and success rate “overclaims”.

It is understood this resulted in the provider paying back a substantial six-figure sum.

After launching its second investigation into 3aaa in June 2018, the DfE called in an independent auditor, Alyson Gerner, to investigate the ESFA over its contract management of the former apprenticeships giant.

3aaa was co-founded by former Derby County Football Club owner Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008. They both stepped down in September 2018.

Neither Marples nor McEvoy-Robinson had responded to requests for comment at the time of our going to press.