Banning ‘insufficient’ new providers from recruiting apprentices may not be as simple as once thought, as confusion appears to surround the case of a private university.

 BPP University, part of the global BPP Professional Education Group, was warned it was making poor progress in an early monitoring visit report of its apprenticeship provision from Ofsted last week.

The results of the report, which warned that managers were not aware of the “slow progress” made by apprentices, means that BPP University faces being banned from recruiting any new apprentices until a full inspection of its provision can be carried out.

 However, BPP appears on the register of apprenticeship training providers four times. As well as BPP University, it has the approved providers of BPP Holdings, BPP Professional Education and BPP Actuarial Education.

BPP would not comment on whether it would simply be able to switch BPP University’s allocation of apprenticeships to another one of its providers in the case of a ban.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education confirmed that no decision had been made yet on whether BPP University would be barred, but said the other BPP entities are counted separately to BPP University and would not be affected by the outcome of the monitoring visit.

 She said: “We will always take action to protect the interests of apprentices. We are currently assessing Ofsted’s findings and will be contacting BPP University to set out the action we will be taking in due course.”

Another question mark remains over whether any ban would include all of BPP University’s apprenticeship provision. The monitoring inspection only took into account programmes ranging from level two to level five, but the university also offers some courses at levels six and seven.

However, these higher apprenticeships are outside of Ofsted’s remit and are the responsibility of the Office for Students. The OfS is in charge of checking the quality of apprenticeships at levels six and seven, but does this in a risk assessment as part of its annual provider review rather than taking part in monitoring visits.

Some of their apprenticeships, such as the level 7 accountancy and taxation professional standard, which do not have a prescribed degree element, are worryingly completely unmonitored, as revealed by FE Week this week.

A spokesperson for the OfS said the body was “aware of the issue” with monitoring visits and was “actively working with Ofsted and the DfE to address it and ensure all apprenticeships are of high quality”.

Rather than automatically banning any provider who is found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ from also recruiting for levels six and seven, she said it would “depend on the individual provider circumstances”.

 “In the case where a provider was judged to be insufficient by Ofsted and they also offered apprenticeships within our remit, we would work with Ofsted and the DfE to address it,” she said.

“We’re working with the DfE already to develop a process that will ensure consistency and quality of standards of apprenticeships.”

 So far, all 16 apprenticeship providers found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in at least one area up until October 11 have been barred from recruiting new apprentices until their next full inspection.

The Education and Skills Funding Agencies can overrule the ban, but only if it “identifies an exceptional extenuating circumstance”.

A deal has been struck between the country’s largest college group and union members at its two London colleges to settle a long-running bitter pay dispute.

Staff at the Lewisham and Southwark colleges, who were involved in a controversial long-distance merger with NCG last year, took a total of four days’ strike action in May and September this year.

Their paymasters have now agreed to a pay rise of £350 (pro rata for part-time staff) and have also agreed to change the way they calculate strike pay deductions in the future.

“NCG originally deducted 1/260th of members’ annual salary, but has now agreed to take just 1/365th in future and repay the difference on previous deductions,” the UCU said.

“Both sides said they are committed to reviewing incremental pay progression to improve consistency at all NCG colleges. Employees in Carlisle, Kidderminster and Lancashire currently receive the incremental pay progression, but those in Newcastle or London don’t.”

The settlement comes a month after NCG’s chief executive Joe Docherty resigned and after Lewisham Southwark College decoupled to become two separate colleges again.

Staff at the colleges have been in uproar following “years of real-terms pay cuts”.

The UCU claims that staff have been offered only one pay increase – of just 1 per cent – in five years and, unlike other London colleges, they don’t receive the London weighting allowance.

Chris Payne, interim chief executive of NCG, said: “We’re pleased to have found a solution to this issue and we’re committed to further developing the long term relationship with our trade union partners.”

UCU regional official Iain Owens said: “UCU members at Lewisham and Southwark colleges have accepted the new package on offer and we now want to work with NCG to get them onto the pay progression system enjoyed by NCG employees elsewhere in the country.”

The high-profile boss of a college in financial crisis resigned from her post without accepting any financial payout, walking away from at least £130,000, FE Week can reveal.

Dame Asha Khemka stepped down as principal of West Nottinghamshire College at the start of October. Her resignation came shortly after FE Week revealed the college had received a £2.1 million emergency government bailout in July, just 48 hours before it would have run out of cash.

One of the highest paid principals in FE, Dame Asha received a £262,000 remuneration package in 2016/17. In 2014 she received a damehood, and was named woman of the year at the GG2 Leadership Awards.

However, West Notts has confirmed that she stepped down with immediate effect and did not receive any payoff, despite the fact her six-month notice period would have entitled her to at least £130,000.

This makes a stark contrast with other disgraced principals, whose large payouts when they finally walked away from their colleges have often earned them infamy.

In June it was revealed that Mike Hopkins, the former principal of Sussex Downs College, had been placed on gardening leave since March following the college’s merger with Sussex Coast College Hastings.

During the five months he remained on gardening leave before the end of the academic year, Mr Hopkins was paid £80,000 by the college, despite the fact Sussex Downs was facing a deficit of £1.9 million and planning a wave of staff redundancies. He also received a final payout for leaving, but it is not known how much this was.

Amarjit Basi resigned as principal of the Cornwall College Group in July 2016 against a backdrop of financial troubles. Despite the college receiving a financial warning notice from the government in April 2016, and preparing for staff redundancies in May, Mr Basi left with a £200,000 payout.

His successor, Raoul Humphreys, resigned from the college last week, but it is not clear if he will also receive such generous remuneration.

Matt Waddup, head of policy and campaigns at the University and College Union, said: “It is important that principals and senior leaders leaving their colleges as a result of their poor management decisions are not financially rewarded for doing so.

 “College funding should be focused where it is needed most – on frontline delivery of students’ education – not on excessive salaries or payoffs for those who have already left the institution.”

 A report from the FE commissioner, published last week, criticised “serious corporate failure” at West Notts College and said it had reached the point of “financial crisis”.

 The intervention report, which had been written back in August, warned that Dame Asha and the college’s board had “overseen a serious business failure which will impact on the whole college” and called for an “urgent review that ensures that those with ultimate responsibilities are held to account”.

 It is understood that Dame Asha’s departure from the college took place shortly after the college board conducted the review as advised.

Dame Asha was approached for comment.

The government has published its progress towards the public sector apprenticeship target for the first time – and FE Week can reveal that starts at seven departments made up less than one per cent of their workforce.

The target, which came into effect last April, obliges public sector organisations – including the civil service – to make sure that new apprentices make up at least 2.3 per cent of their overall workforce numbers on average over the next four years.

Figures published by the Cabinet Office in late September revealed there were 4,459 apprenticeship starts in the civil service for the first year of the target, which made up 1.3 per cent of a workforce totalling 343,160.

But while the data included the number of starts per department, it didn’t show progress by individual departments.

FE Week crunched the numbers, using civil service employment data published by the Office for National Statistics, to show which departments were doing well – and which weren’t.

The Ministry of Justice came out bottom, with just 93 apprentices recruited against an overall workforce of 67,600, or 0.1 per cent.

Nonetheless, a spokesperson said it was “confident” it would meet the target in the future.

The “majority of our workforce” is in the prisons, probation and courts services which “historically” haven’t used apprenticeships “so we have had to build bespoke apprenticeship programmes from scratch”, he said.

Other low-performing departments included the UK Statistics Authority, which had 15 starts out of an overall England-based workforce of 2,170 – or 0.7 per cent.

A spokesperson for the authority, which incorporates the ONS, said that apprenticeships were a “big priority” for it.

The bulk of the authority’s workforce is in Wales, where it is “currently shortlisted for a Welsh government award for its pioneering apprenticeships at the ONS Data Science Campus at Newport” – but these apprenticeships don’t count towards the target, which is England-only.

Apprenticeship starts at both the Treasury and the Cabinet Office also only made up 0.7 per cent of their overall workforce, according to our analysis.

A spokesperson for the Treasury said that apprenticeships in the areas that the majority of its staff work in – policy and economics – have only recently been developed, and it took on its first cohort of policy apprentices last month.

“With those new apprenticeships, we are confident we will be able to reach the target of 2.3 per cent by 2021,” he said.

The Cabinet Office rejected FE Week’s figures, even though they are based on official government data, and said that apprentices made up 0.8 per cent of its workforce – with a significant increase in staff numbers over the reporting period impacting on its progress.

The three other departments to have apprenticeship starts make up less than 1 per cent of their workforce in 2017-18 were the Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, just two departments exceeded the target: the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Department for Exiting the European Union.

DeXEU had 14 starts out of an overall workforce at 550 (2.5 per cent), while BEIS had 285 starts out of a headcount of 11,910 (2.4 per cent).

The Department for Education had 116 starts over the year, which made up 1.9 per cent of its 6,080-strong workforce.

All public-sector organisations in England with 250 or more employees must have reported progress towards the apprenticeship target by September this year.

It’s an average target across the years 2017/18 to 2020/21 to “give flexibility to organisations to manage peaks and troughs in recruitment”, according to DfE guidance.

Government departments are grouped together as one organisation for the purpose of the target.

A government spokesperson said it was “on track to reach our target number by March 2021”.

“Apprentices are core to being a brilliant civil service, helping us to retain and attract the best talent.”

The DfE is expected to publish overall progress towards the target later this month.