The University and College Union has demanded that ministers “step in and deal with the debacle” at City College Plymouth, after 349 out of 350 members backed a vote of no confidence in their beleaguered principal.

It follows a damning FE commissioner report published last Friday, which exposed a catalogue of leadership failings at Garry Phillips’ former college, Ealing Hammersmith and West London.

“Anyone with any integrity would see that this vote means staff have no confidence in any decision made by the principal and his cohort,” said Philippa Davey, UCU regional official.

“People with the track records should not be in charge of what is a fantastic college,” she said.

“A teacher with such a failed record would not be given a job and the time has come for ministers to step in and deal with this debacle.”

The college, which does not have to take any action as a result of the vote, has so far refused to publicly back its beleaguered principal, despite multiple requests from FE Week by email and phone over the past week.

In addition to the vote of no confidence in Mr Phillips, over 99 per cent of those who voted said they had no confidence in the governors’ ability to make “sound and robust appointments for senior leaders at our college”.

And 100 per cent said they had no confidence in the appointment of Martin Smith, a financial consultant brought in by Mr Phillips who had previously worked with him at both EHWLC and New College Telford, to “control and manage the college’s finances”.

The union’s fury was sparked following an FE commissioner report into EHWLC, which was highly critical of Mr Phillips’ leadership.

According to the report, which was based on visits to the college in August, its financial situation was so bad it would be “unable to meet its commitments from early October without support”.

It concluded that executive leadership had been “poor” and it “had not provided a properly considered and coherent holistic strategic direction for the college”.

Issues highlighted included a lack of an overarching estates strategy, various merger discussions described as “a distraction at best” with some having no “obvious perceived advantages”, and a failure to achieve “too optimistic” budgeted income.

The relationship between “those holding power” – the chair, clerk and principal – was said to have been “over supportive” and “cosy, with little challenge and feeling a difficulty in asking questions”, according to the report.

UCU officials wrote to Pauline Odulinski, the chair of Plymouth’s governing board, on Monday, demanding answers about his appointment – including whether the process was “safe and robust” and whether governors had the “full facts regarding his previous position”.

In her reply Ms Odulinski said the board was “confident” in the recruitment process it had followed, and continued to have confidence in Mr Phillips’ ability to lead the college.

Ms Davey said she was “absolutely stunned” by the college’s response to their letter, and described it as “totally inadequate and insulting to staff”.

Today’s no confidence vote comes as members of the FE commissioner’s team are carrying out a diagnostic assessment at the college.

An all-staff email from Mr Phillips, seen by FE Week, said the visit was prompted by the college being in early intervention for financial health by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

The college is currently in consultation over a proposed restructure, which could see up to 70 jobs cut, according to the UCU.

Apprentices at one training provider had not had any training eight months after their start date, according to a damning Ofsted report published today.

XTP International, based in Stockport, was rated ‘inadequate’ across the board by the education watchdog, following an inspection in early October.

Among its many failings, inspectors noted that “there has been a significant decrease” since its last inspection “in the number of apprentices completing their qualification by the planned end date for around two thirds of the programmes”.

Shockingly, they found that “several apprentices have not received any training since they started their apprenticeship more than eight months ago”.

However, Gemma Hughes, XTP’s operations director, claimed it was a question of terminology.

She said the apprentices had been trained, but that Ofsted had been looking at their skills development as a result of that training.

“From an Education and Skills Funding Agency point of view the training has been delivered, but they [Ofsted] don’t think the skills that have been developed have been sufficient,” she told FE Week.

Ms Hughes described the education watchdog’s verdict as “devastating” but didn’t dispute it.

XTP is already in talks with the ESFA about transferring its learners to new providers.

“It is what it is. We can’t change it. We’ve just got to do what’s right for the learners and the employers and make sure that everything is handed over effectively,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said it did not “comment on the individual circumstances of providers”. 

Ofsted has been approached for a comment.

Under ESFA rules, XTP will now lose its place on the register of apprenticeship training providers.

The provider, which had 68 apprentices on programme at the time of the inspections, runs courses from level 2 to 5 in education and training, customer service, business and administration, management, and manufacturing technologies.

Inspectors said that leaders and managers had “presided over a significant decline in the standard of teaching, learning and assessment since the previous inspection”, which rated it as ‘requires improvement’.

Self-assessment was deemed to be “wholly inaccurate”, while a lack of oversight meant that leaders and managers being “unaware that almost all apprentices make slow or very slow progress”.

Leaders had also failed to “appoint any form of supervisory body to hold them to account for the performance of apprentices and the apprenticeship provision” – despite this being a recommendation at the previous inspection.

“Most” apprentices at the provider “complete their off-the-job learning in their own time, which contravenes apprenticeship requirements”.

“Too often, vocational coaches accredit apprentices with the knowledge and skills they already have,” the report said.

Safeguarding at the provider was also found to be not effective.

XTP was founded in 2003, and delivered adult apprenticeship training worth £659,138 in 2016/17, according to ESFA figures.

The proportion of learners taking management apprenticeships has doubled in the last two years, with just ten of the controversial standards now making up a fifth of all apprenticeship starts on standards.

FE Week found that a single management-apprenticeship standard was responsible for a staggering 66 per cent of all level five starts on standards last year, according to the provisional data for 2017/18 released by the Department for Education last month, while another made up 22 per cent of all level three starts.

 When excluding level-two apprenticeship standards, the proportion of management starts last year rises to 30 per cent.

Concerns have been expressed over the popularity of management apprentices, and the question of whether large sums from the apprenticeship levy should be focused on upskilling employees rather than encouraging new people into the workforce.

Tom Richmond, a senior research fellow on education and skills at Policy Exchange and former government advisor, warned the government should “prioritise training young people in important sectors and occupations ahead of paying for senior executives to do an MBA”.

“Labelling management and leadership-training courses as an ‘apprenticeship’ means that more and more funding is being directed a existing employees instead of young people trying to get started in their chosen career,” he said.

“The apprenticeship levy should support genuine apprenticeships in skilled occupations, and any misuse of the levy funds could damage the apprenticeship brand.”

However, a spokesperson for the Institute for Apprenticeships said it was working with employers “to help them develop the apprenticeships that businesses need”.

 “This means the right kind of apprenticeships that will lead to longer term employment, close the skills gap and ultimately help our economy grow.

 “Apprenticeships in management are popular with apprentices and employers, as most people who progress to more senior levels need management skills,” he added.

 In 2015/16, approximately nine per cent of all new starts at all ages and all levels were management apprenticeship frameworks. This grew to 15 per cent for standards in 2016/17, before taking the leap to 21 per cent by 2017/18.

Two standards in particular have seen their popularity skyrocket. The level five operations/departmental manager standard made up two thirds of all level five standards in 2017/18, having grown in one year from 813 apprentices to 7,756.

 And the level three team leader standard made up over a fifth of all level three standards last year, growing from 1,802 apprentices to 17,103. The level three team leader standard is now the most popular of all, with the level two adult care worker standard taking the second top spot with 10,463 starts last year.

However, both these popular management standards are in line to have their funding rates slashed following a review into funding bands by the IfA.

The level five operations/ departmental manager standard was set to drop from £9,000 to £7,000, while the level three team leader/supervisor standard faced cuts from £5,000 to £4,500.

Also facing the chop is the level six chartered manager degree apprenticeship, which could see its funding cap cut from £27,000 to £22,000.

The fate of all three standards has not yet been decided, after the employer group behind them appealed with, they claimed, more than 150 employers joining forces to protest against the “extensive and highly damaging cuts”. The outcome of the appeal is still pending.

 In total, 34,153 apprentices took part in a management standard last year, compared with just 3,807 the year before.

Anne Milton, the skills minister, said reforms to the apprenticeship system had been to create “long-term investment in skill straining”.

“There are now high-quality management apprenticeships available in lots of different sectors, creating the leaders our businesses need to grow.

“Apprenticeships are designed by employers themselves and the apprenticeship levy lets them choose where to spend money on training, based on their individual needs,” she said.

 However Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee and former skills minister, has previously warned that employers might try to “game the system” by rebranding existing training in order to claw back as much of their levy contribution as possible.

Speaking at the Conservative party conference in October 2016, Mr Halfon said: “I’m not going to deny to you, inevitably there may be some gaming of the system.

 “But I don’t actually believe it will be widespread. If gaming is widespread… then of course we would look at it later on and make sure we stop it as much as possible.”

A college has refused to explain why it has given £16.5 million over the last three years to a subcontracting partner that employs fewer than 10 people.

Brooklands College relies on SCL Security Ltd, a private provider run by Andrew Merritt, to deliver hundreds of level-three IT apprenticeships every year, for mostly 16-to-18-year-olds.

The company claims on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training website to “operate training centres nationwide”, but its own website makes no reference to any training venues – the only address is for a head office in Kent.

FE Week has also been unable to find any evidence of the company advertising for apprentices, or of who the employers are, raising questions as to how it recruits learners.

SCL Security only employed eight people in 2017, according to its most recent company accounts, and seven the year before.

Its website, which has the Brooklands College logo displayed, does not name any staff, but the Find Apprenticeship Training site lists Mr Merritt as SCL Security’s contact.

The government site says Mr Merritt – the company’s managing director – is “always available for consultation and will make himself known to you, runs the company with the help of operations managers, both regional and ethnic, and with the backup great admin and training staff”.

FE Week put all of these points to Brooklands and asked the college to justify handing over millions of pounds for delivery to SCL Security, but it declined to comment.

All a spokesperson would say is: “Brooklands College has very successful apprenticeship provision and works in partnership with training providers to meet the needs of a range of employers. Brooklands College is not able to comment on commercially sensitive information.”

SCL Security did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the college’s latest self-declaration subcontracting data, the private training provider has cashed in over £16.5 million between 2014/15 to 2016/17 from deals with Brooklands, with £3.4 million top-sliced and retained by the college.

Minutes from a June 2017 board meeting at Brooklands states that the money from the arrangement accounts for up to 85 per cent of SCL Security’s total income, and 80 per cent of the college’s subcontracting provision.

The minutes reveal that Brooklands identifies SCL Security as a “risk”, as it is a “sole trader” and could go “bust” or “elsewhere” with its business.

They even asked if a “disaster-recovery plan” was required because of this.

The minutes add that a Brooklands leader and his team “speak with staff from SCL most days, SCL receive a substantial amount of Brooklands staff time and support” and that in addition Brooklands  undertakes “due diligence, employer and learner surveys and the monthly monitoring of learners”. “Internal audit also undertake a mandatory SFA audit of subcontractors each spring term” and the Brooklands team “have a clear understanding of the risks regarding reliance with SCL and are endeavouring to minimise the exposure of the relationship”.

Brooklands was hoping to merge with the Guildford College Group, but minutes from February 2018 reveal it was rejected after “feedback suggested that Guildford felt the level of subcontracting undertaken at Brooklands presented a risk”.

The college’s latest accounts show that it went from a £224,000 surplus in 2016 to a £156,000 deficit the following year. Its February 2018 audit-committee minutes show that the college has another “projected budget deficit” on its way.

Brooklands was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2013 and has since received a short inspection and a monitoring visit, both of which said it was making reasonable progress.

SCL Security has never been inspected by the education watchdog, but received its first ESFA allocation this year, totalling £1 million for a mix of apprenticeships and adult-education provision, and is now in scope for inspection.

It also subcontracts for Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, with a current deal worth £1.7 million. The college also did not respond to request for comment about this relationship.

The organisation behind the university technical college programme has claimed the number of 14-year-olds studying at the institutions is on the up – even though its own figures show the opposite.

A spokesperson for the Baker Dearing Trust told FE Week that year 10 recruitment at the 14-to-19 technical institutions “has grown 40 per cent over the past two years” which “suggests students are interested in this form of education at a younger age”.

“This doesn’t suggest that the programme is struggling. Quite the opposite,” she said.

But when pressed by FE Week, she admitted that this was the overall number of learners – which is likely to have gone up as more UTCs have opened – rather than a per-UTC increase.

Further analysis revealed that the average intake of 14-year-old learners per UTC has actually fallen this year.

According to the trust’s unpublished enrolment figures for 2018/19, each institution has an average of 82 year 10 learners.

That’s down from 85 per UTC in 2017/18, according to school-census data published by the Department for Education.

The spokesperson was responding to FE Week’s request for a comment on our analysis of learner numbers at established UTCs.

We looked at the DfE’s school-census data for the 33 UTCs to have opened in 2015 or earlier, and compared figures for 2017/18 with 2016/17.

That found that 19 of them saw a year-on-year drop, with two-thirds of the 33 still operating at less than half of capacity.

Both UTC Plymouth and Sir Charles Kao UT, now rebranded as the BMAT STEM Academy, had a more than 50 per cent drop in learner numbers.

Sir Charles Kao UTC, which opened in 2014, had the lowest enrolment of any UTC in 2017/18, with just 59 learners – down from 143 the previous year, a fall of 59 per cent.

Helena Mills, chief executive of the Burnt Mill Academy Trust, which the UTC joined earlier this year, said the low numbers were due to a decision by the trust and the DfE to halt recruitment of year 10 and year 12 learners last year “because the future of Sir Charles Kao UTC was uncertain”.

As the BMAT STEM Academy, the school limited recruitment to year 10 in 2018/19 and has reached its target of 50 learners – and it expects to attract a further 100 in 2019/20, with a “lot of interest from prospective parents”.

Learner numbers at UTC Plymouth, which opened in 2013, fell by 52 per cent year-on-year, from 153 in 2016/17 to just 73 the following year.

A spokesperson for the school attributed this fall to the school’s decision to not take on any 14-year-olds last year.

She said 2017/18 was a “year of transition for us”, following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted grade in 2016, but that since joining Reach South multi-academy trust at the start of 2018/19 the school had “already seen a marked increase of interest”.

It will be expanding entry to year 9 from 2019, and is also “exploring opening places for year 7” from 2020, she added.

UTC Bolton, which opened in 2015, had the largest year-on-year drop in learner numbers, from 360 in 2016/17 to 211 in 2017/18 – a drop of 149, or 41 per cent.

Liam McDaid, the school’s principal, said this fall came “directly following an Ofsted inspection in February 2017”, which resulted in a grade four overall.

He said the institution was working with the DfE, Ofsted and other local schools to “organically improve UTC Bolton and increase the recruitment of students”.

The Leigh UTC had the largest increase in learner numbers, from 191 in 2016/17 to 335 in 2017/18 – an increase of 144, or 75 per cent.

However, Steve Leahey, its principal, said this boost was “mainly down to our new UTC feeder school” for 11- to 14-year-olds, which opened in September 2017 and filled all its 120 places.

Alongside this there was a “small increase in UTC numbers at 14 and post-16,” he said.

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.