The principal of the first college to be rated “outstanding” under Ofsted’s new framework has warned that “you can’t hide anything” if you want to achieve the top grade.

Karen Dobson was celebrating last week after the publication of Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group’s glowing grade one report.

The feat was all the more impressive considering the group was formed through a merger in 2017, when Newcastle College was rated “good” but Stafford College was “inadequate”.

Speaking to FE Week at the Association of Colleges conference this week, Dobson explained how the inspection regime has changed and what it takes be rated “outstanding” by Ofsted.

“There were quite a few differences, some expected and some perhaps not quite so obvious”

“There were quite a few differences, some expected and some perhaps not quite so obvious,” she said before describing the inspection as “intense”.

The watchdog’s focus has shifted from outcomes and achievement rate data to the “quality of education” and what is being called the three Is: intent, implementation and impact.

Dobson said it was “not quite true” that data had been completely forgotten, as she spent some time with the team of 13 inspectors over the course of four days looking at “historic data” that informed their investigation for the rest of the week.

She said the biggest change, which “played to our strengths”, was the amount of time that inspectors spent speaking to people around the college’s campuses.

“As the principal you have an opportunity to say what you think the position of the college is and what your priorities are. There is then so much time spent talking to teachers, talking to middle managers, talking to students about impact,” Dobson told FE Week.

She said inspectors got “out and about” from 11am on the first day of inspection (Tuesday, 22 October) and they were still talking to staff and students on the Friday. This part of the inspection would have been “all done and dusted” by Thursday morning under the old regime.

Dobson said this, and the fact that Ofsted had inspectors at both of their campuses in Newcastle and Stafford, was “really helpful”.

“So, for example, they looked at health and social care at Newcastle, crawled all over that. Then they went to Stafford and they found the same quality and teaching.”

The principal puts her college’s success down to their attention to the student experience.

“We have spent a lot of time, going back to the last academic year, talking about why they are doing what they are, why are they choosing these courses, choosing these option units, the order they are doing them, and getting our teachers to think about the curriculum more.”

Dobson said there was “little wriggle room” for colleges if they cannot show the intent and impact of their offer, as inspectors get “under the skin of everything”, including the subcontractors they work with.

“We don’t do a massive amount of subcontracting but they [Ofsted] did spend quite a bit of time both visiting and looking at the detail and talking to staff in those particular companies.

“That featured a bit more than I had previously experienced in any inspection framework. You can’t hide anything.”

Asked what she believes sets Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group apart from a grade-two college, Dobson said: “I think consistency in terms of the way that we operate.

“There is very little difference between our two campuses, certainly in terms of curriculum approach, and I think we have done a good job of bringing staff and teams together.

“Particularly in parts of the geography where we operate, we have to be ambitious for our students. When they come to us, their aspirations sometimes aren’t that high and we have got to say, ‘Look,  you are here, the world’s your oyster, widen your horizons’.”

Asked for her top tip to other colleges hoping for a grade one, Dobson said: “The intent features largely in the new inspection framework and I think you can’t do that in two weeks.

“So, whenever your next inspection may be due, I think you need to start today in terms of the work you do with your key talent, your teachers and your middle managers. That would be my advice.”

The principal admitted that there had been a “great big long list” of issues that needed to be addressed at the point of merger with Stafford College in November 2016.

For the 12 months before the merger it had nine “key” posts filled by interims, including the principal and finance director.

“We turned up at the beginning of September and there were no managers,” Dobson explained.

“Stafford had a period of problems: the investment hadn’t been made in terms of training for staff, resources for staff, resources for students – and I think the focus on making sure Stafford was a great place to work and study had been lost somewhere.”

But Stafford did have “very good teachers” who were able to thrive once Newcastle College’s management took over.

“The nice thing about the inspection outcome is that Stafford staff as well as Newcastle are very much part of that end result. There isn’t a difference in the performance of the two sides.”

One notable aspect of the new Ofsted reports is that they only grade and discuss the whole college group, rather than commenting specifically on individual campuses.

Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group’s report, for example, mentioned nothing about Stafford College’s previous grade four.

Recognising this issue, particularly for the largest college groups with wide geographical spreads, the watchdog is looking to introduce campus-level grading next year, as FE Week revealed last week. But Dobson doesn’t see what benefit this bring to her college.

“I personally wouldn’t welcome that, but I’m sure people would say, ‘Well, she would say that wouldn’t she?’,” Dobson said.

The Ofsted grade one was not Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group’s only celebration this week. It also came second in this year’s NICDEX.

Six college leaders have shared the “heart-wrenching” impacts of government funding cuts after speaking anonymously to FE Week for the first time.

We approached the principals and chief executives at this week’s Association of Colleges conference, who revealed how they have had to cut back significantly on staff, pay and provision.

They, like anyone who works in FE, are fully aware that funding for 16 to 19-year-olds and adult learning has faced pressure like no other phases of education.

Between 2010-11 and 2018-19, spending per college learner fell by 12 per cent in real terms, after cuts during the 1990s and low growth in the 2000s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The economic research organisation has also found that funding for adult education has been cut by 45 per cent since 2009-10.

Politicians appear finally to be taking notice of this, with FE funding among the hottest topics in this year’s general election campaign. But college bosses, understandably, are often reluctant to share the true impact of these cuts with their institutions and learners out of fear of a bad press that could damage their reputations.

This is how college life is being affected:

 

College leader 1

Staff strikes have been rife in FE over the past few years, mainly because the funding crisis has left lecturers being paid £7,000 a year less than school teachers on average.

The head of a large college group, this leader said the most “critical” impact they have had to deal with because of a lack of government investment is not being able to offer good pay to staff, as well as struggling with the recruitment of teaching staff in specialist subjects.

“The cuts have not enabled us to continue to make progressive pay awards to staff. We’re not able to be as competitive on salaries as we would want to be.

“Where we are trying to develop new specialisms, it is very difficult to attract people in, because you are constrained by affordability.”

“You’re foraging in an ever-decreasing circle of ways to make efficiencies”

College leader 1 went on to say they have taken the decision to protect all areas of provision and the number of frontline lecturers, but in turn have had to cut back office and support staff, thus increasing workload.

“The challenge around that is workload and the wellbeing of those staff who are inevitably having to pick up more things than they would have done previously.

“So you cut out management posts, but unfortunately the work still has to be picked up. That is the other thing we have done: we have invested in a lot of process work to try and make systems more streamlined to try and compensate for there being fewer managers.

“But inevitably, again, you’re foraging in an ever-decreasing circle of ways to make efficiencies.”

They said that, over the past three years, their college has had to absorb around £5.5 million of costs “out of our business, of which probably a third of that is pay and two thirds is non-pay, to run more efficiently”.

They added that the predicted imminent overspend of the apprenticeships budget and particularly the constraints around non-levy funding have led to them turning small employers and apprentices away.

“Most of our employers are small and medium-sized. We are not able to train them currently and the impact for us then is we have fewer apprentices coming through the system, which means less work for staff. We have had to cut staff as a result.”

Asked what it is like having to make this kind of money-saving decision, they said: “It is really, really tough and I would say it is getting even tougher.

“For my colleges, we have done the things we needed to do that were around staff utilisation, curriculum efficiencies and you start to run out of more things you can do.”

 

College leader 2

The uncertainty around FE funding has left staff feeling “vulnerable” and fearing for their jobs on an almost weekly basis, according to college leader 2.

“Ultimately we are human and, if we feel vulnerable and we might not have a job next month, then our ability to be at the top of what we are doing is considerably impacted,” they told FE Week.

“And, if you think in FE, because we don’t manufacture widgets, we are dealing with people, it is difficult for us to be genuine motivators and game changers for our learners when we ourselves feel so vulnerable. I would say that is probably the biggest impact of funding cuts.”

“You become numb and develop a way of doing it”

They went on to say that, because of cuts, they have had to “take out the kind of courses that might not be as efficient as others: that is to say they are costly to run or don’t attract massive numbers”.

“Financially inefficient” subjects including creative arts, which require big spaces, art classes and land-based courses have all been dropped by the college in recent years.

These were “heart-wrenching” decisions to make because “colleges in their local areas are more than just education and training providers”.

“They get communities to gel together and, when you have young people who are disengaged or worse still they engage in gangs, stuff like that, then society needs to engage them somehow.

“For this type of young person, generally education is not really the highest of their priorities, but you can potentially have a fighting chance if you could engage them in something they are interested in, so they can start to interact with society on a different type of interaction.

“The more you cut inefficient provision, the more you cut your opportunity to help those learners.”

Asked if making decisions to reduce support staff and provision had got harder over the years, the leader said: “Perversely, no. You become numb and develop a way of doing it. It’s heart-wrenching and it doesn’t go away. In fact, I still remember in 2015 having to do something like this and I still feel it now – and I had to do some last summer.

“But what you do is develop a way of doing it so you just go into that mood, blinkered, body armour and it is really sad.”

 

College leader 3

Leader 3 said they have had to sacrifice vital adult education courses in recent years to ensure that their college stays financially sustainable.

“Some time ago, when funding was a little bit more generous, you could carry provision that was small numbers or allowed for progression but potentially wasn’t viable for whatever reason,” they told FE Week.

“I think, over the years of this static funding picture and increasing cost, actually you can’t do that anymore. There are things you can’t do, not because there isn’t a value in them, but because they aren’t making a contribution to the core stuff, such as adult community provision.

“The difficulty is it is very expensive to do that at a time where actually your funding rate is static for however long and so we haven’t got anything like that now.”

They explained that these are usually short courses in basic IT, for example, but “some might be just courses that are more enjoyment, perhaps photography or something like that.

“We’ve got only very small amounts of that sort of provision.

“I often say that at some point somebody, a minister, might turn round and say ‘where’s all of the lifelong learning gone?’ Obviously there is a big issue there.”

Like college leaders 1 and 2, they said they were finding it “difficult to recruit in certain areas” as they “can’t compete with schools” when it comes to salaries.

“For example, we can’t get some of the maths teachers we would like and it’s really tough to recruit a highly skilled engineer as you are competing with the wages of big businesses.

They said their college had a strict process of scrutinising “every staff vacancy” to “make sure we actually need that role”.

They added: “We are conscious that, if you are adding to a pay bill, obviously that puts further pressure on the finances.”

 

College leader 4

Increasing class sizes and huge reductions in teaching hours are two of the biggest impacts of funding cuts that this chief executive of a large college group has had to deal with in recent years.

“You used to have a class of, say, 16, but you’re now having to do groups of 20 or 22 in order to make it financially viable,” leader 4 said.

“That then puts pressure on the teacher because, instead of giving 16 sets of feedback to learners, you are now giving 22. So in some ways the student experience may not be affected but the workload on the teacher is that much greater.”

“They said it was easier to work in the NHS as the workload was less”

They continued: “The other thing for me is, when I first came into teaching technical education, we had 1,200 hours a year. Now you are lucky to get 540.”

They said the funding levels that colleges had ten years ago enabled them to “almost over-recruit some teachers so you had some spare teachers that could actually do project work or help teachers when they were new and coming in to really ease them in”.

They added that there was no “fat” in the system anymore and, when lecturers are appointed now,  “you come in and teach straight away”.

They added: “So some of the things which may seem like luxuries but really raise the quality of the learning experience are now not in the system because none of us can afford to over-recruit.”

Additional support for students with high needs is another area that has been reduced because of funding cuts.

“The amount of support you give to certain students has to be thought of very carefully. Do you support a dyspraxia student for four hours or do you go, OK, everybody can have one hour’s support?”

They continued: “Another issue I think we are all facing is the level of mental health support our young people receive.

“One of the things we are looking at, but it means that we will have to take the money from somewhere else, is educational psychologists, not just for students but to help teachers.

“Some of our teachers have been teaching for five years. The problems that they face with some young people they haven’t faced before.”

College leader 4 said they recently recruited someone from the NHS as a lecturer but they left after just a few months in the post because “they said it was easier to work in the NHS as the workload was less”.

 

College leader 5

Leader 5 runs a large college group and said over the past five years they have had to cut some areas of “costly” provision, such as engineering, as well as delaying building work and holding back on investing in new equipment.

However, the main focus for their cuts has been “trying to get people to do more with less”.

“We have cut managers and just enabled coordinators to do more. We have taken out administrative staff. We have tried to deliver things like ‘support to learning’ with fewer learning assistants because we just haven’t been able to afford them.

“So, undoubtedly, I don’t see how anybody could have lived in the financial circumstances we have lived in for the past five years without the students being affected in some way because the provision that we have been able to deliver has been really, really difficult to do.”

They said they had to take “£2 million out of our cost base this year” and “we lost money last year and we will lose money this year as well”.

The college group gained planning permission for a new science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) building four years ago but it doesn’t “have enough cash in order to launch it”.

Some individual campuses in their group have “really poor buildings” which need a lot of money spent on them but they can’t because “we don’t have access to capital”.

“We have got to stay financially solvent, so the limitation there is you stop investing. We have got areas that desperately could do with some updated equipment which they haven’t got because you have to rationalise it.”

They said they needed to be “very resilient as a chief executive” when making these tough decisions.

“I love my job, I love the difference we make to students, but there are times when I think, Why am I struggling this hard? Because there are other things that perhaps I could be doing but would not be so challenging from a financial point of view.”

 

College leader 6

Leader 6 claimed to have retained staffing at all levels and protected all areas of provision in the face of government cuts.

They said that good management skills have never been more crucial for college leaders and it was their “efficient” way of working that had enabled them to avoid making cuts where others have.

They argued that, as the only large college in a rural area that students could travel to, they “don’t have the option” of withdrawing expensive provision.

They also said that they could not “cut a back office service and expect teachers to pick up what they were doing because you need to protect the frontline”.

“As a principal you have always got at least four or five years in your head”

“To reduce people means you have to stop doing things. What you need to do is offer it in a more efficient and effective way,” they told FE Week.

“It’s about being as clever and efficient as you can be with funding that is out there.

“Go for projects that support business as usual, rather than projects that are going to be in addition to what you are already doing and can make us busy fools.

“Pick things that align to your strategic objectives so it is always moving you forward, and be really clear on your strategic intent.”

Asked if they would therefore say that the impact of funding cuts was that colleges are reluctant to  take risks and work in new areas, such as institutes of technology, they said: “I think, providing you have got a sound business plan, it wouldn’t prevent you moving into a new area. But that new area has to be aligned with where you think the college and the provision needs to go.”

They continued: “I think it’s about taking the long-term view and it’s about looking at, OK, this is what we know now but this looks like it is on the horizon for next year and the year after.

“As a principal you have always got at least four or five years in your head.

“You are planning the next enrolment already because you have got staff out in schools talking to young people, talking to employers about what apprenticeships they need – but that is not enough.

“You are also looking at the following two years, when you are thinking, OK, in 2021, what T-levels will there be? What will they look like? What does that mean for teachers?

“What curriculum changes have you got to make now to be ready for that? What does the workforce look like, and how are we going to find T-level industry placements?

“If you have only ever got three years in your head – the last one, this one and the next one – you won’t be successful in that. You really have got to future-gaze.”

 

A family owned business in the construction industry was hit with a grade four by Ofsted, in a poor week for all types of FE providers.

Independent learning provider Total Training Company (UK) Limited was declared ‘inadequate’ in its first full inspection, after being found making ‘insufficient progress’ in an early monitoring report published in February.

It received a grade four in every assessed area except behaviour and attitudes, which ‘requires improvement’. At the time of the inspection there were 166 adult learners and 25 apprentices across the north east and the west midlands.

The report stated that learners and apprentices “do not experience a well-planned programme of study” and they are “not supported to develop their talents or interests”.

Leaders do not have a good understanding of the quality of provision

Ofsted also found that only a “low” proportion of adult learners successfully gain employment or move onto further learning while “too many apprentices leave their programme early”.

However, safeguarding arrangements were considered “effective”.

Another independent learning provider, Development Processes Group PLC, received three ‘insufficient progress’ ratings in its early monitoring visit this week, meaning it will soon be suspended from taking on new apprentices.

At the time of the monitoring visit, 92 apprentices were on standards-based human resource apprenticeship programmes throughout England.

The leaders were found to “rely too much on their subcontractor” and to “not take full responsibility for the quality of the provision”.

The report said apprentices were not recruited to the “most appropriate programmes” and apprenticeships were not planned “effectively,” resulting in on-the-job training and learning needs not being met.

Independent learning provider Dhunay Corporation Ltd was found making ‘insufficient progress’ in all areas of its follow-up monitoring visit this week, after receiving a grade three in a full inspection last December.

At the time of the monitoring visit, there were six apprentices on the associate project management apprenticeship. The inspectorate concluded that leaders “do not have a good understanding of the quality of provision” and have “not been swift enough to implement improvements”.

No project management apprentices have achieved their qualifications within the planned timescales and although the disruption with their programmes was considered to have improved recently, the report still found that “they do not benefit from well-structured teaching and assessment”.

Independent learning provider The Academy Hub Ltd received an ‘insufficient progress’ grade in regards to safeguarding in its follow-up monitoring visit but the report said “the director of the company did not respond to inspectors’ requests to provide evidence or contribute towards the monitoring visit until after the inspection had taken place”.

Employer provider Barchester Healthcare Limited dropped from a grade two to a grade three this week. The independent health care company trains 26 apprentices.

Leaders were said not to plan the curriculum for apprentices in a logical way and it was stated that while staff are knowledgeable and experienced, they do not “assess well” apprentices’ gaps in their knowledge, skills and behaviours.

Greater Brighton Metropolitan College also fell from a grade two to a three. It was formed after a merger in 2017 and has around 3,000 learners aged 16 to 18, around 2,500 adult learners and 1,500 apprentices.

Most adult students experience “well-taught” courses and most students aged 16 to 18 on courses at level 3 do “very well” but apprentices “do not experience consistently high-quality teaching and training”.

Moreover, inspectors concluded governors, leaders and managers “have not identified weaknesses accurately or acted quickly enough to improve the quality of education”.

Southampton City College was found making ‘insufficient progress’ in one area and ‘reasonable progress’ in two others in a monitoring report, after receiving a grade three in a full inspection last year.

Governors, leaders and managers have not identified weaknesses accurately

The education watchdog criticised the progress leaders and managers had made in improving the quality of feedback that students and apprentices receive.

In more positive news, employer provider Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and independent learning provider Train2Train Limited received two ‘significant progress’ grades and one ‘reasonable progress’ grade in their monitoring visits.

Additionally, independent learning providers The West Midlands Creative Alliance Limited and Impact Futures Training
Limited both received ‘good’ grades in their first full inspections.

Adult and community learning provider Springboard received four ‘reasonable progress’ rating in a monitoring report this week, after receiving a grade three in a full inspection last year.

The other adult and community learning provider assessed this week, charity V Learning Net, maintained its ‘good’ rating in a short inspection.

Sixth Form College Henley College also received another grade two in a full inspection.

West Herts College Group, which was formed after a merger in February 2019, was found to have made ‘significant progress’ in two assessed areas and ‘reasonable progress’ across two other themes in a monitoring visit.

The remaining independent learning providers received ‘reasonable progress’ across the board in their monitoring visits.

These were: Abbeydale Vetlink Veterinary Training Limited, Dove Nest Management Training and Development Limited, Kiwi Education Ltd, North London Garages GTA and Whitby & District Fishing Industry Training School Limited.

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Abbeydale Vetlink Veterinary Training Limited	31/10/2019	20/11/2019	M	N/A
Development Processes Group PLC	15/10/2019	19/11/2019	M	N/A
Dhunay Corporation Ltd	16/10/2019	22/11/2019	M	3
Dove Nest Management Training and Development Limited	31/10/2019	22/11/2019	M	N/A
Kiwi Education Ltd	31/10/2019	20/11/2019	M	N/A
North London Garages GTA	16/10/2019	20/11/2019	M	2
The Academy Hub Ltd	30/10/2019	19/11/2019	M	M
The West Midlands Creative Alliance Limited	08/11/2019	21/11/2019	2	M
Total Training Company (UK) Limited	01/11/2019	22/11/2019	4	M
Train 2 Train Limited	06/11/2019	21/11/2019	M	N/A
Whitby & District Fishing Industry Training School Limited	07/11/2019	20/11/2019	M	2

Impact Futures Training Limited

11/10/2019

21/11/2019

2

M

 

Sixth Form Colleges (inc 16-19 academies)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
The Henley College	25/10/2019	18/11/2019	2	2

 

Adult and Community Learning	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Springboard	31/10/2019	19/11/2019	M	3
V Learning Net	31/10/2019	19/11/2019	2	2

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Barchester Healthcare Limited	24/10/2019	18/11/2019	3	2
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust	23/10/2019	19/11/2019	M	N/A

 

General FE colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Greater Brighton Metropolitan College	11/10/2019	18/11/2019	3	2
Southampton City College	23/10/2019	18/11/2019	M	3
West Herts College	06/11/2019	18/11/2019	M	2

Leading bodies within the FE sector have teamed up with local government to launch research into a crisis in special educational needs and disability (SEND) funding for those aged over 16.

In response to “massive pressure on stretched local authority high-needs budgets”, a tender to investigate existing arrangements for the over-16s with SEND, and what constitutes good practice, has been published by the Association of Colleges, Natspec and the Local Government Association.

A Natspec spokesperson said new ways for colleges to work with local authorities in a “constructive way” needed to be found to make the “best use of available resources on both sides”.

The specialist FE providers’ organisation hopes the research “will help local authorities and colleges to come to a common agreement about the FE SEND provision that should be available everywhere, and the more specialist services that would be more cost-effective to provide regionally or nationally”.

Natspec also hopes that it will fill in the gaps about how councils commission high-needs education for those over 16 as “not enough work has been done on the current state of play relating to local authority commissioning of post-16 high-needs education”.

The tender follows repeated warnings from MPs, college principals and the charitable sector about the health of the post-16 SEND system since the Children and Families Act 2014 extended local authorities’ statutory duty to those with SEND up to the age of 25.

The parliamentary education select committee reported last month on how pupils with SEND were “faced with a lack of choice and inclusivity at college”. Some colleges were reluctant to put on courses for students with SEND as the funding was insufficient.

Their inquiry had heard from FE principals including Pat Brennan-Barrett, principal of Northampton College, who warned the committee that there was a “postcode lottery of funding”. Beatrice Barleon, policy development manager at Mencap, said one of the challenges created by the act was “implementation across all the different local authorities”.

A Local Government Association report last year, titled “Have we reached a tipping point?”, found their post-16 responsibilities, more than any other factor, were blamed by councils for cost pressures on their high-needs budget.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive for the Association of Colleges said those recent reports “confirm what college staff and students already know, which is that the post-16 high-needs system isn’t working”.

He added: “The system is costly to administer, is unpredictable and cuts off support to young adults too early.”

An LGA spokesperson said of the tender: “Councils want to work with the next government and families and children with SEND to make the system work more effectively for everyone.”

The Department for Education launched a consultation in May on how to improve funding arrangements for learners with high needs.

The government said at the time that it “understands the cost pressures facing both local authorities and post-16 providers as they seek to meet the needs and ambitions of young people, and the need for appropriate levels of funding”.

The tender is worth between £10,000 and £25,000 and closes for applications on 6 December.

This morning the Labour Party launched their manifesto ahead of the general election on 12 December (click here to download).

Here’s what the document says about FE and skills.

Further Education and Lifelong Learning

“With automation and the Green Industrial Revolution bringing major changes to industry, it is more important than ever that people have the opportunity to retrain and upskill throughout their lives.

“Under the Tories, adult education has undergone 10 years of managed decline. England already faces a shortage of people with higher-level technical qualifications, and demand for these skills will only grow as we create new green jobs.

“Instead of investing in people to prepare them for the jobs of the future, the Conservatives have slashed funding and cut opportunities.

“Labour will ensure fairness and sustainability in further education, aligning the base rate of per-pupil funding in post-16 education with Key Stage 4, providing dedicated capital funding to expand provision and bringing back the Education Maintenance Allowance as the Welsh Labour Government has done.

“Labour will make lifelong learning a reality, giving everyone a free lifelong entitlement to:

• Training up to Level 3.
• Six years training at Levels 4-6, with maintenance grants for disadvantaged learners.

“We will introduce additional entitlements for workers in industries that are significantly affected by industrial transition.

“We will reverse the fragmentation and privatisation of further and adult education

“We will make sure training delivers the right skills by giving employers a role in co-design and co-production of qualifications.

“We will restore funding for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses and restore and expand the

“Union Learning Fund, giving workers the right to accrue paid time off for education and training.

“Labour will reform existing careers advice, working towards an integrated information, advice and guidance system that covers the entire NES.

“We will reverse the fragmentation and privatisation of further and adult education, incorporating it into a single national system of regulation that functions for education as our NHS does for healthcare provision.”

Skills

“Our Green Industrial Revolution will create at least one million well-paid, unionised jobs in the UK. We will train people in the skills they need to access these jobs of the future.

“Britain’s skills crisis has grown under the Tories. The Apprenticeship Levy has been beset by problems, leaving employers paying into a training budget they are unable to spend. And it is not delivering for small businesses. We cannot afford to carry on like this.

“Labour will make it easier for employers to spend the levy by allowing it to be used for a wider range of accredited training, in line with guidelines set by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and government’s wider priorities for the economy.

“We will launch a Climate Apprenticeship programme to enable employers to develop the skills needed to lead the world in clean technology.

“Under this programme, employers will be expected to allocate 25% of the funds in their Apprenticeship Levy accounts to training Climate Apprentices. These funds can be spent directly or allocated to a ring-fenced

“Climate Apprenticeship Fund, which will be topped up with any surplus raised through Inclusive Ownership Funds and made accessible to non-levy- paying businesses.

“Targeted bursaries will be available to women, BAME people, care leavers, ex-armed forces personnel, and people with disabilities to encourage them to take up climate apprenticeships – the STEM of the future.

“We will further help small businesses by increasing the amount that can
be transferred to non-levy-paying employers to 50% and introducing an online matching service to help levy-paying businesses find smaller businesses to transfer their funds to.”

Ex-Greene King boss Rooney Anand spoke of his excitement today as he made his debut as WorldSkills UK chair on the first day of the organisation’s LIVE! event.

Anand told VIPs at a business breakfast at the Birmingham NEC, where the event is being held: “I hope, like me, you are very excited by what happens over the next three days in Birmingham.

“I believe passionately that business leaders must help young people fill their potential and WorldSkills is one of the very best vehicles through which we can do that.

“It is the only vehicle that captures and leverages in the field of skills building.”

Anand took over from former WorldSkills UK chair Carole Stott in January. He stepped down as chief executive of Greene King after 14 years in April.

The businessman told those at the breakfast: “Our job here, all of us, is to help young people take that crucial first step on that career ladder.

“WorldSkills is unique because it brings together educators, business, government and young talent of the future – the whole skills system under one enormous roof. So together we can explore what we can all do to help so that young people get on.

“We don’t just believe we make a difference – we do.”

The sentiment was echoed by colleges that had stalls and activities running at the event.

Dudley College’s curriculum manager, Dennis Stephens, told FE Week: “There is nothing greater than when you see them when they have won. It’s fantastic.”

The college has been involved with WorldSkills UK for “numerous years”, Dennis said, and has competitors in hair and beauty and construction metalwork taking part in this year’s national finals at WorldSkills UK LIVE.

The finals are being used by WorldSkills UK to help find the team to take to WorldSkills Shanghai in 2021, where skilled young people from the UK will compete against those from other nations.

Dennis continued: “We have promoted WorldSkills within the college, we dedicate lessons to it and have got WorldSkills champions to spend time with the tutors.” This is “really invigorating for them”.

Dudley has taken 1,600 staff and learners to the show this year and he believes it is “worthwhile” and a “great experience”.

He added: “The staff enjoy it. They volunteer to come down and do as much as they can.”

Leicester College’s digital and events team leader, Wajeeda Yusuf, said that her college got involved in WorldSkills as they believed “it was important to showcase vocational study, as well as academic study”.

She continued: “There are some amazing competitions happening around the NEC at the moment and it’s great for us to be involved.”

Around 280 businesses are present at WorldSkills UK LIVE – including the British Army, which has brought armoured vehicles, a live band and a climbing wall.

The British Esports Association is running live tournaments of the popular video game, Rocket League.

Halesowen College had a lively trade offering face painting for the throngs of schoolchildren who attended today.

Ben Blackledge, deputy chief executive of WorldSkills UK, said: “Twenty thousand jobs, apprenticeships and training courses – all under one roof. This is an exceptional opportunity for anyone looking to secure skills and a rewarding career. 

“We want to give young people an inspirational insight into what their future career could be, and by working with the UK’s leading employers, education and training organisations at LIVE they can access careers advice and see the skills they need to reach their full potential.”

FE Week is the official media partner of WorldSkills UK LIVE and is providing live coverage from all three days of the event.

Labour has pledged to raise the base rate of per-student funding in FE to secondary-school levels and expand the apprenticeship levy if it wins power.

Jeremy Corbyn launched the party’s manifesto at Birmingham City University today ahead of the general election on December 12.

The Labour leader vowed that the party would “make lifelong education a right” and “value technical education as highly as academic learning”.

The manifesto said it was “more important than ever that people have the opportunity to retrain and upskill throughout their lives” with automation and the green revolution bringing major changes to industry.

If elected Labour would reform the apprenticeship levy by allowing it to be used for a wider range of accredited training, launch a climate apprenticeship programme and provide targeted bursaries to encourage the participation of women, black, Asian and minority ethnic people, care leavers, ex-armed forces personnel and people with disabilities.

The manifesto added: “We will reverse the fragmentation and privatisation of further and adult education, incorporating it into a single national system of regulation that functions for education as our NHS does for healthcare provision.”

It is not clear if this would mean that private training providers would no longer have access to public money or whether reversing privatisation would include apprenticeship funding.

Labour was approached to clarify the policy but had not responded at the time of publication.

FE Week previously reported that colleges’ status as independent corporations could be at risk under Labour’s plan for free lifelong learning in 2017, as the party wanted to bring them back under local authority control.

The Labour Party confirmed its intention to abolish the education watchdog, stating in the manifesto: “We will replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body, designed to drive school improvement.”

It also said: “Labour will ensure fairness and sustainability in further education,” outlining plans to provide dedicated capital funding to expand provision and reform existing careers advice.

In the accompanying Funding Real Change document, the party announced it will spend £1.4 billion on the restoration of the education maintenance allowance, equalising 16 to 19 funding with key stage 4 and the Union Learning Fund (to give workers the right to accrue paid time off for education and training).

The gap in per-student funding between secondary and 16-18 education was 9 per cent in 2017-18, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The recommendations from Labour’s independent commission on lifelong learning, including free key stage 3 and key stage 4-plus (training with maintenance grants for disadvantaged learners) and the restoration of English for Speakers of Other Languages funding, would cost £3.3 billion.

As Labour announced last week, it would introduce a free lifelong entitlement to training up to level 3, as well as six years of training at levels 4 to 6, with maintenance grants for disadvantaged learners.

The manifesto states that all new spending, marked for 2023/24, is in addition to that announced in all previous fiscal events, up to and including spending round 2019.

Association of Colleges Chief Executive David Hughes praised the announcements.

“The Labour manifesto offers a strong package for the future, with the potential to make real change, for business, for individuals, and for communities,” he said.

“Their commitment to raising the base rate for 16-19 funding, offering a boost for adult and life-long learning, and the reintroduction of an education maintenance allowance, provides a vision for a society that has an ambitious, people-centred education and skills system at the heart of it.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said apprenticeship delivery has a “key part to play in improving skills at all levels and we would be happy to work with a new government to see how reform of the levy can make a real difference”.

However, “we have repeatedly said to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and other bodies that allowing the levy to pay for other forms of training would be premature, especially when current demand for apprenticeships by employers means that the levy is now being overspent”.

Two leading skills organisations have called for a rethink of the construction T-level curriculum ahead of the qualification’s launch next year, as they fear its current set-up is out of date.

It should be changed to include “commissioning and design” based on Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies, which have been used in northern Europe and elsewhere for decades, according to WorldSkills UK and awarding body NOCN.

“The DFMA approach is based upon maximising the proportion of a building or infrastructure asset that is made in a controlled manufacturing environment and hence reducing the time on-site,” a new joint report explains.

It adds that this concept should, ideally, be added to the T-level construction curriculum before its launch in September 2020.

The two organisations are launching their new report ‘Seeing is Believing: Accessing the World’s Best Skills Innovations’ this morning on the first day of this year’s WorldSkills UK LIVE!, where thousands are expected to attend Birmingham’s NEC to see national skills competitions and meet employers.

Graham Hasting-Evans (pictured), chief executive of NOCN, which is a specialist in construction curriculum after taking over CITB’s assessment arm called CSkills Awards in 2017, worked with WorldSkills UK on the report after visiting the this year’s WorldSkills competition in Russia.

He told delegates at WorldSkills UK LIVE! on Thursday the “big thing” he heard in Russia was skills systems have to be agile and to change with technology, but the UK’s system is not “quick enough” or “agile enough”.

Whereas Hong Kong, which has around the same number of job types in their construction industry as the UK, were able to change their curriculum to introduce new technologies in 12 months, “nobody has a clue” how long it would take in the UK.

Hasting-Evans also said the UK has “missed the opportunity” on T-levels, and the government’s flagship qualification is “not going to prepare us for the skills we need”.

“We need to rethink the structure and curriculum of the construction T-level if we are to drive up productivity in the sector.”

He said about WorldSkills Kazan: “There was a great opportunity to enhance and adapt the learning from other countries and build upon the progress the sector has made on skills over several decades.

“We need to increase productivity by greater use of digital and artificial technologies as well as a move a greater proportion of off-manufacturing (referred to as DFMA) for new construction.”

Two other WorldSkills UK reports will be launched today, including one with the RSA and FETL, which studied best practice in four countries – Shanghai, Singapore, Russia and Switzerland – that have used skills to boost productivity and grow their economies.

The other is with the University of Oxford which focuses on “mainstreaming WorldSkills methodologies to achieve world-class standards in the FE sector”.

Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann, chief executive of WorldSkills UK, said skills are the “most valuable national resource of all” and “we’ve got before us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build the kind of skills systems that will teach all young people into the 2030s and beyond”.

FE Week is the official media partner of WorldSkills UK LIVE and will be bringing live coverage from the event from Thursday to Saturday.