National Apprenticeship Award winners of 2019

The “outstanding” work of apprentices, government officials and employers was recognised at the National Apprenticeship Awards for 2019 on Wednesday.

The great and the good of the FE sector turned out for the glittering awards ceremony in London, which was hosted by TV presenter and actor Reggie Yates.

These awards followed on from this year’s regional prizes, which all the national finalists had won.

Media outlets including FE Week were unable to attend the awards following the general election announcement and the onset of the pre-election embargo period, otherwise known as purdah.

FE Week nevertheless used its sources to get the inside scoop on proceedings.

Speaking at the ceremony, the 2017 winner of higher or degree apprentice of the year Charlotte Hughes said: “Everyone in this room knows it’s really easy to say ‘that’s just my day job, that’s what I’m meant to be doing’.”

But Hughes, who is chair of the East of England Young Apprenticeship Ambassador Network, said “everyone here is doing outstanding work to such an amazing standard and that’s what we’re here to celebrate”.

It was a good night for the young apprenticeship ambassador network: North West Young Apprentice Ambassador Emilia Hoyle from Heat Trace Ltd picked up the award for rising star of the year.

At just 23, Hoyle has been promoted to be marketing manager for Heat Trace and completed a higher business administration apprenticeship and is now studying for a chartered manager apprenticeship.

The Hertfordshire chair of the network’s East of England branch, Tatiana Peters from arms manufacturer MBDA, won the award for the level three apprentice of the year.

Dominique Unsworth from Resource Productions, who was named as a government SME ambassador in 2017, won this year’s apprenticeship champion of the year.

She won the South East apprentice champion of the year in September for her work with six local authority officers and adult learning providers to raise awareness and engagement with apprenticeships.

Louise Meredith from JC Bamford Excavators Ltd (more popularly known as JCB) was recognised as the level-four and above apprentice of the year and the level-two award was won by Julie Mills from Northumberland Community Bank.

Mills began a customer services apprenticeship with Northumberland County Council’s learning and skills service while at the bank after working in a factory for 20 years.

After winning the North East intermediate apprentice of the year award, Mills said she had “never even done any office work before and didn’t realise that older people could do an apprenticeship.”

The audience saved their most rapturous reaction for Sue Husband, director of employer and employee engagement for the Education and Skills Funding Agency: she received a standing ovation when she went to pick up her special recognition award.

Several employers received awards as well: IT company Invotra won small-to-medium enterprise employer of the year; large employer of the year was won by housing association Home Group; and macro employer of the year was won by restaurant, pub and bar operator Mitchells & Butlers.

The full list of winners:

  • SME employer of the year – Invotra
  • Large employer of the year – Home Group
  • Macro employer of the year – Mitchells & Butlers
  • Special recognition award – Sue Husband, director of employer and employee engagement, ESFA
  • Intermediate apprentice of the year – Julie Mills
  • Advanced apprentice of the year – Tatiana Peters
  • Higher or degree apprentice of the year – Louise Meredith
  • Apprenticeship champion of the year – Dominique Unsworth
  • Rising star – Emilia Hoyle

‘Inadequate’ provider hands £2m adult education budget contract back

A training provider has handed back an adult education budget (AEB) contract of almost £2 million after Ofsted criticised it for the second time this year.

Total Training Company (UK) Limited was declared “inadequate” in its first full inspection last week. It was found to be making “insufficient progress” in an early monitoring report in February.

The family-owned provider delivers training in the construction industry and won £1.8 million from the West Midlands Combined Authority’s devolved AEB in May following a competitive tender.

According to last week’s Ofsted report, Total Training has 166 adult learners on its books. The programmes on offer support unemployed people who want to gain qualifications in the construction and logistics industry.

But, following the education’s watchdog latest verdict, the combined authority said the provider asked for its AEB contract to be taken off its hands.

“We received a request from Total Training to withdraw from our AEB contract as a training provider, following their recent Ofsted inspection where they were graded ‘inadequate’,” a spokesperson told FE Week.

“We have agreed to this request. The withdrawal notice was received on 18 November and took place with immediate effect.”

Total Training will complete the training for learners already enrolled under the contract. No new learners have been enrolled since 13 November.

The West Midlands (WMCA) spokesperson said it would be reviewing the performance of all its providers “over the coming months” and would redistribute the available funding.

The combined authority is not, however, cutting all ties with Total Training. It will “continue to deliver services to the WMCA under the Construction Gateway contract,” the spokesperson said.

“This contract includes delivery of short, two to four-week, job-focused training for Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards and progression into jobs.”

Total Training, which had direct contracts with the Education and Skills Funding Agency totalling £1.3 million last year, told FE Week that government skills funding contracts make up “just one stream of revenue for our company”.

A spokesperson added: “We are fortunate to have a very successful commercial construction training division which will enable us to continue trading and provide a stable backdrop for us to implement the required actions for improvement as highlighted in the findings from the Ofsted report.”

They added that Total Training does not currently hold any other contracts with the ESFA.

Under government rules, any provider rated “inadequate” by Ofsted is removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers and banned from delivering the programmes.

The ESFA will usually also terminate a provider’s skills funding contracts within three months of a  grade-four Ofsted report being published, unless there are extenuating circumstances. But as the West Midlands Combined Authority has its AEB devolved, it does not have to abide by this rule.

A spokesperson for the combined authority said it has a “contractual clause” that enables it to terminate a contract where a provider receives a grade four from Ofsted.

Total Training was rated “inadequate” in every assessed area of its Ofsted full inspection 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”.

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”.

Safeguarding arrangements were considered “effective”, however.

CBI: Don’t restrict how the apprenticeship levy is spent

The Confederation of British Industry has urged the government not to restrict how the apprenticeship levy is spent in the face of opposition from nearly eight in ten businesses.

Limits on age, income or level of training would make 78 per cent of 208 businesses and trade associations surveyed for the 2019 CBI and Pearson Education and Skills Annual Report either “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied”.

“Restrictions on how levy funds can be used could be counter-productive to addressing some of the biggest skills challenges employers face,” the report said.

“These include new technology, such as automation and AI in the workplace, which means that retraining and upskilling is more important than ever.”

Such restrictions have been mooted after projections from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education showed the levy could be overspent by up to £1.5 billion in 2021/22.

This has been blamed by the CBI on a growth in higher-level programmes, which are longer and more costly to deliver, and on the levy having to cover the cost of non-levy payers’ provision.

Even the fund for non-levy provision is running dry, according to the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), which has found providers were having to turn apprentices away as a result.

The CBI suggests that, instead of restrictions, the government should “deliver a sustainable financial plan for the apprenticeship budget that allows firms to continue to invest in apprentices of all ages and levels”.

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe said his organisation “strongly supports” the CBI’s suggestion as a new plan “will remove the fear of further restrictions on employers’ use of the funding”.

The AELP proposed its own solution to the overspend this year, which would remove level six and seven apprenticeships from the scope for levy funding.

Former skills minister Anne Milton said in June that a pre-apprenticeship salary limit was “one of the most palatable” options for restricting how businesses can use the levy.

But Department for Education permanent secretary Jonathan Slater admitted to the Education Select Committee that “hard choices” had to be made about the apprenticeship budget.

This was after the National Audit Office reported the long-term financial sustainability of the apprenticeship programme was “at risk” because the average cost of training an apprentice soared to double what the government predicted.

In addition to concerns about restrictions in how they can spend money, 59 per cent of businesses cited a lack of funding as a barrier to training.

However, more than four in five businesses polled (86 per cent) said they now offer apprenticeship programmes and 63 per cent said they planned to expand their apprenticeship training in the future.

But sparing time for employees to train was cited as a problem by 52 per cent of respondents, amid a crackdown by the government and Ofsted on off-the-job training.

The CBI believes there ought to be a consultation on turning the levy into a flexible skills levy, which Dawe welcomed, as the argument for more flexibility under the levy “needs to be taken far more seriously”.

He proposed that this flexibility should be introduced through the apprenticeship standards “ensuring that they have the correct blend of on and off-the-job training appropriate to level, sector and setting”.

Speaking to FE Week this week (see page 8), education secretary Gavin Williamson said making sure that the levy is “properly funded” and satisfies the needs of industry was “critical” and “it will be part of the discussion on the spending review”.

Employers must be at the heart of the vocational education system

Over the last few years we’ve seen a lot of experimentation with England’s much maligned vocational education system. If these innovations are to be successful they need to involve employers to a much greater extent than is currently the case, writes Tristram Hooley.

The clue is in the name; ‘vocational education’ is only useful if it prepares you for work, and employers are best placed to define what individuals need.

A programme for the next government

As an employer-led membership body focused on bringing entry-level talent into the workforce, the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) has released a manifesto to help politicians to focus on the key issues for employers and young people.

We want the new government to:

  • place greater emphasis on employer and university collaboration in higher education;
  • maintain and streamline the apprenticeship system in consultation with employers;
  • facilitate better employment outcomes for disadvantaged students;
  • renew the Careers Strategy and extend careers hubs across the country;
  • invest in vocational education and engage employers in its design and implementation;
  • design migration policies that enable businesses to access high quality global talent.

At the heart of all of these policies is the argument that the workplace is a key destination for the skills and knowledge that are acquired in education. A successful transition to employment is critical to allow young people to access the good life and make a positive contribution to society and the economy. To make all of this happen there needs to be a clear dialogue between education and employment, and a commitment to directly involving employers.

Towards a new vocational education system

The developing system of apprenticeships and T-levels has much to recommend it, but it has been under-funded, inconsistently implemented and has often played second fiddle to the academic system.

We need supportive ‘careers hubs’ in each locality

We need to place career guidance at the heart of the new vocational education system to ensure that young people have the information they need about all possibilities. The new government needs to commit to implementing good career guidance (as defined by the Gatsby Benchmarks) in schools and colleges. Resources need to be put in place to support the appointment of a careers leader in each school and to set up supportive ‘careers hubs’ in each locality.

We are optimistic about the opportunity T-levels offer to reboot vocational education and would like to see all parties committing to the idea that they will be here for at least a generation. The new government will then need to invest in building the system and in a substantial information and engagement campaign aimed at young people, their parents and employers. It will also have to tackle the concerns employers have by bringing them into the governance of the new qualifications and providing support and incentives for the substantial new work-experience commitments.

Finally, it is important that a new government offers continuity on the apprenticeships system. Employers have been on the sharp end of all of the changes, including cost and bureaucracy increases, and have now started to get the system working.

A new government needs to put employers at the centre of the apprenticeship system, allowing them to increase its flexibility. It should also commit to the principle that the apprenticeship levy should not be a payroll tax, that the funding system should be more transparent and that good employers should get out more than they put in.

The time is ripe for England to build a better vocational education system. We have many of the pieces already, but it is up to the next government to put them together in a lasting way. Employers stand ready to help with this for any government that is serious about making it work.

Perceptions of engineering hold the sector back

To highlight the diversity of engineering careers that shape the world around us, the Royal Academy of Engineering recently celebrated This Is Engineering Day. But we have a problem, writes Rhys Morgan. There just aren’t enough young people joining the industry

According to the latest data from EngineeringUK, we need up to 59,000 additional people in the engineering workforce every year to 2024. Despite all the educational reform and the hard work of the FE sector, there is no sign that we are going to meet that need.

To make matters worse, only 12 per cent of the UK’s engineering workforce are women, while only 9 per cent are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. We urgently need to tackle this skills and diversity shortfall if we are to have an engineering workforce that can serve society effectively.

Back in January 2018, the Royal Academy of Engineering launched This is Engineering, a digital campaign that tells inspiring stories of real young engineers through short films on social media. Working with partners across the profession, the campaign highlights the different levels of jobs available, with apprentice and technician levels alongside professional occupations.

The films include people like Bethan Murray who became a degree apprentice with Rolls-Royce in Derby and Alan Proud from Newcastle who struggled at school because of his dyslexia but found a highly rewarding career as an orthotics technician, making custom braces and splints for patients with disabilities.

To date, our This is Engineering films have been viewed over 37 million times. When we started, our research showed that only 39 per cent of teens considered a career in engineering. After a year, that figure was 72% among those who had seen the campaign. Crucially, the change in consideration had been greater among under-represented groups.

We need to ensure we have home-grown talent for the future

This week, we took the campaign to a new level, working with major brands and leading businesses to showcase what engineers and technicians really look like to a broader audience, with a new book list of great engineering reads on Amazon and by showing our films in stations and on trains across the country.

Promotion aside, we found that a bigger problem was limiting our reach of young people. When we employed an AI algorithm to “learn” what an engineer looks like based on online image search results, what it revealed, perhaps unsurprisingly, was a white man wearing a hard hat.

This is an incredibly outdated and narrow stereotype of an engineer that persists in the online world, and we are working with over 100 organisations to tackle it. We’ve launched a new library of free-to-use images of engineers that better reflect the sector in its full diversity.

But we know the campaign on its own isn’t enough. Many of the challenges that hamper young people’s progress to engineering and technician careers are down to education policies. The problems include: the English Baccalaureate’s focus on a narrow set of academic subjects at the expense of creative and technical subjects; the continued disparity between academic and technical pathways; the seemingly continuous changes to apprenticeship standards; shortages of teaching staff in the FE sector and the need for subject-specific CPD for teachers and lecturers to make sure they are continually updating their knowledge of these fast-paced sectors.

There is so much still to be done, and as the UK continues on its path to leaving the EU, we need to ensure we have home-grown talent for the future. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Most people never consider that prosthetic limbs, the internet, electric guitars and mobile phones have all been designed and built by engineers and technicians. They will play a key role in addressing many of the challenges that face humanity in the 21st century too, from a sustainable supply of clean energy to healthcare.

As we work to re-engineer AI learning to reflect the diverse sector we want and need to build, it’s time we also re-engineered our education system to meet these challenges.

Sharp drop in adults studying English and maths, new data reveals

The number of adults studying English and maths dropped sharply last year, with achievements in the core subjects also significantly decreasing, according to new government figures.

Only 573,500 adult learners participated in government-funded English and maths courses in 2018/19, a 13.7 per cent fall from 664,200 in 2017/18.

Last year, 360,300 of the students over 19 studied an English course, 364,000 took a maths course and 120,500 were on an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) course.

Achievements in English and maths fell by 13.1 per cent to 363,800 in 2018/19 from 418,500 in 2017/18.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, called the figures “terrible” on Twitter.

“We should be increasing participation given our analysis shows we’ll fall even further behind other countries by 2030,” he said.

A report by the LWI, released in September, found that adult participation in education has fallen to a record low, with just 35 per cent of adults saying they have participated in learning during the previous three years.

The national statistics for further education and skills released today showed the overall number of adult learners in FE further decreased last year.

There was a fall of just over five per cent (2,068,200) in adult learners participating in government-funded further education in 2018/19, compared to the year before (2,179,100).

The number taking part in education and training programmes also dropped by more than four per cent, from 1,131,700 in 2017/18 to 1,083,700 in 2018/19.

A smaller decrease of just under three per cent participating on a community learning course was reported, from 504,500 the year before last to 490,300 last year.

Manifestos give little hope SEND reform will deliver

With the General Election nearly upon us, Natspec’s Clare Howard has been assessing the three main parties’ promises as they battle to gain or remain in power

The Education Select Committee’s October report scrutinising the 2014 reforms to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) referred to “a treacle of bureaucracy… conflict… and despair”. So will the next government finally address the failures in SEND provision?

Published last week, Natspec’s manifesto, furthers our lobbying in the interests of FE students aged 16-25 with SEND. It focuses on three key areas for improvement: high quality education and training, a system that works for young people, and brighter futures.

But how do the parties’ manifesto promises and commitments compare with our recommendations?

First, Natspec’s recommendations for high-quality education and training include investment in the workforce to extend specialism and expertise, and better strategic planning across local authority (LA) borders for specialist services.

All three parties have recognised the importance of colleges within a quality education system. The Liberal Democrats promise to “end the neglect” and invest an extra £1bn; Labour “will ensure fairness and sustainability in FE” and the Conservatives will invest almost £2billion to upgrade the entire further education estate.  

But none consider the contribution of specialist or general FE colleges in improving outcomes for young people with SEND. There is nothing specifically in any of the party manifestos about FE training.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats do promise to increase the base rate for 16-to-19-year-olds, an important first step to plug a big funding gap and support students with SEND who are not high-needs funded. 

But none address the need for LA co-operation and cross-border strategic planning for SEND. The Liberal Democrats want LAs “to act as Strategic Education Authorities for their area” but they already have this role for SEND.

No single party is getting everything right

Second, Natspec’s recommendations for a system that works for young people call for increased funding for SEND in FE, a simplified funding system, better accountability and reduced bureaucracy. Importantly, we also call for a renewed focus on hearing the voices of young people. 

All three parties mention SEND funding. The Labour party promises “the necessary funding” for SEND and regulation of education provision to improve the life chances for “the most vulnerable”. The Liberal Democrats will “end the crisis in SEND funding by allocating additional cash to local authorities”. The Conservative manifesto simply refers to the additional £780m for SEND already announced in September.

Third, Natspec’s recommendations for a brighter future include new national transition standards, training for careers advisers, and investment in housing, social care and employment options for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities.

The Labour manifesto addresses most of these recommendations, particularly around disability employment. There is a welcome amount of detail, including training for employers, specialist employment advisers, disability pay-gap reporting, and new specific duties for disability leave separated from sick leave, but no mention of learning disabilities where employment figures are shockingly low.

Long awaited by charities for the deaf, Labour and the Liberal Democrats promise to give British Sign Language full legal recognition.

The Conservatives promise a new national strategy for disabled people covering benefits, housing, transport and jobs. They will commit £74million over three years for additional capacity in community care settings.

Labour does promise community-based, person-centred support as part of a National Care Service for England, but it mainly covers older people.

Improved careers advice is picked up by the Liberal Democrat manifesto. They also promise to address fair access to health and care services and “the scandal of women with learning disabilities dying an average 20 years younger” than their non-disabled peers.

Whatever the result of the election, Natspec hopes that the ambitious plans for transformational change set out by the 2014 legislation finally become a reality for the young people it was designed to help. No single party is getting everything right, but they are beginning to listen, so it isn’t beyond them to deliver that promise.

Apprenticeship starts for young people continue to fall – DfE reveal

The number of apprenticeships started by young people has fallen a further eight percent, the third year in a row and now 22 percent lower than five years ago.

Figures for the last academic year, published this morning by the Department for Education, reveal a continued decline for those under the age of 19, which contrasts sharply with a 16% rise in starts for those aged 25 and over (see below).

When counting all apprenticeship starts under 25, there has been a decline of 25 percent in the past five years, and a three percent decline last year (see below). This again contrasts sharply with the 16% rise in the past year for those aged 25 and over.

More to follow…