Interim CEO appointed at college under investigation for nepotism and ‘financial wrongdoing’

Hull College Group has appointed a short-term interim chief executive, as investigations into nepotism and financial wrongdoing continue, FE Week can reveal.

Staff have been told today that Derek O’Toole (pictured) is to take up the interim position of chief executive for the group, initially for just one month.

As reported in early October, the chief executive and principal Michelle Swithenbank started a “leave of absence” following a visit from the FE Commissioner, Richard Atkins.

Until today, Darryn Hedges, vice principal for finance, who joined the college earlier in the year, had been placed in charge. 

O’toole was formerly deputy principal of Hull College, before taking on the role of principal at Hopwood Hall College in 2004, where he stayed for 15 years until retiring a few months ago.

FE Week understands the FE Commissioner’s team have been onsite at the college this week and the investigation led by a legal firm is ongoing.

 

Government set to miss apprenticeship target by a massive 800,000 starts

Latest official apprenticeship figures, published this morning, reveal the government is set to miss their manifesto commitment by a huge 800,000 starts.

AELP verdict: a shocking indictment of how a well-intentioned idea has gone wrong

In the 2015 manifesto, the Conservative Party said: “We have already delivered 2.2 million new apprenticeships over the last five years” and set an ambitious target of 3 million. A target they kept in the 2017 manifesto.

But with just a few months remaining, the latest figures show a trajectory of achieving 2.2 million starts again. So potentially, no growth at all (see below).

And as reported this morning by FE Week, since the levy was introduced the number of young people starting apprenticeships has continued to fall.

Conversely, for those aged 25 and over, the number of starts rose last year.

 

Responding the figures, Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, told FE Week: “It really is a shocking indictment of how a well-intentioned idea has gone wrong.  The three main parties have promised reform in their election manifestos and it is clear from these statistics where their priorities must lie.”

Apprenticeships suffer too many unintended consequences

It seems the three main political parties have fallen out of love with apprenticeships, writes Karen Redhead, and the unintended consequences of reform may not be helping

Four years and two general election campaigns ago, Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats competed to outdo each other on apprenticeships. While the debate has moved to a much wider recognition of the investment further education sorely needs, apprenticeships are no longer centre-stage and the silence is deafening

In 2015, David Cameron pledged to fund three million new apprenticeships to end youth unemployment. Liberal Democrats also pledged to expand apprenticeships, doubling the two million that had been created during the coalition. Labour focused on quality and pledged to create an extra 80,000 apprenticeships a year with a focus on school leavers with higher grades, as an alternative to university or unskilled jobs.

Given the clear intention that young people would be the main beneficiaries of apprenticeship growth, it is hard to fathom how the national reform could have taken such a different turn. Not only did we see contraction instead of growth, but we are also left with significant system issues and soaring costs that are about to exceed available funding. 

The reform also missed the opportunity to support social mobility and has been disastrous for young people and smaller employers. We have already seen stark societal and political effects. People in our communities feel they have been left behind. 

There have been some benefits. The government had been constrained for decades by a deregulated labour market, and the levy could provide an effective mechanism to encourage more employers to train. There has also been greater employer and industry input into the design of standards.

People in our communities feel they have been left behind

However, the market-led approach to reform has resulted in too much training that is too job-specific, with insufficient consideration of the country’s longer-term skills needs. While reform claimed to put employers in the driving seat, this has been far from successful as many employers are already writing off levy costs rather than engaging with a resource-intensive system that does not give them what they need. 

Whether or not apprenticeship reform makes a late entry to this campaign, the next government will have to deal with these problems. Here are four recommendations that would vastly improve the situation.

First, as trusted partners and long-standing experts in education and training, it is imperative to work with colleges to smooth out the unintended consequences and refocus on what will be urgently needed in a post-Brexit economy. A more inclusive reform process would lead to better solutions and a greater level of ownership and commitment from all participants.

Second, there must be enough funding in place to support the reform, and it should prioritise places for 16-to-19-year-olds and apprentices of all ages without a level 5 qualification. Arrangements for non-levy funding are unreliable and leading to a start-stop approach, unhelpful to colleges and employers alike, and rates in important sectors like health and social care need review to ensure these pathways are viable. 

Third, employers are put off by the burden of bureaucracy. Pre-reform, many colleges offered a successful turnkey solutions for employers. If colleges are to reclaim this through “trusted status”, this requires resources, particularly for SMEs, who tend to have smaller numbers of apprentices.  Penalising colleges for minor data mismatches between employer and college records is also unhelpful.

Lastly, definitions of quality need review, and a distinction needs to be made between quality and compliance, informed by everything we know about high-quality teaching and learning.  Apprenticeships have been running for hundreds of years in some sectors without compliance audits and artificial distinctions of on- and off-the-job elements. 

Teaching, learning and assessment are the core business of colleges, which brings us back to the need for a collaborative approach. After all, no policy can be delivered without us.

Ofsted blasts ‘unreliable’ apprenticeship off-the-job training records

A new provider that has more than 300 apprentices on its books has been criticised by Ofsted for “unreliable” recording of off-the-job training.

Rapid Improvement Limited, which was founded in 2007 but gained a direct apprenticeships contract in December 2017, was found making ‘insufficient progress’ in two areas of its first monitoring visit from the education watchdog.

Its report, published yesterday, listed a catalogue of issues, including that leaders and managers have failed to “ensure that apprentices receive frequent high-quality off-the-job training”.

“It cannot be shown that they receive their full entitlement”

Planning was said to be “disorganised” and causes “miscommunication” between coaches and apprentices about when and where training is due to take place.

The key criticism, which will be of concern to many other providers, was that apprentices’ records of the off-the-job hours they complete are “unreliable” and “consequently, it cannot be shown that they receive their full entitlement”.

Recording off-the-job training hours has become a big issue for the government following high-profile concern from the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee about non-compliance with the unpopular rule going unchallenged.

In response, the Education and Skills Funding Agency announced in May that from the 2019/20 academic year, a new mandatory field in individual learner records (ILR) would be added that requires providers to record “planned” off-the-job hours.

Then in September, the ESFA said that a mandatory “off-the-Job training – actual hours” data field would added to the ILR from 2020/21.

Aside from off-the-job issues, Rapid Improvement was criticised for not providing “clear information” about how apprenticeships are organised to apprentices and employers when they sign up.

The first cohort of adult care apprentices, for example, were “unaware of the requirements of the end-point assessment and have decided not to complete this element”, Ofsted found.

“To date, none of those who have completed the training phase meet the requirements to go forward to the assessment. They are not receiving the support they need to complete.”

Aside from care apprentices, the provider has learners studying for business administration standards and early years frameworks.

Inspectors said many of the business administration apprentices are “demotivated as a result of discovering that they need to undertake additional work on their portfolios” to complete the end-point assessment.

Programmes at Rapid Improvement also focus “too much on achieving qualification units rather than developing apprentices’ skills, knowledge and behaviours”, according to Ofsted.

In a few cases, apprentices “are on a level that is too low”.

“Those who self-assess as being confident in the required competencies at the start of their programme are right to feel that they unnecessarily repeat tasks in which they are competent,” inspectors said.

The provider was, however, praised for making “good use” of consultants to provide external oversight.

“They have recently strengthened the management team by appointing experienced staff who bring about improvements, particularly in the early years apprenticeships,” Ofsted said.

Rapid Improvement was also found making ‘reasonable progress’ in safeguarding.

Following this poor performance, the provider can expect to be suspended from recruiting new apprentices, under ESFA rules. It will only have this ban lifted if it improves to at least a grade three in a full inspection.

The provider did not respond to requests for comment.

The skills sector needs to remove its apprenticeship blinkers

The skills sector is still stuck on seeing apprenticeships as a NEET policy rather than the industrial strategy policy it has become, writes Mandy Crawford-Lee, and that’s leading to bad policy.

For most people in the skills sector, the priorities for apprenticeship are seen as providing training for the 16 to 18 ‘guarantee’ group, supporting the third of young people who leave school without a full level 2 and providing an alternative for the 50% of young people who don’t go to university.  From a productivity perspective, the argument goes that SMEs are the life-blood of the economy and funding for apprenticeships in small businesses needs to be prioritised.

There is merit in these arguments. The problem is that there is a bigger picture to consider. In its recent report, the Learning and Work Institute (LWI) recommended that given the overspend of the levy pot, employers should be restricted in their levy spend on apprenticeships at levels 4 to 7. Such action would enable the apprenticeship levy to be spent on youth training and in SMEs that are far less likely than larger organisations to be able to afford training.

The problem with the LWI’s argument is that it ignores some inconvenient truths.  Apprenticeships are supposed to be the government’s flagship productivity programme, and the occupations where skills gaps and shortages are apparent are frequently at levels 4 to 7, the very levels the LWI wants to restrict spend on. 

We then have a public sector. Dominated by large employers, it accounts for a sizeable share of levy payments. Police forces, for example, are increasingly using their levy to fund police constable degree apprenticeships to widen recruitment.  Does the LWI really expect a politician to tell police chief constables they can’t use the force’s levy payments to train police constables, because their levy payments are needed to train young people as hair professionals, or nail technicians in small private businesses? The same argument applies for the NHS and nurses, and local authorities and social workers.

The LWI’s argument ignores some inconvenient truths

Arguments from the skills sector against management apprenticeships also ring hollow.  Allowing employers to spend their levy on management Apprenticeships is a poor use of public funding, the argument goes.  Again, the evidence rather gets in the way. 

Firstly, improving management and leadership abilities is a skills priority in the government’s industrial strategy.  Secondly, some of the biggest spenders on management apprenticeships are the same public sector bodies.  Does restricting NHS spending on management apprenticeships to fund SMEs to train their staff really represent a better use of public funding?

We need to remove the blinkers on apprenticeships. Like AELP and AOC, UVAC has argued that the levy should not be used to fund apprenticeships for 16- to 18-year-olds.  Such provision is for all intents and purposes compulsory education and must be funded from general taxation. 

Next, government must recognise that the concept of a levy paid by large employers that funds all apprenticeships is fundamentally flawed.  Levy payers will increasingly seek to spend and optimise their levy payments, so there will be an ever-decreasing fund for SMEs. The notion of under-spend from the largest levy payer by far, the NHS, being used to fund apprenticeships in unrelated sectors is as misplaced as a levy paid by a blue-chip manufacturing company funding retail or catering apprenticeships in SMEs.

Government needs to rethink its fiscal policy for apprenticeships for SMEs, and quickly.  Of course, should government make separately funded provision it would want an assurance it was appropriately used, delivering pound the best value and investment in skills.  The surest way of doing this is by increasing the employer co-investment rate. Would a government co-investment rate of 95% for apprenticeships aligned with industrial strategy priorities, and a rate of 75% for all other apprenticeships, not be more appropriate?  

Perhaps, the LWI, UVAC, AoC, AELP and other partners should work collectively to argue a unified case for skills? One way or another, we should move on from the “my Apprenticeships are better than yours” argument, to a position where we value and champion all apprenticeship standards.

 

Training provider in college group given union recognition

Two unions have reached a deal to bargain over pay and working conditions on behalf of the almost 300 staff at a college group-owned private training provider.

A “recognition agreement” has been signed today by Total People and the University and College Union and Unison.

Part of the LTE group, which also encompasses The Manchester College, Total People trains around 6,000 learners in provision including apprenticeships and traineeships.

A UCU spokesperson said it does already have a number of members who work in private training providers, but explained that formal union recognition within those providers is not common.

Martyn Moss, UCU’s regional official, said he was “pleased that we have been able to reach an agreement on recognition and bargaining rights for staff delivering training and apprenticeships” and described the deal with Total People as an “important milestone”.

James Bull, Unison’s regional organiser, added that the agreement “will not only provide an enhanced platform of rights and a strong collective voice at work for our members at Total People, but also ensure we have a framework for constructive discussions moving forward about issues that affect staff and training delivery”.

Linda Dean, managing director at Total People, said: “I firmly believe that the agreement builds on the already excellent colleague relations that exist within our organisation, providing all colleagues with access to the support of the unions.”

Adult care employers welcome switch to rail academy for apprenticeship oversight

A rail specialist firm has been chosen as the new external quality assurance provider for care apprenticeships, in a move backed by the standards’ trailblazer group.

Skills for Care announced in August that it had quit the role and would no longer do the EQA of end-point assessment for the level two adult care worker and level three lead adult care worker apprenticeship standards from November.

In an email to end-point assessment organisations yesterday, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s deputy director, Nikki Christie, said she was “pleased to announce” that the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) is going to be taking over this EQA responsibility.

It comes more than a year after NSAR was also chosen as the EQA provider for digital apprenticeships, in a move that was said to “defy all logic“.

This latest decision has again raised eyebrows, with chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers Mark Dawe stating it “makes a mockery of saying the professions should be doing the EQA”.

“Another nail in the care coffin as far as AELP is concerned,” he added.

And chair of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, Paul Eeles, said the decision seemed “strange”, particularly when there would appear to be “more natural” and “appropriate options”, including Ofqual.

But Helen Wilcox, the chief executive of Woodford Homecare and chair of the standards’ trailblazer group, said the NSAR was the “best option”.

“We were absolutely clear that whomever we worked with to EQA our EPA would work closely with the Care Apprenticeship Board CIC, created by the Trailblazer group of employers, to preserve the integrity of our standards and assure occupational competence,” she told FE Week.

“The NSAR methodology and approach did indeed resonate with our occupationally qualified Board who were unanimous in the final decision to work with NSAR as they demonstrated the best understanding of the EPA methodology derived from the needs of the our assessment plans.”

Employer groups developing new apprenticeship standards can choose one of four options for externally quality-assuring final exams.

These are an employer-led approach, a professional body, Ofqual or the IfA itself.

Many in the sector believe that it should all be left to Ofqual, which is the established qualifications regulator.

This isn’t the first time the NSAR has taken on the EQA job for apprenticeships outside of their rail specialism: in May 2018 it took on the EQA for digital standards after the Tech Partnership quit.

Barry Smith, the head of assessment at NSAR, said his firm’s approach to EQA “means we recruit the appropriate expertise to ensure we offer both the relevant occupational insight in adult care, as well as the assessment and quality assurance expertise needed”.

“This approach has served us well in our work in digital and other apprenticeship areas,” he added.

“We are currently discussing staffing with the Care Apprenticeship Board, having just finalised job descriptions and their full participation in the recruitment and selection process.”

The IfATE could not comment due to purdah, the period before a political election.


Full list of WorldSkills UK National medal winners revealed

The nation’s top skilled young people were recognised at an awards ceremony at WorldSkills UK LIVE tonight.

They were the winners from over 70 skill competitions, known as National Finals, that pitted more than 500 competitors against one another at the LIVE venue Birmingham’s NEC from Thursday to Saturday.

WorldSkills UK deputy chief executive Ben Blackledge called being crowed the nation’s number one “a life-changing moment” for the young people – as they are now in with a chance of being picked for the squad that will get narrowed down to Team UK, who will travel to compete internationally at WorldSkills Shanghai in 2021.

The squad will be announced on December 2, but Blackledge said: “We couldn’t be prouder of each and every one of them and the standard of competition could not have been higher.”

The judge for the laboratory technician competition Dirk Wildboer from Middlesex University found the tournament had been “quite competitive”.

The competitors had been tasked with extracting elements from cinnamon and mixing dyes for one of their tests – but before anything else they had to risk assess the project, which counts towards the testing of their safety skills.

Wildboer, who is the training manager for the international competitions, said his competitors need to be able to “focus on a quite different array of tasks” and pull on analytical, numerical and their laboratory skills as well as think on their feet.

“If something does not make sense or if it is not how they know it, they are expected to adapt to that.”

“We try to make it as much as possible a real, working scenario as we could,” he added.

Mechatronics judge Calum Knott said they had tried to push the competitors further, “so it had been really great to see how the competitors had upped their game since last year”.

Competitors are rated on the time they take to complete the tasks, and how competent they: whatever they make has to work perfectly.

What they have to make this year was build up systems they would find in a factory environment, so pistons moving back and forth that can replicate what you would find in a car factory; or miniature production lines, the larger versions of which you would find in a warehouse operation.

Meanwhile, competitors at autobody refinishing had to repair damages on a bumper wing as if it was a customers’ car, paint a wing in three stages which has been used on a lot of new cars and put a  design on a car bumper.

Asked how competitors were measured, judge Rebecca Wilson said: “Sometimes it’s not the nicest paint finish that scores all the points. There’s a lot of work for preparation and your colour matching with paint and the general finish. We want it to be finished as if it was a customer car.”

It looks like it will be a photo finish, as Wilson said the scores for her section “have been really close and I really cannot wait to see who has won” when the other judges finish counting.

The awards topped off days of trying out skills, meeting employers and training providers, and watching the competitions unfold for the more than 80,000 young people who attended LIVE.

The full list of winners can be found here.

The list of how many medals were one by each organisation can be found here.

Pictured: Automation gold medallists Scott Eley (left) and Oliver Newdall (centre) from Toyota

 

Conservatives announce manifesto pledge of £3bn over 5 years for a ‘new National Skills Fund’

The Conservative Party has said they will launch a £600 million a year “new National Skills Fund” if they form a government after the general election on 12 December.

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has launched the manifesto – entitled Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain’s Potential – in the West Midlands today.

> CLICK HERE to download the manifesto document

> CLICK HERE to download the manifesto costing document

In addition to the £3bn over 5 years and as reported by FE Week last week, there is close to £2 billion available over the same period for capital ‘estate upgrade’ funding. The manifesto costings document shows the additional investment will start from April 2021.

The manifesto says: “This is new funding on top of existing skills funding”, so believed to be additional investment for a “range courses including apprenticeships.”

The Conservative Party website describes the additional investment as:

“Right to Retrain and a £3 billion National Skills Fund
‍

  • We will establish a new National Skills Fund as the first step towards a “Right to Retrain”. We will invest £600 million a year, £3 billion over the Parliament, into the Fund. This is new funding on top of existing skills funding. We expect this to include funding for a range courses including apprenticeships. A proportion of the Fund will be reserved for further strategic investment in skills and it comes on top of existing skills and training programmes.
  • We will consult widely on the design of the Fund. The Treasury will consult widely on the final design of the Fund to ensure that the money is invested wisely and delivers the best possible outcomes for individuals and businesses. The full details will be set out in the first Spending Review of a Conservative majority Government. We will have strong quality assurance mechanisms in place.
  • It is our ultimate ambition to establish a Right to Retrain. Over time, it is our ambition to establish a Right to Retrain for all adults. Conservatives have previously empowered millions of people to own their own home with the Right to Buy. It is our ultimate ambition to empower millions of people in the future with the skills to achieve their potential, keep pace with technological change and embrace lifelong learning.”

Sector reaction, as it comes in:

Association of Employment and Learning Providers

Chief executive Mark Dawe says: “AELP warmly welcomes the additional funding promised for skills, because Brexit means that we need to train or retrain more home-grown talent.  All three main parties appear committed to some form of skills account for individual learners which we would consider a positive step with the right to train or retrain.  Equally positive would be the establishment of the £3bn National Skills Fund if it is allocated correctly to employers and learners to encourage good quality training provision.

“The Conservatives are right to aim to ‘level-up’ opportunities for small businesses.  Right now, SMEs are being starved of funding to offer apprenticeships to young people across the country and the proposed Fund could actually be swallowed up in its entirety by the need to restore the funding smaller businesses used to receive for apprenticeships before the levy was introduced.  But AELP looks forward to making constructive proposals on the design of the National Skills Fund.”

Sixth Form Colleges Association

Chief executive Bill Watkin said:“Although today’s manifesto does not contain a specific commitment on 16 to 18 education, the current government used September’s spending round to make the first meaningful investment in sixth form education since 2010 and we are hopeful that a future Conservative administration would build on this progress.

“However, we are surprised that the manifesto has not earmarked any capital funding to deal with the sharp demographic increase in sixth form students.

“We estimate that an additional 260,000 16 to 18 years will be participating in education by 2028, so a capital expansion fund should be a major priority for the party that wins next month’s election.”

Association of Colleges

Chief executive David Hughes said: “I welcome the Conservative Party reference to the vital role colleges play in society and to the plans to invest in the training and skills of adult. The pledge to make colleges ‘excellent places to learn’ is backed by long overdue capital investment of £2 billion which will make a big impact.

“This attitude to colleges, skills and retraining will be vital in creating an education system that is fit for the future and which supports a more inclusive economy.I am worried, though, that there is no commitment to raise the funding for 16 to 18 year olds beyond the very modest increase announced in September.

“Neither is there mention of the sustainable investment needed across all of post-16 education and skills, including apprenticeships.The National Skills Fund has real potential but will not be enough on its own given the severe cuts to adult learning budgets and the pressures on funding for apprenticeships for SMEs and young people.

“Nonetheless, the Conservative Party has joined the other major parties in this election campaign in promising big increases in college investment. Colleges already support over 2.2 million people every year, but could do so much more with the increased investment promised in this election so far.

“If followed through, by whichever government comes to power, this is a huge step in the right direction which we are ready to support in helping to make lifelong learning and opportunities for all a reality.”