More than 30 colleges based outside London are set to lose millions in funding for delivering training to adults in the capital next year.
Greater London Authority officials have revealed plans to contract with just four colleges that are not located within “reasonable travel-to-learn distances for London learners”.
If approved, it means that 32 fewer organisations, who currently have combined adult education budget allocations of over £13.4 million with the GLA, will be funded from 2021/22.
The proposal was disclosed in the GLA’s agenda for its next AEB mayoral board meeting, which is scheduled for tomorrow.
It comes after mayor Sadiq Khan signed off on a crackdown on funding for training providers based outside of the capital’s “fringe” – typically more than 30 miles away from central London.
Officials say the majority of funding given to these colleges is subcontracted to firms based in London who are then charged a “substantial” management fee – a practice that the GLA wants to limit.
Out-of-area colleges were previously asked to submit a business case for why their funding should continue, based on the type of provision they offer and the groups of learners they support.
The final decision on which out-of-area colleges will continue to gain funding from the GLA is expected to be made at tomorrow’s meeting.
A spokesperson said it would not be appropriate to comment at this stage, or reveal the names of the four colleges that look set to keep their funding.
The GLA previously said it will consult on how best to use the returned £13.4 million as part of its next Skills for Londoners framework consultation, which is expected to launch this month.
Options include running a separate AEB procurement exercise or funding uplifts for certain learners and qualifications.
The AEB for the capital, which tops £300 million annually, was devolved from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to the GLA in August 2019.
The government will only accept proposals from providers in 20 of England’s 38 local enterprise partnership (LEP) areas for its upcoming Institutes of Technology tender.
His promise came months after the FE Week revealed cold spots with the first 12 IoTs, which began to open in September 2019. There were none planned for the north west and the east of England.
A ‘wave two prospectus’ was published by the Department for Education today and states that the new 12-month competition will launch “later in the year”.
It adds that only proposals from the 20 LEP areas that are currently not covered by an IoT will be eligible to apply (see map).
All applications must meet the “strict minimum conditions” set out in wave one and be a collaboration involving further education, higher education and employer partners.
The prospectus does not detail the exact criteria, but the first IoTs had to involve colleges with at least a grade two from Ofsted and have good financial health.
The first wave of IoTs are being created through a £170 million pot of capital funding.
They are a collaboration between colleges, universities and employers, and specialise in delivering higher level technical training at level 4 and 5 in STEM subjects, including digital, advanced manufacturing and engineering.
Williamson said: “Institutes of Technology will play a vital role in our plan to transform higher technical education across the country, helping to level up skills and unlock growth and opportunities.
“We are making good progress to establish the first wave of IoTs and I look forward to welcoming the second wave of applicants, completing our high-quality national network.”
A university has been told to repay £119,000 by its funding body after an investigation found a payout to its ex-principal – who now chairs an influential college commission – breached financial rules.
The Scottish Funding Council, which oversees further and higher education funding north of the border, has today published its report into the University of Aberdeen and its former boss Sir Ian Diamond.
Diamond, who is leading the College of the Future commission, triggered his 12-month notice for his role as university principal in July 2018 – the same month he retired from the role.
He originally announced his plans to retire in August 2017.
The former principal’s total remuneration disclosed in the university’s financial statements for 2017-18 was £601,000. This included a salary of £282,000, pension contributions of £30,000 and “contractual notice period payment and related expenses” of £289,000.
After examining over 500 pieces of evidence, today’s report states that in approving the terms of the settlement agreement, there was “no documented assessment of value for money”.
Officials found that the university was paying two principals while Diamond was on gardening leave.
“By defining the former principal’s ‘formal’ notice date as the date immediately preceding both the successor principal taking up his post and the former principal moving to a 12 month period of ‘gardening leave’, the university incurred the cost of two principals over the 2018-19 financial year,” the report said.
“In addition, over the 2017-18 financial year, the principal received his full salary while having significantly fewer duties and responsibilities than those constituting the full role of principal, and we have seen no evidence that the value for money consequences of that arrangement were assessed.”
The report notes that the ‘Heads of Terms’ for the settlement agreement were approved by the remuneration committee, but there is “no evidence that sufficient documented information was supplied so that members could be assured university policies and interests were observed”.
The settlement agreement was “correctly disclosed”, according to today’s review, but “in our view the additional payment of £60,000” for “outplacement support should also have been disclosed”.
The SFC concludes that there was “non-compliance with several financial memorandum requirements”.
Officials have now said it requires £119,000 to be repaid and for the university to undertake an externally-facilitated review of its governance procedures and culture.
Esther Roberton, who was elected in 2019 to the role of senior governor of the University of Aberdeen, said the university accepts the findings and has “already repaid the £119,000 to the Scottish Funding Council”.
“We will address the issues raised in the report and take lessons from it,” she added.
A spokesperson for the university confirmed that Diamond has not had to personally repay any of his settlement agreement.
Diamond, who became the UK’s National Statistician in October, was unveiled as the chair of the College of the Future commission in May 2019.
The commission includes 16 people and aims to set out a “new vision” for colleges in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
It is being supported by nine organisations including the Association of Colleges.
Leaders of colleges in England have previously faced questions over payments they received during their notice periods.
In May, the University and College Union criticised pay rises and 12-month notice period extensions for all the executives at Stephenson College, which came into force in 2015 ahead of a merger consultation.
And Mike Hopkins, the former principal of Sussex Downs College, was paid £80,000 by the college while on gardening leave for five months after his provider merged with Sussex Coast College Hastings last year.
This was despite the fact Sussex Downs was facing a deficit of £1.9 million and planning a wave of staff redundancies. He also received a final payout for leaving, but it is not known how much this was.
Gillian Keegan has been named as the new apprenticeships and skills minister.
She joined the Department for Education as a parliamentary under secretary of state on Friday following Boris Johnson’s reshuffle.
Her title was confirmed this evening along with all ministerial portfolios. It is not clear at this stage, however, if she will be responsible for the whole further education brief, including oversight of colleges.
The DfE told FE Week that more information on portfolio splits will be confirmed at a later date.
The department has been missing a dedicated apprenticeships and skills minister since Anne Milton resigned in July 2019.
Since then Gavin Williamson, who was reappointed as education secretary in last week’s reshuffle, has led on FE and skills personally.
Keegan is the MP for Chichester and is herself a former apprentice. She was elected to parliament for the first time in 2017.
Her website states that she is the “only degree level apprentice in the House of Commons”.
She started work as an apprentice at Delco Electronics aged 16 and whilst learning about she was sponsored to study a degree in business studies at Liverpool John Moores University.
For the next 25 years she worked and lived abroad, working in the manufacturing, banking and IT industries, according to her website.
It adds that her “experience of a comprehensive and wide ranging apprenticeship provided her with a foundation of skills and knowledge that helped continue a 27 year long business career”.
She is the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for apprentices, and was made an “apprenticeship ambassador” by Milton in February 2019.
Keegan sat on the influential Public Accounts Committee until she was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Treasury in December 2018.
She has since held posts in the Ministry of Defence, served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary and the Department for Health.
The DfE also confirmed tonight that Michelle Donelan is the new universities minister, as revealed by FE Week last week.
Baroness Berridge has been announced as the new academies minister, taking over from Lord Agnew, and Nick Gibb will continue as the schools minister.
Jess Staufenberg meets the shadow minister for further education – once a teacher – whose father and grandfather were both sacked for unionising
When shadow minister for further education Emma Hardy was in sixth form college she was told by her formidable history teacher, Mrs Mauer, “You’re a radical Emma, and people are going to read about you in the future.”
The young Hardy was making the case for a nationalised health service to the class. “I didn’t win. But I did convert the most people. We won the argument!” she adds with a guffaw, playfully referencing the Labour leadership’s stoic response to its catastrophic defeat in the December general election. Mrs Mauer’s words stuck with Hardy. “No pressure, then, I thought.”
At parents’ evenings, the young Hardy steered her mum and dad between teachers who “loved her” and those for whom she was “too opinionated”. These days, during a turbulent time for her party, the 40-year-old has to navigate a similarly careful course without alienating anyone too much. While weighing her words so as to not come across as too partisan, the former primary school teacher lets her stories and feelings tumble out with surprising openness.
“I would describe myself as Team Labour”
It’s a habit that has most likely endeared her to shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, and which landed her the further and higher education brief on January 7. Hardy calls her approach “Team Labour.”
“I don’t get involved in all of that,” she says when I ask how she has survived party factionalism and powerful voices in Momentum. We’re having a cup of tea at her office in 1 Parliament Street, and Hardy is sitting attentively opposite me, her phone on the table with a picture of one of her two daughters under the screen cover. Hardy voted for Andy Burnham in the leadership election won by Jeremy Corbyn, and is now supporting Keir Starmer for the leadership (rather than the more Corbynite Rebecca Long-Bailey) and Rayner for deputy.
“I would describe myself as Team Labour. But I’ve also always said whoever is democratically elected as leader is leader.” Hardy rejects the idea that most Labour MPs belong in one camp or another. “If you actually sat down and tried to say who was definitely pro- or anti-Corbyn, you’d only be able to identify a few. Most people just get on with it.”
While regarded as a young radical among her classmates, Hardy says the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) sees her as “predictable”, a fact which has served her well. “The way I see it, the Labour Party is bigger than all of us. When Jeremy is gone and I’ve gone and Keir is gone, it will still be here. If you believe that, then the factionalism doesn’t matter.”
At home in Newbold aged 6
Hardy’s appeal to overarching values rather than internal politics may have its roots in her childhood. She was surrounded by influential people who gave her principles to believe in, but who never demanded loyalty to a particular party. Instead, she has been taught through stories. “My granddad used to tell us how he’d have to line up for work each day. Because he was nearly six feet tall, he’d often get work, but other people didn’t.”
Among the places he worked was Tetley’s tea, though after he told the company’s joint-founder Joseph Tetley that he was going to set up a union not for long. “He lost his job,” says Hardy, dark eyebrows raised.
Her own father worked for WH Smith, though he was sacked after being the only employee to carry out a scheduled strike. “Dad always told me, if you’re going to go on strike, make sure you’re not the only one who does it!” Hardy laughs.
Her father then enrolled at a further education college and went on to train as a teacher, eventually becoming headteacher at Hardy’s own school.
“That’s probably why I also ended up being a bit left-wing. On Friday afternoons, he used to take all of the school for singing, and we did Bob Dylan, The Beatles and protest songs.”
But Hardy’s biggest smile is reserved for her 92-year-old nanny. “She was a single mother with five children in a council house. She used to tell me about families moving in with no furniture, and say ‘they’re forgetting their roots’. She was always passionate about not forgetting where you came from.”
Her nanny is her firm supporter. “She’s got a picture of me in the house and if anyone comes around, she says ‘that’s who I support’!”
Hardy’s laugh is infectious, and I hoot as she goes on to describe her nan as “old-school trolling” less convinced family members. “She cuts out articles from the Mirror and sends them saying ‘have you seen what your lot have done now?’”
At home aged 11
Hardy describes her 13-year-old self feeling “quite sick” at the 1992 Conservative win, and by the age of 17 she was a Labour member – though still too young to vote in the 1997 election in which Labour won a landslide.
Meanwhile, she was doing her A-levels. After switching subjects halfway through, it took her three years rather than two to get them, and she almost didn’t make it to Liverpool University. Once there, she didn’t get involved in student politics, and the same held true at Leeds University, where she studied for her PGCE. It was only as a primary school teacher that she joined the NUT, which she deeply praises for “encouraging and developing” her.
Soon her stance on testing put her at odds with the school leadership, and she left to join the NUT as an organiser. Later she was in touch with the then MP for Hull West and Hessle, Alan Johnson. A few years later, Johnson made the surprise announcement he would not be standing in the 2017 election, and Hardy decided to go for the candidacy. Her interview was at Labour HQ at Southside in London.
“I was so nervous. [Then NUT general secretary] Kevin Courtney saw me beforehand and gave me a big hug and wished me luck,” says Hardy. She was up against six other hopefuls, some of them – Sam Tarry, now MP for Ilford South, and senior Corbyn aide David Prescott – with rather more experience than she had. “The press wasn’t expecting me to win”, she says.
“I remember one of the interview questions: ‘If you’re on the doorstep and someone says ‘Labour can’t afford its policies’, how would you reply?”
Celebrating after winning the Kingston upon Hull West & Hessle seat in the 2019 General Election
You can imagine the teacher in Hardy tackling such tricky moments with aplomb. After the interview, she was taken for a pint by Karl Turner, MP for Kingston upon Hull East. It was in the pub that she got the phone call to tell her she’d been selected. “I was shocked. I remember saying I needed to get the train home and Karl saying, ‘Wait – you need to stay for another drink to celebrate!’.”
When I ask how being an MP compares with teaching Hardy reaches for her timetable. The hours look similar: 8am starts and 8pm finishes. Even with recess next week, she’s working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. “You’re used to working really hard as a teacher. I’ve never done a 9 to 5, ever. The difference with this job is you create your own work – you can get involved as little or as much as you want.”
We need to upskill the country
Hardy has laid out her key foci for FE already – mainly increased funding and smoothing issues with the apprenticeship levy. But one of her notions is particularly striking. “I’m playing with the idea of a ‘right to learn’,” she says.
The government has promised to enshrine workers’ rights in a new employment bill, and Hardy wants an amendment. “It would be that you as an individual have a legal right to learn, and you can ask your employer for time out so you can do that. It makes sense. We need to upskill the country.”
Hardy may not be as recognisable as some of her contemporaries – Jess Phillips, for instance – but ideas like this have got her noticed in the halls of Westminster, if not in the echo chambers of Twitter. As I leave, Hardy shows me a handwritten note from the outgoing Speaker of the House, John Bercow.
It reads: “You made a terrific impact in the 2017 Parliament and are a star in the future.”
With the budget less than a month away, and the prime minister confirming the apprenticeship levy needs reform, there are signs that the government could quickly revisit the original tax credit recommendation from 2012.
Education select committee chair Robert Halfon has called for the policy to be introduced on numerous occasions over the past year.
He told an Annual Apprenticeship Awards parliamentary reception last week that he finds it “incredible” that if companies invest in research and development “they get a research tax credit, hundreds of millions of pounds a year”.
“Why on earth isn’t there such a thing as a skills credit where, if companies invest in skills and apprenticeships, they get a skills tax credit from the Treasury to incentivise businesses to do more, whether it is an apprenticeship, adult learning, or whatever it may be,” Halfon added.
It is an idea favoured by Baroness Alison Wolf, who now advises the prime minister Boris Johnson on skills three days a week.
In October 2019, during an education select committee hearing, Halfon asked Wolf: “Should there not be a skill or social justice tax credit for businesses if they genuinely reskill their employees?”
The baroness replied: “I think there should – if one can figure out a way of doing it that will not be open to massive fraud. It would be a very good idea.
“As you say, you have double tax credits for research. Why not have double tax credits for training? Off the top of my head I think it is a really good idea, but like so many of these things the question is whether it is actually doable without having either a massive amount of semi-fraud or a massive amount of expensive apparatus looking at it.
“I think it would be a really interesting thing to consider.”
The idea of skills tax credits was first mooted in the 2012 Richard Review of Apprentices, which was conducted by former Dragons’ Den star Doug Richard (pictured).
He called for employers to pay providers directly for apprenticeship training.
Richard said tax credits, or other forms of government incentives, should then be dished out to employers as the government pays its part of apprentice training.
“Instead of the money for providers coming from the government, they [providers] now have the more granular challenge of having to collect their money from employers,” he explained.
“The employers only get the credit if they show they’ve spent the money. It means if the employer wants it done, they can’t hold the money back from the provider.”
He added: “There are differences here, profound ones, but if you net out the whole system, a provider still largely ends up providing training and getting paid through a government subsidy. But now its customer — as always should have been the case — will be the employer, not the government or one of its agencies.
“It changes who the training provider has as their customer. The customer should have the money — it focuses the mind of the vendor. I feel strongly about this point, and I think it’s the heart of the review.”
Asked if they were considering skills tax credits in the run up to the budget, a Treasury spokesperson said: “We already provide tax relief for employee training through a 100 per cent corporation tax deduction. We keep all tax reliefs under review.”
They added that in order to consider more generous tax treatment, there must be a clear economic case made for government intervention, so that any measures are well-targeted and provide value for money for the tax-payer.
As the run-up to WorldSkills 2021 picks up pace, FE Week reporter Fraser Whieldon went behind-the-scenes at a Squad UK bootcamp to find out how we train our competitors for the international stage
Nearly 120 skilled young people came from across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to Loughborough last weekend for their first bootcamp to prepare them for competing in either WorldSkills Shanghai in China next year or EuroSkills Gratz in Austria 2020.
Currently, they are known as Squad UK, a large group of potential competitors who will be whittled down to Team UK, the select few going to China and Austria.
“Training managers tested squad members’ commitment, motivation and reaction to criticism”
I joined them on Saturday morning, during introductions from Olympianturned-WorldSkills-performance coach Peter Bakare and WorldSkills UK deputy chief executive Ben Blackledge.
After which, the squad members split up into groups to take part in teambuilding activities, such as sorting themselves into an alphabetical line without speaking.
I took part with one of the groups when they had to pass each member through a hoop, which my team achieved by standing in a line and having a couple of them run up the line, passing the hoop over one person’s head, then up from the feet of the next person.
It was a fun icebreaker and a great way for the squad to gel as a possible team, but there was a serious purpose to it.
Training managers were using the bootcamp to measure each squad member’s so-called “soft skills”: their attitude, commitment, motivation and how they react to criticism.
Linzi Weare, the training manager for hairdressing, was looking to get her four-person squad of competitors down to three this week, so: “It’s possibly going to be a really quick journey for one person.”
FE Week Fraser Whieldon takes part in the bootcamp activities
The squad also took sessions on how to use social media, as from now on “they are ambassadors for Squad UK and for the vocational system,” says Blackledge.
He is responsible for the “always evolving” training programmes WorldSkills UK runs, and says this year they have looked at a more “data-driven” approach and analysed what factors helped competitors perform better before, such as the support they get during the process.
They are also looking at how they put in performance milestones and how they do pressure testing in a “more systemic way”, Blackledge explained.
I saw an example of this emphasis on data in a talk by WorldSkills performance coach Karl Bartlett, where he asked squad members to sign up for an app that allows him to monitor what they eat and tell them what they are missing out on.
Blackledge describes the new focus as “brilliant for Squad UK and eventually Team UK, but also it is vital for the mainstreaming of what we do”.
“How does this get taken back into the classroom and back into colleges and training providers to have that understanding that this is what makes the marginal difference or the big difference in performance?”
Towards the end of the day, squad members took turns signing a Union Jack and waited for their turn in a queue that stretched around the conference centre in which the bootcamp took place.
Isaac George, competitor in cyber security, signs the Union Jack
But the bootcamp is also about getting the training managers up to snuff: on the Friday, they met to share strategic and technical information and good practice.
Christian Notley from Chichester College, chief expert for cabinet making, told me he had been making sure managers “share their knowledge” as WorldSkills has “a huge wealth of skills and information which are applicable to other training managers”.
“It’s good to talk to new experts and I can learn to come up with new ideas and it’s a great way to really drive ourselves forwards and upwards,” he added.
Naomi Radbourne was one new training manager I met on the day; she has taken over hair and beauty from Jenna Wrathall Bailey MBE, who helped lead the UK to a string of gold medals at competitions including Sao Paulo in 2015, Abu Dhabi in 2017 and Kazan in 2019.
Squad members jot down what they think makes a successful competitor
Bearing that in mind, I asked Radbourne how she was going to keep up that level of quality: “It’s very much a strict training programme. It’s about having that openness with the competitors as well, making sure they’re getting exactly what they need, and we are pushing them as much as possible to be the best they can be through training and personal development.”
Formerly a competitor, Radbourne feels she is better acclimatised to a support role. When she was competing, her nickname was Mary Poppins because “I always pulled something out of the bag for other competitors and never for myself”, such as hairbrushes and facial mitts.
With that level of commitment, a fresh training regimen, and the wealth of experience behind them, things are looking bright for WorldSkills UK.
What makes you want to compete in WorldSkills?
FE Week spoke with a number of Squad UK members throughout the bootcamp to find out how and why they got involved in the elite tournament.
Lavanya Hemanth, Laboratory Technician competitor
For a lot of squad members, this would have been their first bootcamp. But not so for Lavanya, who says she has received a “golden ticket” to try again at competing in WorldSkills, after narrowly missing out on a place to go to Kazan.
Lavanya Hemanth
Although another competitor ended up representing the UK in the chemical laboratory technician competition at last year’s tournament, Lavanya was still within the age range, so WorldSkills UK let her rejoin Squad UK to take another shot.
The Middlesex University student is determined to compete in Shanghai, but wants to improve on her interactive skills: “I don’t really go along and talk to people. I’m not an extrovert, I’m an introvert. So I will probably try to work on communication and being part of the team.”
But the improvement she sees is not just while she’s competing: Lavanya has also noticed an improvement when she is working on her undergraduate project in the laboratory.
“This actually gives me the confidence to work on my own in the lab, as it’s the same technique in a different place.”
But her experience with WorldSkills also helps her work in tandem, for instance, with her supervisor: “I’m learning through this journey,” she believes.
She first found out about WorldSkills from her tutors and initially just went along to see what it was like, “but once I was into the competition and the spirit and the confidence it brings” she got very engaged. Having attended a bootcamp last year, she said she personally feels she “deserves it more” this time around.
Madeline Rowe, Fine Jewellery Making competitor
Madeline is another competitor looking to represent the UK internationally, but things could have been very different for her.
“I did A-levels and was planning to go to university to do photography. My grandfather heard something in the news that said the jewellery trade is finding it hard to recruit people.”
Madeline Rowe
Having always enjoyed design and technology at school, Madeline found a course with the Goldsmith’s Centre in London, deferred her place at university and now works for David Marshall at The London Art Works.
The support from her employer to compete has been “great”, she says, as they’re “totally up for anything I need to do and are happy to contribute towards anything.
“But of course, WorldSkills themselves have been great contributors, helping me get to and from these things.”
At the bootcamp, she was looking to get to know her squad mates: “I’ve always been difficult with the icebreaking, so I feel like, in terms to this morning, I’ve already gotten to know a couple of new faces, so that’s definitely helped a lot.”
She found the team-building activities of the morning useful because, if she is picked for Shanghai, “it’ll be nice to know a few more faces”.
Spending time with the other squad members was something Madeline used to help with the stress of competing in front of an audience at WorldSkills LIVE: “I’m not used to people staring at me all the time.”
But, with the other competitors, “we’re all in the same boat” and they went out together after LIVE, which she found to be a “nice place to make connections and get to know people and especially people from across the country who are doing the exact same thing as you”.
“It’s just a great little networking system.”
Cameron McKnight, Cyber Security competitor
Competitors take part in WorldSkills for many reasons. For Cameron, it was another chance to improve his skills in the area he obviously loves.
Cyber security, Cameron says, is under “constant threat… It’s evolving every day, with companies and enterprises across the world being attacked by cyber criminals. So my goal is to use the knowledge and skills I gain from WorldSkills and I’m excited to apply that to future careers.”
Cameron McKnight
He said it was an “absolute honour to participate in this first bootcamp”, which he described as “very, very good”, adding it would be a privilege to participate in future events as well.
He came third in the cyber security competition at the WorldSkills LIVE, and was looking forward to getting stuck in with training. He hopes to gain new skills and knowledge at the bootcamp, as well as meeting new people and collaborating with his squad mates.
Cameron feels they “definitely” need the support of their training providers to get through the process. His own support comes from Belfast Metropolitan College, where he is studying cyber security technician infrastructure.
Many of the competitors talk about the support of colleges in terms of giving them time to compete. Cameron also highlights how his lecturers’ knowledge backs up his training.
Competing while at Belfast has been “especially useful” as he has “lecturers who specialise or come from a line of industry”.
In fact, the majority of his tutors specialise in a wide range of areas which Cameron says are applicable to cyber security.
The crisis hit National College for HS2 has hired a team of lawyers to stop Ofsted publishing a highly critical report, FE Week can reveal.
The government-backed flagship college launched in 2017 but has struggled to recruit learners and this time last year received close to £5 million in a bailout deal to keep the doors open.
In November, inspectors visited the college – renamed last year as the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) – for the first time and found the quality of provision to be so poor they were set to award the lowest grade possible, a grade four.
“The inspection and report are the subject of litigation”
Governors were quick to instruct lawyers to block the publication by filing for a judicial review at the High Court. They have also voted to stop publishing board minutes, as well as delayed signing off the accounts.
The Department for Education was initially cautious of commenting during the legal proceedings, but have since confirmed they placed they college in formal intervention on December 6. A notice to improve and a Further Education Commissioner report will be published shortly.
It is understood that a court date for the judicial review is yet to be set.
Despite being handed a financial notice to improve – and being in receipt of a £4.55 million government bailout to sign off its 2017/18 accounts – the college did not need permission to use public funds on legal proceedings.
The DfE said the college is not required to seek approval for legal expenses following formal intervention – because as independent organisations governing bodies are subject to their own fiduciary responsibilities.
Chair of the college board is Alison Munro, chief executive of HS2 Ltd from January 2009 to September 2014, and subsequently managing director of HS2 Phase 2 until her retirement in August 2017, when she was awarded a CBE.
A DfE spokesperson did add that the board must act in the best interests of the college, as a charity.
As spokesperson for Ofsted told FE Week “The inspection and report are the subject of litigation. The report has not been published. In the circumstances, we are not able to say more.”
The college also said it could not comment on the Ofsted result as “there is a legal process taking place”.
The influential Public Accounts Committee is set to be reformed next month, and FE Week understands that – subject to members agreeing – its first evidence hearing will be an update on HS2 on March 4, which will likely include questions on the national college.
This is the second judicial review to be launched by an FE provider following a grade four Ofsted judgement in recent years. The country’s former largest training provider, Learndirect, lost its High Court battle with the education watchdog in 2017.
It led to a National Audit Office inquiry, a Public Accounts Committee hearing, and, ultimately, the government terminating the provider’s £100 million funding contracts.
The Ofsted report is not the only thing NCATI is keeping hidden from the public, as it confessed to FE Week it has temporarily suspended the publication of board minutes as of last month.
The decision was taken because of “exceptional circumstances in which the college was currently operating” – namely “so as to not prejudice an independent review taking place into HS2”, a spokesperson said.
Learners and stakeholders interested in how the college is being run will have to make do with corporation board minutes on NCATI’s website. These go up only to December 2018 and February last year for the audit committee, and none have ever been published for its search, governance and remuneration committee.
Suspending publication means the records of meetings taken during NCATI’s transition from the National College for High Speed Rail (NCHSR) will not be published until at least July 2020.
NCATI has also failed to sign off its 2018/19 accounts, a situation the college said the ESFA is “aware of, as we are working with their team to be in a position to finalise the statements”.
The National College for High Speed Rail rebranded as NCATI in 2019 and announced plans to expand its provision to cover transport areas other than the high-speed rail industry, to which it had been dedicated ever since it was opened by then education secretary Justine Greening.
It denied that the name change was related to the troubled HS2 project.
The college currently advertises rail-related apprenticeships between levels 3 and 6, as well as higher national certificates and higher national diplomas, foundation degrees, and full-time courses at either level 3 or 4.
Hopes were initially high for the college, with the likely construction of a high-speed rail line connecting London with the midlands and north, HS2, near to their campuses at Birmingham and Doncaster. Moreover, it is being led by Clair Mowbray, a former employee of the line’s builders, HS2 Ltd.
Clair Mowbray
Yet according to a recently-published government review of National Colleges, delays in announcing HS2 contractors meant employers were unable to commit to the apprenticeship volumes they had originally anticipated at the college.
In addition to this, and other factors such as a high-speed rail apprenticeship being granted a lower-than-expected funding band, the government review found NCHSR did not meet its learner targets for 2018/19, along with two other National Colleges.
The HS2 college had already received £40 million in capital funding from the ESFA to construct buildings and purchase equipment.
A further £12 million was provided by the Sheffield City Region combined authority, and the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.
HS2 Ltd also loaned NCHSR £2,906,000 in 2018 and £2,804,000 in 2017.
The college signed up just 96 students when it first opened, even though it aims to be taking on 1,200 a year by 2022.
NCATI said it is confident the prime minister’s decision this week to give the greenlight for the construction of HS2 provides “the certainty the college, our partners, industry and learners have been seeking”.
When he made his announcement in the Commons this week, the prime minister confirmed HS2 would be an opportunity to embed skills, saying the project “will drive jobs and apprenticeships for young people for a generation to come”.
An ‘inadequate’ for NCATI would be the worst handed to any of the four open National Colleges: National College for Digital Skills, which opened in 2016, achieved a grade two in 2018; while National College Creative Industries, which also opened in 2016 before dissolving this year, received a grade three last year and has now set up as a limited company.
The National College for Nuclear is split across two hubs at Bridgwater and Taunton College in Somerset and Lakes College in Cumbria, both of which are grade two.
A fifth National College, for onshore oil and gas, is on hold by its overseers – United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG) – while “greater clarity and progress by way of timing and the scale of production activities is ascertained”.
More than half of all young learners who enrolled in September at ungraded merged FE colleges now find themselves studying at Ofsted grade three providers.
FE Week analysed the performance of these mega-colleges ahead of the imminent publication of a grade three report for Capital City College Group (see here for full story).
In total, 13 college groups have been inspected for the first time since being formed and following the introduction of the Education Inspection Framework (EIF) in September.
According to Education and Skills Funding Agency data for 2019-20, these providers educate 52,293 young people aged 16 to 18, of whom 27,996 (54 per cent) are now at the six colleges who have been hit with grade threes.
Of the six, nine pre-merged colleges have now lost ‘good’ ratings, while four individual colleges failed to improve their grade threes.
Nottingham College, created after a merger between ‘good’ providers New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham in 2017, is one group that now ‘requires improvement’.
Inspectors reported that governors, who do not have enough impact on the quality of education, had focused on “resolving the challenges created” by the merger.
United Colleges Group also lost the College of North West London’s and City of Westminster College’s ‘good’ ratings following its merger in 2017.
The education watchdog found that “a significant number of senior staff left” after this.
It added that there had been disruption to specific courses and the management of these was “not yet effective enough”.
However, the report did acknowledge that governors had taken effective action to set up a new leadership team following the merger.
In addition, Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, which formed in 2017 after the merger of Northbrook College and City College Brighton and Hove, both of which were rated ‘good’, received a grade three.
Grades received by general FE colleges under the new Education Inspection
Framework following their first inspections since mergers – click to enlarge
Moreover, both Coventry College and St Helens College failed to improve upon their pre-merger ratings.
Henley College Coventry and City College Coventry were both rated grade three before joining to become Coventry College in 2017.
Inspectors stated that, since the merger, governors “recognised quickly that leaders’ planned improvements were ineffective and took decisive steps with the leadership of the college” and the chair and chief executive had also appointed new governors with “a strong background in education to enhance the board’s effectiveness”.
Similarly, St Helens College was formed in 2017 after a merger between St Helens College and Knowsley Community College, which both had ‘requires improvement’.
Ofsted said the interim principal had begun to stabilise the college following the merger and extensive changes to staffing and college structures.
It added that while new senior leaders have a clear strategic direction, the appointment of a permanent principal had not been finalised and the lack of stability “has had a negative impact on the pace of improvement”.
There have been success stories for merged colleges under the new EIF.
Since it came into force, there has been one ‘outstanding’ rating and six grade twos for these colleges, which deliver provision to 24,297 16- to 18-year-old students in total.
College groups struggling to shine as Ofsted visits for first time Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group boosted its grade from pre-merger ratings of ‘good’ for Newcastleunder-Lyme College and ‘inadequate’ for Stafford College to ‘outstanding’ in November.
Inspectors praised its leaders and managers for “very effectively” bringing about the merger and “rapidly” integrating the two campuses.
In addition, six other merged colleges are now considered ‘good’.
Grade two provider South Cheshire College had merged with West Cheshire College, a grade three provider, to form Cheshire College – South & West in 2017.
Its governors were praised by the education watchdog for continuing to “secure improvements to the quality of education that learners and apprentices receive during the merger process”.
Tyne Coast College retained the grade two rating obtained by both South Tyneside College and Tyne Metropolitan College after they merged in 2017.
Inspectors believed governors and senior leaders at the college managed the merger “very effectively” and ensured that the college campuses “continue to serve their communities well”.
The Windsor Forest Colleges Group was created in 2017 after ‘good’ Strode’s College merged with East Berkshire College, which had received a grade three.
Ofsted said that governors and senior leaders had ensured they continued to serve their local communities “well, with a broad and relevant curriculum offer” since the merger, with leaders and managers working with local employers and partners to plan and review provision so that it was “focused on current industry practices”.
Moreover, Warrington and Vale Royal College, which formed in 2017, improved its pre-merged college grades.
North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College retained North Warwickshire and Hinckley College’s and South Leicestershire College’s ‘good’ ratings after the two merged in 2016 and a further grade two was received by Bedford College.
In total, 27 general FE colleges have been inspected so far under the EIF, including CCCG’s verdict.
FE Week analysis shows that more than two-fifths (12) of these have been hit by grade threes.
One provider was declared ‘outstanding’, while more than half (14) were considered ‘good’.
None has been found to be ‘inadequate’.
Grades received by general FE colleges after the introduction of the new Education Inspection Framework – click to enlarge
