A college is bidding to stay on the T-level programme and prevent another cold spot from opening up after it received a grade three from Ofsted.

Nottingham College was inspected last month, its first since being created from a merger of New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham in 2017.

It is scheduled to deliver the digital, education and health routes from next year, but the Department for Education has previously stated that providers must be either ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ to run the qualifications.

A spokesperson for Nottingham College said they had already raised the issue with the Education and Skills Funding Agency and they will “submit an application to continue to be a provider of T-levels so these important new qualifications can be offered in the East Midlands from September 2021”.

“The college hopes this is supported by both the ESFA and the Department for Education,” he added.

There are no other colleges or providers scheduled to run T-levels in Nottingham yet.

However, there are some others in the East Midlands – Loughborough College, Leicester College and Derby College.

Derby is the closest from Nottingham College’s Adams Building campus, and would take students over an hour to get there by car and over three-quarters of an hour by public transport during the morning rush hour.

A DfE spokesperson said they will work “closely” with Nottingham College to look at the issues the Ofsted report raised, and make a decision in “due course”.

The department promised to consider each case individually and reach a mutual decision with a provider before a decision is made; and the time invested by institutions and the work done to prepare students may impact on the decision of whether or not the provider is able to continue.

When United Colleges Group in London received a grade three from Ofsted last month ahead of it delivering the construction and digital routes from 2021, the DfE also said it would make a decision about whether United can stay on the programme “in due course”.

London Design and Engineering UTC was dropped from T-levels last year after it received a ‘requires improvement’ rating from Ofsted.

Removing Nottingham College could open up another cold spot in T-level provision in England, when FE Week analysis has already identified one in Greater Lincolnshire, where only two providers are scheduled to deliver T-levels: DN Colleges Group and Grimsby Institute.

There is also a shortage of construction T-level providers in London, as no-one in the capital is running the qualification from September 2020 and no-one south of the river Thames will be from 2021.

Last month, it was announced the only London-based construction T-level provider south of the river Thames, Richmond-upon-Thames College, had pulled out of T-levels in order to prioritise the development of its campus.

Ofsted gave Nottingham College a grade three after inspectors found that “too often managers and staff aim to meet the minimum requirements of qualifications” and teachers often do not make learners “work hard enough,” so they do not develop the knowledge to reach the highest grades.

Leaders were also criticised for not using quality assurance arrangements well enough to monitor provision on subcontracted programmes.

College governors, meanwhile, were pulled up for not having “enough impact on the quality of education” as they were too focused on resolving the challenges presented by the 2017 merger between New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham which created Nottingham College.

The college’s spokesperson said inspectors had provided them “with a very clear picture of where the college needs to continue to focus its attention” and they are developing an action plan address the inconsistencies Ofsted found in the quality of teaching and in the student experience.

But they were pleased inspectors “acknowledged our strengths,” including skilled teachers and a safe learning environment.

As the Manchester mayor’s flagship policy for students enters its second term, JL Dutaut asks if it’s one worth following – and if so, who should drive?

It’s boom time for Manchester’s colleges.

“We are seeing a significant increase in the number of students entering further education,” says The Manchester College principal and Greater Manchester College Group chair Lisa O’Loughlin. “Manchester College alone has seen more than 300 additional 16-to-18-year-olds enrol this September compared with last year, with many of the other colleges reporting similar increases.”

That represents an extra £1.5 million in extra per-pupil funding – a real boon whilst colleges await the 2019 general election’s promised increases in capital investment.

But to understand why Manchester is bucking the trend, we have to look to two other elections, both in 2017.

The first was the Greater Manchester mayoral election, won by Labour’s Andy Burnham. The second, the 2017 general election, narrowly won by Theresa May.

37,000 Our Pass cards have been issued, with cardholders making 5 million journeys

It was on the campaign trail that Burnham visited Bury college and heard from Olivia, a student working with charity Reclaim Project. “Do something to help young people with the cost of transport,” she told him, and it became part of his manifesto. By July 2019, mayor Burnham had announced the upcoming launch of a two-year pilot of Our Pass – giving 16-to-18-year-olds unlimited free bus travel and reduced off-peak tram fares in the whole Greater Manchester area.

The scheme, sponsored by a number of organisations, chief among them JD Sports, went live last September. Some 37,000 Our Pass cards have since been issued, with cardholders making 5 million journeys – around 250,000 a week – over the past five months.

The prompt and effective implementation of Our Pass is in stark contrast to the promise made in the Conservatives’ 2017 manifesto, in which the party committed to implementing “significantly discounted bus and train travel for apprentices”.

Subsidised travel is not a natural fit for Conservative economics. In fact, the Taxpayers’ Alliance suggests the effect could be to have taxpayers in rural areas (where public transport is less readily available) subsidising bus passengers in London, who account for half of the nation’s 4.5 billion annual bus journeys.

Nevertheless, a promised scheme has yet to materialise.

A promised scheme has yet to materialise.

The government maintains that it isn’t resting on its laurels. It has introduced the 16-17 Railcard (which offers a 50 per cent discount on train fares), while older apprentices can use the 26-30 railcard (which offers a third off all off-peak fares). It has updated guidance on local authorities’ duties “to support those in education and training post-16, including apprentices” with transport, and the DfE also points out that the ESFA provides additional payments to support “apprentices who are young or from disadvantaged backgrounds”.

In addition, the DfE says there are “a number of apprentice concessionary schemes offered by local authorities, individual train and bus operators and the National Union of Students via their Apprentice Extra card”.

But the Department for Education and Department for Transport are still working on the “joint proposal for discounted public transport for apprentices” – promised in 2017, and last discussed in parliament nearly six months ago.

The government says ‘get fired up’ but its policy is on the backburner

On that matter, the DfE passed on the opportunity to comment, stating that the joint proposal is being led by the DfT. When contacted, the DfT nearly missed its stop, and when comment did come, it was to inform us that “this policy is owned by the DfE”, leaving us to wonder just who is driving the bus.

Some information was forthcoming nonetheless, and it shows that while the government wants us to “get fired up” for National Apprenticeship Week this week, discounted travel for apprentices is very much on the backburner. It is not due to be delivered until 2021 – four years after it was promised.

Education and enrichment

The National Union of Students’ (NUS) vice president for further education, Juliana Mohamad Noor, is clear on her expectations. “We hope that in the coming budget we will finally see some money for this, otherwise it will be just another empty ploy to win over young people,” she says. NUS research shows that “49 per cent of FE students were concerned about the amount they spend on travel, and 44 per cent of those who had missed college had done so because they didn’t have the money to get there.”

In a system set up so that providers compete for students – and are held accountable for those students’ attendance – access and accessibility are paramount to ensuring equity for students and colleges alike. This is especially true for areas with higher levels of disadvantage, as well as for rural areas.

“Just another empty ploy to win over young people”

According to 2016 research by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 70 per cent of FE students travel less than 10km to their providers, and 50 per cent travel less than 6km. “Time and cost of travel are key constraints,” the report says, to “learners’ choices about FE.” The same report adds that “where travel is free, they are often willing to travel further”.

The report cites London as an example, but the evidence is also borne out in Manchester. At Trafford College, principal Lesley Davies reports that “learners say they now have the freedom to make an informed choice of where they wish to study without the restrictions they may have encountered before”. At open evenings, she adds, the college are seeing prospective learners “from areas of Greater Manchester that are further afield than would usually be the case”.

For Andy Burnham, education doesn’t just happen in the classroom. Our Pass, he says, “is designed to show everyone growing up in our city-region that we believe in them”. Referring to the substantial number of cultural offers bundled in with Our Pass, he adds that “The new opportunities we are releasing are giving young people the chance to explore the amazing place we live in and go even further.”

Access to enrichment opportunities is correlated to educational attainment, and it is also distributed unevenly between urban and rural areas and between more- and less-advantaged groups. In essence then, the free and discounted travel available to students in Manchester and London contributes to tackling within-city inequalities, but only further exacerbates the divide between metropolitan students and their rural peers.

While the government’s proposal to discount travel for apprentices can only be welcome, it will in fact do little to even that out, especially since applications for levels 2 and 3 apprenticeships continue to fall, so that an already-small target group is only shrinking further.

Travel poverty

Within Manchester, Our Pass isn’t without teething problems. Trafford College, for example, has struggled to communicate the policy to a small number of students, whose confusion about how their travel is subsidised has left them feeling that the college is doing less to assist them. In fact, they are simply drawing less on ESFA funding – and like all colleges in the Greater Manchester area, Trafford College even reimburses the Our Pass £10 admin fee for those in financial hardship.

But this does point to a confused state of affairs. With corporate sponsors, local government, colleges and bus companies themselves involved, who is taking ultimate responsibility for young people’s access to education, and who is accountable for its delivery now and into the future? 

With T levels, the problem of inequality of access is only likely to get worse

By and large though, students at Trafford College have embraced Our Pass. “It takes the stress out of money and travel,” one said. Another volunteered that Our Pass “has made getting to work easier, and I don’t have to worry about getting to college”.

But individual stories are no evidence base, and while the six-term pilot is only in its second term, early indications from bigger data sets are also good. According to Andy Burnham’s social enterprise advisor and Our Pass lead, Rose Marley, a marked dip in bus journeys is evident over the half-term break, showing that a vast majority of those journeys are to and from schools and colleges.

The evidence is clear and growing that travel poverty is negatively affecting student choice, attainment and wellbeing. In turn, it is also affecting colleges and regions who can’t draw from the whole pool of local talent and are hobbled in delivering on their local industrial strategies.

But the reality is that regional implementation can only deliver unequally across the country. Left to local authorities, the effect can at best only be geographically uneven – and at worse it could compound wealth inequality. While the Manchester model is delivering for young people there, in economically left-behind communities where sponsorship could be harder to come by, taxpayers faced with footing more of the bill could decide not to pursue the policy.

What’s more, with mandatory placements of three months forming a major part of the upcoming T levels, the problem of inequality of access is only likely to get worse – and could mean the new ‘gold-standard’ qualification remains the preserve of so-called metropolitan elites.

Ultimately, delivering on the twin promises of student choice and of colleges as global Britain’s regional engines of growth will require more than piecemeal policy nudges. And even if nudges are all the policy we get, they will need to be delivered faster than this one.

But maybe policies in further education are like buses, and three might turn up soon.

Ofsted inspectors will return to a college after the principal questioned the accuracy of serious safeguarding failure claims that led to a provisional ‘inadequate’ rating.

Shrewsbury Colleges Group, which teaches more than 9,000 students mostly aged 16 to 18, insisted the judgement from an inspection in November was “wrong”.

Its principal, James Staniforth, told FE Week that he had “never experienced anything like it” after working for 27 years in education.

Ofsted have subsequently deemed the inspection to be incomplete

The Education and Skills Funding Agency required the college to appoint an independent review of safeguarding by an approved consultant following a referral from Ofsted.

The consultant undertook a two day of audit at the end of January and concluded in a 10 page report, seen by FE Week, that “having visited and worked at many colleges across the country, Shrewsbury Colleges Group is one of the safest”.

“Every effort has been made by the senior leadership team and safeguarding team to ensure the continued safety of both students and staff,” it added.

“There is a strong culture of safeguarding evident which is underpinned by established policies and procedures. There is substantial evidence to support this statement as detailed in the report.”

Staniforth has now told FE Week: “Ofsted have subsequently deemed the inspection to be incomplete and will be returning to complete the inspection. 

“We are delighted that Ofsted will now have another opportunity to review the wide range of evidence we have regarding safeguarding.”

He said the college submitted a formal complaint after the draft report criticised the college’s safeguarding provision because they felt the team involved had run out of time and were not able to review the available evidence.

“We are a safe place to study and we are confident that the evidence available will demonstrate the effectiveness of our safeguarding practices,” Staniforth added.

The principal said the college looks forward to Ofsted returning and will await their judgement.

He also extended acknowledgments to “our excellent staff for their hard work in keeping students safe” and thanked students, parents, employers and partners for their support during “this difficult process”.

Staff were informed of the revisit this morning.

Ofsted declined to comment.

Shrewsbury Colleges Group previously denied safeguarding was “ineffective” and claimed the “judgement was changed on the final day of the inspection without adequate explanation”.

It did admit, however, that West Mercia Police were called to an incident during the inspection, after a suspended student tried to regain entry to college.

At the time a spokesperson told FE Week the force had “reassured us, in the light of enquiries by this Ofsted inspection team, that they consider our college campuses to be safe”.

There is a strong culture of safeguarding evident

The inspectorate had been set to report that students and staff do not feel safe and the college had not taken sufficient steps to help ensure their safety.

Inspectors also allegedly found that staff required to carry out site security roles have not received adequate training and necessary risk assessments to ensure effective safeguarding covering the college estate were not in place.

The college denied these accusations.

Shrewsbury Sixth Form College and Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology merged to become Shrewsbury Colleges Group in August 2016.

Both FE providers were rated ‘good’ in their final inspections before the merger. The group is now based across three campuses with a turnover of £23 million.

The group’s first inspection took place between 26 and 29 November 2019.

If the draft report had been published, it would have been the first general FE college to receive a grade four in nearly two years.

Colleges are providing “good quality” FE despite facing “significant cost pressures” and if the sector is to survive “as is” the Treasury needs to pump more funding into it, according to new Department for Education research.

In what appears to be a pre-budget pitch to the chancellor, a new report states that there is “nothing to suggest that any financial challenges that our providers may be experiencing are due to poor planning, budgeting and/or monitoring of their provision”.

The study, conducted by acl consulting, looked at the costs and cost drivers in the FE sector. It found that at a time when the base unit of funding has been fixed for a number of years, increasingly providers have had to “go to considerable lengths in order to make the income they receive cover the costs they incur”.

Courses and apprenticeships continue to be “reduced” and “lost”, group sizing and workload is increasing, job cuts have had to be imposed and pay rises are made “infrequently”.

These factors make recruitment and retention of all staff, academic and non-academic, “more difficult” as more “attractive” employment opportunities exist outside the sector.

And when it comes to financial viability, “our project suggests that general FE colleges and sixth form colleges are currently facing significant cost pressures which, without an immediate (and significant) increase in income, many providers will have difficulties in meeting: this will have significant impacts on the sector”.

“Overall, our work suggests that, if the FE sector to survive ‘as is’, consideration needs to be given to relaxing the financial pressure it is currently operating under,” the report adds.

It goes on to list more “extremely serious” financial challenges facing colleges, including the impact of unfunded increases in pensions and “other pay-related costs over which providers have no control”.

The resourcing of English and Maths provision for those without a GCSE at grade 4 or above also poses “considerable – and increasing – challenges”.

The availability of professional support for mental health-related issues is a “particular cause for concern”, as is the capacity to carry extra costs for high needs learners.

And there are no “sufficient funds” for necessary capital expenditure, the report notes: IT is now “sufficiently obsolete for efficient delivery and the credibility of the curriculum to be increasingly at risk”, and delivery of the curriculum offer is “being compromised by the lack of necessary equipment”.

For general FE colleges in particular, transport costs are having an impact on “learners’ ability to get to college and therefore on recruitment”.

The report said its quantitative data presents a picture of providers who are “providing good quality FE whilst largely balancing their budgets” and the qualitative findings “show a sector under considerable pressure and with serious concerns about its future”.

The cost pressures facing FE providers “will go beyond further reductions in relatively ‘easier’-to-cut costs and further rounds of the incremental changes already seen (group sizes further increased; options within programme areas further reduced; self-directed learning used more widely etc.)”.

“The risk is that whole curriculum areas will be lost and that colleges – including some of the good/excellent ones we have seen – will disappear,” the report states. It also warns that the position of sixth form colleges appears to be “particularly acute”.

On a relatively more cheerful note, the report said that based on the more limited information available, “we have fewer concerns for independent learning providers.”

In the Conservative’s 2019 manifesto, the party promised £1.8 billion for new college capital projects and a £600 million a year “new National Skills Fund”.

The next budget is scheduled to take place on 11 March.

 

The government has come under fire from successful college leaders after a series of FE Week freedom of information requests revealed exactly how £111 million of bailout funding has been spent.

Four colleges struck secretive Fresh Start deals with the government, the largest of which was for £54 million at Hull College Group.

Each deal, agreed by the ESFA Transaction Unit and funded from a Treasury ‘restructuring fund’, included millions to write-off bank and government loans.

“I knew it was a big figure, but this goes way beyond a bailout.”

Hull College for example, received close to £2.5 million to write off bank loans and a further £24 million to write off the government loan, known as exceptional financial support.

Mike Hopkins, principal at South and City College Birmingham, described the debt-write offs for “failing colleges” as “incredible”.

And we now know the deals also included huge sums of capital funding, for building upgrades as well as IT hardware and software.

In the case of Cornwall College, of the £30 million bailout, close to £7 million has been spent on capital, including IT hardware and software.

Chris Todd, chartered accountant and principal of Derwentside College, described the sums as “staggering” and “handing out almost £4 million to fund IT upgrades and paying off debts of over £20 million does not strike me as a good, or appropriate use of public funds”.

“I know we need to protect the students during a recovery, but when are we going to stand up as a sector and challenge this?” he added.

And a third principal that did not want to be named said: “While I support intervention and financial support to ensure students are looked after, it does seem extraordinary that in a climate where no college has enough money a failing college is made debt free, given millions for IT and money for capital.

“I knew it was a big figure, but this goes way beyond a bailout.”

A Department for Education summary of restructuring fund spend shows in total close to £450 million had been spent on bailouts by the end of the last academic year and ESFA accounts reveal more than £100 million in loans have also been written-off.

The DfE has defended the use of public funds for bailouts, with a spokesperson telling FE Week: “Restructuring facility funding was provided where there was no alternative.

“In cases where the level of debt was assessed as unsustainable, debt was replaced with restructuring facility funding.

“Where the future sustainability of a college has been affected by the postponement of investment in the estate, this funding was provided for essential works, including IT upgrades.”

But it seems the ESFA deals were not so sweet for successful colleges encouraged to merge.

Hopkins said: “It is well known that we were underfunded as the first college through the area review merger process. As a consequence our debt levels, that we were required to begin the merger with, are significantly in excess of the maximums deemed appropriate in the sector and well in excess of the banks requirements.

“This has meant that we are unable to get bank support and has inhibited our investment, despite being a good college. We have been told that despite the original deal being wrong, as accepted by the ESFA, they cannot pay off the £5 million loan we were required to take. Therefore I find it incredible that millions can be found to pay-off the debts for failing colleges.”

“When are we going to stand up as a sector and challenge this?”

And in the case of Hadlow College Group, where debts are still being added up and likely to reach close to £100 million, the government pulled the plug and called in an education administrator for the first and so far only time.

Several other leaders at successful colleges shared their reactions anonymously.

One college principal told FE Week: “I can’t see how such levels of support are offered to some but not others can ever be fair. In what ways can such large bailouts and infrastructure support, be justified to some colleges but not others?”

Another said: “I think in fairness terms it would be good to know how many other deals got this kind of investment. I suppose where it stings is that others of us are running very tightly managed ships, making compromises and costs cuts because of funding constraints and yet learners in Cornwall will be better served as a result of the failure – that’s the bit that doesn’t sit right in terms of public purse.”

Todd concluded that “we need a system that stops this from happening in the first place, and that rewards the best colleges.”

A minister has warned a college that it could go bust next year if learner losses are not reversed and the sale of a campus is “delayed further”.

Lord Agnew wrote to Warrington and Vale Royal College chair Mervyn Ward last month with the concern following intervention from the FE Commissioner Richard Atkins which found it is at “significant risk of insolvency”.

Atkins’ report, published today, said there are “no major concerns” around the governance and leadership of the college, as processes and clerking arrangements “are good”.

But they face “several key challenges”, the most significant of which concerns a “very weak financial position and a need to generate funds through land sales”.

The college controversially closed its campus in Hartford, Cheshire, last year. According to a BBC report from 2018, £10 million was spent on brand new buildings for the site in 2012. More than 75 jobs were put at risk.

It included a construction skills centre, sports facilities and performing arts building with auditorium.

Warrington and Vale Royal College has been trying to sell the site since 2018. FE Week has asked the college for the current state of the sale, and reasons for why it has been delayed.

Agnew’s letter said the “importance of this sale to ensuring the future viability of the college cannot be overstated and I advise you to prioritise its successful completion and to continue making robust financial preparations to maintain solvency should the sale be delayed further”.

Several other colleges have had to sell-off campuses to balance the books in recent years, including Cornwall College Group and Birmingham Metropolitan College. All of them were met with opposition from their local MP.

Warrington and Vale Royal was formed from a merger between Warrington Collegiate and Mid Cheshire College (MCC) in 2017 – a task which “proved to be highly challenging”, according to Atkins’ report.

There was a “huge loss of learners from MCC (around 900 students aged 16 to 18) which started prior to 2015/16 but has accelerated since the merger to a position where student numbers across both the former MCC sites are below 400”.

“Falling student numbers and income together with inherited challenges from MCC have put significant cash pressures on the merged college, despite staff restructures seeking to align costs to income,” the report added.

Agnew said the “significant and continuing loss of learners from the former Mid-Cheshire campuses is an extremely concerning trend which the senior leadership team must address with immediate effect”.

He added: “The FE Commissioner’s report confirms that the college is in a very weak financial position and is at significant risk of insolvency by 2020/21 unless appropriate steps are taken to secure the liquidity of the college.”

Atkins’ report said there was a “significant deficit forecast” in 2018/19, the college’s accounts for which are yet to be published. As a result, the FE Commissioner recommended that the governing body “must insist” on a “break even or better” budget for 2020/21.

A spokesperson for the college said: “Like many other FE colleges across the country, Warrington and Vale Royal College has experienced continued financial challenge and the ESFA have issued a financial notice to improve for 2017/18 in the context of a more stringent intervention regime that came into force in April 2019.

“The college has been working closely with the ESFA and the FE Commissioner team to monitor and improve the financial health of the college and will continue to do so until the college is in financial recovery and the notice is lifted.”

The FE Commissioner’s report said the college has suffered from low student recruitment because of “poor quality provision” on offer.

During his visit, staff also highlighted “high levels of sub-contracting with a low contribution from in-house provision” as another reason for the structural deficit.

The chair reported to the FE Commissioner that the governors were “aware of the need to swiftly determine and implement a future strategy that addresses the significant decline in student numbers at the MCC former sites and the inability of the new college to maintain financial stability whilst supporting an estate footprint that far outweighs demand”.

Warrington and Vale Royal College was graded ‘good’ by Ofsted in its first full inspection since the merger in November 2019.