Ann Limb tops list of influential LGBT+ public sector workers

A former college principal has topped a list of the most influential lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender role models working in the public sector.

Ann Limb, who is now chair of The Scout Association, was ranked first in the OUTstanding list of 30 LGBT+ public sector executives for 2019.

WorldSkills UK chief executive Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE was another FE sector leader to be recognised in the awards, which have been running since 2013.

Limb said she hoped that her achievement “can help raise the profile of LGBT+ people and issues across the FE sector”.

At OUTstanding’s awards ceremony on Wednesday, Limb said that as an “almost 67, post-menopausal, gay dwarf, you really never expect to be a role model for anybody. The fact that I seemingly am a role model is joyous and a blessing.”

In front of the awards ceremony’s audience of 170 million people worldwide, Limb said she was “overwhelmed to find myself in this company”.

Afterwards she said: “That is where FE and LGBT+ should be – on the global stage and mainstream.”

Although she has been with her partner Maggie for 33 years, Limb only began to speak openly about being gay in February, after being invited to a parliamentary event during LGBT+ History month.

She is also vice chair of City & Guilds and has previously served as principal of Milton Keynes College and chief executive of the former training giant Learndirect.

She wrote in March: “During a 25-year, successful career in FE, I did nothing overtly in the arena of LGBT+ activities.”

But she now hopes that she can “take some actions to raise the profile of LGBT+ in the sector”.

Bentley-Gockmann, who came 15th on the list, said it was a “real honour to be recognised in this way for the work we are doing at WorldSkills UK”.

He said that with the organisation’s partners in education and industry “we are working hard to boost the profile of LGBT inclusion alongside ensuring more young people, regardless of social background, ethnicity, gender or disability have the opportunity to succeed through our work”.

This includes the first WorldSkills UK Diversity and Inclusion Awards taking place at WorldSkills UK LIVE towards the end of this month.

They are intended to celebrate individuals and organisations championing inclusivity in the FE sector and going above and beyond to support young people from a range of backgrounds.

Bentley-Gockmann said: “Now is the time for more leaders in the skills sector to step up to champion diversity, as role models and allies, so more young people from all walks of life are inspired to take up technical careers and apprenticeships.”

In addition to his work with WorldSkills UK, Bentley-Gockmann has led a roundtable discussion in the House of Commons with education partners to discuss the importance of LGBT+ leadership and role models in colleges; and he has chaired a one-day annual conference on LGBT+ inclusion at work.

His OBE, awarded in the 2019 New Year Honours, was for services to LGBT+ inclusion. He is a former deputy chair of Stonewall, the LGBT + charity.

3aaa investigation stutters on as police confirm no contact has been made with top bosses

The co-founders of a disgraced apprenticeship provider currently under police investigation are yet to be interviewed by officers, more than a year after inquiries began.

In October 2018 the government terminated its multi-million pound skills funding contracts with Aspire Achieve Advance, better known as 3aaa, after allegations of fraud. The case was referred to Derbyshire Constabulary.

The apprenticeship giant subsequently went bust with 4,200 learners and 500 staff on its books.

But a spokesperson for the constabulary has confirmed that no contact has been made with anyone who worked at the defunct firm, including the top bosses.

They could not say what work has been done over the past 12 months, even though in March the constabulary said that a “formal criminal investigation” into 3aaa had started.

The High Court placed 3aaa into compulsory liquidation in late October last year.

Anthony Hannon is the official receiver handling the insolvency, but his investigation into the collapse of 3aaa is also ongoing one year later.

A spokesperson said that the Insolvency Service has three years from the date of the company winding-up order to launch enforcement action “if it was to determine doing so was in the public interest in the light of any investigation findings”.

“Enforcement activity is pursued through the courts meaning that applications must be supported by information that meets the evidential standard for those proceedings,” they added.

Sanctions imposed by the official receiver, if he or she uncovers unfit director conduct, include director disqualification of between two and 15 years.

A total of 1,242 company directors were banned last year.

3aaa was co-founded by Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008, but the pair stepped down in September 2018.

The company was one of the biggest apprenticeship companies in England, holding £16.5 million in ESFA contracts when it went into administration on October 11 that year.

It received more than £31 million in government funding the year before it collapsed and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships, standing at nearly £22 million.

Evidence from a whistleblower, obtained by FE Week, showed how the provider inflated achievement rates by more than 20 percentage points, which contributed to a high Ofsted grade and more public funding.

In addition to data manipulation, 3aaa sales documents showed a potential £700,000 ESFA clawback. It is understood that this related to a range of apprenticeship and traineeship funding overclaims made through individualised learner record submissions.

The alleged misuse of grants from an apprenticeship incentive scheme in which 3aaa held on to £1.2 million that was supposed to go to employers is also under investigation.

The defunct company’s latest accounts show that its directors took out huge directors’ loans totalling more than £4 million between them, and that its two owners bought multi-million pound properties at the end of 2015.

Meanwhile, 3aaa spent its public funding on £1.6 million of sports-club sponsorships, an Elton John concert and Tesla supercars, among other luxuries.

Last year was not the first ESFA investigation. In 2016 the auditing firm KPMG was asked to carry out an investigation and found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

It is understood this resulted in 3aaa paying back a substantial six-figure sum.

After launching its second investigation into 3aaa in June 2018, the DfE called in an independent auditor to investigate the ESFA over its contract management of the former apprenticeships giant.

Colleges won’t see the wood for the trees without big data

With Ofsted focusing on curriculum intent, implementation and impact, colleges must be able to show they are truly responsive to local needs, says John Gray

Ofsted’s education inspection framework sets out three basic criteria by which a college’s curriculum will be assessed: intent, implementation and impact. Of these, intent is critical because it determines everything else. Get it wrong and everything else will be too.

Thankfully, the sector doesn’t need to guess at where its focus should be. Ofsted’s documentation is explicit that a “coherently planned and sequenced” curriculum should have as its intent “the needs of learners, employers, and the local, regional and national economy, as necessary.”

What Ofsted is looking for is nothing less than a vocational and technical sector producing curricula that give learners the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life, and which are highly responsive to the needs of employers at a local level.

It might be an obvious point, but it is not possible to achieve this without first getting a really good understanding of local employers’ needs. Nor is this something that can be done by relying on employer engagement. There are simply too many businesses in a college’s region; to find out their skills needs would be a Sisyphean task. Not that employer engagement is redundant, of course, but the most effective way to identify local skills needs to feed into curriculum planning is by combining it with detailed Labour Market Insight (LMI).

LMI use in colleges is sporadic. For some colleges it is a tick-box exercise to placate Ofsted, while others clearly see the huge potential it gives them, very often using it predominantly to look for the big, profitable emerging opportunities. Looking at the forest is good, but might there be opportunities to use the data to look a bit more closely at the trees as well?

Generic planning leaves students’ future progress to pot luck

The answer is yes, and a good example of this is around the expansion of digital skills. Over the past year, there have been about 280,000 job postings for programming and software development professionals in Britain. Using LMI, we can go deeper to identify the top skills employers want in these roles. In fact, 65,000 required C Sharp programming skills, while 43,000 asked for Amazon Web Services knowledge.

Generic planning for an IT curriculum leaves students’ future progress to pot luck, but we can zoom in further still. When we look at the more local level data, we find that the situation turns out to be more nuanced.Comparing four regions’ job postings over the past 12 months, big differences emerge. For example, of nearly 3,000 unique job postings in Outer London-South, Agile Software Development featured 737 times. It didn’t feature at all In Coventry, Derby and Sheffield. Server management skills were among the top four required skills in Coventry and Outer London-South, but didn’t feature in Derby or Sheffield.

This shows the importance of not just looking at the forest (more digital skills needed), nor even getting a little closer to look at the trees (hard skills demand across the nation). Rather, it illustrates the need to look much closer still, at the granular detail of the wood, to see which digital skills are in demand in each region. This is where the information that will inform effective curriculum planning and course design is to be found, with the potential to positively impact college performance and the post-qualification destinations of learners.

Of course there are limitations to what the data can tell us, and it certainly isn’t the definitive answer to Ofsted’s curriculum intent question. Yet, neither can “doing it for Ofsted” be the entire purpose. If the sector is to rise to the challenge of giving learners the skills local employers need, LMI is a crucial element.

The government must prevent any rationing of apprenticeship funding

The government looks likely to miss its apprenticeships target while running out of the money it set aside to meet it. Action is needed now, says Joe Dromey, because bigger problems are lurking

Two years ago the government introduced the apprenticeship levy in an effort to boost employer investment in skills and deliver their target of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. Yet, as new Learning and Work Institute research shows, we are at risk of missing their target and blowing the budget.

The number of apprenticeship starts fell sharply following the levy’s introduction. There has been a recovery, but starts remain a fifth lower than pre-levy levels. At the same time – as was first revealed by FE Week – the levy is set to be over-spent next year by £1 billion.

At first glance, this is paradoxical, but two factors help to resolve these apparently contradictory trends.

First, apprenticeship standards – which were introduced at the same time as the levy with the aim of ensuring high-quality training – are more costly than anticipated.

Second, there has been a rapid growth in higher and degree apprenticeships, which tend to be more expensive. Over the past two years, while total apprenticeship numbers fell, starts at levels four and five doubled, and degree apprenticeships (levels six and seven) increased by a factor of 12.

This exponential increase in demand has been driven by large employers seeking to get the most out of the levy, with most going to existing workers and those aged over 25, rather than young people starting their careers.

The levy was designed on the assumption that unspent funds would be used to fund apprenticeships at SMEs. Our research shows that levy-paying employers are using about 80 per cent of the funding – higher than the 60 to 70 per cent the government had anticipated. That isn’t a bad thing in itself, but less money left by levy-payers means less funding for SMEs.

We’re already seeing the impact of the funding squeeze

We’re already seeing the impact of the funding squeeze. An AELP survey showed many providers were having to reduce or cease recruitment for SMEs. Our analysis suggests this could lead to 75,000 fewer apprenticeships at small firms, precisely those most likely to offer apprenticeships to young workers.

There is a strong case for government to act to prevent a creeping rationing of apprenticeship funding at SMEs.

We set out a balanced proposal to bridge the gap. We call for apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds to be funded out of the DfE budget – requiring an additional £400 million – and for a £150 million top-up for the SME budget.

We also call for measures to dampen the growth in higher and degree apprenticeships for older workers. Requiring employers to pay some of the costs of apprenticeships at level 4 and above for workers aged 25 and over from outside their levy funds would save more than £300 million. This is not to say there is no value in this training, but we would not want to see young people and SMEs lose out due to funding being sucked up by higher-level apprenticeships for older workers.

There are other potential solutions. The gap could be covered solely through additional funding, although with many areas crying out for investment after a decade of austerity, this is unlikely to happen. We could prevent employers from using levy funds altogether on apprenticeships above a certain level or on apprentices above a certain age. Or we could introduce a pre-apprenticeship salary cap as the former skills minister suggested.

However it is done, it is clear that there must be a decision. Ignoring it will not make it go away.

Because beyond this immediate challenge, the longer-term future of funding for training still needs consideration. Most have accepted the strong case for the levy, but there is less of a case for limiting this to apprenticeships. A future system could, for example, involve a more flexible skills levy which allows employers to invest in other forms of high-quality training, in return for larger contributions.

Given employers are more likely to invest in training higher skilled workers, government should also consider wider measures to ensure training is more evenly distributed, so that young workers and those with lower levels of qualifications will not lose out, and the system will focus both on boosting productivity and on delivering social justice.

Colleges may need to ignore DfE bribes to avoid unethical T-level enrolments

Colleges selected for T-level delivery from September 2020 have been showered with financial incentives – some might even call them Department for Education bribes. 

Hundreds of thousands of pounds for equipment, development, piloting, marketing and even a promise they can keep 100 per cent of the course income as long as they recruit at least 60 per cent of the planned students.

But, as our investigation shows this week, the biggest challenge for these ‘lucky’ few is likely to come in 2021, the second year of their courses, when students need to complete a 45 day mandatory T-level industry placement.

Scarborough Sixth Form College recently realised that there simply weren’t enough local employers in the digital sector and rightly walked away from that T-level pathway.

And the reaction they received from the new education secretary for making this tough decision, was praise.

But how many other colleges outside London or near digital employer hubs have been so honest in the face of this likely insurmountable challenge?

The former skills minister, Anne Milton, suggested to the education and skills committee in July 2018 that parents might want to “leave it a year” and see how successful T-levels prove.

Waiting might be impractical if your child is 15 years-old and finishing their GCSEs this year.

Rather than wait, savvy parents should demand (before enrolment) that colleges reveal which employer they have lined up for the industry placement.

And savvy college bosses shouldn’t recruit any young people without a commitment from the employer.

The DfE incentives for the 2020 providers must not be allowed to create conditions for unethical recruitment.

The sort of recruitment where learners are unable to finish their T-level because the closest available industry placement is 100 miles away.

UTC deficits more than double over 4 years, National Audit Office finds

University technical colleges’ deficits have more than doubled over four years, a damning National Audit Office report has revealed.

The government’s audit watchdog found that total deficits for the embattled 14 to 19 technical providers now constitute nearly a tenth of the total for every academy trust, after rising from £3.5 million in 2014/15 to £7.7 million in 2017/18.

The Department for Education has spent what was described by one union as an “eye-watering bill for the taxpayer” of £792 million on the UTC programme between 2010/11, when they were first set up, and 2018/19.

Despite the huge cash injection, the scheme has been hit with a catalogue of issues which FE Week has exposed over the years and which the NAO’s report lists, including unviable student numbers, multiple closures and poor Ofsted results.

Chair of the Public Accounts Committee Meg Hillier said the report “provides further evidence as to why the Department for Education is my top department of concern”.

Most of the £792 million was capital grants, but there was also £28 million to improve UTCs financial positions and £8.8 million to cover their deficits.

In too many cases, University Technical Colleges have proved to be expensive failures

The DfE has also spent £4.5 million on helping UTCs “improve” and £9 million on closing UTCs, which included the costs of writing off debts and staff redundancies.

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said too often UTCs have proved to be “expensive failures” that took funds away from the further education sector at a time when it most needed support.

Assistant general secretary of the National Education Union Nansi Ellis found it “shocking” that such a “staggering amount of money” has been spent on the “flawed model” of UTCs. 

The NAO has also found the 48 open UTCs were operating at 45 per cent of capacity at the end of January 2019, which it says has implications for their financial viability.

It reported that the Education and Skills Funding Agency has “significant concerns” about the finances of a quarter of the remaining UTCs (13 out of 48).

UTCs have attempted to remedy their recruitment and financial problems by applying to take on pupils from year 7, rather than from the age of 14 as they were originally intended to.

This month it was announced two UTCs have been granted permission to open to 11-year-olds from next September, after another UTC and before others are expected to follow suit.

They’ve also been actively encouraged by government to join multi-academy trusts to strengthen their position.

In 2017, the Department for Education embarked on a three-year project to improve UTCs’ finances and provision with two main measures of success: for the proportion of UTCs rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to be the same as for free schools generally; and for the proportion of UTCs on the ESFA’s national concerns list to be the same as for academies generally.

However, the NAO has found UTCs are struggling to meet both counts: as of August 2019, as a proportion of schools inspected, Ofsted had rated 52 per cent of UTCs as good or outstanding, compared with 84 per cent of free schools.

This report records the price of everything and the value of nothing

And as of July 2019, 26 per cent of UTCs were on the ESFA’s list, compared with one per cent of academy trusts.

Responding to the NAO report, Lord Baker said it “records the price of everything and the value of nothing”.

“UTCs should be judged by the success of their students becoming apprentices, studying STEM subjects at a university and getting a job as a technician or an engineer. For that we have the best destination data of any schools in the country.”

The NAO did find a higher proportion of students from UTCs go into sustained apprenticeships after GCSEs and A-levels or their equivalents, compared with the national average.

He added that the DfE has encouraged the Baker Dearing Trust to make applications for new UTCs and they are working with local employers and universities for the next round in November.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have been clear that the department is committed to ensuring people have access to high-quality technical education across the country.

“UTCs are helping to deliver on that, with 21 per cent of pupils progressing into apprenticeships after completing their post 16 education, more than double the national average. 

“As this report recognises, we have taken significant action to support and raise the profile of UTCs to make sure they continue to play a role in our diverse education system and provide the skills that employers need.” 

Apprenticeship budget overspend: small employers to face cap on starts

Small employers are likely to be capped on the number of apprentices they can employ, as part of the government’s plan to enable all providers to access funding for non-levy payers from January.

Keith Smith, the director of apprenticeships at the Education and Skills Funding Agency, announced today that every firm on the register of apprenticeship training providers will be able to engage with the programmes with small businesses on the digital apprenticeship system from the New Year.

It will more than double the number of providers with direct access to funding for non-levy payers, including most universities.

But recognising the strain on the apprenticeship budget, as first reported by FE Week and followed up by the National Audit Office, there will be restrictions on the number of starts for the employers.

“We’ll think about funding 15,000 or so starts initially through the online service,” Smith told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference.

“Over the next few days we’ll give you specific information about that scale of activity and how we’ll manage that on a month by month basis.

“From a provider’s point of view there will be no stop on cap. What we are thinking about is, purely for testing reasons, putting a cap on the number of apprentices per employer. We think that is a sensible way to try and control and test. What we want to see is how the service will operate to scale.

“There will probably be restrictions in relation to the number of transactions per employer rather than the number of providers.”

Smith added that the move to the apprenticeship service will provide “certainty” that funding is “going to be there going forward”.

“We will introduce something called ‘reserve my funding’, which will enable an SME with a provider to access and reserve apprenticeship opportunities into the system and bank that investment to know that their reservation is there, although it will only be held for a period of time,” he explained.

Speaking to FE Week after his speech, Smith said the ESFA will continue to look at the caps going forward, but confirmed there will be no more tendering for non-levy contracts for providers.

Small employers were meant to move onto the apprenticeship system in April 2019 but the agency delayed this by a year to ensure the roll out is successful. At this point it extended non-levy contracts for training providers until March 2020.

Smith said today that providers with current non-levy contracts will have them extended in April 2020, but there is no fixed deadline for when these will end.

“We’re going to now embark on a dual running and transition system,” he told AELP delegates.

“We’ll move from a contract led system to a service led system. There will not be a switch off and on.

“Contracts are currently the primary route for funding small business apprenticeships. Over time we’ll be switching to those being the secondary route and the digital system to the primary route and eventually we’ll switch off those contracts altogether.”

He continued: “If you have a non-levy contract you can continue to train on that contract, but you can also engage new opportunities from the online service. In essence there will be a dual running of the two services concurrently running in parallel.

“We’re not going to put a fixed time frame to how long that transition period works, but what we can give you assurance on is those non-levy contracts will continue to operate for as long as we think you’ll need them before we fully switch them off.

“We are looking at extensions on those contracts, we think that is a very safe and sensible thing to do, but it shouldn’t be confused with some sort of delay of not moving onto the new online service.

“As we go through next year we will start to think how we’ll scale down those contracts and scale up the online service.”

Highbury College principal to retire next summer

A principal at the centre of an expenses scandal announced her retirement today after 18 years at the helm.

Stella Mbubaegbu will leave her position at Highbury College in the summer next year. 

This follows accusations of the lavish spending of college funds, revealed by FE Week in September.

In a statement released on Highbury College’s website Stella Mbubaegbu CBE said: “In the summer of 2019, I informed my Board of Governors of my intention to retire from my post in a year’s time (end of July 2020).

“I deeply care about and am extremely proud of Highbury College. It has been an immense joy and privilege to serve the College, its diverse communities and the wider FE sector over the past two decades. 

“I am proud of my contributions to Highbury, steering the College through the turbulent times that FE has seen over the past 8 years with funding cuts and policy changes, positioning Highbury on the global education map, the transformation of the College estate, the uncompromising approach to educational and social inclusion and our Ofsted outstanding for 7 years.

“The Board will be initiating the search for my successor in the coming weeks, with my full support, and I will focus on continuing to lead this amazing College and its amazing staff and students with passion and commitment.”

She was awarded a CBE in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to further education.

Ministers ordered the FE Commissioner to investigate the principal’s “deeply concerning” corporate credit card use in September after £150,000 was spent in just four years.

More than 500 receipts obtained by FE Week showed college funds were spent on first class flights, five-star hotels, travel in luxury cars and a £350 bill – including a £45 lobster and nearly £100 on cocktails – at a Michelin star restaurant.

These expenses were exposed following a year-long freedom of information battle with the college, which is based in Portsmouth.

At the time Department for Education minister Lord Theodore Agnew, who oversees the FE Commissioner, said he and education secretary Gavin Williamson were “deeply concerned by these revelations” and he had “already asked the FE Commissioner to urgently look into this matter.”

“School and college leaders must treat taxpayers’ money with the utmost care and in a way that benefits their students. Where this does not happen we take the strongest possible action,” Lord Agnew added.

Mrs Mbubaegbu’s expenditure took place over a period of redundancies at the college, which axed its sixth form two months ago, amid deteriorating finances. The last time staff got a pay rise was in January 2013.

Its Ofsted grade also dropped from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement.’

Minutes published from a board meeting in May show international and first class travel have been restricted and lunch and alcoholic drink claims have been banned.

A £2,000 limit was also been placed on the principal’s corporate card although the college would not say whether this was a monthly or annual limit.

Yesterday FE Week revealed cladding at a college’s halls of residence for students under the age of 18, the type used on the Grenfell Tower, failed a safety test several months ago. 

The college also previously called in lawyers to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt held up in Nigeria, following a technical education project in the country.

One in five providers concerned about procurement process for devolved AEB

A fifth of providers believe adult education budget tenders run by devolved authorities need to be improved, with one saying bidding was a “nightmare”, according to new Association of Employment and Learning Providers research.

Ahead of their autumn conference in Manchester today, the AELP surveyed 93 providers on devolved AEB procurement after the budget was handed over to six mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority in August.

The survey found transparency in the bidding process was one area where changes should be made: one provider said it had been a “nightmare for bid writers” and respondents revealed they would not have bothered bidding if they had known only a few contracts were being awarded.

Twenty nine of the survey respondents won devolved AEB contracts for 2019/20, compared with 69 in 2018/19; and the value of those contracts was generally lower than last year as well, providers reported.

Respondents also complained unproven providers with good bid writers won over those with a good track record and a foothold in their local community.

The combined authorities also came in for criticism for their “poor” understanding of skills; and for “focusing on activity with residents over skills and employment partnership, so skills needs are now unmet”.

Asked which sectors or subjects they thought will be lost or significantly reduced to the point it would cause skills shortages in a devolved area, providers’ single greatest concern was for health and social care, followed by retail and commercial – but respondents acknowledged there are wider factors at play in that area.

Respondents wanted consistency across areas as well, saying dealings with some MCAs were “overly-complex”, while others were “too light touch to make credible judgements”.

Regulations also left providers vexed, with reports providers that complied with guidance were unsuccessful due to a technical point which appeared to contradict guidance.

FE Week approached the six mayoral combined authorities with an AEB devolution deal, as well as the Greater London Authority.

The GLA’s deputy mayor for skills Jules Pipe said: “As City Hall takes over responsibility for London’s share of the Adult Education Budget, we are working closely with education and skills providers and investing in new projects to ensure all Londoners have access to the training and education they need.

“Following significant engagement with the sector we awarded 29 contracts totalling £130 million to deliver the AEB programme, and are currently reviewing the key lessons learned from the procurement process.”

A spokesperson for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority said: “We have been evaluating the process for procuring services to develop a system which is accessible, transparent and delivers contracts that best meets our skills objectives.

“The report’s findings will be read with interest as part of our ongoing work to improve.”

The AELP said respondents gave a “reasonably positive verdict overall to the series of AEB tenders”, and chief executive Mark Dawe said it was hoped the survey will help combined authorities and the national government “finesse their approach during a recognised period of transition”.

Over 80 per cent of responses to the AELP’s survey said it was difficult or very difficult to engage with a lead or prime provider; only seven said it was easy or very easy.

The survey confirmed one reason for this was prime providers had a reduced budget, leaving them nothing left to subcontract out.

Another problem, according to the report, was: “Unsuccessful partners and others seeking subcontracts weren’t given the names of the AEB contract winners, so had to ring around to ask and sometimes couldn’t find who it was.”

But respondents also said contract winners were now seeking new partnerships, which indicated they requested more than they could use.

Dawe said: “We knew they were never going to be plain sailing and it was only the first year of a transitional process.

“If notice is taken of the AELP survey findings and the combined authorities start to procure more of the budget in future years, we could well be on the right track to the AEB delivering the much-needed skills that the English regions require.”