EPA assessor capacity: Will England be able to cope in the long-term?

By 2020, when the apprenticeship reforms will have taken full effect, there are likely to be around 500,000 end-point assessments carried out every year.

Sally Collier, chief regulator at exams watchdog Ofqual, told a room full of training providers at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ conference in June, that she was “concerned” over assessors’ capacity and capability to meet this surge in demand.

In July, FE Week reported on Ofqual’s plans for capacity audits at the end-point assessment organisations they oversee as an external quality assurance provider.

But what is affecting EPA organisations’ ability to recruit qualified assessors? Are they confident they’ll be able to meet demand?

FE Week spoke to more than a dozen organisations delivering those all-important final exams.


“The sector will find many challenges”

End-point assessments are still in their infancy. 

According to Department for Education statistics, there were just 1,210 achievements on standards, including end-point assessments, in the first nine months of 2017/18 compared to 180,180 on the old-style frameworks.

Nonetheless, many EPA organisations are already facing challenges in recruiting enough assessors – prompting the boss of the largest one to say he is “very worried” about the sector’s ability to meet demand as it grows.

NOCN is signed up to deliver the final exams for 44 standards – more than any other organisation.

Its managing director, Graham Hasting-Evans, said it was able to meet current demand across all those standards, but that “this is against a background of very low numbers of apprenticeship starts”, with only a slow increase predicted.

Downward pressure on funding was also likely to bite, he warned.

“We are therefore very worried that, in the next year, the sector will find major challenges in sourcing sufficient EPA assessors,” he said.

Mr Hasting-Evans is not alone. While almost all of those FE Week spoke to were confident about their ability to meet demand now, many admitted to sleepless nights about continuing to do so in future.

Understandably, not everyone was willing to go on the record about their fears. But those that did highlighted a range of issues that should give officials cause for concern. 

“We’re working pretty much in the dark”

A number of assessment organisations said they could meet demand for the assessments they knew about – but it was the assessments they didn’t know about that were worrying them.

Providers and employers are “reluctant” to indicate when an apprentice will be ready for assessment, according to Terry Fennell, chief executive of FDQ, which is registered to deliver the final exams for five food industry standards.

While the rules say that the employer or provider must inform the EPA organisation once they’ve been chosen, “this is not happening in reality”.

As a result, organisations “have to speculate take-up figures, so building adequate capacity for EPA is a precarious exercise”, Mr Fennell said.

Combined with a lag in when starts are reported, this means they are “working pretty much in the dark”.

It’s a situation playing out across a number of assessment organisations.

Tim Hattersley, apprenticeship director at DSW Consulting, which is on the register for 23 standards across the business sector, said many providers and employers didn’t know they had to register with the EPA organisation.

“That could throw a spanner in the works if there is a lot more out there than any of us believe,” he said.

For some of the “very, very large volume standards” there will be a “certain pace of registration that will come as a bit of a shock”, he said.

“At that point we’d need to know what would we do if we got 1,000 more learners arriving and they’re going to reach gateway in three months’ time and they’ve all got to be assessed,” he said.

The ‘occupational competency’ struggle

Many standards have strict rules on who is qualified to deliver the assessments – including a demand that the assessor be “occupationally competent” – leading to organisations tying themselves up in knots to try to meet them.

Assessment organisations told FE Week of the extra lengths they had to go to in their recruitment – particularly in healthcare.

Charlotte Bosworth, managing director of Innovate Awarding, which is signed up to deliver assessments for 26 standards, said she was struggling to recruit assessors for two healthcare standards due to the requirement for them to be a currently registered nurse.

It’s really challenging to find someone in that position who is willing and able to put in the time to do the assessments

“It’s really challenging to find someone in that position who is willing and able to put in the time to do the assessments,” she said.

Innovate had only managed to attract a small number of assessors for these standards, despite going out to recruit “a number of times”.

It’s not just recruiting assessors – it’s keeping them

Many of the assessment organisations told FE Week they’d managed to recruit large banks of assessors. But because assessment numbers are so low at the moment, these are mostly on a freelance basis – and as demand grows, there’s no guarantee they will all still be available.

Ms Bosworth told FE Week they were having to work to keep their assessors “warm”, as they “aren’t working at full capacity yet”.

Nonetheless, she said it was “challenging” to retain them, and some had dropped out to take up a full-time job, while others had left as EPA “just isn’t for them”.

“It is new and very different to assessments many have carried out previously,” she said.

In addition, as a number of assessment organisations pointed out, there is only a limited pool of qualified assessors out there – and the same ones may be signing up with multiple organisations.

“Clearly that could mean, in due course, that once those people are starting to be tied up then they’re not available to another one that they’re registered with,” said Mr Hattersley.

Is Ofqual’s concern valid?

It’s almost impossible to predict the picture for assessor capacity and capability once numbers have hit their peak – given the uncertainty over apprenticeship starts.

The assessment organisations FE Week spoke to were all doing the best they could to plan ahead, but this was for the next year when numbers are still set to be relatively low.

It’s going to be an interesting ride in the next couple of years

According to Mr Fennell, while “every chief executive of an EPA organisation out there” is working hard to overcome these challenges, “most of us are in unchartered waters trying to predict the market forces and delivery of new services”.

“It’s going to be an interesting ride in the next couple of years.”


What is the government doing about this?

Ofqual’s chief regulator Sally Collier first voiced concerns over end-point assessment capability and capacity at the AELP annual conference in June.

Just a month later the exams watchdog confirmed it would be carrying out a series of audits “to help understand how the EPA organisations we regulate are mitigating risks” around this issue – audits that are now underway.

But Phil Beach, Ofqual’s executive director for vocational and technical qualifications would not be drawn on any specific concerns that had prompted the visits. 

Instead, he told FE Week they were part of its “business-as-usual activity” designed to “make sure that, in a period of significant transformation, we look at those areas where we think the change will bite”.

“We do recognise that this is a new world, therefore having an audit programme early on in the process is really important, to inform the Institute for Apprenticeships and other external quality assurance providers, so that we can take a systemic response,” he said.

Once the audits are complete, which is expected to be in 2019, Ofqual will share its findings – “issues and good practice” – with other EQA providers and the IfA.

It will also “disseminate points of good practice across AOs, and where we find limitations, we will seek to address them though our regulatory powers,” he warned.

Heather Akehurst, chief executive of Open Awards, which is contracted to carry out EQA on behalf of the IfA, said it had not yet “identified any EPA organisation who lacks the ability and capacity to carry out their role”.

“We are however aware of the concern and will be vigilant in our ongoing monitoring,” she said.

Both the Department for Education and the IfA said they were “aware of the challenges” that EPA organisations were facing and were “working with them and their representative bodies to address the issues that they raise with us”.

“We are also working with individual EPA organisations to provide support and advice on dealing with the changes in demand for end-point assessment,” both said.

The IfA said it was also “doing work to ensure that employers engage with EPA organisations in a timely manner” and that assessment organisations “are able to gear up to meet the demand from employers”.


Where are EPA organisations recruiting their assessors from?

When it comes to recruiting assessors, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

A number of the assessment organisations FE Week spoke to said they were drawing from existing pools of assessors.

These could be external verifiers, internal quality assurers, on-programme assessors or those with an external quality assurance background, who perhaps currently work for training providers or awarding organisations.

However, as Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of NOCN, pointed out, the difficulty with this approach is the Institute for Apprenticeships’ insistence on “occupational competency and continuing professional development” in assessors – requirements that are “difficult for existing assessors to match”.

Because of this requirement, some organisations have taken a different approach and are recruiting from industry and then training them up to be assessors.

Ben Cressey, director of apprenticeships and work-based learning at Highfield Qualifications, said they saw the new requirements as “an opportunity to explore even further what recruiting from industry looks like”. It then provides its own training to equip the assessors with the relevant assessment skills.

He said that approach, one of a number it has taken to recruitment, was “working really well” for Highfield, which is registered to deliver the final assessments for 25 standards across a number of industries including transport and logistics, and health and social care.

Chris Young, managing director of Future Qualifications, told FE Week he was drawing on the resources of 10 different NHS trusts the organisation worked with to recruit assessors for the level four associate ambulance practitioner standard.

To avoid any possibility of conflict of interest, an assessor from one trust would assess apprentices at another, he said.

Other organisations that aren’t traditional awarding bodies are able to take advantage of their existing links with industry.

Tony Howard, director of training at BESA Group, which is on the register for nine standards, the majority of which are in the construction industry, said that “as a trade association we are not finding resourcing qualified assessors an issue” as “we do have in-depth resources effectively available to us”.


Can assessment organisations afford to deliver EPA?

The Institute for Apprenticeships is currently reviewing the funding bands for 31 popular apprenticeships.

Though the results are yet to be confirmed, we know a number of standards are facing cuts – and this downward pressure on funding is likely to make issues with EPA even worse.

Education and Skills Funding Agency guidance stipulates that EPA costs “should not usually exceed 20 per cent of the funding band maximum”, so if this rate is reduced, so too is the amount available for the final exams.

Many EPA organisations are already struggling to make ends meet on the assessments they’re carrying out.

According to Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of NOCN, end-point assessments costs are “mainly driven by the daily rate that must be paid to the assessor”.

For some of the higher level, specialist standards, he said this fee could be as high as £1,000 a day, which far outweighs the funding available.

Even when they were paying assessors standard rates, some organisations said they were barely making any money – if at all.

The cost to the assessment organisation for delivering the final exams depends on many factors, including location.

An assessment taking place in a rural location, far from the nearest available assessor, will inevitably cost more to deliver – due to increased travel costs.  

However, some felt this situation would improve once numbers picked up, as they’d be able to assess more apprentices in one go, or have more assessors available to them, which would bring the cost down.

Alternatively, they’d be able to take on assessors on a full-time or permanent basis, if there was a guarantee of frequent work.

Others were less optimistic, with one organisation, which wanted to remain anonymous, believing that “only time will tell if it’s worthwhile” to deliver some assessments.

Mr Hastings-Evans urged the government to do more to support EPA organisations with assessment costs.

“If we are to attract the large numbers of high quality assessors that are going to be needed, we will need to be able to adequately reward them and also be able to recover the substantial recruitment and training costs the EPA organisations have to bear upfront,” he said.

Chartered Institution for Further Education on the ropes?

The head of the Chartered Institution for Further Education has insisted its survival is not hanging in the balance, even though the government failed to provide any funding for it in this year’s budget.

Dan Wright’s defence of the CIFE also comes despite having just 14 members –  far fewer than the 80 he previously said it needed to become self-sustaining.

FE Week started asking questions about the institution’s future after the Department for Education last month published its executive agency spend for March which included a £220,000 payment to the CIFE.

The DfE said this was the second and final payment going to the institution under their 2017-18 grant funding agreement following a payment of £210,000 in October.

A spokesperson then confirmed that the government had no further commitments to fund the institution.

Last year’s £430,000 DfE prop-up was given on top of £1 million in payments to the CIFE since it was conceived in 2012, as FE Week revealed in January.

Although Mr Wright (pictured), the institution’s chief executive, told FE Week that conversations with the DfE about additional subsidy for 2018-19 were ongoing, he admitted no decisions had yet been made.

Considering the CIFE is 64 members off the number it needs to become self-funding, it appears unlikely that the institution will be able to continue without more government grants.

But Mr Wright was keen to play down the possibility that his institution is on the ropes, saying discussions with the department were continuing with meetings scheduled in the near future and a number of new members joining.

He told FE Week: “We are looking forward to the government giving every support as we expand our membership.

“We do have a growing income stream from membership and it has always been the intention to be self-funding.”

The CIFE, the brainchild of the former skills minister John Hayes, was created to get high-achieving FE providers Royal Charter status.                                                        

But six years after its conception, it is still being funded by public money, with payments to date totalling nearly £1.5 million.

In January Mr Wright told FE Week the institution needs 80 members to be “completely free” of government subsidy.

He had a plan agreed with the DfE setting out how the institution will be self-sufficient by mid-2019.

Mr Wright would not comment on whether the institution would achieve the goal.

The DfE would also not comment on the CIFE’s progress to becoming self-funding.

College leaders to be consulted on new senior staff pay policy

The Association of Colleges is developing new guidance for setting senior pay in colleges and will launch a consultation imminently.

Top level pay in the education sector has been a hot topic in recent years following the rise of chief executive salaries in multi-academy trusts and vice-chancellor wages in universities, which often exceed £150,000 – an issue that the government has taken action on.

But to date college earnings have been untouched by any official intervention, and in the growing number of college group structures several staff members could be earning over £150,000.

The code will help colleges show that they are acting responsibly, fairly and openly

Now, the AoC wants to make the process of deciding senior pay more fair and transparent and is making the first amendment to its ‘code of good governance’ since its creation in March 2015.

“The AoC Governors’ Council will shortly launch a consultation on a new code to help governing bodies set senior pay,” David Hughes, the chief executive of the association, told FE Week.

“The code draws on the good practice in colleges and from other sectors and will help colleges show that they are acting responsibly, fairly and openly.”

He claimed that a private AoC survey shows that total senior pay “fell slightly” between 2016 and 2017 and “we believe that the college financial statements distort the pay position”.

“That distortion comes when mergers result in some overlap in principals and a larger than normal number of interim appointments in the lead up to mergers,” Mr Hughes added.

He continued: “We don’t believe that there is a particular problem with senior pay in colleges, with the ratio between median pay and top pay being around one to five.

“That looks reasonable compared with any private sector and most public sector comparators.”

As well as covering how to set fair and appropriate pay, the code is expected to provide guidance on “severance arrangements, median pay multiple methodologies” and proposes new annual reporting arrangements.

Andrew Harden, head of FE at the University and Colleges Union, said the “huge and seemingly arbitrary pay hikes” enjoyed by some college heads in recent years have “exposed the lack of transparency when it comes to senior pay”.

A remuneration code is “overdue and needs proper teeth if it is to restore confidence in the sector”, he added.

FE Week analysis on college principal pay, which excludes the significant rises following mergers, shows that salaries have risen by six per cent on average in the two years to July 2017.

READ MORE: UCU blasts 10% pay rises for ‘greedy’ college principals

Meanwhile, principal pay for those in sixth form colleges only went up by one per cent. According to the University and Colleges Union, the pay for lecturers has failed to keep up with inflation.

Research by the union in April of 2016/17 college accounts showed a third of all principals enjoyed a bumper pay rise of more than 10 per cent in that year while 17 earned salaries of over £200,000.

It comes at a frustrating time for college staff, after the DfE decided to fund a 3.5 per cent pay rise for school teachers while ignoring FE lecturers. UCU has since launched a ballot for strike action to take place later this year.

“The sector’s case for greater funding would be a lot easier if it didn’t have to keep explaining pay rises for a handful at the top that are way out of step with what college staff are paid,” Mr Harden said.

In December 2017 the UCU said colleges should justify staff who are paid over £150,000 a year.

It came after the ESFA began to crack down on high pay for academy chief executives and university vice-chancellors by ordering both types of institution, which often pay salaries of more than £150,000 a year, to justify the remunerations.

The AoC’s 10-week consultation will run from September 14 to November 23.

Major slash in store for apprenticeship funding rate bands

The Institute for Apprenticeships will soon confirm controversial changes to dozens of apprenticeship funding rate bands, according to the skills minister.

Writing in her monthly column in FE Week, Anne Milton said the rate changes will be published online “shortly” and further reviews will take place in the autumn.

To date, the IfA has refused to publicly reveal the recommendations from its funding band review, and said last month the details are subject to change until a final decision is made by the Department for Education.

Rate changes, according to the IfA, need to be signed off by the Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds.

However, the IfA has been communicating with the relevant employer groups about the changes in order to give them a chance to appeal, and several have come forward to reveal the planned outcomes of the review.

The Chartered Management Institute is currently fighting to overturn plans to slash the maximum funding rate to three popular management apprenticeship standards, including one that is set to lose £5,000. An online appeal, led by the CMI, has received backing from more than 150 employers.

Petra Wilson, director of strategy at the CMI, said the “overwhelming outcry” against the plan demonstrates that the government’s plans to reduce the funding “makes so little sense”.

Other popular apprenticeships are also in the firing line. The level two customer service practitioner standard – which had the third most starts of any apprenticeship standard in the first nine months of 2017/18 – is set for a 13 per cent cut to its funding rate, while the level two hair professional standard and the level two retailer apprenticeship standard are both in line for 20 per cent cuts.

However, some Trailblazers have received more welcome news. The funding band for the level three aviation ground specialist standard is set to be doubled, while the level three senior healthcare support worker standard is in line for a massive 67 per cent increase.

The picture so far on the 31 standards in the review

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employer and Learning Providers, has warned the level of uncertainty created by the review is having serious negative repercussions for the sector, and said the “complete lack of transparency and evidence is unjustified”.

Writing in the association’s newsletter, he stated: “Employers and providers are now saying it is incredibly risky to plan, invest in resources, invest in staff, design programmes, etc, if at a whim the IfA can adjust funding with no warning. This will lead to less investment and ultimately lower quality.

“At a time when everyone is working so hard to deliver high quality programmes with employers it is astounding that the organisation that is tasked with maintaining quality is actually undermining the system and wanting to pay less for ultimately poorer quality. 

“No one can deliver this amazing apprenticeship policy if the organisation at the heart of the system has lost the trust and respect of everyone operating within the system, and their actions are working against the fundamental principle of high-quality apprenticeships.”

As previously reported in FE Week, the IfA has committed to implementing rate increases with immediate effect and providing notice of at least two months before a confirmed rate reduction would apply.

Our new approach to funding apprenticeships will provide better value for money

A new approach to funding apprenticeships will provide better value for money so that people can benefit from the training opportunities on offer and progress in their careers, says Anne Milton

I have spoken a lot about the important changes we are making to improve the quality of apprenticeships in this country. One of the biggest changes has been to introduce apprenticeship standards – new, high-quality apprenticeships replacing the older “frameworks”. I’m really pleased that the number of people starting these apprenticeships has increased by almost 1,000 per cent in the last year. Of those starting apprenticeships only 2.5 per cent were on standards this time last year, and now it’s over 40 per cent.

Apprenticeship standards are designed by employers themselves. By putting employers in the driving seat, we make sure that apprentices receive the training they need and make sure people have the skills businesses are crying out for, so they can get on and grow their career.

Since its creation in April 2017, the Institute for Apprenticeships has been responsible for managing the development of these new apprenticeship standards. Their work includes advising me about the right funding level for each new standard that is approved.

As more and more standards have been created, the Institute has been learning what a quality apprenticeship looks like. They have also been looking at how we can make sure apprenticeship training provides value for money.

In February the Institute introduced a new approach to recommending apprenticeship funding bands as part of its Faster and Better programme. This approach means a wider range of evidence will be used to help decide what funding band to recommend. It also means standards are decided more quickly, so that there are fewer delays.

I have also made changes to the funding band structure, increasing the number of funding bands to 30, and narrowing those bands.

But all this positive change means that there is now a difference between how older and newer standards were allocated funding bands.

Our intention has always been to review standards regularly, to make sure that they remain fit for purpose and that there is a fair approach, no matter when a standard was developed. That is why I asked the Institute to review the funding bands of 31 standards, in line with their new approach and using the new 30-funding band structure.

Over the summer the Institute has been working with trailblazer groups of employers to review these 31 standards. They have applied their new funding approach to recommend to me what they think the right funding band is for these apprenticeships.

This means for some of the apprenticeships, the funding band will remain the same, as the original funding band still represents the best value for money. Others will see their funding band increased, if evidence suggests the original band was set too low. And for others, the funding band will be reduced.

Once the IfA have confirmed the outcome of the review to trailblazers, changed funding bands will be available on the IfA’s website and on the apprenticeships funding bands page.

I have asked the Institute to continue its work to bring all standards into the new 30-band structure. The Institute will lead reviews on further standards over the rest of this financial year.

I think that it is right that we price all apprenticeships fairly, whether they were developed first or last. As the apprenticeship market develops, I will keep working with the IfA to make sure we get this funding right. We want people to benefit from the amazing opportunities apprenticeships offer, get the fantastic training providers give and get on in their careers.

Read more: Major slash in store for apprenticeship funding rate bands

 

It is time for joined-up thinking on adult education

Much of the talk about adult education has been around the devolved budget and whether it’s being spent effectively. With 72 administrators hired to manage the London adult education budget – to the tune of £3 million – these are important questions.

However, less well discussed are the issues of why adult education is often relegated to the very bottom of the pile of government priorities – even within the technical education sector, in which it sits.

Apprenticeships, T-levels and careers strategies are all of vital importance, but the government often seems to overlook one vital complement to young people’s education.
All the research shows that parental education levels correlate with child development – from the earliest days. By the time children arrive at nursery, the disadvantage gap is already well established. And indeed a survey carried out by MORI (2001) revealed that more than two thirds of twelve to sixteen year olds consider that their parents are the strongest learning influence in their lives.

Lack of parental understanding of their children’s education and career choices is often a factor that prevents disadvantaged young people from being aware of and indeed accessing aspirational further and higher education pathways. Aspirational routes into education and employment need to be placed firmly within the world picture of all communities and not left to those with the right social networks or cultural capital.

Role models matter; the very first role models children have are often their carers. However, there seems to be little understanding as to the importance of family influence and the logical next step in redressing inequality, seems often to be missed: investment in good quality flexible adult education that reaches within communities and into homes. This is surprising when the socio-economic factors which the government is so keen to address correlate closely with educational attainment.

Prevents disadvantaged young people from being aware of and indeed accessing aspirational further and higher education pathways

A recent research project carried out by myself and a colleague, Rob Smith of Birmingham City University, illustrated just how much of an impact adult education can have on parents and their children. The transformative power of adult education, including literacy classes, was shown to be a catalyst in breaking the intergenerational cycle of inequality.

For example, Jade a young mother who attended adult literacy classes run by a charitable trust in the north west of England was motivated to attend classes after becoming a mum. These classes raised her aspirations for her future and that of her young son. She also talked at length about how she encouraged other friends in a similar situation to access the classes.

Motherhood was a motivational force for Jade as an adult learner. It is important not to underestimate this affective dimension of the learning experience. Becoming an adult learner enabled Jade to take back agency in the face of poverty and unemployment. For her, there was a relationship between these aspects of her life and her mental well-being. The classes enabled her to reconnect with society more broadly and on a different footing. She acquired agency and a view of a new possible future for her and her son.

Importantly, acquiring adult education and indeed social literacy is about being able to navigate the complexities of different social groups; it’s about being able to move without feeling like a fish out of water between different contexts: home, the classroom, the school on parents’ evening, the doctor’s surgery, the police station with a sense of agency.

Adult education and literacy education can be transformative. It can offer spaces in which individuals and their families can take charge of their own life and widen the possibilities and choices for their future: an enjoyment of learning and success as learners that connects with their lives in the outside world, including through employment.

Clearly, it’s time for a strong drive in policy and funding that recognises that the attainments of young people are intertwined with the achievements of their families and communities. It is time to have some joined-up thinking that places the family at the centre.

How to build a collaborative college culture

Good leadership is all about relationships and taking people with you, says Steve Frampton, President of Portsmouth College for 13 years and now President of the Association of Colleges

I firmly believe that the fundamentals of good leadership are all about relationships – you have to take people with you.
With this in mind, here are six things I’ve found crucial to building a positive, collaborative college culture.

Interview everyone personally

I used to interview all my staff, and now my successor at Portsmouth College is doing the same. What we’re looking for is cultural fit and people who really sign up to our core values, what we’re trying to do and where we’re trying to go.
Involve staff in decision making

If you involve the staff and students in the decision-making process, you all own it together. It’s not dependent on one person and their vision and their ideas – it’s a massive, collective responsibility so everybody feels part of the college. At Portsmouth College we had a real family culture. Everybody had their role and no-one was more important than anyone else.

Involve students in decision making

I think we’ve over-relied on the voice of employers and under-relied on the voice of students in education for too long. I think the students are much more sophisticated than we give them credit for.
It’s not just about focusing on employability skills. We want to produce well-rounded citizens who are capable of achieving their potential.

Never underestimate how important it is to enjoy what you’re doing

Work with students before they apply

It’s a good idea to work with students and their parents while they’re still in their secondary schools. We would run revision skills sessions in the evenings at schools, as well as head boys’ and head girls’ training in Year 10 and 11 assemblies.
Then when students come for open days, it helps to run sessions laying out the expectations. Since any rules that we had were agreed by the students’ union, along with the governing body, it was easy to explain that these are ground rules that everyone has agreed to.
Students also need to know that they’re going to be safe, respected and valued. So it’s important to emphasise that there will be zero tolerance of bullying. Then the students buy into that and reinforce it.

Get involved in the local community

I’ve been a chair of governors for a local school, on the board of a community radio station and head of the volunteers’ association for Portsmouth City football club.
It’s vital to plug into all of those networks, so that you can pick up what the voluntary sector is saying, what the secondary education sector is saying, and what the local authority is saying. It makes your job as college principal so much easier.

Enjoy your job!

Never underestimate how important it is to really enjoy what you’re doing, even though the pressures in the sector have never been bigger.
If you can create a dynamic, positive, creative culture, despite all the things that we’re trying to deal with, it will have an impact on your staff and your students.

Tom Bewick, chief executive, Federation of Awarding Bodies

Tom Bewick recently took over the top job at the membership organisation Federation of Awarding Bodies. FE Week caught up with him just a couple of months into the job, to find out what led him to where he is today

“You’re not going to write one of those profiles where you dissect my food choices, are you?” asks Tom Bewick, scanning the menu nervously.

Having had nothing but breezily confident emails from the new chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, his apprehensiveness takes me by surprise.

It’s been a big couple of months for Bewick. In fact, everything is coming to a head on the day we meet, with the federation threatening to take the government to court over their decision to allow only one awarding body for each T-level pathway.

“I’d barely finished my induction when we were thrown into this,” he admits, with a candour that suggests he’s not one to blag.

It’s not the first time Bewick has wrangled with government ministers. In 2005, together with Tony Hall, now director-general of the BBC, then chief executive of the Royal Opera House, he persuaded the government to fund the country’s first creative and cultural apprenticeships, apparently by “banging down the door” of then minister for vocational education Phil Hope. “It was quite a battle, because the Learning and Skills Council said they would only fund existing apprenticeships. It’s not like these days with the Institute for Apprenticeships. There was no process.”

I’d barely finished my induction when we were thrown into this

The apprenticeships were part of Bewick’s masterplan as founding chief executive of the Creative and Cultural Skills council, to end the “grossly unfair” practice of unpaid internships in the creative industries. “It was out of control. It was almost being used – sometimes by quite prestigious public and private arts organisations – as a way of satisfying their recruitment needs.”

This was towards the end of the Blairite years. A decade earlier, Bewick had been on the inside, slogging away for the party he joined as a teenager.

“I was drafted into Tony Blair’s Labour Party dream in 1997,” he says. In other words, he landed a job as national policy officer for education and employment, working in Milbank Towers under Matthew Taylor – then Labour’s director of policy, now chief executive of the RSA. “It was the classic ‘boy from Nuneaton, been a member of the party, done a bit of student politics, socks it to them as to why he thinks he’s the best person for the job in education and employment policy’”, he jokes of his interview technique, self-effacingly.

This was only Bewick’s second job after a couple of years in a building just across the river, as European policy officer for the Training and Enterprise Council.

From the age of 17, the Labour Party functioned as a “surrogate family” to Bewick, who grew up in care. “It was like the family I never had,” he explains. “It was a great place to go for further education in a way – people who were passionate about politics. But also for mentors – people who you looked up to in the community, who could give you a bit of a steer and a helping hand.”

He remains loyal to Labour to this day as a councillor for Brighton and Hove, despite reservations about current in-fighting. “It’s almost like your solemn vows, you make a lifelong commitment to a political party – it’s very hard to leave, even if things change around you”.

Bewick’s early childhood was marked by the sudden death of his mother, followed by multiple foster placements. “Dad was what we’d call him an addicted gambler now, but basically, there wasn’t any money in the house to pay for anything, so it was only a matter of time before I became the subject of a care order,” he confides. He was seven years old.

“I obviously didn’t react to school as a system very well, as I was in care,” he adds, with heart-breaking fatalism. Indeed, school left him woefully unprepared for a world in which the care system used to spit children out at 16 and expect them to make a life for themselves.

“David Cameron went to Eton, I went to Etone comprehensive in Nuneaton and I left with just one O-level in English,” he quips. “So at least I learned to read and write.”

Luckily for Bewick, his foster parents allowed him to live with them for an additional two years. By day, he applied himself to the arts of shelf-stacking and trolley-gathering at a Kwik Save supermarket. By night, he slogged through four GCSEs and two A-levels at what was then North Warwickshire College.

“Getting into further education – a different approach to learning, really transformed my life,” he says. “That’s why I’m so passionate about it.”

Despite his dedication to the Labour Party, five years “being at the end of a pager 24 hours a day” burned him out. “You’re not just working for an employer – this is a mission – this is an all-consuming thing in your life and it feels like that from the day you’re in it”.

I obviously didn’t react to school as a system very well, as I was in care

Drained, he “decided to up-sticks, bugger off” and spend all £30k of his hard-earned savings “chasing the sun”. Bewick’s usually careful language deteriorates at this point, as if to better illustrate the degenerate character of what he calls his “early mid-life crisis”. He went to stay with a friend in Cape Town, “did tennis lessons, bought a classic 1970-something Vespa and pissed around on that for six months and watched the bank balance drop”. A further six months in Ibiza just about did it for him – “you’ll appreciate,” he confides candidly, “I don’t have a lot of memories of that period” – and he duly returned to East London in late 2003, making it back with barely enough funds to turn up looking respectable for his new job as a director for Thames Gateway at the Learning and Skills Council. “With hindsight, running on empty like that was taking it a little bit too far,” he says, all too aware of the fact that he, like many care leavers now helped by the charity of which he is a trustee, had no family support to fall back on. “You can be £200 away from disaster.”

This was Bewick’s third year abroad – the other two had been more obviously purposeful. He’d spent a year in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on an Erasmus exchange in the early nineties, post-Balkan conflict – somewhat against his will, as Bath University’s sole condition of offering him a fully-funded masters in European public policy analysis.

He remembers arriving fresh from the Aeroflot jet in early January, climbing to the 14th floor of a grey, dank, concrete tower block “that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Warsaw, Poland or Walsall in the West Midlands” and bursting into tears.

But living in care had made him resilient. “It wasn’t that unusual to rock up somewhere completely strange where you don’t know anybody, you’ve got a few pennies to your name and few worldly possessions.” By the end of the year, he knew basic Slovenian – or at least “the words for beer and pizza, you know, all the key social ones” – and had made one of his best friends to this day, who now works for the OECD in Paris, and to whose children Bewick is godfather.

His first year abroad was several years earlier, at the flighty age of 18, when he checked out of his foster home, packed up all his worldly possessions in a backpack, and jetted off to Canada on “the equivalent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s golden ticket” – and almost never came back.

It was a fully-funded programme he’d found through his local library – for volunteers from backgrounds like his own, to go and work with disadvantaged teenagers from indigenous communities in Canada. He learned to drive, play baseball and teach functional skills. “It was the making of me,” he says. “It made me realise that my vocation in life was going to be working to advocate on behalf of communities, that I had this skill to get on with people from all different backgrounds at all levels of seniority. That was something that people around me told me: ‘You’ve got a natural talent for that’.”

The charity, Frontiers Foundation, helped him secure a scholarship to the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, but the pull of “home” was too great and he threw his lot in with the great British clearing system, coming out with a place at Brighton Polytechnic to study social policy and administration. After a year, he wangled a transfer to Bath University (for a girlfriend, not the prestige) where he became Labour club president and editor of the student magazine.

The way he speaks about his first job at the Training and Enterprise Council is indicative of an attitude of general gratitude that he seems to apply to other areas of his life: “I remember reading the job advert and feeling ‘somebody up there is really looking out for me’ as it was like they’d written the job for me,” he says.

Bewick feels incredibly lucky to have the job, life and family he has now – his wife and three children live with him in Brighton: “Frankly, I wake up now every working day and just feel brilliant to be alive.”

 

CV

Mar 2018 – Present
Chief Executive, Federation of Awarding Bodies

Jul 2015 – Present
President of the Transatlantic Apprenticeship Exchange Forum (TAEF), Atlantic Apprenticeships

May 2015 – Present
Council member, Brighton & Hove City Council

Jul 2016 – Mar 2018
Co-Founder, Franklin Apprenticeships LLC

Jul 2011 – May 2015
Chief Executive Officer, INSSO

Apr 2010 – Apr 2011
Chief Executive, Enterprise UK

May 2004 – Feb 2010
Chief Executive, Creative and Cultural Skills

Sep 2003 – Sep 2004
Director of Skills, Thames Gateway, LSC

Jun 2001 – Nov 2002
Adviser to the Minister for Adult Skills, Department for Education and Skills

2001 – 2002
Director of Communications, Sector Skills Development Agency

1997 – 2001
Labour Party then government advisor on skills policy

Apprenticeship funding bands needed reviewing to be fair

A new approach to funding apprenticeships will provide better value for money so that people can benefit from the training opportunities on offer and progress in their careers, says Anne Milton

I have spoken a lot about the important changes we are making to improve the quality of apprenticeships in this country. One of the biggest changes has been to introduce apprenticeship standards – new, high-quality apprenticeships replacing the older “frameworks”. I’m really pleased the number of people starting on new, high-quality apprenticeship standards is now over 40 per cent compared to just 2.5 per cent this time last year.

Apprenticeship standards are designed by employers themselves. By putting employers in the driving seat, we make sure that apprentices receive the training they need and make sure people have the skills businesses are crying out for, so they can get on and grow their career.

Since its creation in April 2017, the Institute for Apprenticeships has been responsible for managing the development of these new apprenticeship standards. Their work includes advising me about the right funding level for each new standard that is approved.

As more and more standards have been created, the Institute has been learning what a quality apprenticeship looks like. They have also been looking at how we can make sure apprenticeship training provides value for money.

In February the Institute introduced a new approach to recommending apprenticeship funding bands as part of its Faster and Better programme. This approach means a wider range of evidence will be used to help decide which funding band to recommend. It also means standards are decided more quickly, so that there are fewer delays.

It is right that we price all apprenticeships fairly, whether they were developed first or last

I have also made changes to the funding band structure, increasing the number of funding bands to 30, and narrowing those bands.

But all this positive change means that there is now a difference between how older and newer standards were allocated funding bands.

Our intention has always been to review standards regularly, to make sure that they remain fit for purpose and that there is a fair approach – no matter when a standard was developed. That is why I asked the Institute to review the funding bands of 31 standards, in line with their new approach and using the new 30-band structure.

Over the summer the Institute has been working with trailblazer groups of employers to review these 31 standards. They have applied their new funding approach to recommend to me what they think the right funding band is for these apprenticeships.

This means for some of the apprenticeships, the funding band will remain the same, as the original funding band still represents the best value for money. Others will see their funding band increased, if evidence suggests the original band was set too low. And for others, the funding band will be reduced.

Changes will shortly be made available on the IfA’s website and on the government funding bands page (https://bit.ly/2jVbFyo).

I have asked the Institute to continue its work to bring more standards into the new 30-band structure. Further information on these reviews will be available later in the autumn.

I think that it is right that we price all apprenticeships fairly, whether they were developed first or last. As the apprenticeship market develops, I will keep working with the IfA to make sure we get this funding right. We want people to benefit from the amazing opportunities apprenticeships offer, get the fantastic training providers give and get on in their careers.