Reconnecting learners with English as a language art

Benjamin Franklin thought there were two certainties in this world: death and taxes. GCSE English language resit teachers can add a third. In every class, we know we will have at least one student who will beg not to have to do poetry.

All of our learners in these classes have achieved a grade 3 or lower in GCSE English, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that the idea of studying literature again is a challenge to them. This is especially true if they have a learning difference like dyslexia.

But in my experience, poetry is one of the keys that can not only unlock a greater appreciation of English and language arts, but also help students become more effective communicators. In turn, this leads to greater academic success far beyond the English syllabus.

Sadly, having worked in FE for four years, I see very little promotion of English and language arts. Courses are generally vocational and the GCSE English language course has to be covered in under a year, instead of twice that when studied at secondary school.

For all that, some of my students tell me they are writing – poetry, short stories, song lyrics, and even comic strips. Some do it for personal pleasure, and many do it because it gives a voice to the anxieties which so many of us, students and staff, find hard to express in other ways. 

Yet their talents and explorations in language are going unnoticed because they are not being expressed within the context of a more creative English class. Furthermore, opportunities for public expression and celebration are few and far between.

I left school with a distinct dislike of formal education. It was poetry and the performing arts that led me back to college and eventually even to becoming a teacher.

So this year at Reading College, I am determined that we are going to increase awareness of English as a language art.  For the first time, we are going to enter the national Poetry by Heart competition, where participants choose and learn a poem by heart and perform it out loud.

Those who have been put off poetry will see it in a new way

Participation is free and the Poetry By Heart website is also a superb resource for teaching poetry. It features hundreds of poems, grouped by theme and interest level, including all the poems studied for GCSE. In addition, there’s lots of support and guidance for teachers to help students memorise their poems.

And it’s fun. They encourage you to run internal competitions to celebrate the best performances, and there’s even a staff category.

I got involved last year and was invited to perform a favourite Shakespeare sonnet at the launch event, live on stage at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe. The experience was unforgettable and I will certainly be encouraging my colleagues to give it a go.

Taking part in the competition is additionally exciting for us as the college has students from many cultures with their own poetic traditions. The competition will enable them to share these and means we can open them up for all our students to experience.

I’m pleased too that there is also the opportunity for students to perform their own poetry within a special ‘freestyle’ category that values creativity, diversity and inclusivity.

The most important thing is, however, that poetry will be learned, read and above all celebrated and respected.  Those who have been put off poetry will see and hear it in a way they haven’t before, and others will have the opportunity to find their voices, taking their ability to express themselves to a new level.

When our learners see English again as a language art – not just an exam skill – I’m betting they will fall in love with the subject again, just like I did!

Going back to Benjamin Franklin, he implored us all to “write something worth reading, or do something worth writing”. Here’s to our learners doing both!

To find out more about free participation in Poetry by Heart, click here

Government must unleash ITPs to beat the population bulge

Since the general election, debates on the future of post-16 education have focused on the growth and skills levy, the review of level 3 qualifications and the creation of Skills England.

But there’s another issue, big on the horizon: a population bulge in those reaching the age of 16.

The number of 16- and 17-year-olds in England will grow by 110,000 by 2028. Without action, AELP’s Local and Regional Partner Networks are already warning us that more young people will head into a clogged and under-funded system at a time when we already have 900,000 NEETs.

A negative experience at a young and formative age has a profoundly damaging impact that is hard to fix. Making sure there is provision for this cohort now will pay dividends for the next 60 years.

The chancellor allocated £300 million for ‘further education’ in the budget. We understand this funding may well be for 16-19 provision, so it appears government is aware of the problem. 

But how this money is spent is as important as how much, particularly as this is a temporary five-year bulge, not a permanent increase.

The risk is that building new premises to serve the population bulge will create expensive white elephants (once that bulge recedes) while diverting resources from delivery for tens of thousands of young people.

But there is another way. A model is emerging that proves that you do not need to build additional physical capacity to deliver additional quality provision.

Independent training providers such as SCL, Access, Learning Curve and Juniper Training are stepping into these rapidly emerging gaps in provision by utilising existing space and responding rapidly to local need.

As they don’t need to build, they can do this quickly and without access to capital funding. Scarce funding goes on learning and engagement rather than bricks and mortar.

It appears government is aware of the problem

For example, in Leeds, an extra £3.5 million has been allocated to support specific, targeted hot-spots where colleges have run out of room and where more flexible provision is needed. Juniper Training, one of the ITPs helping to fill the gap, took just two months to go from initial exploration with Leeds City Council to starting their first cohort.

“We are not tied to a campus-first way of thinking,” explains Juniper MD, Lesley Holland. “We are used to taking on and managing commercial leases of premises from which we deliver.”

Stuart Allen Chief Education Officer of SCL adds: “We think differently and integrate ‘hooks’ in our programmes such as sport, creative arts and other enrichment activities that enthuse and engage young people where traditional ways of learning sometimes do not work.”  

Colleges point out that there is a financial logic that pushes them to build provision around a settled status of full classrooms, on-campus and for learners on longer study programmes where there is a good chance of completion.

ITPs, on the other hand, with access to immediate working capital, expertise in commercial property and rapid decision-making cycles (together with the longer-term incentives to develop and prove new models of provision) are better-equipped to respond to the bulge.

In addition, this flexibility means they can address the needs of the most disadvantaged students on shorter, more intensive programmes.

There is a quadruple win here: the Department for Education avoids funding capital projects that take time to come to fruition and could quickly become obsolete; tens of thousands of 16-19 year olds, often the most vulnerable, get the provision they need; local business premises are used; and colleges can focus on their existing provision.

And when the bulge is over, it is ITPs who will be responsible for scaling back their provision, not government.

To make this happen, government needs to make some rapid administrative changes to the rules, especially around the way growth caps are applied. At the moment, that restriction alone is directly stopping thousands of disadvantaged learners getting vital support – ironic given the incoming youth guarantee.

The 16-19 bulge is a looming, major challenge. But we have a proven way of meeting it, as the Leeds example shows. We now need government to remove the barriers that prevent ITPs from spinning up the provision the country so desperately needs. 

AELP and our members stand ready to help make this happen.

What would-be assessment reformers can learn from Just Dance

Like many trainee teachers in the latter 2000s, I was forced to watch Sir Ken Robinson’s ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ clickbait TED Talk.

“Of course schools kill creativity,” we are expected to chorus with gleeful anti-intellectualism. “Aren’t maths and English dreadful?”

He tells the story of choreographer Gillian Lynne, who in the 1930s was taken to a doctor due to fidgeting at school. The doctor observed this little girl dancing to the radio and declared: “She is a dancer! Take her to a dance school.”

When I hear that now, I am horrified. The doctor figure, and Sir Ken, and all of us who credulously bought into that story, are complicit in limiting children to one thing: the thing they can already do.

There are clear echoes in attitudes that disadvantaged students aren’t worth supporting with GCSE resits. As though a sixteen year old’s fate is sealed.

In my youth, nobody ever declared that I was a dancer. Teachers looked at the bespectacled asthmatic with the weird hair, reading about dragons and said, “He is a nerd!”

Uncoordinated, clumsy and weak, it wasn’t worth teaching me to be better at PE. But all these years later I am making time for dance almost every day, and I’m very slowly improving.

How that happened is completely applicable to those we might otherwise write off from ever enjoying or being good at English and maths.

When I traded the 20,000 steps per day of teaching for the vegetative existence of a civil servant, I invested in Just Dance – a video game that tracks your movement, awarding points for matching the routine on screen.

Even though I was very, very bad at it, it was still fun. I kept at it.

GCSE resits can learn a lot from Just Dance.

When I first loaded it up, Just Dance didn’t force me into an initial assessment and then limit me to ‘Baby Shark’, it encouraged ambition.

The game is a master of modelling and aspiration. As you play, you mimic the professional dancer on screen, and imagine that your skill, rhythm and athleticism are a mirror of what you’re seeing, which they almost certainly are not.

It is exactly how students should see resit teachers: exemplifying confident, joyful expertise in English and maths and inspiring them to follow.

The game is a master of modelling and aspiration

Just Dance uses praise at every opportunity and refines marginal gains into an addictive motivator. Every day I find myself chasing new high scores on tracks I’ve been dancing to for years. There’s always something to celebrate.

We need to capture that unrelenting focus on praise and progress in resits classrooms. It might not be practical to set off actual pyrotechnics every time a student stretches themselves, but authentic praise from an enthusiastic teacher will feel like fireworks to them.

Over time in Just Dance, you progress through something approximating attainment grades for each song, from ‘one star’ through to ‘Megastar’. I didn’t see the glittery pink of Megastar in my whole first year with the game. Now I’m disappointed when I don’t see it.

Which isn’t to say it’s suddenly easy. I’ve still only scored a grade 3 (stars) on C’mon by Ke$ha, despite probably sweating more than the pro in the panda suit on screen. What’s worse is that in my absolute favourite, I wanna dance with somebody, I fail one of the special moves every single time.

Let me admit something else. At a work social not long ago, that song came on. I did not leap onto the empty dance floor. This is not a movie.

We don’t need to expect that of resits either. Getting a student to boogie their way from a grade U to a 1 and have a good time is sometimes what resits is. So too is the student two-stepping their way from a low 3 to a high 3 with an attitude that says “I’ll get ’em next time”.

So I’ll keep returning to Whitney Houston, day after day. I don’t see it as “torture”, or even as “demoralising”.

It keeps me engaged, it builds my confidence, and I’ll keep making progress until I smash it. That is what resits should be.

Labour must release capital funding from its political stranglehold

Like many colleges, one of our strategic objectives is to provide a physical and digital estate that are fit for learning now and into the future. Sadly, the sector is being stifled in achieving this necessary goal, not least by the ongoing ban on borrowing.

Of course, excellent learning can happen anywhere. But overcrowding, disrepair, archaic facilities and resources that don’t meet the demands of a modern curriculum hamper learning. They also lead to disrespect, a generalised feeling of a lack of care and erode reputation.

Halesowen College is coming to the end of an ambitious estates strategy. We’ve opened a new campus (funded wholly from reserves), reconfigured several aspects of our existing estate to accommodate T levels and a re-vamped curriculum offer, and we are in the process of refurbishing another campus with some financial support from the Transformation Fund.

Building inflation has made the budgets for these projects challenging, and reserves are finite. Meanwhile, the demographic trend continues to see increases in the number of 16-year-olds seeking college places.

Like us, many colleges are full and operate waiting lists for places on certain courses. They need to build additional facilities or refurbish existing estates.

The £950 million for capital announced in the budget is welcome, but the truth is that much of this will be directed to projects that are already in progress. In short, it will not meet the sector’s needs.

But every other path to financing the costs of capital is blocked by insurmountable barriers. Those colleges who had amassed reserves have long since sold off the family silver, there are currently no options for capital funding, and getting a loan is ultras vires (beyond colleges’ legal power).

This makes absolutely no sense. Borrowing can be costly, but skillfully tendered and negotiated commercial loans can represent good value. When the sector was previously in the public sector, commercial borrowing was allowable and colleges were accountable for value for money.

Every path is blocked by insurmountable barriers

There is also the option of government loans, so this all-encompassing total ban on borrowing seems short-sighted. It is all the more difficult to explain when resources are so scarce.

Absent this solution, it is surely timely to look to the private sector for affordable arrangements. If the reasoning for the ban on commercial borrowing is money leaking from the public purse, then this is not going to help. In fact, it could have the opposite effect.

Colleges may not have the millions required to purchase new premises, but there is a genuine commitment and expectation that we address the growing NEET issue and reduce the 16-24 claimant count.

Delivering this strategy will only further augment the need for additional space, even if there is an effective hybrid style of delivery.

Faced with an increasing difficult conundrum in balancing necessary estates development against acceptable levels of liquidity and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) , rental will become an increasingly inescapable option.

A college may not be able to access say £5 million for a capital project, but may be able to finance £250,000 per annum in rent. However, the most basic of calculations will show that the costs of a loan are much more modest than a rental arrangement.

The latter inevitably places pressure on revenue budgets, feathers the private sector rental nest with public money, and leaves a college with no corresponding asset on its balance sheet.

No college wishes to move into ‘Requires Improvement’ for financial health, but neither do they wish to compromise education. The treasury’s ‘Managing Public Money’ has much to be applauded for. However, the stranglehold on capital flies in the face of the Nolan Principles.

Colleges cannot exercise excellent leadership without resources. Lack of capital investment will unquestionably hamper our sector from developing the skills and talents needed to drive growth and opportunity.

Our ambition, vision and success should not be choked by inability to realise the capital plans that underpin our strategic objectives. Unlocking borrowing would be a lifeline for many and keep more of our public money serving the public interest.

Skills England ‘doomed to fail’, says former education secretary

Skills England is “doomed to fail” if the government presses ahead with plans to establish it as an in-house agency without the independence of its predecessor, a former education secretary has claimed.

Damian Hinds, who headed up the Department for Education from 2018 to 2019, urged the government to amend legislation to guarantee the new skills “quango” independence from ministers.

Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate on T Levels and apprenticeships this afternoon, Hinds slammed Labour’s plans to introduce Skills England as an executive agency within the Department for Education, arguing its close proximity to ministers risks “eroding” public confidence in technical education standards. 

It comes as members of the House of Lords prepare to gather for the first committee stage debate of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions, etc) Bill tomorrow afternoon. The bill abolishes IfATE and hands its standards-setting powers to the education secretary. 

Hinds warned: “There is no guarantee of business continuing to be involved in setting those standards. I’m afraid public and business confidence is set to be eroded … Everybody knows that if you are in government and you are trying to increase the numbers of people doing anything in education, the easiest way is to erode those standards to get more people through.” 

Put it in the Treasury

Hinds also accused the government of undermining its own claims that Skills England will be a cross-government body with influence over other government departments.

“The instinct, I know, in difficult circumstances is to break glass and reach for a new quango. But Skills England isn’t even a quango, it is nada. It is not quasi-autonomous, it is a non-accountable department agency.

“If the government was really serious about creating something new to join together the Home Office, the business department, the DfE and everybody else, you’d put it in the Treasury, or you might put it in the Cabinet Office, but you wouldn’t just make it part of the DfE management structure.”

Defending the government, education minister Janet Daby repeated skills minister Jacqui Smith’s message to this month’s AELP conference: “I have heard worries that Skills England will not have the independence or authority that it needs, and I would like to dispel those concerns today. Skills England will have an independent board which will provide leadership and direction as well as scrutiny to ensure that it is operating effectively and within the agreed framework.”

However, the job description for Skills England’s chief executive, which has a salary of £130,000, doesn’t mention the board and states that the post reports to a more senior DfE civil servant.

Lords shadow education minister Baroness Barran has filed amendments to the bill that would require the Skills England chief executive to report to its board and establish the new organisation as an arms-length with IfATE’s powers.

From IfATE to Skills England via DfE: What you need to know

Smith previously addressed concerns that employers would be left out of setting technical education and apprenticeship standards. She told the House of Lords second reading of the bill that employer involvement in designing standards and assessment plans will “remain the default position”.

The minister explained that the use of the secretary of state’s powers in the bill to approve standards themselves “will allow greater flexibility in scenarios where preparation by a group can be unnecessary or restrictive”.

Smith also committed to publishing any government-led changes to standards “in draft for stakeholder comment before they are finalised”.

However, the opposition is likely to continue to push for commitments in law.

Hinds said today: “So now the secretary of stater is going to have responsibility for standards for T Levels, can you imagine if that was for A-levels? If it’s not alright for A-levels, why should it be alright for T Levels?”

“I’d ask the minister to build into the design of Skills England proper, full independence from her department and a proper, full guiding role for business. And not just for ministers to say it, but for them to write that into the legislation.”

NUS to lead shadow curriculum and assessment review

Youth organisations including the Scouts, Duke of Edinburgh Award and the National Union of Students have launched their own curriculum and assessment review to shadow the government’s.

Organised by climate action charity OVO Foundation, the youth-led review is “essential to the legitimacy of the government’s review” according to its chair, the National Union of Students president Amira Campbell.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson appointed Professor Becky Francis to lead a curriculum and assessment review shortly after the July general election. 

A call for evidence was launched in September and closes this Friday, and Francis has been touring the country hosting roadshow events seeking views on the most needed changes in curriculum and assessment for children and young people up to age 19.

Twelve young people will be appointed as panellists for the shadow review, which has been launched in part because the call for evidence and roadshows have not been accessible to students.

UK Youth, SOS-UK, Young Citizens and the National Youth Agency are also signed up. 

Campbell said: “Students know firsthand what does and doesn’t work in the current curriculum. 

“We know that meaningful inclusion of youth voice is essential to the quality and legitimacy of the government’s review, and this shadow review is the perfect avenue to lay out students’ and young people’s visions of what a truly liberated, inclusive and innovative curriculum could and should look like.” 

Organisers said the shadow review will run its own set of roadshows and calls for evidence, and aims to publish an interim and final report ahead of Francis.

An interim report from Francis is expected in early 2025 with a final report due in autumn 2025.

Curriculum review call for evidence: what FE needs to know

Student volunteer Enfys said: “Our shadow review will demonstrate the range of issues that young people care about and how this could be better reflected in the curriculum and in how we are assessed.  

“I don’t feel that the curriculum reflects the fact that young people are growing up in a world shaped by the climate emergency and ecological crisis. This is an exciting opportunity to change our education, and we are ready to share our views with the DfE.”

The government’s review panel, led by Francis has two college principals but no young people.

Francis told the Association of Colleges annual conference last week that she “wanted to avoid the sort of tokenism of putting a single young person on the panel to reflect all young people, which is, of course, impossible”.

Curriculum issues

Phillipson tasked Francis with coming up with recommendations that could improve outcomes for young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, without overloading education staff.

The government said at the time: “The review will look at ensuring all young people aged 16 to 19 have access to rigorous and high-value qualifications and training that will give them the skills they need to seize opportunity as well as ensuring they are ready for the changing workplace.” 

Principals Lisa O’Loughlin, from Nelson and Colne College, and John Laramy, from Exeter College, are members of the panel alongside Francis.

Francis is expected to make a recommendations on the future of the government’s controversial GCSE English and maths resits policy and on the “complex” landscape of education pathways for young people at levels 2 and 3.

But Francis told the Association of Colleges annual conference last week that a “stretched” workforce is among “capacity issues” in further education that will limit her final recommendations.

Priority employers consulted on growth and skills levy

Skills England has launched an “initial engagement exercise” with employers in priority sectors on what non-apprenticeship training should be funded through the new growth and skills levy.

The quango’s informal consultation will involve construction, health and social care stakeholders, and the eight “growth-driving sectors” identified in the government’s industrial strategy green paper.

In an update today, the Department for Education said its new agency – currently set up in “shadow” form – will run the exercise “in November and December”.

Assessments of each sector’s skills needs should be published “early 2025”.

Sectors identified as having “high growth potential” in the green paper are:

  • advanced manufacturing
  • clean energy industries
  • creative industries
  • defence
  • digital and technologies
  • financial services
  • life sciences
  • professional and business services

They were chosen based on the UK’s current and emerging “strengths”.

Construction and health and social care are also priorities as they are “essential” to the government’s five missions.

It remains to be seen precisely which organisations Skills England will engage with or how they will be selected.

However, “stakeholders” have been invited to email evidence to the DfE.

Skills and the levy

Labour announced its intention to widen the apprenticeship levy into a new growth and skills levy in 2022. It will allow a broader range of training to be funded through the levy, although a timeline for implementation is yet to be released.

Skills England will play a “crucial role” in deciding what training is eligible through assessments of skills needs and “extensive engagement” with the skills system.

The arms-length body is not expected to be fully operational until next year after the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) is abolished and a permanent chief executive, chair and board members are appointed.

The industrial strategy suggests that the Office for Investment and Skills England will also offer investors a “skills triage service.”

According to Skills England’s first report, published in September, the agency planned to conduct a series of roundtables and webinars in the autumn to “further test and refine the initial assessment of skills needs.”

It is also expected to work closely with the Migration Advisory Committee to grow the domestic skills pipeline.

Fiona Aldridge, chief executive officer of the Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards (FISSS), said: “We welcome Skills England’s intention to consult with employers and other key organisations to provide a view on what training should be available through the growth and skills levy – and would encourage the government to be proactive in reaching out to all those who can usefully inform this work.

“It is helpful to see that the consultation includes construction and health and social care, alongside the Industrial Strategy’s eight growth-driving sectors, given that they account for nearly 20 per cent of jobs across the economy and are integral to achieving the government’s missions.”

The DfE has been contacted for comment.

OCR boss Jill Duffy to step down

Jill Duffy will step down as leader of the OCR exam board after seven years at the helm.

Duffy will leave her role as group managing director for UK education at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, OCR’s parent organisation, in September.

She will take on “new non-executive positions” as she “steps back from full-time executive leadership”.

Duffy joined OCR as chief executive in 2018, having previously worked as senior vice president of Pearson’s schools arm.

OCR said it had grown and introduced “innovations” such as digital exams and a new GCSE in natural history during her tenure.

But the landmark new GCSE is unlikely to be introduced by its original target of next September, FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week previously revealed. 

‘A privilege’

Duffy is also chair of the Joint Council for Qualifications board and a governor of Oxford Brookes University.

“I’ve loved this job. It’s a privilege to work with such a talented team of people who really care for and connect with students, teachers and society,” Duffy said.

She said the OCR job “was, and is, in many ways, my dream role”.  

“It brings together my passion for education making a difference in young people’s lives, and in making an organisation work for the benefit of all,” she added. 

Duffy said she will ensure a “smooth transition” before stepping down.

The search for her successor starts this week, OCR said. 

Peter Phillips, Cambridge University Press and Assessment’s chief executive, said Duffy has “achieved a huge amount for education” in her seven years at the top of OCR.

“Her commitment to learners, expertise in the sector and personal leadership have been outstanding. Jill’s relentless focus on doing what’s right for students and for teachers is an inspiration to everyone who works with her,” he added.

Before joining Pearson, Duffy spent 22 years in educational publishing, beginning her education career as an editor at Oxford University Press.

She has a PGCE and a degree in English Literature from Oxford University.

Root out qualifications fraud, Ofqual tells industry regulators

Security and construction regulators have been hauled in for a summit to clamp down on qualification fraud.

Exams regulator Ofqual has also today published a five-point “counter fraud action plan” that includes “formalising” information sharing with other agencies to identify the scale of malpractice.

It follows high-profile cases of qualifications fraud involving security guards and an FE Week investigation that found a flourishing trade in fake Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards sold on social media.

Today’s summit attendees reportedly included the regulator Security Industry Authority (SIA), licensing body Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) and other “government agencies and ministries”.

‘Work ever more closely’

Ofqual’s chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said: “Our action plan reflects the strong commitment made by key agencies to fight qualification fraud.

“We’ll work ever more closely to prevent, disrupt, and detect fraud in qualifications wherever it occurs.”

Ofqual’s action plan includes issuing a “fraud prevention advice note” to awarding organisations, exploring how to share intelligence “more easily”, and a commitment to “improve awareness”.

The government will also “make it easier” to report suspicious activity by raising awareness of possible indicators of fraud and how it can be reported.

It comes weeks after the exam regulator launched a consultation on new so-called “principle conditions” that would require awarding organisations to “act with honesty and integrity” and “promote public confidence” in qualifications.

Cheating and fake certificates

According to Ofqual, qualification fraud is an “ever present risk” in England’s regulated qualification market, which is worth over £800 million a year in entry fees.

The watchdog said there is a risk of malpractice in all qualifications, but qualifications that are required to gain a licence, job or immigration status are “more likely to be targeted by those willing to commit fraud”.

Fraud can involve fake certificates, delivering ‘fast-track’ training and helping learners cheat during tests.

Suspected fraud should be reported to awarding organisations, which Ofqual requires to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent malpractice.

A BBC exposé last year alleged two London-based security training providers offered shortened courses for a higher fee, forged timesheets and, at one, taught ways to “kill and be killed”.

Slow progress

Issues with limited intelligence sharing were highlighted after Ofqual publicly reprimanded its Scottish equivalent, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), last month.

Ofqual found the SQA had failed to investigate malpractice at centres offering health and safety certificates needed for CSCS cards between 2017 and 2019, but did not inform the safety card organisation until this year.

A historic case of alleged qualification fraud in 2015 saw awarding organisation Industry Qualifications hit with a £50,000 fine over its handling of security guard qualifications.

The firm was eventually slapped with a £115,000 fine and legal costs after a four-year appeal.

Paul Fullwood, director of inspections and enforcement at the SIA, said: “We’re committed to combatting malpractice and a concerted effort from all parties involved working together to share information and best practice is vital to tackle this issue.

“This summit represents the collaboration we need to build on in taking forward our shared vision to root out qualification fraud.”

A spokesperson for CSCS said: “We commend Ofqual for convening industry leaders to address this issue. Ensuring that qualifications are obtained through legitimate means is essential for maintaining safety and trust in the construction industry. CSCS remains committed to working with others to combat qualification fraud.

“In cases where CSCS is notified a card was gained using a fraudulently obtained qualification the card is cancelled immediately – this means when the card is next checked using the CSCS Smart Check software it will alert the site manager that the card is no longer valid.”