Two sixth form colleges have been declared ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, with one retaining their top grade after more than a decade without inspection.

Meanwhile, a publicly-owned private provider has dropped to a grade three after nine years as a grade one.

After its last inspection in 2008, Peter Symonds College yet again achieved a grade one in all areas of its provision.

Most of its 4,200 students achieve high grades in their A-levels and are “well-prepared for their aspirational next steps to prestigious universities,” inspectors found.

College leaders and managers place a “very strong” emphasis on maintaining the wellbeing of their staff by allowing them to take part in activities which balance out their working lives like yoga and pilates.

Resultingly, staff feel “very well supported and repay managers by promoting the college’s ambitious culture for all its students”.

Elsewhere, Callywith College earned a grade one in its first inspection since converting to a 16 to 19 academy in September 2017.

It teaches 1,081 students, who were found to be “overwhelmingly positive” about all aspects of college life, despite having to travel a considerable distance to attend.

Inspectors found the college had an environment which was “exceptionally supportive and caring” but also “calm and positive” – which allows students to thrive while focusing intently on their learning and personal development.

Safeguarding was considered to be effective, as it was with Peter Symonds.

Greater Brighton Metropolitan College was found to have made ‘significant progress’ in how leaders and managers have trained teachers, especially those who teach levels 2 and 3, to support students, with high needs.

This was after a grade three full inspection found teachers did not have sufficient skills, knowledge or information to be able to meet those students’ requirements.

But since then, leaders have provided mandatory training for teachers so they know what types of support students with high needs may require and how to go about providing this.

Nottingham College, on the other hand, earned a grade three in its first inspection since being formed from a merger of New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham in 2017.

Too often, inspectors wrote, its managers and staff aim to meet the minimum requirements of qualifications.

St Helens College has also been hit with a grade three, despite the interim principal having begun to stabilise it following its merger with Knowsley Community College, which an FE Commissioner report last year found had been underfunded.

Governors need to establish a stable leadership team to create an aspirational culture and ambitious curriculum, the report reads.

Hoople Ltd, a publicly-owned private provider created by Herefordshire Council and Wye Valley NHS Trust, went from a grade one to a grade three this week.

The ‘outstanding’ score was awarded in 2011 to Hoople, which holds contracts with the government to deliver apprenticeships and study programmes and does so to 46 apprentices and 22 learners.

The apprentices were studying a curriculum which inspectors did consider to not “consistently challenge them and enable them to reach their potential”: it is often too focused on achieving qualifications, rather than their personal development.

Independent provider Absolute HR Solutions also received a grade three, partly because “too many” apprentices have withdrawn early.

But inspectors complimented leaders and managers on their clear strategic vision and said the 34 apprentices receive good support from staff.

Agincare Group, a care provider with 78 apprentices, was also handed a grade three as trainers and assessors have focused too much on “unchallenging tasks” which apprentices needed to complete, instead of setting work which makes them think hard.

Apprentices, especially those with prior experience, do not always find the work sufficiently demanding, the report reads.

Employer provider Medivet received a grade three also, for its provision to 161 apprentices.

But leaders were found to have a good understanding of the skills required by the industry, and staff enable learners to cumulatively develop knowledge and skills.

Yet too many of them were making slow progress towards qualifying as registered veterinary nurses.

DART Limited and Straight A Training Limited both maintained their ‘good’ grades at a short inspection this week.

And East Surrey College, GTG Training, Welcome Skills, Pentland Assessment Centres and Urban Education and Training Group all made ‘reasonable progress’ in every area of a monitoring visit.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
East Surrey College	23/01/2020	06/02/2020	M	2
Greater Brighton Metropolitan College	23/01/2020	07/02/2020	M	3
Nottingham College	17/01/2020	07/02/2020	3	N/A
St Helens College	17/01/2020	07/02/2020	3	N/A

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Absolute HR Solutions Ltd	23/01/2020	06/02/2020	3	M
Agincare Group Limited	17/01/2020	06/02/2020	3	M
DART Limited	14/01/2020	03/02/2020	2	2
GTG Training Limited	22/01/2020	07/02/2020	M	3
Hoople Ltd	23/01/2020	04/02/2020	3	1
N A College Trust	16/01/2020	05/02/2020	2	N/A
Straight A Training Limited	23/01/2020	05/02/2020	2	2
The Apprenticeship College Ltd	10/01/2020	07/02/2020	2	M
Pentland Assessment Centres Ltd	09/01/2020	06/02/2020	M	N/A
Urban Education & Training Group Limited	15/01/2020	03/02/2020	M	N/A
Welcome Skills Limited	17/01/2020	05/02/2020	M	M

 

Sixth Form Colleges (inc 16-19 academies)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Callywith College	14/01/2020	07/02/2020	1	N/A
Peter Symonds College	17/01/2020	04/02/2020	1	1

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Medivet	10/01/2020	06/02/2020	3	M

 

A college has put £500,000 out to tender in an attempt to achieve funding targets before August – despite rules that ban subcontracting to meet “short-term funding objectives”.

One provider membership organisation said the case has set “alarm bells ringing”, but the Education and Skills Funding Agency has refused to say whether it will take action over what appears to be a clear breach of funding rules.

According to a tender published on the government’s contracts finder website last month, Croydon College is after subcontractors to deliver half of its total ESFA adult education budget funding for five months.

As soon as this tender appeared alarm bells were ringing

The contract, worth £475,000, will run from February 28 to July 31 with “no scope to carry forward any funding to 2020/21”. Bids must be submitted by February 10.

The college, which will charge a 20 per cent management fee, also does not specify what type of provision it is looking for the subcontractor to deliver. It says only that the “delivery target group” is adults who live in non-devolved funding areas of England and within a 50-mile radius of the college’s main site.

This, together with the short duration and last minute nature of the tender, suggests it is a tactical move to use up unspent moneys from the adult education budget.

Funding rules state that providers “must not subcontract for delivery to meet short-term funding objectives” and an ESFA spokesperson said they should have “clear curriculum plans for the delivery of their subcontracted provision”.

The college did not deny that it was embarking on tactical subcontracting, but blamed the move on “unintended consequences of devolution on access to education and training for our local community” (see full response below).

The Greater London Authority took control of the AEB for providers in the capital in August 2019.

Croydon College received £3,350,056 from the GLA to deliver the provision in its local area this academic year, but also received a direct ESFA contract worth £936,000 for delivery of the provision outside London.

The college claims to have used up all of its GLA funding for the AEB, and has even requested more of it for this academic year. It is the out-of-area funding that the college is struggling to use up.

However, the college, which has a history of “distance learning” through subcontracting, would have known about its ESFA allocation since around this time last year. It refused to comment on why the procurement was so last minute.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers boss Mark Dawe told FE Week that as “soon as this tender appeared alarm bells were ringing”.

He said it is “finally time” for the government to “reallocate the tens of millions of grant money directly to those who do the work”.

“Let’s stop avoiding the elephant in the room and from August 2020 fund all subcontractors directly and ensure that all the money reaches the learner rather than brokers and spurious management fees,” Dawe added.

It comes amid a fresh crackdown on subcontracting by the government.

A consultation on radical rule changes was launched this week. It states that “entering into subcontracting arrangements for financial gain” would not be acceptable.

ESFA chief executive Eileen Milner sent a sector-wide letter on October 3 which said: “I am asking that you review your current subcontracting activity and satisfy yourself that it is purposeful, appropriate, and provides added value to learners. We must be confident that you are managing and overseeing it in line with our requirements.”

It went on to warn: “I want to make it clear that where poor subcontracting practice is evident to us we will act decisively.”

The ESFA said Croydon College had responded to Milner’s letter to state that they were complying with the rules.

The Department for Education told FE Week that it will take action against providers who are not compliant with funding rules, but stopped short of commenting directly on Croydon College’s case.

A spokesperson said: “We expect any college making subcontracting decisions to be able to evidence that the subcontracting is primarily for the benefit of students.

“All providers should have clear curriculum plans for the delivery of their subcontracted provision and these should fit with their overall curriculum strategy – we would expect to see this feature in their declarations to us. If there is a significant deviation from their declaration we would explore the reasons for that with the college.”

 

Croydon College’s response in full

“In January 2020 Croydon College commenced a procurement exercise for delivery of up to £475,000 of activity to learners who are not resident in any of the devolved areas of adult education budget funding within a 50-mile radius of the college.

The devolution of the AEB from 1 August 2019 used geographical delivery from the 2017/18 academic year as a basis for funding allocations. In the 2017/18 academic year, prior to the arrival of the new executive team at Croydon College, approximately 25 per cent of the AEB to the college was subcontracted.

In the 2018/19 academic year under the new leadership a key priority for the college was educating and training our community in Croydon where there is clear levels of demand and need. We were very successful in delivering this priority with an extra c£600,000 of education and training provided to our local community in Croydon. It is greatly disappointing to us that this change in delivery pattern has not been recognised in our 2019/20 GLA allocation, as the methodology for deciding the level of devolved allocation to the College was based on the 2017/18 academic year.

The college has written to the ESFA, the GLA, Croydon Council and its MP about the unintended consequences of devolution on access to education and training for our local community. In order to try and deliver the volume of education and training that we were able to for our local, close community the college has applied for and will hear at the end of February whether it has been successful in its bid for increased GLA funding for 2019/20 (maximum 10 per cent).

The college has commenced its own provision of distance learning and short courses during 2019/20 in order to deliver its non-GLA grant and is working hard to develop our capacity in nearby areas of Surrey, Sussex and Kent alongside high quality partners. This will be used to support our apprenticeship delivery. The college expects to be in a position meet the full level of our non-devolved GLA funding directly in future years once it has built its own capacity.”

Skills advisory panels have been handed another £2.7 million to identify local skills gaps and tackle them, education secretary Gavin Williamson has announced.

The 36 panels (SAPs) will receive £75,000 each and use the money to produce action plans and reports, highlighting how they have supported local providers and employers to address local skills priorities.

They will also provide evidence to support Williamson’s Skills and Productivity Board, an expert panel led by an industry leader which is set to be established later this year.

The new cash comes after FE Week reported in January the Department for Education was working on secondary legislation, an FE Bill, which could include a bigger role for SAPs in influencing which courses will be prioritised and funded in their area.

It could mean colleges and providers lose their deciding power over which courses are run, with SAPs providing advising national and local government on the sectors to prioritise in their region.

Announcing the funding today, Williamson said: “SAPs will play a key role in our drive to make sure every community can access the skills they need.

“That’s why we are providing an additional £75,000 so each SAP can go further in identifying local skills gaps, take action to address them as well as providing evidence to support the Skills and Productivity Board when it is established later this year.”

SAPs – groups of 15 to 20 made up of employers, providers and local authorities based in each mayoral authority and local enterprise partnership – were initially handed £75,000 each last year to undertake labour market analysis.

The money, £2.7 million in total, had to be spent by next month on hiring additional analysts, training existing ones and undertaking more analysis to establish employers’ needs – most mayoral combined authorities FE Week spoke to in January had done this.

The Department for Education told FE Week the new grants would be funded from the Skills Advisory Panels Programme budget, and would be for the April 2020 to March 2021 financial year.

The prospect of an enhanced role for SAPs was welcomed by the LEP Network last month, with a spokesperson saying connecting them to apprenticeships is “smart thinking and a natural development of exploiting labour market insight to help focus on areas of employer need – and that can only be a benefit to local communities”.

The news of this latest funding boost marks an upturn in SAPs fortunes, which were heralded in the Conservative Party’s 2017 manifesto and featured in the government’s ensuing Industrial Strategy, but absent from the party’s manifesto for last year’s election.

Days after Ofsted criticised the government for locking young people out of the apprenticeship system, education secretary Gavin Williamson has offered his “reassurance”.

“I’m determined to make sure the apprenticeship system works for the people that can benefit the most”, he said.

Williamson made the comments whilst writing in FE Week’s National Apprenticeship Week 2020 supplement.

Concerns about graduate recruitment schemes being rebadged as  apprenticeships, falling starts for young people, a lack of level 2 standards and the levy budget running out have been building for more than a year.

In December 2018 the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education projected that the shortfall in the budget for England could rise to £1.5 billion during 2021/22.

The National Audit Office further sounded the alarm over the financial sustainability of the programme in March 2019 after it found the average cost of training an apprentice hit double what the government predicted.

And writing about apprenticeships in FE Week on Wednesday, Ofsted’s deputy director, Paul Joyce, said: “There is a real danger that young people aiming to step on to the career ladder are discovering that the vital bottom rungs simply do not exist.”

Numerous questions have also been tabled in Parliament from concerned MPs, including chair of the education select committee, Robert Halfon.

Boris Johnson said it was “absolutely right” to follow the advice of Halfon and “reform the apprenticeship levy” at prime minister’s questions last month.

He confirmed the education secretary would be updating the House of Commons “in due course” about the proposals.

In his article for FE Week, Williamson said: “I’m aware that many of you have raised questions or concerns about funding for apprenticeships as well as the future direction of the apprenticeships programme. I want to reassure you that I am looking at all of this very carefully.

“I’m determined to make sure the system works for the people that can benefit the most from the life-changing impact apprenticeships can have, and that it works better for employers and providers too.”

He added that “improvements” are in progress – including moving
smaller employers “on to our award-winning digital apprenticeship service, so they can choose the training provider that works for them”.

Williamson also addressed other areas of concern regarding the quality of apprenticeship provision.

He said: “We’ve put in place new tougher rules for providers and employers applying to get on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers, and they now have to meet strict criteria to become registered training providers.

“Strengthened oversight and tighter monitoring also means we can take swift and decisive action against poor performance by providers, or attempts by them to break, or manipulate the rules.”

The education secretary added that he had commissioned the website Mumsnet to survey over 1,000 parents about their attitudes towards apprenticeships due to the persistence of “lingering stereotypes”.

Three in five parents who responded said they were concerned their child would be “stuck doing more menial tasks, such as making the tea” in an apprenticeship.

The research also found around 45 per cent were unaware that apprenticeships go up to degree level, while a third of parents said they still associated them with manual jobs.

Williamson said he knew that everyone in the sector had been “working hard” to tackle such assumptions.

“We’ll be doing everything we can to change people’s perceptions over the coming years so that they recognise the work which goes into delivering apprenticeships and the opportunities they provide,” he added.