Ex-principal paid £80k for gardening leave amid staff redundancy push

A former Sussex principal is being paid around £80,000 not to work over a five-month period even though the college is in a financial mess and cutting down on staff.

The University and College Union is appalled, branding the situation “unacceptable”.

Mike Hopkins left the top spot at Sussex Downs College in March, placed on gardening leave following its merger with Sussex Coast College Hastings.

He’ll receive his salary – which amounts to more than £200,000 a year – until his contract ends at the end of the academic year.

He will also get a payoff of an unknown amount when he officially leaves, as revealed via a Freedom of Information request.

“Cutting jobs and telling staff that there is no money for pay rises while colleges sign off golden goodbyes or hand out huge pay-hikes for some principals is simply unacceptable,” said a furious UCU spokesperson.

UCU will now be entering pay negotiations with the college in two weeks’ time, “expecting a decent response” to its national pay claim for a five per cent pay rise for staff or £1,500, whichever is greater.

Sussex Downs is expecting to post a £1.9 million deficit this year, and will make an unknown number of staff redundant in an effort to make savings.

FE Week revealed in February that it was one of 12 colleges to receive a secret government bailout at the tail end of 2017 – given £700,000 to survive.

A letter from Mr Hopkins to staff in March stated that to make savings, the new East Sussex College Group would be undergoing a restructure by reducing staff in areas where there was now a duplication of roles.

“East Sussex College Group is required to meet pay costs as a per cent of income of 64 per cent,” he wrote.

“Our initial modelling indicates that pay savings to achieve a sustainable business model in line with the transaction unit expectations are some £1.7 million, to be completed by July 2018. This process has already begun with several voluntary redundancies.”

In “simple terms”, he said there are “two broad categories of savings – firstly, merger savings that result from duplicated posts, and secondly, savings to get each legacy sovereign establishment to the required 64 per cent pay cost ratio”.

As Sussex Coast College was already at the required pay-to-cost ratio, the majority of savings were to fall onto Sussex Downs College, he wrote, which was operating at 73 per cent.

East Sussex College Group would not comment on Mr Hopkins’ pay.

Group spokesman Dan Shelley said the merger “will protect the future of FE in East Sussex”.

“The East Sussex College Group will focus on improving standards and the quality of teaching to ensure the best outcomes for its students,” he said. “By doing this the two colleges will be stronger together.

“We are currently working through a restructuring exercise and are committed to completing this sensitively and internally with our colleagues and unions. However, as a group, we should reiterate that we do not make any comments on the individual pay or conditions of any of our staff.”

Ofsted should renege on its merger deal

“Big isn’t always beautiful” is something of an understatement coming from Ofsted in the context of FE providers.

The biggest private training provider, Learndirect, was awarded a grade four last year and in recent weeks the biggest college group, NCG, slumped to a grade three.

Despite this, the average size of colleges, far from shrinking from funding cuts, grows as under the area review programme the government flipped from resisting to encouraging mergers.

In London for example, several mega-colleges have emerged following multiple mergers, including United Colleges Group, Capital City Colleges Group and London South East Colleges.

College growth through acquisition continues around the country, often cited as a solution to the perilous state of finances and in the belief that just one more government bailout will be needed.

So you would think that Ofsted would show a particularly keen interest on what impact mergers are having on the quality of provision, on behalf of both the tax payer and FE learners.

Far from it.

In fact, as part of the area review process that ended last March they did a deal with the government, to suspend routine inspections of colleges for at least three years following a merger.

The argument for doing so was that it would give the stronger college time to turn-around the weaker college before being judged.

And it would have no doubt been a very attractive deal for colleges that could use the merger to keep Ofsted away, and convenient for Ofsted given fewer inspections mean less pressure on their shrinking budget.

But this inspection delay due to new ownership is exactly the sort of practice that the National Audit Office criticised Ofsted for over the Learndirect saga.

Due for an Ofsted inspection and want to delay it for three years? No problem, just find a merger partner.

So with Ofsted criticism of NCG fresh in our minds, now is the time for Ofsted to do their job end this deal.

In my recent interview about college mergers with Paul Joyce, the Director of FE at Ofsted, I pressed him on his “big isn’t always beautiful” response.

Surely a significant part of Ofsted’s rapidly growing research programme should already be working out how best to inspect merged colleges?

Shouldn’t inspectors be spending more rather than less time in mega-colleges?

I am sure the National Audit Office would agree with me that Ofsted should be a brake, not an accelerator, when it comes to the risk of creating colleges that are too big to fail.

AoC criticises new public sector register of providers

A second register for apprenticeship training providers is being created for the public sector, and the Association of Colleges is furious that its members must pay to reap the benefits.

The apprenticeship dynamic purchasing system has been launched by ESPO, which describes itself as a public sector-owned “professional buying organisation”.

Providers must register before they can bid for apprenticeship training contracts with public sector employers across the UK.

These include local authorities, educational establishments including academies, central government departments and agencies, the police, fire and rescue and coastguard emergency services, and the NHS.

Colleges and independent learning providers will pay ESPO a “rebate” if they win a contract, expecting to earn it at least £500,000 from public skills contract funding.

Teresa Frith, the AoC’s senior policy manager, is not happy about the arrangement. She has “raised this issue with the Education and Skills Funding Agency and Department for Education and we know that they have taken the issue seriously and investigated”.

It is unfortunate that procurement appears to be the first stop to seek partnerships in delivery where substantial amounts of funding are involved

“It is unfortunate that procurement appears to be the first stop to seek partnerships in delivery where substantial amounts of funding are involved,” she added. “Apprenticeships are not widgets to be bought off the shelf of the cheapest bidder.”

The dynamic purchasing system will launch on July 11. It will last for at least two years, but can be extended for a further eight. Up to £100 million will be available.

Providers which win contracts will on average pay ESPO 0.5 per cent of the value, through payments referred to as “rebates”.

An ESPO spokesperson claimed providers would ultimately save money with its service.

She said its “streamlined and standardised procurement system shoulders the administrative burden” on public sector training, meaning providers “don’t have to spend significant sums on multiple procurement processes which would increase their costs”. 

“We expect the rebate paid by suppliers to come out of their budgeted business costs, which includes other core overheads such as office costs and insurance.”

However, AELP boss Mark Dawe is not best pleased.

“We don’t like charges like this arrangement and we don’t like multiple registers but DfE and ESFA have told us these are acceptable so we have no option but to tolerate them,” he said.

The ESFA’s main register of providers eligible to deliver public and private sector apprenticeships launched in March 2017.

This newer register is seen by some as only the latest example of brokerage, which hives off a proportion of public sector apprenticeships funding.

FE Week reported in March that candidates to train civil service apprentices were told to register with the Crown Commercial Service, and a group of 16 were chosen.

The winners were given access to at least £360 million, generated through the public sector’s own apprenticeship levy payments, of which CCS retains a one-per-cent “management fee”.

The NHS has also attempted to charge providers around one per cent of the value of their contracts, in another brokerage scheme.

Nottingham city council was exposed along similar lines last summer.

The government changed its rules in 2017 to state that “funds in an employer’s digital account or government-employer co-investment must not be used for specific services not related to the delivery and administration of the apprenticeship”.

FE Week’s understanding is that such charges are permitted if they aren’t included in the negotiated levy price, though brokerage fees nevertheless remain a controversial topic throughout the FE sector.

Movers and Shakers: Edition 250

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

Dr Liz Lee, Head of college, Richard Taunton Sixth-Form College

Start date September 2018

Previous job Deputy principal, Richard Taunton SFC

Interesting fact Liz, who has a PhD, used to be a midwife.

Bev Jessop, Principal and chief executive, Queen Alexandra College

Start date June 2018

Previous job Vice-principal, Queen Alexandra College

Interesting fact Bev trained as a scenic artist in the 80s and painted scenery in theatres teaching IT.

Dr Fazal Dad, Principal and chief executive, Blackburn College

Start date January 2019

Previous job Deputy principal, Walsall College

Interesting fact Fazal is a product of FE: as well as 23 years’ experience working in sector, he trained as an electrical engineer at Stourbridge College in the 1980s.

Alex Fau-Goodwin, Assistant principal, Trafford College

Start date August 2018

Previous job Principal, Bolton Sixth-Form College

Interesting fact Alex swapping the blackboard for the black runs at skiing resorts in Europe.

Emma Goodlet, Assistant principal, Trafford College

Start date August 2018

Previous job Head of curriculum, Salford City College

Interesting fact Emma starred in the first series of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway performing a Royal Navy gymnastics routine.

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

An eighth UTC gets the bottom Ofsted grade

Yet another university technical college has been rated ‘inadequate’, the eighth to receive Ofsted’s most dubious honour.

Derby Manufacturing UTC has been placed in special measures after getting a grade four across the board – the school equivalent of FE commissioner intervention.

“It is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school,” the report said.

Leaders and governors failed to ensure that “the quality of teaching is consistently of a high-enough standard”, while their “evaluation of the effectiveness of the school’s provision” was “over-generous”.

“The inaccuracy of their view of the quality of the school’s provision has prevented leaders and governors from taking appropriate action to secure the required improvements,” it said.

Safeguarding at the UTC is “not effective” and the leaders responsible do not get “sufficient time or resources to fulfil their role effectively”.

“A minority of parents who expressed a view said that their child does not feel safe at the school,” the report said.

Leadership at the school’s sixth-form “has not ensured that students receive teaching that is of a high-enough quality to enable them to make the progress that they should”.

Pupils’ progress in academic subjects in 2017 was “well below average”, and “just under half” left at the end of year 12 “to pursue their studies elsewhere” that year.

Independent careers advice has until recently been lacking, and “not all students know about the full range of education, training and employment opportunities available to them when they leave the sixth form”.

Graham Schuhmacher, chair of the board of governors at Derby Manufacturing UTC, said it “fully accepts” the report’s findings, and that the school’s leadership “have already taken significant steps to deal with the issues that were highlighted with support and guidance from a range of external agencies including the Department for Education.”

“The board of governors, UTC leadership and staff are determined to make the changes required to ensure our students remain safe and that the safeguarding procedures and documentation are embedded and applied consistently across the college.”

Ofsted’s verdict means that almost a quarter of the 33 UTCs inspected so far have received Ofsted’s bottom grade.

Sixty-one per cent of all UTCs inspected have been rated less than ‘good’.

Six, all grade three or four, have since closed.

Of the remaining 27 that are still open, 14 are rated either ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.

Most UTCs have struggled since they were established in 2010, mainly because they’ve not been able to attract enough pupils to stay financially viable. Eight have so far closed.

An investigation in January by FE Week revealed that almost every UTC missed its recruitment targets last year, leaving them with combined debts of over £11 million.

These included Derby Manufacturing UTC, which owed over £600,000 after it under-recruited by 132 pupils in 2016/17. Thirty-five of these were in its sixth form, more than a third of its predicted learner numbers.

 

Damian Hinds defends T-levels timetable to Education Committee

The education secretary has defended his decision not to delay the first T-levels, insisting the new qualifications are being introduced at a “good pace”.

Damian Hinds appeared before the education select committee just two days after his top civil servant told the Public Accounts Committee that he still has contingency planning concerns regarding the tight timetable.

“We’re doing things at a good pace,” Mr Hinds told MPs this morning.

“We’re doing the first teaching of the first three subjects in 54 colleges – this is relatively small-scale beginnings – and this is just over two years away, and we will have a gradual programme of bringing in this entire reform.”

Mr Hinds was responding to a question from James Frith, the Labour MP for Bury North, who raised concerns that T-levels would repeat mistakes from similar reforms from the past.

“I worry that your permanent secretary saw that and advised against it, and you’ve overruled him. That willing it to happen will make it so,” Mr Frith said, referring to the moment Mr Hinds denied Jonathan Slater’s request to delay the project for another year.

“No it’s not just the case of willing it to happen,” Mr Hinds insisted.

On Monday, Mr Slater, the Department for Education’s chief civil servant, told the PAC that the 2020 timetable would work “so long as each element of the plan goes ahead without any hiccups”.

Given the scale of the challenge, he had wanted to “buy ourselves some more time to allow for the possibility that it wouldn’t all go according to plan”.

As previously reported by FE Week, Mr Slater’s request was overruled by his boss in May, in the first ever ministerial direction – when a minister overrules the head of a government department – to have come from an education secretary.

Mr Frith asked Mr Hinds for some “practical evidence” that the tight turnaround would work, such as addressing some of the “practical concerns in the sector” around the availability of work placements, particularly in rural or coastal areas.

The education secretary said that the work placement pilots, currently underway at 21 providers, are intended to “make sure that it is possible to build up the availability to address some of these issues”.

He has spoken to some of the 54 providers which will be teaching the first three T-levels about how “they’re currently thinking about the industry placement”.

“There are some companies thinking about if you’ve got apprentices four days a week and they do their day a week in college, then you could do the reverse sometimes for T-level students,” he said.

Other options included smaller companies looking at how they can “club together to make those opportunities”, and combined authorities looking at “how they can convene sectors together”.

“Look, we just have to have the will, you have to have the drive to make this happen. Because if we’re going to have world-class technical and vocational education and training it has to include an industrial placement,” he said.

Spotlight on 16-year-olds as NEETs rise and level 2 apprenticeships fall

A sharp fall in the number of 16-year-olds taking up level two apprenticeships is being blamed for a startling rise in people of that age who are not in education, employment or training.

Provisional ‘participation’ figures for the year ending 2017 released by the Department for Education this morning show that the proportion of 16-year-olds that are NEET has risen (0.7 percentage points to 3.9 per cent) for the first time since the end of 2011.

It is also the first increase in this group since the government’s Raising of the Participation Age policy came into force – which means that all young people must continue in education or training to 17 from 2013 and to 18 from 2015.

The rise would appear to be directly related to the number of 16-year-olds participating in level two apprenticeships.

There were two per cent fewer 16-year-olds overall in England, but the fall in apprenticeship participation was far greater at nearly 12 per cent, from 23,700 to 20,900, of which it was an 18 per cent fall at level two (from 18,100 to 14,900).

In terms of the age 16 NEET cohort, this rose a massive 20 percent, from 19,500 to 23,400.

When FE Week showed the dramatic fall in 16-year-old apprenticeships and rise in NEETs to the AELP, its chief executive Mark Dawe said: “Once again we predicted this would happen when the government announced that we would move to the same funding rate for all ages.

“We also said that that £1,000 employer incentive for 16-18 year olds across the length of an entire programme would be insufficient for many sectors.

“The minister acknowledged at the AELP conference on Monday that Brexit has to be a consideration in the government’s thinking and sectors like care, hospitality and retail are going to be badly affected unless the entire funding system for 16- to- 24-year-old apprentices is reviewed immediately.

“The lack of action also totally undermines the government’s claims to be serious about social mobility.”

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said the news was “disappointing”.

“It is disappointing to see a rise in the proportion of 16-year-old NEETs. Our research shows that young people spending a longer time NEET account for a higher proportion of the NEET figures, with particularly shocking outcomes for groups such as care leavers. We need action to make sure these figures are a one-off and not the beginning of a trend.”

He added that the fall in apprenticeship take up among 16-year-olds is “also troubling given that far fewer young people in the UK are undertaking an apprenticeship than in other countries.

“We must do better if we are to ensure that today’s young people have a strong foundation of skills and experience on which to build rewarding careers.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “Today’s data shows that the proportion of 16-17 year olds in education and apprenticeships has remained relatively stable and is now at the highest level since consistent records began.

“We have put in place a comprehensive programme of reforms, both pre- and post-16, to improve the quality of young people’s education and support them to participate.”

How to get SET for teaching success

Do you have a passion for Science, Technology and Engineering, as well as a desire to get into teaching?

If so, emfec, part of the Skills and Education Group and Blackburn College are delivering a special national Education and Training Foundation (ETF) programme that could be a great opportunity for you!

The SET for Teaching Success programme has been specifically designed to kickstart teaching careers – in Science, Technology and Engineering subjects.

Teaching as a profession can be a rewarding, exciting career choice that can be hugely beneficial to the teacher as well as to learners themselves. Science, Technology and Engineering subjects in particular have extra appeal as they have an ever increasing effect on the world around us. The 21st century has in fact seen scientific and technological innovations become more important, as we face the benefits and challenges of both globalisation and a knowledge-based economy.


What is the SET programme?

The fully funded programme, SET for Teaching Success, has been specially set up to pay for teaching qualifications for those new to teaching roles, graduates as well as employees with relevant industry experience and newly recruited staff in SET areas.

Delivered nationally by the Skills and Education Group and Blackburn College, the course will fund:

  • Teacher training course fees, achieving a minimum of a Diploma in Teaching (Level 5). These can be used to fund training for existing staff or new posts in SET subject areas

  • A £5,000 grant per trainee to contribute towards costs incurred by the provider for supporting the trainees

  • Continuing professional development for the candidates and their mentors, including technical skills knowledge
  • High quality industry placements to ensure and maintain current technical knowledge and skills in SET

  • Residential and peer support network.


How can I find out more?

If you are interested in benefiting from this fantastic and rewarding opportunity, please contact Jonathan Poxon, Head of Projects on 07805 568 448 or at jonathanp@emfec.co.uk . You can also find out more about the SET programme by visiting set.emfec.co.uk  

 

Bids reopen for £13m strategic college improvement fund

Colleges can bid for the remaining £13 million from the strategic college improvement fund using newly released guidance.

The first round of the fund was launched last year, when 14 struggling colleges shared £2 million.

Today’s announcement invites struggling colleges, supported by a stronger institution, to ask for money to help them improve in specific areas.

The fund will “enable colleges to access resources that they need to improve their provision for students, including the best practice of other colleges, while at the same time mobilising and strengthening improvement in the FE sector”.

It’s a two-stage process, and applications for stage one are due by July 27.

To be eligible, FE and sixth-form colleges must be rated grade three or four either for overall effectiveness or in any of a number of headline fields, including outcomes for learners, and leadership and management, in their most recent Ofsted inspection report.

A recently merged college will be eligible to apply if at least one of the pre-merger institutions meets this criteria.

The area of improvement must have been identified during a recent Ofsted visit, a diagnostic assessment carried out by the FE commissioner, or another commissioner intervention.

They must have a “suitable approach for addressing this need” and “have the capacity and capability to deliver the improvement activities that they’re proposing”.

The college will be expected to work with a stronger partner, which will use its expertise to bring about the changes, but they do not need to have identified a partner for stage one.

Partners could be – but do not have to be – a college headed up by one of the National Leaders of FE (NLFE).

These are a group of seven leaders from ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ colleges.

Colleges will be told by August 24 if they’ve made it through stage one.

Those that make it through to stage two will be given “support from sector experts” to develop their applications in more detail.

The deadline for stage two applications is September 21, with a final decision due by October 15.

The SCIF is one of a number of new initiatives intended to support colleges at risk of failing before they hit rock bottom.

Other measures include the NLFE programme and the FE commissioner’s diagnostic assessments which help struggling colleges identify areas where they need to improve.

The FE commissioner Richard Atkins told FE Week that his overall aim with these initiatives is to “try to avoid the catastrophe we’re seeing at the moment at one or two colleges” by supporting them at an earlier stage.

The skills minister said that the fund will “enable colleges to work together to improve standards across all colleges”.

“We want to improve the quality of education for everyone. It is vital that all further education and sixth form colleges are able to give people the skills and knowledge they need to get on in their life and succeed in the workplace,” said Anne Milton.

Mr Atkins said the fund “offers a great opportunity to harness the capacity within the sector”.

Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the Sixth-Form Colleges Association, said the fund “represents a real opportunity to benefit from a well-structured and well-resourced quality improvement programme”.

And David Corke, the Association of Colleges’ director of education and skills policy, has “long called for a peer improvement scheme for further education to match the one in schools” and is “encouraged by the opening up of the eligibility criteria to allow more colleges to apply”.