We at the IAPG seek to build an apprenticeship system that boosts both individual success and UK productivity, writes Neil Carmichael.
Ministers have rightly been focusing on the apprenticeship system in England over recent years as we face extraordinary change in the face of multiple challenges. These include: low productivity; skills shortages; changing skills needs; increased automation; demographic change; an ageing workforce, and the uncertainties of Brexit.
In the face of all the above, the Department for Education wants to transform apprenticeships to better meet employer skills needs, to create opportunities for apprentices to progress in their careers, and to draw apprentices from a wider range of social and demographic groups.
Additionally, employers are more engaged and there is more commitment and enthusiasm from a range of stakeholders. Yet despite all this, we know the apprenticeship system is experiencing its fair share of challenges. One of the key ones is the apprenticeship levy and whether it is adequately supporting the needs of all employers. This was the focus of the first roundtable discussion held by the Independent Apprenticeship Policy Group last month, which I chair.
This expert group has been brought together to provide a clear and independent overview of the problems facing the UK apprenticeship system and to generate practical solutions.
Bureaucracy can be a burden to small companies without access to an HR department
Members, who represent a wide array of interested parties that includes providers, employers and employer representative bodies, and professional and trade associations, focused on five key areas around how the levy is working: quality, affordability, SME engagement, the levels of training available and devolution.
What they found in the main was that the levy had had a positive impact on the quality of training but there are questions about how it can better support more flexible “forward-looking” quality training.
On the question of affordability, the group questioned whether apprenticeships received the necessary financial support from the levy and the accompanying funding system that sits behind it. Also, is the process used by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for allocating funds to non-levy payers fit for purpose?
We then turned to the ability of small employers to engage with, and benefit from, apprenticeships, and the bureaucracy that can prove to be a major burden to companies that are too small to have access to an HR department or support functions.
Another area discussed was “levels” of training available under the levy: while large employers may prefer to train existing staff at higher levels, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) may benefit more from support for newer and/or more junior team members. This led us to question whether the levy should distinguish between supporting higher and lower-level apprenticeships, and, if so, how.
Finally, we looked at how the different apprenticeships arrangements under devolution can raise significant hurdles for someone trying to build a UK-wide workforce development strategy.
The group will continue to hold a number of events in 2019 to bring together evidence and interview witnesses. We will look at the provider system, end-point assessment, stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and progression opportunities for apprentices. A full and final report with our findings and our practical recommendations for change will be published in time for Apprenticeship Week early in 2020.
We want to hear from the experts working within the system to help ministers understand how we can build on the huge efforts made by all involved to ensure the apprenticeship system works.
To join us in this dialogue to contribute to a successful and long-term vision for apprenticeships, visit our website or contact us on IAPG@pearson.com
Neil Carmichael, chair of the Independent Apprenticeship Group, an independent expert group sponsored by Pearson
The number of colleges led by a non-white principal has fallen to a low of 7 per cent, new FE Week analysis has revealed.
A number of initiatives to encourage and support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) leadership have stalled in recent years and now three of the nine regions in England have no ethnic minority principals at all.
When shown the figures, the Association of Colleges admitted “there are not enough BAME leaders in FE” and said it has set up an equality and diversity steering group in response.
A series of groups aimed at increasing the number of ethnic minority college bosses have ended in recent times, including the disbanding of the AoC’s BAME Principals’ Group in 2017, the failed attempt to revive the Network for Black and Asian Professionals in 2016, and in 2015 the closure of the Black Leadership Initiative, which was launched in 2002.
Ali Hadawi, principal at Central Bedfordshire College – one of just 13 non-white general FE college bosses of 185 identified in FE Week’s study – said he was “not surprised” by the numbers and called for a “programme that targets the under-represented to understand what holds them back”.
Ali Hadawi
He told FE Week he was “fortunate enough” to benefit from two targeted initiatives during his career which no longer exist and were facilitated by the now-defunct Black Leadership Initiative.
These included a shadowing experience offered by Ofsted for BAME FE staff in 2005 and another shadowing senior civil servants to understand how policy development works in FE.
Ofsted is currently developing a similar initiative among schools in London, but it won’t be piloted in colleges.
Hadawi says the sector has shown that it can overcome underrepresentation problems, considering the current number of female college leaders. Of the 185 general FE colleges in England, 52 per cent (97) are women.
“If we look at the work that was done to enable more women principals, then that worked,” Hadawi said.
“So we have a blueprint as a sector and as a country where that has worked very well. That could be extended [to aspiring BAME leaders].”
Data released by the Education & Training Foundation (ETF) last year revealed that 9.8 per cent of college principals or chief executives were from a BAME background.
The fall this year, to 7 per cent, is likely to have occurred partly because of college mergers.
Pat Carvalho, principal at Harrow College, is no longer listed as the top boss for her institution following its merger with Uxbridge College to become HCUC in 2017. Its chief executive is Laraine Smith.
And while Andy Forbes is still the principal at City and Islington College, he’s not classed as the college’s top leader following its merger with Capital City College Group where Roy O’Shaughnessy is the chief executive. More recently, Epping Forest College announced that its principal, Saboohi Famili, was leaving her role as a result of its merger with New City College, where Gerry McDonald is the boss.
The proportion of non-white college bosses does not reflect the country’s demographics. The BAME population stood at 13 per cent at the 2011 census.
“There are not enough BAME leaders in further education, it’s as simple as that,” said Kirsti Lord, AoC’s deputy chief executive. “And this issue goes beyond just leadership roles – there is often a real lack of diversity in governing bodies and the make-up of staffing structures.”
The association told FE Week that its BAME Principals Group was wound up as part of its restructure in years gone by, but its new equality and diversity steering group is aiming to tackle the issue.
It will “keep a focus on increasing diversity in colleges’ workforce and leadership throughout future policy change, recruitment and development initiatives to ensure that this remains at the heart of decision-making and that college leadership is seen as an aspirational, achievable career for all”.
After being shown FE Week’s analysis, Lynne Sedgmore, who led the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (now the ETF) between 2004 and 2008, said: “These figures are very disappointing. When I ran CEL we placed diversity at the heart of our vision and mission and worked tirelessly to increase the number of BAME leaders in the sector at every level. There were no BAME coaches so we paid for 12 to be trained and made available to existing and aspiring black leaders.
“And we also introduced targeted support on the fast-track programmes, which included part- or fully subsidised opportunities for BAME candidates.
“I look forward to the ETF being clear about its leadership commitment to urgently support and develop more BAME leaders along with the necessary financial investment.”
The ETF said it currently offers a number of free places on numerous courses and programmes to BAME staff designed to inspire middle managers to progress. These courses include the Chairs’ Leadership Programme, which usually costs £750; the Leading from the Middle programme, which costs £975; and the Preparing for CEO programme, at £3,750 until November, and £4,500 after that.
Mark Wright, head of leadership development at the ETF, said: “We are very conscious of the need and importance of ensuring that senior leadership in the sector better reflects the ethnicity of our society and of learners. We also recognise there is a long way to go, especially as only 10 per cent of the overall FE workforce is from a BAME background.
“We also offer a one-day leadership course ‘Beyond the Blind Spots’ aimed at senior decision-makers and designed to develop leaders to overcome unconscious bias and seed cultures that are more conducive to BAME leader progression. In addition, we have a BAME mentoring programme which seeks to raise the confidence and capacity of potential BAME leaders.”
Colleges aren’t alone when it comes to a lack of diversity in leadership. Government data shows that just 7 per cent of school headteachers are from an ethnic minority background, and an investigation by FE Week’s sister paper FE Week last year found only 3 per cent of the largest academy trusts are led by non-white leaders.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is vital that the teachers, leaders and governors of FE providers reflect the learners and communities that they serve.
“We provide grant funding to the ETF, which is continuing to develop support for the FE sector by running specific programmes designed to support greater diversity in leadership in the FE sector.”
A note on method
Since the DfE doesn’t publish data on the ethnicity of college principals, we’ve had a go ourselves. We’ve done this by examining photos plus names, and where we thought it necessary, contacting the person in question. We think we’ve managed to arrive at a good estimate but, as always, we are happy to be corrected regarding any errors.
Correction
The original version of this article stated there were 12 BAME principals out of 185 general FE colleges. We have since spotted that we had not counted Nav Chohan from Shipley College in Yorkshire. We updated this story on 15 July to reflect this.
A college with 200 vulnerable young learners has been warned by Ofsted its arrangements to keep students safe are “weak” and it’s not taking appropriate action to protect them from “acute risk of self-harm”.
The education watchdog carried out an unannounced monitoring inspection last month at Suffolk New College following safeguarding concerns that had been brought to its attention, including a “serious incident”.
The vulnerable leaners, who are all under the age of 19, include care leavers, children in the care of the local authority, learners on child protection plans and those designated as children in need. Ofsted said that of those learners in the care of the local authority, almost half are unaccompanied asylum seekers who do not have English as their first language.
Leaders, including the designated safeguarding lead, “do not have a good enough oversight or understanding of the actions staff take, or need to take, to secure the well-being of vulnerable learners”, inspectors said.
“They do not know how staff help vulnerable learners to remain in learning, feel safe at college and thrive.”
Suffolk New College, which was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in its last full inspection in October 2017, said it was “disappointed” with the monitoring report, including the way it was conducted, and “doesn’t feel it is a fair reflection of our care and commitment”.
The report states: “Following a serious incident, governors and senior leaders have been slow to respond and review their existing procedures. Leaders and managers were unable to identify to inspectors the changes they had made as a result of their own review of safeguarding procedures following this incident.
“They have not acted with sufficient urgency to strengthen the reporting of concerns or managers’ oversight of safeguarding arrangements for vulnerable learners. For example, they do not identify precisely or monitor carefully the well-being of learners known to be at high risk of self-harm.”
Ofsted also said that even when staff recognise and record key indicators of learners at risk of self-harm, they do not always take “suitable steps” to safeguard them.
Moreover, leaders and managers are unaware of this failure and have therefore not rectified it, and have yet to ensure that staff record meetings with vulnerable learners in adequate detail, including what action staff plan to take to help learners stay safe.
Ofsted also found that “too few vulnerable learners attend well”.
During the visit, leaders and managers said they plan to initiate training to help staff identify learners at risk of self-harm and to introduce a new system of monitoring learners’ well-being. However, they were unable to provide any supporting information at the time of the inspection, the watchdog said.
A Suffolk New College spokesperson said: “The visit took place over a couple of hours, and focussed on an extremely small number of student records. We do not consider that this gave sufficient time or scope to accurately review and reflect the work that the College does to safeguard vulnerable students. This has been raised with Ofsted.
“The view given by Ofsted about the levels of attendance of certain categories of vulnerable students is one which does not fully explain the approach that the college has.
“These students are often the most difficult to engage with due to the unpredictable nature of their lives. The college has taken the decision to provide support to these young people, and to try and keep them involved in education, to help provide opportunities for them in the future.
“This has often meant that personalised timetables and a more flexible approach to attendance have been used. This is enshrined in our Attendance Policy. This group also includes a significant proportion of unaccompanied minors, who by the nature of their circumstances are more transient.”
A huge 5 per cent staff pay rise costing over £2 million per year was a big win for the University and College Union in November, and for the time being, this settlement put an end to troublesome disputes at Capital City Colleges Group.
But a closer look by FE Week has found unplanned multi-million-pound budget deficits persist, resulting in a precarious financial position that has led to nearly 50 job cuts so far. The board has been warned that failure to address this will have “serious consequences”.
What’s the plan to turn things around at this London mega-college? FE Week chief reporter Billy Camden sat down with new chief executive Roy O’Shaughnessy to find out.
There is hardly a part of London that isn’t a short tube ride away from a Capital City College Group site. Its 13 centres employ nearly 1,500 staff and teach over 30,000 students who live across 26 boroughs.
But the complexities and costs of merging three individual colleges – City and Islington, Westminster Kingsway, and The College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London – have hit it hard.
The group is expecting, for the third year in a row, to record a significant deficit, despite early predictions from the leadership and board that they would achieve a healthy surplus.
New chief executive Roy O’Shaughnessy, who joined at the start of the academic year from national charity The Shaw Trust, has a number of radical solutions to overcome the situation – including a venture in Cuba. But firstly, he tells me how the group has ended up in a financial muddle.
“There were several things that we have to be upfront about,” he says. “There was a complete failure of our IT systems regarding marketing and enrolment, as an example” – an issue that has led to the group spending £2 million on computer equipment, infrastructure and network upgrades.
For 2017-18, when it recorded a deficit of over £6 million, he says “around £600,000 of sixth-form income was lost, the adult education budget stood still, and on 16-to-18 we got £2.9 million less income because we didn’t get those systems robust”.
He adds that there also wasn’t a “sophisticated ‘sense testing’ of budgets” during the years following CCCG’s merger.
The government gave the group a £200,000 transition grant, but merger costs in 2016-17 hit £1 million and then another £737,000 the following year.
“The mistake that was made, in my mind, was not saying ‘it’s actually going to cost an extra £5 million to do this, let’s be clear and upfront, let’s be very cautious on our budgets and where the savings are, and let’s make absolutely certain we always come out a little bit ahead each time’,” O’Shaughnessy admits.
The group has also under-delivered across a number of other income lines, particularly in apprenticeships, where its target income for 2017-18 was £8.4 million but it ended up making just £5.9 million.
“Sense testing” is now pivotal for O’Shaughnessy to ensure budget predictions are realistic and accurate from the get-go. If, in a particular area, “we think £16 million is safe in income”, for example, “we are discounting it by 5 per cent no matter how safe it is”, he tells me.
CCCG has a combined income of almost £112 million. It also has net assets of just over £300 million – the vast majority of which are its buildings – and long-term debt of £600,000.
A large operating deficit, currently estimated at £3.684 million, is expected for 2018-19, even though early predictions by the board showed a £750,000 surplus.
Of the deficit, O’Shaughnessy says £2.8 million is due to the generous 5 per cent pay award agreed with the University and College Union in November.
But it also doesn’t take into account the savings that will be made following a period of voluntary redundancy, which O’Shaughnessy says was agreed with the UCU at the time of the pay deal.
He tells me that 48 jobs were cut at the end of June, and has not ruled out more in the future.
The group is also struggling to use up its adult education budget, and faces a potential clawback of £1 million this year following a £690,000 clawback in 2017-18.
Despite CCCG’s repeated deficit position, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has continued to grade its finances as “outstanding”, according to minutes from a board meeting in April.
The same minutes state that failure to address the budget deficit going forward “would have serious consequences for the group’s financial viability, with a significant impact on learners, employers and staff”.
Considering this, does O’Shaughnessy regret the staff award?
“I’m absolutely convinced that if we didn’t do that we would be facing a whole raft of different challenges right now,” he says, adding that it was a “tactical move”.
“When you look at what we have got to do to maintain a good rating, the actual pay award pales into insignificance if we can get the productivity and the will to really work on this in a way that would be the FE of the future.”
O’Shaughnessy took the reins at the group in September following the retirement of Andy Wilson.
His remit is clear: instead of “salami slicing” CCCG’s budget year after year, “I’m here to come up with a long-term sustainable model” as “we’re not counting on government to bail us out”.
There is “no doubt” in his mind that the group needs, in certain parts, to operate “much more like a private provider” and generate non-government income.
In this space, CCCG has recently set up a “little organisation” called Visionnaires, where Pablo Lloyd, who was the first chief executive of Activate Enterprise – the apprenticeships arm of the Activate Learning Group – is the founder.
The idea behind the venture is that any FE student who has a “credible business idea and passes our selection process will receive the help required to plan, implement and found their business”.
“On certain projects 51 per cent of the ownership will be gifted to the college for a specified number of years but will reduce to 0 per cent by a specified date.”
O’Shaughnessy is also thinking of expanding the college group’s work overseas – with Cuba being one potential venture.
Earlier this year Cuba’s minister for higher education visited the UK and during his trip, he toured CCCG’s renowned Victoria Centre, which is known as one of Europe’s leading centres for teaching hospitality and the culinary arts and boasts celebrity alumni such as Jamie Oliver.
O’Shaughnessy followed this up with a visit to Cuba himself, at the request of the country’s government, during the May half term where he spent four days on the island to discuss a partnership.
He has now been asked by the Cuban government to write a proposal for how CCCG may support their plans for improving the quality of training for hospitality and tourism workers, as well as specialist training for chefs.
One possible outcome of this could be, for example, a teaching hotel and restaurant on the island that would employ Cubans, trained by CCCG to run and manage the initiative.
The college group asserts that any final plans would be would generate an income.
Colleges have been warned off overseas projects at various times following many failures. In January, for example, FE Week revealed that Highbury College called in lawyers to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt held up in Nigeria, after a technical education project in the country went wrong.
O’Shaughnessy says he is aware that international development is “fraught with dangers” but believes it is a “fruitful area” and stresses that any overseas work that CCCG embarks on will be done “very cautiously, only working where the contracts are guaranteed”.
On the other side of this, he says CCCG has “one of the best estate portfolios”, which he wants to use as “income generators, rather than selling off as a one-time assets”.
A new estates strategy is being developed, he says, and he picks out the group’s site on Regent’s Park as an example.
“It is the only undeveloped piece of property between King’s Cross and Westminster,” he explains. “It is a five-storey building. We know we can put 16 storeys there – we could put 22.”
The college site would retain the space for educational purposes, but the rest of the development would be “used for profit activity, from luxury flats to London living wage flats” as well as “branded restaurants”, which would create “an £80 million endowment if we maintain control over it”.
“Our vision is that anything we do as part of this, our students will be able to work there, they will be trained there, their apprenticeship programme could be linked with that,” he adds.
“We have properties in the middle of London that we should be maximising and that is part of the solution – it’s not just cost-cutting and trying to reduce in the classroom.”
The plans are certainly ambitious, but “if we can’t do this, then I don’t know who can”, O’Shaughnessy believes.
He says there are “no fixed plans for property sales at the moment”, but the group is looking to consolidate its 13 sites in consultation with staff and students as there is “no doubt that in our centres there is replication of services.
“I don’t have a plan to take 13 sites to 10 or something, but logically, when you look around the world of business, if you put together a group you must answer the question: are we doing this as efficiently as possible for the beneficiaries.”
Final plans are expected to be in place by January.
O’Shaughnessy is keen to stress that he doesn’t “want it to seem like we’ve got it all figured out, because we don’t”.
But, “what I can say is we are not taking the easy way out on this.
“We’re being realistic, underestimating income, overestimating expense until we get this model right, and we’re thinking ahead to what could go wrong, and at the same time saying we have got to develop our own funding streams going forward.
“Not only have we got the scale, we’ve got very good reputation, and if you take the buildings strategy, the Visionnaires, the private enterprise growth strategy, the future is bright.”
The chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation has warned that FE is on the brink of a “crisis” in leadership because of a historic lack of investment.
David Russell was speaking to FE Week in an interview marking five years in post at the body which provides professional development to the sector.
The former civil servant, who became ETF chief executive after a career in the Department for Education, said that in the 20 years he has worked both in the department and with them outside it, he has “never seen as good an understanding of the importance of the FE workforce as there is now”.
“The chance the ETF has now is to really shift from a series of effective tactical interventions in the sector, which is what we have been doing, into the strategic role we have the potential to play,” he added.
“But it feels we’re at the cusp, because that understanding and awareness has not yet converted into major strategic investment, but I think it can over the next few years, and that’s why ETF is still a really exciting place to be for me.”
The foundation, which is co-owned by the Association of Colleges and adult community education body HOLEX, is well-placed to offer strategic advice to officials on workplace development, having trained teachers, trainers, governors and leaders for the sector for years.
Understanding and awareness hasn’t yet converted into major strategic investment
Yet it is the training for the last of those that is concerning to Russell, who worries the sector is “not far off from a crisis of leadership”, which will hit once the current generation of leaders leave their posts, taking with them their experience at a time of “acute” challenges for FE organisations, and coming off the back of a lack of investment in leadership development.
“I think the pipelines through to senior leadership are quite broken. You don’t see the diversity of people coming through in terms of visible diversity.”
An FE Week investigation this week, which found only 12 English college leaders are from an ethnic minority, throws that lack of diversity into sharp relief.
Russell, who is a governor of adult learning provider Friends Centre and Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, believes rebuilding those pipelines will take “a lot of thinking and a lot of doing”.
Greater Brighton Met College
The ETF’s main duties include: awarding Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) as well as Advanced Teacher Status (ATS), designing Taking Teaching Further, Prevent training, running an annual workforce survey, and managing Centres for Excellence in SEND and maths.
Winning the contract for the latter was a coup for the foundation, Russell says, and shows how it has been diversifying their income, instead of pursuing self-sufficiency.
He says the “ideal place” for the ETF to be in is to have a “good mix” of grant funding from the DfE, which accounted for 86 per cent of its total £27 million income in 2017-18, combined with longer-term contract income that gives them “continuity of income”.
There is also the foundation’s other income, for example, from its teaching qualifications QTLS and ATS and its membership body, the Society for Education and Training, which was acquired in 2015 and has gone from around 9,000 members to 20,000.
“Having those three different types of income in a diversified model is a really important part of our future I think,” Russell said.
Taking on the responsibilities of leading the ETF was a “big jump” for Russell, after spending 16 years in the “mothership” at the DfE, where “you can just do and the system will have to respond”.
The pipelines through to senior leadership are quite broken
“Whereas with the ETF, everything we do is in partnership with other organisations around the sector; and even as a pretty senior civil servant, you’re not publicly accountable for much, but as a chief executive, you feel you are all the time.”
One advantage, Russell believes, is that decisions the ETF takes can be implemented in weeks, perhaps days, rather than the years and months the DfE takes.
It has not been plain sailing for the foundation, however: the Association of Employment and Learning Providers abandoned its stake in the ETF in March 2018, claiming it is “no longer an organisation run by the FE sector for the sector” and was instead an extension of the DfE.
Asked about this controversy, Russell described the relationship between the bodies as “cordial” and said he and his AELP counterpart, Mark Dawe, “regularly” meet up to share intelligence.
“We are here to serve and support all teachers and trainers in all types of FE institutions.
“Of course, we can do that in partnership with other bodies like AELP. That makes things easier, but in the end our commitment is to the workforce. It’s not to other individual organisations.”
Shakira Martin, Head of student experience, Rose Bruford College
Start date: July 2019
Previous job: President, National Union of Students
Interesting fact: When she was younger, she choreographed dances for church performances and school talent shows. She claims to have been twerking way before Miley Cyrus
Alison Shaw, Governor, Northumberland College
Start date: July 2019
Concurrent job: Professor of Practice, Newcastle University Business School
Interesting fact: Having agreed to help with Spanish interpretation to welcome a Uruguayan businessman to Blyth, she landed up actually selling him a ship
Jeff Hope, Governor, Northumberland College
Start date: July 2019
Concurrent job: Head of manufacturing unit, AkzoNobel Ashington
Interesting fact: He has worked as a navigator on marine exploration vessels and has surveyed most oceans/seas across the world
The group’s various parts are now expected to be taken on by North Kent College, East Kent Colleges Group and Capel Manor College (see below for full breakdown).
A spokesperson for the Hadlow Group said: “The Education Administrators (in respect to Hadlow College) and the West Kent and Ashford College board will now consider these recommendations.
“Staff have been informed of the recommendations and will be made aware of relevant decisions as soon as possible and, where appropriate, will be kept informed over the summer.”
He added that the colleges will undertake a “series of staff update sessions” around the campuses/sites next week where “staff can raise any questions or issues of concern in relation to the recommendations and the next steps”.
“We expect to make a further statement once a decision has been reached regarding recommendations,” the spokesperson said.
Financial advisory firm BDO was appointed to oversee the potential sale or transfer of assets within the Hadlow Group – which includes Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College – to neighbouring colleges in May.
Investigations into financial irregularities are ongoing, including the role of the principal, deputy principal and two college chairs, all of whom have now departed in disgrace.
North Kent College is now expected to take over Hadlow College, including its Greenwich site and Princess Christian’s Farm, as well as West Kent College.
With sites in Dartford and Gravesend, North Kent College last received a full Ofsted inspection in 2014 when it was awarded a grade two, which it kept following a short inspection in 2017.
According to their accounts for last year, they employ 335 people with a total income of £25 million, £13.8 million in long-term loans and an ESFA financial health score of “good”.
East Kent College’s Group has been recommended to take on Hadlow’s Canterbury site, which deals with animal management, as well as Ashford College.
The EKC Group was created after East Kent and Canterbury College merged last year and it employs more than 1,000 people and has a turnover of around £55 million.
East Kent College had been awarded an Ofsted grade two in 2017 prior to the merger. Canterbury College was also awarded an Ofsted grade two but had been given an FE Commissioner notice of concern for financial health in March 2016, coming after three consecutive grade threes. They have campuses in Broadstairs, Canterbury, Folkestone, Dover and Sheppy.
Capel Manor College has been recommended to take on Hadlow Group’s Mottingham site, which also deals with animal management.
Capel Manor College is a land-based college primarily based on a large site in Enfield, but also runs courses at Crystal Palace Park, Gunnersbury Park, Brooks Farm in Leyton and Regent’s Park.
The college last received a full Ofsted inspection in 2013 when it was awarded a grade two, which it kept following a short inspection in 2016.
Accounts for last year report an ESFA financial health score of “outstanding”, with 261 employees and a total income of £13.5 million.
Apprenticeship starts for 16- to 18-year-olds have continued to fall, and level 2 starts have dropped by more than 50 per cent since the apprenticeship reforms were introduced, according to the latest government statistics.
Skills minister Anne Milton said she was “pleased” that starts overall have risen by seven per cent between the first three-quarters of 2017-18, and the same period in 2018-19.
However, that rise is thanks to 82 per cent more people aged 25 and over doing higher-level apprenticeships at levels 4 and above, according to FE Week analysis.
Meanwhile, starts at level 2 have plummeted by 51 per cent and starts by 16- to 18-year-olds have dropped by 23 per cent since the year before the apprenticeship reforms were introduced in May 2017.
In that time, starts by those aged 25 and above at levels 4 upwards increased by 69 per cent.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Mark Dawe said in response to the findings that the government’s social mobility agenda is “unravelling before our eyes”.
“Non-levy employers are now being starved of funding and it’s smaller businesses who have traditionally employed young apprentices at lower levels,” he continued.
Dawe said the £5 billion legacy fund the prime minister had negotiated with the Treasury, as reported in The Times on Monday, should be used to “put this right” immediately, rather than it waiting until this year’s spending review.
The figures come amid a Department for Education-commissioned investigation into why level 2 starts have dropped.
Problems with people starting higher-level apprenticeships have dogged the apprenticeship system since the introduction of the levy.
The increased per-start costs of higher apprenticeships, such as the controversial level 6 chartered manager programme, led the Institute for Apprenticeships to warn in December that the apprenticeship budget could be overspent by £0.5 billion this year, rising to £1.5 billion during 2021-22.
An FE Week investigation in March revealed that £70 million of apprenticeship funding would have been blown by then on the level 7 accountancy/taxation professional standard from when it was approved to July 2018.
Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, in her 2018 annual report, warned the budget was being spent on graduate schemes “rebadged” as apprenticeships.
Then in March, the National Audit Office piled in, warning the DfE employers are developing and choosing more expensive apprenticeship standards at higher levels than was expected, which is “absorbing” funding.
It found that the average cost of training an apprentice hit £9,000 – double what the government predicted.
During her speech at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference last month, Anne Milton said the most palatable option for constraining the apprenticeship budget was a pre-apprenticeship salary cap.
Constraining spending is one of the “hard choices” that would have to be made in the face of the imminent overspend, her department’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, told the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
The AELP has called for level 6 and 7 apprenticeships to be frozen out of levy funding to relieve pressure on the budget, after it estimated at least £573 million had been committed to programmes at that level since August 2016.
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are looking carefully at what the priorities for the apprenticeship programme should be in the future in the run-up to the spending review.”
The principal of a college engulfed in quality and financial concerns racked up a £5,000 phone and data bill in four years, figures obtained by The Portsmouth News reveal.
The expenditure by Stella Mbubaegbu at Highbury College, which one union has said sends a “damaging message” to staff, comes as FE Week continues to battle the college for its spending on first class flights.
A Freedom of Information request for this material, as well as all spending on the college’s corporate card, was submitted by this publication in October but has been refused so far.
Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money
Leaders claim the request is “vexatious” and “manifestly unjustified”, but the Information Commissioner’s Office is pressing the college to release the figures which are of public interest.
From a previous FOI, FE Week found that Mbubaegbu used college cash to pay for a first-class return flight from London to Dallas at a cost of £4,132.
The data obtained by The News only lists two flights: one from London to Texas in June 2014 costing £2,860, and another for two people in October 2017 costing a combined total of £1,050 taking them to Saudi Arabia – with a note stating the flight was an “upgrade”.
The total bill on Mbubaegbu’s phone and iPad has been built up since 2014 on trips to Saudia Arabia – where the college runs Jeddah College – and Nigeria, where the college’s lawyers are trying to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt, as revealed by FE Week in January.
Other calls and expense claims were made to Abu Dhabi, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.
A Highbury spokesperson said the international work earned the college more than £1 million in 2017/18 alone.
The college, which crashed two grades from ‘outstanding’ last year, axed its A-level provision earlier this month due to financial pressures, which put 13 jobs at risk.
Its accounts for 2017/18 show a £2.48 million deficit, and board minutes from March 2019 state that the college’s last pay award to staff was “in January 2013″.
University and College Union regional official, Moray McAuley, said: “Holding down staff pay while racking up thousands of pounds worth of expenses on international ventures sends a damaging message that it’s one rule for staff and another for the principal.
“The college should ensure that staff are its top priority when it comes to spending in the future.”
The FOI data shows how a three-second phone call on September 18 last year in Saudi Arabia cost the college £34.
A £512 bill was clocked up in a single day on calls and data on in America.
Claims for taxi fares were also racked up in New Orleans and Orlando in America, Sao Paulo Brazil, Hong Kong, Stuttgart, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, dating back to 2014.
A Highbury College spokesperson said: “Over the last decade, the further education sector has received a real-term cut in income from government funded training of more than 30 per cent.
“To counteract this reduction in funding and safeguard the excellent services and teaching that students can access, colleges have been encouraged by the government to seek out new markets and business opportunities, both in the UK and internationally.”
The spokesperson added: “Highbury College’s international work has been successful in achieving that goal, earning more than £1 million from such activities in 2017/18 alone. The income has supported the local student experience here in Portsmouth and effectively subsidised the underfunding from the government.
“It is inevitable that costs will be incurred to develop new business by staff at the college, but these costs are closely monitored and Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money.”
Highbury College has been subject to widespread media attention following its decision to block FE Week’s website after we revealed its debt in Nigeria at the beginning of the year.
The college’s attempt to suppress the report from its staff led to the story being published to a wider audience, following articles by the Press Gazette, Private Eye, and Portsmouth’s The News.
It also attracted heavy criticism from top sector officials, including skills minister Anne Milton and Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman.
