Second round of apprenticeship standard reviews launched

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has today launched a route review of standards in the creative and design industries.

It will look at 15 different apprenticeships across the sector, including bespoke tailor and cutter, watchmaker, bespoke saddle maker and broadcast production assistant (see full list below).

The review follows an announcement by the IfATE of a review into the hair and beauty route on Monday, which will look at just one standard – the level 2 hair professional.

The institute said both reviews are necessary in order to ensure high standards in the sectors and retain a good match between the skill set offered by the apprenticeship, the needs of the apprentice and the needs of employers.

Both reviews are beginning with an eight week public consultation, which will allow stakeholders including employers, providers and apprentices to offer their feedback on the standards.

Anna Osborne, the deputy director of approvals at the institute said of the creative and design sector review: “I would like to thank all of the creative and design employers and stakeholders who helped develop the broad variety of apprenticeships we have in place so far.

“The focus of the review will be to improve the quality of our apprenticeships and ensure they are fully up to date with apprenticeship requirements and the needs of both apprentices and employers. This will ensure they’re well placed to serve the creative and design sector for years to come.”

Iain Smith, co-chair of the institute’s creative and design route panel of sector experts, added that this is a “fantastic opportunity to help shape the future of apprenticeships in sectors where there are notable skills gaps”.

The first such route review was conducted by the IfATE last year into the digital sector, which published its recommendations in May. The outcome saw 12 standards become nine.

Among the wider recommendations was a trial of “gender-neutral” language – after research found “masculine” words in job adverts, such as “ambition”, “challenging” and “leader”, deter women from applying.

In early 2018 the institute came in for criticism for having failed to carry out any formal review of duplicate, narrow or low-skill standards since its launch.

It was urged to do so “at the earliest opportunity” by Lord Sainsbury in his report of the independent panel on technical education, published July 2016.

This week’s review announcements come nearly a month after another batch of results of the IfATE’s second funding band review.

It covers 30 standards and to date, 27 have had new funding bands signed off. The remaining three standards are expected to have their final funding bands revealed later this year.

The creative and design route consultation closes on 24 September, and the one for hair and beauty closes on 22 September.

 

The 15 standards in the creative and design route review:

 

Bespoke Tailor and Cutter

Watchmaker

Spectacle maker

Junior Journalist

Outside Broadcast Engineer

Live Event Rigger

Assistant Technical Director – visual effects

Junior 2D Artist – visual effects

Broadcast Production Assistant

Creative Venue Technician

Junior Content Producer

Bespoke Saddler

Organ builder

Live Event Technician

Publishing Assistant

The standard in the hair and beauty route review:

Level 2 Hair Professional

Ofsted finds ‘significant’ safeguarding concerns at specialist college

A specialist college that teaches students with autism and other complex needs has dropped two grades to ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted found “significant” safeguarding concerns.

Cambian Lufton College, based in south Somerset, received the lowest possible rating from the education watchdog today after previously receiving a grade two in July 2016.

Inspectors found that senior leaders’ actions to “maintain or improve” the quality of education have been “ineffective”, and they have not ensured that students are studying courses at the “correct level”.

Most concerning was that leaders and governors have been presiding over a culture of “ineffective” safeguarding, where they do not ensure all students “are kept safe”.

Staff have “comprehensively mismanaged” safeguarding records, according to Ofsted, and senior leaders “do not consistently respond to incidents appropriately and quickly” nor do they review incidents “thoroughly enough”.

Those caring for students with complex health needs, including epilepsy, “have not received appropriate training”, while senior leaders “do not ensure effective oversight of incidents of physical restraint”.

Senior leaders also do not review medication errors to ensure further incidents can be prevented. “When errors are made, there is a lack of follow-up discussion, training and monitoring of staff in order to minimise future risks to students,” Ofsted said.

A spokesperson for the college said it was “disappointed by the findings” as “this is not the standard that we expect”.

“We have a clear plan to address the areas where we have fallen short and return the college to its previous recognised high standards,” he added.

While safeguarding and senior leadership needs urgent improvement, Ofsted did praise Cambian Lufton College for ensuring its students make “good progress” in English, maths and information and communication technology.

Students also “enjoy their learning and the wide range of additional activities on offer to them” and they develop “useful skills to help them in their future lives, such as cooking and budgeting”.

The college currently teaches 88 students.

Wave of companies join apprenticeship register in first major update in nearly a year

A wave of organisations have been added to the refreshed register of apprenticeship training providers, while nearly 20 have been removed – in its first major update in almost 12 months.

Forty three additional providers have been allowed on by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, including 25 main providers, 14 supporting and four employers.

Nineteen providers, meanwhile, have been removed from the register, most of which were main providers.

Eleven have changed from being main providers to being supporting, so they can only work as subcontractors; and two have made the opposite journey.

This update follows a year-long review, started in October 2017, that led to new “stringent and challenging entry requirements” for the register.

These requirements were brought in by the ESFA after FE Week uncovered instances where companies run by their sole director from their home address were being given access to millions in apprenticeship funding, despite having zero experience of delivering government-funded programmes.

Analysis by this publication in December found that almost a third (580) of providers on the register did not deliver any apprenticeships in 2017.

But under this stricter regime, applicants had to have been trading for 12 months at least in order to be eligible, and provide a full set of accounts to be on the register.

Subcontractors delivering less than £100,000 of provision a year also needed to register.

Additionally, the agency will throw providers off the register if they go 12 months with no delivery after joining the register.

Getting onto the register, then, will be a relief for many providers, especially after most were left hanging by the government for months following their applications in December.

This is despite the ESFA planning to tell providers if they have been successful 12 weeks after their bid.

Since October 2018, only 23 other companies have been added to the register – all of whom were supporting providers.

The full list of new providers is below:

 

FE Commissioner called in as principal on leave for ‘personal reasons’

The FE Commissioner’s team will visit Richmond-upon-Thames College next month after its principal went on indefinite leave for ‘personal reasons’.

Robin Ghurbhurun has been the high-profile leader of the college since 2014, on top of seven non-executive roles, including chair of the Association of Colleges’ technology portfolio group and director of JISC.

However, since at least early this month his role has been filled on an interim basis by the deputy principal, Jason Jones, who joined the college in March.

It is understood intervention from the government is connected to financial failings amid plans for an £80 million investment in a new building.

Learner outcomes are one of the success stories from Ghurbhurun’s time at the college, as achievement rates have risen from 77.3 per cent in 2013/14 to 83.5 per cent in 2017/18.

This improvement helped bring the college up from an Ofsted grade three to grade two in 2017, with inspectors praising Ghurbhurun, governors and managers for being “very successful in improving rapidly the outcomes for students” across all levels, qualifications and the majority of subject areas.

But there has not been a similar success with the college’s finances: the FE Commissioner’s visit comes after the college generated a £2.4 million deficit in 2017/18.

Between November 2016 and April 2017, the college had to make use of an overdraft facility of £750,000, which was fully paid back in May 2017.

In addition, it has seen a 47 per cent decline in 16-18 student numbers between 2014/15 and 2018/19, equating to a 38 per cent decline in funding over that period according to the ESFA allocations.

Richmond was previously in FE Commissioner-led financial intervention from November 2015 until July 2016.

Despite the college’s difficult financial straits however, work started in June last year on a new campus building costing £80 million.

Asked whether the project was still on track, contractors ISG said it is progressing exactly on schedule and on budget, and they have a “strong and positive working relationship” with the college.

A spokesperson for Richmond-upon-Thames College said: “The college confirmed today that its principal and CEO, Robin Ghurbhurun, has resigned from his post with immediate effect for personal reasons.

“Transitional arrangements are in place.  Jason Jones will act as interim principal and CEO and the college’s accounting officer pending the search for a permanent replacement.”

Ghurbhurun declined to comment.

Ex-No 10 adviser: Williamson taking skills role “not good” for FE policy

A former Downing Street advisor gives his insider view on what Gavin Williamson taking the skills brief will mean for the sector – and he does not believe the DfE’s promises this will make FE more of a priority.

What to make of the announcement – finally – that the Skills Minister portfolio will be held by the Secretary of State, rather than a junior minister?

On the one hand, clearly it’s a positive. FE will now have its voice heard around the Cabinet table, and by a senior member of the Cabinet at that. (It sounds technical, but more junior ‘attending Cabinet’ ministers – including Jo Johnson – tend to get called late on in any Cabinet discussion, after more senior ministers have spoken, and often when it is clear what the consensus view is likely to be and there’s less scope to make a counterpoint.)

But my overall view is that this not good for FE policymaking – and not good for the sector overall.

The secretary of state’s role, in any department, is largely to make final decisions on issues of policy. He or she does so, crucially, having taken detailed advice from junior Ministers who have considered any issue for more time. And the SoS also has an important role in being the final arbiter of a departmental position, when junior Ministers (politely, naturally), disagree with each other.

Both of these are at risk. Taking the first issue first, it is simply implausible for any secretary of state to dedicate as much time to FE as a junior minister will.

Gavin Williamson simply has too broad a portfolio to have diary space, or headspace, to do all the work that junior ministers do day in and day out – meeting stakeholders, engaging in discussions with civil servants, or doing committee work and dispatch box appearances in the Commons.

Good junior ministers are the lifeblood of making public administration run well. Any college, or FE organisation, is going to find it much harder to find time to discuss issues with the secretary of state than with a skills minister.

That means, in turn, that decisions made on these issues will not have necessarily had all the input from the FE sector which good policy requires.

This isn’t to say, of course, that the skills minister is the minister for the FE sector, and as no one needs pointing out, it’s not as if FE has always held a privileged position with regards DfE decisions, but at least government decisions on FE are theoretically informed ones.

The second issue is also now harder to achieve.

The SoS will need to make decisions in future months on the DfE position on anything from legislative time, to responding to other departmental proposals, to (pertinently) asking for funding in the Spending Review.

Human nature – and the experience of anyone who has watched impromptu children’s football games – tells us that if any individual is both a participant and a referee, it’s hard to do both well.

Let’s take a practical example – the policy on requiring post-16 GCSE resits.

The ‘skills’ perspective and ‘schools’ perspective on this may differ. If the secretary of state has considered the policy from a skills perspective and formed a view, would this realistically change when it comes to him for sign off as SoS, regardless of the merits of the counter argument?

Or let’s talk about funding. DfE will almost certainly want to ask for more money for FE in the Spending Review.

But it’s likely to want to do so for schools and for HE as well. If HMT says there isn’t enough for all of those and DfE has to prioritise, how is that final decision taken?

So, it’s bad for policy. But is it nevertheless good for FE if the SoS is – bluntly – biased towards them?

Cynically, that may be the case in some instances. But this is only true if he can genuinely take the time to form an opinion on the FE case.

Otherwise the risk is that in a discussion, a junior minister for another area, or a Secretary of State for another department, speaks up – and there’s no one in the room who makes the FE case at all.

 

 

 

Union critical of government axing skills minister post

Boris Johnson’s axing of the dedicated skills minister position has been criticised by the University and College Union.

In a highly unusual move, the Department for Education today revealed there would be no dedicated minister for apprenticeships and skills as there has been for at least the past decade, most recently Anne Milton.

The DfE instead announced that, almost a week after he was originally appointed, education secretary Gavin Williamson would take up the brief.

This comes after the appointment of two schools’ ministers, a universities minister, and a children’s parliamentary under-secretary.

And after it was mooted that universities minister Jo Johnson, who sits in cabinet with Williamson, would take on the FE brief.

UCU acting general secretary Paul Cottrell compared the situation unfavorably with that of higher education and schools, which have kept their dedicated ministers.

“We do not believe losing the dedicated skills minister is a positive step for further education, or suggests the sector is held in high regard by the new administration,” he said.

Boris Johnson, at his first Commons outing as prime minister last Wednesday, said FE and skills would be a “priority” for his government.

During his campaign for the Conservative Party leadership, he also pledged to “do more to fund our amazing FE colleges”.

Cottrell said they shall have to wait and see if Johnson’s commitments translate into proper funding.

Response from elsewhere in the sector to the news FE will be handled by a cabinet minister has been more positive: the Association of Colleges called it a “very positive sign”; while the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said it shows Johnson is “serious” about the sector.

ESFA move to short notice funding audits in dodgy data crackdown

Colleges and training providers will now be given as little as two weeks notice of a financial assurance audit and only three days to present sample files, the ESFA has warned.

A letter from the agency, titled ‘ESFA Funding Assurance’ visits, says it plans to give providers as little as two weeks’ notice of an assurance review visit, which can take place any time of year, whereas previously providers were notified in June or July if they were to be visited in September.

And where before, providers had between five and ten days to prepare a selected sample of individual learner files, the ESFA will now give them between three and five days.

FE Week also understands that while the auditing only used to cover last year’s data and clawback from last year, this has been extended to include data from three years’ previously.

Elements of this new regime chime with the controversial mystery audits the ESFA carried out a number of providers earlier this year, where hundreds of documents from as far back as 2015/16 had to be handed over within two days.

This tightening of deadlines for providers is part of a crackdown by the ESFA on record-keeping by FE institutions.

3aaa, one of the country’s biggest apprenticeship providers, went bust in October after it was alleged employees had manipulated data to artificially inflate achievement rates by a huge amount.

In March, the principal of Dudley College, Lowell Williams, apologised after it was found the college had been late in recording the withdrawal of numerous apprentices, which also inflated the achievement rate.

An ESFA investigation also found some learners’ end dates were inaccurate.

The ESFA audit team has also been beefed up this year.

As reported by FE Week, in May, it launched a recruitment drive for a “newly created market oversight unit”, including an advert for four auditor vacancies posted on the civil service jobs website.

DfE says FE so important the education secretary will lead on skills brief

The education secretary Gavin Williamson has taken responsibility for the apprenticeships and skills brief.

Despite it previously being understood universities minister Jo Johnson would take on the brief in addition to his responsibilities as universities minister, after Anne Milton resigned from the role last week.

However, the Department for Education has today said the new secretary of state will instead fill in for the skills minister, with support from children’s minister Kemi Badenoch.

A spokesperson for the department said that, after five ministers were already appointed to the DfE, there would not be an individual skills minister.

“As the Prime Minister has said, further education and skills will be a priority for this government – and the Education Secretary taking the lead for this vital work is a reflection of that commitment,” the spokesperson added.

Prime minister Johnson told Milton in the Commons last Wednesday that further education and skills would be a “priority” for the government.

Williamson was appointed last Wednesday, barely two months after he was sacked as defence secretary by Theresa May.

Appointing Williamson to the skills brief shows Johnson is “serious” about apprenticeships and further education, says the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ chief policy officer, Simon Ashworth.

The association has already written to Williamson about the funding challenges presented by the Apprenticeship Levy, especially the shortage of funds for non-levy SME employers.

Ashworth said they would also welcome dialogue with Badenoch about the funding of adult care worker apprenticeships and IfATE’s refusal to approve a level 2 standard for business administration “even though her own department is employing apprentices on the framework at the same level”.

The Association of Colleges’ chief executive David Hughes said they are taking Williamson’s appointment as a “very positive sign” of new and significant investment in policy and relationships and funding for colleges.

 

Boris Johnson: ‘It’s vital we invest now in FE and skills’

Boris Johnson has said it is “vital” the government invests “now” in further education and skills, and has promised to make this a “priority”.

He made the statement in answer to a question from ex-skills minister Anne Milton during his first appearance in the Commons as prime minister this afternoon.

Milton asked Johnson: “Would my right honourable friend agree with me that while money for schools is very welcomed, further education and apprenticeships are probably the best enabler of social mobility, giving people a second or third chance?

“And will he make sure that both apprenticeships and further education have the cash that they desperately need?”

Johnson replied: “I want to pay tribute to the right honourable lady for all the work she has done in her career.

“She is absolutely right to raise the issue of further education and skills. Indeed I had a long discussion on that very theme last night with the new education secretary and that is going to be a priority for this government.

“Yes it is a great thing that 50 per cent of our country, 50 per cent of our kids should have the ambition to go to university, but of course it is equally, equally important that the other kids should acquire the skills they need which can be just as valuable, can lead to just as fantastic careers.

“It is vital that we invest now in further education and skills.”

His words come a day after Theresa May used her last appearance at the dispatch box as prime minister to plead with Johnson to invest more in FE.

Today was the first time Milton has asked a question from the backbenches since she resigned on Tuesday.

Her replacement is yet to be appointed.