The FE sector needs to recognise that government has “made a step forward, even if it may not be a giant leap” when it comes to funding, the re-elected chair of the education committee has said.

Robert Halfon also believes the apprenticeship levy is in need of reform, but he does not agree with the view of Ofsted boss Amanda Spielman who wants to restrict employer spending decisions.

The MP for Harlow and former skills minister, who was re-elected unopposed this week, insists priorities for the cross-party committee will be set by the entire membership once other MPs are elected.

“I wake up thinking about education and skills, I go to bed thinking about it”

And he told FE Week he has pledged to continue to set government “hares running”.

Halfon insists that it was his committee that put FE and school funding on the agenda “big time” in the build up to last year’s general election.

The £14 billion extra for schools, the £3 billion national skills fund and £1.8 billion for college capital projects committed by the Conservative party are “significant” and an “important step towards stabilising funding”.

In July 2019 the education committee backed the Sixth Form Colleges Association’s Raise the Rate campaign. They said the government needs to “urgently” increase the base rate for students aged 16 and 17 to “at least £4,760”.

A month later the chancellor announced a £400 million boost for FE which included increasing that base rate by 4.7 per cent, from £4,000 to £4,188.

Whilst it wasn’t the substantial growth his committee had called for, Halfon said: “When the government does something right, even if it’s not everything, I think you’ve got to recognise that they’ve made a step forward, even if it may not be a giant leap.

“I’ll always advocate for more,” he added, “especially on FE, because that has always been underfunded.”

Halfon’s new committee will look very different. Former members Michelle Donelan and Emma Hardy have been appointed to the government and opposition frontbench education teams respectively. Trudy Harrison is now the prime minister’s parliamentary private secretary.

“Clearly, education committee is a ladder of opportunity,” Halfon smiled as he deployed his famous catchphrase.

Parliament looks very different now, too. So how can Halfon, a Conservative, reassure those who doubt his ability to hold his own government to account now that it has a large majority?

“First of all, I’d say all they need to do is look at my record in the last parliament,” he says.

“And secondly… my passion is education. I wake up thinking about it, I go to bed thinking about education and skills. And I want to make things better. That’s why I’m doing the job.”

Investigating the plight of demographics that get “left behind” by the current education system is a priority for Halfon, as is probing the activities of education quangos.

“Some of them are pretty big cash cows, untouched by austerity,” he said. “We’re talking about [shortages of] funding – and yet some of these quangos can spend money seemingly unsupervised, wherever they want.”

The last education committee savaged the Careers and Enterprise Company over its spending on research and events, and Halfon has said the body can be “ludicrously wasteful”.

Another area that Halfon is keen to continue scrutinising is apprenticeships.

His committee held an inquiry into apprenticeships and skills training in 2018, but the chair now wants a specific investigation into the levy which he helped launch during his time as skills minister.

The levy has continued to make headlines over the past year with projections that the apprenticeships budget will soon be overspent, and Department for Education officials admitting that “hard choices” will be needed to prevent it from going bust.

Last week, Ofsted said in its annual report that high levels of management and health apprenticeships need to be addressed “urgently” because they are a “mismatch” with the government’s industrial strategy.

“I’ll always advocate for more, especially for FE”

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman then admitted that she has been “encouraging government” to restrict spending choices made by levy-paying employers.

Does Halfon agree with this approach? “No, not necessarily,” he says.

“I do definitely think we need to look at the levy. I don’t have all the answers because I would love our committee to hopefully do an inquiry on reform of the levy.”

He anticipates that there “will be reforms” by this government and says his preference is for the levy to be extended by the number of companies that pay it.

Currently, only firms with an annual wage bill of more than £3 million fork out 0.5 per cent of their salary costs to pay into the levy. Halfon says this amount could be reduced to £2 million.

He added that the apprenticeship levy “is a very important thing and I absolutely believe in it”, and he rejects calls for it to be expanded to pay for different types of training.

Having said that, he does believe in creating “social justice or skills credits”.

“So, if you employ people with disadvantaged backgrounds to do skills, you would get a skills credit on your tax bill – that’s how I think the government should invest in the system.”

He said this could be “particularly useful in terms of adult and lifelong learning” – an area that his committee announced an inquiry into before the general election and one which he “hopes very much” will be picked up again in this Parliament.

A major energy firm was among six training providers to be rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in a positive week for the sector.

SSE Services PLC, the national utility company which providers energy to nine million households, kept its ‘good’ rating following a short inspection.

The employer provider has just over 150 apprentices who “benefit from a comprehensive training programme that enables them to become skilled craft workers across a wide range of roles within the utility industry,” according to the education watchdog.

Its report added that leaders and managers have “developed an apprenticeship curriculum that enables the company to address its need to recruit and train skilled staff to meet its core strategic business objectives in a highly competitive marketplace”.

Elsewhere, independent learning provider LookFantastic Training Limited, which had 269 apprentices at the time of the inspection, retained its grade two in a full inspection.

It offers a mix of hairdressing, engineering, information technology and business administration apprenticeships.

Ofsted reported that apprentices gain “substantial new skills, knowledge and behaviours” and those with special educational needs and disabilities “do as well as their peers”.

Trainers were also praised for working well with employers to plan and deliver effective links as well as combining regular assessment with constructive verbal feedback.

Two other independent learning providers maintained their ‘good’ grade following short inspections this week.

Achievement Training Limited‘s 250 apprentices are employed in public- and private-sector organisations located across the south west of England.

Inspectors found they benefit from a curriculum that is built on “close and productive relationships” with these employers in the region.

The effectiveness of the personal and professional support staff provide was considered a key strength of the provision.

Pilot IMS provides apprenticeship training nationally to 44 apprentices, and adult learning predominantly in the Midlands region to 35 learners.

The education watchdog said apprentices “grasp quickly new concepts and skills” due to trainers’ expert knowledge while adult learners also made “good progress” because of the support they receive from their trainers in and outside of the classroom.

In addition, it was reported that leaders worked “closely with employers to design a challenging curriculum for learners and apprentices to build their knowledge, skills and the behaviours needed for further learning and employment”.

Two adult and community learning providers, Gateshead Council and Kent Community Learning and Skills, also retained grade twos.

Ofsted said leaders, managers and staff at Gateshead Council “share the vision of the wider council to ensure that local communities thrive” while learners and apprentices also benefit from the support and care that they receive from their tutors and support workers.

At Kent Community Learning and Skills the inspectorate reported that tutors and assessors uses their subject and vocational expertise “well” and learners and apprentices were “well prepared” for their next steps.

The other adult and community learning provider graded this week, Stoke-on-Trent Unitary Authority, was found to be making ‘significant progress’ in one area and ‘reasonable progress’ ratings in the remaining three assessed themes in a monitoring visit after being declared ‘inadequate’.

Independent learning provider Templegate Training Academy CIC has also made ‘reasonable progress’ in a follow-up monitoring visit after receiving two ‘insufficient progress’ grades in its first.

Staffordshire University similarly was graded ‘reasonable progress’ across the board in a monitoring visit following a grade three rating.

However, Ashorne Hill Management College, the final independent learning provider to have an Ofsted report published this week, was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in two out of three assessed themes after an early monitoring visit.

Leaders and managers, who have a “long history” in delivering leadership and management programmes, have “not made sure that all apprentices receive their entitlement to study away from their job”.

They were also criticised for not tracking the progress apprentices make “well enough”.

The remaining FE providers to be rated this week both received grade threes.

Employer provider Took Us A Long Time Limited ‘requires improvement’, according to Ofsted, following its first full inspection. It was previously suspended from recruiting apprentices after it was found making ‘insufficient progress’ in an early monitoring report published in May.

United Colleges Group, a general FE college, also received a grade three in its first inspection since being established by a merger in August 2017. The grade has put the group’s planned T-levels delivery in jeopardy (full story here).

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Achievement Training Limited	09/01/2020	27/01/2020	2	2
Ashorne Hill Management College	15/01/2020	29/01/2020	M	N/A
Lookfantastic Training Limited	17/01/2020	30/01/2020	2	2
Pilot IMS Limited	09/01/2020	30/01/2020	2	2
Templegate Training Academy CIC	09/01/2020	30/01/2020	M	M

 

Adult and Community Learning	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Gateshead Council	15/01/2020	30/01/2020	2	2
Kent Community Learning and Skills	13/12/2020	27/01/2020	2	2
Stoke-on-Trent Unitary Authority	14/01/2020	28/01/2020	M	4

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
SSE Services PLC	08/01/2020	28/01/2020	2	2
Took Us A Long Time Limited	10/01/2020	29/01/2020	3	M

 

Other (including UTCs)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Staffordshire University	14/01/2020	27/01/2020	M	3

 

General FE colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
United Colleges Group	13/12/2019	29/01/2020	3	N/A

The government is reviewing whether a large college group approved to start delivering T-levels from 2021 should be kicked off the programme after receiving a grade three from Ofsted.

United Colleges Group, which is lined up to offer the digital and construction courses, was told it ‘requires improvement’ in a report released this week.

The government wrote in its T-level action plan for 2018 it would only accept ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ providers for the programme.

When asked by FE Week what will happen to United College Group’s ability to offer T-levels, a Department for Education spokesperson said they will work “closely” with the group to look at the issues raised by the report, and “will make a decision in due course”.

They informed providers when they were selected that the DfE “reserved the right to review a provider’s continued participation”.

Last February, London Design and Engineering UTC was stopped from delivering T-levels in 2020 after it received a grade three from Ofsted.

A DfE spokesperson said they will consider each case on its merits then decide whether the provider can continue to participate; and will discuss any changes with the provider before a decision is made to “ensure we are taking a fair and consistent approach, taking into account the needs of learners”.

The time invested by institutions and the work done to prepare students may also impact on the decision, as will the extent of any issues outlined in the Ofsted report.

If United Colleges Group is dropped from T-levels, it will be another blow to London’s access to the new qualifications, dealt barely two weeks after Richmond-upon-Thames College withdrew from provision.

FE Week analysis revealed no providers in the capital will be offering the construction course this year and, after Richmond’s departure, none south of the river will offer it from 2021.

Only United Colleges Group, Barking and Dagenham College and Newham Sixth Form College – all based north of the Thames – are scheduled to deliver.

A United Colleges spokesperson said they will be discussing their planned T-level provision with the DfE, but have made “huge progress” since being formed two years ago and welcomed the fact Ofsted recognised this.

“We are already seeing improvement and we’re confident that the steps we have taken will deal with the issues raised in the report.”

Inspectors at the group decided that since being formed from a merger of City and Westminster College and College of North West London, the group had failed to maintain those colleges’ grade two.

After that 2017 merger a significant number of senior staff have left, there has been disruption to courses and the management of those courses “is not yet effective enough”.

Teaching is also “not good enough for younger learners” and teachers do not consistently challenge them to extend their knowledge or apply it to new situations.

“Learners are confused about what they are learning and find it challenging to build on their knowledge and skills,” because teachers do not effectively assess gaps in learners’ knowledge and skills to understand what in the course needs reinforcing.

Too many learners and apprentices do not attend their taught sessions “frequently enough,” and not enough of their teachers challenge their poor punctuality.

The watchdog did report United Colleges Group’s governors took effective action to set up a new leadership team following the merger, and both they and the senior leaders evaluate the curriculum well.

Safeguarding was found to be effective as leaders and managers have implemented appropriate checks to ensure staff are safe to work with learners and staff are appropriately trained in both safeguarding and the ‘Prevent’ duty.

The new chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has given her backing to scarce levy funding being spent on controversial management qualifications.

Jennifer Coupland also stood up for the employers that the quango represents, warning the Treasury and Department for Education that the £2 billion budget “is not government money, it comes from the levy that was levied directly to support apprenticeships”.

“It’s not government money, it comes from the levy that was levied directly to support apprenticeships”

The levy is paid to the Treasury, which means it is technically public funding, and its use for management qualifications has come under criticism from Ofsted’s chief inspection, Amanda Spielman, who said “we see levy funding subsidising re-packaged graduate schemes and MBAs that just don’t need it”.

The National Audit Office last year reported that these “new types of apprenticeship raise questions about whether public money is being used to pay for training that already existed in other forms”.

“Some levy-paying employers are replacing their professional development programmes – for example, graduate training schemes in accountancy or advanced courses in management – with apprenticeships,” they added.

“In such cases, there is a risk that the additional value of the apprenticeship to the economy may not be proportionate to the amount of government funding.”

And in recent weeks a former adviser to the skills minister, Tom Richmond, claimed £1.2 billion was being wasted on “fake apprenticeships”.

Richmond said: “Employers have used up over £550 million of levy funding on rebadged management training and professional development courses for more experienced employees.”

But speaking to FE Week, Coupland said using public funding on management apprenticeships is “a perfectly legitimate use”.

“Yeah, I absolutely think that is right [to use public funding for management apprenticeships]. Most organisations you’ll find people get promoted out of being good at a particular role, and then they find themselves leading a team of people which is a completely different job to the one that may have got them promoted to that role in the first instance.

“So those people will need to have opportunities to gain significant and substantial skills in that leadership and management role,” she said.

FE Week was the first to report on the rapid rise of state-subsidised management courses, even before the introduction of new higher and degree-level standards and the levy-funded apprenticeships in May 2017.

In October 2016, analysis by this newspaper found management frameworks were already the third most popular apprenticeship subject, based on the number of starts.

Three years on, Richmond, in his research, claimed “the most popular ‘apprenticeship’ in the country is now becoming a ‘Team Leader / Supervisor’ – accounting for almost 1 in 10 apprentices”.

“People will need to have opportunities to gain significant and substantial skills in that leadership and management role”

And the previous skills minister, Anne Milton, told FE Week last March: “What sticks in people’s throats is people on £100,000 a year and the state subsidising their MBA.

“There is no easy answer. You put more money in the pot, or you restrict what you are doing. Those are the choices.”

Having left a civil service post at the Department for Education, Coupland was using her first outing with the media to call on the government to invest an extra £750 million in apprenticeships for small employers.

The National Audit Office had last year reported that the £2 billion per year apprenticeship budget is running dry. Employers are increasingly choosing higher level and higher cost qualifications, such as in management, for existing employees.

But Coupland said there was no cause for concern.

“On management and leadership apprenticeships I think we’ve got a significant productivity gap with our competitor nations – and about 20 per cent of that productivity gap is made up of a lack of skills,” she said.

“On management and leadership apprenticeships I think we’ve got a significant productivity gap”

“There is quite a lot of evidence to show there is a significant lack of skills in our leadership and management tier within organisations within this country. So if we are going to plug that, one element has got to be looking at that leadership.”

Asked whether an extra £750 million would be enough to fund everything employers wanted, Coupland would not Coupland: ‘Public funding for management apprenticeships is perfectly legitimate’ be drawn on what the DfE permanent secretary referred to as the potential for “tough choices”.

“We’ll work within the policy parameters that we are set”, she said.

“At the moment we are looking at an all age, all level programme and as we look at each apprenticeship standard, standard by standard, we are looking at how we settle appropriate funding cap for those standards.”

Coupland went on to say that the IfATE needs to “make sure that we are generating as much value out of the programme as possible, in order to generate as many apprenticeships with as many organisations as we can.

“So we are looking across the suite, but I think at the heart of it, we do want the apprenticeship programme to reflect the needs of the economy – and for me that means having apprenticeships at level 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and so forth.”

The government will write to all colleges and universities with residential learners aged 16 to 18 after officials found “data inaccuracies” which have prevented Ofsted from conducting inspections.

It follows an FE Week investigation that revealed how a tower block with Grenfell-style cladding that houses students at Highbury College and failed a fire safety test had gone 18 years without oversight from the education watchdog.

The college started moving classes and residents out of the building with “non-compliant” panelling earlier this week as it prepares for a multimillion-pound renovation to remove the material.

Highbury had previously advertised to parents that the residence was subject to Ofsted inspection, but in November, FE Week found the education watchdog had not regulated the halls since they were constructed in the 1970s and re-clad in 2001.

At the time the Department for Education told this newspaper that it was unaware of the residential provision, and therefore had not informed Ofsted it was in scope for their oversight, as the college had not declared it on the Get Information About Schools (GIAS) website.

A spokesperson added that all post-16 providers with residential provision for people aged under 18 are “required to inform the department about students in residential accommodation” and have a “responsibility to self-record this information on Get Information About Schools”.

An Education and Skills Funding Agency update, published on Wednesday, confirmed “the move from EduBASE to Get Information About Schools has resulted in some data inaccuracies relating to FE colleges and special post-16 providers (SPIs) in respect of the recording of residential provision”.

It said: “We will write to all colleges and those SPIs in scope directly now for the 2019 to 2020 academic year, and on an annual basis thereafter, to gather this information on the age and status of residential learners. It is important that we have accurate data to support Ofsted in meeting its responsibilities.

“Ofsted is required to inspect residential provision in colleges and some SPIs for all student residents under the age of 18 or under the age of 25 for those with an education health and care plan and rely on our data collection to ensure that they schedule inspections appropriately.

“All FE colleges and SPIs should continue to self-report information on GIAS and complete the appropriate fields on the individual learner records.”

Higher education providers which receive ESFA funding for residents aged 16 to 18, including Nottingham Trent University and University of the Arts London, are also in scope for “social care” inspections.

Courses run by universities for 16- to 18-year-olds include the art and design foundation studies programme, which among others is offered by Loughborough University.

Highbury’s residential provision was finally inspected after FE Week’s revelations in November 2019, the report of which was published last Friday.

It found that the halls “require improvement to be good” under the judgment, which scrutinised “how well young people are helped and protected”.

The report noted the cladding replacement project and said that “specific plans are in place and additional measures have been applied to address the concerns in the meantime”.

These included additional staffing at night and “ensuring that every student is aware of what to do in the event of the need to evacuate the building”.

Regular checks of the building and fire systems as well as fire drills “ensure that awareness is maintained” and “importantly, managers have sought advice and checks from the local Fire Rescue Service to ensure that the measures in place are likely to be effective”.

Work to remove non-compliant panelling at Highbury College is planned to get under way in the spring and is anticipated to take up to 12 months.

It remains unclear whether the Department for Education has signed off on the college’s £5 million application for financial support to fund the project. A DfE spokesperson said the outcome would be revealed in “due course”.

There are 18 students currently housed in the ten-storey block in Portsmouth, eleven of whom are aged under 18. They will have to move before it closes on January 31.

Students have been offered alternative living arrangements for the rest of the academic year, including local host family accommodation.

A statement from the college said the renovation project includes “upgrading the external cladding system and the replacement of all external doors and windows with new energy-efficient models designed to reduce utility costs and background noise”.