A senior policy advisor from the Department for Education has warned providers against using external bid writers to apply for a place on the refreshed apprenticeships register.

Sheila Sturgeon (pictured), who marks many of the submissions, has also urged applicants to not “nick” policies from other providers and claim it is their own while forgetting to change the name and branding – as some hopefuls have done.

The register of apprenticeship training providers finally reopened in December, following a year-long review with more “stringent and challenging entry requirements”.

I don’t see how anyone can fail

In addition to the new applicants, all 2,500 colleges, training providers and employers already on the register will be invited to reapply at some point this year.

Sturgeon, a civil servant working in the apprenticeships department of the DfE, talked through the do’s and don’ts for applicants during a workshop at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers national conference this week.

She would not be drawn on the success rate of reapplications from established providers, but said the RoATP guidance is “quite specific” and “I don’t see how anyone can fail” if the provider is “of the appropriate quality and has been trading for 12 months and has all the policies in place”.

But she did state that her “personal” opinion was that the application was more likely to fail if it was not written internally and a bid writer was brought in “to write it for you”.

When the old RoATP was running, during 2017, FE Week revealed how consultants were raking in thousands of pounds writing bids for training providers desperate to make it on to the new register at the second time of asking.

Sally-Ann Baker, managing director of London-based Bidright UK, said at the time she found it “incredible” how many “silly mistakes” providers had made with applications.

Her company had been approached by 25 to 30 providers on RoATP and took on 12 cases, all of which were successful. Bidright’s fixed rate is £2,000 plus VAT.

But Sturgeon cautioned providers against this, explaining: “The reason I say that is because we ask for specific examples. You need to tell us how your provider has made this policy real and live. It is really important that you find a good example and you use it, because that is probably where providers who aren’t as on the ball are likely to fail.”

The policy advisor said one shocking finding in some was providers “not having a particular policy, nicking one from somewhere else and forgetting to change the provider name”.

“I cannot count the number of those we have seen, and I am not joking,” she added.

The first organisations to be added to the government’s refreshed apprenticeship provider register were revealed the day after Sturgeon’s presentation.

It showed that 23 new firms have been enlisted – a smaller than expected number and strangely, all of them are only “supporting providers”.

An ESFA spokesperson explained that supporting providers are the “first portion of providers who have been added” to the register and new “main and employer providers will be added in due course”.

I cannot count the number of those we have seen, and I am not joking

The 23 are the first providers to be added to RoATP since October 2018.

FE Week reported last month that new applicants trying to get on to the strengthened register had been left hanging by the government six months after its launch.

The ESFA had planned to let providers know if they were successful 12 weeks after their bid. An agency spokesperson said last week that all providers that applied to be on the register in December, January and February have now “been notified of the result”.

The new register is expected to bring greater scrutiny, following various investigations by this newspaper that discovered, for example, one-man bands with no delivery experience being given access to millions of pounds of apprenticeships funding.

The ESFA will throw providers off the new register if they go 12 months with no delivery after joining the register.

“Applicants will be added or removed from the register as and when the full process of assessing applications has been completed,” the ESFA spokesperson said.

The percentage of colleges employing over half of their teaching staff on casual contracts has tripled to 29 per cent, according to a new report.

The University and College Union sent a freedom of information (FOI) request to all colleges and surveyed 789 staff working in colleges, adult education and prison education, which revealed many are having to rely on food banks and second jobs to get by.

Analysis of responses to the FOI showed a “shocking” 66 out of 226 (29 per cent) of colleges, reported over 50 per cent of their teaching staff were on some form of insecure contract – up from just 19 out of 202 (9 percent) in 2016.

And over two-thirds of respondents (71 per cent) to the survey said they believed their mental health had been damaged by working on casual contracts and almost half (45 per cent) said it had impacted on their physical health.

Having enough money to buy substantial and healthy food once the bills are paid is sometimes near impossible

The UCU’s head of further education Andrew Harden called the findings “damning” and said it lifted the lid on how staff without secure contracts are “struggling to make ends meet”, despite holding down multiple jobs.

Casual contracts can be fixed-term, which normally last for one year; zero-hours contracts, which do not offer a minimum number of hours; hourly paid contracts, which offer some hours; or staff can be employed through an agency.

What makes them so damaging, as reported by one survey respondent, is that if classes are cancelled, lecturers on casual contracts are not paid.

The unnamed respondent had to resort to a food bank after being told their classes had been cancelled, and has in the past had to live on cereal, crackers and water, “if I am lucky”.

They added: “Having enough money to buy substantial and healthy food once the bills are paid is sometimes near impossible.”

Sixty nine per cent of survey respondents said they had earned less than £1,500 a month, and 87 per cent earned less than £2,000 a month.

Over half said they had trouble paying their bills.

FE Week spoke to a lecturer at City College Norwich, Nicola Gibson (see story below), who said she was working an extra two jobs, and has earned as little as £600 a month at one point.

While she receives £5 holiday pay every hour she works, benefits like that are not the same for everyone, with one respondent reporting they had to return to work “too early” after being off sick with cancer, because: “I wasn’t receiving sick pay, plus I had the constant worry someone else would be given my hours.”

Teachers’ health has also been affected, with one saying they had felt “suicidal” and developed “a type of epilepsy, which may well have been linked to the stress of losing teaching hours”.

The extent of casual contracts among FE teachers creates another problem, as Harden explains: “None of this is good for staff, but it is also extremely damaging for students, as teachers’ working conditions are their learning conditions.”

Nobody should have to use foodbanks, or worry about how they are going to pay their bills

Over half the respondents disagreed that they have enough paid time to enable them to prepare adequately for their classes, nor that they have enough time left over after teaching to keep up to date with the latest scholarship in their subject.

Additionally, 84 per cent said they had considered leaving the profession; with one newly qualified teacher saying they are already looking for work outside the sector.

Asked why colleges employ staff on casual contracts, Kirsti Lord, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said: “Nobody should have to use foodbanks, or worry about how they are going to pay their bills.

“We are working with UCU and others to make clear to government that ‘the end of austerity’ must also apply to colleges.”  

The UCU has recommended a number of ways to improve the security of lecturers’ employment, which includes Ofsted inspecting for any negative impact on quality of provision as a result of instability in teaching teams caused by casual contracting.

When asked if the inspectorate would consider doing this, a spokesperson said inspectors will take into account evidence of effective staff management when writing their reports “to ensure the delivery of good-quality education”.

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‘I would like the security my team-mates have’

A college lecturer on a casual contract says she has had to live off £600 a month, and has not been on holiday in four years.

Creative arts teacher Nicola Gibson has worked at City College Norwich for ten years, and has joined hundreds of college teachers in speaking out against their fixed-hours and zero-hours contracts.

Hers is a permanent, variable-hours contract, but there is no guarantee of a minimum amount of work, and as it is not a fixed-hours contract, the college was not obliged to employ her after four years.

She said: “You never know how much money you have coming in.

“I’ve gone from taking £1,200 a month, to £600 a month and I have to think about exactly how I will make ends meet.”

She is paid an hourly rate of £25 an hour, which includes £5 in holiday pay; but if she works fewer than 450 hours a year, she has less than a week to work out her hours and submit a claim to be paid the same month.

Her situation has meant Nicola has not been on holiday in four years, since a relative gifted her one.

She finds it “galling” when there are people working in the same office as her at the college, doing exactly the same job on a permanent contract and living a more regular lifestyle.

Much like teachers on secure permanent contracts, Nicola is having to prepare for lessons, teach them, and care for her ten-year-old daughter.

This is in addition to her other jobs: running freelance craft lessons and working at a technical college.

But she is determined her mental health will not suffer because of the way she works. “I think it’s very important to compartmentalise these aspects of your life because I don’t want to become a victim of this system in that sense: someone who is miserable and downtrodden and hard-done-by.

“I am happy and I want to enjoy my life and I want to enjoy what I can have based on what I can earn.”

Nicola really enjoys her work, and believes she is privileged to work with the students, but says she doesn’t feel she can bring them her best and be recognised for it.

She has considered leaving the profession, as she wants to be a “grown-up”, which she doesn’t feel she can be because of the nature of her job.

She describes her situation as like that of a student, scraping to make ends meet.

“I feel very un-grown-up as somebody who is theoretically in a professional job, and with my qualifications and is hardworking and dedicated.”

I feel very un-grown-up

Asked what she would do to improve the conditions for casual workers in colleges, Nicola says the work is OK in the short-term but people ought to be offered an ongoing role after several years.

“I would like the security my team-mates have, because if they’re entitled to it, I would like to think I was entitled to it too.”

She said it was important that people spoke out about their experiences of casual contracts. However, she understands why people did not want to speak out as, in a chilling reminder of the insecurity of these contracts, she admitted it “was very easy to not have a contract at all”.

A City College Norwich spokesperson said its use of casual or supply contracts is “minimal and are only used in emergency situations to cover short periods of unexpected absences, such as sickness”.

She added that the college is currently “reviewing the way in which permanent sessional staff are paid to minimise the impact of any changes to delivery hours that can occur each year as course requirements evolve”.

Employers lost access to £11 million of their apprenticeship levy funds in May – the first sun-setting period for the policy, the government has revealed.

The amount is 8 per cent of the £135 million they paid in May 2017, which is slightly lower than what officials had previously predicted.

As per the levy rules, big businesses with a payroll of £3 million or more who pay into the pot have a 24-month limit to spend their funds.

Once that time is up, the funds will expire on a month-by-month basis.

Keith Smith, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of apprenticeships, told the Public Accounts Committee in March that “estimates suggest in May this year, the first month [in which] we get to the two years, we’re looking at a loss of potentially £12 million, or 9 per cent of what they paid in May 2017 – a fairly small amount”.

Answering a parliamentary question from Catherine McKinnell, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North, skills minister Anne Milton said yesterday: “The amount of funds entering employers’ digital apprenticeship service accounts in May 2017 was £135 million, of which £11 million in unspent funds expired in May 2019. This was the first month of expiry of funds.”

McKinnell also asked what plans the government has for those funds.

“As well as funding apprenticeships in levy-paying employers, levy contributions are also used to fund training for existing apprenticeship learners and new apprenticeships in non-levy paying employers,” Milton replied.

“We do not anticipate that all employers who pay the levy will need or want to use all the funds in their accounts, however they are able to.”

Academies minister Lord Agnew revealed in response to a parliamentary question in March that the Department for Education spent £1.6 billion in 2017/18 to fulfil employers’ demand for apprenticeships, but “lower than anticipated demand” led to an underspend of £400 million.

In a subsequent webinar with FE Week, Smith admitted the vast majority of the underspend, “just over £300 million”, was taken back by the Treasury.

The first organisations to be added to the government’s refreshed apprenticeship provider register have been revealed.

An update to the register of apprenticeship training providers was published today and showed 23 new firms have been enlisted.

The number isn’t as high as was expected, and strangely, all of them are only “supporting providers”. FE Week has asked the Education and Skills Funding Agency when successful “main” applicants will be added.

The 23 are the first providers to be added to RoATP since October 2018.

The register finally reopened on 12 December, following a year-long review, with more “stringent and challenging entry requirements”.

FE Week reported last month that new applicants trying to get onto the strengthened register had been left hanging by the government six months after its launch.

The ESFA had planned to let providers know if they were successful 12 weeks after their bid. An agency spokesperson said last week that all providers that applied to be on the register in December, January and February have now “been notified of the result”.

The new register is expected to bring greater scrutiny, following various FE Week investigations that discovered, for example, one-man bands with no delivery experience being given access to millions of pounds of apprenticeships funding.

While all providers will be asked to apply to the register even if they were already on there, subcontractors delivering less than £100,000 of provision a year have also been told they need to register.

The ESFA will also throw providers off the register if they go 12 months with no delivery after joining the register. FE Week has asked the agency when this action will be implemented following today’s update.

Organisations applying to the register can either be a main, employer or supporting provider.

The ESFA’s description of a supporting provider is: “This is for organisations who will enter into subcontracts with main providers and employer providers to deliver apprenticeship training. This can be up to a maximum value of £500,000 per year in total.

“For organisations with no history of apprenticeship delivery according to recent records we hold, this is limited to £100,000 in their first year on the register.”

The 23 providers added to RoATP:

Every college leader in England has joined forces and written to the chancellor and the education secretary, demanding the implementation of the recommendations of the Augar Review.

The lobbying effort by 203 principals, representing two million learners annually and 180,000 staff, has been spearheaded by Oldham College principal Alun Francis.

He told FE Week the idea for the letter was conceived at a roundtable three weeks ago, involving principals, policy experts, and Department for Education staff, when one of the panellists for the review, Professor Alison Wolf, pointed out FE leaders had been less active than university vice chancellors in their response to the review; after the HE leaders had written to newspapers and made much more noise than their FE counterparts.

“It was kind of a lightbulb moment I suppose,” Francis said.

The principals went away, decided to write the letter, and took ten days to contact all the colleges, then received that “amazing” response.

On the success of getting every principal on board, Francis said timing was everything, and the review had given people a broader analysis of the whole skills system.

While he admitted that not everyone will agree with the review’s 78 recommendations, he thought the broad gist of the review is what people feel is a “potential breakthrough moment” that has brought people together.

“A whole range of people put their shoulders to help, publicise it, and promote it.

“Too many people to mention; and probably other six or seven people helped drafting it.

“People collaborated really well to be honest.”

The letter to chancellor Philip Hammond and education secretary Damian Hinds states: “In many respects the Augar (pictured) Review represents a wider emerging consensus across England.

“We are sure that you will agree with us and other key stakeholders that further education colleges have been neglected, and that there is now a growing appreciation of their unique role, value and potential.

“What we now need are decisions and commitments: with your political leadership, support and resolve, colleges will be able to build on what they already do to reach more employers and more adults and make the differences our economy and society need.”

The letter won the support of one of the co-authors of the Augar Review, Bev Robinson, who said the government’s response to it was “arguably a watershed moment for the British government”.

“Choosing to enact the recommendations would demonstrate the government’s commitment to the much-needed skills revolution which our country needs, which the industry is crying out for, and which will promote social equity for all adults”.

The review’s recommendations included an end to the 17.5 per cent cut in education funding for 18-year-olds, a £1 billion capital investment injection, and investment in the FE workforce among.

The review was published in May, after it was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May in February of last year.

May made a speech the day after the report was published, where she praised Augar, and said colleges have the “potential to transform lives and grow the economy”, but had been left “overlooked, undervalued and underfunded”.

Hinds has said the review “acknowledges fully the key truth that our further education colleges also play a vital role in performing these functions” and “too often we have had in our country a bias towards higher education”.

However, the government’s initial response to the recommendations was to hand responsibility for inspecting level 6 and 7 apprenticeships to the Office for Students – instead of Ofsted, as proposed by the review.

Education secretary Damian Hinds has admitted the government will miss its target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by next year.

The target was set in the Conservatives’ 2015 election manifesto, and also included in the party’s 2017 manifesto.

While appearing before the Commons Education Select Committee, its chair Robert Halfon repeatedly pressed Hinds on whether the government would hit the target.

Halfon asked: “Is the 3 million target still on for 2020? Yes or no?”

Hinds replied that Halfon was a “mathematically adept person”, and that two important things had changed since the target was set: lower unemployment, meaning there are fewer jobs going around, and the changing nature of apprenticeships, which he had said are becoming longer and involving more off-the-job training.

Asked again by Halfon to “give an answer”, Hinds admitted: “If you look only at the number of people starting an apprenticeship, then that target is not going to be reached.”

The minister did not give a fresh timetable for reaching the 3 million starts target, and instead said the focus ought to be on the quality of apprenticeships.

The Conservatives, under former Prime Minister David Cameron, promised to “support three million new apprenticeships, so young people acquire the skills to succeed” in 2015.

The pledge survived the transition to Theresa May’s leadership, and the 2017 manifesto promised to “deliver our commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020 and in doing so we will drive up the quality of apprenticeships to ensure they deliver the skills employers need.”

However, last August, a Downing Street spokesperson allegedly refused to back the target after being asked to three times.

Hinds also told the committee it was “perfectly legitimate” to have a debate about the apprenticeship levy being spent on higher level courses.

The Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have both warned about how apprenticeships at level 4 mean the government is failing to meet its vocational education objectives.