A national college is seeking partner organisations after struggling to recruit learners and scraping through 2017-18 with a government bailout of over half a million pounds.

The National College Creative Industries (NCCI), which opened its doors in 2016, has become the second of the flagship institutions to require a Department for Education hand-out to sign off its accounts as a going concern for last year.

NCCI received £600,000 from the DfE in December, on top of a £1.25 million in working capital loan, £745,000 of which was paid out during 2017-18, with the remaining £505,000 being drawn down in 2018-19.

The DfE has also re-profiled loans and deferred the repayment start date from March 2019 to March 2023.

However, funding support after July 2019 is under review and the accounts state that the college’s financial stability depends on income generation through the rapid development of its learner numbers over the next three years.

The NCCI has a target of over 1,000 learners by 2021, but has struggled to attract students to its courses, which include level 3 and 4 diplomas, and apprenticeships between levels 2 and 5.

Over the past 12 months, NCCI only provided to 167 learners, despite telling FE Week in October that it was confident 450 learners could be recruited for 2018-19.

The college is now looking for potential partners as part of a structure and prospects appraisal, as revealed in an answer by skills minister Anne Milton to Labour MP Jon Trickett.

An NCCI spokesperson said: “One of the challenges as a start-up organisation is to grow quickly, which is why the NCCI is seeking partners to support this growth.

“By partnering with established organisations already operating in the creative industries sector, NCCI will be able to extend its reach and grow its capacity in line with its strategy and the national college programme policy objectives.”

The college is hoping to have partners in place by the start of the 2019-20 academic year.

Prospective partners had five working days to submit their expression of interest.

However, NCCI refused to share any additional details of the process or potential partners, as it claims these are commercially sensitive.

The college is based at The Backstage Centre in Thurrock, Essex, which it describes as a “world-class venue”.

It was allocated £5.5 million from the public  purse to launch in 2016-17 and opened with just 16 students.

NCCI’s 2017-18 accounts reveal its expenditure – £1.9 million – was 47 per cent higher than its income – £1.3 million – and had generated a deficit of £612,483.

It financial health rating is “inadequate”.

The spokesperson said the college had a planned operating deficit for the first four years of operation “as part of its start-up status”.

The fast recruitment of new learners will not be helped by the news NCCI’s classroom achievement rates for 2017-18 were just 50 per cent.

A college spokesperson said it is “fully aware” of the issues around classroom learners’ achievement rates, and it took “active steps” to address these issues prior to the start of the 18-19 academic year.

Achievement for 2018-19 is currently sitting at 92 per cent, the spokesperson claimed.

NCCI has never been inspected.

An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week the college would be inspected in line with its schedule, but they would not be drawn on timings.

The provider isn’t the only national college to have required a DfE bailout: the National College for High Speed Rail (NCHSR) needed £4.55 million to sign off its 2017-18 accounts, as well as a £3.6 million capital loan.

Accountants for NCHSR, which has links to the controversial HS2 project, forecast a £7.5 million shortfall over the next seven years.

In November, the DfE launched a tender for a supplier to evaluate the National Colleges policy to identify what has gone wrong with the scheme.

The evaluation started in January and is expected to finish later this month.

The government has already rejected one recommendation put forward by the Augar Review – by giving the Office for Students responsibility for overseeing thousands of higher level apprenticeships that currently go unregulated.

FE Week revealed in November that firms offering level 6 and 7 apprenticeships without a prescribed HE qualification, such as a degree, had nobody checking their quality of delivery if they weren’t on the OfS’ register of higher education providers. Ofsted’s remit only extends to level 5.

After calls for this gap in oversight to be urgently fixed, and months of deliberation, this newspaper understands the Department for Education has given the job to the OfS instead of Ofsted.

One regulator should inspect apprenticeship provision at all levels

The decision comes despite the post-18 education review panel, led by Dr Philip Augar (pictured), recommending that Ofsted should become the lead responsible body for inspecting apprenticeships at all levels.

When the review was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May in February 2018 it was first thought the findings would act as final decisions and be implemented as policy in the government’s upcoming spending review.

But following May’s resignation it is expected they will now only be treated as recommendations, much to the frustration of further education leaders, as the review made a strong case for greater investment in the sector.

The OfS decision will act as the first piece of solid evidence that the proposals will fall on deaf ears when the new prime minister is appointed. 

The Augar Report, which described the lack of oversight for the higher level apprenticeships in question as an “important gap in coverage”, stated: “At present, both the OfS and Ofsted are expected to have the necessary expertise to ensure the quality assurance of apprenticeship provision which we believe is wasteful.

“One regulator should inspect apprenticeship provision at all levels to ensure consistency in standards and in-house expertise.

“We believe this should be Ofsted, thus maintaining a single knowledge hub for apprenticeship quality.”

It added: “This would reduce duplication and the risk of providers being overlooked. While we recognise this may not be welcome by some higher education institutions, we believe a sole inspection body is vital when new and untested providers are entering the market and offering provision at a variety of levels.”

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman expressed her deep concern at the issue of unregulated apprenticeships during an interview with FE Week in March: “There are places that go completely unscrutinised because they don’t come within OfS arrangements and they don’t come within our space,” she said.

Asked at the time if she would like Ofsted to inspect the provision, she added: “I very much hope people will see the logic in us doing it.”

Asked this week if the inspectorate was disappointed that the DfE had opted to give the OfS the job, an Ofsted spokesperson said: “This is clearly a matter for the Department for Education, but we are content with our ongoing arrangements to inspect apprenticeships up to level 5.”

FE Week approached the OfS to find out how it plans to regulate the higher level apprenticeships if the provider offering them is not on its HE register, but a spokesperson said they could not comment until the DfE makes a formal announcement.

The DfE said it was planning to announce a decision shortly, but could not say when.

The OfS employs a “risk-based approach to quality assurance defined by a high-quality threshold for entry and regulates all provision at all providers on the OfS Register,” a spokesperson told FE Week in November.

“Providers who are accepted on to the register will have met a high threshold for quality and standards and will be monitored on an ongoing basis to ensure that quality is maintained.”

The Quality Assurance Agency then conducts external annual provider reviews of HE institutions for the OfS, including those that deliver apprenticeships.

However, these are not official inspections of the type Ofsted conducts.

The skills minister Anne Milton is backing Conservative leadership frontrunner Michael Gove to be the next Prime Minister.

As reported by the Standard, Milton said only the former education secretary offered “serious leadership” that Britain needs.

While Gove said earlier this week he would spend £1 billion extra on schools if he wins the race, he’s so far been silent on his plans for further education.

Despite this, Milton said: “Michael Gove is ready to unite our party and our country, ready to deliver and ready to lead.”

She said the current environment secretary can “master the details of a brief” and lauded his “insight, passion and strength”, as well as his record fighting for “better schools” during his time heading up the Department for Education between 2010 and 2014.

FE Week has approached Milton for further comment.

Her backing comes after schools minister Nick Gibb also said Gove was the best person for the job earlier this week. Education secretary Damian Hinds hasn’t backed anyone so far.

As reported by FE Week’s sister paper FE Week, Gove’s pledge for schools falls well short of the amount needed to plug the funding gap left by real-terms cuts in recent years.

Fellow Prime Minister candidate Boris Johnson also pledged money for schools, saying he would ensure every secondary school in England gets at least £5,000 per pupil. This could, however, amount to as little as just under £50 million extra funding – or a 0.1 per cent increase in overall school spending, according to analysis by FE Week.

Former skills minister Matt Hancock is also running in the leadership race. Whilst he pledged an additional £3 billion a year in funding for primary and secondary schools in a bid to outspend his rivals in the leadership race, he has surprisingly not promised anything for further education.

Neither have any of the other Conservative leadership candidates, which include Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Rory Stewart, Mark Harper and Sam Gyimah.

At the time of going to press, Johnson was favourite to be the next Prime Minister at odds of 4/5, according to betting company William Hill. Second favourite was Gove at 5/1, while Hunt was third at 7/1.

The University and College Union has warned its members will strike at Sandwell College if a lecturer, who was sacked for writing “racist” on a poster promoting the Prevent strategy, is not reinstated.

Dave Muritu was dismissed last week despite admitting to drawing on the poster and apologising for his actions, according to the UCU.

The college claimed his actions constituted gross misconduct on the grounds of “serious damage to college property”, “bringing the college into disrepute” and “use of inappropriate language” with the consequence of summary dismissal.

The college has lost all sense of proportion

The UCU has since launched a petition calling on the college to reinstate Muritu. At the time of going to press, the petition had 643 signatories.

It also warned it would take industrial action if Muritu is not reinstated.

Last year, the college and its staff agreed on a new “sector-leading” pay deal – amounting to more than six per cent over three years, avoiding a three-day strike.

UCU pointed out that Muritu is the union’s local branch secretary, and played a key role in negotiating the landmark pay deal for staff last May.

The maths teacher is also the former chair of the UCU black members standing committee.

Paul Cottrell, UCU acting general secretary, said: “The college has lost all sense of proportion in dealing with Muritu’s case. The incident was clearly a moment of frustration for which he has apologised, but the college has refused to budge from its hardline position.

“The college has acknowledged that his actions didn’t bring the college into disrepute, so it seems this incident is being used as an excuse to attack Muritu for his trade union activities.

“We will not simply stand by and allow this to happen, and the college should be prepared to face industrial action if the decision is not swiftly reversed.”

A spokesperson for Sandwell College said: “Safeguarding is of paramount importance to everybody at Sandwell College and we expect everybody to act professionally, ensuring that we adhere to our statutory duties whilst creating the best possible environment for all of our students and staff to thrive.

“Although we do not share details of internal HR matters, it is important to note that we recently conducted a thorough investigation into a serious disciplinary matter which resulted in the decision being made to terminate the employment of a member of staff.”

She added: “They, of course, have the right to appeal and therefore it would not be right for us to say any more at this time. The college has been notified that UCU wish to enter into a dispute with the college following the dismissal of the staff member. The college does not accept and refutes UCU comments.

“The college has taken necessary steps to minimise the impact of any action and will continue to operate as normal.”

The Prevent duty, which promotes “British values”, requires FE providers to put policies in place to stop potential radicalisation of learners and exposure to extremism.

But the programme has also received criticism, with Rania Hafez, Programme leader for MA education at the University of Greenwich writing for FE Week in 2017, that the “crude imposition of Prevent in colleges has created a with-us-or-against-us mentality, running roughshod over the British value of tolerance”.

In January this year, security minister Ben Wallace, announced an independent review into the strategy.

The body that regulates qualifications in England has added its voice to fears about the government’s plans for scrapping applied general qualifications including BTECs.

Ofqual believes there is a “risk” that a barrier to student progress may be created if alternative choices to T-levels and A-levels are “unduly restricted”.

It is particularly concerned about this impact on disadvantaged learners, who may not be “suited” to studying the new technical qualifications or academic option.

This may particularly (but not only) affect disadvantaged learner groups

The warning comes after sector leaders expressed concern that the review of over 12,000 vocational qualifications at level 3 and below, launched by the Department for Education in February, is manipulation of the market – something the skills minister Anne Milton has strongly denied.

Officials want to make T-levels and A-levels the options of choice for students when they leave school at 16, and any other qualifications that overlap with them are expected to have their funding withdrawn.

In its response to the DfE’s first consultation for the review, Ofqual made the case for keeping applied generals, the most popular of which are BTECs offered by Pearson.

“The need for some flexibility in the size of qualifications on offer is important,” the exams regulator said.

“In particular, learners with SEND, or those with caring responsibilities for example, may need to study part-time or more flexibly and so may face difficulty accessing a T-level.

“We know that many learners study applied generals – sometimes in combination with A-levels – in order to progress to university. If T-level study is not suited to a learner, if they are not ready to specialise in an occupation, or they are unable to access the qualification for any other reason, then there is a risk that a barrier to progress may be created if their alternative choices are unduly restricted.

“This may particularly (but not only) affect disadvantaged learner groups. The continuing opportunity to progress for these students will be a crucial factor in considering which qualification routes should receive funding alongside T-levels.”

Ofqual said from its own experience of reviewing content overlap in GCSE and A-level reform, it found that a “limited amount of content overlap could at times be justified if a qualification served a distinct progression purpose that could not be satisfied by another existing qualification”.

The regulator added that it does “recognise” the more qualifications there are that cover the same or similar content, the “harder it is to secure comparability across those qualifications”.

However, there is a “balance to be achieved, recognising equally that there will be valid reasons why similar qualifications can and should exist”.

When the government opened its level 3 and below consultation it said many of the qualifications are of “poor quality” and their existence leaves young people and employers “confused”.

Milton previously told FE Week that if the qualifications being delivered are of “high quality, have a clear purpose, have good progression and are necessary, and they feel they need to sit alongside T-levels, A-levels and apprenticeships” then providers offering them should “have nothing to fear”.

But the Department for Education made it clear in their 2017 T-Level action plan they would need to “address the incentives and support currently available for other competing qualifications.”

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers has also submitted its response to the consultation.

It warned there is a “danger of qualifications with low enrolments being removed with little consideration to specialist niche provision” and echoed what Ofqual said: “T-levels will not be suitable for all young people.”

“Nor will they cover every occupational area where other qualifications such as BTECs already sit,” it added.

“It is important that a variety of level three options are available to learners so they can select a qualification that best suits their learning needs and aspirations.”

The DfE’s consultation closes on June 10.