Forty-five colleges and school sixth forms across England will need to find hundreds of 45-day industry placements as part of new “digital” T-levels next year.

But last month Scarborough Sixth Form College pulled out of the programme as the principal did not feel confident in securing enough placements – a move which was applauded by education secretary Gavin Williamson, a former student of the college.

FE Week investigated whether other providers would struggle to find relevant employers in their patch.

“The time it is taking to fulfil requirements is huge”

Weston College, based in Weston-super-Mare and one of an initial six providers set to deliver the digital T-level in the South West of England, has admitted to concerns over finding sufficient employer partners to deliver industry placements.

“We are confident that we can embrace the delivery of the digital T-level, but recognise that it is a difficult agenda,” principal Dr Paul
Phillips said.

“We are well on the way to finding our placement providers, but again the time it is taking to fulfil requirements is huge.

“There is, however, a reality here – this is the future and therefore we have to find a way to deliver this successfully and we will.”

The “Digital production, design and development” qualification will be one of the first three T-levels to be available at select colleges, schools and other providers across England in September 2020.

The two-year course will follow GCSEs, be equivalent to three A-levels and include classroom learning.

A mandatory industry placement of at least 315 hours (approximately 45 days) is arguably the most critical component of the T-level.

A student could be on the programme for the full two years but prevented from passing if the provider cannot find an employer to place students with – something that sector leaders have long expressed concern about, especially for those in rural areas.

To encourage enough providers to sign up to offer the new qualifications, colleges have been given monetary incentives including a hefty £38 million capital funding pot which 13 have benefitted from so far.

But this year the National Foundation for Educational Research released research, based on interviews with half of the first 50 providers to deliver T-levels in 2020, which found providers faced huge challenges in securing work placements, specifically in the digital sector.

This was reportedly “due to the small size of many of these businesses, as well as intellectual property and safeguarding issues”.

Recognising this threat, the Department for Education (DfE) announced in May that students would be able to split their industry placements between two employers, in order to enable more choice.

They also stated that digital placements could be undertaken within “common sets of occupational areas” as opposed to those only relevant to students’ specific specialism.

FE Week analysis of the latest employment data from the Office for National Statistics attempted to identify the potential cold-spots of digital jobs in England.

It showed the North East had the fewest Information and communication jobs, as of June 2019.

Despite this, Chris Toon, deputy principal at Gateshead College, was optimistic about finding enough work placements.

“North East England has one of the fastest growing digital and tech sectors in the UK,” he said.

“It’s our continuing role as a college to ensure those businesses that choose to thrive here in the region have access to a talented workforce; people with the skills, experience and ambition who can hit the ground running.”

The college “successfully trialled” digital T-levels work placements as part of the DfE pilot last year, according to Toon.

As a result, he said it already has commitments from leading tech firms in Gateshead and the wider North East region going forward.

Derby College is the only planned provider of the digital T-level in the East Midlands, a region with the second fewest digital jobs according to the data from the Office for National Statistics.

Kate Martin, vice principal of Derby College Group who is heading the introduction of T-levels at the college, sought to allay apprehension over placement options in the area.

She said: “Our partnership working with local and regional employers – which has been rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted – gives us a head start on the work experience requirements under the T-level programmes.

“We have a dedicated team whose focus is to provide current students with diverse opportunities with employers, including work experience.

“Partner employers in the first tranche subjects – and many others – are fully on board to work with us to provide students with the work-based elements of the T-levels.”

Yorkshire and The Humber was the region with the third smallest workforce employed in “digital” jobs.

But a spokesperson for Barnsley College, which is based in the region, said it had “no intention to withdraw” and planning for delivery was “well underway and on track.”

Barnsley College is the prime college beneficiary of capital funding for T-levels so far, having received £2.2 million.

David Akeroyd, vice principal of technical and professional education, explained how the provider secures work placements.

“We are working closely with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council in relation to the town’s proposed digital campus, which will open up new opportunities for business start-ups and the relocation of existing digital employers to Barnsley,” he said.

“The town also has easy access via public transport to the key cities of Sheffield and Leeds where we have many links with digital employers who are supporting T-level delivery.”

Barnsley’s digital campus is set to open in September 2020, according to the college and the council.

The principal of Shipley College of Further Education, Nav Chohan,
echoed the expectation of meeting the T-level industry requirement in the Yorkshire and the Humber region.

He stated: “Given our positive experience in finding opportunities with employers under the Work Placement Capacity and Delivery Fund, we feel confident that sufficient industry placements can be found.”

Leeds-based Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College also said it was “confident” that it will deliver a successful T-level digital programme, including sufficient amounts of industry placements.

The highest proportion of digital jobs in England are based in London but there are only four digital T-level providers in the capital and none of the largest London colleges will be offering the new qualification next year.

Part of the reason for this was the stipulation that grade three colleges could not apply to deliver the first wave of T-levels; nor could merged colleges that no longer have an Ofsted grade, such as London South East Colleges. 

At the start of October, when Scarborough Sixth Form College officially pulled out of delivering the digital pathway, education secretary Gavin Williamson said his former college made the “right decision”.

Despite Williamson also pledging to convene employers to “make sure” enough work placement opportunities are available to colleges, his words could be taken by rural colleges as encouragement to bail out now if they also have concerns over work placements.

But Becci Newton, deputy director of public policy research at the Institute for Employment Studies, cautioned against a decision not
to attempt delivery of the T-level in locations that are not known as digital hubs and claimed it would be “a hugely limiting decision in terms of young people’s future careers”.

“Obviously places such as Reading, Brighton and London have high numbers of digital employers, however, it is also the case that all organisations use digital skills in some way, and often these provide a suitable match for FE level digital skills,” she added.

Other digital T-level providers across the South West – the same region where Weston College acknowledged difficulties in preparation – expressed their confidence in the successful delivery of the programme.

Matt Reynolds, a vice principal in teaching, learning and assessment development at Cirencester Sixth Form College, said: “We’ve had a healthy response from employers of different sizes who are willing to get involved with T-levels.

“The key is in being flexible and understanding to help bring the employers into the programme as a partner, and also in having top quality communication between the college and business.”

Bridgwater & Taunton College and Truro and Penwith College both told FE Week they were on track to deliver the new digital T-level successfully, but would not comment specifically on whether they will secure a sufficient number of work placements.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We have worked closely with large and small businesses to make sure we get the delivery of T-levels right.

“As we progress towards September 2020, we expect a certain amount of fluctuation among T-level providers and the pathways they offer – but these changes are not anticipated to be a matter of concern.”

The Education and Skills Funding Agency will stop any new qualification at level 3 and below receiving approval for funding from September next year.

Officials at the ESFA issued a “moratorium” notice to awarding organisations this week, which will be in place initially for a period of three years.

The move is part of the government’s controversial post-16 level 3 and below review of vocational qualifications, which includes applied generals such as BTECs, tech levels and technical certificates.

Officials claim that many of these qualifications are of “poor quality” and their existence leaves young people and employers “confused”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said the moratorium will support this review, and will be enforced “so we are not adding to the already confusing and complicated system of over 12,000 qualifications already available at these levels”.

But Graham Hasting-Evans, group managing director at awarding body NOCN, warned of the economic consequences of the decision. “The announcement is not surprising,” he said.

“What I hope we will get very soon is a formal report from the Department for Education, not the ESFA, on the outcome of the [level 3 and below] consultation with the opportunity to comment on any firm DfE proposals, arising from the review.

“In that sense I believe that the blanket announcement of a moratorium, even with the exemptions, is not the best way forward for the UK economy as it could prove to be too restrictive.”

The moratorium will apply to study programme for 16 to 19-year olds, advanced learner loans, the adult education budget and the European Social Fund at level 3 and below.

Exemptions include qualifications that are being reformed, those that have been “designed to respond to a particular economic need” and those which have been approved for 2020 to 2021 but need updating.

The operation of the moratorium will be reviewed annually and will also apply across the Greater London Authority and six mayoral combined authorities, which had their share of the adult education budget devolved to them in August.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, called the government’s level 3 and below review “important” and “high stakes” as it will determine the future of applied general qualifications.

Reacting to the moratorium, Kewin said: “As our consultation response set out, we believe that the newly-reformed applied general qualifications have a vital role to play in the future qualifications landscape, and should sit alongside T-levels and A levels as the ‘qualifications of choice’ for 16 to 19-year-olds.

“Applied general qualifications make an enormous contribution to both social mobility and economic growth and we will continue to make the case for this option to be available to students in the future.”

The ESFA stated that funding approval will not be removed from qualifications that have funding offers unless “they no longer meet approval principles, reach their operational end date during the period of the moratorium, and are no longer available for students to study” or are a “legacy version of a qualification that has been subject to other reform”.

The first part of a two-stage consultation on plans to withdraw funding for qualifications at level 3 and below begun in March and followed the announcement of plans to introduce new “high-quality” T-levels, which will be rolled out from next year.

Then skills minister Anne Milton told FE Week the consultation did not represent a manipulation of the market to ensure T-levels are a success and claimed those providing high quality, necessary qualifications with a clear purpose and good progression “should have nothing to fear”.

However, Ofqual voiced concerns that there was a risk of a potential barrier to student progress if alternative choices to T-levels and A-levels were “unduly restricted”.

In July it was confirmed that more than 160 “duplicate qualifications” at level 3 and below, including 76 BTECs, will have their funding removed from August 2020.

Colleges and independent learning providers are prospering under the new Ofsted inspection framework, with most scoring “good” grades in the initial run of reports.

The first inspection reports conducted under the new framework, which came into effect from 1 September, were released last Friday.

A total of 18 have now been published and almost three quarters (71 per cent) have received a grade two, or “good” ranking.

Four were classified as grade three, or “requires improvement,” and one was rated grade four, or “inadequate”.

The reports are structured quite differently from before, with new questions and a different layout, but one of the most drastic changes has been the reduction in word count.

The report for Woodspeen Training in Huddersfield, the first provider to be inspected under the new framework, features 2,004 words, while its previous report from 2017 contained 5,241 words.

This could be due to Ofsted’s decision to reduce the number of types of provision it inspected under the new framework to make its reports “more coherent and inclusive”.

This meant that, for example, rather than looking at a range of study programmes for those aged 16-19 and those aged 16-24, they would all be grouped under education programmes for young people.

The new framework is intended to focus less on data and more on the quality of education received by learners.

Woodspeen Training, which improved from a grade three to a two, told FE Week in September that inspectors were looking at the “three I’s”: intent, implementation, and impact.

This new model appears to be benefitting general FE colleges: three out of five of their reports from this week returned “good” ratings.

Bedford College was another of the successful providers, with inspectors reporting that more than 10,000 learners enjoy their time and benefit from a “positive and respectful culture”.

This is the first inspection since its merger in 2017 with Tresham College, which received a grade four rating in 2016.

Ofsted also graded Tyne Coast College in South Shields as “good” and wrote that the 5,000 learners enjoy the experience and feel valued by staff.

North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College also achieved a grade two for its provision to over 5,000 learners.

Inspectors found its senior leaders had developed and successfully implemented a clear strategy, resulting in sustained improvement since the college was formed from a merger of two others in 2016.

The less successful performers were Coventry College and The Sheffield College.

Coventry, which has around 6,000 learners, failed to rise above a grade three after it was found that too few of its learners and apprentices in 2018/19 received clear information about courses, their location and entry criteria.

The Sheffield College, with over 10,000 learners, also received a grade three because too few learners on study programmes and with high needs achieved their qualification.

Two specialist colleges have earned a grade two under the new framework: Lakeside Early Adult Provision on Merseyside, which has ten students and improved on a grade three; and Freeman College in Sheffield, which has 27 students.

Independent providers have also done well since the new inspection framework was introduced – with seven out of nine achieving a grade two in their reports.

Norman Mackie and Associates in Cheshire, like Woodspeen, progressed from a grade three to a grade two this week.

Inspectors reported that its 41 learners “enjoy and participate fully in their learning programmes” and leaders have high expectations for them.

But on the flip side, Mercia Partnership, based in Chorley, Lancashire, is challenging Ofsted after being given the first grade four rating under the new framework. People Solutions Training, which trades as N-gaged and is based in Bristol, scored a grade three overall but received an “inadequate” for apprenticeships.

The provider told FE Week that it would not be challenging the grade.

Employer providers are off to a bad start after Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust received a grade three in its first inspection.

Kirklees Council Adult and Community Learning scored a grade two. This was a downgrade from its previous grade one.

A former college principal has topped a list of the most influential lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender role models working in the public sector.

Ann Limb, who is now chair of The Scout Association, was ranked first in the OUTstanding list of 30 LGBT+ public sector executives for 2019.

WorldSkills UK chief executive Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE was another FE sector leader to be recognised in the awards, which have been running since 2013.

Limb said she hoped that her achievement “can help raise the profile of LGBT+ people and issues across the FE sector”.

At OUTstanding’s awards ceremony on Wednesday, Limb said that as an “almost 67, post-menopausal, gay dwarf, you really never expect to be a role model for anybody. The fact that I seemingly am a role model is joyous and a blessing.”

In front of the awards ceremony’s audience of 170 million people worldwide, Limb said she was “overwhelmed to find myself in this company”.

Afterwards she said: “That is where FE and LGBT+ should be – on the global stage and mainstream.”

Although she has been with her partner Maggie for 33 years, Limb only began to speak openly about being gay in February, after being invited to a parliamentary event during LGBT+ History month.

She is also vice chair of City & Guilds and has previously served as principal of Milton Keynes College and chief executive of the former training giant Learndirect.

She wrote in March: “During a 25-year, successful career in FE, I did nothing overtly in the arena of LGBT+ activities.”

But she now hopes that she can “take some actions to raise the profile of LGBT+ in the sector”.

Bentley-Gockmann, who came 15th on the list, said it was a “real honour to be recognised in this way for the work we are doing at WorldSkills UK”.

He said that with the organisation’s partners in education and industry “we are working hard to boost the profile of LGBT inclusion alongside ensuring more young people, regardless of social background, ethnicity, gender or disability have the opportunity to succeed through our work”.

This includes the first WorldSkills UK Diversity and Inclusion Awards taking place at WorldSkills UK LIVE towards the end of this month.

They are intended to celebrate individuals and organisations championing inclusivity in the FE sector and going above and beyond to support young people from a range of backgrounds.

Bentley-Gockmann said: “Now is the time for more leaders in the skills sector to step up to champion diversity, as role models and allies, so more young people from all walks of life are inspired to take up technical careers and apprenticeships.”

In addition to his work with WorldSkills UK, Bentley-Gockmann has led a roundtable discussion in the House of Commons with education partners to discuss the importance of LGBT+ leadership and role models in colleges; and he has chaired a one-day annual conference on LGBT+ inclusion at work.

His OBE, awarded in the 2019 New Year Honours, was for services to LGBT+ inclusion. He is a former deputy chair of Stonewall, the LGBT + charity.

The co-founders of a disgraced apprenticeship provider currently under police investigation are yet to be interviewed by officers, more than a year after inquiries began.

In October 2018 the government terminated its multi-million pound skills funding contracts with Aspire Achieve Advance, better known as 3aaa, after allegations of fraud. The case was referred to Derbyshire Constabulary.

The apprenticeship giant subsequently went bust with 4,200 learners and 500 staff on its books.

But a spokesperson for the constabulary has confirmed that no contact has been made with anyone who worked at the defunct firm, including the top bosses.

They could not say what work has been done over the past 12 months, even though in March the constabulary said that a “formal criminal investigation” into 3aaa had started.

The High Court placed 3aaa into compulsory liquidation in late October last year.

Anthony Hannon is the official receiver handling the insolvency, but his investigation into the collapse of 3aaa is also ongoing one year later.

A spokesperson said that the Insolvency Service has three years from the date of the company winding-up order to launch enforcement action “if it was to determine doing so was in the public interest in the light of any investigation findings”.

“Enforcement activity is pursued through the courts meaning that applications must be supported by information that meets the evidential standard for those proceedings,” they added.

Sanctions imposed by the official receiver, if he or she uncovers unfit director conduct, include director disqualification of between two and 15 years.

A total of 1,242 company directors were banned last year.

3aaa was co-founded by Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008, but the pair stepped down in September 2018.

The company was one of the biggest apprenticeship companies in England, holding £16.5 million in ESFA contracts when it went into administration on October 11 that year.

It received more than £31 million in government funding the year before it collapsed and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships, standing at nearly £22 million.

Evidence from a whistleblower, obtained by FE Week, showed how the provider inflated achievement rates by more than 20 percentage points, which contributed to a high Ofsted grade and more public funding.

In addition to data manipulation, 3aaa sales documents showed a potential £700,000 ESFA clawback. It is understood that this related to a range of apprenticeship and traineeship funding overclaims made through individualised learner record submissions.

The alleged misuse of grants from an apprenticeship incentive scheme in which 3aaa held on to £1.2 million that was supposed to go to employers is also under investigation.

The defunct company’s latest accounts show that its directors took out huge directors’ loans totalling more than £4 million between them, and that its two owners bought multi-million pound properties at the end of 2015.

Meanwhile, 3aaa spent its public funding on £1.6 million of sports-club sponsorships, an Elton John concert and Tesla supercars, among other luxuries.

Last year was not the first ESFA investigation. In 2016 the auditing firm KPMG was asked to carry out an investigation and found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

It is understood this resulted in 3aaa paying back a substantial six-figure sum.

After launching its second investigation into 3aaa in June 2018, the DfE called in an independent auditor to investigate the ESFA over its contract management of the former apprenticeships giant.