Shakira Martin, Head of student experience, Rose Bruford College
Start date: July 2019
Previous job: President, National Union of Students
Interesting fact: When she was younger, she choreographed dances for church performances and school talent shows. She claims to have been twerking way before Miley Cyrus
Alison Shaw, Governor, Northumberland College
Start date: July 2019
Concurrent job: Professor of Practice, Newcastle University Business School
Interesting fact: Having agreed to help with Spanish interpretation to welcome a Uruguayan businessman to Blyth, she landed up actually selling him a ship
Jeff Hope, Governor, Northumberland College
Start date: July 2019
Concurrent job: Head of manufacturing unit, AkzoNobel Ashington
Interesting fact: He has worked as a navigator on marine exploration vessels and has surveyed most oceans/seas across the world
The group’s various parts are now expected to be taken on by North Kent College, East Kent Colleges Group and Capel Manor College (see below for full breakdown).
A spokesperson for the Hadlow Group said: “The Education Administrators (in respect to Hadlow College) and the West Kent and Ashford College board will now consider these recommendations.
“Staff have been informed of the recommendations and will be made aware of relevant decisions as soon as possible and, where appropriate, will be kept informed over the summer.”
He added that the colleges will undertake a “series of staff update sessions” around the campuses/sites next week where “staff can raise any questions or issues of concern in relation to the recommendations and the next steps”.
“We expect to make a further statement once a decision has been reached regarding recommendations,” the spokesperson said.
Financial advisory firm BDO was appointed to oversee the potential sale or transfer of assets within the Hadlow Group – which includes Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College – to neighbouring colleges in May.
Investigations into financial irregularities are ongoing, including the role of the principal, deputy principal and two college chairs, all of whom have now departed in disgrace.
North Kent College is now expected to take over Hadlow College, including its Greenwich site and Princess Christian’s Farm, as well as West Kent College.
With sites in Dartford and Gravesend, North Kent College last received a full Ofsted inspection in 2014 when it was awarded a grade two, which it kept following a short inspection in 2017.
According to their accounts for last year, they employ 335 people with a total income of £25 million, £13.8 million in long-term loans and an ESFA financial health score of “good”.
East Kent College’s Group has been recommended to take on Hadlow’s Canterbury site, which deals with animal management, as well as Ashford College.
The EKC Group was created after East Kent and Canterbury College merged last year and it employs more than 1,000 people and has a turnover of around £55 million.
East Kent College had been awarded an Ofsted grade two in 2017 prior to the merger. Canterbury College was also awarded an Ofsted grade two but had been given an FE Commissioner notice of concern for financial health in March 2016, coming after three consecutive grade threes. They have campuses in Broadstairs, Canterbury, Folkestone, Dover and Sheppy.
Capel Manor College has been recommended to take on Hadlow Group’s Mottingham site, which also deals with animal management.
Capel Manor College is a land-based college primarily based on a large site in Enfield, but also runs courses at Crystal Palace Park, Gunnersbury Park, Brooks Farm in Leyton and Regent’s Park.
The college last received a full Ofsted inspection in 2013 when it was awarded a grade two, which it kept following a short inspection in 2016.
Accounts for last year report an ESFA financial health score of “outstanding”, with 261 employees and a total income of £13.5 million.
Apprenticeship starts for 16- to 18-year-olds have continued to fall, and level 2 starts have dropped by more than 50 per cent since the apprenticeship reforms were introduced, according to the latest government statistics.
Skills minister Anne Milton said she was “pleased” that starts overall have risen by seven per cent between the first three-quarters of 2017-18, and the same period in 2018-19.
However, that rise is thanks to 82 per cent more people aged 25 and over doing higher-level apprenticeships at levels 4 and above, according to FE Week analysis.
Meanwhile, starts at level 2 have plummeted by 51 per cent and starts by 16- to 18-year-olds have dropped by 23 per cent since the year before the apprenticeship reforms were introduced in May 2017.
In that time, starts by those aged 25 and above at levels 4 upwards increased by 69 per cent.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Mark Dawe said in response to the findings that the government’s social mobility agenda is “unravelling before our eyes”.
“Non-levy employers are now being starved of funding and it’s smaller businesses who have traditionally employed young apprentices at lower levels,” he continued.
Dawe said the £5 billion legacy fund the prime minister had negotiated with the Treasury, as reported in The Times on Monday, should be used to “put this right” immediately, rather than it waiting until this year’s spending review.
The figures come amid a Department for Education-commissioned investigation into why level 2 starts have dropped.
Problems with people starting higher-level apprenticeships have dogged the apprenticeship system since the introduction of the levy.
The increased per-start costs of higher apprenticeships, such as the controversial level 6 chartered manager programme, led the Institute for Apprenticeships to warn in December that the apprenticeship budget could be overspent by £0.5 billion this year, rising to £1.5 billion during 2021-22.
An FE Week investigation in March revealed that £70 million of apprenticeship funding would have been blown by then on the level 7 accountancy/taxation professional standard from when it was approved to July 2018.
Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, in her 2018 annual report, warned the budget was being spent on graduate schemes “rebadged” as apprenticeships.
Then in March, the National Audit Office piled in, warning the DfE employers are developing and choosing more expensive apprenticeship standards at higher levels than was expected, which is “absorbing” funding.
It found that the average cost of training an apprentice hit £9,000 – double what the government predicted.
During her speech at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference last month, Anne Milton said the most palatable option for constraining the apprenticeship budget was a pre-apprenticeship salary cap.
Constraining spending is one of the “hard choices” that would have to be made in the face of the imminent overspend, her department’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, told the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
The AELP has called for level 6 and 7 apprenticeships to be frozen out of levy funding to relieve pressure on the budget, after it estimated at least £573 million had been committed to programmes at that level since August 2016.
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are looking carefully at what the priorities for the apprenticeship programme should be in the future in the run-up to the spending review.”
The principal of a college engulfed in quality and financial concerns racked up a £5,000 phone and data bill in four years, figures obtained by The Portsmouth News reveal.
The expenditure by Stella Mbubaegbu at Highbury College, which one union has said sends a “damaging message” to staff, comes as FE Week continues to battle the college for its spending on first class flights.
A Freedom of Information request for this material, as well as all spending on the college’s corporate card, was submitted by this publication in October but has been refused so far.
Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money
Leaders claim the request is “vexatious” and “manifestly unjustified”, but the Information Commissioner’s Office is pressing the college to release the figures which are of public interest.
From a previous FOI, FE Week found that Mbubaegbu used college cash to pay for a first-class return flight from London to Dallas at a cost of £4,132.
The data obtained by The News only lists two flights: one from London to Texas in June 2014 costing £2,860, and another for two people in October 2017 costing a combined total of £1,050 taking them to Saudi Arabia – with a note stating the flight was an “upgrade”.
The total bill on Mbubaegbu’s phone and iPad has been built up since 2014 on trips to Saudia Arabia – where the college runs Jeddah College – and Nigeria, where the college’s lawyers are trying to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt, as revealed by FE Week in January.
Other calls and expense claims were made to Abu Dhabi, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.
A Highbury spokesperson said the international work earned the college more than £1 million in 2017/18 alone.
The college, which crashed two grades from ‘outstanding’ last year, axed its A-level provision earlier this month due to financial pressures, which put 13 jobs at risk.
Its accounts for 2017/18 show a £2.48 million deficit, and board minutes from March 2019 state that the college’s last pay award to staff was “in January 2013″.
University and College Union regional official, Moray McAuley, said: “Holding down staff pay while racking up thousands of pounds worth of expenses on international ventures sends a damaging message that it’s one rule for staff and another for the principal.
“The college should ensure that staff are its top priority when it comes to spending in the future.”
The FOI data shows how a three-second phone call on September 18 last year in Saudi Arabia cost the college £34.
A £512 bill was clocked up in a single day on calls and data on in America.
Claims for taxi fares were also racked up in New Orleans and Orlando in America, Sao Paulo Brazil, Hong Kong, Stuttgart, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, dating back to 2014.
A Highbury College spokesperson said: “Over the last decade, the further education sector has received a real-term cut in income from government funded training of more than 30 per cent.
“To counteract this reduction in funding and safeguard the excellent services and teaching that students can access, colleges have been encouraged by the government to seek out new markets and business opportunities, both in the UK and internationally.”
The spokesperson added: “Highbury College’s international work has been successful in achieving that goal, earning more than £1 million from such activities in 2017/18 alone. The income has supported the local student experience here in Portsmouth and effectively subsidised the underfunding from the government.
“It is inevitable that costs will be incurred to develop new business by staff at the college, but these costs are closely monitored and Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money.”
Highbury College has been subject to widespread media attention following its decision to block FE Week’s website after we revealed its debt in Nigeria at the beginning of the year.
The college’s attempt to suppress the report from its staff led to the story being published to a wider audience, following articles by the Press Gazette, Private Eye, and Portsmouth’s The News.
It also attracted heavy criticism from top sector officials, including skills minister Anne Milton and Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman.
St Helens College is at “high risk of insolvency” without action to mitigate its financial position following an underfunded merger, according to an FE Commissioner report.
The college did not properly predict how much money it would need for a 2017 merger with Knowsley College to form the SK Colleges Group, which was supported by £14.1 million from the ESFA’s restructuring facility.
As a consequence of which, FE Commissioner Richard Atkins wrote in a report published today, the current underlying position of the college is “not sustainable”.
“The college and the board of governors have accepted that the income targets used in the original restructuring facility application were too optimistic and have stated that they would not have proceeded with the merger if they had fully understood the impact on overall financial and quality performance,” he continues.
The level of funding required to support a successful merger did not take account of certain PFI arrangements or over-stated recruitment targets at Knowsley, the report says.
The chair even stated the board were aware their funding may have been insufficient for a sustainable merged institution.
Yet they decided to carry on regardless because of the preparations and commitments between the two institutions were already in place.
The chair told the commissioner’s team that “with hindsight” they should not have progressed.
It has set a “significant deficit budget” for 2018/19, but has not achieved the budgeted income for that year, which has resulted in a significant deficit, and has not taken any remedial action in-year to mitigate the deficit.
The college automated a financial health score of ‘inadequate’ for 2018/19, after the ESFA found it had ‘inadequate’ financial health in 2017/18 and handed it a financial health notice to improve in June.
St Helens College was given a grade three by Ofsted in 2017 – and a grade four for apprenticeships – yet in a monitoring visit from October 2018, it was found to have made ‘reasonable progress’ in every area.
Since the FE Commissioner visit, the principal of SK Colleges Group, Jette Burford, retired from the college and has been replaced by an interim.
The college has now been ordered to prepare a recovery plan by the ESFA, which the FE Commissioner report concurs with.
Atkins has also recommended the college should plan for a substantial reduction in its underused estates, put a policy in place to find a new principal, but ensure the focus on improving its financial position should not detract from improving provision.
The FEC team said they would return to the college within six to eight weeks of the March report to consider the recovery strategy prepared by the college, and further recommendations may be made.
In her letter accompanying the report, skills minister Anne Milton said: “It is clear from the commissioner’s report that you, your governors and senior leadership team now fully recognise the need to take swift actions in order to address the significant financial challenges facing the college including the current high risk of insolvency.
“I welcome the positive work you and your college group have already undertaken in the development of a recovery plan. As will be clear to you, it is important that this demonstrates how the college group will achieve a sustainable financial future.”
Monica Box, Principal of SK College Group, said the college has taken a “variety of significant measures to improve its operating position” since the FE Commissioner’s visit in January.
“During the last six months, the college has produced and is implementing a clear three-year recovery business plan,” she added.
“The board is monitoring the plan vigorously, and is confident it is robust, achievable, and will deliver the necessary actions to provide a sound financial position during the lifespan of the plan.”
The first batch of colleges that will receive cash from the government’s T-levels capital fund have been revealed.
Eleven of them will share £8.65 million to help build new classrooms and refurbish buildings in readiness for the introduction of the new technical qualifications in September 2020.
Further cash from the fund, which totals £38 million, will be awarded to other T-level providers later this year.
“I’m thrilled to announce the first batch of T-level providers who will benefit from the T-level capital fund, so young people will have access to high-quality facilities come September 2020 when the first T-level courses will be taught,” said skills minister Anne Milton.
“I look forward to announcing further allocations of funding soon.”
The 11 providers announced today include The Blackpool and Fylde College that will receive £400,000 to invest in “state of the art facilities” for construction students, and Barnsley College that will receive £2.2 million to build a new Digital Innovation Hub.
The Department for Education said providers submitted proposals based on their “specific needs” and all received the funding they applied for in full.
The T-level capital fund is being delivered in two parts. The first, launched in January 2019, is for the 2020 providers to refurbish their existing buildings or to build new spaces. These grants are not available to private providers, only colleges and schools.
Following this, funding for specialist equipment such as digital and audio visual kit, will be allocated to providers in spring 2020.
The first three T-levels for digital, education and construction will be taught from September 2020 by 50 providers.
The first 11 providers to win T-levels capital fund cash:
All subcontracting contracts, for both adult education budget and apprenticeship funding, must include for the first time a “list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor”.
In addition to listing the services, the contract must include “how each cost contributes to delivering high-quality training” and “how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning”.
These costs are typically referred to as a management fee or “top-slice” and have proven controversial for many years.
After learning of the rule change last week, Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, labelled it as an “immensely bureaucratic process” that “appears both out of the blue and shockingly late in the day”.
And a spokesperson for Learning Curve Group, a provider that operates as both a prime and subcontractor, told FE Week: “The administration connected to these updated requirements seems overly onerous and ambiguous from an audit perspective.
“It is also hugely unhelpful that the publication of the rules is so late.”
According to ESFA figures for 2017-18, there were over 3,292 subcontracting contracts involving 516 main contractors and 1,032 subcontractors.
In an update about the rule change published today, the ESFA said it “recognises that subcontracting has a role to play in delivering high quality learning to apprentices and adult learners”.
“In recent years, we have strengthened our funding rules on subcontracting and we are continuing to do so,” it continued.
“We expect providers to maximise the amount of funding that reaches front line delivery of high quality learning.”
The agency said it will, ready for delivery from 1 August, implement a “risk-based approach for monitoring these rules” and “impose compliance measures when appropriate”.
“These expectations will be reviewed in 18 months.”
The colleges to take part in the first round of the phased implementation of the T-levels “transitional” course have been named.
The programme, recommended by Lord Sainsbury in his technical education report in July 2016, will be for 16-year-olds to take if they are not ready to start a T-level at level three, but can “realistically achieve it” by age 19.
Thirty seven providers will pilot the course next year.
Timescales for developing and testing it will be tight, as there is just over a year to go until the first three T-levels, in digital, education and construction, are delivered.
The 37 colleges to pilot the T-levels transition course:
Access Creative College (Access to Music Ltd.)
Barnsley College
Bishop Burton College
Blackpool and The Fylde College
Bridgwater & Taunton College
Cardinal Newman College
Chichester College Group
Cirencester College
City of Stoke-on-Trent sixth Form College
Cranford Community College
Derby College
Dudley College of Technology
East Sussex College Group
Exeter College
Fareham College
Farnborough College of Technology
Gateshead College
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education
Havant and South Downs College
HCUC (Harrow College and Uxbridge College)
La Retraite RC Girls School
Lordswood Girls’ School & Sixth Form Centre
Nelson and Colne College
New College Durham
Norwich City College of Further and Higher Education
A new inquiry into the current state of adult education and lifelong learning is being launched by the House of Commons education select committee.
Former apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon (pictured), who chairs the committee, will make the announcement during a speech at an event hosted by the Centre for Social Justice in London tomorrow.
A spokesperson for the committee said the inquiry is “going to be looking at the benefits of life-long learning to the economy and individuals, and also how improving adult skills can promote social justice”.
Poor access to lifelong learning is one of the great social injustices of our time
It will also be “examining the level of support available to learners from local authorities”.
Halfon will say in his speech that while it might not get the same attention as other “big-ticket items in Westminster”, poor access to lifelong learning is “one of the great social injustices of our time”.
Warning of an “enormous wave of lost opportunity about to come crashing down on the next generation of employees”, he will say it is a scandal that lifelong learning is out of reach for the millions already most disadvantaged in society.
“Lifelong learning is a more affluent person’s game,” he will tell the Centre for Social Justice.
“Those who might benefit most from adult learning and training – low-skilled people in low-income work or the unemployed – are by far the least likely to be doing it.”
Another potential problem, according to Halfon, “is the numbers of people undertaking community learning have dropped – from around 650,000 in 2011/12 to around 500,000 in 2017/18”.
He’ll say that while “just over half of those in higher socioeconomic groups engaged in learning in the last three years, just 26 per cent of people in lower groups did.
“Adult learning should be a lifeline for the shocking number of those who left school ill-equipped to grapple with the rough and tumble of the jobs market … around nine million working adults in England have low literacy and/or numeracy skills. Yet in the last ten years just 17 per cent of low paid workers have moved permanently out of low pay.”
Before announcing the select committee’s inquiry into the current state of adult learning, Halfon will say the UK lags behind other wealthy nations in spending on lifelong education, and a recent study by the Social Mobility Commission shows England’s adult skills budget “fell by 34 per cent in real terms between 2010-2016”.
Halfon will call for an adult community learning centre to be put in every town in the country, and a top-slice of the existing £60 million support fund – which is meant to specifically target those living in deprived areas – for apprenticeships and use this to support more organisations like the WEA, the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education.
Halfon will also propose increasing tax incentives both through Corporation Tax and by ensuring increased benefits for employers investing in training people with lower skill levels.
“Only by recognising this crisis and taking urgent actions to reverse it can the UK avoid today’s divisions multiplying because those with most to gain from lifelong learning continue to be the ones with the least access to it,” Halfon will say.
Grassroots community based learning is a lifeline for many in our most deprived communities
A spokesperson for the WEA said the inquiry into lifelong learning announcement is “very welcome”.
“Grassroots community based learning is a lifeline for many in our most deprived communities,” they added.
“As working lives get longer and we all need to keep pace with change to live full and active lives, lifelong learning becomes more and more vital.”
The select committee is inviting written submissions addressing the following questions:
What are the benefits of adult skills and lifelong learning (ASALL) for productivity and upskilling the workforce?
What are the benefits of ASALL for social justice, health and well-being?
What role can local authorities/combined authority areas play in ASALL provision?
To what extent is the range, balance and quality of formal and informal ASALL education adequate?
Who currently participates in and benefits from lifelong learning?
What lessons can the UK learn from abroad?
The deadline for written evidence submissions is 15 August.
The select committee isn’t the only body to have launched an inquiry into lifelong learning in recent times.
