A council and a specialist college have received the worst possible rating from Ofsted, in a week where three early monitoring reports at new providers recorded ‘insufficient progress’ scores.

North Lincolnshire Council and Cambian Lufton College in Somerset saw their ratings drop by two grades from ‘good’.

The inspectorate found a set of poor teaching and learning outcomes at North Lincolnshire Council, and claimed that its community learning programme includes ‘‘too many courses that learners attend purely for recreational purposes”.

The report highlighted falling completion rates, high levels of truancy and community learning courses which were not adding to leaners’ existing skills and knowledge.

Managers’ data analysis of where the service needs to be improved was said to be poor, and governors were said to have insufficient power to challenge management decisions.

Safeguarding at the council was said to be effective.

Cambian Lufton College in Somerset was also downgraded to ‘inadequate’ over “significant” safeguarding concerns, as FE Week reported on Wednesday.

Two new private providers – Shl Training Solutions Ltd and Rita’s Training Services Ltd – were both criticised for allegedly failing to meet the basic requirements of an apprenticeship, in their first monitoring visits since they won direct contracts with the ESFA.

Ofsted claimed that this was the case at both providers because they allocated insufficient time for off-the-job training.

Other elements of provision at Rita’s Training Services Ltd, which was deemed to have made ‘insufficient progress’ in two of the three criteria in its report, were broadly praised by the inspections body.

Ofsted engaged in further criticism of Shl Training Solutions Ltd, which was deemed to have made ‘insufficient progress’ across all areas. The body said apprentices at that provider who “have been in the same employment for many years repeat much of what they know and can do already”.

Safeguarding practices were also criticised. The provider was said to have a “comprehensive range” of safeguarding policies but implementation was often insufficiently tracked.

Hertfordshire Catering Ltd, an employer provider, was also found making ‘insufficient progress’ in two areas of its early monitoring report.

Ofsted drew attention to the fact that no learners completed their courses on time, and said that the basic requirements of an apprenticeship were not being fulfilled.

Apprentices were found not to be developing new skills and it was claimed that many learners have a “higher level of competency in cookery and hospitality than they require to complete their apprenticeship”.

Ofsted said the provider did not properly assess learners’ basic skills at the start of their programme, apprentices did not know enough about their programme and directors were given insufficient information to challenge management decisions.

Private provider Omega Training Services Ltd was deemed to be ‘requires improvement’ for the second time in a row in two years.

Almost half of learners were not completing their courses on time and staff were deemed to be poorly trained. Ofsted said the provider displayed a good understanding of where it needs to improve.

There was better news for Lincolnshire County Council, which retained a ‘good’ rating for the third time in a row, and for private provider dip (Batley) Ltd, which was deemed to be making ‘significant progress’ in two areas of its early monitoring report.

Ofsted praised Lincolnshire Council for providing disadvantaged young people with “excellent opportunities to attend learning venues close to their homes”, with learners making good progress in an environment which set the bar high for all learners regardless of their starting point.

It said that commissioning procedures were “robust” although good practice was not always shared between teams and too few learners were achieving good outcomes in English and maths.

Provision at dip (Batley) Ltd was praised, after Ofsted found the provider’s leaders have a “very clear and well-established curriculum strategy”.

“They provide courses for unemployed people in the local area to support them to develop the skills they need to gain employment,” inspectors added.

Elsewhere, six providers were deemed to be making ‘reasonable progress’ across all areas of their early monitoring reports; Careshield Ltd, Gecko Programmes Ltd, SPS Training Solutions, Aspire to Learn Limited, The Football League (Community) Limited and Lul Noninee Bcv Ltd.

 

Independent Specialist College	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Cambian Lufton College	25/06/2019	31/07/2019	4	2

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Omega Training Services Ltd	09/07/2019	29/07/2019	3	3
Careshield Ltd	10/07/2019	29/07/2019	M	N/A
dip (Batley) Ltd	26/06/2019	29/07/2019	M	N/A
Gecko Programmes Ltd	16/07/2019	01/08/2019	M	N/A
SPS Training Solutions	19/06/2019	30/07/2019	M	N/A
Aspire to Learn Limited	17/07/2019	02/08/2019	M	N/A
Rita’S Training Services	10/07/2019	02/08/2019	M	N/A
Shl Training Solutions Ltd	24/06/2019	02/08/2019	M	N/A
The Football League (Community) Limited	09/07/2019	02/08/2019	M	N/A

 

Adult and Community Learning	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
North Lincolnshire Council	18/06/2019	31/07/2019	4	2
Lincolnshire County Council	11/06/2019	02/08/2019	2	2

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Lul Noninee Bcv Ltd	19/06/2019	01/08/2019	M	N/A
Hertfortdshire Catering Limited	26/06/2019	01/08/2019	M	N/A

Officials are finally preparing a cross-departmental “proposal” for cutting travel costs for apprentices.

It is being worked on by the Department for Education and Department for Transport, more than two years after the Conservatives pledged to discount public transport for apprentices in their election manifesto.

The government has stalled on implementing the commitment to date, although officials have announced they will provide half price rail fares to 16 and 17 year-olds from September 2019.

In December, the Commons education select committee said ministers must stop “dragging their feet” on apprentice transport costs.

In answer to a parliamentary question from Stephanie Peacock, the MP for Barnsley East, new children’s minister Kemi Badenoch, who will also provide support for the skills brief with education secretary Gavin Williamson, said on Friday: “The Department for Education and the Department for Transport are currently preparing a joint proposal for discounted public transport, including bus and train travel, for apprentices.

“They are keen to work with stakeholders to address how we can best ensure that young people are not deterred from taking up apprenticeship opportunities due to travel costs and will continue to work together to support other forms of discounted travel for apprentices.”

She added: “In January 2019, the government announced the 16-17 Railcard, which will offer half price rail fares to 16 and 17 year-olds from September 2019.

“This will benefit apprentices and those in further education. Further details about the 16-17 Railcard will be announced later this year.”

The DfE and DfT said in November 2017 they were then exploring options for discounted apprentice travel. FE Week has asked them what has taken so long to develop this, and when its new “proposal” for cutting travels costs for apprentices will be implemented.

In January 2018 the Skills Commission, made up of an influential group of education leaders, business and MPs, said the government was harming young and disadvantaged apprentices with its failure to ease their travel costs, in a major inquiry into the impact of the apprenticeship reforms.

Juliana Mohamad Noor, National Union of Students’ vice president for further education, has now urged the government to get a move on with its commitment.

“We know that this is a huge issue for apprentices and students and so this is a welcome commitment, however, at the moment it remains just a commitment,” she told FE Week.

“This has been promised again and again but now is the time for the government to put it into action.

“The problems that apprentices face are in no way limited to travel costs, however, and this should be the beginning of the government taking note and action on working conditions, pay and living costs.”

England’s largest college group has appointed Liz Bromley as its new chief executive.

NCG will welcome the former deputy vice chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire to the top post on 19 August.

She will take over from the college group’s deputy chief executive Chris Payne, who has been serving as acting chief executive since October 2018 when Joe Docherty stepped down with immediate effect following a turbulent year.

Liz will bring huge drive and creativity as well as a successful track record in education leadership

NCG had begun its hunt for a new permanent chief executive immediately after Docherty resigned but paused the process in early 2019 after its initial hunt proved fruitless and it turned its focus to “improving standards”.

Bromley said she is “truly delighted” to be joining this “ambitious group of colleges”.

“Further Education has never been needed more or been better placed to answer the needs of our emerging workforce, and to offer opportunities to everyone who wants to learn,” she added.

“NCG represents everything that matters most in the education sector – offering relevant learning at all levels in our local communities, but also working across boundaries to ensure best practice in teaching and leadership development right across the sector.”

Bromley’s appointment comes at a time of change and trouble for NCG. It is currently consulting on major staff redundancies at its two private providers – Intraining and Rathbone Training.

Intraining in particular has been hit with quality concerns, which have included falling achievement rates, a poor Ofsted report, and a mystery audit that found dodgy data.

Elsewhere, staff at its colleges in London have gone on strike in a row over pay – with union officials even calling on the FE Commissioner to consider de-merging them – and a free school that the group sponsored, the Discovery School, was forced to close down by the government last year.

NCG is currently subject to intervention from the FE Commissioner owing to its Ofsted grade three, and has been waiting for a “diagnostic visit” over the summer.

Still, Bromley is eager to get started: “I am looking forward to working with my new colleagues and privileged to be leading NCG as we open up opportunities for learners right across the UK,” she said.

Having worked in other senior roles across the education sector – including at the University of Salford and Goldsmiths, University of London – Bromley has also been a board member of the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education, the CBI North West and a governor and trustee of the Sir John Brunner Foundation.

“We are very excited about Liz joining the team here at NCG and can see the immediate value she will be able to add to our journey to make the group a great place to learn, teach and work,” said Payne.

Peter Lauener, NCG chair, added: “Liz will bring huge drive and creativity as well as a successful track record in education leadership.

“On top of that she brings an absolute commitment to developing the highest standards of education and training in all our colleges so that they can provide a beacon of opportunity for all our learners in the diverse communities we serve.”

NCG comprises Newcastle College, Newcastle Sixth Form College, Lewisham College, Southwark College, Carlisle College, Kidderminster College, West Lancashire College, Rathbone Training and InTraining.

A Labour Party commission has set out what it calls a “radical new direction” for lifelong learning, including the potential role for tax credits in leveraging employer engagement in training.

The political party’s independent Lifelong Learning Commission, which is co-chaired by former education secretary Estelle Morris and general secretary of the Communication Workers Union Dave Ward, has today published an interim report.

It describes “deep-seated” challenges facing lifelong learning, from a funding fall of nearly half in real terms since 2009-10 for adult education and apprenticeships, to the “catastrophic loss” of people aged 19 or over in further education, where numbers have fallen from 4.7 million in 2004 to 2.2 million in 2016.

This interim report identifies some of the major issues with the current education system

The commission says the current adult learning sector is characterised by a “disjointed framework in which provision is driven by funding, and entitlements are narrow and prescriptive”.

It has not yet produced fixed policy proposals, but following a series of plenary sessions since its creation in March, the commission said a number of “key themes” have begun to emerge about the “potential building blocks for a fairer and more accessible system of lifelong learning”.

Among the areas that will now be explored further is the creation of a “single integrated system” that involves all FE and HE providers “working in conjunction with credit accumulation” and creating a “credit transfer system”.

It will look at how tax credits and other financial incentives could be used to leverage employers’ engagement in training – an idea that was floated Robert Halfon last month when he launched the Commons education select committee’s own lifelong learning inquiry.

There is also a commitment to explore a set of “clear entitlements to learning – some universal and some tailored according to need – supported by appropriate funding and infrastructure”, as well as a “shift in the relationship between learners and providers from short-term transactional enrolment to a lifelong, mutually beneficial relationship”.

The commission also believes a new, independent, national information, advice and guidance service, which helps people to understand their learning entitlements and options for progression, is needed.

To take forward these ideas, four “workstreams” – people, providers, employers and funding and policy – have been established where individual stakeholder groups will “provide a forensic, detailed focus and collation of insights”.

This will include an “initial assessment of the costs and benefits of our proposals, taking into account cross departmental responsibilities and the wider benefits of learning”.

Labour’s lifelong learning commission has been set up to develop the party’s policy of free education “from cradle to grave” in its proposed National Education Service.

The policy has come under a lot of fire for its lack of detail to date but the commission’s final report, which will be published later this year, is promised to include comprehensive proposals complete with real funding models.

“This interim report identifies some of the major issues with the current education system and seeks to set out a radical vision for lifelong learning in the twenty-first century,” said Ward and Morris.

“We hope that this, along with the commission’s final report later in the year, will inform Labour’s National Education Service and that our society will become one where opportunities for high quality learning throughout life are available in every community.”

Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden told FE Week the Labour party is “very pleased” with what the commission has achieved since March to “stake out the radical transformational strategy, and already in an interim report that makes very clear that ambition and direction of travel, to indicate areas which its workstreams have been covering”.

The commission is asking for feedback on its ideas. Views can be sent to labourlifelonglearning@gmail.com by 22 August.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has today launched a route review of standards in the creative and design industries.

It will look at 15 different apprenticeships across the sector, including bespoke tailor and cutter, watchmaker, bespoke saddle maker and broadcast production assistant (see full list below).

The review follows an announcement by the IfATE of a review into the hair and beauty route on Monday, which will look at just one standard – the level 2 hair professional.

The institute said both reviews are necessary in order to ensure high standards in the sectors and retain a good match between the skill set offered by the apprenticeship, the needs of the apprentice and the needs of employers.

Both reviews are beginning with an eight week public consultation, which will allow stakeholders including employers, providers and apprentices to offer their feedback on the standards.

Anna Osborne, the deputy director of approvals at the institute said of the creative and design sector review: “I would like to thank all of the creative and design employers and stakeholders who helped develop the broad variety of apprenticeships we have in place so far.

“The focus of the review will be to improve the quality of our apprenticeships and ensure they are fully up to date with apprenticeship requirements and the needs of both apprentices and employers. This will ensure they’re well placed to serve the creative and design sector for years to come.”

Iain Smith, co-chair of the institute’s creative and design route panel of sector experts, added that this is a “fantastic opportunity to help shape the future of apprenticeships in sectors where there are notable skills gaps”.

The first such route review was conducted by the IfATE last year into the digital sector, which published its recommendations in May. The outcome saw 12 standards become nine.

Among the wider recommendations was a trial of “gender-neutral” language – after research found “masculine” words in job adverts, such as “ambition”, “challenging” and “leader”, deter women from applying.

In early 2018 the institute came in for criticism for having failed to carry out any formal review of duplicate, narrow or low-skill standards since its launch.

It was urged to do so “at the earliest opportunity” by Lord Sainsbury in his report of the independent panel on technical education, published July 2016.

This week’s review announcements come nearly a month after another batch of results of the IfATE’s second funding band review.

It covers 30 standards and to date, 27 have had new funding bands signed off. The remaining three standards are expected to have their final funding bands revealed later this year.

The creative and design route consultation closes on 24 September, and the one for hair and beauty closes on 22 September.

 

The 15 standards in the creative and design route review:

 

Bespoke Tailor and Cutter

Watchmaker

Spectacle maker

Junior Journalist

Outside Broadcast Engineer

Live Event Rigger

Assistant Technical Director – visual effects

Junior 2D Artist – visual effects

Broadcast Production Assistant

Creative Venue Technician

Junior Content Producer

Bespoke Saddler

Organ builder

Live Event Technician

Publishing Assistant

The standard in the hair and beauty route review:

Level 2 Hair Professional

A specialist college that teaches students with autism and other complex needs has dropped two grades to ‘inadequate’ after Ofsted found “significant” safeguarding concerns.

Cambian Lufton College, based in south Somerset, received the lowest possible rating from the education watchdog today after previously receiving a grade two in July 2016.

Inspectors found that senior leaders’ actions to “maintain or improve” the quality of education have been “ineffective”, and they have not ensured that students are studying courses at the “correct level”.

Most concerning was that leaders and governors have been presiding over a culture of “ineffective” safeguarding, where they do not ensure all students “are kept safe”.

Staff have “comprehensively mismanaged” safeguarding records, according to Ofsted, and senior leaders “do not consistently respond to incidents appropriately and quickly” nor do they review incidents “thoroughly enough”.

Those caring for students with complex health needs, including epilepsy, “have not received appropriate training”, while senior leaders “do not ensure effective oversight of incidents of physical restraint”.

Senior leaders also do not review medication errors to ensure further incidents can be prevented. “When errors are made, there is a lack of follow-up discussion, training and monitoring of staff in order to minimise future risks to students,” Ofsted said.

A spokesperson for the college said it was “disappointed by the findings” as “this is not the standard that we expect”.

“We have a clear plan to address the areas where we have fallen short and return the college to its previous recognised high standards,” he added.

While safeguarding and senior leadership needs urgent improvement, Ofsted did praise Cambian Lufton College for ensuring its students make “good progress” in English, maths and information and communication technology.

Students also “enjoy their learning and the wide range of additional activities on offer to them” and they develop “useful skills to help them in their future lives, such as cooking and budgeting”.

The college currently teaches 88 students.

A wave of organisations have been added to the refreshed register of apprenticeship training providers, while nearly 20 have been removed – in its first major update in almost 12 months.

Forty three additional providers have been allowed on by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, including 25 main providers, 14 supporting and four employers.

Nineteen providers, meanwhile, have been removed from the register, most of which were main providers.

Eleven have changed from being main providers to being supporting, so they can only work as subcontractors; and two have made the opposite journey.

This update follows a year-long review, started in October 2017, that led to new “stringent and challenging entry requirements” for the register.

These requirements were brought in by the ESFA after FE Week uncovered instances where companies run by their sole director from their home address were being given access to millions in apprenticeship funding, despite having zero experience of delivering government-funded programmes.

Analysis by this publication in December found that almost a third (580) of providers on the register did not deliver any apprenticeships in 2017.

But under this stricter regime, applicants had to have been trading for 12 months at least in order to be eligible, and provide a full set of accounts to be on the register.

Subcontractors delivering less than £100,000 of provision a year also needed to register.

Additionally, the agency will throw providers off the register if they go 12 months with no delivery after joining the register.

Getting onto the register, then, will be a relief for many providers, especially after most were left hanging by the government for months following their applications in December.

This is despite the ESFA planning to tell providers if they have been successful 12 weeks after their bid.

Since October 2018, only 23 other companies have been added to the register – all of whom were supporting providers.

The full list of new providers is below:

 

The FE Commissioner’s team will visit Richmond-upon-Thames College next month after its principal went on indefinite leave for ‘personal reasons’.

Robin Ghurbhurun has been the high-profile leader of the college since 2014, on top of seven non-executive roles, including chair of the Association of Colleges’ technology portfolio group and director of JISC.

However, since at least early this month his role has been filled on an interim basis by the deputy principal, Jason Jones, who joined the college in March.

It is understood intervention from the government is connected to financial failings amid plans for an £80 million investment in a new building.

Learner outcomes are one of the success stories from Ghurbhurun’s time at the college, as achievement rates have risen from 77.3 per cent in 2013/14 to 83.5 per cent in 2017/18.

This improvement helped bring the college up from an Ofsted grade three to grade two in 2017, with inspectors praising Ghurbhurun, governors and managers for being “very successful in improving rapidly the outcomes for students” across all levels, qualifications and the majority of subject areas.

But there has not been a similar success with the college’s finances: the FE Commissioner’s visit comes after the college generated a £2.4 million deficit in 2017/18.

Between November 2016 and April 2017, the college had to make use of an overdraft facility of £750,000, which was fully paid back in May 2017.

In addition, it has seen a 47 per cent decline in 16-18 student numbers between 2014/15 and 2018/19, equating to a 38 per cent decline in funding over that period according to the ESFA allocations.

Richmond was previously in FE Commissioner-led financial intervention from November 2015 until July 2016.

Despite the college’s difficult financial straits however, work started in June last year on a new campus building costing £80 million.

Asked whether the project was still on track, contractors ISG said it is progressing exactly on schedule and on budget, and they have a “strong and positive working relationship” with the college.

A spokesperson for Richmond-upon-Thames College said: “The college confirmed today that its principal and CEO, Robin Ghurbhurun, has resigned from his post with immediate effect for personal reasons.

“Transitional arrangements are in place.  Jason Jones will act as interim principal and CEO and the college’s accounting officer pending the search for a permanent replacement.”

Ghurbhurun declined to comment.