UK business needs to create a virtuous circle of positive change, says Ben Farmer, with successful women becoming inspirational role models for the next generation of builders, innovators and inventors
The UK’s ongoing STEM skills shortage is a key issue for employers such as Amazon. Vacancies for highly skilled technical roles will double over the next decade, while 89 per cent of businesses are already struggling to recruit for STEM roles.
Attracting more women and girls into these careers is rightly seen as part of the solution.
The benefits of a diverse workforce are abundant, for employers and employees Our recent research, in partnership with WISE, polled 1,000 women working in STEM and found that a 10 per cent increase of women in STEM careers would lead to a £3 billion boost for UK business.
We also found that on average women in innovation earn up to £11,000 a year more than in other careers.
However, we also found that more than a quarter of women currently working in innovation had experienced more barriers than enablers in their careers, including a lack of confidence, having to adapt to male-dominated work environments and a lack of recognition from senior colleagues.
With these challenges in mind, it is apparent that our culture – within businesses and across wider society – must be considered as a key driver for change. The innovation and technology industries now have a deep understanding of the relationship between innovation and diversity.
In simple terms, diversity is integral to a robust creative and problem solving process – and innovation drives the technology sector.
The benefits of a diverse workforce are abundant
Anyone considering an apprenticeship should be reassured that they offer high-quality training, financial sustainability and a range of career options, regardless of gender or background. For example we recently announced plans to create 1,000 new apprenticeships, with pay ranging from an entry-level starting salary of £9.50 an hour (£10.50 in London) and up to £30,000 a year. We also offer employee discounts, private medical insurance and a company pension plan.
We’re backing up these opportunities with Amazon Amplify, initiatives designed to increase the number of women working in innovation.
This includes our Women in Innovation bursary, providing funding of more than £130,000 a year for 24 female students, new global candidate inclusive interview questions, plus a UK-wide interactive training programme to build confidence, networks and personal skills.
We also became a signatory to the WISE Ten Steps Commitments (something I’d recommend for all businesses concerned with these challenge), a framework to help organisations improve the recruitment, retention and progression of women.
While apprenticeships are vital, we also need to create a pipeline for STEM careers. For example, we offer free tours of our fulfilment centres for children and we have launched Camp Amazon, accredited by the British Science Association, which inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers while taking part in real-world STEM projects.
Businesses need to tailor their solutions according to their organisational goals and resources.
But there are common themes for any employer that genuinely seeks to accommodate everybody in their workplace: fully-funded apprenticeships and internships, flexible career pathways, flexible and remote working, return-to-work programmes, formal retraining opportunities, mentoring, peer support and robust HR policies.
Championing women working in STEM careers is one part of the solution – for example, it has been great to see how the government’s Fire It Up campaign portrays women in STEM through positive imagery and role models.
We also work hard to share and celebrate the success stories of our own women working in innovation, such as Fiona McDonnell, Jacqui Chin, Lauren Kisser and Lauren Gemmell, who were named in the FT’s HERoes list, and Katie George who was named in the EMPower list.
These female leaders have not only helped to inspire our employees, but also helped to change how young women perceive technical, apprenticeships and careers.
The proportion of sixth form colleges with in-year deficits has soared fivefold over a six-year period due to crippling 16 to 19 funding cuts, according to new research from an influential think tank.
In 2016/17, 36 per cent of sixth form colleges had “adjusted operational in-year deficits”; whereas in 2010/11 it was just seven per cent.
Over the same time period, the proportion of FE colleges with in-year deficits doubled from 20 per cent to 40 per cent.
This is not sustainable in the long term
According to the report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), the rising deficits suggest some providers “have used their balance sheet to cushion falls in funding to avoid more serious declines in provision or quality”.
“This is not sustainable in the long term,” it adds. “If providers’ financial health continues to deteriorate as a result of falls in funding, then provision and quality could be further compromised, with potentially more severe effects on students and providers.”
The report also found that guided learner hours for 16 to 19-year-olds fell by nine per cent between 2012/13 and 2016/17, from 730 hours to 665 hours per student.
It explained that the reason for the rising deficits and reduced learning hours was largely because 16 to 19 funding decreased “faster than in other phases of education between 2010/11 and 2018/19”.
“Funding per 16 to 19 student fell by 16 per cent in real terms compared to 10 per cent in the whole school sector,” the report said.
The FE sector has already taken notice of this decline, and several unions and associations have clubbed together to form the Love Our Colleges campaign.
Additionally, the Sixth Form Colleges Association is leading the Raise the Rate campaign, which is lobbying for an increase to the base rate for all 16 to 18-year-old students from £4,000 per student to £4,760.
The Association of Colleges has meanwhile said the rate should be upped to £5,000, which it says is needed to avoid a T-levels crisis.
A third area that has seen a hit in recent years is the wages of FE college teachers: these fell by an average of eight per cent in real terms between 2010/11 and 2016/17, from £33,600 to £31,000, according to the EPI report.
Teachers at FE colleges are now paid 17 per cent less than those in secondary schools, who are paid, on average, £36,700.
The fall was less pronounced at sixth form colleges, where the average teaching wage decreased from £39,900 to £39,000.
FE teachers’ wages is a live issue, as staff at a number of colleges continue to go on strike over pay.
In March, members of the University and College Union voted for their third wave of strikes this academic year, following similar action in November and January.
EPI chair and former education minister David Laws said the report shows sixth form and college funding has been the “big loser” when compared to other phases of education.
Rod Bristow of Pearson, which commissioned the report, said the report “made clear” FE institutions have been “struggling against the tide of decreasing funding levels by narrowing choices”.
With the Spending Review on the horizon, the deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, James Kewin, said the report provides further evidence cuts have been “bad for students, bad for teachers and bad for the financial health of institutions,” and its main audience should be Treasury ministers, not the DfE.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, added: “Report after report and expert after expert have highlighted the impact of the decade of cuts that England’s colleges have had to endure.
“The message is clear; the Chancellor cannot go on ignoring the overwhelming independent evidence consistently presented to him. If he is serious about supporting our economy and our communities, he has to get serious about investing in our colleges.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise that 16 to 19 funding rates are challenging for all providers at the moment and are looking carefully at this in the run-up to the next Spending Review.”
You need more than stars in your eyes if you’re determined to have media glitterati on your board, cautions Ruth Sparkes
Is it really a good idea to have a journalist on your governing body? Hopwood Hall College’s latest governor, Nazir Afzal, thinks it is (Profile, FE Week, May 3).
It’s an interesting question. It’s one I deliberated with senior managers very early in my FE career. I guess the answer from my point of view is, “it depends”.
It depends on why you would want a journalist on the board and what kind of journalist they are.
On the face of it, it sounds like a great idea – having your local paper’s editor or a national journalist on the board could be really useful; they could help to trumpet your good news, advise you on actions and messages when the news isn’t so good, and put a word in their colleagues’ ears when the opportunity arises.
But, that’s an ideal world, not the real world.
Professional conflict of interest is almost certainly going to be an issue: crises and unwarranted breaking news.
By their very nature colleges are hubs for thousands of individuals, including teenagers and vulnerable people, and they deal with issues that, if they became public, wouldn’t be helpful to the institution or their students.
A few examples from my own PR “anthology” include drugs on campus, inappropriate lecturer and student behaviour (varying levels of activity, including unlawful), student death, dodgy achievement rates, lost student portfolios, affairs, IT misconduct and a whole shedload more.
Journalists by their vocation and training are compelled to tell stories and to expose truths.
If I were a journalist rather than a PR, I’d be writing or broadcasting this juicy news rather than managing it.
And, colleges could be conflicted too. Will senior leaders have to be more selective with the information they share with a journalist governor? Will open and frank discussions with governors be a little less open and frank?
If your reason for having a journalist in the board is for a different reason other than college promotion, then you might be on to a winner.
FE funding, social mobility, apprenticeship take-up and barriers to learning, lecturer pay, etc, are all important issues that FE grapples with every day – but generally the perception is that the wider “media doesn’t care about FE”.
Every time I hear this well-worn record it sets my teeth on edge. But if you have a journalist on your board who can help to amplify FE’s national issues, and if your college is willing to have a national voice and take part in national activities, then it might be worth the risk. And, it is a risk.
Another option is to properly professionalise the role of PR and corporate affairs in your institution, drag it up the food chain and give the role proper credibility and responsibility. Employ someone who is suitably knowledgeable, experienced and qualified; they might be an ex-journalist or might not.
But if you absolutely must have some media glitterati on your board, instead of a jobbing journalist you might want to think about a different kind of influencer . . . you might want to consider what universities do; they often have celebrity or influential chancellors.
These include: Sir Brian May of Queen, the comedian Dawn French, the Hollywood actor Jeremy Irons, the ex-BBC Dragon Theo Paphitis, Great British Bake Off’s Prue Leith, the designer Zandra Rhodes and many others.
Universities also regularly bestow honorary degrees to VIPs, which can help to raise their profiles and help to “validate” them in a particular way.
But it’s still a risk – celebrities have celebrity lives and can go “off message” and cause embarrassment. You might be lucky enough to engage with an absolutely faultless ambassador, but you must choose with caution – there’s a huge gulf between Belfast’s Queen’s University’s link with Hillary Clinton and the likes of Bedfordshire and Leeds universities, both of which bestowed honorary degrees on Jimmy Savile . . .
No college would consider it had done a good job if it allowed students to complete their studies without learning how to research information online. But this is the reality in prisons across the country. Cath Murray finds out about the challenges of running an education department on the inside.
Sarah Aumeer doesn’t understand why more FE tutors don’t want to work in prisons.
“It’s much calmer than a college,” says the 37-year-old education director at HMP Oldingley.
“Behaviour’s a lot better.
“Prison education is also a lot slower, so staff can build up a rapport with students and really focus on the subject at hand.
“A lot of people think it must be exactly like you see on TV, but actually, it’s exactly the same as in FE. You just can’t rely on things being there at the drop of a hat.”
This could be something of an understatement. Aumeer, who has met us the prison entrance and is now guiding us through a series of locked metal gates on the way to the education block, has just spent the morning failing to submit an electronic purchase order for some printer paper.
Even when things are running smoothly, if a tutor at the prison wants to prepare lesson resources – let’s say pictures of haircuts for barbering students – there’s a complex protocol just to get the images into the classroom.
First, they will have to look them up on a computer that’s connected to the internet and email them to Aumeer.
When she receives the email on her secure computer, she will take out her bunch of keys, unlock the key box to retrieve a code for the safe and remove the USB memory stick, which she will use to transfer the images from the secure computer in her office to the computer on the adjacent desk, which is networked to the prison’s secure intranet, known as the virtual campus (VC).
“That just shows how much you have to forward-think when you’re teaching in prison,” she says.
“And how much the prisoners rely on us for their access to information.”
Aumeer and her team of 16 tutors and staff are employed by Somerset’s Weston College – 120 miles away from the Surrey prison – which is one of four providers of prison education nationwide.
On a day-to-day basis, the team functions pretty autonomously, which has its benefits but also its downsides.
“The tutors are all part of the FE community, but they don’t always feel like they are,” she says.
Before taking over at Coldingley in January, Aumeer was head of special educational needs for eight years at Nescot College, Surrey, and before that, worked for the council in alternative and community education.
Much of her own education came through FE.
“I didn’t achieve any qualifications at school. All my education was as an adult – evening and distance learning.”
Sarah Aumeer
She’s now on a scholarship at Middlesex University, doing a part-time masters in inclusive education.
If she could change only one thing at Coldingley, it would be to broaden the range of courses.
Even teaching prisoners to cook for themselves could make the difference between getting by and getting into debt once they leave.
More classes to support prisoner wellbeing would also be welcome.
“Anything to help them cope with the stress of being locked up for years. Many of them have lost a lot – lost relationships and so on. Their mental wellbeing is important. I wish there was more that we could do to support that part of it.”
Education not linked to employability was one of the recommendations from Dame Sally Coates’ 2016 government-commissioned report into prison education, Unlocking Potential.
Better ICT access was another.
When Alan, who is turning 51 on the day we meet, was awarded his 2:1 in criminology and psychology from the Open University, his probation officer, who had done the same degree, couldn’t understand how he’d managed without online resources.
“I used to spend a lot of time on the phone to my sister,” he tells me as we sit in a classroom in the education block.
“A £5 phone call saying ‘Can you google this?’. Then I’d say, ‘Read me that article’ and she’d go ‘It’s 127 pages’ so I’d say ‘Right, print me that out’ and she’d send it – which is a cost of printing and postage – and I get it and say ‘That’s not what I want’.”
The OU has about 1,800 students in 150 prisons and secure hospitals across the UK, to whom it sends printed study materials.
It also recently introduced a postgraduate library scheme where students can request additional resources linked to their degree.
But the simple steps of googling for terminology or reading around a subject that most students take for granted is off-limits – and while tutors are on-hand for subjects such as functional skills, those studying at a higher level must depend on occasional phone calls or visits with a specialist tutor.
“A lot of guys fall at the early hurdles because they are just overwhelmed by the barriers that are in their way,” says Mark, a former King’s College London law student who was convicted in 2010 for the murder of his father, but maintains his innocence.
“It’s not difficult to have monitored, restricted internet access. We have all the technology available to do that. All it needs it someone with proactivity and the right attitude,” says the 31-year-old.
“Education has to take second place to security.”
Mark completed an undergraduate law degree in prison and is now studying for a masters.
“You’ve got to give people responsibility if they’re to develop into fully functioning human beings – that’s surely what prison is there to achieve. It’s not there to infantilise you, which is inevitably what it does.
“What do you expect that end product to be, when he finally walks out the door, if he hasn’t been able to do basic things like accessing educational material?”
Prisoners currently have six hours a week to type up assignments or access the VC, which hosts resources such as the OU’s virtual learning environment.
Sir Simon Hughes, the former Liberal Democrat MP, has been working with Ruth McFarlane, the OU’s senior manager of students in secure environments, to lobby for in-cell laptops connected to this secure network.
“Imagine how much more work we could do,” Alan says, who is now doing a masters in development management.
“The last four nights we’ve been banged up at 5 o’clock every night [over the Easter weekend]. We could be studying, working, writing up assignments, whatever.”
Coldingley is a category C working prison, which means that for many of the men – all of whom have long sentences – it’s the penultimate rung on the rehabilitation ladder. The next placement is a category D open prison, or, for a few, straight to release.
The prisoners all have full-time jobs in the on-site workshops – such as making disposable earphones for airlines – for which they’re paid less than £20 a week. If they opt for the six weekly hours of education, their pay is docked to reflect this.
“There’s a disincentive to take up education,” Alan says, who spends most of the £17.89 that he earns in the graphic design studio on phone calls to family.
“You just can’t rely on things being there at the drop of a hat.”
A few prisons are specifically devoted to training, but location can be an issue.
Coldingley’s nearest town, Woking, is half an hour from central London on the train.
“I’m here because my family’s ten minutes down the road. I wouldn’t give that up for anything,” Alan says.
“I think a lot of guys are here because of the London location – yes, they’d like to do a lot more education, but they’re here because of their families.”
Education can be interrupted when prisoners are moved to another site.
“I’ve been lucky; I’ve been to three prisons in nine years,” Mark says.
“Others have been through three prisons in nine months. It’s very unsettling – and if you’re moved to a new prison it may not have your course.”
Security concerns can also be a disruptor.
Cordingley’s horticulture polytunnel, for example, is in a part of the prison with no overhead netting, which means it’s more vulnerable to “throwovers”.
If banned goods are found to have been smuggled in this way, and it’s not possible to work out who is responsible, every student might be “sacked” from the horticulture course, Aumeer says.
“Education has to take second place to security.”
Yet education is positively correlated with reintegration into society. The Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) found that ex-prisoners who had completed one of their courses – which could be anything from book-keeping or an OU access module to a level 2 gym instructing qualification – were 25 per cent less likely to reoffend, and 26 per cent more likely to be in employment, one year after release.
The Coates report contained recommendations around improving internet access, encouraging progression to higher levels and generally making prison governors accountable for creating a “culture of education”.
Three justice secretaries, one referendum and one general election later, has any progress been made?
“We’re hopeful that the culture is starting to shift,” says Rod Clark, the chief executive of PET.
“And we’re gearing up for the expectation that prisons will soon become digital. At present, we are leaving many prisoners woefully unprepared for the modern world – without giving them the chance to use technology to access education, find information, apply for jobs or secure housing.”
It has never been more crucial that we ensure that we have the best regime possible to assess quality, says Sir Gerry Berragan, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education
Our mission at the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education is to develop high-quality apprenticeships and technical qualifications in order to transform the skills landscape.
Quality is rightly at the heart of this. If employers and apprentices do not believe that apprenticeships are a highquality product which provide the skills that are needed across the economy, then the ongoing reform work of recent years will have been in vain.
As part of my role as chief executive at the institute, I chair the Quality Alliance, which brings together the government organisations responsible for different aspects of apprenticeship quality, as well as the key representative bodies for training providers and end-point assessment (EPA) organisations.
Earlier this year the Quality Alliance published the Quality Strategy, which sets out 14 statements of best practice across all facets of apprenticeship delivery. Our next step will be to develop an action plan to sit below this strategy, which will set out what actions each alliance member is taking to support the strategy.
I was delighted that Anne Milton, skills minister, was able to attend our most recent meeting and discussed with members the next steps on embedding quality across all levels of apprenticeship provision.
One focus for the institute is the external quality assurance (EQA) arrangements for end-point assessment. The institute has a statutory responsibility to ensure that EQA is delivered, as well as providing EQA ourselves (through our delivery partner, Open Awards) where we are selected by the trailblazer.
Independent EPA is fundamental to the success of the apprenticeship reform programme and as volumes increase it is right that we step back and assure ourselves that we have the optimal regime in place to qualityassure this assessment.
Independent EPA is fundamental to the success of apprenticeship reform
Over the course of the spring the institute has been undertaking a programme of work to put in place a strengthened operational framework for EQA, including a digital service to manage the interface between the institute and EQA providers. Both of these will allow us to better exercise our statutory duty and bring greater consistency. This is still in draft form and is currently being shared with EQA providers and end-point assessment organisations before it is due to be finalised and made public.
We have built the framework around five principles. We want EQA to be: relevant; reliable; efficient; positive; and learning. At the core of this sits the concept of occupational competence. EQA must give us assurance that EPA is not just a well-administered test, but a relevant, reliable assessment of the knowledge, skills and behaviours that apprentices need in order to perform in their chosen occupation – from commis chef to actuary to plasterer.
To do all of these things, EQA must be timely and proactive, not retrospective and reactive. It must involve people with expert knowledge of the areas being assessed witnessing assessment taking place, and it must involve some reach back to employers and apprentices after completion, to externally validate their training and assessment – to confirm their satisfaction with the level of occupational competence achieved.
But if the principle of relevance is important, so too is efficiency. We need a system that doesn’t impose undue burden on EPA organisations and is easy for all parties to understand and engage with.
So I have also written to the chief executives of Ofqual and the Office for Students to ask them to bring forward proposals for how their organisations can work with employer groups and professional bodies to provide an optimised EQA process.
A strengthened EQA system will give employers confidence that EPA is a relevant and reliable assessment of occupational competence. That is an important function and one that the institute will continue to work with other regulatory bodies in government, and professional bodies, to deliver.
The Institute for Apprenticeships is to trial “gender-neutral” language in a bid to boost the number of female STEM apprentices – after research found “masculine” words in job adverts, such as “ambition”, “challenging” and “leader”, deter them from applying.
The chronic under-representation of women taking apprenticeships in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a problem the government and employers have struggled to fix.
Jonathan Slater, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary, told the Public Accounts Committee in March that officials are “working hard” to increase the female proportion, which currently sits at a “hopeless” 9 per cent.
I believe it will make a big difference to the levels of gender diversity we see in the digital pathways
But apart from the DfE’s new Fire It Up apprenticeships campaign, which uses images and role models to portray women in STEM subjects positively, it is hard to see what else the department is doing to tackle the issue.
The Institute for Apprenticeships has been doing its own brainstorming and has decided to trial using “gender-neutral language” in apprenticeship standards. This, it believes, will “ensure that they do not put women off considering apprenticeships”.
“Research has shown that the language used in job adverts can make the job more or less appealing to one gender and therefore discourage women from applying for certain jobs,” said Ana Osbourne, deputy director for apprenticeship approvals at the IfA.
“We are looking at how this applies to the wording in apprenticeships – including for STEM apprenticeships, where the number of women is lower.”
The pilot, which will initially involve the application of gender-neutral language to the 12 standards in scope of the IfA’s digital review, has been influenced by the work of Jo Morfee, the co-founder and director of InnovateHer, who sits on the institute’s digital route panel.
“Through working closely with our corporate partners we’ve discovered that the use of gender-neutral language has the potential to have a huge impact on the outcome,” she told FE Week, and claimed that one of her organisation’s partners “saw a 40 per cent increase in female applicants for senior data analyst roles as a result of changing the language they used”.
“I’ve advocated for this approach and learning to be applied to how we design apprenticeship content and I’m very pleased that the institute is taking this on board,” Morfee said.
“I believe it will make a big difference to the levels of gender diversity we see in the digital pathways.”
The advert that increased female applications by 40 per cent referred to by Morfee, and seen by FE Week, lists a number of “feminine and neutral” words that should be used in job adverts, which include: understand, kind, honest, dependable, co-operative and support.
It also lists “masculine” words that should be avoided, such as: active, decisive, leader, ambition, challenge, objective, competitiveness, independence, opinion, confident and intellectual.
Carole Easton, chief executive of the Young Women’s Trust, said gender stereotypes, “reinforced by the language used in job adverts, are shutting women out of apprenticeships in vital sectors like construction and engineering”.
She told FE Week that the IfA’s idea of trialling gender-neutral language in apprentice job adverts is “a welcome move, but should not be done in isolation”.
Carole Easton
“Much more is needed to open these sectors up to women, including targeting job adverts at women, providing women-only taster days and raising the minimum wage for apprentices,” she added.
Stephen Rooney, director of STEM Women, also said that job advert wording “is important”.
“It has been proven that men are more likely to apply for a job if they meet ‘most’ of the pre-requisites,” he explained.
“In order to attract more female applicants, companies should ensure that the list of required skills is as small as possible, with only essential requirements appearing on the job specification.
“Companies should also be aware that female job hunters are more likely to apply for a position if the wording focuses on team and communication skills, whereas job adverts focussing on targets and individual awards attract a greater proportion of male applicants.”
He added: “I believe that the institute will receive a greater proportion of female applicants if it uses gender-neutral language or female-focused job advert wording, and it makes sense to trial a variety of advert styles.”
Funding bands for ten of the 30 apprenticeship standards which have been under review by the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education since last December were approved by education secretary Damian Hinds this week.
Changes for those that have had their funding reduced will come into effect for apprenticeship starts from August 5, 2019, while those that have increased will have their new funding band implemented for starts from May 7, 2019.
FE Week has explored what kind of impact the changes might have…
Hopes that rate rise will stimulate demand
The trailblazer group responsible for designing the aviation operations manager standard is flying high, as the sole beneficiary from this week’s announcement on revised funding bands.
The rate for the level 4 standard, which has a typical duration of 24 months, will be increased from £5,000 to £7,000.
The Aviation Industry Skills Board, an apprenticeship board made up of the same companies that developed the standard, has welcomed the increase, saying it “now reflects the true cost involved to deliver the standard”.
The board does not anticipate that the number of providers that offer the apprenticeship will grow significantly as a consequence of this change, due to it being such a specialist field.
However, a spokesperson said they were “hopeful” the increase would enable a greater number of employers to offer the apprenticeship.
The standard, which was approved for delivery in August 2016 , has had six starts so far in 2018-19, up to March.
FE Week reported in July 2018 that the standard had been available for over a year but had had zero starts – one of three aviation industry standards that were in that position.
A spokesperson for Heathrow Airport explained it was a “very complex” standard, which could only be taught by industry experts with knowledge of specific airport procedures.
There are six specialist functions an apprentice on this standard must select, including aircraft-handling manager and flight-operations manager in an air-traffic control setting.
Disappointment after rate reductions
Three popular apprenticeship standards have borne the brunt of the cuts.
The level 3 engineering design and draughtperson had its rate cut from £27,000 to £24,000.
The funding band for the level 2 financial services customer adviser standard will drop from £4,000 to £3,500, and the level 3 motor vehicle service and maintenance technician (light vehicle) standard has been cut from £18,000 to £15,000.
The latter has been under review since May and was the last course from the IfA’s first review to have its new funding band approved; the other two have been under review ince December.
The motor vehicle and maintenance technician (light vehicle) standard has had 4,823 starts since it was approved for delivery in October 2015.
A spokesperson for a provider of the standard, Calex UK, said it was “disappointed” and that this was an outcome “it did not support”.
There have been 298 starts on the engineering design and draughtperson course since it was approved for delivery in April 2016.
Philip Davies of engineering firm Wood, who serves as chair of the trailblazer group for the standard, said: “Industry is working with providers and EPAOs to support the ongoing delivery of this apprenticeship within the new funding band.”
There have been 2,675 starts on the financial services customer adviser standard since it was approved for delivery in August 2015.
A spokesperson for high-street bank Santander, lead employer for the standard, said: “Any funding reduction is clearly a disappointment but the trailblazer group is not planning to challenge this.”
The future of a small land-based college attempting to avoid a merger is again in question after a second shock grade four.
In 2018 Moulton College was found to be delivering “unsafe” training by Ofsted and hit with its first grade four. It was also subject to FE Commissioner intervention over their finances, which resulted in a recommendation to merge.
But with a new chair of governors and an interim principal making improvements to the finances, the college was permitted to follow a standalone strategy and recruit a full-time principal.
The Moulton board will consider the findings and take the necessary actions once this is received
The college also received an Ofsted monitoring visit in November, which reported the college was making “reasonable progress” in most areas, but “insufficient” in one field.
“The new leadership team has strengthened governance arrangements significantly since the previous inspection,” the report said.
Meanwhile, minutes from a board meeting this February show that the college’s “self-assessment report” predicted its overall Ofsted rating this time round would be a grade three.
But FE Week has learnt the education watchdog has in recent days returned for a full inspection and will slap the specialist college with the lowest possible rating.
Moulton has been in FE Commissioner intervention since February 2017 due to its poor financial health. In April 2018 a report by Richard Atkins’ (pictured top right) team found a “high level of commercial loans” and that “whilst cash balances at February 28, 2018 are healthy, they are anticipated to fall back by year-end”.
“A range of initiatives are already under way, though the scale of the task may warrant the need for additional short-term support,” it added.
One of the cost-saving decisions was to close the college’s garden centre, which is expected to be sold. The college has also received cash from the government’s strategic college improvement fund.
Moulton’s accounts for 2017-18 show a £19 million long-term loan from Santander, and a £3.5 million revolving credit facility with the bank, of which £3.1 million was drawn down at July 31, 2018.
Under the going-concern section of the financial statements, it said that seeking a merger partner “will secure the medium to longer term financial security required for the college to be successful”.
“A structure and prospects appraisal, led by the FE Commissioner, was concluded in July 2018, with the outcome that the college would work with a merger partner to secure its long-term future,” they added.
Despite the clear financial and quality-of-provision concerns, FE Week understands that Moulton, under the leadership of its new chair David McVean (pictured top left), who started in February 2019, is pursuing a standalone strategy.
McVean is a former civil servant of 30 years, with his final role being “regional director for the ESFA, ensuring compliance for academies in the Midlands and south-west of England”.
The board also recently appointed a permanent principal, who is due to start in September. She will take over from Ann Turner, who has been interim principal since May last year.
The college had been pursuing a merger with Abingdon & Witney College following previous recommendations by the FE Commissioner, but this has now collapsed.
“We can confirm that all merger activity between Moulton College and Abingdon & Witney College ceased in December 2018,” an Abingdon & Witney College spokesperson told FE Week.
Minutes from a Moulton board meeting this February stated that the “corporation had agreed that the college would remain as an independent, standalone, specialist college”.
Asked about its second “inadequate” rating and the reasons why it wanted to pursue a standalone strategy, Turner told FE Week: “The Ofsted report has not yet been received and therefore the college cannot comment.
“The Moulton board will consider the findings and take the necessary actions once this is received.”
She added: “The board has agreed a strategy with the FE Commissioner that we will continue to build our capacity, whilst not ruling out partnerships and mergers that ensure Moulton students get the very best experience.”
The permanent principal starting at Moulton in September is Corrie Harris, the current vice-principal at the Bedford College Group. She joined the group when Tresham College, which was rated “inadequate” in 2016, merged with it in August 2017.
Harris was vice-principal at Tresham at the time of its grade four, and took on the interim principal role there for a time after its then-principal, Stuart Wesselby, resigned.
