Providers will be forced to log apprentices’ off-the-job training hours from September, following high-profile concern about non-compliance with the unpopular rule going unchallenged.

A new data field for individual learner records (ILR) is being introduced for 2019/20 to “provide information about the quantum of off-the-job training delivered” and “help demonstrate compliance with the funding rules”, the Education and Skills Funding Agency revealed today.

It replaces the “optional” field for recording how many off-the-job training hours had been completed on a monthly basis, which was introduced to the ILR in 2018/19. The new field is “mandatory” and requires providers to record “planned” hours.

In March the National Audit Office said in its apprenticeships progress report that the ESFA, in summer 2018, had just one “red risk” associated with delivery of the programme – that apprentices do not spend at least 20 per cent of their time doing off-the-job training.

The government’s spending watchdog warned that the agency has “limited assurance” in knowing whether the policy is being abided by, as even though audits may identify problems, there is “scope for providers to under-deliver for some time without this being picked up”.

“This is an important gap in oversight, because the provider continues to be paid as long as the apprentice remains on the programme,” its report said.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the influential Public Accounts Committee, added that it was “concerning that the ESFA can’t be sure that apprentices are spending enough time on off-the-job training”.

The new mandatory ILR field has been introduced to mitigate the problem.

“For apprenticeships this field collects the planned off-the-job training hours (as defined in the funding rules) for the individual apprentice in the academic year by the training provider, sub-contracted training providers and the employer,” the rules now state.

Guidance on the new field explains that it should record the “planned off-the-job training hours for the individual apprentice over the full apprenticeship (excluding the end point assessment period) by the training provider, sub-contracted training providers and the employer”.

The information in the ILR may be “subject to compliance checks during the academic year and must therefore be supported by the evidence requirements set out in the funding rules for off the job training”.

“It is important that this field should accurately reflect the planned amount of off-the-job training undertaken by the apprentice,” the guidance adds.

“Any changes to the values entered in this field during the apprenticeship may be subject to further compliance checks.”

The policy, which requires apprentices to spend a fifth of their week on activities related to their course that are different to their normal working duties, has split the FE sector since its introduction in 2015.

Many have complained that the rule is the single biggest barrier to apprenticeship recruitment, but others view it as a vital part of the apprentices’ development.

The new mandatory ILR field has not been welcomed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, whose chief executive Mark Dawe said: “The job is hard enough at the moment without ladling on more meaningless bureaucracy which puts a lot of employers off.

“Simply recording the number of hours will tell you absolutely nothing about the quality of the apprentice’s learning experience. Instead the matter should be left in Ofsted’s domain with inspectors read to look at what is being gained both on and off the job in terms of knowledge, skills and behaviours.”

He added: “Once again the ESFA are ignoring MPs’ recommendations by blurring the lines on responsibilities when Ofsted should be the sole custodians of quality.”

 

Funding bands for 10 of the 30 apprenticeship standards under review by the Institute for Apprenticeships since last December have been approved by the education secretary Damian Hinds.

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.

Of the 10, two have had their funding cut: the level 3 engineering design and draughtsperson standard (from £27,000 to £24,000) and the level 2 financial services customer adviser standard (from £4,000 to £3,500).

Meanwhile, seven funding bands have remained the same and one, for the level 4 aviation operations manager standard, has increased from £5,000 to £7,000 (see full table below).

In May 2018, the apprenticeships minister Anne Milton asked the institute to conduct its first ever review of funding bands, which included 31 existing apprenticeship standards.

This led to several standards having their funding cut, including the popular chartered manager degree apprenticeship by £5,000. This was followed by another review of the funding bands for 30 standards in December 2018.

Today’s release of updated funding bands includes the final remaining one from the May review: the level 3 motor vehicle service and maintenance technician (light vehicle) standard, which has been cut from £18,000 to £15,000.

A spokesperson for the institute stated: “The aim of the reviews is to ensure these standards have the most appropriate funding band to support high quality delivery, and provide value for money for employers and taxpayers.

“They will also ensure consistency in the way older and newer standards are funded.”

Twenty funding band recommendations still have to be approved from the December 2018 reviews.

Standard name	Pre-review funding band	Reviewed funding band	Implementation date
Adult Care Worker	£3,000	Band 4 (£3,000)	No change
Lead Adult Care Worker	£3,000	Band 4 (£3,000)	No change
Healthcare Support Worker	£3,000	Band 4 (£3,000)	No change
Financial Services Customer Adviser	£4,000	Band 5 (£3,500)	05-Aug-19
Aviation Operations Manager	£5,000	Band 10 (£7,000)	07-May-19
Investment Operations Administrator	£5,000	Band 8 (£5,000)	No change
Large Goods Vehicle Driver	£5,000	Band 8 (£5,000)	No change
Butcher	£9,000	Band 12 (£9,000)	No change
Engineering Design and Draughtsperson	£27,000	Band 27 (£24,000)	05-Aug-19
Gas Engineering	£27,000	TBC
Supply Chain Warehouse Operative	£3,000	TBC
Public Service Operational Delivery Officer	£3,000	TBC
Hospitality Supervisor	£5,000	TBC
Senior Production Chef	£5,000	TBC
HR Support	£5,000	TBC
Retail Team Leader	£5,000	TBC
Retail Manager	£6,000	TBC
Highway Electrician / Service Operative	£9,000	TBC
Senior Financial Services Customer Adviser	£9,000	TBC
Chef De Partie	£9,000	TBC
Housing/Property Management	£9,000	TBC
HR Consultant / Partner	£9,000	TBC
Travel Consultant	£9,000	TBC
IT Technical Salesperson	£12,000	TBC
Water Process Technician	£12,000	TBC
Rail Engineering Operative	£12,000	TBC
Associate Ambulance Practitioner	£15,000	TBC
Bus and Coach Engineering Technician	£18,000	TBC
Heavy Vehicle Service and Maintenance Technician	£18,000	TBC

 

Nearly 40 staff are expected to lose their jobs as part of a restructure at a college that received a government bailout of over £20 million last year.

Stoke-on-Trent College is currently consulting on the plans that will not affect frontline teaching roles, but will see up to 103 staff in business support roles having to reapply for jobs at the college.

It made an operating deficit of more than £3 million on an income of £23 million, before adjusting for other gains and losses, and had staff costs of £15.3 million in 2017/18, according to its latest accounts.

Principal Denise Brown said the college “must” achieve savings of £1.2 million in staffing costs “in order to eradicate financial deficit in the coming years”.

“Current projections show that if we don’t take action now to reduce staff costs, we will continue to go further back into deficit – we cannot allow that to happen,” she explained.

“Since 2017, the college has been working on its financial recovery and developing a strong and sustainable business plan.

“With the support of the Education and Skills Funding Agency, we have been successful in securing a substantial amount of funding from the government’s restructuring facility to clear historical debt and provide the college with better financial security.”

FE Week reported in September 2018 that the college had received around £21.9 million from the Department for Education’s restructuring facility to clear debts of £16 million.

This newspaper then revealed in January that £1.93 million of the bailout money went on bank charges, fees levied by a bank for repaying a loan earlier than agreed, to compensate it for lost interest.

The latest job losses represent 8 per cent of the college’s total workforce, which currently stands at around 500 people working across two campuses.

Ofsted rated it grade three at its last full inspection, but found it was making ‘reasonable progress’ during a monitoring visit conducted afterwards.

The inspectors’ report from the monitoring visit said: “With the support of external partners, the college has developed well-considered action plans to secure the long-term financial viability of the college.”

The decision to close down Stourbridge College was a “shock”, the digital minister and town’s local MP has said, describing its loss as “tragic”.

News broke this morning that Birmingham Metropolitan College will sell off the college just four years after it underwent a multi-million pound makeover.

It’ll transfer its 900 learners to nearby Dudley College of Technology and Halesowen College.

Speaking to FE Week, Stourbridge MP Margot James, who’s also the minister for digital and the creative industries, said it is a “very hard decision for the town to swallow”.

It is tragic that it is going to close so shortly after that investment

“Many residents and older people had their education there, it is a huge blow, there’s no getting away from that,” she said.

“I am very sorry that there will be considerable disruption because students are used to going to a campus and now they have got to travel. I’m sure students will be upset and anxious about this.”

She continued: “Having said that one has to look for upsides. Dudley has an Ofsted rating of ‘outstanding’, Halesowen has an Ofsted rating of ‘good’. Both of these ratings are better than the current rating of BMet [grade three].

“The teachers I have spoken to at the college over a long period of time have been very disenchanted with the management provided by BMet so I feel when things have settled down, apart from the travel, things I hope will be in a better place.”

Stourbridge College currently has around 200 employees. James said she has the “impressions based on conversations with a number of stakeholders” that the “vast majority of teaching staff will be offered positions at either Halesowen or Dudley”.

Redundancies are however likely for the administrative staff, “some of whom have been there for years and I am so sorry about this”.

The college’s building, which had £5 million spent on it in 2015 and was reopened by James at the time, will be sold by BMet.

“The campus has just undergone a fantastic improvement and had substantial investment, so it is tragic that it is going to close so shortly after that investment,” the MP told FE Week.

“I undoubtedly wish it would have been possible for one of those two colleges to have taken it on.”

At the time of Stourbridge College’s merger in 2013, it opted to join BMet instead of Dudley, a decision which James supported.

“There can be no doubt it was the wrong decision,” she said today.

Asked if she was personally consulted on about the decision to close the Stourbridge campus, James said she was “aware” of the FE Commissioner’s review and had meetings to discuss options, but she said the verdict “did come as a shock to me because during the discussions I had most recently with BMet and Halesowen, the impression I was given was that Stourbridge would continue under the management of Halesown or Dudley and that they wouldn’t be closed”.

The MP said she doesn’t feel she was misled as “these decisions evolve over time”.

We call on the college to halt these plans and consult properly with everyone affected

As well as James’ “shock” at the selling off of Stourbridge College, the University and College Union today slammed the decision, saying learners were paying the “high price for years of poor management”.

UCU regional support official, Teresa Corr, described it as a “deeply damaging move”.

“There has been a total lack of meaningful consultation with the hundreds of staff and students that will be affected, many of whom will be forced to travel to other colleges,” she said.

“The plans make no financial sense as the millions of pounds recently spent on refurbishing the Hagley Road campus will now go to waste.

“We call on the college to halt these plans and consult properly with everyone affected, as well as committing to no compulsory redundancies for staff.”

Stourbridge College had a long-term debt of £7.6 million when it merged with BMet. The college group said it is “currently working on a recovery plan to repay the outstanding balance and will work closely with the ESFA on this”.

James said it was “too soon to say” what the best scenario would be for the campus when it is sold, but it is “really gutting it’s no longer likely to be used for an educational purpose, given the population issue”.

She explained there were 12,345 young people aged 16 to 18 in Stourbridge 10 years ago, but this dropped by 12 per cent to 10,918 in 2017.

BMet is currently subject to FE Commissioner intervention and owes the government millions in bailout cash. Its latest accounts, for 2017-18, suggest that site sales would be the main way of getting the college out of trouble.

The University and College Union has written to the justice secretary urging him to intervene over a training provider’s plans to cut more than 100 jobs.

The union said in a letter addressed to David Gauke that Novus, a prison education provider part of the LTE Group, which also runs The Manchester College, has placed 176 staff at risk of redundancy across 27 prisons where it operates.

According to the UCU, Novus’ contract value to deliver this service has declined by 26 per cent in the north east of England following the introduction of the ‘Prison Education Framework’ at the beginning of April.

The union said the provider proposes to retain “only 62 full time equivalent roles, meaning over 100 posts are set to be lost overall”.

“These job losses would be hugely damaging at a time when the sector is already struggling to recruit and retain staff,” said Paul Cottrell, UCU acting general secretary.

“You cannot make cuts of this scale and not impact on the education and opportunities available to offenders.

“This is a particularly worrying move given that reports of assault and self-harm in prisons are at record levels.”

Cottrel urged Gauke to “personally intervene”, by encouraging Novus to reconsider these cuts and rule out compulsory job losses.

It is also asking the justice secretary to “properly examine” the impact of contract changes on prison education overall, as the loss of over 100 experienced prison educators could have a “serious impact on learning opportunities for offenders at a time when prisons are reporting record levels of assaults and self-harm”.

The union said research by the Commons education select committee shows prisoners who don’t take part in prison education are three times more likely to be reconvicted – although this report was produced in 2005.

The 27 prisons expected to be affected are located across Cumbria and Lancashire, Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

Novus provides training to 60,000 offenders across 50 sites. It currently has over 2,000 employees, according to its website.

Peter Cox, managing director for Novus, said: “Novus have been delivering education in prisons for over 25 years. We acknowledge that this change will impact the number of staff needed, all of whom have been offered voluntary redundancy and support.

“Novus will continue to employ a highly skilled and dedicated workforce of over 2,000 colleagues, delivering innovative high quality education, training and employment opportunities to adults and young people in UK prisons.”

Earlier this year, Gauke outlined plans to overhaul the prison education system by giving prison governors full responsibility for managing provision.

The Ministry of Justice carried out a procurement process for the new education providers, known as the ‘Prison Education Framework’, and four were chosen: Milton Keynes College, Novus, People Plus and Weston College.

The Prisoners’ Education Trust said since the launch of the framework, there has “been some movement, with all providers having lost or gained eight or nine prisons in the new arrangements”.

Universities have stood out from the pack this week, while other types of providers have not done as well, including two big colleges which dropped to grade three.

But it wasn’t all bad news for the college sector, as London South East Colleges, which has 10,000 learners, received a glowing grade two report.

The University of Kent, which trains over 170 level 5 technician scientist and laboratory scientist apprentices, was one of several higher education institutions to receive an Ofsted rating of ‘good’.

Inspectors said apprentices “rapidly develop an extensive range of skills and knowledge that meet the high standards of employers”, while lecturers for assess them “frequently and comprehensively”.

The University of Greenwich also received a grade two from its first inspection. It has 35 apprentices on level 4 and 5 nursing associate and science laboratory technician standards.

“Leaders and managers have a clear and ambitious vision to provide high-quality apprenticeships to meet the needs of employers,” inspectors wrote.

The University of Cumbria improved from a grade three to a grade two. It provides level 5 standards to 37 apprentices.

“Board members are instrumental in ensuring that apprenticeship programmes are intrinsic to the university’s strategic plan for growth,” inspectors wrote.

Apprentices acquire “substantial” new knowledge and skills highly effectively, making them valued members of the workforce.

The University of Wolverhampton had its first monitoring visit since it became a registered apprenticeship training provider.

It was found to have made reasonable progress in all areas of the inspection, and was commended for how its 182 apprentices picked up good practical skills.

Senior leaders and governors at London South East Colleges were praised for having managed the merger of the former Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich colleges “successfully”, and “raised standards across the college”.

Its teachers have “good industrial knowledge and experience” in the subjects they teach, and the vast majority of adult learners at the college achieve their qualifications, with achievement rates for ESOL described as “very high”.

“Senior leaders and governors have presided over a period of significant decline”

RNN Group, which had 14,925 learners over the previous full contract year, dropped from a grade two to a grade three this week.

It was formed from two mergers of several colleges, and inspectors reported: “Senior leaders and governors have presided over a period of significant decline in the quality of education and training following the two mergers.”

RNN’s interim principal Jason Austin said: “We acknowledge that further improvements need to be made in key areas, and the leadership team is both determined and focused on achieving excellent provision across the group.”

The Bournemouth and Poole College, the largest provider of academic and vocational education in Dorset with over 7,000 learners, also dropped to a grade three from a two.

Leaders have “not tackled weaknesses” from the last inspection; including achievement rates for GCSE and functional skills qualifications, and learners’ attendance, according to Ofsted.

Other colleges fared slightly better, with Stockton Riverside College making significant progress in four areas and reasonable progress in one other, according to its first Ofsted monitoring visit since Redcar and Cleveland College dissolved and merged into it in August.

Meanwhile, Solihull College and University Centre made significant progress in two areas and reasonable progress in three others in its first monitoring visit since Stratford-upon-Avon College merged with it in February 2018.

Specialist college Brogdale Community Interest Company received a grade three for the first inspection of its provision for 26 students.

Fellow specialist college bemix, which supports people with learning difficulties and, or alternatively, autism received a grade three for its provision to 22 learners from its first inspection.

Calman Colaiste (Kisimul Group) bucked the trend, with a grade two from the first inspection of its provision to 31 learners.

Employer provider Greenwich Leisure Ltd, which has 131 apprentices, scored a grade three in its first inspection, with inspectors saying senior leaders “did not monitor effectively the training delivered by their subcontractor”.

Leaders “fail to identify when work in learners’ files is not their own, original work”.

Chosen Care Group, which teaches less than 50 learners scored a grade four, meaning it is likely to lose its funding contract with the ESFA. Leaders “fail to identify when work in learners’ files is not their own, original work,” inspectors reported.

As for independent learning providers: Advanced Personnel Management Group (UK) Limited, which has 68 apprentices, was stuck with its second grade three.

BPP Professional Education Limited, which has 1,750 apprentices, made reasonable progress in one area, but significant progress in two other areas, in an early monitoring visit of its apprenticeship provision.

Inspectors gave Unique Training Solutions Limited a grade two for its provision to 131 apprentices.

ITEC Learning Technologies was found to have made reasonable progress in all three areas of its monitoring visit.

Lastly, Calex UK Ltd made reasonable progress in two areas, but significant progress in ensuring apprentices benefit from high quality training that leads to positive outcomes.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
London South East Colleges	19/03/2019	03/05/2019	2	M
RNN Group	19/03/2019	02/05/2019	3	M
Stockton Riverside College	19/03/2019	30/04/2019	M	N/A
Solihull College and University Centre	13/03/2019	29/04/2019	M	N/A
The Bournemouth and Poole College	12/03/2019	02/05/2019	3	2

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Unique Training Solutions Limited	27/03/2019	29/04/2019	2	M
BPP Professional Education Limited	27/03/2019	30/04/2019	M	N/A
ITEC Learning Technologies	19/03/2019	29/04/2019	M	N/A
Advanced Personnel Management Group (UK) Limited	19/03/2019	30/04/2019	3	3
Calex UK Ltd	09/04/2019	01/05/2019	M	2

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Greenwich Leisure Ltd	18/03/2019	02/05/2019	3	N/A
Chosen Care Group Limited	05/03/2019	29/04/2019	4	N/A

 

Other (including UTCs)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
University of Kent	25/03/2019	01/05/2019	2	N/A
University of Greenwich	19/03/2019	30/04/2019	2	N/A
University of Wolverhampton	10/04/2019	03/05/2019	M	N/A
University of Cumbria	26/03/2019	29/04/2019	2	3

 

Specialist colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Calman Colaiste (Kisimul Group)	27/03/2019	02/05/2019	2	N/A
Brogdale Community Interest Company	11/03/2019	02/05/2019	3	N/A
bemix	19/03/2019	01/05/2019	3	N/A