T-levels policy is the latest example of “institutional bias” from the Department for Education that “ignores all evidence”, the chair of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers has said.
Martin Dunford (pictured) delivered one of the opening speeches at the association’s annual conference this morning, in which he elaborated on its 10-point sustainable investment plan that has been put forward to the Treasury ahead of the government’s spending review.
He told delegates there has been “nine years of austerity” and yet the “story for our sector has been punctuated with reports of endless FE College bailouts, programme underspends, duplicating initiatives and failed policies resulting from dogmatic beliefs that were far from evidence-based”.
“There have been a couple of high profile failures on the independent side although public money still flowed to those organisations even when the warning signs would have been there,” he said, adding that is “why we fully encouraged and supported the proposals for a more robust account management system that will help both the government and good robust providers, sitting in this room, equally”.
He said a “key competitive advantage for any organisation, in this case the ESFA, is fully understanding its suppliers” and the “lesson is that the DfE and its agencies must be deadly serious about delivering value for money from the limited funding that the Treasury does make available for FE and skills and the outlook for 2020 accentuates this need”.
Dunford continued: “We would argue that such serious intent has not been demonstrated in recent years and too often policymakers have fallen back in reaching for institutionalised solutions rather than searching for what works best for the employer and/or the learner.
“Sadly despite the silver linings you might hear about tomorrow afternoon, T-levels are just the latest example of this institutional bias, bias that ignores all the evidence.”
The AELP’s “shopping list” for the spending review covers apprenticeships, traineeships, adult education, the national retraining scheme and replacing the European Social Fund, but makes no mention of the new post-16 technical education qualifications set to be rolled out from 2020.
“In putting forward its policy proposals, AELP wants to make sure that programmes are available to the maximum number of employers and learners who want them, irrespective of who is delivering them, providing that the quality of delivery is good and recognising that budgets are finite,” Dunford said.
“If all these components are being considered properly at the same time, then the odds on delivering value for money must be high.”
He continued: “Volumes are important, especially when there are still nearly half a million young people unemployed and automation poses real challenges for those already in work. But measuring positive outcomes is more than just counting numbers.
“AELP agrees with those that say that skills programmes must be about supporting social mobility and progression whilst having a demonstrable positive impact on productivity.”
Dunford told delegates the timetable for the upcoming spending review has “slipped again” and is likely to now be “beyond the autumn”, adding: “I’m told at the moment we’re more likely to get a one-year carry-over rather than a three-year settlement.”
The government’s apprenticeship quango needs to start viewing training providers as their “clients” and become “far more responsive” to their needs, the skills minister has said.
Speaking to FE Week ahead of today’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference, Anne Milton called for a more “collaborative relationship” from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.
FE Week also understands that providers will soon be invited onto review groups to work closer with the institute on areas such as deciding funding rates for apprenticeship standards.
Milton, who has just reached her two-year anniversary as skills minister, explained how apprenticeships “was quite hard work” when she first came into post as she had to deal with businesses who were “still very grumpy about the levy” and a “quite clunky” IfA.
“So it was quite difficult in that first year, making clear to business that the levy wasn’t going to change, that this is it, and working with the institute to make sure they got up and running,” she said.
“And I think in two years it got into quite a good place. I can’t remember how many standards we had two years ago and now there are over 400 and employers are much happier.”
Milton added that the institute has now got to the “next phase of work”, which is about “making themselves far more responsive to training and provider needs”.
“In the beginning they were a regulator” and while “maintaining the regulating role, they have got to become a facilitator”.
“I think it’s seeing training providers and employers as their clients,” she said.
“That’s not to say they have to do everything it’s asked of them. But has to become much more: how can we help you?”
Asked what the IfA can do to help training providers more, Milton said: “I think starting working closer, understanding their market is the start of it.
“It’s a terribly diverse market. They’ve got to be receptive. They have been quite defensive. Now it has got to be: well this is our decision, we will review it, and we will look at it. A much more collaborative relationship.”
Milton will be delivering a keynote speech on day two of the AELP’s annual conference tomorrow. FE Week is media partner, follow us on Twitter for live updates, using the hashtag #AELPAnnual19.
Why is UTC Reading successful while other colleges are shutting or struggling? It has a grade one Ofsted rating, but that’s only one secret to its success
If Lord Kenneth Baker could take a blueprint for the beleaguered university technical college (UTC) and multiply it across the country, it’s likely that he would choose UTC Reading.
Baker, who served as education secretary under Margaret Thatcher and who has pushed the UTC model of vocational education within the Department for Education (DfE) since 2010, would no doubt cheer UTC Reading’s successes. Of the 34 of 50 UTCs still open that have been inspected so far, Reading is the only one to gain a grade one, have a quality Career Mark and a “World Class Schools” certificate.
As chair of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust that supports UTCs, Baker struggles to defend the UTC model in light of ten closures following under-recruitment or low results; for others, poor Ofsted ratings have damaged their reputation. But the model survives, with the DfE warning just last week that academy trusts that take over UTCs must preserve their technical and vocational “ethos” – or not call it a UTC.
We can give a clear career pathway into STEM
Baker might do better to recommend trust bosses visit UTC Reading to see why this ethos is worth preserving. Specialising in engineering and computer science, it is expanding its learner numbers to meet parental demand; this year it increased its admission numbers in year 10 from 100 to 120 – and next year it is oversubscribed for year 10 and year 12 entry.
Four years after its Ofsted grade and under new leadership, how has it kept up momentum? Jonathan Nicholls, who took over as principal in June 2017, says getting local schools on side was crucial – as was coupling with employers such as Microsoft.
“Relationship-building is critical in a local area for a UTC to build up strength,” he says. “It should not be seen as [being] in competition with other schools, but providing opportunities for them.”
Nicholls learnt the lesson from Joanne Harper, the former executive principal and now the deputy chief executive of the UTC’s sponsor, the Activate Learning Education Trust. He meets regularly with secondary school heads about the UTC’s curriculum offer, and his staff visit local years 9 and 11 to speak to potential recruits. The schools understand that some learners would benefit from vocational qualifications offered by the UTC, such as the NCFE level 2 technical award in business and enterprise in key stage 4, and the level 3 BTEC extended certificate in computing in key stage 5. “They know it’s not about us taking students from somewhere else, it’s about recognising we can give them a clear career pathway into STEM,” he says.
It’s a far cry from the desperate measures of UTC Warrington, as reported in FE Week and FE Week last year, which angered local schools when it encouraged learners to move earlier than expected. It’s about us understanding what industry needs
Persuading learners to join the UTC at 14 is tricky, but even recruiting to year 12 is tough because of competition from further education (FE) colleges.
Another relationship, this time with employers, is the solution, Nicholls says.
Principal of UTC Reading, Jonathan Nicholls
“There’s no doubt we experienced the same challenges as other UTCs, but what set us off on a good footing were the large industry partners behind us.” UTC Reading is partnered with Microsoft, which has offices in the nearby Thames Valley Park, as well as Japanese technology company Fujitsu and IT company Cisco. Others include engineering consultants Peter Brett Associates and Network Rail. Open days are held at the employers so it “already starts to feel different to what students might be experiencing in a traditional school”.
This year the UTC has tightened its industry partnerships by introducing the “Pipeline Programme”, in which post-16 learners have eight days on site with their preferred employers over two years.
The programme, launched in September, replaces employability days at the UTC and instead brings learners face-to-face with professionals. “It’s like having eight days of interviews to impress that employer,” Nicholls says. “It means when they submit an application for an apprenticeship, they can say, ‘you remember me?’”
If the good relationships with employers and schools put the UTC on a steady footing when it opened in 2013, the Ofsted grade cemented parental confidence. “There’s no doubt that really great outcome from Ofsted helped us to build a reputation,” Nicholls says. “Parents would look at us on the basis of being an ‘outstanding’ provider.” He appears to have made the UTC brand one of its strengths unlike some providers. For instance in 2017 Cambridge UTC renamed itself an “academy”.
It was this “outstanding” grade that made UTC Reading eligible for that World Class School status, which it won in 2017 with 15 other schools.
You have to give these things time to breathe
It is the only UTC to holdthe title, which assesses learners against a framework of skills and competencies. And in May it won the Career Mark, which appears to be even harder to meet than the Gatsby careers benchmarks, if the enormous application portfolio that Nicholls shows me is anything to go by. Both standards were achieved in response to the Ofsted grade, he says. “It was about, how do we build on the pinnacle of an Ofsted grade? We wanted to continue to stand out.”
And it’s worked. There are 224 applicants for 120 year 10 places in September, and 465 applicants (including those already at the UTC) for 160 places in year 12. These are figures many UTC principals can only dream of. Nicholls says in “a year or two” the UTC should have 560 learners on roll, bringing it almost to its 600-pupil capacity.
The success has also given the senior team the confidence to innovate; apprenticeship routes were dropped in 2017 because FE colleges had the option covered. This year a new A-level in three-dimensional design and architecture was introduced to offer more “creative” qualifications that it is hoped can help to increase the number of girls enrolled by 1 per cent a year (currently the figure is 16 per cent).
Nicholls believes this ability to adapt sets UTCs apart from other providers. “The concept of the UTC is to provide a response to the needs in their region,” he says. “It’s about us understanding what industry needs.”
Year 13 learners in an engineering lesson working on lathes
But he is one of the lucky ones. His belief in the model is clearly shared by his sponsors: Harper sits on a “You have to give these things time to breathe” national group of “core principals” of UTCs. The trust has four UTCs, two mainstream secondary schools and a studio school, meaning it can draw on the expertise of staff whilst making it unlikely the UTCs ethos will be lost. The trust is supported by Activate Learning, a wider group that includes FE colleges, adding another layer of expertise.
At a national level, the picture does not look so rosy: only 16 UTCs have a grade two, 12 a grade three and five a grade four, as of April. Even at UTC Reading, the data appears to be mixed: of those enrolled to study mainly academic qualifications, only 63 per cent of key stage 5 learners completed their programme compared with a local authority average of 90 per cent. At key stage 4, the -0.74 progress score might cause concern.
But Nicholls is adamant. “I absolutely believe in the concept of the UTC model and what it can do. You have to give these things time to breathe.”
Dr Chris Jones sets out the focus of the watchdog’s new framework, which will be in place from September
It is always a great pleasure to attend, deliver workshops and speak at the AELP conference, especially now, as we all prepare for the new inspection framework that comes in this September.
The new Ofsted framework has four key judgements. It seeks to rebalance what we look at on inspection by focusing on the substance of the curriculum and supporting leaders and teachers who act with integrity; namely, those who do the right thing for their learners and apprentices and who resist the temptation to take shortcuts.
The framework puts the curriculum back at the centre of inspection to ensure young people and adults receive the high-quality training and support they need to improve their knowledge and skills, get a new job or promotion, or gain the qualifications they need to go to university or higher levels of training.
A new quality of education judgment will evaluate the education and training that providers offer to all their learners and apprentices. Previously, we looked at the curriculum as a small element of leadership and management, and not through a teaching and assessment lens. With this framework, we will look in greater depth at what the provider chooses to offer, how well the curriculum is ordered and structured, and whether it is taught well.
“The framework puts the curriculum back at the centre”
With that focus, it is also important that we look at what happens to learners and apprentices after their education and training. Did they gain the qualifications or apprenticeship they were working towards? Did they develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for their next steps? Did they progress to their intended destination?
A separate behaviour and attitudes judgment will allow inspectors to consider how effectively providers and employers set expectations for a calm and orderly environment for teaching, training and work. Central to this is a strong focus on attendance and turning up on time for learning and work. Simply put, if a learner or apprentice is frequently absent and often late, they are not developing the employability skills they need.
On our personal development judgment – this is about looking at the things that affect all of us at every stage of our lives: mental and physical health, equality, diversity, British values and the prevention of radicalisation and extremism in all its forms. It is also about effective careers information and guidance. For apprentices, it means covering more than just the “job” they are doing and giving them chances to learn about the range of occupations and wider skills that their training prepares them for.
Finally, the leadership and management judgment focuses on how well leaders and managers support teachers, trainers and assessors to improve their subject knowledge, teaching and assessing skills and the integrity with which they select the subjects they teach and run the organisation.
Central to the leadership and management judgment are questions about who helps the provider to develop a clarity of vision, ethos and direction. Governance is a challenging principle in further education and skills, especially in small, independent training providers. This is why, in our handbook, we focus on the process of governance and not on people called “governors”. Who holds leaders to account for performance? Who makes sure that public money is well spent?
I would also like to address the issue of safeguarding and keeping young people and vulnerable adults safe. It is about understanding local risks relevant to where your learners and apprentices live and work. If, for example, knife crime, sexual exploitation or far-right extremism are issues that your learners could face daily, then these are risks facing all learners and apprentices, regardless of age. Leaders, managers and teachers must ensure that the curriculum provides learners with access to the support they need to deal with those issues.
Ian Ross explains why he has asked the education select committee to launch an inquiry into adult education budget funding
It is now two years since the Education and Skills Funding Agency launched its procurement exercise for adult education budget (AEB) funding. While colleges and local authorities receive an annual automatic funding allocation, colleges can bid to procure more through an open process.
The element of procured funding is consequently put under pressure as colleges, who already have AEB funding, have an additional opportunity to bid for more against independent training providers (ITPs) who do not have the luxury of automatic AEB allocations. This creates an element of unfairness: I have always argued that those institutions with automatic AEB allocations should not be permitted to participate in the procured AEB process too.
My second concern is that many colleges underspend their AEB funding year-on-year. In 2016-17 £200 million was unspent. Last week new FE Week analysis revealed that colleges underspent their original procured adult education budget funding allocations by 26 per cent.
“I am not pitting colleges against ITPs”
In January my organisation exhausted our 2018-19 AEB funding for adult classroom provision as our successful courses in Brighton and Hove attracted more learners than forecast. From September 2018 to January this year we effectively spent our allocation, offering a variety of vocational courses with English and maths qualifications. Many of the adult learners we enrolled had few or no qualifications. We have high completion and attainment rates (97 per cent) with 75 per cent progression into work or further learning at a higher level. Of the students who took part in our latest level 2 support work in schools, 60 per cent went on to find jobs straightaway.
I approached 20 colleges in January to enquire about opportunities for sub-contracting and every one said their enrolments and spend was on track. This was no surprise as they always respond along similar lines, yet year after year we witness huge AEB underspends while adult learners miss out on popular courses elsewhere. This is the same story across England. One of the advantages of ITPs is that we do not have rigid start dates, unlike the colleges who tend to only start courses in September, January and April. We can start new courses monthly to meet local learner need.
The third frustration is what happens when we get to the summer; despite colleges saying all year round that their AEB funding is fully committed. Come June many suddenly discover that they have underspends. Many of us are all too aware of offers of AEB funding that has to be spent in the next two months to the end of July. However, if colleges were more efficient and better at monitoring their enrolments and draw-down, ITPs could have been given the opportunity to deliver provision earlier in the year with a bigger impact. I know of one funding broker who is expecting £500,000 of AEB funding to become available during June for the remainder of the academic year.
After grumbling about these issues with other ITPs for the past few years I decided to call on the education select committee to launch an inquiry. I have never engaged with a Commons committee before, so this is new to me. Change is long overdue and I hope my call builds up support and momentum across the sector. This is not about pitting colleges against ITPs, but about creating a more fair and efficient sector to benefit adult learners across the county, especially at a time when AEB funding is so scarce.
The subject causes heated arguments, but surely the newly professionalised world of college governance would benefit from paying those with oversight, says Sue Pember
There is a long history in the UK of the voluntary principle for the governance of public services and charities and, until recently, this has worked well in most instances. The concept of unpaid governors has been one of the defining characteristics of the charitable and college sectors and contributes greatly to public confidence in their governance.
That said, governors are entitled to have their expenses met from college budgets, but the idea of taking this further and paying governors for their attendance at meetings, or giving them an annual salary, divides governors and senior leaders.
Everyone agrees that good people should be supported to attend meetings by claiming for travel and other expenses, such as childcare; but whether college governance is improved if the chair and governors are paid has yet to be evaluated and the subject causes heated debate.
College governing bodies are subject to charity law, and governors are the equivalent of trustees. They should not profit from the office they hold unless authorised by the governing document (Instrument & Articles, Statute or Principal Regulator).
“Governors are being asked to do much more than before”
But there are circumstances when payment is allowed, and the Charity Commission (CC) and the government have produced joint guidance on how boards can apply to the CC for permission. The guidance covers three specific areas where a governor could be paid: expenses and compensation; payment for services or extra work – for example, contributing to area reviews; and payment for professional board leadership.
Although this guidance has been around since 2013, only a handful of colleges have applied. On the positive side, most that have done so have been successful. The main reasons for applying have been to do with the complexity of a merger and/or taking a college from “inadequate” to “good” and needing to attract outstanding people for the role.
In Northern Ireland, colleges have been able to pay their board members for the past eight years and a recent evaluation found that the Department of Education reported a perception of an improvement in the range and calibre of applicants competing for chairs since the implementation of payment. They also reported an increase in applications for governor vacancies from women. Also, clerks thought attendance and engagement was improved.
Over in England? It is interesting that there have not been more colleges applying to introduce payments, but when I have talked to governors, they express concerns about whether this will open the door to external criticism and their motives for being a governor put in doubt. I think this worry is misplaced. NHS trusts and the police commissioners pay their trustees, many local authorities have an attendance allowance for councillors and some cabinet members are paid.
College governors are being asked to do much more than they were before colleges were incorporated in 1993 and are expected to do this without the type of support and reporting the previous funding bodies provided. As the funding agencies have shrunk in size, many of their assurance responsibilities have been transferred to the actual governing body. Some will say that’s the right place for them but, as seen in the past two years, governors struggle to take on that role without being trained and the concept of governance professionalised.
It is important that the proper procedures are put in place. For example, when deciding to apply to pay a governor, the governing body must manage any possible conflict of interest and ensure that this governor takes no part in any meeting or discussion affecting their own payment or potential payment. It must also be satisfied that paying the governor for services would be in the interests of the charity and that the level of payment is reasonable.
Finally, a written agreement, including specifying the exact (or maximum) amount to be paid, should be produced.
The professionalism of governance and the role of governors is changing significantly. If boards of colleges are reporting difficulty in competing with other organisations for governors, they should consider whether payment of chairs and other board members would help alleviate their recruitment problems, and apply.
More and more colleges are appointing directors of governance and are even paying their governors, as they look to professionalise these roles in the shadow of mergers and the insolvency regime. FE Week has taken closer look at how and why this practice has come about.
The importance of governors has never been higher, with colleges facing the challenge of managing an increasingly diverse portfolio of business: from colleges, to independent training providers, to multi-academy trusts.
While colleges continue to merge to create “fewer, larger, more resilient and efficient providers”, as was the plan with the post-16 area reviews which ended in March 2017, they’re also battling against tight budgets; and if poor decisions are made, they could find themselves going insolvent, as has been the case with scandal-hit Hadlow College.
The FE college world is more challenging, with funding cuts and pressures to merge requiring more time of governors
Two of the biggest college chains in the country, NCG and LTE Group, have begun efforts to combat this challenge by paying their governors.
In LTE’s case, seven governors were paid a total of £11,833 in 2017-18; while three “co-optees” – people with specific skills and professions who sit on sub-committees – were paid a total of £3,000.
In NCG’s case, one governor was paid £15,000 to be a director of its subsidiary training provider, The InTraining Group.
A spokesperson said it otherwise “does not reimburse its members of corporation, except as direct recompense for out-of-pocket expenses”.
Another prominent college which has started to pay governors is the East Kent Colleges Group. In an interview with FE Week, the group explains that this decision was made due to the significant higher workload required following its merger (see full interview below).
Another way in which colleges have sought to professionalise governance is by hiring what are known as directors o governance, to supplant the traditional clerk, to work full-time on processing paperwork, recruitment, and advising governors and managers.
FE Commissioner Richard Atkins (pictured), who has spoken in the past about bringing more financial expertise on to college boards, has said hiring professional clerks is “excellent practice”.
A number of colleges, including NCG, Bolton and Sunderland, haveadvertised for heads, assistant heads, or directors of governance over the past year.
NCG hired an executive director of governance, assurance and risk in August 2018 – David Balme – and has advertised for an assistant director.
The group, which runs colleges across the country, justified the move by saying the role has “important oversight of a complex organisation”.
London South East Colleges also employed a group executive director for corporate services, Jennifer Pharo, in 2018.
Speaking to FE Week, she described herself as the “glue” keeping the organisation together.
The ICSA governance institute’s not-for-profit head of policy Louise Thomson, said “it wouldn’t surprise her” if there has been an increase in the practice of paying governors.
“There has been in the charity sector. And the FE college world is more challenging, with funding cuts and pressures to merge requiring more time of governors.”
Thomson added that if a college is facing acute financial or other pressures, its board may believe the chair needs to be more “hands-on” and as such ought to be paid for their efforts.
Boards should consider whether payment of chairs would help alleviate their recruitment problems
She explained that if the board was considering paying governors, there should be a sound business case articulating the benefits to the college, its students and wider stakeholder constituents.
She also warned colleges that may be considering it: “Where a governor is paid and finds themselves in court for their action on the governing body, it is likely that the court will hold them to a higher standard than those not being remunerated.”
However, other colleges may find the prospect of paying governors troublesome as it would violate what Thomson called the “sacrosanct” principle of volunteerism, which many see as one that should be protected at all costs, as well as creating a possible conflict of interest.
Writing on the topic in this edition of FE Week, Dr Sue Pember, the former lead civil servant for FE funding and now director of adult and community learning group Holex, said: “If boards of colleges are reporting difficulty in competing with other organisations for governors, they should consider whether payment of chairs and other board members would help alleviate their recruitment problems and agree to apply to the Charity Commission.”
Indeed, aside from NCG and LTE, the other eight biggest colleges by income that were looked at by FE Week do not pay governors, and almost all of them said they are not considering it.
Yet with an increasing number of colleges looking to pay at least their clerks, it may only be a matter of time before governor remuneration becomes much more widespread.
Director of governance: it’s ‘a nice challenging role’
London South East Colleges’ director of governance Jennifer Pharo has described herself as the “glue” keeping the organisation together, as she sat down with FE Week to discuss her role as a professional clerk.
Pharo was appointed to the role in April 2018 and clerks for all the group’s boards: for the college, the multiacademy trust, and its independent training company, and all the group sub-committees such as finance, audit, curriculum and search, and remuneration. It’s what she calls a “nice, challenging role” with a “unique” portfolio of charities.
Very few colleges are also multiacademy trust sponsors, with Dudley College and Stoke-on-Trent counting among the ranks.
Jennifer Pharo
Of her role, Pharo said: “We needed the glue to keep that together, support governors and to make sure the communication and information flow is working around what is our operating system of governance.”
About one-fifth of her time is devoted to recruiting people to fill 35 governor posts across the three charities.
Other times, she is preparing briefs on a range of items, from the Augar Review of post-18 funding to the Timpson Review on exclusions; and even individualised handbooks for each governor, complete with their terms of reference.
Governors, she says, are “very appreciative” of all she does for them.
So, what should colleges be looking for in a professional clerk?
“I have a legal background. I worked as a legal executive for six or seven years, before I moved into investment banking, but I worked within the legal arena of investment banking for about 15 years, at a large Swiss bank,” Pharo says.
After her banking career, she moved into education, to pursue a dream of becoming a teacher.
She has worked in the FE sector since 2002 and has served as head of planning and performance and director of MIS at Lewisham College, which eventually became Lewisham Southwark College, as well as executive director of college services at LSEC.
“So, I’ve got a really good understanding of the business, about finances and the income – all the challenges that we face as a sector.
“I understand all of the regulatory topics, and I have been involved quite intimately with all the funding agencies, so I understand the funding rules and how both colleges and schools operate.”
In order to avoid conflicts of interest, Pharo has put together an impartiality policy to answer questions as to how she can stay neutral in meetings when she is employed by the college and has to safeguard both the governance and the executive team.
The role that we have is the real conscience of the organisation
“The role that we have is the real conscience of the organisation.” She has plenty on her plate for the next few months, including operating plans for the next year for how the meetings will work and how the information is flowing through them.
There are also the board evaluations, which she is starting in September.
On the recruitment front, the college is endeavouring to bring in greater diversity and also keep up its range of skills.
Recently, a senior Department for Education official approached them about becoming a governor. “He felt we were really, really interesting group,” Pharo said. “He really wants to be part of our governing body. And so that’s really complimentary for us.”
Additional commitment requires remuneration
FE Week spoke to the chair of the EKC Group remuneration committee, Jonathan Clarke, about how the decision to pay its chair came about, as well as the practice’s benefits and its risks.
When the merger between East Kent College and Canterbury College, which created the group, was finalised in 2018, the committee realised there was going to be a significantly higher workload for the chair than there had been before.
“As a result,” Clarke said, “the governing body wanted to ensure we had a chair who not only had the skills, but was remunerated for the additional commitment and time they would need to invest in the governance and strategic guidance of the new group”.
Jonathan Clarke
The time commitment was too much for the then-chair, Beverley Aitken, who announced she would be stepping down shortly before the merger.
Into their shoes stepped Charles Buchanan, the chair of the merger’s transition group.
The board decided to pay him £20,000 per annum for 50 days work a year, though Clarke stressed that he works much more than that in reality.
He said: “The decision to remunerate the chair was taken because of the increased need for the group to have one who had a strong business background and experience of guiding large and diverse organisations.
“The size of the new group means that it’s a highly complex operation, and one which requires exceptional governance and strategic guidance.
“We believe the chair brings that to the board, and adds the professionalism required for the role as it currently is.”
Buchanan, the only remunerated member of the board, is a former chief executive of Lydd/London Ashford Airport and Manston Airport in Kent.
He fits the bill for what the board was looking for in the group’s chair: a strong business background and experience of guiding large, diverse organisations.
His role involves many of the same activities any other chair would be expected to carry out: supporting, but also challenging, college managers and meeting with stakeholders, to name but two of his responsibilities.
However, Clarke says a remunerated chair “brings a professionalism, and a wealth of experience in the world of commerce to the table, enabling the board to examine performance in a much more strategic manner.”
Paying Buchanan also means senior post-holders are able to count on their chair being available when he’s required to give his input in any debate.
Clarke was careful not to recommend it to all colleges, and said there may be some disadvantages, though EKC had not encountered any.
But he said the chair, as a paid officer, was held to a higher standard than the other governors.
The size of the new group means that it’s a highly complex operation
Clarke also said governors had to be mindful of doing their jobs correctly, especially considering some recent “catastrophic” failures of college governance.
One such example is Hadlow College, based a few miles from EKC, which entered insolvency in May, after FE Commissioner Richard Atkins reported its board had failed in its fiduciary duty.
Yet Clarke remains optimistic about EKC Group’s approach: “I don’t feel that is a risk. In fact, quite the opposite – it should ensure that remunerated governors have a vested interested in outperforming others, and working even more diligently to deliver the best possible outcomes for their organisation.”
There was not necessarily a “magic panacea” to recruiting professional governors, he added, but remuneration may be one possible solution.
“I think that FE, as a sector, sometimes needs to embrace new ways of doing things, and should also experiment with innovations.”
So how does a college go about paying its governors?
There are special circumstances under which colleges can remunerate governors for services. According to the Association of Colleges, these include periods when a college is restructuring or reorganising, under orders from the ESFA or FE Commissioner.
There can also be a particular problem with recruitment, or a requirement for a board member to commit a significant amount of time, which would allow for governors to be remunerated.
As every college is a charity, if one wishes to remunerate its governors, it has to apply for permission from the regulator of the charitable sector, the Charities Commission.
As colleges are exempt from the Charities Commission’s oversight, the commission will then consult with the principal regulator of colleges, the Department for Education.
A further education corporation will likely insert the order alongside the instrument of government; while a college set up as a company will insert it into the articles of association.
However, the government says remuneration should not last the maximum duration unless it can be justified, and it cannot be approved retroactively.
A new college can include a power to allow a minority of trustees to receive specified payments or benefits, including remuneration for serving as a trustee.
This does not require approval from the commission, but the wording will, of course, need to comply with charity law.
But where an existing college (which has not been granted permission to pay governors) merges into a new college, the new institution would need to give reasonable assurance that any payment to governors had been paid for by its own funding.
An Ofsted grade two provider has hit out at the government’s “farcical” process for reapplying to the register of apprenticeship training providers, after its bid was rejected on a technicality.
According to the guidelines, providers can be exempt from filling out some parts of the application if they have received a short Ofsted inspection confirming an overall grade of at least “good” over the past three years, and they received the grade for apprenticeships in their most recent full inspection.
One provider specialising in delivering apprenticeships for over 20 years, but which did not wish to be named, was rated “good” overall in its last full inspection in 2014.
However, at this point the education watchdog didn’t give apprenticeships its own grade.
The provider’s most recent report was a short inspection last year, which meant that it maintained its grade two.
During its recent reapplication to RoATP, the provider said it was a grade two apprenticeship provider. But the Department for Education rejected the bid on the basis that, technically, they do not have an apprenticeship grade.
One senior figure at the provider told FE Week: “When is an Ofsted ‘good’ not ‘good’? When it’s an FE & Skills remit. It’s farcical that, as a provider specialising in apprenticeships for over 20 years, with an Ofsted ‘good’, we have to jump through more hoops to get on the register than a provider with a broader remit.
“Our time and money (or should I say the ESFA’s) could have been much better spent actually recruiting and training apprenticeships.”
The provider added it hasn’t been given a date from Bravo (the e-tendering portal) or from the ESFA on how much time it has to resubmit with the extra questions.
The DfE’s rejection email said: “Thank you for your application to the RoATP. Your application has not been taken forward for assessment due to an incorrectly claimed exemption regarding question PR-1:
“Within the last 3 years, have you had an Ofsted inspection and been awarded an ‘apprenticeship’ grade of ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ and maintained ESFA, SFA or EFA funding since that date?
“Please note, if your last inspection was a short Inspection (where no grade is given for apprenticeships) we looked at your last full Inspection to see if an apprenticeships grade was awarded.”
The email added that this rejected application does not count towards the two applications providers are permitted within a 12-month period limit.
FE Week reported last month that new applicants trying to get on to the register, which finally reopened on December 12 with more “stringent and challenging entry requirements”, had not heard the outcome of the application six months on.
A DfE spokesperson said this week that all providers that applied to be on the register in December, January and February “have been notified of the result”.
“An updated register will be published in due course,” she added. RoATP reopened more than a year after the last application window closed – a time period which left many providers wanting to get on it frustrated.
The new register is expected to bring greater scrutiny, following various FE Week investigations that discovered, for example, one-man bands with no delivery experience being given access to millions of pounds of apprenticeships funding.
While all providers will be asked to apply to the register even if they were already on there, subcontractors delivering less than £100,000 of provision a year have also been told they need to register.
