The National College for High Speed Rail is ploughing ahead with a new name and broader course offer, following a multi-million pound government bailout.

After consulting earlier this year, the government’s flagship college is changing its name to the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure and intends to offer a wider range of courses at its Birmingham and Doncaster campuses.

Chief executive of the college Clair Mowbray said: “As an employer-led college, it’s key we ensure the skills we equip our learners with meet the demands and the skills shortages of the broader advanced transport and infrastructure sector.”

She quoted figures from the Strategic Transport Apprenticeship Taskforce which estimate 50,000 more people are needed to work in the rail sector; 41,000 to fill roles on the road network; and 180,000 to deliver the Heathrow Expansion project.

“There is huge demand across the sectors and the name change reflects our dedication to delivering and developing our curriculum to meet industry demands,” Mowbray continued.

This name change coincides with delays and costing problems with the HS2 project, which is meant to deliver a high-speed rail link from London to the north and is closely aligned with the college.

Mowbray developed the college while working at the company responsible for the project, HS2 Ltd, which has lent her college £2,906,000 in 2018 and £2,804,000 in 2017.

But completion of the first phase of HS2, between London and Birmingham, will probably be pushed back until 2040, transport secretary Grant Shapps told parliament last month, and the budget for the project could increase by around £20 billion.

NCHSR’s rebrand comes after FE Week reported in May the National College for High Speed Rail needed a £4.55 million bailout from the Department for Education to sign off its 2017-18 accounts, that the provider would not need to pay back.

However, what will need to be paid back – by 2030 – is a working capital loan of £8.3 million in 2017-18 that was necessary “to help with startup costs that have been incurred in establishing the college,” according to a spokesperson.

This is not the only national college to run into difficulty since the scheme was launched with £80 million of taxpayers’ money in 2014.

National College Creative Industries is consulting on dissolving and instead starting a new company, NCCI Ltd, which would franchise classroom provision and its building out to South Essex College and apprenticeship provision to Access Creative College. NCCI’s move came after it made it through 2017-18 as a “going concern” thanks to a £600,000 bailout from the Department for Education.

Despite a target to recruit 1,000 learners a year, it only recruited 167 between May 2018 and May 2019.

Following the bailout, then-skills minister Anne Milton announced NCCI would be going through a structure and prospects appraisal to identify partners.

The DfE launched an evaluation of the national college policy in November, to avoid making mistakes in the rollout of the Institutes of Technology, of which eight more were announced this week by education secretary Gavin Williamson (see page 14).

A college rocked by a £20 million apprenticeship scandal is now being run by a Department for Education consultant after the chair stood down, FE Week can reveal.

Terry Lazenby (pictured right) resigned from Brooklands College this week.

It is a relatively small college that FE Week understands is now trading whilst insolvent, after the government demanded it returns a huge amount of funding.

Terry was passionate and committed to the student experience

Lazenby’s replacement on an interim basis is Andrew Baird (pictured left), one of the DfE’s National Leaders of Governance, who is on their payroll and takes home £300 a day for his services.

Baird, who is also currently the chair of governors at Orbital South Colleges, was parachuted into Hadlow College earlier this year after financial irregularities were exposed.

He stopped being chair of Hadlow when it went into administration in May – making it the first to go through the new college insolvency regime.

Baird will be paid for up to 15 days work between now and the end of the year at Brooklands College, according to the DfE.

The department confirmed they offered Baird to Brooklands as interim chair, and the decision to appoint him was taken by the college’s governing body. They declined to comment on how much influence they had in the resignation of Lazenby, who was chair of the audit committee when the apprenticeship funds were received.

A spokesperson said: “We welcome the college’s appointment of Andrew Baird as chair, who brings a wide range of experience within FE and beyond.” 

A Brooklands College spokesperson said it was “pleased to announce” Baird as the new chair of governors with immediate effect on Wednesday.

“Governors look forward to the opportunity to work with Andrew in taking forward the strategic intentions of the corporation,” she added.

Brooklands College’s future currently hangs in the balance following an Education and Skills Funding Agency investigation into its subcontracting relationship with a training firm called SCL Security Ltd.

Amongst many findings, the agency discovered that apprenticeship funding was being used to pay the wages for the 16 to 18-year-olds, which is strictly against the funding rules.

The ESFA has now demanded it pays up to £20 million back to the government.

ESFA boss Eileen Milner also sent a sector-wide letter today, which promised a crackdown on “complacency and mismanagement” of subcontracting deals, as well as “deliberate and systematic fraud”.

Prior to taking over as chair, Lazenby had been vice chair since 2014, a member of three committees including audit and attended 32 out of 33 board and committee meetings in the past three years, according to the published college accounts.

Audit committee meeting minutes show that Lazenby was fully aware of the scale of subcontracting, noting in a September 2017 meeting it was “a significantly higher proportion of income at Brooklands than many FE colleges”.

The audit committee for Brooklands currently only has three members, following the recent resignation of its chair Jerry Loy, as revealed in minutes from a board meeting for June 2019.

Gail Walker, who worked her way up to principal and chief executive of Brooklands after joining in 2011, resigned in March.

She was replaced on an interim basis by deputy principal Christine Ricketts and vice principal Shereen Sameresinghe, who are splitting the role.

The college’s spokesperson said: “In recognising the previous chair’s achievements the interim principal and interim chief executive expressed their gratitude for Terry’s commitment to the college.

“Terry Lazenby MBE, a former chief engineer at BP, was an accessible and visible member of the governing Board to both staff and students.

“Terry was passionate and committed to the student experience and actively engaged in student life to inspire the next generation of engineers.”

Lazenby said all staff at the college “have the best interests of our students at the heart of everything they do”. He did not respond to a request for comment on the ESFA’s investigation.

The DfE said Baird is the only National Leader of Governance, paid by the department, who is currently acting as interim chair of a college.

The education secretary has said his former college made the “right decision” in pulling out of offering a T-level in digital, as he pledged to convene business leaders in an attempt to address shortages of work placement opportunities.

It was announced this week that Scarborough Sixth Form College, where Gavin Williamson studied, will no longer deliver the digital pathway in 2020. The principal said the decision was made because of a lack of work placement opportunities in the area and a shortage of good-quality teachers.

Senior leaders in FE have long expressed concern that young people, especially in rural areas, will be unable to pass the T-level owing to a lack of local and lengthy placement opportunities. However, in 2017, the government said it would not budge on the mandatory work placements.

This doesn’t close the opportunity to offer it in a year after that

Speaking to FE Week at the Conservative Party conference, Williamson said it was “fantastic” his former college was going ahead with the education and childcare pathway, but said dropping the digital offer was the right call.

“They have to look as to how they deliver the very best quality and the very best choice, and they’ve had to make that decision and it is the right decision because it is about preserving that quality.

“This doesn’t close the opportunity to offer it in a year after that, but it’s getting the whole package right, because every youngster that tales a T-level, we want to get it right first time.”

Williamson said there was a “clear recognition” in government that T-levels must be “exceptionally high quality” and that colleges must be “able to offer the full spectrum of what needs to be in the T-level”.

He acknowledged that skills “aren’t as evenly spread as we would like them to be”, and said government must become a “convening force” between colleges and employers.

“We want to take the opportunity to work really closely, very closely with not just colleges but also employers as to actually how best we unlock some of the opportunities to do the vocational side of it.

“It’s one of the reasons that we’re convening together some of the country’s largest employers to have a conversation about how we work closer with employers to make sure that the opportunities are coming available for colleges right across the country.”

When pressed for further information on the work with employers, the DfE said this referred to employer panels and dialogue with industry.

FE Week also asked the DfE for its advice to families in Scarborough who want to study the digital pathway, but received no response.

The DfE did say this week that the Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education, which was already set to offer the education and childcare pathway from next year, will now also deliver the digital pathway.

“We always expected there to be a certain amount of fluctuation of providers, and the pathways they offer, as we progress towards September 2020,” a spokesperson said.

“However, we continue to have an excellent group of high-quality providers offering a variety of pathways across the country.”

T-levels were originally meant to be rolled out from September 2019 but skills minister Anne Milton announced a delay of a year in July 2017.

Williamson’s predecessor, Damian Hinds, then rejected a request from the DfE’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, for another year-long delay rejected in the first ever ministerial direction issued by an education secretary last May.

This week’s changes are not the first to affect the T-levels wave one provider list: Big Creative Training and the London Design and Engineering UTC were removed in February.

It follows a pledge by Williamson in his Conference speech on Monday that England will “aim to overtake Germany in the opportunities we offer to those studying technical routes by 2029”.

Asked how it would work towards the target, the DfE said the introduction of new T-levels would boost access to great technical education across the country.

The Augar report could be “dead” after university vice-chancellors whinged they couldn’t “possibly survive” on slashed tuition fees “because we’ll all have to reduce our salaries or spend on wine and beer”.

That is according to the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, David Hughes, who told a Conservative Party Conference fringe event yesterday that he is “not very optimistic” the post-18 education review “will be taken as seriously as it might”.

He cited a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the review, the recommendations from which were originally meant to then turn into policy, was “the last prime minister’s report, not the present”.

“The politics of life are that the present prime minister will take it less seriously because of that,” he said.

“It was also a report that had a lot of infighting between Treasury and Number 10, between Philip Hammond and Theresa May.”

Hughes then turned to university bosses: “You add to that then that the possible the nail in the coffin of the report as a whole, the vice-chancellors immediately just went for it and said we can’t possibly survive on £7,500 fees because ‘we’ll all have to reduce our salaries or reduce our spend on wine and beer’.

“They got to Johnson, not Boris but Jo, when he was fleetingly, for about five weeks as higher education minister again, and basically just sunk the whole report by saying we can’t implement the £7,500 fees as ‘it’s just not going to work’.”

He added: “Interestingly, if you go to Scotland the average fee is about £6,500 and the universities there seem to do ok, so I don’t know how that works.

“It is real shame actually, because there was a lot of really good analysis in the report and I would recommend you read, certainly the chapter on skills and FE.”

Excessive university vice-chancellor pay has made headlines in recent years with many calls for the government to restrain salary levels.

The higher education regulator, the Office for Students, published its first ever survey on senior staff pay in February, which revealed how six universities in England paid their vice-chancellors £500,000 or more in salary, bonuses and benefits last year, while nearly half of all vice-chancellors received more than £300,000.

In June, The Press and Journal revealed how the Scottish government had launched an investigation into a £282,000 payment to the former principal of Aberdeen University, Ian Diamond, who is the now the chair of the Association of Colleges’ College of the Future commission.

Yesterday’s fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference, hosted by the Centre for Progressive Policy, was entitled Implementing Augar – building an adult education system fit for the future of work.

Hughes said it was worth reflecting on the “genesis” of the report, which was launched with an “amazing speech” by then prime minister Theresa May at Derby College – a venue choice which the AoC boss said was a “real tide turn” for FE.

“I was in the audience, sitting just behind the vice-chancellor of Derby University who I know quite well, and I heard him muttering away at how terrible this was that it was in a college and not in his university, which is about two miles away,” Hughes told the audience.

“It was the start, I think, of a kind of a real tide turn when universities started to realise they weren’t the chosen children of the education system anymore and that colleges have started to rise up.”

He added: “It could be that it [the Augar report] is dead but the issues it was trying to address and the reason that Theresa May launched the review in the first place are so important that it won’t go away.”

The boss of the Education and Skills Funding Agency has sent a sector-wide letter warning she will take strong action against any provider that does not play by their subcontracting rules, following the Brooklands College scandal.

Eileen Milner has written to all colleges and training providers today to state the agency is continuing to investigate cases where subcontracted provision is not “appropriately controlled, overseen or managed by the lead provider”.

She said there are currently 11 live investigations in this area, with issues underpinning them ranging in seriousness from “complacency and mismanagement”, through to matters of “deliberate and systematic fraud”.

“Whilst these cases vary in degrees of seriousness, they all exhibit features that reflect badly upon the organisations involved and clearly suggest that the sector must do better,” Milner added.

“I want to make it clear that where poor subcontracting practice is evident to us we will act decisively.”

All providers have been told they must confirm they’ve read the letter  by no later than 1 November 2019. You can read the full letter here.

There have been a number of high-profile subcontracting scandals in recent years, including the Luis Michael Training case where its owners, which included two former professional footballers, created “ghost learners” and were jailed for over 25 years combined.

The most recent subcontracting scandal, exposed by FE Week, has involved Brooklands College and resulted with the ESFA demanding a £20 million clawback.

Milner said the ESFA will, in future, be “more forensic in our examination of the data and information available to us to hold individuals and organisations to account”.

“We will recover public money where appropriate,” she added.

“In response to the evidence gathered so far, we have tightened our requirements and made it clear that we will take action with lead providers who do not exercise control over subcontracted provision.”

Milner also said she will be seeking evidence later this year from those who have an interest in subcontracted delivery, which will “inform our thinking about the nature and extent of reforms to subcontracting arrangements”.

The review will be concluded this academic year and the ESFA will start to implement the changes at the start of the 2020/21 academic year.

An education minister has admitted the government has no power to preserve Stourbridge College’s site for educational use, heightening concern that it could instead become housing.

Following an announcement in May that cash-strapped Birmingham Metropolitan College would be selling its site in Stourbridge, its local MP Margot James yesterday led a Westminster Hall debate on adult learning and vocational skills in the area.

“The site has been associated with education for many years, and it is the deep wish of our community that the site be protected in future for educational use, at least for the most part, for the generations to come,” was James’ main call.

But she received little reassurance from Michelle Donelan, who is one of three ministers helping with the FE brief in the Department for Education.

“I want to put it on record that I have listened to the proposal mentioned by the hon. Member for Stourbridge for the site to continue as an educational facility with some adult education,” Donelan said.

“Although I do not have jurisdiction over that option, I encourage all local stakeholders to review and explore it.

“It is matter for BMet, however, and its governors will need to demonstrate that they secure the best value from the sale of the asset to satisfy their legal responsibilities as trustees.”

The minister used her speech to express how the closure of the Stourbridge campus “is regrettable” and “I do not want to underestimate the impact that it has had across the community and the ripples that we have seen”.

She added that Stourbridge’s closure “will continue to cast a shadow over the area”, but said it was the “best option” to support BMet’s financial sustainability and, “crucially, to ensure that good-quality provision was available for current and future students”.

BMet is selling off Stourbridge College, which dates back over 100 years, in order to pay back debts which had totalled £8.9 million to the banks and £7.5 million to the Education and Skills Funding Agency by May of this year.

Stourbridge’s learners have been transferred to Dudley or Halesowen colleges, and some staff have also been absorbed by those two.

Donelan announced yesterday that the FE Commissioner’s team, who intervened at BMet earlier this year, is planning to undertake a capacity and capability review to assess the group’s progress since a new leadership team arrived.

This is in addition to Dame Mary Ney’s review of how the Department for Education monitors college finances and financial management.

The commissioner has come in for criticism from a survey of Stourbridge’s stakeholders conducted by the University and College Union, which said their experience was “symptomatic of a more widespread failure by the FE Commissioner to engage effectively with staff and students”.

Labour’s shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden said at yesterday’s debate this survey showed how: “Flawed and disconnected that intervention system for colleges can become.

“It has become far too casual about how it engages with people in the colleges, and apprenticeships have not been engaged with in any meaningful way.”

Marsden said Stourbridge’s problems were not unique, highlighting how: “In recent weeks, the columns of FE Week have been littered with accounts of problems at other colleges.”

He cited the cases of Brooklands College, where it was reported the ESFA ignored a whistleblower nearly two years earlier; the planned dissolution of National College Creative Industries, despite Department for Education bailouts; and the appointment of Lord Agnew as an FE “enforcer”.

“Stourbridge College was not failing, but it was still put into this situation,” Marsden said.

“It had those buildings, which Margot James is so keen to preserve in another capacity, but that did not save it from being shut down.”

James said staff and students had told her the closure “came as a terrible shock and something of a bereavement”.

“The board of BMet and the ESFA should reflect hard on the fact that there would be huge opposition to selling the Hagley Road site for residential development,” she warned.

In addition to the Ney’s inquiry and the planned FE Commissioner review, the National Audit Office confirmed it will be investigating the management of colleges’ financial sustainability, after James wrote asking them to investigate BMet.