The principal of a college engulfed in quality and financial concerns racked up a £5,000 phone and data bill in four years, figures obtained by The Portsmouth News reveal.

The expenditure by Stella Mbubaegbu at Highbury College, which one union has said sends a “damaging message” to staff, comes as FE Week continues to battle the college for its spending on first class flights.

A Freedom of Information request for this material, as well as all spending on the college’s corporate card, was submitted by this publication in October but has been refused so far.

Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money

Leaders claim the request is “vexatious” and “manifestly unjustified”, but the Information Commissioner’s Office is pressing the college to release the figures which are of public interest.

From a previous FOI, FE Week found that Mbubaegbu used college cash to pay for a first-class return flight from London to Dallas at a cost of £4,132.

The data obtained by The News only lists two flights: one from London to Texas in June 2014 costing £2,860, and another for two people in October 2017 costing a combined total of £1,050 taking them to Saudi Arabia – with a note stating the flight was an “upgrade”.

The total bill on Mbubaegbu’s phone and iPad has been built up since 2014 on trips to Saudia Arabia – where the college runs Jeddah College – and Nigeria, where the college’s lawyers are trying to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt, as revealed by FE Week in January.

Other calls and expense claims were made to Abu Dhabi, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.

A Highbury spokesperson said the international work earned the college more than £1 million in 2017/18 alone.

The college, which crashed two grades from ‘outstanding’ last year, axed its A-level provision earlier this month due to financial pressures, which put 13 jobs at risk.

Its accounts for 2017/18 show a £2.48 million deficit, and board minutes from March 2019 state that the college’s last pay award to staff was “in January 2013″.

University and College Union regional official, Moray McAuley, said: “Holding down staff pay while racking up thousands of pounds worth of expenses on international ventures sends a damaging message that it’s one rule for staff and another for the principal.

“The college should ensure that staff are its top priority when it comes to spending in the future.”

The FOI data shows how a three-second phone call on September 18 last year in Saudi Arabia cost the college £34.

A £512 bill was clocked up in a single day on calls and data on in America.

Claims for taxi fares were also racked up in New Orleans and Orlando in America, Sao Paulo Brazil, Hong Kong, Stuttgart, and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, dating back to 2014.

A Highbury College spokesperson said: “Over the last decade, the further education sector has received a real-term cut in income from government funded training of more than 30 per cent.

“To counteract this reduction in funding and safeguard the excellent services and teaching that students can access, colleges have been encouraged by the government to seek out new markets and business opportunities, both in the UK and internationally.”

The spokesperson added: “Highbury College’s international work has been successful in achieving that goal, earning more than £1 million from such activities in 2017/18 alone. The income has supported the local student experience here in Portsmouth and effectively subsidised the underfunding from the government.

“It is inevitable that costs will be incurred to develop new business by staff at the college, but these costs are closely monitored and Highbury College reviews all contracts regularly to ensure our activities achieve value for money.”

Highbury College has been subject to widespread media attention following its decision to block FE Week’s website after we revealed its debt in Nigeria at the beginning of the year.

The college’s attempt to suppress the report from its staff led to the story being published to a wider audience, following articles by the Press Gazette, Private Eye, and Portsmouth’s The News.

It also attracted heavy criticism from top sector officials, including skills minister Anne Milton and Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman.

Following the condemnation, the college unblocked access to FE Week a week later.

St Helens College is at “high risk of insolvency” without action to mitigate its financial position following an underfunded merger, according to an FE Commissioner report.

The college did not properly predict how much money it would need for a 2017 merger with Knowsley College to form the SK Colleges Group, which was supported by £14.1 million from the ESFA’s restructuring facility.

As a consequence of which, FE Commissioner Richard Atkins wrote in a report published today, the current underlying position of the college is “not sustainable”.

“The college and the board of governors have accepted that the income targets used in the original restructuring facility application were too optimistic and have stated that they would not have proceeded with the merger if they had fully understood the impact on overall financial and quality performance,” he continues.

The level of funding required to support a successful merger did not take account of certain PFI arrangements or over-stated recruitment targets at Knowsley, the report says.

The chair even stated the board were aware their funding may have been insufficient for a sustainable merged institution.

Yet they decided to carry on regardless because of the preparations and commitments between the two institutions were already in place.

The chair told the commissioner’s team that “with hindsight” they should not have progressed.

It has set a “significant deficit budget” for 2018/19, but has not achieved the budgeted income for that year, which has resulted in a significant deficit, and has not taken any remedial action in-year to mitigate the deficit.

The college automated a financial health score of ‘inadequate’ for 2018/19, after the ESFA found it had ‘inadequate’ financial health in 2017/18 and handed it a financial health notice to improve in June.

St Helens College was given a grade three by Ofsted in 2017 – and a grade four for apprenticeships – yet in a monitoring visit from October 2018, it was found to have made ‘reasonable progress’ in every area.

Since the FE Commissioner visit, the principal of SK Colleges Group, Jette Burford, retired from the college and has been replaced by an interim.

The college has now been ordered to prepare a recovery plan by the ESFA, which the FE Commissioner report concurs with.

Atkins has also recommended the college should plan for a substantial reduction in its underused estates, put a policy in place to find a new principal, but ensure the focus on improving its financial position should not detract from improving provision.

The FEC team said they would return to the college within six to eight weeks of the March report to consider the recovery strategy prepared by the college, and further recommendations may be made.

In her letter accompanying the report, skills minister Anne Milton said: “It is clear from the commissioner’s report that you, your governors and senior leadership team now fully recognise the need to take swift actions in order to address the significant financial challenges facing the college including the current high risk of insolvency.

“I welcome the positive work you and your college group have already undertaken in the development of a recovery plan. As will be clear to you, it is important that this demonstrates how the college group will achieve a sustainable financial future.”

Monica Box, Principal of SK College Group, said the college has taken a “variety of significant measures to improve its operating position” since the FE Commissioner’s visit in January.

“During the last six months, the college has produced and is implementing a clear three-year recovery business plan,” she added.

“The board is monitoring the plan vigorously, and is confident it is robust, achievable, and will deliver the necessary actions to provide a sound financial position during the lifespan of the plan.”

The first batch of colleges that will receive cash from the government’s T-levels capital fund have been revealed.

Eleven of them will share £8.65 million to help build new classrooms and refurbish buildings in readiness for the introduction of the new technical qualifications in September 2020.

Further cash from the fund, which totals £38 million, will be awarded to other T-level providers later this year.

“I’m thrilled to announce the first batch of T-level providers who will benefit from the T-level capital fund, so young people will have access to high-quality facilities come September 2020 when the first T-level courses will be taught,” said skills minister Anne Milton.

“I look forward to announcing further allocations of funding soon.”

The 11 providers announced today include The Blackpool and Fylde College that will receive £400,000 to invest in “state of the art facilities” for construction students, and Barnsley College that will receive £2.2 million to build a new Digital Innovation Hub.

The Department for Education said providers submitted proposals based on their “specific needs” and all received the funding they applied for in full.

The T-level capital fund is being delivered in two parts. The first, launched in January 2019, is for the 2020 providers to refurbish their existing buildings or to build new spaces. These grants are not available to private providers, only colleges and schools.

Following this, funding for specialist equipment such as digital and audio visual kit, will be allocated to providers in spring 2020.

The first three T-levels for digital, education and construction will be taught from September 2020 by 50 providers.

The first 11 providers to win T-levels capital fund cash:

Shipley College of Further Education £121,125 The College of Richard Collyer £206,292 City of Stoke-on-Trent sixth Form College £296,551 Barnsley College £2,250,000 Fareham College £446,625 Havant and South Downs College £495,030 Farnborough College of Technology £767,500 Cardinal Newman Sixth form college £868,382 Salesian School £1,184,000 Blackpool and The Flyde £400,000 Bridgwater and Taunton College £646,988 Bridgwater and Taunton College £999,089

A “shock” new rule that will require thousands of subcontracting contracts to be rewritten will have a phased implementation, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has revealed.

It will only apply from 1 December 2019 for new learner and apprentice starts where existing subcontracts need to be revised.

But for new starts where a new subcontract is yet to be agreed and entered into, the rule will apply from 1 August 2019.

The staggered transition follows a strong backlash from the FE sector when a change to the funding rules was revealed last Thursday, just four weeks before the start of the new academic year.

All subcontracting contracts, for both adult education budget and apprenticeship funding, must include for the first time a “list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor”.

In addition to listing the services, the contract must include “how each cost contributes to delivering high-quality training” and “how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning”.

These costs are typically referred to as a management fee or “top-slice” and have proven controversial for many years.

After learning of the rule change last week, Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, labelled it as an “immensely bureaucratic process” that “appears both out of the blue and shockingly late in the day”.

And a spokesperson for Learning Curve Group, a provider that operates as both a prime and subcontractor, told FE Week: “The administration connected to these updated requirements seems overly onerous and ambiguous from an audit perspective. 

“It is also hugely unhelpful that the publication of the rules is so late.”

According to ESFA figures for 2017-18, there were over 3,292 subcontracting contracts involving 516 main contractors and 1,032 subcontractors.

In an update about the rule change published today, the ESFA said it “recognises that subcontracting has a role to play in delivering high quality learning to apprentices and adult learners”.

“In recent years, we have strengthened our funding rules on subcontracting and we are continuing to do so,” it continued.

“We expect providers to maximise the amount of funding that reaches front line delivery of high quality learning.”

The agency said it will, ready for delivery from 1 August, implement a “risk-based approach for monitoring these rules” and “impose compliance measures when appropriate”.

“These expectations will be reviewed in 18 months.”

The colleges to take part in the first round of the phased implementation of the T-levels “transitional” course have been named.

The programme, recommended by Lord Sainsbury in his technical education report in July 2016, will be for 16-year-olds to take if they are not ready to start a T-level at level three, but can “realistically achieve it” by age 19.

It is being developed by the Association of Colleges, following a secretive tender earlier this year.

Thirty seven providers will pilot the course next year.

Timescales for developing and testing it will be tight, as there is just over a year to go until the first three T-levels, in digital, education and construction, are delivered.

The 37 colleges to pilot the T-levels transition course:

Access Creative College (Access to Music Ltd.)

Barnsley College

Bishop Burton College

Blackpool and The Fylde College

Bridgwater & Taunton College

Cardinal Newman College

Chichester College Group

Cirencester College

City of Stoke-on-Trent sixth Form College

Cranford Community College

Derby College

Dudley College of Technology

East Sussex College Group

Exeter College

Fareham College

Farnborough College of Technology

Gateshead College

Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education

Havant and South Downs College

HCUC (Harrow College and Uxbridge College)

La Retraite RC Girls School

Lordswood Girls’ School & Sixth Form Centre

Nelson and Colne College

New College Durham

Norwich City College of Further and Higher Education

Oldham Sixth Form College

Peter Symonds

Priestley College

Runshaw College

Scarborough Sixth Form College

Shipley College of Further Education

Strode College

Suffolk New College

The College of Richard Collyer

Truro and Penwith College

Ursuline High School

Weston College

 

A new inquiry into the current state of adult education and lifelong learning is being launched by the House of Commons education select committee.

Former apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon (pictured), who chairs the committee, will make the announcement during a speech at an event hosted by the Centre for Social Justice in London tomorrow.

A spokesperson for the committee said the inquiry is “going to be looking at the benefits of life-long learning to the economy and individuals, and also how improving adult skills can promote social justice”.

Poor access to lifelong learning is one of the great social injustices of our time

It will also be “examining the level of support available to learners from local authorities”.

Halfon will say in his speech that while it might not get the same attention as other “big-ticket items in Westminster”, poor access to lifelong learning is “one of the great social injustices of our time”.

Warning of an “enormous wave of lost opportunity about to come crashing down on the next generation of employees”, he will say it is a scandal that lifelong learning is out of reach for the millions already most disadvantaged in society.

“Lifelong learning is a more affluent person’s game,” he will tell the Centre for Social Justice.

“Those who might benefit most from adult learning and training – low-skilled people in low-income work or the unemployed – are by far the least likely to be doing it.”

Another potential problem, according to Halfon, “is the numbers of people undertaking community learning have dropped – from around 650,000 in 2011/12 to around 500,000 in 2017/18”.

He’ll say that while “just over half of those in higher socioeconomic groups engaged in learning in the last three years, just 26 per cent of people in lower groups did.

“Adult learning should be a lifeline for the shocking number of those who left school ill-equipped to grapple with the rough and tumble of the jobs market … around nine million working adults in England have low literacy and/or numeracy skills. Yet in the last ten years just 17 per cent of low paid workers have moved permanently out of low pay.”

Before announcing the select committee’s inquiry into the current state of adult learning, Halfon will say the UK lags behind other wealthy nations in spending on lifelong education, and a recent study by the Social Mobility Commission shows England’s adult skills budget “fell by 34 per cent in real terms between 2010-2016”.

Halfon will call for an adult community learning centre to be put in every town in the country, and a top-slice of the existing £60 million support fund – which is meant to specifically target those living in deprived areas – for apprenticeships and use this to support more organisations like the WEA, the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education.

Halfon will also propose increasing tax incentives both through Corporation Tax and by ensuring increased benefits for employers investing in training people with lower skill levels.

“Only by recognising this crisis and taking urgent actions to reverse it can the UK avoid today’s divisions multiplying because those with most to gain from lifelong learning continue to be the ones with the least access to it,” Halfon will say.

Grassroots community based learning is a lifeline for many in our most deprived communities

A spokesperson for the WEA said the inquiry into lifelong learning announcement is “very welcome”.

“Grassroots community based learning is a lifeline for many in our most deprived communities,” they added.

“As working lives get longer and we all need to keep pace with change to live full and active lives, lifelong learning becomes more and more vital.”

The select committee is inviting written submissions addressing the following questions: 

• What are the benefits of adult skills and lifelong learning (ASALL) for productivity and upskilling the workforce?
• What are the benefits of ASALL for social justice, health and well-being?
• What role can local authorities/combined authority areas play in ASALL provision?
• To what extent is the range, balance and quality of formal and informal ASALL education adequate?
• Who currently participates in and benefits from lifelong learning? 
• What lessons can the UK learn from abroad?

The deadline for written evidence submissions is 15 August.

The select committee isn’t the only body to have launched an inquiry into lifelong learning in recent times.

A team of 16 education experts joined Labour’s lifelong learning commission in February, and before that, in March last year, the Lib Dems launched a similar commission.

Quality-marking level 4 and 5 qualifications, to help boost the overlooked programmes, has become the latest addition to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s expanded remit.

Education secretary Damian Hinds has announced a consultation on whether qualifications at those two levels, which are offered at universities, colleges and national colleges, should be renamed Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs).

The change would affect a variety of existing qualifications, including higher apprenticeships, foundation degrees and higher national diplomas.

It is intended HTQs will be in place by the time the first cohort of T-level students finish that level 3 qualification in 2022.

The IfATE will be approving new and existing HTQs that “deliver the knowledge, skills, and behaviours set out in employer-led occupational standards”, and awarding them a quality mark.

Awarding bodies will submit HTQs to IfATE’s employer-led route panels, which already oversee the approval of standards and T-levels, for approval.

The submissions will be managed through a phased application process, much like was done with T-levels, and it will be possible for more than one qualification to be approved against an occupational standard.

The Department for Education is considering making it so approved Higher Technical Qualifications are only available with access to student finance at “high-quality further and higher education providers”.

A DfE spokesperson said these high-quality providers will have to have “suitably qualified and experienced teachers with current, relevant occupational and industry experience and expertise, as well as high-quality pedagogical skills”.

Leaders must also have the capacity and ability to ensure provision is sustainable and retains a clear focus on quality.

There must also be strong links with employer networks so they value what is being delivered; and learning environments with up-to-date facilities.

The DfE is also considering adopting a proposal from the Augar Review, that approved qualifications should be entitled to the same tuition fee support and teaching grant, and equivalent maintenance support, as level 6 qualifications.

The IfATE itself will be able to commission the creation of a qualification where there is a need for a HTQ to recognise a need for one to meet specific skills at levels 4 and 5, but no qualification has been put forward.

Despite this wide-ranging role for IfATE, on top of its responsibility for apprenticeship standards and the classroom-based element of T-levels, HTQs will still be regulated by Ofqual to “help ensure consistent standards in terms of complexity and challenge.”

These proposals come after Hinds announced last December the government would build a “new generation” of higher technical qualifications, to end the snobbery over technical education.

A spokesperson said: “The Institute will continue to work closely with the department as this policy proposal develops.”

The consultation has opened today, and will close on 29 September.

Providers and employers are being asked for their views on the draft content for three more T-level pathways.

A consultation, launched by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education today, is for courses in business and administration, human resources, and hair and beauty.

The deadline for responses is 6 August. The pathways are expected to be taught from September 2021, in the second wave of the T-levels rollout.

The content has been developed by the institute’s “panels of experts” and will be used by awarding bodies to develop technical qualifications for each T-level.

“We are seeking your views to help ensure that the content captures the right knowledge, skills and performance outcomes that will enable students to enter employment within their chosen occupational specialisms,” the institute’s consultation’s webpage states.

Its chief executive, Sir Gerry Berragan, added: “We are working closely with employers to ensure the technical qualifications are delivering what they need for a more skilled workforce.

“I would encourage all employers in the business administration and hair and beauty sectors to contribute to this consultation and hope those that do respond will continue to engage with us as these qualifications are developed.”

T-levels are new two-year, technical study programmes that will be available across 11 industry routes. They’re being designed as the technical alternatives to A-levels.

The outline content for the first T-levels (in education and childcare, construction, digital, and health and science) has been approved and published, and will be taught from September next year.

There has been two other previous T-level content consultations which covered courses in onsite construction, building services engineering, digital support and services, health, healthcare science, and science.

The full T-levels rollout, when a total of 25 subject areas will be covered, will not be until 2023.

 

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has “shocked” hundreds of providers by requiring thousands of subcontracting contracts to be rewritten just four weeks before the new academic year.

The agency is demanding that all subcontracting contracts, for both adult education budget and apprenticeship funding, include for the first time a “list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor”.

In addition to listing the services, the contract must include “how each cost contributes to delivering high-quality training” and “how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning”.

These costs are typically referred to as a management fee or “top-slice” and have proven controversial for many years.

Nearly all providers currently charge their subcontractor a percentage of the funding, with some colleges still charging in excess of 30 per cent.

The ESFA committed to considering a per cent cap last year, but this new rule, requiring costs to be listed, appears to be a different solution and could force providers into a very different pricing model.

Training providers have reacted angrily to the requirement, which appeared this afternoon (July 4) in a new version of the funding rules for 2019-20.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We proposed a 20 per cent cap solution to end extortionate subcontracting management fees. But once again, a simple solution has been ignored and instead, this immensely bureaucratic process appears both out of the blue and shockingly late in the day.

“The ESFA should implement a percentage cap and bin this complicated rule of listing and justifying management services immediately, before thousands of providers spend even more scarce resources with lawyers and accountants rewriting contacts or worse, start looking for obvious loopholes.”

And a spokesperson for Learning Curve Group, a provider that operates as both a prime and subcontractor, told FE Week: “We would always support additional scrutiny on management fees as there have been a series of examples which would not be regarded as beneficial either to the subcontractor or the learner.

“However, the administration connected to these updated requirements seems overly onerous and ambiguous from an audit perspective.  

“The investment needed to monitor subcontracted activity tends to be fairly standard across Primes, so a capped percentage rate would be something we support. It is also hugely unhelpful that the publication of the rules is so late.”

According to ESFA figures for 2017-18, there were over 3,292 subcontracting contracts involving 516 main contractors and 1,032 subcontractors.

The new rule reads, in full: “You must include in your contract with each delivery subcontractor a list of all services you will provide to them and the associated costs for doing so. This must include a list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor, specific costs for quality-monitoring activities and specific costs for any other support activities offered by you to the subcontractor.

“You must include in your contract with each delivery subcontractor a description of how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning and how each cost contributes to delivering high quality learning.”

The Department for Education was approached for comment.