The Public Accounts Committee has today published its progress report into the apprenticeship reforms that were introduced in April 2017.

Members of the committee grilled a number high-profile government officials on the affordability of the programme in March following a National Audit Office report earlier that month that warned it is not financially sustainable.

The PAC’s final report dissects the evidence given, offers its view on how the apprenticeship reforms are going, and gives six recommendations for the DfE and Institute for Apprenticeships to act upon.

1. DfE should assess whether there are enough level 2 standards

The PAC said the way the programme is evolving risks leaving behind people with lower skills and those from disadvantaged communities.

It reported that the programme is now “more heavily weighted towards higher-level apprenticeships”, as around 20 per cent of the new apprenticeships standards are available at level 2, compared to more than 40 per cent on the old-style frameworks previously available at this level.

The report added that the proportion of apprenticeship starts among people from disadvantaged areas has fallen, partly because of the growth in starts at level 3 and above.

The PAC wants the department to assess whether there are enough level 2 standards to “allow school leavers or those with fewer skills to easily access apprenticeships”, and report back within six months.

2. More stretching diversity targets need to be set

The DfE’s approach to widening participation among under-represented groups has been “inadequate”, according to the PAC.

Despite this being one of the apprenticeship programme’s four main objectives, the committee believes the targets for apprenticeship starts among the black, Asian and minority ethnic population, and among those with a learning difficulty, disability or health problem, are “unambitious in that they are below the respective levels of these groups in the working-age population”.

Additionally, there are no gender-based targets for the programme despite the fact that only 9 per cent of people taking STEM subjects are women, a position that the DfE’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater has admitted is “hopeless”.

The PAC wants bigger targets for 2021 and beyond, as well as an evaluation of the impact of the DfE’s efforts to attract more women into STEM apprenticeships.

3. Evaluate the impact of interventions at failing providers

“Too many apprentices are being trained by sub-standard providers,” the PAC said, after finding around a third of apprentices covered by Ofsted inspections in 2017/18 were being trained in providers rated as ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’.

It added that the “poor quality” of some providers contributes to a situation where over 30 per cent of apprentices fail to complete their apprenticeship successfully each year. In 2016/17, this equated to more than 132,000 apprentices.

And since 2014/15, a growing proportion of training providers have fallen below minimum standards for their apprenticeship achievement rates.

The PAC points out that the ESFA may issue these providers with additional conditions of funding or extra contractual obligations. Ultimately it can terminate providers’ contracts, but this is “extremely rare” — it has taken this step with only 11 providers in the past five years, according to the PAC.

4. DfE needs to set out how small employers can benefit fully from the reforms

The PAC said the apprenticeships programme is not supporting smaller employers “well enough”.

It explained that while levy-paying employers have direct access to their funds via an online system, to pay for apprenticeship training and assessment, smaller employers currently access apprenticeships via training providers who are funded through contracts with the ESFA.

The DfE expects all small employers to be on the online apprenticeships system with levy-payers next year to access training funds directly.

But until then and under the current arrangements, if levy-payers spend “more than around half of their funds, the ESFA will have less money available to fund apprenticeships among smaller employers” and while levy-payers have spent a “relatively small proportion of their funds so far, training providers are already reporting that they do not have enough funding to offer as many apprenticeships to smaller employers as they would like”.

The PAC wants the DfE to consider “protecting” funding for non-levy-paying employers.

5. Strengthen assessment arrangements for apprentices

The PAC said they do not have “confidence” in the arrangements for assessing apprentices.

Under the standards, each apprentice is assessed by an independent third-party at the end of their apprenticeship. However, in late 2018, 19 standards had no end-point assessment organisation in place, and 98 standards had only one assessment organisation. In addition, the arrangements for checking the quality of end-point assessments are “muddled, and it is unclear whether the numerous bodies involved provide a consistent level of assurance”.

The committee wants the ESFA and Institute for Apprenticeships to write to them within six months to “provide more detail about the coverage and capacity of end-point assessment organisations” and “set out what they will do to streamline and strengthen quality assurance arrangements in order to give greater confidence that end-point assessments are robust, fair and consistent”.

6. DfE needs to set out what productivity gains it expects from the programme

The department uses a ‘skills index’ as a proxy measure for the impact of apprenticeships on productivity, which takes account of the number of apprenticeship starts, apprentices’ progression into jobs, and the subsequent increase in their earnings.

However, the PAC said the DfE has not set out what improvement in the headline value of the index would constitute success.

It recommends that the department should “publish the level of improvement in the skills index that it is aiming to achieve in the short and long term”.

Scandal-hit Hadlow College has confirmed it is looking to sell its £40 million visitor and business park, following the college’s application for insolvency.

FE Week revealed on Friday the education secretary Damian Hinds had applied to the High Court to put the college into education administration.

While this does not affect any of the college’s subsidiaries, or its sister college West Kent and Ashford (WKAC), a college spokesperson has said Hadlow is “currently in discussion with a range of potentially interested parties” about selling its subsidiary business Betteshanger Sustainable Parks.

This is due to the “financial challenges” faced by the college, which has required huge government bailouts to survive.

The college is looking to find a new owner for the 422-acre site by 31 July, but the spokesperson stressed the park will stay open, adding: “The key project funders and community partners remain committed to the delivery of the project and are all working to secure a successful future for the parks.”

Betteshanger Sustainable Parks, which has around 25 staff, is made up of two sites – the business park and the country park – and is built on what was a colliery.

Despite being owned by a college, none of its provision takes place at the park.

The college’s disgraced ex-deputy principal Mark Lumsdon-Taylor previously said the project was “personal” to him, as he grew up in Sunderland and saw the effect closing mines and shipyards had on the area.

Hadlow College previously attempted to sell the business park for £4 million; however, this fell through.

On the country park site, known as Betteshanger Park, the college is constructing the Kent Mining Museum with the Kent Mining Heritage Foundation, which was once chaired by Mark Lumsdon-Taylor.

The museum has received at least £1.8 million in charitable donations to fund its development, including a £1.3 million grant from the National Lottery.

The museum will be based inside a £9.5 million visitor centre, which was embarked upon in 2014 and was due to open in March 2019.

But that was delayed following several resignations from the college’s board, including that of the principal, Paul Hannan, Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, as well as the chairs of both WKAC’s board, Paul Dubrow, and Hadlow’s board, Theresa Bruton.

Their resignations came after the FE Commissioner’s team and the ESFA intervened at Hadlow and WKAC, following allegations of financial irregularities.

Hadlow College was landed with an extra £1.2 million bill for the Betteshanger visitor centre, because it had to replace the foundations it installed on the basis of incorrect advice.

The trustee board of the Kent Mining Heritage Foundation has been contacted, but declined to comment at this time.

Betteshanger Park’s MP, Charlie Elphicke, has asked the FE Commissioner to hand over the Kent Mining Museum to East Kent College, as it is “85 per cent complete” and: “We need to get this project back on track. Handing it over to East Kent College could be the answer. This facility would be great for our community, celebrating its mining heritage alongside a range of activities for families to enjoy,” according to a statement on his website.

A three-acre open-air amphitheatre is also being built at the park, with a price tag of around £70,000.

A Dover District Council spokesperson said: “We are seeking clarity on the situation with Hadlow College and the Betteshanger Sustainable Parks project.  Betteshanger is an important regeneration site in the Dover district and we are keen to see its full potential realised.

“We are in dialogue with Hadlow and other partners, but it is too soon to comment on specifics.”

This is the second of Hadlow College’s new buildings that it is looking to sell off: FE Week reported last week East Kent College is looking to take over WKAC’s Ashford campus, which was completed in 2017.

This is part of work being undertaken by the financial advisory firm BDO to oversee the potential sale or transfer of assets within the Hadlow Group – which includes Hadlow College and WKAC – to neighbouring colleges, such as East Kent.

East Kent College has been asked whether it is taking over any part of the Hadlow Group, which includes Hadlow College and WKAC as well as Betteshanger, but has yet to comment.

The High Court is expected to hear the application to put Hadlow College into administration on May 22.

The Institute for Apprenticeships has officially begun its spring cleaning of old standards, and started by withdrawing three in the digital sector.

A review of 12 digital apprenticeships developed prior to April 2017 got underway in September to ensure their content is of high-quality, meeting employer needs and do not overlap with each other.

The outcome, unveiled at an event in London today, reveals that six of the standards will be retained as they currently are but also “revised” to “ensure the content is relevant and up to date”.

The six other apprenticeships in the review will become three, with the content of those being withdrawn being merged into the three that are being kept.

The institute said it will seek to approve the revised and merged apprenticeship standards, which may include new assessment plans and funding bands, within 12 months of today’s announcement so that the existing standards can be withdrawn.

Asked what this meant for end-point assessment organisations currently assigned to the standards that will be merged, Gerry explained they’ll have to rebid to assess the apprenticeships once they’ve been signed off on.

“The trailblazer will go back in, look at the knowledges, skills and behaviours for both merging standards, see what needs to come in for the new standard, and at the end of that will review what the assessment plan should be to test it,” he said.

“So the end-point assessment will be rewritten. At that stage, the current EPAOs delivering the two standards can bid to deliver the new merged standard. There will be a change.”

Ana Osbourne, the IfA’s deputy director for apprenticeship approvals, stressed that any apprentices who have started on the existing standards will “continue on them and finish” in their current form.

Last year the institute came in for criticism for having failed to carry out any formal review of duplicate, narrow or low-skill standards since its launch.

Taking account of people on existing apprenticeships as we go through the review process is really important

It was urged to do so “at the earliest opportunity” by Lord Sainsbury in his report of the independent panel on technical education, published July 2016.

The peer made clear he was concerned about standards that overlapped, were too job-specific, or lacked enough technical content to justify 20 per cent off-the-job training.

The digital review was the IfA’s first statutory review of apprenticeship standards for a specific route. The institute has 14 other routes which will be reviewed over the next couple of years.

Those next in the pipeline will be in hair and beauty and creative and design, which will both commence in July 2019.

Following this, the agriculture, environment and animal care route review will get underway in September, followed by engineering and manufacturing in October.

It is not yet known how many standards will be involved in each review.

When the IfA first launched it had been planned that each standard would be reviewed every three years.

Asked today what this meant for standards that, for example, last for six years, Gerry said this timeline was no longer used.

“The plan for three year reviews was written in somewhere but it has never been in law, it has always been periodically,” he told FE Week.

“Taking account of people on existing apprenticeships as we go through the review process is really important so we don’t leave them high and dry halfway through an apprenticeship, we’d never want to do that.”

He added that the periodicity of the reviews will depend on the age of the standards and how many there are. The IfA is prioritising its first route reviews on standards linked to T-levels.

The IfA celebrated signing off on its 400th standard in February and around another 100 are expected to be launched by next year.

Gerry said the “impetus” was initially to get a significant number of standards available so that the government can turn off frameworks, but his institute will soon have the resource and time to focus on reviews instead.

“Even though there are still standards coming through the pipeline, they’re not coming through at the same pace which does give us the capacity to start to look at historic standards,” he added.

“I wouldn’t want to set a number against how many standards there will be because it always fluctuates slightly but we are now reaching a stage where the volume is reducing and that gives us the time to look back at existing ones.”

The IfA also used today’s event to officially launch its trial of gender-neutral language in digital standards. It comes after FE Week revealed the plan earlier this month (read more here).