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MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 263

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

Elaine McMahon, interim principal, Cornwall College

Start date: November 2018

Previous job: Interim principal, Kensington and Chelsea College

Interesting fact: Part of Elaine’s education took place in Australia and she has lived in France, Australia and the US as well as in all parts of this country.

Fiona Aldridge, director of policy and research, Learning and Work Institute

Start date: November 2018

Previous job: Deputy director, research and development, Learning and Work Institute

Interesting fact: Fiona started working at the Learning and Working Institute (then called NIACE) exactly 21 years ago – as PA to the same role she’s just been promoted to.

Chris Webb, chief executive, Bradford College

Start date: Spring 2019

Previous job: Principal, Barnsley College

Interesting fact: Chris’s degree in sport science enhanced his skills in being creative, collaborative and competitive – everything he needs to be a CEO in the FE sector.

Penny Wycherley, interim principal, City College Plymouth

Start date: November 2018

Previous job: Principal, Waltham Forest College

Interesting fact: Penny didn’t learn to speak until she was three – after which, her mother said, she never learned to stop talking!

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

Revealed: vast majority of loans-only providers are less than good

A massive 80 per cent of providers that only deliver provision funded by advanced learner loans have been rated less than good by Ofsted, FE Week analysis has revealed.

But despite this “shocking” statistic – which covers provision worth millions and affects thousands of learners – the education watchdog was tight-lipped on whether it was upping its monitoring of loans-only providers.

Furthermore, the Department for Education has revealed that not all loans providers are submitting vital performance data – meaning some could be dodging inspection.

Our findings have prompted Robert Halfon, chair of the influential commons select committee, to demand urgent action.

“It is shocking that so many students who are taking the risk of a loan are experiencing substandard training,” he told FE Week.

It is shocking that so many students who are taking the risk of a loan are experiencing substandard training

Our investigation “must spur the relevant agencies and Ofsted to take urgent remedial action to ensure that students get the quality training they deserve,” he said.

FE Week’s analysis is based on a list given to us by Ofsted of the providers whose only source of government funding was advanced learner loans that had had inspection reports published by the end of October, to which we added those that had been published in November.

That gave a total of 20 loans-only providers to have been inspected by Ofsted.

Of those, eight have resulted in an ‘inadequate’ grade and a further eight were graded ‘requires improvement’, while just four were rated ‘good’. None have received an ‘outstanding’ rating.

The reports published to date reveal a catalogue of alarming findings – including learners at one provider being duped into taking out a loan.

“Too many” learners at Academy Training Group, which began delivering loans-funded training in 2014/15, “are not aware that they have taken out an advanced learning loan to pay for their course and that they are required to pay this back”, inspectors said in a damning grade four report published earlier this month.

Between them the 20 providers had allocations worth more than £12 million in the year of their most recent Ofsted report, and more than 3,100 learners at the time of inspection.

The 16 grade three and four providers were responsible for over 90 per cent of that total: 2,969 learners and £11.2 million allocations.

Given these figures, we asked the education watchdog if it had any plans to introduce early-monitoring visits for loans-only providers, similar to those it carries out at new apprenticeship providers.

It didn’t respond directly to our question, and instead said it was “concerned about any skills provider judged to be ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’”.

“We normally inspect new providers within three years – this time frame begins when loans-only funded skills providers actually start to use their loans and educate their learners,” the spokesperson said.

As a group, loans-only providers have slipped under the radar as inspection reports typically make little reference to whether the funding source comes from a loan or the adult-education budget.

According to Ofsted 2017 annual report, loans-only providers were only “included in the scope for Ofsted inspections from September 2016 as independent-learning providers, at the start of 2016/17”, even though some providers had been delivering since late 2013.

“Limited” evidence from its inspections of loans-only providers over 2016/17 had “highlighted some potential concerns about the quality and effectiveness of distance-learning provision in some providers”, the report said.

Education and Skills Funding Agency figures reveal there are 49 providers whose only form of adult-skills funding is loans allocations, worth a combined total of almost £18 million, in 2018/19.

FE Week analysis has found that 16 of those have had allocations since 2014/15 – but only 10 have been inspected.

Performance data for some of those six is missing from the published achievement-rate tables, meaning they may not even be on Ofsted’s radar.

The DfE has admitted that not all providers submit this data to the ESFA – even though they are required to do so – because they can still get their funding from Student Loans Company without it.

Additionally, it said a number of those without published data may be below the threshold for inclusion, although the DfE could not explain what the threshold was, at the time of going to press.

“We have been working closely with providers to make sure they record their loans delivery and are taking action if providers do not record their loans data on the individualised learner record,” a spokesperson said.

Shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden told FE Week he was “concerned” about our findings – particularly in light of the three high-profile collapses of loans-only providers in 2017.

John Frank Training, Edudo Limited and Focus Training and Development Limited all went bust within months of each other, leaving learners in the lurch with huge debts and no training – prompting FE Week’s #SaveOurAdultEducation campaign.

FE loans policy explained

Advanced learner loans, originally known as 24+ loans, were introduced in 2013/14 for learners studying courses at levels three or four and aged 24 and older.

Eligibility was expanded in 2016/17 to include 19- to 23-year-olds and courses at levels five and six.

The ESFA had previously recognised that it had problems overseeing loans-funded provision, particularly where much of it was subcontracted.

In August 2016 it banned new subcontracting contracts for advanced learner loans, with a complete ban coming into force the following year.

It also introduced caps on the amount of loans cash that could be allocated to a provider, and tightened up the rules for providers that want to start delivering loans-funded provision.

Since 2017/18, providers must have been rated either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to request a new loans facility – although this criteria was loosened slightly for certain providers the following year.

“The ESFA will always take into account any underperformance in ongoing monitoring and contract-management arrangements,” a spokesperson said.

“Any provider that receives an inadequate Ofsted rating will have its advanced learner loans agreement removed.”

London mayor seeks special treatment amid AEB devolution ‘postcode lottery’ concerns

Fears are growing over the creation of a postcode lottery for adult learners, leading one devolved area to seek special treatment from the Department for Education, FE Week can reveal.

From August 2019, more than £600 million of the £1.5 billion adult education budget will be devolved to the seven mayoral combined authorities. However, these authorities will only be able to fund students who live within their boundaries.

Guidance on AEB devolution, published last month, confirms there will be “no direct reciprocal agreements between the Education and Skills Funding Agency and any mayoral combined authority or Greater London Authority arrangements to fund residents who travel to learn across boundaries from devolved areas to non devolved areas, or vice versa”.

This change could have a big impact on the number of learners accepted by colleges inside the seven devolved areas – Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City, Sheffield City, Tees Valley, West Midlands and the West of England – and London, as well as the institutions nearby.

With the prospect of colleges and providers being forced to check postcodes at enrolment, and out of area learners being turned away, FE Week has taken a closer look at the reality of devolved funding.

Special treatment for London

The Greater London Authority is in the process of trying to negotiate a special agreement for the capital which would allow for greater flexibility.

A spokesperson said the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is asking for Londoners to “receive the same treatment as learners from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland”, rather than England.

“This includes an acceptance that learners from London could be funded if specialist skills training is not available other than outside of the capital and they want to travel to, or live in, other areas of England to study or learn,” he said.

Many colleges outside the capital are used to enrolling Londoners, including Guildford College, Harlow College and North Kent College, while colleges based inside of London but close to the border, such as London South East Colleges, may now face difficulties recruiting learners from outside the capital.

A spokesperson for the DfE said the Greater London Authority had been given “access to information which identifies learner attendance and need”.

“This is a significant step that will give local areas the opportunity to better meet local economic needs,” she said, adding that the authority is able to enter into a funding agreement “with any provider, no matter where that provider is based, to fund learners who live there”.

Concerns from sector leaders

Sector leaders have been unanimous in their warnings about the new policy, which they say could have negative consequences for learners and institutions alike.

Mick Fletcher, FE expert at the Policy Consortium, warned the changes “could cause all sorts of problems”.

“One of the difficulties in running colleges is ensuring class sizes. Even if it’s just one or two students, that could be the difference of a class being viable or unviable,” he said.

“All these negotiations will have to be done by people who haven’t done it before. We’re going to reinvent a whole load of bureaucracy.”

He added: “I think it’s going to be damaging. It’s going to be damaging for some individuals and for some institutions, and it’s going to be an extra cost.”

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, called on the combined authorities and the ESFA to “take a proactive approach” to make sure learners can continue to find the best courses for them, and to make sure colleges are not subjected to “unnecessary bureaucracy” or uneven funding.

“The measure of the success of devolution will be whether devolved areas can deliver higher quality provision and better outcomes for individuals and employers, without adding extra burdens and bureaucracy,” he said.

Sue Pember, director of policy at Holex, warned that even in cases where colleges do agree contracts with an authority, these contracts will be “numbers driven” and so are likely to “limit a student’s ability to choose”.

“The feature of learner choice has been an important aspect of the English system of FE,” she said.

“It has driven up quality, allowed the best colleges to grow, and it will be a sad day when it is lost.”

Concerns have also been raised that the policy ignores the fact of people often travelling across geographic boundaries for work as well as for study.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said it would be “sensible” to have more “flexibility” within the devolved funding to use for learners who travel from outside of the relevant area.

“There is growing recognition that in most combined authorities there is significant travel for work outside the combined authority zone,” he said. “This presents a significant issue when looking at workforce rather than residency.”

Colleges fear postcode ‘restrictions’

Harlow College estimates the changes could affect up to 200 of its learners every year who come from both London and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough region.

The college is particularly concerned about its newly established partnership with Stansted Airport, who work extensively on recruiting learners from London on to their campus.

A spokesperson said the GLA has made contact to try to find a way forward.

He said: “Employers and potential employees increasingly do not work within the geographical boundaries defined by politics.

“It is really important that contracting arrangements do not impede opportunities for people to gain access to better employment and training. There appears to be no proposed flexibility in rules related to postcodes.”

Ian Pryce, chief executive of Bedford College, said he was concerned the devolved budgets are “likely to restrict rather than increase opportunities” and “increase the complexity for colleges”.

“I really don’t like the idea of us having to say to someone from St Neots ‘these are all the courses we do but you can only do these ones because of your postcode’.

“I hope it won’t come to that, and also hope we don’t see devolved authorities using funds to favour their own adult provision departments or creaming off money for admin.”

However, he added that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority has been “excellent at involving us and wants us to carry on as normal for now”.

Sean Scully, director of student experience at Oaklands College, which takes learners from London and Cambridge, said the college was “aware and fully engaged” and expecting “very low numbers” of learners would be affected.

“Our initial thoughts are that by staying engaged with the areas we know students are coming from we will greatly reduce any possible impact,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Guildford College Group said it was “aware of the issue” and was still in discussions with the Greater London Authority “to find a resolution for the very few students that this will affect”.

Trouble ahead for colleges with multiple campuses

FE Week has taken a closer look at some of the complications that may arise from the new focus on postcodes.

As the emphasis is placed on whether colleges are inside a combined authority, this may overlook colleges with multiple campuses which can lie outside of boundaries.

The College of West Anglia, for example, was formed in 1998 out of a merger between the Norfolk College of Arts and Technology and the Cambridgeshire College of Agriculture and Horticulture, and a further merger in 2006 added Isle College in Wisbech.

The college is now based over these three campuses but, although Cambridge and Wisbech are contained within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough combined authority, the third campus, in King’s Lynn in Norfolk, is not.

The College of West Anglia did not respond to requests for comment about what this will mean for the way the college operates, and whether learners in Norfolk will still be able to attend the local King’s Lynn campus.

The arbitrary nature of the boundaries also means that some learners living on the same street could be prevented from going to the same colleges.

For example, the edge of the Greater London Authority boundary splits Crayford Road from Dartford Road, where it becomes Kent.

This means that learners who live on the Crayford Road side, in London, will not be funded by the GLA if they enrol at North Kent College’s campus in Dartford, just 1.3 miles away.

And their neighbours who live on the Dartford Road side, in Kent, will not be funded to go to the London South East Colleges’ campus in Bexley, just 2.38 miles away.

Figures from AoC

Estimates from the Association of Colleges suggest a huge variation in the amount of money that different devolved areas receive.

The Greater London Authority is expected to receive an AEB allocation of £311 million next year, whereas smaller areas can expect a fraction of that amount, with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in line for £12 million and the West of England expecting £17 million.

The AoC’s estimates, based on data from 2016/17, suggest that 62 colleges are contained within the boundaries of the combined authorities and GLA, which will share £342 million from the devolved budget but just £42 million in separate funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

There are 168 colleges not based within a combined authority, which will share £401 million from the ESFA but will be entitled to split just £81 million from the devolved budget.

Speaking at the AoC conference last week, its deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said: “I think effectively what we will see is the devolved authorities will want to deal with fewer colleges and providers, and will effectively localise.”

Asked about concerns over a postcode lottery, he told FE Week: “It would be much better if the DfE and the combined authorities could agree a cost transfer arrangement to avoid new bureaucratic obstacles.”

How DfE can better support colleges in crisis

As she leads her new institution to financial recovery, principal Karen Redhead reflects on what can help and hinder this difficult process

I took over at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College in September, in the wake of a financial notice to improve from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, and an intervention from the FE commissioner, fully aware of the scale and extent of the issues faced by the college.

This is my initial insight into what it’s been like leading a college towards financial recovery, what is working and what could be done better.

The first stocktake visit from the commissioner’s team in October was thorough and purposeful. It genuinely gave me access to what felt like high-quality consultancy, coaching and mentoring that is vital in such a challenging scenario. It acknowledged that we’d done an overwhelming amount of work but that there was still much to do.

The process has been as burdensome as it has been supportive, and there’s a real danger of overwhelming a college that is by definition already weak. Deteriorating financial health is often the first sign to the outside world that all is not well. But that’s usually the tip of the iceberg.

The financial controls at West London College were certainly weak, but in addition, the college had no strategic plan, no costed curriculum plan, no workforce plan, a financial plan that was not fit for purpose, no estates strategy – despite having multiple and complex projects on the go – and the risk register hadn’t been updated since 2016.

Compounding this can be the difficulty in attracting senior leaders and board members. At one point we had vacancies in the post of chair, vice chair, clerk, deputy principal for curriculum and quality, director of finance and resources, and director of management information systems. I’m really pleased to have appointed some strong candidates to the executive team, but they don’t take up their posts until the new year.

The hoops the college has to jump through become the biggest barrier to improvement

We have to report to three separate agencies: the ESFA, because we’re under a financial notice to improve; the FE commissioner’s team, following their diagnostic assessment in July; and the transaction unit, because we’re in receipt of an exceptional financial support loan.

And perversely, what happens is that the hoops the college has to jump through, mainly in relation to the financial support loan, become the biggest barrier to improvement.

There’s simply not enough time to do the crucial development work with the finance department and senior team because they’re too busy providing data about the college’s weekly cash flow, in order to calculate the bare minimum loan payment we need each month.

We’re lacking some of the underpinning processes that would be taken for granted in a well-running college, and due to the onerous reporting requirements, the team doesn’t have time to set them up.

Data requests include items such as course-level costing. But if the college is still developing its curriculum plan and workforce plan, that information is not available. It can feel quite challenging when the various agencies are making demands for information for which the processes are not yet in place.

The power imbalance in this kind of situation leads to a temptation to acquiesce to administrative requests, in the interest of maintaining harmonious relationships, that under other circumstances I would question.

The three agencies are trying hard to minimise duplication of demands on the college. However more could be done to achieve this. Rather than the separate processes requiring different recovery plans, it would make more sense to combine these into one plan from the outset. It would also have helped to have access to a model recovery plan template that could be modified according to the circumstances.

More clarity about the new insolvency regime would also help. Asking a college in crisis mode to create its own specification for an independent business review, for example, is just one more unnecessary burden.

And finally, if we’re to avoid these situations in the first place, leaders must be encouraged to ask for help early – and this requires a radical rethink. If the only option is to trigger a formal process with high personal consequences, then of course leaders will be reticent.

We know very few people set out deliberately to do a bad job, so we need to think about how to create a no-blame, no-shame process.

College-run academy trusts in trouble

An academy trust run by a college has been warned it will be stripped of its only school if standards don’t improve – the latest in a string of college-run trusts falling into trouble.

The Burton and South Derbyshire Education Trust – set up by Burton and South Derbyshire College – was warned the Kingfisher Academy could be rebrokered unless standards improved.

In a minded to terminate letter, published last week and sent in October, the government highlighted the school’s ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating, after its first inspection in September 2017.

Although a monitoring visit in June found leaders were taking effective action to make improvements, the government has asked for further information to ensure progress is being made.

The trust has since said they have provided this information, and claimed closing the school had now been taken off the table.

Among the other college-run academy trusts to face problems is the Salford Academy Trust, founded by Salford City College, the University of Salford and Salford City Council.

In June it confirmed that it would give up all four of its schools and close. Salford City College retained 75 per cent control over the trust, which, according to accounts published in February, had been identified as “high risk” by the Department for Education after a review of one school identified “serious weaknesses”.

And in March the multi-academy trust Marine Academy Plymouth, sponsored by the University of Plymouth, Cornwall College and the Plymouth local authority, was warned its namesake school could be transferred to another trust after being put into special measures in November last year.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said colleges are “very good” at providing post-16 education, but warned that “does not qualify them to run schools or manage academy trusts”.

He said: “The government was wrong to assume that a college provider could simply take over schools and run them successfully.”

According to DfE statistics, 21 colleges are listed as the main sponsors of academy trusts, with a total of 57 academies between them. They range from having one to 13 schools.

FE Week analysis found just one of these academies is rated as ‘outstanding’: Heath Lane Academy run by The Midland Academies Trust, which is sponsored by North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College.

However, the trust’s three other schools are rated ‘requires improvement’. Three more of its academies, including two studio schools, have closed.

In total, 13 college-run academies are rated as ‘good’, nine as ‘requires improvement’ and five as ‘inadequate’. The rest have not yet been inspected by Ofsted.

Julian Gravatt (pictured), deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said it was important to note that colleges “mainly” sponsor trusts with schools that were previously failing, or which run ventures such as university technical colleges or alternative provision academies.

He said there have been “many successes” in college-run trusts, but added: “Colleges don’t have deep pockets like some sponsors do, and the different legal structure of academies has been an unhelpful obstacle.”

The obstacles he referred to include the fact that colleges have a different financial year end, and that colleges can’t recover VAT although schools can.

Mr Gravatt also said that the DfE and Education and Skills Funding Agency have more than 1,000 officials who work on issues associated with academies but only a few hundred who work on colleges.

“The former don’t always understand the latter,” he added.

Kevin Gilmartin, post-16 and colleges specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said colleges can bring “great benefits” to trusts because of their “close links to employers and their expertise in vocational and technical education”.

He added the biggest challenges to education are inadequate government funding and teacher shortages.

The DfE offered this comment when FE Week asked why it thinks some college-run trusts have underperformed: “One of the benefits of the academy system is that sponsors are from a variety of backgrounds and can tailor their expertise to suit pupils’ needs.

“This freedom in the hands of school leaders is driving up standards across the country, with more than half a million children now studying in sponsored academies rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ that often replaced underperforming schools. This includes academies that are sponsored by further education colleges.”

Let’s spend more cash on SEND learners and less on admin

Some of the funding that used to be spent on support for learning disabilities now goes on administration. Students would benefit if the money went direct to providers, says Graham Razey

Throughout the 25 years I’ve worked in further education, there have been a number of clichéd expressions thrown about. From Cinderella service to cash-strapped, the sector has a lot of aphorisms. However, my personal favourite right now is the phrase “what goes around, comes around”. At present, in the world of SEND funding, it has never rung more true.

There was a time I’m sure many of you can remember, when the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) would provide colleges across the length and breadth of the land with an annual funding allocation. This could be used to address the disabilities and learning difficulties faced by students, which were often – but not always – articulated through a Learning Disability Assessment (LDA). Under this system, providers were trusted to use the funding to most efficiently and effectively deliver the support required for their students.

While there were imperfections in the system, it gave providers the autonomy required to ensure the needs of students were met, along with a minimal administrative burden. This meant the maximum possible funding could be spent on front-line deployment, ensuring students reaped the most achievable benefit. In fact, the audit regime ensured no more than 20 per cent of any funding was spent away from direct support, and that every penny was accounted for in actual spending in any given year.

Wind forward to today’s more hostile environment, and we are faced with a multitude of challenges within the system. Local authorities have been added into the mix and a significant proportion of funding is now being used to manage these additional layers of bureaucracy. The number of posts within both local authorities and providers has increased exponentially.

Jobs have been created to compete over who can provide the most eloquent arguments

Worryingly, however, these posts have not, as one might hope, been created to improve the quality of the offer, but to compete over who can provide the most eloquent arguments for why a student should or should not be eligible for element two and three funding.

The resulting impact is a reduction in funding being provided to support the young people, many of whom are some of the most vulnerable in our society. In fact, evidence provided by the Department for Education itself suggests the volume of tribunals is increasing significantly as more and more parents and young people are told that they are not eligible for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or that they are unable to access their placement of choice.

While a strong argument can certainly be made that the amount of funding in the high-needs system is simply insufficient, I do feel that the first place to start would be to remove unnecessary bureaucracy.

The first step to achieving this would be to change the relationship between local authorities and providers, based on the mutual understanding that the young person should be placed at the heart of the process. We must work hard to agree that providers are not, as some local authorities would claim, “trying to game the system to achieve margin in this work” and conversely, that local authorities are not trying to “drive down costs to use the money in other parts of the education system”. Neither is helpful, and stereotypes and assumptions of this nature are certainly not making for harmonious relationships.

So rather than waste precious resources constantly arguing about individual students, why couldn’t we have a country-wide return to the block-grant funding system? Block grant funding enables providers to plan the service for the whole, rather than the individual constituent parts. It gives the provider the flexibility to deliver a whole service, rather than having to tag costs at an individual level and claim in year. The agreement is also in advance of the year, enabling the provider to plan the service rather than being forced to react.

Whether that comes through local authorities or not, I am convinced we can save significantly on administration costs and maybe, just maybe, we can be trusted to do the right thing collectively for our young people.

FE commissioner: check with me before appointing a principal

The FE commissioner has urged college governors to check with him before appointing a principal as part of a crackdown on “serial offenders” ahead of the incoming college insolvency regime.

Richard Atkins was speaking exclusively to FE Week in the same week he was reappointed to the role for another two years.

“I would encourage every single chair or clerk on their behalf, before they interview their final shortlist, to do due diligence with others in the sector – the Association of Colleges, the Education and Skills Funding Agency, my office,” he said.

“You need to be extremely careful because the appointment is so critical to the future success of the college. And the sector is small enough for people to be aware.”

While he said “I don’t believe in witch hunts”, Mr Atkins warned that “we do as a sector need to guard against a very small number of people either getting let go or jumping ship and then turning up somewhere else and then adopting the same behaviours that caused the trouble before”.

Mr Atkins’ remarks follow the resignation earlier this month of Garry Phillips from City College Plymouth, less than two weeks after the publication of an FE commissioner report into his previous college, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, that was deeply critical of his leadership.

We do as a sector need to guard against a very small number of people jumping ship

Mr Phillips faced anger from members of the University and College Union at Plymouth, who returned a vote of no confidence in his leadership and in the governing body’s decision to hire him.

His resignation was one of a spate of departures by senior leaders in the sector, many of whom – but not all – had been working at colleges that Mr Atkins and his team are involved with.

Following a “pretty good year” in 2017/18, this year got off to a less positive start for the FE commissioner with a number of high-profile interventions – including West Nottinghamshire College and EHWLC.

One of the “big causes” in many of these cases was the incoming insolvency regime, which Mr Atkins described as a “game changer” that had “brought several of these cases to a head more quickly than would have happened in the past”.

The regime, which will allow colleges to go bust for the first time, will come into effect at the end of January. Exceptional financial support will be withdrawn from the end of March, at the same time as the deadline for spending cash from the restructuring facility.

While there is likely to be “some money to support colleges that have become insolvent to get back on their feet in some way”, it is likely to be a “much smaller amount of money” than is available at the moment, Mr Atkins said.

“Colleges now face the most rigorous challenge if they suddenly or unexpectedly run out of money,” he said.

In those cases “there is a very focused conversation with the governors and leaders of those institutions about how we return the college to sound financial health” and “that is a really serious conversation because potentially on the April 1 or 2 those colleges will become insolvent”.

But, he added, “I don’t necessarily see the insolvency regime leading to closures”.

“What I do see as an outcome is governors and senior staff being held to account in a more transparent and more robust way than ever before,” Mr Atkins said.

His “earnest hope” as colleges adjust to the changes is that “people ask for help sooner, they improve further their financial planning, particularly their management of cash, which is critical, and that governors and leaders stay right on top of that”.

“Cash really is king in incorporated colleges, and you really can’t afford to run out at short notice,” he said.

That’s what happened to West Nottinghamshire College, which hit the headlines in September after it emerged it asked for a bailout just 48 hours before it would have run out of cash.

Mr Atkins stressed the importance of colleges having at least two financially qualified governors on their board to both challenge and support the principal and finance director.

Colleges now face the most rigorous challenge if they suddenly run out of money

On a “number of occasions” he and his team had intervened at colleges without any, which he said he found “genuinely staggering in 2018”.

Mr Atkins wouldn’t be drawn on whether any colleges were at immediate risk of going bust.

“I think there are a small number of colleges, a very small number, who still find it difficult to take advice or ask for help,” he said in response to the question.

He acknowledge that there will be “a small number” of failures, but he hoped to “keep that to the absolute minimum”.

“I do think there will be a small number of colleges who battled through area review to remain standalone, who will do anything rather than have a discussion about what might be in the long-term best interests of that institutions, and therefore one or two of those might fail,” he said.

He urged leaders to “realistically assess” and come forward to ask for help if necessary as “there’s no shame in that”.

Mr Atkins said there were a few college leaders “who are in denial, who underestimate how close to the edge they are”.

“I would genuinely like to visit or help those colleges come to terms with a sustainable future for their learners,” he said.

UCU strike closes one college and affects five others

A walkout by more than 700 University and College Union members caused disruption across six colleges this week – and even forced one to close for the two days.

Bradford College shut eight of its 12 buildings and called off all its planned lessons on Wednesday and Thursday, while at least three other colleges cancelled some classes.

Further disruption could be on the horizon, as ballots opened at another 26 colleges in an ongoing dispute over this year’s pay deal.

“Despite the weather, members have been out on the picket lines explaining to their students why they have been on strike,” said Matt Waddup, the UCU’s head of policy and campaigns.

He acknowledged that the action had “meant serious disruption” but insisted the union’s members “have been left with no alternative”.

Staff are demanding a five per cent pay rise, and are angry over Association of Colleges’ offer in July for a “substantial pay package” over two years, dependent on government funding.

UCU members at New College Swindon, Bath College, Petroc, Lambeth College and Croydon College, as well as Bradford College, took part in this week’s action.

A spokesperson said the union had balloted around 700 members across the six colleges, and expected all of them to have walked out – although the actual numbers will be higher as new members had joined since the ballot.

Bradford College said it had “made the very difficult decision to close the college to students in order to minimise disruption and to enable students to make alternative arrangements for their learning” on November 28 and 29.

New College Swindon posted on its website that it had to “cancel a very small number of classes” on both strikes, and texted all affected learners.

The UCU said feedback it had received from both Bath College and Petroc indicated that “significant numbers” of classes had been cancelled at both colleges, and that “scores” of learners at the latter had joined staff on the picket line at lunchtime.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, gave her support to striking staff at her local college ahead of the walkout.

“Further education needs proper funding, and the staff who work in this vital area should be properly paid. I fully support UCU members taking industrial action in Bath,” she said.

However, a notice on Bath College’s website, published November 22, said it expected the “majority of teaching and learning activity to proceed as usual”.

“Whilst we are disappointed that some staff are striking, we understand the reasons why,” the notice said.

A spokesperson for Petroc told FE Week there had been “minimal disruption” and “where there has been we have put alternatives in place”.

Neither Lambeth College nor Croydon College responded to FE Week ahead of publication.

Ballots on possible action at a further 26 colleges opened on Wednesday and are set to close on December 19.

Mr Waddup said the results from those colleges “will be back before Christmas and we hope that will focus college leaders’ minds”.

“If they refuse to act then we will be looking at further waves of strikes with more colleges in the new year,” he said.

This week’s action follows a “landmark” deal agreed between the UCU and Capital City College Group last week, which will see staff receive up to a five per cent pay rise.

But, as previously reported by FE Week, the deal will cost the group more than £3 million, and will turn a projected break-even budget for the year into a £2.3 million deficit.

The AoC held its first-ever week of action last month to “make a lot more noise” about the funding issues affecting the sector – including pay.

The Love Our Colleges week was prompted by the Department for Education’s decision to fund a 3.5 per cent pay rise for school teachers while ignoring college lecturers.

Ofsted is wrong about arts and media courses

The obsession with STEM is causing misperceptions about the value – economic and social – of participation in the creative industries, believes Debra Gray

I like Amanda Spielman. I think she has been a force for good at Ofsted. I spent a day with the chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills last year when she came to visit us in Grimsby, and she was remarkably forgiving and gracious when I nearly crashed us both into a truck at a roundabout in Immingham.

However, her comments about students on arts and media courses being sold an “impossible dream” made at the Association of Colleges’ conference last week incensed me. The substance of Ofsted’s argument lies within its Level 2 Study Programmes report published on 21 November. This identified that art and media courses were generally perceived to give the least chance of gaining employment within those industries.

The interesting term here is “perceived”. The research is based on the perceptions of a small number of providers. There appears to be little triangulation with verifiable labour-market intelligence from reliable sources to see if perception matches reality. What appears to be credible research is simply an account of provider perceptions presented as fact.

The methodological dangers of relying on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical evidence are legion.

What appears to be credible research is simply an account of provider perceptions presented as fact

So, what is the reality?

The creative sector is worth £92 billion annually to the UK economy, two million people are directly employed in the creative industries and over three million work as creative professionals in non-creative industries.

Employment in the creative sector is growing at four times the rate of other sectors.

The Creative Industries Council states that between 2010 and 2016 the creative industries sub sectors – which include advertising, film and TV, architecture, publishing, music, design, games, museums and galleries, fashion, crafts, and the creative use of technology – grew their economic contribution by 44.8 per cent, outpacing the purely digital sector, which increased its GVA (gross value added) by 23.3 per cent during this period.

A career in the arts is an impossible dream? I don’t think so.

The problem doesn’t just lie with assumptions that anecdotal evidence is generalisable, there is an issue over the right question being asked in the first place. The chief inspector states in the report: “I am therefore concerned about the number of courses on offer that college leaders know do not lead to good local employment.”

The report assumes we have a common understanding of the term “good local employment”. Fifty per cent of Grimsby’s catchment area is the North Sea, but we have road and rail links to Hull, Lincoln and Sheffield, all of which are thriving creative cities. Is this “local” enough? It is also vital to point out that a significantly higher proportion of jobs in the creative industries are freelance and commission-based than is typical in other sectors. Is this considered “good” employment?

Arts and media are both completely local and completely global, and everything in between, from the microbusinesses in ceramics and jewellery operating in a spare room to multi-billion transnational media empires influencing governments. Creative jobs are some of the most future-proof over the next 20 years – they cannot be taken by automation and AI is not a replacement for the human imagination – so we must prepare more creative professionals for the repercussions of the fourth industrial revolution, not fewer.

Arts education in the UK has been decimated in the push to advance the STEM agenda, as if they are two different things. Without imagination and creativity, scientists and engineers cannot show us the future – we must value creative skills, not further banish them owing to flawed perceptions.

So thank you to the creative professionals who designed my clothes, my furniture, the news I read this morning, the film I saw this afternoon, the documentary I watched with my reluctant children, the artists who put the pictures on my walls, the musicians who help me through dark times, the authors who take me to magical worlds, the comedians who make me laugh, the actors who transport me to places I wouldn’t go alone aand the digital and creative industries team at Grimsby Institute who go above and beyond to make sure no learner’s dream is impossible.

Without you, the world is a very bleak place. I am proud to stand by your side.