London’s mayor will host a party to celebrate taking control of the capital’s adult education budget next year – where he’ll lay out ambitions for making his skills system the “envy of the world”.

From September 2019, the Greater London Authority will have its annual £311 million AEB devolved.

Mayor Sadiq Khan has big plans for how to control the fund, including shifting its payment model away from funding qualifications towards wider outcomes such as progression into work.

Making London’s skills system the envy of the world

He’s also hoping the government will later devolve further skills funding into his hands, including apprenticeships.

To kick devolution off Mr Khan wants to hold a launch event to “set out London’s vision for future skills”.

The party will coincide with the centenary of adult education at the City Literary Institute in autumn 2019, according to minutes from the latest Skills for Londoners Board meeting, held on September 21.

“The event would celebrate the wider history of adult education in London and provide an opportunity for the board to set its vision for the future,” the minutes state.

“It would also be used to mark the launch of the commencement of the AEB in London.”

The event “presents a great opportunity to support and convene collaboration within the sector and support the mayor’s priority for creating a more strategic city-wide approach to skills” and his “ambition for making London’s skills system the envy of the world”.

There are, however, questions over whether the funding for the party will come from the capital’s AEB revenue budget, which would take more money away from frontline learning.

“The project budget required to support delivery of this proposal is yet to be fully scoped out,” the minutes state.

“It should be noted that while there is no specific budget provision for this initiative within the GLA budget, it is expected that officers will seek to contain any associated project costs within the existing revenue budgets available to the Development, Enterprise and Environment Directorate.”

If this is not possible, a “growth bid will have to be submitted for consideration as part of the 2019-20 budget process currently underway”.

FE Week asked the GLA if it was planning to use a chunk of the AEB to pay for the event, but the authority stayed tight-lipped other than to say: “No funds [are] committed to this event, which is being organised by City Lit.”

City Lit said it has asked Mr Khan to take part in its centenary celebrations, but is still waiting for his response. It would not comment on how the event would be paid for.

Mr Khan came under fire earlier this year when FE Week revealed his plan to top-slice over £3 million of the annual AEB to pay for an army of nearly 100 new bureaucrats to manage the fund.

The event would celebrate the wider history of adult education in London

It did however emerge last month that the idea of top-slicing from the budget was a recommendation from the Department for Education, after the GLA complained it needed extra cash to cover operational costs.

The SfL minutes also reveal that the GLA is proposing to follow the celebration event with an annual “skills summit”, which would “provide an ongoing opportunity to share best practice and to promote collaboration amongst networks”.

“While members commented that these networks already existed on a more localised level, this could provide an opportunity to bring together representatives from across the sector each year to discuss the opportunities and challenges they face,” the minutes said.

“While the proposals were welcomed, it was suggested that the skills summit be supplemented with smaller local events, in order to reach out to as much of the adult learning community as possible.”

The GLA will be launching its tendering process to award £130 million of London’s devolved AEB to independent training providers the week beginning October 22, 2018.

The remainder of the budget will be awarded in the form of grants to colleges and other institutions that currently receive AEB via a grant from the government.

The Construction Industry Training Board has struck a new deal to work with colleges after concerns were raised that its “reverse subcontracting” proposal would have broken funding rules.

The updated contract for non-levy apprenticeships could still see colleges paying the CITB around £1,600 per learner – but this is about half of what was originally proposed.

In August the construction board tried to get colleges to enter “reverse subcontracting” arrangements where it would charge top-slices of at least 28 per cent, even though it would be the college that was the prime.

We are pleased that we have now reached a positive agreement

This came after the CITB failed to win a non-levy apprenticeships contract and was scratching around for ways to continue making money through the programmes.

But the Association of Colleges stepped in and said the deal would actually break government rules because the “services” being offered, such as recruitment and functional skills checks on maths and English, “weren’t eligible for funding”.

The new deal is now compliant with the rules and “certainly is not a reverse subcontract”, according to Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager at the AoC.

“Rather than doing the service on a percentage of a contract, they are going to identify what they feel that service will cost to deliver and suggest that as a basis,” she told FE Week.

On offer is a “split process”. Part one is a fee for sign-up services, where the CITB will source the college an “oven-ready learner and employer”, with paperwork filled out to the point where the college can take control.

FE Week understands the cost of this will be £700.

The second service on offer is a fee for site visits.

“This is where they [CITB] undertakes the liaison with the employer and follows the apprentice around from site to site, then feeds back to the college to let them know how the on-the-job training is matching the 20 per cent off the job, and so on,” Ms Frith said.

FE Week has been informed that for a two-year apprenticeship programme the CITB is stating a minimum of six visits – four site and two college – should be carried out at £150 each.

Over the two years, if six site visits are carried out the college would pay £900.

It is, however, down to each different college to negotiate how many site visits a learner will have during their programme.

CITB will support colleges to ensure that learners can achieve their skills objectives during their apprenticeship programme

Colleges that opt to use both services can expect to pay around £1,600 per learner.

“The AoC and CITB have been working together on arrangements for non-apprenticeship levy-paying employers,” said Gillian Cain, head of apprenticeships at CITB.

“We are pleased that we have now reached a positive agreement, which we believe represents good value for all parties and complies with funding rules.

“CITB will support colleges to ensure that learners can achieve their skills objectives during their apprenticeship programme. Colleges can choose to receive this support from CITB and would pay a fee for these services, but are under no obligation to do so.”

Before the levy, the CITB would use its apprenticeships contract as a prime and subcontract the training out to colleges. Following its failure in the government’s non-levy procurement, the CITB wanted colleges to agree to a “reversal of our contracts”.

In this scheme, colleges would have been the prime but would have paid a huge management fee, believed to range from 28 to 36 per cent, like a subcontractor, for which the CITB would have given access to construction employers and provided other services such as inductions and health and safety training.

It would have meant that for apprentices on the carpentry and joinery level-two standard, for example, the training provider would receive £12,000 government funding but have to give £3,360 or more of it to the CITB.

The government has agreed to pay the wages of around 40 staff from apprenticeship giant Aspire Achieve Advance until the end of the month, even though the company ceased trading last week.

Nearly 500 people lost their jobs on October 11 as the provider, better known as 3aaa, had its funding withdrawn by the Education and Skills Funding Agency following a second investigation, the findings of which have now been passed on to the police.

The company’s website says it has now “ceased trading”, but questions have been raised over whether or not the provider has actually gone into administration. FE Week has so far been unable to confirm if any administrators have, in fact, been called in.

Regardless of 3aaa’s status, the ESFA is now tasked with finding new training providers for around 4,500 affected apprentices – but it has drafted in some unexpected help for the mammoth task.

Special treatment is being offered to around 40 members of 3aaa’s staff who have been asked to stay on, with salaries paid for by the ESFA until the end of October to move the learners on.

A spokesperson for the agency confirmed this and said the decision was made to ensure the apprentices are transferred to the right providers with a smooth transition.

FE Week understands this is the first time the ESFA has made such an arrangement – to keep paying the now-out-of-work staff after withdrawing their provider’s skills contracts.

It is retaining at least one staff member in each of 3aaa’s “academies” spread across the country.

In addition, it is understood that one of 3aaa’s top senior leaders, Anthony Bromirski, the company’s director of operations since 2013, is also being paid until the end of October.

FE Week approached him for comment but he did not respond.

The decision to keep on 3aaa staff to help with the transfer of apprentices may well have been affected by the ESFA’s past experience of carrying out such a strenuous task.

Another of the largest apprenticeship providers in England, First4Skills, called in the administrators after the agency terminated its contract in March 2017.

The provider, which held an annual £15 million apprenticeship allocation, had around 6,500 apprentices, all of whom needed to be found new training companies.

When asked by FE Week if the ESFA was keeping on the 3aaa staff because it doesn’t have enough resources, a spokesperson denied this was the case.

3aaa received over £31 million in government funding last year and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships – standing at nearly £22 million.

The government launched a second investigation into the company earlier this year following claims by a whistle-blower that prompted Ofsted to declare its inspection of the formerly “outstanding” 3aaa in June “incomplete”.

The first ESFA investigation, carried out by auditing firm KPMG in 2016, found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

Following a meeting with the ESFA on October 10 this month, the agency decided not to provide any more public money to the company and withdrew its contracts.

The findings of the new investigation, which have so far not been shared, have been passed on to the police through Action Fraud.

Derbyshire Constabulary is now leading on enquiries.

In an email to customers last week, 3aaa managing director Richard Irons said any “historic data issues or previous investigations into the business” are “categorically not part of our current dialogue with the ESFA and precede new management”.

3aaa’s co-founders, Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, resigned last month and have been uncontactable ever since, despite this newspaper’s numerous attempts to elicit comment.

Mr Marples took down his LinkedIn and Facebook pages last week. He then resigned from his position as chair of the Spencer Academies Trust.

The principal of another struggling college has resigned with immediate effect.

Terry Jones (pictured) had been in charge of Peterborough Regional College since July 2015 but today stood down after agreeing with the board that a “different skill set is now required”.

He will however stay on as the college’s chief executive until the end of the year.

It comes over a year since the college was hit with a ‘requires improvement’ verdict from Ofsted, which heavily criticised leaders for allowing achievement rates to fall.

Peterborough Regional today released a statement thanking Mr Jones for his service, during which time the college has “grown its income sustainably, acquired a new subsidiary company (CTS Ltd), created the iMET Centre in collaboration with Cambridge Regional College and won significant funding for the University project”.

“Although our achievement rates have risen, the board and Terry are in full agreement that a different skill set is now required to accelerate and deepen those improvements,” it added.

“For that reason, it has been mutually agreed that Terry will leave PRC at the end of this year and that he will stand down as principal immediately to support transition to a successor at the earliest opportunity.”

Peter Walker, currently vice principal of the college, will become acting principal while the process to find a new leader is carried out.

Peterborough Regional’s apprenticeship achievement rates sat at 68.6 per cent in 2014/15 but fell to 59.8 per cent a year later, and fell again to 59.2 per cent in 2016/17.

For its national education and training achievement rates, the college achieved 76.9 per cent in 2014/15, but dropped to 69.1 per cent the following year. They did however increase to 75.2 per cent in 2016/17.

In Ofsted’s grade three report for Peterborough Regional, published in July 2017, inspectors said governors have been “slow to challenge leaders to reverse the sharp decline in achievement for learners and apprentices”.

They added that the principal and new management teams were “beginning to improve performance” but they “are not yet ensuring good standards in teaching, learning and assessment across all subjects”.

It had 7,500 learners at the time of inspection.

The college’s most recent accounts, for 2016/17, show it had generated a deficit of £1 million. It had also “accumulated reserves of £11.4 million and cash balances of £2.6 million”.

Grade three colleges are in scope for FE Commissioner intervention, but it is unclear at this stage if Richard Atkins’ team has visited the college since its ‘requires improvement’ report.

Ian Jackson, chair of Peterborough Regional’s board of governors, said: “We are very grateful to Terry for the energy and passion that he has brought to the college over the last three years and for the significant achievements made during his time as principal.”

Mr Walker has spent the last 11 years leading the college’s business support systems and been responsible for their finances.

“Peter’s main focus over the next few months will be on driving forward our curriculum and quality improvement plan,” Mr Jackson continued.

“Improving student success rates is central to our future success – much has already been achieved through our Ofsted improvement plan, but there is always more to do.”

Mr Jones’ resignation from a major college is the fifth in just four weeks.

John Connolly left the RNN Group on Monday after year in which the group planned for a loss of over £1 million. Andrew Cleaves, one of the highest paid principals in the country, stepped down from Birmingham Metropolitan College on September 25.

He was followed by Dame Asha Khemka, another highly paid principal, who resigned as principal of West Notts on October 1. And last week, Joe Docherty quit as principal of the NCG group with immediate effect.

The skills minister declared herself to be “pleased and excited” to be at the Federation of Awarding Bodies annual conference, as she made good on the government’s promise to reset its relationship with the federation following its aborted legal challenge this summer.

Speaking on the first day of the event, held in Leicester on October 18 and 19, Anne Milton made clear that she planned to work together with awarding organisations to implement the government’s reforms.

“For T-levels to be a success we need to get to a whole new level of teamwork. We need partnership across the entire system,” she said.

Partnership, Ms Milton explained, meant “you being with us every step of the way”.

“It means that we want to listen and learn from you. It means that we want to draw on the huge amount of experience that you have behind you.”

The skills minister also referred to the controversial tender process for the qualifications, that will see just one awarding body selected to deliver each one.

In July this year FAB threatened legal action against the government’s proposals for the new qualifications, on the grounds that the timescales were irrational, there was a lack of proper engagement on the single-provider model and they would have a disproportionate effect on the sector.

However, these plans were dropped in early August after the Department for Education watered down a number of its plans and offered to reset its relationship with awarding bodies.

The closing date for bids in the tender is October 26, and Ms Milton said she had “no doubt we’ll get some really strong bids because this is a chance to be at the forefront of some really groundbreaking and lasting changes”.

With 22 T-levels yet to launch, she said it “would be really great to see bids from all parts of the sector, including awarding bodies pooling their expertise in consortia”.

Ms Milton had opened her speech by saying she was “particularly pleased to be able to use one of the best acronyms in the business” and declared “you are fabulous”.

She closed her speech by expressing her gratitude for being invited to speak at the event.

“I look forward to continuing to work together, making sure we get all our changes right,” she said.

Ms Milton’s remarks about T-levels followed a plea from FAB chair Paul Eeles during his speech immediately before the skills minister took to the stage.

He said the federation supported the “principle of T-levels as part of a holistic approach to technical-education reform”.

But he said the organisation “would like to see a more proactive approach to encourage consortia bids from our members so that we avoid the single point of failure problem, of awarding just a single licence per T-Level pathway”.

Mr Eeles said he believed “we can positively reset our relationship with government, despite the recent challenges”, and that he was “looking forward” to working more closely with government “to make the technical education reforms a real success”.