FE has faced a difficult week in Ofsted inspections as three providers were hit with ‘inadequate’ ratings.

Three others were graded as ‘requires improvement’ in a week which saw 15 inspection reports published for FE and skills providers.

Norfolk’s Easton and Otley College was hit with its second grade four rating in a row in a report published on November 12, which raised concerns about poor quality study programmes and adult education courses and low completion rates on both.  

More than a quarter of students on study programmes and adult learning programmes, which together make up a large majority of the college’s provision, do not achieve their qualifications,” the report said.

Two independent learning providers also received ‘inadequate’ grades this week. Inspectors found that the 500 learners at the Harrow-based Academy Training Group had received “no teaching” and some were “not aware” they had taken out an advanced learner loan.

The provider was said to have “no strengths” and accused of not using its funding “appropriately”, but Academy Training Group’s operations director Paul Marsh said the judgement was being challenged and that Ofsted “lacks understanding of the environment we work under”.

Also ‘inadequate’ was Manchester’s Impact College, where learners were found to copy and paste their assignments and had been given high grades even where awarding organisations identified malpractice.

A damning monitoring visit has also caused a headache for the government this week, after Premier People Solutions – an apprenticeship provider which trains civil servants in government departments including the Home Office and HMRC – was rated ‘insufficient’ across the board.

“Leaders and managers cannot be sure that their members of staff are safe to work in the sensitive environments of the employers for whom their apprentice work,” the report said.

David Pearson, managing director at Premier, insisted the provider takes safeguarding “extremely seriously” but the Education and Skills Funding Agency has now terminated its levy contract.

West Kent and Ashford College, Focus Training and Expanse Group all received grade three ratings from Ofsted this week.

Independent specialist college Expanse Group was criticised for its ‘inadequate’ apprenticeship provision, including “weak” management and insufficient time for off-the-job training.

However, inspectors said its provision for learners with high needs was “good” and staff had created an “inclusive culture of mutual respect in which learners feel safe”.

Bolton’s Focus Training was criticised for having too many learners leave their course early and too few achieve their qualifications.

Focus Training’s courses consist of distance learning via an online learning platform and planned telephone support tuition sessions. However, inspectors said leaders had not “been swift enough to improve the quality of the telephone support tutorials” and said tutors “do not provide effective telephone support”.

But inspectors commended the “very high-quality teaching resources” and “good quality face-to-face training sessions” and said learners who remain on their course enjoy their learning.

Ofsted warned that too many learners at grade three West Kent and Ashford College do not achieve qualifications or make the progress of expected them, and said too few assessors plan apprentices’ on- and off-the-job training in consultation with employers.

But it commended leaders for having “changed the culture of the college” and improving teaching, behaviour and the effectiveness of management, as well as re-establishing “positive relationships with external stakeholders”.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom this week. Havering Sixth Form College improved from a grade three to a grade two, while Ada National College for Digital Skills became the first national college to receive an Ofsted inspection and obtained a ‘good’ rating.

Leaders at Havering Sixth Form College were described as “ambitious” and commended for establishing a “strong culture of improvement at the college”. A large number of learners make good progress, and leaders “established excellent partnerships with the local community”.

And Ada was highly praised for effective teaching, “enthusiastic” learners, “excellent” careers advice and focus on increasing diversity within the digital sector.

Inspectors praised senior leaders for being “relentless in their ambitions to establish the National College for Digital Skills as a sector leader in its field”.

Cambridge employer provider Marshall of Cambridge Aerospace also enjoyed a positive week, after being rated as making ‘significant progress’ in every category in an early monitoring visit report.

Leaders were commended having “invested well in staff and training resources” and ensuring they celebrate the success of apprentices, who were described as developing “very high level new skills, knowledge and behaviours”.

CMS Vocational Training, N-Gaged Training and Recruitment, Manufacturing Excellence, First Intuition Chelmsford and FLM Training were all found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in monitoring visits.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Easton and Otley College	02/10/2018	12/11/2018	4	4
Ada National College for Digital Skills	09/10/2018	15/11/2018	2	N/A
West Kent and Ashford College	02/10/2018	15/11/2018	3	3

 

Sixth Form Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Havering Sixth Form College	09/10/2018	15/11/2018	2	3

 

Independent specialist colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Expanse Group Ltd	24/09/2018	13/11/2018	3	3

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade
Marshall of Cambridge Aerospace Ltd	04/10/2018	15/11/2018	M

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
CMS Vocational Training Ltd	17/10/2018	16/11/2018	M
Academy Training Group Limited	02/10/2018	13/11/2018	4	N/A
Impact College	09/10/2018	14/11/2018	4	3
Focus Training Limited	09/10/2018	16/11/2018	3	3
N-Gaged Training & Recruitment	22/10/2018	01/08/2018	M
Manufacturing Excellence Limited	08/10/2018	12/11/2018	M
Premier People Solutions	22/10/2018	15/11/2018	M
First Intuition Chelmsford Limited	16/10/2018	16/11/2018	M
FLM Training Ltd	11/10/2018	16/11/2018	M

An exodus of college leaders has rocked the FE sector over the past two months. Meanwhile, regulations that will allow colleges to go bust for the first time will come into effect in just two and a half months’ time. FE Week asks: is there a connection?

Garry Phillips’ resignation from City College Plymouth on Tuesday follows that of other high-profile leaders, including Dame Asha Khemka, former principal of West Nottinghamshire College, and Joe Docherty, ex-boss of college mega-group NCG.

In total eight leaders of some of the nation’s biggest colleges have stepped aside in the space of 50 days.

Between them the eight colleges had a combined income of £439 million in 2016/17, according to Education and Skills Funding Agency figures.

That gives an average income of £59 million – more than twice the sector average of £22.2 million – with average learner and staff numbers also above average at 16,000 and 950 respectively.

The spate of departures comes ahead of the introduction of new rules that will mean colleges will be allowed to go bust for the first time.

These had been set to take effect this year, but a spokesperson for the Department for Education has now confirmed that “due to parliamentary scheduling, the new insolvency regime will now come into force on 31 January 2019”.

Half of the leaders to have left were in charge of colleges in active intervention for financial health while warning signs suggested the remaining four may have been heading that way – indicating that their departures are part of a crackdown on poor leadership ahead of the regime’s introduction.

Speaking in parliament last month, the skills minister Anne Milton stressed the importance of “outstanding leadership” to the “financial resilience of the FE sector”.

“We want every college to have great leaders, both principals and governing bodies,” she said during a debate in support of the draft further-education bodies (insolvency) regulations 2018 – part of the insolvency regime – on October 31.

“Leaders that manage their colleges effectively will be key to preventing financial distress,” Ms Milton said.

The DfE has previously made it clear that once the insolvency regime comes into effect, the exceptional financial-support tap will be switched off.

This is cash, available as a grant or loan, for colleges that are “encountering financial, or cashflow, difficulties that put the continuation of provision at risk”.

Another form of financial support for struggling colleges, the restructuring facility, closed for applications last month.

This was originally intended to fund changes resulting from the area reviews of post-16 education and training, which ended in March 2017, but has been increasingly used to prop up failing colleges – although both the DfE and Ms Milton have repeatedly denied this.

Hull College reportedly received an eye-watering £54 million earlier this year, after reporting a deficit of close to £13 million in one year.

And Lambeth College is dependent on the £29 million it requested from the facility to keep it afloat until its merger with London South Bank University goes ahead.

In an expert piece in this week’s paper, Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ deputy chief executive, said the “restructuring deals have mainly been used to pay down debt and to replace bank loans with ones from government”.

“This is about clearing up messes. Big ones,” he said.

“People in top jobs in every sort of organisation make mistakes. In the college-restructuring cases, it’s the successors who have had to sort things out.”

Both Ms Milton and the FE commissioner, Richard Atkins [pictured above], have said they expect the number of colleges that actually go bust will be very small.

“Of course I don’t expect large numbers of colleges to become insolvent,” Ms Milton wrote in her monthly FE Week column last week.

“I know that some colleges do face challenges and it is vital that their boards are able to take decisive action and provide effective leadership to help improve matters.”

Appealing to college boards directly, she added: “If you think you’re heading into financial difficulties, I’d encourage you to tell us early and we can talk about what kind of support might be available.”

Mr Atkins has previously told FE Week he expected that he and his team would be called in to try to find a solution for a college in danger of going insolvent.

A DfE spokesperson said it would be publishing guidance for governors ahead of the insolvency regime taking effect.

“The Education and Skills Funding Agency and the FE commissioner will continue to play a role in supporting colleges with their financial health and resilience,” he said.

A quarter of apprenticeship providers that have received early-monitoring visits from Ofsted so far have been rated as making ‘insufficient progress’.

The inspectorate has published 90 of its new early-monitoring visit reports since they began in March this year, and 22 of these have been found to be ‘insufficient’ in at least one category.

Of the 20,298 apprentices in providers assessed under the new visits, 4,914 (24 per cent) are receiving training from providers that have been found to be ‘insufficient’ in one or more category.

In August, the Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed that any new apprenticeship provider which Ofsted deemed to be making ‘insufficient’ progress would be barred from taking on new apprentices, either directly or through subcontracting arrangements.

The ban will continue until the provider receives a full inspection, which should take place within a year, and has been awarded at least a grade three for its apprenticeship provision.

The ESFA can overrule this guidance only if it identifies an “exceptional extenuating circumstance”.

Providers are rated on whether they are meeting the requirements of apprenticeship provision, and the quality of their training and safeguarding, with some also graded on their adult-education provision. There are three possible results: insufficient progress, reasonable progress or significant progress.

 

Fourteen of the 90 reports published so far have included at least one ‘significant’ rating, accounting for 3,415 learners (16 per cent). Just three providers have received the highest possible grade of ‘significant progress’ in every category – the National Logistics Academy, WhiteHat Group and Marshall of Cambridge Aerospace – accounting for only 415 learners.

 In comparison, six have received the lowest possible grade, accounting for 1,110 learners. Premier People Solutions, Develop-U, Construction Gateway, NC Training, Care Training Solutions and Key6 Group have all been rated as making ‘insufficient progress’ in every category.

 So far, the ESFA has held true to its word and enforced a ban on all 20 providers which received at least one ‘insufficient’ rating in reports published up until October 25.

Two providers have been rated ‘insufficient’ since October 25, BPP University and Premier People Solutions.

Skills minister Anne Milton exclusively revealed to FE Week that the ESFA had decided to terminate its levy contract with Premier after the damning inspection report revealed unsafe recruitment practices for teachers who subsequently trained apprentices in government departments.

This means Premier will be removed from the register of apprenticeship providers in December.

However, the fate of BPP University, part of the global BPP Professional Education Group, is still unclear.

Even if BPP University is banned, the BPP group appears on RoATP another three times – as BPP Holdings, BPP Professional Education and BPP Actuarial Education – and none of these companies would be affected by a ban.

Any ban from Ofsted would also not include its level six and seven apprenticeship provision, which falls under the remit of the Office for Students. A spokesperson for OfS said it was “aware of the issue” and working with Ofsted and the Department for Education to address it.

Ofsted has received £5.4 million in government funding to carry out its early-monitoring visits of all new apprenticeship providers, which are thought to number as many as 1,200.

Learner numbers were not available for three providers: Moy Park, University of Suffolk and Sporting Futures Training (UK).

The Sixth Form Colleges Association is urging the government to keep the option for its members to convert to academy status open indefinitely, as the “arbitrary” deadline for doing so fast approaches.

Becoming an academy, and in doing so enjoying the luxury of not paying VAT, has been a possibility for nearly all SFCs since former chancellor George Osborne changed the rules in November 2015.

However, the window of opportunity closes in March when the £726 million restructuring facility – a fund designed to help colleges implement area review changes – ends and reverts back to the Treasury.

None of this was explored at the time when the government opened up the academy option to colleges

Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the SFCA, said this “cannot be right” and there is no “logical reason for rejecting colleges after an arbitrary date”.

“The government must continue to support those colleges that wish to academise after March – after all, some, such as the Catholic colleges, have not yet been free to adopt academy status because of a technical barrier that is no fault of theirs,” he told FE Week.

“The restructuring facility has not been deployed as much as was originally envisaged and should be extended.”

Guidance on applying to become an academy for SFCs, updated in January 2017, confirms that the option is “linked to the area review process”.

It adds, however, that the government will “consider in the light of experience from the area reviews whether further opportunities to apply should be available once the reviews are complete.

“But this opportunity does not exist at the moment, and colleges which wish to submit an application will need to do so as part of the relevant area review.”

When asked whether the Department for Education has made a decision on allowing SFCs to academise beyond March 2019, a spokesperson would only tell FE Week that the option is being looked at and more information would be available in due course.

Becoming an academy means SFCs no longer have to pay VAT – letting them off an average annual bill of £385,000.

The first to convert was Hereford SFC in March last year. Nineteen have since followed suit, leaving 62 designated SFCs. Three of these are, however, in the process of converting.

In an update from the ESFA about the restructuring facility last month, it was revealed that 30 applications to the fund have been made from 31 sixth form colleges “expressing plans to convert to academy status”, but the “majority have not been allocated any funding to support this conversion”.

A group of 14 which are Catholic-run have been completely prevented from converting due to their religious character, which would not be maintained under current government rules.

If they converted, they would lose protections in areas of curriculum, acts of worship and governance. The SFCA and Catholic Education Service have been trying to get the government to add a clause to the education bill to rectify this, but the DfE has not obliged.

Mr Watkin said “some more colleges are still interested in the possibility of converting” but academisation has “not always been an easy process”.

“The ESFA and the Transaction Unit [which administers the restructuring facility] have had to come up with solutions to unanticipated conversion problems; regional schools commissioners have had to adapt to a new and unfamiliar landscape; and pioneering colleges have had to navigate an untrodden path and overcome some significant snagging issues,” he told FE Week.

“RSCs and the national schools commissioner were not always on the same page and there were regional variations; some gave permission to colleges to become single academy trusts, some insisted on a multi academy trust (even if an unpopulated MAT); some then insisted on a populated MAT and now some are saying that there are already too many MATs in the region, they don’t want another one, so a college must join an existing MAT.”

He added: “None of this was explored at the time when the government opened up the academy option to colleges as a way of offering VAT relief.”

Ofsted has denied cuts to its budget have affected the number of FE inspections it carries out, despite analysis by FE Week finding full inspections plunged by a third in just one year.

Inspections with an apprenticeship grade saw the most dramatic fall of over 40 per cent, leading to the shadow secretary of state for skills describing a “black hole on what we know about their quality”.

The findings come less than three weeks before the chief inspector of Ofsted is due to publish her state of the nation annual report, on December 4.

The figures to August 31 2018 show that just 203 FE providers received full Ofsted inspections in 2017/18, a fall of 32 per cent from the year before when 298 were inspected.

Most strikingly, the number of ITPs – including employer providers – which received full inspections almost halved, falling 44 per cent from 126 to 70.

And the number of full inspections which graded providers on their apprenticeship provision dropped 42 per cent from 189 to 109.

However, the inspectorate has insisted that the fall in inspections “isn’t a funding issue” and has “nothing to do with funding”.

“We carried out the number of inspections that we intended to carry out in 2017/18, and included a sample of monitoring visits to new providers,” a spokesperson said, adding that Ofsted now has the extra cash needed to monitor and inspect all new providers in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

“We deployed our inspection resources in 2017/18 to ensure that providers were inspected in accordance with the timescales and frequencies detailed within the handbook.

“We completed all the inspections we were required to, and in addition we deployed our remaining inspector resource to inspect a number of providers identified through our risk assessment process, and conducted a limited number of new provider monitoring visits.”

However, shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden warned that the government’s “failure to fund Ofsted adequately for colleges and apprenticeships is leaving a black hole on what we know about their quality.

“Taken together with the Department for Education’s snail pace on delivering end-point assessment, it adds up to the department being asleep on the job whilst FE becomes ever more fragile.”

Ofsted is in line to lose £15 million between 2016/17 and 2019/20 from its inspection budget, which is predicted to fall by 10 per cent from £141,685,000 to £127,100,000.

Between 2010/11 and 2016/17, the watchdog’s financial resource was reduced by over £54 million.

In April, FE Week reported that Ofsted was in line to save around £400,000 this academic year by elongating the maximum period between inspections for ‘good’ providers.

Grade two providers previously received a short inspection within three years, but now can wait for up to five years before they are visited again.

A spokesperson for Ofsted said one of the reasons for the drop in the number of full inspections was because there were “a greater proportion of short inspections carried out last year” ahead of the change.

However, although short inspections did rise by almost a third – from 94 to 122 – this was not sufficient to make up for the plummeting levels of full inspections. The total number of inspections, when taking full and short together, still fell by 17 per cent last year, from 392 to 325.

The spokesperson also said apprenticeship provision is only graded in full inspections, hence the fall in the number of reports which inspected it. Although Ofsted has now introduced monitoring visits of new apprenticeship providers, she admitted that even when these visits are added to the number of apprenticeship judgments made in full inspections there was still an eight per cent drop compared with 2016/17.

The monitoring visits only assess providers on three measures – or four if they offer adult education – and only concentrate on new providers, meaning that existing apprenticeship providers are still going unmonitored.

The DfE declined to comment.

More than three quarters of colleges are now rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ and none are deemed ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted as further education continues its ascent into excellence.

FE Week analysis of Ofsted results shows that an impressive 76 per cent of all general FE colleges are now rated in the inspectorate’s top two categories, up from 69 per cent in 2016/17.

The last academic year also saw more than twice as many colleges move into Ofsted’s sweet spot of grade one or two than fall out of the top ranks.

A total of 19 colleges moved up to grade two in 2018, with one climbing up the ranks from ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’. In contrast, just eight fell out of the top category, with seven becoming grade three after being ‘good’ and one falling from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement.’

David Corke, director of policy at the Association of Colleges, said: “This analysis only further goes to affirm the good work and support colleges provide to the 2.2 million people studying and training in colleges every day.

“As we edge ever closer to leaving the European Union, colleges will need to be supported adequately as they look to provide the right training and solutions – and this means the right level of investment.”

There are currently no colleges labelled as Ofsted’s lowest grade of ‘inadequate’. However, part of the reason for this is the mergers of poorly rated colleges which have been carried out over the past year. When two colleges merge, both have their Ofsted grades wiped.

Stockport College, Huntingdonshire Regional College, Mid-Cheshire College of Further Education, Redcar and Cleveland College and Amersham Wycombe College all lost their grade-four ratings after a series of mergers.

 The proportion of sixth form colleges rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ has remained steady at 81 per cent, after falling from 89 per cent in 2016. Independent learning providers, including employer providers, have experienced a small fall from 81 per cent in the top two categories last year to 78 per cent this year.

 Across the entire FE sector, 63 per cent of providers were rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in inspections this year, bringing the total in the top half of Ofsted grades up to 80 per cent.

Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, backed calls for more 16-to-18 funding last month, and warned that some colleges were struggling to reach the top Ofsted grades because of their tight finances.

In a letter to the public accounts committee on October 30, she warned that “real-terms cuts to FE and skills funding are affecting the sustainability and quality of FE and skills provision”, and said this verdict was “based on our inspection evidence”.

“My strong view is that the government should use the forthcoming spending review to increase the base rate for 16-to-18 funding,” she wrote.

 “Over time our evidence shows that many colleges have reduced the teaching time allocated to some programmes of study, reduced the number of teaching and/ or support staff employed, reduced the number of courses offered and reduced the amount of enrichment or extracurricular activity provided.

“These measures all have an impact on the provision offered.”

FE Week also discovered that six of the highest-rated sixth-form colleges have not been inspected in over a decade. Hills Road Sixth Form College, Circencester College, Woodhouse College, Carmel College, Richard Huish College and Winstanley College are all still rated as ‘outstanding’, despite the fact they were all last inspected between the November 2006 and October 2007.

Ms Spielman has previously urged the government to authorise more regular inspections of ‘outstanding’ schools and warned they lack oversight and create “real blind spots” for the inspectorate.

A spokesperson for Ofsted confirmed Ms Spielman’s comments about the outstanding exemption, which was introduced in 2011, applied to all providers including FE.