FE destinations and earnings data: The 5 key findings

The government has today released figures for outcomes of FE learners, showing stark gender pay gaps, differences in earnings and future employment and learning across the sector.

The data covers the destinations of 1.1 million learners who completed an FE course between 2013-14 and 2015-16, and the earnings of those who studied between 2010-11 and 2015-16.

Here are five things that we learnt.

 

1. Level four apprenticeships were the biggest earners

Those who took a higher apprenticeship course earned on average £17,400 one year after study, but this grew by a whopping 53 per cent to hit £26,700 five years after study. In contrast, learners on an intermediate apprenticeship course were more likely to start off on £13,500, rising just 33 per cent to £17,900 in five years.

There was also a big difference in earnings depending on subject. Those who took an advanced apprenticeship in engineering were paid an average of £27,400 one year later, but those taking a direct learning support qualification had an average salary of £12,800.

On average, annual earnings rose by seven per cent every year for intermediate apprenticeships, six per cent every year for advanced apprenticeships and 11 per cent for level four apprenticeships.

2. Men earned a LOT more than women

When looking into the gender pay gap of the salary data, there is a clear divide between the earnings of men and women.

Five years after taking a higher apprenticeship, men were earning an average salary of £29,000 but women were paid £25,000. A similar pay difference is found in advanced apprenticeships, with men earning £21,000 after five years but women on £16,000.

The starkest difference can be found at level six skills courses. Women, on average, began their careers on £23,000 while men earned a starting salary of £38,400. Five years after study, this gap rises even further, with women on £24,600 and men on £42,700.

 

3. Most learners went on to be in sustained employment

Sustained employment, classed as being in paid employment or self-employment for five of the six months between October and March in the academic year 2016-17, was the most common destination for FE learners.

The figures show that 65 per cent of learners were in sustained employment, with five per cent of those self-employed and 13 per cent studying alongside their employment. Of the 221,400 learners who had been receiving out-of-work benefits when they began their course, 46 per cent ended up in sustained employment, a drop of two per cent of the year before.

4. Almost a quarter continued learning

The data shows that 23 per cent of learners were continuing their education a year later, of which 13 per cent were also in sustained employment. Almost half were on an apprenticeship (five per cent), a higher education course (four per cent) or studying for a qualification at level four (one per cent).

The figures also show success for access to higher education courses, with 61 per cent of learners who completed a course enrolled in higher education by the next academic year.

 

5. Traineeships are growing in popularity

The number of learners completing a traineeship has more than trebled since it was introduced, growing from 4,750 in 2013-14 to 17,230 in 2015-16.

Of those who took a traineeship in 2015-16, 51 per cent were in sustained employment a year later and 30 per cent were in sustained learning, of which 18 per cent progressed to an apprenticeship

DfE launches consultation on fully-funded digital skills training

The Department for Education has launched a consultation on the new national standards for digital skills, including plans for new qualifications at two levels.

The consultation sets out the government’s plans to overhaul the current national standards, which set out core digital skills, as well as improving basic digital skills with qualifications at ‘beginner’ and ‘essential’ levels. 

All adults without basic digital skills will be able to enrol on the new qualifications free of charge from 2020, as previously reported by FE Week.

Free digital skills training for adults was first announced by the government in October 2016, and became law in April 2017 as part of the Digital Economy Act. Funding for the courses will come from the existing £1.5 billion annual adult education budget.

The consultation document said the publicly funded digital skills courses will be “offered up to and including the ‘essential’ level (level 1)”, but that extending the entitlement to courses at level 2 would be considered “in the longer term”.

It added that, in order to make sure that only those adults who do not have secure basic digital skills receive funding, providers will need to carry out stringent checks on learners.

This will include assessing their current skill level, ongoing assessment to support learning, and recording evidence of all assessment outcomes in a learner file.

However, the document also noted that the government had “found few initial assessments for basic digital skills that would meet the proposed AEB funding rules” and said it would “welcome” examples of best practice.

“In advance of introducing the entitlement in 2020, we will publish a list of qualifications eligible to be included in the digital entitlement offer, alongside those specified for English and maths,” it said.

“For a qualification to be approved as part of the entitlement offer, awarding organisations will need to submit qualifications developed on the new national standards for consideration against the qualification eligibility principles. Further details on this process will be confirmed in due course.”

Announcing the consultation launch, skills minister Anne Milton warned that one in five people living in the UK do not have “basic digital skills”, and said increasing understanding was a “big challenge to tackle”.

The ‘beginner’ qualification will be designed for adults with little or no prior experience of using digital devices or the internet, and will include basic skills like using a search engine, sending and receiving emails, completing online forms and protecting personal information, and  supporting them to use digital devices like tablets, smart phones and laptop. 

The ‘essential’ qualification, designed for those with “some experience” but who are “lacking secure digital skills” will include topics like evaluating online content, managing online identity and understanding and exercising rights for controlling the use of personal data.

Another consultation, run by qualification regulator Ofqual, is also due to launch imminently on aspects such as the structure and title of the qualifications and coverage of the standards.

The Department for Education’s consultation will run until January 10, 2019.

The missing middle gap: what’s happening with level 4 and 5?

With the DfE taking a renewed interest in intermediate-level provision, FE needs to seize the moment, says Professor Ewart Keep

We are currently experiencing a surge of policy interest in the strange “missing middle gap” that exists in provision between level 3 and level 6 (university degrees) – witness the Department for Education’s level 4 and 5 review, and also some of the questions being posed by the government’s post-18 funding review.

In the vast majority of OECD countries, this gap does not exist and sub-degree provision is extensive. Even in our close neighbour Scotland, sub-degree courses have remained a much larger component of post-compulsory activity than here; and policy has established a clear demarcation of roles, which leaves colleges dealing with sub-degree work and universities dealing with degrees and above.

Behind England’s renewed policy interest in this gap lies a sneaking suspicion that we have put too many eggs in the full-time, three-year, full-honours university-degree basket, and ignored more cost-effective and appropriate alternatives. The current pause for reflection could provide an opportunity for English FE to develop new high-quality vocational progression pathways.

An important starting point is that until the recession of the early 1980s, we used to have a lot of this kind of provision – overseen by employers and aimed at their technician workforce. Alongside apprenticeships, large employers such as the BBC, the National Coal Board, British Steel, BP, ICI, PO telecoms, British Rail and the electricity boards all offered HND/HNC technician training via day or block release or night school.

We need shorter, snappier, employment-oriented courses

Besides the more conventional full-time model of sub-degree courses, it is this part-time, employment-based model that we urgently need to think about reviving. This will require qualifications and course design/curricula that meet genuine employer need for technicians and associate professional occupations, across a range of sectors, and which can deliver packages of learning that not only equip individuals for entry into an immediate job-role, but also act as the foundational platform for subsequent reskilling and upskilling.

The on- and off-the-job elements will need to be integrated into coherent packages of learning, with close cooperation between college and employer, along the lines promoted by the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning report. For provision to be effective, it should be based around a co-production model, not a provider/customer relationship, which means FE working in partnership with individual firms and employer groups (such as group training associations), Catapult innovation centres, institutes of technology and awarding bodies.

This would not be an easy task, but there are three reasons why it would be worth the effort. First, such a development would complement T-levels, and provide a logical progression route for many students.

When T-levels were first mooted, the talk was that they would be designed to lead to entry into work rather than subsequent study, but since then policy has been furiously back-pedalling because without the draw of a subsequent learning progression pathway, it has been realised that T- levels will not be sufficiently attractive to high-calibre students.

Second, given the labour-market impacts of Brexit, problems with an ageing technician workforce in some sectors, and the impact of technological change meaning that more and more adults will need to retrain and upskill, new learning opportunities to address these needs will be required. Current wisdom probably favours degrees, but the length and cost of such courses militates against their utility in this role.

We need shorter, snappier, employment-oriented courses of the type found elsewhere across the developed world.

Finally, alongside T-levels, enlarging this area of provision would help boost the vocational nature and status of English FE. At present, the bulk of FE students are pursuing level 2 and below courses, and considerable amounts of provision are “second chance” in nature, often remediating the failures of secondary schooling. The lesson from abroad is clear: for FE to be seen as higher status, it needs to also include a strong and highly visible component of intermediate and technician-level provision.

Campus sale near Grenfell tower ‘shameful’, says new college principal following investigation

A college that sold its main campus to make way for housing has apologised for the “shameful behaviours of past management” following an independent review into the controversial sell-off.

The site on Wornington Road, one of Kensington and Chelsea College’s two main campuses, was sold for £25.3 million to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 2016 under a lease-back deal.

The local authority then outlined proposals to demolish the building for housing, which became controversial when the fire at nearby Grenfell Tower in June last year killed at least 80 people.

The Save Wornington College Campaign attracted huge support to protest the sale, which was led by Edward Daffarn, who escaped the blaze.

Now, an independent review conducted by investigative consultancy firm Kroll has concluded that the sale was “plainly wrong” and not in the interests of its local community.

The report catalogues the failure of management and governance in several areas including a lack of consultation with the local community in the period before the sale, and failure to consider and evaluate alternatives to a sale to RBKC.

It also highlights shortcomings in determining the final sale price of the Wornington Road site; and “excluding” of college student and staff governors before the final decision to sell the college to RBKC.

Negotiations with RBKC are now underway to “determine how the Wornington road site should serve its local community into the long term”.

Kensington and Chelsea College’s new principal, Andy Cole, took the reins in February this year from Dr Elaine McMahon, who served as the college’s interim principal when Mark Brickley resigned with immediate effect in 2016 – who was the man responsible for the sale.

“The report highlights shameful behaviours of past management in excluding staff, students and the local community from its discussions and decision making over the sale,” Mr Cole said.

“There has been a complete break with the past across the last year at executive Leadership as well as board level and we are in negotiations with RBKC to determine how the Wornington Road site will serve the needs of its communities into the long term.”

Kensington and Chelsea College’s interim chair Ian Valvona, who replaced Mary Curnock Cook when she resigned last year, said: “The sale of the college’s Wornington Road site was plainly the wrong thing to do – even when you consider the College’s very difficult financial situation in 2016.

“Today the College apologises for that sale and I want to recognise the role of the local community and the Save Wornington College Campaign for helping to ensure that the full details of this sale finally saw the light of day.”

The sale of the Wornington site was led by Mr Brickley in the face of falling income. In 2012 the college’s income sat at £27.5 million but fell to just £9.25 million in 2016.

But what outraged the community was not only the sale but the way in which it was signed off.

Kroll’s report notes that on April 22, 2016, Mr Brickley “sent an email to the K&CC board of governors stating that the terms of the agreement ‘…now ensure we have the right of first refusal to any space within the future development that is provided as schedule D1 (educational or community use)’.

“The email did not state that K&CC in actuality had no control to compel RBKC to develop a D1 facility as part of a future development.

“The email was not copied to staff/student governors who had been excluded from the main board of governors meetings that discussed the sale of the Kensington Centre to RBKC.”

The furore surrounding the future of KCC in the shadow of the Grenfell Tower made it to the House of Commons earlier this year, after the skills minister Anne Milton promised to find the “right solution” for a “precious” community asset.

 

Where will all the T-level teachers come from?

The ambitious plans for T-levels will surely fail unless more well-qualified staff can be attracted to the sector, warns Simon Martin

In September we saw FE representatives from across the sector almost unanimously voting that the timetable for T-level implementation was “reckless”, at the parliamentary debate staged by FE Week and Pearson.

But even if the sector manages to pull off industry placements and the rushed tendering process, one problem will still seriously threaten T-level delivery – namely, the availability of sufficient numbers of well-qualified, experienced staff.

Department for Education papers and ministerial pronouncements have repeatedly described T-levels as “a skills revolution”, and most recently the education secretary Damian Hinds has extolled them as the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to ensure the UK economy has the skilled workers it needs to compete globally.

Part of the wiring for this is the beefed up 900 hours per annum (1,800 over two years). Allowing for a top-end 60-day industry placement, that leaves 1,500 “classroom” hours, 25 per cent more than a 16-19 study programme top-funded at band 5 (around 1,200 hours over two years).

Even with increased qualification funding to match, that higher level of contact time will place a strain on the teaching establishments of institutions both large and small, which are already struggling with recruitment alongside funding and finances, as recent headlines testify.

The recruitment landscape looks problematic

The DfE reported in February that the FE sector has a 20,000-teacher shortfall, which is most severe in priority subjects. The two most recent FE workforce data collections (the “staff individualised record data insights” produced by the Education and Training Foundation) chart a 3 per cent trend of annual workforce decline over several years, a shrinkage that is doubled among FE teachers. The Teaching, leadership and governance in further education research report published earlier this year concluded, unsurprisingly, that FE teacher supply is a big problem, with growing fears for recruitment because reforms are “reshaping the skills that are required”, particularly in STEM subjects.

Skills and industry currency are also a problem. The latest FE workforce survey has identified that across the board “learner-facing technical staff” have increased by just 1 per cent. That will hardly supply the human resources required for a “skills revolution”. Moreover, the providers who offer T-levels will be competing against industry for the same highly skilled staff. Against a well-documented backdrop of low pay for FE teachers and the government’s refusal to fund pay increases in the same way as schoolteachers, the recruitment landscape looks problematic.

The initial T-level pathways include childcare and education, digital and construction. Worryingly, the economic sectors with the greatest projected employee shortfalls by 2050 are: No. 1 – teachers (128,000); No. 2 – construction (66,800); No. 4 – engineers (36,800); and No. 5 – IT (33,300).

Labour supply problems already exist at this “high end” of the sector. Recruitment and retention problems for end-point assessors for apprenticeship standards have been widely aired in the past few months, with some day-rate fees reputedly approaching £1,000. In the digital route there are already 15 standards available, with another half dozen in development; for the construction route this rises to 60, with a further 30-plus in development. These supply-and-demand pressures will exacerbate the T-level teacher problem.

The ETF is pursuing a number of worthy initiatives through the workforce development strategy for technical education. These include Taking Teaching Further, Teach Too, SET for Teaching Success and Further Forces, among others.

However, the central question of how to persuade highly skilled industry practitioners into FE teaching, with the disparity in potential and actual earnings between the sectors and pay constraints in FE, is yet to be addressed by the government. Mr Hinds has just announced a £38 million capital boost for schools and colleges in the first wave of T-levels, for “cutting-edge equipment and facilities”.

This is all well and good, but unless some similar investment is made in the human estate for technical education, those state-of-the-art facilities and equipment may well be standing idle.

Thousands march on parliament to protest for fair college funding

Thousands of learners, staff and leaders marched on parliament today in “the most amazing show by colleges ever” to demand fairer funding, as the centrepiece of Colleges Week.

The march for FE, organised by the University and College Union in partnership with the Association of Colleges, was followed by a packed rally in Parliament Square during which Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declared his support for colleges and their “pathway to liberation”.

“It’s the most amazing show by colleges ever,” said David Hughes, the AoC’s chief executive as he addressed the crowd.

“We’re here to really shout out about how proud we are about what colleges can achieve, and we are making a noise in parliament, we are sending a message to government,” he said.

“We’re not after handouts. We’re after investment,” he said.

“I support this demonstration because college education is very, very important,” Mr Corbyn said.

“It’s the pathway to liberation for many of our young people. It’s the pathway for older people to discover new things about themselves, new subjects, new opportunities and indeed a career change if that’s what they want.”

“Stand today for properly funded colleges and properly paid staff. Stand today for the principles of education for all as a right,” he urged.

Earlier shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said she was “so sorry that this current government doesn’t value the work that you do”.

“They know the cost of everything but the value of nothing,” she said.

“We need investment in our education now,” she demanded.

Protesters packed out Parliament Square – despite the rain

Representatives from at least 30 colleges from across the country were understood to have taken part in today’s march in the heart of the capital.

The thousands of protestors headed through Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall, cheering, chanting and bearing placards demanding more funding for colleges.

There were large contingents from Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College and New City College, both of which closed their campuses today to allow staff and students to take part.

Gerry McDonald, group principal of New City College, told FE Week its four campuses in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Redbridge and Epping Forest were closed “to get as many people as possible, to really get the message across that FE has got to have its funding sorted out for the long-term future of the country”.

“We’ve done the lobbying. We’ve spoken to civil servant and politicians for a long time and we feel now we need to do something a bit more dramatic like today and make a bit more of a fuss about it,” he said.

Karen Redhead, principal of EHWLC, said her leadership team had “taken the decision to close so that students and staff can take part in this very positive lobby that celebrates everything that fantastic about FE colleges”.

A group from Leeds City College had spent six hours on a coach to be at today’s march.

These include Ivola Dombay, a GCSE English teacher at the college, who said she was motivated by funding cuts that meant she was teaching overcrowded classes.

“We’ve barely got enough chairs for them to sit on, we haven’t got enough teachers,” she said.

As well as the march on parliament, college leaders, staff and students have been lobbying MPs to plead the case for more funding for FE.

Throughout the week, colleges across the country are putting on their own events and “inviting the local community to celebrate the impact that colleges have”, an AoC spokesperson said.

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 – an announcement that left AoC boss David Hughes “angry” and “frustrated”.

“The issue is we are in a very tight funding financial constraint position with government so we have to make a lot more noise and get a lot more students, staff, parents, employers, stakeholders, partners to advocate for colleges,” he told FE Week in August.

Three schools removed from T-levels 2020 delivery but one college added

Three schools will no longer deliver the first wave of T-levels after one received a low grade from Ofsted and two others “decided not to” take part.

But Suffolk New College has been added to the list of those delivering the technical qualifications from 2020, after the government went back out to find providers when the construction pathway changed from “building” to “design”.

Announcing the changes today, a release from the Department for Education said: “We have added Suffolk New College to our list of high-quality providers who will deliver the first, world-class T-levels from 2020.

“This follows their expression of interest to deliver the design, surveying and planning T-level.

“We have also removed two providers from the list who have decided not to deliver T-levels in 2020 and a third provider has withdrawn due to a recent Ofsted inspection grading.”

FE Week understands the three schools to have been removed from the list are the Archbishop Holgate’s School in York, the George Abbot School in Surrey and Bordesley Green Girls’ School in Birmingham.

The only one of the three to have had a recent Ofsted inspection is Bordesley Green, which was rated ‘requires improvement’ by the inspectorate in a report that was published on June 28. It had previously been rated ‘outstanding’.

All three have been approached for comment.

The first T-level providers were announced at the end of May. George Abbot School was only added to the list on June 18, alongside sixth form college turned 16-to-19 academy Priestley College.

Kate Carriett, headteacher of George Abbot School, said the school had “come to the conclusion that we wish to consolidate our provision and expertise in the new A-levels at this point in time.” 

She added: “This does not mean that we will not wish to offer the new exciting T-levels in the future.”

FE Week reported in June that only a quarter of the providers which applied to offer T-levels in 2020 were successful.

Until today’s changes were announced, 16 schools had been approved for the first wave of the qualifications. While 26 colleges made the cut, many were told they weren’t eligible even though they had grade two ratings from Ofsted.

In January this year the Education and Skills Funding Agency invited expressions of interest from providers which wanted to become the first to offer T-levels.

Providers – which can be colleges, independent training providers, university technical colleges or schools that currently deliver relevant ESFA-funded 16-to-19 education to at least 10 students – must be rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted and must have at least ‘satisfactory’ financial health.

Of the 52 providers chosen, 32 were ‘outstanding’ and 14 were ‘good’, while a further six didn’t have a current Ofsted rating. 

Five of these were academies that were rated ‘outstanding’ before they converted, and the sixth is a university technical college that has yet to be inspected. Suffolk New College has been rated ‘good’ by Ofsted. 

The updated list of T-level providers for 2020-21

Name of provider Region 
Access Creative College (Access to Music Ltd.) West Midlands
Barnsley College Yorkshire and the Humber
Bedfordshire & Luton Education Business Partnership East of England
Big Creative Training Limited London
Bishop Burton College Yorkshire and the Humber
Blackpool and The Fylde College North West
Bridgwater & Taunton College South West
Cardinal Newman College North West
Chichester College Group South East
Cirencester College South West
City College Norwich East of England
City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College West Midlands
Cranford Community College London
Derby College East Midlands
Dudley College of Technology West Midlands
Durham Sixth Form Centre North East
Exeter College South West
Fareham College South East
Farnborough College of Technology South East
Gateshead College North East
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education Yorkshire and the Humber
Havant and South Downs College South East
HCUC London
La Retraite RC Girls School London
London Design & Engineering UTC London
Lordswood Girls’ School & Sixth Form Centre West Midlands
Nelson and Colne College North West
New College Durham North East
Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College Yorkshire and the Humber
Oldham Sixth Form College North West
Painsley Catholic College West Midlands
Peter Symonds College South East
Priestley College North West
Runshaw College North West
Salesian School South East
Sandwell Academy West Midlands
Scarborough Sixth Form College Yorkshire and the Humber
Shipley College of Further Education Yorkshire and the Humber
St Thomas More Catholic School North East
Strode College South West
Suffolk New College East of England
Sussex Coast College Hastings South East
The College of Richard Collyer South East
The Leigh UTC South East
Thorpe St Andrew School and Sixth Form East of England
Truro and Penwith College South West
University College Birmingham West Midlands
Ursuline High School London
Walsall College West Midlands
Walsall Studio School West Midlands
Weston College South West
York College Yorkshire and the Humber

Revealed: The 12 colleges to receive targeted careers training

The Association of Colleges is to receive over £400,000 to teach staff in 12 colleges to deliver effective careers training for disadvantaged learners.

The Careers & Enterprise Company today announced the first wave of organisations to benefit from a £2.5 million investment fund to support personal guidance in schools and colleges.

Four organisations will share just under £870,000 in the first phase, with up to £1.7 million available in the second round. The four organisations are Achieving for Children, Adviza, the AoC and Careers Connect.

The AoC will receive the largest slice, being given £431,000.

The project is aimed to “strengthen and extend the reach of their existing personal guidance delivery” within  12 colleges (see list below).

It will train curriculum staff to “deliver effective ‘triage’ which supports the delivery of every learner receiving a personal guidance interview” and the colleges included will be “providing support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and special educational needs”.

The AoC previously said the “type of additional activity” supported through the fund includes upskilling “existing careers professionals – qualified staff get access to continuing professional development, unqualified staff supported to achieve QCF Level 6” and “training for new careers professionals for future delivery”.

“Our proposal will aim to develop effective ways for groups of colleges to work together to deliver personal guidance in a cost-effective way,” the association added.

The ‘Personal Guidance Fund’ invests in “projects that deliver innovative models of personal careers guidance to clusters of schools and colleges”, the Careers & Enterprise Company said.

“With a focus on the training of careers development professionals, the fund aims to explore the effectiveness of different approaches to career guidance, and how they can be scaled up and integrated across the education system.”

These programmes will be used to create “case studies, develop guidance on scaling best practice, identify new approaches and make the case for further investment”.

Career Connect, a charity working across the North West, will receive £220,000 to provide careers advice and guidance services in 12 “identified schools” in the region.

Adviza is working across Thames Valley and has been given £114,000 to deliver two programmes.

The first will offer a “number of level six career guidance trained advisers the opportunity to gain an accredited coaching qualification” and the second will “improve the impact of personal guidance by harnessing the power of parents and carers”.

Achieving for Children will receive £105,000 to work across 13 mainstream and special schools, “providing ‘Next Steps’ personal guidance interviews to students with education, health and care plans and those with special educational needs in years 10 and 13”.

The interviews will “provide information on post-16 options and help them explore longer term aspirations”.

Claudia Harris (pictured), chief executive of the Careers & Enterprise Company, said: “Personal guidance is a key ingredient of a good careers education.

“We know there are already countless careers professional doing really effective, innovative work in the personal guidance space. This fund is about backing and celebrating that good practice, so it can be scaled up and shared across the country.”

Applications for the second wave of funding are open from today (October 16) until the end of November. Interested organisations should contact investment@careersandenterprise.co.uk.

The 12 colleges to receive targeted careers training:

                Abingdon and Witney College

                Barnsley College

                City of Westminster College

                Derby College

                Heart of Worcestershire College

                Isle of Wight College

                Leicester College

                Petroc

                RNN Group

                Selby College

                South Devon College

                York College

ESFA overhaul of their register of apprenticeship training providers is more urgent than ever

It all seemed so sensible when the ESFA first announced at the FE Week Annual Apprenticeship Conference in March 2016 that they would be launching a Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP).

Employers would be able to choose from a list of “high-quality” providers and everyone would have confidence that the annual £2bn of public money would be well spent in England.

Following an application process, the sector was left in shock in March 2017 to discover the ESFA’s claim of “top-quality” included the inclusion on RoATP of many newly incorporated companies with no trading history.

These companies on RoAPT, many still with no apprenticeship delivery, can then be bought for around £50,000 as a way to gain access to public funding.

But, the problem is not so much with the ability to buy and sell companies on a government register.

The problem was created when the ESFA let companies onto the register with no trading history and no filed accounts.

 It was particularly easy to get on without a trading history because the ESFA was having to judge plans instead of track record, when it came to capacity, quality and finances.

In fact, perverse as it may sound, it would have been easier for the owners of an established provider with poor quality or financial issues to incorporate a new company and apply based on a fictional plan.

The ESFA has belatedly realised their RoAPT application process was deeply flawed, and the register has been closed to new applicants for a full year now.

But, as we expose this week, the longer it is closed the more value those on it may be able extract in a sale.

 So the ESFA must prioritise a complete overhaul of the register, urgently, starting with a reapplication process for everyone that has not had a satisfactory visit from Ofsted in the last five years – which will include those that have not started any apprentices since May 2017.

Then the new application process needs to set the capacity, quality and finances bar far higher, with a process of due diligence commensurate with the ‘top quality’ claims.

This would put an end to the madness of someone simply setting up a company in name alone, so as to sell access to a government approved register.