The Association of Colleges has rejected six out of 14 proposals put forward by the government in its consultation on T-level funding from 2020.

The consultation, which closes tonight after running for 12 weeks, sought opinions on four new funding bands and subsidy for the industry placement element of the new technical qualifications, among other plans.

In contrast, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers agreed with all 14 proposals (you can read their full consultation submission here).

The AoC took particular issue with the DfE’s proposed funding bands, which would range from £4,170 to £5,835 per year, depending on the size of the T-level.

“We cannot support the proposals because they do not offer enough funding to deliver the quality and experience that colleges want to offer students,” its response said.

The DfE also recommends that each industry placement within a T-level should be covered with an additional £550 per student.

However, the AoC said it was not clear what the amount should cover.

“A detailed cost model needs to be developed with pilot organisations and then shared transparently,” its consultation submission response said.

“Industry placements require sourcing of appropriate placements, confirming roles and responsibilities, monitoring (including dealing with breakdowns) and evaluation.”

It added: “The funding consultation does not outline proposals for bursary funding to help cover the vital travel and appropriate work wear costs of students which will be higher for those in rural areas and from disadvantaged communities. Such funding will be crucial to ensure the smooth running of placements and allow for fair access.”

Another of the DfE’s proposals is to give providers a one-off payment of £750 per subject per student who has not yet achieved a GCSE grade 4 (or above) or a level two functional skills qualification in maths and or English, so they can continue studying these subjects as part of their T-level programme in order to meet the “minimum exit requirement”.

The AoC said English and maths should be “appropriately funded for as long as necessary for a student to achieve passes at grade 4 or above; in a relatively small number of cases that will be two years of funding” and “£750 will not be sufficient to fund two years of English and or maths where needed”.

“To suggest that funding allocated in the first year of the programme will mean that providers are ‘encouraged to help student gain their level two qualifications as soon as they are ready’ indicates a lack of understanding of the current approach of providers,” the association said.

“If all it took was ‘encouragement’ every student would pass their first resit. Colleges want as many students to pass first time as possible, but student skills gaps and self-confidence often mitigate against this.”

You can read the AoC’s full submission to the T-levels funding consultation here.

The other organisation that has members who will deliver the first T-levels is the Sixth Form Colleges Association, but it did not enter a submission to this consultation.

Its deputy chief executive, James Kewin, said: “We sit on a series of government groups about T-levels where we share the views of our members. On this occasion we chose not to submit a formal response to the consultation.”

In the build up to consultation deadline the Department for Education held an hour-long webinar on February 5 where officials explained the proposals, and took part in a lengthy Q&A session. You can watch the webinar below.

The government is developing a tool to risk assess independent training providers, as part of “strengthening” oversight.

The plan, which was revealed in the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s management board minutes from January, comes as the agency ploughs more resources into its capacity to audit and intervene in training firms.

In September FE Week revealed the agency was recruiting assurance managers for a market oversight unit, who would have a specific focus on independent training providers.

It follows the collapse of a number of big providers, such as 3aaa in October and First4Skills in March 2017.

The move also follows the downfall of the nation’s biggest FE provider LearnDirect, which was bought up by Dimensions Training Solution last year after it lost its ESFA funding contract due to a grade four Ofsted report in 2017 and struggled to find new business.

Furthermore, the ESFA has also been looking into introducing contract caps for private providers, or recommended funding limits as it calls them, to limit the size of providers by regulating how much money a provider can earn from the government.

Last December, in response to an education select committee report recommending caps, the DfE said: “The ESFA is considering the introduction of provider earnings limits to ensure control, not just for quality reasons, but also to control the potential size and expansion of providers. We will be seeking views from the sector on this in the coming months.”

FE Week understands that part of the reason for developing an “ITP Risk Assessment Tool” would be to determine different contract cap levels (were the cap level policy to be implemented).

In October, the ESFA director of apprenticeships, Keith Smith said all providers on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers would have a financial cap and the agency would determine how much a provider could earn.

A proposal branded “absurd” by the chair of one of the country’s largest providers, HIT Training’s John Hyde.

Undeterred, the ESFA is also introducing contract managers for the largest firms.

In a letter from December, ESFA FE director Peter Mucklow wrote: “Our contract managers will work closely with ITPs to ensure that public funds are safeguarded, increasing our scrutiny in order to protect learners participating in apprenticeships and other ESFA funded programmes.”

A team of 16 education experts have joined Labour’s lifelong learning commission.

Among the new commissioners are former education secretary Estelle Morries, former Association of Colleges chair Carole Stott, managing director of City and Guilds Kirstie Donnelly, and FE Week contributor professor Ewart Keep.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will officially launch the commission, which will develop his party’s policy of free education “from cradle to grave” in its proposed National Education Service, today at the Manufacturers’ Conference in London.

“Its task is to devise an inclusive system of adult education to be implemented by the next Labour government that will transform the lives of millions and reskill our economy,” he will say.

“The commission will make detailed proposals on how to integrate qualifications, introduce a credits system to make qualifications transferable and make it as easy as possible for people to pick up or pause their studies at times that work for them.”

The commission will carry out work on funding models that would “ensure that education is free at the point of use for all those who need it”.

It will operate independently, but with regular input from shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, and shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden.

Mr Marsden told FE Week that for “too long” England’s education system has had “silos in different areas, particularly if we’re talking about older learners”.

“They need to have certainty they can get on and off the skills escalator as and when they need it,” he said.

“We don’t know what jobs we’re going to have in the next ten years, but we know a lot more generic skills will be required.

“We are looking at plans for an eco-system that will last ten, 15 years. Government are doing short term policies such as the three million apprenticeships target by 2020. Our approach is much more holistic.”

Mr Marsden said the lifelong learning commission will formally meet every three to four weeks and sub-groups will be set up to tackle more specific issues.

The commission’s work will not “drag on” for two to three years like a Royal Commission, he added.

Membership of Labour’s lifelong learning commission:

Co-Chair – Estelle Morris, former education secretary

Co-chair – Dave Ward, general secretary, Communication Workers Union

Graeme Atherton – Director of the National Education Opportunities Network

Joyce Black – Assistant Director, R&D, Learning and Work Institute

Amatey Doku – Vice President Higher Education, National Union of Students

Kirstie Donnelly – Managing Director, City and Guilds

Vicky Duckworth – Professor in Education, Edge Hill University

Alison Fuller – Professor – Vocational Education and Work, UCL

Ewart Keep – Director of Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, Oxford University

Mary Kellett – Vice Chancellor, Open University

David Latchman – Master of Birkbeck

Seamus Nevin – Chief Economist, EEF

Dave Phoenix – Vice Chancellor, London South Bank University

Carole Stott – Former Chair of the Board and Trust, Association of Colleges

Matt Waddup – National Head Of Policy & Campaigns – University and College Union

Tom Wilson – Chair of UFI, Former Head of Unionlearn

 

The principal and deputy principal of the Hadlow Group have been suspended as multiple investigations are launched into their financial dealings.

A spokesperson for the group told FE Week today that principal Paul Hannan, who went on sick leave last week, and his deputy Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, who resigned in January to take effect from March 1, have both been suspended.

Meanwhile Paul Dubrow, the chair of one of the group’s college boards – for West Kent and Ashford – stood down today after four years in the role.

Vice-chair Theresa Bruton, who is the chair of Hadlow College’s board, has stepped into Mr Dubrow’s role on an interim basis.

Ms Bruton has been a Hadlow College governor for over seven years.

There are now three separate investigations into the Hadlow Group underway: one by the FE Commissioner, one by the Education and Skills Funding Agency and one by the board of one of the group’s colleges, Hadlow College, which it runs alongside West Kent and Ashford College.

The board investigation relates to whether Mr Hannan and Mr Lumsdon-Taylor kept the board properly informed about financial transactions, namely land sales and purchases between Hadlow College and WKAC, which FE Week reported on last week.

The FE Commissioner investigation was triggered after The Hadlow Group made a request for restructuring funds from the Department for Education’s Transactions Unit and the unit began questioning the series of land purchases between Hadlow College and WKAC.

Meanwhile, the ESFA is said to be looking to reclaim significant sums of funding from the Hadlow Group.

It is understood the group was claiming funding they were not permitted to, but which Mr Lumsdon-Taylor said they had permission to claim from when it adopted the West Kent and Ashford campuses of the collapsed K College – something the ESFA disputes.

Following Mr Hannan’s suspension, Graham Morley was appointed interim principal of The Hadlow Group on Friday.

A college that recently terminated its contract with the controversial Saudi Arabian Colleges of Excellence programme due to on-going delays in claiming back a £500,000 debt has now recovered the cash.

Dudley College, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, began work with the Saudi government in 2011 and most recently delivered Capacity Building Contracts in Hafr Al-Batin Girls College.

The contract started in September 2017 and was due to conclude in 2020 but the college felt it had “no choice but to terminate” the relationship after repeated failures by the programme to pay the college, as reported by FE Week on January 18.

Confirming the payment of £500,000 has now been recovered, Lowell Williams chief executive of Dudley College, said: “In total the college was owed over £0.5 million for work delivered as part of the CBC project in Hafr-Al-Batyn Girls College.

“I regret that we could not have resolved this issue earlier. We would have liked to continue our good work in the Kingdom and complete the project which was due to run until 2020.

“Unfortunately further payment delays would have forced the College to use UK public funds to sustain the cash flow of the CBC project. We did not feel this was appropriate, nor were we in a position to continue working at risk.”

He continued: “I am grateful the Saudi government has now honoured their commitment under this contract. I acknowledge the critical role the UK’s Department for Trade and Industry has played in bringing this mater to a resolution.”

Mr Williams said he would not “rule out working in the Kingdom in the future, if a mutually beneficial opportunity arises, but we have no immediate plans to this effect”.

The Colleges of Excellence programme was founded in 2013 to boost technical and vocational education and training in Saudi Arabia through partnerships with international providers.

But a number of providers dropped out of the programme early on as challenges with operating in the region became apparent.

An FE Week investigation in 2016 uncovered grave financial problems at some of the colleges taking part.

Lincoln College and the Hertfordshire Vocational Education Consortium won huge contracts from the CoE programme of around £250 million each in 2014. But both experienced significant losses associated with these contract in their accounts for the following year.

Colleges have previously been warned off overseas ventures.

Calls to replace GCSEs and A-levels with a “holistic baccalaureate” have been branded a “non-starter” by an advocate of a similar model.

Tom Sherrington, a trustee of the National Baccalaureate Trust, warned that “headline-grabbing” comments made this week by parliamentary education committee chair Robert Halfon and a number of other high-profile leaders were “reckless”.

He added that any move to create a baccalaureate for English students must be based on the existing exam system.

Anything that says scrap A-levels is doomed – it’s a non-starter

During a speech on Monday, Mr Halfon (pictured), a former skills minister, said current exams for 16- and 18-year-olds should be replaced with one qualification that recognises academic and technical skills and personal development.

His comments were backed by Lord Baker, a former education secretary and the creator of GCSEs, and Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of Business Industry, who both agreed the qualifications had had their day.

But Mr Sherrington pointed to the 2004 Tomlinson review, which called for GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications to be replaced with a single diploma.

“It didn’t get implemented because, at the end of the day, A-levels are strongly supported, both across the sector and politically,” Mr Sherrington told FE Week’s sister paper FE Week. “They have this brand identity that is almost unshakable. Anything that says scrap A-levels is doomed – it’s a non-starter.

“The only hope is that A-levels will morph into a wider framework, a baccalaureate structure, but you don’t achieve that by saying scrap A-levels and scrap GCSEs. It’s reckless, it’s just something to say.”

The National Baccalaureate Trust advocates the creation of a “national baccalaureate for England”, a framework for 14- to 19-year-olds which comprises core qualifications such as A-levels or vocational equivalents, a personal project, and a programme of character and skills development for all students.

Mr Sherrington said an English baccalaureate system would have “a lot of benefits”, but insisted it has to be “based around things people already trust”.

There have been calls for GCSEs to be scrapped since the participation age for education and training was raised to 18 in 2015, meaning far more students stay in full-time education beyond the age of 16.

But opponents of the proposal argue that due to the high numbers of learners who move to new institutions at the age of 16, there is still the need for testing at that stage.

Mr Halfon, speaking on Monday, said: “We must remember that since 2015 all young people have been required to participate in some form of education and training up to 18.

“Yet GCSEs remain just as much the high-stakes tests that they were when many young people finished their education at this age.”

He said an IB-style qualification for 18-year-olds in England would “act as a genuine and trusted signal to employers and universities of a young person’s rounded skills and abilities.

“Schools would then be measured on two things – completion of the baccalaureate at 18 and the destinations of their pupils in the years after leaving, with apprenticeships explicitly counted as a gold standard destination.”

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said there was “a lot of merit to the idea of scrapping GCSEs and having a single set of exams for 18-year-olds”, but warned of “significant practical problems which we would need to overcome”.

A major training provider with around 1,000 staff has called in the administrators, FE Week understands.

Working Links (Employment) Limited, which holds contracts across numerous government departments including around £2 million for apprenticeships and adult education, told their workforce yesterday afternoon not to come into work today.

It is understood that thousands of learners will be affected, including apprentices in the customer service and retail sectors, as well as adult learners for two colleges that it works as a subcontractor for.

Working Links has not responded to requests for comment but a source close to the company said its reason for going into administration was related to its contracts with the Ministry of Justice to deliver the Transforming Rehabilitation programme.

It is not known how much these contracts totaled for Working Links, but its website shows that it operates “Community Rehabilitation Companies” to run the government programme across Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, and Wales.

The Inspectorate of Probation, which inspects this provision for the government, rated the centres covering Dorset, Devon and Cornwall as ‘inadeqaute’ in a report out today.

Working links was taken over by international investment firm Aurelius in June 2016.

Earlier this month Aurelius said it was going to transfer the Community Rehabilitation Companies to services company Seetec.

Seetec confirmed today that the staff at Working Links who work in the Community Rehabilitation Companies will not lose their jobs and will transfer to the new company with immediate effect.

The Ministry of Justice confirmed that Working Links has gone into administration.

“We were aware of Working Links’ financial situation and have taken action to ensure continuity of probation services,” a spokesperson said.

“That means probation officers will continue to be supported, offenders will be supervised, and the public will be protected.

“The chief inspector’s report on these CRCs lays bare their unacceptably poor performance and we will work closely with the new provider to urgently raise standards.”

The ESFA and Aurelius have both been approached for comment.

Working Links’ most recent set of accounts for 2016-17 show that its turnover declined by £25 million to £91 million.

The accounts add that since the year 2000 the company has helped around “300,000” people into employment.

Working Links was rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted in 2013 for its apprenticeship and adult learning provision.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency is delaying the issuing of European Social Fund contracts for a third time after it experienced “technical issues” with its latest award notices.

FE Week can also reveal that one provider that is fuming with the way in which the recent controversial tender for these contracts was run has delivered a pre-action legal letter to the agency.

The ESFA ran its latest European Social Fund (ESF) procurement, worth around £282 million in total, towards the end of last year and was supposed to award contracts to the winning bidders on January 29.

But, as previously revealed by FE Week, multiple providers alleged that the government broke tender rules during the process and last week the ESFA had to start a fresh 10-day standstill period, starting February 11, after it admitted to making an “error”.

Yesterday, in a message to providers who bid in 10 areas relating to the skills support for the workforce part of tender, the ESFA revealed it is having to delay issuing contracts again.

“ESFA have identified some technical issues with the award decision notices that were issued on Monday 11 February 2019, for the following lots: Greater Birmingham and Solihull MD, Greater Birmingham and Solihull TR, Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire, D2, Dorset, Leicester and Leicestershire, N2, Stoke and Staffs, Worcestershire,” it said.

“Revised notices will be issued in due course and a new standstill period will apply. We will keep you updated on the position.”

The ESF contracts are supposed to come into force from April 1.

A lot of the controversy around the procurement relates to the exclusion of the “track record” section in bids, which led to providers like Serco Limited winning at least £37 million despite an Ofsted grade three and financial losses of £29.5 million in 2017.

Meanwhile, other top-performing training providers missed out. One provider, which lost out to Serco but wished to remain anonymous, is now looking to take the ESFA to court over the whole fiasco.

“We are really disappointed with the ESFA lack of clarity on the challenges raised from providers,” the boss of the company told FE Week.

“They have failed to show that adequate due diligence on the winning bidder had been conducted and failed to provide an explanation on several key process points throughout the tender including how they managed to get the name of the winning bidder wrong.”

The ESFA said it cannot comment on the European Social Fund debacle as it is still a live procurement.

The ESF is funding that the UK received, as a member state of the EU, to increase job opportunities and help people to improve their skill levels, particularly those who find it difficult to get work.