The government must spend more on adult skills

Further education colleges must be enabled to continue to provide high quality education and skills training for adults, says Alastair da Costa

Poverty is surprisingly entrenched in the UK, with most of the 10 million people in Britain in low-income or no income households, stuck there. In 2017 the Commission found that just one in six low-paid workers (17 per cent) had managed to permanently escape from low pay in the previous decade.

Without the money or access to resources that wealthier people take for granted, those in low-income or workless households face an uphill struggle to break out of the cycle of poverty. Often with few qualifications, millions of people are trapped in precarious and badly-paid work – as shelf-stackers, waitresses, bar staff, play workers and the like. Many are on zero-hours contracts.

People are losing hope. The Commission’s 2018 Social Mobility Barometer survey found that 47 per cent of 18-65 year olds feel that where you end up in society is mainly determined by your background and who your parents are.

When almost half of the working age population simply do not believe in social mobility, what can be done to improve people’s outlook and their life chances?

Education, education, education

One way is through education – not just for our children, but adults too. Good quality, relevant, affordable adult education and skills training of the kind offered by colleges up and down the country, offers low-paid workers a route into a better job and lifts the unemployed into the world of work. It’s an area that the Social Mobility Commission explores in detail in our report: The adult skills gap: is falling investment in UK adults stalling social mobility? which we launched this week.

Our findings are troubling. Among other things we found:

  • Those from lower socio-economic backgrounds rely on government-funded training, but since 2010, the proportion funded by government has decreased – in 2013/14, it was just 7 per cent of the £44 billion invested in adult skills.
  • Individuals are having to fund more of their own training – often through learner loans.
  • The poorest adults with the lowest qualifications are the least likely to access training – despite being the group who would benefit most.
  • When spending on training and skills, employers prioritise high-qualified workers in senior positions.
  • Lifelong learning – whether it’s to refresh forgotten skills or upskilling to keep up with changes in technology – help improve people’s life chances.

FE’s vital role

The further education sector is central to any efforts to boost adult education, but it has been massively affected by lower government spending in the last decade. The Commission firmly believes that further education colleges must be enabled to continue to provide high quality education and skills training for adults.

In my role as Chair of Capital City College Group, I can see the clear benefits of enabling and encouraging adult training whenever I visit any of the Group’s three colleges. For example, the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London has pioneered free courses for all adults studying at Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2. CONEL was the first London college to do this and, not surprisingly, courses are hugely popular with more adults are choosing to study there than ever before. We would also like to develop the idea of a life-long learning credit scheme for our staff, students and alumni whereby courses throughout our Group can be accessed throughout a person’s different life stages. This sort of adult learning credit scheme could clearly have wider application and benefits and I am a keen advocate of the idea.

At the Commission, we’re calling for a number of things, including:

  • Government to spend more on adult skills and prioritise lower-paid people, including more funding for free courses for those who cannot pay themselves;
  • Increased quality of training in terms of earning gains, and improved careers information, advice and guidance;
  • Increased employer spend on lower-skilled, low-paid workers;
  • More investment in research to find out what works.

If the labour market is to work for everyone, those with lower skills and qualifications need to be able to improve their career prospects and realise their ambitions. This is the challenge that confronts us all and which the Commission exists to overcome.

DfE launches £38m T-levels capital fund

The Department for Education has released a guide to the £38 million capital fund for providers to use in wave one of T-levels.

The cash is being offered to help build new classrooms, refurbish buildings and upgrade equipment next year in readiness to deliver the new technical qualifications from September 2020.

The fund is split into two parts: the specialist equipment allocation (SEA) and the competitive buildings and facilities improvement grant (BFIG).

The 52 providers in wave one will receive the SEA, but will have to apply for a BFIG by April 17.

However, the BFIG will not be available to independent training providers, which has led its industry group to accuse the Department for Education of bias towards colleges.

The chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers Mark Dawe said: “The bias towards colleges has been implicit for a long time and now the DfE has made it explicit.

“It’s just more money being thrown to colleges when it’s the ITPs that are delivering what employers want.

“There have been multiple offers from ITPs to engage their business networks, especially to meet the major challenge of finding appropriate industry placements, but the DfE has been ignoring or rejecting the offers.

“We wish them luck with T-levels, because we think the DfE are taking the same old path ignoring those that can make a difference, and it will be added to the list of  failed technical policies.”

Just two providers out of the 52 set to deliver the first three T-levels is an ITP.

The capital fund guide reveals that providers will need to match the cash.

“You are expected to provide a minimum funding contribution equivalent to 50 per cent of the project value from own or third party resources,” it says.

“That is, for every £1 from us, you should invest an additional £1.”

The guidance recognises that all providers “may not be able to do this”, but the DfE will ask “for evidence in your application to show you have exhausted all avenues of securing additional funding”.

“Once we have this information we will determine any award following an affordability assessment,” it adds.

Skills minster Anne Milton said: “T-levels are a once in a generation opportunity to transform technical education in this country.

“It will be vital that they have access to the latest, high quality equipment and state-of the art facilities during their studies.

“The T-level Capital Fund will help those further education providers at the forefront of delivering these important reforms to be ready to teach T-levels from September 2020.”

The first T-level courses will cover in education, construction and digital.

College insolvency regime: 7 things we learned from DfE’s new guidance

Two days before the college insolvency regime comes into effect, meaning that colleges will be able to go bust for the first time, the Department for Education has released guidance for governors on the new law and their responsibilities.

FE Week has picked out seven key points:

 

  1. Early identification of financial difficulties is vital – so don’t ‘rely solely’ on ESFA ratings

College governors are being urged to “liaise with their bank and the ESFA” as “soon as signs of financial difficulty emerge”.

“It will be more straightforward to identify appropriate support and intervention if colleges tell the ESFA immediately if they judge that they may be running into difficulties,” the guidance said.

Governors are warned not to “rely solely” on the college’s ESFA financial health rating as “such ratings do not necessarily take into account all aspects of financial management and the cashflow position can vary quickly and should be assessed monthly”.

 

  1. Colleges should have a qualified accountant on their board

College corporations would be “advised” to “recruit a qualified accountant onto their board”, and to also ensure that a finance director of “sufficient seniority” who is “capable of renegotiating covenants and lending facilities and driving through change” is appointed.

Governors without a background in finance “are not expected to become experts” but “they should familiarise themselves with financial planning and accounting guidance” and be prepared to “ask questions” about finance papers, and “undertake training if required”.

During an interview with FE Week in November last year the FE commissioner said it was “staggering” that there were still colleges that didn’t have any financially qualified board members.

 

  1. An independent business review could help ‘head off’ insolvency situation

An independent business review is the first stage in the insolvency process – and could actually “head off” a college going bust “if conducted early enough”.

The IBR involves “assessing the financial and strategic future of the college” to identify a range of options for its future.

It’s usually commissioned “where an undertaking is either exhibiting signs of financial distress, has breached covenants on financing facilities or where there is a material additional financing need caused by operational difficulties”, but does “not automatically result in insolvency proceedings of any kind”.

In the case of the college insolvency regime, it’s most likely to be commissioned by the DfE, a secured creditor, or the college board.

 

  1. Governors have a number of duties under insolvency law – and penalties if they don’t comply

If the outcome of the IBR is that the college is insolvent, the DfE will appoint an education administrator to oversee the insolvency process.

Governors have a “statutory duty to co-operate with an administrator, education administrator or liquidator”, according to today’s guidance.

Actions that governors might be required to do include “make out and submit a statement as to the affairs of the statutory corporation, setting out the particulars of the corporation’s assets, debts and liabilities” and “lay a statement of affairs before creditors”.

Related to this, the FE Bodies (Insolvency) Regulations 2019 lists a number of offences that governors can be guilty of, including “material omissions from statements relating to the college’s affairs”, “falsification of the college’s books” and “false representations”.

In each case the penalty could be a fine or a prison term, or both.

 

  1. Student governors won’t be treated the same as other governors

The legislation around the FE insolvency regime “deliberately” includes “allowances” for student governors.

“Student governors must take their responsibilities as governors and duties as charity trustees seriously, and these still apply,” today’s guidance says.

“However, it was judged that they might be likely to have less knowledge of the college’s financial affairs than other governors of the college and that it would be unfair to put them in a position where they could potentially be fined for not being able to be involved in preparing and submitting statements of affairs about the college.”

Student governors also don’t have the power to appoint an administrator.

But in “circumstances where student members give false statements” in relation to other offences they can be held responsible, as “these matters are within their control”.

 

  1. All governors could be guilty of wrongful trading

Wrongful trading is a civil offence that occurs – in this case – where governors have allowed a college to continue to operate when they knew that insolvency was unavoidable, and they didn’t do everything they could to avoid loss to its creditors.

“Governors must act reasonably and responsibly in the time preceding insolvency to recognise the prospect of insolvency and act on it, making every effort to minimise loss to creditors,” the guidance said.

If a claim of wrongful trading is successful, the court “can order a governor to make such contribution to the FE body’s assets as the court thinks fit”.

 

  1. We still don’t know what the ESFA’s monitoring and intervention arrangements will be

Today’s guidance “does not provide comprehensive guidance on the financial monitoring and intervention arrangements for colleges, which are being redeveloped in the light of the introduction of the insolvency regime”.

More details will be published “later in spring of 2019”.

As previously reported by FE Week, “exceptional financial support will no longer be available from April 2019” but a “range of support will continue to be available” from both the ESFA and the FE commissioner’s team, today’s guidance said.

MPs warned of a ‘postcode lottery’ for post-16 SEND learners

Special educational needs experts have warned of a “postcode lottery” for post-16 learners with high needs, during an education select committee roundtable this morning.

MPs heard from representatives from colleges and charities working with learners with special education needs and disabilities on the issues around post-16 education.

It was part of the committee’s inquiry into the impact of the reforms introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014 which, among other things, extended local authorities’ statutory duty towards those with SEND up until the age of 25.

It seems to be a big tangled mess

Di Roberts, principal of Brockenhurst College and chair of the Association of Colleges’ SEN group, said the reforms had helped “raise the profile of the FE and post-16 providers with local authorities”, as previously “we were the hidden sector and we were doing brilliant work with our young people but I don’t think the local authorities understood”.

But Pat Brennan-Barrett, principal of Northampton College, said she was “deeply concerned” about the “postcode lottery of funding, the devolvement of the budget, the interpretation of the language of the code, and how that is used”.

Her views were echoed by Beatrice Barleon, policy development manager at Mencap, who told MPs that one of the challenges of the reforms was the “implementation across all the different local authorities”.

Ms Roberts gave the example of East Kent College, which took its local authority to judicial review “as they didn’t feel that the authority was funding them correctly, or understanding”.

Through the “perseverance of the principal and the team there” they had agreed a three year funding deal which “gives the college that certainty about being able to invest, to have the staffing necessary”, she said.

That deal was “better than what we have in most places where it’s literally one year to the next,” she said.

She also spoke about the “time, effort and money” that had been wasted on the “bureaucracy” of the system.

“If you’re working with 10s of local authorities they often have different systems, different requirements,” she said.

“If I could take away from my frontline people all the paper work and bureaucracy and put that into frontline delivery that wouldn’t cost any more money and would make the limited resources go further.”

If I could take away from my frontline people all the paper work and bureaucracy and put that into frontline delivery

Other issues highlighted included the “trend to only give education and health care plans to the age of 19” – meaning that colleges were having to use adult funding to provide support to learners with SEND older than 19.

“We do that. We can’t afford to continue doing that. It’s costing us over £300,000 a year,” said Ms Brennan-Barrett.

Ms Roberts said that, although officials working in high needs in the Department for Education were “incredibly supportive”, official guidance from the department said that “the majority of young people with EHC plans should complete their education by 19” – which she described as “totally unrealistic”.

The high-needs budget is devolved to local authorities, and “has to be divided between a five-year-old and a 25-year-old” – which created pressure, according to Ms Brennan-Barrett.

“Under the disability act it is necessary to make reasonable adjustments. We’re not making those reasonable adjustments with the local devolvement,” she said.

Decisions on how the money was spent were made at the local schools forum, at which the college just had one vote among 40 schools “even though we represent more people at 16 to 18,” she said.

After hearing the evidence, education select committee chair Robert Halfon said the picture of post-16 funding for learners with SEND “seems to be a big tangled mess”.

ESFA appoints new chair to management board

Irene Lucas has been named the new chair of the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s management board.

Ms Lucas is currently a non-executive board member of the Department for Education and was previously a director-general of the Department of Communities & Local Government.

She received a CBE in 2008 for services to local government, having served as the chief executive for Sunderland City and South Tyneside Borough councils.

The management board was created in April 2017 and advises the agency’s chief executive on how initiatives are working in practice.

Its interim board, led by Ian Ferguson, was involved in the investigations into the collapse of Learndirect and in 2018, was keeping a close eye on the introduction of T-Levels.

Eileen Milner, ESFA chief executive, said: “It is great to have Irene leading the management board and having all members now appointed.

“The role of the management board is to provide crucial scrutiny, challenge, advice and oversight, to hold us rightly to account as a public body. I look forward to working with Irene and the rest of the board members.”

More than half of 3aaa’s former apprentices are still without a new provider

More than half of the apprentices that trained with former apprenticeship giant Aspire Achieve Advance have still not been found a new provider, four months after its collapse.

The company, better known as 3aaa, went into administration on October 11 after the government pulled its skills funding contracts following a fraud investigation, which is now being looked into by the police.

A total of 4,216 apprentices were subsequently left without a place to complete their training so the Education and Skills Funding Agency immediately began trying to find them alternative provision.

Skills minister Anne Milton has now revealed that only 1,892 apprentices, or 45 per cent, of those affected have moved on to new providers so far.

Responding to a parliamentary question submitted by shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden, Ms Milton said the ESFA holds responsibility for moving on only those apprentices with non-levy employers, of which there were 1,832.

Of these, the ESFA has “approved 1,358 apprentice transfers to 125 high quality alternative providers”.

Alternative provision for 410 of the remaining apprentices with non-levy employers has been found, according to Ms Milton, but the agency is still in the process of “contacting the providers involved to facilitate the transfers”.

But 64 of the non-levy apprentices have “notified” the ESFA that they have “successfully completed or withdrawn from their apprenticeship”.

A total of 2,384 former 3aaa apprentices were with levy paying employers. Ms Milton said the National Apprenticeship Service account managers “are supporting those employers to identify new providers”.

But to date, only 534 apprentices with levy paying employers have transferred to new providers of their choice.

The apprentice transfer figures come after the ESFA warned it could withdraw funding from providers after FE Week revealed a few of them attempted to poach staff and apprentices 3aaa by using underhand tactics.

An investigation by this newspaper found that some training providers were “misrepresenting their position” in an effort to recruit those affected.

Tactics included alleged false claims that the ESFA and 3aaa have asked the providers to take on hundreds of people affected.

FE Week revealed what was behind the government and police investigations into 3aaa in November.

The company, which had 500 staff before it went bust when the ESFA pulled its £16.5 million skills contract, allegedly manipulated Individualised Learner Records to artificially inflate achievement rates by a huge amount and misused employer-incentive grants.

A previouse ESFA investigation into 3aaa, carried out by auditing firm KPMG in 2016, had found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

3aaa was co-founded by Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008, but the pair stepped down in September during the midst of the ESFA’s second investigation.

In December the police told FE Week that it hadn’t been able to decide whether or not to open a criminal investigation into 3aaa as it needed to wait for the DfE to “complete its work”.

At the time of going to press the police said there was no update to this.

Social Mobility Commission report warns of ‘virtuous’ and ‘vicious’ cycle of adult learning

The poorest adults with the lowest qualifications are the least likely to access training despite needing it the most, according to new Social Mobility Commission research, which has warned of a “virtuous and vicious cycle of learning”.

‘The adult skills gap: is falling investment in UK adults stalling social mobility?’, released today, looked at participation in, and spend on, job-related training and education in the last decade.

It found that training was often only available to people who were already either highly-paid or highly-skilled.

To address this imbalance, the report calls for greater investment by the government on education and training, more flexibility in how existing adult skills funding is spent, and better understanding by employers of the disparities in their training investment.

“Too many employers are wasting the potential of their employees by not offering training or progression routes to their low and mid-skilled workers,” said Dame Martina Milburn, the commission’s chair.

She urged both the government and businesses to “increase their investment in training” and to prioritise “those with low or no skills”.

“A lack of ongoing training for low paid workers is a contributing factor for millions to a lifetime of poorly-paid work,” said Alastair Da Costa, chair of Capital City College group, and a member of the commission.

The report’s findings are based on data collected from a variety of sources, including labour force and employer skills surveys, and research carried out by the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, among others.

It found that around a quarter of adults took part in job-related training in the last three months of 2017, and there was “evidence of a general decrease in the proportion of people participating in training” since the 2000s.

People from the lowest social grades were much less likely to take part in training than those from more advantaged backgrounds – and around half hadn’t taken part in any form of learning or training since leaving school.

Those in highly-paid, high-skilled professional roles were around twice as likely to have had some form of training in the past year than people in lower-skilled occupations: around 30 to 35 per cent, compared to around 13 to 16 per cent.

Dr Daria Luchinskaya, from the Institute for Employment Research, Warwick University, which carried out the research, said: “This report shows a ‘virtuous’ and a ‘vicious’ cycle of learning, whereby those with low or no qualifications are much less likely to access education and training after leaving school than those with high qualifications.”

According to the report, £44 billion was spent on adult skills training in 2013/14, of which 82 per cent came from employers and just seven per cent – or £2.5 billion – from the government, with the remainder coming from individuals.

However, the vast majority – £31 billion – of the employers’ spend went on indirect costs, including trainees’ wages, while just £2.8 billion was spent on fees to training providers.

Overall fees paid by employers fell from £2.9 billion in 2011 to £2.2 billion in 2015 – a drop of 24 per cent, according to figures taken from the employer skills surveys.

But at the same time “investment in management training has increased by 18 per cent suggesting that training for most other categories of employees has fallen”, the report said.

Government investment in adult training, via what was formerly called the adult skills budget, fell by 34 per cent in real terms over the same period, the report said, and was “at comparatively low levels internationally”.

Today’s report comes amid growing concern over the rise in management apprenticeships, and the fear that that they are squeezing out those at lower levels.

Government figures published on Thursday showed that four of the top 20 apprenticeship standards with the most starts so far in 2018/19 were in management, including the level three team leader standard which continues to be the most popular.

Meanwhile, starts at level two have continued to fall.

Skills minister Anne Milton has vowed to “dig deeper” into the drop, and whether it’s linked to the rise in management courses.

A government-led national retraining scheme has been in development for the past 18 months, after it was promised in the Conservative party election manifesto in 2017.

However, information on the scheme – including how it will operate, who will be eligible and how much it will cost – has so far been thin on the ground.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is vital that we continue to build the skilled workforce that businesses and the country needs to ensure we can compete across the world and adult education is a vital part of this. Last year the proportion of 19 year olds that hold a level two qualification in both maths and English was the highest on record.

“The Department has been allocated £1.5 billion for the adult education budget for each year up to 2020 and the Chancellor announced the £100m new funding for the National Retraining Scheme in the 2018 Budget to help adults retrain and upskill.

“In 2018/19 academic year we are supporting adults that are in work but on low incomes to access training through a one-year pilot scheme, and also helping employers invest in high-quality apprenticeships, to offer more people an alternative route into work.”

 

T-levels timescale still ‘worryingly tight’, IfA boss says ahead of technical education takeover

The boss of the organisation that will assume powers for T-levels this week has said the delivery timeline is still “worryingly tight” even though everything is “on schedule”.

Sir Gerry Berragan was quizzed by FE Week on the topic this afternoon, ahead of a change in legislation which will see his organisation become the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education on Thursday.

He stated, nearly one year on since he told an Ofqual conference of his deep concerns at meeting the 2020 delivery timetable, that he still views the deadline as “worryingly tight”.

It is fair to say the timeline is still worryingly tight because there is no real time contingency

But he reiterated what Jonathan Slater, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary, told the education select committee last week: everything is “on track”.

“It is fair to say the timeline is still worryingly tight because there is no real time contingency and any project that is running without any contingency is always going to be tight,” Sir Gerry said.

“The good news is we are absolutely on track and schedule. We’ve taken this by the horns and managed this thing really, really closely.

“We have a detailed plan and mitigated any risks that we can to that schedule but it still remains tight.”

When asked what he sees as the biggest challenge to overcoming the tight T-levels timeline, Sir Gerry said: “From our perspective it is getting the qualifications through the approvals.

“In a broader sense the DfE needs to make sure the colleges delivering T-levels in wave one are in good shape and they have a programme and money to help them do that.

“We’re sharing the content with colleges as it becomes available so that they can get ahead of the game and develop the content into a course.

“We’re doing everything we can to mitigate that tight timeframe but there are still genuine challenges to be overcome but they are all doable.”

One key milestone that the IfA has managed to meet is the controversial £17.5 million procurement process for assigning awarding organisations to each of the first three T-levels, which will cover digital, childcare and education, and construction.

The Federation of Awarding Bodies had threatened legal action against the government because of its tight implementation plans including the procurement, which would almost certainly have delayed the rollout of the new post-16 technical qualifications.

But the body dropped this challenge in August after the DfE offered to “re-set the relationship” with awarding organisations.

The IfA will notify the successful AO bidders over the next week, which will be followed by a 10-day standstill period before an official announcement next month.

A second tender process for the six pathways that are due to be introduced for teaching from 2021 will kick off in spring, with the winning bidders expected to be announced in the autumn.

The IfA has had to bolster its team ahead of assuming powers for technical education.

Sir Gerry told FE Week that the institute has gone from having around 86 staff in the summer to “nearly 150 today”.

It’s been a huge task to get ourselves geared up for this

This number is expected to increase to around 200 by the end of this calendar year, which will be “steady state”.

“We’re clear to go,” Sir Gerry said. “We’ve significantly increased in size and created completely new functions in terms of procurement and contract management, we’ve taken on board the T-level panels from the DfE and the relationship managers that will go with them.

“It’s been a huge task to get ourselves geared up for this.”

To cater for the new staff the IfA’s budget nearly doubled this year, from £8.6 million to £15 million, and is expected to rise to “around £20 million next year”.

Assuming powers for technical education will give the IfA complete authority over the content of T-levels and procurement for awarding organisations.

The institute will also lead on the content for new technical qualifications from levels two to five, once the Department for Education has completed its respective reviews.

The DfE will, however, still hold ultimate responsibility for the policy areas.

You can read more from FE Week’s interview with Sir Gerry in our upcoming edition, which will be published on Friday.

Strikes suspended at two colleges to ratify pay deals

Strike action at two colleges has been suspended at the last minute, after governors at one requested more time to ratify a “landmark” pay deal while the other agreed to hold “further talks”.

University and College Union members at Hugh Baird College are asking for a lecturer pay rise of between three and six per cent over the next two years, as well as an extra five days’ annual leave for 2018/19.

They were scheduled to walk out for two days from tomorrow but this has been delayed after governors promised to meet on February 8 to approve the deal.

If both the union and college are happy following this meeting then the dispute would be resolved and the threat of further strikes planned for March will be lifted.

Strikes have also been suspended at Coventry College after their leadership team agreed to further talks with the union.

UCU members at fourteen other colleges are still due to walk out this week.

The union said the “landmark deal” it is hoping for at Hugh Baird was “further proof that colleges and the union could work together to secure a better deal for staff”.

UCU regional official Martyn Moss said: “This landmark deal sets the bar for other colleges when it comes to the pay and conditions of staff. Too often colleges hide behind low levels of government investment to avoid giving their staff a fair pay deal.

“This deal shows what can be achieved when colleges work with us to avoid disruption and look after their staff. If the governors sign it off then the strikes planned for March can be called off.”

Hugh Baird college principal and chief executive, Yana Williams, said: “Our staff are the most important asset we have at the college to ensure we can provide quality education and support to our communities.

“This deal aims to recognise the importance we place on our staff whilst ensuring college finances remains sustainable at a time when government funding for the further education sector remains the same as it was seven years ago.”

The 14 other colleges scheduled to take strike action this week are: Abingdon and Witney College, Bridgwater and Taunton College, City of Wolverhampton College, East Sussex College, Harlow College, Kendal College, Leicester College, West Thames College, Bath College, Bradford College, Croydon College, Lambeth College, New College Swindon and Petroc.

College staff are unhappy about proposals put forward by the Association of Colleges, which represents college leadership, over pay for 2018/19.

In December the AoC put forward an offer of one per cent even though the UCU requested a five per cent rise, which the union described as a “wholly inadequate response” to the pay crisis in FE.

Capital City College Group agreed a “landmark” pay rise for its staff of up to five per cent late last year – even though this would turn a projected break-even budget into a £2.3 million deficit.