A provider that received over £16 million in three years from college subcontracting deals has been exposed by Ofsted for delivering ‘insufficient’ apprenticeships which exclude employers and lack scrutiny.

FE Week revealed in November the mysterious way in which SCL Security Ltd has operated as a subcontractor for many years, delivering hundreds of apprenticeships for mostly 16- to 18-year-olds for Brooklands College despite employing fewer than 10 people.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency acted following our exposé, and starts were suspended at the provider last month while it carries out an investigation.

Apprentices do not know what progress they are making

FE Week’s findings also triggered an Ofsted monitoring visit to SCL Security, and its report was published today which resulted in two ‘insufficient progress’ ratings.

“Leaders and managers do not ensure that the programme they offer meets the requirements of an apprenticeship,” the education watchdog found.

“Apprentices do not receive sufficient off-the-job time to complete their studies and do not know what progress they are making.

“SCL staff do not plan apprentices’ training programmes of study well enough to meet individual apprentices’ needs. All apprentices are currently expected to complete their apprenticeships in the same timeframe irrespective of their previous experience, skills or level of training.”

SCL Security is run by Andrew Merritt and began to receive public funding in its own right in May 2017.

At the time of Ofsted’s monitoring visit in January, it had 27 apprentices on programmes including in health and social care and IT, with a further six on breaks in learning. Most are aged over 24.

Today’s report said that SCL Security employs three part-time external quality improvement consultants to manage the provision.

But leaders at the provider “do not check the quality of provision effectively”, and their evaluation of it is “overly positive”.

Quality assurance of the apprenticeship programme is also “not effective”.

“Managers do not have a good enough oversight to hold staff to account or to know what progress apprentices make,” Ofsted’s report said.

“Leaders have not implemented any governance arrangements and, as a result, do not receive sufficient challenge or scrutiny regarding the programmes of training.”

It also revealed that the provider does not take into account prior learning for individual apprentices.

“Managers and staff, including assessors, do not take into account the skills, knowledge and behaviours that apprentices already have prior to starting their programme.”

Apprentices are also not made aware of the “requirements of the end-point assessment or the different grades they could achieve in their qualifications”.

As a result, they “do not aim for higher levels of achievement”.

SCL Security’s leaders do not involve employers and line managers “sufficiently in apprentices’ training”, Ofsted found.

With this sound basis and Ofsted’s support, we are confident for the future

“Employers are not included in the planning or delivery of training. In most cases, employers are not aware of the progress apprentices make and are not able to support them to develop new skills and knowledge at work.”

Inspectors also reported that the planning and delivery of training to improve apprentices’ English and maths skills “is weak”.

Ofsted did however find that leaders at SCL Security have made sure that the apprentices they enrol are “suitable for an apprenticeship and select them with integrity”.

Safeguarding is also effective.

Mr Merritt said: “Highlighting areas where improvement is needed, is always sound advice.

“The inspectors noted that SCL ensures that the apprentices are suitable and selected with integrity, the apprentices are safe, they feel safe and the employers benefit from the contributions their apprentices make to their businesses.

“The apprentices receive good personal support from their tutors and as a result, gain confidence in their job roles.”

He added that with this “sound basis and Ofsted’s support, we are confident for the future”.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is to start charging for its apprenticeship external quality assurance service.

News of the move comes just days after FE Week revealed the “ridiculous variability” in approved external quality assurance charges, which were criticised by sector leaders for ranging from a free service to £179 per apprentice.

The institute launched a tender at the end of January for an organisation to provide quality assurance for apprenticeships assessment on its behalf from April 1 until the end of March 2021.

Open Awards has held the contract to deliver this service since August 2017, which was worth an initial £160,000, but this will end in March.

Tender documents for the new contract, seen by FE Week, state that “legislation allows the institute to charge end point assessment organisations (EPAOs) a fee per apprentice that undertakes an end-point assessment and it is these fees that will pay for the EQA service”.

They add: “The institute’s budget is limited and we are seeking to work with a supplier who will deliver a high-quality service at a price that offers strong value for money.”

The bidding organisation is asked to “confirm what price they would charge per end-point assessment”, and would receive a minimum payment of £20,000 per month for the duration of the contract.

The winning bidder can therefore expect to earn at least half a million pounds over the two-year contract period.

A spokesperson for the institute said EQA is to be delivered on a “cost-recovery basis and not for profit” and this has “been made clear to potential bidders”.

Currently, the institute is the nominated EQA provider for 191, or 55 per cent, of 345 approved standards, and like Ofqual, doesn’t charge EPAOs for the service.

The tender documents suggest the IfATE will now move to a system of invoicing the end-point assessment organisations for EQA and then paying the contractor.

The institute’s tender documents said it anticipates that up to “67,000 (approx. 19,000 in year 1; 47,000 in year 2) apprentices will undertake end-point assessment across standards which have nominated the institute to provide EQA”.

A spokesperson for the institute said: “We have begun the process for procuring a supplier to deliver a high-quality EQA service on behalf of the Institute from April 2019. This will ensure continuity of quality assurance provision for apprentices and employers.”

The ESFA sets a funding band for each apprenticeship standard, which is usually the value given to providers to deliver the training.

Of the total funding, up to 20 per cent is available to fund the end-point assessment. The EQA cost is paid by the end-point assessment organisation and is factored into the EPA price.

There are currently 18 approved external quality assurance bodies that monitor end-point assessment organisations, to ensure the process is “fair, consistent and robust”.

When shown FE Week analysis of costs published by the IfATE, Graham Hasting-Evans, group managing director of NOCN, an end-point assessment organisation, said last week that he was “very concerned” about the high level of EQA charges, which are “up to 10 per cent of the EPA cost in some cases” as well as the “considerable inconsistency”.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, representing many of the 199 currently approved EPAOs, said: “These practices run the risk of bringing the entire reforms into disrepute.”

The closing dates for bids to the IfATE’s tender is February 26.

Leaders of a studio school in Liverpool are “strongly considering” closing their institution next year, after poor recruitment affected its financial viability.

Studio@Deyes has a capacity of 300 but just 196 students, and accounts show it ended the last academic year with a deficit of almost £600,000.

Twenty-one studio schools have closed to-date, and a number of others have set out plans to shut. Studio@Deyes is the second studio school to announce this year that it is considering closure, after the Bath Studio School also admitted problems with recruitment in October.

In a letter to parents, John Graham, who chairs the board of Studio@Deyes sponsor the Lydiate Learning Trust, said the organisation had “reached a point where it is only right and proper to stop and look at what the future holds” as a result of “difficulties arising from the under recruitment of pupils”.

He said trustees were strongly considering closing the school in August 2020.

“If this becomes a reality then this would mean that all current students will have completed their relevant examinations and completed their time at Studio@Deyes. No student will need to move to another school in the middle of their current qualifications.”

Staff were told of the proposal on January 30.

The school has been dogged with problems since its inception.

It was supposed to open in 2015, but its launch was delayed by a year because of a hold-up in the refurbishment of its new buildings. This was despite a headteacher and deputy having already been appointed.

The school eventually opened in 2016, and already had a deficit of £251,000 by the end of its first year of operation. Headteacher Dean Lythgoe left the studio school in December 2017. Records show he was paid between £40,000 and £50,000 in 2015-16, before the school even opened, and between £60,000 and £70,000 in 2015-17 and 2016-17.

Accounts for the year to August 31 2018, published in December, reveal that Studio@Deyes ended the year with a much larger deficit of £585,000.

However, the documents claimed at the time that the trust board “has a long term plan to correct the position”.

Lydiate’s two other schools, Deyes High School and Childwall Sports and Science Academy, both ended last year with a surplus.

Two providers will no longer deliver the first wave of T-levels after one received a low Ofsted rating and another was found to be too “specialist”.

The Department for Education confirmed today that the London Design and Engineering UTC and Big Creative Training had been removed from the list of providers who will be delivering T-levels in 2020-21.

Big Creative Training had been due to deliver the digital route, and London Design and Engineering UTC was set to provide the construction pathway.

However, the DfE said the London Design and Engineering UTC would no longer be part of the first wave of the specialist technical qualifications after it received a ‘requires improvement’ rating from Ofsted.

The report, which was published on November 26 after an inspection in October, warned of an “inconsistency in the quality of teaching”.

“Leaders have faced significant challenges and are now taking the right decisions to improve the school,” it said. “However, there has not been enough time for their decisions to have had the desired impact.”

Big Creative Training, also based in London, has been removed after the DfE said that the digital pathway available in 2020 does not “fit with the specialist nature of their current provision”.

A spokesperson for the DfE said the government “always expected the list of providers to fluctuate as we progress towards September 2020”.

“However, we continue to have an excellent group with good coverage of provider types and across our opportunity areas,” she added.

Fifty providers remain on the list for 2020.

In October, the DfE removed three schools from the first wave after one received a low Ofsted grade and two others “decided not to” take part. It also added Suffolk New College to the list of those delivering the T-levels.

Big Creative Training and the London Design and Engineering UTC were both contacted for comment.

Working “unusual” hours and claims in excess of actual expenses have been listed as indicators for training providers that staff may be committing fraud in new government guidance.

The document from the Department for Education, published today, also warns that signs that employees are potentially committing fraud include aggressive responses to questions and “too much forgetfulness”.

The list is split into several areas: personal motives for fraud; organisational motives for fraud; weaknesses in internal controls; transactional indicators; possible methods used to commit and/or conceal fraud; record keeping/banking/other.

Personal motives include where staff believe they get inadequate rewards, have an expensive lifestyle, or personal problems such as gambling or an alcohol addiction.

The guidance also warns another indicator among organisations are where they are dominated by one person, have a for-profit component or face pressure to use or lose funds to sustain future funding levels.

The FE sector has been subject to potential fraud in recent times: Aspire Achieve Advance (also known as 3aaa) was referred to Action Fraud by the Department for Education in October following an investigation into alleged success rate “overclaims” at the provider.

3aaa received over £31 million in government funding in 2017 and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships – standing at nearly £22 million.

Three senior staff at Team Wearside were jailed in March for defrauding Sunderland College and training provider Springboard of a total of £460,000 through the use of false data on registered learners.

Four people were found guilty on fraud charges after it was found provider Luis Michael Training used the personal information of real people to claim apprenticeship funding, without their knowledge.

Additionally, over 3,000 learners, all aged 16 to 19 and were either vulnerable or not in education, employment or training, were enrolled on coaching courses, but were instead made to hand out match-day programmes and sweep floors at Premier League football clubs.

In its first review of apprenticeships in 2016, the National Audit Office warned the government’s apprenticeship reforms could lead to “market abuse” in the FE industry, of the sort which took place under the Individual Learning Accounts system, which was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud.

To see the list, click here.

Six more providers have received temporary bans on recruiting apprentices as Ofsted continues its scrutiny of new provision, with four others now completely removed from the approved register.

The inspectorate is monitoring all new apprenticeship providers, and any deemed to be making ‘insufficient’ progress in at least one area faces being suspended from taking on new apprentices by the government unless there are “extenuating circumstances”.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency updated the register of apprenticeship training providers on Wednesday, which shows there are a total of 23 providers currently on the barred list.

Added to the list are: Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Premier Nursing Agency, T.M.S Learning and Skills Support, The Development Fund, Ultima Skills and Vortex Training Solutions.

They will now be prevented from recruiting apprentices until they have received a full Ofsted inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for apprenticeship provision.

A total of four providers have now been fully removed from the government’s apprenticeship provider register since Ofsted began its early monitoring visits in February last year.

The Key6 Group was one of the first to receive an ‘insufficient’ monitoring report, which was published in March last year, but the ESFA lifted the ban after two months when it was found to be making ‘significant’ progress in safeguarding and provided a “robust improvement plan”.

But, in a further twist, the Liverpool-based provider has now been entirely removed from the register. FE Week has been unable to contact Key6 to find out why it has been removed despite multiple attempts.

Premier People Solutions, a cabinet office-approved apprenticeship provider to government departments, has also been removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers following a damning monitoring report in November.

Kashmir Youth Project, which received two of the low ratings, has been removed, as has AMS Nationwide which went bust after Ofsted gave it two ‘insufficient’ ratings and the ESFA found it was claiming payments “incorrectly”.

ESFA guidance on monitoring visits, published in August, states that the agency will not remove an organisation from the register after a monitoring visit unless Ofsted has raised concerns about safeguarding and “identified a significant risk to apprentices”.

Removal from the register ends all current and future apprenticeship delivery, and means all apprentices must be moved to other providers.

However, if the provider was only found to be making ‘insufficient’ progress in its safeguarding, it can be reinspected and will have the restrictions removed on it if safeguarding has improved.

This was the case for N-Gaged Training and Recruitment, which was stopped from recruiting after its safeguarding was criticised in a report published in August. However, this was reversed after a reinspection in November found its safeguarding to be ‘reasonable’.

The FE Commissioner has intervened at the Hadlow Group as its deputy chief executive hands in his resignation, FE Week can reveal.

Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, who was paid up to £210,000 in 2016/17, left his role on January 31.

He had been Hadlow College’s finance director since 2003, before taking on the wider role at the Hadlow Group in August 2016 when it took over West Kent and Ashford College.

The group has now appointed an interim chief financial officer to handle some of Mr Lumsdon-Taylor’s day-to-day duties.

Richard Atkins, the FE Commissioner, and his team are understood to have gone into Hadlow Group last Thursday, but the reason behind the visit has not been revealed yet.

It is, however, likely to be related to its finances, after the Hadlow Group told FE Week it was granted an extension for submitting its 2017/18 accounts, with a new deadline at the end of February, by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

A spokesperson said the group’s principal Paul Hannan, who was one of the highest paid college leaders in 2016/17 after taking home a pay packet of £264,000, will be staying on for the foreseeable future.

Separate published accounts for West Kent and Ashford College and Hadlow College, for 2016/17, show a combined turnover of £45 million.

The Department for Education said: “The ESFA and the FE Commissioner are working closely with the governing bodies of Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College.

“As part of this, the FE Commissioner and his team are visiting the colleges.”

The spokesperson for the college group added: “The ESFA and FE Commissioner are working closely with the governing board of West Kent and Ashford College.”

The college group said West Kent and Ashford, rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted, is still under an ESFA notice of concern from when it was trading as K College in 2012 which had amassed an £11 million deficit.

Following the issuing of this notice, West Kent and Ashford campuses of K College were taken over by Hadlow College, which was rated grade one by Ofsted in 2010 but hasn’t been fully reinspected since.

The Hadlow Group was formed in 2014 and also includes Betteshanger Sustainable Parks, Broadview Garden Centre, Saplings Rural Nursery and Pre-School, Hadlow Rural Community School, Produced in Kent, and Rosemary Shrager’s Cookery School.

Image: West Kent and Ashford College campus

A cross-party letter has been signed by 164 MPs and handed to the chancellor demanding an above inflation increase to FE funding in the upcoming spending review.

Co-authored by Conservative MP Richard Graham and Labour MP Nic Dakin, the letter tells Phillip Hammond that “while government policy has protected the incomes of schools and universities, colleges have been dealt an average funding cut of 30 per cent over the last ten years”.

“We believe this constraint on FE resources has had an impact on the teaching, courses and above all opportunities for young people and skills of all ages,” it adds, and describes FE as the “Cinderella” of education spending.

The letter, which was given to Mr Hammond by Mr Graham and Gloucestershire College principal Matthew Burgess on Friday, was backed by 89 Conservative MPs and 72 Labour MPs, as well as two Liberal Democrat MPs and one Green Party MP.

It adds that the chancellor’s departmental spending review is a “chance to announce an above inflation increase which would boost skills, productivity and social mobility”.

The letter follows two high-profile campaigns to boost FE funding over the last year – Raise the Rate and Love Our Colleges.

Both are calling for funding for all 16 to 19-year-olds to increase to £4,760.

Funding for 16 and 17-year-olds has been frozen at £4,000 per student since 2013, while per-student funding for 18-year-olds was cut to £3,300 in 2014.

The campaigns have been gathering momentum in recent weeks and led to over 50 MPs taking part in a Westminster Hall debate in January when members from all sides of the House of Commons called for an end to six years of real-term FE funding rate cuts.

After signing the letter, Mr Dakin said: “From my years as a college principal, I know how important this issue is. Our colleges are the engines of social mobility, transforming the prospects of our young people and delivering the skills our local businesses want.

“It is vital that the government invests in our colleges.”

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said: “This year’s spending review is a pivotal one for colleges so we are pleased that so many MPs are backing calls for an increase in funding.

“If the government is serious about improving social mobility and increasing productivity, raising the funding rate for 16 to 18 year olds should be one of the Chancellor’s main priorities.”

The Association of Colleges chief executive, David Hughes, added: “There is now very strong cross-party support for the 2.2 million people who study and train in FE colleges each year. It’s vital the government helps those tasked with helping to solve the skills gap.”

Main image: Richard Graham MP handing over the cross party letter to Chancellor Philip Hammond beside Gloucestershire College principal Matthew Burgess

The 164 MPs that back the call for more FE funding:

 

Conservative	Labour	Lib Dem	Green
Richard Graham MP – Gloucester	Jack Dromey MP – Birmingham, Erdington	Wera Hobhouse MP – Bath	Caroline Lucas MP – Brighton, Pavilion
Alex Chalk MP – Cheltenham	Christian Matheson MP – City of Chester	Vince Cable MP – Twickenham West Derby
Sir Roger Gale MP – North Thanet	Lillian Greenwood MP – Nottingham South
Robert Courts MP – Witney	Nik Dakin MP – Scunthorpe
Philip Davies MP – Shipley	Wes Streeting MP – Ilford North
Ben Bradley MP – Mansfield	Diana Johnson MP – Kingston upon Hull North
Mark Garnier MP – Wyre Forest	Anna Turley MP – Redcar
Peter Aldous MP- Waveney	Melanie Onn MP – Great Grimsby
Andrea Jenkyns MP – Morley & Outwood	Lisa Nandy MP – Wigan
William Wragg MP – Hazel Grove	Louise Haigh MP – Sheffield
Damien Moore MP – Southport	Gareth Thomas MP – Harrow West
Sir Nicholas Soames MP – Mid Sussex	Dan Jarvis MP – Barnsley Central
Martin Vickers MP – Cleethorpes	Karl Turner MP – Kingston upon Hull East
Jeremy Lefroy MP- Stafford	Jeff Smith MP – Manchester, Withington
Will Quince MP – Colchester	Stephen Timms MP – East Ham
Charlie Elphicke MP – Dover	Lucy Powell MP – Manchester Central
Scott Mann MP – North Cornwall	Chi Onwurah MP – Newcastle Upon Tyne
Richard Drax MP – South Dorset	Ruth Cadbury MP – Brentford & Isleworth
Mark Prisk MP – Hertford & Stortford	Vernon Coaker MP – Gedling
Maria Caulfield MP – Lewes	Daniel Zeichner MP – Cambridge
Dr Sarah Wollaston MP – Totnes	Alex Cunningham MP – Stockton North
Neil O’Brien MP – Harborough	Paul Blomfield MP – Sheffield Central
Dr Julian Lewis MP – New Forest East	Alex Sobel MP – Leeds North West
Dame Caroline Spelman MP – Meriden	Jonathan Reynolds MP – Stalybridge & Hyde
Andrew Percy MP –  Brigg and Goole	Stephen Kinnock MP – Aberavon
Boris Johnson MP – Uxbridge & South Ruislip	Dr Alan Whitehead MP – Southampton, Test
Sir Robert Syms MP – Poole	Shabana Mahmood MP – Birmingham, Ladywood
Philip Dunne MP – Ludlow	Andy Slaughter MP – Hammersmith
Marcus Jones MP – Nuneaton	Rosie Duffield MP – Canterbury
Sir Hugo Swire MP – East Devon	Seema Malhotra MP – Feltham and Heston
Laurence Robertson MP – Tewkesbury	Rushanara Ali MP – Bethnal Green & Bow
Neil Parish MP – Tiverton and Honiton	Liz Twist MP – Blaydon
Sir Henry Bellingham MP – North West Norfolk	Clive Efford MP – Eltham
Maria Miller MP – Basingstoke	Luke Pollard MP – Plymouth, Sutton & Devonport
Julian Sturdy MP – York Outer	Sharon Hodgson MP – Washington & Sunderland West
Andrew Selous MP – South West Bedfordshire	Karyn Smyth MP – Bristol South
Stephen Metcalfe MP – South Basildon & East Thurrock	Kate Hollern MP – Blackbum
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP – The Cotswolds	Karen Buck MP-Westminster North
Bim Afolami MP – Hitchin & Harpenden	Richard Burden MP – Birmingham, Northfield
Damian Collins MP – Folkestone and Hythe	Liam Byrne MP – Birmingham, Hodge Hill
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP – North East Somerset	Helen Goodman MP – Bishop Auckland
Simon Hart MP – Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire	Roberta Blackman-Woods MP – Durham
Daniel Kawczynski MP – Shrewsbury and Atcham	Stephen Twigg MP – Liverpool
Andrew Lewer MBE MP – Northampton South	Thelma Walker MP – Colne Valley
Mark Menzies MP – Fylde	Eleanor Smith MP – Wolverhampton South West
Damian Green MP – Ashford	Stella Creasy MP – Walthamstow
Anne Marie Morris MP – Newton Abbot	Mohammad Yasin MP – Bedford
Pauline Latham  MP – Mid Derbyshire	Alison McGovern MP – Wirral South
James Gray MP – North Wiltshire	Emma Lewell-Buck MP – South Shields
Zac Goldsmith MP  -Richmond Park	Anneliese Dodds MP-Oxford East
Ian Liddell-Grainger MP – Bridgwater & West Somerset	Paul Williams MP – Stockton South
Gordon Henderson MP – Sittingbourne & Sheppey	Matt Western MP-Warwick and Leamington
Chris Green MP – Bolton West	Afzal Khan MP – Manchester, Gorton
Conor Burns MP – Bournemouth West	Rosie Cooper MP-West Lancashire
Andrew Griffiths MP – Burton and Uttoxeter	Bambos Charalambous MP-Enfield, Southgate
Mark Pawsey MP – Rugby	Marsha De Cordova MP-Battersea
Anne Main MP – St Albans	Yasmin Qureshi MP – Bolton South East
Anna Soubry MP – Broxtowe	Grahame Morris MP – Easington
Robert Halfon MP – Harlow	Julie Cooper MP – Burnley
Giles Watling MP – Clacton	Alex Norris MP-Nottingham North
Crispin Blunt MP – Reigate	Thangam Debbonaire MP – Bristol West
Bob Stewart MP – Beckenham	Jared O’Mara MP – Sheffield, Hallam
Royston Smith MP – Southampton, ltchen	Jack Dromey MP – Birmingham, Erdington
Marcus Fysh MP – Yeovil	Naz Shah MP – Bradford West
David Tredinnick MP – Bosworth	Vicky Foxcroft MP – Lewisham, Deptford
Nick Boles MP – Grantham and Stamford	Gill Furniss MP – Sheffield, Brightside, and Hillsborough
Michael Tomlinson MP – Mid Dorset and North Poole	Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP – Slough
Antoinette Sandbach MP – Eddisbury	Faisal Rashid MP – Warrington South
Kevin Hollinrake MP – Thirsk and Malton	Catherine West MP – Hornsey & Wood Green
Eddie Hughes MP – Walsall North	Yvonne  Fovargue  MP – Makerfield
Dan Poulter – Central Suffolk & North Ipswich	Steve McCabe MP – Birmingham, Selly Oak
Heidi Allen MP – South Cambridgeshire	Mary Glindon MP – North Tyneside
Gillian Keegan MP – Chichester
Iain Duncan Smith MP – Chingford and Woodford Green
James Heappey MP- Wells
Anne Marie Trevelyan MP – Berwick-upon-Tweed
Rebecca Pow MP – Taunton Deane
Tracey Crouch MP – Chatham & Aylesford
Henry Smith MP – Crawley
Bill Cash MP – Stone
Sheryll Murray MP – South East Cornwall
Nigel Mills MP – Amber Valley
Mike Penning MP – Hemel Hempstead
Craig Mackinlay MP – South Thanet
Sir Bernard Jenkin MP – Harwich & North Essex
Keith Simpson MP – Broadland
Andrew Bridgen MP – North West Leicestershire
Nadine  Dorries MP – Mid Bedfordshire
Steve Double MP – St Austell & Newquay

 

Around £470 million has now been allocated by the government to cover the costs of implementing post-area review changes for colleges.

The figure, which is 65 per cent of the £726 million on offer, was revealed in the latest Education and Skills Funding Agency progress report on the restructuring facility, which closed in September.

It said up to £435 million has been allocated for general FE colleges, including partnerships with universities, while up to £25 million has gone towards mergers between colleges and sixth form colleges, and up to £10 million for conversion of sixth form colleges to academy status.

Case summaries of providers that formally agreed restructuring facility terms by July 31, 2018 have also been published (click here to read the details). It doesn’t, however, reveal the values for individual applications.

Today’s announcement said the ESFA received 76 applications for the restructuring facility. Of these, 58 cases have been assessed and approved and five remain in the assessment and approval processes.

“Of the 58 applications assessed and approved, 32 include funding to support restructuring,” it said.

“Of the remaining 26, 17 include VAT funding only to meet VAT liabilities arising from the change of ownership of buildings and nine relate to conversions to academy trusts that did not require restructuring facility support.”

The restructuring facility, administered by the ESFA’s transaction unit, was designed to help colleges implement area review changes but has increasingly being used to support colleges in tough financial situations.

The application deadline was September 28, 2018 – although colleges will have until March to spend the cash.

In an updated guidance document for applying to the restructuring facility, the ESFA said in September that in order to ensure the “objectives of the programme can be best realised by March 2019 it is important that we prioritise funding to support those colleges and proposals that provide the greatest contribution to the restructuring facility objectives”.

“We are unlikely to be able to support all requests for funding,” it added.

FE Week has previously reported on a number of colleges in dire financial straits that have received multi million-pound handouts from the fund.

These include Hull College, which reportedly received £54 million from the fund in 2018, and Lambeth College, which applied for over £25 million to pay off its exceptional financial support and bank loans, according to its 2016/17 accounts.