Apprenticeship providers could be forced to stop recruiting students for several years, if judged to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in early monitoring visits from Ofsted, FE Week can reveal.

Earlier this month the Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed that any poor-performing provider with the rating in at least one of the themes under review will be barred from taking on any new apprentices – either directly or through a subcontracting arrangement.

These restrictions will remain in place until the provider has received a full inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for its apprenticeship provision.

But when asked by FE Week how soon after a monitoring visit a new provider can expect a full inspection, Ofsted revealed it will be sticking to the rules in its existing handbook which state it will be within three years of starting their first apprentice.

“As set out in our handbook, Ofsted normally inspects new providers with a full inspection within three years of their first receiving funding,” a spokesperson said.

“Clearly, the outcome from any monitoring visit will be taken into consideration when planning the subsequent full inspection, including when it takes place.”

The news will ring alarm bells for new apprenticeship providers subject to the early monitoring visits, as their whole business will effectively be put on hold until Ofsted grants them a full inspection and ups their grade if they receive ‘insufficient progress’ in any of the themes.

AELP chief policy officer Simon Ashworth said: “We definitely need greater clarity on what happens next whether it’s a future monitoring visit or a full inspection where the provider has to get at least a grade three.

“An absence of transparency over timing does appear to leave providers in limbo although the importance of good quality provision for learners must be our topmost priority.”

Providers judged to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in the monitoring visits will be able to continue to work with existing apprentices, but must tell the employers, and any lead providers, about the monitoring visit outcome as well as pausing recruitment.

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

FE Week reported in May that Ofsted was set to be given these new powers – along with up to £7 million more cash to visit every new apprenticeship provider.

When asked whether all new providers with starts can now expect a monitoring visit, the spokesperson for the watchdog said it had not decided on this yet.

“In November 2017, HMCI announced that Ofsted would carry out monitoring visits to a sample of new providers,” she said.

“We are working closely with the DfE to assess what we can learn from these visits.”

Ofsted’s new powers follow an education select committee hearing at which skills minister Anne Milton admitted it wasn’t clear who was accountable for quality at these new providers.

There was surprise at the mixed messages from the ESFA, which recently permitted a provider to recruit apprentices once more – just two months after Ofsted branded its provision “not fit for purpose”.

A college in west Anglia has been banned from entering into new subcontracting arrangements after a government investigation found it did not know where training for 16 to 19-year-olds was being delivered.

An inquiry into the College of West Anglia’s relationship with GEMEG Limited was launched at the end of 2017 following allegations of severe mismanagement, including the subcontractor imposing fines on students.

An MP, understood to be John Mann for Bassettlaw, provided 223 documents to support the allegations.

The provision on offer included work experience at Worksop Town Football Club and Worksop Town Football Academy and affected at least 19 students.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency found that GEMEG failed to inform the college where provision was initially delivered.

Registers stated that provision was delivered in Nottingham rather than Worksop – an hour’s drive away – which meant that CoWA “did not know where training was being delivered for the first six months of the programme”.

“Because CoWA did not visit the students for the first six months of the programme, they could not have established that the 19 students were actually on the programme,” the ESFA said.

GEMEG also did not provide “sufficient evidence that they had assessed appropriately, student learning needs when students enrolled on the programme”.

But even when the college discovered the location used for training in Worksop was not “entirely suitable for teaching”, the college took “no effective action”.

During the investigation one student said GEMEG fined them for non-attendance when on holiday. The subcontractor denies this and the college said it was not aware of any fees or fines charged to students by GEMEG.

Worksop Town Football Club was supposed to be paid by GEMEG for the use of the club’s services, such as room hire.

But the club claim that they “did not receive the funds and are considering their options regarding this matter, including whether to refer the issue to the police”.

The ESFA was unable to confirm if funds were paid during investigation.

The maximum contract value between CoWA and GEMEG was originally £140,000 but reduced in November 2015 to £100,000 due to lower than expected recruitment.

CoWA, which took a 25 per cent management fee from the deal, confirmed that the total funds claimed by GEMEG for the 19 identified students was £50,817.75.

The college ended the subcontracting arrangement in July 2016, and is now banned from taking on new subcontractors until issues identified by the ESFA are resolved.

The college must now carry out a “full review of subcontracting controls and assurance systems and processes, and provide assurance to the ESFA that these are operating effectively for all subcontracted provision”.

It currently has £1.3 million worth of subcontracting deals across six providers for adult funding.

CoWA’s principal David Pomfret said: “This report relates to concerns dating back nearly three years about the practices of one of our subcontractors. As a result of our own concerns, we ended our association with this provider in July 2016, long before any ESFA concerns came to light.

“The report raises concerns about CWA’s oversight and management of the subcontracting. At the time of the ESFA’s investigation visit to CWA in November 2017, we had already implemented changes to our processes to address most of the perceived weaknesses and recommendations mentioned in the report.”

She added: “Since then, we have further strengthened oversight of sub-contracting delivery, which includes our own staff directly overseeing enrolment of 16-18 year olds and discontinuing non-local study programme subcontracted delivery.

“We have also carried out a full review of subcontracting controls and assurance systems and processes and are confident these are operating effectively for all subcontracted provision.”

The government is expecting to spend up to £7.5 million over a 15 month period to cover the cost of the legal work carried out by practitioners and consultants for its new college insolvency regime.

The vast amount is being set aside despite the Department for Education admitting college insolvency would be an “unlikely event”, and experts predict hardly any of it will actually be used.

There are concerns that if the fund does go unspent then the cash will be directed away from the sector, coming at a time when the DfE has formally rejected a plea for extra cash for a college teacher pay rise.

The insolvency regime is a solution to a problem that is largely of the government’s own making – and it now appears to be a very expensive solution

The department first set out proposals for an insolvency regime in 2016 after recognising the dire financial positions some colleges are finding themselves in.

A tender, with a closing date of September 21, has been launched to procure the services of licensed insolvency practitioners, accountants and legal advisors.

They will be expected to conduct “independent business reviews” on colleges in financial difficulty, and take “formal appointments in relation to the insolvency of individual colleges”.

Services are also being procured for “provision of specialist commercial legal advice to the department in relation to cases of severe financial difficulty and/or insolvency of colleges”.

Having these services on board will “enable a quick response to potentially rapidly-changing situations in individual colleges which are in severe financial distress”, the tender document said.

The DfE is expected to pull the plug on exceptional financial support for colleges once the insolvency regime is introduced.

FE Week has reported on a number of colleges in dire straits that have received multimillion-pound handouts from the DfE’s restructuring fund – cash that needs to be used by March 2019.

These include Lambeth College, which was expecting a whopping £25 million to pay off its exceptional financial support and bank loans, as well as the struggling Telford College of Arts and Technology, which received £21 million for its merger with New College Telford.

FE Commissioner Richard Atkins previously told FE Week that colleges will continue to “occasionally get into difficulty”, and therefore they will need “some sort of funding to oil the wheels in these situations”, such as the insolvency regime, to ensure stability and protect learners.

But the amount of money set aside for the insolvency services, which works out to £500,000 a month from January 2019, has raised eyebrows.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “I would be very surprised indeed if the actual spend on this was anywhere near that figure in the first few years, let alone the first 15 months. 

“My experience over the last 20 years is that there has nearly always been a viable way to support a college to manage out of the financial distress.

“Given the explicit primacy given to protecting student interests, it may well be that the insolvency regime is not used at all in the first few years, or perhaps even ever.”

But James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, is wary of any underspend.

“We have previously exposed how the government has underspent the 16-19 budget in each of the last three years,” he said.

“This money was redirected way from the sector – the same fate should not befall any of this £7.5 million that goes unspent.”

He added: “The government seems unwilling to join the dots between the three major funding cuts imposed on colleges since 2011, year on year cost increases, and the fact that there is now significant financial pressure on institutions.

“So the insolvency regime is a solution to a problem that is largely of the government’s own making – and it now appears to be a very expensive solution.”

FE Week reported yesterday that Ms Milton has confirmed the government will not offer extra cash to fund a pay rise for college staff, despite promising to do so for part of a 3.5 per cent salary increase for school teachers.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it is “completely unacceptable that there is no funding going into the college sector to meet the pay rise for their staff” and was dismayed that “we’re now setting aside £7.5 million to deal with an event which by the government’s own admission they think is highly unlikely”.

The secondary legislation required for the college insolvency regime is due to go through Parliament this autumn, in order to implement it in early 2019.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has waded into a row over a learner with dwarfism who claims to have been rejected from a college cookery course because of his height.

The star restaurateur took to Twitter in support of 18-year-old Louis Makepeace (pictured above), who said he was told he couldn’t start a hospitality and catering course at Heart of Worcestershire College as he would pose a “health and safety risk”.

Disgusting attitude, I’d offer him an Apprenticeship any day. https://t.co/xYdfWJ7CLK

— Gordon Ramsay (@GordonRamsay) August 28, 2018

“Disgusting attitude, I’d offer him an apprenticeship any day,” Mr Ramsay tweeted.

Louis, who has achondroplasia, hit the headlines over the weekend after he said he was turned down from the course because of his diminutive stature – he’s just 3ft 10 inches tall.

His story has been reported by the BBC, the Daily Mail, and The Sun, among other outlets.

In a video posted to his YouTube channel today, Louis expressed his disbelief that his story had gone viral in the way it had.

“Gordon Ramsay has even got involved, which I’m grateful for. I really admire Gordon Ramsay – he’s inspirational to me”, Louis said.

The Sun reported on Monday that Louis had been told he “would be a health and safety risk and disruption to the other students and get in their way, which was really humiliating”.

Furthermore, his mum, Pauline Makepeace, said she was told by the course leader there was no point him doing the course as he would never be allowed to work in a restaurant kitchen.

However, the college has denied that Louis had ever been told he couldn’t attend his course.

Following the recent coverage surrounding Louis Makepeace and his place on our Hospitality and Catering course, we would like to release the below statement. pic.twitter.com/l3AAxn3gcV

— HOW College (@HOW_College) August 28, 2018

It said it was carrying out a review to ensure that “all the appropriate adjustments to the kitchens that Louis needs to allow him to safely and successfully commence his course” were in place before he could be accepted onto the course.

That review is still ongoing, the college said, and “after further discussions have taken place both at the college and with Louis himself, we hope to have a final outcome by the end of this week”.

After 10 years of “politely” highlighting the impact of funding cuts, the Association of Colleges will now make “a lot more noise”, after a plea to ministers for cash to fund a lecturer pay rise was rejected.

It will kick off its new louder strategy by holding a “week of action” in October, where students, staff, parents, employers, and stakeholders will be asked to “advocate for colleges”.

The action follows the Department for Education’s decision to fund a 3.5 per cent pay rise for school teachers while ignoring college lecturers – an announcement which left David Hughes (pictured), the boss of the AoC, “angry” and “frustrated”.

He wrote to education secretary Damian Hinds setting out the case for a similar pay increase in colleges in a letter, seen by FE Week, sent on July 19.

It explained the “unfair” discrepancy between average college and school teacher pay – £30,000 compared with £37,000 respectively – and how continuous government cuts have left it impossible for colleges to offer decent staff pay increases.

“Colleges have managed their budgets to cope with real-term funding cuts by making efficiency gains where they can but the scope for them to continue to do this has all-but run out,” the letter said.

“With nowhere else to turn, colleges have offered below-inflation pay rises for several years with the result that staff pay has been held back.

“We would like to ask DfE to provide funds to allow colleges to at least match the school teacher pay awards for 2018-19 and 2019-20.”

After sending the letter Mr Hughes said he had many discussions with DfE, the tone of which were “initially quite positive, based I think on the expectation that the Treasury would fully or partially fund the teachers’ pay award, giving them some potential to use savings for college pay”.

But when the announcement was made that DfE had to find savings in its own budget for school teacher salary rises, the tone became “less positive”.

He then received a letter from skills minister Anne Milton on August 21 which essentially said no to the request.

“Schools and colleges have different workforces and requirements, and the way pay is determined in those sectors is quite separate,” she said.

“We want to make sure that there is an effective funding system for FE which can support sustainable, high quality education. We are considering this as part of the upcoming spending review, scheduled to take place in 2019.”

Mr Hughes was “deeply disappointed” by the minister’s response.

He told FE Week that during the last 10 years of funding cuts to colleges his association has been “politely setting out how difficult that is and the impact on students and staff”.

But now “we need to try something different”.

“There is no more mileage in simply making the case, proving that funding is inadequate, trying to persuade DfE – we have achieved all of that, which is progress of sorts,” he said in a letter to the AoC’s members on Friday.

“What we need now is to make our voices heard on the political level, to fight for college and students’ needs in what looks set to be a tough set of spending decisions this autumn in the budget and more importantly in the Spending Review in early 2019.”

He told FE Week that his association was planning a “week of action” to start October 15.

“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 said.

“The week of action is going to ramp up the noise about how important colleges are.

“We’ll be doing that positively and politely, but we want to make as much noise as possible to say colleges are vital in every community and they really matter, and investment in colleges is not throwing money away.”

Mr Hughes said his association will decide exactly what action will be taken during that week in the coming weeks, and more information will be released next month.

The week of action will be held the same week that a national UCU ballot for industrial action over staff pay closes.