Mixed reactions to Association of Colleges senior pay code

Principals have welcomed new guidance from the Association of Colleges for setting senior pay in colleges, but unions have warned the voluntary code will not be enough to tackle excessive rewards.

FE Week revealed last week that refreshed remuneration guidance was being developed by the association as top level pay across the education sector continues to come under heavy scrutiny.

The government has clamped down on chief executive salaries in multi-academy trusts and vice-chancellor wages in universities which often exceed £150,000, but left colleges untouched despite many bosses receiving more than £200,000.

The code sets out good practice that I’m sure is already largely followed

A consultation for the AoC’s new code, which encompasses “three core principles: fairness, independence and transparency” and is an amendment to existing guidance created in 2015, was launched to tackle this.

The main proposals include only giving seniors a pay rise if all staff also receive one, removing top college bosses from remuneration committees, separate publication of principal salaries and a requirement to justify any income seniors receive from outside organisations.

Ian Pryce, principal of Bedford College, told FE Week the AoC should be “applauded for being ahead of the curve”.

“We don’t have an issue with senior pay in colleges,” he claimed. “Governors behave very responsibility. The code sets out good practice that I’m sure is already largely followed.”

NCG, the country’s biggest college group, agreed with Mr Pryce.

“NCG welcomes the senior pay code for colleges,” a spokesperson said. “As a leading further education group invested in its staff we already operate by these principles.”

But unions expressed concern that the code is not statutory.

“Whilst UNISON welcomes the AoC’s admission that more checks and balances are needed in relation to senior staff pay in colleges, a voluntary code will not be enough to tackle excessive pay awards,” said Leigh Powell, the union’s FE lead officer.

“This code has been in existence for three years and yet we continue to see principals being awarded pay rises other staff in colleges can only dream about.

“It is difficult to see exactly how adding a few words to a document that has been proven to have little effect to date is going to lead to the necessary changes in practice.”

University and College Union head of further education Andrew Harden agreed.

We hope that the final version will have real teeth

“Whilst we agree that principals shouldn’t be on remunerations committees, we have concerns that the proposed code is only voluntary,” he said.

“We hope that the final version will have real teeth and not allow colleges to get out of proper transparency when it comes to leaders’ pay, especially at a time when staff have suffered pay cuts of 25 per cent over the last decade.”

Mr Pryce pointed out that colleges are independent charities so the code “should be guidance”.

He added: “Senior pay is a low multiple of median salaries. The multiples are higher in the civil service and NHS because median pay is lower, so the code might lead to or justify higher CEO pay.

“Colleges might also concentrate good rises on those staff around the median, rather than the low paid.”

The refreshed senior pay code has been developed at a frustrating time for college staff, after the DfE decided to fund a 3.5 per cent pay rise for school teachers while ignoring FE lecturers. UCU has since launched a ballot for strike action to take place later this year.

“This shouldn’t really need saying but the increasing differentials between senior level pay and that of lecturers and other FE staff is simply inexcusable,” said Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union.

“The NEU firmly supports the effort by AoC to encourage colleges to sign up to and honour a code of conduct that could potentially bring greater fairness into pay settlements.”

Hinds quick to show IfA support but fails to name employers in agreement

The education secretary was unable to name a single employer who supported the Institute for Apprenticeships in an interview with FE Week editor Nick Linford this week.

Damian Hinds had arranged the interview while on his fact-finding trip to Germany and the Netherlands.

He was asked if the English version of employer ownership was working, given the well-documented frustration among employers towards the IfA.

The IfA was set up by the DfE last April and is an “employer-led” non-departmental public body of approximately 80 staff, according to the DfE.

Mr Hinds was quick to insist the IfA was doing a “really important job” and that there was “a lot of enthusiasm” from employers about apprenticeships.

That begged the question whether Mr Hinds could name any – which he couldn’t, despite being asked five times.

This failure by the education secretary followed a similar silence from the IfA itself last month.

More than 150 businesses joined forces with the Chartered Management Institute at the end of August to fight against the IfA’s proposals to slash the funding band for the popular chartered manager standard by £5,000.

FE Week asked the institute if it could name any employers that supported the recommendation, but was told “not at this time”.

The IfA’s chief executive, Sir Gerry Berragan, had earlier acknowledged employers’ unhappiness about the institute.

Its Faster and better programme, launched in December to speed up its processes and make its policies more transparent, had been prompted by employer feedback.

Skills minister Anne Milton has also spoken about the need to take a “big stick” to the institute to push it to being even faster and even better.

In contrast, Mr Hinds insisted in response to Mr Linford’s questions that the IfA was doing a “really important job in bringing together employers to create a quality assurance system”.

“I think it’s a really important part of the architecture of the overall programme,” he said.

I know you speak to many employers. I also speak to many employers

When asked why there was so much animosity towards the institute, Mr Hinds insisted that “what I hear from businesses is a lot of enthusiasm for the apprenticeship programme”.

“We know there’s a shift to higher level apprenticeships, there’s a shift from frameworks to standards, and I think that’s much welcomed,” he continued.

This response prompted Mr Linford to ask him if he could name any employers that were “enthusiastic about the institute”, given that it is meant to be “representative of an employer-led system”.

The education secretary dodged the question, and said instead: “I know you speak to many employers. I also speak to many employers”.

“I know people want to see, and rightly so, the standards coming through, and it’s been good to see that process having gained pace, and I think that’s much to be welcomed,” he continued.

He was pressed again to answer the question, but again failed to name any – insisting he needed to board his plane, which was due to take him from Dresden to Amsterdam for the next stop on his week-long fact-finding mission.

A further three attempts to ask the question met with the same response.

The exchange followed repeated criticism of the IfA’s handling of the recent funding band review which launched in May.

That process looked at the funding caps allocated to 31 standards, including some of the more popular ones, to assess whether they offered good value for money.

The institute started communicating with the employer groups that developed the standards last month, and a number of them were unhappy with the outcome.

Of the nine recommendations that FE Week is aware of, six have resulted in a proposed funding cut.

Employers have hit out at the IfA, claiming that the process wasn’t fair or transparent, with proposed funding bands bearing no relation to the costs for delivery submitted as part of the review.

The letter to the employer group behind the level six chartered manager standard even said “you told us that a reduction to funding would lead to providers exiting the market and reduce provider ability to deliver high quality training provision.”

DfE finds much needed apprenticeship monitoring cash

When the ESFA published the list of providers on the apprenticeship register in March 2017 we reported that the entire sector was shocked.

Hundreds of companies, many never having filed a set of accounts, had successfully applied to a register that would give them unlimited access to apprenticeship funding.

In an interview with me the same month, Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of Ofsted, expressed obvious concern.

Now, 18 months later and after some new providers have been found “not fit for purpose”, the Department for Education has accepted Ofsted’s plea for more cash and ponied up £5.4m until 2020.

The money will be spent on monitoring visits to all new providers, followed by a full inspection within 12 months where insufficient progress has been found.

This is excellent news and shows a genuine commitment from the government to put quality above quantity.

However, it still leaves a series of important unanswered questions, and the National Audit Office is currently looking again into whether the DfE is “ensuring that the programme and levy system are not abused by stakeholders.”

The NAO’s follow-up review is due for publication in early 2019, so here are four questions they might want to ask the DfE:

  1. What will the early monitoring arrangements be for providers delivering levels 6 and 7? When we asked the Office for Students and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education they seemed less than sure.
  2. Why do apprenticeship providers have unlimited access to levy funding? This allowed one employer to recruit 650 apprentices before their Ofsted early monitoring visit exposed serious failings. Surely those with no track record should be limited until their quality is proven?
  3. The provider register has officially been shut to entrants since last October and the rumour is the new version won’t be open this month as promised. So what is the plan to introduce quality thresholds and potentially remove some through a reapplication process?
  4. Now Ofsted has received much needed additional resource, what about the ESFA in terms of what’s needed to manage the fallout from their “market entry” policies? For example, many apprentices will need to be found new providers as part of their “market exit” intervention support.

The way the provider register was set up was deeply flawed, but with a well-resourced Ofsted and some sensible ESFA changes, things can only get better.

Movers and Shakers: Edition 254

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

John Widdowson, chair, Workers’ Educational Association

Start date: July 2018
Previous job: Principal, New College Durham
Interesting fact: John had his heart set on a career in law. He fell into education by accident, after taking a teaching job at a college to earn some extra cash – and was hooked immediately

____________________________________________

Karen Heaney, chief operating officer, NCG

Start date: September 2018
Previous job: Director of regeneration, Home Group
Interesting fact: Karen has more hobbies than you can count including playing the violin and digital piano, crochet, yoga, watercolour painting, golf and horse riding

____________________________________________

Marion Plant, deputy chair, WorldSkills UK

Start date: September 2018
Previous job: Principal, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College (she remains in post)
Interesting fact: Marion grew up in Zambia and is a qualified midwife who loves cross-country skiing

____________________________________________

Mike Wilmot, chief finance officer, NCG

Start date: September 2018
Previous job: Director of finance, Parkdean Resorts
Interesting fact: Mike has been musical director for numerous musicals over many years working with both youth and adult groups

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

AELP calls for March 2020 end to non-levy transition period

Any transition period for moving small employers onto the apprenticeship service should only last until March 2020 to avoid another “unnecessary procurement exercise”, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers has said.

It’s one of a number of proposals the AELP has put forward for the non-levy transition period and creating a sustainable apprenticeship system, announced today.

Other recommendations include a more streamlined apprenticeship service, designed to work for smaller employers, a more robust register of apprenticeship training providers, and a guaranteed £1 billion in funding for small employers.

“There may be levy funds unspent now, but the demand for higher and degree level apprenticeships among levy paying employers points to the bulk of the levy soon being used up,” said Mark Dawe, AELP chief executive (pictured above)AELP .

“This is why AELP is articulating solutions that should give both smaller and large employers a fair chance of gaining access to apprenticeship funding over the long term.”

Small employers had been due to start using the apprenticeship service to access apprenticeship funding from April 2019, but last month the Education and Skills Funding Agency announced this would be delayed and it would instead extend existing contracts for a further year.

A week later it launched a survey asking for feedback on what any transition period might look like, which could include apprenticeships with non-levy employers being funded through contracts and directly through the service for a period of time.

The AELP proposed that this ‘dual running’ period should run for a year, from April 2019 to March 2020, when the current non-levy contracts run out.

As a result there would be “no need for a further unnecessary procurement exercise”.

This approach would be subject to the apprenticeship service being “modified and streamlined to support the wide breadth of needs and requirements for smaller employers”.

The current set-up for levy-paying employers is “particularly arduous” and “time-consuming”, and would create a “sizeable barrier” for smaller employers that would lead them to “reject the opportunity to invest in apprenticeships”, the AELP warned.

It also said the ESFA’s register needed to be more “robust” if it was to become the gateway for providers to have direct access to funding, and proposed a number of ways in which it could be strengthened.

These included taking into consideration a provider’s previous delivery, and to “thoroughly test the competency and capacity of new providers”.

The AELP also reiterated its previous demand for a guaranteed £1 billion for non-levy payers, to ensure that funding for smaller employers isn’t limited as demand by levy-paying employers increases.

It warned that a system that culminates in a “stop-go approach” in which “demand of funding outstrips supply and a hard close is required” must be avoided at all costs.

“Any such system would have a catastrophic impact on providers’ ability to manage cash flow and staffing resource,” it said.

Education secretary in Germany in search of inspiration

Education secretary Damian Hinds this week followed in the footsteps of many a government minister before him and jetted off for a fact-finding mission to our neighbours on the continent.

His visit to Germany and the Netherlands was intended to “discover how they educate their young people to have the practical and technical skills needed for a highly productive economy”, according to an article in the Times newspaper on Monday.

A similar trip by former skills minister Nick Boles to Norway in August 2015 (pictured) came just months before the launch of the Sainsbury review, which resulted in proposals to develop T-level qualifications.

Those plans bear a certain resemblance to Norway’s post-16 education system, so what new developments can we expect to see as a result of Mr Hinds’ visit this week?

Speaking to FE Week from Dresden Airport on the third day of his trip, where he was about to catch a plane to Amsterdam, the education secretary was either unwilling or unable to say.

“I’ve been here 72 hours and I’m going to assimilate what I’ve heard here with other points of learning,” he said.

Professor Ewart Keep explains what we can learn from Germany

However, he indicated this was unlikely to be involve importing systems wholesale or cherry-picking individual elements.

“You can’t copy en masse a system from one country into any other, given that the traditions are different, the industrial structures are different, the ways of working are different,” he said.

“They rely on years, decades, sometimes even centuries of development.”

At the same time: “I don’t think you can take individual little elements and say I have learned that one thing, and copy that across,” he said.

Mr Hinds’ research mission came at a critical time for the reform programme in this country’s technical education system – 16 months after the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and the associated changes to the system, and 24 months before the first T-level courses will be taught.

It was “right as we go on our ambitious reform programme we also seek to learn from systems like Germany and others”, he said.

Germany, where Hinds spent the first three days of his trip, is “world famous” for its technical education system and “has a very high reputation,” he said.

The policy, established for nearly 50 years, is known as the ‘dual system’ in reference to the two training locations – vocational school and the workplace.

An apprenticeship in this ‘dual system’ is considered to be the main route into employment for young Germans. It is well-recognised and highly valued by employers, and by the young people themselves.

The “parity of esteem” between technical and academic education, which the government is aiming to achieve through its reforms, “comes across very clearly here,” he said.

“The technical system, the apprenticeships, the professions that people are learning in, that’s a very well-established system which has great respect across society and is very well-entrenched,” Mr Hinds said.

He spoke about the central role that employers had in making the ‘dual system’ work.

Businesses in Germany had a “deep commitment” to “every side and at every level to apprenticeships”, he said.

This was driven “partly from their own interest to bring on talent, and to identify who’s going to bring them further on and help them grow”.

But it was also because “it’s part of what people do, what businesses do in society”, he said.

The Netherlands, where Mr Hinds was due to spend the rest of his fact-finding trip, is “another system that is useful to look at”, he said.

One of the key features of its education system, which is perhaps less well-known than that of its neighbour, is that children can choose a vocational route from the age of 12.

Employer involvement in the Dutch system is less well-established than in Germany, and only became formalised in 1996.

The system is “in terms of industrial structures, in some ways more similar to our own,” Mr Hinds said.

German technical education explained

Germany’s long-established system of technical education is the envy of many countries, linked as it is with high productivity and low unemployment.

Just over half of young people in Germany go through the ‘dual system’ – a proportion that has fallen in recent years.

For the majority this is likely to be an apprenticeship lasting two or three years, beginning at the age of 16. A transition year is an option for those who can’t find a company to train with or need further education or training before they can start an apprenticeship.

Apprentices spend one or two days a week or several weeks at once in vocational school, called Berufsschule, with the remainder of their time spent learning on the job.

The German apprenticeship system is strictly regulated and any company taking on an apprentice must ensure they are trained up to specific standards – and there are around 350 of them.

These are set by the relevant Chambers of Commerce, which play a central role in the ‘dual system’ – in effect managing the system on behalf of the national government.

All German companies must belong to a Chamber of Commerce, and must pay a levy that goes towards the cost of running the training system.

Costs for the vocational school element of apprenticeship training are paid for by the state, while the employer pays for on-the-job training.

Around 20 per cent of German companies are involved in the apprenticeship system, according to the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung.

Education in the Netherlands

Vocational education can begin as early as 12 in the Netherlands.

Dutch children are split into three different types of secondary school, with only one of them giving direct access to an academic university.

The other two types are more vocationally focused. Of these the ‘pre-vocational education’ route, called VMBO, is the most popular and chosen by more than half of Dutch children.

It involves a mix of vocational training and general education, and runs from the age of 12 to 16.

After the VMBO young people can then move onto the MBO, or middle-level applied education. This can last between one and four years, and can be either classroom-based or an apprenticeship – although both options include some time spent learning on the job.

Graduates of the four-year middle-level training can progress onto higher professional education in the equivalent of what had once been polytechnics in this country.

Employer involvement in the Dutch vocational system is much less well-developed than in Germany, and was only formalised in the 1990s.

The 1996 Educational and Vocational Training Act gave businesses more influence on the content of vocational and skills programmes.

College teacher pay decision is clumsy and divisive

Having identified some new funding for teacher pay, it could have been spent fairly across the system – instead it has caused division, laments Eddie Playfair

The government’s latest decision on the teacher pay grant is clumsy and divisive and creates a new level of unfairness in their treatment of colleges.

To give credit where its due, the Department for Education are to be congratulated on securing an extra £30 million to help support sixth form teacher pay. It shows that they acknowledge there is a problem. But by spending this additional money in such a brazenly unfair way they have managed to squander the goodwill this might have bought and snatch failure from the jaws of success.

Take two similar colleges where similar students are taught the same subjects by teachers who have the same pay and conditions. The teachers in one college are set to receive a government funded pay rise and those in the other will receive no additional funding. Why the discrepancy? Simply because one has converted to academy status and the other hasn’t.

The unfairness is evident, and everyone hates unfairness

What are teachers and college leaders to make of this? Is there any rational explanation as to why teachers in colleges which have academised are more deserving of a pay rise than their colleagues in virtually identical colleges which chose not to? Are 16-19 academies more in need of a vital cash injection than all other colleges? The unfairness is evident, and everyone hates unfairness.

Having identified some new funding for teacher pay, it could have been spent fairly across the system. Instead, the manner it which it’s being used risks creating a new sense of grievance. This iniquitous treatment will only serve to mystify and anger everyone by creating unnecessary new divisions and storing up more problems for the future. It’s quite an achievement to upset nearly everyone and still have to pay for the privilege!

In recent years, there has been a welcome trend towards more equal treatment of 16-18 provision wherever it takes place; with the move to a single funding rate and then the harmonisation of free school meal entitlement. ‘Standards not structures’ was the mantra and despite the overall underfunding of 16-18 education we could at least see that government was aiming for a level playing field with no favourites. It feels like we might now be going into reverse and moving away from a free market towards a rigged market.

College leaders, governors, staff and students will be coming together in October to make the case for proper investment in further education as part of Colleges Week. One of our specific asks is for an immediate cash injection to fund a decent pay rise for college staff. We can only hope that the government listens to the case for equity when it has money to spend.

IfA launches first content review of apprenticeship standards

The Institute for Apprenticeships has begun its first statutory review of apprenticeship standards since it began operating more than a year ago.

It’s inviting feedback from employers, apprentices and training providers on 12 standards in the digital sector, all of which were approved before April 2017, via an online consultation which runs for four weeks.

Sir Gerry Berragan (pictured above), the IfA’s chief executive, said it was taking “an employer-led approach” to the review.

“We’re asking industry experts to tell us if these digital standards produce apprentices that are occupationally competent. If they don’t – what do we need to address the shortfall?”

The review will incorporate feedback from employers, apprentices and training providers alongside the IfA’s own quality criteria.

The IfA’s approach to the reviews would be “overseen by the appropriate route panel, and will underpin the quality of T-levels”, and will take “into account other work such as the funding band review”, a spokesperson said.

Digital was chosen for the first review as “we are prioritising those standards linked to T Levels” and those approved pre-2017.

The 12 standards under review had 5,640 starts between them in the first nine months of 2017/18 (see table).

The IfA’s consultation closes October 18, and the outcomes of the review will be published in the New Year.

Earlier this year the institute came in for criticism for having failed to carry out any formal review of duplicate, narrow or low-skill standards since its launch.

It was urged to do so “at the earliest opportunity” by Lord Sainsbury in his report of the independent panel on technical education, published July 2016.

The peer made clear he was concerned about standards that overlapped, were too job-specific, or lacked enough technical content to justify 20 per cent off-the-job training.

Today’s announcement comes as the final results of the IfA’s funding band review are still to be revealed.

That review, launched in May, was intended to “help make sure that employers can access high quality apprenticeships and that funding bands represent good value for money for employers and government”.

It covers 31 standards – including some of the most popular.

FE Week has reported on the outcome of nine of these reviews: six of which have resulted in a recommendation for the band to be cut, one for it to remain the same and two for it to be increased.

Writing exclusively for FE Week, Anne Milton said last week that the full results would be published “shortly”.

London mayor warned 72 administrators may not be enough when AEB devolved

London’s mayor has been warned that his current adult education budget team of 72 administrators may not be enough to handle the fund when devolution kicks in next year.

The Greater London Authority has calculated a “risk” that the number of contracts and grants to be dished out from the annual £311 million budget will be “greater than can be reasonably managed by the current team”.

In order to mitigate the threat, Sadiq Khan has been told that the authority will either need to recruit more personnel to its current AEB team, and pay them using funds in the budget, or risk “potential negative impact on quality”.

FE Week revealed earlier this year that the GLA is having to recruit a huge team of new bureaucrats to hand out the budget to London’s training providers from 2019, with most of their wages paid every year by taking £3 million from the AEB.

There remains a low risk that the number of contracts and grants will be greater than can be reasonably managed

Despite the AEB unit now totalling 72 officials, the authority is anticipating the workforce might not be enough and it could need to apply a greater top-slice to the AEB to recruit and pay more staff – taking yet more cash away from frontline learning.

“Even with the minimum contract value, the final risk is that there will be insufficient resources to manage the contracts awarded,” said a GLA briefing document published ahead of a board meeting about the AEB that took place this week.

“There remains a low risk that the number of contracts and grants will be greater than can be reasonably managed by the current team, applying the proposed project management approaches.”

If this risk arises, there are two “potential mitigations: additional internal or external project management resources may need to be identified, with a consequent cost to the AEB and ESF budgets; or the current project management approach may need to be amended to require less resources, with a potential negative impact on the quality”.

The GLA has always maintained that the Department for Education is forcing it to make the top-slice because it refuses to offer any funding to cover operational costs.

However, a letter sent by the DfE to the authority in March, seen by FE Week, has revealed that it was the department’s own recommendation to take cash from the budget to pay the administrators.

It says that when the AEB is delegated, the authority will be able to “retain underspends generated within the AEB” and goes on to suggest that 3 per cent of the £311 million annual budget “may be a useful indicator” for what can be used as a top-slice.

In other words, the GLA could have £9.3 million to cover staff costs from underspend.

Mary Vine-Morris, area director (London) for the Association of Colleges, said as much money as possible should go directly on teaching and training and any additional funding for support functions should be found elsewhere.

The GLA briefing document noted another of its “top three” issues was that there is still no agreed position with the ESFA on audits.

Mary Vine-Morris

If the authority is made to audit the AEB then its team of bureaucrats could grow even larger and incur more costly top-slices.

A decision on the audits was supposed to be made by mid-August but the DfE failed to meet this deadline. This issue is still unresolved, according to the GLA.

The authority’s interim head of paid service, David Lunts, wrote to the DfE’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, last month to pursue the issue.

“We have proposed to your officials that audit should continue to be conducted by the DfE so that providers are not subject to additional burdensome audits from us,” the letter said.

“I also understand that the ESFA will soon be refreshing its current contract/agreement for its audit services. Given the timing for this, it presents a good opportunity to reach agreement on this issue as soon as possible.”

The GLA told FE Week that because the audit approach has still not been agreed it does not have a figure for the cost if it ends up being the authority which has to carry them out.