PeoplePlus in talks to buy Learndirect

A publicly listed company is in talks to buy Learndirect Ltd, FE Week has learned.

PeoplePlus Group Limited, which is owned by Staffline and already trains tens of thousands of people each year, opened a dialogue with the nation’s biggest FE provider over a purchase last week.

Discussions are understood to be in the early stages and it is not yet known how much the deal will be worth if it goes ahead.

PeoplePlus is a business division of Staffline – an outsourced workforce provider – which recorded a huge turnover of £92.8 million in its most recent accounts.

It provides skills training, including apprenticeships and in prisons, claims to be the country’s largest provider of the work programme for the Department for Work and Pensions, and offers access to work programmes for disabled people.

The organisation is hoping to purchase Learndirect following a catastrophic year.

Its saga started with a legal battle with Ofsted when the provider unsuccessfully challenged its grade four report in the High Court.

The fallout saw the government single it out for special treatment by allowing it to see through the end of their current contracts – instead of ending them within the usual three-month termination period.

It was then subject to investigations from the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee.

FE Week revealed in April that Learndirect appeared to be on the brink of collapse, after a fresh round of redundancies belied the fact that its efforts to generate new business have proved “impossible”.

PeoplePlus has five operating divisions: employment, skills, health & wellbeing, justice and independent services.

Staffline bought welfare-to-work provider A4e in 2015 in a £35.4m deal and gave the work to PeoplePlus.

This move, it claims, means it is now the country’s largest provider of the Work Programme for the Department for Works and Pensions.

For skills, PeoplePlus provide “first class pre-employment training, apprenticeships and traineeships”, according to its website.

The provider was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in August 2017, and has Education and Skills Funding Agency contracts totaling over £13.5 million this year, with the majority (£10.6 million) coming from the adult education budget.

In terms of apprenticeships, the company had an overall achievement of 64 per cent for training 1,430 learners in 2016/17 – marginally higher than the government’s minimum threshold of 62 per cent.

PeoplePlus also offers the government-run access to work programme, which is aimed at supporting disabled people to take up or remain in work, and offers training in prisons through the delivery of the Offender Learning and Skills Service.

PeoplePlus declined to comment.

Seven more days of strikes at Hull College Group

Staff at the Hull College Group will walk out for seven days in June as part of an ongoing bitter row over plans to slash hundreds of jobs.  

University and College Union members, who represent nearly 400 of HCG’s 1,200 workers, announced today that they will strike for an initial five days starting on June 18.

They will then return to work on June 25 before walking out for a further two days on the 26 and 27 of that month.  

The row centres on plans to cut 231 posts across the college group’s three campuses in Hull, Harrogate and Goole – a move which UCU says would lead to around a third of the workforce being cut.

Staff have already walked out for three days as part of the dispute in May, after they delivered a vote of no confidence in the group’s chief executive, Michelle Swithenbank.

The union said there had “not been sufficient progress in talks to secure members’ jobs and they felt they now had no option but to take more action”.

It added that the “ball was in the college’s court and hoped the fresh strike dates would focus their employers’ minds”.

“UCU members at Hull College Group feel they have no choice now but to take further action to focus their employers’ minds,” said UCU regional official, Julie Kelley.

“Strike action is never taken lightly, but the college is not responding to our concerns about the impact these cuts would have for staff, students and the local community.  

“There is a clear timetable now with disruption set for the end of June and we urge the college to respond positively and work with us to explore alternatives to the cuts.’”

The vote of no confidence in Ms Swithenbank was delivered last month, when the union said her position was untenable after a failure to defend jobs at the college, as well as alleged efforts to “bully and then bribe staff” first with legal action and then ice-creams to deter them from a protest on April 18.

“We can confirm the receipt of the ballot to strike, and should the proposed dates go ahead, we will do everything possible to avoid the obvious disruption to the important GCSE exams taking place,” said an HCG spokesperson.

“It is disappointing and unclear why this decision has been taken, following recent positive meetings outlining the successful reduction of proposed compulsory redundancies.”

ESFA reveal AEB funding rules with free courses for the low paid

Detail on the government’s new adult education budget policy has been published, after FE Week revealed yesterday it would offer free courses for anyone earning less than £15,726.50.

The Department for Education will trial the policy in 2018/19, enabling AEB providers to “fully fund learners” who are employed on low wages and cannot contribute towards the cost of co-funding fees.

“This will help to increase AEB participation and lift social mobility barriers to learning for those who would not otherwise engage due to course fees being unaffordable,” the department said today.

“It will also support those who have been motivated to move out of unemployment and are in receipt of a low wage to further progress in work and their chosen career.”

Current AEB fee remission rules focus on providing full funding for eligible unemployed adults – such as those on benefits – young people aged 19 to 23 with skills below level two, and adults aged 19 and over who do not have English and maths up to level two.

Currently, individuals who do not fall into one of these categories may have to contribute up to 50 per cent towards the cost of their learning.

The new eligibility criteria now include those that “earn less than £15,736.50 annual gross salary based on the Social Mobility Commission’s low-pay threshold of £8.07 (hourly rate in 2016) and on the assumption of a 37.5-hour contract with paid statutory holiday entitlement”.

To confirm learner eligibility providers must “see and keep supporting evidence in the learner file, for example, this could be a wage slip within three months of the learner’s learning start date, or a current employment contract, which states gross monthly/annual wages)”.

They must also “enter the ILR monitoring code (363) for every eligible learner they fully fund through this trial. This is imperative as we will use data collected from this trial to inform future adult funding policy development”.

The DfE has “engaged” with representative bodies, mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority, which have been “supportive of the trial and its aims to make learning more accessible for the low paid”.

It is huge news for learners on English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses, who typically take low-paid jobs while they upskill themselves.

Dr Susan Pember, the director of policy at Holex, said she was “pleased that ministers have listened and have reinstated free provision for the those on a low wage”.

“Although this is a trial we believe it will help support those who have the ability to progress in their job and start to secure a more productive workforce,” she added.

AEB policy set to change with free courses for anyone earning less than £15,726.50

Tens of thousands of adults on low wages are set to benefit from a new rule which will see their training fully funded from next year, FE Week understands.

Up until now, adults have had to have been on benefits to receive full funding for education courses.

But a radical adult education budget rule-change is expected to come into play in 2018/19 which will open the door to a huge number of other adults on low wages.

It will apply to those who earn less than the Social Mobility Commission’s low-pay threshold.

“This code is used to identify individuals who earn less than the Social Mobility Commission’s low-pay threshold of £15,736.50 annual gross salary, and providers use their discretion to fully fund using their adult education budget allocation,” says an Individualised Learner Record rule change.

This will apply from August 2018 to July 2019.

An ESFA update appeared to confirm the change this afternoon.

“This week we will publish version one of the adult education budget funding rules 2018 to 2019,” it said. “The main change from the draft version, published March 2018, will be to AEB learners on low wages. The rules apply to all providers of education and training who receive AEB funding through the ESFA.”

The news will be huge for learners on English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses, who typically take low-paid jobs while they upskill themselves.

Under current rules, learners can be fully funded if they “receive jobseeker’s allowance, including those receiving national insurance credits only, receive employment and support allowance and are in the work-related activity group”.

They can also be fully funded if they receive universal credit or other state benefits, and earn “either less than 16 times the appropriate age-related rate of the national minimum wage / national living wage a week, or £338 a month (individual claims) or £541 a month (household claims)”.

The cash to fund the free courses is likely to not be new money, but will come from huge underpsends of the AEB.

As revealed by FE Week last month, hundreds of colleges and training providers between them failed to deliver £73 million of allocated funding last year.

Ofsted praises Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd

An early monitoring visit to Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd has produced mainly positive feedback, with only a few downsides to its delivery.

Ofsted deemed the provider to be making “reasonable progress” in all fields it judges in an inspection undertaken as part of a series of visits to new apprenticeship training providers.

But no significant headway is being made at the firm – which was set up by the parent company of the troubled Learndirect Ltd as a separate entity to run its apprenticeships division in 2016.

LDA’s leadership team has implemented a “clear strategy to provide apprenticeships in carefully selected subject areas”, and has decided not to work with “certain” employers or in certain subject areas where they consider requirements of successful apprenticeship provision “cannot be met”.

Instead, they work with many “high-profile and prestigious” levy-paying companies, training nearly 4,000 apprentices in retail and commercial enterprise, business, administration, law, health, public services, and in engineering and manufacturing technologies.

Managers help employers develop programmes that meet apprenticeship requirements, and as a result, employers demonstrate a “strong understanding of the requirements of an apprenticeship and their obligations, in particular the requirement to provide sufficient off-the-job training”.

Communication between LDA staff and these employers is “frequent and effective” and “enables the content of the apprenticeship to be closely tailored to the needs of the business”.

LDA managers respond “quickly when training needs to improve or issues need to be resolved”.

However, the relationship with some employers who only have a few apprentices is the “less effective”.

“These employers are not always as aware of the progress that apprentices make, and line managers demonstrate a weaker understanding of an apprenticeship and their responsibilities to their apprentices,” Ofsted said.

The vast majority of learners “are receiving their entitlement to off-the-job training” – a significant component of apprenticeships which was not previously complied with by Learndirect Ltd that led to its infamous grade four.

Most apprentices also learn “new skills and knowledge as part of their programme; they gain in confidence and add value to their employers”, but for a “small minority” of learners the requirements of the apprenticeship are “not being fulfilled”.

LDA leaders were praised for creating a management structure with “clear lines of accountability”, but their improvement plans are “not sufficiently specific to allow managers to measure precisely the impact of their actions”.

Maths and English skills appear still to be a problem.

“Too many apprentices do not develop higher-level English and maths skills relevant to their job roles,” inspectors found.

“Although managers find out about apprentices’ existing English and maths qualifications when they start their apprenticeships, they do not use this information sufficiently well to challenge apprentices to develop their skills to a higher level.”

In terms of safeguarding, leaders have “developed and put in place appropriate policies and procedures”.

Apprentices feel “safe”, but “too many” have “limited understanding of the safeguarding risks they face in their local area”.

Jenny Parkes, LDA’s managing director, was pleased with the report.

“This is a positive step forward for our business and one which we intend to embrace and build upon,” she said.

“Having established constructive and lasting working relationships with employers, we can continue to ensure that the needs of our apprentices are met and lay the foundations for the future success of LDA.”

UCU to ‘ballot members nationally’ over pay claim

An autumn of discontent over college pay could be on the cards, after University and College Union members voted unanimously for escalating action if the Association of Colleges fails to meet their demands over next year’s claim.

The motion on action over FE pay was passed at the UCU’s 2018 Congress in Manchester this morning, just days after the Association of Colleges backed down on its previous refusal to negotiate with the unions.

The late motion on FE England pay called on the AoC to “make an early offer that meets members’ expectations for an above inflation pay rise and catch up from years of pay cuts”.

The UCU will “ballot members nationally for escalating strike action” in pursuit of its 2018/19 claim, it said.

The joint FE unions, which include Unison, Unite, GMB and the National Education Union as well as UCU, have submitted a claim for a five per cent rise or £1,500, whichever is the greater.

But, according to an action note accompanying today’s motion, the UCU believes “it is extremely unlikely that the AoC will be in a position to make an offer that is satisfactory” before the summer.

If that proves to be the case it will urge branches to negotiate locally with their colleges and to be in a “position to be in dispute and conduct successful ballots” on potential action in the autumn term.

A second motion, also passed unanimously, stated that the ongoing action by colleges over this year’s pay claim “has laid the basis for a national campaign for fair pay”.

Earlier this month the AoC told the unions it wouldn’t open negotiations on the 2018/19 pay claim while disputes about the 2017/18 claim were still ongoing.

This week it backed down and agreed to accept the unions’ claim, even though five colleges still have strikes planned over the coming weeks.

That action, at Lambeth College, Lewisham Southwark College, City and Islington College, Westminster Kingsway College and the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, is over a one per cent rise offered by the AoC for 2017/18 – an offer described as “disappointing” by the UCU.

A three-day strike at Sandwell College was called off at the last minute the week before, after staff and leaders agreed a “sector-leading” deal worth more than six per cent over three years.

Speaking at today’s conference, Sandwell College’s representative said it was a sign of how “poor pay is in FE that the deal is being lauded as a pay victory when in reality it’s a pay cut”.

“We need to get a national pay campaign going, and not just agree local deals”, he urged.

Soaring levels of principal pay, while staff pay remained static, was another bone of contention for UCU members at the conference.

A motion calling for the union to lobby for a principal’s pay to be limited to “no more than five times the median pay of all employees” at their college also passed unanimously.

Andrew Harden, the UCU’s head of FE, told delegates that a third of principals had a pay rise of 10 per cent or more in 2017/18.

Speaking in support of the motion, Chris Jones, representative from Neath Port Talbot College, said when he started working in the sector, more than 20 years ago, principal pay was around two to three times average staff pay – and now it stands at around nine to 10 times more.

“They say they have more work and responsibility now than before, but they also more help than before,” he said.

 

Another early monitoring report uncovers insufficient progress

Another Ofsted early monitoring visit to an apprenticeship provider has resulted in a verdict of ‘insufficient progress’ in at least one area – but the Department for Education has refused to say whether it will take action.

The watchdog’s report into Mears Learning is the fourth of the 11 monitoring reports so far published to have found a provider is below-par in at least one area.

Leaders at Mears Learning, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the housing and social care provider Mears Group, were deemed not to be meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision.

It joins a rogue’s gallery of Key6 Group, Mooreskills, and Apprentice Team in failing to come up to scratch.

“We will always take action to protect apprentices if a training provider is not fit for purpose,” a spokesperson for the DfE said.

It is “assessing Ofsted’s findings” and will contact the provider to “set out any action we will be taking”.

FE Week exclusively reported last week that Ofsted will have the final say over apprenticeship quality, after the government was embarrassed on accountability at a select committee hearing earlier this month.

Skills minister Anne Milton, along with officials from the Education and Skills Funding Agency and Ofsted, admitted they weren’t quite sure who is responsible for policing apprenticeships.

They were responding to a series of questions about the ESFA’s decision to allow Key6 Group to continue to recruit apprentices just two months after Ofsted branded its provision “not fit for purpose”.

“I think the relationship between the ESFA and Ofsted over quality is quite difficult to define and I think we need to define that more clearly,” Ms Milton admitted.

Once it comes into effect, the change will give Ofsted the final word on quality: a monitoring visit resulting in an ‘insufficient progress’ verdict will see a provider booted off the register of apprenticeship training providers.

The visits to new apprenticeship providers are intended to sniff out “scandalous” attempts to waste public money.

So far 11 have been published – the majority for providers that aren’t actually new to apprenticeships.

It’s not clear if Mears Learning is one of these.

Founded in 2015, it started delivering levy-funded apprenticeships in May 2017.

Prior to that it subcontracted for a number of providers, including RNN Group and CITB. However, it’s not clear if any of this was for apprenticeships.

Mears Learning has been approached for a comment.

According to the report, the provider currently has 53 apprentices, all of which are Mears Group employees, on courses in leadership and management, gas engineering and construction.

Leaders’ “self-assessment of the quality of provision and their quality improvement planning” are “not sufficiently evaluative”.

Furthermore, the self-assessment report failed to identify “areas of weakness well enough”, while “actions in the quality improvement plan are not specific enough”.

“As a result, improvements to the quality of provision are too slow,” the report said.

Leaders were also criticised for failing to “take enough action to improve the practice of teaching staff”.

However, the report was more positive on other aspects of the provision.

Leaders ensured that “apprentices receive their entitlement to on- and off-the-job training”, while “teachers and assessors are well qualified and all have relevant industry experience”.

The provider was found to be making “reasonable progress” in establishing and maintaining high-quality apprenticeship provision, and in ensuring that safeguarding arrangements were effective.

T-Levels: Reform should be a marathon not a sprint

With the design consultations for the three early T-level routes continuing at breakneck speed, Julie Hyde makes the case for pumping the breaks

Like many in the sector, my bank holiday weekend was spent digesting the latest developments in the government’s plans for T-levels.

The ministerial direction last Thursday, setting out concerns about the feasibility of delivering the first T-levels by 2020, was extremely telling. Described as “the nuclear option”, the very fact Damian Hinds used it tells you all you need to know about where we are with these crucial reforms.

Frankly, it isn’t that surprising. For months, voices across the FE sector have repeatedly expressed concerns about the short timelines for delivery, and the real risk that without more time and thought, T-levels could be next in a long line of unworkable vocational qualifications, abandoned as quickly as they were introduced.

But will this be enough to make the government think again? So far, it seems not. Indeed, since Thursday’s warning, the reforms have continued at pace.

The government will press ahead with the three routes for delivery in 2020. On Friday, the Institute for Apprenticeships released the outline content for these three routes, and launched a consultation – alarmingly giving providers just a week to feed back, over half term no less! Happily, the deadline has since been extended, but the very short timescale remains unusual for such an important policy.

On Sunday, the government published a response to the consultation on the implementation of T-levels. This recognised some of the key challenges and delayed the rest of the 15 routes until after 2022, which is positive. However, it did little to address the fears of those in sectors like education and childcare, digital and construction, all three of which will still launch in 2020, with mountains of detail yet to be worked out.

The response acknowledges that work placements must be accessible for learners, and proposes a bursary to support students on the first routes. This is extremely welcome, but the practicalities of ensuring that the placements give learners the experience they need go largely unaddressed.  

With time ticking, how long can such important decisions be delayed?

A one-size-fits-all approach for placements in vastly different sectors simply will not work. How can a young person studying childcare gain enough practical experience to be ready to work in an early-years setting after just 45 days? Likewise in other routes, we know a 45-day placement is excessive and unrealistic.

The response also acknowledges the need to ensure that young people with T-levels can progress into higher education, allowing learners to accrue UCAS points. It is now “considering” this, but has not made a definitive decision on the way forward.

With time ticking, how long can such important decisions be delayed?

Young people who are currently in year 9 and considering a vocational route in the three early routes will be expected to study T-levels that do not yet exist, picking them after their GCSEs. By rushing the reforms, the government is risking their future and that of three hugely important sectors crucial to our economy and society.

Overall, recent developments underline a fundamental lack of expertise in terms of qualification design. This is evident in the proposed grading system. Sector best practice is to develop the content for a qualification, before determining a grading model. We have seen the government doing the opposite.

The proposed model seems to add a new layer of complexity. Why award two grades distinguishing between a learner’s knowledge and technical skills? Do we not risk one element being more important than the other when employers are recruiting, rather than creating well-rounded, respected qualifications?

We understand the importance of running a fair and impartial procurement process to facilitate the new licensing model, and to select a single awarding organisations (AO) to deliver each qualification. But this is just one part of the reforms and by focusing too much on one aspect of the Sainsbury Review’s recommendations, the government has essentially ended up cutting AOs – the very experts they need – out of the process entirely, beyond rudimentary consultation.

We fully support the aims behind T-levels and want them to succeed. However, if the three routes introduced from 2020 are going to deliver, the government must act quickly to make the reform process more open and transparent. As a matter of urgency, the government should actively seek advice from vocational qualification specialists including AOs, and particularly those with expertise in these three sectors, to get the qualification design right. Otherwise, Thursday’s warning is in very real danger of becoming reality.

Julie Hyde is director of CACHE

Applications for maths centres of excellence open now

FE providers are being asked to apply to become centres of excellence for “basic” maths – as part of plans to address the controversial forced GCSE resits policy.

In November, the Treasury pledged £40 million to establish these centres across the country to “train maths teachers and spread best practice”.

The Department for Education began the invitation process today, expecting to fund around 20 centres over an initial three-year period.

There will be options to extend the centres’ grant funding annually, up to a total of five years.

To be eligible to apply, an institution must have a minimum of 250 pupils with prior attainment in GCSE maths that is below grades 9-4.

“The programme will provide grant funding to build teaching capacity and spread best practice on what works to improve basic maths for learners over the age of 16 with low prior attainment,” the DfE said.

“This will be through trialling pedagogical approaches and sharing this expertise across the post-16 sector. At this stage, we expect that the centres could be grant funded with a minimum of £140,000 per annum and up to a maximum of £300,000 per annum, depending on the total number of centres that the panel wishes to fund and the quality of the agreed plans.”

Each centre of excellence will be led by an “exceptional” post-16 institution, and their networks will be “supported by a central delivery partner” with maths and programme management “expertise to develop improved teaching methods for this cohort”.

To ensure the programme covers the breadth of the country the DfE said it will aim to select at least one centre per English region, with no more than three in any region.

“The ambition of the programme is to increase the number of young people leaving compulsory education with the necessary maths skills for work, learning and life and to see a marked increase in the numbers of students passing their maths GCSE resit and equivalent level two maths qualifications,” the department added.

In July 2017, a review by Professor Adrian Smith said the government’s controversial policy on post-16 GCSE resits should be rethought.

The plea was quickly rejected, but the new centres of excellence are being created to address his concerns

Applications should be submitted to Centres.forExcellence@education.gov.uk “no later than 5pm” on July 10.

The DfE aims to publicly announce successful institutions in September 2018, and it is expected they will be “operational shortly after they have been notified”.

In December, FE Week speculated on where the centres of excellence might be built. Based on analysis of national achievement rate data for 2015/16, we identified the top 10 best performing-colleges for maths in the country, which you can read here.