UCU follows Scottish government in paying for sanitary products for learners

A local University and College Union branch has become the first in the country to offer college learners free sanitary products, as union leaders call on the government to do more to tackle period poverty.

The campaign at Newcastle College is the first at an English college, and follows a successful fight in Scotland – backed by the UCU – to make tampons and other such products available for free in schools, colleges and universities there.

The Scottish government has committed £5.2 million to the initiative, it announced in August, making it the “first in the world” to offer free tampons and sanitary towels to all pupils and students.

However, the Department for Education has indicated it has no plans to introduce a similar scheme in England.

A spokesperson said it would instead be providing £1.5 million through the Tampon Tax Fund “to help distribute sanitary products to young women and girls in need in England”.

The fund, worth £15 million and managed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is paid for with the VAT charged on sanitary products.

The ‘Let’s Talk. Period’ project was allocated £1.5 million from the fund in March to distribute sanitary products to girls and young women in need in seven areas of England.

However, it has yet to launch, and FE Week has been unable to speak to the organisation behind it to find out when it will be running.

Anya Cook, UCU branch secretary at Newcastle College, told FE Week that its campaign had been prompted by an “increase in students requesting support with sanitary products from the pastoral support team”.

Furthermore, “we have teachers bringing them in and keeping them in their drawers in case they need them for their students”, she said.

The branch’s campaign is “filling a gap that the government should be filling,” she said.

“It’s a disgrace that we have a woman prime minister and yet we have young women and girls who are unable to provide even the most basic sanitary protection for themselves.”

“Tampons and sanitary pads are not luxury items, they are essential for women,” said Helen Carr, the UCU’s head of equality.

“The government should be following the example set in Scotland and dealing with period poverty in all schools, colleges and universities,” she said.

Ms Cook said the Newcastle College branch has committed to funding sanitary products for those students in the most need from its own “really quite limited” funds for at least the rest of the academic year.

It has also enlisted the support of the college leadership, which has committed a small amount of cash towards the initiative and has encouraged staff to donate to the campaign.

“It’s about being comfortable and being clean, and being able to attend so that you can succeed in your qualification,” Ms Cook said of the campaign.

A story in FE Week’s sister paper FE Week in June cited analysis by the DfE which found that period poverty did not have a significant national impact on school attendance.

It found that although absence rates for girls increase after the age of 13 and exceed those of boys, this is true both for girls who are eligible for free school meals – and therefore more likely to experience period poverty – and those who are not eligible.

NCG boss Joe Docherty quits following turbulent year

The boss of the largest college group in the country has quit, FE Week can reveal.

Joe Docherty (pictured) has left NCG with immediate effect. He becomes the third high-profile and highly paid college boss to resign in recent weeks.

His decision follows a turbulent year for the college group which has been rated poorly by Ofsted, seen its achievement rates fall, made mass redundancies, and suffered with staff strikes.

“After five years in post, Joe Docherty has decided to resign from his post as chief executive with immediate effect,” a spokesperson for NCG said.

“The board has accepted his resignation and will immediately begin the search for a successor.

“Chris Payne, executive director partnerships and assurance, will temporarily take over responsibilities of the chief executive as recruitment of a new chief executive starts immediately.”

In June Ofsted downgraded NCG from a grade two to a three in the face of poor achievement rates, which sit at around 10 points lower than the national average of 67.7 per cent, and lower than the minimum threshold of 62 per cent.

Redundancies at the group’s private training providers Intraining and Rathbone Training followed, where staff numbers were cut by up to a fifth at in an effort to save £3 million.

The group was further shaken when staff at the recently decoupled Lewisham Southwark College, a long-distance merger partner, went on strike over pay.

On top of this, a free school that NCG sponsors, the Discovery School, was forced to close down by the government.

FE Week also understands that the group will be dropped from the government’s final bidding round for Institutes of Technology after Ofsted hit it with a grade three.

Mr Docherty was paid a £227,000 salary in 2016/17, along with £33,000 in pension contributions and £21,000 from benefits in kind.

He is the third boss of a mega college to resign in recent weeks. He’s followed Andrew Cleaves leaving Birmingham Metropolitan College, and Dame Asha Khemka quitting her role at West Nottinghamshire College.

In June NCG chair and former ESFA boss Peter Lauener told FE Week he has “full confidence” in Mr Docherty, despite heavy criticism of leadership and management from Ofsted.

“I think Joe is a first-rate chief executive,” he said. “I am absolutely confident he is the right person to realise the potential of the organisation.”

NCG comprises Newcastle College, Newcastle Sixth Form College, Lewisham College, Southwark College, Carlisle College, Kidderminster College, West Lancashire College, Rathbone Training and InTraining.

We need more core funding not ‘initiative mania’, sector leaders tell MPs

Sector leaders have made an impassioned plea to MPs for the government to “stop the initiative mania” and focus on core funding ahead of the Budget day later this month.

Representatives from the Sixth Form Colleges Association, the Association of Colleges and the National Union of Students were giving evidence to the education select committee’s hearing on college funding this morning.

Dr Alison Birkinshaw, principal of York College and last year’s AoC president, told MPs that any new funding being offered to the sector was being “channelled into the revolutionary aspects of FE” while “core funding is being kept at an all-time low, and that means we can’t do our job”.

“We’re in permanent change but the core, the sustainability of the funding is just not there,” she said.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the SFCA, urged the government to “stop the initiative mania”.

“We see all kinds of eye-catching initiatives like uplifts for maths, or particular qualifications, but the much more mundane reality is we just need higher core funding,” he said.

Furthermore, he said, these initiatives can “do more harm than good” because “when we say there’s not enough money in 16 to 18” the Department for Education and the Treasury “will say, we’ve just given you some money to increase maths, we’ve given you money for T-levels”.

The comments come ahead of action during next week’s Colleges Week, from October 15 to 19, calling on the government for better investment for colleges and fair pay for staff.

FE Week reported on Monday that the SFCA is set to launch a campaign to call for the base funding rate for all 16- to 18-year-old learners to be increased to £4,760 in the next spending review.

Mr Kewin described this as a “modest ask” at today’s hearing, and said it was “actually half of what we’ve lost since 2010”.

When asked by committee member William Wragg where the money would come from to pay for this increase, both Mr Kewin and Dr Birkinshaw said it could come – at least in part – from the current underspend, which Mr Kewin said was around £100 million a year.

“We’re not talking about the need to cut, we’re talking about the need to use the funding properly,” Dr Birkinshaw said.

Other issues raised during the hearing included English and maths GCSE resits, staff pay and teacher pensions, which Mr Kewin described as a “timebomb waiting for us” that “needs to be addressed”.

“What the government can’t do is what it’s indefensibly done on the teacher pay grant and say we’ll pick up the tab for schools or academies, but not for colleges. It has to be the same for everyone,” he said.

Parliamentary petition launched calling for sustainable college funding

A new parliamentary petition calling for college funding to be increased to “sustainable levels” has been launched today.

Its creation comes ahead of Colleges Week, a week of action and events across the country demanding greater government investment in colleges.

“We call on the government to urgently increase college funding to sustainable levels, including immediate parity with recently announced increases to schools funding,” the petition, which is understood to have have been started by learners at Brockenhurst College, said.

“This will give all students a fair chance, give college staff fair pay and provide the high-quality skills the country needs.”

It claimed that college funding has been cut by almost 30 per cent in the last 10 years.

“A decade of almost continuous cuts and constant reforms have led to a significant reduction in the resources available for teaching and support for sixth formers in schools and colleges; potentially restricted course choice; fewer adults in learning; pressures on staff pay and workload, a growing population that is not able to acquire the skills the UK needs to secure prosperity post-Brexit,” it said.

The petition follows a hearing of the education select committee this morning, at which sector leaders made an impassioned plea for more core funding rather than “initiative mania”.

If the petition hits 10,000 signatures the government must respond to it.

At 100,000 signatures it will be considered for debate in parliament. 

To sign the petition click here.

SFCA to launch campaign calling for huge 16 to 18 funding rate increase

The Sixth Form Colleges Association is preparing to launch a campaign calling for a huge increase in the 16 to 18 base rate, just a week after the Association of Colleges will demand an initially smaller rise in their own campaign.

The Raise the Rate campaign will call for the funding base rate for all 16-18-year-old learners to be increased to £4,760 in the next spending review. If successful, it would mark the first increase in the base rate since 2013-14.

For 16 and 17-year-olds, this is an increase of 14 per cent on the current £4,000 base rate. For 18-year-olds – taking a third year of sixth form – it is a jump of 44 per cent.

The campaign is expected to launch during the week beginning October 22: just before the Budget and a week after AoC’s Colleges Week campaign, which is calling for a five per cent annual increase in the 16 to 19 funding rate for each of the next five years, amounting to around £1,000 in total.

Despite the difference in aims and timescales, the AoC will be supporting the Raise the Rate campaign, which is expected to involve lobbying politicians, alongside other partners including the Association of School and College Leaders. The SFCA is not an official partner of Colleges Week, but has told FE Week it will be supporting it through social media and encouraging its members to write to MPs.

A report published today by London Economics on behalf of the SFCA, found that, in order for sixth form colleges to be able to increase student support services such as mental health, protect subjects at a risk of being dropped such as modern foreign languages and increase non-qualification time, including work experience and extra-curricular activities, a funding increase of at least £760 per learner is needed by 2020/21.

A further £140 per learner will be required if the proposed increase in employer contributions to the teacher pension scheme is not funded by the government, the report found. The contributions are expected to rise from 16.48 per cent to 23.6 per cent next September.

In real terms, funding for 16-19 education in sixth form colleges has declined by 22 per cent since 2010/11, falling from £6,230 per learner to £4,850 in 2016-17.

This reduction of £1,380 per learner has led to reduction in staff, with 15 per cent fewer teachers over the same period, while learner numbers have grown by 6.5 per cent. The combination of the two means the average learner-to-teacher ratio across the sector has risen by 28 per cent, from 18 learners to a teacher to 23.

However, this has not been enough to outweigh the decline in income. While in 2010/11, sixth form colleges had an average surplus of £190 per learner, by 2016-17 they faced an average deficit of £110 per learner.

Last month, a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies found that FE has been the victim of the sharpest cuts in the education sector over the last 25 years, with school sixth forms facing the lowest funding per learner than at any point since at least 2002-03.

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the SFCA, said: “It is now well understood that sixth form education has experienced deeper funding cuts since 2010 than any other phase of education. But until the publication of today’s report, the impact of cost increases has been less well understood.

“The debate about sixth form funding now needs to move from how much funding has been cut, to how much funding is actually needed to provide the sort of high-quality, internationally competitive education that our young people deserve.”

He added: “We will launch the Raise the Rate campaign later this month in partnership with a range of other school and college associations to help secure a significant increase in the funding rate for sixth form students in next year’s spending review.”

Maike Halterbeck, an associate director at London Economics and primary author of the report said: “The ongoing cuts to sixth form education have caused a significant reduction in the resources available for front-line teaching activity. This has resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum on offer – and a narrowing of the opportunities available to more than 150,000 young people.

“Significant additional financial resources should be provided to properly fund young people’s education and provide them with an internationally competitive sixth form curriculum.”

Anne Milton, the apprenticeships and skills minister, said: “We have protected the base rate of funding for 16-19-year-olds until 2020. However, I am very aware of the funding pressures.

“We will continue to look carefully at funding for the sector in preparation for the next spending review.”

‘Colleges have a grander ambition for their students’

Colleges have a unique role to play in the new industrial revolution, ensuring that every citizen is able to thrive, says David Hughes

I’m down under for the bi-annual World Congress of the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics, being held in Melbourne, and it’s clear that so many of the challenges and opportunities facing the further education sector in Australia resonate with those in England, and the other nations of the UK.

My keynote presentation today, Scripting the future – exploring potential strategic leadership responses to the marketisation and privatisation of English FE provision, is based on the research carried out by Oxford University’s Professor Ewart Keep, in conjunction with AoC and supported by the Further Education Trust for Leadership.

That research, which involved interviews with key policymakers at a senior level and college leaders and commentators, looked at the impact marketisation has had on our post-16 landscape and how it might pan out in the coming years. It’s well worth a read, for both the background and context as well as the stimulating and insightful scenarios.

We need colleges to be the anchor organisations helping to ensure that every citizen thrives

Of course, my keynote will not simply present Professor Keep’s research; he can do that better than I can. Instead, I will use his findings to propose actions colleges can and need to take to make sure that we can script our own future, rather than wait for someone else to script it for us. It will also draw on the 20 years’ experience of working in this sector, on both ‘sides’, for the funding agency and now for colleges, as well as time leading a thinktank and research organisation.

So, my keynote will start by trying to describe some of the manifestations of marketisation in England. I’ll set out the mix of quasi-market measures and managed systems approaches in the sector. I describe this as a mix of “customer is king” and “minister is queen” in FE. More than anything else, I will propose that there is a confusion at the heart of our policy about what success looks like and about the purpose and role of colleges.

Our quasi-marketised system (for want of a better term) has multiple funding streams with different priorities, rules, regulations, eligibility, qualifications, competition and a strong thread of contestability. The loose thinking behind this is that somehow contestability and competition will lead to more efficiency, better quality and customers getting what they want.

For colleges, though, not only do they have to respond to multiple funding streams, they also must respond to multiple regulators and rule-makers (ESFA, DfE, Ofsted, banks, pension funds, OfS and others) as well as many customers (the government, elected mayors, employers and students). I put students at the end of that list – because in our system it often feels as if they are mere vessels to be filled with knowledge and skills appropriate for the labour market. Colleges don’t think like that – they have a grander ambition for their students, as agents, with lives to enrich.

I want us to help colleges set out a new vision of their role

At present, this confusion of quasi-markets and government-led system combines badly with the 30 per cent funding cut colleges have had to cope with over the last decade. This has created a nightmarish environment in which colleges all too often have to focus on short term, financially dominated decisions of survival and maintaining position within the market. A sector with an aggregate surplus of only 0.1 per cent must do that – it won’t exist otherwise. What’s so impressive is how so many colleges can cope with the stresses they are under, all while helping 2.2 million people realise their ambitions, talents and abilities.

My keynote will end with an attempt to galvanise college leaders from around the world to seize this moment. All the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution, the new technologies, need colleges to develop and offer a new grand vision of colleges helping our citizens, communities and economies to thrive. We need colleges to be the anchor organisations helping to ensure that every citizen thrives in this exciting but daunting fourth industrial revolution.

In the mid-nineteenth century the state of Victoria (where I am now) established over 1200 mechanics’ institutes to help people and communities cope with the changes then happening. Many of those institutes morphed into colleges, polytechnics and universities. I want us to help colleges set out a new vision of their role in this new industrial revolution.

I’ll end with a pitch for colleagues from around the world to support our #LoveOurColleges campaign next week. And invite them to do the same in their countries. I’ll let you know how it goes down and the response I get.

3aaa buyer will need to pay £500k in ‘deal fees’

The buyer of apprenticeship giant Aspire Achieve Advance will have to pay £500,000 in “deal fees” by the end of 2018.

FE Week revealed last week that the crisis-hit training provider, commonly known as 3aaa, has put itself up for sale in the midst of a government investigation into the company.

A sales document, seen by this newspaper, shows that the purchaser will however receive a bill of £100,000 in October, £300,000 in November, and £100,000 in December.

It is unclear at this stage what the hefty “deal fees” will cover or who they will be paid to, but it is likely to go to 3aaa’s lenders, Beechbrook Capital, who gave company a cash loan of £5.5 million in April.

According to a 3aaa cash statement, the training provider paid its lender £516,837 in deal fees as of July 31.

FE Week understands that one of the reasons the sale is going ahead is because the terms of the Beechbrook loan have been broken and the lender wants to claim back their money.

It is also understood that the government is supportive of the 3aaa sale on the basis that its co-founders, Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, will not benefit from it financially.

A condition of the sale is that it must be an apprenticeship provider that buys the business – meaning the £500,000 will be yet more public funds going into the hands of a private company if it is claimed by Beechbrook.

Beechbrook declined to comment on the transaction fees.

FE Week also asked Beechbrook and the Department for Education what assurances have been made that the business will not be wound up as soon as the training provider is paid its standard monthly funding of more than £2 million on October 12.

A DfE spokesperson would only say: “We do not comment on ongoing investigations.”

Beechbrook again declined to comment.

The deadline for indicative offers for 3aaa was October 4. BDO is the accountancy firm heading up the sale. When asked about the transaction fees, a spokesperson said: “It is BDO policy not to comment on specific companies, engagements or market speculation.”

In an “overview information” document about the sale, 3aaa claims the training provider achieved an ‘outstanding’ rating in all areas from Ofsted in May 2018.

This is despite the education watchdog declaring its inspection of the company “incomplete” in July following the launch of an ESFA investigation into its achievement rates.

3aaa is currently suspended from recruiting apprentices while the probe is being carried out.

This is the second time 3aaa has been investigated by the government. In 2016, auditing firm KPMG was called in to investigate claims by a whistleblower and found dozens of funding and success rate “overclaims”.

BDO’s investment opportunity document states: “The ESFA has placed a temporary block on new learners whilst an investigation is undertaken in to achievement rates, prompting the shareholders to seek an exit.

“Alphabet [3aaa] is in pro-active dialogue with the ESFA with a view to lifting the learner block in the shortest period possible.”

Since the launch of the investigation, 3aaa’s co-founders have resigned.

Following its suspension on recruiting apprentices, the training provider “instructed” senior employees to tell its staff to not date any paperwork for “planned enrolments”.

3aaa had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships last year at nearly £22 million. Its overall ESFA allocations totalled more than £31 million.

3aaa seeks to ‘reassure’ customers over ‘new management’

The boss of Aspire Achieve Advance has contacted the apprenticeship giant’s clients to “reassure” them that he’s taking the business forward as “new management”, even though he’s held a top leadership role there for over two years.

Richard Irons (pictured), who joined the company known as 3aaa in mid-2016 as its chief operating officer, was made managing director when its co-founders Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson resigned following the launch of a second government investigation into the crisis-hit company.

He emailed “valued partners” of the business yesterday to “clarify the true status of our position”.

“Myself as managing director along with the senior management team will be taking the business forward as ‘New Management’,” he wrote, even though there’ve been no new senior managers brought into the company for over a year.

Click here to read Mr Irons’ email to clients in full here

Mr Irons continued to claim that the current ESFA investigation into 3aaa concerns are “entirely data focused rather than on quality”. This is despite the agency’s probe being focussed on claims that achievement rates have been inflated, just as they were found to be doing in 2016.

“The business has validated quality provision at its heart and all stakeholders aligned to preserving this into the future,” the new managing director added.

He continued to say that as a “precautionary measure and to do all we can to protect learners and staff against any residual risk” 3aaa is “having very early stage and initial conversations with other reputable providers”.

This follows FE Week exclusively revealing last week that the company has put itself up for sale, with the deadline for final offers being tomorrow (October 10).

In the sales pitch to potential bidders, 3aaa is claiming that it was rated ‘outstanding’ in all fields judged by Ofsted in an inspection in May 2018. This is despite the inspectorate declaring the inspection “incomplete” following the launch of the ESFA’s new investigation.

The apprenticeship giant, which was given over £31 million in government funding last year, is currently suspended from recruiting apprentices.

Mr Irons said in his email that by working in “partnership with the ESFA, we are continuing to generate and advertise new vacancies and engage with candidates to be able to complete their enrolment and start new apprenticeships in November”.

FE Week revealed in September, just after the temporary ban was put in place, that 3aaa seniors were “instructed” to tell other staff to not date any paperwork for “planned enrolments”.

Mr Irons expects the ESFA investigation to be concluded “within the next two weeks”.

3aaa currently trains 4,500 learners and employs 500 staff.

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Update: An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week: “We wish to make clear that we are not and have never been in dialogue with this provider about any solution relating to the future of their business.

“Any engagement we have with the provider has been limited to queries about the possible timing of their inspection, which we clearly would not reveal.”

Kick poor-performing new providers off RoATP, education committee urges

Poor-performing apprenticeship providers should be kicked off the government’s register – not just barred from taking on new starts, the education select committee has urged.

It made the call in its new report, ‘The apprenticeships ladder of opportunity: quality not quantity’, published today, based on the findings of its recent inquiry.

The report outlines a series of recommendations aimed at improving the quality of apprenticeships and making them more accessible to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We recommend that new providers judged by Ofsted to be making insufficient progress should be removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers,” it said.

“A provider whose only mark of distinction is a failing grade from Ofsted has no business providing government-funded training.”

In August the education watchdog was given greater powers to stop new providers found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in a monitoring visit from taking on new apprentices.

The move followed embarrassment for the government at an inquiry hearing in May, in which skills minister Anne Milton admitted there was a lack of clarity over who was responsible for apprenticeship quality – Ofsted or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

“While we welcome this greater clarity, we do not think it goes far enough,” today’s report said.

“There has been an explosion in the number of training providers in recent years but neither employers nor apprentices can have genuine confidence that quality training is being provided by these new entrants,” said Robert Halfon, chair of the education committee (pictured above).

Today’s report also pressed the government to do more to ensure all the agencies responsible for the apprenticeship system have enough cash to do their job properly, after hearing that “several” of these bodies – including the ESFA, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Ofsted – lacked capacity.

“Given the government’s doubling of apprenticeship funding, it seems strange that such concerns have been allowed to grow and endure,” it said.

Other recommendations include a cap on the number of starts a new provider can have until Ofsted has deemed it to be making at least ‘reasonable progress’ in all areas.

It also called for greater flexibility in the 20 per cent off-the-job training requirement, tighter controls on subcontracting – including a cap on management fees and more Ofsted inspections of subcontractors – and the creation of a social justice fund to support organisations that help disadvantaged young people become apprentices.

The report also criticised the IfA, which it said had “at times appeared more successful at uniting stakeholders in opposition that anything else”.

It is tasked with ensuring that apprenticeships offer value for money, but “our concern is that value for money is becoming a synonym for cheaper,” today’s report said.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said he was “particularly heartened” by this observation.

“As the MPs say, high quality provision costs and setting funding bands so low as to reduce the quality of training or dissuade employers from recruiting apprentices is a false economy,” he said.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute agreed with the report’s view that “much progress has been made on apprenticeships, but that we need to turbocharge our efforts to boost quality and widen access”

He described the call for a social justice fund as “spot on” as “current efforts lack sufficient ambition”.

Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said today’s report “raises a lot of interesting and valid points” but that “more needs to be done”.

Doubling the amount of time that employers have to spend their levy funds – another recommendation from the report – “does not fix the problem; it just kicks it into the long grass,” he said.

“It is essential that apprenticeship training is of high-quality. We have given Ofsted additional funding so it can hold the rising numbers of training providers to account. Of those registered providers that have been inspected, 83 per cent were rated as good or outstanding. Any provider that falls short of the required standards will be removed from our register and stopped from taking on new apprentices until they have improved,” Ms Milton said.

“We will look at the report with interest as we want to make our apprenticeship system work even better,” she said.

“We will respond to the report in full in the near future,” Ms Milton added.