AEB devolution gets step closer as first pre-tender exercise launched

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has become the first devolved area to launch a pre-procurement exercise for the adult education budget.

Ahead of its takeover of the AEB for its region in 2019/20, the authority is asking local training provides to take part in market research to help it draft and formulate a tender specification.

“The GMCA would like to explore current and emerging good practice in their AEB services to facilitate continuous improvement,” said a prior information notice (PIN) launched on Monday.

“This would include looking at delivery models which would maximise opportunities for the GMCA to deliver value for money.”

The Department for Education has issued an indicative budget for 2019/20 of £92.2 million for Greater Manchester.

GMCA wants to ensure that as much funding as possible reaches learners

The authority’s PIN said it will look to put out around £25 million of this to tender.

Like the last national AEB tender, FE Colleges, local authorities and third sector providers will be let off the hook as the rest of the budget will be grant funded to them.

“In Greater Manchester this includes around 20 providers which deliver around 75-80 per cent of AEB funded provision within GM,” said a report on devolution published by the authority in April.

“The ESFA currently funds these providers via a block grant on the basis that they are not-for-profit organisations in receipt of a grant to support their work (as opposed to a contract for specified activities).

“We would look to replicate that approach in 2019/20, subject to confirmation that grant allocations are compliant with relevant law/regulations.”

Like the Greater London Authority, which will also take control of AEB funding for its region next year, the GMCA is “considering” how funding models which incorporate outcome payments “can be used to drive better impact for learners based on progress from the starting point of their individual journey”.

“We are also considering pilot activity around funding additional elements of provision where they are linked to job outcomes,” the notice said.

It wants views on the advantages and disadvantages of a number of different payment models.

These include “the current model, in which an element of funding is attached to the achievement of a qualification with 20 per cent held back for achievement of it”, as well as “full payment by results, with the majority of funding predicated on achieving the stated outcome”.

Another funding model under consideration is “partial payment by results, combining funding elements linked to service delivery, on-programme milestones, for achievement of the agreed outcome/progression and an additional payment linked to a positive destination”.

Any underspend will be retained by GM rather than returned to DfE

It will also consider payments for work experience.

“The GMCA is also keen to understand the introduction/impact of license to practice and payments for work experience as long as there is a clear link to a job outcome.”

By having control of the AEB, GMCA expects to be enabled to focus on working with a “smaller range of high quality providers and reduce duplication”.

Once contracts are actually handed out following procurement, the authority’s intention is to make them last initially for one year, with an option to extend for a further two years.

But the GMCA warned that it will keep a close eye on subcontracting.

“GMCA wants to ensure that as much funding as possible reaches learners but recognises that there are costs involved in properly managing and assuring supply chains,” its PIN said.

“We will be considering relevant guidance and best practice in relation to all management fees and those generated by subcontracting arrangements.”

Interestingly, any underspend of the AEB will be retained by the authority.

“Department for Education has now confirmed that there will be no separate administration budget provided after devolution,” its PIN said.

“They have indicated that GM funding, including the AEB itself, should be used to fund operational costs associated with AEB, and that any underspend (usually around 2-3 per cent per year) will be retained by GM rather than returned to DfE.”

Organisations wanting to take part in this initial research need to complete the GMCA’s Market Testing Document by 4pm on July 16.

National Audit Office reviewing apprenticeship reforms progress

A follow-up review of apprenticeships has been launched by the National Audit Office, which will focus on whether the reform programme is delivering value for money.

The NAO is requesting submissions, with a key theme being whether the Department for Education is ensuring that the system is not being abused by stakeholders.

This comes after its 2016 report warned the reform programme risked repeating fraud that plagued failed Individual Learning Accounts without more robust risk planning.

“We last reported to parliament on the apprenticeships programme in September 2016,” a spokesperson said.

“Since then there have been a number of developments which make revisiting this topic timely, including a 0.5 per cent levy that has been introduced on the payroll of large employers to fund apprenticeships”.

The apprenticeships levy was launched for employers with a paybill of over £3 million in April last year. They have two years to spend their levy pot on apprenticeships training, which the government hoped would boost apprenticeship starts.

This has not so far happened and the NAO is expected to look into why starts are infact now “significantly lower”.

Most recent figures for March for example showed that apprenticeship starts were down 52 per cent compared with the same period in 2017.

The study will also look closely at the Institute for Apprenticeships, which is supposed to act as the policing body for the reforms programme.

Key among IfA responsibilities is signing off employer-designed apprenticeship ‘standards’ that are increasingly replacing old ‘frameworks’, and the NAO plans to check out progress with this.

Its damning 2016 report warned that the DfE has still had no contingency plan in case the levy and funding reforms did not work out as planned.

The failure of the Individual Learning Accounts scheme – which was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud – was blamed on poor planning and risk management by the government.

But the NAO raised concern that lessons had not been learned — as it warned the DfE had not done enough to identify how providers, employers and assessment bodies might react to the apprenticeship reforms, raising the risk of “market abuse”.

Mark Dawe

Launch of the new study comes after Association of Employment and Learning Providers boss Mark Dawe told members this week that he’d had “an excellent meeting with the NAO with a number of our providers and end point assessment organisation members, talking about the apprenticeship policy a year on”. 

“It made me proud to represent the sector the way everyone spoke, the balance of view and the clarity in the way everyone articulated the big issues”. 

But he warned “it was a great reminder for me of the looming car crash in terms of end point assessment”. 

“This is nothing to do with the providers and the EPA organisations who are trying their hardest to make this work – examples of poor assessment design in the approved standard, poor funding, absent quality controls, limited workforce capacity, lack of awareness – the list went on,” he added.

FE Week has been reporting on concern over the lack of approved organisations in place to deliver apprenticeship end point assessments since 2016.

Our special investigation in April uncovered an example of how would-be dental practice managers began their apprenticeship with Barnet and Southgate College in November 2015.

They finished their training and should have completed last May, but were unable to do so almost a year later as nobody was available to test them because the assessment plan was unworkable.

The NAO has invited those interested in providing evidence for its latest study, scheduled to report early next year, to email enquiries@nao.gsi.gov.uk.

Institute for Apprenticeships’ T-level takeover delayed, again

A second delay to when the Institute for Apprenticeships will take responsibility for T-levels has been confirmed.

According to the institute’s business plan for 2018/19, published today, it only expects to have agreed a “full implementation timetable” for taking on the new technical qualifications by next March.

It was originally meant to take control of them from the Department for Education in March 2018. Then minutes of a board meeting from last November revealed the first delay – that the IfA would not adopt T-levels until the end of 2018.

“By March 2019 we will have agreed a full implementation timetable with the DfE for the transfer of responsibility for the T-level qualification aspect of technical reform,” said its new business plan.

The institute’s five-year strategic plan was also published today, in which its chair, Antony Jenkins, added: “We will agree with the Department for Education a workable transition of responsibility for technical education and develop a cohesive and accessible map for individuals and employers.”

It is well-known that the institute’s chief executive, Sir Gerry Berragan, has major concerns over the proposed delivery timescale for T-levels, and could be the reason for this second delay.

“The last thing we should do is start the first three on the wrong footing and give them a bad reputation,” he said at an Ofqual conference in March.

“We need to deliver these successfully from the outset. I think the timeline for delivery of the initial three pathways is worryingly tight in that regard.”

The first three T-levels are due to be launched in 2020, of which the DfE will initially oversee.

The news of this second delay to the IfA taking on responsibility will put question marks over whether the department will now manage wave two for 2021 starts.


Damian Hinds defends T-levels timetable to Education Committee

Education secretary Damian Hinds and his permanent secretary Jonathan Slater were at odds last week over the controversial decision not to delay T-levels by a year, following the former’s ministerial direction in May.

Mr Slater told the Public Accounts Committee he had concerns about the lack of “contingency” built into the T-levels timetable.

But his boss insisted to the education committee that the new qualifications are being introduced at a “good pace”.

The IfA declined to comment on the takeover delay but the DfE said it will only transfer T-level responsibility when the time is right.

“We are transforming technical education in this country through the introduction of new T-levels, and will be investing an extra half a billion pounds a year once they are up and running,” said a spokesperson.

“The Institute of Apprenticeships is already playing a key role in the design and delivery of the T-levels – and it is important that we make sure that the transfer of full responsibility is done at the time that is right.”

The IfA’s new business plan included a number of other targets ahead of its takeover of T-levels.

By March 2019, the institute will have published a full set of occupational maps covering all T-level routes, it said.

These maps will be used to “inform the design of T-levels and apprenticeship standards and ensure they are developed consistently and driven by industry need”.

It will also have “recruited, trained and embedded people within the Institute with project delivery and commercial expertise”, by that date, as well as approved the content of three pathways under wave one for digital (production, design and development), childcare and education, and construction (design, surveying and planning).

The institute will also have developed the “procurement and delivery plan for the wave two pathways incorporating lessons from wave one”, by March 2019.

Inadequate Ofsted report exposes racial bullying at doomed UTC

Bullying – some of it racial – is rife at a university technical college that announced closure earlier this week, according to its damning ‘inadequate’ Ofsted reporting published this morning.

UTC@Harbourside is also accused of “too often” breaking “too many promises”, in a report that gives the 14 to 19 technical institution the lowest possible rating across the board.

The school, based in Newhaven, East Sussex, is the third in the space of a week to have received a grade four rating, and the 10th overall.

“Bullying, especially in key stage 4, is frequent,” the report said.

“Some of it is racial. Adults do not act decisively enough to stop it and prevent repetition.”

Some pupils in year 10 have a “miserable time” at the UTC “due to bullying, some of a persistent nature and which results in a few pupils being isolated”.

Pupils in this age group are “very clear that the size of the cohort means that relatively minor disagreements too often get blown out of proportion,” inspectors noted.

According to 2018 school census figures, it has 130 pupils on register in 2017/18, down from 141 in 2016/17.

Safeguarding arrangements are deemed to be “not effective”.

Pupils and learners at the school, which opened in 2015, are “hugely disappointed” with its “failure to live up to their expectations,” the report said.

“Too many promises made by the UTC have been broken too often.”

Learners on 16 to 19 study programmes “report that they feel ‘lied to’ by the UTC to get them to join and have been let down since,” inspectors found.

Outcomes for these learners are “not good enough”, and many report feeling not “challenged to excel” and “unsupported in many aspects of their academic studies”.

Teachers “frequently teach outside their specialism due to budgetary constraints”, and only “some” have the “correct technical knowledge to deliver their subject accurately”.

Senior leadership is described as “chaotic”, with the “substantive principal” not present during the inspection.

The “weak senior leadership” means there is “no meaningful middle leadership” as leaders at this level are “carrying out functions normally associated with senior leadership”.

“The deputy principal is determinedly trying to rescue the UTC”, inspectors noted.

UTC@Harbourside’s governors said in a statement they were “disappointed” by the report but that they “fully accept the findings of the inspectors and are committed to implementing the recommendations contained in their report for the students that remain with us until the UTC closes in August 2019”.

An acting principal, Lisa Jepson, “has already started to address the issues raised in the report”.

“We will continue to work closely with Ofsted to secure improvements and guide our current year 10 and 12 students to successfully completing their courses in July 2019.”

On Monday the UTC became the ninth of the 14 to 19 technical institutions to announce plans to close.

It will shut its doors in August 2019 after failing to recruit enough pupils to become “financially stable”.

The college will remain open and “fully committed” to ensuring current year 10 and 12 pupils successfully complete their courses by next July, according to the governors.

It also the 10th to have received Ofsted’s lowest rating, and third in the space of a week – after Derby Manufacturing UTC on Thursday (June 28), and Health Futures UTC yesterday (July 3).

The UTC model has faced substantial problems since its inception in 2010. Many have struggled financially after failing to attract the right number of pupils, as well as with quality.

In January, it was revealed that UTC@Harbourside was one of three UTCs to have agreed to pay back over £500,000 to the government after over-estimating pupil numbers.

Massive subcontracting top-slices finally revealed

Subcontracting top-slices exceeded £100 million last year, and 28 per cent of prime providers were charging more than 20 percent, FE Week can reveal.

The long-overdue subcontracting figures for 2016/17 have finally been published by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

FE Week’s analysis of the data has shown that just under a third of primes were charging above the 20-per-cent best-practice threshold announced in March.

This threshold was agreed between the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Holex and the Collab provider group. This represented 42 per cent of funding.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers immediately criticised such “unacceptable fees”.

“There are some disgraceful & totally unacceptable fees here,” it tweeted. “@ESFAgov rules should now adopt @AELPUK @collabgrp @HOLEXPolicy 20% cap and hopefully this will feature in final report of current @CommonsEd inquiry”

A total of 407 prime providers charged an average top-slice of 19 per cent, of which 12 charged an average top-slice in excess of 30 per cent.

At 39 per cent, John Ruskin College had the highest average top-slice percentage (see tables below).

The biggest single deal was a £4.7 million (40 per cent) Learndirect top-slice taken from £11.9 million of adult education budget funding delivered by Go Train Limited.

“In reviewing its funding rules, the ESFA shouldn’t try to find a form of words to wheedle out of putting a 20-per-cent cap on management fees,” said AELP boss Mark Dawe. “

“There are some totally unacceptable and disgraceful figures among this data with millions of pounds being denied to frontline training as a result. The signals from the MPs on the select committee suggest that it is ready to take a tough stance when it reports on the apprenticeship reforms and the government must respond immediately.”

Top-slicing describes the level of funding that prime providers charge subcontractors in so-called “management fees”, in order to run training on their behalf.

Concern has mounted in recent years that certain lead providers were charging excessive rates, as an easy way of supplementing their incomes.

The ESFA revealed in April that subcontracting fees and charges are to be reviewed to ensure government funding is being used for “recognised costs”.

“In the coming months, we will be reviewing aspects of the subcontracting funding rules,” it said.

This will include “subcontracting fees and charges, so that we can be assured that our funding is being used for recognised costs”.

Any subsequent changes to subcontracting rules will come into force from August.

Ofsted has also taken a closer interest in subcontracting; it announced in February that it would be conducting two new types of monitoring visit.

The first are monitoring visits to a sample of new apprenticeship providers. The second are monitoring visits to directly funded providers to look specifically at subcontracted provision.

Individual lead providers used to have to publish their annual figures on their websites by the end of November every year.

This changed from 2016/17, when new rules dictated that providers had to inform the ESFA of their figures, which should then be published centrally.

But the agency came in for heavy criticism as November passed without any indication of when the full figures would be revealed for last academic year.

The sector finally got its answer in April, after Gordon Marsden, the shadow skills minister asked, through a written parliamentary question lodged, when the government planned to publish the fees.

The education minister Nadhim Zahawi replied this would be by the end of June – and they were finally published at 4.55pm on June 29.

The ESFA has been approached for comment.

Leaders missed significant teaching weaknesses at ‘inadequate’ UTC

A university technical college has been rated inadequate across the board, in an Ofsted report that warned leaders and governors were unaware of “significant” teaching weaknesses for years.

Health Futures UTC, in West Bromwich, became the ninth UTC to be rated grade four when the report was published yesterday. It was quickly followed this morning by a tenth – for UTC@Harbourside, which has announced plans to close.

Leaders and governors at the west midlands UTC were said to have been “ineffective since it opened in September 2015”, having “failed to secure an acceptable standard of education for students over that time”.

“Teaching has been weak and consequently, students have made very poor progress,” it added.

Yet the top team who were supposed to be overseeing provision were said to have been unaware of these “significant weaknesses” until exam results were released in August 2017.

The report added that over the last two years, improvement plans had “not been well focused on those aspects of the school that needed to improve”.

Another particularly damning finding for a UTC – part of the 14-to-19 movement of institutions that are supposed to maintain a vocational focus – was that while Health Futures “claims to have a curriculum focus on healthcare and health science”, in practice “it does not”.

“Leaders have failed to provide students with the health-focused curriculum they were promised. Links with employers are weak.”

“The school’s curriculum is not distinctive. Its health focus is not embedded across the curriculum and is only evident in occasional activities for a limited number of students”.

The report also warned that leaders have been “incorrectly recording the attendance of students on study leave, coding it as ‘off-site educational activity’, rather than as ‘study leave’.”

This was said to have had “the effect of inflating the school’s attendance figures”. Leaders ceased this practice “during the inspection”.

“Attendance has declined each year since the school opened. It is now well below the national average for secondary schools,” the report added, and “many students do not attend school regularly”.

“During this academic year, approximately 30 per cent of students have not attended regularly and this is the case for almost half of disadvantaged students.”

The UTC has 440 pupils on register in 2018 – which means it is currently at 73 per cent capacity (which makes it the fifth highest of any UTC).

Health Futures was unable to comment on its plans for the future ahead of publication.

The Ofsted report did recognise that “in the short time she has been at the school”, the interim principal Ruth Umerah had “secured the confidence of staff and improvements in behaviour”, and that she has a “clear understanding” of what needs to improve.

Professor Linda Lang, chair of governors, wrote to parents about the grade four.

She conceded that the report “indicated areas that require improvement, such as the standard of teaching, learning and assessment, which means that not all students have made progress, or achieved, as well as they could”.

“Our first priority has been to ensure the very best possible standard of education for every student,” she added.

“We have made a number of new appointments to ensure that the leadership of teaching and learning, literacy, special educational needs and the sixth form are effective.

“The governors recognise that the upward journey will be difficult, but we are committed to support and challenge the plans and work done, to ensure that it is of the necessary standard.”

Ninth UTC closure announced

Another university technical college will close next year, taking the total to nine.

UTC@Harbourside, based in Newhaven in East Sussex, has announced it will close in August 2019 after failing to recruit enough pupils to become “financially stable”.

The announcement comes ahead of the UTC’s first Ofsted report, which is due out on Wednesday.

The college, a 14-to-19 institution with a vocational focus, opened in 2015 and planned to recruit up to 650 pupils. The school had just 141 pupils on roll in 2016-17.

According to the UTC, the request from governors for permission to close the institution next year was approved by ministers last week.

“The UTC has not been able to recruit enough students to become financially stable and to deliver fully on its educational vision. The governors decided that the best way forward is to propose termination of its agreement with the Department for Education. The UTC was inspected by Ofsted last month and the report is due to be published on Wednesday July 4,” it said in a statement.

“This has been a very difficult and hugely disappointing decision for the governors to make. They recognise that this announcement will cause concern to students, staff and parents. Their primary concern is the welfare and education of students currently attending the UTC and those who have applied to join from September, and the decision was taken at the earliest opportunity in the light of the upcoming summer break.”

The UTC is “already in discussions with the relevant local authorities to secure alternative places for the students who had accepted an offer to join us in September”.

“They are working closely with parents, students, schools and the local authorities to do all we can to assist this. There will be opportunities for students to meet with local authority advisers and UTC staff before the summer break,” a spokesperson said.

The college will remain open and “fully committed” to ensuring current year 10 and 12 pupils successfully complete their courses by next July, they added.

The UTC model has faced substantial problems since its inception in 2010. Many have struggled financially after failing to attract the right number of pupils.

In January, it was revealed that UTC@Harbourside was one of three UTCs to have agreed to pay back over £500,000 to the government after over-estimating pupil numbers.

Secrecy surrounds Ofsted’s decision to declare its 3aaa inspection ‘incomplete’

Ofsted’s latest inspection of Aspire Achieve Advance – which holds the largest ESFA apprenticeship allocation – is “incomplete” following intervention from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

The inspectorate had at first confirmed on June 20 that it had inspected the provider, which is commonly known as 3aaa, in May and that nothing was amiss.

“The report is currently going through our normal processes and will be published in due course,” a spokesperson said at the time.

But there was a sudden change in the wind a day later, after Ofsted released a second statement to FE Week mentioning “new information”.

“Given new information that has come to light, we have decided to declare our inspection of Aspire Achieve Advance Limited incomplete,” a spokesperson said.

“In due course, pending further information from the EFSA, we will decide whether we need to return to the provider to gather further evidence.”

3aaa did not provide a comment on Ofsted’s decision.

Its allocation for non-levy apprenticeships now stands at nearly £22 million, up from £5.5 million at the start of the academic year.

The provider, which specialises in “professional services apprenticeships” has seen significant growth under the leadership of Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, its chief executive and director respectively.

Direct ESFA funding increased from just £390,000 in 2012/13 to £3.6 million the following year. It rose again to £12.5 million in 2014/15 and to £21.7 million a year later.

Its apprenticeships include IT, software, digital marketing, accountancy, financial services, business administration, customer service and management.

“We are a national company offering a personalised, local service in 38 locations as we look to partner local talent and businesses together to enhance careers and the economy through workplace training,” its website states.

It is also claims to place a “huge emphasis” on employing high-quality, industry-experienced staff which means “we are able to deliver outstanding apprenticeship programmes that are developed with a focus on providing industry led skills and experience”.

It has been inspected only once before, in October 2014, receiving ‘outstanding’ ratings across the board in a report which recognised that “the vast majority of apprentices make excellent progress”.

Performance management was “very strong and, linked with excellent communications and robust quality-assurance, enables managers to pursue improvement relentlessly”.

Neither the Department for Education nor the ESFA would explain their part in Ofsted’s shock decision to delay the latest inspection.

“We don’t comment on individual cases nor on any investigations ongoing or otherwise,” said a DfE spokesperson when asked about the case.

“If and when we have concerns raised to us we would take the relevant action.”

Learndirect accuse PeoplePlus of ‘dirty tricks’ after entire senior executive team jumps ship

The entire senior executive team at Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd (LDA) along with 18 other senior employees have today quit to work for PeoplePlus Group, the firm that had only recently had a purchase offer rejected.

The unexpected mass exodus of 22 key staff has been met with a furious response from the Learndirect Group, calling it “dirty tricks”, something PeoplePlus “absolutely deny.”

As reported exclusively by FE Week, Learndirect had been working for weeks on a sale to PeoplePlus Group, a division of Staffline Group, a listed company and one of the biggest recruitment firms in the UK.

PeoplePlus undertook several weeks of due diligence on a purchase of the entire Learndirect Group, but FE Week understands the talks ended after their offer to only take ownership of Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd was rejected.

Early last week Learndirect, owned by the private equity firm Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), then turned to entrepreneur Wayne Janse van Rensburg and a deal was done to take ownership of the whole Learndirect Group.

Mr Janse van Rensburg is the Managing Director of the Stonebridge College Group, which supplies Learndirect with a Virtual Learning Environment known as PEARL.

Stonebridge College Group includes Dimensions Training Solution (DTS), a training provider that Mr Janse van Rensburg purchased in 2015, and the ESFA approved the change of ownership for LDA on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers.

Mr Janse van Rensburg, who has only been owner of the Learndirect Group for a week, this evening told FE Week: “Colleagues that don’t share our vision and values, placing learners and employers at the heart of our provision have no place in my business.”

But a senior employee at the Learndirect Group, that did not wish to be named, went further, saying: “this is pretty dirty tricks from PeoplePlus, having spent several weeks in our data room [during the due diligence phase of the sale process].

“The 22 staff that resigned today can expect a letter from our lawyer stating that they would be in breach of contract to leave without seeing out their notice period, which would allow for an orderly handover.”

“The letter will also remind them of the non-compete clause in their contract of employment at Learndirect Apprenticeship Ltd, they added.”

Simon Rouse, managing director at PeoplePlus group told FE Week that the 22 that resigned from LDA today would be joining PeoplePlus next week and any claim of “dirty tricks” was “conspiratorial nonsense.”

He went on to say: “We went into this to do a deal [to buy Learndirect] in good faith. We were not able to make that deal work after we made an offer and they decided not to proceed with that offer and went with an alternative buyer. The managers at LDA have decided that they don’t have confidence that the new business has a future for them and we are delighted that they have come to join us.

“This idea that there was some conspiracy or dirty tricks, we absolutely deny that.”

The 22 LDA staff that jumped ship to PeoplePlus include the managing director, sales and marketing director, quality director and  performance director.

It is understood that Andy Palmer, the former chief executive of LDA, is not among those to have left and is currently interim chair at the Learndirect Group.