Allowing employers and apprentices to give “smiley faces” as reviews of training providers is a better indicator of quality than “tick box” inspections, according to the skills minister.

Anne Milton was speaking in favour of the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s new service, which will allow employers to score training providers in an online review tool similar to Trip Advisor.

The service, which is due to begin running “very soon”, will also be rolled out to apprentices, allowing them to give feedback on their experiences of training providers too.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative party conference on Tuesday, Ms Milton suggested the new tool would give a better sense of a training provider than a traditional Ofsted inspection.

“You can do all sorts of inspections but you often miss the point,” she said. “You tick your boxes, but overall what did it feel like? Did it feel good? You miss that.

“So one of the best correlators is smiley faces, interestingly. You know, they did some research in care homes and smiley faces or not smiley faces correlated best with what was actually going on.

“If everyone has to do live reporting of their training provision we will get better and earlier indication as to which providers are not up to scratch.

“There is always, and there will always be, in any system a strain of people defrauding the system, not giving the quality that we expect. What we have to try and do is find the best means, the least bureaucratic means – because the bureaucracy is a shame when people are good – but the most immediate means of identifying where there are problems so we can take action.”

Ms Milton was quizzed on the government’s upcoming refreshed register of apprenticeship training providers during the session as well, but she refused to be drawn on details of its development.

The only comment she offered was: “A good proportion of people on the register of training providers aren’t delivering any training. They’re sitting there dormant, if you like, and I don’t think that’s helpful.”

The minister also used the session to say she was “open to” raising the apprenticeship levy transfer facility above 25 per cent, but admitted that “fraud has been an issue” within the current system.

“All that matters to me is that the levy is spent on the purpose for which it was intended,” she said. “We have to have rules, and they’re irritating and bureaucratic, but fraud has been an issue. Fraud is always an issue in any system you set up.”

FE Week understands that there is a concern there may be a rise in fraudulent inducement associated with transfer funding.

On Monday, the chancellor Philip Hammond announced the transfer facility would rise from 10 per cent to 25 per cent by April 2019, allowing large levy-paying employers to share more of their annual funds with smaller organisations. Ms Milton said the “hope” was that raising the level allowed to be transferred to 25 per cent would encourage more businesses to use the system.

Ms Milton also used the event to criticise the National Education Union, and said she has had a “big go” at the unions for focusing on schools at the expense of FE.

“If you always go on about schools, then you crowd out the argument about post-16,” she said. “I can only do so much as one person, as the minister of state who is passing through government, for however long it is.

“It actually needs to have a tidal wave of opinion and voices talking about the importance of apprenticeships, talking about the importance of FE.”

Three providers have been criticised for making ‘insufficient progress’ in the latest series of monitoring reports from Ofsted, including a recently merged college.

But it was ‘good’ news for one independent specialist college, which retained a grade two.

Coventry College, which was formed in August last year out of a merger of the grade three providers City College Coventry and Henley College Coventry, was found to be making poor progress in implementing a strategy for improving the teaching of English and maths and in making use of information about learners’ prior attainment to help plan teaching.

The report, published on October 2 after an inspection on September 11, said student tracking systems have not been used “well enough” since the merger to help identify learners and apprentices who are “not making secure progress” in English and maths.

It warned that “too few learners and apprentices achieve in line with their identified potential” in the subjects, with low attendance and low GCSE results, but added that leaders were working to improve this. 

The college also came in for criticism for “inconsistencies in monitoring and tracking” of learners’ work records and progress, but was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in all other areas including setting challenging targets for the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, supporting teachers and assessors to improve their teaching and the quality of the curriculum.

Two independent learning providers also received ‘insufficient’ progress ratings in monitoring visits of new apprenticeship providers.

Wolverhampton-based GTG Training, which currently has 196 levy funded apprentices, was deemed ‘insufficient’ for meeting the requirements of “successful apprenticeship provision” and the quality of its training.

The report, published on October 4, noted weaknesses in assessment plans, careers guidance, workplace mentors and plans for off-the-job training, and found that apprentices do not receive “any formal training” in English and maths except for one day before their functional skills examination.

Inspectors found that leaders have “worked hard to achieve a successful curriculum, but they have failed to recognise key weaknesses in the provision which are hindering apprentices’ progress”.

Despite this, the report commended the “well qualified and experienced” trainers and “enthusiastic” apprentices at the provider, and said safeguarding arrangements are effective. 

Ensis Solutions, which trains 123 apprentices in Wigan, was found to be ‘insufficient’ in ensuring apprentices receive high quality training, and the report, published on October 1, warned apprentices are not being set “demanding enough targets to achieve high grades in their end-point assessments”.

However, it noted that there had been “many recent improvements”, and commended leaders for their “strong determination and ambition” and “decisive action” to move from being a subcontractor to a provider.

The Department for Education will now be deciding whether or not to ban the providers from recruiting new apprentices until their grade improves. 

Four more learning providers had monitoring visits published this week.

Penshaw View Training in Sunderland, Bright Direction Training in Bolton, Stevenage’s Sporting Futures Training (UK) and Stanford Management Processes in Leicestershire were all found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ across the board by inspectors.

The only full inspection published this week was for independent specialist college Dorton College in Bromley, east London, which retained its ‘good’ rating across the board.

Learners were found to make “good progress” and “gain confidence” during their time at the college, which is run by the Royal Society for Blind Children and provides education and specialist therapies for young people with visual impairments and other additional needs.

The report described the college as a “highly respectful and safe environment” which has a “positive impact on the development of students’ independence” and commended leaders for their “clear and ambitious vision for the future”, but noted that learners should receive better careers guidance and external work placements.

 

Independent specialist colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Dorton College	12/09/2018	02/10/2018	2	2

 

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade
Coventry College	11/09/2018	02/10/2018	M

 

Independent learning providers	Inspected	Published	Grade
Penshaw View Training	18/09/2018	05/10/2018	M
Ensis Solutions	08/08/2018	01/10/2018	M
GTG Training	13/09/2018	04/10/2018	M
Bright Direction Training	11/09/2018	04/10/2018	M
Sporting Futures Training (UK)	11/09/2018	03/10/2018	M
Stanford Management Processes	29/09/2018	01/10/2018	M

 

Ofsted delayed inspecting the beleaguered Aspire Achieve Advance for years despite its achievement rates plummeting when apprentice numbers nearly quadrupled and severe safeguarding concerns were brought forward by a whistleblower.

An FE Week investigation has uncovered the serious failing by the education watchdog, which has now come under fire from chair of the influential Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, who fears the situation mirrors the Learndirect scandal.

The apprenticeship giant, commonly known as 3aaa, was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in October 2014.

Ofsted should have gone in sooner given the sudden plummet in results

Inspectors went back into the provider this year and were due to give it another grade one before declaring the inspection “incomplete” following the launch of a second Education and Skills Funding Agency investigation into its achievement rates.

Since then its co-founders have resigned, the agency has suspended it from recruiting apprentices and the company has put itself up for sale – but is falsely claiming it achieved an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating in May 2018 and is using that as a key selling point.

In the education watchdog’s 2014 report, 3aaa was lauded for its overall success rates being “high” while rates for completion within the expected timescale were “extremely high”.

Its achievement rates for 2014/15 sat at 82 per cent for teaching a cohort of 560 apprentices.

But a year later when the provider’s apprenticeship numbers nearly quadrupled to just under 2,000 its success rate plummeted to 65 per cent – a 17 percentage point drop.

It placed 3aaa below the national average and close to the government’s minimum standard of 62 per cent.

On top of this, in 2016, the government launched its first investigation into 3aaa and found dozens of funding and success rate “overclaims”. Ofsted was, however, kept in the dark about this significant but confidential report.

But FE Week’s investigation also discovered the watchdog failed to act on serious safeguarding concerns from a whistleblower in May 2017. The complaint was also sent to the ESFA who joined Ofsted in telling the person to take the matter up with the provider instead of taking action, even though the whistleblower was a 3aaa employee and feared losing their job.

An Ofsted document published in May 2018 states that ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ FE providers will be risk assessed based on their “achievement rate data, complaints about provision, and the size and complexity of the provider and any recent changes to these”.

If red flags against those factors are raised then a full inspection should be triggered.

When asked why it failed to go back into 3aaa earlier than this year, Ofsted blamed a lack of funding from the Department for Education for not having enough resource, as well as a change in the way the Education and Skills Funding Agency reported achievement rates.

3aaa previously, however, admitted to FE Week that its success rates drop was nothing to do with the change in algorithm, it was simply a decline in performance.

A spokesperson for the inspectorate said it was still “waiting for further information before deciding when to complete” its current inspection of 3aaa.

We all pay our taxes to get a decent service and people are profiting and not delivering

“No judgement about a provider is final until the inspection has been fully completed, and a report has been published,” she added.

Ms Hillier was sympathetic to the inspectorate for its lack of resource but criticised it for not going in sooner considering the private provider was growing through taxpayers’ money.

She told FE Week it reminded her of the Learndirect saga – where the inspectorate delayed revisiting the nation’s largest FE provider when it put itself up for sale even though its achievement rates plunged and learners suffered from poor training while its government skills contracts grew to £100 million.

When Ofsted finally came knocking, four years after being rated ‘good’, Learndirect was branded ‘inadequate’ and eventually had its government skills contracts taken away.

3aaa’s apprenticeship allocations have grown rapidly since being launched by co-founders Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, who resigned from the company last month, in 2008.

Direct ESFA funding has increased from just £390,000 in 2012/13 to more than £31 million in 2017/18.

 

Ofsted’s defence

“Our risk assessment process at the time did identify a decline in performance at this provider during the 2015/16 performance year; achievement rates fell to 65 per cent,” a spokesperson said.

“However, it is worth being aware of the wider context that year, when achievement rates declined nationally to 67 per cent following the strengthening of achievement rate reporting rules introduced by the funding agency.

“As this was the first time performance had declined in this provider, and as performance was around that of similar providers, and not in the bottom 20 per cent of all providers, we did not select this provider for inspection. Ofsted has limited resources and needs to prioritise inspection to providers that are in most need.

“When performance data for 2016/17 was published and risk-assessment completed, although the provider’s performance data had improved to above national rates, our risk assessment process did identify two consecutive years of performance data that suggested the provider was no longer outstanding.

“This data, together with other risk factors led to the provider being selected for inspection. Our risk assessment process is kept under continual review and any lessons learned are incorporated into revised methodology.

“We believe the approach taken to the inspection of this provider is appropriate and proportionate. Inspection and risk-assessment is not all about one year’s data.”

 

PAC chair lays into Ofsted and DfE

The head of the Public Accounts Committee hit out at Ofsted for not going in “sooner” when 3aaa’s success rates sank but learner numbers and apprenticeship funding surged.

“Frankly this is our money, we all pay our taxes to get a decent service and people are profiting and not delivering,” Meg Hiller told FE Week.

Following the Learndirect fiasco last year, the PAC criticised Ofsted for not taking “full account of the company’s size and the consequences for learners of its declining performance”.

It recommended the watchdog “urgently” revisits how it “prioritises its use of resources and the different type of risk attached to a private sector failure, in a way that takes account of risks to high numbers of learners and the changing provider-base in FE”.

“Ofsted should have gone in sooner given the sudden plummet in results,” Ms Hillier said when shown the evidence of 3aaa’s size and declining performance.

“If a provider is growing that fast then that should also trigger an inspection.”

Ms Hillier extended her condemnation to the Department for Education for “handing out taxpayers’ money” to private providers without giving the education watchdog “proper resource to inspect them”.

“The resources they [Ofsted] have got are stretched ridiculously thin,” she said.

“They have all these new [apprenticeship] providers they need to keep an eye on and they’re inspecting schools less frequently.

“If we are going to have a market set up like this then we have got to make sure we have the proper safeguards and regulation to do so.”

She continued to lay into the government: “The government should be wary of handing out taxpayers’ money for a private provider to expand.

“You wouldn’t ask someone who is building an extension on your home to suddenly build a new house next door without doing some major checks on their capabilities of doing that.

“It is the learners who get caught up in the middle of this.”

 

Ofsted kept in the dark about damning KPMG report

Ofsted was kept hidden from a damning government investigation into 3aaa in 2016, which found dozens of funding and success rate “overclaims”.

FE Week revealed last week that the investigation, carried out by auditing firm KPGM and code named “Project Vanilla”, was conducted in the same year that the Department for Education gave the provider a £7 million apprenticeships contract increase.

Prompted by a whistleblower, claims about 3aaa included: incorrect start dates resulting in failure to reach minimum duration; incorrect use of “break in learning” status which is inflating success rates; apprentices with long periods without learning activity.

The probe found dozens of “errors which support the allegations or which have an impact on funding of success rates”.

FE Week understands the investigation resulted in the company paying back a substantial six figure sum.

Despite the significant findings of the report, Ofsted was never informed of its existence.

When asked for a response to the KPMG report, a spokesperson for the inspectorate would only say: “We can confirm that Ofsted has no record of being informed about the investigation carried out in 2016.”

FE Week asked the DfE why it hid the report from Ofsted. “We do not comment on individual provider investigations,” is all they would say.

 

Whistleblower’s concerns batted away

A whistleblower raised “serious concerns” about safeguarding of 3aaa “learners’ personal data” in May last year, but both Ofsted and the Education and Skills Funding Agency refused to act on them.

Instead, the person was told to take up the issue with the company itself, even though they were a staff member and feared any complaint would put their job at risk.

The whistleblower said learners were not “protected against safeguarding issues on the internet, such as those detailed in the prevent duty, as we no longer have any form of web filtering”.

“We also have no firewalls in any academy, or even up in the head office where the computers that hold all the student data are,” they added.

“We have had complaints from our students that the site they upload their work to is not even secure – google advises them of this each time they log on, but so far IT have taken no action as far as I can tell.

“None of the laptops used by staff are encrypted – these have got student information on them – what happens if they get stolen?”

The whistleblower concluded: “The company presents a great facade claiming grade one Ofsted, but underneath the surface there are huge issues which need investigating, which will tell a very different story.”

In response to the concerns, the ESFA said: “We understand that you have not issued a formal complaint to the training provider. Therefore, we would not be able to formally investigate your concerns.”

Ofsted also told the whistleblower to “formally raise your concerns through the provider’s own complaint process” but said “a summary of your concerns will be available to the lead inspector for consideration at the provider’s next inspection to assist with their inspection planning or at the next monitoring visit where these are taking place”.

When quizzed by FE Week about the situation, Ofsted confirmed the whistleblower’s complaints were passed onto the 3aaa inspection team.

A spokesperson added: “Ofsted’s role is to inspect and report as we find. We are unable to investigate individual complaints about FE providers – this falls to the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

“Complaints of this kind when received by Ofsted are held so that inspectors can access them when it comes to the next inspection. They are one source of information, that will be considered alongside a range of other information, before arriving at inspection judgements.”

 

3aaa up for sale

3aaa has put itself up for sale with the government’s backing, but is falsely claiming it achieved an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating in May 2018 and is using it as a key selling point.

The company hired accountancy firm BDO to seek potential bidders and the deadline for indicative offers was October 4.

There are however concerns that the sale will further delay Ofsted’s reinspection of 3aaa, like it did for Learndirect.

The watchdog originally planned to visit Learndirect at the start of November 2016, but agreed to defer its inspection when the provider claimed it was negotiating the sale of its apprenticeships business.

This sale never actually went through but delayed inspection for four months.

Following its inquiry into Learndirect, the Public Accounts Committee told Ofsted to develop a “specific deferral policy for commercial providers, to ensure that learners’ interests always take priority over the pursuit of profit”.

At the time Ofsted said it will “always put the interests of learners before any commercial considerations”.

3aaa finalised a significant cash loan of around £5 million in April 2018 from Beechbrook Capital.

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

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

An “investment opportunity” document, code named ‘Project Alphabet’, has been obtained by FE Week and 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.”

A separate “overview information” document about the sale, claims that the business “delivers the highest quality learning provision with all areas graded outstanding in the draft Ofsted report (May 2018)”.

The skills minister has highlighted the “risks” associated with degree apprenticeships after her predecessor evangelised about how they are his “two favourite words”.

Anne Milton and Robert Halfon engaged in a heated exchange about the high level qualifications during a fringe event at the Conservative party conference.

Mr Halfon, now chair of the education select committee, said there needs to be a “radical change at the Institute for Apprenticeships and a lot more funding” going into degree apprenticeships, which are seen as being central to the government’s plans to put technical education on a par with academic education.

His remark follow comments by IfA chief Sir Gerry Berragan who previously told the committee he was “agnostic” about the qualifications.

The danger is the word degree is linked to universities

Ms Milton jumped to the defence of “poor old Gerry” and said he was “not agnostic” about them, but she and he think “we need to be careful we don’t crowd out levels 2, 3, 4 and 5”.

FE Week’s editor Nick Linford interviewed the skills minister after the showdown and quizzed her on her concerns.

“I think there are risks around degree apprenticeships,” she said.

“One is that all that’s happening is that people who would have gone through a traditional full-time degree are doing a degree apprenticeship.

“That’s great, possibly for the productivity of the country, because you get your degree and you’re working at the same time.

“But actually the whole idea of apprenticeships is that it gives people an opportunity that you wouldn’t otherwise have.”

She added that the “danger” is that the word degree is “linked to universities and one of the problems that I have is struggling to get the word further education out in the public domain”.

“Because the conversation in the mainstream media is about degrees and universities, everyone talks about degrees and universities,” Ms Milton continued.

“Parents think that’s the only option for their children, and so you can end up unwittingly reinforcing the fact that it’s got to be a degree.

“In fact 50 per cent of people don’t go to university, currently. So what’s happening to those 50 per cent? A lot of them had a bad experience at school.

“So FE plays a crucial part. What matters is getting the pathway for people to do even a level one.

“I was talking to the principal from an FE college in Birmingham today, and they’ve just had a graduation ceremony and I think she said 100 students graduated in the ICC.

“Of those students graduating were people who came to them to do level 2 qualifications who never thought in a million years they would do a degree.

“And I don’t want the conversation about degrees to crowd out.”

Asked if degree apprenticeships were in danger of taking the rungs out of Mr Halfon’s ladder of opportunity, she replied: “Or to take the paving stones out on my path.

“The point is that it mustn’t crowd it out. We mustn’t see, because in some jobs level 4 and 5 is absolutely fine.

“And you can go on and get to quite a senior level even run the company without having a degree. Look at me, I don’t have a degree. I got to be minister of state for skills and apprenticeships.”