Commissioner credits improvements at college Ofsted branded ‘unsafe’

The FE Commissioner has recognised improvements at a financially challenged college that was recently branded grade four by Ofsted for delivering “unsafe” training.

But Richard Atkins’ intervention summary report on Moulton College, still warned that the required changes in approach, culture and actions “need to be monitored in a more directed manner by leaders and governors”.

It found “evidence that college management have acted to address the critical health and safety issues” raised by Ofsted, and they are “working to further raise staff awareness of the importance of the high priority of workplace practice across the range of vocational areas”.

The report out today also warned of the Northamptonshire college’s “deteriorating financial position”.

It called on leaders to work closely with the commissioner’s team to complete a structure and prospects appraisal by July 2018, which “considers the full range of options including merger”.

Richard Atkins

Moulton has been in FE Commissioner intervention since being referred in February 2017 due to a financial health score of inadequate for 2015/16.

The intervention was extended following the outcome of an Ofsted inspection in March, which rated it grade four overall and said learners, including those with high needs, were in danger.

It warned that “there were three serious breaches of health & safety, which placed learners in immediate danger, and a further eight examples of poor health & safety”.

The principal of the specialist, independent land-based college, Stephen Davies, then resigned in April.

A commissioner team visited the college on April 10 and 11.

They met with senior leaders and “saw evidence” that the college had taken on board Ofsted’s safeguarding comments, understood “the seriousness of the situation and taken swift action”.

Safeguarding refresher training has been provided to all staff, covering “individual responsibilities and the mechanisms for reporting”.

But the report said it was evident that governors had not maintained “clear enough oversight in recent years” of the former principal’s leadership or “sufficient understanding of college operations to scrutinise his reports to the board and committees effectively”.

As a result, it was felt that “overly optimistic financial and quality projections” had been presented.

With regards to finances, today’s report noted that the college’s 2017-19 financial plan assumed an increase in funding body grants in 2018-19 that would help the college to achieve a small operating surplus.

But is said: “These assumptions now look wholly unrealistic in light of a reduction in lagged 16-19 classroom-based funding of £0.5m in 2018-19, due to a shortfall of 102 students in 2017-18”.

Another key financial issue looking ahead is the college’s exit from delivery of apprenticeships following the Ofsted inadequate grade – as forecast income for 2018-19 was said to be £1.9m.

The college advised the ESFA intervention team that they have suspended new apprenticeship starts “in anticipation that they will be removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers”.

An intervention report was also published today on Sunderland City Metropolitan Borough Council.

The local authority was referred to the FE Commissioner following an overall judgement for the council’s apprenticeships and family, adult and community learning provision was ‘inadequate’ through an Ofsted inspection in January.

The intervention report has now said that the council “should restrict its activities to family, adults and community learning provision”, and “plan to cease apprenticeship provision”.

“Quality improvement arrangements for current apprentices remain a priority for sub-contracted and in-house delivery during transition,” it added.

Essex-based Prospects College of Advanced Technology, which converted from an independent training provider to college status four years ago, has also been told by Richard Atkins that it is “extremely unlikely to be able to deal with its financial challenges alone”.

It was also announced today that interventions with Essex county council and Gateway Sixth Form College have closed.

FE college incorporated just four years ago told to merge

An FE college that was that was only incorporated in 2014 is no longer sustainable as a standalone institution, according to the FE commissioner, who has told it to merge.

Prospects College of Advanced Technology, which converted from an independent training provider to college status four years ago, becoming the first college to be instituted in 20 years, has been told by Richard Atkins that it is “extremely unlikely to be able to deal with its financial challenges alone”.

“It is anticipated that the result of the FE commissioner-led structure and prospects appraisal will be to identify a merger partner for the college, with a merger ideally to be completed by the end of calendar year 2018,” said an intervention report on the college published today.

It noted that the college’s “very small” turnover of £9 million is around three times less than the average for FE colleges in England, and it is “difficult to envisage the college, at this size, being able to invest in sufficient high-quality people”.

The college extremely unlikely to be able to deal with its financial challenges alone

The college will not be able to pay market rates for staff in a “vibrant south-east employment market (current staff turnover is 42 per cent)” or “invest regularly in the equipment and materials needed to deliver its mission as a college of advanced technology”.

The commissioner can’t see how the college will “successfully manage multiple stakeholder relationships and compete with other providers”.

PROCAT was issued a financial notice to improve in February after being assessed to have “inadequate financial health by ESFA following a review of the college’s latest outturn figures for 2016/17 and the revised budget for 2017/18 and associated information”.

Following PROCAT’s transfer to college status, the provider underwent an £11.5 million expansion of its main Basildon training base and now has around 2,000 learners.

The college made a small operating surplus during its first year after incorporation (2014/15), and a small deficit the following year. However, in its third year (2016/17), the college posted a “significant” deficit.

The decline has been caused by falling learner and apprenticeship numbers, “adverse demographics”, and a decision by the previous leadership team to introduce 15 new standards to replace frameworks for apprentices.

“The extra administration caused by the new standards and the introduction of the levy, coupled with staff shortages, slowed down the process of matching employers with prospective apprentices and the college has failed to meet its apprentice recruitment target of 450 for 2017/18 by 136,” today’s report said.

The college was told to supply a draft recovery plan setting out how it will secure the college’s financial position.

However, Mr Atkins said that while identifying the key issues, the plan is “not entirely convincing and is subject to many risks”, and recommended the college introduces a finance committee, with a “full focus” on the college’s financial position.

He wants the college to invite a representative of the ESFA to “attend future board meetings as an observer, during the period leading up to structural change”, and it should arrange for governors to be trained in “funding methodologies and their implications”.

It is difficult to envisage the college, at this size, being able to invest in sufficient high-quality people

The college needs to “strengthen its leadership and management team in the short term, particularly in the area of marketing and business development”.

PROCAT is currently led by Ros Parker, who took over from the former principal Neil Bates when he retired at the end of July 2017 after more than 30 years at the helm.

Under his leadership, the Essex-based charity, formerly an independent training provider known as Prospects Learning Foundation, legally reclassified as an FE college – the first time this had been allowed by the government since 1993.

Skills minister Anne Milton was “pleased to hear” that a commissioner-led structure and prospects appraisal is “due to be completed by June 2018 which considers the full range of options including identifying a credible merger partner”.

“I am looking to you, Judith Abbot, chief executive, and Ros Parker, principal, to provide the necessary focus on the college’s financial position,” she added.

In its first ever Ofsted report in February last year, Mr Bates led PROCAT to a ‘good’ grade.

The college has been approached for comment.

London colleges hit with strikes – but exams go on

London has been a hotbed of industrial unrest this week – but the Association of Colleges is claiming that strikes at colleges across the capital have had no negative impact on learners sitting exams.

Members of the University and College Union took action at Lambeth College, Lewisham Southwark College and the Capital City College Group, timed for the start of exam season.

Mary Vine-Morris, the AoC’s London director, was relieved that the strikes hadn’t had “any negative impact on students turning up – and hopefully being successful – in their exams”.

Elsewhere in the country, a two-day strike over planned job cuts at Bradford College was called off at the last minute on Tuesday after it agreed to reopen its voluntary redundancy scheme.

“The strikes this week have made it absolutely clear that staff won’t simply stand by and see their pay continue to be eroded,” said Andrew Harden, the UCU’s head of FE.

“Our message to college leaders is simple – if they want to avoid further disruption to students they need to make a pay offer which addresses members’ concerns.”

Shakira Martin, the president of the National Union of Students, joined staff on the picket line at her former college, Lewisham Southwark, on May 23.

She urged colleges to “work immediately” to negotiate a deal over pay.

Shakira Martin

“Teachers and staff in FE colleges are the backbone of the sector and deserve adequate and fair pay and conditions,” she said.

This week’s action is the latest in an ongoing dispute over a below-inflation pay offer of one per cent in 2017/18 made by the Association of Colleges in September.

Staff at Lambeth and the three Capital City College Group members – City and Islington College, Westminster Kingsway College, and the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London – have walked out twice already this year over the offer, which the UCU described as “disappointing”.

And Lewisham Southwark staff joined them for the first time this week, in protest at being told by their paymasters at NCG in the north that they won’t be getting any pay rise at all this year.

A Capital City Group spokesperson said all maths exams at its three colleges had “gone ahead without disruption”, while a spokesperson for Lewisham Southwark confirmed that “no exams were cancelled this week”.

There is some proof that strikes can work: last week, staff and leaders at Sandwell College agreed a “sector-leading” pay deal, amounting to more than six per cent over three years.

AoC boss David Hughes said he was “pleased” that the college had been able to reach a deal, which he said was a “positive sign that where colleges can afford to pay more than the one-per-cent recommendation they are prepared to do so”.

“Unfortunately, some colleges simply don’t have the funding and that is what the handful of outstanding disputes will hopefully soon recognise,” he said.

The AoC is refusing to negotiate with the FE unions, which include GMB, Unison, Unite and the National Education Union as well as UCU, over next year’s pay claim while action over the 2017/18 offer is ongoing.

Mr Hughes is “keen” for discussions to get underway “as planned in July”, as are the unions.

“With good will and reasonableness on both sides I am optimistic that will happen,” he said.

Staff at Bradford College were due to strike for two days in protest at plans to slash up to 75 jobs.

But the college agreed to reopen its voluntary redundancy scheme at the eleventh hour, a move it said would “avoid the need for compulsory redundancies for lecturers”.

Don’t expect T-Levels to bring ‘parity of esteem’ overnight

T-levels are possibly the best-designed new qualifications in decades, but it’ll take hard work to promote them as a pathway, explains Chris McLean

Frequently in education we feel justified in telling the government it doesn’t understand what we need to improve teaching and learning. In FE in particular, we say that MPs don’t get what we do because they see university as the only viable option for their own families, and regard our sector as for “other people’s” children.

Could T-levels go some way to redressing this uncomfortable imbalance? It’s a big hill to climb. Britain is a victim of its own success in higher education. Oxford was founded almost a thousand years ago and today there are about 130 universities in Britain, demonstrating how the sector continues to thrive.

In fact, only one has ever closed down – the University of Northampton was shut in 1265 after four years in operation – not because it was inadequate but because the bishops warned the king it was becoming a threat to the primacy of Oxford.

Against such a background, it’s hardly surprising that other forms of learning bear the whiff of the second-rate in the minds of society’s “elite”. Milton Keynes College is one of more than 200 waiting to hear if we’ve been selected for the pilot T-levels programme.

Having seen the planned curriculum, it’s very encouraging. The high levels of employer engagement, both in their original design and as a key element of successful delivery, signal a step-change. The work experience component strikes a good balance with the main classroom elements and should make opportunities to progress into an apprenticeship more commonplace.

T-levels are all set to be the best new qualifications we’ve had for some decades. The question is, how do we make them a first choice for the right candidates, rather than just another alternative to university for those who don’t get the grades at school? The answer is actually largely in our hands as educators. Yes, T-levels will only be a success if they are intelligently funded, if employers are sufficiently committed to structure them according to the needs of the workplace.

In some cases it will be a struggle to find enough businesses willing to engage in work experience. However, all of these are subsidiary concerns. The responsibility lies with us, the further education sector. Tony Benn once argued that the best way to eradicate private education was to make the state sector so good that nobody in their right mind would ever be inclined to part with good money to go elsewhere.

If FE is to encourage middle-class parents to see T-levels as the right option for their children they’ll want to see proof that it is so. Plenty of mothers and fathers steer their offspring towards A-levels, already knowing they are unsuited to the pure academic route, but assuming there is no valued or viable alternative.

To change this great juggernaut of a perception will take time and it will take hard data – we will need to be able to prove that T-levels lead to more opportunities and to careers every bit as good as those enjoyed by A-level and apprenticeship achievers.

The responsibility lies with us, the further education sector

In other words, for the first few years at least there will be no mass awakening, no stampede among middle-class parents from the A towards the T. Before that can happen we need to be able to demonstrate the success of the qualification, to prove that it does exactly what it says on the tin.

We will need to point to those first T-level recipients in excellent jobs with good prospects and say “see, it works”. It will be a slow process and one wholly dependent on the ability of the sector to embrace and enhance the virtues of this new qualification.

Will we ever see a time when aspirational parents try to steer their children towards this new vocational educational route in preference? Perhaps not; but if we can make them see that university is not the only way to a fulfilling and profitable career, we may take the first steps towards ending the stereotype.

Chris McLean is deputy principal of Milton Keynes College

Ofsted watch: Mixed bag at three ‘new’ apprenticeship providers

Three early monitoring visit reports on new apprenticeship providers were published this week and produced a mixed bag.

Lean Education and Development Limited, based in the west Midlands, received the most positive report. Inspectors praised the provider for having a “clear vision and well-considered strategy to become a high-performing provider of learning”.

LEAD became a prime contractor in May 2017 after spending six years as a subcontractor. At the time of Ofsted’s visit, the provider had 475 learners studying for a level two framework in improving operational performance with 38 employers across the country.

“Significant progress” is being made in meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision, according to inspectors.

“Directors and senior managers have a good mix of skills, such as implementing ‘lean’ processes in world-class businesses, and in training and teaching”.

The provider is also making “significant progress” in ensuring that apprentices benefit from high-quality training that leads to positive outcomes.

“Reasonable” progress is being made in safeguarding, as all learners receive information on British values and the ‘Prevent’ duty at induction.

Apprentice Team Limited, which also has a history of subcontracting, didn’t receive nearly as glowing a report.

The provider offers has been offering apprenticeships to levy payers in the north of England and the midlands ever since July last year.

But “insufficient” progress has been made in ensuring that the provider is meeting “all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision”.

The company does not have a governing body, Ofsted pointed out, and found that a “few” apprentices do almost all of their work in their own time or whenever they can find a time and place for private study during their shift.

However, ATL’s managers “acknowledge this inconsistency and have implemented strategies to ensure that employers comply in full with the spirit of the apprenticeship requirements”.

Reasonable progress is being made in achieving positive outcomes.

“ATL’s assessors have helped to ensure that, despite the considerable experience that many of their apprentices have, they nevertheless learn and develop new skills and behaviours that will help them carry out their role more effectively,” Ofsted said.

Reasonable progress is also being made in safeguarding.

This and two other reports out this week have been part of a what is supposed to be a new wave of “monitoring visits to a sample of new apprenticeship training providers that are funded through the apprenticeship levy” announced before Christmas.

But there has been concern that most reported on so far are not actually newcomers, as they have acted as subcontractors in the past.

The worst of the three reports came in for Birkenhead-based Mooreskills Limited, as reported by FE Week on Monday.

This provider trains apprentices for a number of airports including London’s Heathrow, and again has a history of subcontracting.

Inspectors found “insufficient progress” had been made by management in establishing and maintaining high-quality apprenticeship provision.

“Leaders and managers have not implemented effective quality monitoring processes to check that apprentices receive a high standard of training and make sufficient progress,” the report warned. “The progress of the vast majority of current apprentices is slow.”

The firm’s assessors do not set and record personalised “detailed and useful training and development targets for their apprentices to help them to make timely progress”.

Reasonable progress was found to be made in ensuring “effective” safeguarding arrangements are in place.

Telford College also received a monitoring visit this week, after it was formed in December following a merger between New College Telford and Telford College of Arts and Technology.

Both colleges were rated ‘requires improvement’ at their previous full inspections.

Reasonable progress is being made in developing an “effective” quality improvement plan, and ensuring appropriate reporting and monitoring arrangements, which include rigorous scrutiny by governors, as well as in improving teaching, learning and assessment.

Leaders are also making reasonable progress in increasing the proportion of apprentices who achieve their qualification within the planned time, and in improving learners’ and apprentices’ understanding of British values and the risks of extremism and radicalisation.

“Significant” progress has however been made in improving the “development of learners’ maths and English skills”.

“Senior managers have prepared a very detailed package of professional development resources that show how teachers can integrate and feel confident about teaching English and maths skills,” Ofsted said.

Two adult and community learning providers – North Tyneside Metropolitan Council and Rutland County Council – received short inspection reports this week and retained their grade two ratings.

 

GFE Colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Telford College of Arts and Technology 18/04/2018 21/05/2018 M 3

 

Independent Learning Providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Apprentice Team Ltd 11/04/2018 22/05/2018 M N/A
Lean Education And Development Limited 24/04/2018 21/05/2018 M N/A
Mooreskills Ltd 12/04/2018 21/05/2018 M N/A

 

Short inspections (remains grade 2) Inspected Published
North Tyneside Metropolitan Council 17/04/2018 21/05/2018
Rutland County Council 23/04/2018 25/05/2018

It’s not wrong to use the apprenticeship levy to fund MBAs

Apprenticeships at the top end are a legitimate and vital use of levy funds, argues Kirstie Donnelly

Much has been made of claims that universities are set to make millions from the new MBA courses paid for by the apprenticeship levy, especially as many are launching programmes in partnership with businesses around the country.

Some have decried this practice as a misuse of the new apprenticeship system. However, I don’t believe this to be the case – the introduction of apprenticeships for professional managers is not a loophole. It’s policy working exactly as intended – and to the benefit of the UK.

The apprenticeship reforms were designed to facilitate workforce development across all professions, including leadership and management. Indeed, the government’s ‘English apprenticeships: Our 2020 vision’ explains that employer-designed standards will “focus on exactly the skills, knowledge and behaviours that are required of the workforce of the future”.

Employers have a responsibility to spend their levy funds where there are key skills gaps. So, while some organisations may decide to use part of their levy to develop more senior members of staff, providing them with higher-level training and an MBA qualification, most employers are using apprenticeships to recruit and retrain at all levels in line with their most critical business needs.

The scale of this issue has been significantly overstated. The amount of levy funds set aside for delivering MBA apprenticeships is a drop in the ocean compared to what’s available; the latest research estimates suggest that less than one per cent of levy funds will be spent on such apprenticeships, leaving more than £2.3 billion per year for other types of training. And it’s important that this is the employers’ decision to make: in giving them control to invest in talent, we shouldn’t immediately be trying to critique their efforts.

The scale of this issue has been significantly overstated

Another myth has risen around the so-called “rebadging” of existing management programmes – whereby previous career development courses are being relabelled as apprenticeships in order to take advantage of the levy funding. This is a misconception. In fact, a range of robust quality-assurance measures are in place to prevent this “lift-and-shift” approach.

If an employer or training provider tried to do this, they would quickly find themselves in trouble. Each apprenticeship standard has an employer-designed curriculum that is assessed by an independent, government-approved body before any apprentice can be certificated.

Trying to deliver a training programme which does not align to this curriculum will ultimately end in failure and can lead to heavy penalties for employers and training providers alike.

Universities have a duty to innovate programmes with employers that create a workforce fit for the future. Since the introduction of the levy we have witnessed unprecedented levels of cooperation and collaboration between employers and higher education institutions. This is something we have aspired to for many years, and to stifle it now would be alarmingly retrospective.

Government data consistently points to poor leadership and management as the main cause of our worsening productivity crisis. The latest employer skills survey shows that management skills are routinely cited as the main skills gaps across every type of organisation. People management, teamwork and complex analytical skills, for example, are all vital to employers but – due to a lack of investment in training – are also the skills most frequently in need.

The senior leader master’s degree apprenticeship, the standard for which MBA pathways are being created, covers these areas in great detail. And this is because they have been designed by the very employers who desperately need these skills in their businesses in order to succeed. Investing in the right apprenticeship programmes to deliver on this is a good outcome all round.

The apprenticeship reforms were designed to transform the traditional model. It’s important that we recognise MBA programmes as a natural part of this shift towards an apprenticeship system that engages with employers, encourages businesses to value skills development, and allows them to build a stronger and more productive workforce.

Kirstie Donnelly is managing director of City & Guilds, ILM and digitalme

Cycling-themed five-course dinner served at college raises money for cancer charity

A five-course fundraising dinner has been put on by catering students at Stratford-upon-Avon College to help rehabilitate children fighting cancer.

Catering students and their lecturer, cycling enthusiast Dave Saul, themed the dinner around the Race Across America challenge, which sees cyclists ride through 12 states.

Dishes on offer at the event, hosted at the college’s Academy Restaurant, were influenced by Virginia, California, Arizona and Maryland, all featured in the cycling challenge, which lecturer Mr Saul will take part in this year as a chef and driver for competitors.

Money raised from the meal will go to the charity Cyclists Fighting Cancer, which helps young cancer sufferers regain their physical fitness and confidence by providing them with bikes, adapted trikes and tandems.

“As a parent, I can’t imagine anything worse than having one of your children diagnosed with cancer. I’m immensely proud of the students for getting behind the project with such enthusiasm and dedication,” Mr Saul said.

It isn’t the first time the college’s catering team has teamed up with the charity, after they put on a Tour-De-France themed meal last year.

Culinary skills learners win gold in regional heats of Young Seafood Chef of the Year 2018

Two aspiring chefs have taken home a gold medal in a regional heat of the UK’s Young Seafood Chef of the Year competition.

The culinary skills learners from Warrington & Vale Royal College, Mikolaj Mozul and Daniel Jones, beat out competitors from other colleges and universities.

During the challenge, they all had to serve their own original recipes to judges, even though one team member was taken to hospital after cutting his finger halfway through the event.

Following their success, the pair will go on to the national finals in Grimsby in June, where the winning team will take home £500 each, cooking equipment and a £1,000 voucher for catering suppliers Russums for their college.

“They have done such an amazing job and to come first and take home the gold medal when they had to compete against teams from professional catering colleges – it’s just incredible,” said Andy Macleod, the curriculum leader for hospitality and catering at the college.

The annual competition was founded in 1996 by the Grimsby Institute to encourage more young chefs to cook with seafood.

Is pushing ahead with T-levels fair on young people?

The top civil servant at the DfE, responsible for the “feasibility of public spending” has concluded that T-levels need delaying for a second year.

Jonathan Slater’s formal “ministerial direction” means the civil service feels the need to tell the National Audit Office, the Treasury and the Public Accounts Committee there are “feasibility and consequential value-for-money risks”.

This astonishing procedural first at the DfE has arisen because the education secretary wrote back to disagree, saying “none of the advice has indicated that teaching from 2020 cannot be achieved”.

None of the advice? Did I read that right!?

In truth, the minister has probably looked at the rushed implementation of apprenticeship standards and concluded that teaching can begin at 30 to 50 colleges even before awarding organisations are in place.

A lack of awarding organisations in time for course starts is a real risk because there will be a winner takes all competition and the DfE has a record of tender delays and legal challenge.

But wait, it is the Institute for Apprenticeships which has to do the hard work – and it’s not like they aren’t busy at present – rather than the DfE.

Farming out complex and controversial jobs to a quango will look awfully convenient when the DfE distances itself from the chaos, and now Jonathan Slater also has his “I did try to warn you” letter.

So my prediction is that teaching is indeed feasible from 2020, but based on the current state of play, would I encourage a 16-year-old to enrol in September 2020?

No.