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Ofsted watch: A week of contrasting fortunes for UTCs

It’s been a week of contrasting fortunes for university technical colleges, as one is rated ‘good’ and another ‘inadequate’ in their first ever inspections.

Elsewhere a genuinely new apprenticeship provider has been making ‘significant progress’ in one of the areas under review, in one of four monitoring visit reports published this week.

UTC Oxfordshire received grade two ratings across the board in a report published June 29, and based on an inspection carried out in late May.

“Strong leadership” at the 14-to-19 technical institution, which opened in September 2015, has “forged excellent business partnerships and a clear vision across the UTC”, according to the report.

Leaders ensure the “small sixth-form provides very well for its students”, and its “highly motivated leader” routinely “monitors attendance and tracks individual students’ progress”.

Sixth-formers “typically achieve well in their chosen A-level and vocational courses”, and are able to “progress to their chosen university course or high-level apprenticeships” thanks to “bespoke advice and guidance support”, the report said.

In contrast, Derby Manufacturing UTC, which also opened in September 2015, received Ofsted’s lowest possible rating across the board in a report published June 28 and based on an inspection in early May.

As previously reported by FE Week, the school has been placed in special measures as a result of the report’s findings.

Apprenticeship provider Norse Commercial Services Limited was found to be making ‘significant progress’ in one of the themes under review, and ‘reasonable progress’ in the other two areas, in a monitoring visit report published June 27 and based on a visit in early May.

According to the report, Norse “had not been involved in providing government-funded training” before it gaining approval as a main provider on the register of apprenticeship training providers in March last year – making it one of the few genuinely new providers to have had an Ofsted monitoring visit.

Inspectors found leaders were making ‘significant progress’ in ensuring it is meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision.

They follow a “well-thought-out strategy for developing the apprenticeship offer”, and have taken a “cautious approach” as they are “well aware of the risks associated with not having provided government-funded training before”.

“Managers work well to ensure the apprentices get the required 20 per cent of work time to do off-the-job training,” the report noted.

Three other apprenticeship providers had monitoring visit reports published this week, but all three were previously subcontractors.

GLP Training, which was a subcontractor for three years before becoming a main provider, was found to be making ‘significant progress’ in ensuring that it is meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision, and that apprentices benefit from high-quality training that leads to positive outcomes. However, it was only found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in ensuring that effective safeguarding arrangements are in place.

London-based Let Me Play Limited, which offers a range of mainly education and sports-focused apprenticeships, was founded to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in all three themes under review, in a report published June 27 and based on a visit in late May.

And Youth Force, based in Brighton, was also found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in all three areas, in a report published June 25 and based on an inspection in early June.

East Coast College received a ‘requires improvement’ rating this week, in its first inspection since it was formed through the merger of Lowestoft College and Great Yarmouth College last August.

According to the report, published June 27 and based on an inspection in mid-May, “too many” adult learners and those on study programmes “do not make rapid progress” and are “behind with their work”.

“Too much teaching is undemanding and assessment is not challenging enough to enable learners to achieve their potential,” the report said.

Leaders’ judgements on the quality of provision were found to “lack rigour” and “are consequently overgenerous”, inspectors found.

Leader and managers at Central Bedfordshire College were criticised for failing to take “sufficient action to prevent a decline in learners’ achievement”, as its rating fell from two to three this week.

According to the report, published June 28 and based on an inspection in mid-May, “the proportion of learners and apprentices who achieve their qualifications is low”.

Teachers often “do not have high expectations of what learners can achieve” and fail to provide “activities that challenges learners to make good progress”.

Furthermore, “governance arrangements are insufficiently robust to hold senior leaders to account and assure the quality of the provision”.

No sixth-form colleges, employer providers or adult and community learning providers had inspection reports published this week.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Central Bedfordshire College	15/05/2018	28/06/2018	3	2
East Coast College	15/05/2018	27/06/2018	3	3

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Youth Force	05/06/2018	25/06/2018	M	M
GLP Training	02/05/2018	26/06/2018	M	M
Let Me Play Limited	22/05/2018	27/06/2018	M	M
Norse Commercial Services Limited	02/05/2018	27/06/2018	M	M

Other (including UTCs)	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Derby Manufacturing UTC	01/05/2018	28/06/2018	4	–
UTC Oxfordshire	22/05/2018	29/06/2018	2	–

AoC announces Julie Nerney as next chair

The Association of Colleges has announced Julie Nerney as its next chair of the board.

She will take over when Carole Stott MBE steps down at the end of the year.

Ms Nerney is currently chair of the board of governors at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, having previously led the City College Brighton and Hove board.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the AoC as their new chair,” she said. “I am passionate about the contribution that colleges make to support students in achieving their goals.”

“It will be great to be part of an organisation that does such fantastic work providing support and leadership to the sector at both national and local level, including its influencing of government on policies impacting the sector, students and staff.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting members once I take up post in January.”

Ms Nerney has spent much of her career as a successful entrepreneur and now supports businesses with organisational transformation and change management.

In 2012, she was part of the leadership team delivering the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

A chartered director for the Institute of Directors, she also undertakes voluntary work with the Prince’s Trust, and ambassadorial roles for government aimed at improving diversity in public life.

“Being chair of AoC and working alongside such passionate and committed staff across our membership is a privilege and pleasure, as well as a big responsibility,” said Ms Stott.

“Our colleges play such an important role in their communities and in our success and wellbeing as a nation. They are forces for good that develop talent, transform lives and support individual and collective prosperity and success. They should be supported and cherished and that is why the role of AoC is such an important one.”

21 new members appointed to IfA apprentice panel

The Institute for Apprenticeships’ apprentice panel will have 21 new members when it next meets on July 4.

A week ago, the former skills minister Robert Halfon said the IfA should “get its act together”, following revelations that the panel hadn’t met in nearly 10 months.

“The voice of the apprentice is central to the work of the Institute. We’ve therefore more than doubled the numbers on the apprentice panel, so we can have a truly representative group to inform best practice and quality standards,” IfA chief executive Sir Gerry Berragan (pictured above) said.

“I’m pleased to welcome the new members and look forward to working closely with the panel.”

The panel is made up of current or recent apprentices from a wide range of occupations and experiences from up and down the country.

Its role is to decide which issues need to be focused on from the learner’s perspective, and ensure apprentices are heard during the decision-making structure of the institute.

Eleven members were appointed in 2017, and the panel first met in April that year.

It now has 26 members, which means six of those originally on the panel have left.

As reported by FE Week, a Freedom of Information request revealed the panel had only met four times since it was launched in March last year – most recently in October.

This prompted Mr Halfon, who set up the panel during his time as skills minister, to urge the IfA to “get its act together and make far greater effort”.

“It beggars belief that during this crucial time for boosting apprenticeships, the IfA panel could be so conspicuously abdicating its responsibility to hear the voices of apprentices,” he said.

It was revealed last month that current skills minister Anne Milton had still not met the panel more than 12 months after it was established.

The 21 new members of the panel are:

Harry Holden, Joe Griffin
Joe Hirst, Transport for London
Kawsar Ahmad, Transport for London
Georgia Cresswell, MedImmune (host employer)
Jordan Layne, Portakabin
Kat Paricos, Unilever
Aimen Fatima, University of Manchester
Ryan Carey, BAE Systems
Hajra Bibi, GlaxoSmithKline
Ekansh Sharma, Accenture
Alyssa Wood Derwent, Training Association
Jessica Le Jeune, Nielson
Sebastian Lawrence, Aon UK
Sky Caves, Basingstoke College of Technology
Rosie Smith City & Guilds
Leon Jacob, Allergan Biologics
Zuzanna Wnekowska, Airbus
Kathryn Jack, CILEx Law School
Flavia Seabra, St Ermin’s Hotel
Alex Farnworth, Hanson Cement
Louis Curtis, Aggregate Industries

They join the five existing panel members:

Poppy Wolfarth, Asset Training
Kam Penglin, CT Skills
Sanna Shabir, Atkins Global
Adam Gymer, Pfizer UK
Holly Broadhurst, JCB

Ofsted: Bigger colleges aren’t always better

“Big is not always beautiful,” Ofsted’s main man for FE has warned, admitting he is considering the effect of mega-colleges formed through mergers on quality.

Paul Joyce’s admission comes just a week after the nation’s largest college group NCG saw its rating slip to ‘requires improvement’.

“We are looking at our survey programme as to whether something relating to the merger theme is timely to do,” he told FE Week.

“We are concerned at the size of some providers, in relation to poor performance data, so big is not always beautiful.”

NCG was downgraded from ‘good’ in part due to concerns around poor achievement rates.

These were well below average for both apprenticeships and 16-to-18 study programmes.

The report, published on June 21, noted that “executive” leaders had spent a “substantial amount of their time on due diligence” for the group’s two most recent members, Carlisle College and Lewisham Southwark College, and reviewing other merger requests.

In an interview with FE Week ahead of the report’s appearance, NCG’s chair Peter Lauener insisted that he had staff looking at quality, but admitted that the main focus had been on tackling financial issues at the member colleges.

“Standards are not where we want them to be,” he conceded.

NCG’s fall from grace came just eight months after another sector giant, Learndirect, received a damning grade four.

It received considerable governmental special treatment in the wake of the result, leading to questions about whether it, as the nation’s largest independent training provider, was too big to fail.

In an exclusive interview with FE Week last week, skills minister Anne Milton conceded that “too big to fail is not an invalid point”.

With the growing number of mega-colleges such as NCG being formed through mergers, she said she was “very mindful of colleges being too big to fail. I think we need to watch it.”

Large college groups to have been created after the area reviews of post-16 education and training include Capital City College Group, which has three members and a turnover of £80 million, according to 2016/17 accounts.

And if New City College’s plans to merge with Epping Forest College, Havering College and Havering Sixth-Form College go ahead, it will have six members and a combined turnover of £108 million.

The trend for colleges to join forces is showing no signs of slowing down, with FE commissioner Richard Atkins predicting around 15 new partnerships this year – the same amount as last year.

Ofsted’s policy is to give merged colleges up to three years before they’re inspected.

However, Mr Joyce said that while it is “right to give them time to embed their systems and processes” it is also “right that we do monitor them”.

“If we do have concerns, if for example performance data does cause us a concern before the three-year period, if we get a lot of complaints from students or if there’s other reasonable intelligence that the merger is not working, we will go and inspect sooner,” he said.

FE Week reported in February on the prospect of Ofsted carrying out campus-level inspections from as early as next year.

A new “campus identifier” data field in the individualised learner record, to be introduced next academic year, is designed to allow “allow identification of provision delivered across the various sites of merged institutions”.

This could pave the way for individual reports on colleges that were previously independent, but which now sit within merged groups.

Ofsted carries out a programme of surveys and thematic reviews alongside its main inspection programme.

This is meant to be an annual programme, but it has now been almost two years since its last FE-specific research, into the Prevent duty, was published in August 2016.

Ex-principal paid £80k for gardening leave amid staff redundancy push

A former Sussex principal is being paid around £80,000 not to work over a five-month period even though the college is in a financial mess and cutting down on staff.

The University and College Union is appalled, branding the situation “unacceptable”.

Mike Hopkins left the top spot at Sussex Downs College in March, placed on gardening leave following its merger with Sussex Coast College Hastings.

He’ll receive his salary – which amounts to more than £200,000 a year – until his contract ends at the end of the academic year.

He will also get a payoff of an unknown amount when he officially leaves, as revealed via a Freedom of Information request.

“Cutting jobs and telling staff that there is no money for pay rises while colleges sign off golden goodbyes or hand out huge pay-hikes for some principals is simply unacceptable,” said a furious UCU spokesperson.

UCU will now be entering pay negotiations with the college in two weeks’ time, “expecting a decent response” to its national pay claim for a five per cent pay rise for staff or £1,500, whichever is greater.

Sussex Downs is expecting to post a £1.9 million deficit this year, and will make an unknown number of staff redundant in an effort to make savings.

FE Week revealed in February that it was one of 12 colleges to receive a secret government bailout at the tail end of 2017 – given £700,000 to survive.

A letter from Mr Hopkins to staff in March stated that to make savings, the new East Sussex College Group would be undergoing a restructure by reducing staff in areas where there was now a duplication of roles.

“East Sussex College Group is required to meet pay costs as a per cent of income of 64 per cent,” he wrote.

“Our initial modelling indicates that pay savings to achieve a sustainable business model in line with the transaction unit expectations are some £1.7 million, to be completed by July 2018. This process has already begun with several voluntary redundancies.”

In “simple terms”, he said there are “two broad categories of savings – firstly, merger savings that result from duplicated posts, and secondly, savings to get each legacy sovereign establishment to the required 64 per cent pay cost ratio”.

As Sussex Coast College was already at the required pay-to-cost ratio, the majority of savings were to fall onto Sussex Downs College, he wrote, which was operating at 73 per cent.

East Sussex College Group would not comment on Mr Hopkins’ pay.

Group spokesman Dan Shelley said the merger “will protect the future of FE in East Sussex”.

“The East Sussex College Group will focus on improving standards and the quality of teaching to ensure the best outcomes for its students,” he said. “By doing this the two colleges will be stronger together.

“We are currently working through a restructuring exercise and are committed to completing this sensitively and internally with our colleagues and unions. However, as a group, we should reiterate that we do not make any comments on the individual pay or conditions of any of our staff.”

Ofsted should renege on its merger deal

“Big isn’t always beautiful” is something of an understatement coming from Ofsted in the context of FE providers.

The biggest private training provider, Learndirect, was awarded a grade four last year and in recent weeks the biggest college group, NCG, slumped to a grade three.

Despite this, the average size of colleges, far from shrinking from funding cuts, grows as under the area review programme the government flipped from resisting to encouraging mergers.

In London for example, several mega-colleges have emerged following multiple mergers, including United Colleges Group, Capital City Colleges Group and London South East Colleges.

College growth through acquisition continues around the country, often cited as a solution to the perilous state of finances and in the belief that just one more government bailout will be needed.

So you would think that Ofsted would show a particularly keen interest on what impact mergers are having on the quality of provision, on behalf of both the tax payer and FE learners.

Far from it.

In fact, as part of the area review process that ended last March they did a deal with the government, to suspend routine inspections of colleges for at least three years following a merger.

The argument for doing so was that it would give the stronger college time to turn-around the weaker college before being judged.

And it would have no doubt been a very attractive deal for colleges that could use the merger to keep Ofsted away, and convenient for Ofsted given fewer inspections mean less pressure on their shrinking budget.

But this inspection delay due to new ownership is exactly the sort of practice that the National Audit Office criticised Ofsted for over the Learndirect saga.

Due for an Ofsted inspection and want to delay it for three years? No problem, just find a merger partner.

So with Ofsted criticism of NCG fresh in our minds, now is the time for Ofsted to do their job end this deal.

In my recent interview about college mergers with Paul Joyce, the Director of FE at Ofsted, I pressed him on his “big isn’t always beautiful” response.

Surely a significant part of Ofsted’s rapidly growing research programme should already be working out how best to inspect merged colleges?

Shouldn’t inspectors be spending more rather than less time in mega-colleges?

I am sure the National Audit Office would agree with me that Ofsted should be a brake, not an accelerator, when it comes to the risk of creating colleges that are too big to fail.

AoC criticises new public sector register of providers

A second register for apprenticeship training providers is being created for the public sector, and the Association of Colleges is furious that its members must pay to reap the benefits.

The apprenticeship dynamic purchasing system has been launched by ESPO, which describes itself as a public sector-owned “professional buying organisation”.

Providers must register before they can bid for apprenticeship training contracts with public sector employers across the UK.

These include local authorities, educational establishments including academies, central government departments and agencies, the police, fire and rescue and coastguard emergency services, and the NHS.

Colleges and independent learning providers will pay ESPO a “rebate” if they win a contract, expecting to earn it at least £500,000 from public skills contract funding.

Teresa Frith, the AoC’s senior policy manager, is not happy about the arrangement. She has “raised this issue with the Education and Skills Funding Agency and Department for Education and we know that they have taken the issue seriously and investigated”.

It is unfortunate that procurement appears to be the first stop to seek partnerships in delivery where substantial amounts of funding are involved

“It is unfortunate that procurement appears to be the first stop to seek partnerships in delivery where substantial amounts of funding are involved,” she added. “Apprenticeships are not widgets to be bought off the shelf of the cheapest bidder.”

The dynamic purchasing system will launch on July 11. It will last for at least two years, but can be extended for a further eight. Up to £100 million will be available.

Providers which win contracts will on average pay ESPO 0.5 per cent of the value, through payments referred to as “rebates”.

An ESPO spokesperson claimed providers would ultimately save money with its service.

She said its “streamlined and standardised procurement system shoulders the administrative burden” on public sector training, meaning providers “don’t have to spend significant sums on multiple procurement processes which would increase their costs”.

“We expect the rebate paid by suppliers to come out of their budgeted business costs, which includes other core overheads such as office costs and insurance.”

However, AELP boss Mark Dawe is not best pleased.

“We don’t like charges like this arrangement and we don’t like multiple registers but DfE and ESFA have told us these are acceptable so we have no option but to tolerate them,” he said.

The ESFA’s main register of providers eligible to deliver public and private sector apprenticeships launched in March 2017.

This newer register is seen by some as only the latest example of brokerage, which hives off a proportion of public sector apprenticeships funding.

FE Week reported in March that candidates to train civil service apprentices were told to register with the Crown Commercial Service, and a group of 16 were chosen.

The winners were given access to at least £360 million, generated through the public sector’s own apprenticeship levy payments, of which CCS retains a one-per-cent “management fee”.

The NHS has also attempted to charge providers around one per cent of the value of their contracts, in another brokerage scheme.

Nottingham city council was exposed along similar lines last summer.

The government changed its rules in 2017 to state that “funds in an employer’s digital account or government-employer co-investment must not be used for specific services not related to the delivery and administration of the apprenticeship”.

FE Week’s understanding is that such charges are permitted if they aren’t included in the negotiated levy price, though brokerage fees nevertheless remain a controversial topic throughout the FE sector.

Movers and Shakers: Edition 250

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

Dr Liz Lee, Head of college, Richard Taunton Sixth-Form College

Start date September 2018

Previous job Deputy principal, Richard Taunton SFC

Interesting fact Liz, who has a PhD, used to be a midwife.

Bev Jessop, Principal and chief executive, Queen Alexandra College

Start date June 2018

Previous job Vice-principal, Queen Alexandra College

Interesting fact Bev trained as a scenic artist in the 80s and painted scenery in theatres teaching IT.

Dr Fazal Dad, Principal and chief executive, Blackburn College

Start date January 2019

Previous job Deputy principal, Walsall College

Interesting fact Fazal is a product of FE: as well as 23 years’ experience working in sector, he trained as an electrical engineer at Stourbridge College in the 1980s.

Alex Fau-Goodwin, Assistant principal, Trafford College

Start date August 2018

Previous job Principal, Bolton Sixth-Form College

Interesting fact Alex swapping the blackboard for the black runs at skiing resorts in Europe.

Emma Goodlet, Assistant principal, Trafford College

Start date August 2018

Previous job Head of curriculum, Salford City College

Interesting fact Emma starred in the first series of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway performing a Royal Navy gymnastics routine.

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

An eighth UTC gets the bottom Ofsted grade

Yet another university technical college has been rated ‘inadequate’, the eighth to receive Ofsted’s most dubious honour.

Derby Manufacturing UTC has been placed in special measures after getting a grade four across the board – the school equivalent of FE commissioner intervention.

“It is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school,” the report said.

Leaders and governors failed to ensure that “the quality of teaching is consistently of a high-enough standard”, while their “evaluation of the effectiveness of the school’s provision” was “over-generous”.

“The inaccuracy of their view of the quality of the school’s provision has prevented leaders and governors from taking appropriate action to secure the required improvements,” it said.

Safeguarding at the UTC is “not effective” and the leaders responsible do not get “sufficient time or resources to fulfil their role effectively”.

“A minority of parents who expressed a view said that their child does not feel safe at the school,” the report said.

Leadership at the school’s sixth-form “has not ensured that students receive teaching that is of a high-enough quality to enable them to make the progress that they should”.

Pupils’ progress in academic subjects in 2017 was “well below average”, and “just under half” left at the end of year 12 “to pursue their studies elsewhere” that year.

Independent careers advice has until recently been lacking, and “not all students know about the full range of education, training and employment opportunities available to them when they leave the sixth form”.

Graham Schuhmacher, chair of the board of governors at Derby Manufacturing UTC, said it “fully accepts” the report’s findings, and that the school’s leadership “have already taken significant steps to deal with the issues that were highlighted with support and guidance from a range of external agencies including the Department for Education.”

“The board of governors, UTC leadership and staff are determined to make the changes required to ensure our students remain safe and that the safeguarding procedures and documentation are embedded and applied consistently across the college.”

Ofsted’s verdict means that almost a quarter of the 33 UTCs inspected so far have received Ofsted’s bottom grade.

Sixty-one per cent of all UTCs inspected have been rated less than ‘good’.

Six, all grade three or four, have since closed.

Of the remaining 27 that are still open, 14 are rated either ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.

Most UTCs have struggled since they were established in 2010, mainly because they’ve not been able to attract enough pupils to stay financially viable. Eight have so far closed.

An investigation in January by FE Week revealed that almost every UTC missed its recruitment targets last year, leaving them with combined debts of over £11 million.

These included Derby Manufacturing UTC, which owed over £600,000 after it under-recruited by 132 pupils in 2016/17. Thirty-five of these were in its sixth form, more than a third of its predicted learner numbers.