Portsmouth College principal is the new AoC president-elect

Portsmouth College principal Steve Frampton has been announced as the president-elect of the Association of Colleges.

He will take over from current president Dr Alison Birkinshaw at the end of her one-year term on August 1.

Mr Frampton, who the AoC says has a “lifelong passion” for post-16 education, has over 39 years’ experience in the FE sector and has been the boss at Portsmouth’s grade two sixth-form college since 2005.

His extensive career has been recognised at the highest level, after being awarded an MBE for services to education in the New Year honours list in 2017.

“I am truly honoured and grateful to be given the opportunity to be the next president of AoC – it is an organisation that delivers so much value to the FE sector,” he said.

“I would like to acknowledge the excellent work Alison has done this year, building on the amazing work Ian did previously. I am aware I have an impressive legacy to uphold but will strive to carry on the brilliant work of previous presidents.”

He hopes as part of his role he will be able to visit more colleges, and meet with “you, your staff, governors and students to see how the AoC can even better support the brilliant work you are doing”.

He has been the director of several local community charities, including Business South and PiTC – the community arm of Portsmouth Football Club, and was also recently appointed to the National Board of Association of Colleges.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said he is “looking forward” to working with the president-elect.

“He will be a great advocate and help us to amplify the importance of colleges to the health and prosperity of our communities and the economy,” he added.

“Steve’s extensive range of experience, his enthusiasm and the skills he has learned over 39 years in our sector will have massive benefits for the FE community over the next year.”

The AoC’s president serves for a one-year term to promote colleges to government ministers to try and influence their decisions when making policy.

Other previous AoC presidents include the current FE commissioner Richard Atkins, former New College Durham principal John Widdowson CBE, and Ian Ashman, the old principal of Hackney Community College.

Institutes of Technology hit by mystery delays

The Institutes of Technology have already fallen behind schedule, and providers who applied to open one still don’t know if they have been successful.

According to the original competition invitation, applicants should have been notified by early May whether their bids for a share of £170 million had made it to stage two.

But no communication has been sent, the Department for Education has admitted.

A spokesperson said they had “received a number of high-quality bids” during the application window, which ran from December 15 until March 1, although he wouldn’t say how many.

“Applicants will be notified of outcomes as soon as possible after a decision has been made.”

He refused to comment on whether the delay will affect the timing of stage two of the process, during which bidders submit full business proposals, which is due to open next month.

IoTs, which were first mooted back in 2015, are intended to bring together FE and HE providers along with employers to deliver technical skills training, with a particular focus on levels four and five.

According to application guidance from the DfE, they will offer “higher-level technical skills on a par with more academic routes” and will “achieve the same level of prestige as universities”.

Between 10 and 15 of the institutes are expected to be created. The successful proposals are expected to be announced by the end of the year, with the first one due to open in September 2019.

The government’s industrial strategy green paper, published in January last year, included a promise of £170 million in capital funding to create the institutes.

But even though the DfE has repeatedly said the plan is to “establish high-quality and prestigious institutions”, in reality much of this cash is expected to go existing institutions rather than new ones.

It can be spent on “industry-standard facilities and equipment”, according to the DfE guidance.

FE commissioner Richard Atkins expressed doubts earlier this year whether the amount of cash on offer was enough to have an impact on the skills system.

Speaking at a House of Lords inquiry in early March, Mr Atkins said that IoTs are a “very good idea” but the “modest” amount of money means he’s “not sure it will transform the system”.

And Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ deputy chief executive, agreed that while IoTs are a “good experiment”, he fears “too much pressure” had been heaped on them to “revolutionise the system”.

When the concept of IoTs was first introduced, it was envisaged that colleges would be invited to become one.

But the 2017 Conservative party manifesto said they would be linked to universities and would offer courses at degree level – a change that confused many in the sector.

Speaking at last year’s AoC conference, a DfE official working on the policy said her team had been “equally surprised” by the move – which, it turned out, had been driven by a desire from Number 10 and the Treasury to “confer prestige” on IoTs by borrowing from the status of universities.

FE Week reported in March that a consortium led by Milton Keynes College had put in a bid for £18 million of funding to develop an IoT at Bletchley Park, former home of a world war two codebreaking centre.

The proposal, which also included Microsoft, City and Guilds and Cranfield University among others, would see 1,000 learners a year taught fields such as network engineering, applications development, intelligent systems, games development and cybersecurity.

Four 5ft hare statues painted by Gloucestershire College students for annual Cotswold Hare Trail

Four 5ft hare statues have been painted by Gloucestershire College students for the annual Cotswold Hare Trail.

The trail places around 100 of the statues around towns and cities in the Cotwolds, all hand-painted by local artists and members of the community, and each sponsored by local businesses. For the first time this year, the trail will be extended as far as Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath.

The learners’ creations include “Julius Caes’Hare” (pictured), representing the history of the Romans in the area, as well as “Flora”, whose design is inspired by the flowers and plants of the Cotswolds.

“It’s been a great chance for their work to be included alongside established local artists and to get their work seen by the public,” said Robbie Chapman, curriculum leader for art and design at the college.

The trail will run from May until September this year. The statues will then be auctioned off to raise money for the Cotswolds Conservation Board, who help preserve the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

College challenges local young people to make a water heating system as part of STEM campaign

In its campaign to get more people into STEM careers, Northampton College ran a competition challenging local young people to create a solar-powered water heating system from scratch, reports Samantha King.

The week-long Big Rig challenge, held at the college’s Booth Lane campus, pitched eight teams made up of apprentices and school pupils against each other to create a water-heating system on a specially constructed scaffold.

The winners

An all-female team emerged victorious, scoring highest in criteria including how effective they were as a team, how well they understood and executed the project, and their economical use of materials.

The teams were put together by the college after registering their interest in the challenge, and met for the first time on the day of the event.

“Each member was given a particular role, so there would have been a project manager, a health and safety lead and a couple of engineers,” explained Patrick Leavey, deputy principal of the college. “For many students, particularly school pupils, they would have heard about the different types of solar panel in their science lessons, but for many of them this was the first time they would have physically touched one, connected it to pipe work and positioned it to maximise its heating potential.”

There are plans to run the competition again next year but with a different task relating to another STEM area.

“Some departments in the college have seen the rig outside, and they’re coming up with innovative ideas about the different types of tasks we could develop to happen on the scaffold,” said Mr Leavey. “Our public services students and their teachers there are thinking about designing a forensic task exercise, with different clues in different areas of the rig.”

The Big Rig challenge was the latest activity the college has run in its ongoing ‘Igniting the Spark’ campaign, running workshops on the solar system for seven schools in Northamptonshire in conjunction with the UK Space Academy earlier this year.

Ofsted watch: An encouraging week for FE and skills

An adult and community learning provider has boosted its grade to ‘good’ in a positive week for the FE and skills sector, as two providers received glowing reports following monitoring visits of their apprenticeship provision.

Hackney London Borough Council was rated grade two across the board, up from its previous ‘requires improvement’ rating, in a report published May 16 and based on an inspection in mid March.

Learners, many of whom “experience social, emotional and health difficulties” make “good progress” and “benefit significantly from courses which reduce their isolation and dependency on other services”, inspectors noted.

Leaders and managers have “high aspirations” for learners, the report said, and have created a “nurturing and purposeful environment that supports learners well to take positive strides in their lives”.

They also “work very effectively” with subcontractors – of whom five are listed in the report – “to provide value for money and to achieve their mission to provide education to residents who experience disadvantage”.

Both employer provider Virgin Trains Sales Limited and independent learning provider ARC Academy Limited had monitoring visit reports of their apprenticeship provision published this week.

Leaders at Virgin, which began delivering level two and three apprenticeships in customer care and team leader in 2017, were found to being making ‘significant progress’ in ensuring it was meeting all the requirements of successful provision.

They were found to “share a vision” of providing high-quality training, and to “communicate very effectively their passion for apprentices to be ‘the best that they can be’”, according to the report published May 17 and based on a visit in late April.

“Well-organised training programmes ensure that when apprentices join their on-board crew members, they are able to participate in providing high-quality service,” the report said.

The provider was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in ensuring that apprentices benefit from high-quality training that leads to positive outcomes, and in ensuring that safeguarding was effective.

Managers had “implemented appropriate quality monitoring processes” to evaluate training, and were using these to “review effectively the standard of apprentices’ work”.

ARC, based in Wales, which delivers level two apprenticeships in construction and rail engineering, was a subcontractor before being a lead provider.

In a report published May 17 and based on a visit in early April, inspectors found them to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in all three themes.

Leaders were “committed and determined to deliver effective apprentice training” and “demonstrably keen to manage and further improve” provision.

“Leaders recognise that there is always more work to be done and have plans in place that demonstrate the potential to bring about any improvements necessary,” it said.

Staff were also found to “use their industry-specific expertise and insight very well”, and to “maintain very effective, close working relationships with a range of large employers”.

Where off-the-job training was “well-planned” it helped to enhance “apprentices’ understanding of the theoretical aspects of their day-to-day job”.

But the report noted “some variation in the quality of off-the-job training is evident” and that in some cases it was limited to “general advice and guidance”.

Independent learning provider Access Training Limited held onto its grade two rating, following a short inspection in late April.

No general FE or sixth form colleges had inspection reports published this week.

Adult and community learning Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Hackney London Borough Council 13/03/18 16/05/18 2 3

 

Employer providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Virgin Trains Sales Limited 24/04/18 17/05/18 Monitoring Monitoring

 

Independent learning providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
A R C Academy UK Limited 11/04/18 17/05/18 Monitoring Monitoring

 

Short inspection (remains grade 2) Inspected Published
Access Training Limited 24/04/18 16/05/18

 

Principals blast London’s £3m adult education budget top-slice

London college bosses have hit out at London’s mayor Sadiq Khan after FE week revealed he plans to top-slice £3 million from the adult education budget to pay over 50 new bureaucrats from next year.

The money will be siphoned from frontline learning to cover the wages of administrators managing AEB in the capital when devolution kicks in.

But the news hasn’t been taken well. The principal of the capital’s third largest college group, London South East Colleges, tweeted criticism within minutes of our story being published online on April 14.

“Shocking and hugely disappointing that this has been allowed to happen and divert £3 million from this underfunded sector to pay for administrative officers @MayorofLondon #accountability #valueformoney #skillsforlife ultimately hurting learners the most,” Sam Parrett (pictured above left) said.

“It is difficult to see how the devolution promise of better long-term economic and social outcomes and the reductions in social and economic inequalities can be achieved by spending up to £3 million on administration,” she told FE Week later.

The decision appeared to be “rebalancing the books” at the Greater London Authority, “not the local economy, or the FE sector which delivers most of this provision within an already underfunded system”.

“It was always a concern, and is no surprise, that devolution will require an extra layer of bureaucracy and administration,” said Andy Wilson (pictured above right), principal of Capital City College Group, the largest group in London.

“The hope now is it will also quickly provide colleges with new flexibilities and autonomy.”

The first comment posted on our website, from Terry Bentley, said: “And so the disaster begins to unfold. Devolution = 350 AEB managers popping up around the country when 20 were doing the job perfectly adequately at the ESFA. And that 350 is just in the devolved regions! Learners shafted by self-indulgent local bureaucrats yet again.”

The 53-strong team will form a skills and employment unit to dish out the AEB from 2019/20, which will amount to around £311 million per year for London.

Its total cost will be £3.245 million per year, for which £3.028 million will be top-sliced from the AEB because it is directly attributable to budget.

Among the staff will be one assistant director, whose annual pay packet will reach £139,000. The other 52 employees will earn similarly healthy wages [see table].

However, many of the tasks they will carry out will simply duplicate the work that the Education and Skills Funding Agency already does.

The GLA blamed the ESFA for the situation, claiming it refused to give a “service offer”, which includes procurement, audit, contract management, direct access to data and changes to the Individual learner record systems.

Mr Khan (pictured above centre) is asking the funding agency to reconsider.

The GLA maintains that this decision has been forced upon it by a government refusing to provide administration funding for the AEB, despite “lobbying consistently” for more cash.

“The mayor warmly welcomes control of these devolved funds – but it makes little sense to give him responsibility for more than £300 million a year without the resource that will allow him to spend it speedily and effectively,” a spokesperson said.

He pointed out that staff costs associated with the skills unit are less than one per cent of the budget being devolved.

The Department for Education told FE Week it has agreed to provide funding to support the GLA “to prepare effectively for taking on the AEB”.

“Once the AEB has been devolved, it will be for the mayoral authority to determine how best it spends the funding to help learners,” a spokesperson added.

The situation got a mention at this week’s education select committee meeting, where the chair Robert Halfon described the plan as a “waste of public money”.

In any organisation good management is crucial to good delivery

Skills minister Anne Milton said she “hates” money spent on management but “in any organisation good management is crucial to good delivery”.

The DfE, she claimed, had “factored in” some money in the combined authorities’ budgets for administration”.

The GLA is one of eight mayoral combined authorities with deals to take control of AEB spending in their regions from 2019/20.

FE Week spoke to a number of the other combined authorities to find out about their expected bureaucracy costs when devolution rolls out, but none could provide exact figures as final budgets have not yet been agreed.

Tees Valley, the west Midlands and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough all said that they are working with the government to develop a service offer in the most cost efficient way possible to support learners.

The other areas of the country to have devolution deals in place for 2019/20 are the Liverpool City region, Greater Manchester, the West of England, and the Sheffield City region.

Nick Linford’s editorial: Devolution means cutting courses to pay for more pen-pushers

Ofsted: Apprenticeships are beginning to look like Train to Gain

The quality of apprenticeships is in decline, Ofsted has said, and the programmes are starting to resemble the doomed Train to Gain initiative from the mid 00s.

The inspectorate’s deputy director for FE and skills told MPs on the commons education select committee earlier this week that around half of inspections carried out so far this year have resulted in ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ ratings for apprenticeships.

Paul Joyce (pictured above) reiterated concern about the “very mixed picture of quality” at the Skills and Education Group’s conference, where he warned that the inspectorate is beginning to find traits of previous failed programmes creeping back in to delivery.

We want to avoid a Train to Gain-type programme being badged as an apprenticeship

“We are concerned and want to avoid a Train to Gain-type programme being badged as an apprenticeship,” he told delegates.

“We are finding that providers are struggling with the implementation of some of these reformed programmes. There are examples where off-the-job training is still not demanding enough.”

Ofsted is “particularly concerned” where it is starting to find “some issues where very little off-the-job training is taking place”, particularly with apprentices that are enrolled on programmes for the “older age demographic”.

Train to Gain was launched in 2006 to encourage employers to deliver vocational training to adult workers.

However, the business minister at the time, John Hayes, said the flagship training service was a “deadweight cost” that had no future because it gave money to highly profitable employers to train their staff when they were already willing to pick up the bill.

It was scrapped in 2010.

Mr Joyce said apprenticeships “must develop new and substantial skills and knowledge” in order for them to identify as an actual apprenticeship programme.

“If they are not and if providers aren’t enabling that to happen, then their apprenticeship programme is unlikely to be graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’,” he added.

FE Week’s analysis of the figures shows that the apprenticeship provision grade profile improved at the end of 2017, where 59 per cent of inspected providers were rated grade one or two for apprenticeships.

However, this dropped by three percentage points between January and May this year.

“It is a very mixed picture what we are seeing in terms of the implementation of the apprenticeship reforms and their impact on quality,” Mr Joyce told the committee.

“The quality we are generally seeing is certainly not a universally positive picture.”

During the hearing it came to light that there is much confusion over who is accountable for quality in apprenticeships, whether it is Ofsted or the ESFA.

MPs on the committee said the ESFA had recently “undermined” the inspectorate by allowing a provider described as “not fit for purpose” to continue training apprentices.

Skills minister Anne Milton admitted there is a lack of clarity over the accountability system which needs to be fixed.

Archbishop of Canterbury visits FE students

The archbishop of Canterbury has visited students at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College’s Nuneaton campus.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby, who married Prince Harry and Meghan Markle this weekend, visited the college as part of a four-day trip around Coventry and Warwickshire, and confessed to students he was “quite nervous” about his role in the wedding.

As well as finding out about learners’ experiences of college, the archbishop was privy to practical demonstrations in carpentry, hairdressing and catering, and even received a massage from a beauty therapy student.

“His visit was a fantastic opportunity for our students to showcase their talents, and to tell their stories to the archbishop,” said Marion Plant, the principal and chief executive of the college. “We hope that his visit has helped him to understand how well students at all levels can develop with the support of a strong college community. He certainly left us with a sense of deep encouragement and support.”

Devolution means cutting courses to pay for more pen-pushers

There’s a degree of inevitability about watching local government top-slicing FE funding as part of the devolution agenda.

The DfE’s “protection” of the adult education budget at £1.5 billion per year will end when the mayoral combined authorities get their hands on the money from August 2019.

We now know the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, plans to raid this budget for adult courses to fund dozens of new, highly-paid Greater London Authority policy officers, at a cost of over £3 million per year.

Raids like this on the education budget are inevitable and likely to rise because, to put it plainly, the DfE is removing the ring-fence.

The GLA blames the DfE for forcing it to dip into the education budget, and the DfE sheepishly admits it will do nothing to stop the mayor.

The skills minister should step in and only agree devolution deals which include a clause which enforces the ringfence and forbids any raid on the adult education budget.

Failing that, the mayor will have to answer to the London electorate on why he’s cutting investment in adult education.

Read more: Principals blast London’s £3m adult education budget top-slice