Careers and Enterprise Company begs ‘friends’ for positive tweets following criticism from MPs

Supporters of the Careers and Enterprise Company have been urged to tweet their backing for the under-fire organisation after MPs questioned its impact and transparency.

In an email sent to “friends” of the organisation and seen by FE Week, Claudia Harris, the company’s chief executive, asks supporters to “join us on twitter tomorrow to celebrate the success and fantastic work being done to make a real difference to the futures of young people”.

Yesterday, Ms Harris (pictured above) and CEC chair Christine Hodgson faced tough questions from the parliamentary education committee over the CEC’s “giant and confusing” structure and a lack of transparency over its spending of public money.

In particular, MPs are concerned about the organisation’s £2 million research budget, its staffing structure and the lack of evidence the organisation is making a difference.

In her email, Harris encourages supporters to tweet that they “support the work” of the company, “making important connections for young people with the world of work”, along with the hashtag “#impact”.

So far eight accounts have tweeted about the company using the hashtag.

 

Athol Hendry, the CEC’s director of marketing and communications, defended the move. “We are immensely proud of the hard work done by so many people across our network, including volunteer business advisers, to support young people. We think that it’s really important to share these successes and recognise their dedication and commitment.”

But Jon Richards, head of education at the trade union Unison, which represents school support staff and others in the education sector, said the Careers and Enterprise Company should focus on improving its work, rather than public relations

“After taking a kicking at the commons select committee yesterday they are desperately trying to get their supporters to send positive messages out about them,” he said.

“Seems to me that they ought to be concentrating on doing a better job and amending their profligacy rather than trying to prop up their bloated underperforming gravy train.”

 

The full text of the email

Dear friend,

As you may know, Christine and I were questioned by the Education Select Committee this morning.

We’re extremely proud of the amazing work going on in the network and the impact our funding is having on young people across the country.

We’d love it if you could join us on twitter tomorrow to celebrate the success and fantastic work being done to make a real difference to the futures of young people.

We’ve drafted the below tweet for you, please feel free to use it as is, or edit, but do join us and help us celebrate.

I support the work of @careerent making important connections for young people with the world of work #impact

All the best,

Claudia

Stop tinkering with the skills system!

The English system is suffering from innovation fatigue. We need to stop chopping and changing it, writes Tom Bewick

Coming back into the UK’s skills system after a seven-year absence working internationally feels like returning to another planet. In England, some of the major reforms have taken place; the sector has weathered a new policy announcement or different skills initiative – on average – every 16 weeks since 2010.

We’ve welcomed and said our farewells to no fewer than 12 different skills ministers since 1997. Indeed, if you look at the average tenure of an English skills minister it is just 17 months, less even than the average tenure of a premier league football manager – who last an average of 18 months.

Meanwhile, you have to admire the people and organisations that work in the sector for their sheer resilience. Despite the merry-go-round of changing institutional structures and competing policy wheezes, people at the sharp end have still managed to carry on with the day job of transforming working lives.

The average tenure of an English skills minister it is just 17 months, less than the average tenure of a premier league football manager

Without a strong awarding sector, for example, planes would drop out of the sky, construction sites would be unsafe and our A&E units would be even more overstretched.

In the last year, according to Ofqual’s market assessment report, the largest growth in certifications came in the form of a level one in ‘health and safety in a construction environment’ and a level two in ‘emergency first aid at work’.

These types of qualifications may not feature highly in the government’s ambitions around improving technical education, but it is vital that they are not lost sight of in the current debate.

Very few would disagree that in some ways this is one of the most challenging and exciting times to be working in the vocational skills arena.

Despite a few jeremiads, there is much to celebrate: a record number of young people are learning in good or outstanding further education colleges and training providers, and youth unemployment has declined by 40 per cent in recent years against the backdrop of the highest adult employment rate since 1975.

The government is right to focus relentlessly on the fact that we are ranked in the lower quartile of OECD countries for our technical level skills. All this has been exacerbated by a collapse in workplace productivity over the past decade as wage incomes have stagnated and public investment has been reigned in.

The big challenge seven years after the Wolf Review was published is to learn from those other world-class systems that we rightly wish to emulate. We need to understand, in particular, what has made our main competitors so institutionally successful. The overriding observation is one of stability.

England has only recently established a dedicated Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. It needs to be given support and proper resources, including a sensible timeframe on which to successfully implement the post-16 skills plan reforms.

Take Switzerland, often referred to as the world’s best for technical and vocational training: it has had the same institution looking after apprenticeships and technical education since 1972. The SFI-VET responds to change, not by the Maoist tendency of tearing up the old to reinvent the new, but by incrementally and progressively building on success while weeding out failure. The Swiss system last embarked on reform in 2007.

Germany established its equivalent of the IFA as far back as the 1970 Vocational Training Act. For over 45 years, despite an overhaul of its vocational training model in 2005, BIBB has remained a constant in the institutional landscape. In addition, the employer-led chambers of commerce help anchor a really strong sense of stability on which 331 apprenticeship standards have evolved.

After a period advising overseas governments on their own skills strategies, it feels to me like returning to a domestic system that is showing all the signs of innovation fatigue. A top-down command-and-control approach is used when reforms would benefit from much greater collaboration and openness. The essential foundations for success are now in place. The point is to stick with them.

Tom Bewick is Chief Executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies

Apprenticeship starts show biggest drop in six months

Apprenticeship starts were down a massive 40 per cent in February on the same period in 2017, the latest provisional government statistics have revealed.

There were 21,800 starts reported for the month, compared with February 2017’s provisional total of 36,400, according to the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s monthly apprenticeship statistics update, published this morning.

This represents this biggest year-on-year percentage drop since last August.

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the AELP, claimed that the apprenticeship levy itself isn’t the problem, but that the “the manner of its implementation is letting down thousands of SMEs and young people across the country”.  

“Our simple solution has been sitting on the minister’s desk for months, namely that for the time being the government should stop charging small employers for taking on young apprentices at levels two and three,” he said. Action must be taken now if the government wants to achieve its manifesto target.”

But skills minister Anne Milton insisted the government is “unapologetic” about its ambition for “high-quality apprenticeship opportunities” that are available to “everyone, regardless of their background”.

“The number of people starting on the old-style apprenticeships has fallen, but the number of people starting on our new, higher-quality apprenticeships are increasing well beyond our expectations. We won’t sacrifice that quality to increase quantity,” she said.

The latest figures come in the same week that education secretary Damian Hinds was quizzed by MPs on the fall in starts in Parliament on Monday.

He said there had been 242,100 starts since the levy was introduced last April.

“We are in a period of change, and some employers are taking longer to bed down what they are going to do with their apprenticeship levy money,” he conceded.

“We must bear in mind that they have two years to do that with each month’s money, but we are seeing a shift to longer, higher-quality apprenticeships, and that trend is to be welcomed.”

Mr Hinds added that the apprenticeship levy is an “important structural reform to the way we do training provision in this country” intended to “make sure that all sizeable firms are contributing to upskilling the nation”.

 

Dismay after rail specialist chosen as quality-assurer for digital apprenticeships

A firm of rail specialists have been chosen to replace the Tech Partnership as the external quality-assurance provider for digital apprenticeships, in a move said to “defy all logic”.

It was announced on Tech Partnership’s website that its members had agreed to pass “the baton” to the National Skills Academy for Rail, for EQA of end-point assessment of level three and four digital apprenticeships.

The Institute for Apprenticeships still needs to approve this decision, but NSAR’s chief executive Neil Robertson is “confident that we will be given clearance to run the tech EWA by the IfA, due to our established track record”.

The move has provoked what could politely be described as a bemused reaction from the wider FE community.

“We are very concerned about the decision to opt for NSAR,” said a source from an end-point assessment organisation for digital apprenticeships. “The decision seems to defy all logic as they have no experience of digital and very little experience of EQA.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers boss Mark Dawe agreed.

“Is this really key employers from the relevant sector being in control of the EQA?” he said. “One of the main arguments for not using Ofqual as the overarching EQA was not having relevant employers involved in it.

“Is this really how we want the quality control of our national apprenticeship system to develop – random announcements like this handing EQA responsibilities from one organisation to another?”

Employer groups developing new apprenticeship standards can choose one of four options for externally quality-assuring final exams.

Mark Dawe

These are an employer-led approach, a professional body, Ofqual or the IfA itself.

Many in the sector think that it should be left to Ofqual, which is the established qualifications regulator.

Mr Robertson was confident the IfA would approve them because “one of their representatives was with the Digital Apprenticeship Quality Board that made the decision”.

“We plan to recruit up to 10 tech specialists to ensure we have sufficient tech sector expertise.”

Explaining its EQA track record, an NSAR spokesperson said it had “been running EQA for high-stakes and safety-sensitive training and assessments for many years”, though not for apprenticeship standards.

He was referring to assessments that authorise staff to work on the railway – including licence to practice, how to use equipment, and supervision for example.

The IfA previously came in for criticism after it approved the Tech Partnership to provide EQA for digital apprenticeships in December, two months after it announced plans to shut up shop by the start of 2018/19.

It confirmed that if no suitable replacement were approved by September this year, it could take on the quality-assurance role for the sector, a scenario which now looks unlikely.

“The Tech Partnership has been both inspirational and instrumental thus far in helping us develop the national infrastructure for digital apprenticeships,” said Tim Clayton, head of technology at Sainsbury’s, who chairs Tech Partnership’s Digital Apprenticeship Quality Board.

“I am delighted that the appointment of NSAR will allow the baton to be passed on seamlessly to a successor organisation who have demonstrated that they are as committed to the employer led digital skills agenda as we are. I look forward to establishing an effective partnership.”

“We were impressed with NSAR’s commitment to digital and their understanding of its significance across the economy, as well as their determination to work with the digital employers to ensure that the EQA model meets their needs and delivers real value,” added Jenny Taylor, UK Foundation Leader from IBM, and chair of the Digital Trailblazer steering group.

An IfA spokesperson said NSAR “have been nominated by the digital trailblazers to replace Tech Partnership but this will have to be put to QAC to provide us assurance that they have sufficient sectoral expertise”.

She confirmed an IfA advisor was “in the room to answer any questions about the process” when the board voted in favour of NSAR as the EQA replacement, but did not play a formal role in the decision making process.

College principals can’t afford to be charismatic, claims deputy FE commissioner

The days of the charismatic principal are gone, according to a deputy FE commissioner.

John Hogg (pictured above) told delegates at the Skills and Education Group’s annual conference in Nottingham today that the role of college bosses is changing.

A former principal of Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton and Coventry colleges, he also warned that some colleges leaders have lost sight of reality as they desperately balance their book.

“The days of the charismatic principal I think are gone,” Mr Hogg said.

“I think good colleges are those where the leader says ‘I am going to appoint people who know more than me’. It is changing exponentially.”

The days of the charismatic principal I think are gone

Speaking with FE Week afterwards, he insisted that principals have to “avoid a situation where they see themselves as the experts in finance and curriculum and all the areas, it is about teams”.

“You are the leader and be charismatic by all means but employ people who are experts in their fields,” he added.

His comments run contrary to what the FE sector is currently experiencing in terms of principal pay.

The University and Colleges Union has lambasted many principals as “greedy and hopelessly out of touch” after new analysis showed a third enjoyed raises of more than 10 per cent last year.

Seventeen enjoyed annual salaries of over £200,000.

FE Week revealed last week that Garry Phillips, the boss of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College was given a huge 31-per-cent salary increase in 2016/17 – taking his wage to £260,000, more than double the second-highest paid person at the college.

These massive raises are all the more controversial given that college staff across the country have been driven to strike action after they were offered a measly a one-per-cent increase of their own.

Mr Hogg isn’t impressed by excessive salaries.

“Principal pay should be reflective of the financial wellbeing of the institution and the sector,” he told FE Week.

“My own view is if staff are performing well but aren’t getting the salary to reflect that then as a principal I would reflect the same thing.”

He also warned colleges that they focus too much on the need to make themselves financially secure. “I go into colleges sometimes, and it is not about them being malicious, but there is a danger that they are so keen on becoming secure in themselves [financially] that they sometimes lose sight of the reality of life,” he said.

“One college I went into, I said ‘why have you predicted so much 16-to-18 growth?’ The answer was because it is a declining demographic and ‘we will do them through apprenticeships’. I said that is displacement activity, where are you doing that?

“We use terrestrial intelligence whereas some institutions in a desperation to make the books match use astral intelligence. They think there is a holding bay of 16- to 18-year-olds up there waiting to come down the golden ladder.”

Principals are reacting to what they need financially rather than the reality of what they need

Colleges across the country are undergoing financial crises. Many have been hit with finance notices to improve and require FE commissioner intervention.

Many are shedding staff, who are striking as a result. Hull College, for example, is proposing to cut up to 231 full-time jobs.

“Colleges need to build up a really pragmatic structure curriculum plan that is fully costed and reflective of the demographic they are working in that reflects the needs of employers rather than what the college thinks what it might need to balance the books the following year,” Mr Hogg said.

“It is a danger that principals are reacting to what they need financially rather than the reality of what they need.”

The Skills and Education Group annual conference is taking place today in Nottingham. FE Week is media partner. You can follow us on Twitter for live updates @feweek and using the hashtag #SEG2018.

MP joining 2 day Hull College strike starting tomorrow

Striking staff Hull College will be joined on the picket line by their local MP Emma Hardy tomorrow as they walk out for a second time in an ongoing row about job cuts.

Members of the University and College Union are protesting plans to slash 231 jobs at the college, which is currently subject to intervention from FE commissioner Richard Atkins.

The latest walk-out, on Thursday and Friday, follows a one-day strike on May 9 over the proposals, which the union said would result in the college losing a third of its staff.

Julie Kelley, a UCU regional official, said the cuts would be “devastating” and urged college management to “put an urgent stop to these plans”.

“Strike action is never taken lightly, but staff at the Hull College Group feel they have been left with little choice,” she said.

Ms Hardy, who is MP for Hull West and Hessle and a member of the Commons education select committee, raised the job cuts during education questions in parliament on Monday.

She claimed that the college had been told it could only spend 60 per cent of its income on staff “which has led to its having to get rid of 231 full-time equivalent posts – one in three jobs going from Hull College”.

“Will the minister explain where the figure of 60 per cent came from, and how will she make the process more transparent so that people can actually understand what is happening?” she asked.

In response, the skills minister Anne Milton said she was “very aware” that Hull had had “record amounts of funding put in, and we are working very closely with it to make sure that we get a sustainable solution for learners”.

The bitter dispute began in early March when plans for the job cuts were first announced.

In a statement posted on the college’s website, its chief executive Michelle Swithenbank said the redundancies were part of a restructure being put forward in an effort to balance the books.

The college has held a notice of concern for financial health since November 2016.

A report from Mr Atkins in early 2017 warned that the college’s finances remained “precarious”.

In April, 170 out of 214 – or 70 per cent – of UCU members at the college voted for strike action, before unanimously backing a vote of no-confidence in their boss the following day.

The union has insisted that Ms Swithenbank’s position is untenable after her failure to defend jobs at the college and a “bizarre” 24 hours which saw the management team allegedly attempt to “bully and then bribe” staff first with legal action and then ice-creams to deter them from a protest on April 18.

However, the college corporation backed its embattled chief executive, who was appointed less than a year ago to lead the college to recovery.

“As a corporation, we understand the emerging effects of our current plans, and want to assure all people affected, that no decision has been taken lightly and that we are committed to working with Michelle and the leadership team to secure the future of Hull College Group,” it said in a statement.

 

Minister admits to confusion over apprenticeship quality accountability

The skills minister has conceded that there is a lack of clarity when it comes to who is accountable for apprenticeship quality.

Anne Milton acknowledged that it was unclear whether it is a job solely for Ofsted or the ESFA at an education committee hearing this morning, admitting responsibility needs to be defined “more clearly”.

MPs asked her and the ESFA’s director of apprenticeships, Keith Smith, on a specific example recently revealed by FE Week, which they said “undermined” the role of inspectorate.

They were referring to Key6 Group, a provider which had its apprenticeship delivery suspended after Ofsted branded its training “not fit for purpose” in the first early monitoring report on newcomers to the apprenticeship market, published in March.

It undermines Ofsted if you carry on with that provider

However, the agency lifted this ban just two months later.

“It undermines Ofsted if you carry on with that provider,” Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, told Mr Smith.

The latter defended his agency’s decision, and revealed that Key6 has not been given “unlimited ability” to deliver.

“We review and regularly sit down with the provider,” he explained, adding that an improvement plan has been put in place and he is “confident” that work is “bearing fruit”.

“We have taken the view [to lift the delivery ban] because there was demand from employers, one big levy employer in particular,” he said. “As the employer they took the view that they wanted to do some limited activity with that provider.”

If at any point “we get concerns that improvement isn’t continuing or there are new issues” the ESFA will “take action to impose those sanctions that we actioned before”.

Lucy Powell, the MP for Manchester Central, said this was an “incredibly confused accountability structure” and asked Mr Smith to define who is responsible for determining quality. He could not give a straight answer.

Mr Halfon revisited the point later in the session: “Surely if Ofsted decides a provider is not fit for purpose it should be for Ofsted to decide who is fit for purpose? I don’t understand why the ESFA should come in and say they are fit for purpose.”

Asked about the same thing, Ms Milton admitted that the accountability system for quality is confusing.

The relationship between the ESFA and Ofsted over quality is quite difficult to define

“I think that point about clarity is absolutely valid,” she said. “If I can’t explain, I am a simple soul. I’ve got to be able to draw a simple picture, a simple diagram of how the system works, and if it’s got too many arrows on it, that’s not good enough for me. I need to be clear.

“I am accountable, as all ministers are, I am accountable for all of this.

“Other people have responsibilities, but I think the relationship between the ESFA and Ofsted over quality is quite difficult to define and I think we need to define that more clearly.”

 

Ofsted’s early monitoring visits, announced by chief inspector Amanda Spielman last November, were intended to sniff out “scandalous” attempts to waste public money.

Their introduction is believed to be a result of growing concerns around the number of untested training providers that had made it onto the register, and which therefore had access to potentially huge sums of public money.

Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for FE and skills, said the inspectorate “reserves the right” to carry out another monitoring visit in the case of Key6 considering it is now eligible for funding again.

He added that the watchdog “may well, in light of the monitoring visit report, carry out a full inspection sooner rather than later”.

The DfE has been contacted for comment about Mr Smith’s claims today.

What does a good college mental health strategy look like?

To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week, Sarah-Louise Neesam explains how West Suffolk College has developed and implements a student welfare strategy

I have been a student welfare manager for 17 years, a long period with which to watch changes in the demands made on the welfare service at West Suffolk College.

Ten years ago, after seeing an increase in students presenting with poor mental health and a number of attempted suicides, we began to develop the mental health policies that we use today.

Mental health support is now central to our student welfare strategy – which is based upon the principle of understanding students in a holistic way. For example, we ask them about their lives, what they enjoy, who they live with, and what their hopes and dreams are. We have had a food bank for about 10 years and more recently, have made links with the food redistribution charity Fare Share. We work closely with students’ external support teams and were the first college in Suffolk to gain the gold award from Suffolk Young Adult Carers. 

Here are some aspects of our strategy.

How we identify mental health support needs

Students indicate if they have a mental health condition when they start at the college. These students are invited for a welfare assessment, which was developed with an NHS primary mental health worker around 10 years ago. The welfare assessment asks questions about the student’s mental health history and determines whether their mental health needs are low, medium or high risk.

How we support students

Following the welfare assessment, we liaise with external services such as GPs and drug counselling services, which helps to inform internal support needs. Students are fully involved, and remain firmly in control of what happens to them.

Given the high demand on welfare services, students who are at a low risk are monitored and looked after by personal support tutors, and those who are medium or high risk are supported by the student welfare team. 

How our mental health strategy has improved outcomes

Our student welfare strategy and other policies have enabled us to successfully identify and respond to students’ mental health needs, and the data speaks to our strategy. Of the 1,517 learners seen by welfare advisers in the 2016-17 academic year, 94 per cent remained in learning at the end of the academic year. Of those who received counselling, 99.5 per cent remained in learning. Ninety per cent of our children in care remain in learning.

How we support our staff

Mental health provision is built into staff training and professional development strategies, and is targeted based on data. To this end, mental health first aid training has been delivered not only to personal support tutors and the welfare team, but also to those teaching staff delivering courses to high numbers of pupils with mental health problems.

How other colleges can  implement these learnings

1) Develop expertise: Our student welfare staff include individuals former social workers and police officers, who bring a wealth of knowledge to the team. We also currently have two young apprentices who are able to support the advisers in conducting welfare assessments. We think that investing in young people and training the next generation of support workers is important.

2) Use resources efficiently: The college has reduced costs by asking external organisations to deliver training en masse, instead of sending staff to external courses.

3) Communicate: Collaborative working, increasing staff members’ understanding of students’ needs and improving the support available for students.

4) Adapt: Ensure that policies are flexible and evolve. The team have adapted their welfare strategy in light of emerging needs, as well as on the basis of new information and training.

I wouldn’t have stayed in this role if I didn’t enjoy it. Each day is different: exciting, challenging and rewarding. You get the opportunity to meet the most amazing young people, their families and support workers and plot a way forward for the individual. What more could anyone want from their work?

Sarah-Louise Neesam is the student welfare manager at West Suffolk College

Cap on subcontracting management fees being considered, ESFA director reveals

Caps on subcontracting management fees will be introduced if the government deems it “right and proper”.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of apprenticeships was questioned on the unscrupulous top-slices that many prime providers now charge during an education committee hearing on apprenticeships this morning.

Keith Smith pointed out that stricter rules have recently been enforced on subcontracting, leading to “a reduction”.

He told MPs that the government would not hesitate to actually cap the amount that can be charged as a management fee.

“Subcontracting is an element of a provider-led model and we are doing some work to think about the future of that from next year,” he said.

If it is right and proper that we introduce capping

“We have already seen a reduction in the amount of subcontracting that is happening because of the changes and controls we’ve introduced.

“In terms of fees and charges that is something we are keeping under constant review. If it is right and proper that we introduce capping and controls around management fees then that is something we will obviously do.”

Skills minister Anne Milton appeared later in the session and agreed with the committee that huge top-slices in subcontracting concerns her and that it amounts to “wasted money” in some cases.

However, she claimed it was “too soon” for the government to take action in specific cases.

“I would always like less, because it’s money that is going to the main provider that could be spent on training,” she told the committee.

“I think the transparency of the management fees is important. To me taking excessive management fees is gaming.”

She currently has three cases of unjust top-slices which have been brought to her by other MPs.

“I can take action,” she said, adding: “I think it’s too early to take action at this stage.”

Major sector bodies, excluding the Association of Colleges, published best practice guidance in March stating that management fees levied by prime providers on subcontractors should not be more than 20 per cent of the programme funding.

This was signed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, the adult community education and learning organisation Holex , and provider group Collab.

FE Week has exposed many situations in which cash meant for learning has been diverted as primes levy what are widely considered to be excessive management fees of up to 40 per cent.

To make the process more transparent, from 2016/17, new rules dictated that individual providers had to inform the ESFA of their management fee figures, which should then be published centrally.

I think it’s too early to take action at this stage

But the agency has delayed and delayed this, and only announced last month that these fees and charges will finally be published in June.

The ESFA also revealed last month that subcontracting fees and charges will be reviewed to ensure government funding is being used for “recognised costs”.

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

It follows new rules for contracting and subcontracting, which came into force last May, which say lead contractors can no longer subcontract entire apprenticeship programmes.

Instead they must “directly deliver” at least some of each programme.

And all subcontracting arrangements must be agreed with the employer before the start of an apprenticeship programme.

However, as revealed by FE Week earlier this month, colleges still appear to be breaking the rules.

Stephenson College was exposed earlier this month for apparently charging up to 57 per cent in management fees and attempting to use up £100,000 of skills funding within less than three months, through a frowned up process known as “tactical subcontracting”.

Yet funding rules state that providers “must not subcontract to meet short-term funding objectives”.

The college’s policy was actually updated on May 1, following FE Week enquiries, and now says that the subcontracting charge is “typically” 20 per cent.