‘Sector-leading’ 6% pay deal agreed at Sandwell College

A new “sector-leading”  pay agreement – amounting to more than six per cent over three years – has been reached between Sandwell College and its staff.

Members of the University and College Union had been meant to walk out for three days this week, having already been on strike for five days since February.

This action was stopped after an “agreement in principle” was reached – and details of the deal have now been released.

Staff pay will rise by 2.25 per cent in 2017/18 with additional two per cent rises in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

A further 0.25 per cent will be awarded in 2019/20 if student growth targets are met.

This agreement is a great outcome for all concerned

The deal will apply to all employees at the college and has been “endorsed by the other recognised trade unions at the college, Unison and AMiE, who have also signed the collective agreement”, the UCU said.

Sandwell College will also increase its minimum pay level to align with the Voluntary Foundation’s living wage recommendation.

As well as improving pay, the deal includes an agreement to establish a “joint working group” to look at working practices, with a focus on improving staff wellbeing and reducing sickness absence. 

The deal is huge for the FE sector, as colleges across the country continue to strike over pay disputes following a below-inflation pay offer of one per cent made by the Association of Colleges in September.

“This agreement is a great outcome for all concerned,” said Anne O’Sullivan, UCU’s west Midlands regional officer. “It ensures consistent salary growth for the coming years, and should set an example to other colleges currently in dispute over pay.

“The commitment on all sides to improving working practices and staff wellbeing is also positive, and staff are ready to play their part in ensuring the college continues to grow and flourish in the future.”

Sandwell College’s principal Graham Pennington said: “I am delighted to have reached agreement based on our local success factors, and that full support for our ongoing student growth programme has been given by trade unions.

“We are proud of the commitment shown by our employees and I am happy to be rewarding their hard work and achievements over recent years.”

Subcontracting shouldn’t be a master-servant relationship

With money tighter than ever, the further education community needs to find more ways to work together, writes Sam Parrett

In the constantly changing world of FE, new policies and ideas will affect the sector in different ways – and they often divide our community.

However, I am sure that encouraging greater collaboration between colleges, independent training providers and the sector as a whole is something that everyone can see the value of.

As an AELP board member, I recently discussed this at our annual conference. It was well received and I was hugely encouraged to see such support for real partnership working across the sector.

One area in which the lack of collaboration is evident is subcontracting. Lax rules here mean funding is taken away from frontline training. Just last week a college was accused of “tactical subcontracting”, having previously charged up to 57 per cent in management fees – and they are not the only one.

Traditionally a lead provider will subcontract an organisation to deliver workplace training.

This will often end up creating a “master/servant” type of relationship, where the master calls all the shots. This is not conducive to effective delivery as the organisations are unlikely to have a common purpose. Fortunately the EFSA and the government recognise this, and there is now a review into subcontracting fees.

I am hopeful that in our bold new world of apprenticeship reform, we’ll begin to see a much more genuine collaboration between colleges and ITPs

Of course, we all run businesses which need to be financially viable – but taxpayers’ money must be spent in an appropriate and responsible way. In a sector that’s already being squeezed, it is crucial that funding is spent on learners.

I am hopeful that in our bold new world of apprenticeship reform, we’ll begin to see a much more genuine collaboration between colleges and ITPs – from initial joint funding bids, with clear advance agreement of terms.

This more equal relationship would create a number of benefits from adding value to the local community and enabling colleges to build capacity in specialist sectors, to offering a much wider mix of provision to meet the needs of both students and employers.

Expertise from smaller providers could help transform colleges and larger ITPs into more innovative organisations. Successful relationships would ultimately have a collective impact, addressing educational need across a much wider area.

A crackdown is certainly necessary, but we need to consider the much wider picture and look at the relationship between all providers, at all levels, across the sector.

There are many ways in which to work collaboratively on a much wider scale – from academy sponsorship and charitable trusts through to community interest companies and cooperative models.

At London South East Colleges, we work strategically with ITPs for mutual benefit, recognising the important role they play in ensuring we can offer a broad and flexible mix of provision. This helps us access learners in different settings, who many normally not be able to attend a large college.

We also have partnerships with a number of higher education institutions – which offers benefits to us, the universities and our students by supporting progression. And our multi-academy trust has facilitated partnerships with a number of local schools, offering supportive and alternative pathways for many young people.

Of course, not every relationship will be a match made in heaven. Recognising who wouldn’t be a suitable partner is important. For collective action to be effective, the strategic goals and aims of each organisation have to be complementary, with shared aspirations and moral purpose. Equality and fairness needs to run across participant organisations with a genuine focus on a coordinated approach.

We currently have a system where providers compete with one another, despite offering similar services and wanting the same things. Working in isolation will only ever have a limited impact, whereas working in a coordinated way will lead to a much wider collective result, benefiting learners within a community and improving outcomes.

Sam Parrett OBE is Principal and CEO of London South East Colleges

Extra £500 per learner through maths teaching pilot

Providers in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country will be given an extra £500 per learner for post-16 maths teaching, in a pilot announced today by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

It will test three different approaches to using the funding, to assess which is most effective at improving results for learners with the lowest prior attainment in maths.

The ESFA will contact all eligible institutions to ask if they would like to be included in the pilot.

The deadline to opt in is May 25.

“We will inform institutions about their funding structure allocation after they have opted in,” a spokesperson said.

It’s designed to boost achievement for learners with a grade three or lower at GCSE maths, and is open to post-16 providers in areas identified by the Department for Education as a category five or six area according to its ‘Achieving excellence areas’ methodology.

These are areas that have been identified as having low standards for learners and a poor capacity to improve.

The cash will be in addition to providers’ normal 16-to-19 allocations.

The pilot, which will run for two years, aims to “identify how the additional funding is used by institutions, and to build up an evidence base on which activities lead to improvements in teaching and learning” and to “support some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country with additional funding”.

It will test whether it’s more effective for institutions to be given all the cash upfront, or after a learner improves their maths grade to at least a grade four in the summer of 2020, or a combination of the two.

Providers will have “flexibility over how to spend the additional funding”, which could include more teaching hours, smaller class sizes, or use of technology.

But, the guidance warns, “you should only use programmes and approaches that are known to be effective”.

The pilot is being run on an opt-in basis, and the ESFA will contact all eligible institutions to invite them to take part.

Since 2013, all 16- to 19-year-olds without at least a grade C in GCSE maths or English have had to enrol in courses alongside their main programme of study.

This requirement was tightened in 2015 to require all of those with a grade D – now a 3 – in those subjects to sit a GCSE course, rather than an equivalent stepping-stone course such as functional skills.

But after GCSE results showed huge numbers of learners aged 17 and older failed to improve their grades in resits, many in the sector renewed calls on the government to scrap the policy.

FE colleges have struggled to fund the extra maths teaching requirements.

The Treasury announced last November that £8.5 million had been set aside to pilot “innovative approaches” to improving the controversial GCSE maths resit policy.

The budget statement revealed the government wants to find ways to improve resit outcomes for learners, by launching a new pilot scheme.

“The budget announces support for maths, given its crucial role in preparing the next generation for jobs in the new economy,” the document said.

“The government will test innovative approaches to improve GCSE maths resit outcomes by launching a £8.5 million pilot, alongside £40 million to establish Further Education Centres of Excellence across the country to train maths teachers and spread best practice.”

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.