Over £5 million in adult education budget funding was paid to 86 colleges and local authorities last year for courses that didn’t take place, according exclusive FE Week analysis of Education and Skills Funding Agency figures out today.

The £5,059,522 windfall was the result of a funding rule in which a three per cent tolerance is applied to grant-funded AEB under-delivery.

Twelve colleges and one LA provider each received more than £100,000 for provision they didn’t deliver over the year as a result of this rule, according to the ESFA’s 2016/17 final funding year values, published this afternoon.

The largest payment went to Birmingham Metropolitan College, which delivered adult education worth £13,798,372 against an allocation of £14,189,878 – meaning it was overpaid by £391,506.

The rule states that “where your delivery of the overall AEB is at least 97 per cent of your funding allocation, we will not make a year-end adjustment to your funding allocation and you will not have to pay back any unspent funds”, according to the ESFA’s 2016/17 AEB funding and performance management rules.

However, it doesn’t apply to independent training providers, who will be subject to a “year-end adjustment” to their funding allocations for any under-delivery and “must pay back any unspent funds”.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, 74 providers over-delivered provision that was not paid for, worth a combined total of £2.6 million.

However, this is set to change: the ESFA recently announced it was “committing to fund 3 per cent over-delivery at the end of the 2018 to 2019 funding year for all providers”, to “ensure providers can deliver adult education budget provision with confidence”.

The funding and performance management rules for 2018/19 have yet to be published, so it’s not yet known if the three per cent tolerance for under-delivery will remain after 2017/18.

 

The principal of a Northamptonshire college has resigned after it was labelled “unsafe” by Ofsted in a damning grade four report.

Stephen Davies stepped down from Moulton College yesterday following last week’s shocking report, which said learners, including those with high needs, were in danger.

He took on the job in 2011 when the specialist land-based college was rated ‘outstanding’, but it has since seen a gradual decline in standards to the bottom.

The FE commissioner Richard Atkins is understood to have been urgently summoned in to ensure the college is a safe place to learn.

“Following its disappointing recent Ofsted inspection, Moulton College’s principal Stephen Davies has offered his resignation, which has been accepted by the board of governors,” the college told FE Week today.

Time is now right for the college to look towards a different leadership approach

“Both parties have reached an amicable settlement which allows an orderly separation at the end of April, and the board wishes Stephen well.”

Despite the situation, Mr Davies said he was “proud” of his time at the college and the “foundations that have put in place for recovery are being evidenced by improved outcomes for our students”.

“However, the time is now right for the college to look towards a different leadership approach, so I will relinquish my post with effect from April 30,” he added.

“I feel honoured and privileged to have worked with such a brilliant group of staff whose hard work and commitment has helped to change the lives of many thousands of young people and adults.”

Moulton College has onsite accommodation and delivers programmes in “highly dangerous vocational areas” such as construction, equine studies animal management, sport, and food and drink manufacturing.

Inspectors found a “number of serious breaches” to health and safety regulations and a number of instances where practice was “unsafe or sloppy”.

“For example, brickwork learners do not wear appropriate eyewear when cutting bricks, and staff do not adequately supervise students with complex needs during water-based activities in the swimming pool,” the report stated.

In equine yards, gates were “left open” and a teacher “demonstrated unsafe practice” when tacking up a horse.

Mr Davies said in a statement last week that his team had moved quickly ensure effective safeguards were being put in place to protect learners.

But the mounting pressure against him following a turbulent seven years in charge appears to have left him with no option but to resign.

In the short term, Moulton’s deputy principal Gerald Davies will step up as acting principal, and the board will “seek to appoint an experienced interim principal as soon as practicable”.

Both parties have reached an amicable settlement

Moulton College fell to a grade three in 2016 from grade one.

It also ran into financial difficulties during his time in post. It has a turnover of around £25 million but got a financial notice of concern from the ESFA in January 2017.

At the time its bank loans totalled nearly £20 million after it made significant investment to improve the college estate.

Moulton was subsequently subject to intervention from the FE commissioner – whose report found leaders had been “too slow” to address poor financial performance.

However, its financial health went back to ‘satisfactory’ at the end of July.

In the college’s Ofsted report Moulton was branded ‘inadequate’ overall, and in four of the eight headline fields, including for its large apprenticeships provision – meaning it will become the second college to lose the right to offer them under updated government rules.

Carole Stott will step down as chair of WorldSkills UK in the autumn, after more than five years in the role.

The former teacher, who was awarded an MBE in 2012 for services to adult education, has led the board through a period of “extraordinary change” ever since she took on the position in April 2013.

Team UK has placed consistently in the top 10 at international competitions during her tenure, and the Skills Show has grown from a legacy project of WorldSkills London to become the “largest and highest-profile fixture in the skills and apprenticeships calendar”, a spokesperson for WorldSkills UK said. 

“Along with merging two organisations to become a more effective and cost efficient single organisation unified under a coherent brand, with Carole’s guidance, WSUK has developed an ambitious long-term strategy to increase its impact for young people and the UK economy.”

With Carole’s guidance WSUK has developed an ambitious long-term strategy to increase its impact for young people

Ms Stott (pictured above) said it has been a “privilege” to serve as chair of the organisation.

As she enters her sixth year as chair, WorldSkills UK has decided to start planning for her succession now, aiming to make an appointment in the summer.

The spokesperson said the board will be looking for a chair with “strong business sector connections and influence” to “ensure that WSUK’s voice is relevant and heard by UK employers”.

She added that the new chair will take a leading role in the organisation’s plans for the next five years, as it looks to “change the national conversation, so that more young people enter vocational and apprenticeship career routes”.

“A crucial part of this will be ensuring more young people are inspired about the benefits of apprenticeships and technical careers which in turn will help us create a home-grown, productive and highly-skilled workforce that will continue to position the UK as a world-class destination for trade and investment,” she said.

Ms Stott added: “We have now set an ambition of helping 1,000,000 young people by 2022. As part of our new strategy, we want to change the balance of the board to strengthen representation from business stakeholders alongside leaders from the education and skills sector.

“This is why we want the new chair to come from a business background to lead the next stage of our development.”

Ms Stott is also stepping down from her role as chair of the Association of Colleges – a position she has held since January 2013. Alongside her other jobs, she is currently chair of City of Bath College.

WorldSkills UK runs regional and national skills competitions, including the annual Skills Show. It takes a selection of the winners from these competitions to compete internationally against others from all around the world in WorldSkills.

The most recent one was held in Abu Dhabi last year, where Team UK retained its top-10 position, with competitors bagging one gold, three silvers, three bronzes and 13 medallions of excellence.

Ofsted’s third early monitoring visit to a new levy-funded apprenticeship provider has uncovered a “clear focus” on delivering high-quality training.

However, it is the second of the three reports to focus on a company that is not a total newcomer to apprenticeships.

Inspectors visited Jigsaw Training, which featured on the government’s subcontracting register for 2016/17 as J & S Blackhurst.

It had a subcontract worth almost £2 million with grade two-rated Mitie Group last year, but it has now fallen under the gaze of Ofsted inspectors because it became a prime-contract independent training provider in May 2017.

Directors and senior leaders “have set a clear strategy to focus on delivering high-quality training to apprentices employed in the facilities-management sector”. They were however “aware that a few apprentices are not released on a regular basis from their job and of the adverse impact that this has on their progress”.

This first of this new wave of monitoring reports, which came out in March, heavily criticised Key6 Group, for having provision that was “not fit for purpose”.

The second, into London College of Apprenticeship Training, was more positive – though this might have been expected as it has a longer track record: it was set up in 2014 and was operating as a subcontractor until the apprenticeship levy came in last May.

Many thought that these new early monitoring visits were introduced in response to mounting concern about the proliferation of largely untested providers, following significant apprenticeship reforms.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman announced last November that Ofsted would conduct early monitoring visits at new providers which appeared on the government’s register of training providers, so as to sniff out “scandalous” attempts to waste public money.

A spokesperson for the inspectorate subsequently explained that while these could include “totally new providers”, they would also cover “those who have previously been subcontractors, and those who have provided other forms of education and training in the past but ceased to be directly funded”.

Today’s report said that inspectors had intervened “as part of a series of monitoring visits to a sample of new apprenticeship training providers that are funded through the apprenticeship levy”.

Since becoming a levy-funded provider, Jigsaw Training had “strengthened the management team” and “set high expectations” of staff.

The company was formed in 1997, and inspectors recognised that “for the past 14 years it has specialised in providing apprenticeship training for workers in the facilities management sector”.

There were 281 apprentices enrolled and funded through the apprenticeship levy at the time of last month’s visit.

Mitie is an outsourcing company based in Scotland. It got a grade two in May 2016, and according to the report, it “has held a work-based learning contract since November 2008 and subcontracts all aspects of its provision to Jigsaw Training.”

Today’s report recognised “an ambitious vision to be an outstanding provider of apprenticeships to develop new talent and build a highly skilled workforce for the facilities-management sector”.

The majority were enrolled on frameworks in facilities services, with 35 studying new standards in property-maintenance operative, team-leader supervisor and facilities management.

Bosses have in recent months “identified accurately the majority of weaknesses that exist” and “implemented a number of changes to practices to bring about improvements”.

For example, senior leaders recently created an apprentice logbook so that off-the-job training can be recorded accurately.

Apprentices also receive regular visits and reviews from their tutors.

There was concern that “not all employers and apprentices” have a sufficient understanding of the 20-per-cent entitlement to off-the-job training.

“We welcomed the Ofsted monitoring visit, we found it rigorous and included a high level of scrutiny,” said a representative from Jigsaw. “While we recognise that there are areas for improvement most of this was already within our improvement plan and progress was underway.

“Overall we are pleased we our progress and remain absolutely committed to becoming an outstanding provider.”

The government has launched a consultation on proposals to “strengthen” public reporting on performance for colleges which are in groups and have multiple sites.

Running for nine weeks, the consultation comes ahead of a new college campus identifier which could pave the way for campus-level inspections at mega-colleges.

It seeks views on two proposals.

The first is on the introduction of separate performance reporting for colleges that are part of a group.

“That would mean that performance information was available for all colleges, irrespective of whether they were part of a group or not,” a spokesperson for the Department for Education said.

Secondly, it wants options for separate reporting for delivery sites that are part of the same college.

“That would provide greater transparency on the quality of local provision, alongside performance information relating to the college as a whole,” the spokesperson said.

The consultation web page explains that changes in the “structure of the sector” have “implications for how well the existing performance reporting system now works, including the information that is available to learners, support for local accountability, and quality improvement”.

It says this consultation is focused on supporting the existing educational performance measures, such as achievement rates, progress measures, learner destinations and outcomes. It does not propose any changes to the measures themselves.

The DfE said other, non-educational performance measures, such as financial indicators, are not in scope of this consultation. No changes are proposed to the current system for allocation of funding.

The new college campus identifier will be introduced into individualised learner records from 2018/19. Its intention is to “allow identification of provision delivered across the various sites of merged institutions”.

This new identifier could lead to campus-level inspections at mega-colleges from as early as next year, and would allow for reports on colleges that were previously independent, but which now sit within merged groups.

The nation’s largest college group has welcomed the change. Joe Docherty, the chief executive of Newcastle-based NCG, said moving to inspections of individual campuses was a “logical next step” that the group would “strongly welcome”.

Today’s consultation proposals apply to both general and specialist FE colleges, as well as sixth-form colleges. It closes on June 10.

The Institute for Apprenticeships has appointed another military man as its second-in-command, following a “fair and open competition”.

Robert Nitsch CBE, the army’s director of personnel for the past three years, will take on the role of chief operating officer in the next few months, the institute announced today.

The IfA’s chief executive Sir Gerry Berragan, a former adjutant general in the army, said he had worked with Mr Nitsch in previous roles and “know that he will an excellent fit for the post”

“He brings a wealth of senior leadership and practical experience of optimising performance to the Institute,” he said.

“I’m absolutely delighted to have been selected to join the IfA at such a pivotal time in the evolution of technical education,” Mr Nitsch said.

“I look forward to joining the excellent team at the Institute and contributing to the delivery of this great endeavour.”

Mr Nitsch joined the army in 1983, and worked his way up to become director of personnel for the army in June 2015.

Other senior army roles included general officer commanding support command from August 2013, director of manning and chief employment officer from June 2012, and chief of staff to the adjutant general from April 2011.

He was named CBE in the New Year’s Honours in 2014.

Sir Gerry was appointed chief executive of the IfA in November last year, having previously served as a board member since January 2017.

He revealed in an interview with FE Week in January that he’d been selected without competing directly against any other candidates, and as such had been appointed for just a two-year period.

His army career included a period as director general personnel from February 2011 to August 2012, before his appointment as adjutant general.

Both role were based in Andover, as were Mr Nitsch’s roles at the time.

The role of chief operating officer is new, and follows the departure of former deputy chief executive Mike Keoghan at the end of January.

It comes with an annual salary of around £120,000, according to the candidate information pack.

Mr Nitsch, who will report directly to Sir Gerry, will be responsible for the daily operation of the IfA, and will oversee six deputy directors.