Damian Hinds has been named as the new education secretary.

Mr Hinds was previously the government’s employment minister, serving in the role since July 2016. Prior to that he was exchequer secretary to the Treasury.

He sat on the parliamentary education committee between 2010 and 2012 and chaired the all-part parliamentary group for social mobility.

Mr Hinds took to Twitter last night to express his joy at being appointed as education secretary, following the departure of Justine Greening.

Delighted to be appointed Education Secretary – looking forward to working with the great teachers & lecturers in our schools, colleges & universities giving people the opportunities to make the most of their lives

— Damian Hinds (@DamianHinds) January 8, 2018

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, spoke enthusiastically about his apointment.

“AELP welcomes Damian Hinds to his new post,” he said.  “The secretary of state arrives in the light of some encouraging news on UK productivity levels but to make any increase sustainable, the government must continue to invest in skills training and technical education. 

“This means reversing an almost two-thirds cut in annual apprenticeship funding to small and medium sized employers which is potentially very damaging to the economy and the industrial strategy, especially when businesses are trying to address post-Brexit skills challenges. 

“We are delighted that the minister brings with him a shared commitment to social mobility where apprenticeships and traineeships play a vital role in transforming the lives of young people across the country and we look forward to working with him.”

Here’s what we know about the new minister:

1. Born in 1969, Mr Hinds is 48 years old. The average age of an education secretary is 50. (Coincidentally, this is also the exact same age of Justine Greening who just left the position).
2. According to Wikipedia Hinds was born in London. This makes him the 11th education secretary born in the capital. The last one was Nicky Morgan.
3. Mr Hinds attended a St Ambrose Grammar School in Altrincham, Cheshire – one of the few parts of the country that still has selective schools. It became an academy in 2012.
4. A touchy subject of late, but as the role involves children so directly it will be mentioned at times: Mr Hinds has three children. This is unusual for education secretaries as zero is the most common number. However he is not alone: Rab Butler, David Eccles, David Blunkett and Ed Balls also had three children each.
5. Mr Hinds studied politics, philosophy & economics at Trinity College, Oxford University. Several other education secretaries also studied the subject, including Ed Balls and Ruth Kelly. Hinds is also not the first education secretary to study at Trinity. He is joined by Anthony Crossland, Labour’s education secretary who began the dismantling of the grammar school system, a few years before Hinds was born.
6. While at Oxford, Hinds was president of the Oxford Union – a former glory he shares with Edward Boyle, Anthony Crosland, Quintin Hogg, and Michael Gove.
7. According to his LinkedIn profile he worked in hotel management after university before becoming a strategy consultant. This is unique among education secretaries! Wikipedia also states that he did a stint in the Conservative think tank, the Bow Group, during the early 2000s.
8. His predecessor, Justine Greening, was in role for 546 days. The average is 801 days, if you take single stints in office. If Hinds stays in office for the average number of days he will leave on March 18th 2020.
9. In the past Hinds has voted in favour of gay marriage (something that tripped up Nicky Morgan) and has always voted for education reforms made by the Conservatives in the past.

A provider has successfully overturned the government’s decision not to award it a contract in the recent controversial non-levy tender.

Focus Training Group, which is rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and has delivered apprenticeships in the south-west for 20 years, was originally told it had not reached the minimum threshold score to secure a contract, but appealed the decision before Christmas.

Following a nervy festive break, the Education Skills and Funding Agency got back in touch last week to change its decision.

It said that after reviewing the scores of the questions identified by Focus, and quality-assurance had taken place, the organisation reached the pass mark and its complaint was upheld.

Jamie Rail, FTG’s managing director, told FE Week it had been “one hell of a month” following the initial outcome of the tender, but he was elated with the final decision.

“Both myself and all of our staff are delighted that our appeal was successful,” he said.

“We were convinced from the outset that it was never the intention of the government or the ESFA to lose ‘good’ provision through this process, especially of the specialist nature we deliver at Focus Training Group, in electrical, plumbing/gas, and arboriculture as well as our more general provision.

“This feels like a vote of confidence in all of the investment and engagement in standards that have taken place within Focus in the last few years.

“This will allow us to meet the growing demand from our employers across the region, and we now look forward to a successful 2018.”

He also wanted “to thank all the people for their messages of support and offers of help that we have received during this challenging time, it has been much appreciated over the last month”.

The FE sector has been up in arms about the outcome of the much delayed tender ever since results were finally released in December.

A total of 714 providers were given an allocation to train apprentices with small employers between January 2018 and March 2019.

But as revealed by FE Week, one organisation that went out of business two months ago, for example, was awarded a contract in the procurement – even while several high-profile colleges ranked ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ missed out.

Those which had been successful started receiving their contracts just before the Christmas break.

If you are a provider that successfully overturned a decision not to award your organisation a non-levy contract, FE Week wants to hear from you. Email billy.camden@feweek.co.uk.

The new year has got off to a less-than-‘good’ start for one college, which saw its Ofsted grade drop from two to three in a quiet week for FE providers.

West Thames College, one of just two FE and skills providers to have a full inspection report published since the start of the new year, was rated ‘requires improvement’ overall and in seven headline fields.

The report, published January 5 and based on an inspection in mid-November, bucks the late-2017 trend that saw a number of failing colleges boost their grades.

Inspectors deemed leaders’ self-assessment to be “inaccurate”, and found that it did not “focus sharply enough on the long-standing weaknesses”.

“Managers do not take sufficient action to ensure good-quality teaching, learning and assessment,” they wrote.

“Too few” learners on 16-to-19 study programmes – which make up the majority of enrolments – “attend lessons regularly enough to make good or better progress in their learning”.

Consequently, “too few” level two learners passed their courses, and “too few” level three learners “attain high grade-passes” – while the proportion of apprentices completing their courses on time was found to be “very low”.

Learning programmes and full-time provision for 14- to 16-year-olds at the college, which had around 5,000 learners over the previous contract year and was allocated over £3.5 million by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for 2017/18 as of November last year, were both found to be ‘good’ – although the report noted that leaders had been “slow to implement the statutory requirements” for these young learners.

It was better news for the independent learner-provider Academies Enterprise Trust, which taught around 80 learners over the previous academic year and has been allocated just over £70,000 for 2017/18, which saw its grade go up from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’ across the board in a report published January 3 and based on an inspection in early November.

It is an academy sponsor, and delivers apprenticeship training in supporting teaching and learning, business administration, and ICT across the schools within the trust.

Leaders and managers were praised for having “successfully improved the quality of teaching, learning and assessment” which resulted in “improved outcomes for most apprentices”.

“Apprentices make good progress in their programmes as a result of close and effective monitoring by managers and assessors,” the report said.

“Most” apprentices were found to develop “a broad range of practical skills and professional standards” thanks to “effective and well-planned on- and off-the-job training”.

“A significant proportion of apprentices progress to full-time employment and/or further and higher education,” inspectors found.

Two independent learning providers held onto their ‘good’ grades this week, following short inspections: Bromley-based E Training, and Adult College for Rural East Sussex (ACRES).

 

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
West Thames College	14/11/2017	05/01/2018	3	2

 

Independent learning providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Academies Enterprise Trust	07/11/2017	03/01/2018	2	3

 

Short inspections (remains grade 2)	Inspected	Published
E Training	05/12/2017	05/01/2018
Adult College for Rural East Sussex	21/11/2017	04/01/2018

The Prime Minister is expected to make a cabinet reshuffle tomorrow, and most of the attention in the education sector will be on whether the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, is replaced.

But keep an eye on the minister for skills, Anne Milton, a former nurse and junior health minister, now tipped by some to replace Jeremy Hunt as Secretary of State for Health.

Milton has only been in the role of minister for skills for seven months, after Robert Halfon was sacked in June last year, having served just under a year.

In fact, were a new skills minister to be needed it would make it the sixth incumbent since John Hayes took the role following the May 2010 general election.

By our calculation (below), it would mean the last five skills ministers averaged just a year and a half in office – or a little over the minimum duration for an apprenticeship!

The Chartered Institution for Further Education is still being propped up by hundreds of thousands of pounds in government subsidy more than two years after it started accepting paying members, an FE Week Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Just eight providers have so far been granted chartered status – far short of the estimated 80 the body needs to become self-sustaining.

According to the figures received by FE Week, the CIFE received £210,067 from the Department for Education in 2017/18.

This means the government has now supported it to the tune of £1.35 million since 2013.

£1,026,867 million of this was cash funding, while a further £320,475 was in kind, for government office space used by the CIFE until mid-2016.

Plans for an institution – the brainchild of John Hayes, a former minister for FE and skills (pictured above at the inaugural admissions ceremony) – that would grant high-achieving FE providers a royal seal of approval were first announced by the now-defunct Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2012.

But it wasn’t until June 2015 that it was finally granted its royal charter, and it began accepting applications in November of the same year.

To date just eight providers have passed the CIFE’s rigorous entrance process, which requires evidence of qualities such as “an exemplary record of corporate governance”, “satisfactory financial health”, and a reputation for “honesty, openness and transparency” within the sector.

FE Week reported in May 2017 that Dudley College, Steadfast Training Ltd and Skills Group had all gained chartered status – joining existing members Hawk Training, Blackpool and the Fylde College, Bridgwater College, and Furness College.

East Riding College became the eighth member, in September 2017.

The CIFE’s chief executive Dan Wright told FE Week in May that he planned to have at least 80 members over the following two years, which would allow it to be financially self-sufficient.

The annual subscription fee for members who have achieved chartered status is £5,000, but for interested parties there is also a £3,000 non-refundable fee to have an application reviewed in the first place.

Chartered Institution for FE timeline:

• July 2012: BIS draw up plans for a chartered institute to get a royal charter under minister John Hayes.
• May 2013: Lord Lingfield appointed chair by minister Matt Hancock
• July 2013: The Institution for Further Education is incorporated (company number 08625268)
• June 2015: A royal charter is granted
• October 2015: The Chartered Institution for Further Education is incorporated (RC000883)
• November 2015: It opens to members
• July 2016: The first members join – Hawk Training, Blackpool The Fylde College, and Bridgwater College
• November 2016: Furness College joins
• February 2017: The inaugural admissions ceremony is attended by John Hayes (pictured above)
• May 2017: Dudley College, Steadfast training and Skills Group join
• September 2017: East Riding College joins

The Institute for Apprenticeships is losing a vital member of staff, one who was “instrumental” in setting up the organisation.

Michael Keoghan, the Institute’s deputy chief executive, will leave at the end of this month to take up a new job as chief economic adviser at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

He has been director for FE at the Department for Education for six years and worked alongside the IfA’s former boss, Peter Lauener, through its initial set-up phase.

A spokesperson for the IfA said Mr Keoghan had “laid the groundwork” for the organisation and has “ensured its successful launch in April 2017 with a talented and highly engaged team that will take on technical education in 2018”.

As first reported by FE Week in November, the IfA’s senior leadership team is now under the direction of Sir Gerry Berragan, with Antony Jenkins continuing as chair and its board now established.

“I will be very sorry to lose Mike from the Institute; his wisdom, corporate knowledge and support has been invaluable to me in my first few weeks and I know just how much he has done for the Institute and all of its staff since he created it in April,” said Sir Gerry.

“But I recognise that this new role is a high profile and exciting prospect for Mike, and I understand why he wants to seize this opportunity.”

Mr Keoghan said he couldn’t quite believe the new opportunity he has been given at BEIS.

“I joined the DTI [BEIS’ predecessor] in 1997 as an assistant economist, and I can’t quite believe that I now have the opportunity of becoming its CEA. It is probably the only role for which I would have considered leaving the Institute.”   

A spokesperson for the IfA told FE Week it would now advertise for a “slightly different” post, most likely for a chief operating officer, to fill the gap that Mr Keoghan leaves.

“His role as deputy chief executive was essential when the interim chief executive was double-hatted and could only provide limited time for the Institute,” he said.

“With Gerry as CEO now he needs a chief operating officer instead, focused on leading improvements to our delivery of both apprenticeship approvals and (in due course) technical education, and allowing him to spend more time and effort representing the Institute among external stakeholders.”

A community learning provider in Somerset that found itself at the sharp end of the adult education budget debacle has been handed a lifeline, with a vital funding meeting with the ESFA.

Somerset Skills & Learning, which teaches around 10,000 students but had its funding cut by £1 million last year, will meet officials on January 30, according to the West Somerset Free Press.

The provider, which has had to close centres and make vast redundancies as a result of the loss, claims that Somerset is the only county in England not to get a major grant in the tender and believes this was done because of an administrative error.

SS&L was at first faced with a 97-per-cent cut in September but following a campaign to lobby MPs and ministers, the ESFA made a partial U-turn on funding to providers, and the organisation was given 75 per cent of its required allocation on a “transitional” basis.

It is now hoping that the ESFA can find a way of upping its funding even more.

“We’re not sure why the SFA made those cuts,” Susie Simon-Norris, chief executive of SS&L, told the Free Press.

“We think there may have been an error in terms of the criteria they used, because we are the only county where community learning is with a community interest company.

“Somerset Skills & Learning provided opportunities for over 10,000 people in Somerset and the ESFA does appreciate this.

“Somerset is the only county in England not to get a major grant but we think there is the will there – it’s just finding a way of getting the funding back.”

SS&L was forced to put its courses on hold in August after it first received a measly £111,000 allocation despite a “successful” AEB tender – amounting to just three per cent of the £3.4 million it received in 2016/17.

But in September it was told its allocation for 2017/18 had been raised to just over £2.4 million owing to the ESFA’s rule change.

Despite the bump up, the Ofsted ‘good’-rated provider said it was still likely to close six centres and make over 50 redundancies.

UPDATE: The PAC has confirmed this hearing will start from 4pm on Monday January 15, and confirmed the witnesses will include Amanda Spielman, Andy Palmer, Peter Lauener, and Jonathan Slater

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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has today said they want to hear the views of people that “had a problem with Learndirect” or those concerned about the provision they received.

The plea from the influential group of MPs follows a National Audit Office (NAO) investigation into the circumstances surrounding the monitoring, inspection and funding of the nation’s biggest FE provider.

Written evidence will need to be submitted online to the PAC here, by midday on Tuesday 9 January 2018.

Evidence is needed quickly because, as revealed exclusively by FE Week last month, the PAC will hold an inquiry hearing on Monday 15 January to “examine the funding of Learndirect Ltd”.

The PAC says: “On 13 March 2017, after a failed attempt by Learndirect to sell its apprenticeships business, ESFA issued the company with a Notice of Serious Breach, citing falling standards in apprenticeship provision. Ofsted performed a full inspection on 20–23 March 2017 and concluded that the company’s provision was inadequate.

“Learndirect attempted to challenge the decision legally, but failed. It will receive no further ESFA funding from July 2018 onwards, but is due to make £95 million from ESFA during the 2017–18 financial year.

“As well as the cost implications, there are concerns about the number of learners affected by inadequate provision and by the possible gap following the removal of funding of Learndirect.

“We will ask representatives from the Department for Education, ESFA, Ofsted and Learndirect how provision was allowed to slip, whether the Government could have done more to save money and better monitor their contracts with Learndirect, and what will be done to ensure that the removal of funding from Learndirect does not leave apprentices and others without courses.”

As previously reported by FE Week, it is understood that witnesses to be called to the hearing will include Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, Learndirect boss Andy Palmer, former ESFA chief Peter Lauener, and the Department for Education’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater.

The NAO began their investigation after Meg Hillier MP (pictured), the chair of the PAC, referred the matter to them last September.

FE Week is known for investing in high quality investigative news and with three and a half million page views it’s been another record year.

The news team has published 811 articles since January and here are the ten most read.

1. ‘Shocked’ staff sent packing as huge apprenticeship training provider goes bust
   One of the largest apprenticeship providers in England has called in the administrators after the Skills Funding Agency terminated their contract, FE Week has learned.
2. Full Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers finally published
   Almost 75 per cent of applicants to the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers were successful, the Skills Funding Agency has revealed.
3. Over 1,600 jobs at risk after Learndirect fails bid to overturn Ofsted ‘inadequate
   The country’s largest FE provider has lost a High Court bid to quash an as-yet unpublished ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating, FE Week can reveal, leaving more than 1,600 of its staff at risk of losing their jobs.
4. Government bans major levy provider after FE Week exposé
   A major training provider claiming to have £130m of apprenticeship levy business has had its contract with the ESFA terminated, after an FE Week investigation found that one of its employees had been offering banned inducement payments to an employer.
5. National provider enters redundancy consultation with staff
   Staff at the nation’s largest FE provider are on tenterhooks, as they wait to find out whether they will still have a job at the end of a 30 day consultancy period enforced this week.
6. First official apprenticeship levy figures show a 61% fall in starts
   Total apprenticeship starts for May, June and July fell a staggering 61% compared to the same period last year.
7. Procurement paused for apprenticeships with smaller employers
   The decision over funding allocations for apprenticeship provision for non-levy-paying employers has been be paused by the government, to allow time a careful review.
8. Why the delay for Learndirect inspection report?
   Ofsted’s eagerly awaited inspection report on the nation’s largest FE provider has been delayed by six weeks, with the “silence period” before the election given as the reason.
9. Government secretly grading all colleges and training providers
   More than half of providers have been secretly rated by the Education and Skills Funding Agency as posing a potential risk, FE Week can exclusively reveal.
10. Major provider chaired by ex-SFA boss calls in administrators
    A major training provider whose chair was the first chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency has gone into administration after failing to make it onto the new Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers.

Happy New Year to all our readers, contributors and commercial partners. Thank you for all your support in 2017 and playing a part in our continued growth.