Chancellor announces £80m to support small businesses with apprentices

There will be an extra £80 million released to help small businesses recruit apprentices, the chancellor has announced in his spring statement to Parliament.

But it isn’t strictly new funding, a Treasury official later admitted.

“We are committed as a government to delivering three million apprenticeship starts by 2020 with the support of business through the apprenticeship levy,” said Philip Hammond.

The levy was launched last April for large employers, and concerns have been raised since about its impact on starts and that the system has become too heavily orientated towards big business and their apprenticeships needs.

It is currently paid by employers with an annual payroll of £3 million or more, and is set at 0.5 per cent of this cost.

“We recognise the challenges the new system presents to some small business looking to employ an apprentice,” Mr Hammond said.

“I can therefore announce today that the education secretary will release up to £80 million of funding to support small businesses in engaging apprentices.”

A Treasury spokesperson however explained afterwards that this is “not new funding”.

“It is not a new funding announcement. There were no new funding announcements in the spring statement,” he said.

“It is from the existing DfE apprenticeship budget. I guess today will be the first time it has been publically announced in terms of where the money will be allocated, but it is funding that is awarded to providers to deliver training to businesses that don’t pay the apprenticeship levy.”

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has just received the first round of growth-request bids for non-levy apprenticeship funding, from those providers that were successful in the recent tender for contracts in this area.

The Treasury has confirmed that the chancellor’s £80 million is in addition to £485 million in non-levy funding that has been already allocated.

It has not so far said whether this ultimately amounts to extra funding on top of the total £650 million previously allocated for non-levy funding until April 2019.

It is more likely to be funding from within the £650 million pot, and the amount is similar to that allocated to providers during the last round of growth requests that closed for submissions last Tuesday.

This appeared to be confirmed subsequently by Viscount Younger.

“The government has awarded £490m to providers across the country to deliver apprenticeship training for smaller businesses from January 2018 to April 2019. And today we have announced that in April we will be making available an additional £80m for starts with SMEs and that, my lords, will support an extra up to 40,000 apprenticeships,” he told fellow peers this afternoon.

It is thought then that this would leave just £85 million left to allocate in the second and third growth rounds, the results of which are to be revealed in July and November respectively.

Mark Dawe, who leads the Association of Employment and Learning providers, said: “While any growth funding is very welcome, until the government remove the 10 per cent employer contribution for under 24 apprentices and commit to an annual non-levy budget of £1bn, the apprenticeship starts are not even going to reach the level they were before the levy was introduced – let alone exceed them.”

This all follows the controversial recent tender for non-apprenticeship levy contracts. A total of 714 training providers won contracts in the £650-million process – nearly a third of which did not have an apprenticeships allocation the previous year.

Apprenticeships minister Anne Milton recently apologised after the aborted first attempt and delays to the second, before the results were finally released in December by the ESFA.

Mr Hammond also mentioned the launch of a new national retraining partnership.

“Last week the education secretary and I chaired the first meeting of the national retraining partnership between the government, the Trade Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry,” he said.

“I can reassure the house there was a clear and shared commitment to training to prepare the British people for a better future ahead.

“Next month our £29 million construction skills fund will open for bids to fund up to 20 construction skills villages around the country.

“As our economy changes we must ensure people have the skills they need to seize the opportunities ahead.”

 

Government cashes in on levy brokerage

Providers training apprentices for the civil service will be subject to a controversial new brokerage charge from the top tier of government which will recoup millions of pounds.

Candidates to train government apprentices were told to register with the Crown Commercial Service, and a group of 16 were chosen.

These were given access to at least £360 million, generated through the public sector’s own apprenticeship levy payments.

They have now been told that CCS, which is a government agency representing the Cabinet Office, will retain a one-per-cent “management fee” on any apprenticeships that are delivered, allowing the government to retain around £3.6 million.

“The public sector seems to have been given permission to charge for permission to access frameworks,” said AELP boss Mark Dawe, who pointed to the NHS as another public sector body guilty of trying to retain apprenticeships cash.

The public sector seems to have been given permission to charge for permission to access frameworks

“We have raised this with the Education and Skills Funding Agency, and they said it is allowed, but it can’t be paid out of levy funds. Yet this is questionable, because for some providers, all their income comes from apprenticeships and the levy.

“I’m worried that this is setting a bad example to other private companies that would like to do the same thing.”

The government boasted last year that six out of the 16 providers appointed to the CCS “framework” are small- and medium-sized enterprises.

A spokesperson for one of the civil service-providers, which asked to remain anonymous, said the fees would harm smaller providers.

“It doesn’t seem fair that the government is now clawing back some of its own levy money through what amounts to brokerage fees, in many cases on smaller providers that will struggle to afford it,” they said. “Yet it has made it clear it doesn’t think others should do this.”

Other bodies from across the public sector, including local councils and NHS trusts, have also been invited to use the CCS providers for their apprenticeship provision.

Mark Dawe

But FE Week found two examples last year in which the health service attempted to charge providers around one per cent of the value of their contracts, in their own competing brokerage schemes.

The NHS apprenticeship levy pot is estimated to be worth around £200 million per year nationally, which means one-per-cent brokerage charges could reach up to £2 million across the country.

Nottingham city council was exposed along similar lines last summer.

It was tendering for apprenticeship providers to join its directory – a list that it intended to share with other public-sector employers across England.

Any business transacted through the directory was subject to a one-per-cent management fee.

Mr Dawe is adamant that public sector bodies should be prevented from these charges: “We don’t believe this should be allowed practice.”

We don’t believe this should be allowed practice

The government changed its rules in 2017 to state that “funds in an employer’s digital account or government-employer co-investment must not be used for… specific services not related to the delivery and administration of the apprenticeship”.

FE Week’s understanding from subsequent conversations with the ESFA is that such charges are permitted if they aren’t included in the negotiated levy price, though brokerage fees nevertheless remain a controversial topic.

“The charge by the CCS is considered to be a management fee and cannot be funded from the apprenticeship budget,” said an ESFA spokesperson.

“Apprenticeship funding rules mean that levy funds must be spent on meeting the costs of training and assessments.”

Should college principals be involved in governance?

Dr Sue Pember, director of policy and external relations at Holex, answers your questions on college governance, backed by her experience as principal of Canterbury College and in senior civil service posts in education and skills

Question One: Supporting the chair

My principal seems to think he should not be involved in the running of the governing body and it is all down to me and the clerk. Is that appropriate?

Answer: This view does seem to be taking hold, but it doesn’t help the management of the college. Successful governance should be a matter for the principal as well as the chair, as it has an impact on the effectiveness of the college as a whole.

The roles of the principal and the chair both embrace leadership and management responsibilities but have their boundaries.

The chair should lead the governing body and manage its business, while providing an element of strategic leadership for the whole college. The principal should provide assistance to the chair in relation to board matters, while focusing primarily on the leadership and management of the college.

For board meetings to run smoothly, you need good chairing and clerking, and first-class advice and underpinning information from the principal. This doesn’t mean a cosy relationship, but one of professionalism and challenge.

 

Question Two: An awkward situation

I’m a governor in an awkward situation where I am a confidante to both the chair and principal. The two don’t get on and it is affecting the way the board runs. How can I get them back on track?

Answer: This should not be just your problem, and you should not have to shoulder the responsibility alone. It is really important for you to talk to the clerk and vice-chair, and agree the next steps.

The first step would be for you and the vice-chair to talk to the chair or principal to uncover their issues and explain that you think it is affecting the way the board is working.

Explain it is vital that they present a solid, united public front. If in these conversations the chair highlights issues of performance, then they should be investigated properly. However, if it is just a breakdown of their working relationship, and the principal’s performance is sound, you may need to suggest the chair stands down.

Either way it needs to be tackled before it upsets the effective running of the college.

 

Question Three: Prevent, safeguarding and governors

How do we know we are doing enough on Prevent and safeguarding? We have all gone through training, we have relevant policies, and we monitor how they are being implemented. Can we be doing more?

Answer: I can understand why you ask this question because these responsibilities are wide-ranging.

It is important that you are clear on your duties and how robust your monitoring is. These are areas where you should use data about reported incidents and monitor how they were tackled.

Your policies need to account for where your students are studying and what is needed at any off-campus sites. Several colleges now they have risk assessments in which the action is proportionate to the risk.

For example, if some of your provision is delivered in an open-access situation, have you assessed the risk for that context, and is mitigation action appropriate? It doesn’t mean you necessarily have to, say, fit gates and barriers, but it may mean that ID cards come into play and staff are all trained for emergencies.

95% of apprenticeships agreed at full cap price, despite negotiation ‘experiment’

The government should drop its “experiment” with negotiated apprenticeship prices, after it emerged that almost every single one is currently being agreed at full cost, the boss of the Association and Learning Providers has said.  

Mark Dawe wants “fixed pricing” for all apprenticeships, both for the new employer-designed standards and for the older frameworks.

Every apprenticeship standard and framework is allocated a funding band of between £3,000 and £27,000.

Mark Dawe

This represents the maximum government or levy funding an apprenticeship can attract, and employers are currently expected to negotiate with providers on the price.

Providers have however been kicking against this, warning it could force a fall in training standards if rolled out widely.

“Isn’t it time, faced with evidence that over 95 per cent of apprenticeships are agreed at full cap, that the government admits they were wrong, drop the negotiated price experiment and join the rest of us in saying cut-price apprenticeships do not deliver a quality outcome for the apprentice or the employer?” said Mr Dawe in an online bulletin to members.

It is thought the 95-per-cent figure would have come from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, although this was not confirmed by them or the AELP ahead of publication.

Neil Carberry from the Confederation of British Industry took the opposite side, on the basis that he considers it “price-fixing”.

“The basis of the government’s apprenticeship reforms is to create an employer-driven market for apprenticeship provision, with businesses purchasing the training that is right for them and their staff”, he said.

Neil Carberry

“The CBI supports this change and does not agree with a return to government fixed pricing.”

The Department for Education announced recently that it would review the “effectiveness” of the current band structure.

This would “include considering funding band structures” and any changes will apply to new starts from August 2018.

“When we moved to 15 funding bands, we expected to see employers and providers negotiating on price below the funding band upper limit,” it said.

“However, this hasn’t materialised across all of the market, with many employers telling us that they do not feel able to negotiate with providers.

“We are therefore considering changes to incentivise negotiation and drive better value for money.”

This caused widespread bemusement from providers.

For example Paul Freeman, director of education and talent at GK Apprenticeships, which delivers digital apprenticeships to both levy- and non-levy-paying employers, said that none of the 80 to 100 employers with which he works had challenged the cost.

“Claiming that employers are ‘not comfortable’ on negotiating a lower price is simply insulting to employers,” said Mr Dawe.

“The overwhelming evidence is that employers want to talk about how they can maximise programme content and the quality of service at the cap rather than try and lower the price.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “We support employers to negotiate the price of apprenticeship training to ensure value for money.”

The National Retraining Scheme ‘should not be run by employers’

Employers should not be handed the keys to the National Retraining Scheme if the government is serious about supporting the millions of older people who need it most, according to a former senior skills civil servant.

Instead, the new initiative should focus on the skills needs of people rather than those of employers, insists Dr Sue Pember, who has worked with 10 skills ministers and eight education secretaries.

In her report on the scheme, written on behalf of NCFE and the Campaign for Learning, Dr Pember warned that if it were employer-led, the priority would be to “assist employers to retrain their employees in new roles and occupations rather than make them redundant”.

Only an adult focussed National Retraining Scheme can meet the needs of all adults

The “problem with such a limited definition” is that it will “miss millions of adults” who are not employees, such as workers on zero-hour contracts, and agency and temporary staff, as well as “the growing ranks of the self-employed and the redundant or unemployed”.

She stressed that a “key component should be an earnings reimbursement fund for self-employed workers – perhaps loan-based – to cover some of the costs associated with loss of earnings on training days undertaken by the self-employed”.

Plans to launch the NRS were unveiled in the autumn budget, when chancellor Philip Hammond earmarked £64 million for pilots.

A total of £30 million was to be invested in the scheme to test the use of artificial intelligence and innovative education technology in online digital skills courses.

Meanwhile, £34 million was pledged to expand “innovative” construction training programmes, to train people for jobs such as ground-workers, bricklayers, roofers and plasterers.

The industrial strategy published soon after contained plans for a “national retraining partnership”, which met for the first time on March 5 to begin developing the “historic” NRS.

Made up of top government officials including Mr Hammond and education secretary Damian Hinds, as well as the Confederation for British Industry and the TUC, the primary goal of the body is to improve and spread adult learning and retraining.

But in her report, entitled ‘Shaping the new National Retraining Scheme’, Dr Pember warned there is still a sense that it is “promoting the NRS in public whilst trying to work out what the scheme actually is”.

READ MORE: Government joins unions and industry to thrash out a ‘National Retraining Scheme’

She recognised the “commitment that the scheme will be in place by the end of this parliament”, but warned the “clock is ticking”.

She also recommended that an NRS should be part of a wider lifelong-learning strategy that “supports solutions to many of our social and productivity issues, sets the framework for local strategies and brings clarity to all existing programmes and infrastructure”.

“A national entitlement to a fully-funded full level two qualification for all adults should be introduced irrespective of age or labour market status,” she added.

Adult learner loans covering the cost of fees at levels three to six should be replaced with an entitlement to fully-funded provision for “priority qualifications and subject areas”.

She also wants the government to “make an urgent decision” on how to replace European social funding after Brexit.

The ESF is cash that the UK receives, as a member state of the EU, to increase job opportunities and help people to improve their skill levels, particularly those who find it difficult to get work.

The current funding round, which runs from 2014 to 2020, is thought to be worth about £2.3 billion across England.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is crucial we get this right – that is why we continue to work closely with key groups including the Confederation of British Industry and Trade Union Congress so the scheme is spot on for both learners and employers.”

England goalkeeper visits football fans at Newcastle college

An England goalkeeper has visited football fans at Newcastle-under-Lyme College’s Knutton Lane campus.

Stoke City’s main man Jack Butland was given a tour of the college’s sporting facilities and even took part in a training session with learners at the college’s Andy Griffin Football Academy.

To round off his trip, Mr Butland took part in a Q&A session with 120 football fans from the college. Questions included “who is the best striker you’ve ever played against?”, “what has been the best Stoke City performance this season?” and “how do you prepare for big games?”

“It was fantastic for so many of our students to have the opportunity to meet a top-class sportsman who competes at the highest level,” said Karen Dobson, principal and CEO of Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group. “Jack is a fantastic role model and someone who will no doubt provide inspiration to many of our elite sporting students who aspire to follow in his footsteps.”

What the FE sector should be saying about Progress 8

Colleges and providers are in agreement: school league tables are a terrible way to measure FE learners’ progress. Sam Parrett proposes a solution

I recently wrote an article arguing that colleges should not be judged by the government’s new-style Progress 8 league tables.

The response I received from colleagues, local authorities and wider stakeholders was overwhelmingly supportive and has made me wonder exactly what the sector should be pushing the DfE for, to ensure that FE can continue to offer life-changing educational options for young people.

League tables are only a very small part of a much bigger story, but they have huge influence on parents and young people making choices about post-11 and post-16 education.

The result of the new academically-focused Progress 8 tables is a damaged reputation for many very good institutions, which are in reality seeing their students achieve much success outside of this narrow framework.

An FE college which has given these young people a realistic chance of achieving in life should not have to bear the weight of another school’s failure

In the case of 14-to-16 provision in FE, students arrive in year 10 or 11, often having being failed by school for the previous three or four years. Turning this around, particularly in key academic subjects like maths and English, is evidently a tall order for colleges in just one or two years.

Yet what these students are achieving in this short time cannot be fairly reflected by exam results. They are building confidence, learning employability skills, understanding the world of work, and gaining sector-specific technical skills and vocational qualifications – the list goes on.

An FE college which has given these young people a realistic chance of achieving in life should not have to bear the weight of another school’s failure. Many schools will happily let students move on at 14 if they know that these students are unlikely to achieve their five A-Cs by the end of year 11. They will on the other hand be very reticent to lose students who are expected to make the grade – even if these students would be better off in a more practical environment.

Schools must take responsibility for the students they have taught for the majority of their secondary education. FE colleges shouldn’t have to carry the bad data for schools; it needs to be shared, with the student’s individual needs put first.

I have no doubt that schools would be more willing to work in partnership if they knew they would bear some of the responsibility if students fail to progress. We have had students who moved to do their GCSEs with us, then went back to school to do A-levels. It is vital that all routes, in both directions, are accessible and supported.

The Baker clause is a very positive move but it needs to be embraced and enforced. Schools can’t be allowed to let one provider in once a year to talk about alternative educational options. The DfE needs to support transition at a non-standard age, ensuring that local authorities communicate and promote all the available options in the area.

Funding across schools and colleges should be standardised for all ages and no college should be financially penalised for taking on pupils that schools are not interested in. There also needs to be recognition that offering high-quality vocational training, with industry-standard facilities and experts, can be more costly than a classroom-based setting.

We need an agreement on outcomes as to what really does reflect “success”. It is not a level playing-field and we need recognition that progression and progress into fulfilling work is the best marker of all. This means removing FE colleges from the school league tables and creating a new set of measures that reflect career-focused achievement and not only the ability to pass an exam.

An integrated framework is needed, which requires true partnership. Young people need to be put first and made fully aware of the many exciting options open to them. We must accept that traditional school isn’t for everyone – and when that’s the case, make sure that children know about and can access the many different routes to success.

Sam Parrett is principal and CEO of London South East Colleges

Puppy named Jeffrey joins college as a therapy dog

A 12-week-old cockapoo is the newest recruit at Leeds City College.

The puppy, named Jeffrey, will frequent the college’s schools of health sciences, childhood and education and public services as a therapy animal for stressed-out students.

As well as serving the needs of the college community, Jeffrey will attend puppy training sessions on a weekly basis to become an accredited therapy dog, and the college plans to take him to nearby schools and care settings to help others once he has qualified.

“Studies suggest that pets play an effective role in supporting the young and elderly and we’ll be conducting research into the impact Jeffrey has on our most vulnerable students and their achievement levels, especially those with autism and additional needs,” explained Sheila Lucciarini, head of childcare and public services at the college. “It’s not uncommon to watch someone transition from emotionless to joyful when a pet enters the room.”

Leeds City College will be documenting Jeffrey’s progress and activity on a blog, which will be published soon.

Creative media students are the first to broadcast on new national radio station

Stoke-on-Trent College learners have made the first-ever broadcast on a new national radio station.

The team of creative media students brought their show to National College Radio on its launch day, which included a Q&A with their lecturer about his career, a movie review segment and a fast-request challenge featuring 21 song requests in 19 minutes.

The students prerecorded their show in the comfort of the college’s studio, planning, recording and editing it, before sending it to NCR’s programme controller.

The station broadcasts content made online by 15- to 18-year-olds at colleges and sixth-forms across the UK, and the Stoke-on-Trent team has now been offered a regular monthly slot.

“We’re extremely proud of all the students, who have really risen to the challenge, meeting all deadlines and submitting good, well-planned and professional-standard content,” said Lee Beddow, the programme leader for creative media at the college. “It’s a real coup for our students to be selected as the first broadcast.”