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NOCN Group taking over One Awards

NOCN Group is taking over awarding organisation One Awards, which specialises in access to higher education, FE Week can reveal.

NOCN, based in Sheffield, confirmed the takeover would go through from August 1.

It said that One Awards, which is based in County Durham, is a natural fit, as the two organisations have “successfully worked together” for over 20 years.

This follows from last year’s acquisition of Cskills Awards, which made NOCN Group a “competitive provider” of construction qualifications.

The latest takeover will “widen NOCN’s offer to the FE market to include access to higher education, regulated qualifications, functional skills and apprentice end point assessments”, said Graham Hasting-Evans, the group’s managing director (pictured above).

“I warmly welcome our new colleagues from One Awards into the NOCN Group family,” he added.

Existing learners and recognised centres will experience “no significant operational change as things carry on as usual”, he claimed.

NOCN currently runs 519 qualifications across all sectors, and employs 73 permanent staff. One Awards has 16 full-time employees and runs 102 access to higher education diplomas. Both employ additional assessors, examiners and markers.

“We have worked together for a long time and it got to the stage where we thought we would be better placed together,” said Mr Hasting-Evans. “One Awards already delivered qualifications for us in the north-east and our respective company charities had close links.

“This will make us one of the biggest awarding organisations that can offer the combination of vocational and technical qualifications, access to higher education diplomas, and apprenticeship end-point assessments.”

He said the Cskills Awards takeover had showed NOCN was “able to take on new organisations and to successfully integrate their products and services, retaining customers and building market share to the wider benefit of employers, learners, and FE providers”.

One Awards will continue to operate under the same brand, but as a subsidiary of the larger group, after August.

NOCN did not pay anything to acquire One Awards, as both organisations came to “a charitable arrangement rather than commercial” one.

“I am extremely positive about this move, which will be good for both of us,” added One Awards boss Fabienne Bailey.

Milton not budging on 20% off-the-job training rule

The 20-per-cent off-the-job training rule is the biggest barrier to apprenticeship recruitment according to an FE Week survey – but Anne Milton will not budge on it.

The contentious policy was attacked by more than a quarter of respondents to our annual survey, where we asked readers which single policy change would make the apprenticeship reforms more successful.

Despite this, the skills minister has insisted once more that it is a “protected characteristic” and won’t be changing – even at the lowest levels.

“Twenty per cent is really important, because an apprenticeship is about earning while you’re learning, so if you don’t have time off from the job you’re not learning anything,” she told FE Week at a special National Apprenticeship Week event on Monday.

Our survey, now in its third year, asked readers for their views on the changes to the apprenticeships system brought in last year – including the requirement that all apprentices must now spend 20 per cent of their working time in off-the-job training.

It doesn’t make sense to invest the same in a level two as a level six

One of the questions asked: “If you could change, remove or introduce just one policy to make the apprenticeship reforms more successful, what would it be and why?”

Of the 286 people who answered, 76 said the 20-per-cent rule needed changing or scrapping altogether – making it the most commonly cited bugbear among respondents.

Dianne Travis, director of workplace skills and guidance at Babcock Training Ltd, said the requirement for the training to be “completed within the time an apprentice is paid to work” should be changed.

“Employers in many sectors can’t afford an apprentice who is ‘non-productive’ for one day every week in order to meet this requirement,” she said.

And Louise Timperley, apprenticeship engagement manager at The Co-op, said the “blanket percentage” for off-the-job training at all levels should be reviewed.

“It doesn’t make sense to invest the same in a level two as a level six, try a phased approach,” she said.

But when FE Week put this concern to Ms Milton, she suggested that someone following a level two apprenticeship could use some of their off-the-job training time to upskill to a higher level.

“It’s disappointing if we see learning as just confined by the end-point assessment,” she said.

“For someone employing a person at level two, they must surely see the benefit of increasing the skills of that young person even if they’re not essential to the level two qualification.”

Monday’s event to mark National Apprenticeship Week was hosted by WhiteHat, an apprenticeship agency co-founded by Euan Blair, the son of Tony Blair, and Sophie Adelman.

Unlike many of our survey respondents, both saw the 20-per-cent rule as an opportunity rather than a challenge.

Campaigning against it “degrades the quality of an apprenticeship”, Ms Adelman said.

“Obviously there needs to be a level of flexibility around what it can contain but we think that people spending their time doing additional learning is not a bad thing.”

The rule has been a major bone of contention among employers since it was introduced last May, particularly smaller firms that claim they cannot afford to let apprentices spend a fifth of their time away from work.

It has had a knock-on effect for providers struggling to convince companies to take on apprentices – prompting demands for greater flexibility on the rule from the Association of Employment and Learning Providers at its autumn conference last November.

For more on FE Week’s survey, see the National Apprenticeship Week supplement included with this week’s issue.

Thirteen providers added to RoATP after appeals

Thirteen organisations, including a Welsh college and the furniture retail giant DFS, have been unexpectedly added to the register of apprenticeship training providers.

The third and most recent window of opportunity to get on to RoATP closed at the end of October, with results published in January, and it has not officially reopened since.

These newcomers have nevertheless appeared over the past week, bringing the total number of organisations on the register to 2,588.

Their sudden appearance is understood to be a result of successful appeals after places were denied at first.

Among the additions to RoATP, which is for providers which want to run apprenticeships in England, was Coleg Gwent in Wales. Its business development director Stephen Owen said the college is looking to move its apprenticeship offer to England.

We are delighted that DFS has been accepted onto RoATP

“We can confirm that we have been successful in our application to develop apprenticeship programmes in England,” he said.

“We are looking forward to working with businesses in England to develop their workforce through our apprenticeship offer.”

Of the new additions, 11 including Coleg Gwent are classed as “main” providers, while one is an “employer-provider”. They now all have direct access to ESFA funding and are in scope for Ofsted inspection.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing is another of the newcomers that falls into the main category.

DFS Trading Limited is the sole employer-provider – otherwise known as the retail company DFS Furniture. It can now train its staff directly in apprenticeships.

A spokesperson said it had been working with training providers on apprenticeship schemes in service repair, retail and manufacturing for the last three years, and the “natural step forward” was to “bring all of this in house”.

“We look forward to expanding these programmes and launching new ones in other areas of the business,” she added.

The final organisation of the 13 is Generation (UK) Limited, which is classed as a “supporting” provider.

Providers in this category cannot access funding directly. They can only subcontract from one of the main providers up to the value of £500,000 per year, and cannot be directly inspected by Ofsted.

Meanwhile, two firms, London Skills and Development Network Ltd and NLT Training, have been removed from RoATP, after they were rated ‘inadequate’ for apprenticeships by Ofsted in December.

The agency began reviewing the approvals process after the third window closed, and has confirmed the review is ongoing.

A representative claimed officials are still considering the first year of RoATP’s operation, and that further information would be provided in “due course”.

The ESFA would not say when the register would reopen. Providers not yet on the register are still able to subcontract provision from a main provider, up to the value of £100,000 a year.

The Department for Education indicated that the 13 newcomers were added because previous decisions not to include them on the list had been successfully “reviewed”.

As FE Week reported at the end of January, the number of apprenticeship providers now in scope for Ofsted inspection has more than doubled since last year.

Funding allocations for 2016/17 suggest that before the introduction of RoAPT last March, there were 837 providers in scope for inspection. That year Ofsted inspected 189 providers on their apprenticeships.

Now however, a total of 2,197 apprenticeship providers are in scope for visits from the education watchdog.

In an interview with FE Week last March, Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman admitted that both she and Paul Joyce, the inspectorate’s head of FE and skills, were “worried” about the possibility that they’d eventually have more than 2,000 providers to visit.

In January she told the education select committee that the watchdog had the “acknowledgement” from the ESFA that the “more work we had the greater resource we would need”.

More part-time apprenticeships are needed – here’s why

Apprenticeships as they stand are low-paid and inflexible, and that prices out people with care needs and children. This must change, warns Dr Carole Easton

As the government struggles to reach its target of three million apprenticeship starts, and while employers figure out how to make the most of the new levy, the needs of many potential apprentices are left out of the equation. If ever there were a time to make sure that apprenticeships are attractive to and inclusive of all groups, it is now. Providers and employers must work together to deliver high-quality, flexible, part-time apprenticeships if we are to achieve workplace gender equality.

Apprenticeships are still not working for young women. There are currently 41 men starting a construction apprenticeship for every woman. For each woman apprentice entering engineering in England there are 20 men. And when almost a third of apprentices do not complete their training, it’s clear that there’s room for improvement. Too many don’t even consider apprenticeships in the first place, put off by inflexible hours, low pay and a society that places a higher value on university education.

Developing better apprenticeships would help people from underrepresented groups get into work and training, benefiting families, businesses and the economy.

Despite the rhetoric, there is demand for part-time and flexible apprenticeships. Providers often do not think there is employer demand and employers do not think providers offer them. Meanwhile, potential apprentices have found that resources such as the government’s ‘Find an apprenticeship’ service do not allow them to search for part-time apprenticeships, and many believe they are simply not available. But those employers and potential apprentices who are in the know recognise the benefits.

There are currently 41 men starting a construction apprenticeship for every woman

YouGov research for Young Women’s Trust shows that 54 per cent of employers would be willing to offer part-time apprenticeships, including 65 per cent of those in the public sector.

This would be of huge benefit to those who need to work and train flexibly, such as parents with young children, single parents, carers, care leavers and those with disabilities. A new report written in partnership between us, Trust for London, Timewise and the Learning and Work Institute features potential apprentices discussing how frustrating it is trying to find apprenticeships that can fit around caring responsibilities and health needs.

Without part-time and flexible opportunities, these groups can be shut out of apprenticeships. Instead, many find themselves in low-skilled work with little opportunity to progress, or out of work altogether.

To make apprenticeships more accessible, the government must substantially raise the apprentice minimum wage. Low-pay limits participation – a particular concern for part-time apprenticeships. Young Women’s Trust found that two in five apprentices spend more money completing their apprenticeship than they earn, for example on travel to work, uniform and childcare. An hour’s childcare can be upwards of £4.45 – or £6 in London – considerably more even than the incoming apprentice minimum wage of £3.70.

Many are put off doing an apprenticeship altogether because it isn’t financially viable. We polled more than 4,000 young people, and discovered that their priority is not abolishing tuition fees but raising wages for young people and apprentices. Paying apprentices better would mean more people could afford to do them.

Making apprenticeships more accessible benefits businesses, too: it widens the talent pool, helping underrepresented groups in, and improves productivity.

The new apprenticeship levy offers an opportunity to finally get apprenticeships right. Creating a system that makes apprenticeships attractive and accessible to a wider range of people will bring huge benefits to society as a whole. It may even increase the overall number of people doing apprenticeships, helping the government reach its three-million target.

I hope that all the players involved in delivering apprenticeships will work together to make these changes and ensure that apprenticeships succeed in skilling people up, serving as a great alternative to a university education and contributing to improvements in social mobility for those otherwise likely to be left behind.

Dr Carole Easton is chief executive of the Young Women’s Trust

Sheffield College retains its grade three despite achievement-rate worries

Sheffield College has held onto its grade three rating following a recent Ofsted visit – despite concerns that falling standards could drag it down.

The huge college, which has suffered a string of leadership changes in recent months, was rated ‘requires improvement’ overall and in six headline measures in a report published this morning and based on an inspection in late January.

Poor achievement rates – which FE Week previously reported could have pulled the college down to a grade four – were among the main issues singled out in the report.

“The proportion of students on study programmes and adult learning programmes who achieve their qualifications is not high enough,” the report said.

In addition, students on English and maths courses are not making enough progress, while learners on level three programmes are “not rapid enough”.

“Too many students” fail to progress or complete their courses “because they do not attend lessons”, while “too many” adult learners and those on study programmes “do not arrive on time to their lessons”.

Teaching, learning and assessment at the college are “not of a consistently high standard”.

“Leaders recognise this in the college’s self-assessment report, but have been unable to secure improvements since the previous inspection”.

Governors, senior leaders and managers were criticised for being “slow to address many of the weaknesses identified at the previous inspection” and for having “insufficient focus on ensuring that students develop their English and mathematics skills” until recently.

Sheffield College lost its chief executive Paul Corcoran in November, and its governing body chair Richard Wright in January, after both stepped down with immediate effect.

Their departures came just months after Angela Foulkes took over as principal in June, replacing former principal Heather Smith who retired last summer after two years in charge.

Ms Foulkes is currently acting chief executive until a permanent replacement is found, while Seb Schmoller was appointed chair on January 18, shortly before the Ofsted visit.

“Following recent changes to personnel in the governing body and senior leadership team, they now have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the college,” inspectors conceded.

And while the college received grade threes in six headline measures, it was rated ‘good’ for both apprenticeships and provision for learners with high needs.

“Ensuring students have a consistently good learning experience so they can fulfil their potential is my top priority. We are not complacent. The college is taking swift action with a comprehensive plan to address the points raised by Ofsted,” Ms Foulkes said.

“We are absolutely determined to support Angela Foulkes and the staff of the college to improve things quickly in the areas where Ofsted has rightly said we need to do better. Our students and the communities we serve deserve nothing less than this,” Mr Schmoller added.

Sheffield College was also rated ‘requires improvement’ almost exactly two years ago – down from grade two in 2013.

It had been feared that the college could fall to ‘inadequate’ due to its declining achievement rates – although the college itself had self-assessed as a grade three.

Its 2016/17 accounts, published in January, revealed its education and training achievement rates had dropped from 77.4 per cent in 2015/16, to 76.3 per cent.

Minutes from a board meeting in October revealed this fall to have come as a surprise to college leaders: the college was recently visited by the FE commissioner for a diagnostic assessment.

These are two-day visits to colleges at risk of failing – particularly those with multiple grade threes – to identify where they need to improve.

Barnfield College could lose its apprenticeships provision

Barnfield College has been rated grade four by Ofsted for apprenticeships, which means it will lose the right to offer them under updated government rules.

An inspection report out this morning rated it ‘requires improvement’ in all other headline fields, except for adult learning programmes and provision for people with high needs, where it was ‘good’.

But the lowest possible mark for apprenticeships carries serious implications.

Providers given a grade four are taken off of the government’s register of apprenticeship training providers and won’t be able to offer the training. The rules on this were only clarified by the Education and Skills Funding Agency in January.

“The provision for apprenticeships is ‘inadequate’ and has declined in quality for the last three years,” said the report.

A total of 260 apprentices were said to follow framework programmes in eight subject areas, of which just over half study at intermediate level. Just over a third of them are aged 16 to 18.

“Assessors do not carry out assessment of apprentices prior learning to determine their starting points accurately, and ensure that they make good progress. Too many apprentices are unclear about the progress that they are making or are capable of,” inspectors warned.

“Leaders do not plan and manage provision to meet fully the principles and requirements of apprenticeships.”

Apprentices’ attendance at off-the-job learning sessions is “erratic and low”, and they do not all spend the mandated 20 per cent of their time learning away from work.

“Managers and staff have not ensured that employers engage in all aspects of the training or help monitor apprentices’ progress and enable them to excel,” the report added.

While “a few” employers have a good understanding of apprenticeship programmes and support their apprentices “sufficiently”, inspectors warned that “too few” are involved fully in reviews of apprentices’ progress and setting “meaningful targets”.

This undermines apprentices’ motivation and holds learners back with progression.

Poor progress was found, for example, in efforts to improve English, maths and ICT skills.

“Apprentices have too few timetabled opportunities to improve these skills,” inspectors said.

There may yet be a lifeline for the college, however. In early February, St Helens College was also rated ‘inadequate’ for its apprenticeship provision, but it actually received special dispensation to remain on the register.

In the same week that new rules were published outlining when and how providers would be removed from the register, the DfE admitted that it was treated differently due to its merger with Knowsley Community College that completed in December.

Merged colleges are considered ungraded by Ofsted, and are eligible to apply to the register under exceptional circumstances.

The ESFA had previously said it would “exercise its right to terminate contracts where a provider is not meeting the standards expected” – and that any provider with a grade four would be “removed from the register in due course”.

And under the new rules published on January 30, an ‘inadequate’ provider should be given five days’ notice of their removal from the register. They must not take on any new apprentices, but any existing apprentices would be able to stay on only at the employers’ discretion.

“A provider with a grade four Ofsted rating is ineligible to apply to the register and it is right that a provider is removed if they are later assessed as inadequate,” a DfE spokesperson said.

Barnfield College has two campuses in north Luton. It taught around 3,700 learners last contract year.

Today’s Ofsted report did recognise some areas of encouragement.

“Leaders’ actions to improve teaching have resulted in demonstrable progress for some groups of learners as indicated by the increased achievement rates of study programme learners during the previous year,” it said.

“The majority of learners develop good practical vocational skills, particularly in workshop sessions.”

A college spokesperson stuck to the positives.

“The report highlights many areas of good practice and key strengths including effective safeguarding of students, demonstrable progress of learners indicated by increased achievement rates and good development of learners’ practical vocational skills,” she said. “This is particularly true around our high-needs and adult provisions, which have been graded as ‘good’. The college has developed a robust action plan to address the identified areas of improvement.”

How Bletchley Park IoT could host a new generation of computer wizards

A consortium lead by Milton Keynes College has bid for £18 million-worth of funding to launch an Institute of Technology at England’s famous wartime codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park.

The group, which includes as partners Microsoft, City & Guilds and the Bletchley Park Trust, has unveiled details of the proposed Institute of Digital Technology.

As many as 1,000 learners a year will be taught in fields such as network engineering, applications development, intelligent systems, games development and cybersecurity. The plan is to restore the site’s currently derelict Block D (pictured above), an area used during World War Two as an intelligence centre to crack Nazi codes and ciphers.

The government has set aside £170 million for new institutes of technology.

It would be a marvellous addition to Alan Turing’s legacy

“It’s central to the government’s proposals for institutes of technology for the curriculum to pinpoint and meet the needs of employers,” said Dr Julie Mills, the principal of Milton Keynes College.

“At the Institute of Digital Technology at Bletchley Park, those employers will be involved in actually designing the courses studied to make certain those needs are met and hopefully exceeded.”

A procurement process ran between December and March for providers to apply for a slice of the funding, and it is expected that around 10 IoTs will be created from it.

The consortium also involves KPMG, Cranfield University, Volkswagen Financial Services and Evidence Talks.

“It’s absolutely fitting that Block D should be brought back to life for a purpose which is both educational and meeting a technology-related need of such significance to the nation,” said Sir John Turing, the nephew of the famous wartime codebreaker Alan Turing, and a member of the board of the Bletchley Park Trust.

“It would be a marvellous addition to Alan Turing’s legacy if the proposed Institute of Digital Technology were to open here. It’s exciting to think just how inspired the people who come here to learn could be, knowing in whose footsteps they will be walking.”

Derrick McCourt, the general manager of the customer success unit at Microsoft UK, added that Bletchley Park is “synonymous with the security of this nation” and there is no more appropriate place to train the “next generation of cybersecurity experts who will protect the UK from the growing threat of cyberattacks”.

While the Department for Education now trawls through individual IoT bids, one official has claimed the project’s pot is too “modest” to have a significant impact on the skills system.

Speaking at a House of Lords economic committee hearing last month, the FE commissioner Richard Atkins said that while the concept of IoTs was a “very good idea”, the “amount of funding going into them is modest and therefore I am not sure it will transform the system”.

Institutes of technology were first mooted in the productivity plan in July 2015.

Even though the DfE has repeatedly said it plans to “establish high-quality and prestigious institutions”, the only money available is a relatively small three-year wave of capital funding mainly for existing colleges.

Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ deputy chief executive, agreed with Mr Atkins at the hearing that IoTs are a “good experiment”, but said he feared “too much pressure” had been heaped on them to “revolutionise the system”.

New 20% limit for management fees in best-practice guidance

The management fees charged by prime FE providers should not be more than 20 per cent of the programme funding – and will generally be much less – after big-hitting FE representative bodies struck an agreement.

The organisations putting their name to new best-practice guidance on relationships between primes and their subcontractors are the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, the adult community education and learning organisation Holex , and provider group Collab.

“New guidance has been largely prompted by the creation of new subcontracting relationships that have resulted from the ESFA procurement exercises for the adult education budget and non-levy apprenticeship funding,” said a spokesperson for all three.

“The three sector bodies are concerned about recurring reputational issues around top-slicing, with the perception that the management fee removes funds from learners.”

Some management fees have recently even reached 40 per cent, which was infamously how much was levied in some cases by Learndirect.

Lead providers often claim the fees are needed to cover administrative costs, but many in the sector, including the education committee chair Robert Halfon, believe that too much money is being diverted from frontline learning.

“Quite rightly, everyone involved wants to maximise the proportion of funding being spent directly on training the learner, to ensure that the quality of the training and the experience of the individual learner is not negatively impacted,” the new guidance says.

“The core fee charged by the prime provider for legitimate management overheads for quality and contractual compliance aspects should be between 0 to 20 per cent, depending on what is provided and the extent of what is provided.

“The expectation is that it is capped at no greater than 20 per cent and generally will be much less.”

“Our members are both primes and subcontractors, and this guidance starts to build a clear consensus of what is expected by each partner,” said Dr Sue Pember of Holex.

“It is vital that there is transparency over costs and the student experience is at the centre of the relationship.”

“Market operations over a number of years have shown that for the range of services which can be offered by lead providers to subcontractors, and therefore need to be taken into account here, the cost of delivery is about 20 per cent or less,” added AELP boss Mark Dawe.

“Good subcontracting is important to the sector, for example in how it supports smaller providers which have been badly hit recently and may need support from lead providers, so it’s important that it is done well.

“This is not about the government dictating what is good and bad practice, it is about the sector saying what is acceptable and what isn’t.”

“A prime-subcontractor relationship should be a tangible, healthy and collaborative partnership between the client, the prime provider and an eco-system of other suppliers focused on meeting the needs of the client – the employer,” said Ian Pretty, chief executive of the Collab Group.

HMRC has also launched an investigation into subcontracting that could result in tens of millions in fees and fines after it discovered many colleges and training providers are ignoring VAT rules on management fees.

The guidance also suggests that if a potential subcontractor is considered high risk, the prime should refrain from working with it at all rather than increasing the fee.

Another key recommendation is that “prime providers should continue to publish their fees and the rationale for them on their websites”, and “make available their rationale to their subcontractors”.

The government was accused in January of double standards on transparency, after it admitted it probably wouldn’t publish its long-delayed findings on subcontracting fees in time for parliamentary inquiry hearings.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has taken over responsibility for publishing all subcontracting “management” fees.

But it “aims” to publish them by the end of March. These have not yet emerged, and even if they do, it will be four months after its own deadline.

Mr Halfon has told the DfE to redress this “deeply worrying” situation, and collect the data “immediately” so it “can be collated and we can see them”.

The DfE has been approached for comment.

Hull College Group to shed over 200 staff

Hull College Group is preparing to shed up to 231 full-time jobs in an effort to balance its books.

In a statement that appeared online yesterday, chief executive Michelle Swithenbank warned that “some difficult decisions have to be made” to regain stability amid longstanding financial troubles.

The FE commissioner reported in February last year that HCG’s finances remained precarious after the Skills Funding Agency had issued a notice of concern in November 2016.

“We need to change the way we do things which is why the Hull College Group team has been looking at new ways of working,” said Ms Swithenbank.

“As a result, a restructure is being put forward which involves a number of proposed redundancies.

“This potentially will affect up to 231 full-time equivalent posts across our sites in Goole, Harrogate and Hull, including HCUK Training.”

Anyone affected by redundancy will be offered “our full-support and guidance” throughout the process, she claimed, including interview training and counselling.

“We are also working with major stakeholders to look at redeployment opportunities for our staff,” she added.

“To strengthen and protect our unique Hull city centre, Goole and Harrogate resource, we are also making changes to our curriculum so it best meets the needs of our local communities.

“From September this year, we will offer an improved range of courses in both further and higher education, including a number of new foundation degrees.”

The FE commissioner’s report warned that HCG’s “operating performance, as measured by surplus/deficit after interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation costs has amounted to a cumulative deficit of around £10 million over the past four years”, while “a further deficit in excess of £1 million is forecast for the current year”.

The notice was issued because the SFA had rated the group ‘inadequate’ for financial health based on its 2016-to-2018 financial plan, and because it had requested exceptional financial support.

The then-senior leadership team had not addressed key issues, including the steady decline in financial performance and a loss of market share.

There was said to be concern at all levels of the organisation that it “lacks strategic vision and strong, resolute leadership and that this is frustrating and demotivating for staff”.