Nadhim Zahawi MP, former apprenticeship adviser to the PM, joins the DfE as a minister, mostly likely for childcare.
But as FE Week goes to press, two days after the junior minister reshuffle, the Department for Education is unable to confirm whether Milton or Zahawi will be responsible for apprenticeship and skills policy.
Individual ministerial briefs are determined by the new Secretary of State, and Damian Hinds appears in no rush to decide.
In all likelihood Milton will retain responsibility for apprenticeship and skills policy, which would be welcomed.
The apprenticeship levy is in full swing and T-Level plans cannot afford further delay.
So experience and continuity of leadership is what’s needed at this pivotal moment in the perpetual FE reform cycle.
Training providers are flooding the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training website with hundreds of locations they have no permanent presence in, to get around a search function that only allows employers to filter geographically.
FE Week found one provider listing itself as having nearly 400 different sites from where it can deliver training, most of which are residential homes.
This tactic, which has been sanctioned by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, optimises providers’ search rankings to appear near the top for apprenticeships around these areas, as the site restricts searches by location.
Click to enlarge: The British Institute of Recruiters dominates a page of Find Apprenticeship Training
One of the most high-profile examples is that of Lifetime Training, a provider with a giant £37.2 million allocation to deliver training this year, which plotted itself 189 times for the business and administration level two standard.
The provider’s boss, Alex Khan (pictured), who was awarded an MBE in the New Year honours list, explained this was the “purest way” of getting across that his organisation is a “national provider” on the government site.
He inputs the home postcodes of tutors he employs to deliver work-based learning so that any employer or apprentice looking for a provider in their area is aware that Lifetime Training can train them.
“We worked with the ESFA on this one,” he told FE Week. “When you do a search, it does it on a geographical radius from the point of where the potential learner or employer is.
“The most logical way of doing this for us, because most of our training delivery is done on site, is that we utilise the locations of our trainers.
“So if you put Birmingham and we have a whole bunch of trainers in that particular area, it would show we have a presence.
“There is nothing sinister about this but we need to demonstrate we have the national coverage. We can do everything everywhere and therefore we should feature to actually have the capabilities.”
The most logical way of doing this for us… is that we utilise the locations of our trainers
He admitted that it doesn’t seem like the “most sophisticated way of doing it” but that it is “pure”.
The Department for Education told FE Week that it doesn’t mind if providers use Find Apprenticeship Training like this, as an organisation that offers an apprenticeship doesn’t need a permanent site, as long as it actually delivers in an area.
“Organisations listed on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers are eligible to use Find Apprenticeship Training to promote their apprenticeship offer, and are responsible for keeping their information on the course directory up to date,” said a spokesperson.
Other providers employing this tactic admitted they had similar motivations.
“We approached the directory by listing postcodes in areas our tutors are based, to ensure our provision comes up in searches where we nationally deliver,” said Azmat Mohammed, director of the British Institute of Recruiters, which bombarded the government site with 372 different postcodes, mostly around London, for the level three recruitment apprenticeship standard.
And at the business and administration level two standard, Professional Training Solutions listed itself over 150 times, while CQM Training & Consultancy inputted nearly 100 different locations.
“CQM Training & Consultancy Ltd is a national award-winning provider which delivers tailored business improvement programmes mainly on employers’ premises,” said Andrew Cheshire, its managing director.
“It is important that we reflect our ability to deliver nationally on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training website and we are proud to offer our successful programmes anywhere in England.”
A lifelong left-winger who has dedicated his life to adult education, meeting Yasser Arafat and the Sandinistas on the way, Sir Alan Tuckett was knighted in the recent new year’s honours list. He spoke to FE on his work in a sector that’s badly understood by the politicians who pay for it.
Adult education guru Sir Alan Tuckett, who was knighted in this year’s honours, is best known for spearheading the growth of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education – now Learning and Work Institute – spending 23 years at its helm.
What is less well known is that in pursuit of his cause, he worked with world leaders such as Yasser Arafat and Daniel Ortega, and even had the American beat poet Allen Ginsburg sleep in his bed (Sir Alan took the sofa…).
With Yasser Arafat and women’s literacy organiser Sahar Ghosheh, Gaza 1995
He’s been president of the International Council for Adult Education, advised UNESCO, founded charities, sat on a myriad of boards, authored hundreds of academic papers and held visiting professorships all over the world.
And if the characters that colour his stories reveal his political inclinations as being firmly on the left, his approach to politics is pragmatic. As chief executive of NIACE – a charity founded in 1921 – he positioned the organisation as “critical friends” of government: “We’d win contracts, but they recognised that we could, and would, be publicly critical on behalf of the interests of adult learners and the providers who provided for them.”
He has never shied away from public action. He made waves early in his career by organising a highly successful seven-day “teach-in” to protest adult education funding cuts in Brighton, capturing the media’s attention with celebrity visits and quirky classes, such as having a group of pensioners “painting the night away”. But he was heavily influenced during his eight years as principal of the Brighton Friends Centre, a Quaker adult education hub, by the group’s emphasis on dialogue and consensus-building for conflict resolution, principles he took with him throughout his career.
We’d always tell the government how we were going to fight them: privately, in advance
“We’d always tell the government how we were going to fight them: privately, in advance,” he says of his tenure at NIACE. “And if it was really inconvenient, like they’ve got some major policy coming out on Thursday, we were interested in the long run, not the immediate run. So we’d put it off for a week.”
Sir Alan sees community action as a “form of commitment to critical democracy”, and can find no reason to stop challenging a government that has showered him with accolades – first an OBE in 1995 and now a far higher honour. Quite the contrary: “Any recognition gives you the chance to make the case for saying ’it’s not good enough currently’.”
And that’s exactly what this doyen of adult education, who has spent his life making a fuss about the “invisibility” of the FE sector to politicians, is saying.
“I think we’ve had an almost entirely inappropriate industrial strategy in Britain,” he explains, adding that successive governments, inspired by the OECD’s love affair with the idea of “human capital”, have tried, wrong-headedly, to engage in a form of planning that links training directly to gaps in the labour market.
“From 2003 you get an increasingly narrow Gradgrind utilitarianism where there’s a crude link between what the government will pay for and what the outcomes are,” he says.
But this kind of top-down approach can lead to perverse consequences, he claims, drawing parallels between Train2Gain, “which included ludicrous things like paying Tesco for the induction training they were already doing so they would hit their targets”, with present-day criticisms about the levy apprenticeship system “validating things people can already do”.
And as white-collar jobs risk being wiped out “faster than blue-collar jobs went, with globalisation’s impact on manufacturing”, training must be “expansive” rather than “restrictive” and adults must be empowered to take control of their own learning.
“If you’re able to exercise your creativity you feel more agency, ownership and possibility – and you take that wherever else you go.”
Keeping learning is one of the ways of keeping out of being a burden on the state through the health service
He contrasts this with the government’s “incredible short-termism” and lambasts the former education minister Alan Johnson’s decision not to fund qualifications at the same level or lower than those already held: “People displaced by industrial change need more imaginative public policies than that.”
He is outraged that colleges have had their funding slashed in recent years while university budgets have boomed. But that’s not all; once upon a time, universities were funded to provide educational outreach in the community – a funding stream that ended in 1992. The Brighton Friends Centre was in fact an “extramural” post for the University of Sussex, from which Sir Alan was able to launch a pioneering adult literacy campaign at a time of general skepticism about the existence of adult illiteracy, creating resources that were initially reported to the local MP as “biased” for addressing themes such as squatting, but which were later lauded by government and distributed nationwide.
After Brighton, Sir Alan moved to London in 1981, as principal of Clapham-Battersea Adult Education Institute, where he stayed for seven years and, towards the end of his tenure, campaigned hard (this time, unsuccessfully) to save its parent organisation, the Inner London Education Authority.
ILEA would offer classes in “more or less anything you can think of” for “risible” fees (£1 a year for unlimited classes for pensioners) and had dramatically higher levels of participation than anywhere else in the country. Its dissolution in 1990 was a huge hit for adult education in the capital, and for society in general, he reckons.
“We’re an ageing society,” he points out. “Keeping learning is one of the ways of keeping out of being a burden on the state through the health service.”
Linked to the GLC, ILEA was likely closed, he jokes, in retaliation for its public support for the miners’ strikes. While working there, he was elected president of the International League for Social Commitment in Adult Education, leading to collaborations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and its leader Arafat – who was “really committed to education” – in Tunisia and Gaza, as well as a visit to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua for one of their legendary adult literacy campaigns.
NIACE, which Sir Alan joined as chief executive in 1988, has an impressive history of its own, spawning respected cultural institutions such as the British Film Institute and the Arts Council. One of its lesser-known inventions was the army’s bureau of current affairs, organised by his predecessor W.E. Williams during WWII, where soldiers would have an hour of discussing contemporary issues “on the basis that if you’re fighting for democracy you ought to know what it’s all about”.
Adult Learners’ Week was really the first national festival focused on adults
As he tells this story, it’s clear why Sir Alan took the role at NIACE – it’s precisely this kind of creative approach to education that gets him excited, and to which he has dedicated his life.
Absolutely committed to “social justice and a world in which everybody can live with dignity and fulfil themselves”, and determined to get the media and policy makers to sit up and take notice, Sir
Alan threw his energies at NIACE into developing research capacity to demonstrate the “difference adult learning makes”. From 18 employees when he first arrived, he grew the Leicester-based organisation to 300 at its peak.
Adult Learners’ Week was Sir Alan’s major legacy project. Started in 1992 with the aim of showcasing adults learners’ stories, the concept was adopted by UNESCO and spread to 55 countries.
Now renamed the Festival of Learning and run by NIACE’s successor organisation, the Learning and Work Institute, he’s disappointed at the loss of a unique adult focus: “Learning means lots of different things; Adult Learners’ Week was really the first national festival focused on adults.”
The rebranding of NIACE is another move that has left him perplexed. He was five years gone from the top job there when it merged with the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion to form LWI in 2016, but this didn’t stop him from arguing against the name change at the AGM.
“If I were running it, I would resuscitate Inclusion and NIACE as sub-brands,” he says. That way, “they’d be more visible, and the focus on adults wouldn’t be at risk”. But if throwing away “90 years of brand recognition” seems nonsensical to him, he’s keen to note his admiration for LWI’s work under the leadership of Stephen Evans.
On leaving NIACE in 2011, Sir Alan couldn’t resist another chance to work internationally and accepted the presidency of the International Council for Adult Education, leading to collaborations “with brilliant colleagues in India, Latin America and Iran” on the UN sustainable development goals. He’s still dodging retirement, with a job-share FE professorship at Wolverhampton University.
As I leave, I pass a replica medieval helmet on one of his living room chairs, which turns out not to be a costume left by a grandchild (he and his wife Toni Fazaeli – another FE veteran – have six between them), but rather a joke gift from his brother-in-law making light of his knighthood.
His own approach to his new title is similarly low-key.
“The recognition is for the sector,” he insists. “They don’t have the policies in place but I like to think it’s a tiny green shoot of change.”
It’s a personal thing
What are you most looking forward to when you retire?
I’m looking forward to more time on the allotment, where I’m incompetent – I like being the least competent person.
What’s your biggest regret?
That I never persuaded anyone to fund adult education properly!
Where would you escape to for a month?
Coogee in Sydney, Australia – I worked there once and would swim across the bay and back in the morning before starting my day.
Favourite thing about living in Leicester
Its cultural and human diversity, although once upon a time I would also have said the Leicester Tigers.
Who was the worst education secretary in your career?
John Patten: combining self-regard with inadequacy, he was even worse than Thatcher or Gove.
What did your parents do?
Dad was in the forces, so I grew up all over the place. Mum was a domestic servant before the war – so she used to tell me not to argue with anybody or I’d lose my job!
A crack team of seven top principals has been chosen by the FE commissioner to advise government officials on skills policy, FE Week can reveal.
The seven, who make up Richard Atkins’ principals’ reference group, will be used as a sounding board for officials on topics including the development of T-levels.
Speaking exclusively to FE Week, Mr Atkins said he was “very anxious” that Department for Education officials – many of whom are new to working in FE – “get to meet some of the outstanding principals” in the sector.
“It’s very important that all these new colleagues consult with the sector,” he said.
“There are lots of ways of doing that, but one is to get a group of some of our most experienced and successful leaders to give feedback on policy development on a whole range of things that involve colleges.”
The group, who aren’t paid for the role, will have “four to six meetings a year, here at the department”.
These meetings will be “partly to hold me and my team to account, and partly for them to be consulted by officials in the department on policy”.
The first of these is planned for later this month, and will include “a discussion around T-levels, with the team here that are developing them,” he said – while apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton is due to attend the second meeting.
“I want Anne to celebrate the fact that we’re bringing the group together and we’re going to use the group to consult with,” Mr Atkins said.
Each of the seven – five of whom oversee ‘outstanding’ colleges, and two who lead ‘good’ colleges – underwent a rigorous selection process before being chosen.
Shortlisted candidates – selected from the “20 or 30” principals who applied – had to complete a case study based on “a college with problems” and how they would deal with them, followed by a panel interview.
As well as “gender mix and the geography mix”, Mr Atkins said he was particularly interested in principals that had “improved colleges” rather than those who’d “inherited an ‘outstanding’ college, because it’s quite hard to go further”.
“I’m really pleased with the group I’ve got. I think I’ve got some really good principals there,” he said.
Appointment of the reference group comes alongside a move by the commissioner to double his team of deputies, as part of his drive to slash the number of colleges at grades three or four.
The four new recruits – who include two principals who will retire from their colleges later this year – mean Mr Atkins now has eight deputies who will help him to carry out “diagnostic assessments” at colleges at risk of failing.
National Leaders of FE assemble
Richard Atkins’ army of National Leaders of FE is starting to take shape, as the first seven recruits are announced.
The aim of the programme, first announced in October, is to use the expertise from successful colleges to support struggling institutions.
Richard Atkins, FE commissioner
It’s a “developing piece of work”, according to the FE commissioner, and seven college leaders have been appointed so far out of a target of 20.
The group is distinct from the principals’ reference group – although there is some overlap in terms of membership, as “some members of the steering group applied to do both, they wanted to do both”, he said.
“We want these colleges to be the ones that will help grade three colleges – or possibly grade four – to improve.”
Each national leader is expected to support “a number of colleges that require help to improve”.
But it’s not just the principal who will be involved.
“What these colleges have signed up to is that they and their management teams are ready and willing to go out and help,” he said.
“What I found as a principal at Exeter was that people didn’t want me for long – they usually wanted my head of MIS or my head of teaching and learning.”
A college that needs to improve – perhaps having had a diagnostic assessment – would be put in touch with their nearest NLFE by Mr Atkins and his team.
For example, for a college in the north-east “we might say, I’m going to ring Lindsey Whiterod [Tyne Coast College principal] and introduce you, and we’re going to ask her to come over and talk to you to see if we can establish a partnership,” he said.
This cash can be used to develop an improvement programme and a tailored package of support – which can also include the costs of the lead college.
NLFE colleges will get a “very small stipend” of around £10,000 a year for expenses “to spark off the initial engagement”, Mr Atkins said – but not enough to cover all their costs.
A bid to the improvement fund is “one of the ways they would recover their costs”, he said.
Could the FE commissioner be coming to your college?
The latest weapon Richard Atkins’ college improvement armoury could see him and his team visit up to 60 colleges to carry out “diagnostic assessments”.
These involve two-day visits to colleges at risk of failing – particularly those that have received multiple grade threes in a row – for what he describes as “amazing free consultancy” from his team.
So far 40 per cent of the pilot assessments have either caused colleges to enter full intervention, or siy at risk of doing so.
Mr Atkins estimated there are “about 60 colleges that could benefit” from one of the assessments, although “they won’t all be urgently in need of intervention or failing”.
Every college he has visited so far has been positive about the process – although “chairs tend to be keener than principals”, he said.
“I’m hoping the majority say ‘we know what the issues are, this is what we’re doing and they’re all going to dealt with’,” he said – but some “will need to take pretty urgent action”.
> MPs demand answers over ESFA approving sale of Learndirect Apprenticeships in 2016
> PAC inquiry to quiz Ofsted on decision to delay inspection month before sale collapsed
MPs furious at the long-running Learndirect debacle are asking the public accounts committee to find out why the government supported the sale of the provider’s apprenticeships business, consequently delaying its Ofsted inspection.
Labour’s shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden and Wes Streeting, the MP for Ilford and a former president of the National Union of Students, are demanding answers after FE Week uncovered new information about the failed sale to Global University Systems, of which they claimed “something isn’t passing the smell test”.
The global teaching company began negotiations to buy Learndirect Apprenticeships (LDA) nearly two years ago.
The timing of this deal, which eventually fell through in December 2016, was significant because it was used as a reason to delay an Ofsted inspection that had been scheduled for November 4 that year, as was revealed in a recent National Audit Office report, and a situation the Commons public accounts committee of which has been highly critical.
I think there are serious questions to be answered by the Education Secretary, the ESFA and Ofsted about their dealings with Learndirect Ltd, LDA and GUS
To push the deal through, then-education secretary Justine Greening had to agree to transfer delivery of apprenticeships funding from Learndirect Ltd to Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, which would subsequently end in a sale to GUS.
Ms Greening did sign off on this, but FE Week has learned she might have had to curve EU procurement rules to do so.
A letter sent to Learndirect on October 4, 2016, signed by former ESFA boss Peter Lauener on behalf of Ms Greening, said: “Please note, if requested in the future, the SFA is unlikely to agree to the transfer of the contract from Learndirect Apprenticeships to any other legal entity.
“The SFA would have to comply with the Public Contract Regulations 2015 in relation to the award or transfer of the contract to a different legal entity.”
In other words, had the government followed procurement rules, it should have put the contract out to tender, unless it had already assured itself there would be no interest.
The ESFA sent the letter agreeing the sale to Ofsted, and despite serious concerns about the quality of provision, the inspectorate applied its referral policy and cancelled the inspection, believing the sale would take place.
Any delay to intervention is controversial, as Learndirect Ltd continued to receive millions of pounds in ESFA funding each month, even though its provision was eventually found to be severely wanting after the inspectorate eventually visited the following March.
“Something isn’t passing the smell test here and the PAC needs to get to the bottom of this,” he told FE Week.
Mr Marsden added that “we already knew” the DfE’s handling of Learndirect had been “shambolic” and claimed this new evidence, of potential mishandling of the sale to GUS, was even more concerning.
“It now looks as if they [the DfE] may not have followed due process in terms of approving the funding itself,” he said.
“That is a very serious admission which I would hope and am sure the PAC would want to take strong notice of in their hearing on Monday.”
FE Week asked the DfE if it had complied with procurement rules and explored wider market interest in the sale, but it would not be drawn.
“Under the new regulations from 2015, contracts can under certain circumstances be modified during their term without a new procurement procedure taking place,” said a spokesperson.
Something isn’t passing the smell test here and the Public Accounts Committee need to get to the bottom of this
The DfE had previously told FE Week that officials from the ESFA met with GUS representatives in August 2016 and gave approval the following month, but refused to furnish us with the exact date or who attended.
Even though the ESFA insisted that novation of Learndirect Ltd’s contract to Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd was a one-time offer, it subsequently agreed to a transfer that would take place in May, which Learndirect used to try and delay Ofsted’s inspection in March.
But the inspectorate rejected the request and went in for a full inspection, which ended in its infamous grade four and started a legal battle between the two organisations, eventually won by the watchdog.
The delay to Ofsted’s visit has been highly criticised by the PAC and is set to feature prominently in next week’s scheduled hearing.
Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the funding of Learndirect Ltd
The Public Accounts Committee will grill the organisations involved in the Learndirect saga on Monday (January 15).
The hearing will dissect the findings of last month’s National Audit Office report, which examined the monitoring, inspection and funding of the nation’s biggest FE provider.
Taking place around 5pm, witnesses 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. It can be watched live via parliament.tv.
A struggling college received a massive £21 million bailout from the government as part of its recent merger deal, FE Week has learned.
Telford College of Arts and Technology formally joined forces with neighbouring New College Telford to form Telford College shortly before Christmas, over 18 months after the partnership was first announced.
But a source close to the merger, who did not want to be named, told FE Week that TCAT’s financial troubles were so severe that it needed the multimillion-pound cash injection from the government’s restructuring facility.
The grade three college, which had an income of £19.5 million in 2015/16, currently has three notices of concern from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, for financial health, financial control and apprenticeship minimum standards, and was subject to FE commissioner intervention in 2016.
Graham Guest, the principal of the new college, admitted to FE Week that it had received funding, but refused to confirm the amount.
“The college continues to work with the Transactions Unit [which administers the restructuring facility] and Barclays to review its finances and long term liabilities,” he said.
“Due to the commercial sensitivity of the merger we are unable to provide more information while discussions continue to be held.”
The Department for Education would also not discuss the sums involved, and claimed the college’s accounts – which include details of any financial support – would be published in due course.
Just £120 million had been allocated to 10 colleges from the restructuring facility by October last year, meaning that the TCAT deal is worth almost twice the average sum dished out so far.
Despite this, a DfE spokesperson insisted the facility was “not being used to prop up failing colleges”.
“The restructuring facility is designed to help colleges make major changes following an area review recommendation that they cannot fund themselves and that will result in high-quality provision for the local community,” she said.
TCAT received its first notice of concern for financial health in November 2015.
His report noted that “the college has experienced a rapid decline in its financial health in recent years”, and “over-optimistic forecasting” was deemed a “core problem”.
But its notice for inspection was lifted last year, after it improved its grade to ‘requires improvement’ at an inspection in June.
The merger between TCAT and New College Telford, also rated ‘requires improvement’, was first proposed in April 2016, shortly before the end of the Marches and Worcestershire area review which both took part in.
According to the review report, “the merger has the potential to deliver efficiency savings through a complete review of the operations of both colleges, which are sited a mile apart”.
Photo caption: Graham Guest, Telford College principal (centre) with Gail Bleasby (vice chair) and Paul Hinkins (chair)
Multiple providers have successfully overturned the government’s decisions not to award them contracts in the controversial non-levy tender – including several big hitters.
The ESFA last week began contacting organisations that had appealed the outcome of the procurement before Christmas.
Among the winners were Focus Training Group, which has a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted, Basingstoke College of Technology, and the grade three West Kent and Ashford College.
FE Week understands that decisions on some appeals are still outstanding, including that of the grade one Exeter College and grade two Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, and that more successful wins could be in the pipeline.
Focus Training, which 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.
Following a nervy festive break, the ESFA altered its decision last week.
Both myself and all of our staff are delighted that our appeal was successful
It said that after reviewing its scores, and undertaking more quality-assurance, FTG had reached the pass mark and had its complaint 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.
“This will allow us to meet the growing demand from our employers across the region, and we now look forward to a successful 2018.”
Paul Hannan (pictured above), the chief executive of the Hadlow Group, of which West Kent and Ashford College is part, said it was a “massive achievement” to have the decision overturned.
“The ESFA dealt with our case swiftly and efficiently,” he added.
Other providers have not received such good news about their appeals.
One of these was HYA Training, rated ‘good’ and based in Yorkshire and the Humber, which passed the score criteria but fell below the £200,000 threshold above which the ESFA applies its pro-rata methodology.
We feel the process of adopting a pro-rata methodology left providers such as ourselves second-guessing
It appealed the decision on the basis it had been unaware of the pro-rata percentage rule, but the appeal was not upheld.
“We feel the process of adopting a pro-rata methodology left providers such as ourselves second-guessing what would be a safe and secure allocation to tender for and, like many other providers, we would of course have tendered for more had we known,” Patrik Knowles, the managing director of HYA, told FE Week.
The FE sector has been up in arms about the outcome of the tender ever since results were released after a long delay in December.
A total of 714 providers were given an allocation to train apprentices with small employers between January 2018 and March 2019, but 227, nearly a third, are on their first direct apprenticeships contract.
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’, including Exeter, missed out.
The boss of the AELP wants the education select committee to help him get rid of the 20-per-cent off-the-job training rule hated by so many small ITPs
The education committee’s inquiry this week into the quality of apprenticeships could not be more timely after the change at the top of the Department for Education.
The good news is that Damian Hinds brings with him the same commitment to social mobility as his predecessor. AELP’s pitch to both the secretary of state and the select committee is that the drive for more social justice is endangered by the current state of the apprenticeship reforms. The committee could play a very important role in putting them back on track.
The government remains resolute about pursuing its target for three million starts, and the committee is understandably concerned that the reforms should safeguard the quality of provision within the apprenticeship programme. After all, the interests of social justice are not going to be served if apprentices are experiencing poor training at any level.
So first of all, we want to acknowledge that four out of five apprenticeship training providers in the independent sector are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted – and a long succession of employer and learner surveys have given providers the kind of satisfaction ratings that other industries could only dream of.
The interests of social justice are not going to be served if apprentices are experiencing poor training at any level
But there is no room for complacency and one very positive gain from the new apprenticeship standards is the greater emphasis on ensuring the apprentice receives hands-on training rather than an assessment of progress.
However, we cannot properly improve quality without adequate funding, and the new system under the levy requires the funding to cover not only the actual training but also the new end-point assessment, and the quality-assurance of that end-point assessment.
How can any provider deliver a quality apprenticeship with 20-per-cent off-the-job training on a minimum 12-month programme, when the maximum amount of funding on some standards and frameworks is only up to £1,500 per apprentice? Adequate funding is required, particularly at the lower levels, to ensure that programmes can be delivered in a compliant way that also produces ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ results for all levels in all sectors.
In AELP’s submission to the committee, we cite evidence from employers that that the rigid implementation of the off-the-job rule is reducing recruitment of level two apprentices.
This has a particular impact in sectors with high-volume, lower-wage employment and typically lower margins, those where many of the first steps in education and training are taken. Meeting the off-the-job rule is often a poor substitute for properly supported on-the-job training, and AELP believes it is no measure of quality.
The government should not allow the price of an apprenticeship to be negotiated downwards by employers
We are urging MPs to dismiss the ill-informed, elitist rhetoric that level two learning, even when meeting a new standard, does not count as an apprenticeship, nor that it involves adequate development of knowledge, skills and behaviours.
The government should not allow the price of an apprenticeship to be negotiated downwards by employers, as this potentially reduces the quality of the experience for the apprentice – the only current example of reverse auctioning in the education system.
Removing nationally recognised qualifications from apprenticeship standards further reduces apprentices’ job mobility.
Another policy that runs counter to social justice is that provider funding for maths and English in apprenticeships is miserly, at only 50 per cent of the classroom rate. This comes in below the cost of delivery and provides no incentive to take on the most challenging individuals.
AELP is pleased that the committee is looking at the issue of subcontracting, although time is short if we want to stop the repercussions of the disastrous non-levy procurement, which threatens to remove hundreds of good-quality, niche providers from the programme.
We want the MPs to join us in demanding greater flexibility in subcontracting rules and reinstating the previous rules for the 15-month transition period until the next set of levy reforms take effect.
Mark Dawe is CEO of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers
The traineeship funding processes could be simplified to help successful providers grow their provision more successfully, writes Joe Crossley
Providers are pulling out of the traineeship market with alarming regularity and it is not hard to see why: the funding methodology is complicated, growth is hard to achieve, and the client group is one of the most challenging to engage with.
After several years of hard work to create an effective traineeship programme, we are finally seeing substantial development, but this was hindered, rather than helped, by the surrounding bureaucracy. We believe that traineeships are valuable for young people and providers can manage them successfully but there are things the government could do to make that easier.
Understanding the rules for each funding stream is the first challenge, as 19+ trainees are funded differently to 16- to 18-year olds.
It would make a lot of sense for the ESFA to amalgamate the funding methodology into one model
For the younger students, financial backing is calculated based upon the hours delivered, regardless of the content included in the programme. What’s more, there is no additional “job outcome” payment outside the base funding rate. This alone disincentivises providers from working towards the outcomes for which traineeships are built: progression to an apprenticeship or employment.
Students aged 19 to 24 are easier to understand and are backed through a combination of a single traineeship programme rate and any embedded qualifications that are included in their plan, with 80 per cent paid on programme and the rest upon achievement. An additional payment is made for students who progress to an apprenticeship or employment, providing they retain this outcome for at least six weeks.
It would make a lot of sense for the ESFA to amalgamate the funding methodology into one model, adopting the latter method as the norm. This would enable providers to make more accurate projections based on actual instead of planned delivery, and reward providers’ hard work.
Growth is difficult to achieve. Although 16- to 18-year-olds are seen as a priority area, many providers are denied it. Overperforming on a contract is a risk, but necessary for businesses wanting to increase their provision or enter new markets.
When growth is not granted, particularly where overperformance is the case, it puts pressure on providers: do you stop your growth plans and reduce your staff base? Or use networks and contacts to find new partners, a different type of risk, with a reduction in revenue based on the management fees involved.
More than any other year in recent memory, 2017 demonstrated how vulnerable training providers are
We know of one provider which, due to an unsuccessful growth request, did not get paid between January and March in 2015. Then, in April, after several months of uncertainty, it was told that its overspend would be paid by the ESFA and was retrospectively awarded the growth for which it originally applied!
More than any other year in recent memory, 2017 demonstrated how vulnerable training providers are, with numerous centres closing their doors due to insufficient funds. Providers used to have a real, tangible relationship with a dedicated ESFA account manager, and this ongoing association allowed funding to be awarded based on actual, physical evidence of good work. This is no longer the case.
One solution would be to allow for a rolling, monthly window to apply for increased allocation, but to limit the number of times per year one provider can apply.
The roll-on/roll-off recruitment of trainees means that growth is required at almost every point throughout the academic year. Sometimes its award has negative consequences – we were given more than we asked for in March 2017 and missed our maximum contract value by around 20 per cent at the next review point, meaning exclusion from the most recent growth opportunity in
October as the ESFA, “would not expect to support an increase where your performance in 2016/17 was less than 97 per cent of your final allocation”.
It would be a real victory for the sector if the ESFA redesigned the system, because when delivered well, the traineeship programme is the most rewarding I have had the pleasure to oversee.
