Jeremy Corbyn will address this year’s Association of Colleges annual conference.
The annual event at at the ICC in Birmingham is one of the key events in the FE calendar, and takes place this year from November 14 to 15, and the resurgent Labour leader is one of the headline speakers.
Other highlights announced include Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, and writer and broadcaster Matthew Syed.
Amanda Spielman
“It is great news that we have the leader of the opposition coming to speak to delegates for the first time,” said David Hughes, the chief executive of the AoC.
“It’s another important recognition of the crucial roles which colleges play, for the economy, for communities, families, young people and adults.
“Colleges remain at the heart of their local communities and the national economy – that’s why the theme of the conference is colleges mean business.”
Delegates will also have the opportunity for in-depth discussions on the key issues of the day, including apprenticeships, curriculum reforms and T-levels.
The winners of AoC’s prestigious Beacon and Student of the Year Award will also be announced.
FE Week will be the premier media partner, and we will, as ever, report live from the event throughout, and produce a paper from our hotel suite on-site.
The Association of Colleges has expressed regret for offering staff a one-per-cent payrise – and has come in for heavy criticism from the unions for its trouble.
“We wish we were in a position to make a better recommendation today, but current funding levels for colleges do not allow us to do so,” claimed AoC boss David Hughes.
“We will work closely with the unions in the coming months to campaign for fair funding for colleges and address the under investment which the sector has faced for too long.”
The National Joint Forum, made up of the unions representing college staff, submitted a claim for an across-the-board rise of around 6 per cent in April.
But the final offer made by the AoC, which represents college leaders, was just one per cent, or the sum of £250 “where this is more beneficial”.
Mr Hughes insisted that the AoC shared the views of the unions that a skilled and well rewarded workforce is critical to the future success of FE.
“A major part of the AoC case for better funding to government is to allow the reward packages colleges can offer to be competitive,” said Mr Hughes.
“Every college wants to attract and retain the best people, but it is clear that cuts to FE funding over the last decade have disproportionately hit colleges, impacting directly on their ability to reward staff.”
As part of the pay offer, the AoC has agreed to campaign with the FE unions to “close the gap with schools and address the fundamental recruitment and retention challenges in the sector”.
He also wants to meet unions again in January to review any wider developments on public sector pay and the “funding position of the sector at that time”.
Police and prison officers learned earlier this month that they would will this year receive a pay rise above the one-per-cent cap imposed on the rest of the public sector.
An AoC spokesperson told FEWeek its own one-per-cent offer was made independently of the cap, which doesn’t cover colleges’ pay, and that it had been forced to focus on “affordability within a tough funding environment for colleges”.
Unison’s head of education, Jon Richards, described the offer as “hugely disappointing”.
“It will do little to lift workers out of debt and poverty, particularly as colleges are under no obligation to implement it,” he said.
“Many college employees have had to take on second jobs or borrow money from family or friends as they struggle to pay their bills.
“Colleges know good salaries are vital to attract and retain staff. But if the government continues to underfund further education, workers will seek employment elsewhere.”
Earlier this month, UCU wrote to principals of FE colleges urging them to instruct their negotiators to make an acceptable offer at yesterday’s pay talks.
“Members will be extremely disappointed that once again the employer offer of one per cent is substantially below inflation and fails to address the years of pay suppression which FE staff have endured,” claimed its head of further education, Andrew Harden.
“Although the pledge to campaign with joint trade unions for more investment in the sector is welcome and necessary, it does not ease the immediate hardship faced by many dedicated staff.
“There is now clear agreement on both sides that pay in FE is a problem, but the real question for the sector is what we are going to do about it.”
Half a million pounds is on offer to run a new leadership training programme for senior FE managers looking to step up to top jobs.
The Education and Training Foundation put a tender out three days ago, and it’s on the hunt for a provider with “an excellent track record” in executive leadership to develop a project it is calling ‘Preparing for the CEO role in the further education and training sector’.
It’s the latest entry to a suite of new FE leadership training programmes the ETF operates, and will initially run for four months between November 6 and March 10 next year.
The details of the tender, seen by FEWeek, state that applicants should “normally be designated second-tier managers” with a minimum of two years in post.
They must also be “ready to step up to the CEO role”, something that needs “a recommendation for the programme by their principal/CEO and chair of the board”.
The ETF aims to deliver training to at least 50 delegates.
“We expect an initial cohort of 25 minimum to complete the programme and a further cohort of 25 minimum to begin the programme before 10 March 2018 and reserve the right to extend the contract for a period of up to and including a third financial year,” it said.
The project spend could end up paying around £10,000 per trainee if the minimum recruitment target is met.
The exact contents are up for negotiation, but it is expected to take the form of two or three-day residential courses “with structured, supported learning activity between”.
Costs for the course will be “partly subsidised” by the ETF, a spokesperson for the foundation told FEWeek, but the tender documents reveal that the delegate fee “will be set at £3,000 each with no discount options”.
In March, the foundation announced a leadership programme for existing principals and chief executives, backed by £1.27 million of government cash.
Frank McLoughlin
The project, headed by the ETF’s associate director for leadership, Sir Frank McLoughlin, was designed to boost the capacity of individual principals and chief executives, and got underway in June.
A programme to help chief finance officers become commercial leaders, backed with another £500,000 in funding, was also launched this year.
These are understood to be the first new leadership programmes specifically for the FE and skills sector since the demise of the former Learning and Skills Improvement Service in 2013.
LSIS, which emerged from the former Centre of Excellence for Leadership, ran a number of programmes for FE leaders including a senior leadership and management development programme and a programme for new principals.
The spokesperson told FEWeek that the new aspiring principals project is “aimed at helping to build and create a pipeline of senior leaders for the future”, in an area the foundation “has been asked by many in the sector to play a part in”.
Tenders will be evaluated by an ETF panel, which will “judge past performance on the evidence provided of impact both on the individual and the organisation, reputation for excellence in design and delivery of executive training, and the ability to work flexibility with clients to meet their needs”.
While the project is expected to end in March, the ETF said that, subject to the availability of funding, it would “like to include a right to extend any contract for up to a maximum of three further years”.
The Liberal Democrat leader has backed the creation of lifelong learning accounts in his party conference speech today.
Sir Vince Cable, who published a report with the National Union of Students on how to improve learner experience in post-16 education, explained to delegates in Bournemouth how he would like to help more people retrain or improve their skills-set in later life.
“One idea I want to develop with you – with the party – is finding a way to support all young people in future with an endowment or learning account, which they can use at any stage in life,” said the former business secretary, in his final day speech.
He explained that this could involve “helping to finance further or higher education, either at the post-18 stage or later in life”.
“It is a fundamentally liberal idea, handing control to the individual, and I want to explore how it can be sustainably financed through fair taxation of wealth,” he continued.
Dr Cable also stressed that he wanted the party to be widely recognised as the “champions of lifelong learning”.
Former top skills civil servant Sue Pember, now director of policy at adult learning provider membership body Holex, welcomed Dr Cable’s focus on improving funding for learning in later life.
“We support the concept of a learning account that could travel with the student through different stages of their lives,” she said. “If we are to grow and prosper after Brexit, we need a comprehensive adult education, skills and employment funding plan.”
She countered, however, that lifelong learning accounts are only a “great idea”, if “they are matched with extra resource”.
The issue of how best to upskill older people returned to the spotlight recently, in reaction against what has been perceived as overwhelming recent focus on 16-to-19 learning, in particular through apprenticeships.
The then-skills minister Robert Halfon told FEWeek in January that lifelong learning was firmly back on the government’s agenda.
An industrial strategy green paper published in the same month further committed to exploring “ambitious new approaches to encouraging lifelong learning”.
FE Week launched its #SaveOurAdultEducation in February, calling on the government to consult on a properly coordinated adult education strategy.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, who was asked by the prime minister to “develop proposals to improve the lives of this country’s citizens” through the workplace, went further and backed a return to learning accounts.
His July report warned that current funding rules meant that someone who has worked for much of their working life, but who now needs to retrain, was unlikely to get much help or support.
“The government should explore a new approach to learning accounts, perhaps with an initial focus on those with a long-working record, but who need to retrain and those in receipt of universal credit,” he wrote.
The Skills Commission meanwhile recommended in April that the government should “look into the feasibility of learning accounts and their effectiveness in directing workers towards in-demand roles”.
Labour’s shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden told FEWeek that he backed “new credit accumulation structures and national insurance-style contributory learning accounts” as far back as 2014.
He expanded on the idea in an article for One Nation Fizz, which was published that year by centre-left thinkers in response to then-Labour leader Ed Miliband’s call for new policy ideas.
“The last Labour government’s innovative system of individual learning accounts stalled due to problems with implementation,” he wrote.
“But the ideas behind it remain relevant, including the notion of a tripartite contribution system, by means of which businesses and individuals, including the self-employed, could be given incentives to pay in modest amounts each month (such as matched-funding).”
The individual learning accounts scheme was unveiled in the 1997 Labour Party manifesto, as a means of supporting adult education with a system of tax incentives.
But the policy was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud.
The National Audit Office blamed this in part on poor planning and risk management by the government.
Over two thirds of learners from providers that have collapsed – leaving them with huge loan debt but no qualifications – have still not been moved onto alternative courses.
The situation has become so dire that Robert Halfon (pictured right), the new chair of the Commons education select committee, is now backing FE Week’s campaign to get the government to refund all the affected learners.
We have been demanding justice for the hundreds of adult students who’ve been left in the lurch by failed providers since January, when it emerged that the Department for Education was refusing to write off advanced learner loans held by over 200 Londoners left high and dry by the collapse of John Frank training in November.
This situation was echoed at Hampshire-based Edudo Ltd, and Darlington’s Focus Training & Development Ltd, so FE Week launched its #SaveOurAdultEducation campaign to get the debts cancelled.
However, just 112 of the 344 affected students have since been transferred to other providers.
Mr Halfon told FE Week that he was “incredibly concerned” about the figures, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
It is “the duty” of the Education and Skills Funding Agency to refund learners if they cannot be found “adequate” alternative provision, he insisted – which must be close enough to home to make travel affordable and practical.
The DfE confirmed that 93 of the 112 transferred learners studied at JFT, and the other 19 were at Edudo.
Twenty more of Edudo’s 95 former learners are apparently meanwhile “in the process” of transferring, meaning 42 per cent are still unaccounted for.
How the hell am I supposed to sort myself out?
Worse yet, not one of the 37 affected students from Focus Training have been found new providers since the organisation went under last December.
In total, there are still 212 students from these defunct providers – with no end in sight for their loans misery.
Asim Shaheen is a former student of JFT who has been unable to complete a level three hospitality and catering course which was funded by a loan of over £8,000, and who became a focal point of our campaign after he travelled from Stoke to Westminster in February to confront Mr Halfon – then the skills minister.
“After I came all the way to Westminster to see the minister I’ve heard nothing,” he told FE Week. “The government sent me one letter saying it was my responsibility to go and sort out a new provider for myself and that was that.
“I’ve got no portfolio because it was with JFT, who I can’t contact, so how the hell am I supposed to sort myself out?”
He claimed the government “has no back up plan” and that learners like him have been “left in the middle of nowhere, expected to find our own way home”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The student loans company made contact with all affected learners. Of the 344 learners affected, and of whom wished to continue their learning, 132 have chosen to continue with an alternative provider.”
Our FoI only focused on the three failed training providers we investigated last year, but there may well be many more learners in the same situation who simply have not yet been brought to light.
Mr Halfon said he was “keen” for the education committee to “look at the quality of both public and private training providers and the role government plays in terms of how students are treated if these institutions fail”.
So, the tenders are in for the second attempt at procurement for apprenticeship provision for non-levy paying employers, and it’s over to the ESFA.
As well as evaluating tenders, we’d suggest it’s also time to hold the ESFA’s own performance to account. It’s fundamental this time that the procurement is successful and works to the skills needs of employers, localities and the country as a whole. No one would argue that managing anything on this scale is easy – but isn’t it the ESFA’s job? And they designed it, complexities and all. In apprenticeship terminology, shouldn’t the ESFA have the knowledge, skills and behaviours to manage a successful procurement?
The University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC), as a representative organisation, has raised concerns along with others on the procurement. The unstable nature of the process, the repeated updates to forms, the 800 tender clarifications, the last-minute deadline extension with 48 hours to go, the changes to threshold calculations, and even the fact that a critical procurement exercise was run over the summer have all been problematic.
The fact that getting this procurement right is so important for the apprenticeships reforms in general and degree apprenticeships in particular was outlined in a recent report from HEFCE, the higher education regulator. Remember also that apprenticeships are the government’s flagship productivity programme and that around a third of new employer-developed standards are at higher-education level. We’re not therefore talking about niche provision.
There’s been a loss of confidence in the ESFA – or at least this part of the organisation
HEFCE’s report identified three things in particular. Just 13 per cent of degree apprenticeship starts planned with non-levy payers remained after the ESFA’s first attempt at procurement. After the first round was paused, one higher education provider adjusted its targeted starts for non-levy paying employers downwards from 90 to two, while a London institution went from 77 to zero. One region had no provider with any allocation to deliver degree apprenticeships to non-levy paying employers.
In one case study, a higher education provider “had conducted a survey of demand for apprenticeship provision among (its local) SME population, which showed around 50 SMEs had an immediate or future interest in degree apprenticeship, and a further 60 SMEs requested further information”. After the pause, the provider was unable to follow up even “such clearly evidenced local demand”.
From UVAC’s perspective, this is a rather worrying position for what’s supposed to be England’s flagship productivity programme. It’s also important to realise that the damage caused by the failure of the first attempt at procurement isn’t just a short-term problem. There’s been a loss of confidence in the ESFA – or at least this part of the organisation. Higher education providers had developed partnerships not just with SMEs, but also with LEPs and further education providers, many of which have been delayed or abandoned. Momentum has been lost and some HEIs took the decision to focus on levy-paying employer business, to the detriment of the productivity agenda.
The silence, at least in public, of the Institute for Apprenticeships on the ESFA’s approach to procurement of provision is surprising. I appreciate that the Institute’s remit focuses on the quality of standards and assessment plans and advising on funding bands. But, if ESFA’s funding system prevents non-levy payers from using the new apprenticeships developed through the trailblazer process, such employers can’t benefit from new high-quality standards.
The attempt will reveal whether the ESFA is a “skills” funding agency able to fund the apprenticeships developed by employer groups. I suspect no-one will be entirely happy with the outcome, but if the ESFA is able to demonstrate it has been based on the offer developed by employers, clearly reflective of employer demand and the policy pillars of enhancing social mobility and raising productivity, it may be able to redeem a reputation.
Adrian Anderson is chief executive of the University Vocational Awards Council
A college in one of London’s richest boroughs has delayed its final decision on whether to abandon one of its campuses to make way for housing, amid mounting protests from Grenfell Tower campaigners determined to defend adult education for poorer people in the area, FE Week understands.
The site on Wornington Road is one of Kensington and Chelsea College’s two main campuses, and it was sold for £25.3 million to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea last year under a lease-back arrangement.
The local authority wants to demolish the building for housing, in a deal which would at best result in greatly reduced teaching space for the college at the redeveloped site.
But the LA’s plans have become entangled in the fallout from the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in June, in which at least 80 people were killed.
Campaigners including Edward Daffarn, who escaped the blaze, have met Dr Elaine McMahon, the college’s interim principal, and the college’s chair of governors Mary Curnock Cook, to raise concerns both about Wornington’s future and KCC’s planned merger with Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College.
The Wornington campus and wider FE is the sort of vital service that they have been trying to take away
KCC refused to confirm what was said in the meeting, but Mr Daffarn, speaking on behalf of the Grenfell Action Group, said campaigners were told the college had “pushed back” its final decision on whether to assent to plans to redevelop the site from the end of this month until December 30.
“It’s a good sign,” he said. “I firmly believe that as a consequence of the fire, the council and college now not only has to listen to us – because they will be under pressure from the government – but they have a duty to do so.
“People in the Grenfell area have for too long felt they are being driven out of the area. The Wornington campus and wider FE is the sort of vital service that they have been trying to take away.”
Another campaigner, Verena Beane, told the council about the “huge local opposition” to the merger, which she fears “will ultimately diminish the chances of saving Wornington”.
“We still came out of the meeting feeling they weren’t taking enough notice of the community needs, but we won’t give up,” said the retired KCC employee.
The central London area review recommended that KCC merge with the City Literary Institute, a specialist designated institution, but the former announced in June it planned to join forces with EHWLC instead.
A public consultation was launched on September 1, closing on September 30, and the planned date for completion has been set at January 2 next year.
KCC is understood to be planning a public meeting to address residents’ concerns on September 26.
The borough’s director of local services, Tony Redpath, sat on the college’s board of governors until July this year.
He warned about asset-stripping in an email sent to colleagues and seen by FE Week in February. “KCC’s problem, put baldy, is that its attraction to other colleges is based on its assets rather than its activities,” he wrote.
KCC and the borough council issued a joint statement on the matter, saying: “The council and college have agreed that nothing will happen without consulting the community first.
“RBKC and KCC will continue working to ensure that there is minimal disruption to FE provision in North Kensington and that a wide range of options for the Wornington Road site can be considered with the communities involved.”
The ESFA has ridden rough-shod over the work of many vital third sector providers. Tim Ward wants answers
Imagine the outcry if, at the beginning of the year, the ESFA had come out with a policy that would move money from one area to another without any reference to local stakeholders. What if it took non-formula-funded community learning away from third sector organisations, effectively closed the a major county’s largest community learning service, and reduced the budgets of long-established learning providers by 50 per cent or more in the middle of their operating year?
At least if the ESFA had announced this as a policy we would have had the opportunity to challenge and debate its implications and impact. We could have highlighted the potential loss of opportunities for disadvantaged learners, for rural areas and for those whose needs don’t fit neatly into nationally determined “priorities”.
As things stand, this is exactly what has happened as a result of the adult education budget procurement exercise. It was done without any public consultation or discussion about the impact on current and potential learners that will result from the ruination of learning opportunities. Many of these opportunities were offered by providers who have been praised by Ofsted for their work in supporting vulnerable learners to progress to further learning and work.
All the procurement is actually testing is the ability to answer exam questions, rather than genuine capacity and intent
When challenged, the ESFA has argued that the process was legally compliant with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. In other words, it did things in the right way. What is missing from its response is any consideration as to whether it did the right thing.
I do not personally believe that as a general principle that this procurement approach is the way to ensure that public money is spent well and effectively. However, this is the world we live in, though the process could have been designed in a way that recognised the richness of the learning activities delivered through the AEB, and the variations of need that exist in different areas and communities.
Unfortunately, those responsible chose not to approach it in this way, and used a simplistic, top-down approach. Worryingly, there seems to have either been a lack of understanding, or a lack of concern, about the impact of the methodology used. I leave you to decide which of these applies.
Looking beyond the issue of the process’ impact on learners, there are two particularly irrational consequences that strike me. Those who won a contract are facing in-year cuts of 50 per cent compared with previous years, while those who were not successful or did not bid are being given transitional contracts with much smaller reductions. The ESFA argues that the former will have the opportunity for in-year growth, but recent experience of cuts and zero growth suggests that this opportunity is theoretical. At the very least, the ESFA should provide “successful” bidders with similar transitional support to those provided to the unsuccessful bidders.
The second is that unless the funding rules are changed, those who have won a contract will have the flexibility to deliver anything within the AEB rules including “non-priority” learning, for example to meet local priorities determined by an LEP. In other words, all the procurement is actually testing is the ability to answer exam questions, rather than genuine capacity and intent.
Many providers, particularly third sector providers, originally gained their contracts in the early days of the LSC some 15 years ago. Until this year, their funding was renewed annually subject to performance and policy direction. This public investment allowed the development of a network of providers with accumulated expertise and experience.
Both the data and Ofsted show the quality, relevance and success of their learning programmes. It is a tragedy for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our communities that a poorly designed procurement process will lead to the loss of this capacity at a time when it is needed more than ever.
Tim Ward is chief executive of the Third Sector National Learning Alliance
The Department for Education did not launch a funding audit of Learndirect at the end of March, even though Ofsted sent damning evidence that apprentices were not receiving enough training, FE Week can reveal.
An experienced independent apprenticeship funding auditor confirmed Ofsted’s evidence should have raised significant concerns at the department.
FE Week understands that the education secretary was briefed by officials on the situation just days after an inspection that eventually saw the UK’s largest training provider graded ‘inadequate’.
Justine Greening was also made aware that Learndirect was threatening to enter administration.
Justine Greening
According to evidence given by Learndirect during its judicial review into Ofsted’s report, the Education and Skills Funding Agency indicated that it could not be seen to be giving special treatment once the grade was published, and that early contract termination notices would follow.
But in a move that may now become the focal point for an impending National Audit Office investigation, Learndirect seems at some point to have been deemed “too big to fail” by the DfE.
Once Learndirect lost its judicial review and FE Week had the related gagging order overturned, the report was published in full in early August.
No early contract termination notices were issued at that point, and we now know that because Learndirect withdrew from the adult education budget tender, it was given a £45 million contract extension until July 2018.
Both the DfE and Learndirect have refused to say when this decision was made.
And Learndirect’s apprenticeship provision, which had already been slapped with an ESFA notice of breach before its fateful inspection because 70 per cent of its apprentices were below the minimum standard, will nevertheless be funded until July 2018.
Worse still, new apprentices will be funded indefinitely through a company registered last year: Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd.
Even though FE Week shared Ofsted’s damning evidence in the court room itself, the DfE has stuck to its line, insisting: “It is normal procedure for the department to wait until an inspection report is finalised and published by Ofsted before taking any formal action.”
Repeatedly pressed over the course of several days on whether an audit had taken place, the DfE said only that it “would not be providing a running commentary on this matter”.
Meg Hillier
The chair of the Commons public accounts committee, Meg Hillier, is reportedly furious at the situation, and has referred the case to the National Audit Office to consider an investigation.
“It does not seem to me that in this case the DfE has been a smart client,” she told FE Week. “It got to a point where … if it had started digging it might have gone in and found its problems – so it does seem that Learndirect has been too big to fail.”
The NAO told FE Week that its investigations, such as the Kids Company scandal in 2015, are “reactive to a situation” and “offer a rapid assessment of service quality, failure and financial management”.
The DfE has admitted it wanted to protect Learndirect’s contract with the Home Office, as the sole supplier of the Life in UK tests.
However, when FE Week approached the Home Office for comment, it didn’t seem to share this concern.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Ofsted report does not relate to services delivered on behalf of the Home Office. The Life in the UK test is delivered by Learndirect and they continue to provide a high-quality service on this contract.
“As with any contract, the Home Office has detailed contingency plans which cover a number of possible scenarios, including where a supplier ceases trading.”
DfE confirms: Learndirect IS too big to fail
The government told FE Week that they did not terminate any contracts as the decision had been taken to: “protect learners and maintain other key public services run by Learndirect Ltd, including Life in the UK tests [Home office contract] and Initial Teacher Training skills tests [Standards & Testing Agency contract]. Had we terminated, there would have been a real risk of Learndirect Ltd quickly entering into administration resulting in significant disruption to learners and others who use their services, such as prospective teachers.”
Ofsted emailed evidence to ESFA in March
“We usually share provisional grades and main findings with the funding agency and the provider at the final feedback meeting,” Ofsted said. “The agency therefore knows what the provider’s strengths and weaknesses are as soon as the inspection concludes. In the case of Learndirect, at the request of the provider, the final feedback meeting did not take place, so the provisional grades and main findings were emailed to the agency on the Monday following the inspection. This meant that the agency was aware of the weaknesses with Learndirect’s provision within three days of the inspection.
“We do not routinely share draft reports with the funding agency. This position is consistent with our framework and practice in other remits, where the provisional grades are confirmed immediately following inspection, but the report is only shared immediately prior to publication. And as you know, once the Learndirect report was ready for publication we were delayed by purdah and then by the courts.
“Should the funding agency or department ask to know the findings of the report prior to publication we would ordinarily share them… Neither the EFSA or the DfE requested a copy of the draft report prior to publication… To confirm, the report was not sent to anyone else externally by Ofsted before publication.”
Why didn’t the ESFA investigate Ofsted’s evidence
Taking a fortnight to reply, the DfE eventually refused to tell FE Week what, if anything, it did before the was being published in August. It would seem no audit has taken place.
Evidence from the judicial review
Nobody from the Department for Education nor the Education and Skills Agency attended the court hearing in Manchester, nor did they request a copy of the draft inspection report. However, FE Week was in attendance to record what Ofsted said, along with a related ESFA funding rule for 2015/16.
Learndirect failed to ensure apprentices received their entitlement to off-the-job training. Out of 19,940 Learndirect could only say that 11,729 were getting the training entitlement. So 8,211 apprentices at the time of the inspection (41 per cent) were not getting the off-the-job training entitlement, according to Learndirect’s own employee (the inspection nominee). [Issue here with SASE minimum hours and rules such as B18.2 which states: “You must record the agreed average weekly hours including study hours in the learner file.”]
Learndirect managers were not able to provide evidence of what was completed and there was complete confusion on how data is recorded. Ofsted said it was told there was evidence of monitoring progress in audio files. So it asked for the audio files and when it listened, it found no evidence of monitoring progress. The inspector asked in his notes if they were “gaming evidence?” [Rule A84: “The learner file must contain evidence to support the funding claimed and must be available to us if we need it.”]
Failure by Learndirect to ensure apprentices learned new skills: “systematic approach to assessment targets focused on units evidence required rather than new skills”… “learner had difficulty evidencing the new working skills they were developing on the programme”. [Rule B4: “To receive funding for an apprenticeship you must be satisfied that this is the most appropriate learning programme and it is a new job role, or an existing job role, where the individual needs significant new knowledge and skills.”]
Learndirect failed to monitor the starting point of apprentices or to properly understand the rate of progress made [Rule A97. “You can only claim funding for learning when activity directly related to the learning starts.”]
Five apprentices selected at random; none had any progress monitoring or any evidence or targets being set in individual learning plan. There was no individual learning plan. [Rule A89.3 “If applicable, the learner file must contain all initial, basic skills and diagnostic assessments.”]
“System of learning and development is based on assessment only. No planning of learning or execution thereof takes place”. When Learndirect’s national operations director was challenged on what, if any, quality assurance process were in place, they put their hands on their head and said: “I will need to look into it” [Rule A98. “You must have evidence that the learning took place and that the learner was not just certificated for prior knowledge.”]
Auditor’s opinion
FE Week showed the evidence to an experienced apprenticeships auditor. This is their expert opinion on possible breaches of contract, and why funding might warrant clawback.
Looking at what you’ve provided here, we would be raising a significant number of issues if any of this came up at funding audit. The key issues for us would be as follows.
No evidence of learning would result in us in asking for the provider to prove the learner is still active. If there’s no evidence, we would be recommending to the agency that the learner is either withdrawn from programme at last date of learning activity. If there’s no evidence of maths and English then the end date would have to be the start date. If it was proved that the learner were still active, we would push for them to be put on break and have all funding removed for the period we are testing. The ESFA may overrule us and let the funding stay, so then it becomes a timeliness issue.
Unclear evidence to support start dates can create problems round minimum duration if programmes are set around six and 12 months. For all 16-18 learners, we may be deeming funds ineligible if it’s apparent that the learner has not completed 12 months. This usually results in a) losing all funds for year two, though year one is retained as we can’t recover it, or b) for a learner that starts in the year we audit, we either remove funds or the provider corrects the start and planned end date to ensure the minimum duration is met.
If the number of hours worked is not confirmed, we can’t confirm that the appropriate minimum duration has been recorded. If learners work less than 30 hours a week, we confirm if the programme has been extended accordingly. Without confirmation of hours, we can’t sign the claim off and the provider must get us the data so we can.
If they are working 16 hours and are only on programme for 12 months, 16-18 apprentices are ineligible unless the dates can be amended – this would be a funding error as the level of claim for the year would reduce as funding is pushed into subsequent years,
If achieved then funds would be removed. For 19+ we would either seek an extension if the learner has done at least 12 months, we would amend to completed and failed. All achievements funds would be removed.
If it’s apparent that the learner is only being assessed we’d refer to the agency and expect all funds to be removed as this model is ineligible for funding.
It’s difficult for auditors to comment on progress unless we’re clearly seeing that reviews and so on show no clear progress. Where we find this we will ask why funding claims are being made when learners are clearly not progressing. Again, we’d expect referral to the agency.
Amanda Spielman, Ofsted chief inspector, tells FE Week editor…
I think the single most shocking thing was that something like a third of the apprentices at Learndirect were getting no training at all. These are young people often in their first job who most need training and their interests looking after. They weren’t getting trained.
In this particular case we have played our part by publishing our report. It is not for us to describe what then happens to Learndirect, but of course we can carry on monitoring and making sure that while it continues to operate, we do what we believe we ought to be doing, [and] that action is taken in the light of recommendations we’ve made. Of course we are very concerned to make sure that people recognise that we made significant recommendations and that the action that needs to be taken is taken.
I hope that the lessons from Learndirect will really focus people’s minds, both on what can be done up front to make sure that we don’t get into these situations, especially with very large providers, and also to make sure that we are geared up to take prompt action as needed.
The question of whether Learndirect is too big to fail is for the DfE at the end of the day; it’s not for us to answer. It’s one of the things to think about for the future: what is manageable. Because in any system there are always going to be some problems. Making sure the system can cope with the failure of any individual provider is an essential aspect of a functioning market.
I hope that the lessons from Learndirect will really focus people’s minds
The system must be able to cope rapidly with the failure of an individual provider, so that apprentices get what they should have: really good training no matter what.
Acting sooner is clearly a big lesson that people should take away from Learndirect, [and] looking forward, making sure that every provider has system capacity to handle the failure of any other one.
Ofsted’s accountability systems are evolving but I believe they are fit for purpose.
With the apprenticeship reforms, we can see the system reshaping, which is why we are thinking the topic of campus inspection has already been floated.
Discussions happen about that. There are conversations all over the place about evolution of inspection and risk management which I think go ahead pretty intelligently, but we need to make sure we never get complacent about what we’ve got, and that we keep looking forward next year.
How do we line up and make sure we’re all doing the right things for that? It’s more complicated than it’s ever been.
I’ve got a particular desire that we really make the most of our power to have a bird’s-eye view of the whole system and that we aggregate what we see on individual inspections.
Since I arrived at Ofsted I’ve really been trying to make sure we think about how best to draw together the evidence we get from individual inspections and those findings, to say what is it that we’re seeing about the whole, that we should be concerned about and should be talking about.
Meg Hillier, public accounts committee chair, tells FE Week editor…
We had hoped to have a hearing [this month] with Jonathan Slater, where we were going to put forward some of the key points about how come Learndirect is too big to fail, how come it is still getting money and we haven’t terminated its contract, and questions like that.
We have also been in touch with the National Audit Office which is considering doing an investigation. This is a quick-hit inquiry so it is not a long-term value-for-money one. It will probably be just six to eight weeks. If that did go ahead it would probably come out late October at the earliest.
We will make sure that when Jonathan Slater is in front of us again, which we expect to be at some point in October, we will obviously be putting these points to him.
I hope Learndirect will open itself up to auditors
I have also been talking to Robert Halfon, the chair of the education select committee, to make sure we are looking at what we can both do to make sure we really draw out any wider lessons of government as a wider issue, which is pretty critical.
This is money that has gone to a provider that has not delivered. There is the issue around management fees and subcontracting which I know the education select committee is keen to look at, but it is also an issue which the public accounts committee has looked at a lot, where you have one big subcontractor or a few swooping up the money, but other people are actually doing the work.
We need to look at whether that is really what government means by “outsourcing”.
Outsourcing is here to stay I think, but we have said several times to the government in many reports that once you outsource you do not absolve yourself of this responsibility from making sure it is delivered.
We have been hitting very hard on how you manage that contract as a smart client.
There is no real prospect of Learndirect surviving this scandal
It does not seem to me that in this case the DfE has been a smart client.
It got to a point where it was dealing with a provider that if it had started digging they might have found their problems, so it does seem that Learndirect has been too big to fail.
If the NAO do an investigation, which I hope they will, then we would expect to have all of the data and information about what money has gone in, what has been spent, what management fees were charged and all of that.
If the NAO goes in, they have access to all the contracts and information at the DfE, and I would hope if Learndirect has any conscience, given it now has this publicity anyway, it will open up itself to the auditors because there is now nowhere for them to run and hide.
There is no real prospect of them surviving this scandal.
Nick Linford editorial – Learndirect: No scapegoats, no excuses
The Learndirect scandal might have looked very different had it taken place before the funding agency was subsumed into the DfE.
My hunch is that, as a non-departmental public body, the Skills Funding Agency might have been able to handle decisions and their related communications very differently.
The ESFA does not have its own press office, and over several weeks the DfE has first avoided and finally refused to answer two key questions. Firstly, why didn’t it act on the evidence supplied by Ofsted at the end of March, and secondly, when did Learndirect withdraw from the tender for which it was subsequently awarded a £45 million contract extension?
The NAO is poised to investigate, and ministers and civil servants will need to account for their actions.
At the heart of any investigation will be Peter Lauener, the ESFA’s chief executive and accounting officer.
He will face a torrid few months before his retirement, but it needs to be remembered that the ESFA is now an executive agency to the DfE.
Gone are the days when it would refuse to toe the government’s line.
And because the ESFA was brought in-house, the buck stops with the secretary of state, Justine Greening and DfE’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater.
