A major college has been bumped up from a grade three to a two by Ofsted, in a report that was finally published after a 90-day delay, while Pizza Hut’s FE skills training has been rated ‘requires improvement’.

South Essex College, which teaches around 11,500 students, received a ‘good’ overall grade in a report published on August 7, after three consecutive previous reports since 2012 said it ‘requires improvement’.

FE Week understands that the delay was as a result of an “extended quality assurance process” after the new grade two was challenged.

However, it has at last been rated ‘good’ in every headline field Ofsted looks at save one, adult learning programmes, which was given a grade three.

Inspectors said apprentices and learners on vocational courses develop “skills that prepare them well for progression to the next steps of learning or employment” and more learners “now complete and achieve their qualifications than at the time of the previous inspection”.

Ofsted highlighted the “large numbers” of learners who study at level three, as well as the many apprentices in subcontracted provision, who are “particularly successful”.

Managers have taken “effective steps” to raise learners’ progress and attainment in English and maths this current year, but inspectors said low attendance in these subjects means that too many learners are still “not making sufficient progress, particularly in maths”.

Ofsted also said that too few learners sitting A-levels at the college “achieve their qualifications”. South Essex College is in the bottom four per cent of the country for its A-level provision.

Meanwhile Pizza Hut was given a grade three across the board for its delivery of skills training.

The employer-provider currently trains around 60 apprentices on intermediate and advanced apprenticeships in the hospitality and catering sector.

Ofsted found that too many apprentices did not achieve their qualifications in 2015/16 and, although current apprentices “make the progress expected of them”, too many have left their programmes early in 2016/17.

Leaders “do not self-assess” the quality of their apprenticeship provision “effectively, particularly with their subcontracted provision” and as a result, improvement planning and intervention have been “too slow”.

However, inspectors did note that the “vast majority” of apprentices develop good technical skills, which they use “assuredly” in their teams, and their employers “greatly appreciate” the value they bring to the business.

Ofsted added that apprentices enrolled on the new standards apprenticeship programme make “good progress” because of “high-quality” coaching and mentoring from their employers.

Learners gain good practical skills, such as how to slice a pizza correctly and how best to present food to their customers, as well as “theoretical competence”.

Norfolk Training Services Limited meanwhile had its first monitoring visit since it was given an ‘inadequate’ rating in May.

Inspectors said that since the inspection, leaders have established a quality improvement plan that features a “comprehensive range of actions to rectify all the weaknesses identified at inspection”.

Managers have “intensified” their actions to support and challenge tutors whose practice was as below expectations, and leaders have “refined” the role of a part-time employed equality and diversity officer and “increased the specific focus” on leading the promotion of British values to apprentices and learners.

Four other providers, Hertfordshire County Council, Maritime + Engineering College North West, John Laing Training and Buzz Learning Limited, held onto their ‘good’ grades following short inspections this week.

More than a million pounds of public money has been spent on mergers that subsequently collapsed, FE Week analysis has revealed.

Details of the area review transition grants awarded to general FE and sixth form colleges to date were finally published by the Department for Education today, after FE Week repeatedly pushed for the information over the last 10 months.

Analysis of the payments showed that of the £5.6 million awarded so far, almost £1.04 million was specifically meant to support 11 mergers that since failed or significantly changed.

A total of 84 grants have been made to 50 FE colleges, 33 sixth form colleges and one specialist designated institution.

According to government guidance published last year, the grants were “to ensure providers can access the best change-management skills, and have the capacity to make the changes at the pace required”.

The size of the payments varied depending on the scale of planned changes – with mergers involving more than two institutions, or two institutions with a combined turnover of more than £25 million, attracting higher sums.

It’s not clear whether colleges with failed mergers will have to repay the cash; FE Week put the question to the DFE, but did not receive an answer before publication.

The largest failed grant was for £200,000, to South Cheshire College, and was intended to create a single Cheshire-wide college from the four in the area. But it later broke into two separate mergers, with South Cheshire joining forces with West Cheshire College in March, and Mid Cheshire College and Warrington Collegiate merging on August 1.

Bury College was awarded £100,000 for a proposed three-way merger involving Bolton College and the University of Bolton – yet Bury was dropped from this plan in April.

Barking and Dagenham College also received £100,000 for its failed partnership with Havering College.

And Stockport College got £100,000 for a three-way merger with Oldham College and Tameside College, which was subsequently called off by the FE commissioner.

South Staffordshire College was granted £100,000 for its partnership with Walsall College, scrapped in May.

The City Literary Institute in London – the only non-FE college or SFC to receive a transition grant – was awarded £100,000 for its link-up with Kensington and Chelsea College, which was called off in February.

The three collapsed Tees Valley mergers were also supported to the tune of almost a quarter of a million pounds, with £100,000 each going to Darlington and Middlesbrough colleges for their link-ups with Stockton Riverside and Redcar and Cleveland Colleges.

Hartlepool College received £49,500 for its failed merger with Hartlepool SFC.

And Farnborough College of Technology and Guildford College were each separately awarded grants of £50,000 and £37,500 respectively to explore the possibility of a merger – but talks between the two were paused back in February.

Looking at the wider picture, 26 of the 84 grants awarded so far were for mergers that have either completed or are still underway, totalling £2.24 million.

A further 29 grants, worth a combined total of £1.3 million, were awarded to SFCs to convert to academy status.

The remaining 18 grants, worth £1.01 million, cover a range of different outcomes including shared services, collaboration, setting up apprenticeship companies and, in one case, a “fresh start”.

An FE Week Freedom of Information request revealed last December that £726 million had been set aside by the government to cover the cost of implementing area review recommendations – of which £12 million was to cover transition grants.

That came after repeated rejected requests to the DfE over the size of the pot, and how many grants had been awarded, going back to October.

A week ago, the DfE published the reports into the final two waves of the reviews, bringing the process to a close.

At the time David Hughes, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, warned that despite the government cash, colleges were still “funding the majority of upfront costs of these structural changes themselves”.

Area review transition grants awarded for mergers that subsequently failed:

Details of all the area review transition grants awarded to date have finally been published by the Department for Education – after repeated requests from FE Week for the information. 

The grants, worth either £50,000 or £100,000, were part of the package of financial support available to colleges and sixth form colleges to help them implement area review recommendations.

According to government guidance published last year, “the grants are to ensure providers can access the best change-management skills and have the capacity to make the changes at the pace required”.

Full story, including analysis of who received grants, to follow. 

An Ofsted report on a major college in Essex is still nowhere to be seen – despite the provider being inspected nearly 90 days ago.

South Essex College, which has campuses in Southend-on-Sea, Basildon and Grays and teaches around 20,000 students, was inspected by the education watchdog in early May.

Yet its report has still not been published. Inspectors visited the college between May 9 and 12, which makes it 84 days since the last day of inspection – nearly three times as long as the average 30 days between inspection and report being published.

Since 2012, the college has had three inspection reports which all were graded ‘requires improvement’, with the latest coming in June 2015.

FE Week understands that a ‘good’ outcome was initially given to the college in Ofsted’s grading meeting following this April’s inspection, but subsequent moderation challenged the decision and the college could have now been downgraded.

When asked why the report had been delayed for so long, a spokesperson for Ofsted said South Essex College was subject to an “extended quality assurance process”.

She added that this process is now “complete and the report will be published in the coming days”.

Looking at official performance data, which compares results of different providers, South Essex College places in the bottom 4 per cent of the country for its A-level provision.

The college appears to perform particularly badly for 16 to 18 year olds in their first year of their A-levels.

Of the 250 that took AS’ in 2015-16, just 57 per cent passed their course, according to the latest national achievement rates tables.

What was odd was that the retention rate for this group was high (94 per cent) but the achievement rate was catastrophically low at 54 per cent – meaning students have been failing at the end of their course.

Other troubles the college is currently faced with include a notice of concern, given by the Education and Skills Funding Agency in November 2016, for the provider’s poor financial health.

South Essex College was approached but did not provide a response by the time of going to press.

A private training provider lost its ‘outstanding’ rating in what was otherwise a sturdy week for FE providers.

Heart of England Training, which has campus’ in Rugby, Birmingham, Leicester and Coventry and teaches nearly 2,000 learners, dropped from a grade one to a grade two in a report published July 31.

The provider had gone seven years without inspection and received a ‘good’ across the board this time round.

What prevented the provider from maintaining its ‘outstanding’ grade was that staff “do not consistently challenge” learners sufficiently to “develop and apply” skills at higher levels beyond minimum qualification requirements.

Inspectors added that directors in governance roles “do not scrutinise” the quality of learning enough or provide “sufficient challenge and support” to managers to enable them to do so.

But many positives remain at Heart of England. Ofsted said progression to further and higher education for learners on study programmes is “high” and a “large majority” of apprentices gain permanent employment or “secure increased responsibility” at work.

Links with employers are “strong” and lead to programmes “designed to meet their needs for a skilled workforce”, while the quality of practical training is also “high”, which enables learners to become “skilled workers and use these valuable skills to benefit their employers’ businesses”.

To improve, the provider must “ensure that staff are supported to develop their teaching skills further”, according to Ofsted.

Meanwhile Juniper Training, another private provider, improved from a grade three to a grade two.

The provider, which trains around 1,500 in 12 centres across the West Midlands, East Midlands, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire, was rated ‘good’ across the board and staff were praised for improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment since the last inspection.

Inspectors said staff are also “highly committed” to improving the education and lives of all learners.

“They give very good support to help learners achieve and gain employment, particularly those who previously have been unsuccessful in education and who have a learning difficulty and/or disability.”

Leaders and managers were also highlighted by Ofsted for implementing “effective improvement strategies” to remedy the “majority of inconsistencies” across centres identified in the previous inspection.

Managers have also taken “positive actions” to improve learners’ behaviour and as a result, learners behave “very well and show respect for each other” and for their tutors.

Also receiving a ‘good’ rating was PeoplePlus Group, a private provider which maintained a grade two since its last inspection.

The relatively large provider, with around 9,500 learners trained in London, achieved ‘good’ across the board and was praised for enabling a “high proportion” of adult learners and apprentices to progress on to employment.

Inspectors said senior leaders and managers work “very well” with many national employers to develop a curriculum that “enables learners and apprentices to gain the skills they need for sustainable employment”.

Tutors enable adult learners to “develop quickly” the employability and practical skills required to progress successfully to employment or further learning.

Apprentices also benefit from tutors’ “vocational experience and effective support” that helps them to develop the “skills, knowledge and behaviours to secure their future employment”.

But despite a rapid improvement in the proportion of apprentices achieving their qualifications within the time allocated, “not enough” apprentices complete their courses on time.

One other private provider, Astute Minds Ltd, also held onto its grade two following a short inspection this week.

It wasn’t however such a good week for independent provider Brighter Futures Merseyside, which dropped from a grade two to a grade three.

Ofsted said too many learners do not achieve their study programme qualifications, nor do students develop their written English and maths skills “well enough”.

Learners do however develop good practical skills in a number of vocational areas such as dog grooming, animal care and dance, and tutors support learners “well” to “overcome or reduce” their barriers to learning.