Degree students left waiting for overdue results from a Lancashire college have branded the delay “cruel” and are demanding answers. 

The final grades for students at Blackburn College’s university centre should have been published two weeks ago, according to reports in the local media – but have not yet been released.

The college has blamed data glitches for the delay, but hasn’t elaborated about what’s behind the problem, how many students are affected, or even when the problems will be resolved.

A number of students affected have tweeted their anger at the ongoing delay.

One user, Kylie Armstrong, wrote on July 18: “@LancasterUni celebrating graduation while they have delayed our results #cruel #wedemandanswers”

Others have complained about the impact the delay could have on their future studies or job offers.

Tracy Stuart, a vice-principal of curriculum and quality, expressed “regret” that the students had not got their results.

“The college is undertaking a robust review of its data to ensure its accuracy,” she said, resulting in “a delay which we are working hard to resolve”.

“Blackburn College is currently scheduling the submission of its results,” she added.

She refused to reveal any more information despite further questions from FE Week.

Blackburn College, which crashed two grades from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’ after an Ofsted inspection in May, offers degrees through its university centre, the majority of which are validated by Lancaster University.

Prof Mike Wright, a dean of academic quality at Lancaster, said the university had been “informed that a systems issue is affecting Blackburn College results” and that staff at the college and the university were “working collaboratively to fix the problem as quickly as possible”.

“As soon as Blackburn’s internal systems issue is resolved and Lancaster University can be satisfied with the accuracy of the results, we will then be in a position to set a date for the college to release those results to students,” he said.

FE Week has asked the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE if it had received any complaints from Blackburn students, and a spokesperson told us that the organisation was “not able to comment on individual cases or to confirm whether or not we have received cases relating to a particular issue”.

She added: “It may be useful to clarify that students normally need to complete their provider’s own internal complaints process before they can bring a complaint to us.”

 

Three providers have been branded ‘inadequate’ in a tough week for the FE and skills sector.

Land-based provider Easton and Otley College, independent provider EQL Solutions Limited and employer provider Compass Group UK & Ireland have all been given the lowest possible grade.

Easton and Otley College was rated grade four in all areas except effectiveness of leadership and management, and apprenticeships – both given grade three – in a report published July 20 and based on an inspection carried out in May.

“Too many students” on study programmes were found to “not make the progress of which they are capable”, while adult learners “do not benefit from effective, well-planned teaching, learning and assessment”.

Consequently, “too few” learners “achieved their qualifications”, with the proportion having “declined in recent years”.

Leaders and managers were also criticised for failing to act “swiftly to bring about improvements to the provision in order to ensure that students and apprentices make good progress”.

Governance and management at EQL Solutions Limited came in for heavy criticism in a report published July 19 and based on an inspection in March.

The Warrington-based provider was rated inadequate in all areas except adult learning, with governors and leaders slammed for failing to “eradicate the weaknesses identified at the previous inspection”.

The “strategic and operational management of subcontractors” was deemed “requires improvement”, as was the “performance management of staff at every level”.

Apprentice achievement rates had “declined significantly” since the previous inspection – but unemployed adult learners were found to “make good progress”.

Meanwhile, employer provider Compass Group UK & Ireland was handed grade fours across the board in a report published June 20 and based on an inspection in June.

“Few” line managers were found to be “engaged in the apprenticeship programme” while UK directors “do not have a clear understanding of the performance of apprenticeship delivery”.

Consequently, most apprentices “make slow progress” as a result of “operational restructuring, changes of assessors, poorly planned learning and a lack of time at work to devote to their apprenticeship”.

Leaders were also criticised for failing to “manage rigorously enough” the subcontractor’s performance.

Three providers slipped one grade from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ – independent providers TQ Workforce Development Limited and Archway Academy, along with adult and community learning provider NACRO.

A significant decline in apprenticeship achievement rates was among the issues highlighted for TQ Workforce Development, in a report published July 19 and based on a June inspection.

Leaders and managers were deemed “slow to implement actions to improve teaching, learning and assessment” while learners’ and apprentices’ progress was “hindered” due to a lack of “challenging, detailed targets based on their individual starting points”.

Issues with data collection and progress monitoring were among those pulling Archway Academy down, in a report published July 19 and based on an inspection in June.

“Too few” tutors were “sufficiently demanding” of learners, and many did not “use results of learners’ initial assessment and education, health and care plans sufficiently well to plan learning that meets all learners’ individual education and training needs”.

Meanwhile, the report into Nacro – published July 19 and based on an inspection in May – singled out problems with the community learning and skills provider’s study programmes.

Poor design of the programmes that failed to allow “sufficient consideration of the personal circumstances that often prevent learners from being able to maintain a commitment to year-long study programmes” led to “too few learners” achieving their qualifications.

Former sixth form college Totton College, which is now part of Nacro, was also rated as ‘requires improvement’ in a separate report published July 18 and based on a June inspection.

Learners’ progress was being impeded by “low” attendance and teachers who had “insufficiently high expectations of their learners” – with the result that achievement rates were “too low”.

Just two providers were found to be ‘good’ overall this week following full inspections – one of which, Learning Skills Partnership Ltd, went up from grade three, while the other, Smart Training and Recruitment Ltd, held on to its grade two.

Leaders and managers at Learning and Skills Partnership Ltd were praised for having “overseen significant improvements” at the Hull-based independent provider, and for having a “clear and carefully considered vision”, in a report published July 19 and based on an inspection in June.

The “vast majority” of apprentices benefitted from “well-planned and effective teaching, learning and assessment”, leading to “the development of good occupational skills which their employers value highly”.

The standard of apprentices’ work at Smart Training and Recruitment Limited was deemed “good”, with the “large majority” making good progress on their programmes, in a report published July 18 and based on an inspection in June.

The “excellent relationships” developed by “very ambitious” leaders and managers at the Isle of Wight-based independent provider have enabled them to “deliver high-quality programmes that meet local and regional needs and the needs of apprentices”.

Eight providers held onto their grade two following a short inspection this week – independent learning providers Introtrain (ACE) Limited, Midland Group Training Services Limited, and Health & Safety Training Limited, and adult and community learning providers Building Crafts College, Southampton City Council, Derby Skillbuild, Derbyshire Adult and Community Education Service, and Cheshire East Council.

And finally, a monitoring visit report into safeguarding at Lewisham Southwark College was published this week, which found all aspects of safeguarding to be effective.

GFE Colleges	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Lewisham Southwark College	21/06/2017	21/07/2017	M	M
Easton & Otley College	15/05/2017	20/07/2017	4	2
Totton College (Part of Nacro)	06/06/2017	18/07/2017	3	–

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
TQ Workforce Development Limited	13/06/2017	19/07/2017	3	2
Archway Academy	27/06/2017	19/07/2017	3	2
Learning Skills Partnership Ltd	19/06/2017	19/07/2017	2	3
EQL Solutions Limited	28/03/2017	19/07/2017	4	3
Smart Training and Recruitment Limited	13/06/2017	18/07/2017	2	2

 

Adult and Community Learning	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
NACRO	09/05/2017	19/07/2017	3	2

 

Employer providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Compass Group UK & Ireland	13/06/2017	20/07/2017	4	2

 

Short inspections (remains grade 2)	Inspected	Published
Building Crafts College	13/06/2017	20/07/2017
Southampton City Council	27/06/2017	20/07/2017
Derby Skillbuild	29/06/2017	19/07/2017
Derbyshire Adult Community Education Service	21/06/2017	19/07/2017
Cheshire East Council	14/06/2017	19/07/2017
Introtrain (ACE) Limited	20/06/2017	20/07/2017
Midland Group Training Services Limited	21/06/2017	20/07/2017
Health & Safety Training Limited	21/06/2017	19/07/2017

Tenders for developing the government’s new Institutes of Technology have been put off until the autumn, skills and apprenticeships minister Anne Milton has revealed.

She made the announcement in a letter sent to FE leaders yesterday, in which she also told them that teaching of the first T-levels would be delayed by a year to September 2020.

While a date for tendering will be welcomed amidst growing uncertainty, there are fears that starting the process after the summer break could leave the sector waiting as late as the autumn budget, which is typically held the end of November, for the “competition” to open.

“Prestigious IoTs will be developed to deliver the higher-level technical skills that employers need,” she wrote. “The competition to establish these Institutes will launch in the autumn.”

Also in the letter (which you can read in full here) was reference to an official public consultation on the design of T-levels, another thing that has been pushed back until the autumn.

Formally announcing the consultation in the letter, the minister (pictured above) wrote: “We are also planning a public consultation on the design of T-levels, to allow all interested organisations and individuals to contribute towards the development of the new programmes, as well as a series of further engagement opportunities.”

The DfE declined to provide concrete dates for the plans.

Yesterday’s announcement on IoTs was one of the first notable movements since plans were first unveiled in 2015.

They got a mention in the government’s skills plan last July, which said they would “provide technical education in STEM subjects at levels three, four and five”, in order to address the “particular need to improve higher-level STEM skills”.

But material on the next steps, originally expected last autumn, has so far failed to materialise.

Further glimpses of the government’s thinking were revealed in the industrial strategy green paper in January – along with a commitment of £170 million in capital funding.

This document suggested their aim was to “increase the provision of higher-level technical education”, and ensure that it is available “in all areas”.

The government said it wanted most IoTs “to grow out of high-quality provision”, implying they would be based at existing providers.

But a leaked document, seen by FE Week the following month, indicated that they could be based at “wholly new” institutions.

The Conservative Party manifesto, published in the run-up to June’s general election, caused more confusion by hinting at a change of policy on the institutes.

It committed to establishing an IoT in “every major city in England” – though these would be “linked to leading universities” and would “provide courses at degree level and above, specialising in technical disciplines, such as STEM, whilst also providing higher-level apprenticeships and bespoke courses for employers”.

The Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency have both released their annual reports and accounts for 2016-17 today – their last before they merged to form a single agency on April 1.

Here are 10 interesting facts we learned through combing through both reports:

1. The SFA underspent by £156.8 million (4.6 per cent) of its total budget

This is attributed to “a combination of the timing of area reviews and some underperformance in the sector”.

2. Talking of the area reviews…

According to the SFA, the reviews – which ended in March – resulted in 56 recommendations for mergers involving FE colleges, and 22 recommendations for new apprenticeship delivery models.

These figures are for all 37 reviews, plus two previous pilot reviews – whereas the EFA has only reported on the recommendations from the 22 published review reports.

It says that those 22 reviews, which included 70 sixth form colleges, “recommended that 49 sixth-form colleges consider becoming an academy, eight to merge with a general FE college and 13 to remain as individual sixth-form colleges. One sixth-form college converted to academy status during the reporting year.”

In terms of cash to implement the recommendations, the SFA’s accounts show that £6 million in transition grants has been handed out to colleges, while £2,850,000 has already been allocated in loan funding from the restructuring facility.

3. Financial health of FE providers is still a risk

The “declining financial health of the FE sector” is causing “greater demand for intervention and growing pressure for exceptional financial support”, which results in “an unfunded pressure on the adult education budget” – still a significant risk for the SFA.

A total of £4,151,000 was issued in EFS in 2016/17, with the total balance of EFS loans standing at £47,130,000.

4. Provider funding error is also seen as a risk to the SFA

“The increased provider funding error rate may be indicative of weak financial controls within the sector. If unchecked, and an upward trend in the error rate continues, this could limit assurance over the proper use of public funds that colleges and other training organisations receive,” said the SFA.

Analysis of the errors found “no single common factor” behind them, but noted that a “number of colleges were undergoing significant organisational change” which “places stretch across all college resources”.

But these errors were “not indicative of fraud”.

5. The number of providers currently under notice from the SFA has risen sharply

There are 89 providers with a current notice – up from 59 in 2015/16.

This is largely due to huge increase in the number of private providers being hit with a notice of serious breach, up from one in 2015/16 to 26 in 2016/17.

The number of FE colleges, local authority-maintained institutions, or specialist designated institutions being issued notices of concern has remained relatively stable – 58 in 2015/16 and 63 in 2016/17.

6. Peter Lauener’s pay package has gone down this year

The chief executive of both agencies (now merged into the Education and Skills Funding Agency) received a salary of between £140-145,000 this year, as he did in 2015/16.

But because his pension benefits are lower this year, his total pay package stands at £145-150,000, which is £30,000 less than in 2015/16.

Nor is he the most highly paid director at the agencies.

The largest remuneration package across both agencies this year actually goes to Mike Green, the director of capital group at the EFA, who has a total package of £190-195,000.

7. The number of SFCs has gone down this year

There were 93 in March 2016, according to the EFA report – but just 89 by March 2017.

This reduction is due to mergers, the report says, and also academisation, as the first SFC completed the process to become a 16 to 19 academy during 2016/17.

8. A third of SFCs were in ‘early intervention’ this year

The EFA’s ‘early intervention and prevention’ approach, published July 2015, was designed to encourage early action where “it is evident that the sixth form college is close to triggering formal intervention thresholds”.

According to the EFA report, 30 SFCs were subject to the approach this year, while three financial notices to improve were also handed out along with one notice for an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted grade.

9. EFA intervention time is going up – and down

The EFA is aiming to “reduce the average time spent in formal intervention for all colleges which have been in formal intervention for more than 24 months” as part of its objective to improve the financial health of the sector.

On average the amount of time that colleges and SFCs are spending in formal intervention has gone up this year and now stands at 95 weeks in 2016/17, compared with 82 in 2015/16.

But the average number of weeks by which interventions have gone over the 24 month targets has dropped significantly – from 89 in 2015/16 to 28 in 2016/17.

10. On average, EFA employees are healthier than SFA staff

The EFA lost an average of 4.1 days to sickness absence per employee in 2016/17, while the SFA lost 4.6 per employee.

The T-levels crisis has deepened after a new report claimed Lord Sainsbury’s recommendation to have one awarding organisation per qualification would not be viable.

Research on the strengths and weaknesses of the vocational qualifications market in England was released this morning by the Department for Education.

In his review of technical education, which paved the way for the post-16 skills plan, Lord Sainsbury recommended that any technical qualification at levels two and three should be “offered and awarded by a single body or consortium, under a licence covering a fixed period of time following an open competition”.

In the skills plan, the then-skills minister Nick Boles said the DfE would “accept and implement all of the Sainsbury panel’s proposals”.

But today’s DfE report, conducted by Frontier Economics, concludes that limiting access to a single AO may create a “risk of system failure” both in the short- and long-term.

It warns that if a single AO fails, it may be that no alternative AO can step in.

Moreover, limiting access to a single AO could “reduce the competition for that route in the future”.

“Those AOs that do not successfully win the contract may not be able to viably continue offering services in the market until the contract is next awarded, leaving few or no credible alternative to existing licensees,” says the report.

As a result, mitigating actions to manage these risks must be considered alongside the reforms.

To avoid system failure, it suggests AOs operating in routes for which they have not tendered could be required to build “capacity” so they can be “called upon to step in to deliver assessment services should an AO fail in another route”.

Today’s finding is the latest in a string of blows to the government’s flagship T-level plans.

According to the skills plan, the first two pathfinder routes are meant to be ready for teaching from September 2019 – but only if a number of increasingly challenging milestones are reached on time.

FE Week revealed on Tuesday (July 18), via a Freedom of Information request, that no-one had yet been appointed to the T-level advisory development panels that should have met for the first time four months ago, even though they will be instrumental in the development of the new qualifications.

FE Week also understands that the DfE’s consultation on developing T-levels had been due over the summer, but has been pushed back until the autumn.

Earlier this month, Ms Greening urged businesses to get behind T-levels during a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce.

But several major awarding bodies including City & Guilds have recently begged the government to rethink its “impossible” timetable, amid the growing evidence that plans are already running behind schedule.

Other important stages include procurement for the new technical qualifications, which is due to begin in October 2018.

The first two pathfinder qualifications are scheduled to be approved by February 2019, and teaching will supposedly begin that September.

The remaining routes will be phased in from 2020 to 2022, or so it is hoped.