Exclusive: Government inaction as employers leave apprentices half a million pounds out of pocket

It’s likely that no-one has been fined or prosecuted for illegally underpaying apprentices, an FE Week investigation exposing the “unacceptable” failure of government enforcement has found.

The Department for Education’s own survey, published on Wednesday, found that 18 per cent of apprentices were paid below the appropriate national minimum wage in 2016, up from 15 per cent in 2014.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy admitted there had been just 13 prosecutions since 2007 for minimum wage violations, four of which were in 2016-17.

However, he claimed to “not have information” as to whether any of these related to apprenticeships.

Meanwhile, in 2015-16, he said the government identified “£558,618 of arrears for 632 workers in cases where complaints involved apprentices”, though this only refers to underpayment claims, which have to be reimbursed, and do not represent fines.

Asked directly whether any employers had been fined or prosecuted for non-compliance over apprentices’ pay, the DfE declined to respond.

It also refused to comment on whether government attempts to deter employers, through naming and shaming, and threats of fines or prosecution, had failed.

The newly elected chair of the education select committee, Robert Halfon, a former skills minister, spoke out on Twitter about government inaction.

“Apprentices not paid legal MinWage unacceptable: Emplyrs shld’ve high sanctions. Apps shld be valued not exploited,” he wrote.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s shadow minister for business, energy and industrial strategy, added: “The government has not taken sufficient steps to enforce payment of the minimum wage. Employment rights are only safe in Labour hands.

“That there are apprentices who are paid less than minimum wage is unacceptable, that the practice is on the rise is shocking.”

Julian Gravatt, the deputy CEO of the Association of Colleges, described FE Week’s findings as “a concern”. “Low pay is bad for the apprentice while illegal pay arrangements damage the reputation of apprenticeships,” he said.

“This issue should be a priority for the government’s new director of labour market enforcement.”

The government appointed Sir David Metcalf to this new position in January, to “oversee a crackdown on workplace exploitation”.

BEIS explained in February that “from October 2013, the government revised the naming and shaming scheme to make it simpler to name and shame employers” who break NMW law.

It identified a record 359 breaches that month alone, but continues to refuse to say which, if any, of the offences related to apprentices.

BEIS also explained five months ago that employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage could face prosecution, and “not only have to pay back arrears of wages to the worker at current minimum wage rates, but also face financial penalties of up to 200 per cent of arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker”.

FE Week learned in April that the researchers who carried out the work for this year’s apprentice pay survey handed a final draft of their report to the government back in January.

Mark Winterbotham, the director of the firm which carried out the survey, told FE Week that he didn’t know why it hadn’t yet been published, and said he had “not had any communication since early March” with BEIS’ research team.

“Headline figures on non-compliance for apprenticeship pay have been public since October 2016,” said a spokesperson for the department said this week.

“There has been no delay in publishing this report.”

Government’s new crackdown on illegally low wages for apprentices

Rogue employers who illegally underpay apprentices have been threatened with severe jail sentences, under a new government crackdown on abuses of workers’ rights.

Sir David Metcalf (pictured above), the government’s new director of labour-market enforcement, today warned that the worst offenders could face prison sentences as long as two years.

The crackdown comes just days after FE Week reported that it was more than likely that no employer had ever been prosecuted or even fined for paying apprentices less the national minimum wage.

A much-delayed Department for Education survey released last week showed that 18 per cent of apprentices were paid illegal wages in 2016, up from 15 per cent in 2014.

Government inaction allowed employers to leave UK apprentices half a million pounds out of pocket in 2015-16 alone.

“Tackling labour market abuses is an important priority for the government and I am encouraged it has committed record funds to cracking down on exploitation,” said Sir David, who was appointed to the new position in January, in order to oversee a crackdown on workplace exploitation.

“Over the coming months I will be working with government enforcement agencies and industry bodies to better identify and punish the most serious and repeat offenders taking advantage of vulnerable workers and honest businesses.”

A Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy spokesperson confirmed to FE Week that this crackdown commitment would apply to employers who fail to pay apprentices at least the minimum wage of £3.50 per hour for anyone aged 24 or under.

Read more: Apprenticeship pay survey exposes rise in proportion paid illegal wages

The wider national minimum and living wage enforcement statistics show that in 2016-17, government teams managed to recoup a record £10.9 million in back pay for 98,150 of the UK’s lowest-paid workers – a 69 per cent increase on the previous year.

BEIS said businesses that failed to pay workers at least the legal minimum wage were also fined £3.9 million, with employers in hospitality and retail sectors among the most prolific offenders.

However, there have been just 13 prosecutions since 2007 for minimum wage violations, four of which came in 2016-17.

A BEIS press officer claimed to “not have information” on whether any of these related to underpaid apprentices.

Jon Richards, head of education at Unison, said his union has raised concerns about “weak” regulation of apprentices’ pay‎ with government on “a number of occasions”.

He said that if this new crackdown is true and “not further government spin”, then it “might make employers sit up and take notice”.

“Apprentices are already paid a pittance, so any employer trying to exploit them further deserves what they get,” he added.

BEIS explained in February that “from October 2013, the government revised the naming and shaming scheme to make it simpler to name and shame employers” which break NMW law.

It identified a record 359 breaches that month alone, but continues to refuse to say whether any concerned apprentices.

Five months ago, BEIS announced that employers paying their workers less than the minimum wage could face prosecution, and “not only have to pay back arrears of wages to the worker at current minimum wage rates, but also face financial penalties of up to 200 per cent of arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker”.

Business minister Margot James claimed the government is “firmly on the side of hard-working people” and is “determined to stamp out any workplace exploitation, from minimum wage abuses to modern slavery”.

Sir David will start consulting with stakeholders from today, ahead of his first full strategy, due later this year. To contribute, you can email directorsoffice@lme.gsi.gov.uk

 

Tendering launch time for Institutes of Technology revealed

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”.

Investigation update: Confusion as government refuses to say if all provider’s funding pulled

The future of a provider caught offering banned inducements to an employer remains in limbo, after the government refused to confirm whether all its last funding will be cancelled.

Talent Training, a company based in South Tyneside, does not appear in the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s latest allocations list, and the company itself has told FE Week that its non-levy-paying apprenticeships contract was set to be terminated.

The ESFA itself, however, has refused to confirm the truth of the matter.

The agency first said it would end its “levy agreement” with Talent a month ago, after it was presented with the findings of an undercover FE Week investigation into the kickbacks it had been offering employers.

It confirmed at the time, though, that the provider’s non-levy apprenticeship contracts were not coming to an end.

Nevertheless, Talent, which had been allocated £954,877 from the adult education budget as of March, made no appearance on the ESFA’s June allocations list.

In a statement given to FE Week, a spokesperson for the provider said: “ESFA has given notice to terminate Talent’s main [non-levy paying apprenticeships] contract in October, although no final decision has yet been made.

“Talent is at a loss to understand ESFA’s position, not least its refusal to give reasons for its decisions coupled with its decision to now terminate Talent’s main contract.”

An ESFA spokesperson was much less forthcoming, however.

“We are not going to engage in a back-and-forth exchange with Talent while investigations are ongoing. That includes not making any comment on the status of their contracts.”

Barry Waller, who had been the provider’s national business development manager, was suspended as a result of our findings, after he was caught offering cash amounting to as much as 20 per cent of government funding per apprenticeship directly to a firm considering whether to engage Talent’s services for training.

This employer had contacted FE Week as a concerned whistleblower, showing us emails confirming Talent’s offer. Our reporter then secretly sat in on and recorded a phone call between the employer and the Talent employee, during which the offer of an inducement was made.

The money Talent claimed from the ESFA had been meant solely for the purposes of training and assessing apprentices, but the provider was alleged to be offering – through an intermediary – to hand as much as £200 in every £1,000 back the employer in question in kickbacks.

In March, the ESFA revised its funding rules specifically to ban inducements like this, which were becoming increasingly rife across the sector.

Talent, which said at the time of our initial story that it had launched an internal investigation into the matter, appeared to try to circumvent the rules.

Its spokesperson told FE Week yesterday that it has now “apologised unreservedly to ESFA for any confusion arising due to anything Mr Waller may have said. Mr Waller remains suspended pending the outcome of ESFA’s enquiries”.

“Talent has also implemented immediate changes to its internal processes designed to minimise the scope for any confusing language being used by the sales team.

“The fundamental point is that Talent never planned to make, agreed to make, or did make, any payments to employer-clients other than by way of proper payments for subcontracted services, authorised by the funding rules.”

They added that nothing said by Mr Waller “could ever have made its way into a finalised agreement giving rise to the type of payment alleged in the FE Week article”.

However, one claim made in the statement is potentially embarrassing for the ESFA, and indicative at best of poor internal communication.

“Talent is particularly puzzled in that the initial notice of termination was issued by ESFA on June 21, yet ESFA continued to send Talent 474 apprentice learners from another provider terminated by ESFA, asking Talent to accept this additional provision,” said the spokesperson.

“ESFA continued to send Talent transfer requests and authorisations up until July 11, asking Talent to deliver their apprenticeship programme with immediate effect.”

The statement closed by saying that Talent is preparing a court challenge to the ESFA’s decision.

After we sent our initial investigation findings to Keith Smith, the director of funding and programmes at the ESFA, back in June, a spokesperson for the agency said: “It is unacceptable for any training provider to abuse the system by offering employers cash incentives from the apprenticeship levy.”

“The ESFA has reviewed the information and taken action to protect the interests of learners and employers.”

Frontier Economics is right: the T-level tender approach is not viable

Important new research carried out for the DfE demonstrates that a single awarding body for T-levels would have disastrous consequences – let’s hope the Department for Education listens, writes Gemma Gathercole

It’s a rare moment, working in policy, when a government-published research report quite literally takes the words out of your mouth, but that was my experience when reading today’s Frontier Economics report Assessing the Vocational Qualifications Market in England.

Its analysis, on behalf of the DfE, of market weaknesses neatly summarises my experience as a former senior manager of a large awarding organisation. Successive government policies have served to drive market behaviour, sometimes for the better but often for the worse, and some of those policies have contributed to the market weaknesses that Frontier Economics has described.

It would be easy to jump into defence mode to describe why some of the high-quality provision is ignored by this sort of analysis, but we live in an age where perceptions are important and, speaking honestly, there is too much of our education system that is too opaque. We should be careful about what we wish for, though: greater transparency about the general qualifications awarding processes has seen a dramatic rise in appeals and falls in public confidence of the system. 

There is hardly any incentive to innovate or provide high-quality support

I have to admit I hate the notion of qualifications that are ‘easier to pass’ – I always remember my Dad telling me that there are no easy or hard questions, there are just those you know the answers to and those you don’t. Well the same can be applied to competence assessment: you’re either competent or not yet competent, pass or not yet ready to pass. But there’s something awkward that we must confront; the pressures on providers to demonstrate achievement, value for money, progress etc are so great that they produce an incentive to chase things that are easier to pass, even when that’s a perception that isn’t true. Frontier Economics’ report recognises this impact in what it describes as “misaligned incentives, potentially leading to a race to the bottom in terms of rigour”.

In particular, the consultancy’s analysis of the potential pitfalls of a single awarding body or consortia franchise model is particularly welcome. In analysing the current market for vocational awarding bodies, the report recognises that while in some sectors there is a proliferation of awarding bodies, there is little competition over individual qualifications, with hardly any incentive to innovate or provide high-quality support.

While this might surprise some in the market who think they compete only on the quality of their support services,  the qualifications are so similar that that it becomes an indictment of complexity of the system. Where provider choice is driven by the impact of other incentives, the service or lack of service offered by an awarding body is often not really a factor in decision-making. In research I’ve seen but which might not have been publicly published, providers frequently refer to cost as important in their decision about awarding organisation choice. However, when asked a later question about whether a lower or more competitive price would make them switch, the answer is always no.

Now let’s imagine a situation where there is no choice, there is only one board/consortium offering a route, and they have a market monopoly. They’ve had to tender to develop the route, which has a cost, and an expensive one at that. They have no competition, so no incentive to innovate, provide support beyond the basics, or if they do it has a development cost and no competition on price. They have a fixed-term license, so their offer always has a potential expiry date. That’s a risky business model; a short license is unattractive and a long license potentially removes the prospect of provider change, again challenging the need for innovation. 

Where in any of this is the consideration of cost-effectiveness, what’s the right provision for UK PLC and learner choice? Or, most importantly, quality? When the coalition government embarked on GCSE reform, the plan was to have a competitive tender for ‘English Baccalaureate Certificates’ (EBCs). This was eventually abandoned, with Michael Gove telling parliament that the reform was “a bridge too far”. The reality is that work was being done behind the scenes and there was a barrage of evidence that proved the approach would be a bad idea.

Echoing the evidence generated about EBCs, the Frontier Economics report describes both short-term and long-term risks, which include market failure and the structural impact on competition in the future. The issues of market failure should not be taken lightly: you don’t need to google too hard to find single-provision market failure in SATs, or even last year’s SATs papers that got published online.  There were issues with GCSE and A-level papers this summer, and these still enjoy a competitive market. If that had happened to high-stakes technical qualifications, they would never recover.

I hope the DfE learns a great deal from this report

The duration of the license, if it goes ahead, will be subject to much debate. Too short and no-one would perceive the investment to be worthwhile, but too long and it would effectively prevent competition for a subsequent tender as the expertise would reside with only the contract holder. While Frontier Economics does present some examples of mitigating actions, much more work is required to ascertain whether these are viable or sufficient.

I’ve often returned to the advice given to me by a former director, back when I was still relatively inexperienced in the vocational qualifications world; she told me that if I stuck around in education long enough I’d see policy initiatives repeating themselves. And, a decade later, I can confirm she was right. This doesn’t have to be the case: we have evidence and we can learn. I hope the DfE learns a great deal from this report.

Ten things we learned from the SFA and EFA annual reports

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”.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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”.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

T-levels crisis: DfE report warns single awarding organisation ‘unviable’

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”.

Read more: Frontier Economics is right: the T-level tender approach is not viable

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.

Minister announces T-levels delay

The first T-levels will be delayed until September 2020 – a year later than planned – the government has announced

The first two pathfinder qualifications were supposed to be approved by February 2019, with teaching to commence from that September, according to England’s post-16 skills plan, published July 2016 and based on the recommendations from the Sainsbury review of technical education.

The remaining routes were then intended to be phased in from 2020 to 2022, a timescale that had been branded “impossible” by several major awarding bodies including City & Guilds.

Now, apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton (pictured above) has announced that she will delay delivery of the first qualifications by 12 months.

In an answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Rebecca Pow today, Ms Milton said: “The post-16 skills plan set out our plan to reform technical education including the introduction of 15 new technical routes to skilled employment, new college-based training programmes based on employer-designed standards, and high quality T-level work placements.

“My officials have now carried out extensive testing of the current delivery plans, including in relation to work placement provision, in discussion with employers, providers and awarding organisations.

“Following that assessment, we have concluded that we will deliver a small number of T-levels from September 2020.”

The remaining T-level routes will still be available as planned in September 2022.

Ms Milton added that over the summer, the Department for Education would “continue to refine and develop our plans working with business and the providers, and we will provide an update on progress in the autumn”.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, welcomed today’s announcement: “This is a major reform programme that with deserves careful consideration to ensure that the curriculum and qualifications are world leading and stand the test of time. It’s a welcome development given the time concerns previously voiced.”

Pippa Morgan, head of education and skills at the Confederation of British Industry, said the delay was “welcome news” because the technical education reforms were “important and complicated”.

 

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, added that he welcomed the timetable change because T-levels will require a “massive effort because of the complexity of the change, but also because we also collectively need to challenge the snobbery and unfairness which goes well beyond the education system”.

Today’s announcement follows a host of FE Week stories that have revealed a crisis in T-level planning. The DfE’s consultation on new qualifications has been pushed back until later this autumn, prompting several major awarding bodies to beg it to rethink its “impossible” timetable.

On Tuesday (July 18), we revealed that no-one has 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.

And earlier today (July 20), the crisis deepened even further after a new DfE report suggested Lord Sainsbury’s recommendation to have one awarding organisation per qualification was not viable.

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

Smith review calls for rethink on GCSE maths resit policy

The government’s controversial policy on post-16 GCSE resits should be rethought, according to the author of a new government-commissioned review out today.

However, Professor Sir Adrian Smith’s plea was quickly rejected by the Department for Education.

Prof Smith made the recommendation in his long-awaited review of post-16 mathematics, first announced in the March 2016 budget, which looks at how to improve the study of the subject.

But the leading academic stopped short of recommending that everyone should continue to study the subject until the age of 18 – one of the key issues he was tasked to investigate – amid concerns over the lack of resources across the education system.

“In view of the low GCSE success rates and new GCSE requirements, the Department for Education should review its 16-to-18 resit policy with the aim that a greater proportion of students without a grade C or equivalent attain appropriate mathematical understanding by age 18,” he said.

“Specifically, there should be fresh consideration of appropriate curricula and qualifications for these students and the extent to which current policy incentivises these to be offered.”

In his response on behalf of the DfE, the schools minister Nick Gibb said he understood Prof Smith’s “concern” about the “need for high-quality alternative curricula and qualifications for students aged 16-18 for whom GCSEs are not appropriate”.

He continued: “We recognise the need to improve the quality and recognition from employers of alternative qualifications such as functional skills. This is why we are reforming these qualifications.”

However, “the current policy will stay in place in 2017/18”, he said, though he committed to monitoring it “to assess whether it is having the desired impact”.

Since 2014, all 16- to 19-year-olds without at least a grade C in GCSE maths or English have had to enrol in courses in these subjects alongside their main programme of study.

This requirement was tightened in 2015 to require all of those with a grade D in those subjects to sit a GCSE course, rather than an equivalent stepping-stone course such as functional skills.

But after last year’s GCSE results showed huge numbers of learners aged 17 and older failed to up their grades in resits, many in the sector called on the government to scrap the policy.

And the 2016 Ofsted annual report, published in December, said the resit policy was not working as the government had hoped.

There had even been hints from both education secretary Justine Greening and former skills minister Robert Halfon late last year that the government was going to U-turn on the policy, which have so far come to nothing.

The Smith review was first announced by former chancellor George Osborne as part of the March 2016 budget.

According to the accompanying documents, the government asked Prof Smith “to review the case for how to improve the study of maths from 16 to 18, to ensure the future workforce is skilled and competitive, including looking at the case and feasibility for more or all students continuing to study maths to 18, in the longer term”.

In his foreword to today’s report, Prof Smith said his “clear conclusion is that we do not yet have the appropriate range of pathways available or the capacity to deliver the required volume and range of teaching” for “most or all students” to continue studying maths until 18.

Instead he said the “government should set an ambition for 16-to-18 mathematics to become universal in 10 years.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said of today’s report: “Maths is important for the whole population and it’s not being helped by a policy that leads to tens of thousands of young people retaking GCSEs.  

“Functional skills are a good alternative, but the government needs to fund them properly if it is genuine about the apprenticeship programme being a quality option for young people and adults.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he was “disappointed” by the DfE’s “snap judgement” on Prof Smith’s resit rethink call, and urged the department to “reconsider this issue” ahead of 2018/19.

“After four years of putting students through GCSE resits, colleges can confirm that the policy does not work and is an obstacle to the ambition that we all share,” he said.

Other recommendations in the report include a call for the Institute for Apprenticeships to work with maths experts “to ensure appropriate expert advice is available to the panels of professionals developing technical routes”.

Prof Smith also urged the DfE to “reconsider the institutional incentives and disincentives arising from the 16-to-19 funding model for schools and colleges, with a view to removing disincentives for mathematics provision”.

In order to address the challenges facing the FE sector in terms of recruiting enough maths teachers, he wants the DfE to “improve the evidence base on the FE workforce teaching mathematics and quantitative skills in order to assess supply, teaching quality and the effectiveness of current recruitment measures” and “expand its support to develop excellence in GCSE mathematics teaching across the FE sector”.

As part of its response to the Smith review, the DfE today announced a £16 million level three maths support programme, starting from April 2018.

The programme, worth £8 million a year for two years, aims to improve the quality and capacity of post-16 maths teaching and to increase the number of students studying level three maths.