Six months after the Conservatives committed to cutting travel costs for apprentices in their election manifesto, there is no evidence the policy is near to being implemented.
It was one of the major FE policies included in the Conservative manifesto in May, when the party pledged to “introduce significantly discounted bus and train travel for apprentices” in an attempt to make the qualifications more attractive to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
But even though the Tories are still in government, FE Week has found no evidence to show the commitment is being implemented.
A spokesperson for the Department for Transport would only admit that it had started “exploring options” for discounted travel for apprentices.
It is a huge problem when an apprentice is paying over half of their wage on travel to and from their apprenticeship
They would not release any more details or give a timeline of when an actual policy might be introduced – plans will be set out “in due course”.
“As per the government’s manifesto commitment, we are clear that we do not want the costs of travel to deter young people from undertaking an apprenticeship,” said Department for Education spokesperson.
In the meantime, the number of people taking up apprenticeships is dropping at an alarming rate.
The total apprenticeship starts for May, June and July fell 61 per cent compared with the same period last year.
The National Society of Apprentices, an arm of the National Union of Students, hit out at the government’s lack of urgency in delivering discount travel, which it said limits the type of apprenticeships on offer to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“It is a huge problem when the type of apprenticeships that apprentices can access is limited by their ability to access public transport,” a spokesperson told FE Week.
“It is a huge problem when an apprentice is paying over half of their wage on travel to and from their apprenticeship.
“The cost and availability of public transport for apprentices is causing massive issues and the NSoA is disappointed that the government is not treating the issue with the priority that it deserves.”
Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said that with “so many apprentices trying to get by on low wages and with limited support”, the government “must do more to ensure that everyone, whatever their background, can access high quality apprenticeships”.
It’s been an outstanding week for general FE colleges, with one awarded a grade one and a second going up to ‘good’.
But the picture for sixth form colleges has been less positive, with two having slipped from their former grade one ratings.
Wirral Metropolitan College went up from grade three to grade two overall in a report published November 7, and based on an inspection in early October.
The college’s provision for students with high needs was found to be ‘outstanding’, and inspectors noted that these students “make exceptional progress”.
The report noted that changes since the college’s last inspection had “led to significant outcomes in students’ outcomes”, and that leaders and managers had a “clear and ambitious plan to become an outstanding college”.
Achievement rates for students on 16 to 19 study programmes had “improved significantly” from 2015/16 to 2016/17, although “too many” apprentices were making slow progress and failing to complete their courses on time.
John Ruskin College, a sixth-form college, went down two grades from its previous ‘outstanding’ rating in a report, published November 8 and based on a report in early October.
College leaders were criticised for being “slow to address the decline in standards since the previous inspection.
The proportion of learners completing their courses was found to be “too low”, while teachers “do not take sufficient account of the full range of learners’ abilities in lessons” which meant that a “minority of learners” made “slow progress”.
But it also noted: “Learners develop good personal, social and employability skills and undertake valuable work experience, which gives them the confidence they need to progress towards the world of work.”
Another SFC, King Edward VI College Stourbridge, was rated ‘good’ overall – down from its previous ‘outstanding’ rating – in a report published November 7 and based on an inspection overall.
Governors, leaders and staff were found to have “high expectations and ambitions” for students, the “large majority” of whom achieved “well”.
Teachers were deemed to “have excellent subject knowledge and a very strong understanding of the requirements of the A-level course and assessments”.
But the report noted: “Despite the actions of leaders and managers, in 2017 too many of the most able students did not achieve the grades of which they are capable.”
Two full adult and community learning provider inspection reports were also published this week – Isle of Wight Council, and City Gateway.
Isle of Wight Council was rated grade three across the board, down from its previous ‘good’ rating, in a report published November 10 and based on an inspection in early October.
Managers were criticised for their “over-optimistic” self-assessment of the service, which did not “take sufficient account of the weaknesses of the provision”.
“Managers have not made sure that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment on English and mathematics courses improves quickly enough, that more learners stay until the end of their courses and that a higher proportion achieve their functional skills qualifications,” the report said.
But the report noted that “most learners” on non-qualification courses “achieve their personal learning goals”.
City Gateway also slipped from a grade three to two, in a report published November 7 and based on an inspection in early October.
Leaders at the charitable provider were found not to have taken “sufficient action to remedy weaknesses identified at the previous inspection”.
“Too few” learners at level 1 and 2 English and ESOL achieved their qualifications, while “too few” learners and apprentices “receive effective careers advice and guidance” – meaning that “too few continue into further training and employment”.
However, “The proportion of apprentices who successfully complete their apprenticeship within the planned time is high.”
Three further adult and community learning providers held onto their grade twos this week, following short inspections, as did one independent training provider.
More than one third of English colleges are currently rated less than ‘good’ by Ofsted, whose boss has refused to rule out funding as a root cause.
In its annual report next month, the inspectorate is expected to show that the overall ratings at general further education colleges have plummeted for the third year running, and that just 69 per cent of colleges were rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in 2017.
The findings back up Amanda Spielman’s recent comments to the education select committee, when she admitted that colleges “have the biggest funding challenge” and said Ofsted had seen “disappointing outcomes” in FE.
“We have seen a deterioration at a time when school outcomes have been stable or increasing slightly, but it is a correlation,” she said. “I cannot definitively conclude that it is a causative effect.”
She added that colleges are dealing with “an enormous amount of work” and “a big challenge” as they face “reforms in practically all areas.”
Ofsted’s annual report is due next month, and is likely to address this decline in standards.
Last year’s report warned that “many general FE colleges face a period of continuing turmoil”.
The Association of Colleges’ chief executive, David Hughes, wants more funding for colleges in this month’s budget and said a “rise in rates to reflect the true costs of delivering high quality further education” is needed.
“It is clear that the annual real-term cuts in income for colleges, combined with challenges created by constant reform, mean it’s often difficult for colleges to make necessary and sustained improvements,” he added.
Although he accepted there had been “a number of disappointing inspection judgements”, he warned that Ofsted’s statistics are based on a “risk-based approach” of returning to the same colleges.
FE Week’s own analysis shows that sixth-form colleges and independent learning providers were rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ 81 per cent of the time, a massive 12 percentage points ahead of colleges.
The ratings slump continues an annual trend which has seen the number of high-achieving colleges fall by 10 per cent in just three years, after a high of 79 per cent in 2014.
Over the last academic year, 18 colleges that were previously grade one or two declined to grade three or four, including Blackburn College and Bury College, which both slumped from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’, and Hereward College of FE which fell from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’.
A spokesperson for the DfE said there are “many high-performing, innovative colleges across the country” but acknowledged that “there is more to be done to ensure we have the same standard across the board”.
“We have taken steps to champion high quality further education and put in place new funding and support to target weaker colleges and help them improve,” she said.
This includes the National Leaders of FE programme, launched last month as part of a package of support unveiled over the summer, which also includes a £15 million college improvement fund, as well as an expanded role for the FE commissioner and more support for FE teachers over the next year.
The Association of Colleges has asked the government not to “punish” young people by making 315-hour work placements mandatory in T-levels, as officials begin to explore whether the policy is feasible.
Apprehension about a tough compulsory component planned for the new “gold standard” technical qualifications has been rife across the sector since initial plans were released last July.
The Department for Education only advertised for researchers to find out whether the idea could actually work in practice on October 30, ending the tender just eight working days later.
The terms of the contract, worth £96,000 to the winning firm, explained that the required qualitative research should “explore the extent to which employers are able to offer work placements, taking account of their size, industry and occupational area”.
It added that “typologies developed should outline employers’ current capacity to offer work placements and barriers” to them doing so across all 11 classroom-based T-level routes.
DfE guidance suggests that it expects 180,000 work placements per year, each with an average length of 50 working days, within a range of 45 to 60, lasting a minimum of 315 hours.
Officials have so far been clear on their approach; “no work placement, no certificate”, was the phrase used by Sue Clarke, the DfE’s qualification policy lead, at a DfE T-levels awareness event run by the AoC last week.
But the association’s boss, David Hughes (pictured above), believes the rule will limit young people’s choice as it stands, and wants a change.
“There is the need for some T-levels to be delivered without the work placement in a route specific work setting,” he told FE Week in an exclusive interview ahead of the AoC conference (see page 16 for more).
There is the need for some T-levels to be delivered without the work placement
“The danger of it is you limit people’s choices to what they can attend on a local basis in labour markets that are sometimes very limited in scope.
“You might not have engineering, manufacturing and creative, for example, where you live, so does that mean you can’t do any of those? That doesn’t feel right or fair.”
He said the government should “not punish the young person just because their local labour market doesn’t allow them to do something they are passionate about”.
A commitment for 315 hours would be a massive step up from the current two-week work experience period, and is considered one of the most challenging aspects of T-levels, which will be phased in from 2020 and fully rolled out from 2022.
Penny Wycherley, the principal of Waltham Forest College, echoed Mr Hughes’ concern and pointed to what she called an “unhelpful assumption” that underpins the rule: “that one size fits all in terms of ease in finding these work placements”.
“You can’t give a universal judgment on the work placement position for students in different curriculum areas,” she told FE Week.
“Catering and hospitality are fine, easy to get placements, but try and get one into electrical or public services, and you are in a different ball game because of health and safety and the rest.”
Gordon Gillespie, Lewisham Southwark College’s vice-principal, added that he is worried about the feasibility of fitting in 10-week work placements alongside the academic parts of T-levels – an issue on which Mr Hughes has also previously been vocal.
“Using the summer breaks, Easter and other holidays for placements could be an administrative challenge for colleges, but 10 weeks cannot be taken out of teaching time,” he said. “It would be impossible to deliver curriculums in that case.”
Persuading thousands of businesses across England to offer the work placements is another issue, and something which is likely to require financial incentives.
A survey of more than 1,000 small businesses in England released last month by the Federation of Small Businesses showed that only six per cent would be willing to offer work placements under current plans for T-levels.
Mike Cherry, the FSB’s national chairman, said that for T-levels to work there “needs to be clear incentive and guidance” for small businesses to offer placements.
He added it would have “made more sense” to undertake research into the feasibility of this rule “before announcing plans for lengthy work placements”.
A DfE spokesperson said that T-levels will include a high-quality work placement so students “can apply their learning in a real workplace environment”, which will ensure they have the “skills and knowledge that employers and the country needs for the future”.
The tender closing date for the new research into employer feasibility for work placements was November 8. The contract will start December 4 and end May 31, 2018.
Work placement pilots delivery under-way
Around 2,500 students currently on vocational courses will pilot the 45-day minimum work placement rule this academic year, before the T-levels debut in 2020.
The Challenge Network won a contract in February to design and create “high-level principles and models” for proposed placements, and is now delivering this work at 21 FE providers across the country.
During the design phase, the network said it had involved over 150 employers and providers through interviews and workshops, as well as focus groups for learners.
It is hoped the pilots will help the DfE to “identify what good placements should look like” in all 11 routes, and identify “specific challenges and ways of overcoming these before the implementation of these routes”.
“It will also support providers and employers to prepare for and make the shift to offering the substantial, longer-term work placements expected as part of the technical education routes,” a spokesperson for the network told FE Week.
The pilots started at the beginning of this term and will end in July 2018. The results are expected to be released in autumn 2018.
I’m sure when the DfE came up with the idea to make the substantial T-level work-placement mandatory and call it an “entitlement”, it was done with good intentions.
But in the real world, they should not need to commission research to confirm what we all know: it’s simply impossible.
Will all T-level routes and related occupations, from engineering to legal and financial, have sufficient employers in all parts of the country to offer the placements?
It’s obvious to me and others that the answer is no, which means we will be creating a post-code lottery, and some young learners will not be able to follow their career choice.
David Hughes at the AoC is therefore right to seek a rethink from the DfE.
And the obvious lesson, as highlighted by the Federation of Small Business, is that the policy should follow the research, not the other way around.
I’m sure when the DfE came up with the idea to make the substantial T-level work-placement mandatory and call it an “entitlement”, it was done with good intentions.
But in the real world, they should not need to commission research to confirm what we all know: it’s simply impossible.
Will all T-level routes and related occupations, from engineering to legal and financial, have sufficient employers in all parts of the country to offer the placements?
It’s obvious to me and others that the answer is no, which means we will be creating a post-code lottery, and some young learners will not be able to follow their career choice.
Ofsted is seeking views on a proposal to carry out monitoring visits to FE providers judged ‘requires improvement’ and publish the results.
Under current rules, providers that are given a grade three by the education inspectorate are given subsequent support and challenge visits that result in unpublished letters until they are re-inspected within 12 to 24 months of the inspection.
A consultation launched this morning states that Ofsted is looking to change this and get stricter by carrying out monitoring visits which will then be made public.
“We are proposing that for providers that are judged to require improvement, instead of carrying out support and challenge visits that result in unpublished letters, we conduct a single monitoring visit with a published report that has progress judgements,” the consultation document said.
It adds that while around 80 per cent of providers are currently rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, the inspectorate’s evidence shows that “too few providers” are improving from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’, and “overall, the proportion of providers judged to require improvement has increased”.
The changes are being proposed because using progress judgements and publishing reports “will provide a clearer sense of direction and help providers improve” and “we need to be more transparent in what we do so that learners, apprentices and employers can also see the progress providers are making”.
“We want to ensure that our constrained resources are directed to where they will have the most impact,” Ofsted added.
Monitoring visit reports typically tell readers what the provider has achieved since the last inspection and what improvement they still need to make.
They also show what steps the provider has taken to tackle the weaknesses identified at the previous inspection and how effective these steps have been.
It is proposed that this single monitoring visit for grade three providers will take place around seven to 13 months after the inspection at which the provider was judged to require improvement.
But it explained: “This will apply to any provider found to require improvement from the beginning of this consultation (November 10, 2017), subject to the outcome of this consultation.”
This means that carrying out and publishing one of these new monitoring visits will not apply to any providers currently rated grade three.
The consultation opened today (November 10) and will close on December 22. The response will be published in February 2018.
Around £600 million of the cash available to colleges for post-area review restructuring remains unallocated – prompting the Department for Education to extend the application deadline.
Just 10 colleges have so far been allocated a combined total of £120 million from the restructuring facility, and the Association of Colleges has blamed the slow take-up on “a lack of transparency”.
The Department for Education would not say who the successful applicants are, but FE Week has identified five of the beneficiaries (see table).
English colleges were originally given up to six months after their final area review meeting to apply for funds, but new guidance says they now have until September 2018.
The DfE denied this meant the fund had failed.
“The restructuring facility will run until March 2019 – as has always been the case – so we would not expect it to have been fully spent at this point,” a spokesperson said.
He added that “10 colleges have benefitted so far with many more applications under consideration”.
“We will publish updated figures in due course as the programme continues to March 2019,” he said.
David Hughes, the AoC’s chief executive, warned that a “lack of transparency” over the fund was “a problem”.
He said the facility was not “being accessed as quickly or effectively enough by some colleges”, and for those that had been successful “it’s taken too long”.
He urged the government to “tell the sector where you’ve got in terms of what you think is a good position to put a college as a result of restructuring fund support”.
“Colleges that might be able to apply are probably not applying, because they’re not sure if they’re eligible, or if it would work for them, and I think that’s a bit of an issue,” he explained.
The newly updated guidance says: “If you are considering submitting an application despite it being more than six months since your final area review steering group meeting this is likely to be possible.”
Contrary to the DfE’s claim that an explanation for the delay was included in the new guidance, no specific reason has been given.
It does, however, note that previously-requested extensions “have usually been agreed to ensure that the restructuring in the sector is effectively planned”.
Elsewhere online, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s most recent progress report on the restructuring facility, posted at the same time as the guidance mentioned 47 applications had been made by October.
“As at October 2017 we have received 47 applications for the restructuring facility. This includes 25 sixth-form colleges which have or plan to convert to academy status, the majority of which have not and do not expect to receive any funding to support this conversion,” it said.
“We have received 22 applications to support restructurings within the college sector. Ten have been fully approved to date with a total allocation over £120 million up to March 2019. A further four have received compensatory funding for VAT on change of ownership. Total spend to October 2017 is over £60 million.”
The restructuring facility, first announced in March 2016, is part of a package of support for colleges to help them implement recommendations arising from the area reviews.
The five beneficiaries FE Week identified were all part of mergers that went through this year.
It’s not clear who the remaining five successful applicants are; though they may be colleges that have yet to merge or which are implementing other area review recommendations.
The cash, available as a loan, is designed to help with restructuring activities such as a merger.
In addition to area review recommendations, FE Week understands the cash can also be used to implement a merger brokered by the FE commissioner.
The facility is separate from the transition grants, worth between £50,000 and £100,000, which were available to colleges to bring in the skills they needed to make the changes, or in other words, consultants.
In August the DfE published details of all the transition grants it had awarded to date, which totalled £5.6 million, including £1.04 million meant to support mergers that had since failed or significantly changed.
The Association of Colleges wants cash from the restructuring facility to be made available beyond 2019.
It made the call as part of its 2017 autumn budget submission, in which it also said the application process should be shorter.
David Hughes said there was a “tail of organisations” that “could benefit from the facility” but which are running out of time.
These are colleges “we need to help them recognise what restructuring they need to do, for which the facility could be really helpful,” he said. “I don’t think that’s their fault.”
The budget submission warned that “without policy changes” only part of the fund would be spent by 2019.
Restructuring has proved to be “more complicated than was anticipated”, and applications to the facility “take more time and money than necessary”.
Mr Hughes said the Department for Education and the Treasury “have been trying to construct a new way of working, and it’s taken some time”.
“They’ve taken a private sector approach and they’ve tried to adapt that to fit the FE sector,” he said, although he added that “they’ve learnt a lot along the way”.
The AoC’s submission asks the Treasury to “review it, extend it, make it more transparent, more it easier to access”.
David Hughes has “serious concerns” about the unstoppable rise of management apprenticeships and the consequent lack of opportunities for young people.
In an exclusive interview with FE Week ahead of the AoC’s national conference next week, the organisation’s boss warned that FE would end up with a “polarised system” if the numbers taking apprenticeships in management continued to balloon.
“You end up with more and more degree-level apprenticeships which are inaccessible to people who aren’t already in decent jobs,” he said.
“I, for example, could do an MBA funded through the apprenticeship levy – and I think that is wrong. If the AoC wants me to do an MBA then the AoC should pay for me to do it. Now I don’t think they do, by the way, but my development shouldn’t be through what I still see and view as a public fund [the apprenticeship levy].”
According to government statistics, it had 46,640 new starters in 2016/17, a figure which grew to 64,480 when counting standards.
The figures gave further validation to fears raised by other sector figures that the apprenticeship levy would encourage businesses to use funding for management courses for existing employees instead of offering lower-level apprenticeships to young people.
“I know employers say they own it, but to me it is a tax that pays for the apprenticeship programme which should be about productivity and about social mobility,” Mr Hughes said. “That really worries me, that polarisation.”
“They are too much looking at level six, where partnerships are led by universities, whereas I think it should be more starting at level three and ran by colleges,” he said.
“Having higher levels as a potential end-point is fine but actually the big trick is how we persuade people currently of the working age who actually don’t have the skills that are going to work in the next 10 years to invest in themselves to do some training.”
He said that any bids from colleges to become IoTs should require a partnership with a university, but that there is a difference between “a partnership led by colleges with progression to university” and something that’s “university-led with a little bit of progression from levels three, four and five”, and that the former “what we need”.
He discussed his fears about the government’s restructuring fund and the mandatory work placement component of T-levels.
But despite his various concerns about the technical education reforms, Mr Hughes said he wants delegates at the AoC’s conference next week to be “upbeat”.
“And what does that mean practically? I think the rub, the really important bit, is the sector needs to get its attitude to FE and to the government right,” he said.
“We can’t be seen as a sector that complains all of the time.
“Of course the funding is inadequate, we know the procurement around apprenticeships is really difficult and the reforms are causing all sorts of cashflow issues, adult funding is inadequate, the restrictions on what you can fund are really causing problems.
“There isn’t enough funding and support for people who want to do levels three, four and five, there is no capital funding and hasn’t been for years, lots of colleges are facing massive debts from previous capital. There are lots of problems.
“We could talk about those for two days and we could walk away feeling really bad or we could put those aside, not forget them or pretend they don’t exist, but start talking about what the country needs in terms of skills in the next five to 10 years, particularly because of Brexit.
“And who will deliver on that? Much of the delivery around social mobility and productivity and skills shortages will come from FE colleges, that is a massive opportunity and we have got to see that.”
Richard Atkins reflects on a year at the helm of one of the most important jobs in FE, and what is to come
In April last year, I retired after 21 years as a college principal, and planned to work less and relax more. By the end of October I had started work as the second FE commissioner, leading a small team of former principals, vice-principals and finance specialists to provide support and intervention to colleges, on behalf of the apprenticeships and skills minister. Helping colleges in difficulty to improve is a tough job – but having been a principal, I know leading a college through that change is even harder.
And it has certainly been a year of change! In January we moved from BIS to the DfE, and in March we completed the 37 area reviews, giving me an input to policy development. A lot has been achieved. Intervention focuses on improving colleges that are ‘inadequate’ or have failed financially. On the first we have seen very major progress: the number of ‘inadequate’ colleges halved over last year – and three have progressed to ‘good’. Seeing this progression has been hugely rewarding, and is a great testament to the leadership teams.
As for financial health, when I arrived there were a number of colleges with problems that felt intractable – often high levels of historic debt. The area reviews have really made a difference here: the colleges that I was most worried about have now either already merged with a stronger partner or are well on the way.
While intervention is effective, it’s much better to support improvement earlier, reducing the impact on learners and the cost of turnaround
I know restructuring is challenging and things do not always work out as planned. In a number of cases my team has been involved in adjusting recommendations. What matters to me is that we ultimately get good solutions. We have a limited window, while we have government restructuring funding, and before the insolvency regime, to support colleges to improve. It is really important that leaders test their financial plans and are confident of a future with no exceptional financial support.
The big change to what I do over the next year will be engaging with colleges at an earlier stage. When I began, it was clear that while intervention is effective, it’s much better to support improvement earlier, reducing the impact on learners and the cost of turnaround. Justine Greening’s announcement in July, for an expanded commissioner role, a strategic college improvement fund and national leaders of further education, was a really positive development.
My team will now be undertaking “diagnostic” visits to colleges at risk. These will have a different type and tone of visit from intervention. My team will be working with chairs, principals and senior teams to implement effective improvement strategies. We are not just making recommendations, but will bring real resources to bear.
I am excited to work with some of the best current principals, who will help improve quality at colleges across the country. While principals will be appointed as national leaders, they bring the wider expertise of their colleges to the table: FE colleges are highly complex organisations.
I am sometimes asked by colleagues in the sector what differentiates the FEC team from Ofsted or the ESFA. While we work closely and have excellent relationships with both, I believe our role is distinctive. As a non-statutory group of FE and sixth-form college specialists, we assess and recommend improvement strategies and processes for colleges in sticky situations.
We combine support with strong and informed challenge and we are not afraid to recommend significant change if that is appropriate. Our expertise lies in governance, leadership and overall institutional viability and success, and we do a different job to Ofsted or the ESFA. We very much enjoy sharing best practice across the country and drawing on our experiences of improving colleges elsewhere.
I am thoroughly enjoying my third career, and providing a role model for the DWP’s “work longer” campaign. My team and I are very much looking forward to working with more senior staff to keep up the improvement in quality, financial sustainability and reputation of this fantastic sector.
