FE Week’s third Annual Apprenticeships Conference was off to a flying start this morning, after a warm welcome from the BBC’s Kirsty Wark to a packed exhibition hall at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham.

Ms Wark (pictured above), who will host for the full three days, set the scene for delegates and looked back on the first ever FE Week ACC in 2015, which she also presented.

FE Week editor Nick Linford (pictured left) followed her onto the stage to walk the audience through a pre-conference questionnaire, designed to test the mood on the government’s reforms just over a month before the long-awaited launch of the apprenticeship levy.

The responses suggested more policy optimism amongst delegates than 12 months ago, but concerns about the impact the reforms on small and medium-sized employers, and the overall quality of provision remained very high.

“It’s up to you to work together to ensure high quality is maintained,” Mr Linford advised the delegates.

Next up was the Department for Education’s director of apprenticeships David Hill (pictured right), who gave an update on the apprenticeship reforms, which he labeled “the most significant change in the funding of FE in a generation”.

He began by outlining the four key aims of the apprenticeships programme, which were “to create more apprenticeships”, “to meet the skills needs of employers”, “to create progression for apprentices”, and “to widen participation”.

Importantly, during questions after his speech, Mr Hill told providers not to “do a deal at a price you can’t deliver quality for”.

He also attempted to reassure delegates in the audience on a common point of concern for many, saying that the delayed results of the non-levied allocations for small and medium-sized employers are “imminent” rather than “civil-service imminent”.

In discussing the new register of approved training providers, launched last week, he acknowledged that dozens of eligible colleges had unexpectedly not made the cut, but declined to answer a question from the host on whether keeping them off was a mistake.

Do not do a deal at a price you can’t deliver quality for

He also said that the RoATP would bring more “quality and rigour” to the apprenticeships market.

Look out for more coverage on the FE Week website and make sure to follow the events on Twitter, using the hashtag #FEWeekAAC2017.

New providers with little or no track record will have to undergo “mandatory training” before they can deliver apprenticeships, the Skills Funding Agency has said.

The plans are part of a “new approach to thematic auditing and other risk based assessments and behavioural monitoring” announced by the agency’s director of funding and programmes Keith Smith at the Annual Apprenticeships Conference.

The approach, which aims to give both the SFA and employers “confidence” in the new system, could see providers lose their place on the register if they don’t pass muster.

Providers will have to be listed on the new register of apprenticeship training providers in order to deliver new apprenticeship starts from May.

The SFA’s proclamation follows an FE Week investigation which found a number of companies which had never delivered apprenticeships before were on new register, which was published earlier in March.

“Any new provider will be required to attend mandatory training,” said Mr Smith. “That’s going to happen before any apprenticeship activity starts.” This training would cover “the important points around what it takes to be in this new system”, he said.

The new providers would all then “be case-loaded with an account manager in the agency” for “one-to-one sessions”.

He continued: “Then I expect, no later than three to six months in, that potentially when they start delivering is when we will then start to take that snapshot. “It’s going to be a potentially a pass or fail judgement.”

In “the most serious of cases”, for instance if new providers are “taking too long to get up to speed”, he insisted the SFA “will take action immediately”.

“Now depending on what we see, and what we find from that first formal assessment will determine whether we do follow ups, will determine whether actually everything’s fantastic, and they can then default to our normal compliance regime for other types of providers,” he continued.

He insisted he is “really ambitious to make sure we don’t have too long a lag before we identify where things potentially are going wrong”, stressing: “It’s important that we have confidence, that employers have confidence, that where new entrants are coming to the market they are getting up to speed as quickly as possible.”

Delegates should “expect to hear something more from us on this quite soon”, he added, involving “quite a rigorous process, which potentially in the worst cases is going to lead to these new providers being removed from the register”.

The application process is due to take place four times every year, and sector figures expect this number will rise quickly, perhaps to well over 2,000.

“It is a huge challenge and we are only at the start of the conversations because there is nothing yet to inspect,” Ms Spielman has previously said. “This is about setting up He concluded: “And as I’ve also said many many times, our ambitions don’t stop there.

“We have a lot of work planned to try to look at how we continue to raise the bar and to continue to stretch the system to deliver those high standards. We do that for one reason – the apprentice deserves it.”

The NHS has defended controversial new plans to charge a brokerage fee to training providers that win levy-funded apprenticeship contracts.

FE Week has seen two examples of the health service preparing to charge providers around one per cent of the value of their contracts, raising concerns that it might be included in the levy price, a practice the Skills Funding Agency has banned.

Our understanding of funding rules is that these charges will be allowable if they aren’t included in the negotiated levy price, but brokerage fees are nevertheless a controversial topic.

The NHS apprenticeship levy pot is estimated to be worth around £200 million per year nationally, and £27 million in London alone, which means its brokerage charges could reach up to £2 million if they’re spread across the country.

John Hyde, executive chairman of the specialist training and apprenticeship provider Hit Training, said the SFA must investigate “a clear example here of a breach of their rules”, adding: “they need to step in straight away, otherwise it opens the door for all sorts of other people.”

“If the NHS can get away with it, then why can’t other multi-national companies get away with it?” he asked.

The NHS London Procurement Partnership is planning to enforce a one per cent “management charge”, based on the value of work it wins on behalf of providers looking to deliver apprenticeships. 

A spokesperson told FE Week that management charges are “a common way of covering the costs of running a framework or DPS once it has been established”. 

“These charges are well-established methods of supporting the public sector to manage contracts.”

From April 3, the LPP will manage apprenticeships in the capital through its electronic dynamic purchasing system’, which it will use to buy services through an “open market” of potential suppliers.

The membership body, founded and funded by NHS organisations, hosted events in London for suppliers wishing to apply to join its DPS on March 8, 13 and 14 this year.

On a slide shown at one of the conferences and seen by FE Week, it explained details of a “management charge” that “must be incorporated into the overall commercial bid response to any invitation to tender”.

This slide confirmed the charge would amount to “one per cent of all charges” based on the “value of work won under the DPS”, and would cover “management and further administration by LPP of the overall DPS and associated documentation with surplus being fed back to members”.

It will be the supplier’s responsibility “to decide to what extent this cost is passed onto the contracting authority”.

The LPP has explained its system to FE Week in detail – you can read their full response in our experts section.

In a separate case, NHS Shared Business Services, a national joint venture between the Department of Health and the information technology consultancy Sopra Steria, plans to charge providers 0.95 per cent on a quarterly basis for all business it secures through what is being described as “a new framework” for the provision of apprenticeship training services.

This will be its primary contracting vehicle for levy-paying public sector employers to purchase apprenticeship training services.

It will run from May for four years, and is inviting providers registered on the Skills Funding Agency’s register of apprenticeship training providers to apply.

A spokesperson told FE Week that the system had been developed to “provide NHS – and other public sector – organisations with the means to procure high-quality and compliant services quickly and easily, while at the same time offering suppliers access to a significant market and thousands of potential customers”.

The spokesperson insisted that the charge to providers is “to cover the up-front investment of establishing an Official Journal of the European Union-compliant framework, and the costs associated with the ongoing management of the contract”.

He continued: “It means that, for example, if a supplier wins a place on the framework, they would pay £95 for every £10,000 they receive in orders.”

In February, the SFA officially ruled that public funds could not be used to pay brokers’ fees through its final rules for apprenticeship funding.

Its decision represented a win for FE Week after our investigation in April 2016 exposed brokers who were charging up to five per cent of every deal just to match subcontractors with government-funded providers.

Asked whether the SFA had approved the management fee for apprenticeship procurement in London, the partnership’s spokesperson said the agency had been “invited to take part” in the development of the digital procurement service, but had declined to do so.

An SFA spokesperson said: “Under current SFA rules, main providers are not allowed to use government money to pay brokers’ fees. We will take action against any provider we find has broken these rules.

“SFA is strengthening the rules so that from May 1, 2017 no government money can be used to pay brokers’ fees.”

Broker fees are back again – read Paul Offord’s editorial here.

Research by leading FE academics has shown England is the only one, out of eight countries reported on because of their strong vocational education systems, that will have end-point assessment-only apprenticeships.

The report shared with FE Week, called The role of qualifications and end-point assessment in apprenticeships: an international comparison, looked at how apprenticeships are delivered across England, Germany, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Austria, Alberta Canada, and the Netherlands.

The document commissioned by Semta, a charity that represents around 150,000 engineering employers and owns the awarding organisation EAL, claimed EPA is not sufficient in itself to measure an apprentice’s worth and call for a “hybrid” approach.

It pointed out that “all the countries discussed in this report, apart from the Netherlands, require apprentices (to a greater or lesser degree) to pass written examinations as well as tests of their practical competence at the end of their training.

“However, none of the countries [apart from England] relies totally on EPA, and EPA comes in many shapes and sizes. Evidence for making assessment judgements is derived from both the workplace and the off-the-job setting and usually carries equal weight.”

Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of awarding organisation NOCN, raised concern about this.

He said: “While recognising that an EPA is an important way of testing the apprentices, we have always believed the on-programme and gateway assessments are also important.

“We live in a global skills market and we want our apprenticeship standards to be recognised as world class. Therefore, it is concerning that we now look out of step with other major economies.”

Led by Lorna Unwin, a professor emerita for vocational education with the UCL Institute of Education, the academics cast doubt on the government’s decision to rely totally on one EPA to formally recognise an apprentice’s competence.

This major change, from the old method of continuous assessment, was recommended in 2012 through entrepreneur Doug Richard’s review of apprenticeships.

The new report said the government’s decision to ditch a requirement for apprenticeships to include a recognised qualification rightly draws public criticism.

In all the countries expect England in Semta’s report, researchers found nationally recognised and validated forms of accreditation were “regarded as important and apprentices receive some form of certificate or diploma”.

The report also found England to be the only country where the content of an apprenticeship was set only by employers.

Professor Unwin told FE Week the reliance on EPA was particularly concerning, with regard to the impact on apprentices in terms of their “labour market mobility and future access to further and higher education”.

She added: “It is clear from this research that if an apprenticeship is to have credibility and worth for both individuals and employers, it must end up with a recognised qualification.”

In August, the Institute for Public Policy Research said taking away the requirement for apprenticeships to include a recognised qualification could “harm young people who will need transferable qualifications in an increasingly flexible jobs market”.

The think-tank called on the government to consider reintroducing a nationally recognised qualification as a part of all apprenticeships.

Ann Watson, chief executive for Semta, said: “The government talks of apprenticeships as a ladder of opportunity – but by focusing solely on one end-point assessment as the measure of an apprentice’s worth, we risk kicking the ladder away.”

The Department for Education could not comment at the time of going to press.

The written response from apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon to an open letter, complaining about the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers’ selection process, wrongly claimed that there are no ‘inadequate’-Ofsted rated providers on it. 

Team leader and assessor at Acacia Training, Anne-Marie Morris, wrote the open letter expressing her sense of injustice – as published in FE Week on March 16 – after her company failed to get a place on the RoATP despite its Ofsted ‘good’ rating.

Mr Halfon’s letter in response, which has now been shared with us (click here to download), mistakenly said: “I can confirm that there are no Ofsted grade four organisations listed on the new register.”

Exclusive FE Week analysis has infact found there are five colleges and one council on the new register – Amersham & Wycombe College, Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College, Essex County Council, Huntingdonshire Regional College, Mid-Cheshire College, and North Shropshire College (see more details in table below).

He added: “Where an organisation has a grade four overall, or a grade four for apprenticeships, they will not be allowed to enter the register.

“If an organisation listed on the register attains a grade four in the future, then they will be removed from the register immediately.”

The minster stressed that all providers were given a clear set of criteria they had to meet, through the RoATP application process.

Key elements under consideration were, he said “due diligence; financial health; capacity/ capability, and quality”.

He warned that “if a provider does not meet these criteria they cannot be on the register.

“Your organisation would have been provided with feedback as to why it did not make it onto the Register, to help you with any future applications.”

He added the SFA plans to re-open the register “very quickly, around 20 March”, to give further opportunities for providers to submit an application, “including brand new providers as well as those that were not successful in the first round”.

He subsequently confirmed to MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon that providers who feel aggrieved because they did not make it onto the new RoATP will be able to reapply from tomorrow.

Mr Halfon concluded by stressing that the new register “will not affect provision for any apprenticeship starts before May 1”.

“Existing arrangements will continue to apply for these learners, and providers will still be able to deliver training through their existing contracts,” he added.

The open letter from Ms Morris, which included complaint over the lack of a clear appeals process, was to Sue Husband, director of the National Apprenticeship Service, Skills Funding Agency.

“As you can imagine, everyone in the company is devastated as all the hard work and commitment we make towards supporting learners to achieve their apprenticeships to such a high standard appears to not have been considered at all,” she said.

“I personally would really like to understand how this can happen and why we as a company cannot appeal the decision.

“I, along with my colleagues, will surely lose the jobs we have been so proud of and the future of such a professional, caring company is now in doubt. We are only a small training provider with 70 staff members but this will have a devastating impact on all of our lives.”

A Department for Education spokesperson told FE Week it was a simple mistake in the letter. “We are clear that where an organisation has a Grade 4 for overall effectiveness they will not be eligible to apply for the register unless they have a 3 or above for apprenticeship provision. This is set out in the guidance. There are no providers on the register who have a grade 4 for apprenticeship provision.

“We will be contacting the recipient of the letter in question to clarify the Department’s position.”