Recipe for confusion concern as IfA seeks up to 150 expert advisers

A call for up to 150 industry experts to join new Institute for Apprenticeships advisory panels, has prompted concerns over a lack of “joined up decisions” with similar bodies planned for technical education.

Adverts seeking unpaid panel members to join 15 “prestigious employer-led groups” to help shape the future of the apprenticeship programme were posted by the IfA on Friday (June 23).

It aims to recruit “up to 150” industry experts to form the panels that will help to “ensure the quality of apprenticeships”.

But FE Week has learned that the IfA panels are separate from those being set up by the Department for Education to advise on T-levels – even though the 15 occupational routes are the same. They advertised for more than 100 paid panel members for these new bodies in January.

Now Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, has warned that that the situation is “a recipe for a lack of joined up decisions and inconsistent outcomes, and further evidence of potential divergence rather than coherence”.

“AELP fully supports the government’s desire to have a coherent approach to high quality skills, but struggle to see any indication of this in the way they are approaching the implementation across apprenticeship and T levels,” he added.

Plans for the 15 new occupational routes were first unveiled in the government’s skills plan, published July 2016, and based on wide-reaching recommendations from Lord Sainsbury.

The DfE is currently responsible for developing the new T-levels, which will see 20,000 existing qualifications replaced with “15 high-quality” technical qualifications, while the IfA is in charge of overseeing apprenticeships – although its remit will be extended from April 2018 to include technical education.

The new IfA advert, posted through the Cabinet Office, states that it is “establishing 15 route panels representing the 15 occupational routes that were set out in the Sainsbury report”.

The names of the 15 people who will chair the routes were announced by the IfA in April.

It continues: “In future we anticipate this will also include reviewing the new technical qualifications that will sit at the heart of new T-Levels.”

The IfA panels will “review the quality of standards for apprenticeships and make sure they provide the right basis for future employment”, it said.

Applicants should have “demonstrable expertise, leadership and credibility in one or more sectors of an occupational route”, the advert says.

No mention is made of payment beyond reimbursement of “all reasonable expenses”.

Peter Lauener, IfA chief executive, described the new roles as a “fantastic opportunity for employers and experts to bring their knowledge to the table and make their voices heard”.

“Apprenticeships are playing an increasingly important role in British industry, and it is important that the right structures are in place to ensure they equip people with the right skills,” he added.

It followed the DfE advertising in January for more than 100 experienced industry professionals to help shape “the “future technical education system”.

They would serve on “panels of professionals” that would “develop occupational standards for new technical qualifications, as part of flagship reforms to England’s post-16-skills system”.

These panels would cover 11 of the 15 routes from the Sainsbury report, with the remaining four expected to be “primarily delivered through apprenticeships”.

Each of those appointments was expected to be for a year, with the successful applicants’ employers receiving £1,000 per quarter in recognition of the time the panel members would spend away from their day job.

FE Week has asked the DfE for an update on its panels.

Learndirect : One in ten staff could face redundancy at nation’s largest provider

The nation’s largest training provider is consulting on a new wave of redundancies – with its chief executive admitting around one in 10 staff could be affected.

Learndirect employees were told the devastating news yesterday. It is understood that hundreds of for example sales and operational staff working on apprenticeships, employment related services, European Social Fund, and adult education contracts could be affected.

When asked about this, Andy Palmer, group chief executive, told FE Week this morning: “We are in a consultation process. Approximately 10 per cent of the workforce could be affected.”

He added: “As a result of uncertainty relating to the outcome of the adult education budget procurement process, and a business decision to focus on levy-only apprenticeship delivery in the future, Learndirect Ltd and Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd have initiated a restructuring programme.

“Sadly this will mean some colleagues will leave the two businesses in the coming months.

“During this time our focus is on continuing to meet the needs of our thousands of learners, apprentices and employers, and we do so with the full support of our funders and other partners.”

It comes at a troubled time for Learndirect, after FE Week reported on a first wave of redundancy talks in May.

Several employees have posted on this, through Linkedin, in the last 24 hours.

Robert Watkins, listed on the site as a partnersip consultant, said: “I have had the unfortunate news yesterday that Learndirect have served notice on my position and a number of my fellow colleagues across the country due to financial cost cutting exercises and through no fault of our own.

“I’m here to support my ex co workers should you need to talk.”

Another partnership consultant who now states on her Linkedin page that she is “looking for a new opportunity” is Melinda Guinness-Yendle.

She said: “Shame I was really enjoying my job with LearnDirect! Never mind, one door closes and another one opens!”

Adam Farrington, listed on Linkedin as employer engagement manager, said: “I have had the unfortunate news today that Learndirect have served a month’s notice on my position and a number of my fellow colleagues due to financial cost cutting exercises.

“I felt that this might happen recently.”

It comes after FE Week reported last week that Learndirect had been badly shaken by the changes in the way achievement rates are calculated, recording a 7.3 per cent drop that puts it below the government’s minimum standards.

It’s achievement rate tumbled from 65.1 per cent in 2014/15 to just 57.8 per cent last academic year, according to national data released by the Department for Education on June 15.

This brings it below the minimum standards threshold of 62 per cent, and should mean it will no longer be allowed to deliver apprenticeships until it improves.

ESFA concern: providers subcontracting to employers

Providers using employers as subcontractors in ways that are “contrary to the spirit” of the apprenticeship reforms will face the consequences, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has warned.

Keith Smith, director of funding and programmes at the agency, told delegates on the first morning of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ conference that the practice was “a bit of a theme at the moment” and that the agency was “increasingly concerned” about it.

“Some providers [are] trying to get employers involved as sub-contractors, getting them below the £100,000 radar, and actually trying get money back to the employer for stuff they do already, which is contrary to everything we’re trying to achieve,” he said.

“So as soon as we see a provider or a employer working against the intent of the rules we will intervene – the provider will be removed from register and also potentially other larger consequences as well,” he warned.

Mr Smith’s words prompted confusion from AELP boss Mark Dawe, who asked for “some explanation and clarity around what is good and what is bad there”.

Current funding rules do allow for providers to use employers as subcontractors – although FE Week warned about the potential for this rule to be exploited as a loophole back in March, when the rules were updated.

As soon as we see a provider or a employer working against the intent of the rules we will intervene

“You’re absolutely right, we want employers to have a place in the system where they can be engaged and they can be supported in delivery, that’s what we want,” Mr Smith said.

He continued: “What we don’t want to see is specifically where employers are being brought into the system in essence to recoup costs that they would generally incur themselves anyway.”

Such cases were “presented as a financial inducement”, Mr Smith said.

“It’s being presented as, you did a deal with us, there’s nothing more you need to do, we’ll put you as doing the induction, we’ll say that you’re doing it, we’ll pay you back X per cent or X amount, and therefore you can get this from us and it’s all fine as you can be a subcontractor, and you won’t have to go and worry about going to the ESFA,” he explained.

He added: “It’s not in any way about trying to stop employers owning some of the delivery being part of the delivery – those are all really, really good things”.

Mr Smith also outlined the agency’s plans to reform the audit process for existing providers.

This would involve “moving the end year audit into look at more thematic approaches”, with the aim of “trying to track stages of the apprentices as they go through their journey”.

The agency was looking “very much at the eligibility and initial assessment, and how the 20 per cent off the job is being put together,” at the moment, he said.

“It is a bit too early to say where that is going to go but I think if we take away lessons that this isn’t going to just stop at new providers,” he said.

“Potentially we’ll move away from the kind of looking back angle type view, I want to see audit happening much more regularly much more frequently to get more assurances as we go through the different stages of the programme,” Mr Smith said.

The ESFA had carried out a mystery shop that looked at how providers were responding to the new system, Mr Smith said.

Among the feedback from this mystery shop was the finding that colleges were “more likely [than independent training providers] to explain how they could help the employer in other areas”.

Mr Dawe later told Mr Smith that providers might feel “a little hurt” by some of the findings – although Mr Smith stressed that it wasn’t about “pulling providers up” but was instead about support.

“We really do care that we’re doing enough to support you,” he said.

Mr Dawe also quizzed Mr Smith on the long-awaited adult education budget procurement exercise.

“It’s imminent,” he said.

“I think it’ll be good news for the sector. And I think you’ll see it’s a very sensible way of managing the transition from the current contracts to the new ones,” he added.

Click here to download Keith’s slides.

Published in our #AELP2017 supplement – click here to download.

DfE publish long awaited off-the-job training guidance

This morning the Department for Education published additional guidance on the 20 percent off-the-job training rule for apprenticeships.

Click here to download the guidance.

The guidance says: “However the training is delivered, it is important to remember that the apprentice must receive off-the-job training for a minimum of 20% of the time that they are paid to work.” 

The new guidance is intended for “employers that wish to understand the off-the-job training requirements involved in an apprenticeship…and…providers that wish to ensure that they are offering off-the-job training in accordance with the funding rules and policy intent.”

 

Merger collapse makes it a dozen area review failures

Yet another merger recommended in the area reviews has collapsed, as a planned link-up between two colleges in the north-east became the twelfth to be called off.

The news that Stockton Riverside College and Darlington College’s partnership was off the cards emerged this week, more than a year after it was first proposed in the Tees Valley area review.

Mark White, Stockton Riverside’s chair of governors, and Pat Howarth, the Darlington chair, said in a joint statement that the decision had been taken after “careful consideration and detailed discussions”.

“Both Darlington and Stockton Riverside College remain committed to working together, exploring collaboration and potential future partnership activity,” it said.

“But we feel the risk of a full merger at this point in time outweighs the potential benefits to students, stakeholders and staff.”

There’s an ongoing dispute between Darlington and its staff over potential pay cuts, which could see lecturers’ pay – but allegedly not that of the principal or senior managers – slashed by up to 10 per cent.

Members of the University and College Union had been planning to protest on June 21 over the proposals, but the demonstration was called off at the last minute, after the college agreed to new talks.

Both Darlington and Stockton Riverside College remain committed to working together

The cuts were said to be due to “real financial challenges” being faced by the college, which are understood to have come to a head as a result of the merger.

Both colleges are currently rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, and theirs was one of three mergers proposed in the Tees Valley review, which ended in May 2016.

According to the report into the review, published in November, the merger would “improve the long-term financial sustainability” of the two colleges, and was “an opportunity to expand provision and to grow apprenticeship provision”.

It’s also the second of the three Tees Valley mergers to have fallen apart.

Hartlepool College and Hartlepool Sixth Form College had been set to join forces, until the SFC announced in March that it intended to join Sunderland College instead.

Other failed mergers include Bury College dropping out of a three-way link-up with the University of Bolton and Bolton College in April.

And FE Week reported in February that another Manchester merger involving Stockport, Oldham and Tameside College had been called off following intervention by the FE commissioner Richard Atkins.

Meanwhile, Tresham College and Bedford College have announced plans to merge this summer.

The pair, which both took part in the south-east Midlands review, part of the fifth wave of the reviews, will form the Bedford College Group.

Bedford College was rated ‘good’ at its most recent Ofsted inspection in March 2014, while Tresham College received a grade four after it was inspected in June 2016.

Ian Pryce CBE, the current Bedford College principal, will take over as principal of the new group, while Ioan Morgan CBE, interim principal at Tresham College, will retire.

Mr Pryce said the merger would bring a number of benefits, including expanding provision and protecting jobs at the two colleges.

“We are committed to the communities of Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough as well as Bedfordshire and we plan to grow provision in all areas,” he said.

“The enthusiastic response we have had from employers, local councils, staff and students shows the community has the same ambition as us and that support will help enormously,” he added.

New skills minister brings welcome news as apprenticeship reforms suffer slow start

The new skills minister, Anne Milton, has announced that the non-levy growth requests will be brought forward to July, at the AELP annual conference this morning.

Providers that made a business case following the non-levy allocations will also be notified next week regarding any additional funding.

Speaking of the paused tendering round, Ms Milton said it would be scrapped, and rerun in July.

Contracts and allocations for non-levy funding would run from January 2018 to April 2019 and the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers will not be open for new providers whilst the procurement is open between the end of July and the end of August this year.

Ms Milton added that the plan was for all employers to be on the digital Apprenticeship System by April 2019.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of AELP, responded by saying the announcements were “really welcome”.

This comes after what is believed to be a slow start to the launch of the apprenticeship funding reforms in May, as reported in FE Week.

Many hundreds of providers were left disappointed after the DfE paused the non-levy tender for allocations. Subsequently, providers with a history of holding apprenticeship contracts were allocated a limited amount of non-levy funding.

Talking about the paused non-levy tender, Ms Milton said: “For many of you this has been a bruising period. I am here to listen and learn and hop also to offer some clarity.”

Ms Milton was appointed a minister at the Department for Education following the general election.

Despite giving her first speech as a DfE minister today, the Department has yet to confirm her title or areas of responsibility.

FE Week is media partner for the conference.

More to follow…

Prison education reforms on hold for another year

Reforms to prison education seem to be back on hold, as existing offender learning contracts are being extended for another year, FE Week has learned.

Currently, the offender learning and skills service (OLASS) is delivered by three colleges and one independent learning provider, whose contracts are managed by central government.

This state of affairs had been due to change in August, when prison governors were to have been granted powers to hire their own education providers.

However, according to Dr Paul Phillips, the principal of Weston College, which holds the OLASS contract for south-west England, these reforms have been tabled until at least 2018.

Dr Phillips told FE Week that HM’s Prison and Probation Service had informed him “that the existing OLASS contracts are to be extended for a further year from August 2017 to end July 2018”.

While this is “subject to formal post-election confirmation from the Cabinet Office and the Treasury”, Dr Phillips said, “the usual annual business planning process is underway”.

Putting in place a new system for prison education cannot be done in a hurry

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, which manages the contracts, would not however confirm the extension.

“We are currently in discussions on the arrangements for academic year 2017-18,” said a spokesperson.

The plan to hand over control of education to prison governors was first set out by Dame Sally Coates (pictured) in her influential review of prison education, published in May 2016.

Prison governors, she wrote, should “have the freedom to design the right curriculum and choose the delivery arrangement that best meets the rehabilitation needs of the individuals for whom they are responsible”.

She recommended extending the existing OLASS contracts – which were due to expire in July 2016 – for one more year until July 2017, after which she expected “we will move to all governors having full freedoms over the choice of education providers for their prisons”.

Dame Sally’s recommendations were accepted “in principle” at the time by the MoJ, which said that “implementation plans will now be drawn up”.

The reforms even got a mention in the Queen’s Speech last May.

She said at the time: “Prison governors will be given unprecedented freedom and they will be able to ensure prisoners receive better education.”

They were not mentioned in this year’s Queen’s Speech, on June 21, in which the only nod to FE was a mention of “major reform of technical education”.

Nina Champion, head of policy at the Prisoners’ Education Trust, which works to support learning by people in prison, has now urged David Lidington, the new justice secretary, to “make progress in implementing Sally Coates’ recommendations”.

But she warned that putting in place a new system for prison education “cannot be done in a hurry”.

“There are many charities, organisations and employers who can play a vital role in improving the quality of prison education as well as offering opportunities for learning, training and employment after release, but only if the commissioning process is designed well to enable this to happen in practice,” she said.

The OLASS system was first rolled out across the country in 2006 and the fourth round of contracts were agreed in August 2012.

The process was managed by the Skills Funding Agency until October 2016, when responsibility was handed over to the MoJ.

The four current contract-holders are Manchester College, Milton Keynes College and People Plus, formerly known as A4E, along with Weston College.

Manchester College delivers prison education in five regions: London, the north-east, north-west, Kent and Sussex, and Yorkshire and the Humber.

The east Midlands, west Midlands and south central are covered by Milton Keynes College, while People Plus holds the contract for the east of England.

All three providers declined FE Week’s request for a comment on the contract extension.

Achievement rates at Learndirect fall under minimum standards

The nation’s largest FE provider has been badly shaken by the changes in the way achievement rates are calculated, recording a 7.3 per cent drop that puts it below the government’s minimum standards.

Learndirect’s achievement rate tumbled from 65.1 per cent in 2014/15 to just 57.8 per cent last academic year, according to national data released by the Department for Education on June 15.

This brings it below the minimum standards threshold of 62 per cent, and should mean it will no longer be allowed to deliver apprenticeships until it improves.

But in spite of its poor performance, Learndirect has still not been issued with a notice of concern for failing to meet the minimum standard – even though it is 4.2 points below the threshold.

“We don’t make comments on individual companies, but the list of our notices of concern is regularly updated by the ESFA and will continue to be regularly updated,” said a spokesperson for the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

Learndirect is a giant in the sector, with almost 200,000 learners logged in its latest available Ofsted report from 2013, but it has had a rocky time in recent months.

In May, FE Week reported that Learndirect employees had been informed that they were being placed in a month-long consultancy period.

A concerned staff member contacted us to claim that they and their colleagues had been given the news via a “script” delivered in a conference call, and were “expecting to lose [their] jobs in the next month or two”.

FE Week asked Learndirect on the potential for job losses and where cuts were needed.

“As a business we have offered GCSEs as part of our early-years offer,” said a spokesperson.

“There has been a significant lobby to have mandatory GCSE requirements removed from the level three apprenticeship framework, with employers favouring the acceptance of functional skills qualifications.

“As a result, we have decided to remove the GCSE offer from the Learndirect portfolio, while looking at our customers’ ongoing requirements for functional skills.

“Sadly this may mean some colleagues will leave Learndirect.”

The National Achievement Rate Tables for 2015/16 showed significant declines in apprenticeships performance for a number of providers – a drop which may have been caused by the DfE closing “loopholes” in the way the data is collected.

FE Week’s analysis of the latest figures identified 18 providers whose apprenticeship achievement rates had fallen by 30 points or more between 2014/15 and 2015/16.

The biggest drop was by 71.3 points, and half of those providers registering a decline are at the moment rated ‘good’ by Ofsted.

It is believed that many results will have been affected by the DfE’s decision in February to revise achievement rate figures, which it took in an effort to ensure any learners who disappeared or who did not have a completion status for their course were definitely recorded as a ‘fail’.

Previous uncertainty over such learners had been artificially inflating achievement rates for around 10 per cent of providers.

Now the latest adjusted data is in the public domain, FE Week asked Ofsted whether it would be suspending grades for these providers, in order to do a full investigation into the falling achievement rates.

We also asked how the watchdog intends to protect the sector’s confidence in its inspection process without this kind of scrutiny.

Ofsted didn’t answer the questions directly, but did issue a simple statement.

“Ofsted can inspect any apprenticeship provider where there are concerns, including declining performance data.

“This also applies to ‘outstanding’ providers. Ofsted’s risk assessment process takes into account all publicly available data and other intelligence and we keep this under review.”