Let’s be more positive about ITPs

The vast majority of independent training providers deliver great results for apprentices, writes Bob Watmore

The front page lead of last week’s FE Week was understandably sensational about some aspects of the recent register of apprenticeship training providers announcements – namely those experienced providers which didn’t make the list and the inexperienced ones that did.

While mistakes and anomalies should certainly be highlighted, focusing on these alone prevents balance. We should also be celebrating the experienced providers that have rightly achieved RoATP status and which will be critical to the three million apprenticeship starts targeted to be achieved by 2020.

There are many good providers across the country with long histories of delivering employers’ needs to a high standard. This is particularly true of the engineering and manufacturing sector in which I work. Although the sector faces a significant ongoing skill shortage, exacerbated by an ageing workforce and a reliance on the skills of EU nationals that may be under threat from Brexit, it provides a myriad of modern opportunities for technical STEM-based apprenticeships at advanced, higher and degree level. It also results in well paid jobs, whose visible contribution to the UK’s GDP is easily measured in manufactured and exported goods.

Focusing on mistakes alone prevents balance

But according to FE Week’s own statistics, the vast majority of colleges subcontract their apprenticeship delivery, often to independent training providers, and they have therefore been caught out by not taking their RoATP submissions seriously in their own right.

In the recent round of apprenticeship delivery procurement, colleges didn’t have to submit a financial status as part of the invitation to tender. As ITPs with charitable status we have to provide such financial information as surety to government procurement officers. Our ability to pass this financial test should give buyers confidence in our ability to successfully deliver high apprenticeship achievement rates.

Sadly I too regularly hear complaints from employers about some colleges’ poor apprenticeship delivery. Complaints include regular deference to full-time student courses, such that part-time apprentices suffer unreasonably large class sizes, doubling up on engineering equipment during skills training, unsuitably qualified training staff working outside their own vocational areas, and implications of qualifications achieved without the barest employer engagement on rigour, depth of skill and knowledge.

Of course, I know there is some outstanding college-based apprenticeship delivery, and these often tend to be those with very close ties to original equipment manufacturers. But the three million challenge requires massive penetration into the SME and micro-business supply chain market, as most OEMs are already doing all they can.

I concede that poor ITP provision, such as the cases FE Week has found, don’t do the sector any favours

Independent training providers in the GTA England network are at the forefront of this penetration and need (and deserve) the level of recognition that will assure employers of quality provision. This is the sentiment Robert Halfon was alluding to, when he spoke of employers being able to have confidence in quality providers, on unveiling the RoATP.

My experience in the sector is broad and varied: as a senior project manager at Jaguar Land Rover for over 20 years, I had some responsibility for young engineers’ development, and having worked at a large college in Leicester, and now at an ITP, I am a firm believer in the benefits of the ITP sector, especially related to achieving this growth in apprenticeships now.

Nevertheless, I concede that poor ITP provision, such as the cases FE Week has found, don’t do the sector any favours and I support the important work the paper does to shine a  light on these.

However, as an avid reader who regularly circulates its articles to my staff, I am keen that they – and the many other employees countrywide at successful sector skills groups, as well as employers, providers and learning institutions – should feel part of a major success story, not part of the problem.

Let’s all work together to keep our eyes on the most important focus: every apprentice’s journey is critical, as it will be the only one they will take.

 

Bob Watmore is training and assessment manager at Derwent Training Association

Breaking: College on ‘lock down’ due to security threat

A college has been closed for the day and all students sent home because of a security threat.

Bury College is understood to have been put on ‘lock down’, with teachers being told earlier not to move from their classrooms.

The emergency measures were introduced after a threat was made against the college, and Greater Manchester Police are in attendance.

The college has just put out an updated statement.

“Following a potential threat to our security earlier today, the college instigated its security procedures as a precaution,” a spokesperson said.

“Working closely with the police, we are in the process of safely evacuating the college. 

“All students are being advised to return home.  Those with additional needs are being supported in this respect.  

The college will be closed for the rest of today.”

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson also just told FE Week: “At 10.50am, on Friday, March 24, police were made aware of a threat made in relation to Bury College, Market Street, Bury.

“Officers are in attendance to establish the full circumstances.

“As a precaution the college have chosen to evacuate students.”

A college spokesperson added that working closely “with exceptional support from the police, the college quickly instigated its well-rehearsed lockdown procedures”, and a safe evacuation of the college was taken as a “precautionary measure”. 

Principal Charlie Deane said: “I would like to thank the staff for their professionalism and the students and other visitors for their patience and understanding. I apologise for any inconvenience that may have occurred, however, the safety of our students and staff is paramount.

“I would also like to thank the police for their speedy response, sound advice and expert help in ensuring the safe evacuation of our students”.

London council unhappy with plans for local college to merge with group 300 miles away

A London borough council is unhappy over a planned merger between a local college and a group whose headquarters is 300 miles away from the capital.

Lewisham Southwark College and Newcastle-based NCG have opened a consultation on a proposed merger, 18 months after a potential partnership was first mooted.

The link-up was the college’s preferred option, and it rejected a possible merger with a much closer college after the Central London area review.

But a spokesperson for the London borough of Lewisham told FE Week it was “disappointed” with the outcome.

The council “would have preferred to see Lewisham Southwark College find a more local London partner”, it said.

“Our interest is ensuring that Lewisham young people and adults get education and training to equip them for the highly competitive London labour market,” she added.

The council would have preferred to see Lewisham Southwark College find a more local London partner

Lewisham Southwark College, which was given a grade three rating in its most recent Ofsted inspection, and NCG insisted that a merger would “strengthen and further develop” provision to “better meet the needs of local communities in central south London”.

NCG’s group structure is organised so that each college has “significant autonomy”, a spokesperson for both said.

“The LSC college board will retain local accountability for key areas of operation, including the overall quality of provision, student experience, curriculum development and engagement with local stakeholders, while NCG provides the expertise and balance sheet strength to allow the local principalship to focus wholly on improving quality of education for their local communities,” she said.

News of the planned merger between the London college, which is led by former Newcastle College principal Carole Kitching, and NCG first emerged in March 2016 – although talks began in autumn 2015.

The current consultation runs until April 21, with the merger expected to go ahead in August.

According to the consultation document, the proposal would be “extremely beneficial to both organisations”.

Lewisham Southwark College would be able to “fulfil the next stage of its strategic objectives, while retaining its successful local identity” through the merger, it said.

Meanwhile, NCG would be able to “use LSC’s London-specific expertise and specialisms to benefit the wider group”.

The report from the central London area review, published in February, showed that Lewisham Southwark College had also mooted a merger with nearby Lambeth College – although the NCG proposal was LSC’s “preferred option”.

According the report, the NCG merger would allow LSC “to accelerate their plans to grow their delivery of apprenticeships for London employers, by leveraging the expertise and resources across the group”.

But a partnership with Lambeth “would maintain the college’s current specialisms”, which included “a focus to meet the needs of adults with low basic skills or an ESOL need”.

“This is recognised by both [Lambeth and LSC] as being a key part of meeting the needs of the communities they serve,” it said.

NCG, which was rated ‘good’ in its most recent Ofsted inspection report published in September, counts three FE colleges, one sixth form college and two independent training providers as its members.

These are Newcastle College, Newcastle Sixth Form College, West Lancashire, Kidderminster College, Rathbone and Intraining.

As reported by FE Week in February, Carlisle College is due to become the fifth college member of NCG in April, after it rejected a proposal from the Cumbria area review to pair up with nearby Lakes College.

Panel debates end-point assessment and RoATP

Concerns about quality and the impact of reforms on social mobility dominated the panel debate of FE and skills sector leaders at the Annual Apprenticeship Conference.

Dame Asha Khemka DBE, principal of West Nottinghamshire College and a member of the board of the Institute for Apprenticeship, called for the sector to “work together to find solutions”, admitting that “we all know implementation is going to be rocky”.

However, she said the fact that so many standards’ end-point assessments were not yet in place was “not acceptable”.

Her fellow panel member Dr Sue Pember, the director of policy at HOLEX, described the lack of EPAs for approved standards as “diabolical”. “In my mind”, she said, “you shouldn’t put a standard on the books unless it’s got an EPA”, a position that was met with warm applause from delegates.

Replying to a question about whether the levy would lead to an increase in deadweight provision, which would use levy funds to pay for training that would already have taken place, Dr Pember said “deadweight is a word I don’t like to hear very often; it reminds me of Train to Gain”.

We all know implementation is going to be rocky

John Hyde, the executive chairman of HIT Training, warned that an increase in the use of levy funds to pay for “existing management training and degree sandwich courses may skew it too far”.

He insisted that entry-level apprenticeships and those for 16- to 18-year-olds “are still needed” and urged the government to “keep a close eye on it”.

There were stark warnings from the chief executives of both the Association of Colleges and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

David Hughes, the chief executive of AoC, said “we should go into this open-eyed; sometimes there will be scams and scandals”, but was careful to insist this wouldn’t apply to the majority. He also warned that the levy might “amplify” the behaviour of “unscrupulous” employers, noting that “the labour market is just grossly unfair and unjust, and the levy won’t solve that”.

Mark Dawe, the boss of AELP, asked whether the system could truly be considered employer-led when employers weren’t free to select the provider that they wanted to work with, as not all providers were on the register of apprenticeship training providers.

“Don’t distort the market through a procurement process that doesn’t recognise quality,” he insisted.

MPs queue up to blast apprenticeships register omissions

Fierce criticism has flooded in from MPs concerned at the large number of colleges that have missed out on the new register of apprenticeship training providers.

The list of providers that will be eligible to deliver apprenticeships from May was published on March 14 by the Skills Funding Agency – however, a large number of major providers of apprenticeships somehow missed out, including at least 19 colleges with a combined current allocation of £44 million.

Britain’s second city was left without any colleges able to deliver apprenticeships from May at all, as all four Birmingham colleges failed to get on the register.

The shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden wrote to his ministerial counterpart Robert Halfon on Wednesday demanding answers about the process, which he said left providers with “excellent track records of delivering apprenticeships” off the list.

Gordon Marsden

“A number of decisions on exclusions and indeed inclusions have aroused great concern,” he said, adding that the colleges that missed out had been “left without the ability to deliver new apprenticeships from May with very few answers as to why”.

This situation “raises key questions which need urgent answers to restore confidence” in the register and the application process, he said. He demanded to know the number of people at the SFA who had been involved in compiling the register, and the process for reconsidering applications by providers that had been turned down.

Speaking exclusively to FE Week, Mr Marsden said he understood many of the colleges had been “knocked back because of technical errors” in the applications. “All of this points to a very rushed and inadequately policed production of the register,” he insisted.

Last week, Keith Smith, the director of funding and programmes at the SFA, wrote on behalf of Mr Halfon to all the MPs with colleges in their constituency that had applied unsuccessfully to get on the register.

His letter, which was sent by email the day after the colleges learned their fate, is likely to raise eyebrows given the subsequent outcry over the register.

The absence of the four Birmingham colleges prompted two of the city’s MPs – Gisela Stuart (pictured above) and Jack Dromey – to raise questions in parliament during education questions on Monday. Ms Stuart, the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said their absence from the register was “destroying technical education for 16-year-olds in the West Midlands”.

Jack Dromey

And Mr Dromey, the MP for Birmingham Erdington, asked the minister to meet with the 10 MPs representing Britain’s second city to discuss the issue. Mr Dromey told FE Week that the decision to exclude the colleges “on the basis of the answer to one question is inexplicable”.

“The process is fundamentally flawed and it is essential that the SFA thinks again,” he said. Roger Godsiff, the MP for Birmingham Hall Green, said the process for applying to the register “smacked of a box-ticking exercise”.

He told FE Week that the Birmingham colleges had been “given to understand that the SFA would engage with them if their application was deficient in some form” but “all of them say that the SFA didn’t”.

Meanwhile, Richard Burden, the MP for Birmingham Northfield, said the omission was “shocking and out of order” – but added that it “can be nothing other than a mistake”. Sion Simon, the Labour candidate for mayor of the West Midlands, has launched a campaign to overturn the decision, after just three of the county’s 16 colleges made it onto the register.

“This decision will all but end technical education for young people in the West Midlands as we know it,” he said.

And Wakefield MP Mary Creagh has tabled an early-day motion calling on ministers to reconsider the application process, after Wakefield College failed to get on the register despite having an apprenticeship allocation of £2 million and a ‘good’ Ofsted rating.

“It’s clear that the government’s attempt to improve quality of providers has been a complete shambles,” she said. Meanwhile, Mark Dawe, AELP’s chief executive, insisted that a lot of “good quality” independent providers had also been left off the register.

“Why doesn’t the government trust its own regulator and inspectorate to determine what good quality is?” he asked. Mr Dawe said that providers had been told what sections they had failed on, but not the reasons why they had failed – which meant some were “at a bit of a loss to see what they have to change to get on”.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “All those that applied to be on the register of training providers were given a clear set of criteria in order to receive funds for apprenticeship training, ensuring they are high quality and capable of delivering the training that young people deserve.

“We have also now reopened the register to give new organisations, and those who were not successful the first time, the chance to reapply.

“By regularly giving new providers a chance to get on the register, we are supporting diversity, quality and employer choice.”

 

No growth projections for Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers

There has been no modelling done by the Skills Funding Agency to predict how many providers will eventually end up on the new register of apprenticeship training providers, its boss has admitted.

Peter Lauener’s stunning revelation will be of concern to many in the sector, not least the new Ofsted boss Amanda Spielman, who admits in an exclusive interview on page 6 that she’s “worried” about the impact the register will have on her resources, given that it has already nearly doubled the number of providers that are now in line for inspection.

We don’t have a view of how many will be on there and it is something we’ll have a better fix on over time

Speaking to FE Week following a question and answer session on the forthcoming apprenticeship reforms at this year’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference, Mr Lauener said “we do not have a modelled view” on how many providers he expects will be on the register in a few years’ time.

“We don’t have a view of how many will be on there and it is something we’ll have a better fix on over time,” he admitted. “I think it would be unhelpful to have a view at this stage, not least because we have the levy coming.”

Before the register came into force, there were 793 apprenticeship providers in scope for inspection.

Now however, the RoATP has nearly double that many providers listed, with 1,473 organisations in the frame for inspection when it goes live in May.

To heap problems on Ofsted, the RoATP 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 for the future.”

Despite this, Mr Lauener insisted that there is no need for the SFA to project how many providers will eventually make it onto the register.

“We don’t have a view of how many,” he told FE Week. “Why would we have a view about a desired number?”

Ofsted watch: Another UTC hit with poor grade

A university technical college in Middlesex received a grade three in its first ever Ofsted inspection, spelling even more problems for the 14 to 19 institutions, in a week that saw a sixth form college rated ‘outstanding’.

Inspectors cited “historically low attendance” at Heathrow Aviation Engineering UTC as well as “poor” student attitudes towards being at the UTC, in an inspection report published March 22.

The report said parents and pupils reported to inspectors that they feel “let down by promises made by this UTC not being fulfilled”.

It added: “A legacy of challenges, including in staff recruitment and financial constraints, has been a significant challenge to overcome.”

Heathrow UTC has just 205 students on roll, with a capacity of 600.

The ‘requires improvement’ outcome adds to troubles for the UTC model.

FE Week revealed earlier this month that less than half of the university technical colleges visited by Ofsted have received ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ grades.

The education watchdog has now visited a total of 21 UTCs, but only nine of these, or 42 per cent, were judged to be good enough for higher grades.

St John Rigby RC Sixth Form College in Wigan on the other hand received an ‘outstanding’ grade from Ofsted, in an inspection report published March 21.

The previously grade two 1,300-learner SFC’s principal and leadership team have “worked relentlessly to ensure transformational change since the last inspection”, inspectors said.

They added: “Excellent teaching results in a high proportion of students making exceptional progress from their starting points. Consequently, most students achieve, and often exceed, their aspirational target grades.”

The damning Ofsted report that caused the downfall of huge apprenticeship training provider First4Skills was also published this week.

The Liverpool-based provider went bust earlier this month, affecting around 200 staff and around 6,500 learners, after the Skills Funding Agency pulled its contract following a grade four rating from the education watchdog.

Inspectors blasted leaders at the provider for failing to “tackle the significant weaknesses identified at the previous inspection”, with the result that “outcomes for learners and the quality of teaching, learning and assessment have declined further and are now inadequate”.

“Strategic priorities focus disproportionately on maximising the company’s income at the expense of providing high standards of education and training for learners,” it said.

Meanwhile another private provider, System Group Limited who delivers training nationally, went up from a grade three to a grade two.

The 2,100-learner provider was graded ‘good’ across the board, with inspectors highlighting the provider’s apprenticeship delivery.

“All apprentices benefit from the very regular contact, one-to-one coaching and support they receive from their trainer/assessors,” inspectors said. “Apprentices and learners have extremely good knowledge of safe working practices which they apply correctly.”

Vision West Nottinghamshire College kept its grade two in a report published March 21.

Inspectors said senior leaders have put the college “at the heart of the local community, enabling it to raise aspirations and support the area’s cultural and economic regeneration.”

But they added too few learners on classroom-based programmes achieve their qualifications in English and mathematics or “improve their skills sufficiently”.

Tameside College kept its grade three in a report published March 21.

To improve inspectors said the colleges needs to “increase significantly the proportion of apprentices who achieve their apprenticeship and who complete within the planned timescale”.

Epping Forest College had its first monitoring visit since being rated ‘inadequate’ on January 6.

Ofsted said the college was making good progress since the grade four.

Two short inspection reports were also published this week.

South West Regional Assessment Centre Limited, an employer provider, was found to continue as ‘good’ since a grade two in June 2013.

Staffordshire County Council also continues to be ‘good’ since a grade two November 2012.

 

GFE Colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Tameside College 14/02/2017 21/03/2017 3 3
Vision West Nottinghamshire College 07/02/2017 21/03/2017 2 2
Epping Forest College 26/01/2017 17/03/2017 M M

 

Sixth Form Colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
St John Rigby RC Sixth Form College 14/02/2017 21/03/2017 1 2

 

Independent Learning Providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
System Group Limited 20/02/2017 24/03/2017 2 3
FIRST4SKILLS Limited 07/02/2017 20/03/2017 4 3

 

Other (including UTCs) Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Heathrow Aviation Engineering UTC 21/02/2017 22/03/2017 3 –

 

Short inspections (remains grade 2) Inspected Published
South West Regional Assessment Centre Ltd 23/02/2017 20/03/2017
Staffordshire County Council 27/02/2017 20/03/2017

Gordon Marsden lays out Labour’s FE policy objectives

Labour would establish an official pre-apprenticeship programme, and support apprenticeships for care leavers, veterans and people with disabilities, according to the shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden.

During his speech at the Annual Apprenticeships Conference, Mr Marsden made clear his support for technical education, and hit out at “the lack of adequate resources” the government is putting into the new Institute for Apprenticeships.

In all, he made new five policy objectives from the state, committing his party to:

 

1.Targets to increase apprenticeships for people with disabilities, care leavers and for veterans.

 

2. A system of traineeships to work as “an official pre-apprenticeship programme”.

 

3. “Specific support” to cover apprentices’ travel costs, which he said currently run to an average of £24 a week – a quarter of their earnings if they’re on the minimum wage.

 

4. Devolving apprenticeship funding to local combined authorities or metro mayor regions provided they have a strategy to achieve it

 

5. Incentives for large employers to “overtrain apprentices to fill skills gaps in the supply chain and the wider sector”, perhaps including subsidising the administrative costs of that training.

 
He said that the Local Government Authority is afraid the levy would cost them up to £207 million every year, and wants the money it will raise to pool it locally so councils can “create apprenticeships to fill local skills gaps and meet local employers’ needed”.

Mr Marsden also talked about the impending threat posed by Brexit to technical workers, pointing to a skills shortage in the construction industry, which he says is at risk of losing 200,000 jobs.

“We need not only to scale up areas of traditional apprenticeships in manufacturing and industry, but also grasp the potential for great expansion, including for high-quality apprenticeships in the service sector,” he said.

“There are growing demands in social care, leisure, and visitor services, as well as digital and creative industries, and we must do everything we can to meet these. Increased automation is changing the world of work and jobs. That is why the service sector will be so crucial.”

He also took a moment to pay tribute from the stage to the victims of the attack in London on Wednesday in which four people died. He only made the decision to travel to Birmingham at the last minute, and extended apologies from his ministerial counterpart Robert Halfon, whom he said had been disappointed not to come.

Apprenticeship providers warned not to sacrifice quality

The “new apprenticeship system is the eBay of education” and “will drive down quality”,  the boss of the Association of Employment and Learning providers told delegates at FE Week’s third Annual Apprenticeships Conference.

There were further strong words from the Department for Education’s director of apprenticeships David Hill, who told providers not to “do a deal at a price you can’t deliver quality for”, setting the tone for a conference at which no punches were pulled.

FE Week’s third AAC kicked off on March 22, with a warm welcome from the BBC’s Kirsty Wark to a packed exhibition hall at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham.

Ms Wark, host for the full three days of the conference, 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 followed her onto the stage to walk the audience through the results of a pre-conference questionnaire, designed to gauge delegates’ feelings about the government’s reforms just over a month before the long-awaited launch of the apprenticeship levy.

It’s up to you to work together to ensure high quality is maintained

Mr Linford raised the issue of quality – which would become a particular theme of the conference – showing the audience the slide pictured.
Delegates were most concerned that the quality of apprenticeships would suffer in the government’s effort to increase quantity.

The results revealed that major concerns about apprenticeship quality persist in the sector, with 87 per cent saying they were very or a little concerned at last year’s conference, and 86 per cent saying the same before the event this year.

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

Next up was the DfE’s Mr Hill, who updated everyone on the apprenticeship reforms, which he labeled “the most significant change in the funding of FE in a generation”.

He thanked the sector for its work in boosting both the number of apprenticeships and their successful outcomes.

“This is a period of great change for apprenticeships,” he said.

“We have an absolutely pressing need to improve technical skills in this country to contribute to productivity and competitiveness, and improving skills is right at the heart of the government’s emerging industrial strategy.”

Importantly, during questions after his speech, Mr Hill was asked about the risk of employers driving down the price of apprenticeships in the new system. He told providers not to “do a deal at a price you can’t deliver quality for”.

“By 2020, spending on apprenticeships in England will have doubled compared to what was spent in 2010/11,” he said.

“That is a huge opportunity to raise both the number and the quality of apprenticeships.”

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”.

“I am absolutely sure we will make those allocations well before the first of May,” he said.

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.

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

Mr Hill also highlighted the need to “widen participation”, adding that the government would be publishing further guidance “for employers who are keen to create a more diverse and inclusive apprenticeship programme”.