In the News
Who knew appointing an education secretary could be so exciting?
James Cleverly was handed the job this month after his predecessor Michelle Donelan resigned after less than two days in the post. Her quitting, in order to pressure Boris Johnson into himself resigning, makes her the UK’s shortest serving education secretary and possibly its shortest serving Cabinet minister.
Donelan’s predecessor Nadhim Zahawi was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer early this month when Rishi Sunak stormed out of the Cabinet.
Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss are now battling it out to be the next PM. Whoever wins will have to appoint an education secretary ready to fight on multiple fronts.
The Association of Colleges has recommended college leaders offer employees a 2.5 per cent pay rise. But principals have complained this will be unaffordable while inflation is wrecking their budgets and the University and College Union has called the recommendation unacceptable while staff are struggling with soaring household bills.
The current state of the labour market is also hurting the FE and skills sector:
The number of 16- and 17-year-olds not in work, education, or training is at a 10-year high.
Almost half of apprentices dropped out of training before their course was complete in 2020/21.
Record high vacancies mean providers are having to fight for enrolments and to recruit the best staff.
Interview
For this month's edition of The Mark, we sat down with Labour's shadow FE and skills minister Toby Perkins MP to discuss the Skills Act, how workforce problems are affecting the sector, and what he thinks of T Levels.
Does the Skills Act go far enough in addressing the needs of learners?
No, I don't. It doesn’t really consider the needs of learners at all. It's almost entirely around the needs of employers. I think except for the lifelong loan entitlement, learners almost entirely absent from the act.
What employers want is, of course, an important question, but it's not the only question. And when we have a sort of national failure to bring through people with the right skills, then we've got to ask serious questions about why systems are failing learners. All of the changes from Covid, I think, are entirely missing from the bill. I fear that Local Skills Improvement Plans will be too narrow. I think they should involve employees, the Chambers of Commerce, but also colleges, independent providers, local mayors and so on. Then it would be a document that had much wider buy-in.
We've got a public sector and a private sector skills crisis and the Skills Act does nothing to address that. Most fundamentally of all, you've got a bill that doesn't consider apprenticeships. Increasing their numbers and so on should be the key tool and focus of skills policy. I feel it's a huge, missed opportunity.
How do you think the government should proceed with reforming qualifications at levels two and three?
I think the decision to not fund the level 2 business administration apprenticeship is a significant mistake. I think that a lot of organisations found it really did suit their needs. And if you're having an employer-led approach, then abandoning just about the most popular level two qualification seems a considerable misstep.
I think T Levels have got a role. I've been to see T Level provision and I think they're of value, but so far, the numbers doing them are very small. So, government needs some real humility about, yes, we understand students really like this new project, but until the numbers really increase, then they should be very careful about abolishing other programmes to make space for T Levels.
What do you think the government should be doing so providers can retain and recruit the best staff?
You can't get away from the fact that we've had 12 years of really substantial funding cuts and the slight improvement in colleges' funding position in the last two years is only a tiny step back up the mountain. Those cuts have had massive consequences for the quality and number of people who are making their living in the FE sector.
We've got a public sector and a private sector skills crisis and the Skills Act does nothing to address that
You are in a competitive marketplace, particularly for vocational courses. Not just with other providers, but with industry. So, we've seen a huge brain drain out of the FE sector in the last 12 years.
I think, you've got to have a strategic approach to further education, which recognises that we need to be able to attract people to come into, and stay, in the sector. If people have a strong sense that this is an area of real priority for government. That, as I believe, attracting more people into the sector is of national importance, and that it's an area that is going to be invested in, then that will help providers to attract and retain staff because it will be seen as an area that has a real future.
What do you think can be done to get more young people into education and employment and keep apprentices on their course?
I think the first thing we need to do is increase access to apprenticeships. Apprenticeships and traineeships are great routes to support young people into the world of work. Apprenticeships need to be available in every town, village, and city in the country. Which is partly about making sure that small businesses, as well as bigger businesses, can access funding for apprenticeships, are able to manage the bureaucracy, and are encouraged to take on apprenticeships.
The sense that has developed in the last few years that apprenticeships are mainly a big business thing. If you're not a levy payer, then you sort of seem excluded from the system to an extent.
I think you need to have an approach to lifelong learning and adult education that really recognises the value of it and sets out to encourage people to do that. The name ‘Lifelong Loan Entitlement,’ I think, is a bad one. I get a strong sense of resistance to people taking on loans. I support the policy, but I think it needs more work. You've also got to increase the pathways from level two to four, to six, through apprenticeships so they are seen as a more competitive and comparative offer to university.
When the new prime minister and education secretary come into office, what would you like to hear from them about skills reform?
I'd like to see a real focus on apprenticeships with reform of the apprenticeship levy. I'd like to see careers guidance, and work experience, being something that stops being so arbitrary, and almost optional. I know we have compulsory careers guidance, but so many schools are failing to achieve the Gatsby benchmarks that it suggests the government doesn’t take it seriously. I think provision's slightly better than what it was five or six years ago. But the changes to careers guidance in the first six years of this conservative government were really appalling.
Opinion
As unions and college leaders negotiate staff pay amid a cost of living crisis and ever-increasing pressure on budgets, Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Kirsti Lord tells The Mark what is needed from government to fix this issue.
Historically the base funding rate for 16–18-year-old students is around 20 pc less than for 11-16 pupils. The adult funding rate has not had an increase for 15 years and revised apprenticeship funding bands have in many cases reduced while colleges bear the burden of increased bureaucracy. This leads to an incredibly tight budget for colleges.
In practical subjects, group sizes tend to be smaller than for more academic subjects to ensure proper access to equipment and that health and safety measures are followed. These classes often need to be supported with a technician in addition to teaching staff to ensure equipment is kept in good order and appropriate resources are resourced and supplied. A 2019 report by the AoC clearly outlined that even with group sizes recommended for financial sustainability by the FE Commissioner, funding is now insufficient to cover the running costs of courses. This issue has occurred as a direct result of the cost-of-living crisis, however current rates of inflation are compounding the challenges.
The settlement from the Comprehensive Spending Review (and 8-9 pc increase on the 16-18 funding line) was designed to maintain funding per under-18 student in real terms. However much of this comes with expectations of additional delivery through catch-up funding, and in T levels, and while the number of 16-year-olds entering the further education system increases with demography.
The inflation rate was 2.4 pc when colleges set their budgets in July 2021. Rising inflation is a challenge for students, college staff (a fifth of whom earn less than £10.50 an hour), and colleges as institutions.
AoC released a report on college staffing issues last March with a much more detailed analysis on this matter, which you can see here.
Staff will return to industry or go teach in a school to pay their mortgage and feed their family
What the new ministerial team can do
In the short-term, there are several measures that would help inside the current restricted spending envelope, including:
Business case processes from the ESFA and combined authorities to allow more leeway for 2021-2 and 2022-3 AEB and 2022-3 T Level shortfalls, because colleges risk clawback on both.
More flexibility on the extra 40 funded hours in 2022-3 which are eating into the available funding, and which are also more challenging to deliver given the widespread difficulties in recruiting and retaining teaching staff.
Suspending intervention action on ESFA financial health assessments and clarifying the nature of the FE Commissioner’s 65 pc staff cost benchmark, because those measures will severely constrain colleges from making better pay offers to staff.
A cost increase sharing mechanism for approved DfE capital projects (currently extra costs fall to the college)
Offering an income guarantee for colleges where the grade inflation in last summer’s exams led to more young people staying in school sixth forms. This impacts through the lagged system on income from the autumn, just when we expect those student numbers to bounce back. The lagged system was not designed for such unique circumstances and needs to be amended for next academic year.
Considering the first rate increase on AEB in over a decade, learning from the approach taken in London by the GLA.
Considering a rate premium on priority courses and qualifications, where colleges have the most difficulties recruiting skilled staff, and for T Levels, HTQs and other courses which the government wishes to grow.
For the next Comprehensive Spending Review, ministers should:
Match the promised £5,000 per secondary pupil funding rate for post-16 education and training
Remove the discounted rate for 18-year-olds, acknowledge these are often students who need more support, not less
Increase funding rates to adult qualifications to reflect inflation
Align hourly teaching rates in apprenticeship delivery with programme weighting
Remove the requirement for colleges to pay VAT
Increase financial support for hard to recruit roles with additional funding for market premiums
Provide funding increases to enable colleges to have the financial confidence for meaningful increases in staff pay
Staff retention
We are hugely worried about staff retention in the sector, largely due to pay. College leaders were, as far back as 2019, closing provision in some areas due to staff shortages linked to low pay compared to industry wages
Last December, we surveyed our members and found the proportion of colleges unable to fill long term vacancies is very worrying: 65 pc reported long term vacancies in construction, 60 pc in engineering, and 27 pc in health and social care.
With significant incentives to move to warehousing and hospitality, many lower paid roles are now becoming hard to fill with 39 pc of respondents reporting long term vacancies for additional learning support, 36 pc in estates roles, and 23 pc in learning mentoring.
With rising rates of inflation and impact of increased NI contributions in their pay packet, staff will return to industry for significantly higher pay in some subject areas, or go and teach in a school, to ensure they can pay their mortgage and feed their family.