Issue 134 | January 2023

Edit-27/01/2023: Apologies to anyone who opened the newsletter first thing and found Alan’s joke to be even more curious than usual – an adjustment has been made, and hopefully it now makes sense!

A belated happy and prosperous new year to all of you from all of us at Click.

OFSTED 2021/22 ANNUAL REPORT

On 13 December, Ofsted published its 2021/22 Annual Report for that academic year. Section 6 of the report, which covers FE and skills in England, contains details of the first full year of inspections that were carried out without pandemic restrictions. Ofsted’s findings include the following:

• 82% of FE and skills provision in 2021/22 was judged as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ overall. A comparison with 2018/19, the last full year of inspections before pandemic restrictions were introduced, reveals improvements in performance in some areas of the sector and a decline in performance in others. Below is given the percentage of providers judged as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by provider type, along with the percentage change in performance compared with 2018/19:
• Sixth form colleges: 100%, up by 13%.
• General FE colleges: 91%, up by 11%.
• Specialist Colleges: 79%, up by 4%.
• Adult Community Education: 96%, up by 4%.
• 16-19 academies: 98%, up by 6%.
• Independent training providers: 75%, down by 4%.
• Prison based provision: 37%, down by 9%.
• 65% of 330 new providers that received their first full inspection in 2021/22 were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
• 31 providers that were judged as ‘outstanding’ had not received an inspection for a considerable period of time (in some cases for 10 years or more). Under previous rules these providers had been exempted from the normal inspection. Of these, 14 retained their ‘outstanding’ grade, 14 were judged ‘good’, and 3 were judged as ‘requires improvement’.
• 75% of apprenticeship providers were judged as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
• Education services provided in 22 prisons were inspected. Half were judged ‘inadequate’. This was attributed, in part, to high levels of staff absence amongst prison staff and contractors. Of the remainder, 10 were judged as ‘requires improvement’ and one was judged to be ‘good’.
• There were shortages in the number of specialist staff needed to deliver T-Level programmes. The pandemic had impacted negatively on both the availability and the quality of industry placements.
• A significant number of cases were found where provision was being delivered entirely or substantially online, with no obvious benefit for learners.

FE COMMISSIONER 2021/22 ANNUAL REPORT

On 12 December, the FE Commissioner for England, Shelagh Legrave, published her 2021/22 Annual Report, for the 2021/22 academic year. Ms Legrave said that work during the year had been focused on:

• Ensuring ministers and civil servants were fully informed of the challenges facing the FE sector.
• Developing a range of ‘Active Support’ tools and resources for colleges.
• Supporting colleges that were in intervention, helping them to rectify their problems and helping them progress into post-intervention monitoring and support.

Ms Legrave said that there were some persistent problems that corporations and college senior managers should address. These included the following:

• Governance: There was a need to refresh the composition of boards where governors had served for more than 10 years and where there was too comfortable a relationship between governors and the senior management team.
• Subcontracting: With the decline in adults participating in FE, colleges were increasingly using subcontracting as a way of fulfilling their funding contracts. Ms Legrave said that it was critical that subcontracting was ‘overseen appropriately, both from a quality and funding perspective’.
• Cyber security: A number of colleges were affected by attacks during the year. Governors and principals needed to ensure that their IT systems and processes provided as much protection as possible. Ms Legrave referred readers to the compliance section on this, FE Governance Guide .
• Staff shortages: Some colleges were withdrawing from ‘priority courses’ (including T-Levels) because they were unable to recruit the specialist staff needed to deliver them.
• Intervention: Statistics for the year provided in the report show that:
• 3 intervention reports were published
• 2 full intervention assessments took place, both relating to the colleges’ finances.
• 25 follow-up visits were made to 22 colleges. One of these resulted in an escalation to intervention.
• 9 colleges formally exited intervention.
• 6 colleges that had exited intervention were still being monitored through the new post-intervention monitoring and support (PIMS) strategy.
• 26 diagnostic assessments (now called ‘Health checks’) were conducted.
• 2 structure and prospects appraisals (SPAs) were carried out, both of which resulted in mergers.
• 12 National Leaders of Further Education (NLFE) and 8 National Leaders of Governance (NLG) visited 54 principals and college boards.

DFE 2021/22 ANNUAL REPORT

On 19 December the Department for Education in England (DfE) published its 2021/22 Annual Report and Accounts for the period April 2021 to March 2022. The section of the report dealing with the FE and Skills sector can be found from page 57 to 65, and content includes the following:

During the year, the DfE developed a ‘new skills mission’ that, ‘by 2030, the number of people successfully completing high-quality skills training will have significantly increased in every area of the UK’. Although ‘significantly increased’ is not quantified, the DfE says that it has already:

• Strengthened partnerships between employers and post-16 providers.
• Committed to carrying out reforms to adults skills funding and accountability.
• Launched the Teach in Further Education campaign to help providers to recruit the staff they need.
• Introduced a Lifetime Skills Guarantee to support people to retrain and upskill throughout their lives.
• Developed a Lifelong Loan Entitlement, allowing people to access funds for study throughout their lives.
• Delivered the Turing Scheme, enabling students to participate in new experiences across the globe.
• Enabled year 13 students to repeat a year if their learning had been badly affected by the pandemic.

With reference to the FE sector’s financial performance, the report said that after two years of being classified as ‘high risk’, the financial resilience of the FE sector has improved (although the report says that this continues to be discussed by the DfE leadership team on a regular basis).

OFQUAL 2021/22 ANNUAL REPORT

The Ofqual 2021/22 report was published in July last year and was covered in an earlier Click newsletter. For those still interested, a copy of the 2021/22 Ofqual Report can be found here.

PAC SAYS THE DFE FUNDING IS FAILING TO DELIVER THE SKILLS ESSENTIAL TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PROSPERITY

On 14 December, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report entitled ‘Developing workforce skills for a strong economy’. The main conclusion in the report is that ‘the £4 billion a year spent by the DfE on 19+ education and training in England is failing to deliver the skills essential to economic growth and prosperity’. The report highlights the halving of the number of adults participating in

government-funded FE and skills provision (down from 3.2 million in 2010/11 to 1.6 million in 2020/21), and that the contraction in adult participation was particularly high in poorer areas. To address this, the PAC says that within six months of the report’s publication, the DfE is required to:

• Produce a plan to support disadvantaged groups to participate fully in FE and skills training.
• Set out what level of improvement in the FE Skills Index the DfE is aiming to achieve and by when.
• Review the number of skills programmes on offer and take action to eliminate overlap between them.
• Review incentives for employers to invest in skills, including through the apprenticeship levy and, in light of its findings, take the action required to improve the effectiveness of these incentives.
• Provide an update on how colleges are being helped to deal with funding challenges and workforce shortages.
• Provide an update on the shortfall in staff in the Future Skills Unit, and provide information on how this impacting on the Future Skills Unit’s work and outcomes.

DFE PUBLISHES LIST OF APPLICATIONS MADE IN THE LATEST WAVE OF FREE SCHOOL BIDS

On 23 December, the DfE published a list of applications to establish 64 new free schools in England under Wave 15 of the free school programme. Amongst the bids received were applications for six new ‘elite’ sixth forms, reflecting the government’s intention to open new ‘high quality, academic focused’ 16-19 sixth form colleges (or new sixth forms in existing institutions) to be based in designated Education Investment Areas (EIAs) There were also applications for two new university technical colleges (UTCs).

ESFA ANNOUNCES 16-19 FUNDING RATES FOR 2023/24

On 9 January the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) published details of increases in funding for full-time 16-19 providers in England in the 2023/4 academic year. The increases are part of the £1.6 billion funding commitment made last year in the three-year spending review period up to 2024/25. Funding rates for 2023/24 and associated formulae can be found here. Changes include the following:

• There will be a below inflation increase of 2.2% in the base rate for full time students aged 16 and 17 from August 2023. Funding for those on full-time college courses of 580 hours or more will increase from £4,542 to £4,642. The increase will also apply to students aged 18 and over with high needs.
• 2022/23 funding bands for T-Levels have been increased by between £1,174 and £1,624, depending on number of study hours in the T-Level programme.
• Programme cost weightings have been increased for engineering and manufacturing, construction and digital subject areas to help with the additional costs of recruiting and retaining teachers in these areas.
• The high value course premium remains at £600, as does the advanced maths premium (for additional students studying specified Level 3 maths qualifications).
• The overall increase in funding in cash terms in 2023/24 is worth £125 million. This is made up of £85 million from the 2.2% increase in base rate funding and £40 million in subject-specific funding.

DFE PROPOSALS FOR ADULT FUNDING REFORMS IN ENGLAND ARE DELAYED FOR A YEAR

Last July the Department for Education (DfE) launched a consultation on a proposal to merge the Adult Education Budget (AEB), the budget for the Free Courses for Jobs Scheme and the Adult Community Learning (ACL) budget into a single Skills Fund. In the consultation, the DfE also announced proposals for:

• A new needs-based funding formula, to replace that based on historic performance.
• New employment related objectives for community learning provision.
• An increase in funding rates for priority courses.

The consultation closed in October and there were 249 responses, most of which expressed concern about the time scale for the introduction of the new Skills Fund. In response the government announced that the introduction of fund will now be delayed to the start of the 2024/24 academic year, along with the proposed rate rise for priority provision and new employment related objectives for adult and community learning. An announcement on a new timescale is expected early this year.

DFE PUBLISHES FUNDING APPROVAL PROCESS FOR ‘ALTERNATIVE’ LEVEL 3 VTQ AND AGQ FUNDING IN 2025/26

On 10 January, in a statement to parliament, Robert Halfon, the Skills and Universities Minister for England announced the government’s intention to proceed with reforms to Level 3 Vocational and Technical Qualifications (VTQs) and Applied General Qualifications (AGQ) in England. A-Levels are excluded from these reforms. The changes will see most qualifications that duplicate or overlap with T-Level courses defunded from August 2025. Qualifications other than T-Levels are referred to as ‘alternative’ qualifications. Some of these can continue to be publicly funded, but only if they meet the government’s criteria for this.

To accompany Mr Halfon’s parliamentary statement, on 10 January the DfE published the approvals process for applying for continued funding for these alternative qualifications. Awarding organisations (AOs) have been given until 10 February to submit their applications to both the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and Ofqual. To establish whether the alternative qualification meets the government’s criteria for continued funding, IfATE has set a number of employer demand tests and Ofqual has specified new content and assessment conditions. However, the final decision on continued eligibility for public funding will be made by the DfE. Qualifications that have already been identified for having their funding terminated, either because they have had low, or no, enrolments, or have been deemed to overlap with T-Levels, are not eligible to be re-submitted for approval.

COLLEGES ALLOCATED £75 MILLION FROM ROUND 2 OF THE LEVELLING UP FUND

More than 100 projects had been awarded a share of £2.1 billion from Round 2 of the Levelling Up Fund. £75 million from the fund has been allocated to FE projects in England. The government’s Levelling Up Fund aims to support local infrastructure and regeneration schemes across the whole of the U.K. Examples of the way the fund is used includes the renovation of town centres, the improvement of local transport systems, local job creation, supporting employers in meeting skills shortages and ‘restoring local heritage’. On 17 January, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published a list of levelling up case studies of projects that will be funded. A full list of the projects funded can be found in Excel format here: Levelling Up Fund Round 2 successful bids. These include new college campuses and the expansion of existing college campuses. The funding allocated in the second round is in addition to the £1.7 billion provided last year in the first round of bids, with more bidding rounds to be held in future years.

COLLEGES ELIGIBLE FOR NEW ENERGY BILLS DISCOUNT SCHEME

On 9 January, the government announced that the ‘Energy Bills Relief Scheme’ put in place in September last year is being replaced by a new ‘Energy Bills Discount Scheme’ which reflects the significant fall in wholesale energy prices in recent months. As with the previous scheme, the new scheme runs until 31 March, but the total amount available for support is now capped at £5.5 billion. Most colleges are eligible to receive financial help with their energy bills from the new scheme. However, only those colleges that are paying £107 or more per megawatt hour for gas (up from £75) and/or £302 or more per megawatt hour for electricity (up from £211) will be eligible for support. The exception to this is that those colleges locked into higher priced contracts signed before the fall in wholesale energy prices, may still be eligible.

CONCERNS THAT ONS RECLASSIFICATION COULD JEOPARDISE COLLEGE CAPITAL PROJECTS

On 29 November 2022, the ONS announced that FE and sixth form college corporations (and any of their subsidiaries) had been reclassified from being private sector bodies to being public sector bodies.

Colleges will continue to be self-governing charities but, as part of the public sector, they are now subject to the government’s Managing Public Money (MPM) framework. This imposes significant financial and accounting changes on them. For example, college assets and liabilities will be consolidated into the government’s national balance sheet. Because the government is normally able to borrow money at lower interest rates than colleges can obtain commercially, colleges have been told to ‘pause’ capital projects that rely on borrowing from banks and other private lenders. However, the government has not yet provided any information on how their capital projects can be financed via government borrowing instead. This means that college building programmes in the final planning stage will need to be suspended until the matter is clarified. Critics say that because the government had expected the ONS reclassification for several months prior to the decision being announce, it should have used the time to put in place an alternative system of internal borrowing, or at least, allowed those building projects that were at an advanced stage to go ahead.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) has insisted that it is unreasonable for the change to be implemented mid-year without prior consultation, since this can potentially destabilise the finances of those colleges that were renewing their bank overdrafts and/or had successfully bid for DfE initiated capital projects that were only part-funded, since the DfE expected colleges to provide the required matched funding from their reserves or by taking out commercial loans. For an interesting AoC critique of the implications arising from this, see here.

IMPACT OF ONS RECLASSIFICATION OF THE COLLEGES SECTOR ON SENIOR STAFF PAY

With reference to senior staff pay, changes arising from the reclassification include the following:

• Total remuneration: Including all elements of base salary, fees, pension payments in excess of normal levels and allowances: Colleges continue to remain responsible for setting the pay of their workforce but they now fall within the scope of His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) senior pay controls process, which is intended to ensure that senior pay is set at an ‘appropriate level’. HMT guidance states that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury must approve any future senior staff remuneration that is at, or above, the current threshold of £150,000, and/or performance related pay or bonus arrangements that exceed £17,500. Colleges will need to provide HMT with a justification for any pay awards in excess of these thresholds when proposing salary increases for existing senior staff or recruiting new senior staff.
• Special severance payments: Including contractual redundancy payments, and those that are discretionary and additional to those arising from statutory obligations: Colleges continue to have delegated authority to make individual severance payments, provided any non-statutory or non-contractual element is under £50,000, or is less than three months’ salary (whichever is the lower). However, in accordance with the current guidance on Public Sector Exit Payments, colleges must obtain prior approval from the DfE before making a staff severance payment where the exit package includes a total severance payment at, or above £100,000, and/or the employee earns over £150,000. The default MPM position is that payments at this level do not usually provide good value for public money. Regardless of the above thresholds, any special severance payment which is ‘novel, contentious or repercussive’ of whatever value, must first be referred to the DfE for approval.·
• Settlement agreements: Including the payment of money by a college in return for the employee making a legally binding agreement not to bring a claim against them: These agreements are normally used to settle workplace disputes and protect colleges from protracted and expensive litigation. Prior to the reclassification, no upper limits were applied to settlement agreements, other than they had to be able to show that they could afford to pay the agreed amount and that the payment represented value for public money. Now that colleges are subject to the MPM framework, they must comply with all the above restrictions and caps on the level of payment.
• Compensation payments: Including those that provide redress for loss or personal injury: If a college is making a compensation payment, it must base its decision on the amount after obtaining legal advice and must be able to demonstrate value for money. Colleges still have delegated authority to approve compensation payments provided that any non-statutory or non-contractual element is under £50,000. Where the payment is above this threshold, the college must obtain prior approval from the DfE.
• Ex gratia payments: Including payments necessitated by organisational failures and/or to avoid legal action. These must always be referred to the DfE for prior approval, regardless of the sum involved.

COLLEGE PRINCIPALS AND LEADERS TO BE GIVEN ACCESS TO MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING SUPPORT

In November 2021, the DfE awarded a contract worth £760,000 to a charity called ‘Education Support’ (a charity set up to support the mental health and wellbeing of education staff) to provide one-to-one or peer group support and counselling for up to 2,000 school headteachers who may have mental health issues or other wellbeing issues. Education Support says that the aim of the programme is ‘to provide space for leaders to reflect on their own mental health and consider how their approach to developing self-awareness and prioritising self-care impacts on others’. The programme was due to end in March 2022 but was extended by a further year to March 2023 because only around half of places on the programme had been taken up. As a result, the programme has been opened up to principals and other FE senior staff who may have wellbeing or mental health issues. This will be administered by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) and will be delivered jointly by Education Support and the AoC on the ETF’s behalf. An evaluation of the programme is currently being conducted by York Consulting.

DFE PUBLISHES UPDATED GUIDANCE ON T-LEVEL INDUSTRY PLACEMENTS

The rules in respect of T-Level industry placements previously stated that all students must attend an external workplace setting in person for a minimum of 315-hours or 45 days, and that virtual or remote attendance was not allowed. These rules were of necessity relaxed during the pandemic. In updated guidance published on 10 January, the DfE now says that, following the pandemic, some element of remote working has become part of the established working practices in many occupational areas. The guidance goes on to say that that up to 20% of hours or 9 days of the industry placement can now be delivered remotely in 6 of the 23 available T-Level subjects, these being Accounting; Digital; Finance; Legal Services; Management and Administration; and Media, Broadcast and Production. The remaining hours must be delivered in the workplace setting and in person, and remote working can only take place from a learner’s home in ‘exceptional’ circumstances.

UNIVERSITY VICE CHANCELLORS ASKED TO CLARIFY WHETHER T-LEVELS MEET THEIR ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

On 12 January, the DfE published an updated list of HE providers that are prepared to accept T-Levels as an alternative to A-Levels in meeting the entry requirements for their degree courses. There are 133 HE providers included in the list. Of these, 104 are universities, 26 are FE colleges offering HE provision and 3 are Institutes of Technology (IoTs). Unfortunately for applicants, the list does not specify which degree courses T-Levels meet the entry requirements for. Also, HE providers only have to accept T-Levels for one course to be included in the list. This leaves T-Level students uncertain as to which provider they should be applying to. On 18 January, the Skills and Universities Minister for England, Robert Halfon sent a letter to university vice chancellors asking them to clarify which of their degree courses T-Levels met the entry qualifications for, and to publish this on their university websites. However, since the letter was just one week before the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) application deadline of 25 January for places on 2023 undergraduate courses, it unclear whether this will be of any use to current applicants.

DECLINE IN YOUNG PEOPLE FROM LOW-INCOME FAMILIES TAKING UP APPRENTICESHIPS

Last month, the Sutton Trust published a report entitled ‘The recent evolution of apprenticeships’. The report is based on research conducted by the London School of Economics and the University of Surrey. The report says that the share of apprenticeship starts at all levels in the most deprived areas of the country has decreased from 26% in 2015, to 20% in 2020, whereas in the most affluent areas, the share of starts has increased from 14% to 18%. The report also confirms that the number of older people taking higher level apprenticeships (many of whom were already employed in relatively well-paid jobs), has continued to increase, and there was an urgent need for ‘measures to rebalance apprenticeships back towards disadvantaged young people’

In the letter he sent to university vice chancellors mentioned above, Mr Halfon said that also wanted to see more degree apprenticeships being delivered by a wider range of universities, and especially by ‘prestigious universities’, to help improve access to university for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, adding that £8 million was being made available to support HE providers who wanted to grow their degree apprenticeships offer. However, the report reveals that only 5% of those starting a degree apprenticeship in 2020/21 were from lower income backgrounds and that, contrary to DfE claims, degree apprenticeships were not providing a more accessible route to university for those from low-income backgrounds. Instead, if people from disadvantaged backgrounds did manage to get to university, they were more likely to be on a traditional university course.

MANDATED QUALIFICATIONS TO BE INTEGRATED WITH APPRENTICESHIP END POINT ASSESSMENTS

Under current rules, apprentices have not completed their apprenticeship until they have successfully completed an end point assessment (EPA). In around 40% of apprenticeships (e.g. gas fitting and electrical installation) an apprentice is also required to achieve at least one mandated qualification which must be achieved before the apprentice is allowed to commence unsupervised employment in that occupational area. Apprentices need to obtain mandated qualifications if they required by:

• A regulator to confer a formal licence to practise in the occupation (e.g. an apprentice gas fitter must also obtain a gas safety certificate and be entered on the Gas Safe Register).
• A professional body for compulsory registration purposes (e.g. a person on a nursing apprenticeship must meet the registration requirements the Nursing and Midwifery Council).
• Employer expectations, resulting in apprentices being at a disadvantage if they are without it.

The assessment for the mandated qualification can often duplicate parts of an EPA assessment. Also, many apprentices who complete their mandated qualification often leave their apprenticeship before they complete their EPA. If the EPA is not completed, the assumption is that the apprentice has dropped out. This is because without the EPA there is no formal record of the knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs) to demonstrate the required competencies set out in the relevant apprenticeship standard. Apprentices who obtain the mandated qualification but drop out of their apprenticeship before completing their EPA probably helps to partly explain why 47% of apprentices did not complete their apprenticeships in 2021/22.

To address these problems, on 12 December, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) published a consultation on proposals to align EPAs with mandated qualifications. The IfATE consultation, which concludes on 17 February, seeks views on the following proposals:

• The assessment of mandated qualifications should be integrated into an apprentice’s EPA.
• Awarding organisations should make clear the pass grade boundary for the integrated assessment.
• The integrated assessment should be conducted post-gateway. (The gateway takes place before an EPA can start and involves the employer and training provider reviewing an apprentice’s KSBs).
• Where there more than one mandated qualification is required the integrated assessment should cover the same subset of KSBs.

Respondents to the IfATE consultation thus far have generally expressed support for the proposals. However, some end point assessment organisations (EPAOs) say they are concerned that the integration of mandated qualifications with EPAs is likely to reduce the volume of assessments carried out by them and increase the volume of assessments carried out by awarding organisations.

FUNDING INCREASE TO HELP PROVIDERS MEET INFLATION COSTS RESTRICTED TO 20 APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMMES

Last November, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) announced that extra funding would be temporarily made available to help some apprenticeship providers meet increased costs arising from the current high level of inflation. The caveat was that this extra funding would only be made available to support apprenticeship delivery in high cost and priority areas. On 16 January, IfATE announced that increased funding will be made available to support just 20 of these areas. The full list can be found here. However, providers in these areas will still need to submit evidence justifying their need for extra funding.

TRAINEESHIP SCHEME ENDS

Traineeships were introduced in 2013 with the aim of helping eligible 16-24-year-olds gain employment. Trainees on the scheme were provided with basic skills and occupational skills training, and unpaid work placements over a period varying from six weeks to one year. However, over the period since they were introduced, the take up of traineeships has been consistently below target, contracting from a high of around 24,000 in 2015/16 to a low of around 12,000 in 2019/20. Although starts increased again to around 17,400 in 2020/21, this was still 36,700 (or 36%) below the target for the year. The failure to meet targets has meant that the traineeships budget has been consistently underspent. For example, in 2020/21, £65 million of the £111 million budget for traineeships was returned to the Treasury. The shortfall is probably partially explained by pandemic restrictions, but an even larger underspend of the £126 million traineeships budget is expected for 2021/22. The government has therefore resolved to discontinue the programme and in a written statement to the House of Commons Education Select Committee made on 12 December, Robert Halfon, Skills and Universities Minister for England, said that traineeships would be discontinued from 1 August this year. In the statement, Mr Halfon goes on to say that the funding allocated for the traineeships scheme will be ‘integrated into existing programmes’, such as Skills Bootcamps, the T-Level transition programme and apprenticeships.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has said the decision to discontinue traineeships is ‘short sighted’ and ‘an unmitigated disaster for social mobility’, pointing out that around 75% of participants in traineeship programmes achieved successful outcomes (e.g. gaining employment or progressing to an apprenticeship or further study) within 12 months of completing their programme. Other critics claim that traineeships have been systematically undermined by other government funded training programmes (such as apprenticeships) that pay trainees to participate in them.

EDUCATION POLICY INSTITUTE REPORT ON COVID IMPACT ON DISADVANTAGED LEARNERS

On 15 December, the Education Policy Institute (EPI) published a report entitled ‘Covid-19 and disadvantage gaps in England in 2021’. The report was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and provides an assessment of how Covid-19 disruption has impacted on disadvantaged groups of learners (these being defined as being in receipt of free school meals). In the section on 16-18 provision, the report says that the gap between the outcomes achieved by disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers widened in both 2020 and 2021, The report says that one of the reasons for this was that disadvantaged students were more likely to be taking applied general qualifications (such as BTECs) and that these qualifications were not so affected by the high levels of inflation seen in A-Level grades. This placed them at an even further disadvantage when applying for university places.  One of the report’s main recommendations is that the same level of Pupil Premium and Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) funding should be made available for disadvantaged full-time students at school or college in year 12 and 13 (and apprentices aged 16-18), as is provided for disadvantaged pupils in schools up to year 11. See below for more coverage of this.

DFE PUPIL PREMIUM PLUS PILOT FOR DISADVANTAGED 16-18 STUDENTS

The Pupil Premium is grant funding provided to schools to help improve and support the educational attainment of disadvantaged pupils from reception to year 11. The DfE has also introduced the Pupil Premium Plus (PP+), which is additional grant funding for disadvantaged pupils up to year 11 who are also looked after or in local authority care. For reasons best known to the DfE, when a disadvantaged young person progresses to full-time post-16 provision in a school sixth form (year 12 and 13) or a college, Pupil Premium and PP+ funding is no longer made available to support them. (See here for a TES article that is both interesting and depressing, that covers the implications and anomalies caused by this).

In response to concerns, in July last year the DfE announced that £3 million would be made available for a post-16 PP+ pilot in 30 local authorities to support disadvantaged 16 and 17 year olds in full-time education who were looked after or were in local authority care. The pilot covered the six-month period from October 2021 until the end of the 2021/22 financial year (March 2022), and provided an average additional £900 in funding per eligible student. Though no doubt welcome, the additional funding for eligible students aged 16 and 17 was much less than the £2,345 provided for eligible pupils in schools up to year 11. The DfE has since provided a further £5 million to extend the post-16 PP+ from September last year to July this year, and to almost double the number of local authorities involved in the scheme to 58.

Last month, the DfE published an evaluation report on the post-16 PPE+ pilot. The report is based on the findings of research carried out by the Rees Centre of Oxford University and says that the post-16 PP+ pilot ‘strengthened the relationship between schools, colleges, and social services’, and enabled ‘effective tailored interventions to motivate students and boost their attendance’. The report recommends that the DfE should initially extend the PP+ pilot to all local authorities and should then eventually provide both Pupil Premium and PP+ funding, not only for all eligible disadvantaged students aged 16 and 17 in full-time education and on apprenticeship programmes, but also for those age 18 and above who are still in or newly entering education, although it’s likely that nobody will be holding their breath waiting for this.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS NOW LEGALLY REQUIRED TO PROVIDE ACCESS FOR FE AND OTHER TRAINING PROVIDERS

The ‘Baker Clause’ was first introduced in 2018 and requires secondary schools to allow colleges and other FE providers onto their premises in order to give their pupils advice on post-16 education and training options (including apprenticeships). However, because most secondary schools have a financial interest in developing their own sixth form provision many have simply been ignoring the requirement. To address this, on 1 January new legislation came into force that places a legal obligation on secondary schools to provide their pupils with ‘at least six encounters with a provider of approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships’ and leaves them facing legal action from the government if they refuse.

On 5 January the DfE published updated guidance on how this legal requirement should be met. The guidance says that two of the required encounters must take place at sometime during year 8, or between September 1 and February 28 in year 9. Another two encounters must take place sometime during year 10, or between September 1 and February 28 in year 11. The school must offer the remaining two encounters in years 12 or 13, but unlike the earlier encounters, sixth formers are not legally obliged to attend.

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES LIKELY TO BE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF PROPOSED MINIMUM SERVICE LEGISLATION

The government has introduced a new bill that, if passed into law, will require public sector organisations (including health, education, fire and rescue, transport and border security) that are on strike to continue to provide minimum levels of service. The University and Colleges Union (UCU) is calling for a 10% increase in college pay with a minimum £2,000 uplift, but the AoC has recommended that, assuming they can afford it, colleges should award staff an increase of just 2.5%. UCU has responded by balloting its members in colleges on strike action, but has accepted that, as currently worded, the proposed new legislation would require colleges to provide a minimum level of service.

Meanwhile, although the DfE and Ofsted do not fall within scope of the proposed legislation, it has been announced that staff at the two bodies will go on strike for one day on 1 February as part of coordinated action across the civil service.

ONS PUBLISHES 2021 CENSUS DATA ON EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES

On 10 January, the Office for Statistics (ONS) published 2021 census data on education in England and Wales. The data shows that 33.8% of adults in England and Wales now hold degrees or other graduate level or post-graduate qualifications, up from 27.2% in the 2011 census data. However, the data also shows that 18.5% adults in England and Wales hold no qualifications at any level, down from 22.7% in the 2011 census. In addition, the data highlights major regional disparities, with 21.2% of adults in West Midlands (the lowest qualified region) holding no qualifications at any level, compared with 46.7% of adults in London (the highest qualified region) holding first degree or post graduate level qualifications.

IES PUBLISHES LATEST EMPLOYMENT DATA

The latest quarterly employment data for September to November 2022, published by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) last month, reveals the following:

• The U.K. unemployment rate remained low by historical standards at 3.7%.
• The number of people unemployed for up to six months increased slightly (driven mainly by those aged 16-24), while the number of people unemployed for over 12 months decreased slightly.
• There were 29.9 million people on public and private sector pay rolls at the end of the quarter. This was almost 900,000 above pre-pandemic levels.
• The employment rate was 75.6%. This was largely unchanged compared with the previous quarter and was similar to the pre-pandemic figure.
• The economic inactivity rate decreased very marginally (0.1%) to 21.5%. Economic inactivity during the quarter was driven mainly by those aged 16-24 and those aged 50-64.
• The redundancy rate increased to 3.4 per thousand employees, but still remains historically low.
• The number of vacancies fell by 75,000 to 1,161,000, but vacancies still remained at historically high levels.
• The increase in employee average annual total pay over the year to the end of the quarter was 7.2% in the private sector and 3.3% in the public sector but contracted in real terms in both sectors because of rising consumer price inflation (CPI), which stood at a high of 11.1% in October.

C&G REPORT FINDS THAT 9% OF YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE NEET SAY THEY NEVER INTEND TO START WORK

Research based on a survey of 5,000 18–24-year-olds carried out by City & Guilds was published on 7 December. The main points in the report of the research findings entitled ‘Youth Misspent: Uncovering the harsh realities for Britain’s young people in today’s job market’, include the following:

• 13% of respondents were not in education, employment, or training (NEET) and a further 3% were ‘economically inactive’. If the combined figure of 16% were to be extrapolated to the whole of the UK 18-24 population, this would be the equivalent of 859,000 young people.
• Almost a third (30%) of respondents said they felt let down by the education system and did not think they would ever be able to achieve their career ambitions.
• More than a fifth (21%) of respondents said that did not know how to successfully apply for a job.
• Almost one in ten (9%) respondents said that they never intend to start working. If this figure were to be extrapolated to the whole of the UK 18-24 population, this would be the equivalent of 227,000 young people.

Meanwhile, a report published earlier this month (January) by the Resolution Foundation, entitled ‘Never, ever’, reveals that that 8.2% of people aged 16-64 in the UK today (3.4 million people) have never had a paid job and goes on to say that the numbers who have never worked has increased by 52% since 1998.

HE (FREEDOM OF SPEECH) BILL LIKELY TO BE ABANDONED

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill now seems likely to be abandoned by the government. Had the Bill become law, it would have made all 409 HE providers (including 135 FE colleges) currently registered with the Office for Students (OfS) liable to civil claims for breach of the existing legal duties of providers to secure freedom of speech for their staff, students and visiting speakers. The government has apparently now concluded that the legislation might have the opposite effect, and that fear of being sued could result in even less freedom of speech in universities and colleges. Many of the politicians who debated the Bill took the opposite view and said that the prospect of facing legal action would have prevented certain groups within universities and colleges closing down free speech simply by declaring that any views unacceptable to them should not be debated, or even expressed at all. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak is said to be about to appoint Arif Ahmed, a Cambridge University philosophy professor, as the government’s first ‘free speech tsar’, with the authority to investigate free speech breaches at universities, to ensure academics and visiting speakers are not ‘cancelled’ and to advise the OfS on fines for breaches of current statutory responsibilities in respect of free speech on campus.

PROPOSAL TO RESTRICT VISAS FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS LIKELY TO BE DROPPED

Published Home Office data for the year ending June 2022, reveals that a record number of more than 1.1 million people migrated to the UK on long term (defined as staying for at least one year) visas for work, study, family reunification or asylum. This was an increase of 435,000 on the previous year and can partly explained be explained by the arrival of 89,000 refugees from Ukraine, 21,000 refugees from Afghanistan who helped British Armed Forces, and 76,000 arriving from Hong Kong on British National Overseas Visas. Numbers arriving are further increased by several thousand asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats and via other irregular means. When those leaving the UK in that year are taken into account net migration to the year ending June 2022 stood at a record 509,000.

In that year by the government issued 331,000 work related visas (main applicants and their dependents), 487,000 sponsored study visas (main applicants and their dependents) and 304,000 family reunification visas. However, in a report published on 19 December entitled ‘Routes to resolution: Finding the Centre Ground in Britain’s immigration debates’, the Social Market Foundation says that as ‘Britain’s ageing population leads to more businesses seeking foreign workers to plug gaps in their workforces’, the current levels of inward migration, particularly from the ‘populous nations with which the UK has historic ties’ should now be regarded as the norm rather than the exception’. Many people disagree with this analysis. They express concern about Britain’s ‘porous borders’ and call for current levels of immigration to be reduced to ease the pressure on housing, public services, social cohesion, and the national physical infrastructure that can arise from mass migration. They allege that some of this pressure is attributable to the record numbers of international students arriving, and that:

• The increasing number of international students arriving is unsustainable.
• This is exacerbated by the increasing number of dependents of international students arriving.
• High numbers of international students are, on graduation, applying for and being granted the new graduate visa introduced in 2021. This will enable them to remain in the UK for two years or more after they have graduated (whether they have a job or not), and to apply for the right to remain permanently in the UK after that. Last year more than 60,000 international students applied for a graduate visa.
• Universities are providing more places on degree courses for international students because they pay higher fees, and this is at the expense of reduced places for home students who pay lower tuition fees.
• Sometimes universities use recruitment agencies to help increase their international recruitment. Some recruitment agencies are alleged to be using dubious strategies, such as an offer to ‘bring your family’.
• Some foreign students are alleged to be applying for visas to study on HE courses with low entry requirements as a method of circumventing immigration rules.

Both the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman have given a public commitment to reducing net migration. Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data shows that there were 680,000 foreign students in the UK in the 2021/22 academic year. As part of their strategy for reducing migration Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman have proposed that there should be a reduction in the numbers of study visas granted to foreign students and their dependents. Mr Sunak went further and suggested that only foreign students with the qualifications needed to gain a place at the UK’s ‘top universities’ should be granted study visas. However, their proposals to restrict the number of foreign nationals being granted study visas have been met with stern opposition, including that from:

• Opposition parties in parliament and from Conservative MPs and ministers who said that any reduction in international students would contradict the government’s own International Education Strategy. In addition, some MPs have called for international students to be removed from immigration statistics.
• Universities UK, (UUK) which said that in 2020/21 international students contributed £23.3 billion to the UK economy, up from £14.8 billion a decade earlier. UUK, which has specialist staff to help universities with international student recruitment, went on to say that ‘limiting international students would be an act of gross economic self-harm’ and ‘would leave some universities facing financial collapse’. UUK also argues that fewer international students means that home students may need to pay higher fees.
• The National Union of Students (NUS), which has strongly objected to proposals to limit international students’ access to UK universities.
• The British Council, which said that international student recruitment should not only be maintained, but that the range of countries foreign students are recruited from should be significantly extended the beyond the ‘hegemony’ of Indian and Chinese students, who currently make up the majority of international students in the UK.

HOME SECRETARY PROPOSES JOBLESS FOREIGN GRADUATES SHOULD ONLY REMAIN IN THE UK FOR 6 MONTHS

On 25 January, Home Secretary Suella Braverman controversially proposed that unemployed foreign graduates from UK universities should only be allowed to remain in the UK for 6 months after graduating, after which they must have obtained a skilled job or otherwise leave the UK. At present those given a graduate visa can remain in the UK for two years irrespective of whether they have a job or not. The DfE has been the first agency to express opposition to the proposal.

NEW INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL HE COMMISSION ESTABLISHED

Last month, former Universities Minister, Chris Skidmore MP, working with support from the Oxford International Education Group, launched a new independent International Higher Education Commission. On its website, the Commission says that its purpose is to establish a new ‘International Education Strategy 2.0 in partnership with the UK higher education community’.  The Commission is chaired by Mr Skidmore, and the membership is made up of senior figures in the HE community, including Lord Jo Johnson (brother of Boris) and Lord David Willetts, both of whom were previous Universities ministers. Topics discussed by the Commission at its earlier meetings include ‘student visas and immigration status’, ‘how to better support international students in the UK’, ‘the real economic value of international students’, and ‘future challenges facing the higher education sector’.

AND FINALLY…

The UK remains one of the few countries in the world that does not require young people to study some form of maths up to the age of 18. Currently, only around half of 16-18-year-olds study maths, and these include those taking science courses and compulsory GCSE resits. To address this, on 5 January, in his first speech of 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for the study of maths to be compulsory for all young people up to the age of 18. Critics have asked where the required extra maths teachers, already in short supply, would come from and, with the Conservatives currently behind in the polls, the announcement has prompted scepticism as to whether Mr Sunak’s proposal will ever be realised.

Personally, I can’t see why young people should have to study maths until they’re 18. I stopped studying maths at 16 and don’t see what difference an extra 3 years would have made.

‘Square root of 169, or you lose your bus pass’

Alan Birks – January 2023

As usual, the views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those held by Click.
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