FE Week - 1 December 2014
£142m contractor top-slicing ‘extortionate’ 40% (p1) - Learndirect, the country’s biggest Skills Funding Agency (SFA) contractor, is under scrutiny after charging ‘extortionate’ 40% management fees on its contract value.
FE Week has found out this information after new ‘duties’ were introduced on 24 November requiring SFA claimants to declare what they charge their subcontractors. Apparently "Learndirect failed to meet the new duty, but the 40% top-slice was declared in its range of fees."
SFA guidance sets out that, in its view, charging more than 15% in fees to subcontractors is over-charging. "Newcastle College Group (NCG) and Leeds City College were also in the top five biggest SFA contractors. NCG, which has a current allocation of £34m, met the new duty and charges up to just over 20%. However, Leeds City College, with an allocation of £26m, didn’t. It charges up to 30% in fees according to its published range of fees."
MPs hear of ‘cluster’ solution to apprenticeships (p2) – according to Ofsted FE and Skills director Lorna Fitzjohn, Colleges should work more closely with Schools to encourage younger people onto apprenticeships.
During an evidence session to the Education Select Committee last week, Lorna said "poor careers advice at Schools, which tended to encourage learners to take A-levels and higher education degrees, was one of the main reasons that apprenticeship starts in the age group had 'flatlined.'"
Her suggestions focused around a ‘cluster’ model, where Colleges could work with Schools to show the benefits of vocational training and offer students an alternative route to academia - similar to the model that exists in Switzerland and Germany.
AELP concerns over Labour’s apprenticeship policy (p3) - the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has been urging the Labour Party to abandon its policy that all new apprenticeships should start from Level 3 and last a minimum of 2 years.
Labour have adopted the measure as their way of ensuring the quality of apprenticeships, but the AELP make the point that this decision would exclude a lot of employers who do not have Level 3 job positions available. The AELP has stated that "If the [apprenticeship] programme has to be Level 3, then employers will offer very few opportunities for young people and we would see a substantial increase in the numbers that remain unemployed."
Labour’s intention would be for Level 2 learners to undertake a traineeship programme – a move questioned by the AELP as ‘Traineeships are for young people who are unemployed and Labour would be cutting off the real employment opportunities that Level 2 apprenticeships give’.
In the ongoing ‘arms race’ over apprenticeship numbers, political parties are pushing for greater numbers of apprentices. My concern is how quality can be maintained against these higher numbers, especially in light of decreased government spending.
