Smarter accountability in Further Education - CentreForum · 9/12/2013 · Smarter accountability in Further Education 3: Contents Executive summary 4 Background 7 The scale of the

Smarter accountability in Further Education

Sam Cannicott with James Kempton and Sean McDaniel


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About the authors

Sam Cannicott is a former Education Policy Adviser for the Liberal Democrats where he worked closely with David Laws on the development of the Pupil Premium. In 2012-13 he sat on the party’s further and higher education policy working group. He is currently a Policy Adviser in the higher education sector and a governor of a Camden secondary school. Sam has a strong interest in social mobility and as a policy and communications consultant worked for a number of third sector organisations operating in this field.

James Kempton is an associate director, leading CentreForum’s work on social policy. A former council leader, teacher, medical royal college chief executive and management consultant, James has worked extensively on public services reform, with a particular focus on education and social mobility policy. He is chair of Islington Community Theatre, a trustee of Music First, a governor of New North Academy and a fellow of the RSA.

Sean McDaniel was a Research Intern at CentreForum, focusing on education and social policy. He has previously graduated from a Masters degree in Governance and Public Policy from the University of Sheffield.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the following for their input: Chris Walden; Andy Gannon; Jack Morris; Tim Leunig; Paul Head; Mark Corney; Paul Grainger; Jo Parkman. None bears any responsibility for the views expressed in this report. Any errors are the authors’ alone.

ISBN: 978-1-909274-07-5

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: Contents

Executive summary 4

Background 7

The scale of the challenge facing FE 10

The quality of FE colleges: are they fit for purpose? 13

Key proposals

Colleges and literacy 16 and numeracy skills

Colleges and NEETS 21

Strengthening governance through academy style sponsorship 25

Confidence in Ofsted’s inspections of a highly complex sector 26

Conclusion 30


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: Executive summary

Further education colleges in England are uniquely placed to be engines of social mobility. School leavers who enrol in them at age 16 are more likely to be from disadvantaged backgrounds and will often arrive with poor prior attainment. However, colleges have been bogged down by a longstanding confusion about their role. Policy makers have pulled them in different directions and set out conflicting expectations. They are also caught in the middle of a debate between those who want to see colleges’ offer to young people driven by industry demand and those who believe it should be supply led.

For many young people at 16, colleges should offer an invaluable second chance to gain the skills in literacy and numeracy which they failed to achieve in school. However as government recognises, too few 16-18 year olds in colleges are gaining these skills while they are there. Colleges are generally large institutions with a very wide remit, serving many different groups of learners. This paper asserts that colleges have a particular moral responsibility to do all they can to equip school leavers who have not fulfilled their potential at school with the basic skills they need to succeed. Indeed, with the education participation age rising to 18 years old, the role of colleges in this respect is likely to be more important as more young people are expected to remain in education for longer.

This paper argues that without properly addressing college accountability measures, the success of current government reforms1 in relation to improving literacy and numeracy at 18 is set to be limited. In particular it argues the government’s current thinking, outlined in a recent consultation paper is

1 The Department for Education launched a consultation on 12 September 2013 www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239090/16-19_Accountability_Consultation_Document.pdf


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flawed. Ofsted should also be tougher on colleges which fall short in their delivery of literacy and numeracy skills while also paying more attention to how well individual colleges educate young people so they can access the employment opportunities in the towns and localities they serve. Where colleges are found to be struggling, the paper considers ways of strengthening governance and building relations with the business sector. Given the responsibilities on Ofsted, this paper also raises concerns about how well the inspectorate is currently able to hold such complex institutions to account.

Such a short paper cannot attempt to define the roles and purposes of the highly complex education sector like further education, nor address every challenge it faces. Nor can it offer proposals worked up to a high level of detail. Instead the aim of this paper is to address the sector’s role in educating students aged 16-18 and to define a clear purpose of the college sector in relation to those who leave school at 16 without the basic qualifications they need. It puts forward initial policy ideas for consideration with the expectation is that they can lay the foundations for more detailed work in the future.

Key policy proposals

1. The results of 16-18 year olds taking English and maths at GCSE level should be published and included in the top line performance measures so that a college’s performance in this area can be made more transparent.

2. The Ofsted inspection framework should be amended so that colleges where the quality of provision in English and maths is unsatisfactory should automatically be judged as “requiring improvement”.

3. NEET (not in education, employment or training) rates of those aged over 19 should be published at local level and Ofsted should place more emphasis on this rate in local areas so that colleges operating where the NEET rate is among the worst in the country cannot be considered to be “good” or “outstanding”.

4. All Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) should have FE representatives on their boards.


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5. Reforms should be introduced to provide more opportunities for stronger links to develop between colleges and the business community. Policy makers should allow academy-style Sponsored Colleges to be introduced to strengthen governance in failing colleges.

6. FE commissioners should be given a brokering role so that they can work with individuals or corporations interested in sponsoring a college that is underperforming.

7. For transparency and to build confidence, Ofsted should publish annually a comparative analysis of the different amounts of inspector hours commited to individual college inspections.


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: Background

The college sector has not historically received the attention that schools have attracted. The pace of reform in schools under the previous Labour government and the current coalition government has been relentless and intervention when a school is failing has been swift and dramatic. At his party’s annual conference in 2010 and shortly after becoming Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove MP said:

“This radical, reforming, coalition government has declared war on educational inequality and we won’t stop until every child is taught in a school driven by a culture of ambition, aspiration and achievement.”2

While the ambition is clear, the focus is on schools. Colleges have escaped the high profile glare of the Secretary of State and his “war on educational inequality”. This is despite the fact that they are well positioned to play a key role key in the government’s desire to drive social mobility and close the performance gap between rich and poor.

That is not to say that colleges have simply been ignored by government and policy makers. Indeed in July 2013, the Minister for Skills sent an eight page letter to colleges outlining current reforms in the sector.3 However over the last 15 years colleges have been subject to myriad inconsistent reforms, u-turns, criticisms and praise. Too often the government has attempted to use colleges to deliver new initiatives or solve a particular public policy challenge.4

2 www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/10/Michael_Gove_All_pupils_will_learn_our_island_story.aspx

3 www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225414/FE_Letter_Matthew_Hancock_explain_Vocational_educ_reform_July_Final.pdf

4 See for example www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/choice-and-competition-further-education (Nehal Panchamia, November 2012)


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So while Ofsted has criticised the sector for “losing its way”,5 colleges themselves are not necessarily at fault; indeed, it is ministers who seem to lose sight of what colleges are for. This is particularly true when it comes to the sector’s role in educating students aged 16-18 which is the focus of this paper.

While picking up where schools have not succeeded has always been viewed as an element of colleges’ work this has not been properly valued by policy makers. In recent years colleges have been encouraged to sponsor school academies, take on more young people from age 14 and even focus on providing education within the criminal justice system. More recently there has been a drive to get more colleges to deliver higher education – often at a cheaper rate than universities.6 Encouraging colleges to take on higher levels of education provision when there are so many challenges in ensuring they fulfil their core function of equipping 16-18 year olds with basic skills seems misjudged. Given the importance of literacy and numeracy, colleges instead need to be incentivised and expected to focus on remedial activity in these areas. The nature of their intakes and their position as a gateway between compulsory education and employment should mean that this remediation in English and maths is recognised as a core purpose of the sector.

In the coming years the challenges, responsibilities and expectations landing on colleges look set to grow. For example, from 2017 the education leaving age will be 18. While this can include employment with training, this significant policy change will have a major impact on the college sector. Its role in educating school leavers and delivering for young people who have not fulfilled their potential at school will become all the more important.

Furthermore, since coming to power, the coalition government has moved towards providing more freedom to colleges and away from central planning, largely due to the recommendations of the Wolf Review in 2011. Providers are now funded according to student demand and outcomes.7 While setting colleges free from central planning, the government has, however, said that

5 Education Committee, ‘Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector, Ofsted’, Session 2012-13, 13 February 2013, HC-980i

6 See, for example, BBC News report (15 April 2011) www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13086654 7 www.gov.uk/government/news/gibb-simpler-fairer-funding-system-to-improve-post-16-

education (Government press release, October 2011)


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every 16 year old without A*-C at GCSE in English and maths, should continue studying these subjects until they are 19.8 In September 2013 the Government published a consultation considering new accountability for 16-18 provision. These proposals are considered below.

Combining the need to attract funding with the obligation to meet complex government expectations in such an uncertain environment will always be challenging. The new era of freedom for colleges offers opportunities, but there is also a danger that they could lose sight of their core purpose. For this reason it is vital that the sector unites around a central mission and that appropriate accountability and intervention levers are in place.

8 Ibid


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: The scale of the challenge facing FE

Driving up the quality of provision in FE will increase the scope for the college sector to help to increase social mobility. It will also help the UK to compete with our global competitors.

For the country to remain competitive it must develop and retain a ‘knowledge intensive’ economy. As Lord Heseltine noted in his report on growth in 2012, “to compete internationally, our education and skills system needs to be producing young people with the competencies, skills and attitudes that make them ready for work”.9

Given that the number of 16-24 year olds who are considered NEET is not far off one million,10 the policy challenge in this area is clear. Too many young people are leaving education without the basic skills to get a job.11 Furthermore, with the education leaving age rising to 18 years old by 2017 the role of colleges is set to evolve – particularly when it comes to delivering education to those young people who would historically have left at 16. While a lack of jobs in an economic downturn is a major problem, policy makers also need to look at the education system and ensure it is set up to equip young people with the basic skills employers seek (see below). Indeed prior to the economic downturn, the number of NEETs was still a cause of concern.12

9 Heseltine (2012) ‘No Stone Unturned: In Pursuit of Growth’, p.156.10 Official Statistics www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-statistics-quarterly-brief-

quarter-1-2013 (23 May 2013) 11 See Amadeo and Marshall Low educational attainment in England: an audit, in Marshall (2013)

The Tail: How Our Schools Fail One Child in Five - and What Can be Done, Profile Books p19-3212 As an example, see news report from 2007 (Daily Telegraph) www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

uknews/1555787/Blair-oversees-climb-in-school-leaver-NEETs.html


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Figure 1 – Business priorities for 14-19 year old education

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Source: Learning to Grow: what employers need from education and skills, Education and Skills Survey 2012, CBI, 2012, p.25

There are more than 300 FE and sixth form colleges in England,13 delivering a wide range of education, from short courses to degree level qualifications. It is this range of provision that makes it difficult to define colleges’ core purpose and hold them to account for their success in achieving it.

When he published his Annual Report in 2012, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, asked whether the Further Education sector could be considered “fit for purpose”.14 He concluded that there were serious challenges particularly with

13 www.aoc.co.uk/en/about_colleges/college-key-facts.cfm Association of Colleges, Key Facts document

14 Ofsted (2012) ‘The report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills: Learning and skills’, p.4.


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teaching quality and governance. But the report did not attempt to define what a college’s core purpose should be.

Yet by looking at the characteristics of the school leavers enrolled at colleges, it is self-evident that colleges are well positioned to be drivers of social mobility, particularly when it comes to working with school leavers. More than 850,000 16-18 year olds attended a college in 201215 and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to attend a college than a school sixth form. According to the Association of Colleges, around 13.3% of 16-18 years at colleges were entitled to free lunches when they were at school – in school sixth forms the figure is 8.3%.16 Low academic achievers are also more likely to enrol at a college than a school sixth form. Most students (51.9%) who do not attain 5 A*-C GCSEs at 16 leave school to attend an FE college. In 2007 just 16.5% of those who did achieve this key GCSE benchmark at school went to an FE college.17

This does not mean, however, that colleges do not provide a rigorous academic education. A third of A-level students aged 16-18 now study at a college.18 And in 2011 a third of university entrants attended either an FE or Sixth Form college.19

However, equipping young people, especially those from poor backgrounds and low prior attainment, with the skills and ambition to succeed before they leave the education system presents a key area of focus for the sector and colleges should be held rigorously to account for how well they perform this function. It is this potential to improve social mobility, through what is essentially remedial work, which chimes with both a longstanding interest of CentreForum, and also the priorities of the three major political parties.

15 AoC – College Key Facts 2012, page 116 www.aoc.co.uk/en/parliament-and-campaigns/campaigns/no-free-lunch/key-statistics.cfm

(Association of Colleges)17 Meschi, Crawford and Vignoles (2010) ‘Post‐16 educational choices and institutional value added

at Key Stage 5’, Centre for the Economics of Education, Table 4, p.18 cee.lse.ac.uk/ceedps/ceedp124.pdf

18 AoC College Key Facts19 Author’s analysis of UCAS data


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: The quality of FE Colleges

Given the nature of the college sector’s intake, the most recent Ofsted report is particularly troubling. The Chief Inspector’s Annual Report in 2012 revealed that 37% of general FE colleges and 28% of Sixth Form colleges it inspected that year were found to be either ‘Satisfactory’ or ‘Inadequate’.20 Nationally, the proportion of further education colleges judged to be Satisfactory or Inadequate is the highest it has been for three years – 35% of colleges, compared with 31% in August 2011 and 30% in August 2010.21 Admittedly, this was under a new ‘risk based’ inspection framework, meaning that the colleges considered to require improvement at previous inspections are targeted for re-inspection. However, as of 31 March 2013, 103 of the 328 colleges in England were found to be ‘inadequate’ or ‘requiring improvement’ at their most recent inspections.22

Figure 2 – Schools and colleges: Percentage of Ofsted awards

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InadequateSatisfactoryGoodOutstanding

20 Ofsted Annual Report, page 1721 Ofsted Annual Report, page 18 22 Ofsted data, May 2013


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Overall performance in terms of Ofsted categories across the secondary school and college sector is broadly similar – although a higher proportion of schools are in the top “outstanding” category. Despite there only being 12 colleges found to be inadequate at their most recent inspection (as of 31st March 2013), there were around 100,000 learners enrolled at these institutions.23 Given the size of the colleges, the effects of a college’s poor performance in a local area risk being greater. In March 2013, the City of Bristol College was found to be “inadequate”. The college educates over 20,000 students – around twenty times more than the average secondary school – equivalent to the size of a population of a whole town.

As ever, there has been widespread criticism of Ofsted’s approach with defenders of the sector arguing that the inspectorate is not painting a fair picture. It is for that reason that this paper also considers whether Ofsted is currently satisfactorily equipped to hold the sector to account.

However, while there are undoubtedly many colleges doing excellent work, there is no room for complacency. Beyond the individual Ofsted reports are the shameful statistics relating to the literacy and numeracy levels of those leaving education. The fact that “each year 300,000 18 year olds start adult life without the equivalent of a maths or English GCSE”24 is nothing short of a crisis. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), in 2009, ranked England’s students as average in global terms when it came to maths and literacy skills,25 with the OECD suggesting that if the UK was to improve as quickly as other countries have, trillions of pounds could be added to the economy over the next generation.26 While the UK has a good level of young people entering higher education, the proportion who are not educated to at least the 5 A*-C standard is high in comparisons with OECD competitors.27 Moreover, in comparison with Germany and Switzerland, Britain’s vocational education system has been rated far worse by both employers

23 CentreForum analysis using OFSTED data (31 March 2013)24 Wolf Report, p.5.25 OECD (2009) Programme for International Student Assessment, Table 6.1. 26 PISA (2009) ‘Viewing the United Kingdom School System Through the Prism of PISA’, OECD

(http://www.oecd.org/pisa/46624007.pdf)27 OECD (2012) Education at a Glance 2012


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and educational experts.28

If the UK is to remain competitive and productive in relation to its European and global competitors it must do more to ensure its young people are properly equipped with what many would consider to be the basic skills needed for work. The blame for this cannot be pinned at the doors of colleges alone. There are wider failures of the education system in play. But in many cases, colleges will be the last educational institutions to have contact with these young people and ensuring they have the basic skills employers seek, must be a priority for them.

28 Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology OPET, as referenced in Heseltine (2012), p.170.


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: Key proposalsColleges and Literacy and Numeracy

Literacy and numeracy tuition must be central to any remediation provision for school leavers. At the very least, young people leaving the education system should be equipped with functional literacy and numeracy skills. As Alison Wolf highlighted in her review of vocational qualifications in 2011, English and maths (functional literacy and numeracy) are fundamental to a young person’s employment and education prospects. But the current system is falling short. Around two fifths of 16 year olds leave school without a grade C or above in GCSE English and maths. Of those who took their GCSEs in 2007/08 and didn’t reach this basic benchmark, only 9% went on to achieve GCSE A*-C in English and 8% in maths by the time they were 19.29

Attainment of GCSE A*-C English between ages 16 and 19

Cohort Number in cohort

Without A*-C English at 16

Gaining A*-C English by age 19 (of those without at 16)

% gaining A*-C English by 19 (of those without at 16)

19 in 2004/05 558,600 262,200 16,000 6.10%

19 in 2005/06 575,100 265,300 16,700 6.30%

19 in 2006/07 593,100 272,900 19,700 7.20%

19 in 2007/08 585,900 260,600 19,700 7.60%

19 in 2008/09 596,100 259,000 20,900 8.10%

19 in 2009/10 602,900 255,500 21,700 8.50%

19 in 2010/11 600,100 243,900 22,800 9.40%

19 in 2011/12 580,200 223,400 22,700 10.10%

29 (Gov Response to Study Programmes Consultation 16-19, July 2012)


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Attainment of GCSE A*-C maths between ages 16 and 19 30

Cohort Number in cohort

Without A*-C maths at 16

Gaining A*-C maths by age 19 (of those without at 16)

% gaining A*-C maths by 19 (of those without at 16)

19 in 2004/05 558,600 298,800 15,700 5.30%

19 in 2005/06 575,100 313,400 18,000 5.70%

19 in 2006/07 593,100 313,300 19,600 6.30%

19 in 2007/08 585,900 295,200 18,400 6.20%

19 in 2008/09 596,100 290,000 19,300 6.60%

19 in 2009/10 602,900 281,200 19,100 6.80%

19 in 2010/11 600,100 266,200 20,900 7.90%

19 in 2011/12 580,200 242,000 20,800 8.60%

While not all of these young people without English and maths at 16 leave school and enter a college, many of them do. Indeed over the last decade the proportion of sixteen year olds without English and maths at GCSE (A*-C) enrolling at a college has increased by over 50% (see chart below). The majority of such students now go to a college.

The responsibility on colleges to pick-up where schools have failed is significant. No matter how successful reforms in the school system turn out to be, there will always be a number of 16 year olds who leave school without the minimum level of qualifications many employers expect. Indeed, as more young people leave the school system with the expected minimum qualifications, the job of colleges gets tougher as they will need to cater for those young people who, despite rising standards, are still not reaching the expected level. It is therefore a credit to the college sector that the numbers and proportion of young people achieving an A*-C in English and maths has risen significantly in recent years (see table above). For many colleges, remediation is already valued as a core purpose and they are inspiring young people to focus on their studies. The challenge is to ensure that the whole sector is committed to equipping young people with basic literacy and numeracy skills.

30 www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130603w0001.htm#wa_st_49 (Hansard, 2 June 2013)


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Figure 3 – Destination of school leavers without A*-C in GCSE English and maths 31

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School 6th formFurther education college

The coalition government has recognised this role and will introduce the Study Programme from September 2013. Young people in education without basic English and maths qualifications (Level 2) will be expected to continue studying these subjects alongside whatever other courses they are studying. The funding system will be reformed to ensure funding is only awarded where the college commits to providing English and maths tuition too. Under the new funding regime, students without a Level 2 will attract more funding bringing an incentive into the system for colleges to recruit such students.

While colleges will be expected to provide Level 2 English and maths tuition, there is little focus on outcomes. Delivery of literacy and numeracy therefore risks becoming a mere tick-box exercise, with institutions failing to provide the high quality literacy and numeracy these school leavers need. Indeed, the government’s policy paper outlining the funding

31 Hansard (House of Lords), 17 July 2013, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130717w0001.htm#wa_st_14


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reforms explicitly states “success rates will no longer be used in the calculation of funding”.32 Instead, the emphasis will be on retention, with funding being reduced if the student is not kept on until the end of the academic year. While the focus on retaining young people in education is laudable this must not come at the cost of poor provision designed only to attract the funding and not provide the remedial work young people need.

By failing to focus on outcomes and success levels, there is a risk that the new system will not succeed.

The danger of the system failing can only be exacerbated by concerns about the quality of English and maths that have been raised by Ofsted. In its 2012 Annual Report, the inspectorate stated that “inspectors found that the management of functional English and Mathematics was generally weak in colleges”.33 So despite the welcome focus on colleges having to provide English and maths, ministers cannot be confident that the sector, as a whole, is positioned to deliver it. Indeed, even if the new initiative does succeed, the current absence of an effective accountability mechanism makes it impossible to tell.

Furthermore the move to compulsory English and maths will also require more teachers able to deliver it. Even the Department for Education’s own predictions indicate a staffing shortfall. The September 2012 ‘Reforming Key Stage 4 Qualifications’ consultation found that “the current shortage of specialist English and mathematics teachers in the further education sector able to teach to GCSE level is 10% in English and 25% in mathematics.”34

To ensure English and maths attracts the attention it needs from within all colleges, much tougher accountability measures are needed to drive-up the quality of provision. Given the value of English and maths to an individual’s life chances, it is fair to expect colleges educating school leavers who have not reached the expected levels in these subjects (level 2) to demonstrate a relentless focus on delivering them. There are two ways to address this: firstly publishing college performance in relation to English and maths, and secondly using the Ofsted inspection

32 www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/EFA-00073-2012 (July 2012)33 www.Ofsted.gov.uk/resources/report-of-her-majestys-chief-inspector-of-education-childrens-

services-and-skills-learning-and-skill 34 DfE, ‘Reforming Key Stage 4 Qualifications’, p.17


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process to identify poor practice.

The Coalition Government has made much of its new focus on English and maths for 16-18 year olds who didn’t achieve at school. David Cameron even referred to it during his 2013 Party Conference Speech, saying “if you fail English and maths GCSE, you’re going to have to take and re-take them again until you pass”.35

In September 2013 the Government launched a consultation on 16-19 accountability setting out how it intends to hold institutions to account. However, despite the rhetoric, ministers’ plans fall short and do not provide the necessary focus on remediation activity.

While the expectation that 16-18 year olds who did not reach Level 2 in English and maths at school, will have to continue studying these subjects, robust accountability measures are not being proposed. The plans only view English and maths as “Additional Measures” and not “Top Line Performance measures”.36 It is the latter which will be published in performance tables and therefore drive the behaviour of colleges. The “Additional Measures” will only be published as a supplement to the top line measures. This would be regrettable given the importance of ensuring more young people who did not reach level 2 in English and maths at school, go on to do so in their 16-18 phase. The lack of focus on these subjects in the new accountability measures could create a perverse incentive for colleges to pay less attention to English and maths remediation than to the “top line” measures.

Alongside these new accountability measures, ministers also need to re-consider the role of OFSTED. The assessment of level 2 English and maths provision within Ofsted inspections should also be a limiting judgment. This means that if an inspection team leaves a college unsatisfied with the quality of provision in English and maths, the institution should not score better than “requires improvement” in its inspection report. Such an approach would mean that colleges would need to work quickly to put a plan in place designed to improve literacy and numeracy provision.

35 David Cameron, Party Conference Speech, Oct 2013, http://www.conservativepartyconference.org.uk/Speeches/2013_David_Cameron.aspx

36 See the consultation document here https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=conSection&consultationId=1924&dId=1305&sId=8787


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Recommendation 1: The results of 16-18 year olds taking English and maths at GCSE level should be published and included in the top line performance measures so that a college’s performance in this area can be made more transparent.

Recommendation 2: The Ofsted inspection framework should be amended so that colleges where the quality of provision in English and maths is unsatisfactory should automatically be judged as “requiring improvement”.

Colleges and NEETS

Ensuring all college students get qualified in English and maths, the basic skills employers seek, is an important step towards improving their employability. But colleges can also help young people into work more easily by responding to local labour markets and running courses which reflect skills shortages in their areas. They should also be providing young people with high quality advice and guidance so that students make informed decisions about their future. There is therefore a need for greater focus on employment outcomes alongside exam results and retention.

The recent CentreForum report ‘Train Too’37 suggests industry professionals taking one day a week secondments to teach their skills in local colleges would provide such benefits as better careers advice and inspiration for vocational learners. It argues that this will create stronger links between colleges and employers and should be considered closely by policy makers.

Criticisms of colleges providing young people with skills which don’t exist have been well rehearsed. In its 2012 report, “Hidden Talents: Skills Mismatch Analysis”, the Local Government

Association, found that training in England was “failing young people by churning out armies of hair and beauty workers, personal trainers and media professionals – all qualified for jobs that don’t exist – while not producing enough people with skills where there are jobs.”38 The implementation of the recommendations set out in the Wolf Review will help to

37 www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/train-too.pdf38 www.local.gov.uk/web/guest/media-releases/-/ journal_content/56/10171/3623238/

NEWS-TEMPLATE


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address this problem by ensuring that only the most rigorous qualifications are recognised. It may also be the case that the subject of a course is less important, as long as there is strong focus on literacy and numeracy and it is appropriately challenging. This is an area that needs to be more thoroughly explored.

A good indicator of whether colleges are preparing students for work (or further study) is to look at where young people go when they leave. The introduction of destination data for schools and colleges may help. However the dataset currently only includes young people entered for qualifications within their expected key stage level (eg A-level).39 Another way to get colleges more focused on tackling skills shortages and equipping young people with the functional skills they need would be to hold them more to account for the proportion of NEETs in their areas.

Colleges should have a stake in their local area and be concerned about youth unemployment. Tackling the NEET rate in their area should be a priority for colleges and they should be held to account for how they respond to such a challenge. This may mean advising young people of employment opportunities outside of the immediate area.

In the five local authority areas with the highest NEET rates, there are five colleges considered to be “good” by Ofsted and graded as “outstanding” at their most recent inspections.

Authorities with the highest percentage of NEETS and Ofsted results40

16-18 year olds NEET Number of Colleges

Estimated number % Outstanding Good

Middlesbrough 570 10.5% 0 1

Redcar & Cleveland 550 10.5% 0 0

County Durham 1,810 10.4% 1 3

39 www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-destination-data-for-the-first-time (Government Press Release, 17 July 2012)

40 16-18 NEET figures www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/youngpeople/participation/neet/a0064101/16--to-18-year-olds-not-in-education-employment-or-training (2 July 2013) - Author’s analysis of Ofsted inspection results


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Kingston upon Hull 1,020 10.3% 1 0

Camden 460 10.2% 0 1

If colleges are real drivers of social mobility and able to support those who have not succeeded in the school system, they should be focused on recruiting those young people who have dropped out of the education system at age 16.41 It is therefore legitimate to ask whether the range and quality of provision offered by those colleges is sufficient if it is failing to meet the needs of so many young people in their catchment area who are currently classified as NEET.

Unfortunately, the figures on 16-24 NEET by local authority are not published due to the small sample sizes that lead to large sampling error and variability in the statistics. As a result it is not yet possible to use the same statistics to evaluate the effectiveness of colleges in meeting the employability for young people in that age group. More analysis needs to be done in this area and the government should move to publish this data.

However, given this paper’s assertion that equipping school leavers with basic skills and preparing them for employment is a part of the central purpose of colleges, an institution that is delivering a high quality education but still churning young people out into unemployment is only fulfilling part of this function. Colleges serving areas where the NEET rate is high should not therefore have their provision described as “outstanding” or “good”. It is misleading. Instead, Ofsted should recognise the quality of provision but also consider the extent to which the college is externally facing and working with local partners to tackle the high NEET rates in their areas. Such a move, combined with a focus on literacy and numeracy, would help to focus the sector on its core purpose of supporting the less advantaged. It wouldn’t be about “naming and shaming” colleges, but it would instead generate a greater focus on their activity within some of the most challenging areas in the country. Indeed, such an approach to accountability should be considered across the school and college sector. At the very least, it should mean that institutions providing high quality education in areas where the NEET rate is high are provided

41 The 16-18 neet rate may become less important as the education participation age is raised to 18 years.


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with additional support to address this challenge.

If the appropriateness of the curriculum colleges offer is going to be judged by asking Ofsted to take account of the number of NEETS in the local area when reaching an inspection judgement, it is only reasonable to consider how to ensure colleges are better informed about local business needs. Colleges cannot operate as isolated islands they need to be networked into the wider community.

Given the importance of the strong relationships between business and colleges, it is surprising that colleges are not routinely represented on LEP boards. While government guidance sets out that LEPs should consider offering board places to FE colleges,42 few appear to do so. Only 13 out of the 39 LEPs have representation on their board from the FE and skills sector, a situation which led the 157 Group to state that ‘many [LEPs] are ignorant of the critical role that FE Colleges play already in responding to employers’ skills needs’.43 The development of skills and creating sustainable employment should be a priority for LEPs. FE colleges therefore need to be represented at board level and LEPs should be using their strategic position to engage with colleges in their areas. The representative on the board would also be able to feedback to local colleges and help to ensure strategic priorities are widely understood and acted upon. Ministers should strengthen existing guidance to ensure that all LEPs have an FE representative on their boards.

Recommendation 3: NEET (not in education, employment or training) rates of those aged over 19 should be published at local level and Ofsted should place more emphasis on this rate in local areas so that colleges operating where the NEET rate is among the worst in the country cannot be considered to be “good” or “outstanding”.

Recommendation 4: All Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) should have FE representatives on their boards.

42 www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmbis/598/59806.htm (BIS Select Committee, 23 April 2013)

43 All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth, Local Enterprise Partnerships and Enterprise Zones (June 2013), ‘Skills and employment in the age of Local Growth Deals’, p.18.


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Strengthening Governance though Academy Style Sponsorship

In April 2013 the government announced the introduction of FE Commissioners who will recommend specific interventions when a college is found to be failing.44 Matthew Hancock, the Skills Minister has promised that this will lead to “swift and effective action”.45 This is a welcome reform.

In recent years much attention has been paid to governance and leadership in schools and it is surprising that it has taken until now for more attention to be paid to college governance. Perversely the opposite has been true with the focus of ministers tending to be on encouraging FE colleges to sponsor schools rather than addressing issues in relation to college governance.46

These new commissioners should be expected to examine ways that struggling colleges could formally work with business to strengthen their governance. The original introduction of academies, with private sponsors involved in the running of schools, was designed to bring in the strong governance which many struggling schools were seen to lack. There would be merit in considering whether a similar approach could make a difference to the college sector.

The Department for Education continues to have a whole team committed to identifying potential sponsors for academies and helping to broker deals with over £13.8m spent on staffing costs alone within its Academies Division.47 Schools converting to academies receive £25,000 plus additional investment if they have a sponsor.48

A similar infrastructure could be created for the college sector. The introduction of “sponsored colleges” could help to attract stronger governance into the sector and strengthen links with industry. When a college is found to be failing, the introduction of a sponsor, would allow for new systems of governance to be

44 news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/New-skills-strategy-heralds-214-million-investment-and-stronger-intervention-to-tackle-poor-perform-68a37.aspx (3 April 2013)

45 www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22002528 46 The first case of an FE college sponsoring a school was reported in 2006 in Barnfield, news.bbc.

co.uk/1/hi/education/4877006.stm 47 www.gov.uk/government/publications/staff-resources-within-the-academies-division/staff-

resources-within-the-academies-division (2011)48 www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120326/text/120326w0003.

htm#1203278001051 (Parliamentary Question, 26 March 2012)


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implemented. Sponsored governors would be held accountable for progressive and sustainable improvements to colleges, providing challenge to the principals and their leadership teams.

The new FE commissioners should therefore be expected not just to recommend that governing bodies are replaced, but also to work as brokers, approaching potential sponsors and developing new academy-style models which will bring new and stronger governance into the system. Given that LEPs are expected to support local economic growth, Commissioners should work with LEPs as potential sponsors, as well as local corporates.

Recommendation 5: Reforms should be introduced to provide more opportunities for stronger links to develop between colleges and the business community. Policy makers should allow academy-style Sponsored Colleges to be introduced to strengthen governance in failing colleges.

Recommendation 6: Give FE commissioners a brokering role so that they can work with individuals or corporations interested in sponsoring a college that is underperforming.

Confidence in Ofsted’s inspections of a highly complex sector

This paper relies to a considerable extent on the modifying of the college inspection regime as a way to ensure colleges focus more attention on their key role they play in equipping 16-18 year olds with the skills they need to enter employment. The robustness of Ofsted’s current inspection regime should therefore also be considered. Colleges range in size based on income from nearly £200m to less than £4m. They can be highly complex operations making any rigorous inspection process highly resource intensive. Having looked at the amount of time Ofsted devotes to college inspections, it has been possible to identify an apparent disparity in the way in which resources are currently targeted.

Ofsted has provided data on the number of inspection days scheduled for each inspection in 2011-2013. This comes with the


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caveat that “on occasion, data may vary from that in inspection reports. This may be as a result of last minute changes to the inspection team or schedule”.49

Analysis of the data shows that Ofsted, as one would expect, increases the number of inspectors and the number of days of inspection for larger colleges quite considerably.50 For example, there were a total of 22 inspectors sent to Newcastle College in 2012 for 5 days – giving the college 110 ‘inspector days’. This is in comparison to, say, the 28 ‘inspector days’ which Hereford College of Arts, the smallest college in our sample, was given.

However, new analysis of the inspection lengths relative to the size of each college undertaken by CentreForum, suggests that Ofsted does not carry out inspections on larger colleges with the same degree of intensity as it does for smaller colleges. The graph below indicates huge disparity between the inspection routines carried out by Ofsted between the largest colleges and the smallest.

Using college income as a measurement of college size51 we can decipher the relative scale of Ofsted’s inspections. By dividing the number of ‘inspector hours’ by the total college income we are able to establish a kind of relative Ofsted ‘Inspection Reach’ rating. So for example, Hereford College of Arts had 28 inspector days, and when divided by its income of £5,269m it gained a rating of 0.004974. The same calculation for Great Yarmouth College gave Ofsted an ‘Inspection Reach’ rating of 0.002618.

Rounding up these figures gives each inspection a headline rating. So, the inspection at Hereford College of Arts received a 0.5 rating, whereas Great Yarmouth College’s inspection only achieved 0.26.

Great Yarmouth College’s inspection was less intense than Hereford College of Arts’, because whilst they received 36 inspector days, Great Yarmouth College is almost three times as big as Hereford College of Arts.

The closer a headline rating is to 1, the greater the intensity of the Ofsted inspection.

49 Inspector numbers and inspection days for further education inspections between 1 September 2011 and 31 March 2013 (provided by Ofsted, June 2013).

50 In ranking colleges by their size, college income has been used rather than student numbers.51 The use of income is a better indicator than simply using students numbers as a college could

have more students, but these could be enrolled on short courses or be studying part time.


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Figure 4 – Ofsted inspection hours relative to college size

0

0.10%

0.2%

0.3%

0.4%

0.5%

0.6%

Insp

ecto

r h

ou

rs r

elat

ive

to C

olle

ge

inco

me

Smallest 10 colleges

Largest 10 colleges

Colleges

1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 106

The graph above reveals what could be described as an “inspection gap”. The most extensive inspection among the 10 largest colleges only received a rating of 0.13, compared to the 0.50 rating that the very smallest college, Hereford College of Arts, received.

Even the least extensive inspection amongst the smallest colleges received a 0.31 rating, which is more than twice the highest amongst the biggest colleges. This rating system and its illustration in graph form above reveal that the largest colleges are, at the very most, only being inspected half as rigorously as the smallest colleges.

Given that the stakes are somewhat higher in larger institutions with education being provided to the equivalent of whole towns, it is vital that a robust inspection system is in place. Large colleges are highly complex organisations, educating tens of thousands of students and offering a huge variety of courses. Given that the analysis above suggests that inspections of


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larger colleges may be under-resourced, the sector could well argue that some of Ofsted’s conclusions could be challengeable. Additional resources may need to be allocated in order to build confidence in the regime and ensure that large, complex institutions are rigorously inspected. While some colleges are more complex than others and may require a more resource intensive inspection, publishing data on inspection hours devoted to different colleges in a way that enables it to be directly compared would provide greater transparency to the approach taken by Ofsted.

Recommendation 7: For transparency and to build confidence, Ofsted should publish annually a comparative analysis of the different amounts of inspector hours commited to individual college inspections.


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: Conclusion

There is a lack of clarity about the core purpose of the FE sector. This should be addressed. While acknowledging this uncertainty of role, the paper defines a clear purpose of the college sector in relation to those 16-18 years olds who leave school without the basic qualifications they need. Very often, these young people will also be among the least advantaged and such an approach would also aid social mobility.

Remediation must therefore be accepted as an essential element of a college’s role. This is particularly important when it comes to basic literacy and numeracy provision which should be a limiting judgement in an Ofsted inspection. Ministers also need to reconsider their accountability proposals and ensure that English and maths remedial work is included in the all important top-line measures. If they fail to do this, the new study programme risks turning into little more than a tick box exercise lacking a positive outcome. Many colleges would support the creation of new literacy and numeracy qualification specifically for post-16 learners and this merits further detailed consideration. However until this happens, GCSEs in English and maths are the best way we have to measure success.

Such levers only go so far. Colleges also need to be externally facing and be held to account for the successes of young people that leave them. While colleges cannot create jobs, this paper recognises that they can work to address skills shortages in their areas and also provide advice and guidance so that young people make informed decisions about their future. As a first step the inspectorate should therefore be expected to take local NEET rates into account when assessing a college’s performance. It is problematic to describe a college as “outstanding” when it is in an area with a high NEET rate. For the future, there is a strong


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case for developing a more sophisticated set of employment outcomes as part of a wider accountability regime applicable to all education providers involved in preparing young people for the workplace.

Colleges also need to develop relationships with businesses which play a lead role in skills planning for their areas. This includes ensuring that every LEP has a college representative on its board. Where colleges are struggling and are suffering from weak governance reforms should be introduced so that a private organisation can sponsor a school – building on the success of the academy model and also presenting further opportunities for closer links between colleges and businesses.

Given the importance of the sector, a strong accountability regime needs to be in place. This paper has found that Ofsted may be struggling with such a complex sector and may not be inspecting larger colleges as rigorously as it should be. In the interests of transparency, Ofsted should publish the time it commits to each inspection.

The hope is that the analysis and proposals in this paper will now trigger further work and a more concentrated focus on the core purpose and accountability framework for England’s further education colleges.

Documents

Smarter accountability in Further Education - CentreForum · 9/12/2013 · Smarter accountability in Further Education 3: Contents Executive summary 4 Background 7 The scale of the