Between Them the Colleges Educate 211,000 Students of Which

Key Facts

·  There are 20 FE and sixth form colleges in the north east region. There are four sixth form colleges, 1 specialist college and 15 FE colleges.

·  Between them the colleges educate 211,000 students of which:

o  54,000 are aged between 16 and 18

o  156,700 are aged 19 and over[1]

·  There are 36,430 people undertaking their apprenticeship training at a college.

Area reviews

In July 2015, the Government launched area reviews of further education and sixth form education in every area of England[2].

“We will need to move towards fewer, often larger, more resilient and efficient providers. We expect this to enable greater specialisation, creating institutions that are genuine centres of expertise, able to support progression up to a high level in professional and technical disciplines, while also supporting institutions that achieve excellence in teaching essential basic skills – such as English and maths.”

The Tees Valley Review began in October 2015 and was part of the first wave of reviews. It covers the following colleges:

·  Cleveland College of Art and Design

·  Darlington College

·  Hartlepool College of Further Education

·  Middlesbrough College

·  Redcar and Cleveland College

·  Stockton Riverside College

·  Hartlepool Sixth Form College

·  Prior Pursglove College

·  Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington

·  Stockton Sixth Form College

The review of colleges within the NE LEP area is scheduled to start in April 2016. It should be noted, however, that all the reviews are running behind schedule.

Funding for the education of 16 to 18-year-olds from the Department for Education (DfE)

The Chancellor announced in his spending review on 25 November that the national base funding rate for 16 and 17-year-olds is fixed at £4,000 per student, per year. Students aged 18 are valued at £3,300 (17.5% less) for the next four years. The Treasury has however set DfE a challenging target to remove £160 million from the £6 billion post-16 education budget over the next four years. Although this does not sound much as a percentage (2.6%), it is a substantial cash sum at a time of pressure on staff costs (national insurance and pension costs). There are new technical qualifications, new A Levels and a substantial challenge ensuring all 16 to 18 year olds secure maths and English qualifications.

Funding for the education of people aged 19 and over from BIS

BIS made spending cuts which resulted in a 35% reduction in spending via the core adult skills budget between 2009 and 2015 with total spending falling from £3 billion to £2 billion.[3] Last year, the remaining funding was cut by a further 24%. The Chancellor’s promise in the Spending Review that the adult skills budget (now known as the Adult Education Budget) will be maintained in cash terms for four years was therefore welcomed by the college sector. The Adult Education Budget will be £1.5 billion every year up to 2019-20.

Devolution

In October 2015, the Government agreed with the North East Combined Authority[4] and Tees Valley Combined Authority[5] that ‘significant’ funding and powers would be devolved to these regions. The move will represent a major change to the way in which decisions will be made in the future about skills, transport, business support, housing and strategic planning. Mayors for the North East and for the Tees Valley will be elected for the first time in 2017. The press release from the North East Combined Authority, issued on the day the agreement was signed, said that an employment and skills board would be established to ‘manage an overhaul of post-16 skills training and employment support in order to get more people into work, increase productivity, improve the life chances of young people and address the skill shortages experienced by north east employers’[6].

It is worth noting that funding for the education of 16 to 18-year-olds is provided by central Government and much of the funding provided to pay for skills training for adults (people aged 19 and over) is determined nationally, for example via apprenticeships, or student loans. The remaining Adult Education Budget (AEB) is used by colleges and other training providers to respond to student and employer demand.

Colleges are clear that any proposals to devolve powers or funding must add value, not a further layer of bureaucracy.

Apprenticeships

The north east’s colleges have the highest proportion, of any region, of their AEB allocation being used for apprenticeships at 41%[7]. There are a number of key facts which serve as useful background:

·  Every FE college is involved in delivering apprenticeships

·  The average college trained 1,200 apprentices in 2013-14

·  Colleges trained 34.5% of apprentices in 2013-14, equating to 294,000 apprentices in total

·  College apprenticeship success rates are 72% for both 16 to 18-year-olds and 19 to 24 year olds, compared to 71% and 70% respectively for all providers.

In light of the Government’s absolute focus on apprenticeships and the extensive reform programme, there are risks that the current good work being undertaken by colleges could be undermined.

The Government has a target of creating three million apprenticeships. This target is likely to be met by increasing the volume of lower Level 2 and 3 apprenticeships. The bulk of apprenticeship growth is in these lower levels - 57% of college apprenticeships are at Level 2 and 41% are at Level 3.

AoC welcomes the proposed introduction of the apprenticeship levy. It creates the genuine opportunity to develop a new independent funding stream for apprenticeships. The Chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement that the levy will be introduced from April 2017, set at 0.5% of payroll and only paid by organisations with a wage bill of over £3million. The Government estimates that the levy will raise £3 billion but that 98% of employers will be excluded[8] from the levy given the high wage bill required to qualify.

It is essential that small businesses, as the lifeblood of our economy, are able to access levy funding to help them take on apprentices. Details regarding both Government investment and engaging with SMEs remains unclear. Alongside this, the levy will also need a robust set of rules to ensure that it contributes to genuine training.

Government is seeking to improve the way careers advice is delivered in schools so young people know that an apprenticeship may be an option for them. Unfortunately, schools are often under financial pressure to keep students for their own sixth form rather than encourage them to leave to start an apprenticeship.

Transport

Transport has been a longstanding issue for young people. However, the situation is becoming worse. Recent research that we have carried out with NUS[9] showed:

·  The average travel time for those surveyed was two hours and 48 minutes per day at an average distance of 11 miles.

·  51% of further education students cannot always afford their travel costs.

·  40% of students spend £5 or more a day travelling to their college or place of training.

The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) has also highlighted the impact of funding cuts to local bus services. The organisation says funding for local authority supported services has reduced by over £78 million since 2010, meaning more than 2,400 of essential bus routes and services have been cut.

Many colleges subsidise transport as college students travel further to get to their place of study than schools, but this is becoming unsustainable because of the reduction in college income. Consideration also needs to be given to apprentices who have to travel to college and to their place of work. The raising of the participation age is also relevant to this discussion, with all young people under a duty to remain in education and training until their 18th birthday.

Careers Advice

Despite the recent establishment by the Government of a new Careers and Enterprise Company, the current offer of careers advice for young people needs urgent reform as too many young people are leaving school at age 16 without being fully aware of the range of options available to them.

In order for pupils to be fully prepared for a vocational or academic course, apprenticeship, or indeed a traineeship, they must first have access to high quality, impartial and transparent careers advice on both academic and vocational routes.

Improving careers advice will reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training and encourage more 16 to 18-year-olds considering an apprenticeship over going to university.

[1] College individualised learner record, 2013/14

[2] Reviewing post-16 Education and Training Institutions, July 2015, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-16-education-and-training-institutions-review

[3] AoC calculation comparing 2004 Skills funding statement with SFA accounts

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/north-east-joins-the-unstoppable-momentum-of-northern-powerhouse

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tees-valley-joins-the-unstoppable-momentum-of-northern-powerhouse

[6] http://www.northeastca.gov.uk/news/devolution-agreement-north-east

[7] http://feweek.co.uk/2015/11/13/colleges-that-ignore-apprenticeships-criticised/

[8] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34923235

[9] https://www.aoc.co.uk/news/students-are-struggling-afford-travel-costs