LIVERPOOL'S PROFILE: 'A SWITHENBANK'S 68% AEB ROLE MODEL SIX-FIGURE THRESHOLD FOR MANY' PAY-OFF Page 10 Pages 21-23 Page 8

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FEWEEK.CO.UK | @FEWEEK FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021 | EDITION 349 there is a new sheriff in skills town

Page 5 esfa loses confidence in...themselves Agency tells college auditors to stop trusting their year-end funding statement Every college will need a funding assurance review before accounts signed off AoC fears 'last-minute scramble' for extra work from the external auditors

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HIT TARGETS AND CONTRIBUTE #TALKTOTOM TO STRATEGIC PRIORITIES [email protected] @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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Please inform the FE Week editor of any errors or issues of concern regarding this publication. 2 Contents EDITION 349

Tripling traineeships: no growth yet, but new providers remain upbeat

First college in England approved for nursing training Page 7 Page 13

The Commission on Race is a spectacularly badly-timed distraction Page 25

If your college isn’t in a careers hub, here’s the evidence it should be Page 26

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DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] ESFA loses confidence in…themselves

NICK LINFORD [email protected]

From front Exclusive

The government body responsible for funding assurance appears to have lost confidence in Post-16 itself. Audit Code of Practice 2020 The Education and Skills Funding Agency is to 2021 requiring all external auditors to conduct a Assurance and accountability requirements for post funding audit this year, before signing off on -16 providers, including further education and sixth- the annual college financial statements. form college corporations News of the significant change came buried

in the Post-16 Audit Code of Practice for 2020 March 2021 to 2021, published by the ESFA this week. One of 19 “changes” stated the ESFA year- end funding statement “does not constitute assurance over the funds earned by the college”. “risks creating a last-minute scramble by It also remains uncertain whether other In previous years, external auditors signed colleges and auditors to carry out extra work funding bodies reliant on the ILR returns, off college accounts without checking the in summer 2021. such as mayoral combined authorities, will accuracy of income claims received from the “Colleges aim to comply with high audit make similar demands. main funding grants generated through the standards but we don’t agree with the ESFA Individualised Learner Record (ILR) returns, decision to introduce this change two-thirds of because the ESFA provided the assurance. the way through the year.” “Colleges aim to Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive at the And in an email to all AoC members seen by Association of Colleges and former college FE Week, Gravatt says: “The implication of this comply with high finance director, told FE Week the change change is that external auditors will now carry audit standards but out more work this summer and early autumn to ensure compliance with funding rules. we don’t agree with In effect this extends the funding audit to all the ESFA decision” colleges this year – at their own expense.” According to several college accountants who spoke to FE Week, the responsibility for And despite the move from the ESFA to funding audit being passed from the ESFA to require the extra assurance work, there has colleges presents a number of challenges. been no suggestion they will scale back the Many accountancy firms that currently number of audits they conduct themselves. undertake external audit for colleges have Gravatt was also keen to point out that never conducted a “funding assurance this late change appeared to go against review”. broader government plans to reduce This is likely to present resourcing bureaucracy. challenges announced so late in the year and “The FE white paper promises raises the prospect of additional costs for simplification but, for colleges, the current colleges. audit code is a uniquely complicated However, Gravatt said he hoped external custom-built framework involving internal, audit firms would “handle any extra work external, regularity and multi-year funding Julian Gravatt within agreed and fixed budgets”. audits,” he said.

4 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Long-standing college leader named as new FE Commissioner

her leadership. She has led it through two mergers to achieve an ‘outstanding’ judgment From front from Ofsted in 2020. The chief executive of one of the country’s Legrave, who was largest college groups has been appointed awarded an OBE the next FE Commissioner. in 2015, said it was Shelagh Legrave, who has worked at a “great privilege” Chichester College since 2003 and became to be appointed its leader in 2010, will succeed Richard FE Commissioner, Atkins on a permanent basis from October. particularly at As FE Week revealed on Wednesday, “this critical time, current deputy FE Commissioner Frances when skills will be Wadsworth has taken up the post on an vital to rebuilding interim basis until Legrave takes the reins. our economy and Legrave is a qualified accountant and communities. currently chairs the Coastal West Sussex “As the FE white Skills & Enterprise Group as well as Bourne paper has set out, Shelagh Legrave Community College and homeless charity colleges will be at the Stonepillow. forefront of education She is also vice chair of the Collab Group and training that will the . The and sits on the Chichester Festival Theatre enable social mobility and address the needs commissioner intervenes in struggling board. of employers,” she added. colleges, where visits turn into published Chichester College has grown into one “I look forward to supporting the secretary reports that assess quality and financial of England’s largest college groups under of state and skills minister to ensure that health, as well as the existing governance further education and sixth-form colleges and leadership. across England are in the strongest possible Its inaugural post holder was Sir David position to change people’s lives for the Collins, who was replaced by Atkins in 2016. better.” The FE Commissioner leads a team of Education secretary Gavin Williamson, who around 18 deputy FE commissioners and announced the appointment on Thursday, FE advisers, made up mainly of former said: “I am delighted to appoint Shelagh to college principals or deputy principals and this vital role. She is hugely experienced in directors of finance. the sector, with a track record of outstanding The four-day week role will earn Legrave success and improvement. £135,000 per annum. It is a two-year term. “At this crucial time for the country, an Williamson thanked outgoing FE outstanding further education sector will be Commissioner Atkins for his more than more important than ever and I look forward four years of service. “He has made a huge to working with Shelagh to support and impact in the role, which has developed challenge the sector to be the best it can be.” significantly under his leadership, and I The FE Commissioner role was introduced wish him all the best in his retirement,” the Richard Atkins in 2013 as a key adviser to ministers in education secretary added.

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DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Tripling traineeships: no growth yet, but new providers remain upbeat

Traineeship starts (Aug to Jan) 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 Under 19 7,200 6,800 6,500 Exclusive Age-group 19-24 1,600 1,600 2,300 The government has failed to boost radically Total 8,800 8,400 8,800 the number of traineeships in the first half of the year – but providers tasked with tripling Source: DFE’s Apprenticeship and traineeship statistics March 2021 the number of starts insist they are up for the Ltd, a provider that did not previously hold national effort to increase starts. challenge. a traineeship contract but won the largest These include the “ringfencing of the FE Week analysis of the latest Department for allocation, just shy of the £3 million cap, told FE regional allocations, which makes it difficult Education data shows there were 8,800 starts Week it is “profiled to spend the majority of the to engage national employers”; ensuring between August 2020 and January 2021 – just contract”. the government’s Kickstart scheme “doesn’t 400 more than were achieved in the same The firm’s co-founder and director Matthew reduce demand for traineeships”; and the period the previous year. Lord said: “We mobilised swiftly – so far no recovery time of sectors hit hardest by the It means that more than 35,000 starts challenges. We have lots of young people pandemic, such as hospitality. are needed between February and July to who are keen for an opportunity and many Steffan Edwards, managing director of hit chancellor Rishi Sunak’s goal of tripling employers who are very committed to support Skillcert – a new traineeships provider their number this year to combat youth with placements.” which won a £1.2 million contract – echoed unemployment following Covid-19. Corndel Limited is another provider new to Denyer’s concern that Kickstart could push In the same period last year, 6,500 starts were traineeships but which received a contract recruitment for traineeships down. However, recorded and took the final 2019/20 year-end of just below £3 million. Its founder and he is “really optimistic” about hitting his target figure to 14,900. chief executive Sean Williams agreed it is of 300 starts as “we have such high employer This year’s continued sluggish take-up comes a “significant task” to increase traineeship demand”. despite the government reforming the funding numbers to the level required but that trainees Other longstanding traineeship providers rules for the pre-employment programme will, “unfortunately, not be difficult, given the that were unsuccessful in the tender are not in September, which included increasing the disproportionate impact this economic crisis is as confident. funding rate for 19-to- 24 traineeships by 54 having on young people”. Analysis by Babington, shared with FE per cent, from £970 to £1,500, and opening He explained that the biggest challenge is that Week, shows that more than three-quarters of them up to people who already hold a level 3 most of Corndel’s employer partners are still providers with 19-to-24 traineeship allocations qualification. working exclusively remotely, which means in 2019/20 do not have a contract in 2020/21. Employer cash incentives of £1,000 for each “we have to find meaningful, impactful work Babington’s chief executive, David Marsh, traineeship learner they take on were also experience placements that can be delivered said he was “very disappointed” to have his bid introduced. connected-by-technology rather than physically in the recent “frustrating” tender rejected as A big chunk of the starts needed in the last co-located. they have been “one of a few providers to have half of 2020/21 – around 20,000 – are hoped “We need to do this in a way that is compliant kept the programme alive and have invested to come from a £65 million tender for 19-to-24 with the funding rule guidance whilst meeting significantly in it” since its launch in 2013. traineeships. the needs of employers and trainees in the new “The fact that such a large number of The procurement was originally planned reality we find ourselves in,” he added. existing and successful providers have not to get under way last summer but was beset Williams said his provider had originally been successful while others completely new with delays – an issue that FE Week planned 880 starts in the six-month timeframe to the programme have received such large understands personally annoyed given, and he is still “confident” of hitting allocations, and smaller providers getting Sunak, as it hindered his that number. growth of nearly 3,000 per cent, is incredibly expansion plans. Elsewhere, another new traineeships concerning and certainly points towards a Despite only having a brief provider, Professional Training Solutions, process that is not fit for purpose,” he toldFE window to recruit, training told FE Week it expects to exceed its Week. providers that won big in the allocation of £1.6 million. Managing director “Surely the ESFA should be building on tender are optimistic about Jackie Denyer said that early engagement the areas of success and expanding, rather spending their full allocations. has been “strong” but listed several than handing the majority of the money to Let Me Play challenges that may dampen the providers who are new and inexperienced.” Rishi Sunak

7 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Swithenbank’s payoff revealed as auditors confirm financial regulations breached

came to light earlier this year following an being made redundant. FE Week freedom of information request and And in recent weeks staff were informed subsequent intervention from the Information the college would be disposing of their Exclusive Commissioner’s Office. campus in Goole in July 2021, leaving After reporting the deal in FE Week, interim the group with just their main campus The former chief executive of Hull College chief executive, Lowell Williams, then at Queens Gardens in the city centre, Group received £219,000 last year, despite launched his own investigation with internal a motor vehicle centre on Cannon only being in post for 67 days. auditors, which is due to report later this Street (close to the city centre) and a Payments to Michelle Swithenbank are month. construction centre in East Hull. revealed in the published accounts alongside Williams, who departs later this month external auditor findings that a £300,000 when the first permanent chief executive three-year deal she signed with a local since Swithenbank’s departure takes over, “What is now rugby club breached the college’s financial said “enquiries are ongoing” concerning the revealed is regulations. “irregular transaction” and he was “confident External auditors reveal in the published that the corporation will take appropriate unacceptable and 2019/20 accounts that the stadium naming action” - not ruling out the college could seek inexcusable” rights and shirt sponsorship deal was “only to recover some or all of the payoff. signed by one authorised signatory who The college accounts detail a total of was the corporation's accounting officer in £390,000 spent on the chief executive post On hearing of the payoff and auditor office during the year [Swithenbank], and in the 12 months from August 1, 2019 until findings, the University and College neither were the agreements approved by the July 31, 2020, compared to £140,000 in the Union’s head of further education Andrew corporation”. previous financial year. Harden told FE Week: “We can’t undo The college chair at the time, Dafydd This consisted of £162,000 contractual the events of the past but what is now Williams, confirmed to FE Week that the and £57,000 non-contractual payments for revealed is completely unacceptable and “contract [with Hull Kingston Rovers] was Swithenbank, with the remaining £171,000 inexcusable. never brought to the board for discussion spent on three interim chief executives. “The levels of mismanagement and poor or approval and was signed off by individual Hull College Group hit the headlines several governance that have occurred leading executives without our knowledge”. years ago after requiring a £50 million bailout up to and since the financial crisis at the The auditors also found the college “failed from the government as part of a ‘Fresh Start’ college should not impact on students to discharge its duty of care with regard to process that preceded several hundred staff or staff in the way they have. Staff have the novel nature of these transactions” as worked extraordinarily hard for their they ignored legal advice and no evidence students and are completely committed was found for any business case or value for to restoring the reputation of the college. money analysis. “It is unacceptable that further Swithenbank led Hull College Group until wrongdoing has continued since taking a leave of absence on October 7, 2019 the ‘Fresh Start’ approved by the FE when Williams commissioned an unrelated Commissioner and monitored and investigation into financial misconduct. scrutinised by his teams. Two months later, on December 20, “Given the college acknowledges Williams emailed all staff to announce that financial and audit regulations have not the investigation had found “no impropriety on been followed, it is only right and proper the part of Michelle […] nevertheless, Michelle that the leaders who have overseen these has informed us that she wishes to move on, issues should be held to account.” and feels this is a good time to do so”. Swithenbank was approached for

The true cost of the deal with Hull KR only Michelle Swithenbank comment.

8

@FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] AEB clawback: colleges not permitted to make a business case

FRASER WHIELDON more than £4 million to the clawback. Announcing that business cases would [email protected] Hancock said the college has already suffered not be allowed, the ESFA said the 90 per consequences from the clawback, having had cent threshold will be “the final position to back out of a capital funding bid for T Levels. for the 2020/21 academic year and will not College leaders have hit out at the These are qualifications the provider is due to be subject to change”. government’s decision to block them from start delivering from September 2021. The bid But it was informing colleges of the presenting business cases as a means to avoid was worth £6.6 million and would have involved change this week “to help providers better adult education funding being clawed back. the college match funding £3.8 million, which, plan their provision for the remainder of The Education and Skills Funding Agency Hancock says, “we can no longer afford”. the 2020 to 2021 academic year”. announced on Wednesday the 90 per cent Leicester College, along with the rest of the The agency made clear that where threshold on AEB is its “final position” for city, has been in continual lockdown since providers deliver less than 90 per cent, 2020/21, leading the Association of College’s March 2020. they will recover the difference between deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt to brand it So on the ESFA’s decision to rule out business their actual delivery and 90 per cent. For a “self-defeating blanket line”. cases, Hancock, a former Skills Funding example, delivery of 85 per cent would He said there was “no scenario” in which Agency executive director herself, said she result in a recovery of five per cent of the taking the money from the sector “won’t come doesn’t “understand the basis for a decision allocation. with consequences, including pushing some that refuses to recognise the very exceptional Recovering funding will be scheduled into financial difficulties”. position that Leicester College is in, given that it from this December, and the agency will Ruling out business cases does not “consider was the worst affected city in the country from “preferably” recover money in full in the the context” in which colleges under-delivered continuous lockdowns, and has the largest AEB 2021/22 financial year. on their adult education allocations, he added. offer in the country, focused on those furthest It has promised to “work with providers This was because under-delivery this year from the labour market, who for very, very that would like to request a phased was “largely out of colleges’ control” owing legitimate reasons have not been able to learn recovery plan” of up to four months. to multiple lockdowns, Gravatt said, and at Leicester College this year.” “Where this would cause financial the government’s actions would “not help Hancock warned the scale of the clawback difficulties, we will consider cases beyond colleges, not help the government deliver its would set the college back five years, financially. this with your ESFA territorial team.” commitments, and not help our communities and businesses”. The 90 per cent threshold was announced last Controversial adult funding threshold dropped to 68% – but only for Liverpool week. As revealed by FE Week, the decision was forced by the Treasury. Its officials successfully A mayoral authority has set a 68 per cent The ESFA, which itself set a 68 per cent argued that colleges have had enough time to clawback threshold for its devolved adult threshold for 2019/20 allocations, has reorientate provision and run courses online, education budget, in a split from central defended the 90 per cent threshold by saying where needed, during the Covid-19 pandemic. government. it is a “fair representation of grant funded It sent shockwaves through the FE sector, after the government allowed a much more The decision from Liverpool City Region providers’ average delivery” in 2020/21. generous threshold of 68 per cent for 2019/20 comes after the Education and Skills Funding There are eight mayoral combined allocations. Agency was widely criticised for setting a 90 authorities in England with devolved AEB ESFA officials were said to have been per cent threshold for the national AEB (see which decide their own funding rules. surprised by it as well, and Leicester College above). The Greater London Authority previously principal Verity Hancock told FE Week “officials Liverpool’s move was revealed in a letter announced it would apply a 90 per cent were suggesting we might be looking at from the Association of Colleges to its threshold this year, the same as the another 68 per cent level”. members on Thursday. ESFA. FE Week has asked if this Sector leaders had hoped colleges would be Latest AoC projections, Gravatt also position has changed at all, but able to present business cases as to why they wrote, indicate that the “collective the authority could not say at this should be allowed to keep hold of their funding forecast” for average AEB delivery now stage, because of local elections and if they fail to hit the 90 per cent target. That is 77 per cent, so the total clawback purdah rules. hope has now been quashed. under the national AEB “will be £59 Liverpool City Region, which is Leicester College revealed last week that it million”, with no concessions led by Steve Rotheram, forecast it would only be able to deliver 53 per after the ESFA ruled out has been approached cent of its allocation this year – and would lose business cases. for comment. Steve Rotheram

10 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected]

Race report ‘avoids tackling’ systematic discrimination in apprentice recruitment

FRASER WHIELDON and looking like the recruiters and having that have not seen strong take-up. [email protected] similar sounding names,” the group Under-representation of BAME people explained. in apprenticeships is by no means a new Exclusive Chief executive Jeremy Crook said revelation, nor is the claim that ethnic the report overall “failed to grasp the minority families do not place a high value on An ethnic minority representative group has considerable evidence of institutional and apprenticeships. slammed a prime ministerial commission’s structural racism in the UK,” and BTEG was Crook reported in a 2018 essay for the proposal for an apprentice recruitment calling on the government to “rethink its Learning and Work Institute on a group campaign “highly targeted” at diverse approach”. of mostly-BAME foundation year degree communities. In response to the report, chair of the students who told them “more academic The Commission on Race and Ethnic government’s Apprenticeship Diversity qualifications will give them a better chance Disparities claimed this week that “prejudice Champions Network Lia Nici admitted: of success in the labour market”. and ignorance” within ethnic minority families “There is still a lot of work to do to ensure However, he wrote, “the reality is that led to a low take-up of apprenticeship starts in our apprenticeships, and the careers that BAME graduates have higher rates of their communities. develop from them, fully represent the unemployment than white graduates”. FE Week analysis of government data diverse mixture of people in the UK.” A 2018 report, Apprenticeships and shows that 42,100 (13 per cent) of the 332,500 She said the report “highlights a wide Diversity in Context in Greater Manchester by apprenticeship starts in 2019/20 were by black, range of issues with regard to diversity and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) learners. race in the UK,” not just in terms of ethnicity. found BAME young people “aspire to and This is slightly out of kilter with the 15 per “We also know that there are fewer are encouraged towards high educational cent of England’s population who are BAME, apprentices who have disabilities, as well attainment”, with family and community according to NHS England data collated by the as females working in science, engineering, expectations being “especially significant Nuffield Trust in 2020. technology or maths-based roles. We want [whereas] apprenticeships are not seen as The key proposal of the commission to to encourage apprentices from a broader enabling aspiration to the same degree”. tackle this issue was a “highly targeted” range of backgrounds.” The Department for Education’s public apprenticeship recruitment campaign, Nici said the champions network, a group attempts to redress low ethnic minority designed by the Department for Education and of employers formed in 2017, was already take-up goes back to when Justine Greening the Department for Work and Pensions, and discussing “a range of targeted activities” to was education secretary under Theresa May. delivered by FE colleges and school career hubs. encourage apprenticeships in communities Greening was accused of being “all talk” “Our view,” the report states, “is that such after telling the education select committee a campaign could be of particular benefit to that the government had a “big focus” on young people who face discrimination or encouraging “a higher proportion of BAME disadvantage and currently lack access to young people going into apprenticeships”. in-depth information about the full range of This was after FE Week found at the time career pathways”. that just eight per cent of England’s young However, the commission’s proposal has been apprentices were BAME. criticised by the Black Training and Enterprise Since then, the DfE says it has “ensured Group, which said the recommendation that young BAME role models are visible in “fundamentally avoids tackling unfair campaigns such as ‘Fire It Up’, and that we and discriminatory employer recruitment are hearing the voices of young apprentices practices”. (including BAME) through apprentice This, the group says, has affected sectors networks, such as the Young Apprentice including construction, engineering and Ambassador Network and the Apprentice technology, where BAME people “continue to be Panel”. under-represented in jobs and apprenticeships. The Department for Education and the Far too much recruitment in the UK relies on Government Equalities Office, which is word-of-mouth recruitment, informal methods, Jeremy Crook leading on the commission’s report, were attending the right schools and universities, approached for comment.

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DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] First college in England approved for nursing training

BILLY CAMDEN to date. of partnerships with employers and HE, and we [email protected] Maria Woodger, assistant principal at recognise that FE colleges have apprenticeship South Devon College, described the success expertise, and partnerships like these will allow following a “rigorous process” as a “fantastic the NHS to achieve our ambitious targets for The first college in the country to have its own achievement” that means “so much to the the level 5 nursing associate apprenticeship and nursing provision approved for direct delivery college, our students and the wider healthcare progressions on to the registered nurse degree has been revealed. community”. apprenticeship,” she added. South Devon College has gained Nursing and The college said its two-year pre-registration Alexander Rhys, the NMC’s assistant Midwifery Council (NMC) approval and can now nursing associate foundation degree course director of professional practice, said this deliver its own nursing associate programme, on offer provides a direct route to becoming a was a “fantastic step” for both South Devon rather than having to partner with a university. registered nursing associate. After two years, College and the council in “helping aspiring The NMC is the regulator for the nursing students are also able to take the new nursing professionals achieve the nursing associate and midwifery professions in the UK and apprenticeship route. qualification in the most safe and effective way has traditionally only given higher education As the college has foundation degree possible”. providers permission to deliver qualifications awarding powers, it can also offer the level 5 He added that he hopes “they will be the first for the industry. nursing associate apprenticeship. of many colleges seeking direct approval to run South Devon College is one of only nine Lucy Hunte, the national programme manager a nursing associate programme”. colleges nationwide that has its own foundation for apprenticeships at Health Education The college said that since the Covid-19 degree awarding powers, which made the move England, said she was “delighted” to see a pandemic, applications to nursing courses possible. It applied for Approved Education college move into the direct nursing delivery nationally have increased by 32 per cent in Institution (AEI) status with the NMC two years space. the past year, with more than 60,000 people ago. No other colleges have applied for approval “There are other examples across the country interested in nursing as a career.

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13 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected]

Colleges for learners or employers? Governance adviser warns of legal tension

FRASER WHIELDON Chalk, alongside the Association of Colleges’ tension here.” [email protected] governance adviser Kurt Hall and lawyer Mark A number of chairs – including those of colleges Taylor from Eversheds Sutherland, was speaking focusing on sport, or which are “heavily involved” on the fourth chapter of the Skills for Jobs white in creative industries, or which have “huge” Exclusive paper. adult learning provision – have already been in The government’s drive for colleges to focus on The chapter sets out reforms intended to touch with her, Chalk said. They are worried that helping the economy goes against their “lawful “strengthen” college governance, within the “although they may be meeting the needs of purpose” of meeting the needs of learners, a paper’s overall objective of “placing employers at their students under charity law, what happens governance expert has warned. the heart of defining local skills needs”. if they’re not sufficiently fulfilling the local skills Fiona Chalk, national head of governance Colleges operate as exempt charities, so, for improvement plans? development for The Education and Training instance, do not have to submit accounts to the “Does that mean they’re going to be under Foundation, told an FE Week webcast this week Charity Commission, but do have to apply to them intervention?” there is an “inherent tension” between the two if they wish to remunerate governors. The Department for Education’s director of goals. Under the white paper’s plans, employer bodies post-16 strategy Keith Smith confirmed during “It is colleges’ lawful purpose to meet the needs such as Chambers of Commerce are set to head an FE Week webcast earlier this month that an of students first and foremost,” Chalk said, and Local Skills Improvement Plans, which will upcoming Skills Bill, based on the white paper, “you could argue that it is not a lawful activity for “shape technical skills provision so that it meets will enable the education secretary to intervene college corporations to have, as their primary local labour market skills needs”. where colleges refuse to deliver courses decided purpose, meeting the needs of employers, or Chalk, whose employer the ETF is one of through the plans. indeed the local or national economy. government’s most trusted delivery partners But, Chalk questioned: “Which duty trumps “Any benefit to employers or the economy has in the FE sector, said she expected there to be which duty? Which voice in the boardroom is to come as an indirect outcome of corporations’ “some synergies” between helping students and going to be louder, that of students or that of activity around meeting the needs of its students.” employers, but warned: “There’s a real, inherent employers?”

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DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Labour claims one-third of jobs are omitted from adult level 3 scheme

BILLY CAMDEN [email protected]

Over 9.4 million people are working in sectors excluded from the government’s new adult level 3 offer under its lifetime skills guarantee, analysis by the Labour Party has found as the scheme launches. FE Week was first to reveal that key economic sectors, such as retail, hospitality and travel and tourism, have been left out of the flagship scheme, which prime minister Boris Johnson hopes will help people retrain after the pandemic. Labour has now analysed House of Commons Library data and found that over one-third of all current jobs will be excluded Boris Johnson from the training programme as a result. This follows another recent FE Week our recovery.” any adult who has not already achieved investigation that revealed how the offer is He called on ministers to “urgently” widen a qualification at level 3. being misrepresented. eligibility for the level 3 adult offer to “ensure it There are 387 currently available, but The Department for Education and skills reaches all adults who could benefit”. the list is still in its first draft. The list minister Gillian Keegan have repeatedly The DfE declined to comment on Labour’s is expected to expand over time as the said the policy will enable eligible adults to analysis, but in a press release about the government allows mayoral combined achieve “their first full level 3 qualification”. launch of the scheme, education secretary authorities and awarding bodies to However, this publication’s analysis found Gavin Williamson said: “This offer will help give make requests for other qualifications over half of the qualifications on offer do not millions of adults the chance to gain the skills to be added. meet the DfE’s own definition of a “full” level 3 they need to secure rewarding careers in key Employers have, however, branded the qualification, with over one-third being below sectors.” process for adding qualifications to the an indicative 360 guided learning hours. And prime minister Boris Johnson added: list “bureaucratic” and “frustrating”. Labour has also pointed out that adults who “As we cautiously lift lockdown restrictions, the Independent training providers have already hold a level 3 qualification are also government’s focus is on recovering from the meanwhile been given just a four- excluded from accessing the scheme, which pandemic and building back better. month window to start and complete is due to rollout from April 1. The scheme is “The lifetime skills guarantee is fundamental the courses through the offer, while backed with £95 million from the National to that – with free courses giving adults the colleges have warned of a slow start Skills Fund. expertise they need to find new, better jobs.” owing to a lack of detail from the DfE Shadow further education and skills minister Ahead of the policy’s launch, the DfE said the and strict eligibility rules. Toby Perkins said: “You would be forgiven for government will pilot an extension to the length The scheme builds on a similar policy thinking the Conservatives’ Lifetime Skills of time that people can receive Universal Credit that has been in place since 2013 which Guarantee is an April Fools’ joke, rather than while undertaking work-focused study. It is allows adults up to the age of 23 to be a plan to help reskill our country after this currently set at eight weeks. fully funded for their first full-level 3 pandemic. They will now be able to train full time for up qualification from the adult education “The Conservatives’ mishandling of the Covid to 12 weeks, or up to 16 weeks on a full-time budget. Those aged 24 and over have crisis has led the UK to experience the worst skills bootcamp in England, while receiving since had to take out an advanced economic crisis of any major economy. Their Universal Credit to support their living costs. learner loan to pay for the course. limited plans will now leave millions unable to The qualifications that are on offer range from The current entitlement for those aged access the skills they need to play their part in engineering to social care and are available to 23 and below spans 1,178 qualifications.

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PEUK B0176 Image: ©Getty Images/SolStock @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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Introducing SARBDIP NOONAN Principal, College

'We fought to stand alone and from that we’ve built and built and built '

JL DUTAUT fallout. Sharing knowledge, resources name was soon deemed unrepresentative [email protected] and expertise has, so the new urban myth of the community (read: too posh), so in goes, allowed them to thrive where smaller 1994 it reclaimed the Stanmore name. Today, the She’s always made her own way. players have struggled. college serves some 2,500 learners – of whom Now, Sarbdip Noonan is learning very different To this, Sarbdip Noonan has a two-word approximately 1,500 are full-time 16-to-18- ‘lessons from Covid’ from the rest of us, finds JL retort: Stanmore College. year-olds – making it a small college by modern Dutaut Founded in 1987, Elm Park College as it standards. was then known replaced the Stanmore Noonan has been principal here Among the many ‘lessons from Covid’, a sixth-form college on its site as one since February 2016. She took over when popular refrain has been the success of larger of three tertiary colleges to serve the the college was at its lowest ebb. A five-year organisations in dealing with the pandemic’s . The Elm Park decline from 2010 had seen Stanmore fall

21 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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from Ofsted ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ and she well. It’s a local FE college and it provides the turned its fortunes around. “We had roughly right education and training for the people 18 months from the previous inspection to who come here.” give this college a fighting chance, and we did Not that Noonan is averse to mergers that. We did it in 12 months, actually.” altogether. The area review also brought up Why “a fighting chance”? Because a possible merger with , running parallel to the college’s Ofsted then Ofsted ‘outstanding’, and Noonan and journey was an existential threat from her team were initially enthused. “But as we another external source – an area review. “If started going through the process it soon we hadn’t improved the quality, we wouldn’t became apparent that we were in a better have had a voice,” Noonan tells me. “But the position than they were.” administered status was removed and we had By April, West Herts had dropped an a voice and we resisted to merge.” inspection grade and pulled out. “The merger didn’t happen, so we fought to stand alone and from that we’ve built and built and built”. “We had a voice When Noonan joined Stanmore, its full-time roll was half what it is now. That’s Noonan's three children, 2012 and we resisted certainly a mark of her success, but it goes beyond tropes about effective leadership. Stanmore. “A lot of students who come here to merge ” The site hasn’t undergone any major come from very deprived backgrounds. This expansion as rolls have mushroomed, and as really is a second chance for them to do we discuss her response to that challenge it something different. And Stanmore really That year , itself the result dawns on me that she has in fact learned turns that around for them.” of the 1999 merger of Harrow’s other a completely different set of ‘lessons from She tells me her driving force is that “if it’s two 1987 tertiary colleges, merged with Covid’ from much of the rest of the sector. not good enough for my children, then it’s not to form HCUC. Between The thread that weaves our conversation good enough for anybody’s children”. (And them, they now form what might be together is community. It was her sense that her children have done very well indeed. Her considered a medium-sized institution, with Harrow and Uxbridge were too removed eldest is a barrister, her second a financial some 8,000 learners. from Stanmore in terms of geography and consultant and her youngest a doctor.) The addition of Stanmore into the mix clientele that drove her to resist that merger. But while ‘serving communities’ is also a would have seen the new organisation It was her sense that Stanmore deserved a refrain among sector leaders learning from the become one of the sector’s new breed of big college focused on its needs that persuaded pandemic, to Noonan it’s about so much more beasts, but Stanmore chose its own path. “It her to unpick the West Herts merger. than setting up a food bank or making PPE wasn’t the right thing for this college,” says She lives in Essex, and refers to raising for the local hospital. It’s a sustained modus Noonan. “This is a small college that serves her three children in and around London operandi. “You can work in a very different its community very effectively and serves it as her career progressed in areas just like way,” she enthuses. “You can serve this community in a very, very different way.” As it turns out, she’s no stranger to doing things differently. Raised in a Sikh household, she chooses to “take the bits of the Sikh culture and English culture that are interesting for me and blend the two together”. They work well for her, she adds. One of five children, whose working-class parents arrived from the Punjab in the 1960s to make a better life for themselves, she was raised “in a tight-knit family” but made her own way in life. Her marriage to an Englishman didn’t go down well. They actually eloped to Australia when he went there for a teacher exchange programme! “Initially, my Noonan's mum and dad in the early days, 1957 parents didn’t want anything to do with me.

22 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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But within a year, they sort of came around.” More than that, they made a real success of it. Her husband, she tells me, went on to become her dad’s best friend in his old age. Going from ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’ must feel like a walk in the park by comparison.

“I’m very proud to be an Asian woman in this society, and have a

successful career” Noonan with her parents, 2010

She even rebelled against her own professional expectations. She actually turnaround circumstances for three colleges college can offer for students. There’s an graduated with a degree in combined sciences. before getting the top job at Stanmore. opportunity to bring education to “I initially wanted to be a pharmacist but I Meanwhile, she’s been a part-time Ofsted where the students are, for satellite remember I did a year after university in a inspector for 15 years too. centres, multi-modular routes, the OU pharmacy and I thought, ‘Ugh! I can’t stand it’.” Now, nearing retirement, she’s not looking model and distance learning. You’re She attended comprehensive schools and for a big move or the next opportunity. But not confined to this space, so it’s fought through the artificial limits of class, nor is she happy to sit on her laurels. She about delivering education and training to race and gender to become a teacher, head of feels a deep responsibility to working-class young people and adults in a very different department and executive director in schools. young people and especially to Asian young way.” Then she became a local authority officer for women. “I’m in a very privileged position Pre-pandemic, education news was full Essex County Council and from there made as a principal. And I think I need to enable of stories of young people’s gig economy the move across to FE – retraining for the women to be aspirational, to be more future. The crisis has seen the start of an sector – and served as deputy principal in demanding and fighting for their rights in exodus of young people from the capital, society. And I’m very proud with research showing they have little to be an Asian woman in this intention of returning. That’s likely to society, and actually have reshape further education here and in made a really successful other urban centres. career. I’m a role model for Thought about properly, it all makes many others, and why not? responding to central government You know, if I can do it, why guidance much less important in the long can’t they?” term. In fact, it even has the potential to So how is this inveterate make central government guidance itself a free thinker learning from relic of pre-pandemic times, relied upon Covid and thinking about the only in periods of national emergency. future of Stanmore College? Which raises some pretty fundamental Well, bigger definitely questions about the past 30 years of doesn’t mean better, for a ever-larger mergers and makes flexibility start. And advances in online and serving communities all the more learning will definitely mean important in future planning. developing “new ways of “And that’s what Stanmore does well,” delivery”, but it’s about much says Noonan. “So whoever takes the more than that. college on some day, it is in an outstanding “It’s about thinking in position to take it further in its very With husband, Tony, 2012 terms of the space the different way.”

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GROUP @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? Opinion CONTACT US [email protected]

Anjali The Commission on Shah Race is a spectacularly Senior lecturer in education, badly-timed distraction University of Chester

The report seeks to lay who experience racism to justify “higher-achieving minority ethnic” We know on average they responsibility for painful lived their experiences as that, rather we do a disservice to all those are awarded lower degrees at experience at the door of than suggesting effective solutions. groups. university, are less likely to get individuals and families, writes It’s also not clear why the report into Russell Group universities, Anjali Shah focuses mainly on attainment. are barely represented at the “The report It touches on exclusions, saying top of FTSE 100 and are under- When the government’s forces people the causes are “complex and represented among leading Commission on Race and Ethnic multifaceted and cannot be professions. Disparities report came out on who experience reduced to structural racism and We know they are more likely Wednesday, I got an email from racism to justify individual teacher bias”. to be stopped and searched by the a student. “I don’t know what to No one is saying the causes aren’t police and to be in prison. Research make of this report,” she wrote. their experiences” complex – but saying this means still shows that you are more likely “Please can we talk?” that teachers aren’t unconsciously to get a job interview if your name My student was distressed and For instance, saying that white biased, or that structural racism is Michael and not Mohammed. needed help from me just to working-class pupils “trail behind isn’t playing a part, makes no sense. A further distraction is this understand what was going on. It’s their peers in almost all ethnic Has the commission really proven idea that as a country we are an likely a situation many educators minority groups” to indicate that they aren’t? exemplar. The report says, “It is and learners have faced since this institutional racism does not exist Other issues just aren’t tackled. important to see how the UK has report came out. in education is disingenuous. We know young people from improved race relations more For many of us, this past year For a start, it pits class against minority ethnic backgrounds are rapidly than in other countries.” since Black Lives Matter, and the race. But “white working class” is more likely to be in care and more Does a school or college say, Windrush scandal before that, had also a very crude proxy for social likely to be given a diagnosis of “Everywhere else is rubbish, so let’s led us to hope that people were disadvantage. It’s far too loaded special educational needs. Yet the congratulate ourselves instead of really reading, learning and finally a term, that is poorly defined. report does not examine this. aspiring to become an outstanding discussing at length the deep and For instance, there is a huge Similarly, the report doesn’t provider?” No. So why should the complex questions of race and attainment gap between white explain why, if minority ethnic nation? racism. children receiving free school groups largely do well in So instead of a deep and nuanced But this report feels like it meals, and those who are not. This attainment at school or college, examination of issues and how takes us backwards. Worse than is problematic, and needs deeper huge gaps appear in their we might do better, the report has that – it denies that institutional examination, but by positioning outcomes post compulsory recommended a longer school day and structural racism even exist, the “white working class” versus education. and better careers advice. It has laying responsibility at the door of placed the responsibility firmly at individuals instead. the door of individuals and families Novelist Toni Morrison once to exercise their agency better. said: “The very serious function of The fallout could be that some racism is distraction. It keeps you schools and colleges may now no from doing your work. It keeps you longer see tackling racism as the explaining, over and over again, same high priority they did. your reason for being.” Not only does this report, That’s what this report does. through distraction, deny the It distracts us with other issues, lived experience of many minority without actually tackling the ethnic people, it is spectacularly problems that exist. It forces people badly timed.

25 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? Opinion CONTACT US [email protected]

Oli de If your college isn’t in a Botton careers hub, here’s the Chief executive, The Careers evidence it should be & Enterprise Company

Colleges already do well with First set up in areas of high need, with employers, up 70 per cent in higher they are performing against employer links, but new research careers hubs are local clusters two years. all eight Gatsby Benchmarks, which shows they have a better chance of schools, colleges, employers Employer partnerships are set standards for best practice in with the hub model, writes Oli de and other partners who share also growing as leaders draw on careers education. Botton practice, provide opportunities strategic support from our network In fact, colleges inside hubs for young people and make sure of 3,600 “enterprise advisers”, who achieve almost twice as many Helping young people find their careers education reflects the local are senior business volunteers. benchmarks as those outside. And right next steps is difficult at the economy. the higher they are performing, the best of times. In the middle of a Hubs also access extra training. better the long-term outcomes for pandemic, the task becomes critical. Around 150 FE careers leaders have “Careers students. Careers education that is college- now taken part in professional education This month, research from the led, employer-shaped and focused development, with one-third University of Derby showed the on removing barriers for young completing a higher level 7 in FE is on impact of meeting the Gatsby people must be part of the answer – qualification. Benchmarks. Across 16 colleges and often already is. This is all driving changes on the the move” and schools in the north-east, The Careers & Enterprise ground. The majority of careers significant increases were seen in Company was set up in 2015 to leaders in hubs now report In Carmel College in Darlington, how prepared young people were help colleges and schools deliver that young people have better for example, the team works with for work and how likely they were brilliant careers education, and at employability skills and are more global engineering firm Jacobs to achieve their learning outcomes. the end of February I joined as the likely to consider apprenticeship to help them shape their careers Students saw a 39 per cent increase new chief executive. routes. Hubs give young people programme. Staff receive more in their “career readiness score”. I’d founded School 21 in east access to more meaningful support, and students have a But there is more to do. We are London and, as head, had tried to encounters with employers. We clearer line of sight into the world determined to roll out our hub put employer partnerships and also know careers education in of work as a result. model to every corner of the skills such as oracy at the heart of special schools and alternative So the emerging evidence is clear. country. We also want to partner our mission. provision improves when they are Many colleges may ask why this with more colleges and have been Since the pandemic, the Careers in hubs. sort of support is needed, when working with The Association of & Enterprise Company has seen a Across schools and colleges more they already have strong links with Colleges. But we’re also developing growing interest in its work – not generally, 3.3 million young people business. But the longer colleges are a virtual community to bring least because of worries that young are now having regular encounters in our network of careers hubs, the together hundreds of FE careers people will feel the long-term practitioners, so they can share best “scarring” effects of missing out on practice and innovate together. opportunities so early on. And we will be aligning more We’ve had the privilege of closely with the National Careers partnering with incredible college Service, promoting it widely across careers leaders, governors and our network. senior staff. Although in education Every young person deserves the it is easy to both over- and under- best possible start to their working claim, careers education in FE is on life. Careers education plays an the move. important part in making that Half of England’s FE colleges are possible, and colleges could not now part of our growing network of be more important in making that “careers hubs”. vision a reality.

26 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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Tom Whitehall is failing Bewick as a moral leader on Chief executive, Federation of apprenticeship targets Awarding Bodies

Whitehall chiefs, headteachers already has one of lowest numbers and local government leaders of apprentices proportionally should have their performance to employed persons among and pay incentives linked to comparable countries, at 18 per hitting the target, writes Tom 1,000 employees (2019 figures). Bewick Germany has a ratio twice the England rate, at 40 apprentices Did you hear about this year’s per 1,000. Even Australia had a April Fools’ joke over at the much higher recorded ratio, of 39 Department for Education? A per 1,000 employees. senior official walked into the This really matters, because if secretary of state’s office and the government can’t deliver as an said: “Minister, I’m pleased to them some slack, they’ll say. incentivise more firms to offer employer, operating via the public report that we’ve met every single But I’m less generous. apprenticeships, “particularly sector (schools, local government target on apprenticeships that As with any serious delinquent, for younger people” at risk of and hospitals), then how on earth we set ourselves in 2015.” “That’s you have to look at the pattern of unemployment. Indeed, under-25s can it be a moral leader when It amazing! How come?”, replied behaviour. This is not an isolated were to be the main focus of the comes to exhorting the private Gavin Williamson. “We haven’t incident. The big ambition for expansion effort. sector to hire apprentices? really, minister, we’ve missed apprenticeships was actually Five years on, the numbers The Treasury has belatedly every single one of them, but don’t stated in 2015, when the old of starts for young people has realised this, with the recent worry, we’ll just change the goal Department for Business, plummeted, from 123,000 in Budget announcement to gear posts and give ourselves another Innovation and Skills published its 2016-17 to 76,300 by 2020 (pre- more financial incentives to new year!” Vision 2020 document. pandemic). apprenticeship and traineeship As FE Week reported recently, It was drafted on behalf of hires, including helping those nearly all parts of the public sector ministers by Jennifer Coupland, laggard public sector employers. – other than the armed forces – boss at the current Institute for “The government Ultimately, I believe the have failed to meet the 2.3 per cent Apprenticeships and Technical has a cavalier 2.3 per cent target needs to target that was first enshrined in Education, in the days when she be enforced in the following statutory guidance on April 7, 2017. was still in the department. attitude towards ways: permanent secretaries of The original reporting period and The vision statement was the targets” Whitehall departments should timeframe to comply with the law designed to crown the 2015 have their performance bonus expired this week, on March 31, Conservative manifesto target of payments explicitly linked to the 2021. three million apprentices by 2020 Crucially, ministers promised achievement of the apprenticeship Rather like a flaky student who (the target that’s been missed). that the public sector would target. regularly posts a late essay under The six chapters contained all the “lead by example”, by meeting the The same for quango chiefs, the lecturer’s door at five past usual buzzword bingo lines we’ve statutory minimum 2.3 per cent headteachers and local midnight, Whitehall knew it would become accustomed to reading. target. government leaders. Only when fail to meet its own target. Employers would be “in the The fact that this and many other there are some real personal and So, it has simply taken the liberty driving seat”. Expansion would apprenticeship policy targets financial repercussions for failing of self-extending the deadline. take place while “quality would since 2015 have been missed is in this endeavour will we find out Those more sympathetic to the improve”. what is so frustrating about the whether those entrusted to lead mandarins will, of course, cite There would be a “simpler government’s cavalier attitude. our public sector are really up to the vagaries of the pandemic. Cut funding system” designed to The bigger picture is this: England the job.

27 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

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REPLY OF THE WEEK READER'S Can the government fix REPLY the ‘confusing’ careers landscape? Can the government fix the ‘confusing’ careers We know where we want to get to landscape? – current, good advice available I’ve become an unofficial route to careers info on a to all. Young people’s choices near daily basis for friends’ and families’ children who often very influenced by families are finding it difficult to understand options available to them at 16+. Says a lot about the lack of structure who need to hear the advice that I’m the best they’ve got. as well. But not easy to get this right for everyone – and not ever Louise Doyle, Twitter forgetting including adults too. Treasury to blame for adult education clawback plans Anne Milton, Twitter

For city centre colleges with large ESOL provision, there needs to be enhanced flexibility, particularly for those who have never been out of lockdown. Apprenticeship standard achievement rate fails Jo Maher, Twitter to hit 60%

It doesn’t bode well for the white paper. There The DfE commentary suggests that part of the seems to be a deep disconnect between DfE and the reduction in success rates is due to end-point Treasury, with the Treasury clearly dominating. I assessment (EPA), but the statistics show that EPA have no faith that anyone in the Treasury has any pass rates are extremely high. So what is happening experience, or understanding of the challenges we here? Traditionally the provider has been held solely have all experienced this year. They’ve all come responsible for success rates, but an examination through an academic route and clearly just don’t of leave reasons suggests that in the last year more get it. Tragic that such valuable provision is being apprentices are withdrawing from programme for undermined when it is needed most. employment-focused reasons, such as redundancy.

Bob Smith, website Jill Whittaker, website

This is right. Our organisation has waiting lists of Fully agree that success rates are a strong indicator learners who want to do courses, but we do not of quality and they must be higher across the have the funds. We write to the colleges giving them apprenticeship sector, especially post reforms. hundreds of learners, they do not want to know. However, not certain now is the right time to Get the money back to the communities where it is make that challenge. These figures, especially needed the most. construction, massively impacted by Covid-19.

Zaighum, website Allan Milne, Twitter

28 @FEWEEK EDITION 349 | FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021

DO YOU HAVE A STORY? Bulletin CONTACT US [email protected] Movers & Shakers Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving

Gill David Frances Alton Alexander Wadsworth Board member, Hull Interim FE Principal, and East Yorkshire Commissioner, Gateshead Local Enterprise Department for College Partnership Education

Start date: April 2021 Start date: June 2021 Start date: April 2021

Concurrent job: Previous job: Previous job: Chief executive, TEC Partnership Vice principal, West College Scotland Deputy FE Commissioner, Department for Education Interesting fact: Interesting fact: She backpacked around the world for He is a qualified accountant and has held Interesting fact: a year and while on her trip, she had an board positions for the Scottish Funding She says her Down’s Syndrome sister, emergency landing in a hot air balloon in Council, Victim Support Scotland, and the Ruth, has been “my touchstone” the Australian Outback. General Teaching Council for Scotland. throughout life.

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing [email protected]

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