The first Ofsted monitoring visit looking at subcontracted provision found that college senior leaders were too slow to make improvements.
An inspector visited Wigan and Leigh College in Greater Manchester at the start of the month after Ofsted’s deputy director for further education and skills, Paul Joyce, informed providers in February that the inspectorate would increase its focus and reporting on the quality of subcontracted provision.
Leaders at the college were found to have made insufficient progress in their management of subcontracted provision. However, leaders and managers were found to have made reasonable progress on ensuring learners in subcontracted provision benefitted from high-quality training and also making sure safeguarding arrangements were in place.
‘Risk-based’ visits
In a letter sent to providers last month, Mr Joyce said some recent inspections had underlined poor management of subcontracted education, and added: “That is not to say that there is not also good quality subcontracted provision - there certainly is.”
He said Ofsted would be “undertaking a sample of risk-based monitoring visits to directly funded providers to look specifically at the management and quality of subcontracted provision for specific subcontractors,” and that the monitoring visits would focus solely on provision delivered by the subcontractors.
‘Too little impact’
Wigan and Leigh College currently subcontracts around a third of its apprenticeship provision to Citrus Training Solutions, which accounts for over 500 apprentices, mainly in business management and administration. Inspectors said the proportion of apprentices on subcontracted provision who achieve their qualifications is too low and has fallen. Just over half of apprentices at Citrus Training Solutions completed their programmes successfully.
“Quality assurance arrangements for Citrus Training Solutions have had too little impact for too long. Until recently, arrangements relied too much on college managers ensuring compliance with quality assurance processes at the expense of evaluating with rigour the quality of teaching, learning and assessment,” the inspector wrote.
The college also subcontracts to community-based partner organisations, which account for one in five qualifications taken on in the last academic year.
Lacking ‘sufficient rigour’
Arrangements for assuring the quality of subcontracted community-based provision delivered by Groundwork, Power in Partnership, Progress Sports Limited, The Skills Network and Wigan Council lacked sufficient rigour.
“The quality of information that college managers receive from these subcontractors about the effectiveness of provision and learners’ achievements varies significantly and, in a few instances, is insufficient and inaccurate,” the inspector wrote, adding: “College managers do not challenge these community-based subcontractors well enough to improve their reporting on outcomes for learners and the quality of provision.”
The inspector did, however, praise the work that the subcontractors do in helping most learners to develop the skills and attributes needed to take their next steps.
Earlier this month Ofsted’s first monitoring visit looking at new apprenticeship training providers took place and inspectors found apprenticeships were “not fit for purpose” at Key6 Group.
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