Nic T Brown Inspection Manager

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Nic T Brown Inspection Manager
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CommentaryMoving in the right direction

• An improving picture on quality
• WBL inadequacy rate fallen from 60 to 29 per cent
  and still falling
• JC provision, with exception of Workstep, now
  has similar rate to WBL
• ACL inadequacy rate fallen from 46 to 33 per cent
• College inadequacy steady at 14 per cent
• Prisons inadequacy 69 to 54 per cent

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CommentaryMoving in the right direction

• A range of factors behind improvement
• Clear identification by the ALI of strengths and
  weaknesses of provision
• ALIs Provider Development Unit
• Dissemination of good practice through Excalibur,
  the ALIs learning network
• Decisive intervention by funding bodies

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CommentaryMoving in the right direction

• Mobilisation of employers through MA Task Force
• Simplification of awards structure by QCA
• Determined response of providers to issues
  identified through inspection

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CommentaryMoving in the right direction

• Inadequacy rates unlikely to fall to zero
• Estimate that the practical minimum rate across
  the sector will be around 15 per cent
• Targets over next few years
• - cut inadequacy rates at least by half
• - higher success rates
• Past few years has shown what can be achieved

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CommentaryInfrastructure improvements

• Restructured LSC with regional tier and
  demand-led ethos aimed at purchasing
  high-quality provision
• More flexible New Deal choices
• Closer co-operation between JC and LSC
• QCAs rapid development of CATS framework
• Many SSCs now becoming influential

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CommentaryInfrastructure improvements

• ALIs report publication time reduced from 12 to
  six weeks last year 99
• Overwhelmingly positive impact of PDU
• Excalibur Good Practice Database, Inspection
  Toolkit, road shows, Quality Champions
• Commissioned inspections by ALI
• Series of ALI survey reports

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CommentaryTop providers CIAR 2004

• 78 providers received grades 1 or 2 for all
  aspects of provision, 17 per cent of total
  inspected
• 34 were WBL providers
• Commercial training companies and employers
  prominent amongst best WBL providers
• Some regional variations in WBL top providers
  more prevalent in north, less so in Midlands

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CommentaryTop providers

• Only four ACL providers among top 78
• Smaller, specialist ACL providers did best
• 21 FE colleges among top 78
• Many top providers were small and offer a single
  area of learning

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CommentaryPoor providers

• 47 providers awarded grades 4 or 5 for all
  aspects of provision
• Number has nearly halved since 2002-03 but, at 10
  per cent, proportion still too high
• Greatest improvement among WBL providers
• Weak WBL provision disproportionately common in
  Midlands
• Only one ACL provider and one learndirect hub
  among poorest providers

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CommentaryReinspection and monitoring

• Reinspection over time continues to bear fruit
• 90 per cent recovery rate at reinspection
• Workstep (50 inadequate) particularly good
• Quality monitoring inspections introduced to
  check that recovery continued
• Reinspection and quality monitoring useful tools
  in encouraging coasting providers to improve

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CommentaryCharacteristics of best and worst

• Hallmarks of best provision
• High retention, achievements, progression to
  employment
• Good teaching, training, skills development
• Good learning resources
• Good use of data to assure quality and ensure
  equality of opportunity

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CommentaryCharacteristics of best and worst

• Defining characteristics of worst provision
• Weak quality management
• Little protection of equality of opportunity
• Low retention, achievement, progression to
  employment
• Weak assessment of needs of disadvantaged
  learners
• Poor management and control of subcontractors

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CommentaryQualifications

• Emerging national qualifications framework
  essential for the success of many adult learning
  programmes
• Few general awards meant specifically for adults
• 60 per cent of the one million ACL learners do
  not take qualifications
• Many regard qualifications as a distractionWhat
  is needed is a confirmation of progress which is
  also formative
• Without an apprenticeship diploma, the
  apprenticeship remains simply a collection of
  parts

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CommentaryIndividual and group achievement

• Older workforce 55 over 40 by 2015
• FE Colleges 83 over 19
• 850,000 in ACL, 500,000 learndirect
• Employers spent 14,500,000 on off-the-job
• CIF identifies quality with individual learners
• In ACL, community development and family learning
  strands require evaluation of benefits to groups,
  rather than individuals
• If achieving these benefits warrants funding,
  then achievement goals need to be set more
  explicitly

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CommentaryIndividual and group achievement

• Employers sometimes concerned about the CIF
  emphasis on individuals
• In reality, ALI inspectors have little difficulty
  in using individual benefit as a proxy for
  benefit to the employer

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CommentarySelf-assessment

• Some way to go on self-assessment
• Substantial over-grading at upper end of scale in
  SARs
• Reluctance to admit poor performance
• Caution needed in using self-assessment as an
  accurate measure of quality

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CommentaryKey and basic skills

• Concentration on basic and key skills has brought
  success
• Skills for Life and E2E given large numbers of
  adults a new chance
• Basic skills deficits identified among 26 million
  adults could pose overwhelming challenge

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CommentaryKey and basic skills

• WBL providers now offer reasonable key skills
  training
• Up-front teaching of key/basic skills
  particularly successful for those with the most
  serious deficits
• Despite improvements on key/basic skills front,
  much foundation studies provision mediocre or poor

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CommentaryAreas of learning

• Marked variability of provision across AoLs
• High standards commonplace in land-based learning
  programmes
• Serious problems in construction with declining
  success rates
• Likely that strong employment rates leads to
  learners leaving training to take highly-paid
  jobs

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CommentaryAreas of learning

• ICT single biggest AoL
• Ever improving technology
• ICT in prisons improving enormously
• Much of work at entry level and level 1
• Little between this and high level computer
  science
• Improved standards of care teaching
• Rapid achievement of NVQ level 2 accompanied by
  neglect of apprenticeship framework completion

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CommentaryLeadership and management

• CIF focuses on LM of curriculum managers,
  teaching staff and learner support staff as well
  as senior managers
• In this regard, FE colleges often judged to be
  effectively managed
• In ACL, grades 1 and 2 for LM increased
  threefold over last couple of years
• LEAs have quickly assimilated the messages from
  inspection of ACL and kick-started improvement in
  LM overall
• QA in ACL remains weak

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CommentaryFurther Education Colleges

• FE colleges, with exception of SFCs, buffeted by
  change
• Many are big, diverse and subjected to frequent
  demands to be more responsive
• High-quality provision not always consistent with
  constantly developing provision that
  responsiveness demands

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CommentaryFurther Education Colleges

• Much WBL in colleges remains poor
• Often a lack of understanding of essential nature
  of WBL that it takes place, and is tested, at
  work
• Infrastructure with which colleges have to work
  is over-complicated
• Colleges have right to demand simpler working
  relationships with organisations which support
  them

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CommentaryFurther Education Colleges

• Colleges, like other organisations, have a
  natural life cycle
• ALIs analysis shows few colleges can sustain
  high standards for long
• This situation probably best addressed by
  combining a market-based system with an element
  of supportive intervention

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KeynotesAdult and community learning

• More polarised quality of provision
• Resources characterised by extremes
• Better strategic planning stronger focus on
  widening participation
• QA still weak
• Often poorly-managed curriculum
• Often no formal assessment of learners skills
  and knowledge

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KeynotesAdult and community learning

• Most adults achieved personal goals and had a
  good learning experience
• Wide range of enrichment activities which
  enthused learners
• Family learning and community development
  programmes generally successful
• Much good teaching

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KeynotesFurther education colleges

• Teaching and learning for adults better than for
  younger learners
• Colleges worked increasingly collaboratively with
  HE institutions and other providers
• Better inspection grades in SFC
• Adults acquired new and useful skills

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KeynotesFurther education colleges

• Support not always available for part-time
  learners
• Few colleges responded successfully to employers
  needs
• Weak support for literacy, numeracy, language
  development

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Keynoteslearndirect

• Good LM at hub level leading to steady
  improvement in a period of change
• Some good retention and achievement rates
• Under-represented groups attracted
• Learners enjoyed their learning
• Ineffectively applied QA processes
• Insufficient qualified literacy, numeracy,
  language development staff

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KeynotesWork-based learning

• Improved grades
• Fewer than a third of apprentices completed full
  framework
• Successful reinspection outcomes in 90 per cent
  of providers
• Good development of work-related skills
• Learning sessions generally well managed and
  professionally delivered

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KeynotesWork-based learning

• Equality and diversity effectively promoted
• Significant advances in employer-led provision
• Inadequate support for literacy, numeracy and
  language development needs
• Poor management of many essential elements of
  learning process
• Poor evaluation of quality of provision by
  providers

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Business Admin by provider type
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Business Admin FE by year
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Business Admin WBL by year
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Areas of Learning AoL 5 Business
administration, management and professional

• Best grades in SFCs over three-quarters
  outstanding or good and only one out of 23
  unsatisfactory
• JC grades also strong
• In GFEs, around one-third of grades outstanding
  or good
• Weakest area of provision was ACL where a third
  of grades unsatisfactory

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Areas of Learning AoL 5 Business
administration, management and professional

• Improving WBL grades but still a long way to go
• Poor management of WBL
• Slight decline in overall standard of provision
  in colleges
• High-quality work placements
• Particularly good pastoral support for individual
  learners

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Areas of Learning AoL 5 Business
administration, management and professional

• Adequate assessment
• Competent teaching
• Most programmes met needs and interests of
  learners
• Many learners characterised by a lack of
  certainty about career direction

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Quality improvementThe ALIs Approach

• Share more effectively messages from, and about,
  inspection
• PDU and revised reinspection model led to high
  recovery rate amongst providers
• Quality monitoring visits a further encouragement
  to continuous improvement
• Excalibur learning network - a vital part of ALI
  strategy

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Excalibur sharing knowledge to raise standards
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What is Excalibur?
Key strand of the ALIs commitment to building a
national quality community
Products
Sharing knowledge from inspection to raise
standards across the learning and skills sector
Events
Activities
Unique knowledge based resource
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The Inspection Toolkit

• designed to help providers to understand the
  inspection process
• and to prepare for inspection more effectively

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The Inspection Toolkit

• gives detailed information and guidance about
  what needs to be done
• in the weeks immediately after notification
• in planning and preparing for the inspection
• during the inspection

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Good practice database
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Building Better Practice
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Building Better Practice
Good Practice Database
Building Better Practice
Inspection Toolkit
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Building Better Practice

• Matched to Common Inspection Framework
• Information, not instructions
• Structure
• key messages
• hints and tips
• healthcheck
• Links with Good Practice Database
• Disseminate regionally through conferences and
  events

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Building Better Practice
National quality community
Quality improvement
Quality assurance
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Quality Champions
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Excalibur Quality Champions
ALI inspection experience
Quality improvement activities within
own organisation
Contribution to national quality community
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Quality improvementReinspection

• 206 reinspections, 173 of them full reinspections
• Bulk of reinspections, 142, were of WBL providers
• Reinspection over time well established
• Very high reinspection recovery rate 89 per
  cent of WBL providers, over 90 per cent of JC
  providers

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Quality improvementQuality monitoring inspection
visits

• Visits introduced in January 2004
• Following providers selected
• - those with grade 3 in LM and/or grade 3 in
  one-third or more areas of learning
• - providers judged adequate at reinspection
• - providers which had gone through
• substantial change since previous inspection
• - providers that had recovered following
  implementation of an emergency action plan

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Quality improvementQuality monitoring inspection
visits

• Visits take place over single day with two
  full-time inspectors
• Visit to review how effective post-inspection
  plan in maintaining or improving quality of
  provision
• Overall quality of provision had improved in 86
  per cent of providers

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Innovation

• Innovation in inspection
• Duty of Care
• Probation Officer training, Police training
• Prison Officer training,
• LSC workforce development
• DfES employer training pilot
• learndirect how may I help you
• SfLSU pilot evaluation
• Inspection is a catalyst for change
• Inspection can celebrate not stifle innovation

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SfLSU innovation sample

• Fund learning into the workplace
• ALI commissioned to
• Evaluate
• Give support to the providers
• Make recommendations

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LEARNERS VIEWS

• it has helped me get back into a learning
• the literacy course built my confidence and now
  I am more confident with numbers
• I would not have made the effort to go to night
  school, but at work we know each other already
• the tutor is very encouraging
• it helps with applying for jobs and its free
• this will make a great difference to me when my
  job is upgraded to supervisor
• it is useful to be able to help the children at
  home
• using the computer is much more interesting than
  doing tasks on paper
• I like the confidentiality of working at home
• I like the privacy of individual attention

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EMPLOYERS VIEWS

• it would be difficult for staff to go to regular
  classes at college as shift patterns are a
  problem
• its helping motivation and improving
  communications in the company
• it enables staff of all abilities to improve
  their skills
• staff enjoy the sense of achievement
• the workforce is more confident and
  better-skilled
• the work provides an additional measure of
  ability for job promotion decisions
• it is good for staff to work towards nationally
  recognised qualifications
• the provider manages confidential issues very
  well
• we use this organisation because they understand
  working with our industry

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CommentaryConclusion

• Business Administration steadily improving
• Overall areas, ALI helped providers double
  chances of learner in WBL
• Helped raise numbers of apprentices
• ALIs emphasis on quality improvement working
  with funders and providers (not regulatory nor
  authoritarian)
• ALI increasingly broadening its range of partners
  in government
• ALI extending partnerships with employers funding
  their own training

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CommentaryConclusion

• ALI developing its approach to inspection to
  further assist quality improvement in sector
• Right Touch inspection is a more flexible,
  focused process
• focuses more explicitly on the specific needs of
  providers and funding bodies
• Adopt a more customer-service approach
• Right Touch inspection is accompanied by 25 per
  cent cut in inspection days
• This must not damage the focus of inspection

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The future of the ALI

• The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed in March
  2005 to consult with employers on the creation of
  a single inspectorate for childrens services,
  education and skills

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