The government has published its draft invitation to tender for T-levels procurement for awarding organisations.

Announcing the invitation, skills minister Anne Milton stood firm on the government’s plans to give a single awarding organisation a contract for each T level, despite the threat of legal action from the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB).

FAB wrote to the Department for Education and the Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA), proposing a legal challenge to the programme.

A pre-action protocol letter – the first stage in initiating a judicial review – was sent to the DfE and IfA last week. If no agreement is reached, the case could end up going before the High Court. This would put plans for the first T levels to be taught in 2020 in major doubt.

'We want T levels to be a valued qualification'

Ms Milton said introducing T levels was a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way technical education works for young people.

She added: "We want there to be more than one route to a successful career. To protect the gold standard of T levels, one awarding body will be responsible for delivering each T level subject. We have been clear about this since 2016 and believe it is vital to making sure the first T levels are a success. We want T levels to be a valued qualification recognisable by employers.

“We want to select the awarding organisation with the right vision, to get the best for the young people taking T levels.

“We have always taken a collaborative approach to developing T levels and have been in regular contact with the sector about this procurement. We held two engagement events in June about the competition and provided advice on preparing high-quality bids. Today we are also sharing the draft procurement documents to give awarding organisations a genuine opportunity to influence how the procurement works.  

”We will continue to work in an open, transparent and constructive way so we can introduce the first three T levels from September 2020.

“I am delighted so many awarding organisations are working with us to truly transform technical education in this country.”

Finding 'real workable arrangments'

Tom Bewick, FAB chief executive, said it was encouraging to see that the DfE had taken on board a number of issues raised by FAB and its members but added that the association will not be making any further comments on its pre-action legal challenge at this time.

Mr Bewick added: "These include allowing awarding organisations to co-brand student and employer facing materials, something they said was impossible at the market engagement events. Similarly, intellectual property that goes into the TQ element will be allowed to be used abroad separate from the T-level programme. This addresses some of the concerns we raised about the damage that could be caused to the export potential of awarding body expertise post-Brexit. 

“We note the inclusion of consortia arrangements being made more explicit in the ITT and that government will allow them to deliver T levels, provided they are licensed as a single entity. We, in fact, put this idea to government. The main problem, however, with making such a proposal work in practice is that the government’s unrealistic procurement timescales will make it nigh impossible to put appropriate consortia arrangements together in time for Wave 1. 

"What we need from ministers is an acknowledgement of the need for a more proactive approach on consortia models, working closely with the industry, to encourage the sector to come forward with real workable arrangements."

T levels: What's changed?

The 19 tender documents show that the government has made some changes to its position since market engagement events were held last month:

• Contracts with awarding organisations will run for four instead of three cohorts of learners. There will be an option for the AO to extend its contract for one extra cohort;
• Co-branding will now be allowed in accordance with the branding guidelines. This represents a U-turn following protests from AOs;
• Development fees will now be paid in instalments rather than one lump sum. This will be linked to approval milestones and the transfer of intellectual property during the development period (20 per cent at three months, 20 per cent at six months, and 60 per cent at final approval);
• Indexation of fees will now be allowed. A detailed mechanism for this is set out in the draft tender documents;
• Performance management will focus on "providing processes to help the supplier avoid poor performance in the first place and on the supplier being required to take action to correct poor performance, should it occur" rather than service credit payments or delay payments.