From Brewery Floors to Educational Reforms: Tracing Tony Allen's Unique Path through the Brewing Industry, Governance, and Further Education

Introduction: Tony Allen

I began my working career at 18 in the Brewing industry in my home town of Northampton. I worked for two large brewers / pub retailers and spent in total over 20 years in the industry. I had some wonderful roles, which taught me a great deal about the world of work, and particularly, managing people and how to get the best out of them.

After this, and for a short eighteen month spell, I became the CEO of the Hospitality industry’s benevolent charity, which was fun, but I did not particularly enjoy the constant need for fund raising, so I left and joined the civil service.

Why did you choose a career in further education?

To be honest, it chose me! During my time with Whitbread PLC, I was involved in the Government Relations Team, and we had introduced NVQs into the business. We were having some problems with the programme, and I expressed our frustrations to a senior civil servant in the Department for Employment. I obviously made an impression, as three years later he contacted me and offered me a job in the then new Learning & Skills Council in Kent & Medway. So my career In the world of FE and skills began.

The skills that I learned in the private sector stood me in good stead in the civil service. I was often frustrated at the incessant obsession with process in the civil service, and one of the things that I brought to the LSC, not only in Kent, but more widely in the south east, was the importance of focussing on outcomes. All too often colleagues would feel that they had done a good job if they had followed the process, however bizarre the outcome: and sometimes there were some very bizarre outcomes, especially around procurement!  

However, one of the things that I learned very quickly was the dedication that people in the sector had (and still have), coupled with a genuine desire to make a difference to the lives of people, through the development of skills. In the LSC and later in the SFA, I worked with some amazing people from whom I learned a great deal about the real difference that training and upskilling can make to the lives of individuals.

Tell us about a notable early experience in your career

I had not been at the LSC very long when I was given the task of setting up and managing one of the pre Train to Gain pilots. There were twelve of these in the country, and ours was unique in that the funding could not be used for the payment of wages. The other eleven had a wage compensation element. We proved though our performance versus the other pilots, that subsidising wages made little difference to the take up of the programme by employers.

This taught me an important lesson, which I feel has been reinforced by employer incentives in the apprenticeship world. For me this lesson is that broadly speaking, they do not work. Government can never afford the level of subsidy needed to persuade an employer to do something that they do not wish to do. Marginal cost contributions are literally in my view, a waste of tax- payers money.    

How have you developed your career as a leader in further education?

I remained in the civil service for 14 years, and saw many changes, sadly not all for the better. The generous spending and flexibility in the years of the noughties, gave way to control and austerity in the early years of the following decade. Whilst personally I had the opportunity to grow my career and undertake roles that were really interesting, I became increasingly frustrated at the lack of impact that I as an individual was having. My last job at the SFA before taking voluntary redundancy in 2016, was as Director of the Large Companies Unit. I had the opportunity to establish the team, and therefore to recruit some wonderful people. We managed the SFA’s direct employer contracts, of which there were about 80, and also the largest Independent Training providers, of which there were 40. These included everyone from the Armed Forces and Learn Direct to providers with a budget of £5m. In total we were responsible for £986m of apprenticeship and adult funding, out of a total SFA funding of £3.8bn, and all done with a team of 24!

I decided in 2016 to take redundancy, and use the knowledge that I had as to how the soon to be implemented apprenticeship levy was going to work, and become a consultant. I have never looked back!

Since 2016, I have provided support and guidance to many employers and private training providers. These have included employers such as Specsavers, Hutchinson Ports, Wolseley Group, and providers of all shapes and sizes, from Kaplan down to very small providers with less than 100 apprentices. There are times when everyone needs some help and advice.

What I do has changed in the last eight years. Everyone broadly understands the levy, so now I focus on NED roles, and provider quality and compliance support. I have two great colleagues who work with me who help to cover the Ofsted readiness checks and ESFA audit and compliance work.  

Tell us about some key achievements in your career

This is a tricky one, as I always recognise that in almost all case achievements are based on what a team or group deliver and are seldom down to one individual, however much in the forefront they might be.

I am very proud of my record in helping to improve the quality of delivery in a number of providers. When having that ‘initial chat’ with a potential new client, I try to get a feel for how well we would work together. My aim is to see myself as a member of their team, not just as an ’external’ contributor. Since beginning as a consultant, I have enabled all of my clients with whom I have had a relationship for at least eighteen months, to obtain at least a ‘Good’ at their full inspection.  The last fifteen months has been quite manic for inspections, but I have supported three providers to achieve ‘Outstanding’ during that time, and four to ‘Good’

It is not uncommon for me to receive a call from a panicked provider saying they are about to be inspected, and can I help. I usually say ‘No’ to those. Just like being asked to provide governance support on the basis of three two hour meetings per year, such a relationship will always be ineffective. For external consultancy to work effectively, unless it is solely focussed on a particular project, in my view it has to be for the medium to long-term. There has to be time given to get to know the business, identify the areas for improvement and work in partnership to implement actions and assess the impact.  

One source of personal pride is Specsavers. They were one of my first clients, and I have always kept an eye (if you pardon the pun!) on their progress. I worked with them for several months, persuading them to ‘go it alone’ as an employer provider. I was delighted to see their ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted grade earlier this year. What is the saying….”From little acorns……..!!

Whilst I have worked with the country’s largest providers, I especially enjoy being part of the senior team at a small provider, and seeing them grow and develop. I have four clients in this category, who I have worked with for over five years.  

What have been the biggest challenges you've faced in your career and how did you overcome them?

During my time as a civil servant I was constantly frustrated by the lack of clarity that  we gave to the sector. For example, I found myself in hot water on more than one occasion when I, frustrated by the lack of clarity from my colleagues, had told a provider to interpret the funding rules in a particular way, only for an auditor to say “Who told you that?” When the response was “Tony Allen!”, there was usually much eye rolling! However, I was never wrong, as no-one else had provided any clarity at all, and no-one ever contradicted me!

As a consultant my biggest challenge is keeping up to date with what is going on in the sector. I still have some of my former colleagues in the Department, and they are very forthcoming when I ask them, but I try to read as much as possible from a variety of sources, including trade journals, government releases and updates.

What are your thoughts on improving the further education sector?

I am not sure where to start here!

With our new government, we are just beginning a time of change to whole apprenticeship and adult skills sector. Do Labour have the right plans for the future? I do welcome some of their ideas, such as bringing some flexibility to the levy, but I also feel that they may not be being radical enough.

I am not a fan of devolution, and I know that it frustrates large employers enormously. To me it may provide a marginal improvement in the local skills landscape, but at a massive cost in terms of complexity and duplication of resources. I would even bring back the devolved skills funding currently allocated to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I would have a two-tier UK wide national skills framework, This would set out the national skills priorities for the UK, whilst giving the three devolved nations and local areas in England, the opportunity to devote some of the resources to their own priorities.  

In terms of apprenticeships, I would restrict employers use of the levy to 50% of their contributions, reinstate allocations for providers, double the funding bands for 16-18 year olds.  We need to return apprenticeships to being focussed on young people, driven by SMEs, and reinstate the concept of selling the benefits of apprenticeship to employers. Before the levy providers sold apprenticeships to employers on the basis of the benefits that having an apprentice would bring to the employer’s business. Now it’s all about spending their levy. We need to return to creating ‘provider led’ demand for apprenticeships.  

What advice would you give to aspiring leaders in further education?

There are three things that I would say to any aspiring leader in the sector:

Firstly don’t try to plan your career too rigidly. Go where the opportunities take you. I have worked in the private, public and third sectors in my life, as well as being self-employed. Through that breadth of experience, I have learned so much  

Secondly, in the same context, do not be afraid to think about your career development more broadly than just what might be there after your current role. I spent five years in an operational role in Whitbread, but I had a passion for training, that was recognised and my next role was in training and development, which in turn led me to a senior HR position, and then after a gap, into the Skills sector. In order to facilitate options, volunteer for different roles / tasks, in order to find out what you might want to do.  

Finally, keep a journal. I take notes from all of the meeting that I attend, and have done so since 1994!! These notes not only cover the key points of the meeting, actions etc, but also my personal observations, sometimes on individuals!

Not only do they make fascinating reading, but if one day someone asks me to write my memoires, then it is all there!!  

Find out more

Follow Tony on LinkedIn here.
‍

Did you enjoy this article?

We feature a leader in every edition of our Sunday email newsletter.

It contains the top 5 leadership roles advertised that week.

Super quick and simple, helping you to lead the way.

Subscribe here
[https://www.boltjobs.com/top-5-leadership-fe-skills-and-learning-jobs](https://www.boltjobs.com/top-5-leadership-fe-skills-and-learning-jobs)

‍