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10 April 2026

Author: Jude Burke

Allow employers to appeal for more time to spend their apprenticeship levy cash, CBI urges

Employers should be allowed to appeal for more time to spend their apprenticeship levy funds if the standards they want to use are still in development, the Confederation of British Industry has said. Its new report, ‘Getting apprenticeships right: next steps’, published today, calls on the government to introduce a process for such employers to […]

Number of approved apprenticeship standards to hit 400 next week

The number of apprenticeship standards approved for delivery is set to hit 400 next week, a little over a year after the Institute for Apprenticeships vowed to get ‘faster and better’. The milestone also comes just six months after it passed the 300 mark, and two months ahead of the institute’s own target date of […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 268

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving John Gray, director of further education, Emsi Start date: January 2019 Previous job: Director of marketing and strategy, Sheffield College Interesting fact: John is keen cook and loves to bake – egg custard tart is his speciality Jan Gormley, deputy principal, Queen Alexandra College Start date: December […]

College in £37m debt given permission to carry out banned tactical subcontracting

The Department for Education appears to have given a cash-strapped college special treatment, after it endorsed subcontracting to meet short-term funding objectives. Lambeth College, which is dependent on government bailouts, “embarked on a significant programme of subcontracting” to make up for a recruitment shortfall last year, according to its recently published 2017/18 accounts. The college […]

Management apprenticeships continue to soar as Milton ‘thrilled’ with rise in starts

Management standards are continuing their reign as the most popular apprenticeships, according to the first statistics for 2018/19 published by the Department for Education this week. The team leader/supervisor had the most starts of any standard in the first quarter of the year, while three other management standards were among the 20 most popular. They […]

Apprenticeship starts up on 2017/18 – but still down on 2016/17

Apprenticeship starts are up 15 per cent for the first quarter of 2018/19 compared with the same period in 2017/18. There were 132,000 starts from August to October 2018, a rise of 17,700 or 15 per cent on the 2017/18 figure of 114,300, according to figures published by the Department for Education this morning.  But […]