FE Week Reporter | FE Week

The principal of a large and well-established FE college writes about life at the top — the worries, the hopes, the people and the issues they have to deal with every day.

Time to budget Further education is a funny place to be at the best of times, but this time of year it’s always testing and leaves most principals mentally exhausted, not to mention bereft of humour. The budget of course and, sadly, the more-often-than-not resulting cost savings that prove necessary along with the dreaded reorganisation […]

Glory beckons in Brazil for WorldSkills UK hopefuls

England’s hopes for the World Cup glory in Brazil may have been dashed, but the hunt for young people to do the UK proud at WorldSkills in São Paulo next year is well under way. A WorldSkills UK squad selection event took place in Belfast last week, with 160 young people competing across 37 skills […]

‘Enemy’ minister Hancock hands union £15m

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock pledged £15m of government support for Unionlearn next academic year having been labelled an “enemy” before he addressed the trade union body’s annual conference. A delegate asked why an MP from “the enemy” had been invited instead of a Labour politician, before Mr Hancock outlined the government’s ongoing support for Unionlearn […]

HMRC to give out learner details

A new government bill aims to allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to give out learner details for the first time. The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill means anonymised former FE learners’ job, education or benefit claimant status could be tracked through the tax system and passed on to colleges and schools. The […]

Anti-voc quals favouritism fear

Official judgement on 2012/13 provision for 16 to 19-year-olds could be weighted against those offering mainly vocational qualifications, the Association of Colleges (AoC) has warned. The Education Funding Agency said on Friday (June 20) that it would use the minimum standards of 2011/12 for the following academic year. Its key stage five minimum standards, which […]

Agency loses tolerance on delivery

A Skills Funding Agency clampdown on under-delivery next academic year has prompted concerns that providers could be hit by growing “financial instability”. The agency is cutting its tolerance of under-delivery, meaning more providers could be hit with an in-year reduction to their allocation. This academic year, providers who were 15 per cent below their SFA […]

Cash application form for free school meals

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has issued a new application form for providers to dish out free school meals cash to needy learners. The government wants disadvantaged 16 to 18-year-olds to be fed by providers — and has earmarked funds to develop kitchen facilities — or through a credit or voucher scheme for outside caterers. […]

Potential fraud cases with SFA rocket

The number of potential fraud cases referred to the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) more than doubled between 2012-13 and 2013-14. In the SFA’s annual report and accounts for 2013-14, it said that 108 new “allegations of financial irregularity” were considered, compared to 52 the previous financial year. The figure for the number of allegations in […]

Hub system ‘ready’ to calculate funds

The Skills Funding Agency will be hoping that long-standing problems in developing new funding software are at an end as it prepares to use the new Hub data collection system to calculate provider payments for the first time. The agency’s revamp of its data collections and funding system was due to have been completed 11 […]