FE Week Reporter | FE Week

26 new Trailblazer groups announced

Film and TV, ceramics, veterinary nursing, and motorcycle manufacturing are among the industries that will be covered by 26 new Trailblazer apprenticeship groups launched today. The new groups, which will design standards for 39 new, industry-led apprenticeship programmes, will include representatives from Pinewood Studios, Rolls Royce, BT, Dr Martens, and English National Opera. The new […]

New Apprenticeship Delivery Board announced

A new Apprenticeship Delivery Board (ADB) is set to advise the government on how to reach its target of 3m apprenticeship starts in this parliament. The board, announced today by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), will offer guidance to the government on how to expand the programme, and will be jointly chaired […]

Eight things we learned from the Skills Funding Agency’s annual accounts

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has released its annual accounts and report for 2014/15, so we had a comb through and discovered the following… 1. Staff sickness at the agency has plummeted year-on-year… 2. But then again, so has the number of staff… 3. And fewer staff means a HUGE rise in […]

Five colleges announce ‘collaboration’ plans after pioneering area review

Five FE and sixth form colleges facing “significant financial challenges” are “actively considering” collaboration plans, following a pioneering review of post-16 provision in North East Norfolk and North Suffolk. Great Yarmouth College (GYC), Lowestoft College (LC), and Lowestoft Sixth Form College (LSFC) released a joint statement this morning confirming that they are looking at forming […]

Investment in skills training needed to get low paid off benefits

The government has made it clear that it wants to help more people off of benefits by supporting them onto higher paid jobs. Chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) Stewart Segal looks at how the skills sector can help. Although the apprenticeship levy stole the show in the summer budget, […]

Dates announced for next year’s National Apprenticeship Week

National Apprenticeship Week (NAW) will run next year from March 14 to 18. The dates for the ninth annual NAW, which celebrates the positive impact that apprenticeships and traineeships have on learners, businesses and the economy, were confirmed today by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Skills Funding Agency (SFA). This year’s […]

Additional adult skills cuts account for just 13 per cent of required BIS savings

Further cuts to college budgets will account for just 13 per cent of extra savings needed at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), Nick Boles has announced in a letter to the sector. In a letter issued in the wake of yesterday’s announcement by the Skills Funding Agency that FE providers will face […]

Boles tasks Education and Training Foundation with functional skills ‘reform programme’

The Education and Training Foundation has been asked to draw up a “programme of reform” for functional skills qualifications, Skills Minister Nick Boles has announced. In a letter to providers, Mr Boles said he was tasking the Foundation with coming up with ideas to make the qualifications a “well-respected and credible” alternative to GCSEs. It […]

Colleges claw-back warning after audit reveals SFA may have wrongly paid out £50m

Almost £50m of funding may have been wrongly paid out by the Skills Funding Agency last financial year and could be clawed backed from 16 colleges. A National Audit Office (NAO) report on the SFA’s 2014-15 accounts published this morning has revealed the “irregularity of expenditure”. It related to payments for capital projects totalling £49.9m […]