Author: FE Week Reporter

George’s Osborne’s budget today included plans for an apprenticeship levy, a living wage which could reach £9 per hour by 2020, and further details on previously-announced policies such as the ‘youth obligation’. Here, we bring you reaction from FE sector leaders as it happens…   Professor Alison Wolf, King’s College academic, life peer and author […]

It’s less than 24 hours to go before what is possibly the FE and skills sector’s most feared Budget ever — but should we really be expecting the worst, or even much at all, asks FE Week reporter Paul Offord. Chancellor George Osborne announces his Budget in the House of Commons from around 12.30pm tomorrow (follow the […]

A levy on large businesses to help fund apprenticeship growth has been announced by Chancellor George Osborne. Mr Osborne’s budget announcement comes after Professor Lady Alison Wolf called for such a levy, but on all employers, in a report released by the Social Market Foundation last week. Employer and FE sector bodies are still digesting […]

A newly-established House of Lords committee on social mobility launches its first investigation tomorrow — and apprenticeships are set to be route of investigation. The group of a dozen Lords, chaired by Labour peer and former Bristol East MP Lady Corston (pictured above), will look into the transition from school to work. It will hear from officials from the […]

Trade Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady told delegates at the Unionlearn conference that fighting the “false economy of FE cuts” was “our first priority”. In her speech to today’s conference at Congress House, in central London, Ms O’Grady (pictured above) warned that the next five years will “test our mettle”. “Our first priority must be […]

This week learners from up and down the country are battling to be crowned apprentice team of the year in the fourth annual Brathay Apprenticeship Challenge final. The eight teams of nine apprentices have been whittled down from more than 800 entrants to earn a place on the finale on Lake Windermere in the Lake […]

The academy trust that was built up by Barnfield College has announced plans to sever its last link with the college by changing its name. The Barnfield Academy Trust, which formally split from Barnfield College in March, announced today a new name — the Shared Learning Trust. Trust chief executive Andrew Cooper said: “This is […]

The new memberships of the two parliamentary select committees which oversee FE have been provisionally announced. Iain Wright, the Labour MP for Hartlepool and new chair of the business, innovation and skills select committee, will be joined by Labour colleagues Paul Blomfield, the MP for Sheffield Central, newly-elected Hove MP Peter Kyle and Cardiff Central […]