Author: Alix Robertson

A prominent campaigner for more black and Asian college principals has warned against “reinventing the wheel” — after a government review into ethnic minority workers came too late to save her group. Rajinder Mann, (pictured), who led the Network for Black and Asian Professionals (NBAP) from 2013 until it was forced to close due to […]

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has written to a third of prime providers, after it was unable to find evidence they had complied with its subcontracting rules. The SFA today confirmed that it has notified around 300 non-compliant colleges and training organisations that their subcontracting arrangement for 2016 to 2017 will be restricted. These restrictions […]

[A complaint was received from Sunaina Mann on 31 May, in terms that our Article suggests that Ms Mann corruptly handed a secret consultancy contract to her own husband.  Ms Mann denies that there was any non-disclosure or that she promoted or oversaw the contract and says that any conflict of interest was properly taken […]

Sadiq Khan, the new mayor of London, has spoken out in support of the “neglected” FE sector — telling FE Week that he will be a “champion” for its work. Mr Khan secured his new post after convincingly beating the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith by 1,310,143 votes to 994,614 on May 7. He has now […]

There are now more than 50 apprenticeship training agencies (ATAs) — but confusion surrounds how many apprentices each one is working with. A dozen organisations were awarded a share of £7m by the National Apprenticeship Service to establish the first ATAs through a pilot scheme in 2009, as part of a drive to encourage more […]

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has pulled the delayed national achievement rate tables (NART) for providers from its website, after FE Week alerted it to a series of errors in the data. The long-awaited tables were uploaded this morning, but a number of mistakes led the agency to take the information down again until they […]

FE has drawn the spotlight of the national press, after the government refused to rule out a hike in the levy after its launch next April. City A.M.’s front page today raised concern that the chancellor could look to raise extra income from businesses – through new revenue raising measures, including a potential increase of […]

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) publishes a monthly update on notices of concern, which FE Week will report on regularly in our new ‘SFA Warning’ section. The latest to be added to the list on May 10 were Cornwall College and Tower Hamlets College, which received notices for financial health and minimum standards respectively. Tower […]

LATEST: Nescot accepts former £360k a year principal was unfairly dismissed The college with the best-paid principal in the country initially understated her salary to the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) by £27,000 — before accurate figures revealed that she earns £358,000 a year. The salary of Sunaina Mann, principal and chief executive officer of the […]