Author: Billy Camden

A college has called in the lawyers to recover a long-running £1.4 million debt held up in Nigeria, after a secretive technical education project in the country went pear-shaped. Highbury College, which recently sold one of its prime learning centres in Portsmouth for a hugely reduced price to balance the books, has launched a number […]

A college in financial difficulty has ended the use of corporate cards for senior staff after its former high-profile principal claimed more than £40,000 in expenses over the last five years. The “lavish” spending by Dame Asha Khemka at West Nottinghamshire College included numerous visits to fine-dining restaurants, five-star hotels and a private members’ club. […]

The Department for Education has published new guidance on the controversial 20 per cent off-the-job training rule for apprentices, which attempts to bust certain “myths”. The policy, which requires apprentices to spend a fifth of their week on activities related to their course that are different to their normal working duties, has split the FE […]

The government has revealed plans for its first ever FE workforce survey exclusively for non-colleges to better understand the challenges they face, including new policy areas such as T-levels. A tender was launched by the Department for Education on Monday, which seeks a contractor to design, test and deliver a “nationally representative” survey of teaching […]

A college that saw its Ofsted grade slip two years ago while it battled with deteriorating finances has got its ‘good’ rating back following a mega-merger. Bournville College was warned by former FE Commissioner David Collins of its “hand-to-mouth” financial situation in 2014 and was downgraded by the inspectorate to ‘requires improvement’ overall and ‘inadequate’ […]

The government has begun inviting providers to reapply to its refreshed apprenticeship provider register – with the first group told it must do so by the end of next month or face being kicked off. All 2,571 organisations currently on the register will be segmented into groups and told to reapply throughout this year – […]

A month-long FE Week investigation has uncovered a trail of insolvency and debt left by two businessmen, David Harper and Mark Hargreaves, who’ve created a complex web of companies involving Talent Training and AMS Nationwide which received millions in apprenticeship funding from the government. Questions are now being raised over why a multinational employer, Santander, […]

The Institute for Apprenticeships is seeking input from providers, awarding organisations and employers on the draft content for five more T-level pathways. The new consultation is for courses in building services engineering, digital business services, health, healthcare science, and science, which are expected to be taught from September 2021 in wave two of the T-levels […]

The police will only decide whether to launch a criminal investigation into disgraced apprenticeship firm Aspire Achieve Advance after the Department for Education “has completed its work”. Derbyshire Constabulary started making enquiries into the defunct company, better known as 3aaa, on October 11, following a referral from Action Fraud. The case was passed on by […]