Author: Billy Camden

The skills minister has told college leaders that they need to use their money and resources “wisely” before making the case for more funding to the Treasury. Addressing the Association of Colleges conference in Birmingham today, Anne Milton (pictured) said that “all too often I sign off on requests for emergency financial support” and there […]

High street giant Boots has been hit with a third ‘requires improvement’ rating in a row by Ofsted. Inspectors who visited the employer provider in early October to monitor its apprenticeship provision criticised it for not learning lessons quickly enough from previous poor inspections in June 2015 and then again in June 2017. However, the […]

Schools with sixth forms have been exposed as failing to provide students the same level of careers advice as schools without sixth forms, with experts concerned competition for pupils amid stagnating funding is fuelling the situation. Exclusive analysis for FE Week shows schools with sixth forms are 16 percentage points less likely to give students […]

A scandal involving one of the country’s biggest apprenticeship providers has engrossed the sector ever since the turn of this academic year – but details on exactly what caused it have been few and far between. FE Week can now reveal just why Aspire Achieve Advance, better known as 3aaa, which had around 4,500 learners […]

Concern over thousands of apprentices without a regulator responsible for checking the quality of their training is being reviewed by the National Audit Office. FE Week revealed last week that providers who deliver level 6 and 7 apprenticeships that have no prescribed HE qualification, such as a degree, and are not on the Office for […]

The Sixth Form Colleges Association is urging the government to keep the option for its members to convert to academy status open indefinitely, as the “arbitrary” deadline for doing so fast approaches. Becoming an academy, and in doing so enjoying the luxury of not paying VAT, has been a possibility for nearly all SFCs since […]

Both Ofsted and the government are looking into a mysterious training provider after FE Week revealed it has secured multi-million-pound subcontracting deals despite employing fewer than 10 staff, it is understood. SCL Security Ltd, a private provider based in Kent that is run by Andrew Merritt, has taken £16.5 million from Brooklands College over the […]

Almost two thirds of university technical colleges overestimated their student numbers last year and will have to repay funding to the government, with five owing more than half a million pounds each. A freedom of information request has revealed that a total of 30 of the 49 UTCs which are still open drastically misjudged their […]

Five struggling colleges have been hit with a notice to improve by the government this morning, after they were all assessed to have “inadequate” financial health. Three of the warning notices have been dished out to North Hertfordshire College, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, and Coulsdon Sixth Form College after they requested an unspecified […]