Author: Billy Camden

The Association of Colleges is to receive over £400,000 to teach staff in 12 colleges to deliver effective careers training for disadvantaged learners. The Careers & Enterprise Company today announced the first wave of organisations to benefit from a £2.5 million investment fund to support personal guidance in schools and colleges. Four organisations will share […]

The government is lobbying those in charge of controversial university technical colleges to move away from recruitment at 14, the academies minister has revealed. Lord Agnew (pictured) told the House of Lords today that he is “trying to encourage” Lord Baker, the founder of the UTC movement to “adjust the entry age of UTCs so […]

The chair of education select committee has urged the chancellor to “look very carefully” at the core level of funding for students in FE ahead of the budget and spending review. Robert Halfon (pictured) wrote to Philip Hammond today to highlight the stark disparity between funding for pre- and post-16 education. He stated that it […]

A recently merged college with historical cash problems has received a financial health notice to improve after the government assessed its monetary situation as “inadequate”. The Education and Skills Funding Agency hit North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College with the notice today following a “review of the financial plan” it submitted to the agency in […]

Crisis-hit Aspire Achieve Advance spent over £1.6 million of its mostly government-funded income on professional sports sponsorship deals. One of the deals, worth half a million pounds with Derbyshire Cricket Club, remains in play despite the launch of a police probe into the apprenticeship giant. The company, better known as 3aaa, went into administration yesterday […]

The co-founder of Aspire Achieve Advance has resigned from his position as chair of an academy trust, after the government referred his giant training provider to the police. FE Week revealed last night that Peter Marples had the backing of the Spencer Academies Trust, even though 3aaa was put into administration after the Education and […]

Ofsted is rating adult education in their monitoring visits of new apprenticeship providers – but the government doesn’t know if they’ll ban a provider if they’re making ‘insufficient progress’ in that theme alone. In August the Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed that any poor-performing provider with the rating in at least one of the […]

Crisis-hit Aspire Achieve Advance has gone into administration – putting 500 jobs and the future of 4,500 apprentices at risk, FE Week can reveal. The company, better known as 3aaa and one of the biggest apprenticeship providers in the country, has come to the end of its sale process and multiple bids were made. However, […]

The Department for Education has referred Aspire Achieve Advance to the police following its investigation into the crisis-hit provider. The company, known as 3aaa, was put into administration today following a second government investigation regarding claims about inflated achievement rates. This newspaper can now reveal that the DfE has referred their findings to the police […]