Author: Billy Camden

Ofsted will have its powers and budget for FE inspections boosted after the government was embarrassed over apprenticeship accountability, FE Week can reveal. The watchdog will now be given potentially as much as £7 million to visit every new apprenticeship provider. Critically, it will also have the final say over quality. The decision been dubbed […]

The government has accepted that it did not have proper oversight of Learndirect, and has agreed to take action on all of the recommendations made by a public accounts committee inquiry held on it. Members of the committee grilled the organisations which have been closest to the debacle surrounding the nation’s biggest FE provider at […]

The funding rate for the controversial management degree apprenticeship is set to fall, following a review of the most popular standards. The Institute for Apprenticeships announced today that it will look at 31 standards (see table below), at request from the Department for Education. The IfA will now have 30 funding bands to choose from […]

Ofsted has taken a highly unusual decision to extend its inspection of NCG, suggesting that not all is well at the nation’s largest college group. Two teams of inspectors were sent in last Monday owing to achievement rate concerns, and they had been due to wrap up their investigations by the end of last week. […]

Apprentices from BAE Systems, Toyota and a Michelin star restaurant are among 22 of the country’s most skilled young people – selected to represent the UK at EuroSkills Budapest 2018. The team will fly to Hungary to battle it out against Europe’s best between September 26 and 28, in a broad spectrum of disciplines including […]

Portsmouth College principal Steve Frampton has been announced as the president-elect of the Association of Colleges. He will take over from current president Dr Alison Birkinshaw at the end of her one-year term on August 1. Mr Frampton, who the AoC says has a “lifelong passion” for post-16 education, has over 39 years’ experience in […]

London college bosses have hit out at London’s mayor Sadiq Khan after FE week revealed he plans to top-slice £3 million from the adult education budget to pay over 50 new bureaucrats from next year. The money will be siphoned from frontline learning to cover the wages of administrators managing AEB in the capital when […]

The quality of apprenticeships is in decline, Ofsted has said, and the programmes are starting to resemble the doomed Train to Gain initiative from the mid 00s. The inspectorate’s deputy director for FE and skills told MPs on the commons education select committee earlier this week that around half of inspections carried out so far […]

A new “sector-leading”  pay agreement – amounting to more than six per cent over three years – has been reached between Sandwell College and its staff. Members of the University and College Union had been meant to walk out for three days this week, having already been on strike for five days since February. This action […]