Author: Billy Camden

It was mostly a week of celebration for FE providers, as five rose to ‘good’ Ofsted ratings. Two of them achieved the feat in their first ever inspection. However, one private provider fell to the ‘inadequate’, and another was brutally criticised in Ofsted’s first early-monitoring visit report on a newcomer to apprenticeships, prompting ministerial intervention. […]

The Department for Education is backing HMRC’s decision to collect VAT on subcontracting management fees. The tax office has launched a major investigation into subcontracting to find out why primes have not been applying a mandatory 20-per-cent charge to their top-slices. The crackdown, which involves a team of around 20 special investigators, has rocked a […]

A new best-practice threshold for a 20-per-cent limit on subcontracting management fees has already been undermined, after multiple colleges and their representative body refused to comply. The guideline, agreed last week between the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Holex and Collab, a provider group, was conspicuously missing sign-off from the Association of Colleges, which […]

The chief executive of one of London’s largest colleges has announced plans to leave at the end of the academic year to take up the same position at a much smaller college in the south west. Garry Phillips will leave Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College in the summer in preparation for his move to […]

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers has washed its hands of the Education and Training Foundation, claiming it is “no longer an organisation run by the FE sector for the sector”. “We don’t feel the programme being proposed and funded by the DfE supports our membership,” said AELP boss Mark Dawe, who insisted the […]

Accusations of exam malpractice helped sealed the fate of a doomed studio school, according to “shocking” new board minutes. Documents from the Manchester Creative Studio, shown to FE Week, also reveal that former trustees retained access to the school’s bank account months after they left, and that staff were not given contracts until this academic […]

A “major” independent commission on lifelong learning has been launched by Vince Cable. The commission is designed to investigate the “best ways” to make sure adults have “access to learning and retraining throughout their lives”. It will consider “bold ideas” such as individual learning accounts, which “could offer adults a pot of money to be […]

The apprenticeship levy will generate £900 million less funding in its first four years than the government first claimed, according to economic forecasters. A new “economic and fiscal outlook” report from the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the tax will accumulate £10.7 billion by early 2021. This represents a major downgrade – of £900 million, […]

The government needs to get a grip on the “outrageous and unjustifiable” subcontracting market which has become a “money-maker” for training providers, a panel of FE experts has urged MPs. Robert Halfon (pictured above), the chair of the education select committee, asked witnesses during a parliamentary hearing this morning about the extent the delivery model, […]