Author: Billy Camden

Two former professional footballers and two other men have been found guilty of scamming colleges out of £5 million in apprenticeship funding, through a con which involved “ghost” learners. Mark Aizlewood (above right), who played for Wales 39 times in the 1980s and 1990s, and Paul Sugrue (above left), who played for clubs including Manchester […]

Around £25 million was given to providers entering the apprenticeship market for the first time in the controversial non-levy tender, Anne Milton has revealed. In her first monthly column for FE Week, the skills and apprenticeships minister makes a robust defence of the government’s approach to the procurement exercise, explaining how it was unavoidable due […]

Cash incentives of £1,000 are being offered to every employer who takes on apprentices caught up in the collapse of Carillion. The payments have been sourced by the Construction Industry Training Board in a £1.4 million package that sees firms receive £500 upfront, and a further £500 after six months if they’ve retained the displaced […]

Learndirect has entered redundancy talks with an unknown amount of its staff. A consultation on job losses was launched on Thursday, and is directly linked to the termination of its ESFA contracts which will end in July. “We have entered a period of consultation with a number of colleagues,” a spokesperson for the nation’s biggest […]

Colleges have been warned that they could be stripped of funding if they do not comply with the government’s new careers guidelines. Updated guidance was published this afternoon by the Department for Education following the unveiling of the long-overdue careers strategy in December, which said colleges need to meet eight “Gatsby Benchmarks”. It states that […]

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has today published a major report on how the region can close the education and skills attainment gap with the south. Chaired by former chancellor George Osborne, the organisation has a number of recommendations for improving FE. FE Week has pulled out the eight main findings. 1. “Bureaucracy” is to blame […]

Any former Carillion apprentice who is yet to find alternative employment following the collapse of the outsourcing giant will be paid after January, despite reports claiming this was not the case, the government has confirmed. A story by the Huffington Post on Monday claimed that the apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton had said payments […]

Colleges must all have access to funding for apprenticeships with smaller employers, according to the latest MP to weigh in on the non-levy tender debate. Jeremy Lefroy, the Conservative MP for Stafford, is the latest prominent voice to raise the issue in parliament after Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, which is in his constituency, was […]