Author: Billy Camden

The Department for Education has put out yet another survey on how reforms to apprenticeship funding are affecting employers and training providers today – the fifth such consultation in four years, under four different ministers. Described as a “short” questionnaire, the DfE is asking 32 questions on the impact of the apprenticeship levy. This latest […]

A 10,000-learner provider on the brink of collapse after it lost 97 per cent of its funding has been “assured” the government is discussing “options” to reverse the cut – but there’s been no change yet. On Monday, bosses at Somerset Skills & Learning were joined by four Somerset MPs and various county council representatives […]

Somerset MPs held an emergency meeting on Wednesday with the skills minister to reverse the massive £3.3 million funding cut imposed on a 10,000-learner community-based provider. Four of the county’s five Conservative MPs, Marcus Fysh, James Heappey, Rebecca Pow and David Warburton, met with Anne Milton to “urgently review” the 97 per cent cut to […]

A former Wales international footballer and three other men conspired to scam colleges and the government out of around £5 million of apprenticeship funding, in some cases faking “ghost learners”, a court has heard. Mark Aizlewood, aged 57, from Aberdare, who played for Wales 39 times in the 1980s and 1990s, appeared today before Southwark […]

The Learndirect saga has taken a fresh twist today, after a government spokesperson admitted that the nation’s largest FE provider submitted and then withdrew a bid to the adult education budget tender, contrary to previous briefings. It emerged yesterday that despite its recent ‘inadequate’ from Ofsted, Learndirect would receive another £45 million from the AEB […]

A large adult community learning provider in Somerset has found itself at the sharp end of the adult education budget chaos, after its funding was slashed to just three per cent of its previous level. Somerset Skills & Learning, which teaches around 10,000 students and has around 200 staff, won a new AEB contract in […]

The government is refusing to release a crucial report that would show whether or not the forecasting tool it has developed to predict apprenticeship starts is actually working. The Department for Education is suppressing a report that scrutinises the model it uses to anticipate starts at large and small employers, even while arguments still rage […]