FE Week Reporter | FE Week

RIBA Award for Westminster College

City of Westminster College Paddington Green Campus has won a prestigious 2011 RIBA Award. One of the most rigorously judged architectural awards schemes in the world, RIBA Awards are presented to buildings that display architectural excellence. Winners of Regional Awards are considered for entry to the RIBA Stirling Prize – the most prestigious architectural prize […]

Subcontracting: Incorporating the Guidance

You know your responsibilities to your funding body. But do your subcontractors know their responsibilities to you? FE institutions are funded by the Young Persons’ Learning Agency and the Skills Funding Agency (together “the Agencies”). The Agencies distribute their funds in accordance with the Funding Memorandum and/or the Conditions of Funding which are signed by […]

What has DWP done for the college sector?

Skills conditionality is, if anything, a greater threat to classroom-based adult learning than the removal of fee remission for those poor benighted souls on “inactive” benefits. As the outline of the programme stands at the moment, Department for Work and Pension (DWP) staff appear to be able to tell us what classes to run and […]

Construction funding rates take a hammering

The Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) has recently released a document called ‘ Changes to SLN values for specific ain in 2011/12 funding’. What does this mean you ask? Every year both the YPLA (for 16-18 year-olds) and the Skills Funding Agency (for adults) review the funding rates for all the qualifications that they fund. […]

Lauener to stay on

The Education Secratary, Michael Gove, has announced that Peter Lauener will become the first Chief Executive of the Education Funding Agency (EFA), from April 2012. Peter Lauener is the current Chief Executive of the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA), which was establish in April 2010 and is to be replaced by the EFA. The announcement […]

Highs and lows of 2010/11 quarter 3 reallocations

73% of providers ‘below performance’ This week the Skills Funding Agency published a document on their website called ‘Outcome of Performance Management at Quarter 3 2011’. This stated that “of the overall performance at quarter 3 [in 2010/11], 27% of providers were delivering at or above 100% performance and 73% were below”. For 16-18 apprenticeship […]

In at the deep end

No matter how buoyant academic life is most of the time, every college is likely to face a situation where an unforeseen crisisforces it to literally sink or swim. How the crisis is handled can make or break the institution’s reputation. And like it or not, the media is a major factor which has to […]

Concern at 12 week apprenticeships

Training providers are calling on the government to take a closer look at the so called fast-track apprenticeships that offer to train people in as little as 12 weeks. The Association of Learning Providers (ALP) has begun lobbying bodies such as the Skills Funding Agency after some of its members complained about short apprenticeship programmes […]