Jessica Fino | FE Week

Ofsted watch: 8 out of 10 providers celebrate positive reports

It has been a very successful week for FE providers, with eight out of the 10 reports published by Ofsted showcasing great strides in their provision. The most glowing report came in for First Intuition Cambridge Limited, a private provider which was found making ‘significant progress’ in all themes judged during an early monitoring visit […]

Government to fully-fund college pension cost increase

The Department for Education has today revealed it will provide extra funding to cover the rise in pension contributions for colleges. The announcement followed a consultation launched in January, where the department asked feedback on its proposals to support certain education institutions with the increase to pension scheme in 2019/20. The DfE had previously said […]

Apprenticeship funding band reviews to include updated ‘affordability measures’ in wake of budget warnings

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is updating its ‘affordability measures’ when making funding band recommendations. Minutes published this week for their approval and funding committee, dated 21 March, say the Digital and Data Science Team “gave an update about work to improve the affordability measures, which will be further developed over the next […]

Bidders remain in the dark as DfE delays Institutes of Technology tender results

The Institutes of Technology tender has fallen behind schedule, with the final 16 providers left waiting to be told if they have been successful. The Department for Education released the final stage two of the £170 million competition in October last year, and said it expected to announce the outcome in March 2019. But FE […]

Revealed: The winners and losers in the £170m Institutes of Technology competition

The Department for Education has today unveiled the colleges and universities in line for a share of £170m in capital funding and a licence to be named an Institute of Technology. One day after FE Week reported delays in its competition process, due for announcement last month, the department revealed the names of the first […]

Chartered Institute of FE admits to having no employees

The Chartered Institution for Further Education has been left with no employees after its CEO quietly stood down in December. FE Week had been attempting without success to contact the CIFE for several weeks concerning their 2017-18 annual report and accounts, which remain unpublished. Speaking to FE Week this morning, Dan Wright said there are […]

Ofsted watch: UTC jumps from ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’

A university technical college was celebrating this week after it climbed its way up from ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’, while six other providers also secured grade two ratings. But the week wasn’t without its lows, as one provider dropped to ‘inadequate’, three received ‘insufficient’ ratings in early monitoring reports, and another fell from grade one to […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 277

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Amanda Melton, Member, Independent Commission on the College of the Future Start date: March 2019 Concurrent job: Principal and chief executive, Nelson and Colne College Interesting fact: She is aiming to complete 5K runs at 50 different parkrun locations in UK and abroad, and has completed […]

Creeping complexity has reached critical levels in FE

There is a theme across four stories in FE Week today which combined might suggest there is a critical business problem with funding rules and data requirements – complexity. Let’s look at the stories in turn. 1. ESFA finds achievement rate data ‘unreliable’. Behind the scenes the ESFA audit teams continue to grapple with providers […]