Jude Burke | FE Week

Over £1m of public money paid in grants for failed mergers

More than a million pounds of public money has been spent on mergers that subsequently collapsed, FE Week analysis has revealed. Details of the area review transition grants awarded to general FE and sixth form colleges to date were finally published by the Department for Education today, after FE Week repeatedly pushed for the information […]

Area reviews in further education: a summary

Following publication of the final area review recommendations, Jude Burke recaps the two-year process What were the area reviews? In essence, area reviews were a restructuring of the post-16 education and training sector, initiated by the government, which ran from September 2015 until March 2017. Through a series of steering group meetings, further education and […]

BREAKING: Area review transition grant details published

Details of all the area review transition grants awarded to date have finally been published by the Department for Education – after repeated requests from FE Week for the information. The grants, worth either £50,000 or £100,000, were part of the package of financial support available to colleges and sixth form colleges to help them […]

Area review waves four and five recommendations published

Reports into the final two waves of the area reviews of post-16 education and training have finally been published – bringing the process to a close almost two years after it began. The 15 documents detailing the outcomes of the reviews in waves four and five of the process were made public today by the […]

DfE call for £600-a-day assessment consultants branded ‘recipe for failure’

The Department for Education is on the hunt for £600-a-day consultants to advise on the “suitability of proposed assessment plans” – despite that being the Institute for Apprenticeships’ role. And with the IfA and Ofqual also seeking experts for similar roles, the situation has been branded a “waste of public money” and a “recipe for […]

DfE refuses to reveal April apprenticeship starts

The Department for Education has refused to tell FE Week how many apprenticeship starts there were in April – even though the data is part of its official statistics. Figures published in early July showed 165,600 starts in the three months from February to April – up 52,700 from the same period last year. We […]

A busy day for mergers as 21 colleges join 10 partnerships

A record-breaking 10 partnerships involving 21 colleges have been made official today – making this the single busiest day ever for mergers. But that figure could have been much higher: at least seven further link-ups that had been set to go through today – the first day of the 2017/18 academic year – were held […]

Apprenticeship reforms and social mobility under the spotlight in new inquiry

Social mobility and the government’s apprenticeship reforms are set to come under the spotlight of a major new inquiry, led by education leaders, business and MPs, launched today. The investigation by the Skills Commission will focus on the impact of the reforms on the opportunities available to disadvantaged young people aged 16 to 24 as […]

IPPR: The apprenticeship levy needs a ‘radical rethink’

The apprenticeship levy needs a radical rethink to double investment in skills, according to a new report from a leading think-tank. The so-called “skills and productivity levy” proposed by the Institute for Public Policy Research would be paid by more employers, and spent on a wider range of training. It’s one of a number of […]