Nick Linford | FE Week

Funding reform study finds employers unaware of apprenticeship costs

Government research on apprenticeship funding reform proposals has found that employers were generally in the dark about how much cash their providers got for training. As the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills looks at rerouting apprenticeship funding directly through employers so they can pay for training, its research found that most were unable to […]

Apprenticeships to the rescue of the High Street

Apprenticeships could help save the country’s “struggling” high streets, according to the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills select committee. Its report on the retail sector called on employers to be “more ambitious about skills training” with the aim of increasing the number of apprentices at level three and above. The report said the […]

Providers will ‘no longer be able to force employers to take training they want to offer’, says Gove

Routing apprenticeship funding directly to employers will mean providers can no longer “force employers to take whatever training they happen to want to offer,” Education Secretary Michael Gove has said. In a speech at the McLaren Technology Centre, in Woking, Surrey, today on the future of vocational education, he praised the apprenticeship review carried out […]

Apprentices get new NUS-backed pressure group

A new pressure group for apprentices has been launched by the National Union of Students (NUS). The National Society for Apprentices was officially launched today — day two of National Apprenticeship Week. The NUS said the aim of the new society was to champion the rights of apprentices and represent their views to government. An NUS […]

Government funding agencies publish reports on Barnfield Federation

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and Education Funding Agency (EFA) have this afternoon published findings from their investigations into alleged funding of “ghost learners” and financial mismanagement at Barnfield Federation. The SFA report explains how the federation’s college slashed funding claims by nearly £1m after the probe, by auditors KPMG, got under way. Among the […]

National Apprenticeship Week 2014

Download your free copy of the FE Week 16-page feature supplement focusing on National Apprenticeship Week 2014. Click here to download (5 mb) ———————————————————- Introduction Apprenticeships have long been the Coalition’s answer to the UK’s skills shortage, and in some ways, their efforts are paying off. Many of our experts in this National Apprenticeship Week supplement will give […]

Apprentice minimum wage cheat among those ‘named and shamed’

At least one apprentice employer was among the first batch to be “named and shamed” as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) gets tough on national minimum wage offenders. Peter Oakes, of Peter Oakes Ltd, Macclesfield; Lisa Maria Cathcart, of Salon Sienna, Manchester; Mohammed Yamin, of Minto Guest House, Edinburgh; Anne Henderson, of […]

Is linking funding to outcomes more trouble than it’s worth?

Using learner destination data to determine funding for FE is “fraught with difficulty,” according to Geoffrey Stanton. The recent Skills Funding Statement indicates that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is considering “how funding can be more strongly linked to outcomes in future”. In post-19 FE and training, funding is, of course, already […]

Sector pays warm tribute to FE champion Lord Bilston

Tributes have flooded in for Labour life peer Lord Bilston (pictured) who launched the all-party parliamentary group for FE and lifelong learning. Lord Bilston, who was MP for Wolverhampton South East for 18 years from 1987 before joining the House of Lords, has died, aged 71. He had been suffering from cancer since November and […]