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 provision, £45m was recovered from underperforming colleges and training providers, and £17m has been redistributed. There was also £61.6m in business cases for additional provision for 2011/12, but “the Agency has not been able to confirm the funding position for all these cases until we have discussed them with Department for Education colleagues.”
For adult (19+) provision, £37m was recovered from underperforming colleges and training providers, of which £18m has been released “to fund all the growth requests including some work place learning”. However, the Skills Funding Agency state that “we have not been able to agree at this time any additional funding for new 25+ Apprenticeship starts…we want the sector to continue to focus on growth for those aged 19-24.”
£82m has been recovered from underperforming providers, with £35m released to fund growth requests”
The document goes on to say that they believe the current adult allocations for 2011/12 “are currently sufficient to meet the level of demand for adult apprenticeships and are not agreeing any additional growth requests at this time.”
The Skills Funding Agency has published individual college and provider allocation figures on their website, and it is anticipated that they will do so again for Quarter 3 revisions.
Your thoughts