List of notices of concern and serious breach of contract published for first time

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has published a list of live notices of concern and serious breach of contract for the first time.

The information contained in a table unveiled today on the agency’s website features 62 providers in total.

That number includes 47 general FE colleges, nine local authorities, five independent learning providers and a single specialist designated institution (download full list from here).

An SFA spokesperson told FE Week: “It is the first time a list has been published. We will be publishing updated data on the first working day of every month from now on.”

A note on the table added: “When a notice is lifted, or a schedule of a notice is lifted, it will not be included in the next published list.”

It comes after Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive, Stewart Segal, said in a webinar on January 26 that “various reports suggest up to 90 colleges may fall into the [serious financial difficulties] category”.

He added that he hoped “we can save much of that £100m going into the sector to make sure it can continue” through the Government’s post-16 area reviews.

FE Week asked the SFA about the 90 colleges and £100m fund on the same day.

It took them two days to send over the following response that did not deny the Government had told sector stakeholders, including AELP, about the 100m figure before Christmas: “These are out of date forecasting figures. We will reassess the position when we have financial plans later in the year.”

It neglected to respond over the 90 colleges that Mr Segal said were in financial difficulties.

We asked repeatedly for further information over the following week, which led to an SFA spokesperson adding the following before FE Week went to press last night: “We will soon be publishing a list of colleges under notice of concern and providers under a breach notice.”

“The SFA considers FE college exceptional financial support on a case by case bases depending on the type of exceptional financial support requested, as detailed in the government’s FE College: Exceptional Financial Support document,” she added.

Here’s a summary of the type of institutions the notices were issued to: