York College
‘apprenticeships’
The skills minister has said she will “look at whether it is right” for the government to “continue to fund all apprenticeships”. Anne Milton made the remarks as part of a wide-ranging video interview with Association of Colleges’ boss David Hughes this afternoon, after she was unable to stay for questions at the association’s annual […]
News
The funding bands for a further 30 apprenticeship standards have gone up for review today. The new list (see table below), revealed by the Institute for Apprenticeships on its website, includes two standards currently set at £27,000 – the maximum upper limit, meaning their rates can only fall. The institute expects the full review to […]
The drop in the percentage of training providers rate good by Ofsted is a direct consequence of the government’s sloppy approach to approving new providers, says Mark Dawe Now that the cat is out of the bag on the true state of levy funding, it is very useful to have Ofsted’s input on where the […]
Opinion
A major new apprenticeship provider has gone bust following a scathing Ofsted monitoring report which found its directors were claiming funding for delivering little to no training. FE Week understands the company, AMS Nationwide Ltd, had its contracts terminated by the Education and Skills Funding Agency when the findings were revealed to officials. The private […]
Amanda Spielman has amplified Ofsted’s concern that too much apprenticeship levy funding is being spent on higher levels, which is squeezing out the recruitment of young people onto lower level programmes. The chief inspector (pictured) raised the issue in her second annual report, published this morning. “We are concerned that in many cases, levy money […]
Amanda Spielman presented her second annual report as Ofsted’s chief inspector this morning. She used it to highlight improvement in overall FE outcomes in the face of funding pressures, as well as concerns that the apprenticeship levy isn’t being used as intended. FE Week has the nine key findings for FE and skills providers. […]
The apprenticeships budget for England is set to be overspent by £0.5 billion this year, rising to £1.5 billion during 2021/22, according to the government agency for apprenticeships. The warning from the Institutes for Apprenticeships follows a refusal from the Department for Education last month to answer FE Week’s questions concerning the full levy costs. […]
A second batch of apprenticeship standards will have their funding bands put up for review from tomorrow. The Institute for Apprenticeships informed trailblazer groups of the plan on Friday, but it is not known at this stage how many standards will be included. It follows the launch of the institute’s first funding band review in […]
Multiple awarding organisations are investigating an apprenticeship provider to church community groups after Ofsted raised potential misuse of funding concerns in a damning ‘inadequate’ report this week. Inspectors found that Touchstone Educational Solutions Ltd, which has Education and Skills Funding Agency contracts totalling more than £2 million, worked with employers who did not recognise the […]
