York College
‘apprenticeships’
A system of payments from the provider behind the UK’s biggest apprenticeship programme to the firm whose staff it trains has been given the green light by the Skills Funding Agency. Elmfield Training, which was allocated £41m by the agency for the current academic year, has previously defended the payments to giant supermarket chain Morrisons, […]
News
An 11-month government inquiry into apprenticeships has recommended a host of changes, including “closer scrutiny, careful monitoring or even complete reform”. The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee today published its report on apprenticeships. Click here to download the report. It has called for an “overarching government strategy and clear purpose for the apprenticeship programme,” along […]
No way, says Graham Hoyle. In its 10 years, the AELP has worked hard for smaller providers . . .after all, 40 per cent of its members have agency contract values of less than £1m. Peter Cobrin was certainly right to say that smaller independent training providers should be represented at the top table when […]
Opinion
The chances of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) agreeing to 50 per cent flexibility in adult skills budgets were very low — but if you don’t ask you don’t get, says Lady Sharp. The idea of the Innovation Code put forward in our report The Dynamic Nucleus – Colleges at the Heart of Local Communities, […]
Funding for a host of politically unpopular workplace qualifications is set to rise, with payments for one course rocketing 508 per cent. Click here for the list. Payments for more than 1,100 workplace qualifications (formerly known as Train to Gain) will rise this month as the Skills Funding Agency aims to simplify an “overly complicated” […]
One of the first Ofsted inspections under the new common inspection framework is to be disputed. Merseyside-based Central Training, which bills itself as one of the UK’s largest providers of vocational training and education, was inspected over five days from September 17. The company, which is made up of sports, skills, business and fitness divisions, […]
Uncategorized
Apprentice numbers in engineering and construction have plummeted while management apprenticeships have rocketed 45 per cent. Engineering, based on provisional figures for the full 2011/12 year, fell 30 per cent to 12,890, while construction dropped 18 per cent to 12,850. Their high points, respectively, were 20,700 apprenticeship starts in 2006/07 and 18,330 in 2010/11. The […]
A wide-ranging report from the Tory grandee Lord Heseltine (right) questions the role of the Skills Funding Agency, instead calling for devolved powers and funding to be handed to regions through local enterprise partnerships. The former deputy prime minister suggests that almost £48bn of government cash in different Whitehall departments should be placed in a […]
