apprenticeships | FE Week

ESFA insists the apprenticeship budget is not under pressure

The top apprenticeship civil servant has sought to reassure the sector after fears were raised of a budget overspend this year, as part of a wide-ranging interview with FE Week. Keith Smith, director of apprenticeships at the ESFA, said he was “not expecting any pressures” on the £2 billion budget this year, in response to […]

Redesigned RoATP to open tomorrow despite no delivery from 1 in 3 approved providers

Almost a third of providers on the government’s register did not deliver any apprenticeships last year, FE Week analysis has revealed – the day before the redesigned register re-opens for applications. There were 1,787 providers on the register of apprenticeship training providers in 2017, of whom 580 – or 32 per cent – had no […]

DfE figures reveal colleges hit hardest by move to apprenticeship levy funding

Colleges were hit hardest by the move to apprenticeship levy funding, FE Week analysis of new figures published by the Department for Education have revealed. The statistics, which included the number of starts per provider for the first time, showed that colleges’ share of the market dropped from 31 to 26 per cent from 2016/17 to […]

Apprenticeship quality remains a ‘mixed picture’, says Ofsted’s Paul Joyce

In July the prime minister claimed that apprenticeship quality had risen since the introduction of the levy and standards – even though Ofsted had found the reverse. Five months on from Theresa May’s comments in parliament, FE Week editor Nick Linford asked Paul Joyce, Ofsted deputy director for FE and skills, if things have improved. […]

Trailblazer group alarm over funding band reviews

A trailblazer group chair has warned that its “years of hard work” in developing two apprenticeships standards could be undone, after they were included in the Institute for Apprenticeships’ second funding band review. The level two supply chain warehouse operative and large goods vehicle driver standards were among 30 standards named on the list announced […]

DfE pauses publication of monthly apprenticeship starts

The Department for Education has yet to reveal how many people have started apprenticeships in 2018/19 – even though it had been publishing monthly updates until now. Provisional figures for the final month of 2017/18 were published in October, and numbers for August – the first month of 2018/19 – were expected alongside today’s final […]

Apprenticeships starts down nearly a quarter last year

Apprenticeship numbers fell by almost a quarter last year compared to the year before, according to final figures published by the Department for Education this morning. There were 375,800 apprenticeship starts in 2017/18, a drop of 118,600 – or 24 per cent – on 2016/17’s total of 494,400, and a decrease of 26 per cent […]

DfE urgently seeking answers to why level two apprenticeships fell by 38%

The Department for Education is urgently seeking to “improve understanding” of what’s behind the drop in level two apprenticeships, as the latest statistics show numbers have fallen by more than a third in the space of a year. There were just 161,400 starts at level two in 2017/18, according to the final apprenticeship figures for […]

Levy budget bust: Government agency warns of imminent apprenticeship over-spend

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. […]