SFA | FE Week - Part 3

Funding axe for provider following FE Week investigation

A training provider whose parent company hit FE Week’s front page after it went bust, leaving learners unable to complete courses and a complicated multimillion-pound trail of debt, has had its contract with the Skills Funding Agency cancelled. The public funding axe has now fallen on Options 2 Workplace, and an SFA spokesperson has confirmed its name will also be removed […]

Reports of discrimination at SFA double in a year

Levels of reported discrimination in a key FE government agency have doubled in a year, an annual staff survey has revealed. Ten per cent of respondents from the Skills Funding Agency to this year’s Civil Service People Survey said they had personally experienced discrimination at work in the previous 12 months. This compares with just […]

Cost of Digital Apprenticeship Service revealed

The government expects to spend at least £12.5m on delivering its new Digital Apprenticeship Service, FE Week can reveal. The budget will cover both costs to the Skills Funding Agency and suppliers of services such as web development and user research, according to the Department for Education. A DfE spokesperson told FE Week: “The cost of building […]

Rise in SFA contracts for small providers

Plans to cut the number of recipients of Skills Funding Agency cash have been shelved in an attempt to increase the provider base for degree and higher-level apprenticeships, and advanced learner loans. A total of 1,023 providers received direct SFA funding this academic year, up from 984 at the start of 2015/16. The SFA first attempted to introduce a […]

SFA approve just 13% of apprentice assessment organisation applications

Organisations applying to the government’s new register of apprenticeship assessment organisations are being turned away because their plans for end-point assessment are not up to scratch, according to the new interim chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships, Peter Lauener. Mr Lauener (pictured above right), who is also chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency and Education […]

Employers more satisfied with private training providers than colleges

Private training providers will be patting themselves on the back this week, following Skills Funding Agency research that revealed they are significantly more popular with employers than general FE colleges. Training providers scored a massive 83.9 per cent for employer satisfaction according to the results of the latest SFA employer satisfaction survey, while colleges’ rating […]