Train journeys to Birmingham, Leeds and Selby this week – so watch out for the word count!! One of my earliest memories in FE was soon after Incorporation and I was Head of Corporate Services at Canterbury College. There was great excitement as Nicky Clarke was coming to the college to open our new hair and beauty salon (now aged 60 by the way but still looking as youthful as ever – google him!). He was the main man in hairdressing at that time. One of the students had written to him and he

How much more positive could you get!!! It’s been fascinating fishing around trying to find decent research that links skills and apprenticeships to improving productivity in companies. There are several anecdotes and some reports that reference it, and everyone agrees it is true, but it seems to be limited research. We continue to look but, if any member knows of anything, PLEASE send it through to us. It is vital in nailing Treasury support for the growth of apprenticeships going forward –

What a time to be at the various political parties conferences. As the Supreme Court’s ruling was announced I was sitting in a labour fringe. Mobile phones pinged and the whole place erupted into applause and it wasn’t because I was saying how great apprenticeships were. I don’t think we will remember 2019 for the game changing impact of degree apprenticeships on HE somehow!! Labour conference There is a report lower down on some of the events we attended in Brighton. One message that was

IfATE’s Rob Nitsch was rightly proud of his diary prowess this week, sending me a calendar invite, details of location etc all on his own as his assistant was away – I suggested if he keeps that up he might even be able to enrol on Business Admin level 2. It was the same day Keith Smith advertised for a diary manager at £32k – this really does feel like a post that could have been an apprentice – level 2 or if necessary level 3. Let’s not forget the DfE were recruiting eleven L2 Business Admin

Had a great meeting this morning with Liverpool Combined Authority, the local provider network and members of our devolution working group. What is clear is there is a lot to play for. Most of the combined authorities have spoken about this year being a transition year – not destabilising, ensuring payments work, building capacity in the authorities and the provider base. Each authority is taking different approaches to sub-contractors and range of other rules and we are slowly building up a

I am writing this waiting for the spending review, or spending round as it has been described, wondering whether the government has given any thought as to how they are going to fund the hole in non-levy apprenticeships. We have had the extra £400m for FE announced earlier. Any new money to FE has to be welcomed and I am sure many of our members who offer study programmes will be pleased. It shows that FE is on the radar of the Treasury, Number 10 and DfE which is good (and the chancellor men

I am sitting at Kazan Airport at 6am (that’s 4am your time) and it seems a good way to pass the time before our flight and to write the intro to countdown – so sorry if it is a little chatty and slightly tired. We were celebrating Team UK winning four medals and fifteen medallions of excellence and got back to the hotel at 1am this morning. Full details of the results are below but look how the WorldSkills UK press release starts: “Team UK - The UK’s top young students & apprentices (and for

Firstly thank you to Simon for doing a great job while I was away. We were going to do a ‘Countdown lite’ over the summer but to be honest the flow of information / change has been relentless! I am writing this as I prepare to fly off to Russia, as a WorldSkills UK board member, to support our WorldSkills UK team in Kazan, as well as share with many other countries their experiences of running a skills system and apprenticeships – there’s always something to learn. The one thing I do know