This comes a week after her launch of the Ofsted report for twelve Outstanding providers of work-based learning where she stated “the organisations display a real drive to inspire, challenge, and support young people and adult learners. While their paths to success may vary, they have each made an important contribution to addressing the critical issue of developing skills for employment, while also helping employers to compete in a tough economic environment.”

“These outstanding providers have worked hard to build the respect of learners and employers”

Click HERE to view Haringey Independent’s article

The Bronze, Silver and Gold standard accreditation was announced on 6th May 2009 as part of a new assessment process that would provide these three new tiers that sit above the existing standard and aim to promote a much higher level of achievement.

Since the introduction of these tiers, a reassessment of 5E Ltd. found that we have achieved Gold, the highest rating attainable from Investors in People.

In detail, the Gold standard is recognition that we have achieved the standard plus 126 additional evidence requirements or more as per the IIP assessment procedure.

The evidence requirements for the IIP framework can be found HERE

Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector

Ofsted publish the ‘Twelve outstanding providers of work-based learning’ report, showcasing twelve outstanding work-based learning providers that excel at providing apprenticeships, NVQs and other vocational qualifications for young people and adults.

The report was launched by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert at the Association of Learning Providers’ annual conference. She highlighted how the best training providers in areas such as manufacturing, retail, hospitality and IT, are meeting the skills needs of both learners and employers, while reflecting on Ofsted’s role in identifying and sharing examples of excellent performance to help support improvement.

While some of the providers featured may already have reputations as national centres of excellence, others have a lower profile. The success for all of them, however, has been built on ensuring the technical skills and industry experience of staff is constantly updated. Good relationships with business, intimate knowledge of industry sectors, and the training programmes matched to the needs and demands of employers were central components of these providers’ success”.

The twelve outstanding work-based learning providers are:

Aspire Training Team, British Gas Energy Academy, Andrew Collinge Training, Davidson Training UK, Gateshead College, Hospitality Training Partnership, Intraining, Skillnet, Training Services 2000, Warwickshire College, Zenos and 5E.

The new Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, John Hayes from the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) has since congratulated 5 E Ltd. on this successful achievement – the PDF of the letter can be downloaded HERE

The Ofsted report for these twelve outstanding providers can be downloaded HERE

This is a fantastic achievement with which we hope to achieve more and open up as many opportunities as possible for those seeking training courses, advice and guidance and job search support!

You can view the complete list of registered sponsors of education at the following link – this is updated regularly:

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/pointsbasedsystem/registerofsponsorseducation

This action-packed edition will contain two sets of study tips – one for Organisation Resource Management (Postgraduate Diploma unit) and one which covers both Introduction to Marketing and Principles of Marketing.

The magazine will also contain a test which is aimed at helping you discover what type of ‘learner’ you are and what techniques are most effective for you. As well as the usual updates about university progression routes and important ABE news, in our regular feature we Focus on…Cameroon.

So keep your eye out for your copy of Student Focus – the magazine written specifically for you as an ABE student.

The Suggested Answers and the Exam Reports will follow. These will be available after the publication of the June 2010 results.

The Survey, by the Institute of Financial Accountants (IFA), which will be released on 24^th June, canvassed the opinions of IFA members. The IFA currently has over 10,000 members.

Questions focused on the plight of small businesses in post-recession UK. The challenges businesses claim they are facing include:

• attracting new business/clients
• finding and affording good staff
• rising taxes
• HMRC bureaucracy and poor service, online and by telephone, taking up non-chargeable time.
• Competition from companies providing extremely low quotes.
• Finding lenders – banks frequently refuse reasonable lending applications.

George Derbyshire from National Federation of Enterprise Agencies said:

“There is no question that a thriving small business sector will be central to economic recovery, and the IFA and its members are uniquely well-placed to test the temperature of the sector. The findings of the Barometer Survey provides an agenda not only for the Government, but for all of us who work to support small businesses.”

IFA Members were asked what their experience was of the willingness of banks to lend. Only 2.6% said they were ‘very willing’. Whereas almost 37% said they were unwilling and a resounding 25% claimed to be ‘very unwilling’.

The general feeling is that banks are too risk averse. They are not flexible and SMEs are finding it almost impossible to obtain credit. When banks do lend it is always accompanied by strict personal guarantees, excessive charges, bigger deposits, and shorter loan periods.

Overall, the number of people claiming unemployment benefits fell last month for the fourth month running, according to the ONS. Commenting on the figures, David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said: “These figures are slightly better than expected, but they still highlight worrying trends in the UK labour market.

“Unemployment is up, the level of inactivity has increased further, and the number of people working part-time because they could not find a full-time job has reached a record high.”

He suggested that the coalition government needed to address ways to create more jobs in the private sector in order to help reduce the unemployment rate. The government needs to impose an “immediate freeze” on public sector wages, he added.

The new coalition government is already committed to cutting the country’s record peace time deficit, but these new figures will add even greater emphasis. The OBR says the structural deficit – the part of the deficit that is not automatically reduced by economic growth – will widen from Labour prediction of 7.3% of GDP in 2010-11 to 8%. However, it also predicts that that the UK’s public deficit will fall, down to 10.5% of GDP in the 2010-11 financial year, from the 11.1% estimated by Labour.

Chancellor George Osborne will outline spending cuts in greater detail when he unveils his emergency Budget on June 22nd.