A college has been issued with a financial notice to improve after requesting exceptional financial support.
The notice brings Vision West Nottinghamshire College into scope for referral to the FE commissioner for an assessment of the college’s “capability and capacity” to make the changes it needs to make.
Guidance from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) states that exceptional financial support will only be considered after the college has exhausted “all other options”, including increasing income and reducing expenditure, as well as realising assets and raising new commercial finance.
The college's leaders must now comply with a set of demands issued by the ESFA, including submission of finance and accounts information in a timely manner, as well as meeting regularly with the funding agency.
The college told Tes that the notice was triggered after it received a loan of £2.1 million from the ESFA.
Principal 'confident' of turnaround
Dame Asha Khemka (pictured), the college's principal and chief executive, said: “Like many others in the sector, the college has experienced some financial difficulties as a result of a national change to apprenticeship funding and delivery methods – in particular, the removal of subcontracting, which had been a major part of our model. This resulted in the college implementing a staffing restructure, with close to 100 colleagues having left the organisation towards the end of last academic year through a combination of redundancy and voluntary redundancy.
“While the restructure was intended to rebalance the college’s finances, the full impact of savings will not be realised until 2018-19. This led to the college finding itself in a position of needing a short-term loan from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, which was provided in July of this year.”
She added: “The college’s plan for financial recovery, which led to the restructure, was also based on us meeting student enrolment targets in 2018-19. Early indications are that we are well on track to do so. Despite the challenges the college has faced, I am confident we will continue to serve our local communities as a vibrant institution that provides high-quality education and training to local people and employers.”
