A combined authority has dramatically abandoned its adult education budget procurement for this academic year.
In an unprecedented move, West Yorkshire Combined Authority has cancelled its AEB tender for 2024/25, 22 days after contracts were due to start.
Training providers have been left hanging as WYCA promised a full review of its tender documentation after complaints and “substantial challenges” over the procurement scoring led to a re-evaluation of bids earlier this year.
The combined authority said it received letters challenging the “validity” of the procurement process and after a re-evaluation, continuing the contract award would not be “expedient or in the public interest”.
WYCA now plans to completely re-start the procurement process, pushing training contract start dates back by five months to January next year.
This means the region will see a reduced amount of training provision compared to what was planned, although the combined authority is understood to be exploring whether it can fill some gaps through existing providers.
Earlier this summer, the WYCA made the highly unusual move to “rewind” its adult education budget procurement, due to start on August 1, after it had already informed the winners on May 14.
Just two weeks later, it had received complaints from providers accusing WYCA of unfairness over how competing bids were scored.
It means that two “intention to award” letters to successful providers, the first in May and the second on August 2, have now been cancelled.
In the letter today, the WYCA said the re-evaluation decision was “the correct action to take at the time”.
“However, from the communication received it would appear that this has undermined confidence in the process as a whole,” the combined authority added.
“In this situation the combined authority do not consider continuing with the award to its conclusion would be expedient or in the public interest. To this end, a decision has been made to abandon, cancel and not award the contract(s) and to review the tender documents in their entirety before going back out to tender for the combined authority’s future requirements.”
They added: “We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope that this does not deter you from bidding for future opportunities.”
The exact value of the tender, which is for adult education budget (AEB) contracts in 2024/25, is £7 million.
Separate pots from the AEB, including £3.7 million for ‘targeted commissioning’ are understood to be in place.
The authority has also set aside a £2.7 million ‘responsiveness’ pot for provision that should align with its economic strategy and priorities.
FE Week understands that the combined authority had slimlined the number of successful providers to just nine, down from 19 private providers last year.
WYCA’s published allocations from last year indicate it had already confirmed its provider funding allocations by March – months before the August 1 contract start date.
A WYCA spokesperson said: “A West Yorkshire Combined Authority spokesperson said: “We have strict checks and balances in place to protect taxpayers’ money.
“Ninety percent of our adult skills fund has been successfully commissioned and will benefit learners across West Yorkshire from September.
“Our procurement for the remaining ten percent will be repurposed and sharpened to meet any emerging gaps in skills provision from January next year.”
The combined authority, which has a population of 2.3 million, is run by Labour mayor Tracey Brabin and has had devolved control of its adult education budget of about £66 million since 2021.
The majority of WYCA’s adult education budget is distributed to colleges and local authorities in the region.
AEB funded training delivered by private providers in West Yorkshire includes short courses in construction, telecommunications and customer services.
This is an absolute joke,
It is clear the CA is trying their best to get certain providers a contract and this is their way to support those funding mayoral campaigns!!!
They are trying to cut out the bigger ITPs due to some well connected ITPs with political contacts not getting in.
What happens when the successful providers from BOTH opportunities are no longer successful!!? How would that be a fair process!!! Shame on WYCA
People need to lose their jobs for the complete shambles of this. The AEB team need a good looking into!
The staff turnover, demotion and bullying allegations in the team now all make sense
This needs a full investigation
Something very dodgy is going on, clearly the CA are not happy with those chosen and are plucking at straws for excuses to abandon
Disgusting behaviour from the CA
I advise we all write to brabin where is her pledge for skills now
Colleges are turning away students due to lack of spaces and limited enrolment periods – the statement alone contradicts the facts on ground – sort yourselves out WYCA!!!
Having been one of the successful ITPs the response and communication from WYCA is shambolic.
Luckily my account manager has the decency to tell me what’s really going on however the senior managers in team are not helpful at all and no communication
From them.
Some ITPs only managed to get in through falsifying their social value which meant smaller honest ITPs have lost out.
The power of devolution?? Shambles of devolution!!!
Disgusting and disgraceful to see this article published the same time as providers were issued a message on the portal,
Absolute no respect or dignity for providers,
Shame on brabin, the AEB team and all management letting this happen how it has,
We’ve been treated disgracefully
All ITPs need to join together and make a legal case against wyca for the way everything has been poorly handled and we’ve been treated
What do they expect to do with our staff when no income is coming in? Wyca are responsible for a catastrophic number of redundancies in West Yorkshire – this needs escalating asap
Providers who have won previously could miss out on the THIRD attempt of procurement – I’ve already sought legal advice and there is a case