Learndirect has entered redundancy talks with an unknown amount of its staff.
A consultation on job losses was launched on Thursday, and is directly linked to the termination of its ESFA contracts which will end in July.
“We have entered a period of consultation with a number of colleagues,” a spokesperson for the nation’s biggest provider said.
“This is directly linked to the cessation of a number of ESFA contracts in July 2018 that was announced last year.”
Learndirect has over 1,500 staff on its books but the spokesperson would not say how many were in line to lose their jobs.
The decision to terminate the provider’s funding came about after Ofsted slammed it with a grade four in August last year.
Although its contracts are coming to an end, the government singled it out for special treatment by allowing it to retain its contracts for almost a year – much more than the usual three-month termination period.
Learndirect, which was subject to a recent National Audit Office investigation and Public Accounts Committee inquiry, was given £95 million from the ESFA for 2017/18.
Very sad for the hard working staff that will lose their jobs, management of this company totally to blame. Although FE Week seem to like to gloat at the staff.
Not sure what you mean about gloating James – can you cite evidence? As far as I have seen, FE Week have done a good job asking some pertinent questions about some highly questionable goings-on. Absolutely agree with you about where the blame lies though.
‘Ofsted slammed it with a grade four’ their language throughout has been sensationalist.
Learndirect did not apply for a ‘super-injunction’ to ‘gag’ Ofsted the court imposed an injunction without consultation. No one at Learndirect tried to ‘hide’ anything from Ofsted. One inspector accused Learndirect of impeding him because he couldn’t access a system from his home and that has been extrapolated to imply that Learndirect tried to impede inspections. Since many of Learndirects staff can’t access systems all the time I don’t find this suspicious and I doubt Learndirects IT division would be capable of blocking him! Much of this slant comes from Amanda Spielman herself. I believe that she entered into the process with bias and is worried that she has no inspectors with FE experience. Frankly, the real scandal here is the government massive cut to FE funding over the last 4 years. The only real criticism of the AEB part of Learndirect was to the quality of recording of achievement and progress by learners. Teaching was graded as good and support for individual learners very good. There is no doubt that the leadership of Learndirect has been awful. But the extent to which the FE News has jumped on and sensationalised this story has in my opinion taken away from the more serious issues facing the future of FE for all providers. Even without Learndirect, there is going to be less money to bid for in July. That is a far more serious issue.