A not-for-profit training provider is being pursued by the Department for Education for over £100,000 in overclaimed funding due to multiple breaches of adult education funding rules.
Brixton-based Lionheart in the Community Limited (LITC) was subject to an investigation by the then-Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in September 2024 over its advanced learner loans funding claims going back to 2021-22.
Investigators found LITC had claimed area uplift funding – a per-student top-up for learners in areas of the country where delivery costs are higher – for training that took place online, and found some delivery had been subcontracted to another training provider.
Area uplifts should not be claimed for online delivery, and subcontracted delivery was not permitted in the years LITC claimed for, the report said.
Subcontracted delivery was discovered when learners named a different training provider, which wasn’t named in the investigation report, to LITC as the one responsible for their training.
LITC now has to pay back £111,234. DfE said “action is underway” to recover the funding.
However, LITC leaders have disputed the investigation’s findings. They said the “very small” sample of learners contacted by investigators was not enough to draw conclusions and claimed that the investigators’ focus on 2021-22 and 2022-23 meant “refinements” to their delivery and quality assurance were not fully taken into account.
LITC also said they were not allowed to dispute the subcontracting findings, noting that investigators relied on learners’ recollection of where their training took place up to four years prior, with some “understandably” recording their employer or work placement host.
They said an offer to commission their own audit to aid the investigation was refused unless it covered 100 per cent of learners over the three-year period.
Helpful advice
In order to help other providers avoid breaching the rules, DfE’s investigation reports contain a “prevention” section with advice.
In this case, DfE’s “prevention analysis exercise” found the breaches could have been avoided if the provider had “complied” with the rules and had “adequate” internal audit and quality assurance.
LITC describes itself as a “dynamic social enterprise” that reinvests its profits into community projects. It had around 530 adult learners on its books when it was last inspected by Ofsted in 2023 and currently advertises Access to HE diplomas and courses at levels 3 and 4 across a range of subjects, including business, accounting, personal training, health and social care, beauty and education.
It received an advanced learning loan allocation of £2.4m for 2025-26, down from £3m last year.
Investigations
This is the third training provider called out by DfE investigations so far in 2026.
Systemic contract breaches led to a £1.2 million repayment demand to Park Education and Training Centre last month. Investigators found a catalogue of missing or unverifiable evidence around learner eligibility, off-the-job training records and apprentice wages. The owner contested the fairness of the investigation.
And Pathway First Limited, part of Pathway Group, was made to repay £54,000 after it was found to have issued qualifications that learners had not studied and claimed funding for learners it could not evidence. A spokesperson said the breaches related to “isolated” and “historic” activity and have now been remedied.
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