College and training provider data staff have demanded action after struggling to submit accurate data because of problems with Skills Funding Agency software.

An FE Week survey on Thursday, November 7 — the day after the deadline to submit the return, known as R03 — found that just five providers out of 159 (three per cent) said they had a reliable funding report from the new funding information system (Fis) software.

Delays in supplying Fis meant providers were left with just eight working days to install it and remedy any errors in the return, and led to a call in a previous FE Week survey from four out of five data officers to abandon the data return completely.

Responding anonymously to the latest survey, data management staff called for the agency to take responsibility.

A data integrity officer at a large college said: “Heads should roll. We are going to be a third of the way into the year without any idea of what we have or might earn.”

A data and audit manager, also from a large college, said: “It is a nightmare. They wouldn’t accept this level of incompetence from us, so why should we have to accept it from them?”

Many providers are still struggling to install the software while others have reported glitches in the program once it is running.

An MIS manager at a small independent training provider said: “The whole R03 was a farce from start to finish. I cannot yet get Fis to work properly.

“Putting not fit for purpose software into the public domain is ludicrous and then expecting people to submit data was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

A data analyst at one large college said: “We’ve had six people doing two Saturdays of overtime and we still can’t get a reliable picture of funding from the Fis.”

A learner systems manager at a local authority said: “They should pay all providers a compensation payment to cover all the additional work that providers have needed to do to cover the SFA’s failure to provide the system required.”

Of the total responses to the latest FE Week survey, which was posted on the information authority Feconnect forum as well as the CMIS-Network — a Jiscmail email discussion group, 83 providers said they had 1,000 or more errors, of which 11 had more than 10,000 and three had more than 20,000.

A total of 134 (84 per cent) said they had successfully submitted R03 data by the 6pm deadline on Wednesday, November 6, but more than half (81) said the data they submitted contained errors.

Just five providers out of 159 (three per cent) said they had a reliable funding report from the Fis software, with 124 (78 per cent) saying their report was unreliable and the remaining 30 (19 per cent) saying they did not know whether or not their data was reliable.

Fis is part of a wider agency data collections and funding transformation programme, which has been developed to comply with the Cabinet Office’s new digital strategy, which includes using a range of both large and small software development companies.

Another element of the software upgrade which has still not been released is the Learning Aims Reference System (Lars) — an online tool which enables providers to, among other things, look up qualification funding values.

The agency said it would release a simpler, desktop version of Lars before the end of the month, and in time for the next data return deadline (R04) on December 5.

An agency statement said: “We have decided to publish Lars Lite as we will be unable to publish a fully functioning Lars search capability on The Hub in time to support R04.

“We still intend to implement the Lars service and will publish a revised delivery plan in due course.”

Just five per cent of complaints made over the summer about bosses paying apprentices below the National Minimum Wage (NMW) had been fully investigated by the government by late last month, FE Week can reveal.

Eight of the complaints, all registered between July and September, had been closed, prompting a scathing attack from Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne.

He said: “The government isn’t doing enough to deal with complaints.

“It is simply appalling that HMRC [Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs] has closed only five per cent of cases where apprentices have complained about their pay.

“We need a radical overhaul of the system, to ensure apprenticeships are a gold standard once again.

“The apprenticeship brand has been badly tarnished on this government’s watch.”

The complaints situation emerged following an enquiry by Labour peer Lord Beecham with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), asking what steps were being taken to enforce the NMW for apprentices.

Of the complaints investigated, BIS said that four apprentices were found to have been paid below the NMW, which went up 3p to £2.68 last month. They were owed £7,235 in total.

And Mr Byrne went on to point to government research that had shown 29 per cent of apprentices received less pay than they were legally entitled to.

But Business Minister Lord Younger defended the government’s record on investigating apprentices’ pay complaints.

He said: “The government is absolutely clear everyone who is entitled to the NMW should receive it. This includes apprentices.

“The government takes the enforcement of the national minimum wage very seriously and HMRC reviews every complaint that’s referred to it — investigating the complaint and, in addition, carrying out targeted enforcement where it identifies a high risk of non-payment.”

He added the government was so concerned about the issue that complaints from apprentices were now being “prioritised” by HMRC.

“We are also stepping up our communication activity to increase the level of awareness of the minimum wage rules across the board, including apprentices,” he said.

“We want to help employers avoid falling foul of NMW rules unwittingly and ensure individuals are well-informed about their NMW eligibility.”

Meanwhile, the government is yet to name and shame any underpaying apprentice bosses despite moves in the summer to make it easier to identify offending employers.

The clampdown, which applies to non-apprentices too, came into effect last month.

It comes in addition to financial penalties, of up to £5,000, employers face if they fail to pay adequately.

A BIS spokesperson said: “The revised NMW naming scheme will name employers that have been issued with a notice of underpayment by HMRC.

“It can take an average of 150 days for HMRC to complete its investigations before it issues a notice.

“The revised naming scheme came into effect on October 1, so an investigation that began on this date is not likely to be closed until early next year, as this will also have to factor in the appeals and representation process as part of the naming scheme.”

Originally, employers had to meet one of seven criteria before they could be named.

The minimum amount of NMW owed to workers had to be at least £2,000 and the average per worker at least £500 before an employer could be referred to BIS from HMRC for naming. The revised scheme removes these restrictions.

An investigation into Elmfield Training will continue despite part of the company having been sold to a nursing homes training provider, FE Week can reveal.

Elmfield, which was slapped with a notice of concern in June following a grade four Ofsted inspection result, contacted staff more than two weeks ago to say it was taking steps to put the company into administration.

Last week it announced that it had appointed Deloitte as administrators and the majority of the company would be sold to EQL, a subsidiary of CareTech.

The move followed allegations against Elmfield of malpractice, in relation to its apprenticeship contract with supermarket giant Morrisons, that featured in a BBC investigation.

It was alleged that Elmfield signed Morrisons staff up to apprenticeship programmes they had declined, enabling the provider to claim public funding for training.

A separate probe into such allegations was launched by the Skills Funding Agency which, it said, was continuing despite the sale of Elmfield’s non-Morrisons business.

An agency spokesperson said: “Our investigation into the allegations we have received concerning Elmfield is ongoing and we are currently reviewing additional evidence which has been supplied to us.”

A Deloitte spokesperson said the sale had secured more than 300 jobs and would ensure that around 5,700 learners on former Elmfield programmes would have continuity.

A CareTech spokesperson said the acquisition has been completed as part of a pre-pack insolvency of Elmfield for a total “cash consideration” of £1.5m. The on-going working capital costs of the business would be funded from CareTech’s cash, they said.

Farouq Sheikh, CareTech’s executive chairman, said: “CareTech is a principled provider of social care with a strong public service ethos.

“Our support services for young people in transition to adult life are well known for their outstanding results and for some time we have felt that a new division focusing on apprenticeships would enhance and support many aspects of our outcomes-based approach.”

Meanwhile, all new Morrisons apprenticeships are provided by NCG (formerly Newcastle College Group), but Elmfield still has responsibility for the learners it started.

But with Elmfield’s contract to provide training to staff at supermarket giant Morrisons not included in the sale, a number of staff working on the contract now face redundancy if no buyer can be found.

However, Elmfield staff working on the Morrisons contract were told by administrators, in an email seen by FE Week, that: “We are in advanced discussions with another provider with a view to transferring this contract to that provider. We hope to complete this transfer in the next few days.”

At the time of going to press, no buyer for Elmfield’s Morrisons contract had been found. There is no suggestion of wrong doing on the part of Morrisons, EQL or Care Tech.

A six-month inquiry into FE intervention has welcomed the government’s plan for an FE Commissioner, but called for “better early warning signals…to allow early and pre-emptive interventions”.

The Skills Commission was funded by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) to look at “examples of intervention best practice across the wider public sector to highlight shortcomings in the current FE governance architecture”.

The commission, chaired by Dame Ruth Silver, who remains LSIS chair while it is in the process of ceasing operations, and Barry Sheerman MP, appointed City of Bath College principal Matt Atkinson to chair the inquiry group.

The duo’s foreword in the report said the commission had been “concerned by the increased instances of provider failure in 2012,”  but said the group welcomed the new FE Commissioner an, “effective failure regime” for the sector.

The report, called Move to Improve: an analysis of intervention in Further Education and skills and the wider public sector, was due to be officially launched at the House of Commons tomorrow.

Mr Atkinson, a former LSIS trustee, wrote in the report: “We hoped that by looking to the police, healthcare, higher education, and schools, and by checking that our own house was in order, the FE and skills world would learn valuable lessons, and could make changes where necessary to ensure top quality provision across colleges and training providers.”

The report went on to make 10 recommendations, including: “College corporations should adopt better scrutiny procedures, become more self-critical in assessing how they perform their role, and ensure they are giving adequate attention to the quality of their provision as well as their finances.”

A further recommendation was that: “Better early warning signals need to be developed and shared across the system to allow early and pre-emptive interventions to take place.”

The report also said: “Ofsted, in consultation with the Association of Colleges and the 157 Group, should examine the CQC and the QAA model of inspection, with a view to including greater stakeholder engagement in the assessment of learning and skills providers.”

Mr Atkinson told FE Week ahead of the report launch: “The FE sector is too important to the success of the UK economy for us within the sector to allow institutional underperformance or failure.

“This inquiry has shown that in many instances, the FE sector intervenes effectively, ensures quality consistently and, in doing so, outperforms other public service sectors.

“But our report also demonstrates that further reform is still needed. As we move forward in this new landscape, we must keep our eyes fixed firmly upon ensuring quality of provision and preventing failure.

“We need to start a debate — underpinned by a new, genuine culture of collaboration between providers, regulators and government — about how we do this.

“This report has laid out clear recommendations to get this process firmly underway.”

The report, along with tomorrow’s expected launch, will be covered further by FE Week.