GCSE results expose a broken system, but adults prove what’s possible

This year’s GCSE results have once again laid bare a persistent contradiction: remarkable individual successes for adult learners on one hand, and stubborn system-level failures on the other.

At WM College, we’re celebrating the extraordinary achievements of our adult learners. In just 30 weeks, individuals – many of whom carried long-standing anxieties, challenging past experiences, and heavy responsibilities – embraced and conquered assessments that school-age students spend years preparing for. Some secured their target grades; others made giant strides in progress. Today, a young learner I spoke to said that he came into class not knowing how to add fractions, but he opened his envelope to a Grade 7. It’s a testament to their grit and motivation, and the tailored support we provide.

Yet despite WM College celebrating results that are double the national average, the national figures tell a sobering story. Nearly 40 per cent of all GCSE candidates failed to achieve a grade 4 in English today, and over 41 per cent failed to meet the same mark in maths – a rise on last year’s failure rates. For those aged 17 and up, the picture is starker: only 19.7 per cent passed English, and just 15.3 per cent maths. In effect, many adult resit learners remain trapped in a cycle of repeat attempts.

This “resit crisis” isn’t new. FE Week and others have raised the alarm, stating that repeatedly forcing learners into the same assessments with diminishing returns is demotivating – particularly when no robust alternatives or additional supports are in place.

Socioeconomic gaps remain entrenched too. Disadvantaged students, deprived of supportive learning environments during COVID lockdowns and beyond, are still significantly less likely to reach grade 5 in core subjects compared to their wealthier peers. While our colleges strive to fill these gaps with personalised teaching and pastoral care, the scale of the problem demands national-level action.

What’s more, rising numbers of resit entries – nearly 30 per cent for 16-year-olds and over 80 per cent for 17–19 year-olds in some subjects- are unsustainable and signal structural issues in how GCSEs are deployed and weighted.

Four policy shifts are urgently needed:

  1. Introduce alternative pathways for adult learners: Rather than repeatedly resitting GCSEs, offer modular or vocationally oriented qualifications that recognise progress and competence, not just exam performance.
  2. Rethink assessment models: For adult learners, we need flexible, less punitive assessment systems that focus on functional skills and confidence-building, not only high-stakes exams. Currently a lot of maths assessments test for language proficiency rather than an ability to solve a sum.
  3. Target funding to tackle inequality: Areas most affected by historic deprivation need sustained investment and tutoring support. Policy discussions must extend beyond the pandemic-era rhetoric.
  4. Make Functional Skills an employment standard: Functional skills qualifications, which focus on practical, day-to-day maths and English skills, should be recognised as the baseline employment standard. We already expect this of apprentices, so why not all employees? Employers need to be encouraged, or even required, to value functional skills not merely as an alternative to GCSEs, but as the essential qualification for workplace readiness.

At WM College, our learners have outperformed national averages despite their starting points because we commit resources, adapt creatively and refuse to let past failure define future success. Every learner who showed up and sat an exam this year rewrote a narrative of their own capabilities and they all deserve the right level of support to succeed.

If the government is serious about meeting its national skills and productivity targets, it cannot rely solely on young learners in schools. Adult learners – many retraining, reskilling, and filling critical workforce gaps – are essential to bridging this divide. Yet funding cuts, shrinking support programmes and an exam system that doesn’t account for their unique challenges risk undermining this potential. Without properly investing in adults who are returning to education, we will continue to see a disconnect between national ambitions and reality. Supporting these learners is not just a moral imperative; it is an economic necessity.

Rob May appointed as new Innovate Awarding MD

Innovate Awarding has appointed a new managing director following Charlotte Bosworth’s promotion to CEO of the Lifetime Training group.

Rob May, who previously held senior roles at City & Guilds Group and YMCA Awards, will take the reins at the apprenticeship assessment and awarding body in mid-September.

He replaces Bosworth who held the position for eight years. She took on the CEO role at Lifetime Group, which runs England’s largest apprenticeship training provider as well as Innovate Awarding, from David Smith earlier this year. 

May has spent the last two decades of his career working in youth development and education. 

He said: “I am thrilled to be starting this journey as the new managing director of Innovate Awarding. It has always struck me as a vibrant company and one that takes real pride in delivering high-quality, real-world learning solutions.”

Innovate Awarding has almost 200 staff. It assesses around 10,000 learners and awards 25,000 qualifications every year. It is one of the largest apprenticeship assessment organisations, assessing over 60 approved apprenticeships.

May added: “It’s a pivotal time for apprenticeship assessment. With the 2025 reforms bringing more flexibility and modular assessment, our priority will be to support and guide employers and training providers through these changes, ensuring we remain the trusted voice for businesses and apprentices alike.”

May led on business development strategy at City & Guilds for over seven years and spent three years as a director at YMCA Awards.

He recently held the position of chief executive officer at ABE, part of the Institute of Leadership and Management, for eight years.

He is also a governor at the Royal Agricultural University and has held numerous board positions including as a non-executive director at the Federation of Awarding Bodies.

Bosworth said: “We are thrilled to welcome Rob on board. His background in education and development of apprenticeship qualifications means he is uniquely placed to support the group’s mission to equip young people with the skills to help them reach their potential.

“I am looking forward to the next year of collaboration and partnership, ensuring we deliver high-quality assessments to meet the evolving needs of learners.”

GCSE resits 2025: English and maths pass rates stable amid entries surge

Pass rates in GCSE maths and English resits have remained stable despite a spike in the number of post-16 students sitting the exams this summer.

Figures published this morning show that 17.1 per cent of the 206,732 learners aged 17 or older taking GCSE maths in England achieved at least a grade 4 – a marginal fall from 17.4 per cent last year which had a cohort 11 per cent smaller of 185,727.

It means the maths resit pass rate is still around 4 percentage points lower than the pre-pandemic level of 21.2 per cent.

For GCSE English, 20.9 per cent of the 175,118 post-16 students who sat the exam this summer achieved a grade 4 pass. This is the exact same proportion as 2024 which had a cohort almost a fifth smaller at 148,569. This pass rate is almost 10 percentage points lower than 2019.

The results, published by the Joint Council for Qualifications, mean there are over 35,000 more people who have gained their GCSE maths grade 4 or above after failing to do so at school, and over 36,500 in English.

Ofqual chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said the data shows a “picture of great stability”, adding that the “increased number of entries doesn’t seem to have affected the performance” of resit students.

Boys overtake girls in maths

The gender gap in pass rates has flipped in post-16 GCSE maths. This year, 16.4 per cent of females achieved a grade 4 or above – falling from 18.2 per cent in 2024. Meanwhile, 17.8 per cent of males passed the subject this year, up from 16.6 per cent in 2024.

In English, 25 per cent of females reached at least a grade 4, which was a slight fall from 25.9 per cent in 2024. For males, 17.9 per cent obtained a pass, up marginally from 17.3 per cent the year before.

Older post-16 students, who are not subject to the government’s condition of funding rule, also continue to perform better than their younger peers.

Today’s data shows that 19.7 per cent (31,411) of students aged 17 to 19 passed GCSE English compared to 33.2 per cent (5,178) of learners aged 20 or older.

And for GCSE maths, 15.3 per cent (28,590) of young people aged 17 to 19 passed compared to 34 per cent (6,746) of 20-year-olds and above.

English resit entries will rise again

Colleges can expect a slight increase in their English resit cohorts next year, based on today’s results for 16-year-olds.

Pass rates for school leavers achieving a grade 4 in GCSE English and maths have fallen. This year, 29.4 per cent did not achieve a grade 4 in English, up from 28.8 per cent in 2024. In maths, 28.1 per cent did not achieve a grade 4, up very slightly from 28 per cent.

The very slight fall in the grade 4+ pass rate for 16-year-olds in maths is offset by a fall in the size of the cohort, so the number of students required to continue maths is roughly the same as last year, around 175,000.

There was also a decline in the size of the English cohort in schools, but the larger fall in the grade 4+ pass rate indicates a slight rise in the numbers required to continue post-16, up from around 181,000 to 186,000.

Will resit rules soon change?

Introduced in 2014, the government’s resits policy forces students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 to continue to work towards achieving these qualifications as a condition of their places being funded.

Students who achieve a grade 3 have to retake their GCSE, while students with a grade 2 or below can either take a functional skills level 2 or resit their GCSE.

The policy has split the sector since its inception, with some arguing it is a vital lifeline for young people who struggled at school, while others say that forcing students to repeatedly retake the exams is demoralising.

In 2018, then-shadow education secretary Angela Rayner vowed that a Labour government would scrap the resits policy.

The issue is currently being explored by Professor Becky Francis’ independent curriculum and assessment review. 

Her interim report, published in March, said students who fail to pass GCSE English and maths at school should still be required to study the subjects in post-16 education – but with “greater nuance in measures”. Francis’ full report is due to be published this autumn.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said today’s results show that “once again the majority of students who retake GCSE English and maths in post-16 education under a government policy of mandatory resits continue to fall short of a grade 4 standard pass”.

“It is utterly demoralising for these young people and there has to be a better way of supporting literacy and numeracy. We urge the curriculum and assessment review to grasp this nettle,” he added.

‘Less ambitious’ nursing apprenticeships pledge criticised

The government’s fresh target of 2,000 more nursing apprenticeships has been described as “less ambitious” than pledges made when the Conservatives were in power.

In its “10 Year Health Plan for England”, published last month, the government pledged to recruit an extra 2,000 nursing apprentices over the next three years.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) hopes the target will help improve career opportunities for people from working-class backgrounds and support people into healthcare roles “within their communities”.

The apprenticeship target has been welcomed as a “positive step” by health sector experts, who say the NHS has workforce shortages in the “tens of thousands”.

However, this appears to be less than a target set in the 2023 NHS long-term workforce plan, which aimed for apprenticeships to account for about 20 per cent of the 40,000 nursing training intake by 2028.

Nuffield Trust researcher Lucina Rolewicz said: “The commitment to add 2,000 extra nursing apprenticeships over the next three years should be welcomed, however this does represent a less ambitious commitment than that detailed in the previous long-term workforce plan – which aspired to almost 9,000 nursing apprenticeships by 2028/29.”

Between 2020-21 and 2023-24 academic years, annual starts on the level 6 registered nurse degree apprenticeship were between 2,200 and 3,400, according to Department for Education statistics.

Mandy Crawford-Lee, chief executive of the University Vocational Awards Council, agreed that the 2,000 new apprenticeships target is a “small contribution” while Dr Rocco Friebel, associate professor of health policy at the London School of Economics (LSE), called the figure “modest”.

The nursing apprenticeship pledge is the only apprenticeship training target revealed in the 10-year health plan, ahead of a “refreshed” long-term workforce plan expected later this year.

The refreshed workforce plan is expected to be “very different” to the 2023 version as staff in 2035 will be “better treated, more motivated, have better training and more scope to develop their careers”.

Target ‘not sufficient’?

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) head of students Lorna Mayles said: “The College welcomes alternate routes into nursing to address the immediate and future supply problems that continue to put patient care at risk.

“It must be recognised, however, that the apprenticeship route is not sufficient to solve workforce gap issues.

“The reality is that to recruit the highly skilled nurses we need at scale and speed, the government must deliver new investment in nursing education, in both apprenticeships and traditional degrees.”

The DHSC has been contacted for comment.

Despite concerns about nursing staff shortages, NHS statistics suggest nurse numbers in England are the highest in at least fifteen years and vacancy rates are the lowest in at least seven years.

Some newly qualified nurses have also reportedly struggled to find work in the NHS due to a hiring freeze and overseas recruitment.

There are about 25,600 vacancies of full-time equivalent nursing and midwifery posts in England – about six per cent of the total planned posts. This is the lowest rate since comparable statistics began in 2018, when the rate was about 12 per cent.

The overall number of nurses and health visitors working in the NHS is currently 368,000, a gradual increase from about 280,000 ten years ago.

Apprenticeship v university

Most experts also agreed that expanding the apprenticeship route into nursing is a “positive step” that offers an alternative to “traditional university-based training”.

Dr Friebel, at the LSE, said the route is a “realistic career option” for workers who want to avoid university debt or are unable to study full-time due to life circumstances.

“However, 2,000 additional places over three years is modest when considered against the backdrop of the challenges facing the NHS,” he added.

“We are dealing with workforce shortages in the tens of thousands, and demand for nursing services will only increase as the population ages and the burden of chronic disease grows.

“Apprenticeships will help, but they cannot be relied upon as a single solution. They should complement, not replace, other measures such as sustained investment in university-based nurse training, targeted international recruitment, and strategies to improve retention among the existing workforce.”

Crawford-Lee said some NHS trusts have “struggled” to make nursing apprenticeship degrees their primary training intake.

She added: “Challenges including managing the supernumerary status of apprentices, affording apprentice salary costs, funding the off-the-job learning requirement and backfill have all acted as a brake on the level of take up by NHS Trusts.

“One of the solutions to this has been the use of the nursing associate apprenticeship as a route into nursing for diverse groups that provides a stepping-stone to progress to the registered nurse degree apprenticeship after two years.”

AI is moving too fast for colleges to go it alone

AI is moving faster than any of us can comfortably keep up with. New tools emerge almost daily, each bringing opportunities for teaching and learning but also challenges for assessment, safeguarding and governance. No single college or individual can hope to stay on top of it all. That’s why communities matter. 

In further education we face a uniquely broad set of stakeholders when it comes to AI. Teachers want to know how to use it to save time and support learning. Regulators and awarding bodies wrestle with the questions of integrity. Safeguarding teams need to understand risks to learners. IT departments are focused on security, and governors are asking about strategic implications, while learners need clear guidance on how to use it effectively and responsibly.  

Work based learning adds further perspectives on the changing skills needed by employers. Each view is legitimate, but without spaces to share and work together the risk is fragmentation and duplication. 

Communities of practice are uniquely placed to respond to this complexity. By bringing diverse voices together, they allow us to cut through the noise and focus on what really helps learners and staff. Over the past year, Jisc’s AI in FE community has demonstrated the power of this approach. Scores of staff from across the sector have been connecting, comparing notes and tackling common problems. 

As an example, we brought together staff from nine colleges to explore how AI is reshaping assessment. We didn’t begin with a fixed outcome, but with shared questions about fairness, integrity and the skills learners need. Over several months, the group considered assessment from different angles – from design to learner AI literacy and wellbeing.  

The result was a set of top tips structured around what staff can do before and after assessment. Before assessment: set clear expectations, design tasks that promote higher-order thinking, and create safe opportunities for learners to practise and reflect on their AI use. After assessment: approach suspected misuse with empathy, check understanding through multiple methods, and build in time to reflect on what worked well.  

It is not a strict set of rules, but practical, adaptable guidance that colleges can tailor to their own context 

The process behind this work is as valuable as the output. Because the guidance was shaped by practitioners across roles and institutions, it is trusted and grounded in reality. Staff can see their own concerns reflected and know it was not written in isolation.  

This collaborative approach also means the guidance will not stand still. As tools evolve, so too will the advice. Communities create the conditions for living guidance: a resource that can be updated, debated and improved as the technology – and our understanding – develops. In a landscape moving as quickly as AI, that agility is vital. 

The benefits go further. Communities reduce duplication by sharing solutions openly, so that every college does not have to reinvent the wheel. They help staff respond at speed without feeling isolated. And they give the sector a more confident, unified voice when engaging with policymakers or technology providers. 

Most importantly, communities show us that we are not navigating these changes alone. At times it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, to believe we are always behind. But working together reveals the collective expertise and creativity that already exists across FE. By pooling that knowledge, we can not only keep pace but collaboratively shape how AI is used for the benefit of learners. 

As AI continues to evolve, the role and importance of communities will only grow. They are how we make sense of change together, how we ensure diverse perspectives are heard, and how we turn uncertainty into practical guidance. If AI is going to reshape education, then communities are how we make sure it does so on our terms. 

If you’d like to get involved with our AI community, you can find more on the Jisc website. 

College-run ITP awarded its own ‘outstanding’ 

An apprenticeship provider that is part of an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ college group has secured its own grade one rating from the watchdog.

Axia Solutions Limited has jumped to the inspectorate’s highest possible rating just two years after being judged ‘requires improvement’.

Ofsted said leaders have “successfully improved the quality of education that apprentices receive” and strengthened links between centre-based and workplace learning which has led to “high” achievement rates.

The feat comes months after Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group (NSCG), of which Axia is a wholly owned subsidiary, retained its own ‘outstanding’ grade with Ofsted.

Craig Hodgson, chief executive of NSCG, said this is a “truly phenomenal accomplishment for NSCG”.

“We are incredibly proud of the Axia Solutions team for their dedication and hard work in securing this well-deserved ‘outstanding’ grade,” he added.

“Their success means that every aspect of our group is now officially rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, a milestone that reflects our collective pursuit of excellence and our mission to provide the very best education and training for our communities.”

Axia Solutions, based in Stoke-On-Trent, was formed in 1999 specialising in delivering qualifications to the ceramic industry. The business has since extended to service the training needs of sectors including manufacturing, logistics, and print engineering.

It was acquired by Newcastle-under-Lyme College in 2014 and now makes up part of NSCG in Staffordshire following a merger with Stafford College in 2016.

At the time of this latest inspection in July, Axia had 134 apprentices in training across level 2 to 7 standards in leadership, facilities supervisor, administration, manufacturing and print technician.

Ofsted’s report, published today, noted that apprentices “thrive and they feel highly valued, supported and well cared for”.

The report also praised the team of industry-expert trainers who help apprentices “quickly apply their learning” and commended the “expertly sequenced curriculums” that contribute to high achievement and attainment rates.

Latest government data shows Axia Solutions had a 65.9 per cent apprenticeship achievement rate in the 2023-24 academic year.

Governors were praised as “highly skilled” people who have “extensive experience in the further education sector” and use this to “effectively support leaders and provide challenge that leaders use to improve the quality of education that apprentices receive”. 

Victoria Harte, managing director of Axia Solutions, said: “This recognition is a testament to the dedication of our team, the strength of our employer partnerships, and our shared core values.

“This achievement is not only a significant milestone for us but is also excellent for the local area, building on existing education strengths by providing exceptional workplace training and development.”

Scrapping AGQs will create a qualification black hole

In order to “direct” students towards T Levels, the government announced a ban on AGQ diplomas and extended diplomas in T Level subjects in December 2024. As a result, popular and well- respected applied general qualifications (AGQs) in subjects such as health and social care, applied science and IT will be scrapped in 2026, with highly regarded AGQs in business and engineering due to follow in 2027.

Last month, we published a report on behalf of the 28 organisations in the Protect Student Choice campaign warning how such a ban could lead to 52,000 fewer young people studying health and science courses from next year (a drop of 45 per cent) and 11,000 (a third) fewer young people on digital courses.

The qualifications gap across all sectors will of course be much larger, as the government estimates that just 91,200 students will be studying a T Level in 2027 – the last year that all remaining AGQs will be funded – while there are currently 277,380 students studying an AGQ.

What will students do next year when AGQs are no longer available? We know from the government’s own projections that most will not be studying T Levels. Other options such as level 2, A-level or a combination of small alternative academic qualifications (AAQs), will in many cases be sub-optimal workarounds.

The clear risk with reducing student choice in this way is that learners who would have previously studied AGQs will either underperform or disengage from education altogether.  Taken together, this could reverse the recent progress made in widening access to higher education and lead to an increase in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).

And what will employers do when successful and well-established qualifications aligned to high-growth sectors of the economy are scrapped? Representative bodies such as Care England and techUK joined with employers such as the NHS and Cisco to support our report’s call to retain AGQs in T Level subjects.

In June, skills minister Jacqui Smith reconfirmed the government’s position in a letter to our campaign: “The government remains committed to T Levels being the best large qualification in routes where they are available”.

So, as things stand, colleges and schools will be enrolling students on diploma and extended diploma-size AGQs in applied science, health and social care and IT for the last time this month.

But rather than directing students towards T Levels, the government’s ban will direct many students towards a qualification black hole.

The last chance to avoid this lies with the curriculum and assessment review (CAR). If its final report endorses our recommendation that diploma and extended diploma size qualifications should be permitted in T Level subjects, and the government accepts that recommendation, many students starting Year 11 this month will not be left without a pathway next year. 

That short-term certainty would be very welcome. But more fundamentally, policymakers must also accept that a qualification system that requires learners to choose between an academic or technical route at the age of 16 is neither realistic nor desirable.

For many young people, applied qualifications provide a more effective route to higher education or skilled employment than A-levels or T Levels.

Refreshing the content of AGQs makes sense; scrapping them altogether makes no sense at all. So it was encouraging to see an acknowledgement in the CAR’s interim report that other high-quality qualifications are needed alongside A-levels and T Levels.

The current policy of approving a small number of small ‘alternative’ academic and technical qualifications by exception is no substitute for a genuine applied pathway.  

The CAR’s final report and the government’s response will be pivotal moments for post-16 education.

Is a government committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity really going to pull the rug from under tens of thousands of young people next year? 

Is a government committed to kickstarting economic growth really going to scrap qualifications linked to the very same high growth sectors of the economy it has prioritised in its industrial strategy?

Let’s hope the answer to both questions is a resounding ‘no’. That will require making a short-term and long-term commitment to applied qualifications. A full suite of AGQs of all sizes has an essential role to play as the middle (equally important) route in the qualification system alongside A-levels and T Levels.

Migrant skills tax take tumbled by £100m last year

Income from the government’s controversial “skills tax” on migrant visas has fallen for the first time in four years, new Home Office figures reveal.

The immigration skills charge (ISC) was introduced in 2017 as a tax on employers who sponsor visas for workers recruited from overseas to “incentivise” training British workers instead.

Income was supposed to fund programmes that “address skills gaps in the UK workforce”, but the Treasury has faced criticism for treating it as “simply a tax” that goes into its main “consolidated fund”.

The government has raised a total of £2.7 billion from the ISC so far, with income increasing almost every year to a record high of £668 million in 2023-24.

But according to the Home Office’s annual report, published earlier this month, income dropped 16 per cent to £559 million in 2024-25.

It comes ahead of a proposed 32 per cent increase in the ISC, announced in the government’s immigration white paper alongside a government pledge to “end the chronic underinvestment in domestic skills that has hindered economic growth”.

The fall in income, the first since 2020-21, is likely to reflect “wider labour market shifts”, according to the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD).

Lizzie Crowley, senior skills advisor at CIPD, said this could include “cooling demand for labour in some sectors” and ongoing “economic uncertainty”.

However, Crowley told FE Week the “lack of transparency and clarity” around how the income is spent is the “bigger issue” with the charge.

She said: “If the charge is truly to deliver on its purpose, the funds should be ringfenced for skills investment and allocated transparently, with a clear link to programmes that tackle shortages in the UK workforce.”

Treasury ‘snaffling’

Former skills minister Robert Halfon said: “I think they need to be very transparent about how much of this is coming back towards skills.

“It’s in the nature of the Treasury, even with supposed special taxes, to snaffle away some of the money.

“This money is for skills and should be spent on skills, and we need to be transparent on how this is spent.”

A Treasury spokesperson claimed any enquiries about the charge should be directed to the Home Office.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

The incoming charge

The government’s immigration white paper said the one-third increase, the first in eight years, will “bring the ISC rates in line with inflation”.

Small businesses or charities will now have to pay £480, up from £364 for the first 12 months of hiring a migrant, and then £240 (originally £182) extra every additional six months.

Medium to large “sponsors” will now pay in £1,320 for the first year, up from £1,000, and £660 for the subsequent six months, up from £500.

£1.5bn immigration skills charge ‘blackhole’ revealed

It remains unclear when the new rates will come into force.

When the increase was announced, it faced criticism from expert bodies including the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), techUK, and the Institute of Directors.

Jane Gratton, deputy director of public policy at the BCC said: “Businesses prefer to employ people from their local labour market.

“Accessing the immigration system is costly and complex, and only 1 in 10 employers we surveyed use it, often as a last resort when they can’t get the skills they need in the UK. 

 “The immigration skills charge adds to the high cost of employment that is being piled onto business.

“So the money raised from it should be fully ringfenced for skills to help build the domestic talent pipeline. The growth and skills levy should also be ringfenced in its entirety to help boost skills in the workforce.”

College taken to High Court over £6.6m row with developers

A London college has been accused of “unjust enrichment” and holding “secret negotiations” with rivals by two property developers in a £6.6 million High Court claim. 

South Bank Colleges (SBC), part of London South Bank University (LSBU), is being sued by 45 CCS Limited and Vauxhall Development London Limited, which allege the college walked away from an agreed redevelopment of its Clapham and Vauxhall campuses after the firms had already spent millions on planning and design work. 

In documents filed at the High Court, the developers claim the college encouraged them to pursue the project while knowing it was negotiating separately with another company, and has since been “unjustly enriched” by the work they carried out.

SBC denied the allegations, stating the firms were aware they were liable for all costs before a signed contract and said it “lost confidence” in the claimants’ ability to finance the project. 

Both claimant companies are subsidiaries of Lambeth Property Group Ltd.

‘Naked in the park’

According to the developers, senior SBC staff gave them repeated verbal assurances that they would get a binding contract for a “mixed-use” redevelopment of the sites, including a new college building, nursery, housing and temporary teaching facilities.

London South Bank University’s group director of estates, Rychard Scrase-Field, is said to have told the developers he would “jump out of the window” if the project didn’t go ahead with them, and later reassured them by saying the university had “come too far to deal with anyone else”. 

In another exchange, Scrase-Field allegedly assured a director of the developers that he would “run around Wandsworth Park naked” if the deal didn’t go through.

When the developers questioned whether an alternative firm was interested in the project, they were allegedly told by another university estates director, “all is ok, relax.”

The claimants say they went on to secure planning consents and worked up designs based on those assurances. 

These have “enriched” SBC, the claimants say, because “the value of the sites has been substantially increased” because of the secured planning permissions, and SBC “has been saved the cost of otherwise preparing the sites for redevelopment.”

The college is being sued for over £6.6 million in “quantum meruit” damages to recover those costs. 

Non-binding opinions

In June 2024, around three years after initial heads of terms were agreed between SBC and the claimants, the university was “secretly negotiating” with another firm, Legal and General, to redevelop the sites without the claimants. 

Then, that August, the claimants were told the university had decided to work with other partners.

But SBC denied any liability, insisting it had no binding contract with the claimants, who were aware that their costs were at their own risk prior to the contract being signed.

SBC said the assurance comments made by senior staff “in so far as they happened, were no more than opinions expressed by individuals as to SBC/LSBU’s current position”.

Defence lawyers say the claimants “knew at all times the individuals alleged to have given assurances had no authority to bind SBC to contract or make payments not contracted for or vary any prior agreement or understanding on behalf of SBC.”

“All and any statements made by such individuals were at all times subject to board approval and that was known by [the claimants].”

Its defence states the developers acted at their own risk, with the initial heads of terms making clear no party would be liable for costs until final contracts were signed. 

Enrichment denied

SBC added it was entitled to walk away after losing confidence in the claimants’ ability to secure finance with their proposed funder, Legal and General.

SBC further denied it had been “unjustly enriched”. Its defence said it was SBC that secured outline planning permission, which increased the value of the sites, and accused the claimants of “acting unconscionably in delaying the progress of the development of the sites unreasonably and entirely for their own benefit in seeking to give themselves more time to improve their position, particularly with regard to funding.”

In reply, the claimants maintain they had funding in place, and blame SBC for delays. They claim the college was negotiating directly with a third party, Legal and General, “without their knowledge”, and which they allege caused the collapse of the project. 

Lawyers representing the claimants and London South Bank University both declined to comment. A date for trial has not yet been set.