Exceptional college student and staff social action heroes were honoured this afternoon as the Good for Me Good for FE awards returned to the House of the Lords for the 2025 winners’ ceremony.
Finalists across eight categories were welcomed to an afternoon tea reception hosted by awards patron, and former education secretary, Baroness Nicky Morgan, where winners were announced.
The awards are sponsored by NCFE, FE Associates and The Skills Network. FE Week is the awards media partner.
Opening the ceremony, Morgan said: “I am delighted to be here today, celebrating all your incredible achievements. FE is an inspirational sector and we need to spread the word!”
The Good for Me Good for FE campaign was founded in 2021 by London South East Colleges, Loughborough College and East College, but now involves around 150 colleges, to champion the value to society of the thousands of hours of volunteering and fundraising carried out by colleges, staff and students.
This year’s overall winner, selected by Morgan from the winners of each category, was Queen Mary’s College. Their college-wide social action programme mobilised nearly 1,000 first-year students to raise over £30,000 for more than 100 charities, building learners’ teamwork and problem-solving skills in the process.
“It just shows what young people can do when you give them an opportunity and put your trust in them!”
Collecting their award, principal Mark Henderson and colleague Victoria Renault said: “We are so proud to receive this award, but it is all about our first-year students. They absolutely shattered our expectations, putting in huge effort and raising an amazing amount of money.
“It just shows what young people can do when you give them an opportunity and put your trust in them!”
Among category winners, the individual fundraiser of the year went to accounting lecturer James Shields from Loughborough College Group, whose “amazing enthusiasm and leadership” saw him organise sponsored walks, raffles and a half-marathon to support a colleague with a rare brain tumour. His efforts raised more than £10,000 and inspired a college-wide culture of social responsibility, according to the judges.
Student volunteer of the year was awarded to Olivia Cook from Newark College (part of Lincoln College Group) for her community response following the tragic loss of her father to knife crime. Through her ‘Cookies Crusaders’ foundation, she has given over 880 volunteering hours, installed bleed kits across Newark, trained as a ‘stop the bleed’ instructor and led lifesaving education sessions for students, staff and the public.
Other winners included projects supporting hospices, asylum seekers, mental health charities and food insecurity.
Sam Parrett, group principal and CEO of London South East Colleges (part of Elevare Civic Education Group), and co-founder of Good for Me Good for FE, told guests: “I am proud to be standing here celebrating the very best of the FE sector.
“Good for Me Good for FE recognises the vast amount of social impact activities that students and staff are doing at colleges across the country to support their communities. The collective impact of this is immense, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone involved.”
Amid the buzz of the WorldSkills UK national finals at Cardiff and Vale College, Shelagh Legrave is animated but characteristically measured.
With just weeks left of her four-year stint as Further Education Commissioner (FEC), she speaks with the clarity of someone who’s spent decades leading in further education, and the bluntness of someone whose role has required tough judgment.
It was then education secretary Gavin Williamson who announced Legrave’s appointment as the successor to Richard Atkins back in April 2021. By the time Legrave took office that October, Williamson had been sacked following heavy criticism over his handling of the education brief during Covid.
It was a time when the college sector felt bruised, not only from the pandemic but also from a previous FEC tenure characterised by fear for many principals.
“I think there were 23 colleges in intervention when I started, and now there are eight,” she says. “That was one of my missions, to reduce the number of colleges in intervention.”
In her first interview with FE Week at the 2021 Association of Colleges (AoC) conference, Legrave told us she wanted to “change the image of the FEC from fear to support”. Four years on, she argues the shift is real.
“I feel we’re no longer the police that people don’t want to invite in; that if a college gets into difficulty, they’ll send me an email or ring me up or say, can you come and give us some help?”
Rising tides… and dangers
With leaders like the AoC’s David Hughes enthusiastically hailing a “turning of the tide” on funding thanks to a demographic boom and rising rates for young people, a vigilant Legrave is clear that college CEOs and their governors need to be careful.
“I think everyone’s feeling cheerful at the moment because the demographics are going up. But when they start to go down? How hard is it going to hit everyone? I don’t think it’s going to be that easy for people who haven’t got enough financial resilience.”
In the face of teacher strike action at 30 colleges next month, and longstanding industrial unease everywhere else, Legrave urged principals to resist the temptation to pump 16-19 funding increases into staff pay rises. Colleges must, Legrave says, build up cash before making any other decisions about how to spend extra funding.
“I would always say to college governors, set a cash level that you know you can never go beneath before making any decisions. Yes, invest in your people, people deserve to be paid well. There will continue to be capital money, but those grants are never going to be enough to resolve all the issues. So it’s about building up your cash reserves to deal with that. That’s what I would prioritise. Cash is king.”
There are certainly fewer colleges needing emergency bailouts these days. “But there are still colleges who go down to two cash days,” says Legrave, even though FEC guidance has been revised up from a 25-cash-day minimum to 40. “With my business head on, you’re too close to the wire if you’re much below 40 days of cash.”
But while the outlook for 16-19 funding is “undoubtedly much stronger”, adult education, particularly for the specialist adult education institutes, is “a huge challenge”.
Legrave reels off, without notes, the financial perils facing organisations like Northern College (set to merge with Barnsley College next year), Mary Ward Centre (undergoing an FEC structure and prospects appraisal) and Richmond and Hillcroft College “which is also struggling financially”.
Her prescription is blunt: merge or charge.
“I’d love a direction of travel for adult education to include more funding to support those colleges. But I equally accept there isn’t enough money to go around. If it becomes clear there isn’t going to be any more money, you’ve either got to merge with a college that’s got 16-18, or you do what Mark [Malcomson, principal of City Lit] has done very cleverly, develop your commercial offer.”
Education, education, education
Legacies of debt leaving some colleges with “too much property” and badly forecast capital sale receipts have peppered Legrave’s college intervention reports over the years.
But there are also instances where leaders have lost focus on the core business of teaching and learning.
“One of my takeaways from this role is that if people haven’t got education at the heart of what they’re doing, then they’re not running an effective college,” she says, reflecting on the five colleges to have been deemed ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted over her term.
“Where colleges have achieved an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted, it’s because they haven’t been talking about teaching and learning,” she explains.
Legrave traces these more cultural failings back over a decade. Staff training budgets, she recalls, were among the first casualties of the coalition-era austerity years.
“Nobody had any money,” she says. Colleges stripped back training to survive, and have never quite recovered the professional teaching identity she believes is needed.
“FE has always struggled to bring a professional group together of teachers who want to be members of an organisation and continue to talk about teaching and learning,” she says. Renewed investment in leadership helped, but “there’s not enough going into professionalising teachers in FE”.
Vulnerable colleges and vanity projects
The Department for Education’s recent refresh of college oversight beds in one of Legrave’s standout legacies – shifting the commissioner’s office from a service imposed on fearful colleges in trouble, to one of preventative action and an offer to guide and assist all colleges whether or not they are in imminent danger.
But while the pace of college mergers has slowed under Legrave’s tenure – she counts 10 over her term – there are still a handful of small colleges she is worried about that she will “watch with interest” in her retirement.
You can probably run a sixth form college on as little as £6 million, she says, but a general further education college bringing in less than £20 million is “vulnerable”. A quick glance at college finance data will show 20 in that position.
Her advice: don’t go hunting for “income streams you can’t control”, a nod to franchising, subcontracting and risky commercial ventures that have landed multiple colleges in trouble.
Legrave is candid. “You’ve got to look back to some leaders in the past and think that was a vanity project – why did you do that?”
While she says most leaders today have “a strong set of values”, the temptation to build, expand or chase prestige hasn’t disappeared entirely.
We don’t need another hero
The calibre of leaders has improved though, helped, in part, by better leadership training, mentoring and initiatives like the ‘Just One More Thing’ events where chairs, governance leads and principals share best practice.
Legrave warned college governors about the dangers of “hero principals”, which are thankfully on the decline. A deficit in values is just as likely to land leaders in hot water as a deficit of cash, she says.
“We’re in an age where you haven’t got as many hero leaders as perhaps you had in the past, though Weston College was an obvious example of that.”
For nearly two years, Legrave and her team investigated an unprecedented failure of leadership and governance at Weston College that saw the “concealment” of £2.5 million in undeclared payments to its then-principal, Sir Paul Phillips.
The saga could have done immense damage to the college sector had it not been for the rapid intervention and improvement roadmap put in place, under Legrave’s supervision, by the college’s new leadership.
But it was all avoidable, “with a set of governors who really challenged”, she said.
“There is a danger in any college, and that danger definitely still exists, that either the principal is so dominant that the governors accept exactly what they’re saying, or that the chair is so dominant that there’s no effective discussion at board.
“So when we went into Weston College, we said to the governors, why weren’t you asking questions? And because the college was so successful, they didn’t feel the need to.
‘Cash is king’, Legrave tells college leaders
Not here to be liked
Despite a reputation for calm authority, Legrave is disarmingly reflective about her own limitations.
Without naming names, there were “some colleges where we didn’t intervene quickly enough” and some where “we didn’t know there was an issue because our risk systems weren’t sufficient enough”.
This was, perhaps, behind the surprise post-16 white paper announcement of new ‘regional improvement teams’ that will keep a closer eye on college performance.
“Possibly, if I had a bigger ego, I might have had even more influence,” she says. But she is unapologetic about the way she has carried out the role: “You don’t do this job because you want to be liked.”
Some colleges, she acknowledges, “still feel very bruised by the FE Commissioner”.
But she insists she has always tried to deal with people as human beings first: “I’ve had some very tough conversations… but I’ve tried to treat everybody as human beings and support them to improve.”
Passing the baton
The highlight of the job though is seeing colleges emerge “from adversity and are now shining lights in their local communities”.
“Look at Coventry, look at Hull. Seeing colleges come through strongly and start to shine, that’s what I love.”
In just a few weeks, the reins will be handed to Education Partnership North East CEO Ellen Thinnesen. The handover meetings have begun, with a caseload Thinnesen will already be familiar with as one of Legrave’s national leaders of further education.
Taking the leap from running an ‘outstanding’ college group to being immersed in the world of the civil service, just as Thinnesen will do, was “a huge learning curve” for Legrave.
“It was difficult initially. You’re one of many people. You haven’t got the rituals that you’d have in a college of being in charge. So it’s a very different way of operating.
“I’ve really enjoyed it, but you just have to adapt and ensure that your voice is heard, because what’s really important as FEC is you have practitioner knowledge, and the civil servants really benefit from that.”
Crucially, she says, Thinnesen must ensure the sector continues to see the commissioner as “a resource they can use and rely on”.
After 45 years of work, Legrave is finally taking a breather. She becomes chair of the Sussex Cricket Foundation, continues her work with the Royal Anniversary Trust, and hopes to travel. “I love sport… I also want to enjoy myself,” she laughs.
A mayor’s plan to cut off funding for ESOL classes has received the all-clear from her combined authority’s legal team.
Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority Dame Andrea Jenkyns plans to withdraw funding for English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses when control of £17-19 million in adult skills funding is devolved next September.
Jenkyns argues the courses don’t benefit the “native” Lincolnshire people she was elected to serve and that the estimated £1 million spent on ESOL provision in the county each year should be directed at English literacy and numeracy.
But in response to fears that cutting ESOL would cause the government to withhold funding from the combined authority, officials took legal advice.
A report detailing the mayor’s plans for adult skills said: “The authority has sought legal advice and the advice received shows that the authority is legally permitted to make these changes.”
The council said “shifting” ESOL provision into “broader learning environments” would create a “more inclusive culture”.
Its report added: “By embedding language support into wider programmes, non-English speakers may benefit from integrated learning experiences that combine language development with vocational or community skills.”
The decision will go before the combined authority’s mayor and representatives of its three constituent local authorities, one led by Reform UK and two that are Conservative-controlled, next week.
If approved by a simple majority, officials will run a formal consultation with residents, training providers and employers ahead of a final decision in February.
Thousands affected
An impact assessment suggests the worst impacted residents include non-English speakers in deprived communities and coastal areas.
In the 2023-24 academic year, about £1 million was spent on delivering ESOL courses to 1,427 residents in the combined authority area.
Diana Sutton, director at the Bell Foundation, which advocates for language teaching for communities to overcome exclusion, said that Greater Lincolnshire’s proposals, “if properly implemented,” could see language support embedded more firmly in skills-based training.
She added: “It is vital that this aspiration becomes a reality.
“However, as stated in the equalities impact assessment, these proposals must also recognise that English language skills are essential for community cohesion, and that there is a need to ensure that there is still some provision available for both refugees and settled communities whose first language is not English.”
Around one million people in Lincolnshire report English as their main language, while 13,490 cannot speak very well and 2,128 cannot speak English “at all”, according to the assessment.
Officials have suggested the new anti-ESOL funding policy could include “exemptions” for recent arrivals with refugee status, and encourage providers to create courses that “focus on employer skills shortages”.
Officials could also provide “targeted support” for the most deprived areas, with providers “incentivised” to ensure residents are aware of available study opportunities.
‘A false economy’
County council Lib-Dem councillor Martin Christopher said ESOL classes weren’t just about “being nice” as they benefit the local and national economy.
He added: “The local Reform-led government here thinks they’re saving cash by cutting the classes, but research proves them wrong – it’s a false economy.
“Experts have shown that for every £1 the government spends on teaching English, they get multiple pounds back.
“Why? Because when people learn English, they get better jobs, earn more money, and pay more taxes.
“By cutting the funding, they are cutting off a huge future income stream for the country.
“It’s like stopping a small investment that would have earned a huge profit.”
Jenkyns did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokesperson for her authority said: “Our priorities are to ensure funding is directed toward upskilling individuals in essential areas such as numeracy and literacy, where the need is greatest.
“This will include an evaluation of existing programmes, including ESOL, to determine how best to meet the needs of our communities.
“We remain committed to promoting inclusive learning opportunities and will continue to consult with stakeholders to ensure any changes reflect both educational priorities and the diverse needs of learners.”
A major national awarding organisation said it is making ‘good progress’ restoring its systems and plans to begin resuming apprenticeship assessments after a ‘cyber security’ incident forced it offline.
NCFE locked down all of its online systems, including staff emails and its learner registration portal, while investigators worked to determine the extent of the incident, which occurred late last week.
David Gallagher
In a statement on Thursday evening, NCFE chief executive David Gallagher said: “We are extremely grateful for the understanding, patience and support we have received from the sector in regards to the current business interruption.
“We continue to work closely with Ofqual, the Department for Education, the National Centre for Cyber Security, JISC and a range of expert partners to understand, and recover from the cyber incident.”
The shutdown was “a precautionary measure” after “suspicious activity” was detected on its network late last week. NCFE could not confirm whether any sensitive data was compromised at the time of going to press as investigations continued.
Phone lines, live web chat and NCFE staff email accounts were shut down. The awarding body’s portal was also offline, meaning providers could not register learners, upload evidence or claim certificates.
T Level assessments and online functional skills exams went ahead as planned this week, and can go ahead next week. Apprenticeship end point assessments were cancelled this week, but will resume next week.
“Overall, we’re making good progress towards careful restoration of our full services with EPA services restored from the start of next week. We’d like to thank all of our stakeholders and customers for their ongoing support and patience, as we work around the clock to ensure NCFE can return to ‘business as usual’ safely and swiftly,” Gallagher said.
EQA reviews, moderator visits and any meetings involving NCFE staff needed to be rescheduled. Late registration or booking fees incurred by centres as a result of systems going offline will be waived.
Cyber attacks against awarding organisations are rare.
An Ofqual report last year said there was one attack on an organisation “affiliated to three awarding organisations” and another on an awarding organisation that delivered general qualifications in 2024.
An Ofqual spokesperson said: “Ofqual is aware of a cyber incident affecting NCFE. We are in discussions with NCFE, who have engaged fully and appropriate steps are being taken to protect students’ interests.
“NCFE has confirmed that T Level assessments will continue as planned for the next two weeks. Ofqual will continue to assess NCFE’s actions.”
Learners and centres are advised to check NCFE’s website for updates.
Finalists for this year’s record-breaking Apprenticeship and Training Awards have been revealed.
An independent panel of expert judges met on Monday and assessed over 650 nominations from employers, training providers, colleges and universities, smashing last year’s haul of 600.
FE Week can now reveal the 94 entries on the shortlist for the awards. Winners will be announced at the Apprenticeships and Training Conference gala dinner and awards evening on March 3, which will be hosted by comedian Sara Pascoe.
Run jointly by FE Week and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), and delivered in partnership with City and Guilds, the ninthannual awards celebrate best-in-class training, outstanding outreach and exceptional employer partnerships.
Supermarket giant Asda goes up against the London Borough of Hackney, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Muller UK and Ireland, and four others for this year’s large employer of the year award.
Meanwhile, the coveted training provider of the year award will go to either BPP Education Group, Cambridge Spark, In-Comm Training, SCL Professional, Shaping Lives or University Centre Somerset College Group.
A parliamentary reception will take place at the House of Lords as part of National Apprenticeships Week in February to recognise this year’s finalists.
Shane Mann, chair of ATA judging panel and chief executive of FE Week’s publisher EducationScape, said: “There were some lively debates among the judges, which speaks to the high standard of nominations from a sector that is constantly innovating and raising the bar.
“It was fascinating to see how training providers and employers are embedding AI into their programmes to personalise learning and enhance the curriculum.
“Congratulations to all finalists. I can’t wait to see you all at our parliamentary reception next year before announcing the winners at the Apprenticeships and Training Conference in March.”
Six employers have been shortlisted for the employer commitment to apprenticeships and training award. They are: Busy Bees Nurseries, Greene King, HM Revenue & Customs, Mitchells & Butlers, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and North West London Pathology.
And the organisations shortlisted for the excellence in learner support award are: Best Practice Network, Central Bedfordshire Council, Exeter College’s apprentice learning support team, Kaplan, London South Bank University and North Bristol NHS Trust.
Around 100 staff have been left without pay after an apprenticeship training provider abruptly closed its doors weeks before Christmas.
Acacia Training told workers last week it would “shortly” be entering insolvency due to “exceptionally challenging” economic conditions.
CEO Victoria Sylvester sent an email at 4.52pm on Friday announcing with a “heavy heart” the company was “technically insolvent” and would not pay wages for November.
She said a “prolonged period of exceptionally challenging economic conditions” meant “the company’s financial position has been placed under unsustainable pressure”.
“Despite doing everything we reasonably could to protect the business, our learners, and our team, it has become clear that this is no longer possible,” she added.
Sylvester thanked employees for their loyalty, resilience and “care” shown to learners.
Stoke-on-Trent-based Acacia Training, founded in the early 2000s, specialised in apprenticeships and adult learning for the health, education and wellbeing sectors.
It is understood Acacia had taken on new employees and announced the creation of a higher education arm in the last month.
Sylvester advised former employees to approach the government-backed Redundancy Payments Service and to call their local Jobcentre Plus to apply for benefits.
For reasons that are unclear, insolvency practitioner Quantuma said it was unlikely to be formally appointed as an administrator before mid-December.
Interim leader had ‘no idea’
A social media post by Hannah Wheawall, interim managing director of Acacia, said she had “no idea” about plans to announce the business’s closure by email and was “hurt” her colleagues were not given a “fairer communication to the one that landed”.
Many of the workers are understood to have posted messages of surprise and dismay at losing their jobs “without pay or redundancy” and appealed for new roles on social media.
But some appeared to have spotted signs of financial trouble after receiving warnings that the company failed to make the required workplace pension contributions this summer.
One employee, who did not want to be named, called the situation a “mess”, particularly for staff who were less likely to qualify for statutory redundancy because they worked under a limited liability partnership arrangement.
Another employee told FE Week she was concerned about “vulnerable” staff members in single-income households who “don’t know how they are going to deal with things”.
The company sent its clients a letter advising them to find a new training provider through the government’s apprenticeship provider and assessment register.
Francesca Windsor, owner of Unlimitedcare Ltd, said her three apprentice staff who signed up with Acacia Training in May had been left “absolutely heartbroken”.
Sylvester and her business partner Jeremy Harbour, who own Acacia Training through parent company Vedere Holdings, did not respond to requests to comment.
The businesswoman also co-owns apprenticeship training providers Logistica Training and Skillcert, and Samuel Hobson House, a care home in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffs.
Apprenticeship growth
Acacia Training had provided apprenticeship training since 2019, growing from almost 400 apprenticeship starts in its first year to 979 in the 2024-25 academic year.
The company was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in inspections in 2016 and 2022 and its achievement rates rose 13.7 percentage points to 50.1 per cent in 2023-24.
Its most recent published accounts, for the year to December 2023, said sales declined by 27 per cent to £6.2 million in one year. That year it declared a profit of £278,000 and paid dividends totalling £160,000.
MPs have urged ministers to import “specific” skilled people from overseas to meet the UK’s clean energy targets – amid the government’s push to curb reliance on migrant workers.
Parliament’s energy security and net-zero committee (ESNZ) warned the government would only meet clean energy and decarbonised building targets with significant new intervention in the UK workforce.
Following a year-long inquiry into green workforce planning, the committee found current skilled labour levels would not fill the estimated 135,000 to 725,000 green jobs needed by the end of this decade.
Its report said the government should also expand “try-before-you-buy” training opportunities after discovering up to 70 per cent of those embarking on construction-related FE qualifications did not finish their course or enter the sector.
Ministers are attempting to cut net migration by slashing the number of jobs that can be offered to people via the skilled worker visa route.
The immigration skills charge, the tax employers pay to bring in workers from abroad, was raised by nearly a third this year to disincentivise labour migration.
The ESNZ committee inquiry heard calls to “ringfence” money raised from the charge levied on firms hiring in the green energy sector to pay for “relevant” domestic training.
Committee members said there “may be a need for the import of some specific skills from overseas, at least in the short term, to deliver on targets for clean energy and decarbonisation of buildings”.
They added the government should, by the end of 2026, set out a “range of further options for conditionality to leverage the short-term need for skilled immigration to boost the longer-term need for home-grown talent”.
ESNZ committee chair Bill Esterson said: “It is essential that we build the workforce for the energy transition so that the government can hit its clean energy targets and, importantly, ensure the UK makes the most of the growth opportunity of the century.
“The committee has found that market forces alone cannot overcome the skills gap. We need policy certainty for the long-term, locally directed investment in training, and policies that make clean energy careers attractive and accessible.
“For British workers, this isn’t about hitting deadlines; it’s about securing good jobs, driving innovation, and ensuring Britain leads in the global race for clean energy.”
The Association of Colleges CEO David Hughes agreed with the recommendations.
He said: “For all ages and skill levels, it is currently not clear enough what learning and training they need to enter a career in clean energy or retrofit.
“There are great examples of colleges who are working with employers on fantastic provision, feeding directly into the green economy. However, we need more money at a local level in FE, as well as more partnerships with employers on curriculum development, to ensure career pathways and continuing training are fit for purpose right across the country, rather than in pockets.
“While we need to focus on growing and nurturing home-grown talent, getting appropriate provision at scale across the country is not a quick fix, and we need to look abroad to the skill that lies there.”
Try before you buy
The ESNZ committee also suggested that ministers “expand and formalise” so-called try-before-you-buy training opportunities after hearing examples of “effective” early-exposure models, such as on-site skills hubs and employer-supported placements.
“SMEs, which form the backbone of the construction and retrofit supply chain, frequently operate on short-term contracts and cannot absorb the risk of taking on inexperienced trainees without support,” the report said.
“The government should therefore expand these practical entry pathways across clean heat, low-carbon construction and retrofit, ensuring funded, flexible, short-duration placements are available nationwide.”
Reassemble a retrofit skills programme
The report estimated 250,000 workers would be needed to meet the target of building 1.5 million homes in the next five years.
“Relying solely on headcount growth will be challenging,” the committee said, adding that more workers will also be needed to retrofit five million existing homes to boost their energy efficiency by 2035.
It recommended the government join forces with the Construction Industry Training Board, Skills England, the Office for Clean Energy Jobs and industry to create a “nationally recognised” retrofit skills programme that “inspires” new entrants and encourages industry workers into teaching roles.
The government has already pumped £625 million into construction skills to create 60,000 new workers over four years. The package included £100 million to award 10 FE colleges with technical excellence college status (TEC), which is set be expanded to also create five clean energy TECs.
Ministers have been urged to demonstrate how they are working with employers and education providers to deliver clear career pathways, “particularly” for learners that are enrolled in colleges without TEC status.
International tech training company CoGrammar is due to fight the Department for Education in court next December, FE Week can reveal.
The firm, which ran government-funded digital skills bootcamps until its contracts were axed, is suing the DfE over millions of pounds in withheld payments. The department blocked substantial claims after investigations uncovered alleged fraud.
The company, which operates out of South Africa, used a fake employer to claim milestone payments to the DfE – which its management blamed on a “rogue employee”.
Officials were also concerned after discovering the provider deployed its own staff to conduct bootcamp interviews instead of employers, and made “improbable job offers” from small or dormant companies.
The revelations triggered the rejection of funding claims across several waves of the bootcamp programme.
FE Week also revealed that once CoGrammar’s bootcamp payments were stopped, the firm charged bootcamp learners – including unemployed people – for courses that were supposed to be free, which breached funding rules.
CoGrammar argued the audit relied on by the DfE to withhold payments was “materially flawed” and it has already proven major errors in the department’s processes. This summer, officials initially claimed the DfE was owed around £45,000, before switching to a position where they paid £1.5 million to CoGrammar.
CoGrammar said this was a “clear example of the lack of diligence and accuracy of the defendant’s [DfE] audit processes and ability to correctly calculate payments owed”.
The company added that the DfE cannot withhold payments “on the basis of generalised concerns absent of any finding of breach or fraud” and believes it is still owed at least £3.8 million once alleged errors are corrected.
Bosses at CoGrammar do not dispute that a fictitious employer and persona were used for some bootcamp payment claims, but argue the alleged fraud was an isolated incident and claim they reported a former employee to the police via Action Fraud.
FE Week understands the worker was interviewed by police in August.
The accused ex-staff member is also understood to be launching their own legal claim against CoGrammar CEO Riaz Moola for defamation and harassment.
A costs and case management conference was held last month for CoGrammar’s case against the DfE, and a newly issued court order sets out a schedule of disclosure, sampling, witness statements and bundle preparation running through next year before the dispute reaches a trial.
This includes a “schedule of learners” which will include the name of each learner in dispute; the unique ID number of each learner in dispute and funding wave; the milestones in dispute; the amounts in dispute; the DfE’s reasons for rejecting claims; CoGrammar’s reasons for disagreeing with the DfE’s reasons and for maintaining the validity of that milestone claim; and the DfE’s response to CoGrammar’s reasons.
Both parties must also agree to an “early neutral evaluation process” where they identify a neutral person to evaluate the submissions.
Justice Picken ordered that the case be transferred to the London Circuit Commercial Court, where an eight-day trial will be heard “not before December 10, 2026”.
A DfE spokesperson said: “We do not comment on live legal proceedings.”
CoGrammar did not respond to requests for comment on the trial date.
