A criminal investigation into disgraced apprenticeship firm Aspire Achieve Advance could soon be launched after the Department for Education requested a meeting with the police.

The company, better known as 3aaa, went into administration on October 11 after the government pulled its skills funding contracts following allegations of fraud.

Derbyshire Constabulary then started making enquiries into the defunct provider, following a referral from Action Fraud, while the DfE continued to conduct its own investigation separately, which got underway in the summer.

In December the police told FE Week that it was waiting for the DfE to conclude its own investigation before deciding whether a criminal investigation needs to be opened.

The DfE now appears to have finished its work and has requested a sit down with officers to discuss next steps.

“Officers from Derbyshire Constabulary and officials from the Department for Education are meeting imminently to discuss the enquiries regarding 3aaa,” a spokesperson for Derbyshire Constabulary said.

“At this time, no formal criminal investigation has been launched.”

The police force is expected to have all of the information from the DfE and whistleblowers following the meeting and will then decide if the findings break any laws. If this threshold is passed then a criminal investigation will open.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We do not routinely comment on the details of investigations, ongoing or otherwise”.

While the department has not yet made public the allegations into 3aaa, FE Week revealed what was behind their investigation in November.

The company, which had over 4,200 learners and 500 staff before it went bust when the ESFA pulled its £16.5 million contracts, allegedly manipulated Individualised Learner Records to artificially inflate achievement rates and misused employer-incentive grants.

3aaa, which received nearly all of its income from government skills funding, was co-founded by Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson in 2008, but the pair stepped down in September as the ESFA came knocking.

Their latest accounts show that they took out huge directors’ loans totalling more than £4 million between them, and at the end of 2015, both owners purchased multi-million pound properties.

3aaa splashed its public funding on £1.6 million of sports-club sponsorships, an Elton John concert and Tesla supercars among other luxuries.

This isn’t the first ESFA investigation into the company. In 2016 auditing firm KPMG was asked to carry out an investigation and found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.

It is understood this resulted in 3aaa paying back a substantial six-figure sum at the time.

But this didn’t stop the agency from giving the provider a £7 million apprenticeships contract increase in the same year.

After launching its second investigation into 3aaa in June, the DfE called in an independent auditor to investigate the ESFA over its contract management of the former apprenticeships giant.

Ofsted paused its inspection at 3aaa, which was expected to result in another grade one rating, in the summer after the DfE launched its investigation. The education watchdog told FE Week in November it was continuing to look into the provider but a final outcome has still not been reached.

Last month FE Week reported that more than half of the apprentices that were affected by the collapse of 3aaa had still not been found a new provider.

Labour is planning to use National Apprenticeships Week to attack the government on their commitment to their own public sector apprenticeship recruitment target.

Over the last week multiple MPs from the party have submitted a series of questions to ministers asking for the number of apprentices working in their department.

The questions have all been asked in the run-up to National Apprenticeship Week in March and Labour has told FE Week its intention is to put a spotlight on the government’s shortcomings in the area.

Since April 2017, all public sector organisations with 250 or more employees – including the civil service – have been told to make sure that new apprentices make up at least 2.3 per cent of their overall workforce numbers on average over the next four years.

FE Week revealed in November that only 1.3 per cent of the government workforce was made up of apprentices in 2017-18 – the first year of the policy.

FE Week has asked Labour how many apprentices it employs itself, but the party did not respond at the time of going to press.

This week, the Ministry of Defence replied to a question from shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden and said that 1,280 of its civilian personnel were currently on an apprenticeship scheme, which represents some 2.3 per cent of its civilian workforce.

It did not state, however, how many of these were new starters, and neither did any of the other government departments that responded.

Marsden also asked the Ministry of Justice, which said it has 587 members of staff on an apprenticeship, one per cent of its workforce.

The Department for Education also told the shadow skills minister that it has 209 apprentices, making up 3.2 per cent of the 6,427-strong workforce.

And three per cent of the staff at the Department for Work & Pensions are on apprentices, it told Marsden.

The Home Office told shadow education secretary Angela Rayner it  has 335 apprentices, which also equates to one per cent of its workforce.

Rayner also found that the Ministry for Housing has 68 apprentices, but did not say how much of the workforce is made up by apprentices.

Rayner also found the Cabinet Office has 90 apprentices, eight of which work for the Government in Parliament Group, which covers the Leader of the Commons’ office.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy employs 80 apprentices, according to an answer it gave to shadow minister Emma Lewell-Buck.

Fellow shadow minister Mike Kane learned from the Department for International Trade that around 1.8 per cent of the department and UK Export Finance were apprentices, and 1.41 per cent of the Department for Transport’s workforce is made up of apprentices.

Kane also asked the Department for Health and Social Care, which said it employs 1,585 civil servants, of whom 48 are undertaking an apprenticeship, which equates to three per cent.

As for the Treasury, 1.7 per cent of its staff were apprentices as of January 2019, according to an answer it gave to shadow minister Tracy Brabin.

Minister Robert Jenrick added: “We expect an additional 15 new apprentices to start this financial year, meaning 2.5 per cent of our staff will be new apprentices over the period 1 April 2018 – 31 March 2019.”

Apprenticeships in the civil service haven’t been plain sailing. FE Week reported in November that a cabinet office approved apprenticeship provider to government departments had its levy funding terminated after a damning Ofsted report found it was ‘insufficient’ across the board.

Nearly 700 apprentices were affected.

The Department for Education is searching for an organisation to design and support the phased implementation of the T-level transition offer in 2020 and 2021.

As recommended in Lord Sainsbury’s technical education report from July 2016, the government plans to develop a course which 16-year-olds can take if they are not ready to start a T-level at level three, but who can “realistically achieve it” by age 19.

The post-16 skills plan, published later that month, then said the DfE would carry out further work and consultation on this transition year “over the next six months”, and for some, it “might be right to undertake a ‘traineeship’ during or after the transition year”.

But further information on this hasn’t been forthcoming since.

With just over a year to go until the first T-levels are delivered, the DfE is now seeking an organisation to help them create the transition offer.

A short procurement exercise, which will run for just 15 days, was launched today and states the successful bidder will help the DfE’s advisory panel finalise the content of the transition offer.

The winner will also provide support for “participating post-16 providers to develop, package and deliver their local T-level transition offer” and “encourage and facilitate participating providers to explore different approaches to implementing certain elements of the transition offer”.

The delivery agent will be procured via the DfE’s Dynamic Purchasing System. The department would not disclose how much the contract is worth.

Skills minister Anne Milton said: “We are making excellent progress to deliver our new gold-standard T-levels from September 2020.

“The T-level transition offer is an important part of this and will help young people, who may not quite be ready, get up to speed with the basic skills and gain the confidence they need before starting their T-level. 

“We are running a short procurement to appoint an experienced organisation to support the first T-level providers run a phased implementation of the transition offer in 2020 and 2021.”

The first three T-levels, which will be delivered from 2020 by 50 providers, will be in education and childcare pathway, design, surveying and planning, and digital production, design and development.

On today’s tender, Julie Oxley, chair of the digital production, design and development T-level panel, said: “As we prepare to roll out the T-level programme, this is a positive step forward as the transition offer will provide important tailored provision to support students to develop the academic skills, technical skills, knowledge and behaviours required to progress onto a T-level.”

A mega college that recently saw its principal quit before receiving a third consecutive ‘requires improvement’ rating from Ofsted is looking at demerging one of its divisions.

Birmingham Metropolitan College, which has five main colleges plus other satellite sites and had an income of £58.5 million and 20,000 learners in 2017/18, is one of the largest colleges in the country.

It owes the government millions in bailout cash that it received after running into severe financial difficulty and is currently subject to intervention from the FE Commissioner.

To find savings the college, known as BMet, is reviewing its size and is likely to part ways with Stourbridge College, which it uses to teach students across the Black Country and Kidderminster.

Cliff Hall, who took over as interim principal when Andrew Cleaves left with immediate effect in September, said: “The review is being led by the FE Commissioner’s team. The plan is to make any recommendations by April.

“We are consulting all of our local stakeholders, staff and students. Any changes will only be made with the agreement of the BMet board of governors. 

“Our overriding priority is continuity of provision for our students. 

“In the short time that I have been BMet Principal, I have come to have the highest regard for the quality of provision at Stourbridge College.”

BMet has held a government notice of concern for financial health since July 2015.

Its latest set of accounts, for 2017/18, show that the college owed the Education and Skills Funding Agency £7.7 million at July 31 2018, of which £6 million was exceptional financial support.

The college has also been granted an additional bailout of £4.3 million from the agency, which was expected to be paid in January 2019 after it “implemented an institutional review to determine the strategic future of the college”, according to the financial statements.

The accounts suggest site sales will be the main way of getting BMet out of financial trouble.

They state that the college sold a building for £9.9 million in 2017/18, of which £7 million went to repaying exceptional financial support.

At the time of the accounts being published, BMet was selling two other buildings that are currently not being used, which the college is hoping will raise £5.3 million.

The accounts also show the college breached bank covenants on loans with both Barclays and Lloyds over 2017/18 worth £9.2 million, as it has done the two previous years.

The college’s deficit before other gains and losses was £8.5 million.

Despite its severe financial problems, BMet continued to make Cleaves one of the highest paid principals in the country in 2017/18, paying him a salary of £266,000.

The former senior executive at National Express resigned with immediate effect in late September. A week later, BMet’s chief financial officer Simon Cosson, also departed from the college, the accounts reveal.

A month later the college was hit with a grade three Ofsted report for the third time in a row.

BMet was created in 2009 and includes Matthew Boulton College, Sutton Coldfield College, James Watt College, Stourbridge College, The Art & Design Centre in the Black Country, and the Academy in Kidderminster.

Awarding organisations could soon have to conduct surprise audits to colleges and training providers as Ofqual seeks to tighten controls on the controversial direct claims status practice.

The qualifications watchdog has today launched a consultation on changing the way awarding bodies manage and oversee centre assessments.

Ofqual has identified a risk with so many assessments being approved by providers with ‘direct claim status’ and no moderation taking place by the awarding organisation.

Awarding organisations using a verification process after the certification is now something Ofqual wants to clampdown on by being clearer that moderation should take place before certification.

The most controversial proposal appears to be for awarding organisations to conduct a “minimum” of two monitoring visits and an “additional unannounced visit per centre every year”.

Ailin O’Cathain, head of policy at the Federation of Awarding Bodies, is not happy about the prospect of no-notice visits, which she views as “deeply impractical”.

“It is a disproportionate response to how awarding organisations will choose to manage centres,” she said.

“Monitoring visits are already based on risk assessments and where awarding organisations believe a rapid response is required they will already take appropriate action.”

She added that the unannounced visits have the potential to cause “significant disruption to the working of centres and raise a wide range of practical implementation issues”. 

The chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Mark Dawe, welcomed the “additional scrutiny because we believe accurate and consistent results are important”.

However, he said, providers’ “main concern will be to maintain a quick turnaround between assessment and certification”.

Centre assessments are where AOs devolve some responsibility for assessment to schools, colleges and training centres.

This is often known as direct claims status, where AOs do not moderate prior to certifications being awarded.

In February 2018, Ofqual wrote to awarding bodies to say it would begin auditing the organisations’ control over individual providers.

This was because of concerns the control AOs exerted over providers had lessened and the lack of moderation for direct claim status centres was leading to inconsistencies in attainment.

In the letter, Ofqual executive director for vocational and technical qualifications Phil Beach warned: “A failure to comply with the conditions of recognition can call into question the integrity of assessments, undermine the maintenance of standards and damage public confidence in the qualifications Ofqual regulates.”

Ofqual said today that there is evidence that the “variety of approaches currently in place to manage this provide different levels of oversight”.

It has also been found that the terms “moderation” and “verification” are often used interchangeably and in ways which are inconsistent with Ofqual’s rules.

Chief regulator Sally Collier said: “We have conducted a detailed review of the use of centre assessment and believe that there are risks that can be managed better.

“The controls that awarding organisations have in place with centres must be sufficiently robust for the public to have confidence that assessment standards are being maintained between training providers and over time.”

Dawe added: “While to many it sounds like a technicality, the differences between verification and moderation are critical, particularly in terms of the timely confirmation of apprentices and students achievements.”

Awarding bodies will be given time to introduce these new requirements for existing qualifications, after Ofqual gave them a deadline of January 2021.

A spokesperson for the regulator said the proposed deadline will allow AOs to make the necessary changes to meet its new requirements and roll them out to centres, following announcement of its final decisions at the end of this year.

She added that where AOs can “meet these sooner, including for new qualifications, we would expect them to do this”.

FE Week understands that the changes could be in place in time for the new functional skills qualifications, due for introduction at the end of this year.

Ofqual’s consultation is open until 20 May.

The general secretary of the University and College Union has resigned for health reasons, it was announced today.

Sally Hunt has held the top position at the union since it formed in 2007 and has won three elections, most recently in June 2017.

The union’s national executive committee will meet on Friday (March 1) to determine the process for the election of her successor.  

In a message to UCU members and staff, Hunt said: “UCU is and will continue to be a great union; a reflection of its truly wonderful membership who contribute so much to the culture, politics and economy of this country.   

“It is no surprise then that the union itself is vibrant, energetic and stimulating. I am grateful for the trust given to me as their general secretary and wish every UCU member and staff member well.  It has been a real honour. Thank you.”

UCU president Vicky Knight said the union “owes a huge debt of gratitude” to Hunt.

“She was central to the creation of UCU and has led its growth and success with utter dedication to the interests of the members that we represent, and with an integrity that I know is widely acknowledged and admired throughout the movement and beyond,” Knight added.

“She has been one of the leading female union leaders of her generation and has inspired many others by her example. We will all miss her greatly and I wish her the very best for the future.”

Before the formation of UCU, Hunt had been general secretary of one of its constituent unions, the Association of University Teachers. Prior to that she had been an AUT regional official and a senior union official in the finance sector.

She has been a longstanding member of the executive committee and general council of the Trades Union Congress, and has been its international spokesperson. She recently served as TUC president in 2017/18.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said Sally was a “fantastic president” and “continues to be a great champion of education and lifelong learning, open to all”. 

“A strong woman in a tough job, Sally has been a source of inspiration and support to me and many others right across the trade union movement,” she added.

“Whatever Sally chooses to do next, she will be brilliant at it.” 

You can read FE Week’s full profile with Hunt from 2012 here.

An independent specialist college has been hit with an ‘inadequate’ rating after Ofsted found students with high needs were being placed in “potentially harmful situations,” in a less than impressive week for FE providers.

Elsewhere two out of five early monitoring reports for new apprenticeship firms resulted in ‘insufficient’ verdicts, while one private provider was rated grade three in its first ever inspection.

The only positive report was for CTS Training, which upped its ‘requires improvement’ grade to ‘good’.

Chatsworth Futures Limited was the worst casualty of the week, being downgraded from a three to a four by Ofsted.

The inspectors said leaders and managers need to “urgently” address health and safety. Key hazards, such as the safe storage of tools, have not been identified in risk assessments.

The provider, which has 15 learners with special educational needs on level one courses, has been told to find senior leaders who have experience of working with those kinds of students in FE settings as its current team are “not suitably experienced”.

The failure at the independent college comes after it joined Chatsworth multi-academy trust in September 2018.

Interlearn Limited, which has 420 apprentices, scored a grade three in every area of its first inspection.

Inspectors said too many apprentices on the early years and on the care management frameworks make slow progress because of disrupted learning and infrequent assessment.

Apprentices work independently through online resources towards their functional skills qualification, but have to wait up to six months to receive feedback on how they have performed.

However, apprentices develop a wide range of new skills during their programme and stay in employment following completion of their course.

Independent learning provider BNG Training scored two insufficient ratings from a monitoring visit.

Assessors, the report said, do not ensure apprentices’ starting points are assessed accurately at the beginning of their programme.

But apprentices, of which there are 74 at BNG, do develop professional and supportive relationships with parents, carers and children while on their framework in children and young people’s workforce.

BNG said that since the monitoring visit took place there have been “significant changes within BMG Training”, including the appointment of a new director of operations and the implementation of a “robust action plan to address the areas in the report findings”.

CTS Training, which had 275 learners at the time of inspection, improved its Ofsted grade from three to two, with inspectors praising the “significant” improvement in achievement rates.

“Learners increase their confidence and prospects as a result of the respect, kindness and wraparound care that they receive,” the report says.

CTS works with vulnerable learners and was commended for giving a high level of pastoral support to learners who have previously lived in institutional settings.

Chamber Training (Humber) Limited, which has 119 apprentices and 12 adult learners, made reasonable progress in four themes of a monitoring visit.

The independent learning provider brought in a new curriculum in health and social care since their grade three inspection in 2018, a decision the inspector described as “sensible”.

The provider is now much more rigorous in how they recruit apprentices to the hairdresser course, but tutors do not challenge apprentices to aim for the higher grades in their assessments. Apprentices do not even know if they are on track to pass their qualification.

Digital Skills Solutions Ltd scored three reasonable progress scores from its first monitoring visit.

Leaders and managers were found to have been successful in setting up systems for recruiting seven apprentices and placed them on successful apprenticeships and they are making good progress.

Chameleon Vocational Training Limited, which has nine apprentices, was said to have made reasonable progress in three areas of a monitoring visit.

Most of the apprentices are making their expected level of progress towards their qualifications, and leaders receive regular reports on the progress of apprentices so they can highlight who is falling behind and intervene.

Agincare Group Limited received two ‘insufficient progress’ ratings this week, and say they are already delivering a plan to address the shortcomings identified in the report.

Independent Specialist College	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Chatsworth Futures Limited	22/01/2019	22/02/2019	4	3

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Chamber Training (Humber) Limited	30/01/2019	19/02/2018	M	M	RRRR
CTS Training	15/01/2019	18/02/2018	2	3
Agincare Group Limited	22/01/2019	20/02/2019	M	M	IIR
Digital Skills Solutions Limited	23/01/2019	21/02/2019	M	M	RRR
BNG Training Limited	22/01/2019	19/02/2019	M	M	IIR
Chameleon Vocational Training Limited	08/01/2019	18/02/2019	M	M	RRR
Interlearn Limited	15/01/2019	21/02/2019	3	N/A

 

The government “anticipates” it will be able fund all over-delivery on non-levy apprenticeships for providers who exceed their contract allocation in the January 2018 to March 2019 period.

The news will be met with a cautious welcome by the many providers who surpassed their share of funding to train apprentices with small employers this year, after many had run dry and some were even having to turn apprentices away, as revealed by FE Week earlier this month.

The unprecedented issue, which Association of Colleges boss David Hughes described as “market failure”, embarrassingly came just weeks after the Department for Education launched a new campaign to drive up the number of apprenticeships in England.

But following pressure from FE representative groups and FE Week’s revelations, the Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed today that it should be able to fund all over-delivery.

“Over-delivery is subject to affordability and conditional on your compliance with the terms of the funding rules and your contract with ESFA,” an update from the agency said. “We anticipate having enough budget to fund all over-delivery.

“However, if after completing due diligence this turns out not to be the case, we will write further to all providers where there is over-delivery to tell them of the criteria that will be used to allocate the budget available.”

However, the agency will not fund any over-delivery from April 1 when providers’ new contracts come into play, which will run to March 2020.

“We plan to issue variations for over-delivery to R06 in February and will revisit 2018 to 2019 financial year capping again in May and November,” it said. “As a reminder, we will no longer be funding over-delivery from 1 April 2019.”

One sector expert has questioned what this means for carry-in apprentices.

“The ESFA have said they’ll review April 2019 to March 2020 allocations based on April returns which, by inference, means they’re going to fund learners who won’t finish until after March 2019 even if that means increasing the allocations,” said Steve Hewitt, an MIS and funding consultant for FE Associates.

“This, it seems, is different to funding growth somehow (if you start 200 learners next week it’s not going to be this year’s allocation that bares the brunt of it).”

He added: “I’m actually more annoyed that it’s taken them until six weeks before the end of the contract for them to confirm they’ll fund over-delivery. Are the ESFA getting a bung from the treasury to cover all the funding for these learners? Or could they really not do the sums until now?”

The ESFA has been approached for comment.

Responding to today’s announcement, Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief policy officer, Simon Ashworth, said: “This is welcome news and will help relieve some of pressure that we have seen build up.

“However the ESFA need to ensure that they take this support into account when they issue the contract extension values shortly for April 2019 through to March 2020; otherwise all they are doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Around £500 million was allocated by the ESFA for delivering apprenticeships to small employers for the 15 months from January 2018 to March 2019 – a major fall on the £1 billion that was available for this provision in the previous 12-month period, according to a previous estimate from the AELP.

Nearly 700 providers currently share the pot but many started to feel the financial strain towards the end of last year after being denied opportunities for in-year growth funding.

The AELP has been advising its members to be “very careful in calculating the risk” of going ahead with new starts.

In August, the ESFA announced it was going to extend current non-levy contracts from April 2019 to March 2020, but no growth funding will be available unless a “significant budget” becomes available.